Philosophy, Meditation, and Experience in the Great Debate at Bsam yas
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Philosophy, Meditation, and Experience in the Great Debate at Bsam yas
Journal Article
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Description
In this paper I attempt to explain the contribution of meditation (bhāvanā) to
knowledge as it is presented in the Bhāvanākramas. Kamalaśīla’s presentation in these texts makes use of the schema of three wisdoms or prajñās (śrutamayī-, cintāmayī, and bhāvanāmayī-prajñā) and a very specific understanding of the notion of bhūtapratyavekṣā as "the discernment of reality." My analysis is framed in the context of a recent controversy concerning the epistemological role of meditation in relation to the views of the opposing sides of the historical debate at Bsam yas. I argue that the Bhāvanākramas assign a necessary and very specific function to conceptual meditation in the process of acquiring a direct, nonconceptual knowledge of reality (nirvikalpajñāna).
Citation
Adam, Martin T. "Philosophy, Meditation, and Experience in the Great Debate at Bsam yas." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 39 (2016): 351-74.
Interconnections
3 Scholarship on
[I]n the first Bhāvanākrama, Kamalaśīla sets forth the three forms of wisdom (prajñā): the wisdom derived from learning (śrutamayīprajñā), the wisdom derived from reflection (cintāmayīprajñā), and the wisdom derived from cultivation (bhāvanāmayīprajñā), explaining that the last of these gradually destroys the afflictive obstructions (kleśāvaraṇa) and the obstructions to omniscience (jñeyāvaraṇa). (Source: "Bhāvanākrama." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 113. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
The second Bhāvanākrama considers many of [the] same topics [as the first], stressing that the achievement of the fruition of buddhahood requires the necessary causes, in the form of the collection of merit (puṇyasaṃbhāra) and the collection of wisdom (jñānasaṃbhāra). Both the first and second works espouse the doctrine of mind only (cittamātra); it is on the basis of these and other statements that Tibetan doxographers classified Kamalaśīla as a Yogācāra-Svātantrika-Madhyamaka. (Source: "Bhāvanākrama." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 112–13. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
The third and briefest of the Bhāvanākrama is devoted especially to the topics of śamatha and vipaśyanā, how each is cultivated, and how they are ultimately unified. Kamalaśīla argues that analysis (vicāra) into the lack of self (ātman) in both persons (pudgala) and phenomena (dharma) is required to arrive at a nonconceptual state of awareness. The three texts are widely cited in later Tibetan Buddhist literature, especially on the process for developing śamatha and vipaśyanā. (Source: "Bhāvanākrama." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 112–13. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
