How is Consciousness (rnam shes) Related to Wisdom (ye shes)? The Eighth Karma pa on Buddhist Differentiation and Unity Models of Reality (part II)
How is Consciousness (rnam shes) Related to Wisdom (ye shes)? The Eighth Karma pa on Buddhist Differentiation and Unity Models of Reality (part II)

Summary/Abstract: This study (published in two successive articles) examines how Mi bskyod rdo rje (1507‒1554), the Eighth Karma pa of the Karma Bka' brgyud lineage, articulates and defends a key distinction between consciousness (rnam shes) and wisdom (ye shes). The first article outlined the author’s clarification of the distinction both as an accurate account of the nature and structure of human consciousness and as an indispensable principle of Buddhist soteriology. He argued that human beings have two “concurrent but nonconvergent” modes of awareness, conditioned and unconditioned. The second article – part two – focuses on the author’s vindication and further clarifications of the distinction between consciousness and wisdom in response to certain rival Tibetan views which in his view has tended to elide their differences and thus confuse the ever-present ground and goal of the Buddhist path (innate wisdom) with what has to be abandoned along the way (adventitious consciousness).

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