The 'Thirty Verses' or 'Treatise on the Thirty Verses on No More Nor Less than Representation Only' by Vasubandhu (316 - 396), is a succinct and concentrated set of thirty verses crucial to the Yog
This book is about emptiness, the core of the Buddhayana, the 'vehicle' of the Buddha. Shunyata is the noun form of the adjective 'shunya', meaning 'void, zero, nothing and empty', from the root 'shvi', or 'hollow'. But emptiness does not mean 'nothing', and instead refers to the absence of something, to the fact an object has been negated. What is found wanting ? A certain common way of existence entertained by most of us ... This book gives body to my intent to help understand emptiness clearly and distinctly, so its salvic power may benefit as many as possible. This is directly related to the fact that common Emptiness Meditation clears emotional and mental afflictions, whereas 'seeing' emptiness is a nondual state of mind, fostering nondual perception, thought and action.These aspects of the awake mind lack substance-obsession, heal the obscurations and end the conflicts resulting from a lack of actions uprooting suffering.
This book offers translations of the 'Yoga Sūtra' of Patañjali in English, French and Dutch, as well as a commentary from the perspective of a practicing Buddhist. The 'Yoga Sūtra' of Patañjali is a remarkable short text of about 1200 words, codifying the best yoga practices in 195 Sanskrit aphorisms. Yoga became one of the six schools of Hindu philosophy. In contrast to Jainism and Buddhism, it always kept close to the 'Vedas'. These crucial scriptures speak of three paths to freedom from ignorance and the suffering it brings: Ritual, Mystical Devotion and Yoga. The 'Yoga Sūtra' of Patañjali turned Hindu Yoga systematic and close to direct yogic experience. Besides a critique of the eternal substances of seer (the self) and seen (Nature), the commentary also identifies correspondences between Jhāna Yoga and the various types of union (samādhi) mentioned by Patañjali and compares constraint (the application of concentration, contemplation and union) with the Nine Stages of Calm Abiding.
This book offers an organised summary of my philosophy of the transpersonal, referring to experiences, processes, and events transcending the egology of the coarse mind and involving a sense of connection to, or participation with, a larger, more meaningful existence transforming consciousness. In the past, transpersonal philosophy developed Perennial, Empiricist and Participatory models to explain the holotropic, or altered states of consciousness calling for wholeness. This book integrates these views to accommodate a critical model, encompassing Criticism, Process Philosophy, Piaget's Genetic Epistemology, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, the Eastern Chakra system, the Qabalah, Psychedelica and Depth Psychology, in casu Assagioli's Psychosynthesis. The distinction between self-actualization (the vision of totality) and self-realization (mystical experience touching the infinite) is pertinent and informs this critical and eclectic transpersonal philosophy.
The 'Book of Lemmas' presents the outlines of an immanent and transcendent metaphysics. The latter is introduced by a survey of epistemology, in particular criticism, demarcating between valid and invalid propositions and between science and metaphysics. Immanent metaphysics does not move beyond the limitations of conceptual reason and is a heuristic of science. The ontological principal of the proposed process-ontology is the actual occasion, defined by its two state vectors: material efficiency and scalar finality (information and consciousness).
English translation of the 'Maxims of Good Discourse', an ancient Egyptian text written over 4000 years ago by a wise vizier called Ptahhotep. It is in the format of a deliberate instruction given by a father to his (spiritual) son, enabling the latter, by way of right speech, to live the good life, the outcome of not interrupting the moment of the heart, offending one's vital energy (Ka). In 'The Egyptian Gentleman' (2017), a commentary on this extraordinary text is available.
In 1628 or perhaps a few years earlier, the rationalist Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650) began work on a treatise, left unfinished, regarding the correct method for scientific and philosophical thinking, entitled: 'Regulae ad directionem ingenii', or 'Rules for the Direction of the Mind'. To honor his effort, this little book brings together hundred rules covering the game of knowing. This sport, played by scientists and philosophers alike, intends to gather novel conceptual knowledge (context of discovery) valid pro tem (context of justification).
This book offers a commentary on the 'Maxims of Good Discourse', an exceptional text from Ancient Egypt's Old Kingdom (ca. 2670 - 2205 BCE), written over 4000 years ago by a man called Ptahhotep. By way of a deliberate instruction given by a father to his (spiritual) son, it enables the latter, by way of good discourse, to live the good life, the outcome of not interrupting the moment of the heart, offending one's vital energy (Ka). Such an excellent son, an Egyptian gentleman during life, will be a justified deceased in the afterlife. To the British, a 'Gentleman' is modest, well-mannered, self-deprecating, quietly intelligent, considerate of other people's feeling, well-informed, and never vulgar, inflated, vain, boastful, noisily ignorant, sleazy or common. So too in Egypt. The 'Maxims' describe a special kind of discourse, one leading to a happy life. This by engaging in proper thoughts, speech and actions. Morality is rooted in thought (heart) and speech (the right or wrong use of the tongue).