The Bodhicaryavatara / Santideva -- Crosby and Skilton, trans., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995

The eighth century Indian monk Santideva ranks among Buddhism's greatest writers.  His most important work is a ten-chapter poem entitled The Bodhicaravatara (Introduction to the Practice of the Bodhisattva) which concisely expresses the highest ideals and philosophy of the Mahayama tradition. 

The Four Noble Truths are rightly understood as a central -- if not the central -- concepts in Buddhism. Those truths are accepted and venerated by all Buddhists; however, for the Mahayana tradition, the concept of the bodhisattva is equally important.  The bodhisattva is a being that has vowed to forever work for the enlightenment of all sentient beings.  This amounts to a rejection of the earlier Buddhist traditions which sought to train monks to achieve their own individual enlightenment.  

The first step in following the path of the bodhisattva is "bodhicitta," i.e., taking a vow to seek the enlightenment of all sentient beings.  Santideva explores a distinction between two forms of bodhicitta: (1) making the determination to follow the path of the and (2) in fact setting out on the path of the bodhisattva.  He goes on to explain the characteristics of a bodhisattva which Buddhists have come to name "the six perfections:" generosity, obedience to the moral law, patience or forbearance, energy, meditative stability, and wisdom.  

The perfection of wisdom is the highest of these virtues.  Santideva provides a seminal treatment of wisdom in the nineth and longest chapter of the poem. Wisdom requires a bodhisattva both to exercise the other five virtues and it is necessary for the perfection of those virtues.  Most of all, gaining wisdom requires a true understanding of the world.  Crucially, this requires a deep and intuitive understanding of "sunyata," usually translated as "emptiness," and the understanding that all things are empty.  

Early Buddhist traditions do make mention of sunyata, but its first full expression appeared in the work of the second century Madhyamaka Buddhist writer Nagarjuna.  Santideva's treatment of sunyata is an excellent, concise treatment of Nagarjuna's formulation.

In the course of the work, Santideva presents a method by which one can develop compassion for others, known as "the exchange of self and others."  It is based on the idea that to achieve a sympathetic disposition toward all sentient beings, one should proceed in stages.  First, one should imagine that the well-being of someone you love, someone very close to you, is as important as your own well-being.  This should not be hard.  One should then go on to imagine the same is true for others not so close to you and then imagine the same for people for whom you have neutral feelings.  Finally, you should imagine that the well-being of people you dislike is as important as your own well-being.  By engaging in this exercise, one can develop compassion for all sentient beings and work more easily for their enlightenment. 

There are few works more important to the history of Buddhism than The Bodhicaryavatra. It is especially important to Tibetan Buddhism and is often mentioned by the Dalai Lama as the most influential work to his own thinking.    

The Words of My Perfect Teacher / Patrul Rinpoche -- Padmakara Translation Group, trans. -- New Dehli: Harper Collins, 1994

In the 8th century, Buddhism came to Tibet.  Among the first and most important Indian emissaries was Padmasambhava, who is venerated by all traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, but particularly by the Nyingma tradition.  Anticipating the persecution of Buddhism, Padmasambhava is believed to have hidden Buddhist texts to be discovered by future generations.  Many of these "treasures" are claimed to have been found. Some are physical texts.  Others are "mind treasures," recovered in the course of meditation.  Among the most significant treasure hunters was the 18th century monk Jigme Lingpa.  In the course of a long period of meditation, Lingpa is believe to have received a teaching from Longchen Rabjam, a 14 century master and scholar of the the Nyingma tradition.  The teaching is understood, however, to have originated with Padmasambhava.  Lingpa set it to writing as The Heart Essence of the Great Expanse, a cycle of teaching that become central to the Nyingma tradition and was passed down from teacher to student for centuries.  In the 19th century, Patrul Rinpoche put into writing a portion -- the preliminary practices -- of this teaching as he learned it from his guru, Jigme Gyalwai Nyugu.  It is titled Kunzang Lama'i Shelung, or The Words of My Perfect Teacher.

The Words of My Perfect Teacher is an extremely popular exposition of important ideas of the Tibetan tradition.  Its popularity stems in part from it clear, direct prose.  Divided into three parts, The Words provides an account of "The External Preliminaries," "The Internal Preliminaries," and "The Swift Path of Transference."  "The External Preliminaries" explain how ordinary human life is uniquely situated to bring about liberation in that beings in lower realms (animals, pretas, and hell-beings) experience too much suffering and delusion to achieve enlightenment, while beings in higher realms (asuras and devas) experience too little suffering (and delusion) to seek enlightenment.  Second, "The External Preliminaries" point out the impermanence of all things, particularly human life, underscoring the importance of seeking enlightenment as one has a rare chance in this human life.  It goes on to point out the ubiquity of suffering, how karma applies to our actions, the benefits of liberation, and the methods for following a spiritual teacher.  These preliminaries are "external" in that they largely describe the context in which one finds oneself in pursuit of liberation and overt techniques to do so.

"The Internal Preliminaries" addresses techniques for controlling and developing one's mind to further one's progress to enlightenment.  This begins with "taking refuge" in the Buddha, the Dharma (the teaching), and the Sangha (the community of Buddhists).  "Taking refuge" might be understood as placing one's faith in these three "jewels."  Just as a traveler might place his or her faith in a map maker, in the map, and in his or her fellow travelers to reach the destination, the Buddhist places his or her faith in the three jewels.  Furthermore, The Internal Preliminaries discusses what is perhaps the most critical aspect of mental development: the development of bodhicitta (the enlightened mind).  This is an attitude of unconditional love and compassion for all sentient beings.  Developing bodhicitta will purify one's past negative actions and generate the strength to pursue the path to liberation.  The techniques involved in developing bodhicitta involve in part concentration and meditation on mandalas and mantras.

The practices involved in The Internal Preliminaries require a spiritual guide, i.e., a qualified teacher.  In the Tibetan tradition, these teachers directly descend from the Buddha through Padmasambhava, known as the Second Buddha.  Some are believed to be reincarnations of important bodhisattvas.  The Dalai Lamas, for example, are thought to be reincarnations of Avalokitesvara.  Reliance on a spiritual guide is a salient feature of Tibetan Buddhism, sometimes called "Lamaism," though some authors reject this as an overestimate of the importance of the veneration of the spiritual guide.  In any case, The Words of My Perfect Teacher (in its title alone) does emphasize veneration of the spiritual guide and presents the guide as critical to one's progress toward enlightenment, though when one does not have access to a genuine lama, a simple monk or even lay Buddhist can serve as at least a beneficial substitute.

The third part of The Words describes the transference of consciousness at the time of death.  Five sorts of transference are possible: transference to the dharmakaya, the sambhogakaya, and the nirmanakay, as well as "ordinary transference" and transference performed for the dead by a spiritual guide.  Transference to the dharmakaya is the supreme transference, where the person's consciousness becomes one with the true and auspicious qualities of the Buddha.  The dharmakaya is the abstract, cosmic Buddha-nature.  Transference to the sambhogakaya occurs when one's consciousness becomes one with the Buddha-nature that is instructive to all bodhisattvas, and transference to the nirmanakaya occurs when one's consciousness is capable of becoming reborn as a buddha in a worldly realm.  Ordinary transference involves rebirth into "a pure land of great bliss" and transference performed by a spiritual guide at the time of death will prevent rebirth in a lower realm.  The rituals involved in this last transference are described in the Bardo Thodol or The Tibetan Book of the Dead. 

The content of The Words of My Perfect Teacher are limited to the expounding the preliminary practices in the larger work The Heart Essence of the Great Expanse, which continues by describing the rest of the path to liberation.  The continuation involves three phases: the generation phase, in which one visualizes oneself as a buddha and employs mantras and mandalas in meditation to make spiritual progress; the perfection phase, in which the meditative practices become a living experience; and the Great Perfection, in which one comes to understand the ultimate nature of the mind and immediately experience Buddha-nature itself.

The Words of My Perfect Teacher certainly lives up to its reputation.  I have read few expositions of the central ideas of Buddhism that are clearer or more simply expressed.  I would recommend to readers who don't necessarily have a deep background in Buddhism, though it is a classic which anyone interested in Buddhism would benefit from reading.  Of particular interest are the chapters on impermanence, training the mind through meditation on impartiality, love, compassion, and sympathetic joy, arousing and developing bodhicitta, practicing the Six Perfections of generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, concentration, and wisdom.  These ideas, however, are presented along with chapters dealing with culturally specific religious ideas which will strike a Western reader as superstitious or at least mythic.  Nonetheless, taken as an anthropological text, even these make for fascinating reading.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead / W.Y. Evans-Wentz, ed. -- Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdup, trans. -- N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1960

The Evans-Wentz edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead or Bardo Thodol -- as it is more properly titled -- was first published in 1927, but it gained enormous attention in the 1960s and 1970s when interest in Eastern philosophy was rising in the West.  Traditionally, the text is believed to have been composed by Padmasambhava, an 8th century Indian Buddhist scholar who was among the first Buddhists (if not the first) to bring Buddhism to Tibet.  Anticipating the persecution of Buddhism in the 9th century, Padmasambhava is believed to have hidden numerous texts to be uncovered by future generations.  In the 14th century, Karma Lingpa is said to have discovered one of these texts, titled Peaceful and Wrathful Deities, the Natural Liberation of Intention, part of which is the Bardo Thodol or Great Liberation through Hearing in the Intermediate State.  This English translation of the title is apt, as the text describes the experiences of a recently deceased person as he or she passes from one life to the next.  Furthermore, the text is read ritually in the presence of the deceased in order to focus his or her disembodied consciousness on liberation with the hope of achieving a more fortunate rebirth or escaping the cycle of rebirth entirely.

The intermediate period (bardo) between lives is said to last 49 days.  This period is divided into three stages:  the Chikhai Bardo, the Chonyid Bardo, and the Sidpa Bardo.  During the Chikhai Bardo, the consciousness of the deceased is confused.  Consequently, the reading of the Bardo Thodol in the presence of the deceased's body is intended to focus his or her attention on the Dharma, allowing the deceased to achieve immediate enlightenment.  Immediate (or sudden) enlightenment is thought to be possible by Tibetan Buddhists and it is particularly possible during the bardo between death and rebirth.  The Chikhai Bardo is known as the Bardo of the Moment of Death.  Enlightenment and liberation come to the deceased if he or she is able to recognize the clear light of reality that appears during this stage.  If, however, the deceased becomes frightened of the clear light, he or she will go on to experience the Chonyid Bardo, known as the Bardo of Reality.

During the Chonyid Bardo, the deceased is visited by peaceful and wrathful deities.  In the first five days the deceased is visited by peaceful deities, namely, the five dhyani buddhas: Vairochana, Vajrasattva, Ratnasambhava, Amitabha, and Amoghasiddhi on successive days and each accompanied by their consorts and retinue.  With the appearance of each dhyani buddha, the deceased has the opportunity to recognize reality and attain enlightenment.  If, however, he or she fails to do this, then all of the deities, their consorts, and retinues appear on the sixth day, presenting another opportunity for enlightenment.  Failing this, the deceased is presented on the seventh day with a final chance for enlightenment by peaceful deities: the "Knowledge-Holding Deities" from the "holy paradise realms."

The deceased then experiences seven days of wrathful deities (or hekula).  The first five of these deities are in fact the same peaceful deities that appeared earlier, but now appearing in their wrathful forms.  On the 13th day, eight other wrathful deities appear to the deceased and on the 14th day, four female "door keepers" appear along with numerous additional wrathful deities.  In the Tibetan tradition, hekula are guardians, representing a person's determination to defeat the obstacles to enlightenment.  So while they appear fearsome, they offer the deceased additional chances for sudden enlightenment.

Failing (or fearing) to recognize reality when presented with it face-to-face during the 14 days of the Chonyid Bardo, the deceased enters the Sidpa Bardo, known as the Bardo of Seeking Rebirth.  Here, the deceased flees from the terrors of the previous bardo and seeks escape from the terrible face of reality that appears to the person encumbered with bad karma.  The deceased is attracted to wombs out of which he or she might be reborn into the realm of samsara.  The text explains how the deceased should go about closing wombs to avoid rebirth in particular bad circumstances and how to choose a womb out of which to be reborn.  One's karma, however, will tend to determine where one is reborn.  One might be reborn in any of the six realms as a denizen of hell, a hungry ghost (preta), an animal, a human, a demi-god (asura), or a god (deva) depending upon one's karma.

The Bardo Thodol is considered among a genre of literature known as a tantra.  These works are central to the form of Buddhism common to Tibet known as the Vajrayana.  Tibetan Buddhism is often considered a form of Mahayana Buddhism, but the veneration of the tantras justifiably separates Tibetan Buddhism from Mahayana Buddhism.  The Vajrayana emphasizes a number of ideas that make this clear.  First, the possibility of sudden enlightenment distinguishes Vajrayana from the Mahayana tradition which emphasizes the need for numerous reincarnations to build up the necessary merit to achieve enlightenment.  Second is the veneration of the lama or teacher.  All forms of Buddhism recognize the importance of respect for the Buddha and other spiritual guides, but the Vajrayana takes this veneration much more seriously.  The trisarana, or "three refuges" which Buddhists embrace, are composed of the Buddha, the dharma (the teaching), and the samgha (the community of Buddhists).  Taking refuge in these three "jewels" is something like offering a basic profession of the Buddhist faith -- that is, committing the Buddhist to an intent to gain enlightenment.  In the Vajrayana, a fourth jewel is sometimes recognized, i.e., the specific teacher who initiates the follower to the path.  Third, the Vajrayana is characterized by an elaborate set of symbols that is used to educate and focus the attention of the Buddhist on the path to enlightenment.  This has generated a rich body of art used in its rituals.  Fourth, throughout India and the cultures it has influenced, there is a belief in the magical, superpowers of enlightened beings called siddha.  Such beings play a prominent role in the Vajrayana.  Much of these aspects of Tibetan Buddhism are consonant with the shamanistic beliefs of the Bon religion that had been practice in Tibet prior to the coming of Buddhism.

The Bardo Thodol exemplifies the importance of many of the above distinguishing features of Vajrayana Buddhism.  Upon death, sudden enlightenment is the goal of the elaborate rituals conducted by the "spiritual friend" (or lama) who reads the text in the presence of the deceased's body with the expectation that the disembodied consciousness of the deceased is capable of hearing the guidance the lama is offering.  These practices seem like so much superstition to a materialist way of thinking; however, adept practitioners of the Vajrayana emphasize the symbolic nature of the seemingly magical elements of their tradition.  The symbolism in the Vajrayana is, of course, lost on many lay practitioners.  Consequently, the tradition is characterized by both common teachings and esoteric teachings.  The former is meant for the layperson while the latter is meant for the adept.  In light of this, one can see the importance of the rituals and descriptions in the Bardo Thodol in two ways.  First, one can understand them literally as efforts to assist the deceased in achieving liberation or a preferable rebirth.  Second, one can understand them as disguised (symbolic) efforts to manage the grief of survivors and remind them of some of the basic tenets of Buddhism: life is temporary, attachment to it produces suffering, and the acquisition of merit and an clear understanding of reality will bring about a better future circumstance or even final liberation.

The Bardo Thodol is a fascinating window into a much misunderstood tradition of Buddhism.  Much of the text is gripping and colorful.  Unfortunately, it will be rather puzzling to anyone without a fairly good background in Buddhism and particularly Vajrayana Buddhism.   

Buddhism for Beginners / Thubten Chodron -- Boston: Snow Lion, 2001

When I picked up Buddhism for Beginners, I had very high hopes.  Having recently read Buddhism: One Tradition, Many Teachers which Chodron co-wrote with the Dalai Lama, I was expecting a clear and concise treatment of the most important elements of Buddhism, written for the novice.  That is, I was expecting a shorter and more popular version of One Tradition, Many Teachers.  To a certain extent, that's what it is, but unfortunately, it also contains a great deal of material on the more religious, non-falsifiable elements of Buddhism.  Others may, of course, welcome this, but my own interests lay in the moral, psychological, and philosophical elements.  Chodron's One Tradition, Many Teachers is among the best expositions of these elements that I have read and having a more readable version that could be recommended to "beginners" would be a real asset.  Unfortunately, Chodron deals with these elements only in the first third (50 pages) of the book.  Still, these pages are well worth recommending.  Most of the remainder will likely strike a critical Western reader as, at best, a anthropological or sociological gloss on the quaint beliefs of a pre-scientific culture.  This is not to say that the remainder does not contain any interesting material.  Indeed, their is a fair share of Buddhist ethics and psychology in the later pages, but it is scatter among discussions of such things as past lives, karma, ritual, and sundry friendly advice on being a Buddhist in a non-Buddhist society.

The scatter-shot character of the work is likely a product of its format.  One hundred and forty-nine pages of text are divided into 21 chapters, and each chapter is composed of answers to questions posed to Chodron by both Westerners and Asian.  A question is first posed as a section heading in bold, followed by usually a three paragraph answer.  In many instances, this provides us with a clear and concise answer to the question.  In other instances, it begs elaboration.  In general, it causes the work to lack a larger, well-developed treatment of Buddhism.

In the end, I would recommend the first 50 pages to beginners, but direct them to her masterful work Buddhism: One Tradition, Many Teachers.  There, here literary style is more demanding, but it is likely accessible to most readers and it certainly pays enormous dividends. 

The Bhagavad Gita / Franklin Edgerton: Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1952

The Bhagavad Gita is among the world's greatest works of sacred literature.  It is a portion of the larger Sanskrit work, The Mahabharata which tells the story of the dynastic struggle between the Kaurava and Pandava princes, all members of an extended family.  The Gita recounts a critical episode in that struggle in which he two dynasties are preparing to face one another in an epic battle.  It recounts the dialogue between the Pandava prince Arjuna and his charioteer Krishna.  Arjuna, seeing his family members -- on both sides -- arrayed for battle becomes paralyzed with grief and foreboding of the senseless carnage that is about to occur.  Whereupon, Krishna excoriates him for his weakness.  In the course of the dialogue, Krishna discusses three forms of yoga: jnana (wisdom), karma (action), and bhakti (devotion).  His message is essentially that Arjuna duty is to perform the actions that are appropriate to his station as a warrior and that the death and suffering that is about to occur does not touch the true self or selves of the warriors.  What is essential about us is eternal.  The climax of the dialogue comes in the eleventh chapter when Krishna reveals himself to Arjuna as God. This chapter is, to me, the very highest expression of mystical monotheism ever set down in verse.

There are countless English translations of The Gita.  The translation contained in this volume is by Edwin Arnold, the illustrious English journalist/orientalist.  His most famous work is The Light of Asia, a biography of the Buddha.  Originally published in 1885, Arnold's Gita is a fine example of Victorian poetry.  It is perhaps not the most literal translation of the original Sanskrit Gita, but it's poetic sensibility makes for exhilarating reading.

There is much that is contradictory in The Gita.  So much so, that an unguided reading can be quite confusing.  Here is where Franklin Edgerton's introductory essay on The Gita, included in this volume, provides excellent help.  Edgerton is at pains to explain that The Gita is first and foremost a poetical work and that the requirements of consistency that we expect from an academic treatise do not apply.  Consequently, we read Krishna's praise of all three types of yoga, with only a general sense that karma yoga is thought by the author to be the highest form of yoga; however, this may only be due to the fact that Arjuna, the primary audience of the treatise, is a warrior who, as a warrior, is expected to act.

For Edgerton, The Gita offers us an opportunity to compare the virtues of all three types of yoga.  Jnana yoga is the path to spiritual liberation that involves a thorough intellectual understanding of reality.  It is usually practiced by those who retire into meditation and religious study.  In contrast, karma yoga is the path to spiritual liberation that involves embracing an active role in the great unfolding of worldly affairs.  There is, however, an important cautionary message in Krishna's advice.  While jnana yoga fails -- for Arjuna -- to fulfill his proper role in life and lead to liberation, one can easily mis-tread the path of karma yoga by becoming to passionately involved in the results of action. Karma yoga requires that the actor perform his or her duty without regard to the results.  One must act of the sake of the proper action and not for a practical end.  Karma yoga, properly pursued, includes the kind of dispassion that is characteristic of the reclusive jnana yogi.  There are passages in The Gita which also praise bhakti yoga which has become the predominate form of Hindu worship.  It involves an unrestrained love and devotion to God, in this case Vishnu or Krishna as he is manifested in The Gita.

Anyone interested in the religious tradition(s) of India must, by all means, read and become familiar with The Bhagavad Gita.  It is a short and easily finished work, replete with astonishingly poetic visions of God.  It will be puzzling, however, to anyone not already quite familiar with the yogic traditions of India.  Here is where Edgerton can provide excellent guidance.

American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation--How Indian Spirituality Changed the West / Philip Goldberg -- N.Y.: Harmony Books, 2010

In 1981, Rick Fields published a book entitled, How the Swans Came to the Lake which was a history of how Buddhism made its way to the United States.  In American Veda, Philip Goldberg presents a similar history for Hinduism or what he calls "vedanta-yoga."  While the subtitle suggests that the story of Hinduism transmission would cover Europe and North America, Goldberg mostly describes its transmission to the U.S.  Early on, he makes the rather bold claim that vedism, the idea that we, as individuals, participate in a larger consciousness that constitutes the universe, is a "perfect fit" for the American ethos, at least insofar as vedism permits "personalized pathways to the divine."  He goes on, then, to describe to growing impact of Vedic philosophies and yogic practices on Americans.  Beginning with Emerson's acceptance of an "over-soul," passing through Thoreau's paeans to nature, Goldberg describes the foundation of vedism in American literature.

The real launch of American vedism begins, however, with the World's Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893.  From this point on, Americans began hosting a number of gurus from India who introduced the intelligentsia to vedism.  Goldberg recounts the impression these gurus had on such figures as Huston Smith, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, and Gerald Heard.  This period is perhaps the first phase of serious examination of the vedic philosophy in America.

It is followed, however, by a much larger influx of gurus following the elimination of immigration restriction from Asia in 1965 and the journey to India by the Beatles, Mick Jagger, and Marianne Faithful in 1968.  The list of celebrities who were influenced by various gurus during the 1960s and 1970s is impressive; however, the scandals associated with many high profile gurus casts doubt on the legitimacy of this paroxysm of interest.  To his credit, Goldberg does not shy away from a fair-minded account of this period.  What he finally concludes, though, is that despite the appearnce of charlatans, the Western seekers gained a genuine appreciation for vedanta-yoga.  In the final chapters he discusses ways in which vedanta-yoga has influence the arts, psychology, and physics.

American Veda is a fine account of the coming of vedanta-yoga to the U.S.  It provides a sympathetic, but honest assessment of that history.  It does, however, overstate the extent to which vedanta-yoga has permeated American culture.  While the trappings of vedanta-yoga might well be increasingly common and more Americans than ever before may be signing up of Hatha yoga classes, an accurate awareness of the vedic world view is still hardly known in America.  Goldberg's points out that a significant number of Americans describe themselves as "spiritual, but not religious," and he suggests that this is a product of the transmission of vedanta-yoga to the America.  It might, however, be more likely a consequence of the success of science made consistent with a reluctance on the part of people to completely abandon their ancestral beliefs.  Goldberg also suggests that the increased interest in vedic (and Buddhist) spirituality represents a kind of Great Awakening of the 21st century.  Only time will tell about that.

Buddhism / Christmas Humphreys -- [n.l.]: Penguin Books, 1951

Buddhism by Christmas Humphreys was the first book I read about Buddhism.  I was perhaps 15 years old, newly exploring religions other than the Christianity.  I was immediately taken by Buddhism's approach to life.  It seemed simultaneously rational and compassionate.  It offered a perspective on the world that did not rely on speculation and unsupported faith and the personality traits that it prescribed seem eminently virtuous.  I did not read much more about Buddhism until many years later, but Humphreys's book made a strong enough impression on me that I was always tempted to describe myself as a Buddhist.

This is the third (perhaps fourth) time I have read the book and with this reading I now more clearly understand how it shaped my thinking about Buddhism.  Buddhism is a general introduction to the religion.  It presents chapters on the life of the Buddha and his ministry.  It then goes on to describe the essential doctrines of early Buddhism in five chapters, followed by a chapter on the Sangha, three chapters on Mahayana Buddhism, chapters on Zen and Tibetan Buddhism, and finally two chapters on "the fruits" of Buddhism and contemporary Buddhism.

Humphreys does a good job in nearly all of these chapters.  His accounts are generally clear and accurate.  He does, however, present some ideas in a rather sectarian fashion.  His treatment of Tibetan Buddhism over emphasizes the magical and ritualistic trappings of the tradition, making it seem a poor degeneration of a noble tradition.  His characterization of Zen, on the other hand, describes it not only as the consummation of Buddhist thought and practice, but the highest achievement of human spiritual and philosophical thought.  His treatment of the concept of the self appears to be most consistent with Yogachara thinking in which the self is a kind of world consciousness (what is sometimes elsewhere described as a "storehouse" consciousness).  At times Humphreys even appears to verge into agreement with Pudgalavada Buddhism which accepts an "inexpressible" self or the Advaita Vedanta that posits an eternal, universal soul.  Humphreys asserts that the earlier doctrines which accepted anatta or the doctrine of no-self misunderstood the true views of the Buddha.  Perhaps the largest missing piece in his account is an clear and detailed explanation of the doctrine of sunyata or emptiness which was the critical concept in the Madhyamaka school.

As a result of these more or less evaluative treatments, my own impression of Buddhism failed to appreciate the importance of anatta and sunyata, and it led me to explore and embrace Zen for perhaps longer than was good for my progress through understanding the whole of Buddhism.  It was nearly twenty years later that I finally picked up T.R.V. Murti's The Central Philosophy of Buddhism in which a gained a good understanding of anatta and sunyata and recognized the importance of their place in Buddhist thought.  I don't mean to denigrate the ideas and perspectives of Zen or the Yogacara tradition.  I merely hope to point out that a best understanding of Buddhist thought is not achieved by reading its history in reverse.  To appreciate Zen and the Yogacara Buddhism,  one should first understand and appreciate the early schools of Buddhism and the orthodox view of the self that they propose.  With that (and with an understanding of Advaita Vedantism) one can appreciate the remarkable perspective of the Madhyamaka and the natural reaction to it that resulted in Zen and the Yogacara tradition.

I  am forever thankful that I encounter Christmas Humphreys's book at an early age.  It no doubt made a significant and very beneficial contribution to my intellectual growth and perspective on life.  I only wish that before going on to read about Zen, I was directed to the earlier phases of Buddhist thought, particularly the doctrine of no-self.  It may have been too much to expect a teenager to understand and appreciate the concept of emptiness, but with the doctrine of no-self under my belt, I would likely have come to it sooner than I did.

What the Buddha Taught / Walpola Rahula -- Revised Edition -- N.Y.: Grove Weidenfeld, 1959, 1974

Walpola Rahula's short book What the Buddha Taught is among the best introductions to the essential doctrines of early Buddhism that I have read.  His introductory chapter admirably lays out the basic "attitude of mind" that characterizes Buddhism.  This is followed by four chapters, each on one of the Four Noble Truths:  the fact of suffering or dissatisfaction (dukkha), cause of dukkha, the cessation of dukkha, and the actions by which one brings about the cessation of dukkha.  Rahula then devotes a two chapters on topics that are critical for the appreciation of Buddhist enlightenment.  The first of these chapters deals with what is possibly the most important concept unique to Buddhism among the world's venerable religions:  the doctrine of the non-existence of the self (anatta).  The second chapter is devoted to the cultivation of the mind through meditation.

In the chapter on anatta, Rahula appears to be responding to a work that had been recently published by Christmas Humphreys.  Humphreys translates a passage in the Dhammapada as asserting "The Self is the Lord of the Self."  From this, Humphreys goes on to reject the Theravada interpretation of the doctrine of anatta, claiming that their are two selves:  one that is the composition of psycho-physical attributes and another that is "a reservoir of character brought over from life to life" which while not immortal, endures long enough to "control the lower self" and in a long process of self-purification, become liberated from the suffering world.  Against this, Rahula argues that the translation that Humphreys accepts is faulty.  Instead, Atta hi attano natho should be translated "One is one's own refuge" or "One is one's own support."  The passage does not suggest a bifurcation of the self.  On this score and on others, Rahula's interpretation of Buddhism is in accord with the doctrines of Early Buddhism, i.e., the Buddhism that pre-existed the Mahayana reformation.

In the final chapter, Rahula discusses how this ancient practice can be made relevant to the modern world.  Though written more than 50 years ago, his account is still quite relevant.  A significant portion of it refers to the Sigala Sutta and is devoted to recognizing the importance of loving and respecting ("worshiping" the people in one's life in place of the six directions that were traditionally worshiped in the ancient Indian practice, but Rahula also discusses what is a lay Buddhist's proper relationship to economics and politics.

Finally, Rahula includes translations of five important suttas and excerpts from five more.  These are generally the suttas that he has referred to in the course of his book.

Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime / Stephen Batchelor -- N.Y.: Riverhead Books, 2000

Among the most important concepts that Buddhism has contributed to the world's history of ideas is the concept of śūnyatā which is often translated as "emptiness."  Commonly, we understand things in the world as falling into two ontological categories: being and nothingness.  Given this duality, emptiness is often misunderstood as simply another way of referring to nothingness.  It is, however, better understood as marking a third ontological category that is neither being nor nothingness.  At the same time, emptiness has important relations to these two standard ontological categories.  To understand emptiness, consider a chess set.  It is composed of eight white pawn, eight white pieces, eight black pawns, eight black pieces, and a board.  If we imagine a chess set sitting before us on a table we might say that there are 33 objects on the table; however, we might also say that there is a chess set on the table.  Could this really mean there are 34 objects on the table?  Not if by an object we mean something that exists independently of all other things, since the chess set exists only dependently on its 33 independently existing objects.  The chess set, while certainly existing, has an ontological status that is different from its component elements.  Buddhists call this form of existence "dependent existence" and say of dependently existing objects that they are "empty."  Among the most striking observations that has come out of the Buddhist tradition is the view that all things in the phenomenal world are empty.  This is not a doctrine that all Buddhist embrace, but it is one which was clearly articulated by the second century Indian philosopher Nagarjuna.  

Dependent existence might also come about not by a mereological relation, but by a causal dependency.  States of affairs that that currently exist only exist as a product of the prior conditions which brought them about.  They exist dependent upon their causes.  Buddhists refer to this relationship as "dependent origination."  Again, as with mereological dependence, all things in the phenomenal world originate dependently.  More simply put: all things have a cause.  All things are a result of prior conditions.  

The idea of dependent origination and emptiness appear in some of the earliest Buddhist texts, but as mentioned above, it did not take center stage in Buddhist thinking until it was highlighted by Nagarjuna.  Nagarjuna's most significant work is the Mulamadhyamikakarika which Stephen Batchelor translates as Verses from the Center.  There are several translations of the Mulamadhyamikakarika, most recently, Mark Siderits and Shoryu Katsura translated it in their work Nagarjuna's Middle Way.  Another important translation appears in Jay Garfield's The Fundamental Wisdom off the Middle Way which Batchelor recommends as "a more literal, academic translation."  Nagarjuna's work is composed of 27 chapters.  The shortest chapter is made up of six, four-line verses, while the longest chapter is made up of 40, four-line verses (at least this is how Garfield parses the text within the chapters). To illuminate the concept of emptiness, Nagarjuna discusses a variety of metaphysical topics, including time, motion, causation, actions, and the self as well as specifically Buddhist concepts like nirvana, the Buddha nature, and the Four Noble Truths.  The basic strategy of the work is to demonstrate through close logical analysis that all theories about the metaphysical concepts under scrutiny cannot be correct.  Through reductio ad absurdum arguments, Nagarjuna shows that the tools of reason cannot lead to an adequate understanding of of ultimate truth. Ultimate truth is accessible to us only after we understand this and open ourselves to a direct understanding through an intuition of the emptiness of all things in our experience.

Nagarjuna's doctrine of emptiness is a monumental achievement in the history of ideas.  From it, the numerous schools of Mahayana Buddhism emerged, particularly the Madhyamaka schools present in Tibet today and the Chinese and Japanese schools of Ch'an and Zen Buddhism.  These later school have, of course, additional important influences besides Nagarjuna. We are particularly fortunate that Stephen Batchelor took up the task of translating and commenting on the Mulamadhyamakakarika in that he brings a thorough understanding of the Tibetan tradition (particularly the Dge lugs) as well as Zen.  Furthermore,  Batchelor brings a critical Western perspective to his interpretations.  Batchelor became steeped in the scholarly study of Buddhism while studying under the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala.  He eventually felt a need to go beyond scholarship and seek out a more direct understanding of Buddhism.  Traveling to South Korea, Batchelor joined a Zen monastery, where he pursued a path of meditation.  Ultimately, he left the monastery to marry, move to England, and become a lay Buddhist.  Nonetheless, he has continued to write and lecture on Buddhism.  He has become well-known as a "secular Buddhist," seeking to preserve the practical, rational elements of Buddhism while discarding the religious, speculative, and magic elements.  Batchelor believes that only by doing this will Buddhism find wider acceptance in the West.

His translation of the Mulamadhyamakakarika is clear, crisp, and poetic.  It seems to reflect the sensibility of the Japanese haiku.  For example, he translates a verse in chapter on the self as follows:

When the Buddhas don't appear
And their followers are gone,
The wisdom of awakening
Bursts forth by itself.

Compare this to Garfield's more "literal, academic translation:"

When the fully enlighten ones do not appear,
And when the disciples have disappeared,
The wisdom of the self-enlightened ones
Will arise completely without a teacher.

Or compare it to the Siderits-Katsura translation:

Though the completely enlightened ones do not arise and the sravakas disappear,
The knowledge of the pratyekabuddhas arise independently.

Or compare the translations of another verse in a chapter on the body.  First, Batchelor:

I have no body apart
From the parts which form it;
I have no parts
Apart from a "body."

Next, Garfield:

Apart form the cause of form,
Form cannot be conceived.
Apart from form,
The cause of form is not seen.

Finally, Siderits-Katsura:

Rupa is not found separate from the cause of rupa.
Nor is the cause of rupa seen without rupa.

One is immediately attracted to Batchelor's verses.  In most instances, they have the capacity to capture the imagination of the reader and prompt deep reflection, when the other translations seem flat or simply puzzling; however, the Garfield and Siderits-Katsura are certainly more faithful translations of the original work.  While someone not well acquainted with the concepts that Nagarjuna is explicating will certainly find Garfield and Siderits-Katsura puzzling, both translations are accompanied with helpful commentary.  So the reader is left with two options:  reading Batchelor for the pleasure of his style or reading Garfield or Siderits-Katsura to deepen one's understanding of Nagarjuna.  In defense of Batchelor, though, one might justly argue that he has done a fine job of conveying the spirit of the original and that for the most part one does not need a strong background in the Madhyamaka tradition to get a passable understanding of the force of the root text.  Still, reading Batchelor's translation alone will not leave one with a full understanding.

It should be noted, though, that Verses from the Center also contains Batchelor's very fine introduction, entitled "Intuitions of the Sublime."  The title clearly conveys Batchelor's approach to Nagarjuna.  While Nagarjuna is well-known for the incisiveness of his arguments, his final goal is to demonstrate that argumentation cannot lead us to a true understanding of the world.  This can be achieved only through intuition.  Batchelor appears to use the Mulamadhyamakakarika as an inspiration to write poetry that is often only loosely based on the root text, but which may have the ability to ignite the reader's intuitions and lead one to an understanding that a "more literal, academic translation" cannot.

Buddhism: One Teacher; Many Traditions / Bhiksu Tenzin Gyatso and Bhiksuni Thubten Chodron -- Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2014

Over the course of the last year in connection with my sabbatical, I have read numerous books on Buddhism, both recent works and seminal works in the Buddhist canon.  Many have provided valuable and sometimes unique insights into the history and philosophy of Buddhism, but none have managed to encapsulate the most important ideas in that history and philosophy as Buddhism: One Teacher; Many Traditions by the Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) and Thubten Chodron.  The work is deep and amazingly comprehensive.  For me, it is unquestionably the best book of 2014.

In just 290 pages, the authors cover the following topics:

1. The Origin and Spread of the Buddha's Doctrine
2. Refuge in the Three Jewels (the Buddha, the dharma, and the samgha)
3. The Four Noble Truths
4. Training in Ethical Conduct
5. Training in Concentration
6. Training in Wisdom
7. Selflessness and Emptiness
8. Dependent Arising
9. Meditation Uniting Serenity and Insight
10. Progress on the Path to Enlightenment
11. The Four Immeasurables (love, compassion, joy, and equanimity)
12. Bodhicitta (the aspiration for enlightenment for the benefit of all)
13. Training in the Path of the Bodhisattvas (including the Six Perfections)
14. The Possibility of Awakening
15. Tantrism

What is most astonishing about the work is that it is both eminently readable -- even for the novice -- and deeply insightful.  Not only does it cover the seminal doctrines of the Buddha, it traces the development of those doctrines in all of the major Buddhist traditions; hence, the subtitle: "One Teacher; Many Traditions."  Many works are said to be of value to both the novice and the expert, but never has that been so true as of this work.

In his prologue to the work, the Dalai Lama writes that he has spent a great deal of time seeking to build connections between different religious traditions; however, he notes that there is too little mutual understanding within the traditions of Buddhism and he points out specific misconceptions held by Buddhist about different Buddhist traditions.  A primary purpose of the work, then, is to help dispel these misconceptions and create a deeper understanding of world Buddhism among Buddhists themselves, without insisting on a single orthodox interpretation of the dharma.

While the title page lists the Dalai Lama as the first author, the nature of Thubten Chodron's preface would suggest that the great bulk of the writing is hers.  Indeed, it appears that she wrote the work under the direction of the Dalai Lama and that her understanding of Buddhism is profoundly shaped by the views of the Dalai Lama with whom she has studied.  A search in WorldCat indicates that her numerous published books reach back to the 1980s, many of which have been translated into numerous languages.  She began studying meditation in 1975, was ordained as a Buddhist nun in 1977 in Dharamsala and was fully ordained in 1986 in Taiwan.  She also maintains a web site at thubtenchodron.org, where many of her lectures have been archived.

Why the Silence?

It has been quite some time since I posted an entry to this blog.  So I thought I'd provide an explanation to the curious.  I have been on professional leave (a.k.a. sabbatical) for a few months working on a book on Indian Buddhism.  It has meant that I have not spent time reviewing the books I am reading, since what I am drawing from them presumably will appear in the book.  For fuller disclosure, I'm appending below the draft preface for the book.

About a year ago, I was having lunch with a co-worker and the topic of Buddhism came up.  She told me that she really didn’t know much about Buddhism, just that is was a very peaceful religion.  I was tempted to give her a quick tutorial on some of Buddhism’s main ideas, but decided it would be too pedantic for a lunch conversation.  I simply agreed with her and mentioned that I had a long standing interest in Buddhism.  She seemed to want me to say at least something about Buddhism, but by then I had made my decision not to say anything of substance.  In retrospect, I think I was a little worried that by speaking extemporaneously, I wouldn’t give her a very clear or even sufficiently accurate account of Buddhism.  In any case, I subsequently began thinking about what I might say had I had time to formulate my thoughts. 

A few weeks later, I started sketching an outline of Buddhism’s main ideas and thinking about writing a short essay for people like my co-worker.  The sketch of the “short essay” soon began looking like several short essays and maybe even a book.  I doubt that my co-worker really would want to read such a thing, but the idea of putting my understanding of Buddhism in writing began to take over my thoughts.  Finding time to do this would be difficult.  Thankfully, with the support of my immediate supervisors and the Dean of Libraries at my university, I was awarded a professional leave of absence to take on the project. 

It has been more than forty years since I first read a book on Buddhism.  It was Buddhism by Christmas Humphreys.  I was about 15 years old and had recently been confirmed into my mother’s Lutheran Church, but within less than a year of my confirmation, my scientific frame of mind had led me to reject the empirical claims in the Old Testament and to recognize the untestability of Christianity’s theological claims.  Only Christian morality seemed attractive anymore.  Nonetheless, my rather philosophical disposition brought me to wonder about other religions.  By chance, Christmas Humphreys’s book was available on my father’s bookshelf.  Reading it was a most rewarding experience.  Here was a “religion” that seemed to rely on neither speculative theology nor dubious empirical claims, and most of all, it addressed in a clear and rational way two questions that were important to me:  what is the world ultimately like and how can I live a virtuous life?  Perhaps more importantly, it provided me with a prescription on how to reduce the normal adolescent discontent that I was experiencing. 
 
Since then I have read widely on the topic, and Buddhism’s insights have helped me navigate some rather difficult times.  During college and graduate school, I began picking up books on Buddhism at used bookstores, selecting ones that seemed reasonably scholarly and which had some clear connection to my developing understanding of Buddhism.  Consequently, the foundation of my understanding lies in works published in the latter half of the twentieth century, particularly 1960-1980. The authors that had the greatest influence on me were Edward Conze and D.T. Suzuki who ignited in me a strong interest in Zen.  Around 1990, I came across T.R.V. Murti’s The Central Philosophy of Buddhism.  I was mightily impressed, mainly because of its effort to connect Buddhism to Western philosophy, especially Immanuel Kant for whom I had and still have a strong affinity.  Murti’s book redirected my interest away from East Asian Buddhism.  Indian Buddhism now had become my primary interest.  With this grounding, I went on to read English translations of a number of sūtras and abhidharma texts that turned up in used bookstores.  The Prajñāpāramitā literature was of special interest.  

Off and on, I have called myself a Buddhist, but as I have had no formal training in Buddhism and never belonged to a Buddhist community, calling myself a Buddhist always seemed a little pretentious.   Nonetheless, I now find that I know more about Buddhism than I know about the Christianity.  Furthermore, I find that the central insights of Buddhism have become deeply ingrained in how I think and behave in the world.  In that sense, I guess I am a self-taught Buddhist or perhaps more accurately, my teachers have been the authors I have read, and my Buddhist community has been people with Buddhist dispositions, whether they knew these dispositions were Buddhist or not.

At the same time, I am a philosopher in the Anglo-American, analytic tradition.  My Ph.D. dissertation dealt with contemporary Western political philosophy, and over the course of twelve years, I taught philosophy at one college and two universities, specializing in Moral Theory, the Philosophy of Law, and, of course, Political Philosophy.  I also had an abiding interest in Epistemology and Metaphysics, particularly the justification of moral claims and the concept of personhood – admittedly a rather wide ranging set of interests; too many to be much of an expert on anything.

Often, I found the ideas that I encountered and taught were similar to ideas that appear in the Buddhist tradition, but I never made any serious attempt to describe those similarities nor did I ever bring them into my classrooms.  My hope, with this work, is that I will be able to show how several important Buddhist ideas are akin to venerable ideas of the Western philosophical tradition.  Too often I hear Western philosophers dismiss Eastern philosophy as wooly-minded speculation.  Too often I hear devotees of Eastern philosophies dismiss Western philosophy as vain, irrelevant, and superficial.  I suspect that both are speaking mainly out of ignorance.  If I my work can undermine those prejudices, even a little, I will consider it a success.

This work will attempt to reach an educated general audience.  It will also restrict the number of footnotes to the sources upon which it is based.  I do this both to facilitate a more fluid reading experience and because it is not always clear to me what should be considered the generally accepted facts about Buddhism and what is controversial enough to deserve citation.  Instead, I will provide an annotated bibliography of the works that have been important to the writing of this work and I encourage the reader to explore these works in their own way.  I trust that after decades of reading, what has stuck in my brain is likely to be those views that I have encountered on numerous occasions and therefore are established reasonably well, at least in the English language literature.  My lack of ability to read Sanskrit, Pāli, Chinese, Japanese, or Tibetan is, of course, a great weakness in my ability to sort out the truth in any other way than this regrettably casual method.  I will, however, make use of a number of foreign language terms throughout the text.  After all, they are commonly imbedded in the English language texts and translations that form the basis of this work.  English works on Buddhism often make use of Sanskrit and Pāli terminology, and the use of diacritical marks is not always consistent from one author to another.  So for the sake of consistency, I will employ Sanskrit terms whenever they are available and I will use The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism edited by Robert E. Buswell, Jr. and Donald S. Lopez, Jr. as my authority on spelling, capitalization, and diacritics with The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion edited by Stephan Schuhmacher and Gert Woerner as a secondary resource.  There will, of course, be instances when I fail to follow this practice, but hopefully, they will be limited.

Comparative Philosophy and the Philosophy of Scholarship: On the Western Interpretation of Nagarjuna / Andrew P. Tuck -- N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1990

Understanding an alien tradition poses enormous obstacles. Many concepts that one takes for granted from one's own tradition turn out to be culturally specific, even ones that seem so fundamental to one's understanding of a subject that we think that they surely must be universal. Nonetheless, if we are to gain a cosmopolitan understanding, we must do what we can to understand what falls outside of our established world views. Success is always partial and it requires long and arduous study or total immersion in the alien culture.

In Comparative Philosophy and the Philosophy of Scholarship Andrew Tuck illustrates the changing fashions among Western scholars in their attempts to understand Indian Buddhist philosophy, particularly the views of Nagarjuna and the Madyamaka school that Nagarjuna is said to have founded. Tuck distinguishes three phases in the Western interpretation of Nagarjuna and the Madyamaka school: German idealism, Anglo-American analysis, and post-Wittgensteinian linguistic functionalism. Previously understood as little more than nihilism, serious study of the Madyamaka school did not begin until the 20th century. A landmark in this development was Fyodor Stcherbatsky's book Buddhist Logic which agreed on the illusory nature of the empirical world, but did not reject the reality of a transcendent world of the thing-in-itself. By this, Stcherbatsky advanced a distinctly Kantian conception of Buddhism which recognized the apparent duality of the phenomenal and the noumenal. The approach is further developed by T.R.V. Murti's The Central Philosophy of Buddhism.

As the idealist view of Nagarjuna was coming to maturity, Western philosophers were beginning to abandon idealism and speculative philosophy in general. Instead, the techniques of logical analysis of Anglo-American philosophy were gaining prominence and a number of Nagarjuna's Western interpreters were employing these techniques to understanding his work. According to Tuck, Richard Robinson is foremost in this movement. Given Nagarjuna's criticism of competing philosophical views and the nearly syllogistic passages in his works, it is no wonder that the techniques of the logician would be applied. During this period of interpretation, Nagarjuna's tetralemma [neither A, ~A, A&~A, nor ~(A&~A)] became the focus of study. Nagarjuna's primary project was taken to be refuting all competing philosophical positions, thus rendering all conceptions of "own being" meaningless. According to Robinson, Nagarjuna failed in this project, but in any case, the approach to Nagarjuna's work was analytic, not speculative.

The final phase of interpretation came after the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein. According to the post-Wittgensteinian philosophers, Nagarjuna's task was pursued via a careful examination of the function of language, not its mere logical relations. Here a pragmatic, soteriological enterprise was afoot. Nagarjuna was showing his contemproaries how the fly might escape the fly bottle.

Tuck does not endorse any of these readings of (or approaches to reading) Nagarjuna. He merely seeks to show how the philosophical dispositions of Western philosophers have influenced the understanding of Nagarjuna. His work is in its detail interesting, but the larger point seems trivial. He does, however, seem to imply a more significant point.  Beyond merely observing that interpretations of alien traditions necessarily are shaped by the assumptions of the interpreting culture, Tuck seems to suggest that while no prior cultural assumptions are better or worse than another, each can generate a new and interesting mixture of ideas that will illuminate and advance human understanding.

Wei Shih Er Shih Lun or The Treatise in Twenty Stanzas on Representation-Only / Vasubandhu -- Clarence H. Hamilton, trans. -- New Haven, Conn: American Oriental Society, 1938

Over the long history of Buddhism, many schools of thought developed.  Precisely when one school or another appeared is usually controversial. So it should come as no surprise that establishing the date of the foundation of the Yogacara school is controversial.  It is believed that the school was founded by two brothers, Asanga and Vasubandhu.  According to Louis de La Vallee Poussin, the brothers lived during the early 4th century.  Other scholars place them in the latter half of the 5th century.  In either case, their school of thought is among the last to develop in India.

Vasubandhu is deemed responsible for two treatises that present the central ideas of the Yogacara school:  the Viṃśatikā-vijñaptimātratāsiddhi and the Triṃśikā-vijñaptimātratāsiddhi.  These Sanskrit texts are now lost to  us, but both were translated into Chinese numerous times.  From these translations we now have English versions:  The Treatise in Twenty Stanzas on Representation-Only and The Treatise in Thirty Stanzas on Representation-Only respectively.  The edition of the Viṃśatikā reviewed here contains both the Chinese translation by Hsuan Tsang and the English version by Clarance Hamilton.

The Treatise in Twenty Stanzas defends Yogacara doctrines primarily by addressing critiques advanced by other Buddhist schools, thus clearing the way for the acceptance of the Yogacara doctrines.  It is in The Treatise in Thirty Stanzas that Vasubandhu presents a fuller, positive treatment of his thinking.  The central doctrine which Vasubandhu seeks to make tenable is that all that exists is, according to Hamilton's translation, is "representation."  Others translate "representation" as "thought," "mind," "consciousness," or "discernment."  The Yogacara view has often been described as a form of idealism. 

Most broadly speaking, Vasubandhu frames his arguments by considering the relationship between objects of representation, representations, and the ego to which objects are represented.  Of these, only representations are real.  Vasubandhu argues against the Sarvastivadin view that both objects and representations are real, against the Madyamikan view that both objects and representations are equally unreal, and against the Sautrantikan view that representations are merely modes of mental functioning. 

The main target of his arguments are the objections of realists, i.e., those who posit an objective world, independent of thought.  As nearly all Buddhists deny the existence of the self, a refutation of the ego to which objects are represented isn't necessary.  To refute the objections of the realist's, Vasubandhu attempts to show that his idealism can explain adequately that (1) sense objects (representations) can be fixed in space and time, (2) they can be shared in a publicly among numerous steams of consciousness, and (3) they can have a practical function. 

In a more positive attack on realism, Vasubandhu argues that the elements that might make up an objective world are insubstantial.  Of course this view could be extended to the representations that Vasubandhu asserts are real.  His defense against the insubstantiality of objects and representations relies upon the distinction between ordinary cognition and the cognition of an enlightened being.  Ordinary cognizers might easily reject the substantiality of representations and adopt a kind of nihilism; however, a fully enlightened cognizer will recognize a supramundane realm of elements.  By availing himself of this supramundane reality that is intuited only by the enlightened, Vasubandhu comes down squarely in the camp of mysticism.  This is not meant as a refutation of his views, but merely that the methods of ordinary perception and reason are not sufficient to reveal absolute truth.  To discover this, one must adopt the yogic practice that leads to transcendent knowledge; hence, his school of thought is called "Yogacara."

In Bed with the Word: Reading, Spirituality, and Cultural Politics / Daniel Coleman -- Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta Press, 2009

Daniel Coleman's In Bed with the Word is a collection of five short essays on the joy and value of reading.  It is simultaneously unsurprising and ideosyncratic.  That is, Coleman's personal reflections on and experience of reading are employed to draw conclusions that are no doubt widely held by serious readers.

In the first essay, Coleman describes how reading allows us to become connected to experience wider than our own.  Two stories make this point.  The first is of his six year old brother deciding to spend the day "in bed with the Word."  Hence the book's title.  Though not yet literate, his brother understands the way in which books connect us to something beyond our immediate world.  The second story is of an eight  year old girl in Trinidad who, by discovering a book about the 1791 Haitian Revolution, is connected to her own cultural history.  Coleman writes these stories in a compelling way, but their subject is by no means unusual and Coleman brings little new insight to it.

The second and third essays present related ideas.  According to Coleman, serious reading is "countercultural."  It fosters our inclinations toward democratic citizenship and requires that we open ourselves to the prospect of new experiences and learning. Here, Coleman seems to disregard the possibility that we might read deeply in works that we know or expect to confirm our existing beliefs.  Whatever is new in our reading is little more than filling details or adding additional weight to our worldview.  Such an approach to reading might be far more common than Coleman would like to believe.  Coleman's discernibly liberal politics are likely what leads him to his conclusion about reading.

In his fourth essay, Coleman discusses the relationship between the reader and the author, which he describes as one initiated by absence.  The absence, however, is to a great extent overcome when the reader become immersed in the text. The reader becomes to hear the voice of the author intimately in the reader's head and comes into the presence of a "companionable ghost."  It is in this essay that Coleman does reach beyond commonplace observations and makes many interesting points.  He compares the absence relationship, overcome in the act of reading, with the relationship that a theist has with their god, particularly the direct experience that Sufis have of the divine in the course of their whirling dance.

The final essay continues to reflect on the connections between religion and reading in a discussion of reading as "eating the book," an actual practice of some Jews. His point here appears simply to be that to gain the real benefits of reading we must read books "wholly, fully, and slowly, so they become parts of our bodies, the very structure of our lives."  It is an unsurprising claim, but in a world in which our reading is brief, quick, chaotic, and unconnected, it is worth remembering.

Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma / Leon Hurvitz, tr. -- N.Y.: Columbia University Press, 1976

The Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma, also known simply as The Lotus Sutra is among the most important mahayana Buddhist sutras.  It is particularly important to Buddhism as it is practiced in East Asia.  This may have something to do with the fact that the original Sanskrit version of the sutra has been lost and that the versions that have been in existence for the longest are Chinese translations.  This particular English translation was based on the Chinese translation attributed to Kumarajiva, a fourth century Indo-Iranian figure who was responsible for managing a school of translators who were in turn responsible for the translation of many sutras into Chinese.

Like many mahayana sutras, The Lotus Sutra asserts the superiority of the path of the bodhisattva over other paths to enlightenment.  What is most interesting about The Lotus Sutra is that it does so in parables.  It also presents parables that explain how the bodhisattva tailors his (or her) message to the requirements of the listener -- as might any good teacher.  Both of these points are made in the first parable that appears in the work.  A man finds that his house is on fire, but that his children are inside enthralled by their toys.  To induce them to leave the house, he tells them that he has three carts outside for them: drawn respectively by a deer, a goat, and an ox.  Delighted, the children leave the burning house only to find that the ox cart is the only vehicle outside.  The bodhisattva explains that the man is justified in lying to the children in order to get them out of the house, and that only the ox cart -- which stands for the path of the bodhisattva -- is real.

In a second parable, a very rich man's son leaves his household and remains estranged for many years.  In the son's wanderings he comes upon a house that his father has founded.  Not knowing that it is his father's house, he becomes employed there, diligently working in the stables.  In time, the rich man, who knows his son's identity, rewards the son.  Eventually, when the son has become accustomed to being part of the household, the man reveals that he is the son's father and declares him his heir.

In a third parable, a guide was leading a group of travellers to a buried treasure.  The travellers grew tired and wanted to give up the journey.  So the guide caused an apparition of a beautiful city to appear, where the travellers rested.  When they regained their strength, the guide cause the city to vanish and led them on to the buried treasure.

Among the more unique parables is the story of "the dragon girl."  The Buddha asks the bodhisattva Manjusri to tell an assembled multitude if anyone hearing his teaching speedily gained enlightenment.  Manjusri described a girl of eight who had quickly gained enlightenement.  The bodhisattvas Prajnakuta expressed skepticism, whereupon the girl appeared before them and testified to her own enlightenment.  The bodhisattva Sariputra then expressed disbelieve, claiming that a woman could not achieve unexcelled enlightenment.  Whereupon the girl turned into a man.

Much of the sutra is a panegyric to the Buddha and various bodhisattvas. The Buddha is frequently associated with a rain of flower petals or fine garments, jewels, and fragrances.  Great expanses of time and space and hosts of auditors (Buddha, bodhisattvas, gods, humans, demons, non-humans, hungry ghosts, and beings in hell) are frequently described.  At times this can become a bit tedious, but when one tries to reflect these incalculable numbers, one's mind can be directed to a transcendental experience:

I now tell you plainly: the merit gained by this man for giving all manner of playthings to living beings of the six destinies in four hundred myriads of millions of asamkhyeyas of world-spheres, and also enabling them to obtain the fruit of the arhant, does not equal one-hundredth, not one-thousandths, not one-hundred-thousand-myriad-millionth part of the merit of that fiftieth person for appropriately rejoicing at hearing a single gatha of the Scripture of the Dharma Blossom for it is something that cannot be known through number or parable.

For the most part, the sutra only briefly makes mention of the central doctrines of mahayana Buddhism.  For these, I would recommend The Large Sutra of Perfect Wisdom.

Buddhism: A Modern Perspective / Charles S. Prebish, ed. -- University Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State University, 1975

Buddhism, edited by Charles Prebish is a cross between a introductory survey and an brief, one volume encyclopedia of Buddhism.  It is composed of 45 chapters, averaging five and a half pages.  Each chapter explores a significant topic in the history and philosophy of Buddhism.  The First Part deals with "Indian Buddhism," beginning with a history of early Buddhism.  Chapter Six begins the treatment of the central ideas of Buddhism:  the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, the Three Marks of Existence, the Five Aggregates, Dependent Origination, and the Stages of Sanctification. The rest of Part One provides and account of the major schools, important literature, and advanced ideas.  Remarkably, the authors of each of chapter manage to convey the important concepts clearly and concisely, quickly presenting the essence of the topic at hand. 

Part Two deals with "Buddhism Outside of India."  Unfortunately, it is here where the work begins to falter.  There is simply too much information about the development of Buddhism in Ceylon, Southeast Asia, China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, and the West to pack into the brief chapters allotted to these regions, some of which have been home to Buddhism for nearly two millennia.  Nonetheless, even Part Two can serve as a worthwhile reference source for names of political and religious leaders and monastic communities.  They also provide a thumbnail sketch of the history of Buddhism in the region

A short bibliography of "suggested reading" follows each chapter.  The work also includes a brief directory of Buddhist communities in the United States and an extensive glossary, general bibliography, and index.

Buddhism: A Modern Perspective will be more valuable for the beginner, but more experienced scholars are bound to find an number of chapters quite useful.

Madhyamakalankara / Shantarakshita with commentary by Jamgon Mipham -- Boston: Shambhala, 2005

In the history of Buddhism two important philosophers developed competing perspectives on the teachings of the Buddha.  The first, Nagarjuna, advanced the view that all speculative theories of reality were false and that the ultimate truth was only knowable through a direct intuition attained during meditation.  Reality as we normally think of it was "empty."  His philosophy came to be known as Madhyamaka or "the Middle Way" as he rejected what he considered the extremes of speculative theories of reality.  The second, Asanga, advanced the "Mind Only" school of Buddhism which rejected the materialism of early Buddhism and asserted a form of idealism.  Ultimate reality was constituted only by the mind.  Everything else was its product or projection.  The school came to be known as Yogachara Buddhism.  Madhyamaka and Yogachara Buddhism constitute the two largest currents of Indian Mahayana Buddhism.

In the eighth century, a third philosopher, Shantarakshita, attempted to resolve the disagreement between these two traditions.  Perhaps his most important work was the Madhyamakalankara, translated by the Padmakara Translation Group as The Adornment of the Middle Way. In it, Shantarakshita argued that there are two forms of truth:  conventional and ultimate.  By recognizing this distinction, the Madhyamaka and Yogachara tendencies can be brought together into a single, combined theory of reality in which ultimate truth is approximated by the accounts found in the Madhyamaka tradition and conventional truth is captured by the Yogachara tradition.

The Madhyamakalankara is composed of 97 stanzas of four lines each.  The great bulk of the work (66 stanzas) explains the doctrine of "the two truths," i.e., that we can distinguish conventional truth from ultimate truth.  Conventional truth is adequately described in language and adequately understood through observation and reason.  It is what post-Kantian Western philosophers might describe as truth about the phenomenal world.  Ultimate truth reaches beyond the phenomenal world and characterizes reality as it is in itself, unclouded by the limitations and delusions of human experience and cognition.  Much of these first 66 stanzas employ the Madhyamaka method of refuting speculative theories about ultimate truth.  Shantarkshita systematically refutes the views of all of the main schools of Buddhism of his day along with a number of non-Buddhist schools of thought.  According to the Madhyamika, these views completely exhaust all possible views of ultimate reality, and so one can draw the conclusion that no discursive account of ultimate reality is correct.  This conclusion is described by the Madhyamika as asserting the "emptiness" of all things.

In the later (nearly last) stanzas of the work, Shantarakshika asserts that the preceding stanza establish that things described by conventional truth have no ultimate existence, and that they are most adequately explained by the Yogachara view.  This view holds that phenomenal things are not material.  Phenomenal reality is "consciousness only."

Shantarakshita's view is designed, as most Buddhist philosophy is, to assist the student toward salvation from suffering.  Simply adopting the Madhyamaka view that all things are empty requires the student to accept a deep and difficult concept.  It requires one to reject common sense and the evidence of one's senses.  On one view, meditation and reflection are adequate to reach this conclusion, but an enormous effort is required.  Alternatively, and following Shantarakshita, the student might first entertain the Yogachara view.  One might first recognize that the distinction between subject and object is an illusion, that all phenomenal objects exist only in relation to all other phenomenal objects, and that phenomenal experience is the product of consciousness creating experience.  Having arrived at this understanding, the student is better positioned to take the Madhyamaka critique to its final conclusion about conventional truth.  One can recognize that the consciousness only explanation of experience is itself a discursive account that remains within the boundaries of human experience and reason.  It's object, consciousness, is just as vulnerable to the same critique that showed material objects to be illusory.  Consciousness must also be empty.  When one is able to do this, one is prepared to have a direct, transcendental "experience" of the ultimate through meditation.

The volume under review includes not only Shantarakshita's work, but also a commentary on the work by Jamgon Mipham, entitled A Teaching to Delight My Master Manjughosha.  Mipham composed his commentary in 1877 amid a movement to establish a more open-minded approach to the various schools of Buddhism.    His commentary is said to rank among the most important explanations of the Shantarakshita's masterpiece.  Despite its reputation, the explanations of the Madhyamaka critiques of various speculative metaphysics are labored; however, once Mipham begins to describe the "benefits" of Shantarakshita's synthesis, the work becomes quite enjoyable and enlightening.

The Bodhicaryavatara / Santideva -- Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton, trans. -- Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1995

Santideva's Bodhicaryavatara is among the most important works in the Mahayana Buddhist canon.  The title translates as the Way of the Bodhisattva.  As such, it provides a concise presentation of the six perfections that are characteristic of the bodhisattva: generosity, morality, forebearance, vigor, concentration, and wisdom. 

The work is composed of 912 verses divide into ten chapters.  Composed in the 8th century, the Bodhicaryavatara played an important role in the transmission of Buddhism to Tibet and has remained important to Tibetan Buddhism.  The Dalai Lama is among its admirers and Mahayana monks continue to memorize it today. 

Its verses are generally clear and direct; however, chapter nine -- it's most celebrated chapter -- is quite difficult.  Chapter nine address the perfection of wisdom as it is understood in the Madhyamaka tradition.  Briefly, wisdom is coming to know that ultimate reality is "empty."  This is the conclusion that is reached when all other metaphysical views about reality are refuted.  For the Madhyamika, ultimate reality is neither one nor many, neither static nor changing, neither conscious nor unconscious.  No analytic, discursive description of it is true.  Language is only able to articulate conventional truth and at most can point in the direction of the approximate ultimate truth. 

Chapter nine and the work in general owe much to the most important work in the Mahayana/Madhyamaka tradition, the Prajnaparamita.  While the Prajnaparamita is far longer (100,000 verses in its longest form), it communicates the difficult concept of emptiness much more effectively.  The Bodhicaryavatara is certainly worth reading, but other secondary material will make understanding its central ideas much easier.

Nagarjuna's Letter to a Friend with Commentary by Kangyur Rinpoche / Nagarjuna and Kangyur Rinpoche -- Padmakara Translation Group, trans. -- Ithaca, N.Y.: Snow Lion Pulblications, 2005

Around the beginning of the second century of the common era, Arya Nagarjuna, a brilliant Indian philosopher, wrote a short treatise entitled Suhrillekha in Sanskrit or Letter to a Friend in English.  It has become one of the most important texts in Buddhism's Mahayana tradition.  Composed of just 123 verses, each of four lines, Letter to a Friend provides a lucid exposition of the "six perfections" or paramitas: generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, concentration, and wisdom.  These are the virtues of the bodhisattva, i.e., the Mahayana saint.  A fuller treatment of these virtues and their significance can be found in another work, The Perfection of Wisdom in 100,000 Verses or the Prajnaparamita.  Nagarjuna is said to have retrieved the Perfection of Wisdom from the realm of the nagas -- serpent-like beings-- and brought it to the world.

The most significant aspect of both Letter to a Friend and The Perfection of Wisdom is its treatment of wisdom.  Perfecting wisdom amounts to coming to understand the "emptiness" of all things.  This is the most important contribution made by the Madhyamaka tradition of Buddhism to Buddhism's philosophical development.  Earlier Buddhist held that there was no self or subject.  Instead, all things were composed of a multiplicity of dharmas, essentially infinitesimal atoms of reality that were in constant flux.  In contrast, the Upanishadic tradition in India held that the fundamental reality was a universal self or, understood from another perspective, the unitary divine ground of being that had a permanent existence.  The Madhyamaka tradition advanced arguments against both of these views.  The argumentative technique was essentially critical:  reality was not one, it was not many, it was not neither one nor many, and it was not both one and many.  Furthermore, what did exist, existed conditionally or only in relation to all other things.  Reality is "emptiness."  This should not be confused with nothingess.  The Madhyamaka view is not nihilistic.  Reflecting on these metaphysical views establishes, for the Madhyamika, a frame of mind that leads one to be able to develop the other five perfections and thereby achieve enlightenment.  Madhyamaka metaphysics is perhaps the highest development of metaphysics within the Buddhist tradition.

Letter to a Friend is short enough that it often has been memorized by the Buddhist faithful.  At the same time, it does an excellent job of bringing to mind the full scope of the path of the bodhisattva.  Its brevity, however, make a commentary useful.  In the edition under review here, Kangyur Rinpoche provides an admirable but not terribly extensive or detailed commentary.  Too often Kangyur Rinpoche merely  re-expressed the concise poetic formulations of Nagarjuna in a wordier prose form, but in other instances, Kangyur Rinpoche makes illuminating comments. 

Reading the edition cover to cover amounts, essentially, to reading the Letter three times.  First, it is presented in its translated form without commentary.  Second, it is presented, verse by verse, in the commentary, which -- as noted -- often provides a re-phrasing of the verses.  This is by no means a drawback.  The Letter is well worth multiple readings.  Finally, there is a useful introduction by the translators, a glossary of terms, notes on the commentary, and the entire text in Sanskrit and Tibetan.  It is an edition well worth owning.

Spice: The History of a Temptation / Jack Turner-- N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004

In the penultimate paragraph of Spice: A History of a Temptation, author Jack Turner describes his work as a "long ramble" through the history of spices. There could be no more apt description of the work, though it might be better titled A History of Europe's Encounters with and Responses to South Asian Spices, as the work is more limited than its actual title suggests.

In general, the work begins with a chapter covering the Age of Discovery and the efforts of European seafaring powers to acquire Asian spices. Following this are two chapters on spices as used in cooking, a chapter on spices used for health and funerary practices, a chapter on spices as aphrodisiacs, and a chapter on spices used for religious and spiritual rituals. Two concluding chapters describe the reaction against spices and the decline of their importance in international trade and European culture from the twelfth century to the eighteenth century.

To its credit, the work is a scholarly tour de force. Turner uncovered numerous references to spices in wide variety of European literary and historical sources and in practically every major European language. Unfortunately, Turner's organization of his material is blunt and his conclusions are limited. One is left with the sense that in the course of his research he collected every reference to spices he could find, drafted brief descriptions of their import, and filed them into a few categories: food, health, sex, and religion, etc. Then within these categories, he linked his references with whatever connective discussion he could devise. The result is a long ramble indeed.

Perhaps the most valuable element of the work is the 24 pages describing his sources and bibliography. These pages will give a serious scholar an excellent starting point for doing more in depth and hopefully more consequential work in one or another of Turner's subjects. Unfortunately, many of Turner's sources will be hard to acquire outside of the extraordinary libraries that served Turner's research.

One particular avenue of research the begs examination is the relationship between class, economics, and spices. Turner make frequent mention of how expensive spices have been through out history and how this affected their popularity or desirability, but he does not take this up in much detail. One is left wondering just how the purchase of spices was supported and how it affect the European economy and social structure. One gets only an inkling of a sense about how Asian spices competed with European spices and who were their main markets. Much of the work covers the period of the Middle Ages, and while there is a relatively fine chapter on the reactions of the Christian Church to spices, one does not get a clear picture of role that spices played in the interrelations of the Church, the European nobility, commercial enterprises, and the great mass of people who composed European peasantry.

There are occasional sections in which a more extended story is told, e.g., Colombus's voyages, Magellan's voyages, Bernard of Clairvaux's criticism of spices, and Pierre Poivre's efforts to steal clove and nutmeg plants from the Dutch monopoly for the benefit of France. There is also a fascinating description of the mythical medieval "land of Cockayne" where "the only virtues were gluttony, leisure, and pleasure, the only vices exertion and care." The churches in Cockayne "were made of pastry, fish, and meat and buttressed with puddings. There were rivers 'great and fine,' flowing not with water -- a rarity in Cockayne -- but with 'oile, milk, hony and wine,'" and of course spices were a pervasive.

One must admire Turner's scholarship. His mastery of classical, medieval, and modern sources on spices is genuinely delicious, but in the end, one wishes the meal he serves was little more nutritious.