I would recommend refocussing the discussion about Yogacara, Madhyamika and Advaita Vedanta. The thread was originally begun by Satya Upadhya, and, in a recent posting Satya asked one of his/her original questions again: upon what are some of us basing our conclusion that Yogacara/Vijnanavada is not a 100% idealistic school.

I feel that we should refocus the discussion a little more narrowly around Yogacara and idealism or one of the other subtopics within S. Upadhya's questions, as, otherwise, we will not make any real progress and the discussion will become too diffuse. The question concerning the idealistic nature of Yogacara seems to be a good starting point, as, from what I remember, the original central question was whether or not Advaita could be said to be influenced by the Yogacara and Sunyavada schools of Mahayana Buddhism and in what ways.

It seems to me that, before we can determine this, we have to establish agreed upon base definitions for all of these schools. Furthermore, in order to determine a base definition for Yogacara's thinking, we need to come up with a base working definition of idealism and realism. This is not entirely self evident.

My understanding of a 100% idealist standpoint is that, in this view, the external world would not exist at all; it is only the mental representations of the external world which would exist. I am not sure what would be the best modern definition of realism: perhaps someone else could help here?

I stated before that I am basing my conclusions concerning Yogacara's non idealistic content upon passages describing paratantra svabhava. Some of these passages come from the Samdhinirmocana, Mahayansutralamkara etc. I said this because certain passages concerning paratantra svabhava seem to indicate that paratantra is reality as it is, independent of the projections of the deluded mind (parikalpita svabhava).

Unfortunately, I am not at home so I cannot post the passages that I am referring to. But, it might be helpful if people began to pos the passages upon which they are basing their conclusions. I will do so when I return home, if people are still interested. If people are no longer interested in this thread, however, that's OK too.