Week Five – Overview
This week engages with the Madhyamaka methods for developing the ultimate bodhicitta that realizes the ultimate truth, through paradoxically using conceptual mind to undermine itself, thus leading to nonconceptual realization. In particular, we explore the classic reasonings of the sevenfold analysis of the chariot and the refutation of one and many.
This week you will
- Develop an understanding of the wisdom of ultimate bodhicitta: the aspect of the mind intent upon attaining enlightenment that realizes suchness, the empty nature of all phenomena
- Become familiar with the two extremes of nihilism and eternalism, and the notion of not even a middle
- Understand how conceptuality is used to short-circuit our conceptual mind in order to experience nonconceptuality
- Explore the illusion of unitary objects and a unitary self, using two of the great reasonings of the Middle Way School
- Examine the relationship between our emotions and our concepts and interpretations