Buddhist Insight

The book is organized into five major parts. Part I, “Buddhist Practice,” examines the Buddha as savior, early Buddhist monasticism, meditation in Theravāda and Mahīśāsaka traditions, and bodhisattva practice in the Lam Rim Chen Mo, thereby presenting the practical framework of Buddhist transformation from ordinary person to disciplined practitioner. Part II, “Buddhist Doctrine,” forms the largest doctrinal core of the volume, analyzing the Four Noble Truths, the metaphor of the mirror, Buddhist theories of vision, dependent origination in Indo-Tibetan interpretation, avidyā and prajñā in Asaṅga’s Yogācārabhūmi, the twenty reifying views, the four alternatives of Buddhist logic, and debates over the intermediate state. Part III, “Interpretative Studies of Buddhism,” considers Buddhist conceptions of time, the religious function of art, and a Yogācāra-oriented reading of the Heart Sūtra. Part IV, “Texts of the Asaṅga School,” provides edited and translated Yogācāra materials, including the Sacittikā and Acittikā Bhūmi, the Paramārtha-gāthā, and Asaṅga’s treatise on the three instructions of Buddhism. Part V, “Hindu and Buddhist Studies,” expands the analysis through comparative studies of truth, silence, dreams, mantras, Sarasvatī, and Tārā, showing the interaction between Buddhist and broader Indian religious-symbolic systems.