Encounter with the Imagined Other: A Yogacara-Buddhist Critique

·期刊原文

Encounter with the Imagined Other: A Yogacara-Buddhist Critique

Chen-Kuo Lin

Department of Philosophy National Chengchi University

佛学研究中心学报 第一期

1996年出版 (p235-250)

---

235 页

Absolute fear would then be the first encounter of

the other as other: as other than I and as other

than itself. I can answer the threat of the other as

other (than I) only by transforming it into another

(than itself), through alternating it in my

imagination, my fear, or my desire.

Jacques Derrida( 注 1)

The history of society and culture is, in large

measure, a history of the struggle with the

endlessly complex problems of difference and

otherness. Never have the questions posed by

difference and otherness been more pressing than

they are today.

Mark C. Taylor( 注 2)

──────────────

(注1) Jacques Derrida , Of Grammatology , trans . by

Gayatri C.Spivak, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1976, p. 277.

(注2) Mark C.Taylor,Altarity,Chicago: The University

of Chicago Press, 1987, p. xxi.

236 页

1

The pressing of the philosophical problem of

otherness and difference is now evidenced in all

minority discourses. For the oppressed subjects in a

long history, such as woman, Jews, subaltern,

(post-)colonial cultures, and so on, the time has

come to rewrite and rediscover their own identities.

However, in their efforts to do so, they are

inevitably trapped in a paradoxical situation. Their

search for a new identity through reversing the

relationship between master and slave, as Hegel

suggests, would not escape the dominating desire

embedded in the same centric logic. The reclamation

of subjectivity is always done at the expense of

distorting the previous other. The political

ambiguity (and guilt) as the result of constructing a

reversed other therefore never stops haunting the

souls who long for liberation. For this reason, the

questions need to be readdressed for those who

consider "encounter" to be the task free from

distortion and domination: What is other? Is the

other reducible to something other than itself? How

could the other be properly understood and

confronted?

As an Oriental response to these questions, this

paper deliberately takes a Buddhist stance,

particularly that of the Yogacara school. How is

other viewed in Yogacara philosophy? Although modern

studies have been devoted to the epistemological

issue about the existence of other minds raised by

Yogacara philosophers Vasubandhu (fifth century) and

Dharmakirti (seventh century), the critical--yet

still implicit--relevance of the problem of otherness

in Buddhism to the post-modern situation has not yet

been elaborated.( 注 3) It is strategically

necessary, as this paper attempts to do, to place

Yogacara conception of otherness under the highlight

of the post-modern discourse.

──────────────

(注3) Thomas E . Wood provides a detail study on the

Yogacara ' s doctrine of other minds . See his

Mind Only : A Philosophical and Doctrinal

Analysis of the Vijbanavada (Honolulu:

University of Hawaii Press, 1991).

237 页

Before directly going into Buddhist meditation on

this issue, a brief scan of the problematic of

otherness in the modern context could be helpful. The

problem of other can be seen in the conflicting

contrast between the notion of "system" emphasized by

the structualists and the notion of "difference"

favored by the post-structuralists. While the

structuralists are much concerned with the

inclusiveness and regularity of system, ( 注 4) the

post-structuralists are rather worried about the

totalizing and oppressive character of system. For

the post-structuralists or the so-called "post-

modernists", to defend the irreducibility of other is

inseparable from their ethical and political concern.

They do not want to see that everything is, in the

final analysis, reduced to or "swallowed up" by

system. In order to justify their ethico-political

stance, they are forced to go further to provide the

epistemological or phenomenological analysis for the

question, "How is it possible for other to be thought

or perceived?"

In their inquiry, however, they trace the

difficulty of problem back to the philosophical

predicament of Cartesian dualism and solipsism: No

difference is conceivable in identity. The various

efforts done later by the "hermeneuticians of

suspicion" -- Nietzsche, Freud, Marx -- are for this

reason directed to rescuing difference and otherness

from the metaphysics of identity. They take either

genealogy, psychoanalysis, or politico-economical

analysis, as a deconstructive tool to bring down this

metaphysics. The reason for them to do this is that

"violence", as Derrida calls it, occurs in the

metaphysics of identity for its domination of nature

and man.( 注 5) To disclose the

──────────────

(注4) See Todd G. May,"The System and Its Fractures:

Gilles Deleuze on Otherness",in Journal of the

British Society for Phenomenology, 24.1, 1993,

3-14.

(注5) Jacques Derrida makes this point through his

reading of Levinas. See Derrida, "Violence and

Metaphysics", in Writing and Difference, trans.

by Alan Bass,Chicago:The University of Chicago

Press,1978.Also see John McGowan,Postmodernism

and Its Critics , Ithaca : Cornell University

Press, 1991, p. 91.

238 页

metaphysical making of sameness is hence required as

the first step for us to truly recognize the other.

In the Western history of metaphysics, as

Heidegger contends, this "sameness" has been given

different names: Physis, Logos, En, Idea, Enargeia,

Substantiality, Objectivity, Subjectivity, the Will,

the Will to Power, the Will to Will, and so on.( 注

6) When we look to the East, we find a similar

development parallel to the West. In the Indian

history of orthodox metaphysics, this sameness or

identity is called Brahman, Rta, Atman (Self),

svabhava (self- nature), prakrti (primordial nature),

etc.. According to Buddhist philosophy, this

conception of sameness is nothing but an illusive

fabrication that causes sentient beings falling into

the suffering cycle of life-and-death (sajsara).

Suffering and metaphysics of sameness are as

inseparable for Buddhism as for Adorno and Derrida.

(注7)

However, the Buddhist critique of the metaphysics

of the sameness does not necessarily lead to the

conclusion the Western thinkers have arrived, namely,

affirming the existence of the irreducible other. For

Buddhism, this notion of "irreducible other" also

needs to be examined carefully.

2

From the beginning, Buddhist considers "other" as

that which is desired and constructed for the purpose

of appropriation. This view is clearly stated in the

Sajyukta-Agama 12.38:( 注 8)

──────────────

(注6) Martin Heidegger,Identity and Difference,trans.

by Joan Stambaugh, New York: Harper & Row, 1969,

p. 66.

(注7) Theodor W.Adorno says ,"Auschwitz confirmed the

philosophy of pure identity as death" . See

Negative Dialectics,trans. by E. B. Ashton, New

York: Continuum, 1983, p.262.

(注8) As Noritoshi Aramaki (荒牧典俊) has pointed out,

a three-or four-link formula of depending

origination(pratityasamutpada) is given in this

Agama: consciousness, birth,

239 页

That which is intended (ceteti) and

imaginatively constructed (pakappeti) becomes

the object (alambana) upon which consciousness

abides to persist. The object being there,

there comes to be a station of consciousness.

Consciousness being stationed and growing,

rebirth of renewed existence takes place in the

future, and from there birth, decay-and-death,

grief, lamenting, suffering, sorrow, and

despair come to pass. Such is the arising of

this entire conglomeration of suffering.( 注 9)

In this passage, several points need to be noted: (1)

In the world of life-and- death, everything is

structured intertextually and inter-conditionedly.

This is called "depending origination" (pratitya-

samutpada) . (2) Between consciousness and its

object there is no exception to the principle of

depending origination. Both of them must be mutually

conditioned. In other words, "consciousness" does not

exist autonomously without confronting something as

its "object", and vice versa. (3) Furthermore,

"object" (alambana) results from intention and

imaginative construction. This is equal to say, as

Mahayanists claim later, that object is empty because

it is necessitated by the intention and desire of

consciousness.

It also needs to note that in early Buddhism

consciousness is characterized as something nourished

by "foods" (ahara): solid food, contact, volition and

consciousness. This view is radically different from

the Cartesian conception of consciousness as the

attribute of a substantial mind. On the side of

Buddhism, consciousness is metaphorically depicted as

being appetitive,

──────────────

decay-and-death,or consciousness,name-form (namarupa),

birth, decay-and-death. See Noritoshi Aramaki, "On

the Formation of a Short Prose Pratitya-samutpada

Sutra",in《云井昭善博士古稀记念:佛教异宗教》,Kyoto:

Heirakuji Shoten, 1985, 87-122.

(注9) See Mrs Rhys Davids, trans . , The Book of the

Kindred Sayings, part II, p. 45.

The translation is slightly modified with

consulting the Tsa a-han ching ( 杂阿含经 ),

T.2.100.a-b.

240 页

arising from and growing in the context of physical

contact and ideological pursuit. Consciousness is

understood as something always in need of constantly

consuming "other", and conversely the other is

constructed as an object for consumption.

This appetitive character of consciousness

introduces us to see how desire or Eros (trsna) is

accompanied by consciousness. Desire, as stated in

Four Noble Truths as the cause of samsaric suffering,

plays a decisive role in rebirth. In the twelve-link

formula of depending origination, desire is said to

incite the arising of appropriation (upadana);

appropriation goes on to cause the arising of

becoming (bhava), birth, decay and death. This is a

soteriological explanation of the cycle of

life- and-death in early Buddhism. According to the

same formula of dependent origination, the arising of

desire is preceded by the process of cognition:

feeling, sensory contact, senses, the embryonic form

of mind-body (nama-rupa), consciousness, and so on.

This explanation also makes a point in

de-substantializing the notion of desire. If desire

is conditioned by something else for its arising and

hence empty by nature, it must be subjected to

elimination. But in reading this dogmatic

explanation, we should not overlook the dialectical

relationship between desire and cognition: desire is

conditioned by (defiled) cognition, and conversely

cognition is also conditioned by desire. This is seen

in the chain of the second link, sajskara (volition

and karma), and the third link, vijbana

(consciousness).( 注 10) Consciousness is said to be

the embodiment of one's previous karmas which can in

turn be traced back to appropriation and desire.

Instead of grounding the whole world upon the

Transcendental Mind as an Archimedean point, Early

Buddhists rather conceive consciousness as that which

is intertextually conditioned by the past. This way

of thinking leads us

──────────────

(注10) Sajskara, derived from √kr (do, make, create)

with prefix sam, means " predispositions , the

effect of past deeds and experience as

conditioning a new state ; conditionings,

conditioned states , which is also meant by

sajskrta . " See Franklin Edgerton ,Buddhist

Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary ,Vol.

II, pp. 542-543.

241 页

to disclose the genetic structure of the

intentionality of consciousness in order to see the

essence of object in cognition. They are clearly

aware of the fact that the object of cognition is

always already something manifested in the horizon of

consciousness. Accordingly, the contemplation of an

object must be preceded by analyzing the horizon of

consciousness as genetically constituted by sajskara.

However, Early Buddhists are not saying here that the

essence of object can be perceived in the realist

manner if the genetic structure of consciousness has

been laid bare. On the contrary, they rather argue

that the essence of object is nothing but the result

of the objectification of consciousness embodied in

sajskara. Put in other words, for Early Buddhists the

"other" encountered in the horizon of consciousness

is merely a construction of intentionality; to

encounter an "other" is therefore the same as to

encounter one's own past. The "other" standing out

there is nothing but the "other" coming from within.

3

How is the other encountered from within? How is

the other perceived as an other out there? In

responding to these questions, the Yogacara

philosophers in the fourth and fifth centuries turned

to the investigation of the depth of consciousness.

They found that the dualistic schema of the knowing

subject and the known object, which is assumed in

realist epistemology, is in fact based on and

effected by an inaccessible, subliminal matrix of

consciousness. They call edit alaya -vijbana

(storehouse-consciousness),ana-vijbana (appropriating

-consciousness)or sarvabijakavijbana (consciousness

-containing-all-seeds). They claimed that all sources

of knowledge subsumed under the categories of the

knowing "I " and the known "things" genetically arise

from the storehouse-consciousness. Our perception and

knowledge are merely representation of the

storehouse-consciousness.

242 页

The notion of storehouse-consciousness was

originally employed by the early Yogacarins to

account for the continuity of "personal" existence

during the meditative state of nirodhasamapatti

(cessation of all kinds of mind and mental factors).

Later the notion was used by the Yogacarins to

explain the karmic continuity of "personal' existence

in rebirth. The question they asked is: Why is the

sentient being born in this life-world rather than

that life-world? The main cause is "karma". But

through what vehicle and in what form is karma

transmitted to next life? Since the six kinds of

sensory and apperceptive consciousness are not

qualified as the receptacle of karmas, they are

forced to excavate the underlying structure of

consciousness which is inaccessible to reflection.

( 注 11)This finally leads to the discovery of

alayavijbana.

The discovery has its significance in disclosing

the archaeological and semiological structure of

subject. No longer able to hold its autonomous

status, the knowing subject is now claimed to result

from the linguistic and karmic matrix of the

alayavijbana. The crucial questions for Yogacara

philosophers are: What are the characteristics and

structure of alayavijbana? How do we know them?

According to The Sajdhinirmocana Sutra, the structure

of alayavijbana is shown in the "stuffs" it

appropriates (upadana): (1) the sense- faculties and

their bases, and (2) the sediments (vasana) of

discursive world (prapabca) and language (vyavahara)

which are constituted through cognition (vikalpa),

signifier (nama) and signified (nimitta).( 注 12)

That means,

──────────────

(注11) Lambert Schmithausen provides an excellent

textual-exegetical study on this issue. See

his Alayavijbana: On the Origin and the Early

Development of a Central Concept of Yogacara

Philosophy,Tokyo: The International Institute

for Buddhist Studies,1987.Also cf.,William S.

Waldron,"How Innovative is the Alayavijbana?",

Part I & II, Journal of Indian Philosophy 22:

199-258, 1994; 23: 9-51, 1995.

(注12) Chieh shen-mi ching(解深密经),T.16.692.b. Also

cf., Schmithausen's translation:"[Alayavijbana]

is based on a twofold upadana: 1) upadana of

(or:consisting of) the [subtle] material sense-

faculties together with their [gross] bases and

2) upadana of

243 页

alayavijbana biologically clings to physical body,

taking body as its base, and serving as the support

of body, while it appropriates the sediments/seeds of

language and discursive world as its contents. This

second characteristic gives us an important clue to

discern the linguistic structure of alayavijbana.

How is the alayavijbana structured linguis-

tically? As mentioned above, this subliminal

consciousness is also called "consciousness-

containing-all-seeds". The notion of "seed" (bija) in

this context refers to the cause of both existence

and cognition. In addition to the biological "seeds"

which cause the arising of the physical body, two

other kinds of seeds are also included in the

alayavijbana: seeds of karma and seeds of language.

The seeds of karma result from the maturation of past

karmas, while the seeds of language result from the

delight in "discursive world" (prapabca).( 注 13) It

is particularly due to the latter (the linguistic

sediments of discursive world) that an other is

fabricated as an other.

Here we have to clarify the concept of prapabca

before we go on analyzing the Yogacara's conception

of cognition as the effect of language. The term

prapabca has different renderings by modern scholars:

"the manifold of named things", ( 注 14) "Plurality",

( 注 15)"verbal elaboration, the

──────────────

(or: consisting of the Impression of the diversity of

(/proliferous involvement in ) the everyday usage of

phenomena,names,and conceptions(*nimitta-nama-vikalpa-

vyavahara-prapabca)". See, Alayavijbana, p. 71.

(注13) In the Basic Section of Yogacarabhumi,

alayavijbana is taken as the bijawraya (the

basis in the form of seed ) of sensory

perceptions .It is understood as the basis of

apropriations as well as the maturation of

karma. See Yogacarabhumi (瑜伽师地论．本地分

五识身相应地)：「种子依谓即此一切种子执受所依

异熟所摄阿赖耶识。...一切种子识谓无始时来乐着

戏论熏习为因所生一切种子异熟识。 」T.30.279.

a-b. Also cf. Schmithausen, Alayavijbana,Part

I, p. 110.

(注14) In the Prasannapada , Candrakirti gives a

lengthy exposition for the notion of prapabca:

"Thus karmic action and the afflictions arise

from hypostatizing thought . Hypostatizing

thought springs from the manifold of named

things (prapabca), i.e., from the

244 页

phenomenal world"( 注 16), "vain talk, diffusive

trivial reasoning", ( 注 17) and so on. Among these

expositions, Lambert Schmithausen's interpretation is

most worthy of note:

`Prapabca' is used both in the sense of the

process of proliferation, especially conceptual

proliferation, or even of (emotionally

involved) proliferating or diversifying

conceptual activity, as also in that of what is

the result of such a process ("diversity") or

the object of such an activity.( 注18)

According to this interpretation, prapabca is

synonymous of sajvrti (conventional world) and

sajsara (the world of life-and-death), both of which

refer to the world fabricated by linguistic act and

cognition.( 注 19) In

──────────────

beginninglessly recurring cycle of birth and death,

which consists of knowledge and objects of knowledge,

words and their meanings,agents and action, means and

act, pot and cloth , diadem and chariots, objects and

feelings, female and male , gain and lose , happiness

and misery , beauty and ugliness , blame and praise."

See Mervyn Sprung, Lucid Exposition of the Middle Way,

Boulder: Prajna Press (1979),p.172.Nagarjuna declares

in the opening verse of the Madhyamakakarika that the

complete cessation of the prapabca is called nirvana.

See ibid. p. 33.

(注15) Th. Stcherbatsky took a monist interpretation

in his translation of Prasannapada that

Nagarjuna's notion of nirvana is"characterized

as the bliss of Quiescence of every Plurality".

See The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana, Delhi:

Motilal Banarsidass, reprint, 1989, p. 88.

(注16) T.R.V.Murti,The Central Philosophy of Buddhism,

London: Geroge Allen & Unwin, 1955, p. 348.

(注17) D.T.Suzuki,Studies in the The Lavkavatara Sutra,

Boulder: Prajna Press, reprint, 1981 (1930), pp.

137, 433.

(注18) Lambert Schmithausen,Alayavijbana, Part II, note

510 (p. 356).

(注19) The linguistic , cognitive and imaginative

character of prapanca is seen in Kumarajiva's

245 页

Yogacara Buddhism, this world is also called "the

fabricated" (parikalpita), the life- world with which

we live and interact. It is further explained that

the fabricated world is constituted in the structure

of the grasping subject (grahaka)( 注 20 ) and the

grasped object (grahya). Both subject and object

interact with each other in this psycho-

lingusitically fabricated world.

In the discursive world, the subject grasps the

object and the signifier (nama) signifies the

signified (nimitta). But what is the signified? Those

which are signified arise from the transformation of

the "seeds" in alayavijbana. Like the magic show on

the street, the audience does see a "lion", for

example, and says that "I do see a lion", though in

fact it is nothing but the illusory image fabricated

with stuffs and trick. The image of "lion", for

example, is signified by the word "lion". And this

image as the signified is actualized by the seeds of

alayavijbana which in turn result from the

"perfuming" effect (vasana) of language and

discourse. Between discourse and alayavijbana (seeds)

there exists causal circularity.

According to Yogacara, consciousness is the

consciousness-perfumed -by-language. But how is the

consciousness "perfumed"? Obviously, "perfuming" as a

metaphoric expression can not be clearly defined. One

of the possible interpretations is to construe

"perfuming" as "encoding" in the semiological sense

and to construe "actualizing" or "transforming" the

seeds into the perceptual image as a reverse process,

namely, "decoding". However,

──────────────

Chinese rendering, 戏论, which literally means "drama

discourse" or "the fabricated world in play".

(注20) Yogacarabhumi(瑜伽师地论．本地分):「复次，依有

情世间及器世间，有两种法能摄一切诸戏论事，谓能

取法与彼所依所取之法。」T.30.347.b. Also see

Yokoyama Koitsu (横山纮一) , 〈种子〉,

《平川彰博士古稀记念论集： 佛教思想诸问题》,

Tokyo: Shunju-sha, 1985, p. 179. In the paper,

Yokoyama takes a textual - historical approach

to explore the process in which the notions of

"words" (abhilapa) and "seed" (bija) come to

combine as one concept. 言说熏习心. T.16.694.c.

246 页

this encoding-decoding model could be oversimplified,

because it fails to see the complexity in the

metaphoric and metonymic process (condensation and

dispalcement) operating in between language and the

Unconscious.( 注 22) On the other hand, the Lacanian

project of discovering the metaphoric-metonymic

structure of the Unconscious seems foreign to the

Yogacara tradition. On the contrary, Yogacara takes a

rather literal and pragmatic approach.

According to the Sajdhinirmocana Sutra and the

Yogacarabhumi-sastra,( 注 23) the effect of language

is working on two states of consciousness: the awake

state and the dormant state. In the awake state of

consciousness, language arises with perception

simultaneously.( 注 24) For example, when one

perceives a table, one knows that "it is a table". In

the dormant state of consciousness, one merely

perceives something without conception and verbal

expression.( 注 25) The examples given by Yogacara

are those who are incapable of verbal communication,

such as animals and babies. According to Yogacara,

consciousness can never be regarded as tabula rasa.

Even a baby's consciousness is always already

embodied of the past karmas and language. It is

therefore important in Yogacara practice to discern

the function of language not only in the structure of

consciousness, but also in the pre-structure of

consciousness.

──────────────

(注22) It is not easy to summarize Lacan's theory.

Here I simply borrow Samuel Weber's exposition:

"...[B]oth metonymy and metaphor are "functions

of a uniform movement of the signifier," which,

on the one hand , can only function in and

through its concatenation, and on the other, is

always dependent upon what is not part of the

chain, the signifier to which it refers...[A]nd

this would seem to suggest a priority of

metonymy over metaphor." Samuel Weber,Return to

Freud : Jacques Lacan ' s Dislocation of

Psychoanalysis, New York : Cambridge University

Press, 1991, pp. 66-67.

(注23) Yogacarabhumi (瑜伽师地论), T.30.701.a.

(注24) 言说随觉(*vyavahara-anubodha).

(注25) 言说随眠(*vyavahara-anuwaya). See Chen-kuo Lin,

The Sajdhinirmocana Sutra : A Liberating

Hermeneutic,Unpublished Ph.D.Dissertation,

Temple University, 1991, pp. 144-148.

247 页

The language in the preconscious/preconceptual

state is also called manojalpa, "preconscious/

preconceptual language".( 注 26) Yogacara argues, it

is due to the conceptualization of "preconscious/

preconceptual language" that the "identity"

(svabhava) of any perceived object is asserted. Only

if this process of conceptualization is fully

discerned and disclosed, one is able to realize the

emptiness of "identity" and consequently eliminates

his clinging and ignorance. In the Yogacara manual of

mecditation, the disclosure of "preconscious/

preconceptual language" becomes a methodic entrance

to enlightenment.( 注 27)

It is important to see that, according to

Yogacara, there is a correlative and corresponding

relationship between the structure of "conscious

language" and the structure of "preconscious

language". The former is 0 usually listed in the

standard Yogacara taxonomy of hundred dharmas. This

doctrine sounds like psycho-linguistic atomism,

claiming that all states of affairs can be reduced to

the corresponding structure of language, which is

further divided into two levels: conscious language

and preconscious language. But how is this theory of

correspondence justified? To Yogacara, theory shall

be verified by practice only, not by any other

theory. When a Yogacara student practices meditation

of calming (wamatha) and discerning (vipawyana), s/he

is instructed to meditate upon an object-image or any

state of affair in order to realize that all states

of affairs are nothing-but-consciousness

(vijbaptimatra ), nothing-but-preconscious-language"

(manojalpamatra) or nothing-but- designation

──────────────

(注26) The Chinese translation of manojalpa is 意言.

Hayashima Osamu (早岛理) offers an excellent

analysis and textual sources on this issue.

See 早岛理,〈唯识　实践〉,平川彰等编 ,《讲座．

大乘佛教－唯识思想》, Tokyo: Shunjusha, 1982,

pp. 161-174.

(注27) 《摄大乘论．入所知相分第四》: 「由何云何而得悟

入? 由闻熏习种类、 如理作意所摄、似法似义有见

意言。」 T.30.142.c.

248 页

(prajbaptimatra).( 注 28) The workability of

meditation is taken by Yogacara as the criteria to

verify their doctrine.

4

In gazing at the face of other, Yogacara

Buddhists are directed inwards to the pscycho-

linguistic intertextuality and inter-conditionality

which determines our ways of gazing and acting. For

them, the others we encounter in mundane experience

are mere object-images hypostatized from the pyscho-

linguistic factors which are embedded in the

storehouse-consciousness. They argue that the other

and its reverse side, subject, are psycho-

linguistically fabricated. To disclose the psycho-

linguisticality of other is the tantamount to the

same disclosure of subject, and hence gazing at other

is the same as gazing at oneself.

But is there something called the real "Other"

left when the fabricated other and self have been

disillusioned? Could we reach at the real Other

insofar as we have attended enlightenment? These

questions are concerned with the practical

implication of Yogacara philosophy. In contrast to

the postmodernist's efforts to save the irreducible

Other, Yogacara thinkers rather propose an/other way

of gazing at the other: meta-gazing (paramartha-

satya). Instead of being the path to secure the

ontological status of the other, Yogacara's

meta-gazing is taken to discern and purify the

psycho-linguistically embodied mechanism of mundane

gazing (samvrti-satya). This concealed mechanism of

mundane gazing is the real "Other" that needs to be

disclosed. For all Yogacara thinkers and Buddhists in

general, the so-called "Absolute Other" or

"Transcendental Other" in the onto-theological sense

does not exist. The reality of the real is nothing

but the fabricationality of the fabricated. Thus it

is said in the Diamond Sutra:

──────────────

(注28) 横山纮一,〈种子〉, p. 187.

249 页

As stars, a fault of vision, as a lamp,

A mock show, dew drops, or a bubble,

A dream, a lightning flash, or cloud,

So should one view what is conditioned.( 注 29)

This is the reality all we have.

But still there is difference between mundane

gazing and meta-gazing: To the former, mingling

language with desire leads one to fall into the

unhappy cycle of life-and-death, but to the latter

the detachment of desire from language makes possible

the playful prapabca (discursive world). As the

problematic of other is concerned, the other appears

to the Yogacara like the mirror reflecting all sorts

of discursive networks without mutual hindrance and

clinging when it is encountered with meta-gazing.

This is called "freedom", "liberation", or "truth".

──────────────

(注29) Edward Conze , Buddhist Wisdom Books , London:

Unwin, 1958 (1988), p. 68.

250 页

Abstract

The pressing of the philosophical problem of

otherness and difference is now evidenced in all

minority discourses. For the oppressed subjects in a

long history, such as woman, Jews, subaltern,

(post-)colonial cultures, and so on, the time has

come to rewrite and re(dis)cover their own

identities. However, in their efforts to do so, they

are inevitably trapped in a paradoxical situation:

Their search for a new identity through reversing the

relationship between master and slave, as Hegel

suggests, would not escape the dominating desire

embedded in the same centric logic. The reclamation

of subjectivity is always done at the expense of

distorting the previous other. The political

ambiguity (and guilt) as the result of constructing a

reversed other therefore never stops hunting the

souls who long for liberation. For this reason, the

questions need to be readdressed for those who

consider "encounter" to be the task free from

distortion and domination: What is other? Is the

other reducible? How could the other be properly

understood and confronted? As an Oriental response to

these questions, this paper deliberately takes a

Buddhist stance, particularly that of the Yogacara

school, to see how other is viewed in the Yogacara

tradition.

This paper concludes that, in gazing at the face

of other, the Yogacara Buddhists are directed inwards

to the pscycho-linguistic intertextuality and

inter-conditionality which determines our ways of

gazing and acting. For them, the others we encounter

in mundane experience are mere object-images

hypostatized from the pyscho-linguistic factors which

are embedded in the storehouse-consciousness. They

argue that the other and its reverse side, subject,

are psycho-linguistically fabricated. To disclose the

psycho- linguisticality of other is the tantamount to

the same disclosure of subject, and hence gazing at

other is the same as gazing at self.