Review Essay on Lusthaus, ‘Buddhist Phenomenology’ by W. S. Waldron

Dan Lusthaus. _

Buddhist Phenomeology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogacara Buddhism and the Ch’eng Wei-shih lun.

London: Routledge Curzon, 2002. xii + 611 pages. Table of Contents, appendices, bibliography, and index. ISBN 0-7007-1186-4.

Reviewed for H-Buddhism by William S. Waldron (wwaldron.middlebury@edu), Dept. of Religion, Middlebury College, Vermont, USA. 05753

Yogacara as a Critique of Consciousness: “The ‘given’ loses its innocence and is exposed as the ‘taken.’”

There is still no consensus in the West as to how to best interpret, or even approach, the vast collection of Buddhist teachings and practices falling under the rubric ‘Yogaacaara.’ A recently completed annual seminar at the American Academy of Religion, for example, hosted an impressive array of papers

on an extensive range of topics for five years running without, however, finally addressing exactly ‘What is, or isn’t, Yogaacaara?’i Dan Lusthaus’ recent volume, _Buddhist Phenomenology_, addresses precisely this question (and a great many others) with prodigious energy, acute philosophical insight and

unstinting polemic intent. Dan is a man with a mission and that mission is to set the record straight on Yogaacaara: Classical Yogaacaara is not, Lusthaus reiterates, is not, a form of metaphysical or ontological idealism. It is, rather, a phenomenological and epistemological investigation of the

classical Buddhist questions of suffering, no-self, impermanence, and liberation, as they came to be expressed in the sophisticated, post-Abhidharmic and post-Madhyamakan milieu of 4-7th century India. Seen in this light, Yogaacaara exhibits much more continuity than discontinuity with earlier forms of Indian Buddhism, and the main thrust of this book is to demonstrate this twinned thesis in considerable, if not painstaking, detail. The aims of the book

are thus both hermeneutic - to provide an _appropriate_ interpretation of the Yogaacaara project - and expository - to present the full range of materials necessary to persuasively make this case. This is by far the most sustained, and successful, effort to do so in a Review Essay on Lusthaus, ‘Buddhist Phenomenology’ by W. S. Waldron

Western language. To accomplish these aims, the first half of the book sets forth the Indian Buddhist antecedents of basic Yogaacaara concepts, before focusing upon Vasubandhu’s classic verse summary of Yogaacaara in the ‘Thirty Verses’ (_tri.mshikaa_). The remainder of the book, a still hefty two-

hundred pages, examines these ideas as they are systematically espoused in the extensive commentary on the _Tri.mshikaa_, the _Ch’eng wei-shih lun_ (CWSL), composed in 659 C.E. by the great Chinese pilgrim and translator, Hsuan-tsang, after his return from India. The CWSL seems to substantiate Lusthaus’

interpretations of Yogaacaara so well, one suspects, that it must have served as his originating inspiration. All of this is preceded by two relatively short chapters, on Buddhism and Phenomenology, that explain his unique approach to this project, an approach that indeed calls for explanation, for it -

both in content and style - may be the most formidable aspect of this discursive, incisive, often brilliant, six-hundred page work. Lusthaus’ basic interpretive point is that, simply put, “Yogaacaara is Buddhist phenomenology” (11). By citing phenomenology, he is calling upon parallels he finds with the 20th century movement in Western philosophy centered around such thinkers as Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty and characterized, in his words, by its “ critical concern with epistemological issues, a recognition that knowledge comes through cognition, but without implying any metaphysical statement about the nature of reality as dependent upon or created by mind” (11). What Lusthaus aims to do then, as the subtitle of the book - ‘A Philosophical Investigation of Yogaacaara Buddhism’ - promises, is to _practice_ philosophy in a Yogaacaara\ phenomenological mode, “to offer a

_philosophical translation_ of Yogaacaara into the idiom of phenomenology” (_ibid_). Such a ‘translation,’ he explains, must “eventually go beyond merely doing philology, in order to explore what a text _means_” (ix), and it is this philosophical exploration, this attempt to express what Yogaacaara ‘means’ in a phenomenological idiom, that makes this work so (potentially) impenetrable to the impatient, yet at the same time so richly rewarding for the

resolute. This book, in other words, cannot be used as a handy exposition of Yogaacaara ‘tenets;’ it is not a doxography. It requires, rather, an active engagement at a number of levels in _thinking Yogaacaarically_. That is both its challenge and, in the end, its achievement. This is facilitated in part by the liberal use of Sanskrit terms throughout, terms which are Review Essay on Lusthaus, ‘Buddhist Phenomenology’ by W. S. Waldron

quickly assimilated into the text, deitalicized and inflected as the occasion demands (_prajnyapti_ becomes ‘prajnyaptic’ or ‘prajnyaptically’). This requires us to think in terms of Sanskrit Buddhist categories, which is consistent with the philosophic aims of the book, but must, I imagine, make considerable demands on the uninitiated. (This is only exacerbated by the meager seven-page index, which is unfortunate for a book as richly diffuse as this, since it virtually precludes its use as a reference work.) His larger interpretive point, however, is that Buddhism itself was a “a type of phenomenology” (viii) from the beginning and we can therefore understand Yogaacaara better, more appropriately, if we interpret it in terms of this

historical and philosophical context. But, he explains, since this “pre-Yogaacaara phenomenological basis” has “nowhere else... been spelled out, I devote a major portion of this book to providing this necessary context” (ix). This entails reexamining most of the major ‘models’ of Indian Buddhist thought - the _skandha_s, _pratiitya-samutpaada_, _tridhaatu_, and _shiila-samaadhi-prajnyaa_ - from this phenomenological perspective, a reexamination that,

depending upon the concept, involves greater or lesser reinterpretation of our own ‘received tradition.’ This re-presentation of basic Buddhist models supports Lusthaus’ interpretation of Yogaacaara as fundamentally an epistemological rather than ontological project that is fully “in line with basic Buddhist thinking” (535), while at the same time it furnishes the foundation for the eventual reformulation of these models within Yogaacaara in general and the CWSL in particular, as presented in considerable detail in the second half of the book. In this way, ‘Buddhist Phenomenology’ is not unlike Lusthaus’ description of the CWSL: “It contains, organizes and evaluates a vast range of Buddhist doctrinal minutia... rehearsing and rerehearsing terms and models in one permutational aggregation after another” (352). Such an interpretation, that Yogaacaara indicts rather than idealizes consciousness

(_vijnyaana_, _vijnyapti_), has some serious explaining to do and Lusthaus does so with seemingly endless, if somewhat uneven, erudition. Term after term, model after model, chapter after chapter, Lusthaus takes on the core issues - consciousness only (_vijnyapti-maatra_), the critique of externality, the constructed nature of experience, the attainment of higher meditative states, and the possibility of nonconceptual awareness - and contextualizes each one by examining its canonical antecedents and their continuing development within Abhidhamma and early Madhymaka, before turning to its characteristic expression within the Yogaacaara

Review Essay on Lusthaus, ‘Buddhist Phenomenology’ by W. S. Waldron

traditions of India and, eventually, China. Such an encyclopedic project, however, in which one can readily lose sight of the forest for the trees, cannot be easily recapitulated in a few paragraphs, nor can a conventional review - with its usual bromides about which reader will think what about this work

when - do justice to the depth, the complexity, the sheer quantity of supporting materials Lusthaus brings to his case. I have been persuaded, therefore, for various reasons and from various quarters, to prepare a synopsis of each chapter, a summary of its contents and its relation to his larger argument -

in effect an outline of its organizational logic- while allowing as much as possible for Lusthaus’ points to speak for themselves. I will only comment here and there on some few points of controversy or for clarification. Perhaps this precis will encourage others to appreciate, and - dare I say it? -

appropriate, the depth of insight and the dogged intellectual effort that has informed this massive work. The interested reader is therefore directed to the following website, where this review will continue: ?????

• Precis of _Buddhist Phenomenology_* *Part One* (pp. 1-39). Buddhism and Phenomenology. Chapter One. Buddhism and Phenomenology. This brief chapter (ten pages) describes the basic themes of Yogaacaara and outlines the rationale for rejecting an idealistic interpretation of it, which, Lusthaus argues, is

“thoroughly inappropriate for Yogaacaara.” (5). While Yogaacaara thinkers do admittedly share an affinity with Western forms of idealism, insofar as in “the initial stages of their analysis.... they insist that we not lose sight of the fact that everything we affirm and deny, occurs to us _in consciousness_” (5), this does not establish them as metaphysical idealists nor does it “lead Yogaacaara to the conclusion that consciousness itself is ultimately_ real (_paramaartha-sat_)” (5). Quite the opposite: “_for Yogaacaara ‘mind’ is the problem, not the solution_” (5). Accordingly, “_vijnyapti-maatra_ does not mean... ‘that consciousness alone exists,’ but rather that ‘all our efforts to get beyond ourselves are nothing but

projections of our consciousness.... [It is] an epistemological caution, not an ontological pronouncement.” (5f). The remainder of the book seeks to substantiate these theses.

Chapter 2. Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. This difficult and somewhat diffuse chapter outlines the core philosophical questions of the problematic relationship between subject and object and the constructed nature of experience which, in one guise or another, are revisited throughout the book. It also raises the question of what exactly Husserl meant by his term ‘hyle,’ roughly “raw sensate material” (14) - a term that is relevant for Lusthaus’ interpretation of the Yogaacaara conception of matter. Husserl’s work resonates with Yogaacaara in a deeper sense as well because “for both Husserl and Yogaacaara understanding involves a leap from the present as mere presence to embodied history, to the uncovering and reworking of habitual sedimentations - and in

the case of Yogaacaara, the ultimate elimination of habit (_karma_) altogether” (25). What is this embodied history and these habitual sedimentations? And how are they eliminated? These questions are addressed in the next major section of the text.

• Part Two* (pp. 40-166). The Four Basic Buddhist Models in India. This part consists of six chapters which outline the four basic models, _viz_., the five _skandha_s, _pratiitya-samutpaada_, _tridhaatu_, and _shiila-samaadhi-prajnyaa_, and a chapter on the two forms of cessation (_asa.mjnyi_- and _nirodha-

samaapattti_), and a short summary. As the author acknowledges in the preface, although most Buddhologists will be familiar with these basic models, “perhaps they will find some food for thought there nevertheless” (ix). The promise of such fare lies in part in Lusthaus’ innovative, idiosyncratic, yet invariably insightful renderings of standard Buddhist terms, whether _sa.mjnyaa_ as ‘associational knowledge,’ _sa.mskaaraa_ as ‘embodied conditioning,’ or

_yathaabhuutam_ as ‘things as they actually become.’ Chapters Three and Four are crucial to his argument that “Buddhism was phenomenological from the outset” (ix). The primary focus of early Buddhism was upon conscious experience (_vijnyaana_), which it analyzed in terms of the _interaction_ between one’s cognitive faculties and their perceptual objects (439) - in Merleau-Ponty’s terms, “the lived-body and perceptual field” (31) - without, it must be

stressed, privileging one side or the other. Witness the _Sabba Sutta_ of the _Sa.myutta Nikaaya_ (4.15), which states, in Lusthaus’ words, “these fields, viz, the sensorium, are _everything_ (_sabba_)” (56). Since Yogaacaara “neither rejects nor deviates” from this basic perspective in which “_vijnyaana_ is _produced_

by sensory activity” (57), it is simply inaccurate to characterize it as idealism. There are few places where this interpretation of early Buddhist theory of mind, and its implications for later theories, are spelled out so persuasively. Much of our current understanding of Buddhist thought would, I venture, look quite different if this, rather than some other perspective, were more widely appreciated. This section also exemplifies, as throughout the text, the

author’s tendency toward elaboration, toward squeezing every nuance of meaning out of the smallest term or turn of phrase. More a Midrashic commentary than a systematic treatise, the book is liable at any turn to veer off onto an historical aside, engage in a clever but acute play on words, or digress into a learned discourse on etymology and logic. At first I found this simply digressive; eventually I saw it as the heart of the book, its very discursiveness the exercise of philosophical thinking in process. It actually takes Buddhist concepts and uses them to do philosophical work, interpreting, re-

interpreting, and ultimately reinvigorating them with an endless stream of evocative, provocative, at times outlandish, insights. (It is, one might say, Sonny Rollins rather than Sebastian Bach). One may find this delightful or distracting, exhilarating or indefensible, but he warned us in the preface (x) that he was taught that “philosophy is something philosophers _do_ rather than think about,” and he clearly took his lessons to heart. Chapter Five takes

up the next ‘basic Buddhist model,’ the _tridhaatu_ or the ‘three existential horizons.’ This model describes the horizons of ordinary experience - that consciousness depends upon the interrelation between the sense faculties and their correlative sense fields - while also suggesting the possibility of transcending them. That is to say, we are typically so completely enclosed in sensorial stimuli that “the horizons of our experience (_dhaatu_) are

constituted by the ‘erotic sensorium’ (_kaama_)” (83) of the desire realm (_kaama-dhaatu_). These horizons can be surpassed, however, in a series of formless meditations (_aarupya dhyaana_) in which each succeeding attainment encompasses and supercedes (_aufhebung_, 95) the preceding one. The particular order of these attainments - from ‘boundless space,’ to ‘boundless consciousness,’ to ‘nothing’ (which “implies the absence of any cognition whatsoever,” 95), and finally to that which is ‘neither with nor without associative thinking’ (_naivasa.mjnyaanaasa.mjnyaa_) - is crucial for Lusthaus’

interpretation of Yogaacaara, since “the sequence of first emptying the objective pole, then the subjective pole (including consciousness itself), finally opening to an Awakened, non-polarized realization, is maintained to the letter in Yogaacaara” (95). This is an essential component of his argument that for Yogaacaara consciousness is to be criticized, not hypostatized.

Chapter Six discusses _shiila-samaadhi-prajnyaa_, in which “the trialectic relationship of ‘behavioral discipline,’ ‘mental training through meditation,’ and ‘cognitive acuity’ forms the bedrock of Buddhist praxis” (110), aimed towards understanding, undermining and eventually eliminating the afflicted

motivations of our actions together with the false views that inform and instigate them. Chapter Seven discusses the development of meditation practices wherein all mental processes come to a halt (_asa.mjnyi-_ and _nirodha-samaapattti_), from the earliest Paali texts, through various Abhidhamma schools and into the Yogaacaara materials of Asanga and Hsuan-tsang. This chapter is another impressive synthesis that focuses upon two parallel developments in the

first thousand years of Buddhism: the shifting descriptions of and justifications for these meditative attainments themselves, together with the evolving notions of the various mental impurities (karma, _aashrava_, _klesha_, and _anushaya_) they were purported to purify - further instantiating the larger point about mind being the problem, not the solution. If the underlying organizational logic is at times opaque, this is due, in part, to Lusthaus’

encyclopedic aim coupled with his indefatigable efforts to exemplify, elaborate, and extrapolate upon a continuing host of doctrinal disputes. One of these issues seems sufficiently tangled, to my mind, that some clarification might be in order, and that is the multiple meanings with which ‘intentional’ is used in the book. The two traditions drawn on here, phenomenology and Indian Buddhism, use the term with somewhat different senses. Intentionality in the

phenomenological tradition means “being-directed-towards” (13) some kind of cognitive object. That is, “consciousness is always consciousness of” something (13). This differs from the Buddhist sense, in which ‘intention’ (the usual translation of _cetanaa_) is closer to ‘volition.’ Now, _cetanaa_

as a causative form derived from ‘_cit_’, ‘to think,’ does include the sense of directing towards an object (the commentary to the _Abhidhammattha-sangaha_, for example, defines _cetanaa_ as “that which connects the concomitants with itself on the object of consciousness,” _Abhidhammattha-sangaha_, 235, and thus overlaps to some extent with ‘attention,’ _manasikaara_ii). But more generally, _cetanaa_ emphasizes the sense of ‘volition,’ (“that which

arrives at action,” _ibid_), whereby it is central to the definition of karmic activities (A III 415: “Monks, karma is intention, I say; having intended, one does karma through body, speech, and mind.” _cetanaaha.m bhikkhave kamma.m vadaami; cetayitvaa kamma.m karoti kaayena vaacaaya manasaa_; also

Abhidharma-kosha_, IV 1b). Lusthaus, of course, is fully aware of this usage as well (“_cetanaa_ is one way of defining _intentional_ actions,” 125). But failing to maintain the distinction between these two senses becomes problematic when discussing those mental processes that are _cognitively_ intentional, in the phenomenological sense of being directed toward an object, but which are not _karmically_ intentional, in the Buddhist sense of engendering karmic actions. This includes many of the most significant mental processes that, in most Abhidhamma\Abhidharma analyses of mind, accompany or assist a moment of mind or thought (_citta_). Specifically, the mental factors (_caitta_) of sensation (_sparsha_), perception (_samjnyaa_), and feeling (_vedanaa_) are said to accompany (_samprayukta_) a moment of _citta_ when they share, among other things, a common object (_aalambana.... samataa_;

Abhidharma-kosha_, _ad_ II 34; also, _Kathaavatthu_, VII.2; _Abhidhammattha-sangaha_, II. 1). They are thus certainly ‘intentional’ in the phenomenological sense. But they are not intentional or volitional in the karmic sense, that is, they are not identified with _cetanaa_. They are classified in most Abhidhamma analyses as neutral _results_ of past actions (_vipaaka_). That is, they do not in and of themselves accrue any further

karmic result. Consciousness (_vijnyaana_) also falls within this category. Thus, to say, as Lusthaus does, that sensation (_sparsha_) is “always already intentional” (59), is, it seems to me, mixing up these two senses of ‘intention’ in a way that is potentially confusing. The inadvertent juxtaposition, or possible conflation, of these differing senses of ‘intentionality’ (if we have analyzed this correctly), may account for such passages as: “Since karma

exclusively concerns _intentional_ acts of body, language, and mind, karma is entirely cognitive. By ‘cognitive’ I mean any act involving an intentionality of consciousness, which includes gestures, sensations, perceptions, affects, linguistic acts and mental acts” (124) [[[Wikipedia:emphasis|emphasis]] in original]. Does this mean ‘cognitively’ intentional, or ‘karmically’ intentional? It is hard to tell, because Buddhistically speaking, sensations, perceptions, and

especially consciousness (_vijnyaana_), are not karmically intentional at all. Indeed, the very expressions “acts of consciousness” or “intentionality of consciousness” are contradictions in terms - in Buddhist terms that is, but not in phenomenological terms. ‘Cognitive,’ possibly even Review Essay on Lusthaus, ‘Buddhist Phenomenology’ by W. S. Waldron

‘consciousness’ as used here, seems to be a much broader category than the Sanskrit term _vijnyaana_, and readers, especially those conversant in Buddhist analyses of mind, would appreciate this work better if they kept these distinctions in mind. There is more to this point, however, than simply the possible

conflation of categories, which is an occupational hazard in any cross-cultural exercise such as this. It seems to have also contributed to conflating the important and related distinction in Buddhist thought between consciousness as a simple result of past karma (_vijnyaana_ as _vipaaka_) and consciousness as it is involved in the generation of new karma (i.e., Lusthaus’ broader definition of ‘cognitive’). This distinction is blurred in a number of passages

(e.g., “discernment [i.e., _vijnyaana_] involves intentionality, a movement of intent (_cetanaa_) toward a referent,” 439), which - by themselves - suggest a form of karmic determinism (e.g., “causes lead to effects, which in turn become causes of subsequent effects,” 168; also 158, n. 99, 193, etc.) that I found at least initially disconcerting, but which also, it must be noted, Lusthaus rightfully and carefully warns against in several other passages (211, 327, 359). Chapter Eight, a summary of the Four Models, deftly encapsulates their main points and segues neatly into the next section on karma, meditation, and epistemology. This could also be profitably read as a general preview of the entire section.

• Part Three* (pp. 167-272). Karma, Meditation, and Epistemology. This part, comprising chapters on karma, _madhyamaka_ and _prajnyaa_, emphasizes the utter centrality of mind - or rather the ‘cognitive’ - for comprehending both the bondage of karma and the means to liberation from it: “Since the crucial

factor is intent, and intent is a cognitive condition, whatever lacks intent is both non-karmic and non-cognitive” (172). Thus, further contextualizing Yogaacaara within the larger framework of Indian Buddhist thought, Lusthaus emphasizes that “while karma and the tridhaatu [tripe world] are absolutely mutually dependent, such that each could not exist without the other” (173), these can be reversed through appropriate forms of cognition, i.e. _jnyaanaa_:

“Awakening is, afer all, a cognitive act!” (_ibid_) In the chapter focused on karma, Chapter Nine, Lusthaus also discusses the multifarious developments, starting from the earliest Paali texts, of the category of _ruupa_, which often ambiguously “means _both_ materiality and sentient materiality” (183), but ends up being considered in Yogaacaara as largely “an appropriational, and hence cognitive, mental construct” (188). Lusthaus gives ample attention here to Theravaadin Abhidhamma theories, insightfully discussing the development from the Abhidhammic\Abhidharmic “victory of the metaphysics of present - the ‘now,’ apparent and conscious,” to the subsequent Yogaacaaric thematizations of “the latent, embodied and unconscious” (192) in the form of the _aalaya-vijnyaana_ as the repository or locus of karmic potentialities that must be eliminated along the path - mind, again, is part of the problem. Chapter Ten, ‘Madhyamakan Issues,’ further contextualizes subsequent Yogaacaara positions insofar as they had appropriated many of ideas and methods of the Maadhyamakans without, Lusthaus asserts, “violat[ing] the radical insights and warnings provided by Naagaarjuna” (201). Of these, several merit our

attention: 1) the “notion of the mutual dependence of agent and action” (206); 2) the critique of any theory of karma that “attempt[s] to posit an independent existent called karma removed from the _active_ interplay of dependently co-arising events” (211); 3) a discussion of the two truths in Naagaarjuna, Candrakiirti and Tsong-khapa; and, finally, 4) a succinct and incisive discussion of conventional truth (_sa.mv.rti-satya_), in terms of “the

world [which] occurs within closure, within limiting parameters and horizons,” and whose closure “arises through the operations of consciousness and language” (228). But there is also a glimmer of hope: insofar as such conventionality also refers to a world of _common_ experience, based upon the “intersubjective sharing of intentionalities” (228), it is “simultaneously a closure, and a powerful openness to the Other, an openness traversed by

language and consciousness” (229f). The path has now been laid for an understanding of ultimate truth, _paramaartha-satya_, as that which is cognizant of, but not bounded by, the closure of the conventional - which sees, in other words, the conventional truth “_as closure_ but not _by closure” (231). What had been constricting _context_ in one view is now liberating _content_ in another. Chapter Eleven, The Privileging of Prajnyaa, chronicles the gradual

ascendency of such ‘cognitional insight’ (_prajnyaa_) as a basic “cognitive soteric methodology” (245) favored by all Mahaayaana schools. As throughout the first half of the book, Lusthaus here recapitulates, with insightful and intrepid scholarship, trajectories from the early Paali suttas, through such texts as the _Kathaa-vatthu_ and the _Vissudhimagga, to demonstrate that “ Buddhist soterics, even in this late Theravaadin formulation, revolves entirely around producing ‘liberating

knowledge’” (254). This chapter then introduces the enduring tension between two competing pictures of what exactly the object of such knowledge, _tathataa_ , consists of. Is it epistemological, “see[ing] things in the exact way they actually become (_yathaabhuuta_),” as Lusthaus sees most Buddhist traditions (and certainly Yogaacaara), or it is ontological, “denoting an immaculate, transcendental realm absolutely devoid of cognitive misapprehension” (255) (a reification which, he asserts, is tantamount to mistaking the finger for the moon)? Lusthaus characterizes this debate in terms of progressionalism versus essentialism, allowing him to neatly correlate it with the wider debate over gradual versus sudden awakening, whose roots he discovers in a variety of passages in the Paali _nikaayas_ and the _Kathaa-vatthu_ of the Abhidhamma. One of the subsidiary purposes here also seems to be to provide some background for understanding why “Hsuan-tsang’s project can be seen as a systematic refutation of the essentialist position as advocated by Paramaartha and others” (256) in pre-Tang Chinese Buddhism - issues more fully discussed in the next section of the book on Vasubandhu’s Thirty Verses.

At this juncture, we would do well to recall Lusthaus’ major points about _pre-Yogaacaaric_ Indian Buddhism: 1) that Buddhism focuses primarily upon cognitive processes, which only arise with the concomitance of the sense faculties and perceptual objects, since 2) it is cognitive processes, and

cognitive processes alone, that are determinative of the production of karma; 3) that the ‘three worlds’ arise interdependently with such karmic, i.e. cognitive, activities; 4) that liberation is also contingent upon an appropriate form of cognition, i.e. insight (_jnyaanaa_); 5) that the path toward such insight is typically depicted in a sequence which first deconstructs a sense of objective reality and then of subjective reality, before opening out to a

realization beyond that dichotomy; 6) that ultimate truth consists in seeing the conventional _as_ conventional, rather than in some ineffable, transcendent Reality; and hence, 7) that Buddhism is from the beginning epistemological, i.e. phenomenological, i.e. cognitive, through and through. As Lusthaus will demonstrate, each one of these points will be central to the Yogaacaara school as well, keeping it thoroughly “in line with basic Buddhist thinking” (535). The argument here, and implicitly of the book as a whole, is that we get a better understanding of what Yogaacaara is all about by investigating the context in which it arose, the causes and conditions,

if you will, of its dependent arising in history. The proper interpretive context for Yogaacaara is thus early Buddhism, Abhidharma and early Madhyamaka, _not_ later Madhyamaka or even later Yogaacaara.

• Part Four* (pp. 273-350). _Tri.mshikaa_ and Translations. With the preceding as preparation, Part Four proceeds to the heart of the matter, the distinctive Yogaacaara doctrines as set forth in Vasubandhu’s classic verse summary, ‘The Thirty Verses’ (_tri.mshikaa_). The first part of this section

collates several versions of these verses, allocating one page per verse. These are: 1) its original Sanskrit, along with its English translation by the late Richard Robinson; 2) Paramaartha’s Chinese translation, extracted from a larger work entitled _Chuan-shih lun_ (T.15870), followed by Lusthaus’s

translation; and 3) Hsuan-tsang’s Chinese translation of the verses (T.1586), along with Lusthaus’s English rendition. The verses and translations are heavily annotated (ninety-nine notes), and are followed by another thirty pages of commentary and analysis. These are certainly helpful, if used with care, for anyone making their way through the originals. This is also a useful arrangement for Lusthaus’ purposes, for it permits him to extract as much

philosophical mileage as possible in his own renditions while simultaneously relying upon Robinson’s more literal translation to act “as a touchstone against which to compare” his own interpretations (318). This tactic has its merits. For one thing, it offers him considerable latitude in translation

which he uses to good advantage, whether in rendering ‘alterity of consciousness’ for _shih-chuan-pien_ (_vijnyaana-pari.naamo_) and ‘psychosophic closure’ for _wei shih_ (_vijnyapti-maatra_) (291), or ‘everywhere schema-tized’ for _pien chi_ (_parikalpita_) and ‘dependent on others to arise’ for _yi-t’a-ch’i_ (_paratantra_) (294f). But there are also places where his interpretations are tethered but loosely to the text. I will cite an example. Lusthaus

interprets the first terms of Verse Three, _asa.mviditaka-upaadhi-sthaana-vijnyaptikam_, as referring not just to the two indiscernible (_asa.mviditaka, pu k’e chih_) perceptions (_vijnyapti, liao_) of the _aalaya-vijnyaana_ - a perception of its appropriation (_upaadhi, chih shou_; that is, the material body

along with the predispositions toward discrimination of selves and dharmas), and a perception of a locus (_sthaana, ch’u_; that is, the external ‘receptacle’ world) - which is the standard interpretation attested in many Yogaacaara texts; Lusthaus also sees in the phrase “fundamental clues for

determining what the upper three vijnyaanas, viz. [1] _aalaya-vijnyaana_ , [2] _manas_, and [3] _mano-vijnyaana_, mean” (325) - which were just introduced in Verse 2, but whose connection with Verse 3 appears to completely his own interpretation. Specifically, Lusthaus correlates the egocentric mentation (_manana_) of _manas_ in Verse 2 with the ‘locus’ (_sthaana_) in Verse 3, which suggests to him - playing off the semantic nuances of ‘locus’ - that “manas localizes experience through thinking .... which can phenomenologically derive from experiencing oneself as the center of the world, and identifying oneself as the _place_ at the center of _my_ experience” (325f). This is ingenious and evocative, but the correlation between _manas_ and _sthaana_ is, to

my knowledge, uncorroborated in any traditional commentary. Once again, though, this appears to be deliberate. Lusthaus elsewhere defends his etymological philosophizing, explaining that while “chronicling traditional claims is worthwhile.... I’ve chosen the somewhat riskier creative approach: engaging in nirukta (etymology). This is an effort to participate in the doing of Indian philosophy in the manner and style that they themselves employed. For them,

doing etymology is doing philosophy. It is not a neutral, philological activity. I beg the indulgence of my scientific colleagues” (120, n. 18). Our forbearance is, more often than not, rewarded with a deeper, more penetrating, appreciation of Buddhist philosophical terms. More importantly, though, it is in this section that Lusthaus makes his clearest case for interpreting “consciousness only” (_vijnyapti-maatra_) in terms of ‘psychosophic’ closure -

one of linchpins of his argument against idealistic interpretations of Yogaacaara. (‘Psychosophic’ is his neologism coined to emphasize “the logical rigor needed to do proper psychology while maintaining awareness of the psychological aspects at play in philosophizing,” 51, n.3.) There are several steps to this argument. Above all, Lusthaus contextualizes _vijnyapti-maatra_ in terms of the progressive negations first found in the meditative states presented

earlier in the book: “the transition from negating the object, which also negates the knower (without an object, a consciousness cannot arise), to entering where neither appears, is comparable to the first three levels of the aaruupya-dhyaanas, i.e., in the absence of objects (equivalent to aakaasha),

consciousness (second level) becomes Nothing (third level)” (343). He cites several Yogaacaara texts which exhibit a similar progression and reach similar conclusions (344): Apprehending vijnyapti-maatra is the basis for the arising of the nonapprehension of

_artha_. The nonapprehension of _artha_ is the basis for the nonapprehension of _vijnyapti-maatra_ (_vijnyapti-maatropalabdhim nishrityaarthaanupalabdhir-jayate. Arthaanupalabdhim nishritya vijnyapti-maatrasyaapi-anupalabdhir-jayate. Madhyaanta-vibhaaga-bhaa.sya_ I.7). By the apprehending of citta-maatra,

there is the nonapprehension of cognized _artha_. By nonapprehending cognized _artha_, citta also is nonapprehended (_citta-maatra-upalambhena jnyeyaarthaanupalambhataa. Jnyeyaartha anupalambhena syaac-cittaanupalambhataa_. Trisvabhaavanirdesha_ v. 36; Sanskrit typo corrected). These passages support Lusthaus’ major thesis that “Vijnyapti-maatra or citta-maatra are provisional antidotes (_pratipak.sa_), put out of operation once their purpose

has been achieved. They are not metaphysically reified or lionized” (344). We see this same point in the transition from Verse 28 to Verse 29 in the _Tri.mshikaa_, where the sense of _vijnyapti-maatra_ subtly changes, for “there is a moment of insight in which the psychosophic closure makes itself transparent (and hence no longer en-closuring).... this constitutes the experience of ‘consciousness-only’” (345). This is an experience in which one

realizes, as Verse 28 declares, that “where there is nothing to grasp, there is not grasping,” and which leads to a state, in the next verse (v. 29), which is “without thought, without cognition, supramundane knowledge” (Robinson’s trans., _graahya-abhaave tad agrahaat_. Acitto’ nupalambho’ sau jnyaanam lokottaram ca tat_; 302f). We could also consider this in the context of the interrelationship between karma, consciousness and the _tridhaatu_, the

triple world, as discussed above. That is, the realization that “the entire experiential realm as constituted in the closure of nonAwakened experience is ‘nothing but a fabrication of the operations of consciousness’” (346) - an idea expressed in the quintessentially Yogaacaara phrase, “the three worlds are nothing but citta” (or, in _Vi.mshatikaa-v.rtti_ 1: “the triple world is nothing but vijnyapti; _traidhaatukam vijnyapti-maatram_; 350, n.13) - gives way

here, in the transition from Verse 28 to Verse 29, to a supramundane knowledge (_jnyaanam lokottaram_) in which “jnyaana not only is no longer a vijnyaana, it is also explicitly declared to no longer be a citta” (348). Such a reading is strongly opposed to any idealistic interpretation of Yogaacaara as affirming “citta as a metaphysical ground beyond any ultimate negation or cancellation” (348). The idea that the same term, _vijnyapti-maatra_, could at one stage be emblematic of the

cognitive closure we all suffer from, but then at the next stage be indicative of the liberated state - in which “what was vijnyapti.... has ceased, revealing that all that _was_ only the appropriative agenda and structure of consciousness (_vijnyapti-maatra_)” (346) - is by no means unprecedented.

Indeed, it accords with the interpretation of the two truths presented in the Madhyamaka chapter above, where conventional truth is “the world [which] occurs within closure” (228), and ultimate truth is defined as seeing that conventional closure_as_ closure - without, one must add, having to posit an

extra, “ontologically transcendent truth” (232). The same argument applies here: the latter realization of _vijnyapti-maatra_ is precisely seeing _cognitive_ closure as closure - without the need of “a hyperbolic genuflection to some mystical Other” (347). Indeed, this is the crux of the difference

between the Hsuan-tsang’s (and by extension, Lusthaus’) epistemological interpretation and Paramaartha’s (and most others’) ontological interpretations of Yogaacaara: “As elsewhere, the Sanskrit and Hsuan-tsang are offering psychosophical and epistemological observations which Paramaartha converts into metaphysical and cosmological assertions” (347). But Lusthaus does not merely assert this; he painstakingly demonstrates it, showing us in line by line analyses of the terms and translations where and how Paramaartha misconstrued and mistranslated the text, thereby misleading generations of scholars in China and, indirectly, in the West as well.

• Part Five* (pp. 351-540). The _Ch’eng Wei-shih lun_ and the Problem of Psychosophical Closure: Yogaacaara in China.

Part Five, the last and largest section of the book, comprises eleven chapters of varying lengths all addressing the historical context or doctrinal content of the CWSL. Lusthaus begins this section with a short chapter (Ch. 14) outlining seven distinct ‘trajectories’ into which the diverse Buddhist traditions in India, and to a lesser degree in China, had evolved, in order to set the context for Hsuan-tsang’s efforts to “put Chinese Buddhism back on track” (364) after having been misled for several centuries by the “essentialism” of Buddha-nature theories (370) as articulated, most prominently, in The

Awakening of Mahaayaana Faith. These tendencies, a recurrent theme hereafter, are briefly explained in subsections on The Failure of Indian Logic in China, The Prajnyaa Schools, Deviant Yogaacaara (!), and the problem of ‘_Hsiang shing_ (“characteristic and nature”) in the _Ch’eng wei-shih

lun_’ - this latter a clear instance of “Chinese interests and paradigms overshadowing and possibly obscuring the thoughts expressed in the Sanskrit text” (372) of the _Tri.mshikaa_. This is followed by a fascinating historical, if at times speculative, chapter, ‘The Legend of the Transmission of the _Ch’eng

wei-shih lun_: Dharmapaala versus Prasenjit’ (Ch. 15), in which Lusthaus challenges several traditional views about the CWSL. In particular, he disputes the claim that the text actually summarizes ten Indian commentaries on the _Tri.mshikaa_, giving pride of place to the commentary of the famed Indian master, Dharmapaala. Since there is no hard evidence that such a commentary even exists, he argues, the CWSL would be more accurately characterized as

simply “an overview of Yogaacaaric doctrines.... a sort of Yogaacaara catechism,” or even “a hermeneutic exercise on the _Yogaacaarabhuumi_” (413f). He next takes aim at the _Fa-hsiang_ school itself, the Chinese Yogaacaara school started in Hsuan-tsang’s name by his chief disciple and commentator, K’uei-chi (383). In Lusthaus’ analysis, K’uei-chi fabricated his connection with the illustrious Dharmapaala, claiming that he was the only one to have received

the “‘secret’ teaching” (394f) of the unknown commentary from Hsuan-tsang himself so that he, K’uei-chi, could claim the mantle of “Hsuan-tsang’s authority, and...be recognized as such by the Empress Wu, thereby becoming recipient of her favor and patronage, as had Hsuan-tsang of the emperors who ruled during his time” (411). The remaining eight chapters (Ch. 16-23) touch upon various aspects of Yogaacaara doctrine as presented in the CWSL, some

more central to his argument than others. ‘Alterity: _Pari.naama_’ (Ch. 16) revisits issues briefly raised in the section on the _Tri.mshikaa_, particularly the notion of _vijnyaana-pari.naama_ (“alterity of consciousness”) and its relation first to _vijnyapti-maatra_ and then to the Chinese dyad, _neng-so_, typically used to denote the active\passive or agent\object poles of ‘alterity of consciousness’ (conveniently charted on 437). This chapter

concludes by reiterating the argument, based now upon supporting passages from the CWSL itself (T.31.1585.38c-39a; Ch.7:12A-13A), that _vijnyapti-maatra_ is an epistemological not an ontological notion, expressing the fundamental idea that, whatever objects may be in themselves, nevertheless “everything knowable must be knowable through consciousness, nothing knowable can be declared to be ‘real’ apart from consciousness” (438). Doesn’t this then commit

the Yogaacaarins to the view that consciousness is _ultimately_ real, as they are so typically interpreted? Chapter 17 addresses this question by revisiting the two truths, contextualizing the discussion, as usual, by citing a variety of Madhyamakan and

Yogaacaarin sources. Drawing upon a more contemporaneous definition of real (_dravya_, and ‘existant,’ _asti_) as that which is “momentary, causally effective, and capable of being cognized.... [the] sort of ‘reality’ [that] is also accepted in similar formulas by the Sautraantikas and Bhaavaviveka”

(453), Lusthaus argues that in this sense, and _in this sense only_, “Consciousness is real (_sa.mv.rtically_ real)” (466). This is hardly, however, to denigrate the conventional. In much the same way that Naagaarjuna claims in his _Muulamadhyamaka-kaarikaa_ (MMK 24:10) that “without relying upon convention [_vyavahaara_], _paramaartha_ is not taught. Without understanding _paramaartha_, nirvana is not attained,” so the CWSL similarly argues that:

“If this consciousness were inexistent, that would make _sa.mv.rti-satya_ inexistent; if _sa.mv.rti-satya_ is inexistent, then _paramaartha-satya_ would also be inexistent, since _paramaartha_ and _sa.mv.rti_ depend upon each other to be established” (463; T.31.1585.39b; Ch.7:14B). Understanding the conventional actuality (as Lusthaus sometimes translates _sa.mv.rti-satya_) of consciousness, of the fact that all experience only takes place through consciousness (i.e., _vijnyapti-maatra_), is therefore necessary for any understanding of ultimate truth (_paramaartha-satya_). _Vijnyapti-maatra_ is thus

similar to emptiness in two ways. First, just as emptiness is used as an antidote to the false assumption that selves and dharmas have independent existence, so too _vijnyapti-maatra_ is used as an antidote to the false assumption that selves and dharmas exist independently of phenomenal experience. But once this aim is accomplished, then _vijnyapti-maatra_ must - like emptiness in the MMK 13:8 - itself be deconstructed; it must be seen as merely an antidote to reification and not something to be grasped as an independent, ontological reality in its own right. This is explicitly stated in the CWSL:

so as to oppose false attachments to the view that external to _citta_ and _caitta_ there are perceptual-objects (_ching, vi.saya_) [composed of] real, substantial entities, we say that the only existent is consciousness. But if you become attached to the view that _vijnyapti-maatra_ is something truly

real and existent, that’s the same as being attached to external perceptual-objects, i.e., it becomes just another dharma-attachment [and definitely not liberating]. (465, T.31.1585.6c; Ch.2:4B.). [brackets in original] This chapter also includes several excellent summaries (e.g., 457f) of his basic theses rejecting idealistic interpretations of Yogaacaara.

There follows a succession of short chapters revisiting topics raised in the pre-Yogaacaaric half of the book, whose explicit treatment in the CWSL supports Lusthaus’ basic interpretation of Yogaacaara. “On Ruupa” addresses perhaps the central issue raised in any phenomenalistic theory such as the

Yogaacaara: the status of the apparently external material world. Lusthaus emphasizes that while Yogaacaarins never deny _ruupa_ (glossed above as “_both_ materiality and sentient materiality,” 183) as a type of experience, they object to the view that it exists _outside_ of experience on both cognitive and affective grounds. “The _categorical fixations_ we call ‘physical sensate stuff’ are linguistic projections” (474) which, according to the

CWSL, “arise because of the power (_shih li_) of the vaasanaas (_hsun hsi_) of ‘names and words’” (CWSL, T.31.1585.39b22), that is, due to the permeations or impressions from previous linguistic experience persisting in the subconscious mind stream (_aalaya-vijnyaana_). And this projection is precisely what

allows ruupa to become so problematic. As Lusthaus characteristically explains: “Ruupa is a ‘locale,’ a locative base (_adhi.s.thaana_) the location on/in which defilement/purity occurs. It is the locus of the fundamental cognitive reversal - that is to say, it is that about which the most fundamental

cognitive ‘perversions’ (_viparyaasa_), reversals, _take_ place (i.e., take their place, locate themselves appropriationally). ‘Ruupa’ is, then, a cognitive reversal - seeing what is _of_ consciousness as something external to consciousness. It makes experience a place in which cognitive objects can

be grasped, taken, pointed to, referred to and seized. It is the field of appropriation” (479). The chapter (19) on “Externality” continues this discussion, citing passages in the CWSL that identify the proximate provenance of this cognitive mistake neither in immediate (i.e. sensory) cognition nor

in the cognitive objects themselves, but in the activity of mental cognitive awareness (_mano-vijnyaana_). Externality is never perceived in immediate experience, the text explains, “only afterwards, mano-[vijnyaanic] discrimination falsely produces the notion of externality (_wei-hsiang_).... _Mano- vijnyaana_ is attached to external substantialistic ruupas, etc., falsely schematizing (_parik.lp-, wang-chi_) them as existents” (484, CWSL, T.31.1585.39b-c). This then serves, in Lusthaus’ words, as “the necessary condition for appropriation” (484). We can see that this analysis entails neither a blanket rejection of objects per se, which are considered to ‘exist’ insofar as they “exert some efficient causal effect” that can be

experienced (485); nor is it an absolute affirmation of “any single overarching ‘mind’ or ‘consciousness’ as the source or solitary existent of or in the world” (487), for the CWSL explicitly states that it does not “espouse a single consciousness” and that “all sentient beings each have [their own] eight consciousnesses” (487; T.39c18-21), thus affirming their relative individuality. Instead, the text posits a middle ground, not unlike the traditional dependent arising of consciousness in early Buddhism, as is clearly illustrated in its treatment of ‘other minds:’ “When [another’s] consciousness arises [in your awareness], it is neither substantial [i.e., not tangible, etc.] nor made to function [by you] (_tso yung_)....” Rather, your mind “is only like

a mirror, which ‘perceives’ what appears [within it as] external objects.... Other mind is this sort of condition; ruppa, etc. are the same case” (490f; T.31.1585.39c) [brackets in original]. As Lusthaus rightly points out, “this is tantamount to admitting that ruupa exists independently, though not separate from my mind. It is known indirectly, it is a remote aalambana” (491). This indefinite status is clarified in the next chapter (20) on “The

Four Conditions,” which _inter alia_ focuses upon the _aalambana-pratyaya_, the objective condition, which the CWSL divides into the immediate or direct object (_ch’in so-yuan_, *_saak.saat-aalambana_) and the remote or indirect object (_shu so-yuan_). The CWSL defines remote objects as: “If [what is] given to the cognizor [_neng-yuan_] is itself separated from it (i.e., the cognizor), [i.e., it is] internally cognized and perceptually-grasped such that

it is considered to have arisen from a hyle, that you should know is the remote aalambana” (500; T.31.1585.40c12.1-40c23.7). [brackets in original]. ‘Hyle,’ which we remember Lusthaus borrows from Husserl to translate the Chinese _chih_, roughly “raw sensate material” (14), is an important term that counters any strong idealistic reading of Yogaacaara, as least for the CWSL. For it is these indeterminate objects that, in conjunction with their appropriate sense faculties, give rise to moments of consciousness. The text continues: “the five sensory consciousnesses... must be confronted with an external hyle, so are determined to have remote aalambana conditions” (504). The _Ch’eng Wei-shih lun_ seems to want it both ways. First, as Lusthaus notes, “the _Ch’eng wei-shih lun_ assiduously avoids defining the ontological status of aalambana or ‘remote’ objects,” yet at the same time, he further

notes, “by calling them hyle... they participate in cognitions, and are therefore not ‘external’ to a cognitive act (consciousness), even though their source is somewhere outside the consciousness that cognizes them, such that they remain

somewhat opaque to that cognition’s gaze. Again we see that the Yogaacaara’s point is epistemological, not ontological” (503f). Unlike Husserl, and perhaps the majority of Western thinkers, “Yogaacaara is not interested in describing what the ‘world in itself’ might be, but rather how we karmically

interact with the world” (232). The end of all this analysis, as Lusthaus repeatedly stresses, is the elimination of the afflictions, attachments and obstacles that keep beings bound in samsara. Accordingly, chapter twenty-one discusses the ultimate goal of Yogaacaara, the state of Awakening wherein _vijnyaana_“ is converted into _jnyaana_,” that is, “the eight consciousnesses which so far constituted the full extent of Yogaacaaric phenomenological

description are suddenly ‘overturned,’ and displaced by four jnyaanas” (511). An idealistic interpretation of Yogaacaara is inappropriate here as well, Lusthaus argues, since the Great Perfect Mirror Cognition (_mahaadarshajnyaana_), representing the purification of _aalaya-vijnyaana_, does not unilaterally produce objects on its own, but rather is said to be “able to project\perceive and able to produce lived-bodies and perceptual fields, knowing

their reflections (_ying, pratibimba_)... like a great mirror projecting\perceiving ruupas and pratibimbas (material things and their reflections, _se hsiang_)” (512; CWSL, T.31.1585.56a; Ch.10:8B). This special, mode of awareness - like _vijnyaana_ in that it arises in dependence upon objects, ruupas and pratibimbas, but unlike _vijnyaana_ in that it is without appropriation - is called _p.r.s.thalabdha jnyaana_, post-Awakening cognition. The next chapter, on ‘Language, Avijnyapti-ruupa and Vijnyapti-ruupa,’ touches upon various Abhidharma concepts - concerning atoms, gestures, language and a type of karma - that the Sarvaastivaadin school of Indian Buddhism had attempted to explain more or less independently of notions of mind, usually delegating them to categories of insentient ruupa. The CWSL analyzes each of these in turn, demonstrating the inconsistency of such positions e.g., “the theoretical

categories constructed to account for ruupa in a nonsensorial way, that treat ruupa as some sort of non-experiential materiality, are... themselves cognitive constructions” (524); similarly, “it is precisely because of the intentionality of consciousness that a physical movement becomes a ‘gesture’”

(525). This is followed by another very short chapter (4 pages) addressing the question “Is What Is Ultimately Real Itself Ultimately Real?,” the gist of which is to demonstrate why the CWSL rejects the Abhidharmic category of unconditioned dharmas (_asa.msk.rta-dharma_), including _aakaasha (‘spatiality’), _tathataa_, _dharmataa_, not to

mention _vijnyapti-maatra_. They are all, according to the CWLS, _prajnyapti_s, provisional designations, which admittedly serve important “upaayic soteric functions,” but nevertheless are “definitely are not real existents” (530; CWSL, T.31.1585.6c20) “since,” Lusthaus reiterates, “the criteria of reality is the ability of a dharma to discharge its efficient causality” (529).

The short conclusion (seven pages) sums up Lusthaus’ major points: 1) that Yogaacaara is not a form of metaphysical idealism, but a set of “epistemological warnings about karmic problems,” and to interpret it otherwise “fundamentally misconstrues their project” (534f); 2) that “since the crucial factor [of karma] is intent, and intent is a cognitive condition.... Buddhism... is only concerned with the analysis and correction of whatever

falls within the domain of cognitive conditions” (536); 3) that Yogaacaara texts therefore “make no ontological claims,” let alone claiming “that the world is created by mind” (534f); 4) that “Yogaacaarins emphasize that categories such as materiality (_ruupa_) are cognitive categories” that have karmic

significance “only to the extent that they are experienced” (536); 5) that it is therefore not the category of ruupa itself that Yogaacaarins reject, “it is _externality_,” the notion “that such things appear anywhere else than in consciousness” that is problematic (540); 6) that the reason “consciousness

projects and constructs a cognitive object... [is] in order to render that object capable of being appropriated” (538); 7) but “we are usually incapable of distinguishing our mental construction and interpretations of the world from the world itself,” a form of ignorance that the Yogaacaarins label _vijnyapti- maatra_ (538); 8) so in order “to undermine this desperate and erroneous appropriative grasping, Yogaacaara texts say: Negate the object, and the self is also negated” (539); 9) hence, _vijnyapti-maatra_ is a only a provisional antidote (_pratipak.sa_) that it is “not metaphysically reified or lionized” (_ibid._).

The text is followed by a series of useful appendices: tables of the one-hundred dharmas and seventy-five dharmas (in Sanskrit, Chinese, and English) posited by the Yogaacaara schools and the Abhidharmakosha, respectively, and a chart comparing the two; an exhaustive list of the seventy-seven translations and original works of Hsuan-tsang (pp. 554-573), including the time and place of translation, the original Sanskrit title (when available), together with the Chinese and English titles, and bibliographical information on translations or studies in English or French (when available); and a ‘select’ bibliography of some thirty pages. The index, as mentioned above, is little more than six pages, wholly inadequate for a book of six-hundred and ten pages.

We have endeavored to provide potential readers with a useful picture of the scope and nature of this important work, with a clear enough synopsis of its supporting argument and materials, to allow them to come, with some effort, to their own conclusions.

William S. Waldron (wwaldron.middlebury@edu), Dept. of Religion, Middlebury College, Vermont, USA. 05753

• Works Cited*

Abhidharmakoshabhaa.sya. 1981. Shastri, S. D. (ed.), Varanasi: Bauddha Bharati Series. _Abhidhammattha-sangaha_. _Compendium of Philosophy_. 1979. Aung, S. Z. (trans.), London: Pali Text Society. _Anguttara-nikaya. 1999. Nyanaponika Thera, and Bodhi, Bhikkhu (trans.) _Numerical Discourses of the Buddha: An Anthology of Suttas from the Anguttara Nikaaya, Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. (Abbrev.: A). _Kathaavatthu_. 1979. London: Pali Text Society. _Paali-English Dictionary_. 1979. Rhys-Davids, T.W. and Stede, W., (ed.), London: Pali Text Society. (Abbrev.: PED).

i. See website for Studies in Yogacara Buddhism, A Seminar of the American Academy of Religion, http://www.acmuller.net/yoga-sem/ , as well as the site with Lusthaus’ article addressing this issue, entitled: ‘What is and isn't Yogaacaara:’ http://www.human.toyogakuen-u.ac.jp/~acmuller/yogacara/intro-asc.htm. Review Essay on Lusthaus, ‘Buddhist Phenomenology’ by W. S. Waldron

                                                                                                                                                      ii. ‘Attention’ may also be translated by ‘advertence,’ as in ‘adverting the mind’ towards some object.  This last is closer to its etymological sense of ‘_manasi_,’ ‘in or to the mind,’ plus ‘_kaara_’ a denominitive form from the root ‘_k.r_,’ meaning ‘to make, do, or work,’ figuratively meaning ‘fixing or placing in the mind’ and sometimes ‘mental concentration’. PED, 521