Approaches to the Problem of Dualism in Heidegger and Indian Yogacara Buddhism

APPROACHES TO THE PROBLEM OF DUALISM IN HEIDEGGER AND INDIAN YOGACARA BUDDHISM

Peter Oldmeadow

Abstract

Th is paper examines the approach of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger to the problem of dualism and explores the usefulness of his approach to comparative religion and philosophy in general and, more particularly, to the study of dualism in Buddhism. Heidegger was, of course, operating within a Western philosophical tradition and his focus was on Western metaphysics and its implications. His critique of the Western philosophical tradition, however, provides a clearing in which important aspects of other traditions and cultures may come to light. Th is is particularly so in the case of Buddhism, especially of East Asian Mahayana, with which his work has an obvious affi nity. Analysis of the problem of dualism fi nds its clearest expression in Buddhism in the Yogacara school of Mahayana Buddhism, which analyses the human predicament and our entanglement in the cycle of ongoing unsatisfactoriness in terms of subject- object duality. Th is is not so much a radical new departure within Buddhism but rather a way of presenting core Buddhist ideas in the experiential or phenomenological framework which is tied to the soteriology of the Yogacara or Vijnanavada (doctrine of Consciousness) school. Heidegger, for his part, sees the dualist orientation in the Western metaphysical tradition as fundamentally distorting and a cause of cultural and personal alienation. He struggled against the eff ects of this heritage. In attempting a deconstruction of the dominant epistemological and metaphysical stance of the Western tradition Heidegger hoped that that the grip of the modern Western way of ‘enframing’ reality might be loosened and new attunement to Being might occur. Th is, in turn, opens up new ways of revisioning our past and understanding other worlds.

Introduction

A prominent feature of the writing and teaching careers of Professor Garry Trompf has been his concern with methodology in the study of religion and its broader relation to the history of ideas. As an under- graduate in Religious Studies at the University of Sydney under the tutelage of Professors Trompf and E. J. Sharpe, I quickly realised the fundamental importance of the questions that methodology raised in epistemology and even ontology. Th e study of the history of Religious 268 peter oldmeadow

Studies and the social sciences threw light on our most basic assumptions. It became clear to me that much of the approach based on shared cultural assumptions or ‘common sense’ was questionable and actually an impediment to an adequate understanding of diff erent religious and cultural universes and to diff erent ways of being. Th is realisation led me to take up the academic study of philosophy and to an interest in comparative philosophy. Later, when I held a joint academic position shared between the departments of Religious Studies and Indian Subcontinental Studies at the University of Sydney, our common interests led to a particularly fruitful and enjoyable period in my teaching career when Professor Trompf and I co-taught, for some years, the Honours methodology course in Studies in Religion. Th is paper examines the approach of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) to the problem of dualism and explores the usefulness of his approach to comparative religion and philosophy in general and, more particularly, to the study of dualism in Buddhism. Heidegger was, of course, operating within a Western philosophical tradition and his focus was on Western metaphysics and its implications. His critique of the Western philosophical tradition, however, provides a clearing in which important aspects of other traditions and cultures may come to light. Th is is particularly so in the case of Buddhism with which his work has an obvious affi nity. Analysis of the problem of dualism fi nds its clearest expression in Buddhism in the Madhyamaka (‘Middle Way’) and Yogacara (‘Yoga Practice’) schools of Mahayana Buddhism. Th ese rose to prominence as the most infl uential schools of Mahayana philosophy in India in the fi rst half of the fi rst millennium C.E. and remained infl uential in the spread of the Mahayana outside India. Th e main focus of this paper is on the Yogacara school. Although Yogacara’s early development is obscure its mature phase of development in India probably occurred in the fourth and fi ft h centuries C.E. when it was systematised by the great scholar- sages Asanga and Vasubandhu. Madhyamaka explores metaphysical dualism within a broader critique of substantialist ontology while Yogacara focuses on subject-object dualism within a more experiential or phenomenological approach. According to Yogacara, an erring of consciousness occurs through the split in our experience into a world of independently apprehensible objects (grahya) standing against an inde- pendent apprehending subject (grahaka). To take the two as independ- ent realities is a fundamental mistake which the philosopher-sage strives to overcome.