The Buddhist Unconscious: The Alaya-vijñana in the context of

The Buddhist Unconscious: The Alaya-vijñana in the context of Indian Buddhist Thought (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism)

This is the story of fifth century CE India, when the Yogacarin Buddhists tested the awareness of unawareness, and became aware of human unawareness to an extraordinary degree. They not only explicitly differentiated this dimension of mental processes from conscious cognitive processes, but also offered reasoned arguments on behalf of this dimension of mind. This is the concept of the 'Buddhist unconscious', which arose just as philosophical discourse in other circles was fiercely debating the limits of conscious awareness, and these ideas in turn had developed as a systematisation of teachings from the Buddha himself. For us in the twenty-first century, these teachings connect in fascinating ways to the Western conceptions of the 'cognitive unconscious' which have been elaborated in the work of Jung and Freud.
This important study reveals how the Buddhist unconscious illuminates and draws out aspects of current western thinking on the unconscious mind. One of the most intriguing connections is the idea that there is in fact no substantial 'self' underlying all mental activity; 'the thoughts themselves are the thinker'. William S. Waldron considers the implications of this radical notion, which, despite only recently gaining plausibility, was in fact first posited 2,500 years ago.
Country USA
Brand Routledge
Manufacturer Routledge
Binding Paperback
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780415406079
ReleaseDate 0000-00-00

Country	USA
Brand	Routledge
Manufacturer	Routledge
Binding	Paperback
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780415406079
ReleaseDate	0000-00-00

The Buddhist Unconscious: The Alaya-vijñana in the context of Indian Buddhist Thought (Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism)

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