Absorption in No External World by Jeffrey Hopkins

Author:Jeffrey Hopkins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala

The Import

Even though the technique of examining Dzong-ka-ba’s usage of terminology yields considerable doubt about the identification of terms in particular contexts, such qualms arise only by juxtaposing those particular usages to the principles of his system. The exercise of such juxtaposition is fundamental to scholastic debate in the monastic colleges, causing scholars to use the basic principles of Dzong-ka-ba’s perspective in an active, creative way. They thereby make the founder’s mode of thought their own in a way that far surpasses mere repetition.

Thus, despite the difficulties involved in trying even to determine what such complex traditions of exegesis take to be the referents of these terms, basic and undisputed principles of Dzong-ka-ba’s presentation of the topic emerge with considerable clarity. It is possible to miss the woods for the trees, but when one steps back and surveys the wider scene, it is clear that:

1.Phenomena are referents of conceptual consciousnesses and of terms.

2.However, they falsely appear to both sense consciousnesses and conceptual consciousnesses to be established by way of their own character as the referents of conceptual consciousnesses and of terms.

3.Assent to this false appearance constitutes the obstructions of omniscience and underlies all afflictive emotions.

4.Objects’ emptiness of being established by way of their own character as the referents of conceptual consciousnesses and of terms is a subtle selflessness of phenomena.

5.Realization of this emptiness and prolonged meditation on it in the manner of direct perception remove both the afflictive obstructions and the obstructions to omniscience.

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