[Buddha-l] Fsat Mnifdlunses?

[Mike Austin]

Dan Lusthaus <vasubandhu at earthlink.net> writes

"The only thing that's outside of the mind is reality, but we will go
into that. Reality cannot be conditioned by the mind. Reality is 
reality. If reality can be conditioned by the mind, then it wouldn't be 
reality, because each time your moods change, reality would be changing 
as well."

Hmm. It would seem that an angry mind conditions the wrinkles of a frown 
or the movement of a fist,  even if the appearance of these phenomena to 
that mind is not reality.


"Apparently people in the West and many Western scholars still NEED 
Yogacara to be idealism for them. It seems that's esp. the case if they 
themselves need "idealism" as a purvapak.sa, a refutable opponent, for 
their own formulations."

This would be the blame identified by the pointing index finger when the 
three other three fingers point back at oneself. We get it also with the 
Mahayana/Hinayana debate. And I point at all these people for doing it.


"Doesn't seem to cross their mind that maybe rather than Yogacara 
offering vapid arguments for idealism, the case might rather be that 
Yogacara offers NO arguments for idealism, and that the effort by 
scholars to put such claims in their mouths is what is vapid."

Why, I might nearly have gone this way myself had you not pointed out my 
error.

-- 
Metta
Mike Austin