{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Buddhism","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_bud_bb_bb19_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_bud_bb_bb19_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_bud_bb_bb19_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bud/bb/bb19.htm","summary":"This is a translated excerpt from the *Lankavatara Sutra*, a foundational Mahayana Buddhist scripture of the Yogacara (Mind-Only) school, presented as a philosophical dialogue between the Bodhisattva Mahamati and the Buddha (the Blessed One/Tathagata). The central argument is that the Tathagata \u2014 the Buddha-nature \u2014 transcends all conceptual categories: he is neither born nor unborn, neither permanent nor impermanent, neither entity nor non-entity, because any predicate drawn from dualistic thinking falsifies what is essentially beyond thought and language. A striking claim is that the countless names humans use for ultimate reality \u2014 including Hindu deities like Brahma, Vishnu, and Indra alongside Buddhist designations like Nirvana and Dharmakaya \u2014 are all names for the same Tathagata, but those who use them \"see me as the moon is seen in water,\" mistaking the reflection for the thing itself. The text insists that genuine understanding cannot come from scripture, teachers, or conceptual reasoning but only through direct self-realisation of Noble Wisdom, which leads to the paradoxical assertion that the Buddha has literally never spoken a word since his enlightenment, because truth is transmitted through inner realisation rather than language. This excerpt will most reward readers interested in Buddhist metaphysics, the limits of predication and language, or the Yogacara philosophical tradition that influenced Zen.","tags":["Dwight Goddard","Taoism and Zen","Zen Buddhism"],"text":null,"title":"A Buddhist Bible: The Lankavatara Sutra: Chapter XII. Tat...","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Buddhism","translated_text":null,"word_count":2934}