Which ideas? There are many there, Great Responsiveness being the one Buddhist idea.
None of this is from an Idealist tradition — Great Responsiveness is esoteric Tibetan Buddhism, actually predating Buddhism as it originated in the Tibetan Bön tradition, and its core insights are not Idealist, but are unique in World Philosophy.
The rest are my arguments for why Great Responsiveness is a veridical description of reality, a practical model for understanding phenomena at every level, and a necessary paradigm for humanity to survive itself.
If you want to see proof that this isn’t Idealism, you have to read the book — it’s all here on Medium. Here are a few quotes to show just how explicitly the anti-Idealism is presented:
From the Foreword to the book:
An important point for my philosopher friends: while I use the word “mind” frequently, it is a messy affair because, before we undertake the effort to train our minds, we start with the understanding that we each have a mind — one that is personal and ours alone — and that is absolutely not the case. There is no single mind anywhere, and certainly not the multitude normally conceived of. You will find that we are troubled by our having conflated “our” perspective with a personal mind. “Mind” should be used as a verb, not a noun. This is a complex subject dealt with later in this book, but bear in mind that the constraints of philosophical Idealism (the idea that things only exist as ideas in the mind) do not hold because individual minds do not exist, and mind natures everything — thoughts, trees, rocks, and stars, and not simply as ideas in the mind (equating it with thought) but as actual manifestations. We are confused by these manifestations because we commonly see them as independently real things, not noticing that everything arises from the naturing that I call mind here.
And obviously, the fault of Physicalism — the idea that reality consists of separate material things organized by physical laws alone — cannot get between us.
From: “Inherent Versus Intrinsic: Two Ways to Shape Our Thoughts About Reality”
This is neither Idealism nor Realism — it is beyond the scope of both
From: “Awareness Is Unlike A Mirror”
Is this Idealism? No. There is no “mind” that is “minding the store” here. No “mind” creating fantasies, nor realities. Certainly no “mind” that is aware. And yet the word “mind” is so often used; but not to denote any actual thing that can be pointed to — it’s used simply to point you away from your foot, brain, and everything in between.
From: “Why Awareness Will Never Be Found”
But I have to ask: did you note my statement that the formal cognitive principle is all there is? And that it must be cognizant of the current inner state of all the noumena and each one’s possible subsequent states — and choose one? And, further, that this means that duration is cognitively active? This is not awareness, as it is dualistically defined. It is not the ability to be aware; it is the ability to manifest what appears. This is not even mind as commonly understood either. It is the intrinsic — to everything — formal generative naturing of all that appears. This activity is the cognitive activity that manifests the universe, and all that appears, i.e., manifests each vignette of the kNow. And it is not an entity, has no self, and is otherwise than any appearance it manifests. If you look for it, you will never find it, but if you stop looking for it, and empty your mind of silly ideas, you will one day suddenly realize that there is nothing other than this naturing.
From: “The Three Defects of Every Novel Paradigm for Reality Proposed Today”
A new paradigm cannot arise in the place of one already there. We can tweak what is integrated into our comprehension all we want, but the fundamental structuring of our thoughts, ideas, and experiences of the world will not stray far from that paradigm. For example, substituting idealism for physical realism, results only in an adjusted vocabulary in which ideas are presented as if they are real because they are causal, filling in for physical objects that were considered to be real. Even this last assertion will seem to be empty of meaning to one that hasn’t yet left the old paradigm behind, because “real” still has its old meaning, so what could that assertion be possibly saying? It’s saying the old conceptualization of “real” is the problem, not what is called real, which is ultimately just vocabulary.
This is simple to observe in the way that Mind, which is the necessary entity of idealism, even if it is not presented as personal, is not seen to require explication, but is held to be a fait accompli. But the only way to move to another paradigm is to completely empty the current authoritative paradigm — that structures one’s experiences and cognitive reasoning — of any validity at all. What seems obvious in the old paradigm, and perhaps ingenious in the new one, will never stray far from the present paradigm. This can only be accomplished by seeing through the unsubstantiated assumptions and unexplained faites accomplies of one’s existing paradigmatic understanding, and that, traditionally, is only possible by wielding profound meditative and contemplative practices that have been shown to be effective in accomplishing just that.
And you should read the immediately preceding one (“The Axiom of Great Responsiveness”) before this, because it says so much that is important to understand the current article.
And for fun, if you like Berkeley: “A Fourth Dialogue between Hylas & Philonous and Introducing Noeinus”
