以禪修檢視與超越認知之障礙——以阿含經典與《解深密經》為主要依據=An Examination and Transcendence of the Hindrances to Cognition by Meditative Practices: According to the Āgama-sūtras and the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra
認知=cognition; 禪修=meditative practices; 見解=view; 分別式知覺=differentiating perception (vijñ、āna); 無明=ignorance (avidyā); 佛教解脫道=the Buddhist Path to Liberation; 佛教菩提道=the Buddhist Path to Enlightenment
This thesis aims to explore how meditative practices can be a way for sentient beings to transcend the hindrances to cognition. The first part of the thesis explains the key concepts used in the title, and also explains how ordinary people commonly understand the hindrances to cognition and how Buddhism would view those hindrances. The second part, based on the Āgama-sūtras, explains the Buddhist Path to Liberation, and four key issues related to the hindrances to cognition. First, how can those hindrances make sentient beings be trapped in saṃsāra, and what kinds of wrong views and confusion can be produced by those hindrances? Second, how can sentient beings use the right views to achieve the liberation? Third, what is the understanding about “view” in the Buddhist Path to Liberation? Fourth, how can one achieve the liberation by meditative practices, and what are the relations between liberation through mind (citta-vimukti), liberation through wisdom (prajñā-vimukti) and “view”? The final part explains the Buddhist Path to Enlightenment in Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra, and also four key issues about the hindrances to cognition. The first is about how to explain the limitation of language and how to transcend this kind of limitation by the explanation of worldly convention (loka-vrti) and the utmost meaning (paramârtha). Second, how one can use the concept of ālaya-vijñāna to explain saṃsāra, and what are the relations between saṃsāra and differentiating perception (vijñāna)? Third, what are the wrong views formed by the sentient beings when they face sarva-dharma and how can sentient beings dissolve those wrong views by the concepts of trividhā nihsvabhāvatā and tri-vidhā niḥsvabhāvatā? The fourth is about how one can use the meditative practices, including śamatha, vipaśyanā and samādhi, to cultivate the quality of cognition leading to the wisdom of liberation, and even to achieve the anuttarā samyak-saṃbodhiḥ.
