ToVincent wrote: ↑Mon Jan 18, 2021 10:37 am
Snp 1.1 is not SN 1.1
And Snp 1 to Snp 3 are acknowledged to be late suttas.
Therefore, the doubtful two sentences and their no less doubtful and interpretative translations:
"Yo nāccasārī na paccasārī,
Sabbaṃ vitathamidanti ñatva loke"
must be taken with a grain of salt, as big as Brobdingnag.
Vṛtra, the great obfuscator, must have been around when those late lines were written.
Also, when Buddha addresses the "All", it is about Buddha's definition of the "All", namely:
The All is the eye and forms, the ear and sounds, the nose and odours, the tongue and tastes, the body and tactile objects, the mano and mental phenomena. As in SN 35.23 (with a perfect parallel SA 319).
SA 319:
At that time, a Brahmin who had heard of the Brahmacharya, came to the Buddha and asked him a question:
Gautama, One says "the All" (一切), what is "the All"?
The Buddha told the Brahmin: "The All is the twelve fields of sensory perception 入處) - eye and form, ear and sound, nose and scent, tongue and taste, body and touch, mentation (意) and dhamma (法). This is called" the All".
And Buddha's "World" is usually:
The eye, forms, eye-consciousness, eye-contact and whatever feeling arises with eye-contact as condition.
The ear … The mano … Whatever feeling arises with mano-contact as condition.
SN 35.82 (with a perfect parallel).
The world is empty of self or what belongs to self.
Buddha doesn't address any Veda's definition of the All; when he speaks of his "All".
There is nothing "unreal" in the Buddha's "All", in the early texts.
Not even in SN 22.95 where
the illusion is the continuum [santāno] (viz. a self in the world; as in the late Vedic creed) - There is no substance (saro) into that.
[it is found to be insubstantial and without solidity, there is no a self or what belongs to a self in this bodily aggregate SA 265 ]
That is to say for instance, that when the body dies, it vanishes like a bubble.
There is no continuous body and self/Self in that, like in the Upaniṣadic creed.
See when Buddhism became "unrealistic" (second period).
(From Buddhist logic | Th. F. Stcherbatsky)
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Finally got around to looking this up, thank you for sharing this. It should be read with a little caution where the author goes beyond the suttas to compare religions, etc. but this is excellent info for anyone who fails to see the interlopers among those supposedly presenting original Buddhism, and instead mistakes them for genuine original Buddhism. With this knowledge at hand it should be easier to see what is original Buddhism, and what is being retrofitted and ostensibly "found" in original Buddhism, but what undoubtedly came much later. Namely: idealism, monism, eternalism, anti-realism, extreme nihilism, extreme skepticism, and fence sitting suspension of judgement and wiggling vague speech that refuses to admit reality, none of which have any place in original Buddhism, and all of which are regularly conflated with it. These are ruled out in DN 1, and then all of the countless other suttas that explicitly and unavoidably implicitly rule them out entirely, like SN 22.94, MN 71, SN 22.56, SN 15.3, MN 117 and on and on.
The history of Buddhism in India may be divided, and is divided by the Buddhists themselves, into three periods. During all of them Buddhism remains faithful to its central conception of a dynamic impersonal flow of existence. But twice in its history — in the 1st and in the Vth centuries A.D.— the interpretation of that principle was radically changed, so that every period has its own new central conception.
As a consequence, it is appropriate to talk about the two last periods first, and to end with what is considered to be the genuine message of primeval Buddhism. In other words, to start with what Buddhism was not in the first place.
SECOND PERIOD OF BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY.
Sarva-dharma-sunyata
MONISM
At the verge of the fifth century of its history a radical change supervened in Buddhism, in its philosophy and in its character as a religion.
- It forsook the ideal of a human Buddha who disappears completely in a lifeless Nirvana and replaced it by the ideal of a divine Buddha enthroned in a Nirvana full of life.
- It forsook the egoistic ideal of a personal Salvation, and replaced it by the Universal Salvation of every life.
- It changed at the same time its philosophy from a radical Pluralism into a radical Monism.
This change seems to have been contemporaneous with a development in the brahmanic religions of India where at the same epoch the great national Gods, Shiva and Vishnu, began to be worshipped and established on the background of a monistic philosophy.
The fundamental philosophic conception with which this new Buddhism of the second period started, was the idea of a real, genuine, ultimate existence, ultimate reality, a reality shorn of all relations, reality in itself, independent, unrelated reality.
Since all the physical and mental elements established by the pluralism of early Buddhism were admittedly interrelated elements, or cooperating forces, none of them could be viewed as ultimately real.
They were interrelated, dependent and therefore unreal. Nothing short of the whole of these elements, the whole of the wholes, the Universe itself viewed as a Unity, as the unique real Substance, could be admitted as ultimately real.
This whole assemblage of elements, this Elementness as a Unity, was then identified with Buddha's Cosmical Body, with his aspect as the unique substance of the Universe.
The elements established in the previous period, their classifications into five groups (skandha), twelve bases of our cognition (dyatana) and eighteen component parts of individual lives (dhatu) were not totally repudiated, but allowed only a shadowy existence as elements not real in themselves, elements devoid of any ultimate reality.
This is the first outstanding feature of the new Buddhism, it denies the ultimate reality of the elements accepted as real in early Buddhism.
Next, the doctrine of Causality, causality as functional interdependence of every element upon all the others, not as production of something out of other things; this doctrine so characteristic of Buddhism from its beginning, is not only retained in the new Buddhism, but it is declared to be the foundation-stone of the whole edifice.
However, its meaning was slightly changed.
In primitive Buddhism all elements are interdependent and real, in the new Buddhism, in accordance with the new definition of reality, they are unreal because interdependent.
Of the principle of "Interdependent Origination" the first part is emphasized, the second is dropped altogether.
From the point of view of ultimate reality the universe is one motionless whole where nothing originates and nothing disappears. The elements do not flash into existence for a moment only as the early Buddhists think. There is no origination altogether.
This is the second feature of the new Buddhism, it repudiates real causality altogether by merging reality in one motionless Whole.
However, the new Buddhism did not repudiate the reality of the empirical world absolutely, it only maintained that the empirical reality was not the ultimate one. There were thus two realities, one on the surface, the other under the surface. One is the illusive aspect of reality, the other is reality as it ultimately is. These two realities or two truths superseded in the new Buddhism the four truths of the early doctrine.
A further feature of the new Buddhism was the doctrine of complete equipollency (logical equivalence ) between the empirical world and the Absolute; between Samsara and Nirvana. All elements which were in early Buddhism dormant only in Nirvana, but active energies in ordinary life, were declared to be eternally dormant; their activities only an illusion.
Since the empirical world is thus only an illusory appearance under which the Absolute manifests itself to the limited comprehension of ordinary men, there is at the bottom no substantial difference between them. The absolute, or Nirvana is nothing but the world viewed "sub specie aeternitatis".
Nor can this aspect of the absolutely Real be cognized through the ordinary means of empirical condition. The methods and results of discursive thought are therefore condemned as quite useless for the cognition of the absolute.
Therefore all logic as well as all constructions of early Buddhism, its Buddhology, its Nirvana, its four truths etc. are unflichingly condemnned as spurious and contradictory constructions. The only true knowledge is the mystic intuition of the Saint and the revelation of the new Buddhist Scriptures, in which the monistic view of the universe is the unique subject.
As for its forms of worship it made borrowings in the current, thaumaturgic, so called tantristic rites.
The Immaculate Wisdom of the Saint became, under the name of the Climax of Wisdom, identified with one aspect of Buddha's Cosmical Body, (his other aspect being the world sub specie aeternitatis). Buddha ceased to be human. Under the name of his "Body of Highest Bliss," he became a real God (but not the creator of the world).
He was still subject to the law of causation or, according to the new interpretation, to illusion. Only the Cosmical Body, in its twofold aspect was beyond illusion and causation. Buddhism in this period becomes a religion, a High Church.
This is an outstanding feature of the new Buddhism; its merciless condemnation of all logic, and the predominance given to mysticism and revelation.
THIRD PERIOD OF BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY
Bahya-artha-sunyata
Gupta era (roughly 4th - 5th century CE)
Chandragupta II "Vikramaditya"
IDEALISM
During the golden age of Indian civilization, when a great part of India was united under the prosperous rule of the national dynasty of the Guptas, the Buddhists took a prominent part in the revival of this era. A new direction was given to Buddhist philosophy. In accordance with the spirit of the new age, the condemnation of all logic, which characterized the preceding period, was forsaken, and Buddhists began to take a very keen interest in logical problems; which towards the end of the period becomes overwhelming and supersedes all the former theoretical part of Buddhism.
The starting point of the new departure seems to have been something in the kind of an Indian "Cogito, ergo sum".
We cannot deny the validity of Introspection, the Buddhists now declared, as against the school of total Illusionism, because, if we deny introspection, we must deny consciousness itself, the whole universe will then be reduced to the condition of absolute cecity.
The problem of Introspection afterwards divided all India as well as the Buddhists into two camps.
A further feature, a feature which gave its stamp to the whole period, consisted in the fact that the skepticism of the preceding period was fully maintained, regarding the existence of an external world.
Buddhism became idealistic.
It maintained that all existence is necessarily mental and that our ideas have no support in a corresponding external reality.
Ideas were divided in absolutely fanciful, relatively real and absolutely real. The second and the third category were considered as real. Two realities were admitted, the relatively and the absolutely real, whereas, in the preceding period, all ideas were declared to be unreal, because they were relative.
This is the third feature of the last phase of Buddhist philosophy; it became a system of Idealism.
Finally, a prominent feature of the last phase of the new Buddhism is also its theory of a store-house consciousness, a theory which is predominant in the first half of the period and dropped towards its end.
There being no external world and no cognition apprehending it, but only a cognition which is introspective, which apprehends, so to say, its own self, the Universe, the real world, was assumed to consist of an infinity of possible ideas which lay dormant in a storehouse of consciousness.
Reality becomes then cogitability, and the Universe is only the maximum of compossible reality. A Biotic Force was assumed as a necessary complement to the stored consciousness, a force which pushes into efficient existence the series of facts constituting actual reality. Just as the rationalists in Europe assumed that an infinity of possible things are included in God's Intellect and that he chooses and gives reality to those of them which together constitute the maximum of compossible reality, just so was it in Buddhism, with that difference that God's Intellect was replaced by a store-house consciousness and his will by a Biotic Force.
This is the last outstanding feature of the concluding phase of Buddhist philosophy.
_____________
If we consider the last two periods of Bhuddist philosophy as an excursus; as a deflection from the original message of the Buddha; then we must summarize again the proper message that was given in the beginning.
But before that, we should replace early Budhhism in the context of the spirit of the age.
Buddhism did encounter the Indian Materialists (Carvaka-Barhaspatya,) the Jains with their doctrine of universal animation, the evolutionism of Samkhya, as well as Yoga.
The Materialists admitted no other source of knowledge than sense-perception, no a priori, no binding and no eternal moral law (only the penal code (the Law) was of any interest. They denied every established order in the universe, other than haphazard order. In other words, they denied the law of Karma. They denied also Nirvana. The idea of any kind of sacrifice for a higher aim seemed ridiculous to them. Materialism was mostly found in the political sphere.
The ontology of the Jains contained many traits of similarity with Buddhism. The starting point of both systems is the same, it consists in a decisive opposition to the monism of the Aranyakas and the Upanishads; where real Being is assumed as one eternal substance without beginning, change, or end.
The Jains answered, just as the Buddhists, that Being is joined to production, continuation and destruction (birth, life and death).
In its classical form the Samkhya system assumed the existence of a plurality of individual pervasive Selves on the one side, and of a unique, distinct and substantial Matter on the other. This Matter is supposed to begin by an undifferentiated condition of equipoise and rest. Then an evolutionary process is started. Matter is then never at rest, always changing, changing every minute, but finally it again reverts to a condition of rest and equipoise. This Matter embraces not only the human body, but all our mental states as well, they are given a materialistic origin and essence.
The Buddhists in the idea of an eternal Matter which is never at rest, come very near to the Samkhyas, for they also were teaching that, whatsoever exists, is never at rest. Buddha had predominately been taught by samkhya philosophers, in the latter part of his instruction, before he became enlightened.
The major difference of the two schools reside in the fact that Bhudda considered that the Self (the Purusha of the Samkhya) could not become free from qualities as long as it is was not released from number and the rest; from all qualities.
The yoga practices of concentrated meditation were a very popular feature of religious life in ancient India and all systems of philosophy. Their moral teachings, the theory of karma, of the defiling and purifying moral forces are indeed in many points similar.
The old Yoga school, the Svayambhuva-yoga (added note: Sramana like?), admitted the existence of a permanent matter alongside with its impermanent but real qualities; it admitted the reality of a substance-to-quality relation and, evidently, all the consequences which this fundamental principle must have had for its ontology, psychology and theology. It enabled the different Yogas to be the champions of monotheism in ancient India. They believed in a personal, allmighty, omniscient and commiserative God. This feature alone separates them decidedly from not only the Buddhists, but equaly from the atheistic Samkhyas.
Its practical mysticism and its theory of karma constituted the common stock of the great majority of Indian systems; Bhuddism included in a sort of way.
FIRST PERIOD OF BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY.
Pudgala-sunyata
PLURALISM
So what was Buddhism at its beginning?
As we have seen before:
- It was the ideal of a human Buddha who disappears completely in a lifeless Nirvana.
- An egoistic ideal of a personal Salvation.
- A radical Pluralism.
- The physical and mental elements established by this pluralism, being real interrelated elements, or cooperating forces.
- A classification of these elements into five groups (skandha), twelve bases of our cognition (dyatana) and eighteen component parts of individual lives (dhatu).
- An ultimate reality of these elements.
- And Causality as the functional interdependence of every element upon all the others; and not as the production of something out of other things.
At the time of Buddha, India was seething with philosophic speculation and thirsty of the ideal of Final Deliverance. Buddhism started with a very minute analysis of the human Personality, into the elements of which it is composed.
The leading idea of this analysis was a moral one. The elements of a personality were, first of all, divided into good and bad, purifying and defiling, propitious to salvation and averse to it. The whole doctrine was called a doctrine of defilement and purification.
Salvation was imagined and cherished as a state of absolute quiescence. Therefore life, ordinary life, was considered as a condition of degradation and misery. Thus the purifying elements were those moral features, or forces, that led to quiescence; the defiling ones, those that led to, and encouraged the turmoil of life.
Therefore, the so called personality, (body and mind, in relation with themselves and the external things - which form the Ego of the Samkhya) consists of a congeries, an aggregate of ever changing elements, of a flow of them, without any perdurable and stable element at all. The physical elements are just as changing, impermanent and flowing, as the mental is found to be.
Every element, although appearing for a moment, was a dependency originating element. According to the formula this being, that arises it appeared in conformity with strict causal laws. The idea of moral causation, or retribution, the main interest of the system, was thus receiving a broad philosophic foundation in a general theory of Causality.
The mental elements were naturally moral, immoral or neutral forces. The elements of matter were imagined as something capable to appear as if it were matter, rather than matter in itself; but always real. Since the energies never worked in isolation, but always in mutual interdependence according to causal laws, they were called synergies or cooperators. Thus it is that the analysis of early Buddhism discovered a world consisting of a flow of innumerable particulars, consisting on the one side of what we see, what we hear, what we smell, what we taste and what we touch; and on the other side — of simple awareness accompanied by feelings, ideas, volitions, whether good volitions or bad ones.
The port of destination was Salvation in the sense of eternal Quiescence of every vestige of life; the absolutely inactive condition of the Universe, where all elements or all synergies will loose there force of energy and will become eternally quiescent. The ontological analysis had no other aim than to investigate the conditions of their activity, to devise a method of reducing and stopping that activity, and so to approach and enter into the state of absolute Quiescence, or Nirvana. It was carried in order to clear the ground for a theory of the Path towards Moral Perfection and Final Deliverance, to the perfection of the Saint and to the absolute condition of a Buddha.
The unsystematized speculation of the Upanishads (Brahmans) and the popular sects' mystic and magical practices of concentrated meditation, which confered upon the meditator extraordinary powers and converted him into a superman (Shramans,) was replaced by the systematized philosophy of the Samkhyans, and brought forth to the greatest possible degree by the Bhuddists; arranging the former and discarding the later.
The teaching of the Buddha was summarized in the formula of the so called four truths or four principles; namely:
1) life is a disquieting struggle,
2) its origin are evil passions,
3) eternal Quiescence is the final goal and
4) there is a Path where all the energies cooperating in the formation of life become gradually extinct and where freedom lies.
-Buddhist logic, Th. F. Stcherbatsky
My sutta references and points from
another post are relevant here, too with a few additions (note: below, when quotes are compared, the ones that lack an author, and only say "Ud" "MN", "SN", followed by a number as their source are from the Pali Canon and attributed to the Buddha or otherwise seen as his direct teachings or Buddhavacana. I realized I only put "The Buddha" on one, and left the rest just as sutta references, while putting "Nagarjuna" on all quotes attributed to Nagarjuna. I was about to add "The Buddha" to all sutta quotes, but thought that may be confusing as some involve multiple speakers.):
This sutta is relevant, too, which conclusively defines the position articulated (and then denied as a position) by Nagarjuna and the Madhyamaka school and the Yogacara school, as wrong view:
And what is wrong view? 'There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed. There is no fruit or result of good or bad actions. There is no this world, no next world, no mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings; no contemplatives or brahmans who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.' This is wrong view.
-MN 117
The Madhyamaka position is precisely this.
there is nothing that arises
-Nagarjuna, Sixty Stanzas, verse 21
Both samsara and nirvana,
Neither of these two exists;
The thorough understanding of cyclic existence
This is referred to as "nirvana"
-Nagarjuna, ibid, verse 6
The Third Discourse about Nibbāna
thus i heard: At one time the Gracious One was dwelling near Sāvatthī, in Jeta’s Wood, at Anāthapiṇḍika’s monastery. Then at that time the Gracious One was instructing, rousing, enthusing, and cheering the monks with a Dhamma talk connected with Emancipation. Those monks, after making it their goal, applying their minds, considering it with all their mind, were listening to Dhamma with an attentive ear.
Then the Gracious One, having understood the significance of it, on that occasion uttered this exalted utterance:
“There is, monks, an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned. If, monks there were not that unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, you could not know an escape here from the born, become, made, and conditioned. But because there is an unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, therefore you do know an escape from the born, become, made, and conditioned.”
-Ud 8.3
From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. Long have you thus experienced stress, experienced pain, experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries — enough to become disenchanted with all fabricated things, enough to become dispassionate, enough to be released."
-SN 15.3
Those who imputes arising and disintegration
With relation to conditioned things,
They do not understand well the movement
Of the wheel of dependent origination
Nagarjuna, ibid, verse 18
I directly knew form, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation. I directly knew feeling … perception … volitional formations … consciousness, its origin, its cessation, and the way leading to its cessation.
-The Buddha SN 22.56
“‘The ascetic Gotama has the three knowledges.’ Answering like this you would repeat what I have said, and not misrepresent me with an untruth. You would explain in line with my teaching, and there would be no legitimate grounds for rebuke and criticism.
For, Vaccha, whenever I want, I recollect my many kinds of past lives. That is: one, two, three, four, five, ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand rebirths; many eons of the world contracting, many eons of the world expanding, many eons of the world contracting and expanding. I remember: ‘There, I was named this, my clan was that, I looked like this, and that was my food. This was how I felt pleasure and pain, and that was how my life ended. When I passed away from that place I was reborn somewhere else. There, too, I was named this, my clan was that, I looked like this, and that was my food. This was how I felt pleasure and pain, and that was how my life ended. When I passed away from that place I was reborn here.’ And so I recollect my many kinds of past lives, with features and details.
And whenever I want, with clairvoyance that is purified and superhuman, I see sentient beings passing away and being reborn—inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, in a good place or a bad place. I understand how sentient beings are reborn according to their deeds.
And I have realized the undefiled freedom of heart and freedom by wisdom in this very life. I live having realized it with my own insight due to the ending of defilements.
‘The ascetic Gotama has the three knowledges.’ Answering like this you would repeat what I have said, and not misrepresent me with an untruth. You would explain in line with my teaching, and there would be no legitimate grounds for rebuke and criticism.”
-MN 71
This is transcendence of sorrow
In this very life and one’s task is complete;
If, after the knowledge of truth,
Differentiations occur here,
And even with respect to most subtle things
One imputes originations,
Such an utterly unskilled person does not see
The meaning of conditioned origination.
-Nagarjuna, ibid, verse 11-12
So, by this, the Buddha is (incorrectly implied by a slanderer to be) unskilled, as the Buddha had knowledge of truth, and continued to impute originations, and, in fact, invented conditioned origination:
And what is the origin of the body? The body originates from food. When food ceases, the body ends.
Feelings originate from contact. When contact ceases, feelings end.
The mind originates from name and form. When name and form cease, the mind ends.
Principles originate from attention. When focus ends, principles end.”
-SN 47.42
In fact, the Buddha "imputed origination" thousands of times, and taught all of the things Nagarjuna says are only taught by the deluded.
The original Yogacara position is exactly this, while holding that there is such a thing as mind. Their position being in agreement with the above, that there is no such thing as this world, the next, mother, father, beings, etc. as it's all imaginary, a hallucination, yet holding that the mind does exist. So out of the thousands of things the Buddha taught, denying which is wrong view, they denied all but one; mind. And mind alone cannot even exist per the suttas, the mind being a dependent phenomena (DN 15 and others), and things like eye consciousness being dependent on external forms (SN 35.93, MN 28, and many others), so their system utterly falls apart here as well.
The later Yogacara position is after a merging with Madhyamaka, after which they declared the mind as non existent as well, and so this sutta utterly refutes them as well.
I'm going to quit now. I realized that examples of where the Buddha says exactly what Nagarjuna said is incorrect are in the thousands, and so producing them would fill up hundreds of pages.
Suffice it to say, Nagarjuna was taking the Ajnana position and refuting literally everything, while refusing to put forth a position of his own. The Buddha did not in any way teach this as correct, nor did he teach in this manner, rather quite the polar opposite.
They were specialized in refutation without propagating any positive doctrine of their own.
-wiki page on Ajnana
Nāgārjuna is famous for arguing that his philosophy was not a view, and that he in fact did not take any position (paksa) or thesis (pratijña) whatsoever since this would just be another form of clinging to some form of existence.[77][64] In his Vigrahavyavartani, Nāgārjuna states:
If I had any position, I thereby would be at fault. Since I have no position, I am not at fault at all. If there were anything to be observed through direct perception and the other instances [of valid cognition], it would be something to be established or rejected. However, since no such thing exists, I cannot be criticized.[78]
Likewise in his Sixty Stanzas on Reasoning, Nāgārjuna says: "By taking any standpoint whatsoever, you will be snatched by the cunning snakes of the afflictions. Those whose minds have no standpoint, will not be caught." [79] Randall Collins states that for Nāgārjuna, ultimate reality is simply the idea that "no concepts are intelligible", while Ferrer notes that Nagarjuna criticized those whose mind held any "positions and beliefs", including the view of emptiness, as Nāgārjuna says: "The Victorious Ones have announced that emptiness is the relinquishing of all views. Those who are possessed of the view of emptiness are said to be incorrigible."[80][81] Aryadeva echoes this idea in his Four Hundred Verses:
"First, one puts an end to what is not meritorious. In the middle, one puts an end to identity. Later, one puts an end to all views. Those who understand this are skilled."[82]
-Wikipedia page on Madhyamaka
And to anyone who thinks I misunderstand Nagarjuna, please read the above. If you understand Nagarjuna, then you misunderstand him. To understand is to take a position, to hold a view, and, per Nagarjuna, to be incorrigible. Nagarjuna has caught you in the Ajnana trap, and see DN 1 for the sutta position on Ajnana. If you think you understand emptiness as the correct view of the dhamma, as taught by Nagarjuna, even that is incorrigible. You cannot use Nagarjuna to win any argument, other than by refutation and then refraining from presenting your own view or position. It is pure Ajnana.
That said, there is nothing wrong with Ajnana outside of a Buddhist context! From the perspective of the Pyrrhonists, this method leads one to their own type of freedom from suffering, eudaimonia. So surely Nagarjuna's teaching can lead to great peace. From a strict Mahayana perspective, as well, relying on their sutras, which are not found in the Pali Canon, this teaching is perfectly sound, ditto for Yogacara and whatever other later schools developed. I am refuting these positions purely from the perspective of the suttas.
Assume all of my words on dhamma could be incorrect. Seek an arahant for truth.
"If we base ourselves on the Pali Nikayas, then we should be compelled to conclude that Buddhism is realistic. There is no explicit denial anywhere of the external world. Nor is there any positive evidence to show that the world is mind-made or simply a projection of subjective thoughts. That Buddhism recognizes the extra-mental existence of matter and the external world is clearly suggested by the texts. Throughout the discourses it is the language of realism that one encounters.
-Y. Karunadasa
