ABSTRACT
Our concluding chapter focuses upon the last sections of the first chapter of the Mahayana-sadgraha (I.58-61) which return, after a fashion, to the conception of the alaya-vijñana as the fundamental constituent of samsaric existence – its origination, perpetuation, and individual cessation. This returns us to familiar waters, but in a rather different light. These terse passages formulate these traditional themes in terms of the interrelationships between language, perception, and action in the ongoing construction of our shared world of human experience. For to fully appreciate the dependent arising of our human world, the text suggests, we will have to reconsider how our minds, our mental processes, and each one of us continuously and simultaneously arise together. As before, we will initially approach our text and its commentaries in terms of the background and context of early, Abhidharma, and Yogacara Buddhist traditions.
