What is Time?: Yogācāra-Buddhist Meditation on the Problem of the External World in the Treatise on the Perfection of Consciousness-only (Cheng weishi lun)

Li, Jianjun (2016): What is Time?: Yogācāra-Buddhist Meditation on the Problem of the External World in the Treatise on the Perfection of Consciousness-only (Cheng weishi lun). In: Asian Studies-Azijske Studije, Bd. 4, Nr. 1: S. 35-57

Abstract

Because it asserts that there is consciousness-only (vijnapti-matrata), the difficulty in philosophically approaching the Yogacara-Buddhist text Cheng weishi lun centers on the problem of the external world. This paper is based on a review by Lambert Schmithausen that, specifically with regard to the problem of the external world, questions Dan Lusthaus's phenomenological investigation of the CWSL. In it I point out that the fundamental temporality of consciousness brought to light by the Yogacaric revelation of the incessant differentiation of consciousness (vijnana-parinama) calls into question every temporally conditioned, and hence appropriational, understanding of vijnapti-matrata. Therefore, the problem of the external world cannot be approached without taking into account the temporality of consciousness, which, furthermore, compels us to face the riddle of time.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Philosophie, Wissenschaftstheorie und Religionswissenschaft
• Themengebiete: 100 Philosophie und Psychologie > 100 Philosophie
• ISSN: 2232-5131
• Sprache: Englisch