conebeckham wrote:I agree that "non-dual" is a bad translation of "Yer May," I thought the same thing when I read it.
Aside from appearances, what about the mind itself which "experiences" these appearances? Does it differ from those appearances?
This is the great controversy about Yogacara. Asanga maintains that in order for there to be an appearance of deluded perception, even though the appearances do not exist, there must be an existent basis for those false appearances -- for example, even though there is no real existent image on the screen, there is nevertheless a projector through which a film is running. When the film is done, so are the images. Likewise, when the traces are finished, so is the false projections.
The real controversy is how far to extend that "existence" i.e. is the projector more real or less real than the projected images.
According to the way Yogacara is presented in orthodox tenet systems (Which all are based on Bhavaviveka II's Tarkajvala), this basis is the ālayavijñāna. When the seeds are removed, the ālaya is held to transform into wisdom. I.e. this existent wisdom which is ultimate, has to be predicated on an existing consciousness in order to account for the transformation of consciousness to wisdom.
In other words, conventional truth, in this way of presenting Yogacara, is the imputed projections. They all function, work quite well, until the basis of their reality is questioned. The ālaya projecting this is also understood to be relative. But when the traces are removed, the ālaya transforms into wisdom, and thus becomes ultimate.
Then there is the gzhan stong way of understanding this. According to the their presentation, both alāya and the projected images are conventional. Wisdom is ultimate and merely covered over by the conventional.
Then again, among gzhan stong pas, there are different ways of understanding the ultimate -- some seem to hold that it really exists. Others seem to hold it too is merely a yogic convention which when in equipoise is not needed and so on.
Etc.