Deepak on Buddha

The making of the Buddha
SHEILA KUMAR
775 words
2 December 2007
The Hindu
03
English
(c) 2007 Kasturi & Sons Ltd

Spirituality

A gentle reader on the life of the Enlightened One.

Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment, Deepak Chopra, HarperCollins; Rs 395.

Deepak Chopra, not in the least burdened by his New Age Guru label, has gone and written a book on the early life of Siddhartha who becomes Gautama, who, in turn, becomes the Buddha. No preaching, no lecturing, just an interesting story told in a measured manner and at a measured pace. However, for all that, eventually the book does become a primer for those wanting to know something about Buddhism. Chopra states clearly in the author’s note that he wanted to flesh out the character of this famous but very obscure (his words) person. So, that’s what he sets out to do, in a style reminiscent of T.H. White’s classic on King Arthur The Once and Future King. This here is the Buddha myth in deconstructed form, complete with a last chapter that tells neophytes how to attain some amount of Buddha-hood.

Make no mistake, though, the book is quite an interesting read. The story Chopra tells has always held universal appeal, that of the young, handsome prince who gives up a life of privilege and becomes a monk, practising severe austerities till he finally attains enlightenment … and this part is really well written. En route, though, the aspirant has small epiphanies that enlighten both him and us: that things which really mean so much are as thin and fragile as tissue; that if you think you are mighty, that’s all that counts, because no one is really mighty.

Siddhartha’s father, the warrior king Suddhodana, (fear is protection; use fear like medicine, he cautions, just enough to be a remedy but not so much that it becomes poison) is well fleshed out, though Queen Maya makes only a guest appearance. The demon Mara in his numerous face-offs with the Buddha before he becomes the Buddha, of course, is evocatively etched, a truly frightening look at pain, temptation and power. A demon’s work is to amplify the mind’s suffering, Chopra tells us, and goes on to give ample evidence of the same, whether Mara is testing Siddhartha or Devadatta, another interesting character as we encounter him in this book. At one point, in a flash of pure brilliance, Devadatta realises that “the gods don’t exist. But when the horror of life finally reveals itself, somebody has to invent gods”.

Path to enlightenment

And so, despite the king’s desperate efforts, Siddhartha gets to encounter sickness, ageing and death, which sets him on the path to renunciation. He goes into an abyss and returns, having left fear behind. His hunger for a guru is all too palpable; he meets and attempts to learn from several enigmatic savants before moving on. And the reader soon sees that in his enlightenment lay Gautama’s refuge. In fact, Gautama admits to wanting to be loved for the saint he knew himself to be, to inspire others to join him in his work. He is surprised that he will need words; he had hoped to heal the world with a touch or by simply existing in it.

This is the Buddha as the world knows him. The man who agonised over every aspect of hurt and pain. Whose compassion for everything and anything was all-encompassing, whose evolution was slow, very slow. His belief in the Buddha inside every person. His journey from zealot to the truly detached one. Even his take on the fight between good and evil is inspired, as is his first test after becoming the Buddha, the taming of Angulimala. The temptation of the Buddha here is none other than his wife Yashodara, a temptation he puts behind him with almost insulting ease.

This writer’s only beef is there isn’t much emotional resonance; we see Buddha as emotional, yes, endearing, well, no. Then again, you do take some stuff away from this book. Chopra talks of how people deal with fear by turning it into rage. How karma is just the memory of past pleasure we want to repeat and past pain we want to avoid. So okay, the book does need polishing and there is no real empathy built up between the Buddha and the reader, but no matter. As a primary Buddha reader, it serves its purpose very well. At one point Chopra calls his reader as one who might be coming to Buddha from the cold…if that is the case, this book is not the worst place to begin.

The Other Side of Zen: A Social History of Soto Zen Buddhism in Tokugawa Japan by Duncan

The Other Side of Zen: A Social History of Soto Zen Buddhism in Tokugawa Japan
Rocha, Cristina
1012 words
1 October 2007
Philosophy East & West
599
Volume 57; Issue 4; ISSN: 00318221
English
© 2007 Philosophy East & West. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.

The Other Side of Zen: A Social History of Soto Zen Buddhism in Tokugawa Japan. By Duncan Ryuken Williams. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005. Pp. 241. Hardcover $52.50.

Zen Buddhism has fascinated the West for a long time. The Zen boom of the 1960s was a key moment in the dissemination of this Japanese Buddhist school in popular culture. As a rule, books on Zen have focused on remarkable monks and their feats, monasticism, and studies of doctrine. Furthermore, Zen schools have been studied in isolation, separated from other Japanese Buddhist schools and non-Buddhist religions, as if they were not part of the social and religious life of Japan. However, more recently, some studies have begun to focus on another aspect of Zen-the everyday customs, beliefs, and rituals of ordinary Buddhists and temples. Following in the footsteps of William Bodiford and Bernard Faure, Duncan Williams, in The Other Side of Zen, has written a fascinating account of the extraordinary expansion of the Soto Zen sect in Tokugawa Japan by looking at Soto Zen involvement in all aspects of the religious economy of the period.

Drawing on new historical sources that have become available in the past twenty-five years (such as temple histories and logbooks, prayer and funerary manuals, sales records of talismans and medicine, death registries, diaries of pilgrims, and letters of villagers, temple priests, and government officials) as well as analyzing legends, miracle tales and ghost stories, and material culture such as tombstones and stone markers, Williams has drawn a comprehensive portrait of ''what Soto Zen actually was, as lived by ordinary priests and laypeople'' (p. 3). He shows that for the great majority of ordinary Soto Zen monks and parishioners, the Zen temple was a place for funerary and memorial rituals, festivals, physical healing (with exclusive Soto medicine and talismans), and faith healing (through the worship of deities). According to Williams, they never practiced sitting (zazen), never engaged in reciting koans, or read Dogen's writings (p. 3). Like Steven Covell in Japanese Temple Buddhism: Worldliness in a Religion of Renunciation (University of Hawai'i Press, 2005), which explores the everyday-life aspects of contemporary temple Buddhism, Williams does not condemn the lack of these monastic practices, which became synonymous with ''true'' Zen in the West (many Westerners have argued that Zen has degenerated in Japan). On the contrary, he argues that this very engagement with laypeople's religious needs has contributed to the vitality of the Soto sect, making it the largest Buddhist sect of the Tokugawa period.

Williams' efforts in decentering the study of Zen by shifting his attention from famous monks and doctrine to ordinary Buddhists and their behavior have a clear origin in the study of social history exemplified by the work of the French Annales School (1928- ). The Annales historians rebelled against traditional historical practice by refusing to think of history as the study of facts, wars, states, and great men. For them, it was the structures of everyday life of a given period that should be investigated, in order to have a more comprehensive understanding of the ''mentality'' of the period. The key concept of ''mentality'' refers to the shared beliefs and behaviors that were so familiar that they were rendered invisible. For historians like Jacques le Goff, Philippe Aries, and Fernand Braudel, it was the attitudes and patterns of behavior of ordinary people, and not those of heroes, who could unlock the thoughts and ideas of a specific historical period. When we think of how European history and history as a discipline have benefited from the insights of the Annales School, its deployment by Williams in analyzing Japanese religious history is commendable.

In essence, The Other Side of Zen investigates one main question: how did Soto become the largest Buddhist sect in the Tokugawa period, with seventy-five thousand temples? Williams' argument is twofold. First, by attending to the ''otherworldly'' needs of parishioners through funeral and memorial rites on the one hand and ''this-worldly'' needs through prayers and rituals for rain, good harvest, protection against fire and drowning, and dispensing medicine, Soto was able to connect intimately with ordinary people's lives. Second, by incorporating indigenous pre- Buddhist beliefs and trans-sectarian rituals and deities, in addition to the specific rites of Soto Zen, the sect was able to maintain and expand its temples.

This book is based on Williams' Ph.D. thesis, and the sheer number of endnotes attests to this (of the book's 241 pages, sixty are devoted to notes). However, the text itself does not suffer from ''over-theorizing'' or excessive use of jargon. It is written in accessible language for both academic and non-academic audiences. Indeed, the use of vignettes that encapsulate the issues being discussed make for a fascinating read. For instance, we have stories of how Zen priests used magical powers to appease ghosts, erase evil karma, and deliver salvation by bestowing precepts and a Zen lineage chart (p. 43); letters containing sex scandals involving parishioners and priests (pp. 14-15); stories of miraculous cures by the ingesting of talismans (p. 103) and medicine purportedly handed down by Dogen (p. 89); and legends of Zen priests becoming Shinto deities (p. 74).

Nevertheless, I would have liked a more visual portrait of the temples and sites investigated. Although there are a few pictures of documents and talismans, pictures of the temples investigated (e.g., Daiyu zan, extensively analyzed in chapter 4) or a map with the location of the sites analyzed in the book would have helped give the reader a more concrete idea of the places discussed. But this, of course, does not in any way diminish the impressive scholarship Williams presents. Indeed, The Other Side of Zen offers a rich, ground-breaking contribution to the history of the Soto Zen sect and of Tokugawa Japan.

FOUR-DIMENSIONAL TIME IN DZOGCHEN AND HEIDEGGER

FOUR-DIMENSIONAL TIME IN DZOGCHEN AND HEIDEGGER
Yao, Zhihua
10884 words
1 October 2007
Philosophy East & West
512
Volume 57; Issue 4; ISSN: 00318221
English
© 2007 Philosophy East & West. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Time is flying. The passage of time is usually viewed as a negative thing that brings us closer to death. To the conventional mind, it seems that we are moving ever forward, from a definite past into an uncertain future. The past is over; it is unchangeable, and in a certain sense it is "out there." The future, on the other hand, seems yet undetermined. It could turn out to be one thing or another. We often feel ourselves to be helpless spectators as the scope of the determined past edges its way into an uncertain future.

As time passes, we sadly realize that we are mortal and that there is a definite end to our lives. For this very reason, some may strive to maintain a longer life in this world, while others may imagine an eternal life in another world. Concerning time, we have many puzzles to contend with, such as what eternity is, how it is related to the passage of time, whether the passage of time is irreversible, whether things past are now no-longer, whether the future is unpredictable, whether or not the present exists, and so on.

The present article is an attempt to discuss such experiences of the passage of time. Among numerous individuals who have been pondering this mundane but nonetheless serious issue, I single out two: Longchenpa (1308-1363), who represents the Dzogchen tradition of Tantric Buddhism, and Heidegger (1889-1976), who represents the School of Phenomenology in the West. Instead of speculating on an eternal life, both of them attempt to look into the very phenomenon and experience of the passage of time and reveal to us a new dimension of time, the so-called fourth time or fourth dimension of time.

This article will proceed in four sections. In the first section, I will introduce a Buddhist practice in the Dzogchen tradition that deals with the experience of the passage of time. In the second section, Longchenpa's concept of four times (dusbzhi) will be analyzed and its significance for the history of Buddhism discussed. In the third section, I will examine Heidegger's concept of four-dimensional time and briefly discuss its elaboration by later philosophers. In conclusion, I will discuss the similarities and differences between the four-dimensional time theories as found in these two diverse traditions and the possible reasons for their striking similarities.

A Dzogchen Practice

Buddhist philosophy is not the product of purely intellectual speculation, but rather relies heavily on practice and experience. In the Buddhist view, any theory or concept has to be drawn from and applicable to meditative practice, what is not being considered empty speculation. In this interaction between knowledge and practice, one gains the wisdom to see into reality.

The following is an example of such a practical instruction in the Dzogchen tradition. In The Mirror: Advice on the Presence of Awareness, Namkhai Norbu, a contemporary Dzogchen master, gives the following advice to practitioners:

The recognition of our true State and the continuation of its presence really is the essence of all paths, the basis of all meditation, the conclusion of all practices, the path of all the secret methods, and the key to all the deeper teachings. This is why it is vitally important that we seek out our way to maintain continuous presence without being pulled off course.

This means: not hanging on to the past, not going after the future, and, without letting ourselves get involved in the illusory thoughts arising in the present moment, turning inwards and observing our own mind, leaving it in its true State beyond the limitations of past, present and future. Without letting ourselves be conditioned by contaminating conceptualization, without passing judgment on the State itself, whether indeed it even exists, whether it will turn out to be positive or negative, etc., we must stay focused in this authentic condition and not try to correct it.

Although the primordial State of total perfection is completely beyond the limits of past, present and future, one is not immediately aware of this and indeed has difficulty in recognizing it when first starting to practice, and therefore it is important to be on the alert against distraction by thoughts of the "three times."1

This is an instruction on how to maintain one's "true State." To keep one's mind in this true state, one must not be distracted by thoughts of the three times. To do this, one must not hang on to the past, go after the future, or get entangled in the present moment. This is the key to meditative practice. According to the instruction, the past is no-longer, and one should not follow it; the future has not yet arrived, and one should not anticipate it; the present is momentary, and one should not dwell on it. This practice is an antidote to our ordinary experience. In our everyday life, we either live in our memories of the past, anticipate the future, or hold on to the present moment. It seems that this is the only way that we can appreciate the value of time, and live a meaningful life during the passage of time. If there is no past, present, or future to hold on to, how can we live on?

The Dzogchen master answers: "Relax." Compared to many poets who burst into tears upon realizing the emptiness of the passage of time, the Dzogchen master is more skillful and firm in teaching how to deal with this difficult situation. It is actually the very goal of Buddhist practice to see through the passage of time and to realize the very nature of reality beyond the momentary and impermanent. Here "relax" not only means to take it easy; it is also the key to practice: let it be. Namkhai Norbu points out that "Dzogchen could be defined as a way to relax completely. This can be clearly understood from the terms used to denote the state of contemplation, such as 'leave it just as it is' (cog.bzhag), 'cutting loose one's tension' (khregs. chod), 'beyond effort' (rtsol.bral), and so on."2

With respect to the past, present, and future, one may find it easier to start with giving up anticipation of the future by making no effort to achieve spiritual attainment. Then one can cut off memory of the past by negating the self to be the agent of past deeds. This way one can experience the emptiness of "no-longer" and "not-yet." In this experience, there may still be some thoughts arising moment by moment, and eradicating them is the hardest part of the practice. Since the moment of thought is always in the present, in the sense that it is here and now, it is very difficult in practice not to dwell on the present, not to get involved in present thoughts, and to let them be. According to Namkhai Norbu's instruction, one should leave these thoughts just as they are without getting sidetracked, forgetting, or letting oneself get wrapped up in them.

It is in the non-dwelling of the past, present, and future that the true state of one's mind arises. This state, also called the primordial state of total perfection, is the state completely beyond the limits of the past, present, and future. And the goal of the meditative practice is to relax, that is, to be free from the distractions of thoughts of the "three times," and to maintain the presence of the authentic state. Relaxation and realization are thus two sides of a coin; as Namkhai Norbu says: "When the mind is naturally released and present, it comes to itself in its authentic State."3 Now the questions remains: why have a positive attitude toward the present? Why let the mind or its authentic state involve itself in the present-why not just let it go as illusory thought? How do you keep its presence without being reduced to grasping the present, that is, the "here and now"?

I feel that by "to remain present and relaxed" Namkhai Norbu means to maintain the presence of the natural, authentic state of perfection. "Present" here means to let it "be present," inferring a dynamic process of presenting. It is not a dwelling on the static here and now; rather it is a continuous effort and activity to maintain "presence." This is like a rowboat heading downstream. The rower cannot exert himself, but he has to maintain a certain direction so that the boat does not run aground, but moves with the flow of the water. At this point, a distinction between two senses of "present" by Masao Abe, a Zen scholar, is helpful. One is the relative present, considered to stand side by side or parallel with the past and future, and the other is the absolute present that embraces past, present, and future as their more fundamental basis.4

Therefore, we have to keep in mind that, to follow the teaching of the recognition of our true state and the continuation of its presence, "[t]he point is not to regard the movement as a negative thing, something to be rejected."5 In a traditional Buddhist context, however, it is rather difficult to appreciate a dynamic sense of presence and to treat it positively. This is because tranquillity is generally considered to be superior to movement, and one who achieves nirvana is said to eliminate all activities. In this sense, Dzogchen and, for that matter, Zen are unique in taking movement into account.

In meditative practice, when a momentary thought arises, an authentic state of calm is seen to arise side by side with it, so the key is not to be conditioned by thought, and yet not to pass judgment on it-that is, to consider whether or not its object exists, or whether it is positive or negative. One thought may disappear in a certain period of time, and another will then arise without interruption. This is what is called "movement." In the Dzogchen tradition it is necessary to learn to work with this movement. Movement and calmness or tranquillity are seen to be two aspects of one state, and the movement of thought to be the functioning of the state of clarity. When one is actually in meditation, in the state of pure presence, there is no difference between the calm state and movement. Thus, there is no need for one to seek a state that is without thought; rather one should just maintain one and the same state of presence in one's experience. As Garab Dorje says: "If there does arise [the movement of thoughts], be aware of the state in which they arise. If one is free of thoughts, be aware of the state in which one is free of them. Then there is no difference between the arising of thought and being free of it."6 Only by not-judging and lettingbe can one maintain the authentic state of perfection, which is both of movement and of tranquillity. As Namkhai Norbu points out: " 'To meditate' only means to keep presence both of the state of calm and of that of movement: there is nothing on which to meditate."7

Then how is this true state, which is beyond the past, present, and future, related to time? Is it totally different from time or only another dimension of time? Namkhai Norbu does not state this clearly. But in emphasizing its movement, he tends to take it to be part of time and yet be beyond the "three times" in the conventional sense. By tracing back to the early Dzogchen tradition, I found a better term for it: "timeless time" or the "fourth time."

The Four Times

Longchenpa, or Klong-chen rab-'byams-pa, was an eminent Dzogchen master and adept of the Nyingmapa School. He is one of Tibet's most celebrated writers, and in his relatively short life he produced an enormous number of works, amounting to two hundred and seventy titles. Throughout these works, he reveals himself as an independent and original thinker, though, in support of his own brilliant expositions, he quotes from the vast literature that had already developed during the early phase of Buddhism in Tibet. The notion of the "four times" (dus-bzhi) is one of the most interesting ideas I have found in his extensive output.

In his Naturally Liberated Mind, the Great Perfection (Mahasandhicittatasvamutki- nama, rDzogs-Pa Ch'en-Po Sems-Nyid Rang-Grol), while elaborating on the epithet of Sambhogakaya, which includes the pure Buddha-Land, the mandala, the Teachers of Five Classes, Primordial Wisdom, retinues of disciples, and so on, Longchenpa brings up the notion of the four times. He states the third and fifth epithets to be as follows:

(3) . . . the self-precept retinues of disciples of the ten directions and four times. (Translator's note reads "Dus-bZhi: past, present, future and timeless time.")

(5) The three times and timeless time is Kuntu Zangpo time, And it is the originally accomplished and changeless state.8

The phrase "ten directions and four times" (phyogs-bchu dus-bzhi) is found in some Tantric literature.9 The ten directions include east, south, west, north, northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest, zenith, and nadir. The four times, as indicated in the passage quoted above, are the past, present, future, and timeless time. Some commentators take this to mean four aeons, namely the Krta, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali Yugas.10 This, however, is in contrast to the standard notion of the "three times," which is established in the Abhidharma tradition and used throughout the subsequent history of Buddhist literature.11 The additional time may be the contribution of the general appreciation of quaternity in the Tantric tradition, which, again, may have its origin in an earlier source.

The fourth time is called no-time, timeless time, Kuntu Zangpo time, state of Kuntu Zangpo, or Samantabhadra time. Among these various names, Kuntu Zangpo or its Sanskrit equivalent, Samantabhadra, is a very loaded term in the Dzogchen tradition. It refers to the Buddha of the same name, and is considered to be the symbol of Dharmakaya,12 while in Bon teachings it refers to Sambhogakaya.13 According to Guenther, the expression Kuntu Zangpo "is synonymous with rig-pa, the cognition of being qua being, or a value-sustained cognition having a strongly aesthetic character." 14

To introduce the idea of the four times, Longchenpa starts with the experience of the three times. Like Namkhai Norbu, he expresses his experience of the past, present, and future in terms of "ceased," "not-lingering," and "not yet coming," respectively:

Past-it [i.e., mind] has ceased; future-it has not yet come into existence;

Present-it does not linger. It is neither within nor without nor anywhere.

Know it to be like the sky and immune to propositions about it.15

It is interesting to note that Longchenpa's understanding of the present to be notlingering is different from that of traditional Indian Buddhism. Vasubandhu, in his early Abhidharma and later Yogacara writings, gives a consistent definition of the three times:

[T]he time periods and the conditions are established through the operation of the activity [of] a dharma: when a dharma does not accomplish its operation, it is future; when it is accomplishing it, it is present; and when its operation has come to an end, it is past.16

Among these definitions, the future as "not accomplishing" and the past as "coming to an end" are similar to Longchenpa's notions of "not yet coming" and "ceased." But as for the present, Vasubandhu understands it to mean "be accomplishing," while Longchenpa holds it to be "not-lingering." By the same token, this view is different from Nagarjuna's understanding the present to be "what is arising here and now (pratyutpanna)."17 At this point, Longchenpa comes closer to the notion of three times held among Japanese Buddhists and mentioned by Dogen in the following passage:

[A common belief] says that the past life has already perished, the future is yet to come, and the present does not stay. The past did not necessarily already perish, the future is not inevitably yet to come, and the present is not inexorably impermanent. If you learn the not-staying, the not-yet, and the no-longer as present, future, and past, respectively, you should certainly understand the reason that the not-yet is the past, present, and future. [The same holds true of the no-longer and the not-staying.]18

Here Dogen is sophisticated enough to go further than what he calls the "common belief" of three times, which is held by Longchenpa. Examining this carefully, though, one will find that Dogen is not really against this common notion, but is rather trying to emphasize the interpenetration of the three times, which obviously bears the mark of the Huayan way of thinking. In a similar way, Longchenpa, by taking this notion of three times into account, seeks to bring out a further dimension of time.

In the quotation above from Longchenpa, the mind is seen to have ceased activity in the past, not yet come to existence in the future, and does not linger in the present, and thus it cannot be located in any of the three times. For this reason, it is empty like the sky, and one cannot have any conception of it. This is one aspect of mind's nature. On the other hand, Longchenpa says that it is wrong to search for the mind either in the past, the present, or the future, for it is always there, "naturally remaining identical with itself." This self-existence, like emptiness, is beyond any conception. Thus, one should not be "seeking mind by mind." Rather, one should relax, let oneself be, and thus let the mind be. This is beautifully put by Longchenpa:

It is not in the has-been, nor is it on the side of the not-yet;

It is not in a now, but is a state naturally remaining identical with itself;

Instead of seeking mind by mind, let be.19

After one regains his true mind by relaxing and letting words, thoughts, and talk pass by, then how is this mind related to time? Is it simply beyond time? Longchenpa says the mind can be seen as the "time" that remains when one transcends the three times. In other words, when past, present, and future are not time, the mind or pristine cognitiveness is itself time:

This self-existing pristine cognitiveness, (evoked through) the Guru's sustaining power,

Is seen when words and thoughts and talk have passed away.

To see it then as time

Is (the moment) when the three aspects of time are no-time, and a "before" or a "later" can no longer be distinguished.

It is called Prajnaparamita, Madhyamika,

Zhi-byed, calming (the rush of) propositions and suffering, Mahamudra,

rDzogs-chen, the very meaningfulness of meaningfulness.20

Here Longchenpa does not show us in detail how the three times are no-time. The key point for him seems to be the making of no distinction between before and after. Moreover, he attributes this view to various traditions in the history of Buddhism, such as Prajnaparamita, Madhyamika, Zhi-byed, Mahamudra, and rDzogs-chen. Among these teachings, Nagarjuna's argument that the three times are no-time can be singled out to be representative. The very point of this argument is that time cannot be conceived of as an entity existing independently of temporal phenomena, but must itself be regarded as a set of relations among them. That is, the only mode of existence that time has is as a set of relations among empirical phenomena, or as the provisional distinction of before and after. Apart from these relations and distinctions, there is no time.21

Since the existence of the three times is based on the provisional distinction of before and after, if there is no such distinction, then there is no time in the conventional sense. But the state of mind or cognitiveness is seen to be a "time" in the sense that there are no temporal distinctions or separations, which makes this time different from the three times that are based on provisional distinctions. Longchenpa says:

In the simultaneity of rising and being free, one is free from all emotions;

Having gone beyond subjective ideas, one engages in this very reach and range of calm and peace,

In the vortex of meaningfulness, when the three aspects of time do not exist as time-

As in a phantom, not introducing any break in time.22

One distinct feature of the Dzogchen teaching is that it still names the state of no-time as a time or real time. And the concept of timeless time is unique in the history of Buddhism. In the early Buddhist literature, there is the notion of the "timeless" (akalika) in reference to the unconditional state, but not that of "timeless time."23 The Abhidharma tradition makes a clear distinction and contrast between the three times and the timeless, or the conditional reality and unconditional space and nirvana. In this tradition, space is superior to time, and cessation (nirodha) is preferable to action. Time, being a mark of the profane world, can never be considered in terms of eternity. In his Abhidharmakosabhasya, Vasubandhu indicates such a distinction by saying "the conditioned dharmas of the three time periods are karanahetu; the unconditioned dharmas are outside of time."24

Nagarjuna, as I mentioned earlier, takes time to be a derived notion, and it is only valid in the conventional sense. At the ultimate level, there is neither past, present, nor future. To show that time only exists as a derived notion, Nagarjuna argues that "in the teachings of the Buddha mostly samaya is used and it is only rarely that ka la is used."25 The distinction between samaya and kala by Nagarjuna shows that Indian Buddhist scholars in general are arguing against the view held by other Indian philosophical schools, such as Jainism, Vaisesika, and Nyaya, which takes time to be an all-pervading, partless substance.26 And the term kala is heavily loaded with this substantialist sense, while Buddhism from its very beginning has attacked such a substantial way of thinking with its fundamental doctrines of no-self, impermanence, and nirvana. As a result, it has become a taboo in the Buddhist tradition to appreciate time in the sense of an all-pervasive dynamic reality. Instead, time is only treated as a mark of the impermanent, profane conditioned world.

The first attempt to attack such a taboo can be seen in the Milindapanha, a sutra of early Buddhism, where the distinction is made between the "time that exists" and the "time that does not."27 Here one gets a hint that time that does not exist could in a certain sense be referring to timeless time. But the text goes on to say that the root of time is ignorance, and that liberation results from an evolution from the time that exists to the time that does not. This way, time is again categorized according to the dualistic distinction of conditional and unconditional realities.

To break down the barrier between samsara and nirvana, the conditional and the unconditional world, is one of the major aims of the Mahayana school. However, so far as the issue of time is concerned, they still take no-time to be superior to time and do not really appreciate time in the sense of dynamic movement. This situation did not change until the Dzogchen tradition brought together time and the timeless, allowing the timeless to penetrate into time. Having its origin in Tathagatagarbha thought, the Dzogchen program is to keep dynamic movement in its scope. As Guenther points out: "What distinguishes rDzogs-chen thinking from all other modes of thought is that it is pure process thinking."28 The Buddha nature is considered to be all pervasive and creatively transforming the conditional world, which is categorized by the three times. The key here is to appreciate not only its all-pervasive nature but also its creative action of transformation. This inevitably leads to a reinterpretation and redefinition of terms that are otherwise commonly used in the predominantly static way in which ordinary language is structured.

The concept of timeless time opens up a new dimension in the Buddhist worldview. The reason that the Dzogchen tradition still calls the timeless a "time" is that it takes both time and the timeless to be of the same nature of dynamic transformation. The no-time or fourth time is as dynamic as the three times. This is not only experienced in one's mind but also can be extended to the whole realm of existence. As Guenther says: "This meaning-rich gestalt dynamics is always and everywhere present, pervading everything from the highest imaginable reality (Kun-tu bzang-po) down to the smallest louse."29 Actually the timeless time is itself called by Longchenpa Kuntu Zangpo or Samantabhadra, which equates to the highest reality:

The primordially empty Mind, which has no root,

Is not defiled by the phenomenal appearance of samsara and nirvana.

Throughout the three times and timeless time, the state of Kunzu Zangpo,

The essence of the changeless perfection at the basis is

Undefiled by the appearances of the six objects, like the water-moon [the moon's reflection in water].30

Furthermore, he says:

The time is not a determinate event, but the ground (Being-as-such) being complete and not altering (position) or changing.

Samantabhadra time, in which the three aspects of time are timeless,

The overruling prereflectively experienced meaning in which everything is complete and alike,

Is a reach and range pure in itself from the very beginning.31

To describe the highest reality, Longchenpa adopts terms such as "the primordially empty Mind," "no-root," "not defiled by samsara and nirvana," "changeless," "perfection," "the basis," "the ground," "complete," "not altering," "not changing," "pure," "in itself," and so on. In Tibetan a single term gzhi (*asraya) is used to denote this reality. Literally meaning "ground" or "basis," gzhi is usually translated as "reason," "the whole," or "Being." According to the Dzogchen teaching, this reality is purely dynamic, and its creative, dynamic nature ensures that it is never "at rest." "This 'never-being-at-rest' expresses itself in a complementarity that . . . is imaged as Kun-tu bzang-po (the male aspect) and Kun-tu bzang-mo (the female aspect)."32

In the Dzogchen tradition, Kuntu Zangpo and Kuntu Zangmo are usually represented as an image of a naked man and woman in intimate embrace. However, one should not stick to its anthropomorphic associations. The male Kuntu Zangpo symbolizes the principle of the lighting-up or coming-to-presence (snang-cha) of gzhi, and the female Kuntu Zangmo the principle of openness or nothingness (stongcha). Their nakedness signifies that they are the purest of the pure, and no ornaments or drapery can interfere with their pure dynamics. And their intimate embrace symbolizes the complementarity or inseparability of these two principles.33

Kuntu Zangpo, being the fourth dimension of time, does not stand outside gzhi or the highest reality, but is within the unfolding and presenting of the reality. In this process of unfolding, the space-like principle of openness or nothingness can make room for the dynamics of the highest reality to be possible. On the other hand, the principle of lighting-up or coming-to-presence as dynamic "activity" (thabs) shows the very nature of nothingness or openness. This dynamic process, called "creativity" (rtsal), "play" (rol-pa), or "ornament" (rgyan), reflects the inner dynamics and spontaneity or spontaneous givenness (lhun-grub) of gzhi.34

This is called the self-organizing principle of the highest reality. And it is rather crucial whether one recognizes such a self-manifestation process as gzhi itself. If one does, one will be enlightened into the highest reality; "If, however, one does not recognize this auto-presencing of Being [gzhi] as an auto-presencing, this (failure) becomes the reason for going astray into the status of a mentation-governed (sentient) being (sems-can) within the three world spheres."35 That is, one will fall into the circle of samsara.

To summarize, time in the Dzogchen understanding not only consists of three times of no-longer, not-yet, and no-dwelling, but also of a fourth Kuntu Zangpo time characterized by its coming-to-presence, which reveals the very nature of the highest reality, gzhi, which is self-presentation.

Four-dimensional Time

Among Western philosophers, Heidegger is one of the few who treats time seriously and brings it within the scope of metaphysics, thus breaking through the "'gap' between 'temporal' being and 'supratemporal' eternal being,"36 which has remained a fundamental distinction throughout the history of Western philosophy. By taking time to be the only secret path to being, he has totally changed the outlook of traditional Western metaphysics in the sense that he brings change and dynamics into the dominant substantialist way of thinking.

Heidegger starts his metaphysical questioning of being with human existence, which he indicates by the use of the technical term Dasein. This usage has a direct source in the approach of the phenomenological movement, which focuses on one's immanent experience and thus avoids traditional dogmatism. Though Heidegger is critiqued for his anthropological turning in the circle of phenomenology, he still operates along the lines of phenomenology with the exception that he expands a Husserlian static perception to a living experience of human existence. In this sense, he comes closer to Buddhism, whose entire strategy is to experience, analyze, and transcend human existence.

As for the issue of time, Heidegger does not attempt to provide a metaphysical definition of time to begin with, but rather starts with temporality (Zeitlichkeit) as the experience of human existence. In the experience of time, he challenges the conventional notions of the three times, and warns about keeping a distance from "all of the meanings of 'future,' 'past,' and 'present' initially urging themselves upon us from the vulgar concept of time."37 In his view, the vulgar concept of time arises from an inauthentic temporality or an inauthentic understanding of time, which is in contrast to the authentic temporality that he is exploring.

Continuing with his exploration of authentic temporality, Heidegger makes use of some new terminology. When he refers to "past" (Vergangenheit), he uses the term "having-been" (Gewesenheit). "Past," literally what has passed away, is a "no-longer" as understood by Longchenpa and by Buddhism in general. To Heidegger, this is a vulgarity and hence an inauthentic understanding of the past. To differentiate himself from this understanding, he uses the word "having-been" to indicate the sense of the "already-being-in" of the past. For him, what is past is not "nolonger- now but earlier," but, on the contrary, what he thinks of as "it is never past, but is always already having-been in the sense of 'I-am-as-having-been."'38 This having-been brings one "back to" what has been happening, thus making it "a constituent of the ecstatic unity of the temporality of Da-sein."39 It is through this crucial distinction between "passing away" and "coming back" that Heidegger contrasts the ordinary usage of "the past" from what he calls "the having-been." By the same token, Heidegger distinguishes the authentic and inauthentic understanding of having-been by the terms retrieve (Wiederholen) and forgottenness (Vergessen), respectively.

For the future, Heidegger does not pick up a new term. But the German word that he uses, Zukunft, is very different from the English "future," which, like the German word Futur, denotes a chronological sense of "later time" and indicates a rather linear understanding of time. Zukunft, on the other hand, in German can mean zukommen, or to come, and ankunft, or to arrive, and an equivalence may be found in the Old English word "advent." Therefore, the future is not denoted in a chronological sense of "not-yet-now," but instead as "being-ahead-of-oneself."40 In anticipation of going ahead of oneself, one makes the future come toward itself. Thus, anticipation is seen to be the authentic mode of the future. On the other hand, awaiting, or passively longing for a future point of time, is considered to be inauthentic. Here it is interesting to notice that the anticipation of the future is seen to be an attachment in Buddhism, which would consider an authentic mode to be nonanticipation of the future.

Among the English words for the three times, the "present" best matches its German equivalence in Heidegger's usage. The German word Gegenwart literally means to be present in a certain place or event. It refers not only to physically bringing forth something, but also to calling up something in one's mind. Thus, the present is to "be present," that is, "letting something be encountered."41 This understanding denotes the present in an active sense in that one is always encountering or being-together-with something. Heidegger also distinguishes the authentic and inauthentic presents to be the moment (Augenblick) and making present (Gegenwαrtigen), respectively. His understanding is that the moment being an authentic present "lets us encounter for the first time what can be 'in a time' as something at hand or objectively present,"42 while making present marks a general quality of the present, for "every present makes present, but not every present is 'in the moment."'43

While treating "making present" to be the inauthentic present, Heidegger does not distinguish the present (Gegenwart) from "presence" (Anwesenheit), and he uses the two terms interchangeably. This makes the phenomenon of the present more complicated. He says: "Presencing, presence speaks of the present [Aus Anwesen, Anwesenheit spricht Gegenwart]. According to current representations, the present, together with past and future, forms the character of time. Being is determined as presence by time."44 This became a topic for Derrida, and he observes that in Being and Time and in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics it is difficult to distinguish rigorously between presence as Anwesenheit and presence as Gegenwαrtigkeit, and in other works Gegenwαrtigkeit becomes more and more a restriction of Anwesenheit.45

Though not distinguishing the present and presencing or presence, Heidegger sharply contrasts the present to nowness (Jetzt), which is taken to be the key character in the vulgar concept of time. He thinks that "the present in the sense of presence differs so vastly from the present in the sense of the now that the present as presence can in no way be determined in terms of the present as the now. The reverse would rather seem possible."46 The relationship between these three concepts can be summarized as follows: "Time is presencing as present: 'present' (Gegenwart) is nothing but presence (Anwesenheit), which cannot be determined in terms of the present as the now."47 Heidegger thinks that the history of Western philosophy is dominated by this vulgar understanding of time:

For as soon as reflection on the essence of time began, at the end of Greek philosophy with Aristotle, time itself had to be taken as something somehow present, ousia tis. Consequently time was considered from the standpoint of "now," the actual moment. The past is the "no-longer-now," the future is the "not-yet-now."48

In this vulgar understanding, time is a succession of nows uninterrupted and without gaps. No matter how far one divides the now, it is still always now. In this uninterrupted succession of nows, every now is already either a just now or a rightaway. Heidegger points out:

If the characterization of time keeps primarily and exclusively to this succession, no beginning and no end can be found in principle in it as such. Every last now, as a now, is always already a right-away that is no-longer, thus it is time in the sense of the no-longer- now, of the past. Every first now is always a just-now-not-yet, thus it is time in the sense of the not-yet-now, the "future." Time is thus endless "in both directions."49

As a result, one has the one-dimensional linear time as experienced in ordinary life. This vulgar understanding can be characterized by its dwelling on nowness, which in the Buddhist view is again an attachment to be gotten rid of. Jean-Luc Marion confirms Heidegger's observation by pointing out that "This ontological overdetermination of a primacy of the present leads to a double reduction of the future and of the past: the past finishes and the future begins as soon as the present begins or finishes. Their respective temporalities count only negatively, as a double nonpresent, even a double nontime."50 Here "the present" is used in the sense of "here and now." The nowness cancels out past and future, thus leaving one attached to the static here and now.

To detach himself from the nowness or "objective present" (Vorhandenheit), Heidegger is in favor of a futural orientation: "the future has priority in the ecstatic unity of primordial and authentic temporality. . . . Primordial and authentic temporality temporalizes itself out of the authentic future, and indeed in such a way that, futurally having-been, it first arouses the present. The primary phenomenon of primordial and authentic temporality is the future."51 This way, he takes possibility to be superior to actuality. In his view, human existence is always ahead of oneself and thus keeps an open horizon of being in the future. This possibility of moving toward the future also makes time itself dynamic and breaks the chain of nowness. Here it is interesting to notice that for the same purpose of transcending static time, Derrida is in favor of the past. His key concept differance is "a 'past' that has never been present, and which never will be, whose future to come will never be a production or a reproduction in the form of presence."52

Though the future has priority over the past and the present, in Heidegger's view the three times interpenetrate each other. The present arises in the unity of the future and the having-been, and thus the horizon of a present temporalizes itself equiprimordially with those of the future and the having-been. The same is true with the past and the future. As Heidegger puts it: "Having-been arises from the future in such a way that the future that has-been (or better, is in the process of having-been) releases the present from itself. We call the unified phenomenon of the future that makes present in the process of having-been temporality."53 This temporality (Zeitlichkeit) is a unity of motions of "toward," "back to," and "together with" that reveals itself to be an ecstatic moving out of itself. This picture of the interpenetration of the three times is very similar to the view of time in Dogen and Huayan philosophy.

Though he discusses temporality in great detail, in Being and Time Heidegger does not get into time itself, which is supposed to be the topic of the unfinished part of the book. In a 1962 lecture titled On Time and Being, Heidegger reveals a part of his thinking on time. In this lecture, the leading question remains the same as in Being and Time, and he continues his notions of the interpenetration or unity of the three times, in which each of them is presencing and revealing the others. This leads to the discussions of the dimension or dimensionality of time, ending up with the notion of four-dimensional time.

Time or temporality as explained above consists in the mutual reaching out and opening up of future, past, and present. Having-been offers the future to itself, and the reciprocal relation of both at the same time brings about the present. It is in this sense of opening up that one talks about the dimension or dimensionality of time. "Dimensionality consists in a reaching out that opens up, in which futural approaching brings about what has been, what has been brings about futural approaching, and the reciprocal relation of both brings about the opening up of openness."54 This threefold interplay of reaching out already reveals three dimensions of time.

However, there is something more if one examines time carefully, and it is the presencing (Anwesen) that has been discussed above. As we know, in Heidegger's Being and Time, presencing is nearly identical with the present. But in his On Time and Being, he holds that though presencing is given in the present, "[n]ot every presencing is necessarily the present."55 For presencing also manifests itself in absence, that is, what has been or what is to come, and this manner of presencing by no means coincides with presencing in the sense of the immediate present. Thus, in a way, presencing is the unity of the three interplaying ways of presencing and is the very dimension that makes these three dimensions and their interplay possible. Heidegger says:

In the approaching of what is not yet present and in the having-been of what is no longer present and even in the present itself, there always plays a kind of approach and bringing about, that is, a kind of presencing. We cannot attribute the presencing to be thus thought to one of the three dimensions of time, to the present which would seem obvious. Rather, the unity of time's three dimensions consists in the interplay of each toward each. This interplay proves to be the true extending, playing in the very heart of time, the fourth dimension, so to speak-not only so to speak, but in the nature of the matter. True time is four-dimensional [vierdimensional].56

This is a most interesting statement, but, unfortunately, not many Heideggerian scholars have paid attention to it. Instead, many of us may be familiar with the concept of the fourfold world (Geviert Welt) found in the later works of Heidegger. This is a rather mystical view of the world, wherein the world consists of four elements, namely gods, heaven, earth, and mortals, and their interplay brings the whole world into a meaningful process of revealing. This worldview is called a playful mirror (Spiel-Spiegel), in the sense that each of the four reaches out in its own way while at the same time reflecting others in itself.

It is in the same manner that four dimensions of time interplay and reflect each other in a mirror-like realm. Using the metaphor of the playful mirror, if we say that object, image, and mirror are three dimensions, then the light that makes seeing a mirror image possible is the fourth dimension. It is the light that lights up the process of seeing and brings object, image, and mirror into play. In the interplay of the four, they reflect and reveal one another; thus, one sees an image in the mirror. In this metaphor, the light is not something beyond; rather it is the revealing or presencing of the thing itself. Thus, Heidegger thinks that what we called the fourth dimension of time should actually be the first, for it is the most original and determines the rest. This presencing makes the other three dimensions possible by the way it "brings about to each its own presencing, holds them apart thus opened and so holds them toward one another in the nearness by which the three dimensions remain near one another."57

In this sense the fourth dimension of time is the nearness (Nαhe) of presencing out of present, past, and future, the nearness that unifies time's threefold opening up. Meanwhile, the presencing that brings the three times near has the character of denial and withholding, for it brings future, past, and present near to one another by distancing them or holding them apart. "In true time and its time-space, the giving of what has-been, that is, of what is no longer present, the denial of the present manifested itself. In the giving of future, that is, of what is not yet present, the withholding of the present manifested itself. Denial and withholding exhibit the same trait as selfwithholding in sending: namely, self-withdrawal."58 This way it keeps open what has been by denying its advent as present, and keeps open the approach from the future by withholding the present from the approach. This is the manner by which what has been, what is about to be, and the present reach out toward each other.

Derrida is one of the very few who offer a follow-up to Heidegger's discussions at this point, and he interprets the unity of three times to be the play itself. He says: "The play (Zuspiel) also marks, works on, manifests the unity of the three dimensions of time, which is to say a fourth dimension: The 'giving' of the es gibt Zeit belongs to the play of this 'quadridimensionality,' to this properness of time that would thus be quadridimensional."59 Here Derrida draws upon Heidegger's notion of "es gibt Zeit" and thinks that the es gibt plays (spielt) in the movement of the disclosing (Entbergen), in that which frees from the withdrawal (retrait), when what is hidden shows itself or what is sheltered appears. He understands the giving to be the play; meanwhile the play is a play of gift. Thus, the fourth dimension of time is not a figure, or a manner of speaking or of counting; rather it is the giving of the thing itself. "This thing itself of time implies the play of the four and the play of the gift."60

For Derrida, this gift language is not a superficial correlation in language; rather it is deep-rooted in thought itself. He says: "That a gift is called a present, that 'to give' may also be said 'to make a present,' 'to give a present' (in French as well as in English, for example), this will not be for us just a verbal clue, a linguistic chance or alea."61 The present in the sense of gift is certainly not the present as the now being distinct from the no-longer-now of the past and the not-yet-now of the future. Rather this present speaks of presence, the fourth dimension of time. Derrida brings the ordinary experience of giving a gift to its relationship with time in a sophisticated way:

To give a gift requires that one then forget, and asks the other to forget, absolutely, that a gift has been given, so that the gift, if there is one, would vanish without a trace. If time is a calendar, a ring or annum, a circle or a cycle, then the gift calls upon us to tear up the circle of time, to breach the circular movement of exchange and reciprocity, and in a "moment" of madness, to do something for once without or beyond reason, in a time without time, to give without return.62

To give a gift is not for the purpose of exchange or reciprocity; it means giving without return. Thus, the giver and receiver both need to forget and leave no trace of the gift in their minds. This is contrary to the ordinary conception of gift, which is for the purpose of memorizing. With the vanishing of memory or trace, one goes beyond the conventional reason of exchange, and breaks the circle of time. A moment of "time without time" emerges in such an experience of a giving that leaves behind the cycle of time. Thus the present in the sense of gift is a time without time. Here it is important to notice that the phrase "time without time" comes very close to Longchenpa's notion of timeless time.

Marion, on the other hand, develops the idea of the present-being-gift in a theological context. He talks about the Eucharistic presence of Christ in consecrated bread and wine:

Not first of a privileged temporalization of time (the here and now of the present) but of the present, that is to say, of the gift. Eucharistic presence must be understood starting most certainly from the present, but the present must be understood first as a gift that is given. One must measure the dimensions of eucharistic presence against the fullness of this gift. . . . The rigor of the gift must order the dimensions of the temporality where the present is made gift.63

In Heidegger's own terms, the fourth time in the sense of presence or presencing shows itself to be letting-presence (Anwesenlassen). And letting shows its character in bringing into unconcealment. To allow presence means to unconceal, to bring to openness. This Heideggerian term of letting or Gelassenheit comes close to Longchenpa's terminology of rig-pa cog-gzhag-the letting-be that is gzhi's ecstatic intensity. 64 In unconcealing, a giving prevails, the giving that gives presencing in letting-presence. The sense of giving is enhanced by the expressions "Es gibt Zeit" or "Es gibt Sein." Heidegger thinks that one cannot say "time is" or "being is"; rather one should say "Es gibt Zeit" or "Es gibt Sein." Different from the English expression "there be," "es gibt" has the literal meaning of "it gives," from which Heidegger develops the gift-language.

Heidegger further distinguishes two modes of giving: sending (Schicken) and extending (Reichen). In "Es gibt Sein," the giving shows itself to be sending. Sending is the giving of being. The giving of being holds itself back and withdraws. Such a giving is called sending. Extending, on the other hand, is the giving of time: "We call the giving which gives true time an extending which opens and conceals. As extending is itself a giving, the giving of a giving is concealed in true time."65 In this extending there also belongs a keeping back, a denial or withdrawal. For the denial of the present and the withholding of the present play within the giving of what has been and what will be. In a denial extending, the giving in "Es gibt Zeit" opens up the four-dimensional realm. In this way, four-dimensional true time has reached us.

As Heidegger understands it, extending is superior to sending, for "[s]ending of Being lies in the extending of time, [the] opening and concealing of manifold presence into the open realm of time-space."66 Thus, one may think that the fourfold extending of time could be the "It" (es) that gives the being in "Es gibt Sein." But Heidegger thinks time by no means is the "It" that gives being, "[f]or time itself remains the gift of an 'It gives' whose giving preserves the realm in which presence is extended."67 Time as well as being remains to be the gift of an "It," which can be determined only in Ereignis.

Ereignis is the key concept in Heidegger's thought after 1936. He devotes himself to this single concept in many of his later works, some of which have been published only recently. In his notion of Ereignis, he is playing with the expression "es gibt." To a certain extent, he is obsessed by this single phrase in his later thought. He thinks that it is a common feature of Indo-Germanic languages, though in some, such as Greek and Latin, the "It" is lacking as a separate word or phonetic form, but what is meant by the "It" is still represented. He says: "The area of meaning meant by the It extends from [the] irrelevant to the demonic."68 In a certain sense, the "es gibt" stands for Ereignis. Thus, it means more than its common rendering of "occurrence," "happening," or "event"; the translations "the event of Appropriation," "Appropriation," or more recently "enowning" reflect more accurately the sense Heidegger is trying to convey.

Time gives being, and itself is given by Ereignis. Both time and being are the gift of Ereignis. "Accordingly, the It that gives in 'It gives Being,' 'It gives time,' proves to be Appropriation [Ereignis]."69 Ereignis determines the destiny of being and extends time as the region (Gegend). This way it determines time and being into their own, that is, in their belonging together. Heidegger says: "What determines both, time and Being, in their own, that is, in their belonging together, we shall call: Ereignis, the event of Appropriation."70

In their belonging together, time and being are appropriated in Ereignis. Heidegger thinks that one cannot say "Ereignis is" or "there is (es gibt) Ereignis"; rather one should say "Ereignis appropriates (ereignet)." To appropriate itself, Ereignis must withdraw, that is, expropriate (enteignet). Ereignis withdraws from the boundless unconcealment of what is most fully its own. Withdrawal or expropriation (Enteignis) belongs to Ereignis. "By this expropriation, Appropriation does not abandon itself- rather, it preserves what is its own."71 The denial or withholding in Ereignis has already shown itself in the manner of sending and extending in which "It" gives being and time.

Heidegger thinks that "[t]he discussion of Appropriation is indeed the site of the farewell from Being and time, but Being and time remain, so to speak, as the gift of Appropriation."72 This is because Ereignis gives being and time while it withdraws; thus, being or time cannot totally identify themselves with Ereignis, but remain a gift of Ereignis. In its withdrawal, Ereignis sustains an absolute otherness, which is an otherness of total presencing, enclosing the otherness of the three times. This is different from the sense of otherness developed in Derrida or Levinas, which is primarily oriented either to the past or to the future. Derrida's differance is an absolute alterity in the sense that it is a "past" that has never been present and never will be. It keeps itself to be a trace or enigma. In Levinas, however, the other (autrui) is a relationship with the future, for the presence of the future in the present seems all the same accomplished face-to-face with the other. Levinas says: "I do not define the other by the future but the future by the other, for the very future of death consists in its total alterity."73 Otherness in this sense is like the strangeness of death, which always lies in the future.

To summarize, time according to Heidegger is an interpenetration of havingbeen, future, and present in which a fourth dimension of presencing manifests itself, and time itself is the gift of Ereignis, which remains as otherness in its withdrawal.

Tentative Conclusion

As we have seen, Longchenpa and the Dzogchen tradition in general understand the past to be no-longer, the future not-yet, and the present no-dwelling. In emphasizing the character of "no," Longchenpa shows the Buddhist inclination toward the insight of emptiness. To Longchenpa a Heideggerian understanding of present as to be "encountering with" is still a dwelling, and only in a no-dwelling and freely lettinggo mind can the ultimate reality manifest itself. Heidegger distances himself from the vulgar sense of time as a series of nownesses that turns out to be the very basis of substantial thinking. But he does not venture into emptiness, instead bringing out a picture of the interpenetration or interplay of the three times.

Both Longchenpa and Heidegger go beyond the conventional understanding of time by examining carefully the experience of the passage of time. In such an experience, a fourth time or dimension of time manifests itself to be presence or presencing. Such a presencing, for Longchenpa, is the coming-to-presence of the highest reality gzhi; for Heidegger, it is the gift of Ereignis, which itself withdraws and remains an otherness. By tracing time back to Ereignis or gzhi, both of them have investigated time in great depth. Being loaded concepts in their respective traditions, both Ereignis and gzhi bring up a dynamic process which breaks down the static barrier between time and the timeless as it is manifested in similar forms in the Western and Buddhist traditions.

The coincidence between the two thinkers is of great interest and importance. Is this because I interpret the Dzogchen tradition in a Heideggerian way, or because Heidegger's thought is too Buddhistic? Unless one finds actual evidence, it remains improbable that Heidegger had read or known anything about this fourteenthcentury Dzogchen master Longchenpa. Meanwhile, I have avoided using Heideggerian terms to interpret Longchenpa as Guenther so intentionally does. Nonetheless, the similarities between their concepts of four-dimensional time are still striking.

If I am allowed to speculate on the reason for this coincidence, I would say that one possibility is that they shared a certain common source in developing their views. For instance, in the Dzogchen tradition, fourfoldness occurs not only in its understanding of time but also in the concept of the four dynamic levels, and Dzogchen thought is considered to have its origin in a contact with Greek gnosticism.74 On the other hand, Heidegger in many ways develops his philosophy by tracing back to the Greek tradition, and his concept of the fourfold world is very much indebted to the ancient Greek worldview. Although Guenther warns us not to confuse the Dzogchen notion of fourfoldness with Heidegger's das Geviert,75 their obvious similarity in terms of fourfold time may still be attributed to their common source in the Greek tradition-a topic that certainly holds much promise for further research.

Another possibility, however, is that the quaternity might be embedded in the human mind, constituting a universal way of thinking. As is pointed out by C. G. Jung: "The quaternity is an archetype of almost universal occurrence," and "[t]he ideal of completeness is the circle or sphere, but its natural minimal division is a quaternity."76 Jung's observation is confirmed by the Tantric tradition, including Dzogchen, where the mandala, a circle embracing quaternity, is popularly used in meditative and ritual practice. One can infer from this theory that by delving sufficiently deeply into our own minds, we will reach the common ground of quaternity, at which point it is not only time that will be seen as fourfold, but also the whole of reality.

The comparative approach has long been accused of being an exercise in magic. Now, however, our comparison of four-dimensional time in Dzogchen and Heidegger does seem to have something to do with magic, insofar as it involves the fundamental mystery of the human mind. That fourfold time is inherently a part of the mysterious processes of the human mind is a source of profound wonder-but equally intriguing are the astonishing coincidences in the thought of Longchenpa and Heidegger as they independently developed this idea.

Timothy Fitzgerald - The Ideology of Religious Studies

The Ideology of Religious Studies.(Review) (book review)
JIM STONE
2075 words
1 June 2001
Religious Studies
242
ISSN: 0034-4125; Volume 37; Issue 2
English
Copyright 2001 Gale Group Inc. All rights reserved. COPYRIGHT 2001 Cambridge University Press

Timothy Fitzgerald The Ideology of Religious Studies. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000). Pp. xi + 276. $45.00. 0 19 512072 8.

Consider this position, which I will call the standard view' (SV). There is a widespread human concern with a reality taken to surpass the ordinary world revealed by sense perception. It is thought to consist either of sentient supernatural beings (e.g. gods, Adonai, or Brahman) or of an insentient metaphysical principle underlying the universe (e.g. The Unconditioned, Sunyata, or the Tao). Either way, the supermundane reality is positioned to figure centrally in the satisfaction of substantial human needs. It is controversial whether 'religion' can be defined; however, systems of practices rationalized by beliefs according to which the practices place us in a relation-of-value to such a reality are paradigmatic religions. Religions have social and political dimensions, but they should also be studied qua religions, as practices, institutions, beliefs, scriptures that flow from this sort of concern.

Timothy Fitzgerald's provocative book, The Ideology of Religious Studies, is dedicated to uprooting SV root and branch. He writes: 'Religion cannot reasonably be taken to be a valid analytical category since it does not pick out any distinctive cross-cultural aspect of human life' (4).'Religious' phenomena have profoundly different meanings within different cultures; when the phenomena are understood in the context of their local symbol systems and ritual institutions, the 'religious' dissolves into the anthropological, the political, and the sociological. The academic discipline of religious studies obstructs a clear view of what happens in other cultures. Fitzgerald proposes that it 'be rethought and re-represented as cultural studies, understood as the study of the institutions and the institutionalized values of specific societies, and the relation between those institutionalized values and the legitimation of power' (10).

Fundamental criticisms of an academic discipline should be taken seriously. Fitzgerald writes with intelligence and vigour, but with considerable detail. Much of his book's force lies in the details. I can deal only with the arguments that strike me as most central, and then only in broad strokes. The reader is forewarned that I'm constantly missing the trees for the forest. The first part of the book argues that religious studies is an ideology. In Chapter 1 Fitzgerald writes: 'The construction of "religion" and "religions" as global, cross-cultural objects of study has been part of a wider historical process of western imperialism, colonialism, and neo-colonialism' (8). Contrasts between 'religion', on the one hand, and the 'secular', 'society', 'politics', on the other, are ideological constructions that were imposed on colonial cultures as part of establishing Western hegemony.

An immediate problem (which Fitzgerald acknowledges) is that every concept applied in cross-cultural studies (e.g. 'values', 'institutions') may have played an ideological role. More important, that concepts are constructed for imperialist purposes doesn't prove that they don't carve reality at the joints. In general, the fact that concepts and theories are the product of enterprises having little concern for truth should alert us to the possibility that they are mistaken, but it hardly warrants concluding they are false. The theory of evolution would have been true if it had originated as Nazi propaganda. To fail to see this is to commit the genetic fallacy. It's unclear to me how much work Fitzgerald thinks this 'deconstruction' talk does in supporting his book's thesis.

Another difficulty: Fitzgerald underestimates SV's cross-cultural adaptability -- as though 'religion' is wedded essentially to all these 'Western' contrasts. When I lived in India I soon recognized that the distinction between 'religion' and 'the secular' doesn't apply -- religiosity runs like electricity through virtually all things Indian -- but I had no trouble applying my old concept of religion. The cross-cultural inapplicability of the contrasts doesn't prove the inapplicability of 'religion'.

In chapter 2 Fitzgerald argues that religious studies, from its beginning in the nineteenth century, has been 'imbued with theological principles of the liberal ecumenical kind' (33), and is 'heavily loaded with Western Christian assumptions about God and salvation', thinly disguised as the scientific study of religion (34). The emphasis has been on interfaith dialogue and 'fitting the non-Christian institutions ... into the framework of liberal ecumenical theology, and into a classification system dominated by Judaeo-Christian concepts of worship, sacrifice, and so on' (54).

Once again Fitzgerald appears to be flirting with the genetic fallacy. That SV is theologically motivated is no reason to deny its truth. Indeed, if there is such a thing as religion, and Christianity is an instance, proceeding in covertly Christian terms may reveal much of importance about other religions. Assuming otherwise begs the question against SV.

In chapter 3, devoted to the work of Ninian Smart, Fitzgerald concludes that 'the language of "religion" and its "social dimension"' obscures 'the real object of study', which is not 'religion' but the way that power is legitimated in a particular context - a job for sociology (71). Suppose the category of 'a world religion' is valid for Christianity. This means that several distinct social groups claim to believe in 'something called Christianity'. Fitzgerald continues: 'But Christianity is here a theological concept, and its interpretation will depend on how it is understood by each different group. To grasp this ideological entity... we have to approach it through the sociological structure of the relevant group' (70).

But why call Christianity - on the face of things a pretty definite body of practices and beliefs (about Jesus, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection) - a 'theological concept' that requires 'interpretation', not to mention an 'ideological entity' in need of being 'grasped' through 'sociological structures'? Fitzgerald's argument's are often ill served by the jargon of cultural studies; it is hard to resist the view that he sees religion himself through an ideological lens.

Philosophers lately tend to agree that there is merely a 'family resemblance' between religions (to use Wittgenstein's term), a network of features generally shared, no single one of which belongs to every religion. In chapter 4, which deals largely with the work of Peter Byrne, Fitzgerald maintains that a 'family resemblance theory of religion overextends the notion so badly that it becomes impossible to determine what can and what cannot be included' (72). Without some essential characteristic, 'the family of religion becomes so large as to be practically meaningless and analytically useless' (73). I am sympathetic to this objection. The 'family resemblance' theory invites the charge that philosophy, ideology, politics, anything people really care about, is religion; but then 'religious studies' is defined too broadly to constitute an academic discipline.

I disagree, however, with Fitzgerald's additional claim that the failure of the 'family resemblance' theory of religion suggests that religion has 'no distinctive theoretical property and therefore cannot supply the basis of an academic discipline' (95). Religious studies is hardly the first discipline to need rescuing from Wittgenstein. I've argued in this journal that a religion is a system of practices meant to place us in a relation-of-value to a supermundane reality (that is, a reality surpassing the world revealed by sense perception) so grand that it can figure centrally in the satisfaction of substantial human needs. Fitzgerald's principal objection to such definitions appears to be that they are 'imbued with theological principles of a liberal ecumenical kind', which is hardly fatal. In any case, one of the book's strengths is that it shows that much depends on the success of such essentialist efforts.

Part 2 of the book concerns religion in India. Chapter 6 is about Ambedkar Buddhism. In the last century millions of untouchables in Maharashtra (led by B. R. Ambedkar, one of the framers of the Indian constitution) tried to change their status by convening to Buddhism. This led to a remarkable form of Buddhism in which Ambedkar, who died in 1956, is revered as much as the Buddha. Buddhist soteriology plays virtually no role in Ambedkar's version of Buddhism. 'According to Ambedkar's understanding, Buddha dhamma is essentially morality. By morality he means compassion, caring for one's fellow human and for the natural world.... On this line of reasoning, Buddhism becomes the basis of the new egalitarian society' (127). Fitzgerald finds the concept of religion 'unhelpful' in studying this movement (121). 'The concept of religion either as a traditional soteriology or as interaction with superhuman beings is patently inadequate for dealing with the realities of the situation of untouchable Buddhists'(129). An obvious response to Fitzgerald is that the concept of religion is unhelpful, not because it is defective or meaningless, but because Ambedkar Buddhism is principally a political movement in Buddhist trappings.

Hinduism is not a religion as much as a religious civilization. One cannot 'convert' to Hinduism, for instance; it is necessary to have a caste. In chapter 7 Fitzgerald argues plausibly that the wish to depict Hinduism as 'a world religion' has often led writers to ignore the profound influence on Hinduism of caste and concerns about ritual pollution. In addition, he suggests that categories such as 'ritual', 'hierarchy', 'gender', 'caste', 'ritual specialist', 'purity', and 'pollution' may provide a more precise framework than 'religion' to study Hinduism (144). Most fruitful to that study is understanding the 'fundamental symbolic system underlying the whole range of ritual institutions' (145). This system is rooted in dharma, Fitzgerald suggests.

Dharma is an eternal ritual order that defines the correct condition of all beings, whether they be gods, demons, animals, ancestors, members of different castes and sub castes. Dharma is fundamentally an ideological expression of hierarchy or ritual order that embraces the whole mythical cosmos but is manifested to the observer most evidently in caste, including the power exercised by the king or the dominant castes in contemporary India (145). I take the force of this to be that to understand Hinduism, finally, we must understand the relevant institutionalized values and their relation to the legitimation of power; but then talk of 'religion' is irrelevant.

This perspective is illuminating, but perhaps Fitzgerald is carried away by his vision. If the more 'precise' categories plus dharma explain Hinduism, what is the supernatural realm doing there at all? It's a bit hard to take seriously the claim that 'the human quest for the Divine' fails utterly as an explanatory category in a culture positively swarmingwith deities. While concerns about caste and pollution affect the ordering of the supernatural realm, one can hardly dismiss a priori the contention that this is a two-way street; for instance, caste is provided a supernatural warrant in the Rig- Veda. Dharma is itself a religious concept, at least by the theory of religion I mentioned above, and the claim that it is an 'ideological expression of hierarchy' is hardly self- evident -- though I expect there is some truth to it. Why not allow that a powerful religious vision (or collection of such visions) plays a role in shaping Hindu society? Above all, Fitzgerald fails to recognize that caste is itself a rel igious institution (a central part of a system of practices meant to place practitioners in a relation-of-value to a supermundane reality), one reason it is so very hard to uproot. This failure, I suspect, flows partly from his apparent conviction that the concept 'religion' is wedded essentially to 'Western' contrasts with 'society' and the 'secular'.

The book's third section, which concerns religion in Japan, argues in part that 'religion' is a category foisted on the Japanese in the last two centuries by Western countries. (In Part 4, concerning problems with the category 'culture', Fitzgerald responds to the concern that all concepts deployed in cross-cultural studies are defective.) Fitzgerald is an apt observer of Japanese culture, as evidenced by his discussion of Japanese baseball. He is also a gifted storyteller. Chapter 10, 'Bowing to the taxman', contains a beautifully crafted account of a Western friend's adventures with the Japanese national tax office, which culminate in his unexpected adoption as a member of Japanese society.

I fear that this review fails to do justice to the intelligence that informs Fitzgerald's writing. I frankly don't know whether religious studies can withstand fundamental criticism. Anyone interested in these matters will profit from reading The Ideology of Religious Studies. While unpersuaded by Fitzgerald's book, I am nervous that its thesis is true.

Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk (Hsuan Tsang) Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment by Richard Berstein.

The Meaning of Life
By Alexander Frater
1201 words
25 March 2001
The New York Times
Page 6, Column 2
English
(c) 2001 New York Times Company

ULTIMATE JOURNEY

Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment. By Richard Bernstein.
352 pp. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf. $26.

Every Chinese schoolkid knows about the monk Hsuan Tsang and his seventh-century odyssey through the fabled outer reaches of the world -- how he traveled for 17 years, covered 10,000 miles and brought home ideas about the attainment of serenity that would affect China profoundly. Tall, handsome and ferociously brainy, he had long been troubled by the complexities of the Buddhist Truth -- the ultimate reality that would free mankind from the treadmill of life and death. Buddhist texts indicated that such questions could be answered only in the distant, mythical land we now call India -- but in 629, as he prepared to leave, the emperor sealed the borders. Hsuan Tsang ignored the order. Determined to unravel the truth about human happiness, and with only a notional idea of which way to go -- basically west -- he vanished, subversively, into Asia.

Richard Bernstein, a book critic for The New York Times, first came across Hsuan Tsang's story while studying Chinese at Harvard, and again in Beijing as Time magazine's first bureau chief there. The idea of following in the monk's footsteps occurred in middle age when, working as a book reviewer, ''sitting at home pronouncing on the quality of other people's writings,'' he took stock: never married, Jewish but not particularly religious, comfortably off yet growing increasingly snappy and bored. Making Shaker furniture became one option, the other a journey along the fabled ''Road of Great Events.''

Bernstein's plans to travel in China were made more difficult when, along with a colleague, he wrote a polemic on United States-Chinese relations that put him at odds with Chinese authorities. His first request to obtain a visa was denied; he later got one by bypassing the Chinese consulate in New York and applying through a travel agency in Hong Kong. In the meantime, at a New York film screening, he met Zhongmei Li, a beautiful Chinese classical dancer who had recently moved to the States; she later offered to join him for the first leg of the trip. (In China he found, to his amusement, she was famous; occasionally, even, chauffeur-driven limos were laid on.)

Bernstein, as much of a clandestine traveler as Hsuan Tsang, writes about both journeys concurrently and, as we move through those huge, barren Asian landscapes (passing massifs like the Flaming Mountains) the specter of the monk always shimmers just ahead. In fact Hsuan Tsang is also leading Bernstein on a third quest -- into his ancient Asian religion and, in particular, its Yogacara, ''mind-only school''; a thousand years before Descartes and the British empirical philosophers, Buddhist scholars were proposing separation between the self and the world.

Hsuan Tsang's eventual destination was India's great Buddhist university at Nalanda, where students were taught that all was mind -- both the mind itself and every terrestrial thing that, seemingly, existed outside it. But if all is mind, then isn't that idea mind as well? Or if everything is illusion, isn't the proposition -- like a dream within a dream -- also an illusion? Isn't what we have, in fact, a kind of double emptiness?

''Not easy, is it?'' Bernstein sighs, casting around for a modern metaphor and coming up with the vacuum cleaner in the Beatles movie ''Yellow Submarine''; having sucked up everything in sight, it apocalyptically sucks itself out of existence. Double emptiness! Hsuan Tsang, he concludes, ''went to India to resolve the paradox of the 'Yellow Submarine' vacuum cleaner.''

America's unintentional bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade does not ease Bernstein's passage. Even before the bombing, the owner of a noodle shop in Jiayu Guan sees his open notebook and publicly accuses of him of spying. When Zhongmei has to leave for an important engagement, she worries about his safety. With that dodgy holiday visa in his passport, he carries on into the Xinjiang Uigur Autonomous Region -- off limits to journalists -- where he manages to talk his way out of China and into Kyrgyzstan. Reaching India, he meets its tumult head on: a tiny dark-eyed girl glimpsed in a rickshaw makes him yearn to give her ''a loving home and a rich American life''; the elderly Maharajah of Varanasi angers him by refusing an interview (''If you wanted to see Bill Clinton,'' the Maharajah grumbles, ''would you simply show up at his door?''); he has an anxiety attack in Varanasi's chaotic railway station -- the Indian dystopia in a kind of distilled form, horrible and fascinating.''

There are visits to Buddha's pastoral birthplace at Lumbini; to Sarnath, where he preached his first sermon; and to Bodhgaya, where he found enlightenment (and where Bernstein saw a banner reading ''COCA-COLA WELCOMES HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA''). Nearby, somewhere among Nalanda's spectacular ruins, Hsuan Tsang was welcomed by a crowd of thousands and given a daily ration of rice, betel nuts, nutmegs and camphor for the duration of his triumphant stay.

But what was Hsuan Tsang looking for? Perhaps confirmation that the world was ''like the moon reflected in the water'' (his words) but, more likely, mastery of the vast Buddhist canon. In Bodhgaya, pondering the rigorous metaphysics of the Diamond Sutra, Bernstein asks a German monk for help. It's all to do with selflessness, the German tells him, the realization that ''the object of your self-attachment is an illusion.'' That was how you began attaining Buddhahood.

In Delhi, to Bernstein's delight, Zhongmei rejoins him. As they follow Hsuan Tsang's homeward path over the breathtaking Kunjerab Pass, Bernstein already knows that Buddhism doesn't hold the answer to his questions (though he continues to leaf through its texts ''looking for the Truth that cannot be expressed in words''). What his odyssey left, instead, was a profound reverence for the Buddhist civilization of the seventh century.

The monk's own account of his journey, ''The Great Tang Chronicles of the Western World,'' is a Chinese literary classic. Bernstein's wonderful book, which ranks with Robert Byron's ''Road to Oxiana'' (1937), deserves to become a classic in its own right. If the best traveler's tales are really voyages through the mind of the author, then here we have a very cerebral story indeed -- intricate, closely argued and beautifully observed -- by a man who, driven as much by the quiet despair of middle age as by a search for deeper meaning, seems finally to have achieved something close to a state of grace. And ''Ultimate Journey'' ends on a note that would have brought a smile to the face of the monk. In an author's note on the book's final page, we read that last September Bernstein and Zhongmei Li . . . well, read it and find out for yourself.

Another review of Armstrong's book 'Buddha"

BOOK REVIEW An Inspiring Look at the Life of the Buddha BUDDHA By Karen Armstrong; Viking / Lipper; $19.95, 206 pages
PETER CLOTHIER
SPECIAL TO THE TIMES; Peter Clothier is the author of "While I Am Not Afraid: Secrets of a Man's Heart."
861 words
24 February 2001
Los Angeles Times
Home Edition
B-2
English
Copyright 2001 / The Times Mirror Company

Any study of the Buddha's life, as Karen Armstrong is quick to point out in this new biography from the Penguin Lives series, might seem antithetical to the essence of Buddhism, which is for each of us to take nothing on faith--not even the Buddha--and to discover the true spiritual path through our own efforts. But the attempt is still worthwhile, she notes, since "his life and teaching were inextricably combined. His was an essentially autobiographical philosophy."

The historical facts of Siddhatta Gotama's life (I follow Armstrong's use of the Pali, rather than the more familiar Sanskrit, orthography) are entangled in the surrounding myth and legend. The scriptures that make up the Pali Canon, the chief source of our knowledge, are based on oral transmission of discourses by the Buddha himself and on practices created by the monks who codified the dhamma--his teachings and practice--into the religion now known as Buddhism. Though the texts contain some verifiable historical material, they were not written down until several hundred years after the Buddha's death--which occurred in 483 BC, by most Western dating--and are thus subject to the distortions of time as well as of human intention, perception and prejudice.

Though not as well known in our culture as the story of Jesus, there are elements in the Buddha's story that are now widely familiar: how he was born into a princely family and isolated by a fiercely protective father from the sufferings of life beyond the walls of his pleasure palace, and from the prospect of sickness and old age; how, as a young man, he stole out into the city and was horrified when confronted with the reality of suffering and death; how he then abruptly abandoned his sleeping wife and son and set off to discover the answer to life's painful mysteries; how years of study, then of futile fasting and self-denial in the forest led to his discovery of the "Middle Way" between self-indulgence and asceticism, denial and aversion; and how he eventually achieved enlightenment under the Bodhi tree.

Around the bare bones of this story Armstrong weaves a rich texture of historical, religious and cultural information, creating a full portrait of the Buddha, both as a man of his time and as a great spiritual pioneer. First initiated in a sangha, or a school that taught that human suffering derived from ignorance of our true selves and that "the Self was eternal and identical with the Absolute Spirit," Gotama soon reached the limits of this direction. For him, Armstrong writes, "the teachings remained remote, metaphysical abstractions." He was looking not for theories, but for results; not for an understanding of transcendence as a means to conquer samsara, the cycle of suffering, but for a way to experience it in his own life.

Armstrong's clear and consistently insightful story shows how Gotama assembled parts of his answer from a complex of ideas and practices that were in common currency in his time, testing each for its practical application to his purpose. She devotes ample attention to her discussion of contemporaneous religious teachings about dukkha (suffering) and kamma (actions, better known to us in its Sanskrit form, karma)--and rebirth. And she reviews the role of the twin disciplines of yoga and meditation as paths to mindfulness, vital spiritual ingredients in the Buddha's achievement of enlightenment and proven ways "to break free of the conditioning that characterized the human personality, and to cancel the constraints of time and place that limit our perception." By the time we reach the Bodhi tree, we are ready to appreciate the full significance of the Four Noble Truths that form the basis of Buddhist practice, and for the compassionate wisdom of the Eightfold Path, the guiding precepts leading to release from suffering.

Less well known are the 45 years that followed the period of intense activity during which the Buddha's own sangha of monks expanded exponentially. Armstrong evokes a bustling life of travel to numerous cities and courts, of constant preaching and conversion. She details rifts in the sangha, lively dissents and rivalries, even assassination attempts on the Buddha's life as he approached its end, and offers a moving account of his last days, as he increasingly sought solitude and serenity for his parinibbana, or final release from the cycle of rebirth. Her book is a good, solid read, which respects both the integrity and the complexity of the Buddha's teaching, and offers a frequently inspiring look into this exemplary life. This is an invaluable text for all those seeking a better understanding of a spiritual movement whose influence continues to spread astonishingly today, 2,500 years after its founder's death.

Buddha By Karen Armstrong, reviewed by T. F. RIGELHOF

Buddha bio enlightens
T. F. RIGELHOF
1244 words
24 February 2001
The Globe and Mail
Metro
D10
English
"All material Copyright (c) Bell Globemedia Publishing Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved."

Buddha By Karen Armstrong Viking, 205 pages $28.95

'If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha!"

This, the command of a ninth-century Zen master to his disciples some 1,300 years after the death of the Buddha, is the quandary any biographer of Sidhatta Gotama must face. Throughout his life, Gotama, the man who became Buddha, insisted that it was his teaching that was important and that his teaching would not and could not be grasped by those who attended to his life and his personality. He believed that he had woken up to a truth, a dhamma, a fundamental law of life that rendered egotism obsolete. If people revered Gotama the man, they would distract themselves from following the path to immunity and peace in the middle of life's suffering.

A further 13 centuries after that Zen master spoke, Karen Armstrong, who has demonstrated that she understands so much so thoroughly in Judaism, Christianity and Islam throughout the past decade in a series of brilliant books that includes A History of God, Jerusalem: One City, Three Faiths and The Battle for God, performs a wonderful sleight of hand in turning east to the Ganges plain of the fifth century before our era. She brings Gotama to life only to make the Buddha disappear back into his teaching: In the process, she enriches our understanding of just how autobiographical his philosophy is and how much more radical he is than those "positive thinkers" among us who "bury our heads in the sand, deny the ubiquity of pain in ourselves and others, and . . . immure ourselves in a state of deliberate heartlessness to ensure . . . emotional survival."

Although the Buddhist scriptures (the Tipikata or Pali canon) are faithful to the spirit of Gotama's teaching, they do tell us some things about the details of his life and personality that seem reliable, and a great deal more about North India during his lifetime that agrees with external evidence. The first Buddhists thought deeply about five key moments in their founder's life: his infancy, his renunciation of normal domestic life, his enlightenment, the start of his teaching career and his death -- and this becomes the template for Armstrong's Buddha. For his first followers, as for his latest biographer, the general contour of his life is both an inspiration and a model: "Like Jesus, Muhammad, and Socrates, the Buddha was teaching men and women . . . how to reach beyond human pettiness and expediency and discover an absolute value."

What's more, the mass of teachings assembled in the Pali canon, a century after his death, "has a consistency and a coherence that point to a single original intelligence. . . . It is not at all impossible that some of these words were really uttered by Sidhatta Gotama, even though we cannot be certain which they are." That said, "what is historical is the fact of the legend," not the facts themselves, and Armstrong perceives correctly that to understand any of the legend, it must be looked at in its fullness, complete with all its "signs and wonders."

Her previous work on the Torah and the Gospels has taught Armstrong that "miracle stories" are often cautionary tales that point to an obsession with "significance" that rivals our modern concern with "accuracy." So what we have within 200 pages of highly readable and penetrating prose is not the Buddha in full, but a fully Buddhist Gotama, a recreation of his life, teaching and legend that can be recommended both as the best available introduction for newcomers and as the clearest and most precise statement in English of familiar teachings for those long-practiced in the art of piecing them together from inadequately translated texts and commentaries.

Either a contemporary of Confucius (551-479 BC) or, as recent scholarship asserts as more likely, of Socrates (469-399 BC), Sidhatta Gotama was born in a period of rapid transition from rural to urban, agricultural to commercial, traditional to innovative, mythological to pragmatic culture. North India during the sixth and fifth centuries BC was gripped by political violence, corruption, anomie and a profound fear of the emerging mercantile order.

At the age of 29, Gotama walked away from a wife to whom he was attached, a son only a few days old and a very comfortable life as the son of one of the leading men of Kapilavatthu, because he had experienced no pleasure in the birth of his son. He cast off the whole of his life, shaved his head and beard, put on a yellow robe and joined a growing number of forest-dwelling ascetics who were pursuing a life of homelessness. He was an empiricist and he'd reasoned to himself that if there was "birth, aging, illness, death, sorrow and corruption" in life, these states must have positive counterparts in another mode of existence and that it was up to him to find "the unborn, the unaging, unailing, deathless, sorrowless, incorrupt and supreme freedom from this bondage." He called this wholly satisfactory state of being Nibbana -- "blowing out" -- and was convinced that it was entirely natural to human beings and could be experienced by any genuine seeker.

Gotama made his way to Vesali, where he was initiated in the dhamma of Alara Kalama, who taught a form of Samkhya-Yoga, which instructed its practitioners to find enlightenment anywhere and everywhere in this world. Armstrong is very good at showing what elements of Samkhya are retained in the Buddha's teaching and how the traditional yoga he practised was both very different from the various yogas generally promoted in Europe and North America these days, and how crucial its systematic dismantling of egotism was to the meditation that led Gotama finally to the enlightenment he experienced under the boghi tree in the grove now known as Bodh Gaya, some eight years after leaving his home.

Any book on the Buddha rises or falls not with a description of Gotama's enlightenment, but rather with the analysis of the method he began to teach and propagate in his first three great sermons -- a method that means nothing of what he intended if it's separated from its effects on the moral conduct of those who practise it. Armstrong's Buddha doesn't just rise -- it soars! -- when she delineates why the Buddha's Four Noble Truths appealed to so many, and precisely how they provided a compassionate offensive against the rampant self-centredness that had begun to prevail in a new society made aggressive by a market-driven economy.

In tracing the social changes the followers of the Buddha brought (and still bring) to cultures that have begun to cut off human beings from all non-materialistic impulses, Armstrong nimbly makes the case that what Gotama wished to promote is nowhere better expressed than in the Digha Nikaya:

Let all beings be happy! Weak or strong, of high, middle or low estate,

small or great, visible or invisible, near or far away,

alive or still to be born -- may they be entirely happy!

Let nobody lie to anybody or despise any single being anywhere.

May nobody wish harm to any single creature, out of anger or hatred!