Mind Only

[Nicholas Weeks]

“Minds and worlds interdependently construct each other at myriad entangled levels. That’s the central theme of Waldron’s superb guide to Yogācāra. This will become the go-to book for anyone wishing to learn about this radical Buddhist philosophy of cognition.” —EVAN THOMPSON, professor of philosophy, University of British Columbia, and author of Waking, Dreaming, Being

This 2023 study, Making Sense of Mind Only by William Waldron clarifies Mahayana teachings!

 

[Ahanu]

“Minds and worlds interdependently construct each other at myriad entangled levels. That’s the central theme of Waldron’s superb guide to Yogācāra. This will become the go-to book for anyone wishing to learn about this radical Buddhist philosophy of cognition.” —EVAN THOMPSON, professor of philosophy, University of British Columbia, and author of Waking, Dreaming, Being

This 2023 study, Making Sense of Mind Only by William Waldron clarifies Mahayana teachings!

Any examples of "minds and worlds interdependently construct each other at myriad entangled levels?"

Here's the intro to the book I read online:

"The Yogacara, or Yoga Practice, school is one of the two schools of Mahayana Buddhism that developed in the early centuries of the common era. Though it arose in India, Mahayana Buddhism now flourishes in China, Tibet, Korea, Vietnam, and Japan. While the other major Mahayana tradition, the Madhyamaka (Middle Way), focuses on the concept of emptiness—that all phenomena lack an intrinsic essence—the Yogacara school focuses on the cognitive processes whereby we impute such essences. Through everyday examples and analogues in cognitive science, author William Waldron makes Yogacara’s core teachings—on the three turnings of the Dharma wheel, the three natures, the storehouse consciousness, and mere perception—accessible to a broad audience. In contrast to the common characterization of Yogacara as philosophical idealism, Waldron presents Yogacara Buddhism on its own terms, as a coherent system of ideas and practices, with dependent arising its guiding principle.

The first half of Making Sense of Mind Only explores the historical context for Yogacara’s development. Waldron examines early Buddhist texts that show how our affective and cognitive processes shape the way objects and worlds appear to us, and how we erroneously grasp onto them as essentially real—perpetuating the habits that bind us to samsara. He then analyzes the early Madhyamaka critique of essences.

This context sets the stage for the book’s second half, an examination of how Yogacara texts such as the Samdhinirmocana Sutra and Asanga’s Stages of Yogic Practice (Yogacarabhumi) build upon these earlier ideas by arguing that our constructive processes also occur unconsciously. Not only do we collectively, yet mostly unknowingly, construct shared realities or cultures, our shared worlds are also mediated through the storehouse consciousness (alayavijñana) functioning as a cultural unconscious. Vasubandhu’s Twenty Verses argues that we can learn to recognize such objects and worlds as “mere perceptions” (vijñaptimatra) and thereby abandon our enchantment with the products of our own cognitive processes. Finally, Maitreya’s Distinguishing Phenomena from Their Ultimate Nature (Dharmadharmatavibhaga) elegantly lays out the Mahayana path to this transformation.

In Waldron’s hands, Yogacara is no mere view but a practical system of transformation. His presentation of its key texts and ideas illuminates how religion can remain urgent and vital in our scientific and pluralistic age."

 

[Nicholas Weeks]

Another clarifying quote from Waldron's Introduction:

The “two extremes” of idealism and realism are avoided in the early Buddhist
formula of dependent arising, which says that cognitive awareness (vijñāna) arises
dependent on something impinging on our sensory or mental faculties and that
the meeting of the three is contact. The genius of this formulation is that “mind”
and “objects” depend upon one another and their respective faculties, and only
arise—that is, come about—through interaction in a temporal process. The
orientation of dependent arising thus seeks to discern patterns of interaction
rather than to define the nature or “essence” of one or another of its components
(faculty, object, or awareness). To consider any of them as “truly fundamental”
not only departs from the view of dependent arising, but tends to reify or
substantialize them, resulting in forms of idealism or realism.