Tantra and Zen Buddhism: Part 5

Recording Location
Lone Pine, Calif.
Recording Date
3 July 1974
Recording Information

Franklin Merrell-Wolff continues this series by offering an analysis of the Buddhist conception of shunyata. He distinguishes between the conception of voidness as “nothing-at-all-ness” and voidness as “Consciousness-without-an-object-and-without-a-subject” by reading a portion of the Prajñā-Pāramitā, substituting the word ‘consciousness’ for the word ‘voidness’. Wolff proceeds to offer a distinction between the aesthetic and the noetic forms of yoga by contrasting the Tantric use of visualization, posturing of the body, breath control, and ceremony and rite with the noetic orientation to logic and mathematics. He returns to a consideration of the implications of the descent of the Manasaputra, pointing out that the yogic discipline would be radically different depending upon whether one identified with the sense perception of the animal nature or the conceptual cognition of the human being. Wolff concludes by introducing corroborating material found in Sri Aurobindo’s The Life Divine on the direct and mixed action of the sense mind and of the pure reason.

Transcript
Recording Duration
56 min
Sort Order
185.00