View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by California Institute of Integral Studies libraries Journal of Conscious Evolution Volume 14 Article 1 Issue 14 2018 2018 On Elemental Phenomenology: Sallis and Dzogchen Buddhism Schwartz, Michael Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cejournal Part of the Clinical Psychology Commons, Cognition and Perception Commons, Cognitive Psychology Commons, Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, Liberal Studies Commons, Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons, Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education Commons, Social Psychology Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons, Sociology of Religion Commons, and the Transpersonal Psychology Commons Recommended Citation Schwartz, Michael (2018) "On Elemental Phenomenology: Sallis and Dzogchen Buddhism," Journal of Conscious Evolution: Vol. 14 : Iss. 14 , Article 1. Available at: https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cejournal/vol14/iss14/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals and Newsletters at Digital Commons @ CIIS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Conscious Evolution by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ CIIS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. : On Elemental Phenomenology: Sallis and Dzogchen Buddhism Journal of Conscious Evolution | Summer 2018 | Vol 14 | Issue 14 Schwartz, M., On Elemental Phenomenology. On Elemental Phenomenology: Sallis and Dzogchen Buddhism Michael Schwartz, PhD1 Augusta University Abstract: John Sallis’ volumes on the Force of the Imagination (2000) and Logic of the Imagi- nation (2012) constitute, in the field of contemporary Continental thought, a novel philosophical view of the elementals. Tibetan Buddhism has a more than a thousand-year old tradition of teach- ing about and practicing with the elements. This study is a preliminary exploration of the cross- currents of these two elemental teachings. Keywords: Sallis, phenomenology, imagination, Buddhism, Tibetan, Dzogchen, Vajrayana, tantra, emotions, elementals, elements Corresponding author: [email protected] Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/conscjournal/vol6/iss6/ ISSN 2575-5552 Published by Digital Commons @ CIIS, 2018 1 Journal of Conscious Evolution, Vol. 14 [2018], Iss. 14, Art. 1 Consciousness: Ideas and Research for the Twenty First Century | Summer 2018 | Vol 6 | Issue 6 Schwartz, M., On Elemental Phenomenology. In recent years there has been an upsurge of free of a metaphysics of presence proper to the interest amongst Continental philosophers in intelligible-sensible binary opposition that the topic of the elementals. Outstanding binds the Western philosophical tradition. In amongst contemporary efforts, in pioneering a Force of the Imagination, the project is to lay creative approach, is John Sallis’ post- out the self-showing of the determinate thing deconstructive phenomenology of the elemen- and the place of the elementals therein; in tals as developed in Force of the Imagination Logic of the Imagination, this project is ad- (2000) and Logic of the Imagination (2012). vanced and reconfigured through investigation A question for a comparative moment in phi- of logics of the imagination and the ways the losophy might then be: How might Sallis’ his- expansive of the elemental play into schematic torical repetition and creative re-articulation of spacings. In contrast, the Tibetan project is the ancient Greek elementals enter into dia- soteriological as the liberation of all sentient logue with any one of the Asian tradition that beings; working with the elements assumes has an unbroken lineage of engaging the ele- importance on the path of waking up and aid- ments? This paper is a preliminary exploration ing others to awaken. As we shall see, there is of this line of questioning, comparing Sallis’ likewise a transformational “meta-good” (to elemental philosophy to the place of the ele- adapt a phrase from philosopher Charles Tay- ments in the Dzogchen teachings and practices lor) inherent in Sallis’ project; what, borrow- of Tibetan Buddhism. Its intention is itself ing a term from one of his own more recent practical: a comparative exercise in phenome- books (Sallis, 2008a), might be termed trans- nology (one that does not collapse or efface figurement. differences in the two articulations) that points towards and contributes to a more transfigured Sallis and the Elementals life. John Sallis (b. 1938) is widely considered the What justifies this comparison are the roots of dean of Continental Philosophy in the USA Sallis’ project and Tibetan Buddhism in the and beyond (Freydberg 2012). His scholarship perennial philosophy as articulated by scholars includes groundbreaking books on Plato and like Huston Smith (1992), who highlight par- Pre-Socratic philosophy, German Idealism allel structural components in worldview (Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhau- amongst the various axial age traditions and er, etc. – including its American reworking in their offshoots – to wit, that both ancient transcendental thinkers like Emerson), Nie- Greek philosophy and Tibetan Buddhism posit tzsche, and the entire existential and phenom- a “hypernatural” dimension (to use a Sallisian enological tradition of the twentieth-century term) constituted by the elements. This is not (Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Merleau- to collapse these worldviews into one another, Ponty, Levinas, Derrida, etc.). Since the publi- nor shortchange their differences and void the cation of Force of the Imagination in 2000, he need for dialogic exchange – it does demon- has been forwarding an ever more nuanced strate an overlapping starting point, even as originary philosophy of his own, one too little Sallis transfigures the under-evidenced senses known outside of professional philosophy cir- of the elementals in ancient Greek thought. cles, moving through with great nuance and care both the gifts and limits of deconstruction There are to be sure different orientations in- in coming out the other side (hence “post- forming these projects. As one of our leading deconstructive” in a most sophisticated and contemporary philosophers, Sallis is con- clear-sighted manner, one potentially instruc- cerned with the ongoing activity of twisting tive to many of the debates in Consciousness Corresponding author: [email protected] Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/conscjournal/vol6/iss6/ ISSN 2575-5552 Page 2 https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cejournal/vol14/iss14/1 2 : On Elemental Phenomenology: Sallis and Dzogchen Buddhism Journal of Conscious Evolution | Summer 2018 | Vol 14 | Issue 14 Schwartz, M., On Elemental Phenomenology. Studies), this output inclusive of two recent the intelligible; nor is it, in a simple reversal, books on the nature of nature (Sallis, that which replaces the intelligible in priority. 2016a and 2016b). Part of his project all along The sensible is cast in a field of sense that has been exemplary theoretical and philosoph- twists free of the sensible-intelligible binary in ical-critical engagements with art and (as all allowing the very terms of the intelligible to too rare for philosophers) with specific works fall away. of art (Wirth, Schwartz, and Jones, 2016), in- cluding curating art exhibitions of Paul Klee How then might things as partaking of the and also of contemporary Chinese painter Cao sensible make any kind of determinate sense? Jun. Things show themselves, but never alone, al- In his mature philosophy, Sallis exercises phi- ways within a field of emergence, and never losophy at the limit, philosophy on the verge exhaustively, always with the sense of an of overcoming its own metaphysical legacy of abysmal reserve. In momentary glimpses, the sensible-intelligible binary and the unme- without formal-methodological enactment, the diated presence of the intelligible within that thingness of the thing can become suspended scheme - where the intelligible is paradigmatic in light of the sensible image—the image per for or productively generative and grounding se. Image (as Sallis’ analyses stress sight) is of the sensible, such that the force and signif- not a quasi-thing but the upsurge of presence, icance of the sensible is evacuated and neu- having a locus or hereness that is prior to de- tered (Sallis, 2008b and 2016b). Even as one finitive time and space. The image is also du- can never step out of the philosophical tradi- plicitous, belonging at once to the perceiver tion, which has always already begun, one can and to the perceived, in-different to both; tak- enact another beginning. In part this other be- ing on determination as a thing that shows it- ginning is to be disclosed from the margins of self only with the opening of speech, the pres- the tradition, the unread of major philosophi- ence of the image exceeded through the gath- cal texts, what Sallis earlier called “archaic ering force of logos (and at no point needing reflection” (1980, 9-13). Rather than an end- to make appeal to an eidos as proper to the less performance of destruction/ deconstruc- classical metaphysical scheme). As the open- tion, Sallis enacts a twisting free within the ing of speech exceeds the presence of the im- wake of metaphysics such that we can speak age, the image resists being carried over into of his philosophy as an exemplary instance of something said, an untranslatability