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A standard analytic category in the study of religion

This page groups doctrines by how firmly they have been established over time. Wikipedia draws a comparison to law, noting that "doctrine may also refer to a principle of law, in the common-law traditions, established through a history of past decisions." Browsing by scholarly-standing lets a visitor tell a doctrine long settled by repeated ruling from one still freshly argued.

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Forty Two Doctrines Asking Whether There Is a Self Behind Experience

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Mind, Self and Emptiness gathers forty two doctrines addressing the same question from opposite ends: is there a self behind experience, and if so what is it.

Buddhist analysis answers no. Anatta denies any permanent self, finding on analysis only the five aggregates, each impermanent, and dependent origination explains how experience arises without a self behind it; anicca and dukkha are the companion marks, and sunyata generalises the denial to everything, empty of any self standing nature. Buddha-nature and the rangtong and shentong dispute over how strongly emptiness should be read sit closest to the tradition's harder edges, alongside Mahamudra and Dzogchen, whose defining claim is that awakening is already the ground; Dzogchen's own record states plainly that its advanced practice is esoteric and withholds its detail from general readers, a limit this entry keeps. Jhana and samadhi name the absorptions that train toward these recognitions, and satori and kensho name Zen's own breakthrough into them.

Hindu Vedanta answers the opposite way. Atman is a real self reached by neti neti, not this, stripping away everything that can be named, described at its height as turiya, the fourth state beyond waking, dreaming and sleep, and witnessed by sakshi, awareness never itself changed. Avidya names the misperception that hides this, and prakriti and purusha, matter and pure consciousness, supply Samkhya's own version of the same division. Jainism answers a third way, dividing all that exists into jiva and ajiva and insisting through anekantavada that any single account captures only one standpoint. Sufi fana, Hasidic bittul and the Dark Night of the Soul close the group as three traditions' own accounts of the self's dissolution before God.

A standard analytic category in the study of religion
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Ajiva

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Anatta

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Anekantavada

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Anicca

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Atman

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Avidya

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Bittul

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Bodhicitta

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Buddha-nature

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Dependent origination

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Devekut

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Dukkha

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Dzogchen

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Fana and baqa

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Hongaku (Original Enlightenment)

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

I and I

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Jhana

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Jiva

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Jot (Divine Light)

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Mahamudra

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Maqamat and Ahwal

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Neti Neti

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Nirvikalpa Samadhi

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Prakriti

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Purusha

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Rangtong and Shentong (Self-Emptiness and Other-Emptiness)

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Rigpa

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Sakshi

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Samadhi

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Satori and Kensho

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Savikalpa Samadhi

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Sunyata

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Syadvada

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

The Dark Night of the Soul

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

The Five Aggregates

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

The Six Sense Bases

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

The Three Gunas

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

The Three Marks of Existence

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

The Three Truths

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

The Two Truths

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Turiya

A standard analytic category in the study of religion

Unio Mystica

A standard analytic category in the study of religion
Sources
1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Tree
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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