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Three Short Treatises collects brief and important explorations in
Mahayana Buddhism. A Mahayana Demonstration on the Theme of Action
is Vasubandhu's meditation on karma, here translated from the
earlier Chinese translation of Xuan-zhuang. The work presents a
systematic view of various theories on karma from the perspective
of the Mind Only school. Essays of Sengzhao presents four works by
Sengzhao, an important disciple of Kumarajiva; the collection is
said to have exerted considerable influence on later Chinese
Buddhism, in part because it relates issues in Buddhist doctrine to
traditional Chinese philosophy. The Treatise on the Origin of
Humanity by Zong-mi explores the basis of human existence in the
context of Confucianism, Taoism, Theravada, and certain Mahayana
understandings-which he finds unsatisfactory-to present what he
considers a true Mahayana view of human existence.
This fourth-century commentary on the Buddhabhumi-sutra is one of
the earliest texts of the Yogacara tradition. It includes an
introductory description of the setting in which it was preached by
the Buddha; the main body of the text, which treats the five
factors that constitute a Buddha land, i.e., the Pure Dharma Realm
and the four wisdoms: mirror wisdom, equality wisdom, discernment
wisdom, and duty-fulfillment wisdom; and a concluding section of
two illustrative similes and four summary verses. The overall theme
of these texts is that the Pure Land is not a physical location,
but a symbol of the mind of wisdom - constituted by the five
factors of the Pure Dharma Realm and the four wisdoms. These four
wisdoms, grounded in the Pure Dharma Realm, present the varied
structure of wisdom as conceived by Yogacara thinkers. Mirror
wisdom and equality wisdom are nondiscriminative, while discernment
wisdom and duty-fulfillment wisdom distinguish the nature of
bodhisattva tasks and carry them out in the world. Thus the
overarching context for these texts is the tension created between
the critical awareness and "deliteralization" tendency of Yogacara,
and the Pure Land cultus, with its veneration of many Pure Land
Buddhas and its hopes of being born in the Pure Land.
The basic sutra of the Fa-hsian School, The Scripture on the
Explication of Underlying Meaning expounds the thought of the
Yogacara, or Mind-Only School (Vijnanavada), stating that all
phenomena are manifestations of the mind. It belongs to the middle
period of Indian Mahayana Buddhism and is considered to have been
composed at the start of the fourth century A.D.
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