Gradual and Sudden Enlightenment: The Attainment of yogipratyaks:a in the Later Indian Yogācāra School

Abstract In the later Indian Yogācāra school, yogipratyaks:a, the cognition of yogins is a key concept used to explain the Buddhist goal of enlightenment. It arises through the practice of meditation upon the Four Noble Truths. The method of the practice is to contemplate their aspects with attention (sādara), without interruption (nairantarya), and over a long period of time (dı̄rghakāla). A problem occurs in this position since Buddhists hold the theory of momentariness: how is possible that a yogin attains yogipratyaks:a even when everything arises and perishes moment by moment. It is not possible for the momentary mind to fix on the object. Neither is the intensification of the practice possible in a stream composed of cognitions different at each moment. To provide a solution of this problem, a renown eleventh century Buddhist logician, Jñānaśrı̄mitra, assures us that momentariness is incom-patible with duration (sthāyitā), but not with the occurrence of dissimilarity (visadr: śotpāda). Even if cognitions are momentary, the vividness of an object continues to intensify in the course of each preceding cognition-moment producing, in turn, its following moment. Jñānaśrı̄mitra discusses the attainment of yogiprat