Mahayana · the text forming, 1st–4th century
The Buddha · Lankavatara
Mahayana · Yogachara and tathagatagarbha · The Lankavatara Sutra
For the one ready to doubt the very ground – the outer world that seems so solid.
The essence of the teaching: All that is perceived is a projection of one's own mind, void of a separate selfhood; liberation comes not from reasoning but from the direct, silent recognition of this "mind-only" nature.
Transmission
In this sutra the Buddha speaks from the very depth: the world you see does not stand outside, separate and solid. It rises in the mind, as a dream rises in the sleeper, as a reflection rises in a mirror. A habitual force – a procession of old impressions – makes the mind divide experience into "I" and "not-I", into "good" and "bad", and cling to that division as if it were reality. One cannot be freed by reasoning: the reasoning mind is itself the source of the division. What is needed is a direct, silent seeing in which the distinctions grow still. And nirvana here is not a place one departs to, but the ceasing of this clinging grip of duality, here and now.
The full transmission — for members of the School. Here is its essence and its taste.
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