Tantric Buddhism - “Is Deity Yoga Buddhist? The Philosophical Foundations of Tantric Practice” is a thesis I wrote for the Department of Religion at Duke University. The family of practices known as deity yoga is unique to Tantric Buddhism and is very different from other types of Buddhist practice. Not surprisingly, other schools of Buddhism often question the ontological status of the myriad forms and beings that are visualized during Tantric sadhanas and are skeptical of the fruitfulness of such practices as tools for attaining enlightenment. This paper investigates the philosophical foundations of Tantric practices as well as the objections to them which have been raised by other Buddhist schools.
Mulamadhyamikakarika, Chapter II - Nagarjuna wrote the “Mulamadhyamikakarika,” or “The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way,” as a critique of the notions of self-existence. In it, he uses a cyclical dialectic method to steer a steady course between the extremes of eternalism and nihilism and to replace apparently common sense notions which are in fact highly metaphysical with apparently metaphysical notions which are in fact common sense. This paper explains and analyzes Chapter II (Examination of What Has and What Has Not Transpired), in which Nagarjuna applies his philosophical critique to the point of view held by the various Abidharma schools of Buddhist philosophical thought in his time regarding the inherent existence of that which has transpired and the process of transpiring.
Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” - Plato was both a writer and a teacher. His writings are in the form of dialogues, with Socrates as the principal speaker. In the “Allegory of the Cave,” Plato describes symbolically the predicament in which mankind finds itself, that the world revealed by our senses is not the real world but only a poor copy of it, and proposes a way of salvation, that the real world can only be apprehended intellectually by directing student’s minds toward what is real and important and allowing them to apprehend it for themselves.