ABSTRACT

This chapter provides some historical context regarding the role Shantarakshita played in the development of Buddhist thought. It encourages a dialogue between Mahayana Buddhism, as articulated by Shantarakshita and explicated by those who comment on his work such as Mipham and depth psychology. Adopting the logico-eptistemological framework of Dharmakirti, Shantarakshita, in the eighth century, founded a system synthesizing the analytic approach of the Middle Way School with the experiential approach of the Yogic Practice School. Further, Shantarakshita makes a unique presentation of ultimate truth. He distinguishes between a categorized, conceptual ultimate that results from valid reasoning and a true ultimate, free from all conceptual categories. In the early verses of the text, Shantarakshita establishes a perspective that is unique to Buddhism and is foundational to its understanding of mind. Shantarakshita's contribution to the understanding of the therapeutic process is that the therapeutic field contains nothing at all.