Buddhist Philosophy of Mind

For centuries, Buddhists have been troubled by questions that are only recently becoming central to Western thought. Questions like, is this reality we live in actually real? How do we know, for example, that we are not characters in a video game, imprisoned in a cosmic simulation? Such questions are important for Buddhists because they believe a precise understanding of the nature of reality is crucial for spiritual liberation. The whole theory of answering these questions is known as pramāṇa, the Buddhist method for analyzing and discovering the mind. This lecture will examine the thoughts of some key Buddhist masters in the Indian and Tibetan traditions, which will allow us to better understand the Buddhist perspective of the mind and to think creatively about our lives and the world around us.