The Tantric Context of Ratnākaraśānti’s Philosophy of Mind
@article{Tomlinson2018TheTC, title={The Tantric Context of Ratnākaraśānti’s Philosophy of Mind}, author={David Tomlinson}, journal={Journal of Indian Philosophy}, year={2018}, volume={46}, pages={355-372} }
The conflicting positions of the two early eleventh century Yogācāra scholars, Ratnākaraśānti and his critic Jñānaśrīmitra, concerning whether or not consciousness can exist without content (ākāra) are inseparable from their respective understandings of enlightenment. Ratnākaraśānti argues that consciousness can be contentless (nirākāra)—and that, for a buddha, it must be. Mental content can be defeated by reasoning and made to disappear by meditative cultivation, and so it is fundamentally…
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