Skill-in-Means

This chapter addresses the Mahayana Buddhist theme of upaya, the “skillful means” required to live an authentic bodhisattva life of wisdom and compassion. The sutra pictures Vimalakirti’s skill as the ability to work with others toward the common good in a wide variety of circumstances. Vimalakirti is described as fully inclusive, rejecting no one while working to liberate everyone from the poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion. His skillful means is centered on the cultivation of intention, a vow to enact the highest thought of enlightenment possible under current conditions. The chapter concludes with an examination of five dimensions of character valorized in the sutra.

Living Skillfully

This book attempts to articulate a contemporary philosophy of life drawing upon Buddhist resources from the Vimalakīrti Sūtra. Among the major themes in this Mahayana Buddhist scripture is the “skillful means” required to live a healthy and undeluded life. The book adopts that theme as a means of developing a practical approach to contemporary Buddhist life. Following many of the brilliant stories in the sutra, this book attempts to provide clear explanations for the primary Buddhist teachings and the relationships that bind them all together into an inspiring way of living. Among the questions addressed are: Who is the Buddha? How is a worldview of change and contingency applicable to current life? What does it mean to claim that there is no permanent self? What are the primary characteristics of an admirable Buddhist life? How is freedom conceived in Buddhism? And how do all of these themes help us address contemporary issues such as global warming, gender identities, political dichotomies, the global economy, and more? Although historical questions do arise in the book, its primary purpose is contemporary and practical, an effort to say clearly how this text helps us stake out a way of living for contemporary global citizens.

The Concept of Store-Consciousness in the “Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra”

For the first time the concept of store-consciousness appears in Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra. The beginning of the formation of the sūtra dates back to the 23d c. AD, that allows us to suppose that this concept one of the fundamental concepts in Yogācāra philosophy appeared long before the formation of the Yogācāra itself and, possibly, before the appearance of the Madhyamaka school historically the first Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophical school. Store-consciousness is the basis for seven empirical consciousnesses denoted as pravṛtti-vijāna evolving consciousness. Attaining of the enlightenment is the cessation of the activity of evolving consciousness, but the store-consciousness remains free from real and potential afflictions and dispositions determined by karma. In the sūtra the concept of store-consciousness is associated with the teaching on three own-beings, and this shows that basic Yogācāra notions are fully presented in the sūtra. The causes of evolving consciousness are: ignorance concerning real nature of the objects of the mind; affliction concerning saṃsāra; essence of consciousness consisting in the difference between subject and object; and attraction to forms that support saṃsāra

Śāntideva’s Introduction to the Practices of Awakening (Bodhicaryāvatāra)

The Introduction to the Practices of Awakening (Bodhicaryāvatāra; hereafter, BCA) is a short verse text presenting the training practices for developing the virtuous character of the bodhisattva, the Mahayana Buddhist exemplar who commits to remaining in samsara to save all beings from suffering. The text was written by the monk scholar Śāntideva, a Mahayana Buddhist of the Madhyamaka school who resided in India, at the monastic university of Nālandā c. 8th century ce. The text had significant influence in India and Tibet and continues to be an influential source for contemporary Buddhist practice. It interweaves ritual, meditation, and philosophical argumentation as mutually supportive aspects of bodhisattva practice. The text takes as its themes the development of bodhicitta, the wish to become a fully enlightened buddha, and the development of the perfections of virtue that constitute the bodhisattva’s character. Śāntideva presents four chapters dedicated to specific perfections: patience (chapter 6), effort (chapter 7), concentration (chapter 8), and wisdom (chapter 9). The text also emphasizes the development of compassion, introspection, and mindfulness. A significant feature of the text is its incorporation of philosophical argumentation into contemplations designed to develop virtuous character. Passages often function simultaneously as arguments meant to convince an interlocutor (or oneself) of their claims, as well as meditations to develop the virtue in question. This repeated use of reasoning as a means of developing virtue largely accounts for the text’s philosophically important status. This has resulted in the BCA becoming an important source for the developing academic field of Buddhist ethics. Two of Śāntideva’s arguments in particular have received considerable scholarly interest: his argument that accepting the tenet of dependent origination entails the irrationality of anger, which he gives in chapter 6; and his argument that accepting the nonexistence of the self rationally entails a commitment to altruism, which occurs in chapter 8. Śāntideva’s sequence of meditations on exchanging self and others, in which the bodhisattva imaginatively takes up the position of other persons as a way of developing compassion, has also generated great interest, both in the Tibetan tradition and in contemporary scholarship.

The Concept of Non-Abiding Nirvāṇa in Indian Mahāyāna Philosophy

The concept of non-abiding nirvāṇa was introduced in Mahāyāna Buddhist phi­losophy to denote the state achieved by bodhisattvas in the moment of enlighten­ment. It is considered as higher and more religiously valuable than the state of arhattva aimed at in Hīnayāna practices. The non-abiding nirvāṇa is above all the differences including the difference between nirvāṇa and saṃsāra, and its achievement is identical to the knowledge of the true reality, essentially non-dual. It does not depend on consciousness aiming at it, nor on the efforts exerted by a sentient being to get it, nor on the differences between sentient beings, for these differences are illusory. This is an undetermined state unlike the Hīnayāna nirvāṇa and therefore the bodhisattvas’ compassion is not conditioned by any­thing and manifests itself freely. This state is treated as real nirvāṇa also because it overcomes not only individual suffering but suffering per se, for Hīnayāna in­terpretation of nirvāṇa as elimination only individual suffering is based on the no­tion of difference between sentient beings, and the notion is, according to Mahāyāna, essentially false and does not lead to real enlightenment.

Does AI Have Buddha-Nature? Reflections on the Metaphysical, Soteriological, and Ethical Dimensions of Including Humanoid Robots in Religious Rituals from one Mahāyāna Buddhist Perspective

The temple Kōdaij made history when its priest enshrined the robot Mindar as a personification of Kannon Bodhisattva. Since Mahāyāna Buddhist texts typically reject any form of dualism between the divine and the secular implied by monotheism and even claim that “insentient beings are buddha-nature” and “insentient beings become buddhas”, Gabriele Trovato’s term “theomorphic” may not apply in this case. This paper will explore if humanoid robots can be thought of as conscious, deserving of person rights, and even divine in a Buddhist context. What are the practical and ethical implications of the possible Buddhist claim “all humanoids have Buddha-nature”?