The Spread and Development of Later Buddhism MBI 105
Lesson 5
The Orthodox Mainstream
We have seen that the schools divided and that eighteen important schools held sway. Gradually most fell under the onslaught of Hindu ideas and competition with other Buddha Dharma cults, but the important ideas that were to shape future heterodox Buddhist thought and the orthodox mainstream continued.
Gradually, both became, under the competition of Hindu advances, in philosophical thought more scholarly and gradually the Theravadin schools of the Vaibhasikas and Sautrantikas became the main Buddhist orthodox representatives. Both are called realists because of their fundamental belief that there is a self-existent universe in space and time, where mind holds a place on equal terms with other finite things. Thus the unknowable and indivisible has mind as a component.
Tradition places these schools between the second and fourth centuries of the Christian era. But clearly ideas cannot be dated, as they are the product of gradual growth. Of greatest importance for the future expansion of Buddha dharma was the wholehearted acceptance of the Vibhashas, the commentary on the Abhidharma,
compiled around the second century AD, which were translated by the Chinese in 383-434 ad.
Vasubandhu went to Kashmir in about the 5th centuryt AD, and made a study of the Vibhashas and condensed them into Kosa.. It attained so much importance in China that schools were started and it is still studied extensively and profoundly in China and Japan.
The Sautrantika school which had its idependent growth grew to be bitter opponent of Vaibhasikas under the formal founder of the school, Kumaralabdha.
Lesson 5 The Orthodox Mainstream
The Theory of Perception
The Abhidhamma theory of perception developed by the Vaibhasikas and the Sautrantikas became important as a future base so it is useful to see how the concept of perception developed from earlier Buddhist ideas.
The earliest Buddhist teaching pertaining to sense perception is found in the Madhupindika Sutra of the Majjhima Nikaya, but its most developed form arose in the post-canonical commentaries and Abhidhamma compendiums. One fact stands as supreme. That is that does not arise as an immediate result of the irritation upon the organ by characteristics of the sense-object.
It is useful to look at that word irritation, because that is really what occurs. What we call external sense objects have characteristics which impinge upon the living system and depending upon the sensory capability of the organism these external characteristics irritate the sensor and finally a consciousness of that external sense object is attained. This irritation results in a response and clearly it is in the best interest of the living organism to respond in the best manner possible to preserve its life and integrity. This force we call the life force (jivitindriya) and it acts as the driver for sensory visceral responses, emotive responses that are approach, neutrality or avoidance and cognitive responses.
It is clear that the mechanism here is adequate for survival and that for this basic survival the living organism need know nothing of the nature of the irritation or the sense object. All further knowledge, which is viable, serves as additional information that serves to augment the efficiency of the responses.
The incoming information path is called afferent and the response path is called efferent. Since all suffering and inadequate responses of the system re due to errors in the afferent path it is that path which assumes greatest importance in Buddhism which is essentially a practical system to support correct survival not a system to enhance the unnecessary qualities of existence which are tangential.
This afferent path is called the perceptual path and is regarded as involving a process of consciousness that begins as a simple sensation and ends up with the fullest apprehension of the object that the organism permits.
Irritation (1): Vinnana
The process of perception consists of six stages. The first stage is (for example) visual consciousness (cakkhu-vinnana), which arises with the visual organ and a visible object as its conditions. In a physiological sense this is called "contact". The impression of that contact is signalled to "consciousness" which then without words generates the information that something is irritating the system. The consciousness tells us as humans the nature of that experience as "something is seen, heard, smelt, tasted or touched. That is the first stage but the conscious responserelated to that event is one of recognizing that irritation as having been encountered before or not. Thus the first event in the chain is one of Irritation, with the experience of raw sensation and recognition as "novel" or "seen before". In psychological terms this is termed recognition.
Naturally there are always subtle differences in each sense object and the contact, so the system makes a "best fit" before making recognition and has a surprising capacity to fill in details within the raw sensation which follows that are not always in the stimulating signal.
Sensation (2): Phassa
This irritation signalled as an initial contact is followed by an experience of the sense object in the form of a differentiated signal that gives it specific capacity to be discriminated and identified, but this identification is not made here. The discrimination is however formed and this is called Sensation and that sensation in passed to consciousness where it is perceived.
The first two phases then provide information of the nature, this sense organ of type (hearing, for example) has encountered a signal (1) with the following (sound) characteristics (2) which have been seen before. The second stage of the process is called raw sensation (phassa). It is defined as the co-ordination among the sense organ, the sense-object and sense-consciousness (tinnam sangati phasso). In both the original sense and in the Abhidhamma there is agreement on this point.
Emotion: Vedana
The third stage is vedana or emotion. It refers to the hedonic tone or the emotional value of the experience so obtained. This word emotion has overtones of suffering which of course is absent in the natural and untainted system. The actual nature of the third stage vedana is completely functional. It induces an intention to make the approach response, remain neutral or make an avoidance response.
Clearly each of these has a high probability based upon ancient memory to be efficient and this is augmented by experience. This bare trio of natural experiences have no ethical aspects at all.
The generation of Identity and the dual mind however in the human creature, but not other animals, results in the basic experience of like, indifference and dislike, the extremes of which augmented by identity involvement bring the strong emotions of love and hate which have such efficiency destroying reactions which are not in the best interest of the life force or our basic nature as a sensitive human creature.
Perception: Sanna
The fourth stage is sanna or perception. It is here that the door of the web of memory is opened to the nature and details of past experiences. It is here that Form is actually perceived, though of course not in its true way, but in the way developed by the human system over thousands of years. For functioning and storage that pure perception has little value except in gross form, so language was developed, first as a crude variety of sounds that could be communicated and finally as a sophisticated tool. So Form (rupa) and Name (nama) developed and the human system became far more sophisticated than other animals.
In fact it was here in this advanced stage of perception that the natural discrimination became transformed into Named Differentiation, which is the root of Duality. It is here too in perception that identity and the various identity configurations were born.
Thought: Vitakka
The fifth stage of the process is vitakka, which is usually considered as 'the initial application of thought'. This is the stage when the perceived information becomes an object of interpretation. It is here that the Sutras and the Abhidhamma start to part.
In the sutras it is taken and employed in the sense of notions, ideas, thoughts and reasoning. In the Abhidhamma it is used in a more technical sense. It is the raising of the concomitants to the sense object. It is the catalyst that introduces the perception to a higher inspection. Narada Thera likened it to the intercession of a well-placed friend allowing one to have audience with a king. It is a process that follows the turning of the mind towards the object (manasikara). Thus with the turning of the mind towards the object like the close attention to all its aspects, vitakka can begin to weigh and balance what is received.
In meditation it is this point that vitakka is important for the turning of attention and the weighing and balancing of the subject of meditation, before extensive thought connections can enter.
Vikkara is then, according to the Abhidhamma, followed by Vicara that is sustained application of attention and evaluation. Again Narada Thera introduces the idea clearly declaring that Vitakka is like a bird flapping its wings as it is about to fly while Vicara is its natural and decisive movements in flight. We can say then that Vicara is purposeful thought while Vitakka is the initial examination of the parameters.
Thought Patterning: Papanca
The sixth stage of the afferent process is called papanca, which may be explained as the development and ideation of thoughts. We may imagine it as the path that thought takes depending upon the parameters that have been set for its development.
You have no doubt seen a spider at work. It has a great web and simply waits. When prey enters the web, the spider senses precisely where to go and passes over the web to that point. But if part of a leaf touches that web the spider does not stir. It apprehends the target on the base of the information received by way of the threads of the web. It then is in contact with the sophisticated internal communication system (the web). The human creature using papanca is like that spider it attends to the path of the signal and then can elicit appropriate action.
The problem is that the human mind reacts to inappropriate stimuli and like an uninformed spider goes racing off chasing dead leaves convincing itself that it is a fly. Furthermore that human spider delights in the leaf and devouring it gains no true sustenance, while avoiding a trapped fly which is close at hand.
Thus papanca is tainted by each individual's own craving and clinging which arises from his dual mind and the evolved identities.
The Key to Consciousness
Which then is the most important stage in human perception? We believe that it is Sanna, perception, because it is here that the doors of the web of memory is opened to the nature and details of past experiences, which include the formation of identity and its objectives. The subsequent stages may be considered as the further development of perception leading to response development.
We may even go so far as to say that Intention is formed by that first generation of the opening of the perceptual door upon an objective, and while vitakka and papanca may well be processes of interpretation and judgement they may also be considered in the human creature as processes of interpretation and justification, which are harbingers of delusion and reinforce erroneous selection of both targets and responses.
The importance of Sanna is seen by reference to Pali sutras. The unenlightened ordinary person is said to cognize things by way of sanna (sanjanati), but the awakened person cognizes things by way of abhinna (abhijanati), which is the use of psychic powers, and parinna (parijanati), which is a fruit consciousness of an arahat. The difference between sanna, on the one hand, and abhinna and parinna, on the other, is that the later is the development of the knowledge and experience necessary with respect to the natural and correct opening of the perceptual door.
The Abhidhamma differs from prior ideas through two new developments. One is the theory of the existence of mind moments the theory of the unconscious (bhavanga).
The question arose with regard to what happens when consciousness is apparently stilled in dreamless sleep, for example, or in profound meditation. There must be something that continues to drive the system apart from a simple stimulus response series. If nirodha-samapatti is indeed the suspension of all mental activities, how is emergence possible?
The Sautrantikas posited a suksma-citta, a subtle consciousness that persists during the nirodha-samapatti. It is described as bhavanga-suta, the stream of the unconscious and it parallels the normal stream of consciousness.
The question is whether or not the unconscious stream is active during full and normal consciousness? We may take one of two positions.
The first is that the consciousness stream is an intermittent parallel flow, which provides information when required to consciousness, or that the unconscious stream is interrupted and stilled by the irritation.
If the former is the case then it is the unconscious that is the base of the human creature and consciousness serves an essential, but subsidiary function. One might, in that condition, assume that consciousness is a part of the sensory system, a tool of mind, a sixth sense, which is consistent with early Buddhist thought. In this way actually knowing about the external sense object has no importance to the organism. The idea of knowing then becomes human conceit arising from identity and differential responses are clearly possible at each refined state of information.
If we then consider four response complexes, we can point at:
complete reflexive responses arising from Vinnana
responses arising from Phassa, Sensation
responses arising from the Vedana – Sanna union ( emotion, with its form and name base)
responses arising from Vitakka-Papanca (thought arising with cognition)
Each complex except the reflexive response complex would appear to have its own Identity, when the higher human mind of Duality was engaged, which would be consistent with the three Gunas.
With this model we may assume that at each level in the awakened individual the appropriate response is made or the information as it were is passed on the higher authority. We understand then that the stained mind evokes inappropriate responses at these levels, but who is the highest authority. In the awakened person it is the life force itself experienced as by full Awakened Consciousness that may be regarded as Pure Consciousness. When this consciousness is contaminated by dual thoughts and identity, becoming a stained Stained Consciousness then the natural life force is suspended.
If we take the original position, which is what the ortadox groups did, then we would have to allow a constant ebb and flow of unconscious information with the spaces being filled with consciousness. If consciousness is to be effective each bit of information as it is passed along the afferent path must also receive a new bit of appropriate unconscious information for its maintenance and flow. Thus this single element of perception was theoretically divided into various “mind moments” in which there was a synchronized availability of unconscious information for consciousness.
Moments 1 to 3
In both early sutras and the Abhidhamma a series of mental events was considered necessary in order generate perception. In the Abhidhamma such a thought process is said to consist of 17 of these mind moments or thought-moments. But remember that these seventeen thought moment arise so quickly that to the normal experience they are instantaneous.
When a visual object, for instance, comes within the range of the eye, it irritates the sensory cells of the retina of the eye. In the terminology of the Abhidhamma it is said that the irritation “ sets up a vibration in the unconscious”. This vibration in the unconscious occurs during the second and third moments. During the first of these two moments, which is called bhavanga-calana, vibrating bhavanga, the unconscious stream gets disturbed. During the second moment, called bhavangupaccheda, the unconscious stream gets interrupted. This is termed the arrest bhavanga.
The disturbance and the subsequent interruption are both due to the force or irritation exerted by the material object before it comes to be fully cognized.
Prior to these two vibrating moments, at the beginning of the process there is one moment that is termed Atita Bhavanga. It is the basic stage of interrupted bhavanga. It exists, for it is the actual original reception of the irritation before the moment that follows it as a Vibrating Bhavanga. In other words all that we receive as a stimulus has already irritated the organ before that irritation is activated. Thus we can oly perceive each moment after it is already in the apparent past.
Moments 4 to 8
With the immediate interruption of the unconscious, a stream of surface consciousness arises, which has seven stages. The first stage is called dvaravajjana or attention, which is called sometimes sense door consciousness. It is at this stage that the conscious mind turns its attention to the material object. This focusing of attention is a reflexive and passive reaction on the part of the individual to the irritation of the external stimulus.
The second stage, with regard to a visual stimulus for example, is called CAKKHU -VINNANA or the visual consciousness that we spoke of earlier. This is not full cognition but bare awareness. It is defined as dassana-matta, the mere awareness of the presence of the object. It does not produce any kind of knowledge of the stimulus.
The third stage is sampaticchana, the receiving consciousness. It is at this stage that the mind assimilates it as a SENSATION.
The fourth stage is santirana or investigating consciousness. The object that has been assimilated now begins to be investigated.
The fifth stage is votthapana, the determining consciousness. It is here that free will plays a part and discrimination is exercised naturally at this stage in terms of approach, neutrality or avoidance. When contaminated it is where like, indiffernce and dislike arise. We know it as Emotion.
Moments 9 to 15
The sixth stage is javana, which is the Abhidhamma term for full PERCEPTION or cognition. It is at this stage that the mind experiences (anubhavati) the object. It is on javana, therefore, that the process of perception culminates. It is this stage that an intention or action may be judged as moral or not and karma also becomes important as a consequence at this level. If viewed correctly the javana becomes correct and natural if incorrect view is present the reverse is the case. In the case of an arahat, who has dissolved (at least temporally) the identity component this stage is entirely functional without karmic consequences. This stage lasts for seven moments of what is called impulsion. While emotion starts as a determining consciousness it is elaborated here and becomes the monster which we know so well.
The last stage, which is called tadarammana, is the registering consciousness, which consists of two moments. Thus these seventeen conscious moments synchronized with unconscious activity is followed immediately with another seventeen moments, which forms the next link in the stream of consciousness.
Now this may well be intellectually intriguing, but what does this have to do with Buddha Dharma. That is precisely what the forest dwellers were constantly asking. There is no clear answer, but it is after all one of the human attributes that he possesses an inquisitive mind and inasmuch as these theories may help us understand the practices and meditation then they are valuable,
The Vaibhasikas
The main division between schools did not arise directly from this perceptual model, for like other Buddhist schools they were in agreement with the truth that there is no identity and the idea of the five skandhas. Likewise they naturally accepted the division of the sense-data into form, sound, odour, taste and touch (rupa-sabda-gandha-rasa-sprastavya) and the corresponding sense apprehension of this received data caksu-srotra-ghrana-jihva-kayendriyani).
Our perceptions or knowledge according to this school is not just mental but has valid correspondence to what exists. It is an idea that most beginners will find attractive for it is difficult to believe in the idea of no real correspondence.
The Direct Contact of Consciousness
Differences rose about the true nature of the external world and the human contact with it, and rested with that first moment of consciousness and the question was,” does consciousness perceive the sense object directly or does it not."
The Vaibhasika School maintains that there is direct contact between the consciousnesses of the sense organs and their objects. This is a theory which is not now scientifically supported, for it appears that there is no real perception of the outside world and that our perceptions are based upon the preparation for movement, in response to any irritating stimulus without any direct perception.
According to the Vaibhasikas, objects are perceived as elements, but they acknowledge only four; the earth element which is solidity, air, which is movement, the water element which is not liquid, but coolness; and fire, which is warmth.
Considering the complexity of their thoughts regarding knowledge this idea appears rudimentary, but they further consider that the external objects are the results of the gathering together of the ultimate atoms, according to the objects individual capacity. Thus, an atomic theory is accepted by the Vaibhasikas as all observable bodies then, including our own body, are aggregates of atoms.
While they admited the unknowable indivisible reality of atoms, they acknowledged the transience of these phenomenon.
They believed in the existence of an indefinite number of transient “sva-laksanas” (each unique and describable only as itself) with no principle of unity underlying them. Each it was believed is produced by the proceeding one in a series, yet it is independant and unrelated except as a cause and effect. It is these that are said by the Vaibsakas to be the material of bare perception and it is these that impinge upon the sensors as irritation. These sva-laksanas are not the atoms (bhutas) of which we spoke, but are constituted from the primary elements.
The introduction of these sva-laksanas has been critcized as adding nothing useful to the basic idea and the Sautrantikas say that at best they are only an unnecessary hypothesis to account for the impinging experience.
Clearly, our sense knowledge, also transient, is only the way in which we have contact with this eqully transient reality, and perception then becomes the interface between our knowledge and what may truly exist. Without this interface no inferential concomitance would be possible. It is our perceptions that then give us working “vision” of what is unknowable.
But one must remember that the characteristics apparently observed do not belong to the subject cognised. Just as a photograph itself, consisting of chemicals and paper cannot be said to share the same characteristics as the subject photographed one can only say that there is a mutual correspondence. The photograph arises from the characteristics of the medium not the photographed subject yet there is a mutual relationship that allows coexistence by cognition.
We have seen that the Vaibhasika school teaches that the ultimate reality of the mind within is this "mental moment" which we have discussed, a "mental atom", an “indivisible moment of consciousness”.
These mental moments are considered as real, but the duration of mind is considered as unreal being only a mind construct. The mind of the past is gone, the mind of the future has not yet arrived, so the only thing that can be said to exist is the present moment of mind, one removed from consciousness by the “past (Atita) Bhavanga which is the basic stage of interrupted bhavanga.
What seems to us to be the continuity of mind is simply the cognitive connection of various series of mental moments.
You can see now where intellectual ideas lead, for we must now say that the irritation is followed by moment of consciousness and then perception, that in turn is followed eventually within the series by the moment of cognition. Cognition, however, in any moment must be due to the presence of an anterior cognition having common moments related to the subject (upadana-karana) The subject of the previous moments cognition is then considered as an auxiliary cause (sahakarikarana) of apparent continuity.
The actual subject of cognition has then a “pramana” of itself that comes into existence by this relation between antecedent cognition and the subject. This is rather like declaring that the previous moment chain has characteristics which allow the following moment chain to be directly associated with it.
If for example we were to walk around a tree the successive moments would be linked in a form that make the identification of the tree as “tree” possible, but its main function is not identification. Its true value is that it gives the living organism information about the relationship of the apparent object and his apparent self. This is essential for survival because correct survival responses rest upon that information.
Thus one can see that one of the most important function that any living creature has is movement which allows a movement and cognition association.
Reality and Identity
Cognition then is the knower (grahaka). The subject of this cognition is then the knowable (grahya) albeit illusory. The subject then exists as a part of this process, forming a series “knowable, knower, knowledge”.
While this may be comforting for it seems to provide us with viable alternative to Identity which is the Knower, we must realize that this knower is illusion and not real. It is an illusion created as an interface between knowable and knowledge.
Objects are considered to be of two kinds: that perceived and that inferred. In other words what is really “out there” and what we infer is “out there”. The problem of duality here arises when we believe that what is perceived is really what is out there and that “we” are the true perceiver of that phenomenon. Perception then points to their true existence.
Vaibhasika ideas are further complicated for they maintained that mind has a separate existence from the natural world, thus the knowledge is not created but discovered by the mind.
The question is “does the mind which is the knower then simply become another form of Identity”. If we maintain that the mind exists independently and knows itself then an Identity is created. If we however create the existence of an experienced separate mind by inference then we return once more to an illusory identity present in its perception.
In revision, we can say that Vaibhasika’s believed that perception is an illusory mental concomitant of what is real. This first point is substantiated. The second point is that reality has a gross perceivable form that is unreal and an ultimate indivisible reality that consists of these atoms. In other words there is a real external world of indivisible particles and an internal direct perception of that world formed as an illusion with illusory continuity.
Buddha and the Sutras
In accord with the orthodox belief, Buddha was considered an ordinary human being, who after attaining nirvana by his Buddhahood and final nirvana by his death dissolved his being. The only divine element in Buddha is his self-attained intuitive knowledge of the truth. Thus it was logical to reject the supreme authority of the sutras and so they adopted as their textual vehicle the Vibhasha, the commentary on the Abhidharma.
The Sautrantikas
Samkrantikas (Sautrantikas) of Kumaralabhda
The Samkrantikas, also called Sautrantikas , were among the initial eighteen. They developed as part of the mainstream and early in the 2nd century A.D, were consolidated into a strong school founded by Kumaralabhda.
Indirect Contact, Identity and Reality
Sautrantikas, like the Vaibhasikas, did not recognise the direct perceptibility of the external objects and they agreed that external objects have real existence. Consciousness for them was indeed like a printed photograph or a mirror, an imprint upon our cognition.
According to the Sautrantika view, diametrically and sometimes bitterly opposed to the Vaibhasikas, was that any direct contact between mind and the atomic particles of the apparently external world is impossible due to the difference in their respective natures. The mind, they declared, is not a material phenomenon and has self awareness at the human level. The external world is apparently material and inanimate.
Mind can only know directly something that is of the same nature as itself, therefore knowledge of the world outside must occur through some interface and there cannot be a direct encounter between mind and matter.
The Sautrantikas then postulate a mentally accessible representation of the material object, produced as a natural effect of the object's existence and the capacity of the receiving sensory organs, which can be grasped and known by mind because it is of the same nature as mind.
They said that an object itself is real and exists, but would be hidden from mind were it not for the mental emanation it produces which can be picked up by mind. The problem is that the duality induced into the mind by error bound mind takes this mental image to be real. This leads to craving, clinging and suffering. It is not the objects themselves that cause suffering, but the mind's clinging to the reality of the mental representation and erroneous sensory, emotional and perceptual concepts..
They vary the cognition series slightly by positing the knowable as data (alambana), the dominant organ of cognition (adhipatirupa); and the inference or suggestion (samantantara), equivalent to the knowledge. They add the medium (sahakari).
Cognition is a process and, as such, does not have identity. The illusory identity then is in the undefined medium (sahakari) that is the interface between the inference and the knowledge. It is self conscious because consciousness can think itself into existence as mind.
For the Sautrantikas there is the clear understanding stated that the body, the apparent vehicle of the mind and consciousness, to which humans cling is also real, but only its mental representation can be known. Thus there is even more reason for negating both the mental and perceptual idea of oneself as an identity.
Creation
The Sautrantikas believed that there is no creation by either Isvara (divinity), nor by Purus (spirit), nor by Pradhana (matter). They believed that if god or spirit or matter was the sole cause of the universe, the world would have been created in its totality at once and at the same time. The creatures coming into existence are not simultaneously, but successively evolved with great variation, some from wombs, some from buds, and that evolution has constant change but no beginning.
We can see that these differences between the orthodox groups were just a philosophical positions that influenced nether meditation or practice. However these beliefs became important issues among different factions and divisions into two main schools of thought developed.
Arahatship
Acceptance of the Vaibhasika view or the Sautrantika view can lead the disciple to Arhhatship, not through an intense and profound meditation, but by meticulous analysis of the body-mind thought of as I', not just at the conscious level, but through meditation an understanding of the arousal of Identity at each of the Skandha levels.
The Identities thus can be dissolved by the realization that everything on which he bases his idea of I' can be reduced to impersonal physical or mental particles, none of which can justify the existence of either a real Identity or a subconscious dominator of intention and action. This realization of non-ego allows the disciple to divest himself of his impediments of clinging and craving and reach Arahatship.
Bear in mind, however, that this realization is not the higher realization through the direct experience of the falsity of all mind concepts, it is realized through the meditation practices which calm and stabilize the mind, carrying out an analytical examination from within this stability that is not influenced by the cognitive mind. This stable state needs constant vigilance or inbalance can occur and Identity can once more attain a foothold.
Post Awakening
Because of these two schools' belief in the ultimate reality of the particles which make up mind and matter - the contact between the two being direct or indirect according to each school's particular position - they are obliged to maintain that after all beings become awakened , the world outside, lifeless and inanimate, will exist and the mind will be released from clinging and craving through knowing the illusion of its existence and the frailty of this illusion.
One of the errors of the non realist groups is to use the term arahat to refer to all those disciples of attainment -who live within the Theravadin fold. There is no doubt that at least during the first twenty years of Buddhas ministry there were arahats who had achieved a higher plane of understanding through direct experience and it was only later that the arahats through ignorance that many established themselves in a lower plane and set the norm which the rebels rejected.
Thus, using the now established idea, we can say that the Dharmavadin teachings lead also to full awakening, and can more correctly use the terms “arahat” and “awakened arahat” to distinguish between those who have dissolved identity and those who have experienced directly the no mind state, whatever their philosophy may be.
Bodhisattvayana Opposition
Opponents of the non realist schools believe that it is precisely this view of the real existence of phenomenon that prevents the realization of complete Buddhahood. However, they allow that if the Vaibhasika or Sautrantika retains an open and flexible mind after reaching Arahatship, he or she he can immerse himself in more profound contemplation clearing these views which obstruct Awakening and final enlightenment.
The Bodhisattva
The Vaibhasika and Sautrantika recognized the path of the bodhisattva as do the
Theravadins of old and those that continue today. They considered it a legitimate
Buddha Dharma path and they outlined the bodhisattva path to Buddhahood.
The Mahayana claims agaist them is that they indeed may even meditate on the
vacuity of all thimgs but they fall short by not cultivating perfections the perfections
which led to complete Buddhahood.
It seems however that the philosophical view has little bearing on the issue and that what is important is the practice which leads to the explosion of the real world as being real. But the question remains to be discussed. Is the world we perceive real or not? Can the cognitive mind actually reach beyond this apparent reality or not? The idealist say it can.
Exercise 5
Explain in a page the way you feel and also think (both) about this concept that there exist a real world which exists of which you have no true knowledge and how well you can accept the fact that the body that that you know so well is completely illusion, an invention of your mind. Speak of your difficulties in accepting that view.