Buddhist philosophy
[3] Pre-sectarian Buddhism was based on empirical evidence gained by the sense organs (including the mind), and the Buddha seems to have retained a skeptical distance from certain metaphysical questions, refusing to answer them because they were not conducive to liberation but led instead to further speculation.
[3] These elaborations and disputes gave rise to various early Buddhist schools of Abhidharma, the Mahāyāna movement, and scholastic traditions such as Prajñāpāramitā, Sarvāstivāda, Mādhyamaka, Sautrāntika, Vaibhāṣika, Buddha-nature, Yogācāra, and more.
While the focus of the Buddha's teachings is about attaining the highest good of nirvāṇa, they also contain an analysis of the source of human suffering (duḥkha), the nature of personal identity (ātman), and the process of acquiring knowledge (prajña) about the world.
In the Dharmacakrapravartana Sūtra, this is used to refer to the fact that his teachings steer a middle course between the extremes of asceticism and bodily denial (as practiced by the Jains and other Indian ascetic groups) and sensual hedonism or indulgence.
[31] His theory posits a flux of events arising under certain conditions which are interconnected and dependent, such that the processes in question at no time are considered to be static or independent.
[32] According to the Buddha's teachings as recorded in the Gandhāran Buddhist texts, we need to train the mind in meditation to be able to truly comprehend the nature of reality, which is said to have the Three marks of existence: suffering, impermanence, and non-self (anātman).
The most widely used argument that the Buddha employed against the idea of an unchanging ego is an empiricist one, based on the observation of the five aggregates of existence (skandhā) that constitute a sentient being, and the fact that these are always changing.
Gautama Buddha discouraged his disciples and early followers of Buddhism from indulging in intellectual disputation for its own sake, which is fruitless, and distracts one from the ultimate goals of awakening (bodhi) and liberation (mokṣa).
These "unanswered questions" (avyākṛta) regarded issues such as whether the universe is eternal or non-eternal (or whether it is finite or infinite), the unity or separation of the body and the self (ātman), the complete inexistence of a person after death and nirvāṇa, and others.
[c] Another possible reason why the Buddha refused to engage in metaphysics is that he saw ultimate reality and nirvana as devoid of sensory mediation and conception and therefore language itself is a priori inadequate to explain it.
[60] Dependent arising provides a framework for analysis of reality that is not based on metaphysical assumptions regarding existence or non-existence, but instead on direct cognition of phenomena as they are presented to the mind in meditation.
The Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika (sometimes just "Vaibhāṣika") was one of the major Buddhist philosophical schools in India, and they were so named because of their belief that dharmas exist in all three times: past, present and future.
Since the Mahāyāna held to the pragmatic concept of truth which states that doctrines are regarded as conditionally "true" in the sense of being spiritually beneficial, these new theories and practices were seen as 'skillful means' (upaya).
He gave the classical arguments for the empty nature of all dharmas and attacked the essentialism found in various Abhidharma schools (and also in Hindu philosophy) in his magnum opus, The Root Verses on the Middle Way (Mūlamadhyamakakārikā).
This tradition is called "those who follow reasoning" (Tibetan: rigs pa rjes su 'brang ba); in modern literature, it is sometimes known by the Sanskrit "pramāṇavāda", or "the Epistemological School.
[111] These Buddhist philosophers argued in favor of the theory of momentariness, the Yogācāra "awareness only" view, the reality of particulars (svalakṣaṇa), atomism, nominalism and the self-reflexive nature of consciousness (svasaṃvedana).
The word "self" (atman) is used in a way idiosyncratic to these sutras; the "true self" is described as the perfection of the wisdom of not-self in the Buddha-Nature Treatise (Fóxìng lùn, 佛性論, T. 1610) of Paramārtha, for example.
In the Ratnagotravibhāga, this originally pure (prakṛtipariśuddha) nature (i.e. the fully purified buddha-nature) is further described through numerous terms such as: unconditioned (asaṃskṛta), unborn (ajāta), unarisen (anutpanna), eternal (nitya), changeless (dhruva), and permanent (śāśvata).
While the view of the Vajrayāna was based on the earlier Madhyamaka, Yogacara and Buddha-nature theories, it saw itself as being a faster vehicle to liberation containing many skillful methods (upaya) of tantric ritual.
[147] The shentong view had an influence on philosophers of other schools, such as Nyingma and Kagyu thinkers, and was also widely criticized in some circles as being similar to the Hindu notions of Atman.
[149] Je Tsongkhapa (Dzong-ka-ba) (1357–1419) founded the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, which came to dominate the country through the office of the Dalai Lama and is the major defender of the Prasaṅgika Madhyamaka view.
Gorampa also critiqued Tsongkhapa's realism, arguing that the structures which allow an empty object to be presented as conventionally real eventually dissolve under analysis and are thus unstructured and non-conceptual (spros bral).
He was also one of the most important Buddhist philosophers in the Tibetan tradition, writing works on logic and epistemology and promoting Dharmakirti's Pramanavarttika (Commentary on Valid Cognition) as central to the scholastic study.
[158] The 19th century saw the rise of the Rimé movement (non-sectarian, unbiased) which sought to push back against the politically dominant Gelug school's criticisms of the Sakya, Kagyu, Nyingma and Bon philosophical views, and develop a more eclectic or universal system of textual study.
"[159] Philosophically, Jamgön Kongtrül defended Shentong as being compatible with Madhyamaka while another Rimé scholar Jamgon Ju Mipham Gyatso (1846–1912) criticized Tsongkhapa from a Nyingma perspective.
On the other hand, when it is discussed from the point of view of experience, it should be understood more in terms of an affirming negation – 14th Dalai Lama[162]The schools of Buddhism that had existed in China prior to the emergence of the Tiantai are generally believed to represent direct transplantations from India, with little modification to their basic doctrines and methods.
Another very influential Tibetan Buddhist modernist was Chögyam Trungpa, whose Shambhala Training was meant to be more suitable to modern Western sensitivities by offering a vision of "secular enlightenment".
Japanese philosophy was heavily influenced by the work of the Kyoto School which included Kitaro Nishida, Keiji Nishitani, Hajime Tanabe and Masao Abe.
The most important trend in Japanese Buddhist thought after the formation of the Kyoto school is Critical Buddhism, which argues against several Mahayana concepts such as Buddha nature and original enlightenment.
Suzuki's worldview was a Zen Buddhism influenced by Romanticism and Transcendentalism, which promoted spiritual freedom as "a spontaneous, emancipatory consciousness that transcends rational intellect and social convention.
