Loy, D - Awareness Bound and Unbound

7/27/2019 Loy, D - Awareness Bound and Unbound

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Awreness Bound nd Unbound


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Awreness Bound nd Unbound

Buddhist Essays

DAVID R. LOY


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Published by

Stte University o New York Press, Albny

2009 Stte University o New York

All rights reserved

Printed in the United Sttes o Aeric

No prt o this book y be used or reproduced in ny nner whtsoever

without written perission. No prt o this book y be stored in retrievlsyste or trnsitted in ny or or by ny ens including electronic,electrosttic, gnetic tpe, echnicl, photocopying, recording, orotherwise without the prior perission in writing o the publisher.

For inortion, contct Stte University o New York Press, Albny, NYwww.sunypress.edu

Production by Dine Gneles

Mrketing by Michel Cpochiro

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Loy, Dvid, 1947

Awreness bound nd unbound : Buddhist essys / Dvid Loy.p. c.

Includes bibliogrphicl reerences nd index.ISBN 978-1-4384-2679-2 (hrdcover : lk. pper)ISBN 978-1-4384-2680-8 (pbk. : lk. pper)

1. BuddhisDoctrines. I. itle.

BQ4165.L68 2009294.3'42dc22 2008050507

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Photo credit: spiderweb ige RogiervdE/iStockphoto


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Contents

Acknowledgents vii

Introduction: Myth Broken nd Unbroken 1

One Awreness Bound nd Unbound: On the Nture o Attention 13

wo Lnguge Aginst Its Own Mystifctions: Deconstructionin Ngrjun nd Dogen 31

Tree Ded Words, Living Words, nd Heling Words:Te Disseintions o Dogen nd Eckhrt 47

Four Zhungzi nd Ngrjun on the ruth o No ruth 61

Five CyberBbel 77

Six Dying to the Sel tht Never Ws 89

Seven Te Dhr o Enuel Swedenborg 107

Eight Te Kr o Woen 129

Nine Te West Aginst the Rest? A Buddhist Responseto Te Clash o Civilizations 143

en erroris s Religion: Te Identity Crisis o Seculris 155

Notes 181

Bibliogrphy 191

Index 199


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Acknowledgents

Erlier versions o these essys hve been published previously. Perissionro the ollowing journls nd publishers to reprint this teril is grte-

ully cknowledged.Awreness Bound & Unbound: On the Nture o Attention, Philosophy

East and West 58, no. 1 (April 2008): 223243.Lnguge Aginst Its Own Mystifctions: Deconstruction in Ngrjun

nd Dogen, Philosophy East and West 49, no. 3 (July 1999): 245260.Ded Words, Living Words, Heling Words: Te Disseintions o

Dogen nd Eckhrt, Healing Deconstruction: Postmodern Tought in Buddhismand Christianity, ed. Dvid Loy (Atlnt: Scholrs Press, 1996).

Zhungzi nd Ngrjun on the ruth o No ruth, in Essays on Skep-ticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi, ed. Pul Kjellberg nd Philip

J. Ivnhoe (Albny: Stte University o New York Press, 1996).CyberBbel, Ethics and Inormation echnology 10, no. 2 (2008):251258.

A Zen Cloud? Copring Zen Kon Prctice with Te Cloud oUnknowing, Buddhist-Christian Studies 9 (1990): 4360.

Te Dhr o Enuel Swedenborg: A Buddhist Perspective,Arcana2, no. 1 (Autun 1995): 531. Reprinted s the erword to D. . Suzuki,Swedenborg: Buddha o the North (West Chester, PA: Swedenborg Found-tion, 1996).

Te Kr o Woen in Te Religious Roots o Violence Against Women,

ed. Judith Plskow nd Mrvin Ellison (Clevelnd: Pilgri Press, 2007).Te West Aginst the Rest? A Buddhist Perspective on Huntington,Conronting echnology, Globalization, and War: Challenging the Gods o thewenty-frst Century, ed. Dvid Hwkin nd Michel Hdley (Albny: StteUniversity o New York Press, 2004).

error in the God-Shped Hole: A Buddhist Perspective on Moder-nitys Identity Crisis, Journal o ranspersonal Psychology 36, no. 2 (2004):179201.

In ddition to those cknowledged in the notes, I grteul to SUNYPress editors Nncy Ellegte, Allison Lee, Dine Gneles, nd especilly WyttBenner or ll their ssistnce.

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Introduction

Myth Broken and Unbroken

I we cn no longer believe in trnscendencen eternity with God inheven, or nirvn tht subsists prt ro ssrthen we re cedwith choice. We cn siply disiss such belies s superstition, perhps necessry stge in the developent o hunity but crutch to be outgrowns odern science discovers ore bout the world (nd odern psychologyrevels ore bout ourselves).

Alterntively, we cn understnd religious lnguge s etphor tht ilswhen tken literlly. Pul illich distinguished unbroken yth ro whthe clled broken yth, stories no longer believed to be historiclly true yet

still resonnt with ening. Te rguent o this book is tht broken ythsnd etphors cn point to dierent type o slvtion or delivernce: notlibertion ro this world but into it. We cn ntsize bout going soewhereelse where everything will be oky, or we cn wke up to relize tht thisworld is dierent ro wht we thought it ws. Wht do we need to do tobecoe truly coortble witht one withour lives here nd now?

Tis ore hereneuticl pproch encourges sensitivity to iplic-tions o religious clis, iplictions tht re becoing ore iportnt sthe legcy o odernity becoes ore questionble. I burgeoning socil ndecologicl crises re tied to incresingly dubious wys o understnding wht

the world is nd who we re, where should we look or better understnd-ing? Our niest inbility to tke cre o our collective hoe (nd other)suggests the need or ore nondul worldview: new version o seculritytht is just s uch new vision o scrlity.

Te chpters tht ollow develop this lterntive pproch in vrious wys.Tey oer pririly Buddhist perspectives, becuse Buddhist techings lendtheselves to this sort o hereneutic. Tt is not to sy tht such perspec-tives re uniquely Buddhist, only tht Buddhist ctegories provide especillyreceptive nd productive wys to ddress these issues. (See the chpters on

1


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2 Awareness Bound and Unbound

Swedenborg nd Te Cloud o Unknowing or soe rerkbly siilr non-Buddhist ctegories.) Like other religious clis, Buddhist doctrines need

to be interrogted nd deconstructed; wht is distinctive bout Buddhisis how oen the trdition hs perored tht deconstruction on itsel, thebetter to reconstruct itsel. In ddition to ruitul coprisons with othertrditions (especilly ois nd vrious versions o Christinity), severl othese chpters engge in wht ight be clled internl dilogue to clriyn issue by bringing together wht dierent Buddhist techers nd techingshve hd to sy bout it. It is cdeiclly shionble, nd oen iportnt,to ocus on dierences nd tensions within trdition, to highlight the di-fculties tht dog ost generliztions. Buddhis is certinly susceptible totht sort o critique, yet y in concern in wht ollows is to ephsizethe continuities tht cn contribute to ore or less consistent worldview,one tht chllenges wht we hve been tking or grnted.

Chpter 1 tkes seriously the ny Buddhist donitions bout not settlingdown in things nd the iportnce o wndering reely without plceto rest. Its siple thesis is tht delusion (ignornce, ssr) is wrenesstrpped, nd libertion (enlightenent, nirvn) is wreness unstuck becusereed ro grsping. Tis ens tht the key issue is ttchent. Our bsicdi culty is not letting go o (things in) this world, in order to experiencesoething else; ttchents re probletic becuse they re the ors onwhich orless wreness hs becoe fxted. Awreness here does noten Mind or Consciousnessconcepts with trnscendentl pretensionsbutnothing ore grndiose thn (the true nture o) our ttention. According tothe Jpnese Zen ster Hkuin, the dierence between Buddhs nd the resto us is like tht between wter nd ice: without wter there is no ice, ndwithout Buddh there re no sentient beings. Are we rozen Buddhs?

Our bsic ttchentthe in plce tht wreness gets stuckis theego-sel, which is not sel ( subject) but psychologicl/socil/linguisticconstruct ( entl object). Understnding y wreness s the vehicleo y ego-sel, s soething tht belongs to me, is delusion. We renorlly preoccupied with relting bodies nd possessions, hopes nd ers,

nd so orth, to soething tht does not exist except s n unstble, lwysinsecure, lwys incoplete construction better understood s process thns thing. In ct, tht ongoing ct o reltionship is how the sense o sel isconstructed nd intined. Ironiclly, then, while ll experience is reltedto this ego-sel, it hs no relity except s tht to which ll experience is sup-posedly relted. Tis lck o own-being is persistent source o considerblenxietyin Buddhist ters, the root o our dukkha, suering.

Te ego-sel does not ct; being fctionl, it cnnot do nything, ny orethn chrcter in novel ( being coposed only o words on pge) cn


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3Introduction

ctully do soething. Te literry etphor is good one, becuse we cn loseourselves in the plot nd identiy with the protgonist (usully in opposition

to other chrcters), overlooking the ct tht ll the people nd situtions in novel re cretions o the se igintion. Te se thing hppens when Iidentiy with (the supposed interests o) y own ego-sel . . . but then who is thisI? Whatigintion identifes with the ego-sel? Soe o the chpters oer deythologized ccount o how one fnds the nswer to tht question.

Ephsizing the distinction between delusion (wreness bound) ndwkening (unbound) is consistent with bsic Buddhist techings nd pro-vides insight into soe o the ore di cult ones, including the reltionshipbetween ssr nd nirvn, nd the Mhyn cli tht or is noother thn eptiness, eptiness not other thn or. It is lso iportntto see the iplictions o this perspective or the socil issues tht concernus tody. Te constriction or libertion o wreness is not only personltter. Wht do societies do to encourge or discourge its enciption?Is ttention to be controlled nd exploited, or cultivted nd wkened? Iswreness to be vlued s ens to soe other gol, or should its libertionbe cherished s the ost vluble end-in-itsel?

Tis pproch lso hs iplictions or how we understnd lnguge. Tosewho editte re ilir with wrnings bout clinging to concepts, which cninterere with ones prctice nd hinder enlightenent. o wken is to experi-ence tht which trnscends lnguge, whtever tht ens. Tis hs provokedsoe unresolved nd perhps irresolvble controversies bout whether thereis orless pure consciousness distinguishble ro thought nd lnguge.I, however, the bsic issue is whether wreness is stuck or unstuck, thereis nother possibility: not libertion ro lnguge but into lnguge. Do weuse lnguge or does lnguge use us? Wht hppens when we relize tht(s philosophers such s Heidegger ephsize) we are lnguge?

Chpter 2 ddresses these questions. It copres two iportntMhyn thinkersNgrjun nd Dogenwho re linked (i we cceptthe trditionl ccount) by coon trnsission linege yet lso seprtedby vst geogrphicl, historicl, nd linguistic dierences. Tose dierences

re reected in their divergent textul styles: Ngrjun, the philosophersphilosopher, notorious or his lconic, knie-edged logic, versus Dogen, thellusive nd trnsgressive poet, willing to reinterpret or isinterpret Buddhisttexts in order to devise new sentic possibilities. It is rerkble, then,tht their dissiilr ethods end up ephsizing siilr Buddhist insights.Tt is becuse they deconstruct the se types o delusive duliss, osto the versions o our coonsense distinction between substnce ndttribute, subject nd predicte. Tey provide lterntive deonstrtions ohow lnguge cn work ginst its own ystifctions.


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Nevertheless, lthough both underine dulistic wys o understndingourselves in the world, they rech dierent conclusions bout the possibility

o lnguge conveying true understnding o the world. For Ngrjun,lnguge t its best (tht is, deconstructive philosophy) ultitely sel-negtes,to revel betitude or serenity (shiva) in which there is no Buddh to technd nothing to be tught. For Dogen, however, concepts nd etphorsre not just instruentl ens to counicte truth; they theselvesniest the truthor rther, since tht is still too dulistic, they re the-selves the truth tht we need to relize. I we hve proble with lnguge,why ble the victi? When I do not try to extrct soe truth rom et-phor, it cn be wy y wreness consutes itsel. Although sybolscn be redeeed only by ind, wreness does not unction in vcuubut is ctivted byor better, assybols. In short, the pth leds not tothe eliintion o concepts but to their libertion.

Chpter 3 oers exples ro dierent trditions (including Derridendeconstruction) tht deonstrte how lnguge cn operte in ore liber-ted nd liberting shion. Hui-neng, Dogen, nd Eckhrtrgubly thegretest Chinese Chn ster, the gretest Jpnese Zen ster, nd thegretest edievl Christin ysticl writer, respectivelyre so elevted inthe spiritul pntheon tht we tend to overlook how reely nd opportunisti-clly they eploy words. (Tere I go gin, dulizing between them nd theirlanguage!) In ddition to the blithe wy tht Hui-neng contrdicts trditionlBuddhist techings when it suits his purposes (tht is, when it ight proptn wkening), there re striking prllels to Dogens sentic trnsgressions inEckhrts Ltin neologiss, which he uses to subvert the usul biurctions olngugeor exple, when thy will be done in the Lords Pryer becoeswill, be thine. For Eckhrt, the dulis tht ost needs to be deconstructedis between ysel inside nd God outside, nd there re linguistic wysto underine their dulity.

Te Mhyn doctrine o interpenetrtion (e.g., Indrs net) ipliestht ech dhr is both cuse nd eect o ll other dhrs, nd thtpplies to lnguge s well. Tis ens tht linguistic expressions re t the

se tie both reltivethey lwys reer to other ters nd thingsndends in theselves. o dwell only on the instruentl nd reerentil specto lnguge overlooks wht Dogen clls the ippo-gujin, totl exertion o single dhr, o words nd sybols. Tey re ippo-gujin becuse theyrein, like everything else, groundlesstht is, lcking ny sel-nture orsel-presence o their own. Isnt our philosophicl quest or ruth sublitedresponse to the se groundlessness? We try to fxte ourselves soewhere,i only (or intellectuls like e who write these words nd you who redthe) on soe produced linguistic eect. Such serches or unconditioned


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5Introduction

grounds nd origins re dooed to il, or our philosophizing too sils in nunthoble ocen without ny secure hrbors to nchor within. Yet when

lnguge is not used to copenste or our own groundlessnesswhen wedo not grsp t it in order to extrct soething else ro itthen lngugecn becoe wy wreness consutes itsel.

Chpter 4 copres Ngrjun with the Chinese sge Zhungzi, whoseeponyous reections coprise the ost proound nd provoctive text oncient Chin. Agin, the geogrphicl, historicl, nd linguistic dierencesre vst, yet their trgets nd conclusions re rerkbly siilr. Te Zhuangzioers bewildering succession o necdotes nd rguents whose shiingtone kes it di cult to deterine which voice represents the uthor. Tispostodernist plyulness, which preers posing questions to drwing frconclusions, unctions quite dierently ro Ngrjuns univocl dissectiono this nd tht logicl lterntive. Insted o reuting ll cndidtes or ster discourse, Zhungzi subverts our need or such ster discourse,or tht perectly reson-ble position Zhungzi loves to ock.

Wht i there is no such ruth? Or is this insight itsel the ruth? Is tht contrdiction (nd thereore sel-reuting) or prdox (which encourges lep to dierent level o understnding)? Zhungzi hs been lbeled reltiv-ist nd/or skeptic, Ngrjun skeptic nd/or nihilist, yet such designtionsput the crt beore the horse. We cnnot pprecite their skepticis withoutconsidering wht otivtes our coonsense belie in objective knowledge.We cnnot deterine whether Zhungzi is reltivist without considering whtthe rest o us expect ro the truth. Insted o sking wht kind o skepticor reltivist Zhungzi istht is, which o our conceptul boxes he should besqueezed intothis chpter reects on the reltionship between knowledge ndother iportnt thees or hi: especilly no-sel, ind-sting, nd dreing.By no coincidence, these topics hppen to be very iportnt or Buddhis swell. Te ost interesting issue, however, is not whether the skepticis oZhungzi nd Ngrjun is consistent with other clis such s no-sel. Ttquestion needs to be turned round: Wht context do coon thees suchs no-sel, edittion, dreing nd wking up, nd so on, provide or their

understnding o our understnding o knowledge?

Chpter 5 brings us bck ro ncient Indi nd Chin to twenty-frst-centurytechnologies. o be onlyhere, nd or here to be lwys now: Would tht be theulfllent o our dres, or nightre? New cyberenvironents hve begunto copress spce nd tie so rdiclly tht they y be ltering wrenessitsel. Is tht trnsortion soething to be ebrced or deplored?

Unsurprisingly, there re shrp dierences o opinion. In Real ime:Preparing or the Age o the Never Satisfed Customer, Regis McKenn cclis


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our digitl conquest o spce nd tie, with its new possibilities or e-business.Pul Virilios Open Sky is less snguine: instntneous couniction nd

lost-s-st trnsporttion re producing n ultite stte o sedentrinessin society without uture or pst, since there is no ore here nd there, onlythe entl conusion o ner nd r, present nd uture, rel nd unrelix o history, stories, nd the hllucintory utopi o couniction tech-nologies (Virilio 1997, 35). Why should we ke the eort to go nywhereor do nything i everywhere is lredy here, i everytie is now?

Virilios critique dds new diension to the distinction between wre-ness bound nd wreness unbound. o be ttentive to everything telepresentwould spred ones wreness so thinly tht it becoes indistinguishble roignore-nce. Infnite possibility iplies prlytic indecision. How do I decidewht to do when nothing is ore present thn nything else?

Fro this prdox Tos Eriksen derives generl lw o the inor-tion revolution: When n ever-incresing ount o inortion hs tobe squeezed into the reltively constnt ount o tie ech o us hs tour disposl, the spn o ttention necessrily decreses. Dt-glut tendsto ke ech instnt epheerl, superfcil nd intense. . . . Everything ustbe interchngeble with everything else now. Te entry ticket hs to be chep,the initil investent odest. Swi chnges nd unliited exibility re inssets (Eriksen 2001, 119). Mrgret Gibbs points to one o the consequences:Weve becoe society where we expect things instntly, nd dont spend thetie it tkes to hve rel inticy with nother person (in Crry, 2006).

Fro Buddhist perspective, ccelerting cybertie ggrvtes rtherthn reduces the delusive dulis between things (including ourselves) nd thetie they re in. Perhps technologicl preoccuption with ever-incresingspeed is not the solution but the proble. Te di culty here is libertingwreness not ro fxtions but ro inbility to ocuswhich, s edittorsknow, cn be just s gret chllenge. o counterct Eriksens lw, Buddhisprovides contepltive prctices tht increse our ttention spn by slowingus down. Tis enbles us to orget ourselves so tht we cn relize the truenture o wreness nd becoe one with whtever we do.

Chpters 6 nd 7 copre Buddhis with two versions o Christinity thtre very dierent ro ech other. Both coprisons deonstrte how thepth to libertion hs been conceptulized nd prcticed in other wys thtturn out to be rerkbly congruent with bsic Buddhist techings. Te Cloudo Unknowing, n nonyous ourteenth-century English ysticl text, is nul o contepltive prctice tht eshews doctrinl clis. Te voluinouswritings o the eighteenth-century Swedish scientist, philosopher, nd ysticEnuel Swedenborg oer just the opposite: grnd etphysicl syste


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7Introduction

whose structure unexpectedly resontes with Buddhist perspectives on suchissues s the delusion o sel nd the nture o kr.

Buddhist wkening involves the reliztion tht there is no ontologi-cl sel nd never ws. Nevertheless, there re provoctive siilrities in thewys tht soe other spiritulities ephsize the need to die to the sel.Christinity, or exple, urges chnge o hert (metanoia) so drstic thtit requires kenosis (Phil. 2:6), totl eptying o the sel so tht not I butChrist lives in e (Gl. 2:20). Evidently Christs own deth nd resurrectionre not enough: we ourselves ust be crucifed nd reborn in order to relizetht the Kingdo o God is t hnd here nd now.

Chpter 6 copres two specifc contepltive prctices. Zen kons reprdoxicl probles tht in principle cnnot be solved rtionlly. One othe best known is Joshus Mu: A onk in ll seriousness sked Joshu: Hs dog Buddh-nture, or not? Joshu retorted: Mu! Te kon pointtheproble to be solvedis: Wht is Mu? Prctitioners re usully instructedto tret Mu s kind o ntr to let go o other entl ctivity. In orderto becoe enlightened, I ust lose ysel copletely in Mu. Since the senseo sel is psychologicl construct sustined by hbitul wys o thinking,cutting o ll such ctivity with Mu cn underine it.

Tis process ws described by the thirteenth-century Jpnese Zen sterDogen: o study Buddhis is to study yoursel. o study yoursel is to orgetyoursel. o orget yoursel is to perceive your inticy [nondulity] with llthings. o relize this is to cst o the ind nd body o sel nd others.When this prctice is ripe, techer cn soeties help by cutting the lstthred: n unexpected ction or sound y strtle the student into letting go.All o sudden he fnds his ind nd body wiped out o existence, togetherwith the kon. Tis is wht is known s letting go your hold (Hkuin).Te shock o n unexpected senstion cn cuse it to penetrte to the verycore o ones beingin other words, it is experienced nondully s the senseo sel oentrily evportes.

Te prctice described in Te Cloud o Unknowinghs dierent gol: tottin with loving stirring nd blind beholding unto the nked being o Godhisel only. Te text tkes its title ro the edittion ethod recoended.

Tose who wnt to experience God should wrp theselves in drkness or cloud tht treds down ll thinking: []ke thee but little word o onesyllble, or so it is better thn two. . . . And such word is this word GOD ndthis word LOVE. Choose whichever thou wilt, or nother: whtever word thoulikest best o one syllble. And sten this word to thine hert, so tht it ynever go thence or nything tht belleth (McCnn 1952, 16).

A detiled coprison between the two prctices discovers ny otherprllels, which propt the inevitble question: I I cn orget ysel either


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by becoing one with Mu or by stening the word love to y hert ndnever letting it go, wht does tht iply bout the results o these not very

dierent techniques? Te Zen experience o kensho, seeing into ones ownnture, revels the shunyata, eptiness, o the sel nd other phenoen,while prctitioner o Te Cloud beholds the nked being o God hisel.Whether or not they cn be equted, the source o our ttchents hs beenortlly wounded: relizing tht the ego-sel is n insubstntil constructrees wreness ro the delusion tht ost binds it.

Chpter 7 surizes very dierent vision o hun nd postorteexistence, one tht contrsts shrply with our postodernist suspicion ogrnd nrrtives. No nrrtive could be grnder thn Swedenborgs, yet hisperspective (like Buddhiss) is postodern insor s it denies n ontologi-cl sel. Te love o sel, which closes our inost prts to the divine inux,is the in proble to be overcoe. With the help o his rtionlity nhs corrupted the output o the spiritul world within hisel through disorderly lie. So he ust be born into coplete ignornce nd be led bckro there into the pttern o heven by divine ens (Swedenborg 1988,section 108).

Te cli o rebirth into ignornce suggests Buddhist-like critiqueo conceptuliztion. Insights, being outwrd truths, do not by theselvessve us; we re sved by the wy those insights chnge us. Innocence is theessence (esse) o everything good, which invites coprison with tathata,the just this!-ness tht describes the unselconscious wy n enlightenedperson lives. o be spiritul is nothing ore thn being open to, nd therebyone with, the whole. We re in heven right now i our internls re open,ccording to Swedenborg, even s nirvn is to be ttined here nd now,ccording to the Buddh.

Like tht o Shkyuni Buddh nd, or tht tter, o Christ hisel,Swedenborgs ccount o evil nd its retribution ephsizes intention, or thtis how evil becoes tied to its own punishent.

Every evil crries its punishent with it, the two king one;

thereore whoever is in evil is lso in the punishent o evil. Andyet no one in the other world [erlie] suers punishent onccount o the evils tht he hd done in this world, but only onccount o the evils tht he then does; lthough it ounts to these . . . since every one er deth returns into his own lie ndthus into like evils; nd the person continues the se s he hdbeen in the lie o the body. . . . But good spirits, lthough theyhd done evils in the world, re never punished, becuse theirevils do not return. Te Lord does not do evil to nyone. Evil hs


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9Introduction

its own punishent, thus hell, nd goodness its own rewrd, thusheven. (Swedenborg 1990, sec. 9033).

Tis rerkble pssge is, in eect, sophisticted ccount o kr thtvoids both the proble with echnicl understnding o orl cusend eect (coon in populr Buddhis) nd lso the di culty with juridicl understnding o hell s punishent or disobeying divine uthor-ity (coon in populr Christinity). Te crucil insight is tht people repunished not or wht they hve done but or wht they hve becoe, ndwht we intentionlly do is wht kes us wht we re. My ctions nd yintentions build y chrctery spiritul bodyjust s ood is digestedto becoe y physicl body.

As in Buddhis, Swedenborgs version o kr undercuts our usuldistinction between the one who intends nd the intention itsel. Oneshbitul tendencies to ct in certin wysones samskaras, ccording toBuddhisre wht construct nd intin the sense o sel. A person withunwholesoe samskaras bd chrctercnnot be sved, becuse he orshe is those samskaras, which cnnot dwell in Swedenborgs heven becusethey would not be coortble there. Evil people suer in the erworldor the se reson tht good people re blessed there: they end up livingwith others just like theselves.

Whether or not there is such n erlie, the issue becoes how ourttentionin this cse, s intentionis bound or unbound, here nd now.Te previous chpter ocuses on contepltive prctices tht cn relesewreness ro its usul ptterns. Swedenborgs understnding o evil ndits punishent helps to clriy the proble: how hbitul tendencies keepour ttention circling in ilir, coortble ruts.

Kr reins serious proble or conteporry Buddhis. ken liter-lly, it not only rtionlizes rcis, cste, birth hndicps, nd genocides, butlso justifes the uthority o politicl elites, who ust deserve their welthnd power, nd the subordintion o those who hve neither. It provides theperect theodicy: i there is n inllible cuse-nd-eect reltionship between

ones ctions nd ones te, there is no need to work towrd socil justice,becuse justice is lredy built into the orl bric o the universe.

Wht does tht iply bout the kr o woen, the subject ochpter 8? Although responsibility or the inerior sttus o woen in Asincultures cnnot be plced solely upon Buddhis, there is nevertheless Bud-dhist explntion: those born s woen re reping the ruits o their ineriorkrwhich includes, in ny cses, prostitution.

Tilnd hs probbly the lrgest sex trde in the world, business thtsoe teples proft ro. Woen nd prostitutes re encourged to oer


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dana, gis such s oney nd other vlubles, in order to ensure betterrebirth next tie. Tis clssic exple o ble the victi overlooks the

Buddhs ephsis on cetana otivtion. By ethicizing kr he de itinto the key to spiritul developent: ones lie sitution cn be trnsoredby trnsoring the otivtions o ones ctions right now. Kr is notsoething the sel has; it is wht the sense o sel is, nd tht sense o selchnges ccording to ones conscious choices. I (re)construct ysel by whtI intentionlly do, becuse y sense o sel is precipitte o hbitulwys o thinking, eeling, nd cting.

Once gin, the issue coes down to wht we choose to do with ourttentionyet tht wy o king the point is upside down, i ttention-hbits re wht construct us. Understood in this shion, the kr doctrinedoes not iply pssive cceptnce o ny type o violence ginst woen,but encourges us to conront the unwholesoe otivtions o those whointin ptrirchl systes o dointion.

Te lst two chpters broden the discussion o wreness, bound ndunbound, to consider ore collective nd institutionlized versions. Do groupego-selves shre group wreness, subject to the se probles nd pos-sibilities? Chpter 9 ddresses Suel Huntingtons inous thesis tht theworlds new bttle lines re the ult lines between world civiliztions. Is this prescient observtion, vlidted by the Septeber 11 terrorist ttcks ndwht hs hppened since then, or better understood s dngerous expleo group delusion, becuse it rtionlizes policies tht y ke it into sel-ulflling prophecy?

Religion turns out to be the crucil ctor or Huntington. His testcse, o course, is Isl, which provides strong support or his rguent,since the Islic world is hving so uch trouble getting long with nyother world.

Or so it sees ro Western perspective. Tt perspective, however, ishrdly objective or neutrl. For ost o their histories, the Christin West ndthe Islic world hve been ech others chie rivls. Unlike Jesus nd Shky-uni, however, Muhd ws not only spiritul techer but politicl nd

ilitry leder. Becuse neither Jesus nor Shkyuni provided tht sort oledership, it hs been esier to dpt their techings to seculr ntionlis,cpitlis, nd consueris. Te need to hve ith tht corporte globl-iztion will eventully work to beneft everyone iplies wht is incresinglydi cult to overlook: tht the Wests econoic syste now serves religiousunction s well, providing worldview nd set o vlues whose religious rolewe iss only becuse they do not reer to nything trnscendent.

Tt is not the only proble with Huntingtons clsh o civiliztionsthesis. In the only plce where he identifes Western vlues, he trots out the


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11Introduction

usul shibboleths: individulis, liberlis, constitutionlis, hun rights,equlity, liberty, the rule o lw, deocrcy, ree rkets, the seprtion o

church nd stte (Huntington 1996, 26). But wht is the reltionship betweenthese Western values nd Western interests? Huntington never ddresses thisuncoortble question, perhps becuse it is di cult to reconcile these idelswith the wys tht the United Sttes continues to tret other ntions when itsown short-ter interests re t stke. Would the West get long better withother civiliztions i we were less greedy or their resources nd rkets?

Should religious terroris be disissed s just nother exple o violentnticis, or is it rection to soe ilure o odernity? Chpter 10 rguestht religious undentlis is not return to preodern religiosity but response to the God-shped hole t the core o seculr odernity.

Te key issue in this cse is identity, especilly the dis-ese tht lck osecure identity rouses. rditionl religions ground us in n ll-encopssingvision o the scred tht explins the cosos nd our role within it. Moder-nity nd postodernity question such trnscendentl nrrtives nd leveus nxious bout the pprent eninglessness o the universe nd theungroundedness o our lives within it. We no longer hve wy to cope withdeth, or with the sense o lck tht hunts the sense o sel.

Te violent religious oveents tht Mrk Juergenseyer hs studieddier in ny wys, but they gree in rejecting odern seculrity. Althoughtheir responses only ke things worse, I think there is nonetheless soethingperceptive bout tht rejection: it relizes tht seculrity is n ideology thtpretends to be the everydy world we live in. Tis seculr view o seculrity,its own sel-understnding, is not necessrily soething to be ccepted tce vlue.

Fro Buddhist perspective, the bsic proble with odernity (ndpostodernity) is tht our sense o lack esters regrdless o ny distinctionwe y ke between scred nd seculr worldviews. Te disppernce ordevlution o trnscendence ens we end up trying to resolve tht lack bycopulsively grsping t soething or other in the (seculr) worldin wystht re dooed to il

We re brought bck to the distinction between wreness bound ndunbound. According to Mhyn, our identity is lwys shunya, epty,yet relizing tht is not probletic, becuse our eptiness/orlessness isliberted to tke on the or or ors pproprite to the sitution. I or isepty, eptiness is lso or. Tis iplies tht the spiritul hoe wrenessseeks cn be ound only in soe trnsortion o its hoelessness.

When such probles with seculris re cknowledged, we relizetht wht reins iportnt bout religion todywht survives its cor-rosive encounter with odernityis its role in encourging such personl


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trnsortion. Buddhis helps us to see tht dogs nd prctices cnbe useul in ccoplishing tht. We should hve no illusions tht such n

understnding o religion will soon or esily becoe the ost proinent,but it y becoe necessry i religions re to ulfll the role tht is ostneeded tody.

Tis fnl chpter is n pproprite wy to conclude, becuse it highlightssoe o the socil iplictions o the Buddhist perspectives oered in er-lier chpters. Whether wreness is bound or unbound is not only tteror individul concern. Swedenborgs clis bout the erworld (includingthe cli tht he visited it hisel!) nd the ibetan Book o the Dead not-withstnding, these chpters oer deythologized version o the Buddhistunderstnding o our sitution nd the pth we need to ollow. rnscendencend ythor exple, the lw o krre not rejected but broken opennd interrogted in illichs sense. Coprisons with other religious trditions,nd within the vrious Buddhist trditions, ply vitl role in helping to dis-tinguish wht hs becoe extrneous ro wht reins insightulindeed,essentiltody.

We end up with spiritul pth tht ocuses on the libertion owreness: to sy it gin, relese not ro this world but into it. I the inissue is the wys our ttention/intention gets trpped, the in plce it getsstuck is the ego-sel. Insuch s the sense o sel is tht to which everythingelse is relted, it is the undentl delusion nd the bsic source o ourdukkha, since the constructed ego-sel cn never gin the secure identity itcnnot help crving.

Do those clis hve ny specil slience tody? One could ke strong rguent tht the ecologicl nd socil brekdowns tht hve begunre consequences o our collective inbility to digest this bsic reliztion boutthe proble o the ego-sel, individul nd institutionl. Beore we disissreligious perspectives s outoded nd irrelevnt to odern chllenges, weshould reect on the ct tht in their dierent wys the worlds religionshve been ephsizing this insight or illenni.


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ONE

Awreness Bound & Unbound

On the Nature o Attention

No wisdo cn we get hold o, no highest perection,No Bodhisttv, no thought o enlightenent either.When told o this, i not bewildered nd in no wy nxious,A Bodhisttv courses in the thgts wisdo.

In or, in eeling, will, perception nd wrenessNowhere in the they fnd plce to rest on.Without hoe they wnder, dhrs never hold the,Nor do they grsp t the. . . .Te Leder hisel [the Buddh] ws not sttioned in the rel which is

ree ro conditions,

Nor in the things which re under conditions, but reely he wnderedwithout hoe:

Just so, without support or bsis Bodhisttv is stnding.

Ashtasahasrika Sutra, 1:57, 10

Subhuti: How isprajnaparamita [the highest wisdo] chrcterized?

Buddh: It is chrcterized by non-ttchent. o the extent tht beingstke hold o things nd settle down in the, to tht extent there is defleent.But no one is thereby defled. And to the extent tht one does not tke hold

o things nd does not settle down in the, to tht extent cn one conceiveo the bsence o I-king nd ine-king. In tht sense cn one orthe concept o the purifction o beings, i.e., to the extent tht they do nottke hold o things nd do not settle down in the, to tht extent there ispurifction. But no one is therein purifed. When Bodhisttv courses

thus, he courses inprajnaparamita.

Ashtasahasrika Sutra 22:399400

Do we iss the nture o liberted ind, not becuse it is too obscure orproound to understnd, but becuse it is too obvious? Perhps, like Edgr

13


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Allen Poes purloined letter, we keep overlooking it: ruging round hithernd thither, we cnnot fnd wht we re serching or becuse it is in plin

sight. Or, to eploy better etphor, we look or the spectcles tht restunnoticed on our nose. Unble to see her reection in the well, Enydttwnders bout looking or her hed. Mind seeks or ind.

Such, t lest, hs been centrl cli o the Mhyn trdition. Howcentrl? How uch insight ight be gined by tking seriously nd literllythe ny Buddhist donitions bout not settling down in things nd theiportnce o wndering reely without plce to rest. Although ewqulifctions will need to be de lter, y bsic thesis is siple:

Delusion (ignornce, ssr): ttention/wreness is fxted (ttchedto ors)

Libertion (enlightenent, nirvn): ttention/wreness is libertedro grsping

Although the true nture o wreness is orless, it becoes trppedwhen we identiy with prticulr things, which include entl objects (e.g.,ideologies, ones sel-ige) s well s physicl ones. Such identifctionshppen due to ignornce o the bsic nondwelling nture o our wreness.Te ilir words ttention nd wreness re used to ephsize tht thedistinction being drwn reers not to soe bstrct etphysicl entity (Mindor Consciousness) but siply to how our everydy wreness unctions.1 opproprite Hkuins etphor in Zazen Wasan, the dierence between Bud-dhs nd other beings is tht between wter nd ice: without wter there is noice, without Buddh no sentient beingswhich suggests tht deluded beingsight siply be rozen Buddhs. I hope to show tht this strightorwrddistinction is not only consistent with bsic Buddhist techings but lso givesus insight into soe o the ore di cult ones. Moreover, this perspectivey illuinte soe spects o our conteporry lie-world, especilly theprticulr chllenges o odern technology nd econoics.

Beore developing the bove cli bout wreness, bound nd unbound,

it is necessry to ephsize how widespred nd iportnt it is within theMhyn trdition, or it is ound in ny other cnonicl nd coen-tril texts besides the Perection o Wisdom in Eight Tousand Lines. Tus,the ost-quoted line ro better-known Prjnprit text, the DiamondSutra, encpsultes the centrl doctrine o the Ashtasahasrika Sutra in onephrse: Let your ind coe orth without fxing it nywhere. According tothe Platorm Sutra o the sixth Chn ptrirch Hui-neng, this verse precipi-tted his gret wkening, nd certinly his techings ke nd reke these point: When our ind works reely without ny hindrnce, nd is t


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15Awreness Bound nd Unbound

liberty to coe or to go, we ttin libertion. Such ind is everywherepresent, yet it sticks nowhere. Hui-neng ephsized tht he hd no syste

o Dhr to trnsit: Wht I do to y disciples is to liberte the rotheir own bondge with such devices s the cse y need (Ypolsky133).2 Po-chng Hui-hi, nother Chn ster who lived bout centurylter, elborted on the nture o liberted ind:

Should your ind wnder wy, do not ollow it, whereuponyour wndering ind will stop wndering o its own ccord.Should your ind desire to linger soewhere, do not ollowit nd do not dwell there, whereupon your inds questing or dwelling plce will cese o its own ccord. Tereby, you willcoe to possess non-dwelling ind ind tht reins inthe stte o non-dwelling. I you re ully wre in yoursel o non-dwelling ind, you will discover tht there is just the cto dwelling, with nothing to dwell upon or not to dwell upon.Tis ull wreness in yoursel o ind dwelling upon nothingis known s hving cler perception o your own ind, or, inother words, s hving cler perception o your own nture. Aind which dwells upon nothing is the Buddh-ind, the indo one lredy delivered, Bodhi-Mind, Un-creted Mind . . . (Hui-hi, in Bloeld 1969, 56)

Lest we think tht such cpitlized Mind is soething other thnour usul one, Hung-po Hsi-yun detes ny illusions we y hve boutits trnscendence:

Q: Fro ll you hve just sid, Mind is the Buddh; butit is not cler s to wht sort o ind is ent by thisMind which is the Buddh.

Hung Po: How ny inds hve you got?

Q: But is the Buddh the ordinry ind or the Enlight-

ened Mind?

Hung Po: Where on erth do you keep your ordinry indnd your enlightened ind?

(Bloeld 1958, 5758)3

A ilir corollry to such clis, thereore, is the Chn/Zen insistencetht enlightenent is nothing specil, it is just relizing the true nture oour ordinry ctivities:


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Zhozhou: Wht is the wy?

Nn-chun: Everydy ind is the wy.

(Wu-Men-Kuan cse 19, in Pitken 1991)

When Hui-hi ws sked bout his prctice, he replied: When I hungry,I et; when tired I sleep.

Q: And does everybody ke the se eorts s you do,Mster?

Hui Hi: Not in the se wy.

Q: Why not?

Hui Hi: When they re eting, they think o hundred kinds onecessities, nd when they re going to sleep they ponderover irs o thousnd dierent kinds. Tt is how theydier ro e.

(Bloeld 1969, 9596)

It would be esy to cite dozens o Chn nd Zen texts ephsizing the bovepoints. Filirity with the tends to dull our pprecition o just how rdi-cl such clis re, ro n Indin perspective s uch s or Westernone. In Europen etphysics ind evokes the Pltonic Nous nd HegelsGeist, the ltter cunningly eploying historicl developent to relize itsel.Te Vedntic Brhn hs dierent nunces, yet its ous identifctionwith the Atman Sel does not ipede its trnscendence. Te contrst withNn-chuns quite ordinry ind (Ch. xin) is quite striking: chopping woodnd drwing wter, just this!

Te Pli texts o erly Buddhis do not ephsize everydy indin the se wy, or they oen drw strong contrst between the ind-consciousness o n ordinry worldling (puthujjana) nd the liberted indo n rht. Yet there is siilr ocus on not-clinging, especilly in the

Salayatanavagga Book o the Six Sense Bses, the third collection o con-nected philosophicl discourses in the Samyutta Nikaya, where the Buddhrepetedly teches the Dh or bndoning ll. A noble disciple shoulddevelop dispssion towrd the six senses nd their objects (including the indnd entl phenoen) nd bndon the, even eel revulsion or the,or tht is the only wy to end ones dukkha suering. Trough dispssion[his ind] is liberted. When it is liberted there coes the knowledge: Itsliberted. He understnds: Destroyed is birth, the holy lie hs been lived,


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Wht do you think, Subhuti? In ncient ties . . . did the th-gt ttin nything clled the highest, ost ulflled, wkened

ind?No, World-Honored One. According to wht I understndro the techings o the Buddh, there is no ttining o nythingclled the highest, ost ulflled, wkened ind.

Te Buddh sid, Right you re, Subhuti. In ct, theredoes not exist the so-clled highest, ost ulflled, wkened indtht the thgt ttins. . . . Why? thgt ens the suchness[tathata] o ll things. (Price nd Wong 1974, 24)

Tis exchnge ro Te Diamond Sutra supports n understnding o ln-guge tht distinguishes Buddhis ro divine reveltion religions suchs the Abrhic trditions, which re ounded on the scred word o God(s recorded in the Bible nd the Qurn). For Buddhis ny such linguisticidentifction is ttchent, nd clinging is not the spiritul solution but prto the proble. With lnguge we construct the world, including ourselves,nd it is iportnt to relize how we deceive ourselves when we identiy withny o those constructions, including Buddhist ones.

By no coincidence, the locus clssicus or both denilsthe deniltht ssr nd nirvn re dierent, nd the denil tht the truth o Bud-dhis cn be expressed in lngugeis the se: chpter 25 o NgrjunsMulamadhyamakakarikas, which deconstructs the concept o nirvn. It con-cludes with one o the ost celebrted verses in Buddhis: Ultite serenity[shiva] is the coing to rest o ll wys o tking things, the repose o nedthings; no truth hs been tught by Buddh or nyone, nywhere (25:24,in Cndrkirti 1979, 262).6 We re not sved by discovering ny linguistictruth, or there is no such liberting truth to identiy with. Tis deotes llBuddhist ctegories to upaya skillul ens, pointers tht y be helpulbut not i we tke the fnger or the oon. Wht does tht iply bout thedistinction between ssr nd nirvn?

Tere is no specifble dierence whtever between nirvana nd

samsara; there is no specifble dierence whtever betweensamsara nd nirvana.

Te liit [koti] onirvana is the liit o samsara. Tere isnot even the subtlest dierence between the two. (25:1920, inCndrkirti1979, 259)7

Yet this perspective, by itsel, y go too r to the other extree, nd end upnegting the spiritul pth. I there is nowhere to go, there is no wy to get


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there, nd thus no need or ny spiritul prctice, or or Buddhis t ll. Soin the se chpter Ngrjun lso distinguishes between the: Tt which,

tken s cusl or dependent, is the process o being born nd pssing on,is, tken non-cuslly nd beyond ll dependence, declred to be nirvana(25:9, in Cndrkirti 1979, 255). Tere is no contrdiction between this versend verses 1920. Te key point is tht ssr nd nirvn re not dierentrels o existence (they shre the se koti,liits), or the ters reer todierent wys o experiencing or tking this world. Wht ore cn be sidbout tht dierence? Elsewhere I hve tried to chrcterize the dierent wyso perceiving cuslity in verse 9.8 Te iportnce o Ngrjuns positionhere is tht it is consistent with the cli tht ssr is wreness boundnd nirvn is the se wreness liberted. Attention is liberted when itdoes not stop t or grsp t ny prticulr thing, including ny conceptultruth, including this one.

Tis lso helps us understnd the signifcnce o the Mdhykdistinction between two truthssamvrti the everydy trnsctionl truth ndparamartha the supree truthnd why we need the lower truth to point tothe higher truth. o cli, or exple, tht nirvn is ttention unboundsees to invite our ssent: Yes, thts true! But to coit ourselves to thtpropositionto identiywith itwould be sel-contrdictory nd sel-deetinginsor s such n identifction binds our wreness to prticulr set oconcepts tht we use to get hndle on the world, worldview tht therebyretins grip on our wreness. Yet concepts nd doctrines nonetheless retintheir lower-truth vlue s teching devices necessry to point to the highertruth tht nonetheless lwys escpes their supervision.

Attention Addicted

How is our wreness bound? According to the second noble truth, thecuse o dukkha is tanha crving, perhps best understood s instibility,when we cn never get enough o wht is sought. We oen understnd thiss reerring to physicl urgeswith sexulity s the rchetypebut ocus-

ing on the body cn be probletic or two resons. First, ephsizing ourphysiclity perpetutes the ind/body dulis tht hs hunted Westernculture since long beore Descrtes. Te dnger is tht we will understnd thespiritul solution s ind (soul, rtionlity, etc.) trnscending or dointingthe body, which encourges the repressions nd perversions tht plgue such hierrchy. Tis hierrchy ws lso iportnt in Shkyunis Indi (is itthereore n Indo-Europen or Axil Age proble?), or ccording to thetrditionl biogrphies his frst spiritul prctice ws sceticis: strving the


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senses, in eect. Buddhis bece revolutionry iddle wy betweensense indulgence nd sense denil, becuse it ephsized ttention-control

(including cetana intention-control) insted.Tt brings us to the other reson or not ocusing on the physiclfxtions. Buddhis lso ephsizes nother cuse o our dukkha: conceptulproliertion (Pli papanca; Snskrit prapanca), linguistic process tht iswkwrdly subsued within the tanha o the second noble truth. Tis worldis ssr or us not only becuse we crve physiclly. Prapancha enstht we live in ntsy world o our own king, constructed out o ourconceptulizing s well s our crvings. Te reltionship between desires ndconcepts becoes clerer when we see tht the undentl issue reins,gin, our ttention. Ssr is reifed s wreness becoes preoccupiedwith pursuing certin desires (sex nd ood, but lso oney, e, etc.) ndfxted on certin wys o understnding nd perceiving the (objectifed)world. Both re types o clinging, nd in both cses (relly, dierent spectso the se process) the solution involves nonttchent.

I getting stuck is the bsic issue, neither desires nor concepts re prob-leticl in theselves. We get into trouble not becuse we hve conceptsbut becuse we settle down in prticulr onesnot only those tht support prticulr sel-ige, but lso religious dogs or politicl ideologies thtoer us secure fx on the world. Te solution is not to get rid o ll concepts,which would ount to rther unplesnt type o entl retrdtion, butto liberate the, s Dogen sees to suggest in the Sansuikyo scicle o hisShobogenzo: to be ble to ove reely ro one concept to nother, to plywith dierent conceptul systes ccording to the sitution, without becoingfxted on ny o the. Conceptulizing, too, cn be bound nd unbound.

A siilr point cn be de bout bodily desires, including sexulity.Te iportnce o nonttchent does not en recoending proiscuityover onogy (or vice vers), or the issue is not the object(s) o our ec-tion but the reltionship between ones ttention nd sexul drive. Perhps thishelps us to understnd tntric prctices, which soeties eploy orbiddenctivities or spiritul purposes. Te drive towrd sexul union is oen citeds the best exple o crving, nd Pli Buddhis strictly orbids onstics

ny genitl contct, yet ccording to the tntric trdition the energy o thturge cn be used in libertory wy. ntric ccounts usully explin thisprctice physiologicllyprana is redirected to the higher chkrsbut therey be sipler wy to understnd the process. Cn ttention retin or ginn wreness o its intrinsic nondwelling nture, even while engged in coitus?Te norl tendency, o course, involves uture-directed nd incresinglyurgent ocus on the relese o orgs; yet nonttched, unbound ttention isnot driven to go nywhere or do nything, becuse it hs nothing to gin orlose in itsel. In the urge towrd clix, cn one becoe ore wre o tht


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which does not chnge, which does not get better or worse? Filure ensbecoing ore eneshed in the seductions o ssr, the crving or

plesure tht leds to ore dukkha. Success ens reedo ro ddictionto plesure, which is not the se s needing to void it.Attention is norlly conditioned by wht it does, nd especilly by

those things done intentionlly. Tis points to the deythologized eningo kr, including the Buddhs ephsis on cetana, which highlighted therole o intentions nd volitions. Te Buddh trnsored erlier pprochesephsizing scrifce nd other rituls into n ethicl principle by ocusingon our otivtions. It is cetana, onks, tht I declre to be karma. Hvingwilled, one perors n ction by body, speech nd ind (Nynponiknd Bodhi 1999, 173). Wht distinguishes our ctions ro ere behvior,our responses ro ere rections, is tht they re intended. Soe suchunderstnding o kr is iplied byanatta, the denil tht I or hveny unchnging core o substnce or svabhava, sel-being. My subjectivesense o sel is construct, nd the ost iportnt coponents o thtconstruction re samskaras hbitul tendencies, which old chrcter ndconstitute y kr.

According to this interprettion, kr is not n ineluctble lw othe universe involving soe precise clculus o cuse nd eect. Te bsicide is siply tht our ctions hve eectsore precisely, tht our orllyrelevnt ctions nd intentions hve orlly relevnt eects tht go beyondtheir utilitrin consequences. Shkyuni ethicized kr into one o thekeys to spiritul developent: how ones lie-sitution cn be trnsored bytrnsoring the otivtions o ones ctions right now. Anatta ens thtkr is not soething I have, it is wht I am, nd wht I chngesccording to y conscious choices. I (re)constructed by wht Iintentionlly do, becuse y sense o sel is precipitte o hbitul wyso thinking, eeling, nd cting. Even s y body is coposed o the oodeten, so y chrcter is coposed o conscious choices, constructed by yrepeted entl ttitudes.9

Buddhist techings, however, distinguish good kr ro wkening,which involves relizing the nondwelling nture o ones wreness. Benefcil

kr y ke it esier to prctice, nd insor s one is wkened oneis less otivted to crete bd kr, yet the undentl issue is not thequlity o ones kr but reeing onesel ro kric conditioning.

According to Pli Buddhis, n enlightened person does not crete nynew kr but cn still suer the consequences o pst kr. Mogglln,one o the Buddhs oreost disciples, is sid to hve endured gruesoedeth or hving urdered his prents in previous lietie. Less ysteri-ously, Angulil renounced his creer s seril killer nd quickly ttinednirvn, yet ws ttcked nd beten by the townspeople he hd terrifed


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(Bhikkhu Bodhi 1995,71017). Tese exples rise the question o wht itens to be unconditioned. Te ore objective issue concerns ones physicl

nd socil circustnces. Even when I relize tht y ttention is intrinsi-clly ree, I will still be constrined by y sitution, including the igesnd expecttions tht others hve o e. I I spiritully wken in prison,the cell doors will not giclly open. Ones ttention, liberted or not, islwys liited by the ors o wreness tht circustnces ke vilble.Te prdox is tht to be one with those conditions is to experience oneswreness nd lie s unconditioned. Te explntion o tht prdox is inthe lcking-nothing nture o nonclinging ttention.

Nevertheless, er wkening ones entl predispositions (samskaras)do not necessrily or ieditely lose their ttrction. A liberted sokerwill not utoticlly lose the physicl desire or cigrette. A genuinewkening should ke it uch esier, o course, to ignore tht urge, but thedesire will rise. Tis point reects on long-stnding debtes bout whetherenlightenent is instntneous or grdul, ll-or-nothing or in stges. Rel-izing the unbounded nture o ones ttention y or y not be drtic,but it hppens suddenly. It is not soething tht I do, nor does it hppen tome, or both o those wys o understnding re dulistic; rther, there is letting go. O wht? Not siply o whtever I grsping, but o grasping.Yet hbitul tendencies do not siply evporte. Ones ttention still tendsto ssue ilir ors, nd this highlights the iportnce o continuedprctice: the ore grdul process o king intrinsiclly ree wrenessore eectively ree. Tis lso touches on the proble with coprehendingBuddhis philosophiclly, or tking it s philosophy. I cn understnd (ndwrite bout?) ll o this conceptully, without it king uch dierence in ydily lie, in how y ttention ctully unctions. Grsping the iplictionso these concepts is very dierent ro letting go o grsping.

So r, I hve de no reerence to ny object o consciousness,preerring the notion o ttention or wreness tking or. Especilly in Mhyn context, ny ention o or evokes the centrl cli o theHeart Sutra tht or (rupa) is no other thn eptiness (shunyata), eptinessno other thn or. So r, too, this chpter hs not entioned shunyata,

lrgely becuse o the bggge tht ccopnies tht overused ter. ForMdhyk shunyata, the bsence o sel-existence, is shorthnd wyo reerring to the interconditionlity o ll phenoen, the ct tht everyphenoenon rises in dependence on others. In ters o y bsic clidelusion s ttention bound, wkening s ttention unboundthe HeartSutras ous eqution gins soewht dierent signifcnce. Awrenessunbound is shunya, hving no or or ny other qulities o its own. Moreprecisely, wreness whether bound or unbound is shunya, lthough boundwreness is unwre o its intrinsic nture becuse it is too busy grsping


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nd too rid to let go. Attention in itsel cn be chrcterized only by itschrcteristiclessness: being orless nd colorless, it is nothing, which is

why it cn becoe ny-thing, ccording to circustnces. Eptiness is notother thn or, becuse nothing-in-itsel ttention is lwys ssuing oneor nother ornot only visul nd tctile ones, but sounds, tstes, sells,thoughts, nd so on. Ten perhps the ny stteents in the Heart Sutratht X(the fve skandhas, the twelve nidanas, etc.) is shunya re not king(or denying) n ontologicl cli bout the nture oX-in-itsel, but rtherpointing out the nture o the reltionship between epty-in-itsel wrenessnd the vrious ors it ssues.10

Does this provide insight into soe other bsic clis? Tere is nothingwhtsoever tht needs to be ttined. o be deluded is not to lck soething;it is siply not to relize the nture o ones ttention. Tis is consistent withanatta: the no-thing-ness o wreness is not sel. Te sense o sel s sep-rte ro the rest o the worldthe dulity between subject nd objectis psychosocil construct coposed o hbituted wys o thinking, eeling, ndcting. Tere is no need to get rid o the ego, becuse it hs never existed. Itis the sel-ige tht persists becuse eelings, intentions, nd ctions reerto it. Buddhist ephsis on anatta iplies tht constnt reerence to thissel-ige is the oreost trp or our ttention.

In plce o the usul dulity, in which consciousness becoes wreo soe object or other, liberted wreness is nondul becuse it becomesone thing or nother:

Tere is line ous Zen ster wrote t the tie he beceenlightened which reds: When I herd the teple bell ring, sud-denly there ws no bell nd no I, just sound. In other words, heno longer ws wre o distinction between hisel, the bell, thesound, nd the universe. Tis is the stte you hve to rech. . . .

Stted negtively, it is the reliztion tht the universe isnot externl to you. Positively, it is experiencing the universe syoursel. (Kpleu 1966, 107, 137)

Copre the seventeenth-century Jpnese Zen ster Shido Bunn:

Te oons the se old oon,Te owers exctly s they were,Yet Ive becoe the thingnessO ll the things I see.

As Dogen ously puts it t the beginning o Genjo-koan: o study theBuddh wy is to study the sel. o study the sel is to orget the sel. o


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orget the sel is to be ctulized by yrid beings. When ctulized by yridthings, your body nd ind s well s the bodies nd inds o others drop

wy (Dogen 1985, 70).I the sel is construct, so is the externalworld, or when there is noinside there is no outside. In the Sokushinzebutsu, Our Mind Is the Buddh,scicle o the Shobogenzo, Dogen described his own experience by quotingthe Chinese ster Yng-shn (d. 916): I ce to relize clerly tht indis nothing other thn ountins, rivers nd the gret wide erth, the sun, theoon nd the strs (in Kpleu 1966, 205). I y usul sense o seprtionro ountins, nd so on, is delusion, then y nondulity with the isnot soething tht needs to be ttined. Insted, the delusion o discretesel is to be dispelled by relizing the nondwelling nture o wreness.

According to the Heart Sutra, ll dhrs re shunya. Tere is nobirth nd no cesstion, no purity or ipurity, no increse or decrese. Sincewreness is literlly no-thing in itsel, the ctegories o purity or ipuritydo not pply to it. Attention does not becoe purer when tking the or o Buddh ige, nor less pure when clening the toilet, or excreting into it.More controversilly, it does not becoe better when I ct copssiontely,or worse when I urder soeone in ft o rge. But no birth nd no deth?Does tht en unbound wreness is iortl?

Te Anxiety o Awreness

Buddhist techings contin ny reerences to relizing the Unborn, begin-ning with two well-known pssges ttributed to the Buddh in the Udana.In ddition to such cli in the Heart Sutra nd other Prjnpritsutrs nd coentril texts, siilr stteents re ound in the records ony Chn/Zen depts. None o the ephsized it ore thn the JpneseZen ster Bnkei (162293), who used the concept s his centrl teching.Since the Buddh-ind tkes cre o everything by ens o the Unborn[ushou], it hs nothing to do with ssr or nirvn. Seen ro the plceo the Unborn, both o the re like the shdows in dre (Wddell 1984,

56). Te Unborn, like the intrinsic nture o our ttention, is not soethingtht cn be gined: Its wrong or you to breed second ind on top othe ind you lredy hve by trying to become the Unborn. Youre unbornright ro the strt. . . . Te true Unborn hs nothing to do with undentlprinciples nd its beyond becoing or ttining. Its siply being who youare (123). Siply relizing the nture o your wreness.

But how does siplybeing who you are escpe birth nd deth? A onksked Bnkei: Wht hppens when soeone who believes in the Unborn dies?Is he born gin or not? He responded: At the plce o the Unborn, theresno distinction between being born nd not being born (121).


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Why not? Is the Unborn trnscendentl consciousness tht repetedlytkes on new bodies when previous ones die?11 No, or the ctegories o lie

nd deth, like ll other chrcteristics, siply hve no purchse. Libertedwreness hs no reson to er deth becuse no-thing hs nothing to lose.We re reinded o Epictetuss clssicl rguent in his Letter to Menoe-ceus: When we re here, deth is not, nd when deth is here, we re not.Nondwelling ttention in itsel lcks nothing, becuse there is nothing it couldgin. With nothing to gin or lose, there re no hindrnces in the indnd nothing to er, s the Heart Sutra concludes.

Te ego-sel does hve soething to lose: itsel, its sel. Te ego-sel hsnothing to lose, becuse it is fctionl construct. We suer becuse wre-ness istkenly identifes with (sense o) sel, construct tht itsel identifeswith the body, which is subject to pin, illness, old ge, nd deth. Bnkeioered curious proo o the Unborn to deonstrte tht it is not these s the sel. When you ce e nd listen to e sy this, i soewhere sprrow chirps, or crow cws, or n or won sys soething, orthe wind rustles the leves, though you sit there without ny intent to listen,you will her nd distinguish ech sound. But it isnt your sel tht is doingthe listening, it isnt sel-power (Wddell 1984, 58).12 Te point, pprently,is tht our ttention is not unction o sel, not n ct tht the sel does,becuse spontneously hering nd identiying the sprrow is n unproptedct o perception tht escpes its gency.

Whether or not we fnd this rguent persusive, the distinction betweenttention (wreness, ind, etc.) nd sense o sel reins bsic to Buddhis.Awreness itsel lcks nothing, but the sense o sel lcks everything, becuseit is illusory, in the sense tht it is nothing ore substntil thn n ever-chnging network o entl nd physicl processes. Such n ungroundednd ungroundble sense o sel cn never becoe real sel. Nevertheless,the urge to becoe ore rel, nd perpetul ilure to chieve it, hunts thesense o sel s sense o lck. Te return o the repressed in the distortedor o sypto links this bsic yet hopeless project with the sybolicwys we usully try to ke ourselves rel in the world. Groundlessness isexperienced s the eeling tht there is soething wrong with e, yet tht

eeling niests, nd we respond to it, in ny dierent wys. Te trgedyis tht no ount oXcn ever be enough i it is not rellyXtht we wnt.When we do not understnd wht is ctully otivting usbecuse whtwe think we need is sypto o soething elsewe end up copulsive.

Tis pplies not only to seculr copulsions such s oney, e, ndsexul grtifction, but lso to spiritul pursuits, insor s we expect thtreligious prctices will led to n enlightenent tht fnlly kes us (eel) orerel. Enlightenent does not involve discovering ground or our groundless-ness, but relizing tht our groundless wreness, without support or bsis,does not need ny other ground. Ones wreness cnnot be secured, except in


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the reliztion tht, being no-thing, there is nothing to secure.13 Although conditioned, ipernent sense o sel cnnot ttin iortlity, nondwell-

ing wreness cn dwell inor (better) asn eternl present.Tis iplies tht our undentl proble is not er o deth butdred o our no-thing-ness. Solving the ltter proble should lso resolvethe orer, not becuse one relizes soe trnscendentl consciousness thtsurvives physicl deth to enter nother body (wht hppens t deth is notthereby deterined), but becuse nonclinging wreness does not distinguishbetween being live or not being live, s Bnkei puts it. Chopping wood,drwing wter, eting when hungry, resting when werywhere is the birthnd deth in tht?

Nevertheless, there is soething undentlly ysterious bout theUnborn. I cnnot coprehend it, cnnot grsp its nture, becuse I am it.Our usul wy o understnding ttention nd wreness ssues tripr-tite episteology: I aware o soe thing. Anatta iplies tht there is nosuch subject-predicte-object reltionship, which ens tht y wrenessis ctully not ine. Ten whose wreness is it? It is esy to respond noones, yet tht does not evde the deeper question: Wht does it en orwreness not to be the consciousness o soe gent? Why nd how doesliberted wreness ssue the ors tht it does? Soe types o edittion(e.g., Zen shikan-taza) involve intining pure ttention tht does notdwell on nything. Although thoughts nd other entl phenoen continueto rise, the sky reins blue s such clouds dri through it. Where do theycoe ro? Soe such question likely propted the Yogchr postultiono n alaya-vijnana unconscious, where kric seeds dwell until conditionswken the. A nondwelling, contepltive wreness llows those seedsto sprout, so they cn be rosted by not identiying with the. Insted oresponding to the, one lets the go.

Yet it is not only eories nd ect trces ro the pst tht riseunbidden into wreness. Our ttention cn tke new, spontneous, soe-ties inexplicble ors, which is wht we en by cretivity. How does ththppen? Beethoven, Brhs, nd Puccini believed tht their copositionswere dictted or ssisted by God. Less explicitly religious coposers (nd

rtists, writers, etc.) hve spoken o being vesselsor wht? When wre-ness becoes liberted, soething ore is involved thn wht we norllyunderstnd s the everydy ind o chopping wood, nd so on. In plce othe Jpnese ter kensho or ones initil glipse o enlightenent, soeAericn Zen groups now reer to n opening. Openinghighlights notherspect o nondwelling, nongrsping ttention: its noninstruentl responsive-ness nd sensitivity to wht rises. o relize tht y wreness is not ineis to discover tht its no-thing-ness hs infnite depths. When we think boutnonclinging, we usully visulize externl objects nd sensory phenoen,


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but, when ttention is not reerring bck to the sel-ige tht is ego, thereis lso receptivity to wht springs up ro its own depths.14

Te Attention-Defcit Society

Te erlier discussion o kr ddressed only the individul spects oorl cuse nd eect, yet we re socil cretures subject to collective inu-ences beyond personl gency. In other words, there is lso collective kr.rditionl understndings o kr nd rebirth, which cn understndgroup kr only by bundling individul krs, becoe iplusible whenpplied to genocide, or exple. o rgue tht ll those who perished inNzi concentrtion cps ust hve been reping the kric ruits o theirevil deeds in previous lieties is tuous, to sy the lest. Tere is, however,nother wy to pproch the issue o collective kr: by considering whtconditions our collective wreness. How hs the developent o the od-ern/postodern world ected hun ttentionnot only wht we ttendto, but how we ttend to it? It is iportnt to see the iplictions o theprevious discussion or soe o the socil issues tht concern us tody. Teconstriction or libertion o wreness is not only personl tter. Whtdo societies do to encourge or discourge its enciption?

Recent edi coverge suggests tht one o our jor concerns boutttention is the lck thereo. Attention-defcit disorder (ADD) nd ttention-defcit hyperctivity disorder (ADHD) hve becoe serious edicl issuesin the United Sttes, originlly ong schoolchildren but now ong youngdults s well.15 Wht ight be clled the rgenttion o our ttentionis ddressed in chpter 5. Te present chpter concludes by noticing twoother inuences on our collective ttention: its coodifction nd edi/politicl nipultion.

Te Commodifcation o Attention

Although it is di cult to overephsize the cuultive eects o television

(including video nd video ges) on our collective ttention hbits, there is ore bsic proble. For those o us in the developed (or econoized) world,the gretest wreness trp is consueris, which involves sophisticteddvertising tht hs becoe very good t nipulting our ttention. Sinceproduction probles hve becoe reltively esy to solve, tody the biggereconoic chllenge is keeping us convinced tht the solution to our dukkhais our next purchse. As the pioneering dvertising executive Leo Burnett(18911971) put it, Good dvertising does not just circulte inortion. Itpenetrtes the public ind with desire nd belie. Tt penetrtion y hve


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been lucrtive or his clients, yet it lso hs other, ore probletic conse-quences: [I]n consuer society there re inevitbly two kinds o slves, the

prisoners o ddiction nd the prisoners o envy (Illich 1973, 46).

16

Whetheror not one is ble to ord the desired product, ones ttention is cptured.Recently it hs becoe ore evident tht ttention is the bsic cood-

ity to be exploited. Te new econoy is not n inortion or knowledgeeconoy. . . . It is n ttention econoy, ccording to writer in South AricsFinancial Mail, coining ee tht hs prolierted in business circles.17Te bsic resource o this new econoy is not soething they provide us.Its soething we provide theindshre, in the chring idio o thetrde. Now sk yoursel this: Wht i theres only so uch ind to shre?I youve wondered how people could eel so depleted in such prosperouseconoy, how stress could becoe the trderk iction o the ge, prto the nswer ight be here (Rowe 2001, unpginted).18

Rowe is concerned bout the coodifction o wht he ters cogni-tive space, the corporte response to the ct tht people ight soeties beconcerned bout soething else besides buying nd consuing. Tis hs led tothe ultite enclosurethe enclosure o the cognitive coons, the biententl tosphere o dily lie, rpid developent now so pervsive thtit hs becoe like the ir we brethe unnoticed. ie nd spce, he rgues,hve lredy been reconstructed: holidys (including new coercilizedones such s Mothers Dy) into shopping dys, the civic coons o MinStreet into shopping lls. Now dvertising is infltrting into every cornero our conscious (nd unconscious) wreness. Sports stdius used to hveds, but now rened stdius re theselves ds. elevision shows used tobe supported by dvertising; tody insidious product plceent kes thewhole show (nd ny fls) n d. Te jewelry copny Bulgri sponsored novel by Fy Weldon tht included over three dozen reerences to its prod-ucts. A 2005 issue o the New Yorker did not include ny ds, becuse thewhole gzine ws prootion or the retil chin rget. Children reespecilly vulnerble, o course, nd two-thirds o three-yer-olds recognizethe golden rches o McDonlds.19

In the pst one could oen ignore the ds, but enclosure o the cogni-

tive coons now ens tht they conront us wherever our ttention turns.Unless we re editting in Hilyn cve, we end up hving to processthousnds o coercil essges every dy. And they do not just grb ourttention, they exploit it: Te ttention econoy ines us uch the wythe industril econoy ines the erth. It ines us frst or incpcities ndwnts. Our cpcity or interction nd reection ust becoe need orentertinent. Our cpcity to del with lies bups nd jolts becoes need or grie counselling or Prozc. Te progress o the consuer econoyhs coe to en the diinution o ourselves (Rowe 2001, unpginted). 20


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Consueris requires nd reinorces sense o our own ipoverishent.By nipulting the gnwing sense o lck tht hunts our insecure (becuse

groundless) sense o sel, the ttention econoy insinutes its bsic essgedeep into our wreness: the solution is consuption.

Te Control o Attention

Dicttorships control people with violence nd the thret o it, to restrin whtthey do. Modern deocrcies control people with sophisticted propgnd,by nipulting wht they think. Te title o one o No Choskys bookssus it up well: Manuacturing Consent. We worry bout wepons o ssdestruction, but we should be s concerned bout wepons o ss deceptionnd wepons o ss distrction, which y be ore insidious becuse oredi cult to detect. o cite only the ost obvious exple, the disstrous 2003invsion o Irq would never hve been possible without creully orchestrtedttepts to ke the public nxious bout soething tht did not exist. Itws esy to do becuse Septeber 11 hs de us erul, nd erul peoplere ore susceptible to nipultion.

rditionlly, rulers nd ruling clsses used religious ideologies to justiytheir power. In preodern Europe the church supported the divine righto kings. In Asin Buddhist societies kr oered convenient wy tortionlize both the rulers uthority nd the powerlessness o his oppressedsubjects. It iplied one should ccept ones present socil sttus becuse itis consequence o ones pst deeds. In ore seculr societies, however,cquiescence ust be olded in dierent wys.

According to Alex Crey, Te twentieth century hs been chrcterizedby three developents o gret politicl iportnce: the growth o deocrcy,the growth o corporte power, nd the growth o corporte propgnd s ens o protecting corporte power ginst deocrcy (Crey 1996,18). Corportions re not entioned in the United Sttes Constitutiontheounding thers were wry o the nd did not wnt to proote thend corporte power only begn to expnd drticlly towrd the end othe nineteenth century, so successully tht tody there is little i ny eective

distinction between jor corportions nd the ederl governent. Bothidentiy wholehertedly with the gol o continuous econoic growth, withless regrd or its socil or ecologicl eects. (We re repetedly told thtny unortunte consequences ro this growth obsession cn be solved byore econoic growth.) Tis oen requires oreign intervention, or ourccess to resources nd rkets ust be protected nd expnded, usullyunder the guise o deending ourselves.

Insted o rising questions bout this orienttion, the instreediour collective nervous systehve becoe powerul proft-king


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corportions tht serve to rtionlize tht belie syste. Only very nrrowspectru o opinion is considered cceptble or relistic, nd whtever

probles rise require only ew inor djustents here nd there. As theerth begins to burn, s ecosystes strt to collpse, the edi ocus ourcollective ttention on the things tht relly tter: the Superbowl, the priceo gs, the ltest urder or sex scndl . . .

Te Liberation o Collective Attention

Who owns our ttention, nd who should hve the right to decide wht hp-pens to it? Rowe concludes tht we need new reedo oveent, to bttleor the cognitive coons. I we hve no choice regrding wht flls ourttention, then we relly hve no choice t ll. Fro Buddhist perspective,however, it sees doubtul tht ny collective socil protest oveent couldbe successul without n lterntive understnding o wht wreness is ndwht lterntive prctices proote ore liberted ttention. It is not enoughto fght ginst billbords nd Internet bnner ds without lso consideringwht it ight en or wreness to be here nd now, deconditioned rottention trps both individul nd collective.

o conclude, let e ephsize tht this chpter is thought-experient.Although I hve tried to show tht n understnding o the dierence betweenbound nd unbound wreness cn be quite illuinting, I do not cli thtthis point by itsel is enough to understnd the libertion tht the Buddhistpth is t. Buddhis includes ny other relted techings: ipernence,nonsel, interdependent origintion (or nonorigintion), nd so on. Neverthe-less, y rguent iplies tht one o the ost iportnt issues, or ech ous personlly nd lso collectively s society, is: Wht is our ttitude towrdttention/wreness? Is ttention to be controlled nd exploited, or cultivtednd wkened? Is wreness to be vlued s the ens to soe other end,or should we cherish nd encourge its libertion s the ost vluble golto be sought? Te Buddhist nswer to such questions is cler. Wht is lesscler is how uch o role tht nswer ight ply in the wys our societyresponds to tht chllenge.


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WO

Lnguge Aginst Its Own Mystifctions

Deconstruction in Nagarjuna and Dogen

[W]e fnd ourselves in the idst o rude etishis when we cll to indthe bsic presuppositions o the etphysics o lngugewhich is to sy, oreson. It is this which sees everywhere deed nd doer; this which believes inwill s cuse in generl; this which believes in the ego, in the ego s being,

in the ego nd substnce, nd which projects its belie in the ego-substnceon to ll thingsonly thus does it crete the concept thing. . . . Resonin lnguge: oh wht deceitul old won! I er we re not getting rid oGod becuse we still believe in grr. . . .

Nietzsche, wilight o the Idols

Why Ngrjun nd Dogen? Such coprison is inviting becuse both obvi-ous nd di cult. On the one hnd, they re two o the gretest Mhynthinkers, linked by their coitent to its understnding o the world nd(i we ccept the trditionl ccount) by trnsission linege tht extendsro Shkyuni through Ngrjun to Dogen nd his successors. On theother hnd, however, there re vst culturl dierences between the, due notonly to geogrphy nd the illenniu tht seprte the but just s uch tothe disprity between their very dierent lnguges, Snskrit nd Jpnese.

Tese linguistic dierences re urther reected in their extrordinrilydierentI tepted to syoppositetextul styles. Snskrit hs soetiesbeen considered the rchetypl philosophicl lnguge, or its esily oredsubstntives encourge prepondernce o bstrct universls. CertinlyNgrjun is philosophers philosopher, notorious or lconic, knie-edgedlogic wielding distinctions tht no one hd noticed beore nd tht nysince hve been unble to see the point o. In contrst, Jpnese, like Chinese,hs ore concrete vor, with prepondernce o siile nd etphor.Dogens jor work, the Shobogenzo, written in his own very idiosyncrticJpnese, is s poeticl nd llusive s Ngrjuns Mulamadhyamakakarikas

31


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is dilecticl nd dry. Dogens text is ull o etphors, nd Ngrjuns hsvery ew. While Ngrjun y see preoccupied with splitting conceptul

hirs, Dogen is concerned with exploring the sentic possibilities o Buddhisttexts to discover new enings, being willing nd even eger to isinterpretcertin pssges to ke his point.

Wht, then, cn be gined ro copring the? My rguent is,frst, tht Ngrjun nd Dogen nonetheless point to ny o the seBuddhist insights, becuse they deconstruct the se type o dulities, osto which y be understood s versions o our coonsense but delusivedistinction between substnce nd ttribute, subject nd predicte. Tis willbe deonstrted by nlyzing the enigtic chpter 2 (on otion nd rest)o the Mulamadhyamakakarikas nd by exining Dogens trnsgression otrditionl Buddhist techings in his Shobogenzo. Te second prt o this chp-ter, however, is concerned to deterine the liits o this siilrity: lthoughboth texts work to underine our dulistic wys o understnding ourselvesin the world, they rech quite dierent conclusions bout the possibility olnguge expressing true understnding o the world disgreeent thty reect soething iportnt bout their dierent lnguges.

Wht Does Ngrjun Deconstruct?

[W]e do not only designte things with the [words nd concepts], we think

originlly tht through the we grsp the true in things. Trough wordsnd concepts we re still continully isled into igining things s beingsipler thn they re, seprte ro one nother, indivisible, ech existing

in nd or itsel. A philosophicl ythology lies conceled in lnguge whichbreks out gin every oent, however creul one y be otherwise.

Nietzsche, Human, All oo Human

Few i ny Buddhist scholrs would dispute tht Ngrjun (second centuryCE?) is the ost iportnt Buddhist philosopher, nd none o the woulddeny tht the Mulamadhyamakakarikas (hereer the Karikas) is his ost

iportnt work. It is soething o scndl, then, tht the bsic ening othis di cult text reins so uncler nd controversil. Tt is not or wnto interpreters: no Buddhist thinker hs received ore ttention recently,yet there is little greeent ong his Western expositors. It is curious thtNgrjun usully ends up expounding soething quite siilr to onesown vorite philosopher or philosophy: Shyers Hegel, Stcherbtskys Knt,Murtis Vednt, Gudundsens Wittgenstein, Mgliols Derrid, Kluphnsepiricis nd prgtis, nd so orth. Does this en tht the Karikas


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33Lnguge Aginst Its Own Mystifctions

is so oreign to our usul wys o understnding the world tht it cnnot beunderstood on its own ters?

Te bsic proble is not the nture o Ngrjuns rguents theselvesbut their trget. Despite (or becuse o) the vrious opinions o trditionlnd conteporry coenttors on this tter, it reins uncler roNgrjuns texts precisely wht or who he is criticizing. Since we hve noother relible ccess to Ngrjuns intentions, this is n issue tht y neverbe settled. I, ro postodern perspective, the opportunity this biguityprovides is not entirely negtive, then the onus lls upon ech interpreternot only to oer plusible ccount o Ngrjuns otives but lso to justiythe continued iportnce o those otives or us.

For exple, Dvid Kluphn hs de strong cse tht the oppo-nent in Ngrjuns chpter 2 is the toic theory shred by the substntilistSrvstivdins nd the oentrist Sutrntiks (Kluphn 1991, 3536).Tis y well be true, yet tht by itsel does not go r enough to explin thesignifcnce o Ngrjuns rguents tody: or why we should be concernedbout etphysicl debtes between obscure Buddhist schools tht thrivedtwo thousnd yers go?

Te signifcnce o those philosophicl views increses or us, though,i they re ttepts to resolve n inconsistency tht plgues our ordinrycoonsense wy o understnding the world. In tht cse, however, ity not be necessry or even worth our while to devote tie nd energyexpounding those prticulr etphysicl systes; it y be ore useulor us to turn ieditely to tht coonsense understnding nd ddressits supposed pori ore directly. In ccordnce with tht, y trget inthis chpter is not ny developed philosophicl position (such s the toictheory o Abhidhr Buddhis) but rther the ore bsic di culties thtplgue our usul distinction between (wht philosophers cll) substnce ndttributewhich, Nietzsche would rgue, y be trced bck to our linguisticdistinction between subject nd predicte. In his chpter 2, Ngrjun ttcksthis distinction in ters o the dulity we ordinrily ssue between goernd his or her going.

By ny stndrds, the nlysis o going nd coing is peculir nd

di cult text. Following the frst chpter, which deonstrtes our inbility tounderstnd the cusl reltionships ong things, his chpter 2 is evidentlyent to exepliy tht generl rguent by oering ore concrete instnceo Ngrjuns deconstructive pproch to the reltionship between things (inthis cse, overs) nd their predictes/ttributes (oving). In the process,however, Ngrjun sees to engge in kind o logic-chopping tht is di-fcult to ollow nd whose iport is uncler. Exctly wht is it tht is beingdeconstructed? Tis chpter sees to exepliy Frederick Strengs objection


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to Ngrjuns ethod, tht it is n nlysis which ppers to be rther ridnd oen siply ply on words (Streng 1967, 18182). L. Stord Betty

points prticulrly to the reifction ogamana, ct o going: since the teris epiriclly eningless nd we do not need to grnt tht there is nysuch thing in the epiricl world s bre ct o going without goer,the rguent ils (Betty 1983, 12526). Yet is he looking in the wrong plce?Te Karikas does not oer n nlysis o the world itsel but nlyzes our wyso understnding the world. It is these wys o thinking (which ccording toNgrjun re inconsistent) tht ke the world epiricl or us. I so, weshould look or gamana in our ctegories o thought, nd there we fndit in our ingrined tendency to distinguish our experience into sel-existingentities (subjects, nouns) nd their ctivities (predictes, verbs). We do thinko ourselves, or exple, s persons distinguishble ro our ctions, nd thisiplies soe sort o reifction not only o ourselves but lso o the ction,s the other substntives ct, ction, nd ctivity lso revel.

Te test o this pproch is how uch light it cn shed on Ngrjunschpter 2, which y be surized s ollows:

(verses 17) Where does otion occur? Obviously not over the lredy-gone-over, nor over the not-yet-gone-over, but it cnnot be on thebeing-gone-over, becuse tht would iply tht there is being-gone-over distinct ro the goer that goes over it.

(811) Who is going? We cnnot sy the goer is going, becuse thtwould iply two goers: tht the goer is goer even without going.

(1214) Where does going begin? Not on the lredy-gone-over, nor onthe being-gone-over (in which cse the going ust lredy hve begun).But it could not begin on the yet-to-be-gone-over (or beginning therewould ke it being-gone-over).

(1517) Siilr rguents re de bout coing-to-rest (becoingsttionry): Who coes to rest? Neither goer (tht would be con-trdiction) nor nongoer (who cnnot become sttionry). And where

does coing-to--rest occur? Not on the lredy-gone-over, nor onthe not-yet-gone-over, nd it cnnot hppen on the being-gone-over(which would be contrdiction). So our usul understndings o going,beginning-to-go, nd coing-to-rest hve siilr probles.

(1821) It does not ke sense to sy tht the goer is the se s thegoing, or then we could not distinguish (s we norlly do) betweenthe gent nd the ction. But neither cn the goer be dierent ro thegoing, or then ech could exist without the other. In short, describing


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35Lnguge Aginst Its Own Mystifctions

wht hppens in ters o soe reltionship between goer nd itsgoing is unintelligible.

(2225) (In sury:) A goer does not exist beore going, or thtwould iply two goings. A goer cnnot go on the three plces o going(entioned bove), nongoer cnnot go on the, nor cn soeonewho both is nd is not goer ( contrdiction) go on the. Tereoregoing, goer, nd plce o going do not exist.

Perhps we cn understnd why soe consider the bove to be logi-cl sleight-o-hnd which resebles the shell ge (Betty 1983, 135), yetsuch conclusion isses the point. Te iport o the bove rguents istht our usul wy o understnding otionwhich distinguishes the goer

ro the going nd ro the plce o goingdoes not relly ke sensewhen exined creully, or the interdependence o the three shows thtech is nonsensicl when considered prt ro the others. Ngrjuns logichere (s in ny other chpters) proceeds by deonstrting tht once wehve thus distinguished thes ordinry lnguge nd coonsensedothen it becoes ipossible to understnd their reltionship, di cultyo the so

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Loy, D - Awareness Bound and Unbound