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."

Exploring the Yogasutra: Philosophy and Translation / Daniel Raveh -- London: Continuum, 2012

Exploring the Yogasutra is not for the novice.  Daniel Raveh's exploration mainly addresses the psychology and epistemology underlying Pantanjali's Yogasutra; but he also discusses the difficulties of translation, particularly translating an ancient text in a dead language of a foreign culture into a modern idiom.  One can hardly expect that the original meanings of the words will be replicated simply and concisely in a modern language; however, one might hope that if the ideas under discussion are eternal and universal truths that any relatively well-developed language would provide some way of expressing those ideas.  Since there clearly are difficulties in translating the Yogasutra, one is led to conclude either that it does not reach what is eternal and universal in human experience or that our manner of understanding human experience is variable and requires a more or less significant reframing of how we understand experience.  Anyone remotely sympathetic to comparative religion will opt for the latter explanation and seek help in reframing experience.  Raveh's book attempts to illuminate the assumptions about the structure of mind that are required for this reframing in order to appreciate yogic processes and yogic knowledge.

The most significant assumption is that mental activity is associated with two concepts: prakriti and purusa.  Raveh defines prakriti as "the manifest and nonmanifest dimensions of the world and worldly existence."  In contrast, purusa is the metaphysical core of the self.  Typically, Western psychology would associate mental activity with the latter and see the former as the external cause of mental phenomena; however, the Yogasutra and likely the entire yogic tradition, understands mental activity to be part of, or operating within, prakriti.  Consequently, a higher yogic truth (or "truth-bearing yogic insight") can only be revealed when the yogi brings about a cessation of mental activity. 

Raveh makes an important contribution to the epistemology of yoga when he compares two sutras of the Yogasutra.  His observation helps us understand the nature of yogic knowledge that is made possible when mental activity ceases.  Raveh translates Yoga Sutra 1.7 as "valid knowledge is based on sense perception, inference and reliable testimony."  Here, Raveh notes that "valid knowledge" is based on mental activity that lies within prakriti.  It is conventional knowledge.  He then translates Yoga Sutra 1.49 as "(ritam-bhara prajna or truth-bearing yogic insight) is essentially different from knowledge based on reliable testimony and inference as it touches on particulars."  Notably, truth-bearing yogic insight is not said to be essentially different from sense perception.  Raveh concludes that truth-bearing yogic insight is like sense perception as they both "touch on particulars," but it is different in that it does not operate within the realm of prakriti.  Together, these two sutras provide us with an understanding of the form of knowledge that the yogi seeks: a direct perception of particulars that are not of the manifest or nonmanifest dimensions of the world or worldly existence.

To achieve yogic knowledge, Pantanjali recommends a path composed of "eight limbs."  The eight limbs are yama (ethical restraints), niyama (personal discipline), asana (yogic postures), pranayama (breath control), pratyahara (withdrawal from the sense world), dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation), and samadhi (total meditative absorption).  According to Pantanjali, by following this path -- particularly by practicing the final three stages of meditation -- the yogi can achieve a final and irreversible escape from the delusion and suffering that is this world. 

The final chapter of Exploring the Yogasutra is not written by Raveh, but by Daya Krishna (1924-2007), author of Indian Philosophy: A Counter Perspective.  Raveh is deeply impressed with Daya Krishna's treatment of Pantanjali's Yogasutra.  It is Daya Krishna's approach to the Yogasutra which motivates Raveh's work.  The most important insight that Daya Krishna provides is that samadhi cannot be the ultimate goal of the yogi.  Samadhi is commonly understood as an ultimate, unworldly state that is irreversible.  Following Daya Krishna, Raveh points out that entering a state in which one cannot return is a limitation on the freedom of the yogi, and that perfect freedom requires that the yogi be capable of both entering and returning from samadhi (or the meditative state that is samadhi, save its irreversibility.)

This view prompts two observations, the first of which Raveh does not seem to take seriously.  First, samadhi should be understood as a meditative state which cannot be achieved perfectly in practice; second, the motivation to return from samadhi appears to be similar to the motivations of the Buddhist bodhisattva.  The first two states of meditation, dharana and dhyana, clearly seem to admit of degrees of achievement.  One can concentrate on external objects more or less effectively and one can more or less focus on one's mental processes.  If one accepts that samadhi is a state in which one becomes more or less unaware of the distinction between the subject and the object of meditation, then irreversible samadhi is merely the limit that the yogi may approach, but not fully achieve, in the final stage of  meditation (samadhi).  On this account, samadhi is both an irreversible state that one does not achieve and a meditative state beyond dhyana that yogis can experience.  The goal remains irreversible samadhi or total meditative absorption, but pursuing this goal does not preclude the return of actual yogis from the state of samadhi.

The second obvious observation is that Daya Krishna (and Raveh) appear to be reprising the reformation that took place in the Buddhist tradition when Mahayana Buddhism broke from Buddhism's early form.  The yogi who exercises freedom by returning from the state of samadhi is like the bodhisattva, who renounces perfect enlightenment to bring salvation to all sentient beings.  Raveh recognizes that the Yogasutra stands as evidence that Patanjali himself must have recognized the value of returning to enlighten others.  The Yogasutra is, after all, a guidebook to yogic knowledge.

Exploring the Yogasutra is not easy reading.  This is due mostly to Raveh's frequent use of Sanskrit terms without providing the necessary context for understanding them.  It is a curious feature in that Raveh is acutely aware of the difficulties in translation.  It is almost as though he is writing for an extremely erudite audience or he has simply given up on the difficult work of translation.  Perhaps a little of both is true.

Finally, Raveh provide us with a highly readable translation of the Yogasutra, presented without interpolated commentary.  Despite its textual difficulties, Exploring the Yogasutra is a work well worth reading.

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.

Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science / Robert L. Park -- Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008

Atheists have been on the offensive recently. Note, for example, Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion or Daniel Dennett's Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon. In something of this vein, Robert L. Park has written Superstition: Belief in the Age of Science. It's a fairly successful indictment of some simple superstitious follies, but it addresses easy targets.

Park takes on, for example, creationism, the efficacy of prayer, homeopathic medicine, and acupuncture; all in an effort to establish that the only basis for knowledge of the empirical world is science. The critical ideas are observation, causation, and testability. What comes of this is a fairly pedestrian scientific realism. What doesn't come of this is a more probing inquiry into ontology and the scientific method. This is, perhaps, forgivable in that a popular understanding of even the simplest version of science is sorely lacking, and many important public policy decisions are being made based on the rank superstitions that Park attacks.

Perhaps the most interesting passage in Superstition comes in the chapter "Schrodinger's Grave," in which Park attempts to discredit the arguments against materialism that have been developed as a result of Schrodinger's wave equation and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. Park describes the argument for non-materialism this way: "..since events on an atomic scale are affected by the act of observation, and since everthing in the universe is made of atoms, we should not be surprised to find our thoughts influencing events on the macroscopic scale in which our lives are lived." Put this way, Park's opponents are, of course, easily defeated; however, subtler arguments against Park's materialism are quite common and unaddressed by Park.

Reading Superstition led me to pick up A.A. Eddington's The Nature of the Physical World, published in 1929. Most of this work is a popular presentation of the state of physics of the time; however, the last chapters argue that we must entertain seriously an idealist ontology. Eddington observes that with the success of quantum mechanics, the concept of causation is no long particularly useful when seeking the most fundamental explanation of phenomena. Instead, probabilities are employed. One might further note that as physics has moved well beyond observable, macroscopic phenomena, its bread and butter lies with inferred objects that are only made meaningful in mathematical descriptions and that non-empirical aspects of theories, for example, simplicity, are as important to establishing a theory as are often dubious observations. For Eddington, the consequence of such considerations is that idealism and even mysticism are now a viable positions for the most tough minded scientists.

Park never addresses these more philosophical arguments. He is content to tackle more popular notions.