In current discourse, the level of meditative practice as commonly understood in the complex system of Mahāyāna Buddhism is mistakenly reduced to being just a psychology, no longer attaining its deeper original soteriological goals. The Mahāyāna meditation, especially when cultivating śamatha (calm-abiding) and vipaśyanā (insight) in a harmonious and balanced way provides an enriched integrated path which subtly binds the material of deep inner peace to complete liberation. Drawing on a wide variety of classical and nuanced Indian philosophical sources of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra philosophy, as well as modern scholarly interpretations, the study demonstrates that inner peace in Mahāyāna Buddhism cannot be considered final — it certainly is not a mere by-product — but rather an epistemic and ethical necessity to achieve liberative insight. By investigating the dynamic reciprocity by which tranquility and wisdom are seen to condition each other within this Bodhisattva meditation program, the paper makes an important and timely contribution to the current robust discussion taking place in both Buddhist studies and contemplative research on the complex interconnections of meditation, cognition, ethics, and metaphysical experience as envisaged representing liberation itself.
TRANG et al. (Thu,) studied this question.