ABSTRACT
Those of us who are involved as teachers, scholars, or practitioners with Buddhism in the West are – whether we wish to be or not – involved in a complex process of interaction between two cultures. Just as in the West Socrates urged that the most important task set for us in life is to know ourselves, in the Buddhist tradition we are admonished to know the nature of our own minds as the key to awakening (bodhi). In every Buddhist tradition, to know the nature of the self and its objects is the fundamental prerequisite to cutting off the root of cyclic existence.
