Nirvana Vs Abhidharma Buddhism

Abhidharma Buddhism believes that the sensory perception of an object truthfully exists as a real thing in the world. The Sautrantika Buddhists believe in momentariness where there are constant moments, but where causality does not exist. Sautrantika Buddhism is about a collective shared identity. It has a major emphasis on radical momentariness, which means that events have a momentary existence in the world. To that Sautrantika Buddhists, impermanence and change are the facts of out existence. Everything is changing from moment to moment. There is no unconditional phenomena, and the nirvana is an absence of a possible phenomena. The key differences between Abhidharma Buddhism and Sautrantika Buddhism is that of how objects are perceived,

The consciousness is like a blank canvas and is not smeared by external factors. The perception of this consciousness can grasp objects without facing any change on its own merit. It is unaffected by other projections or thoughts. (Bartley 31). This experience is unique to its own and cannot be altered, it is permanent. The Sautrantika Buddhists believe that a mental representation can be the support of another idea and the cause of that projection can be a whole new representation on its own: ideas can come from other ideas rather than from other things. (Bartley 43). For example, when it comes to the difference in perception, when we think that we see a chair, and the chair actually exists there, it corresponds to our idea of perception. However, what we actually see is this field of energy and we give form to the chair's existence by ourselves (ex. through linguistics). It is also possible that we can be sharing this fantasy simultaneously with others. The Sautrantika philosophy believes that the chair does not actually exist in reality, instead we form the existence of it on our own; there are no internal dharmas. (Bartley 48). The Sautrantika philosophy is radical about impermanence and change as they are the truths of our existence. To them what is factual is the occurring moment itself, and that is all that

All mental acts like memory and expectations have existent things outside of the mind. So if past and future events can be recognized, then they do indeed exist. Then those objects in the past and future are real. Further, we cannot escape the consequences of our past actions, which also means they are real. (Bartley 29) These dharmas exist because when there is an object, it is recognized by the mind, and when there is nothing there, then nothing can be recognized. The Abhidharma Buddhists recognize that good and bad actions exist because our past is recognized, otherwise there would be no such thing as good or bad, because we would not be able to compare it with anything. Bartley says that, “The exercise of efficacy when a dharma enters a causal complex is not a change in a dharma, but just that element’s manifesting what it permanently is.” (Bartley 30) This means whatever happens in the past, and the objects that existed along with the past, have become permanent with our cognition. There is no change between what occurs before and after. However the Sautrantika Buddhists disagree as it is all about impermanence; there is always change from moment to moment. To the Abhidharma, the atoms that compose an object are the real entities of existence, and the object itself is a form of those entities. So real entities from the past can form into objects in the future. Those entities might just exist