Overbey on Haynes and Sorensen, 'Wading Into the Stream of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Leslie Kawamura'

H-Buddhism Overbey on Haynes and Sorensen, 'Wading into the Stream of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Leslie Kawamura'

Review published on Wednesday, May 20, 2015

Sarah F. Haynes, Michelle J. Sorensen, eds. Wading into the Stream of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Leslie Kawamura. Contemporary Issues in Buddhist Studies Series. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2013. 380 pp. $45.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-886439-52-8.

Reviewed by Ryan Overbey Published on H-Buddhism (May, 2015) Commissioned by A. Charles Muller

Wading into the Stream of Wisdomis an impressive collection of essays by the students and colleagues of Reverend Dr. Leslie S. Kawamura (1935–2011), a key figure in the growth of Buddhist studies in North America. Born in Canada to a Jōdo Shinshū 浄土真宗 Buddhist family, Kawamura earned master’s degrees at Ryūkoku 龍谷 and Kyōto 京都, and pursued his doctorate under Herbert V. Guenther in Saskatchewan. In 1976, he entered the faculty of the University of Calgary, transforming the university into a center for Buddhist studies in Canada. This volume of fifteen essays will serve as an enduring testament to Kawamura’s legacy. The editors Sarah F. Haynes and Michelle J. Sorensen—both students of Kawamura—have organized the fifteen essays into four sections: “Ethics,” “Text Criticism,” “History,” and “Praxis.” These essays speak volumes about Kawamura’s academic range, and the valuable perspective he brought to Buddhist studies as a scholar- practitioner.

Part 1, “Ethics,” begins with Paul Williams’s “Can We Kill Illusory People? Some Philosophical Reflections on Bodhi[sattva]caryāvatāra 9:11–13ab.” Williams brilliantly explains some puzzling verses in the ninth chapter of theBodhicaryāvatāra . These verses were variously interpreted by Indian exegetes who “are not always clear what the argument actually is” (p. 4). Williams convincingly establishes which verses are Śāntideva’s and which are the opponent’s, giving the reader a much clearer sense of the argument. In the debate Śāntideva argues that common people view sentient beings (sattva) as real, but the yogin sees beings as illusory (māyāvat). The opponent retorts that if beings are unreal and their minds are unreal, then there can be no bad merit in crimes like murder. Śāntideva responds that the mind is not “unreal” in the strong sense of a mirage or a magically generated elephant—it is “unreal” in the weaker sense of being dependent on causes and conditions. Williams labels the strong sense of unreality an “A-type” illusion and the weak sense of unreality a “B-type” illusion, and rightly observes that much Buddhist philosophical discourse drifts back and forth across these very different senses of unreality. Williams is not content with simply recovering the nature of this old argument between Śāntideva and his interlocutor; he goes on to argue that the interlocutor is right and Śāntideva is wrong. Williams agrees with Śāntideva’s critic that there can be no A-type illusory sentient beings, because “an illusory sentient being is not a sentient being at all. Like an extremely sophisticated robot, perhaps, it may look exactly like the real thing but it does not have consciousness: subjective first-order presentations, an awareness of what it is like to, say, see X or feel Y” (p. 15). Williams also finds Śāntideva’s retort, that beings and their minds are weak B-type illusions, to be basically useless. His argument is phenomonological: “If a sentient being had sensations such as pain, then since pain simply cannot be illusory and if it occurs

Citation: H-Net Reviews. Overbey on Haynes and Sorensen, 'Wading into the Stream of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Leslie Kawamura'. H-Buddhism. 05-21-2015. https://networks.h-net.org/node/6060/reviews/70502/overbey-haynes-and-sorensen-wading-stream-wisdom-essays-honor-leslie Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-Buddhism it must exist with the fullest sort of existence such pain can have, it follows that the sentient being, inasmuch as it is the subject of pain, cannot be illusory either but must also exist with the fullest sort of existence a sentient being qua subject of pain can possibly possess” (p. 16). This is a provocative and insightful essay, and it clarifies how fundamental philosophy of mind is for engaging all sorts of Buddhist arguments. If, like Williams, one inhabits the qualia-saturated world of Thomas Nagel, then many Buddhist arguments will fall flat. If, on the other hand, one entertains the eliminativism of Daniel Dennett, Śāntideva’s argument becomes more plausible.

Martin T. Adam argues against consequentialist interpretations of Theravāda Buddhist ethics in “The Consequences of Consequentialism: Reflections on Recent Developments in the Study of Buddhist Ethics.” The essay begins with a provocative question: why is it that early Buddhists did not generate a “coherent ethical system, complete with axioms, definitions and ordered principles for determining the proper course of conduct” (p. 35)? The lack of any explicitly defined ethical theory has led scholars to dive into Buddhist texts in search of implicit underlying ethical models. Adam’s main interlocutor here is Charles Goodman, whose 2009 bookConsequences of Compassion: An Interpretation and Defense of Buddhist Ethics argues that Buddhist ethics is basically consequentialist. Adam’s argument is twofold. First, he argues that Goodman misreads evidence to find consequentialism where there is none. Next, Adam makes his own case, following Peter Harvey’s Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations, Values and Issues(2000), that what makes Buddhist action ethical is a combination of three factors: motivation, consequences, and contribution to soteriological goals. Adam concludes that it is precisely the soteriological orientation of early Buddhists that prevented them from trying to construct Western-style normative ethics.

In “Toward a Mahāyāna Phenomenology: Heidegger and Levinas,” Wing-cheuk Chan explores the tension between Heideggerian ontology and Levinasian ethics, and attempts to bridge the gap between these thinkers by appealing to what he calls “Mahāyāna phenomenology.” Chan takes up the important 1951 essay “L’ontologie est-elle fondamentale?” in which Emmanuel Levinas attacked the Heideggerian relation to the Other as a flawed attempt to reduce the encounter to a mere comprehension of Being, when in fact “the comprehension of the Other is inseparable from his or her invocation” (p. 54). Chan then goes into some detail unpacking the nuances of this complex debate, ultimately agreeing with Jacques Derrida that Levinas’s critique was “to a large extent a straw-man attack” (p. 59). But Chan finds much of value in Levinas, and engages in some Hegelian Aufhebung, attempting to synthesize Levinas and Martin Heidegger. For Chan the synthesis can be accomplished with “Mahāyāna,” defined here as dependent originationpratītyasamutpāda ( ), with a special emphasis on emptiness (śūnyatā), and the unity of wisdom (prajñā) and compassion (karuṇā). On this reading Heidegger stands in for wisdom and Levinas for compassion. Chan’s comparative moves are interesting, but they would be even more convincing had there been deeper engagement with Buddhist texts. “Mahāyāna” looms large in this essay but is represented by only a few citations: two from Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, one from Vasubandhu’s Mahāyānasaṃgrahabhāṣya, and one from the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśa. Chan’s engagement with Levinas and Heidegger is sustained and instructive, making the relative thinness of the Buddhist side all the more striking.

In part 2, “Text Criticism,” Eva K. Neumaier explores a fascinating religious biography in “Ngag- dbang tshe-ring: An Eighteenth-Century Yogi from Zanskar.” The chapter begins with a methodological reflection on biography in general and religious biography in particular. Neumaier takes inspiration from the psychoanalytic approach of Gananath Obeyesekere, who explored the “use

Citation: H-Net Reviews. Overbey on Haynes and Sorensen, 'Wading into the Stream of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Leslie Kawamura'. H-Buddhism. 05-21-2015. https://networks.h-net.org/node/6060/reviews/70502/overbey-haynes-and-sorensen-wading-stream-wisdom-essays-honor-leslie Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 2 H-Buddhism of public symbols in articulating personal traumata” (p. 76). This approach certainly fits the material well, but I was surprised to find no mention of Janet Gyatso’sApparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary(1999) in the methodological introduction. Entering into scholarly conversation with Gyatso surely would have been valuable, especially since Neumaier makes the claim that “Ngag-dbang tshe-ring’s biography approaches what is considered a ‘modern’ biography” (p. 77). Throughout the rest of the chapter, Neumaier draws from her anthropological, doctrinal, historical, and literary expertise to briefly outline and analyze this biography. Neumaier rightly concludes that a full translation of the biography “would provide us with a wealth of information not only about the making of a tantric and a yogi, but also about the sacred places still found in Zanskar and the history of the western Himalayas” (p. 92). I do hope Neumaier proceeds with this important work.

As the title suggests, Dan Lusthaus’s contribution, “Lü Cheng’s Chinese Translation of the Tibetan Version of Dignāga’sĀlambana-parīkṣā-vṛtti : An English Translation,” performs a feat of Buddhological transmission even more labyrinthine than Leo Pruden’s English translation of La Vallée Poussin’s French translation of the SanskritAbhidharmakośabhāṣya . Lǚ Chéng 呂澂 (1896–1989), an important student of Ōuyáng Jiàn 歐陽漸 (1871–1943), inherited his teacher’s enthusiasm for Yogācāra philosophy and for logic hetuvidyā( ). With his training in Sanskrit and Tibetan, Lǚ Chéng put the modern Chinese study of hetuvidyā on much firmer philological footing. In this chapter, Lusthaus not only lucidly translates Lǚ Chéng’s Chinese but also introduces the reader to the conceptual issues at stake in the Ālambanaparīkṣā. Especially useful is the short discussion of the various sorts of concepts (ālambana, viṣaya, ākāra, etc.) often translated as “object” in English. Lusthaus also includes a touching note about Kawamura’s involvement in the translation project.

In “Mahāmudrā Chöd? Rangjung Dorjé’s Commentary onThe Great Speech Chapter of Machik Labdrön,” Sorensen brilliantly explores the ways in which exegetes can work to appropriate and domesticate new religious ideas and practices. She investigates the innovative practice ofgcod (cutting) developed in the Great Speech Chapter, a work attributed to Ma gcig lab sgron (ca. 1055–1153). First Sorensen discusses Ma gcig’s reinterpretation ofbdud (“Māra,” translated by Sorensen as “Negative Forces”). Māras are usually considered to be demonic external agents, but Ma gcig reinterpreted them, claiming “the root of the Negative Forces is one’s own mind” (p. 131). For Ma gcig, Māra is everywhere that rational mental activity may be found; there are even Māras of the Path and Māras of the Result of the Path. Ma gcig’s system emphasizes the “cutting off” (gcod) of the intellect, resting in luminous awareness, and observing one’s already-awakened self-nature (p. 132). The remainder of Sorensen’s chapter shows how Ma gcig’s original ideas about body offerings, Buddha bodies, and the capacities of practitioners were reinterpreted by Rang byung rdo rje (1284–1339), the Third Karmapa. In particular, Rang byung rdo rje sought to limit Ma gcig’s universal practice to advanced practitioners, and legitimated her system through subordinating it to already-established Tibetan Buddhist teachings. Sorensen concludes with the argument that Mahāmudrā and gcod practice mutually informed each other, but that in the process ofgcod ’s appropriation “some of its key original aspects have been overshadowed or forgotten” (p. 150). I am grateful to Sorensen for shining a brighter light on Ma gcig’s innovative thought and practice.

Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp’s “A Note on Manorathanandin’sPramāṇavārttikavṛtti in Tibet” delves into the intricate history of Dharmakīrti studies in Tibet. He traces in particular the strange life of the Pramāṇavarttikavṛtti of Manorathanandin (late eleventh/early twelfth century), a text that was rarely

Citation: H-Net Reviews. Overbey on Haynes and Sorensen, 'Wading into the Stream of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Leslie Kawamura'. H-Buddhism. 05-21-2015. https://networks.h-net.org/node/6060/reviews/70502/overbey-haynes-and-sorensen-wading-stream-wisdom-essays-honor-leslie Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 3 H-Buddhism cited but was almost certainly read by Tibetan philosophers. Van der Kuijp brilliantly demonstrates how, even when scholars like Sa skya Paṇḍita and ’U yug pa bsod nams seng ge barely mention or do not mention Manorathanandin’s name or work, he most likely “had been consulted in certain Tibetan circles” (p. 167). The claim rests on a peculiar and mysterious citation of Manorathanandin in a work by Mkhas grub dge legs dpal bzang po (1385–1438). This chapter is typical of van der Kuijp’s œuvre: an exceedingly measured and cautious argument, backed by the overwhelming firepower of van der Kuijp’s magisterial grasp of the subtlest details of Tibetan intellectual history.

In “Pseudo-Nāgārjuna’s Sermon about Giving (Dānaparikathā),” Saitō Naoki 齋藤直樹 and the late Michael Hahn (1941–2014) explore Indian Buddhist epistolary literature preserved in the Tibetan bstan ’gyur. After a brief survey of studies in epistolary literature to date, Hahn and Saitō investigate the textual sources and structure of the Dānaparikathā, a minor epistle praising the virtue of charity. This chapter establishes on the basis of its textual borrowings that the epistle was most certainly falsely attributed to Nāgārjuna. Hahn and Saitō conclude with an edition and translation of this short text.

Charles Willemen, in “Early Yogācāra and Visualization (Bhāvanā),” ventures some bold hypotheses about the development of Yogācāra Buddhism and its relation to the Pure Land. Willemen addresses the well-known issue of the “five gates” (wǔmén 五門) of meditation. In earlier texts the five gates included dhātuvyavasthāna or dhātuprabheda, in which the practitioner envisions the body as composed of elements. However, around the fifth century, we find new lists of the five gates in which dhātuvyavasthāna is replaced with “recollection of Buddhas” (buddhānusmṛti or niànfó 念佛). Willemen argues that this development is closely connected to the rise of Akṣobhya’s Abhirati and Amitābha’s Sukhāvatī, as revealed in the numerous contemporaneous contemplation scriptures (guānjīng 觀經) and meditation manuals (chánjīng 禪經) preserved in the Chinese canon. Willemen briefly surveys the literature, and concludes that Abhirati is “of Gandhāran origin, to the east, and of Mahāsāṅghika affiliation. Amitābha’s paradise is an immediate reaction to this development. It is of Bactrian origin, to the west, and of Sautrāntika Sarvāstivāda affiliation” (p. 219). It should be noted that in this essay Willemen does not really take advantage of the voluminous secondary literature in Japanese on this topic. Readers interested in reading more on the development of early medieval Chinese meditative traditions should consult the 2012 dissertation of Eric Greene, who dives quite deeply into the literature and does not neglect valuable Japanese sources.[1]

The third part, “History,” begins with “Cooking the Buddhist Books: Implications of the New Dating of the Buddha for the History of Early Indian Buddhism,” in which Charles Prebish reviews and reacts to the scholarship presented in the 1988 Göttingen symposium and edited by Heinz Bechert inDie Datierung des Historischen Buddha (1991–97). Prebish claims that the new chronology established at the symposium, placing Śākyamuni’s death to around 400 BCE, has profound consequences for “virtually everything we know about the earliest Indian Buddhism, and especially its sectarian movement” (p. 230). Prebish believes that Richard Gombrich’s date of 404 CE for the parinirvāṇa is the most convincing, but takes issue with Gombrich’s dating of the Second Council. Traditional sources separate the First and Second Councils by one hundred years. To avoid placing the Second Council too close to the coronation of Aśoka, Gombrich shortens the gap to sixty years, relying on evidence from the Dīpavaṃsa. Prebish is not convinced by Gombrich’s reading, and prefers to date the Second Council to 304 BCE. The virtue of this date is that it allows Prebish to place the post- Vaiśālī “noncanonical council” in the year 267 BCE, around the time of Aśoka’s coronation. This

“would place King Aśoka squarely in the midst of the initial rise of Indian Buddhist sectarianism, a notion that would be totally foreign to all Theravāda scholars” (p. 238). Scholars will certainly emerge with strong opinions about Prebish’s argument here, but no matter which side we come down on he is correct to highlight the tremendous value of the Göttingen symposium. The real value of Bechert’s collection is its ability to stir the pot and rekindle interest in the field of early Buddhist chronology.

Haynes explores the complex history of the goddess Sarasvatī in “Peaceful and Wrathful Manifestations: The Development of Sarasvatī from India to East Asia to Tibet.” Haynes aims to supplement the work of Catherine Ludvik, whose dissertation traced the development of Sarasvatī from India through China and into Japan while leaving out “the significant role that Sarasvatī played in Tibetan Buddhism” (p. 247).[2] After briefly introducing the Indian history of Sarasvatī, tracing her association with the river, with inspired thought and speech, with healing, and with music, Haynes moves to Tibet. She identifies six main iconographic forms of Sarasvatī before turning to appearance in Tibetan texts, placing Sarasvatī’s entrance into the Tibetan plateau at the earliest moments of the Tibetan adoption of Buddhism in the eighth century CE. Sarasvatī, particularly in her wrathful dharma-protector manifestation as dmag zor rgyal mo, would figure into the thought and practice of Tsong kha pa as well as the early dalai lamas. Haynes closes with a thoughtful reflection (drawing from David Seyfort Ruegg) on what it means to say that Sarasvatī is a “foreign” or “Hindu” deity in the Tibetan Buddhist context.

In “The Bodhisattva Doctrine in Sinhala Theravāda Buddhist Traditions of Sri Lanka,” John Clifford Holt describes the contexts in which the termbodhisattva is deployed in the Sinhala Buddhist traditions. The first two contexts will be familiar to most readers:bodhisattva refers both to the historical Buddha before his awakening and to the future Buddha Metteya/Maitreya currently residing in Tuṣita Heaven. The latter two contexts, tied up in kingship and divinity, will be new to many readers: in the Sinhala traditions the term bodhisattva is applied to righteous Buddhist kings and to deities in the Sinhala pantheon. Holt details the story of the martial king Dutthagamani in the Mahāvaṃsa, which ends with a strong identification of Dutthagamani asbodhisattva and future disciple of Metteya. Holt continues with vivid examples from later inscriptions and Sinhala chronicles, convincingly demonstrating the role of the bodhisattva as protector and preserver of the dhamma, linking the figure of the bodhisattva to the central role of kings and gods.

The final section focuses on praxis. Richard K. Payne creatively engages the Yogācāra tradition in “Beneath the Waves: Conceiving the Unconscious.” Payne draws from William Waldron’s comparative work (The Buddhist Unconscious: The Alaya-vijñana in the Context of Indian Buddhist Thought [2003]) on the ālayavijñāna, which argues for a close comparison of theālayavijñāna with the psychotherapeutic unconscious. Payne’s goal in the chapter is to “move this comparative project forward” by focusing on new developments in psychotherapy (p. 298). Payne first describes the “Helmholtzian unconscious” as the neurological processing always undergirding conscious activity. Contra Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, this sort of unconscious is not observable through introspection, and not accessible to the patient through therapy. Payne critiques the Helmholtzian unconscious as applicable only to short-term cognitive processes; the approach cannot help us with the sorts of “long-term phenomena” that Buddhist philosophy or Freudian psychotherapy seek to address (p. 301). Studies in neuroplasticity, however, allow us to bridge the gap between the Helmholtzian and the Freudian unconscious, to place the Freudian unconscious on less mystical and more material foundation. Payne goes on to discuss the history and definition of the term

ālayavijñāna, drawing heavily on Waldron and Lambert Schmithausen. Finally, Payne concludes with some reflections on the overlap between the Buddhist and the psychotherapeutic unconscious. Both address problems like the continuity of identity and the repetition compulsion, but Payne believes that Buddhist conceptions of the sudden path might prove difficult to translate into psychotherapeutic practice. Payne’s work here is accessible and useful, and might help take students beyond the all-too-easy conflation of Buddhism with therapy.

In “The ‘Round’ Doctrine of Tiantai and Its Significance for Modern Times,” Fa Qing makes a religious argument for the continuing relevance of Tiāntái 天台 thought. This is a profoundly traditional essay. It begins by dividing Chinese Buddhism into “schools,” noting that Chán 禪 and Neo- Confucianism mark the beginning of the end for Chinese Buddhist scholarship (pp. 329–330). Fa Qing then asserts that the Chinese mind is essentially “holistic” in nature, and that the Tiāntái tradition represents the pinnacle of holistic thinking (pp. 330–331). The remainder of the essay summarizes basic Tiāntái doctrines, surveying the Five Periods, the Eight Doctrines, the Three Truths, and the Tiāntái meditative system of Zhìyǐ 智顗. The essay concludes with a call for study and practice of Tiāntái Buddhism as a potential cure for the problems of twenty-first-century society.

The volume concludes with “Meditation Revisited,” by Andreas Doctor and Tom J. F. Tillemans. In this superb essay, Doctor and Tillemans investigate what “modern non-Asian Buddhists understand meditation to be.” For some, meditation refers to “sitting calmly, with concentrated nonconceptual, non-analytic awareness,” a practical skill with little philosophical import. For others, meditation is “a normative term,” loaded with soteriological implications, and therefore “a philosophical issue of some urgency” (p. 351). In the first half of the chapter, Doctor reflects on his time working with both Westerners and Tibetans at Ka-Nying Shedrub Ling monastery in Nepal. Westerners at the monastery, influenced by the peculiar mélange of Burmese vipassanā and Zen that characterizes the American Buddhist tradition, considered meditation to be a nonconceptual mental focus performed while sitting. Tibetans at the monastery had very different views of what constituted meditation. Their answers did not emphasize “sitting” or “being in the present.” Instead they spoke of the fourfold stages of preliminary practices, development stage, completion stage, and Great Perfection. In other words, the Tibetans at the monastery conceived of meditation primarily in terms of sādhana practices. In the second half of the chapter, Tillemans writes about his experience teaching the eighth-century bsam yas debate between Kamalaśīla and Héshàng Móhēyǎn 和尙摩訶衍. Kamalaśīla, of course, argued that meditation entailed the development of yogic direct perception through the repetition of intense concentration and careful analysis of the objects of meditation. Tillemans points out the deep irony that many Western students who claim to admire or even follow the Tibetan Buddhist tradition nevertheless find Móhēyǎn’s nonconceptual approach more convincing. Tillemans links this trend among his students not just to the historical particularities of the transmission of Buddhism to the West, but also to the general desire among many students for “meditative and nonargumentative alternatives to analytic reason” (p. 365). Tillemans provides a brilliant model for classroom teaching, one that gently leads students to confront the fact that classical Buddhist traditions speak in ways that challenge their most closely held preconceptions.

This volume clearly demonstrates the profound impact of Kawamura on the field of Buddhist studies. Haynes and Sorensen should be congratulated for bringing such an impressive collection to completion. One can only imagine the herding of academic cats required to see the project through. After reading the excellent essays collected here, I have only one substantive complaint. The title of

Notes

[1]. Eric Greene, “Meditation, Repentance, and Visionary Experience in Early Medieval Chinese Budd hism” (PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2012).

[2]. Catherine Ludvik, “From Sarasvatī to Benzaiten” (PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2001).

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Citation: Ryan Overbey. Review of Haynes, Sarah F.; Sorensen, Michelle J., eds.,Wading into the Stream of Wisdom: Essays in Honor of Leslie Kawamura. H-Buddhism, H-Net Reviews. May, 2015. URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=41485

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