How do Mahayana Buddhists perceive the world? One Mahayana Buddhist said, &quot;we act as if each person has his or her own consciousness, sensation, and thoughts.&quot;

Does everyone Mahayana Buddhist believe that he lives in a world in which all people have their own consciousness, sensations, and thoughts?
Following the Buddha, we act as if each person each person has his or her own consciousness, sensation, and thoughts. We encourage each person to become fully aware of his or her own sensations (both physical and emotional), impulses, feelings, and thoughts. This awareness, combined with diligent, common-sense effort to stop doing things that create suffering and do and improve thoughts, actions, and feelings that create healthy vitality, joyful works, and peace of mind in action and stillness lead to Awakening.
But we do not engage in philosophical speculation or take philosophical stances. The question, as stated, is not accurate because it would imply that Mahayana Buddhism holds an individualist philosophy.
We invite each and every individual to stop creating suffering and confusion, to cut off the roots of harm and evil. We do these efforts ourselves and share the work with others. We realize that, functionally, each person has awareness and makes choices. But we do not assert ideas about the meaning of words like, “person,” “people,” or “self.”

This means that every Mahayana Buddhist believes that he lives in a world in which all people do not have consciousness, sensation and emotion and he thinks that all other people are just a projection of his mind, but he treats them as conscious sentient beings?
Thank you.
Buddhist doctrine includes the idea of a &quot;middle way between extremes&quot; -- which is used in various contexts. In general one meaning of &quot;middle way&quot; is, &quot;neither extreme&quot;, or, &quot;avoiding to the two extremes&quot;. And philosophically or logically, I see it as meaning to beware of dilemmas or false dichotomies.
I think that the question (to which that quote is a reply) is slightly tricky to answer, and wants a careful answer. It's tricky because it invites &quot;extreme&quot; answers, e.g. either &quot;yes&quot; or &quot;no&quot;.
But the two extreme answers are possibly too extreme -- either might be untrue, or have harmful consequence.
And so the quote is trying to provide a careful answer which is neither exactly &quot;yes&quot; nor &quot;no&quot; (not careful enough perhaps, if you didn't understand the answer; but it may require a lengthy explanation).
I think there are several fundamentals of Buddhist doctrine which are important to understand. If I can invent a simile, these fundamentals are like rocks -- and the answer is like a ship, which must steer a course which takes into account and doesn't hit (doesn't contradict) any of these rocks.

Non-self
One of the fundamental elements of doctrine is &quot;non-self&quot;. That means (very briefly) that there's nothing which deserves to be called &quot;myself&quot;, furthermore that a &quot;self-view&quot; (e.g. &quot;this is I, this is me, this is mine&quot;) is a dissatisfactory view and gives rise to suffering.
Examples of self-views being an occasion for suffering include, &quot;I am sick&quot;, &quot;I am healthy now but I will be sick&quot;, &quot;I want something I don't have&quot;, &quot;I want to keep something I can't keep&quot;, &quot;I'm better than you are&quot;, &quot;I'm not as good as you are&quot;, and so on.
There's a simile here (not Mahayana but perhaps all forms of Buddhism agree on this kind of topic):

Suppose a dog on a leash was tethered to a strong post or pillar. Whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, it stays right beside that post or pillar.
In the same way, an uneducated ordinary person regards form like this: ‘This is mine, I am this, this is my self.’ They regard feeling … perception … choices … consciousness like this: ‘This is mine, I am this, this is my self.’ When walking, they walk right beside the five grasping aggregates. When standing … sitting … lying down, they lie down right beside the five grasping aggregates.

I'm not sure what solipsism is, something like &quot;I exist and you don't&quot;, or, &quot;I'm sure I exist and I don't know about you&quot;. And I think that those views are not Buddhist doctrine for various reasons, and one of those reasons is the &quot;non-self&quot; doctrine.
I don't know if Descartes' &quot;I think therefore I am&quot; might be an example of solipsism. I think that according to Buddhism, proving that oneself exists is just reinforcing an unfortunate view. Possibly a more accurate formulation is, &quot;A thought is perceived which gives rise to a (perhaps transient) sense of self&quot;.
Also classical grammar (a.k.a. &quot;logic&quot;) implies nouns and subjects -- &quot;If a thought is perceived therefore a 'thinker' exists&quot;. This isn't necessarily true -- &quot;unicorns&quot; don't &quot;really&quot; exist even though there are words that describe them; and some languages (e.g. Chinese) aren't as strict as Western languages at requiring subjects and nouns in every sentence.

Emptiness
There's a doctrine of &quot;emptiness&quot; which I feel I ought to mention if only because it's one of the more specifically Mahayana doctrines.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think its method is to look at the components of a thing -- to observe that what one might have thought was &quot;a thing&quot; is just a collection of other things -- and its purpose is to see things as they really are and perhaps to not get too infatuated with or attached to things (because attachment is associated with suffering), and to &quot;unbind&quot;.
Like, I don't know, &quot;I think therefore I am&quot; is just a thought, a transient thought -- and not an especially worthy thought in my opinion, and contrary to Buddhist doctrine which recommends against self-views.
I think the practice of emptiness applies to everything -- to things you're attracted to or may be addicted to; to things you dislike; even to mental states (not &quot;things&quot; at all) for example anger etc.
So perhaps that's a reason NOT to say dogmatically &quot;I exist&quot; or &quot;other people exist&quot; -- because the non-self and emptiness doctrines are seen as beneficial, and as true or axiomatic. And so you get the circumlocution in the quote, i.e. &quot;'we act as if' each person...&quot;.

Nihilism
It's explicitly wrong (a so-called wrong view) to interpret &quot;emptiness&quot; as &quot;nothing&quot;.

And what is wrong view? 'There is nothing given, nothing offered, nothing sacrificed. There is no fruit or result of good or bad actions. There is no this world, no next world, no mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings; no brahmans or contemplatives who, faring rightly &amp; practicing rightly, proclaim this world &amp; the next after having directly known &amp; realized it for themselves.' This is wrong view...

Instead we're taught there is, if not exactly &quot;good and bad&quot;, and least &quot;skilful and unskilful&quot;, &quot;suffering and non-suffering&quot;, and &quot;consequences of actions&quot;.
That's another explanation or reason for, &quot;We act as if ...&quot;.

Sentient beings
There's a concept of &quot;sentient beings&quot; in Buddhism, which might be more central to Mahayana Buddhism, which I don't know so much about. According to me that term has two meanings.

One is that it refers to, broadly, anyone with feelings. So includes all people, and also animals (and possibly beings of other worlds too, including gods and ghosts). A characteristic of a sentient being is that they're able to feel hurt (able to suffer), and as good Buddhists it's our duty and desire to at least avoid inflicting hurt (with what's called in the West &quot;the Golden Rule&quot; in its &quot;negative or prohibitive form&quot; i.e. &quot;Do not treat others in ways that you would not like to be treated &quot; being used as an argument).
Perhaps you'd agree that the quoted statement is better than its opposite, i.e. &quot;We DON'T act as if etc.&quot;, which might be sociopathic.
So if you're a sentient being for example then I don't want to kill you, steal from you, make you lose your family, nor lie to you -- that's basic ethical behaviour.

Another interpretation, and I don't know if this is a mainstream view, is that a &quot;sentient being&quot; is (whether by definition or axiomatically or evidently, I don't know) &quot;self-aware&quot; or having a &quot;self-view&quot;. Remembering what I wrote earlier, a self-view makes a being vulnerable to suffering: &quot;I hurt&quot;, &quot;I want&quot;, &quot;I have lost&quot;, etc.
With enlightenment perhaps &quot;self-views&quot; and the notion of being &quot;a being&quot; are discarded. See for example SN 5.10 where Vajira refuses to see herself as a being.
Incidentally this whole topic is described as a &quot;thicket&quot; that's not worth thinking about.
But that touches on your question again: perhaps a relatively &quot;enlightened&quot; being is not a &quot;sentient&quot; being in the usual sense, and being enlightened is relatively immune to any grief. EVEN SO I expect that most of us should probably act &quot;as if&quot; they were sentient, vulnerable.



Compassion
Compassion is important in Buddhism. Perhaps it's fundamental in Mahayana Buddhism.
It seems to me that compassion is an antidote to being self-centred (where, if you remember, being &quot;self-centred&quot; is a cause of suffering).
Compassion isn't &quot;pity&quot;, note: pity implies comparison, being better-off than someone else.


A lot of what I wrote here is -- due to my unfortunate ignorance of Mahayana -- based on (possibly earlier) suttas. Maybe that's alright, because the quote says &quot;Following the Buddha&quot; etc. implying the earlier doctrines (the buddha-vacana, &quot;words of the Buddha&quot;) are on-topic.
I'll conclude with a quote from the current Dalai Lama (who I suppose is as much an authority on Mahayana as anyone). There was a video where he says, I paraphrase, &quot;If I think of myself as special -- as &quot;His Holiness&quot; or a &quot;the Nobel Prize Winner&quot; -- then I'm trapped, imprisoned [in an identity-view]. Instead I see myself as being just like everyone else.&quot;
I think that's compatible or inline with the quote you asked about, and unrelated to solipsism.