Harmony as transcendence: A phenomenological view

·期刊原文

Harmony as transcendence: A phenomenological view

Steven W. Laycock

Journal of Chinese Philosophy

Vol.16,1989 PP.177-201

Copyright @1989 by Dialogue Publishing

Company,Honolulu,Hawaii,U.S.A

　

---

P.177

"Objects," of the sort which typically haunt the various systems

of Western metaphysics, are conceived as "opacities." Objects can

be said to be "opaque," not (or not merely) in the optical sense

of obturating whatever illumination might otherwise be revealed

through them,but also in the phenomenologically more suggestive

sense of being subject to revelation through appearances, but not

at the same time being themselves appearances of anything else. An

"ob/ject," in the etymologically primitive sense, is an entity

"thrown" across one's path, thus hindering one's way, or impeding

the channels of one's vision. Objects do not reveal, but conceal.

Thus, the obtrusion of a given object obstructs our view of what

lies behind it. The obtruding object wholly or partially excludes

the object concealed behind it.This "veil" of concealment introduces

a fundamental species of "phenomenological disharmony," the failure

of disclosure, opacity, and indicates, by contrast, a correspondingly

fundamental sense of phenomenological harmony: the perfect

"transparency" of one entity by another, revelation.

The image of the chamber of mirrors, each so situated as to

reflect within it all of the other mirrors within the chamber

(or its alternative incarnation,that of universal transparency)

vividly suggests a vision of universal phenomenological harmony

which will occupy our attention throughout the present paper.

It finds illustration in Chinese, Korean and Japanese manifestations

of Hua-yen Buddhism for which the universe as a whole is regarded

on the model of Celestial Lord Indra's Net, the vast resplendent

reticular system of entities, each mirroring within it all others

from its own unique vnatage point. The West, of course, has not

been

　

P.178

without its own exemplifications of the image, the monadology of

Leibniz(1) and the more contemporary process philosophy of

Whitehead(2) providing remarkable examples. Perhaps less thoroughly

appreciated, however, is the fact that the paradigm of universal

interpenetration informs the transcendental phenomenology of Edmund

Husserl as well. In the present paper I wish to direct attention to

at least some of the intriguing and deep lying affinities between

Husserlian phenomenology and Hua-yen. In the view of Master

Tu-shun(a), the First Ancestral Teacher of Chinese Hua-yen Buddhism,

the interpenetration of li(b) and shih(c), universal "net" and

particular "jewel," is to be understood in virtue of a hierarchically

ordered ladder of progressively more profound realizations:

First, one in one.

Second, all in one.

Third, one in all.

Fourth, all in all.(3)

We shall ascend Tu-shun(a)'s ladder, rung by rung in our own perhaps

faltering and insufficiently enlightened way, setting forth those

Husserlian insights most saliently congruent with the vision of

Hua-yen. First, however, before attempting the ascent, a few general

remarks concerning the Hua-yen world-view may be in order.

　

Universal Transparency

D. T. Suzuki's discussion of the dhamrndhatu, or "region of essence,"

vividly illuminates the vision enjoyed both by Hua-yen and by Husserlian

phenomenology:

　

... what we have here is an infinite mutual fusion

or penetration of all things,each with its own

individuality yet with something universal in it. ...To

illustrate this state of existence, the Ganavyuha makes

everything transparent and luminous, for luminosity is the

only possible earthly representation that conveys the idea

of universal interpentration ... no shadows

　

P.179

are visible anywhere. The clouds themselves are luminous

bodies ... This universe of luminosity, this scene of

interpenetration,is known as the Dharmadhatu, in contrast

to the Lokadhatu which is the world of particulars... The

Dharmadhatu is a real existence and not separated from the

Lokadhatu, , but it is not the same as the latter when we

do not come up to the spiritual level where Bodhisattvas

are living.(4)

　

Images suggestive of the non-obstructed complete interfusion of all

beings (shih shih wu ai(d)) abound within the Hua-yen tradition.

Perhaps the most familiar,as we have mentioned, is that of Celestial

Lord Indra's Net,the vast,universal, multidimensional network of

interdependence and intercausation, each node of which embraces a

shining jewel reflecting within in it the entire array of jewels in

their reticular setting. Thus, far from "excluding" alteriority, each

entity, jewel-like, welcomes all others in its perfect reflection of

the universal "net".

Each "jewel" is "located," not (or not simply) at this or that

particular place, but "in" every other "jewel". It is reflected

in infinitely varied ways throughout the universal "chamber of

mirrors," and of itself is no more than the uniquely modified

revelation of all other objects. What individuates the particular

shih(c) is not a given collection of essential and unique properties

instantiated by a substantial "opacity," but rather, the unique

manner in which the reticular totality of jewel-like entities

is revealed through the individual shih(c). Thus, the reticular

interpenetration (Cyung-t'ung(e)) of all things overturns even

the very possibility of phenomenological disharmony.

The metaphor of transparency and luminosity, as Suzuki helpfully

points out, enables us to grasp the unimpededness (wu ai(f)) and

mutual identification (hsiang chi(g)) of the vast multiplicity of

beings (shih shih(h)).All beings appear "through" each. And each

being reveals the reticular totality. Shih(c) do not obturate, but

rather reveal. They function, if the grammatical barbarism will be

forgiven, as "through nesses," as "windows" flung wide open through

which all else is brought to manifestation. In the phenomenological

idiom, such media of revelation comprise a unique species of

"appearance." Hua-yen thus presents a striking pheno-

　

P.180

menological vision according to which all is appearance; and,

indeed,whatever appears is itself an appearance.And in this sense,

then, all dharmas are "empty,"partaking of the universal character

of synyata. In the vivid formulation of the prajnapa ramita texts,

rupam sunyata sunyataiva rupam (form is emptiness and emptiness

is form). Inasmuch as it functions as an inimpeded disclosure of reality,

every shih(c) ("form") is utterly indistinguishable from the revelatory

character("emptiness") which imbues every other shih(c). Its

"transparency" is identical with the "transparency" of all other shih(c).

Or equivalently,all shih(c) are identical in their "transparency."As

Guenther claims,"Shunyata is ... the open quality of things."(5)While

as we shall later suggest, Guenther's interpretation of sunyata may

warrant certain crucial qualifications,the jewel-likeentities of Hua-yen

are nonetheless assuredly "open" to the universal "net."In our

alternative metaphor,each dharma-jewel is a "mirror"effortlessly and

undistortingly reflecting the entire universe of other shih(c). As Tao-hsin

explains:

　

Like the mirror on which your features are reflected, they

are perfectly perceived there in tall clearness; the

reflections are all there in the emptiness, yet the mirror

itself retains not one of the objects which are reflected

there. The human face has not come to enter into the body

of the mirror, nor has the mirror gone out to enter into

the human face.(6)

　

Congruently,Hart reminds us that,in Husserl's German,"Bewusst-sein"

(consciousness) signifies,in its very etymology, the thorough "knownness"

or diaphanousness of Being.(7)

　

But this absolute, diaphanous medium is an ongoing

achievement with lights and shadows, delineations and

obscurities:it can appear as a comprehensive,homogeneous

atmosphere only when one abstracts from its essential

contours of temporaility and contrast. The medium is

diaphanous only in the sense that its unity and continuity

of continua are already achieved; but the contingency and

facticity of this achieve-

　

P.181

ment insert at the heart of this luminosity something like

blind spots and cracks that,however,de facto are

incessantly healed.(8)

　

One might accordingly speculate that,for enlightened consciousness,

"shadows" and "obscurities," "blind spots" and "cracks," are utterly

absent from the transparency of Being.

　

With this brief and, of necessity, insufficiently nuanced survey of

those features of the compellingly lovely world-view of Hua-yen

relevant to our project, let us presently venture the first step in

ascending Tu-shun(a)'s ladder.

　

First, One in One

In the Logical Investigations Husserl articulates a theory of the

relationship between wholes and their corresponding parts which is

fundamental to the phenomenological enterprise of providing a

description of "things-as-they-appear" (phenomena), and which, for

our purposes, may suggest a primordial means of access to the vision

of "one" within "one" entertained by Tu-shun(a). Those parts of a

given whole which are intuitively registrable as essentially "founded"

in the whole in question, as being, not merely physically, but essentially

inseparable from that whole, are denominated "moments." Those parts

seen to be merely accidental to the whole, and therefore, separable,

are "pieces." Phenomenology properly concerns itself only with the

relationship between moments and wholes, leaving for the natural

sciences, and completely out of phenomenological consideration, the

relationship between pieces and wholes. Phenomenology, that is, is

engaged primarily in the task of articulating relationships of eidetically

registrable dependence, a species of relationship which Husserl calls

"founding." A given determination, A, is "founded in another

determination, B, just in case A can be intuitively seen to depend for its

very existence upon B. A, the founded determination, is then said to

be "abstract" with respect to B. Moreover, a "whole" is to be

conceived as an ontological constituent additional to its component

moments. It is neither a structure, a relation, a property, nor an element

　

P.182

of unity.It is not a thing binding other things together, but is, rather,

simply the ensemble of founded abstracta in their essential relationships

(not to say "relations") of dependence upon their corresponding

concretum. Between abstractum and concretum there is no tertium

quid. Founded and founding determinations are united without mediation

in such a way that the founding thoroughly modifies the founded

(qualifying the latter "throughly,"penetratingly) and is thus evidenced

"through" Husserl frequently discusses exemplary cases of

reciprocal founding. A musical pitch and its volume found one another,

as do color and extension. Husserl claims that it is a "law of essence,"

capable of apodictic registration, that no pitch can exist without some

volume (and, of course,conversely). This insight is generated by a process

of "free imaginative variation" upon a range of concrete particular

instances. This particular tone, for example, is such that its C-sharp

requires its fortissimo (and conversely). Once again, the founding

relationship in which abstracta stand to their corresponding concretum

is not, in Husserl's view, an ontological tertium quid inserted between

two separated elements. It is not, that is, a relation conceived as a third

ontological component, like a bridge, spanning abstractum and concretum.

Nor is the relationship "immediate" in the sense that founded and founding

stand merely flush together in distanceless contiguity. Rather, as is evident

in the case of pitch and volume, for example, the elements suffuse one

another. Pitch and volume can, of course, be conceptually distinguished,

and in this sense, "abstracted" from the concrete whole. Yet, not only

are they incapable of mere acoustical or conceptual separation, the

entirety of this instance of the given pitch is qualified by the entirety

of that instance of volume. If C-sharp is played fortissimo, that particular

degree of loudness characterizes the pitch through and through. And

conversely, this instance of fortissimo is thoroughly qualified by C-sharp.

The two determinations are reciprocally diaphanous. C-sharp is exhibited

through its volume; and fortissimo, through its pitch. Each functions as

a revelation of the other.

It might readily be supposed that the registration of essential

connectedness which Husserl calls the "manifestation of essence"

(Wesensschau) prohibits any searching comparison with Hua-yen. Is

not an entity

　

P.183

endowed with an essence necessarily to be accounted a substance?

And does not Buddhism represent a systematic rejection of substantiality

(svabhavata)?The eidetic intuition of Husserlian phenomenology is not,

however, the apprehension of a plane of ideal essential connections

among Platonic "types" of entity wholly severed from the level of

concrete particularities.The recognition of unrestricted eidetic

universality is prepared, rather, by the immediate intuition of

essence-within -instance without which free variation would be otiose.

Eidetic intuition "skewers" the manifold instantial possibilities generated

by unhindered fantasy variation, those features running consistently

throughout the entire range of possibilities being manifest as

"essential.''But "essence-within-instance'' need not be understood in

the Aristotelian sense. An "instance" is not inescapably to be regarded

as a substantial "opacity." Rather, inasmuch as the "essence" is,

indeed, essential to the instance, it must qualify the instance in its

entirety (throughout its entire duration, throughout all possible alterations,

and in every possible respect). An instance manifests its essence through

and through, and is thus, straightforwardly, the revelation or appearance

of it. Far from implying a species of substantialism, a position, to be sure,

exhibiting little affinity with the Buddhist doctrine of nihsvabhavata,

Husserl's "eidetic intuition" may quitereasonably be interpreted as the

conscious registration of the transparency of founded abstracta to their

founding concretum. In Plotinus' vision of the intelligible world we find a

superb description of universal eidetic transparency:

　

... all is transparent, nothing dark, nothing

resistant; every being is lucid to every other, in breadth

and depth; light runs through light. And each of them

contains all within itself, and at the same time sees all

in every other, so that everywhere there is all, and all

is all and each is all, and infinite the glory.(9)

　

Surely, no description more aptly conforms to Suzuki's characterization

of the dharmadhatu. The Husserlian paradigm of reciprocal transparency

serves as an almost irresistible analogue of the relationship between

shih(c) and shih(c) For Hua-yen, all beings interpenetrate and interfuse.

This is to be under-

　

P.184

stood both etiologically and phenomenologically.Etiologically

considered,the universe is to be experienced as the vast network of

intercausation, each "jewel" in the net exemplifying the universal

"causal" pattern of pratityasmnutpada, dependent co-origination. Laying

aside the admittedly important issue of the precise nature of

"dependence,"it is clear that both reciprocally founding determinations,

as conceived by Husserl, and the multiplicity of interpenetrating shih(c)

of Hua-yen originate in reciprocal dependence upon one another. For

Husserl, dependence is, of course, disclosed through insight into the

bonds of essence linking types of intentional objects or determinations.

And, while it is not evident that the network of intercausation and

interdetermination in which the manifold---jewel-like shih(c) are set can

be understood (or understood exclusively) in terms of distinctively

eidetic ties, one cannot legitimately deny that, for Hua-yen, as for

Buddhism generally, the realization of pratityasamutpada is a deliverance

of profound insight (prajna). Both prajna and eidetic intuition disclose the

crystalline "realm of essence" (dharmadhatu). Whatever differences

may separate them, prajna and Wesensschau are at least uniquely

revelatory alethic modalities of consciousness. And both, moreover,

are immediate. In Suzuki's explication of the Garavyuha doctrine,

　

Spiritual experience is like sense-experience.It is

direct, and tells us directly all that it has experienced

without resorting to symbolism or ratiocination.(10)

　

Eidetic intuition is likewise as compelling as sensory perception, and

equally direct and pre-discursive.

The phenomenological significance of interfusion is clear. Neither

shih(c) nor the reciprocally founding determinations, the "eidetic

singularitics",of Husserlian phenomenology can be conceived as

exclusionary opacities. Neither introduces phenomenological disharmony.

In both cases, elements confront one another like facing mirrors. The

expectable mise-en-abime thus generated is eloquently described

in Fa-tsang(i)'s profound vision of the golden lion in the courtyard

of Empress Wu's Royal Palace:

　

P.185

In each of the lion's eyes, in its ears,limbs, and so

forth, down to each and every single hair, there is a

golden lion. All the lions embraced by each and every

hair simultaneously and instantaneously enter into one

single hair. Thus, in each and every hair there are an

infinite number of lions...The progression is infinite,

like the jewels of Celestial Lord Indra's Net: a

realm-embracing-realm and infinitum is thus

established, and is called the realm of Indra's Net.(11)

　

With the reciprocal transparency of primary determinations of

experience we have discovered a profoundly suggestive model of the

interpenetration of shih(c) and shih(c). If only in passing, it should

nonetheless be noted at this point that, in the "conjunctive"

manifestation of which we shall later speak (the thematization, for

example, not merely of a single shoe, but of the pair), perceptual

"conjuncts" as such require one another. As a member of the pair,

the left shoe cannot exist without the right. Left and right reciprocally

found one another.Each conjunct is "transparent" to the other,each

"reflects" the other.The point at which Husserlian mereology and the

Hua-yen vision of absolutely unimpeded interpenetration(shih shih

wu ai(d)) appear,however,most decisively,to part company is at

Husserl's admission,and Hua-yen's rejection, of the possibility of

unidirectional and non-reciprocal founding relationships. For Hua-yen,

all shih(c) reflect one another reciprocally. And although the Husserlian

model of reciprocal transparency does help to elucidate Hua-yen insights,

it is not, it would seem, universally applicable. In our later discussion

of Husserl's phenomenology of the "world-horizon," we shall have

occasion more decisively to overturn this impression. But that must remain,

for the present, a promissory note.

　

Second, All in One

Many of the insights of Hua-yen Buddhism can be transposed into

the counterpart Husserlian idiom by appeal to the fundamental

phenomenological notion of "horizon." Gazing out across the brilliant

blue Pacific, one inescapably confronts the horizontal limit which divides

　

P.186

earth from sky. The "line" that we see is not, of course, a physical

constituent of either, but serves rather to demarcate the almost

unimaginably voluminous object on which we stand from its celestial

background. Standing ashore, one can watch the steamship's laborious

passage to the horizon, and its final "descent" beyond it. Though

it passes out of view, the mind can nonetheless imaginatively follow

the ship's course. The various objects of our acquaintance are similarly

limned, exhibiting an horizontal demarcation which distinguishes them

from their background. Though only a single aspect of an object is fully

present to us at a time, the mind can likewise follow the course of

possible alternative presentations as available from standpoings "beyond"

the horizon. This anticipatory apprehension of what the object would look

like were we situated in such a way that its now-absent profiles were present

to us is one of the functions of the imaginal anticipatory modality of

consciousness that Husserl calls "apperception."

　

Should we now embark on a voyage to circumnavigate the planet,

we would realize, no doubt long before the termination of our circuit,

that at every phase of the journey the same horizon deliminates global

figure from celestial ground. "Beneath" or "within" the horizon await

the manifold alternative vistas which open up before our gaze. "Above"

or "outside," the sun, stars and planets are visible. The endless

succession of views available within the horizon, the ensemble of all

possible manners in which a given object may be manifested, find their

unity in that aspect of the horizonal limit which Husserl denominates

the "inner horizon." Symmetrically, the totality of possible alternative

objects which may contextualize an object is unified by the "external

horizon."

Apperception, in virtue of which the mind is borne beyond the horizon

of the immediately present profile, is a mode of conscious functioning

strictly determined by what we take the object to be, by, that is, the

eidos which illuminates our experience. Borrowing Shankara's famous

example, I may, upon entering a dimly lit room, take the object which I

see coiled in the shadow to be a cobra and retreat in terror. I have, in

the Husserlian idiom, "constituted" the experience in light of the eidos:

snake. A moment later I realize my folly and re-constitute the percept

as merely a coil of rope. In neither case is the "essence" (eidos) to

　

P.187

be conceived as an ontological constituent concealed within an opaque

substance. The eidos, in either case, is rather revealed "through" the

experience. The experienced object is "transparent" to the eidos,

displaying it through and through. Moreover, as the shift of sense

bestowed upon the object illustrates, the "matter" of the experience

(hyle) is, within certain limits, "indifferent" to the difference of sense.

Thus, far from possessing a given essence as properly its own, the

perceptual object, like an open window, manifests whatever eidos

presently illuminates the experience. What one sees at first is a snake.

Indeed, had I not earlier been in a position to describe what I saw as

a snake, I could not now be in a position to redescribe that experience

as the presentation of a coil of rope as a snake.

By expanding our focus, converting the present object of attention

into an element of a larger configuration, we shift also to a concentric

and more encompassing horizon. Certain objects of the old horizon have

become integrated into the new center of focus. By shifting to a

progressively wider focus, ever broader reaches of intentional objects

are thus contextualized. This multiply iterated Chinese-box series of

nested contexts cannot, however, continue without end. For Husserl,

the concentric series necessarily terminates in the ultimate context of

all contexts: the "world-horizon." Unlike its intramundane interations,

the world horizon does not deliminate figure and ground. All within the

world-horizon is "foreground." The world has no "background."

The presentation of any intra-mundane transcendent intentional

object requires that object be featured as figure upon ground,"text"

wihin context. The world horizon is, then, inescapably required by the

presentation of any such object. And conversely, the presentation of

transcendent intentional objects is founded in the world-horizon.

Inasmuch as "text" implies context, one may say that the world-horizon

is implicitly "contained" within every possible intentional "text." The

world-horizon is, then, "reflected" within the object, a necessary

component of any object's "what-ness" (eidos).

Lib, the universal reticular totality of dharma-jewels in their being

as partes inter partes, is thoroughly revealed by each shih(c) and

modifies each shih(c) in its entirety. The relationship between li(b) and

shih(c) is not,

　

P.188

however, that of exemplification, but that of revelation. Shih(c) are

not to be conceived as plenal opacities which instantiate li(b) . The

shihc is a "window" opening. onto li(b). Thus, li(b); in our alternative

metaphor, is the single, all-embracing, universal "mirror" comprising

all particular mirrors, and consequently reflected within each individual

mirror, revealing all beings precisely as they are.

The Husserlian notion of "horizon" does not foreclose the possibility

that the foreground presentation of a given intentional object may be

inconsistent with the simultaneous background presentation of other

objects. While one may see a mountain rise against the sky, it would

seem not merely a contingent difficulty, but a violation of sense, to

suppose that the sky could be contextualized by the mountain. The

relationship between foreground and background objects is not inevitably

symmetrical. There may well be objects which cannot serve as background

for other objects. Although the founding of object in world-horizon, the

"transparency" of' the object to the world-horizon, clearly conforms

to the second rung of Tu-shuna's ladder, Husserlian phenomenology

appears to depart quite sharply precisely at this point. Within the

Ch'an tradition, however, which draws its nourishment in part from

Hua-yen, one encounters striking countertestimony. It is not merely

the water, but equally the bridge that flows; nor is it merely the flag,

but equally the wind that flaps. And might one not, quite naturally, also

attest that the mountain symmetrically contextualizes the sky. As I hope

to show, there is, indeed, for Husserl, a significant sense in which object

and horizon reciprocally require one another. But this discussion must

await the elucidation of the notions of "transcendence" and "absolute

presence ."

　

Third, One in All

The Husserlian conception of founding has provided thus far a certain

interpretive illumination in which the insights of Hua-yen are lucidly

revealed. We have seen that, if A is founded in B, B is "reflected" in

the implicative content, the eidetic structure, of A. Husserl, as we have

noted,investigates certain intriguing cases of reciprocal "reflection,"

　

p.189

useful as models for the Hua-yen vision of the interpenetration of

shih(c) and shih(c), but seems to neglect the universal extension of

such reciprocity. Nor is the founding of object within world-horizon

conceived as symmetrical.With the introduction of the Husserlian

conception of transcendence we begin, however, to witness, at the

level of that "appresence" which subtends perceptual presence and

its absence, the emergence of a universal reciprocity within Husserl's

thought.

A transcendent intentional object is, for Husserl, a synthetic identity

constituted across a manifold of appearances. As I examine it from

various angles, advancing, retreating, circumambulating, the perceptual

object before me is manifested in different ways. Yet what appears

consistently throughout such a widely varied manifold of appearance is

precisely the object itself. The object is, in the Husserlian idiom,an

"identity-in-manifold," that invariant ideality thus disclosed throught

each of its variant profiles. A"phenomenon," in its Hussel acceptation,

is an object precisely as it appears. Thus, a transcendent object is the

invariant ideality disclosed throughout a potentially endless succession

of phenomena.

As the most causal reflection makes plain, the immediate sensory

presence of an object is restricted entirely to the momentary

phenomenon We cannot, as a matter of phenomenological principle,

enjoy the plenary presence of an object as given through all of its

phenomena simultaneously. We can never, that is, experience the

"absolute presence" of an object as it would be given to a putatively

"omniscient" mind. Indeed, Husserl considers omniscience a

fundamental philosophical error. The omniscient envisionment of a

given transcendent object, the manifestation of its thoroughly immanent

absolute presence, would dissolve its transcendence into immanence.

Thus, transcendence would be completely unknown to a mind assumed

to be all-knowing. The putative exemplification of this "nonsensical"

notion would imply

　

... that there is no essential difference between

transcendent and immanent, that in the postulated divine

intuition a spatial thing is a real (reeles) constituent,

and indeed an experience itself, a constituent of the

stream of the divine consciousness

　

P.190

and the divine experience.(12)

　

Nonetheless, certain of Husserl's insights articulated in his writings

on time-consciousness offer solid indications of what such an a vision

admittedly impossible of attainment, would be like. The Husserlian

notions of "retention" and "protention" provide the key.

Suppose now that I hear a sharp knock at the door. I bound from

my seat, rush to the door, and welcome my visitor. When my friend

appears in the doorway, the knock is forgotten. But for a few fleeting

moments immediately after the knock the sound is, though past,none

theless still "alive."The present is "animated,"or,to stress the evident

Aristotelian overtones,"besouled," by the past. Through retention,

the past "in-forms" the present. Retention is the preservation of

immediately elapsed phases of consciousness within the living present.

Though the knock is not manifested to consciousness precisely now,

it is nonetheless "reflected" within the present, embraced within the

intimate structure of the present impressional moment of experience.

Protention is symmetrical with retention, and comprises that primary

mode of anticipation whereby immediately forthcoming phases of

experience inform the living "now."

Each impressional moment of living presence thus "mirrors" within

it those phases of experience which are retained and those which are

pretended. And, as Husserl speculates, "ideally a consciousness is

quite possible in which everything remains held in retention."(13)While

the plenary manifestation, the "absolute presence," of an object is,

of necessity beyond our.conscious reach, we can at least know that

such an omniscient vision would,were the notion at all capable of sensory

illustration, be structured by the complete Ineinandersein of all moments

of presence, each such temporal phase of experience "reflecting,"

through retention and protention, all others. The absolute presence of

any object is thus a "hall of mirrors," or "net of jewels," exemplifying

the unobstructed interpentration of which Hua-yen speaks.

Husserlian phenomenology closely accords with Tu-shun(a)'s

realization of the "one" in the "all." But to appreciate this affinity it

is vital to recognize that, while the transcendent intentional object

comprises what we might call an "intensive" identity across its manifold

of profiles,

　

P.191

serving, that is, to center and focus conscious attention, the object's

external horizon comprises a "dispersive" identity. The external

horizon exhibits the same sort of invariance, though centrifugally

constituted,with respect to the transcendent objects featured within

its centripetal focus as the transcendent object exhibits with respect

to its continua of phenomena. And it is not inappropriate, then, to

speak of such objects as themselves functioning as "appearances"

of their horizon. Just as we may speculatively apprehend the structure

of partes inter partes which would be exemplified by the absolute

presence of a transcendent intentional object, we are also capable of

appreciating the horizon as exemplifying the same structure. If the

"absolute presence" of an object is the plenary display of its presence

as disclosed simultaneously through all of its possible appearances,

then similarly, the absolute presence of the horizon is its perfectly

unobscured revelation as given invariantly through all of its "horizon-

appearances," through, that is, the manifold of all possible transcendent

objects. The absolute presence of the world-horizon would thus, per

impossible, be the simultaneous disclosure of all possible transcendent

objects.

　

Just as the absolute presence of any transcendent object would

utterly exhaust its possibilities for presentational givenness, leaving

absolutely no more of the object to be presented, this putatively

omniscient manifestation of all possible objects would likewise

represent the complete "conversion" of the world-horizon into

presence. The presence thus disclosed would be the absolute totality

of all possible presence. No slightest tincture of the world-horizon's

presence would remain concealed, unmanifest.

Imagine, now, a chamber of mirrors which, unlike our original model,

encloses an opaque transcendent object at its center. Fa-tsang(i), in fact,

actually set up such a demonstration for the edification of Empress Wu,

placing in the center of his chamber a golden statue of the Buddha,

explaining that

　

this is a demonstration of Totality in the dharmadhatu.

In each and every mirror within this room you will find the

reflections of all the other mirrors with the Buddha's

image in

　

P.192

them....The principle of interpenetration and(mutual)

containment is clearly shown by this demonstration.Right

here we see an example of one in all and all in one-the

mystery of realm embracing realm ad infinitum is thus

revealed.(14)

　

As helpful as Fa-tsang(i)'s demonstration might otherwise be, one

can scarcely fail to notice that the opaque Buddha statue blocks the

transmission of illumination from mirrors directly opposite one another,

and that this opacity is refracted throughout the system.The

progressive augmentation of retained presence engendered through

our exploratory attention to a given transcendent object is analogous

to the asymptotic dissolution of the opacity at the center of our chamber

of mirrors. Though we may, indeed, approximate the asymptote of

complete dissolution,we can never attain it.Yet the direction established

by our efforts does, by extension, reveal the structure which would be

embodied by the attainment. Absolute presence would represent the

complete evacuation of opacity. Nothing could then hinder the crystalline

reflection of all within each and each within all.Absolute phenomenological

harmony would then be established.

The absolute presence of the world-horizon would likewise represent

the exhaustive manifestation of its presence. There would remain no

slightest hint of concealment or opacity. Every possible transcendent

object would be displayed at once. It is important to see that any

intermediate, intramundane horizon is a function of what we might call

"thematic suppression." We attend exclusively to a given object among

the endless array of possible objects of attention, and thereby exclude

from immediate attention all possible others, causing them to recede

into the horizonal background of consciousness. The horizon, as the

"margin" of awareness dispersively unifying all possible objects thus

concealed, is a function of the "suppression" exerted through

thematization Thematization is a two-edged sword. It gathers unto

itself what is to receive thematic attention, and excludes from

immediate attention everything else.

　

We can, however, and frequently do, make a single object of a

plurality. We can perceive, for example, not merely this volume or that,

but

　

P.193

also the two-volume set. Volumes, to be sure, do not owe their existence

to other volumes. But members of a set do. And the conjunctive focus

whereby a plurality of disparate objects comprises a single intentional

theme patently casts the component "conjuncts"into foundational

reciprocity.Bringing the categorial object, A-plus-B, to thematic

attention, both A and B are thereby necessarily apprehended as

components. As members of a pair,A and B require one another,each

"reflecting" the other in the very "sense" it has for the mind. It is

thematic suppression which introduces foundational asymmetry.Any

focal object depends upon the horizon for its thematic presentation.

But, so long as at least some theme occupies the focus, the horizon

remains stolidly indifferent to its individuality. In the exhaustive

absolute manifestation of the worldhorizon, however, every possible

object would be lucidly displayed without concealment. The absolute

presence of the world is the conjunctive thematization of all possible

transcendent objects. Here, then,in this ideal and presentationally

unattainable vision, every object would appear as a member of this

universal "conjunction," Hence, each would be seen as "reflecting"

all others within it, and all as "reflecting" each. In this unique sense,

not only would we discern the "all" with the "one," but we would

discover as well as the "one" within the "all." In its absolute presence,

the world-horizon ontologically demands each possible transcendent

object.

　

Once again, however, Husserl appears to part company with Huayen.

Although we might well be able conceptually to adumbrate the absolute

presence of transcendent objects and of the world-horizon,it is clear that,

for Husserl,the "now" is the plane of insertion whereby presence enters

into experience, that the future cannot,therefore,be enjoyed in presence,

and thus,that the presence of the transcendent object is inexhaustible,

and its absolute presence impossible of attainment.It is clear, moreover,

that, for Husserl, no matter how encompassing the thematic "conjunction"

of objects becomes, it can never be universal, that the intermediate

horizon is an ineluctable feature of presentational cosciousness, and

thus, that the world-horizon can never be exhaustively manifested in

sensory presence. In the vision of Hua-yen, however, not only do the

appearsnces of so object mirror the object itself, but also the

　

P.194

object mirrors each of its appearances. And-likewise, not only does

the individual shih(c) mirror universal li(b), but also, li(b) mirrors all

of the shih(c) which it embraces.

The disparity dissolves,however,with a lucid appreciation of the

revelatory role of apperception, which can, with much justice,be

regarded as the "counterfactual" mode of mind. Perceiving an object

on my desk, I am immediately confronted by the sensory presence

of no more than a single profile. Yet, at the same time, I nonetheless,

enact certain prethematlc anticipations regarding the way the object

would look were I to make visible to myself its hither sides as well.

The "look" of the opposite side is given to me, not; of course,in

presence,but in "appresence" (Apprasenz). Likewise, the "look" of

a given transcendent object, or of the world-horizon, as it would be

presented to a putatively omniscient mind, its absolute presence,while

in principle inaccessible to presentational consciousness, is nonetheless

disclosed to apperception. Through this counterfactual mode of

consciousness we become aware of the manner in which object or

world-horizon would appear were we, per impossible, endowed with

presentational omniscience. It is apperception, guided by the most

general eide of Husserl's "formal ontology"-world and object-which

reveals the world of transcendent objects as exemplifying the structure

of Celestial Lord Indra's Net.

　

Fourth, All in All

It remains, at this juncture, to demonstrate the sense in which, for

Husserl, the world-horizon is transparent to itself. The myriad

individual mirrors of our resplendent chamber can, by a simple

transformation of Gestalt, be pictured as a single reflecting surface,

perhaps cylindrically or spherically formed. At every point the

"opposite" side is reflected. Yet, of course,that which is reflected is

continuous with, and thus, no different from, that in which it is reflected.

There is,as it were, an "objective" aspect and what, by contrast, we

must call a "subjective" aspect deliminated at every point. Yet no

point in this single curved reflecting surface is legitimately to be

conceived as the privileged originating "center" of sujectivity, the

"ego" of the chamber, in any absolute sense.

　

P.195

Let us now represent what we have called the "world horizon" by

the reflecting aspect of the chamber, as determined by a given point

on the reflecting surface. And let us, moreover, represent by the

correlated reflected aspect what Husserl calls the "world-pole."

Ordinary identities-in-manifoId are only relatively transcendent.

The world-pole is so in an ultimate and final sense. For consciousness

in its naive and straightforward posture, the world is glimpsed, as it

were, out of the corner of the eye. The world-horizon is brought to light

through a function of apperception analogous to peripheral vision. For

the "natural attitude," the world lies always at the margin of

consciousness. It is never objectified or thematized. It is never

thematically posited, or 'posed," nor explicitly "suplposed." But it is

ever "pre/supposed," taken for granted in a way completely

recalcitrant to "natural" inspection. Indeed, the objectification of the

world is the definitive condition whereby consciousness becomes

transcendental. The objectified world revealed to transcendentally

reflecting consciousness is made manifest as the absolute invariant

traversing all possible variation, the ultimate "pole" of all possible

intentional activity.

Tu-shun(a) significantly claims that "The Shih can hide Li ...[and

that] the result is that only the events appear, but Li(b) does not

appear."(15) Shih(c) may, indeed, function to "hide" li(b), but, for

enlightened consciousness, does not do so. The distinction between

hiding and revealing, opacity and transparency, clearly does not

segregate fundamentally disparate categories of entity, but rather,

marks a difference of phenomenological role. For the benighted mind,

immersed in delusion, shih(c) functions to conceal li(b). For awakened

consciousness, li(b) is manifested though each shih(c). The axis

disjoining delusion and enlightenment coincides precisely with the

Husserlian swingpoint between the natural and .the transcendental

postures of mind. Thus, Tu-shun(a), in implicitly recognizing the

standpoint of phenomenological reduction, adopts a position aligned

with Husserlian transcendentalism. Though perhaps more, the

enlightened vision of Hua-yen cannot be less than the thematic

disclosure of the world (li(b)),a decisive revelation which is the defining

condition for transcendental-phenomenological reflection.

　

P.196

The phenomenological reduction discloses a plane of "pure"

experience prior to the constitutive bestowal of sense (Sinngebung)

upon the objects and objectivities of our intentional life, a stratum of

"transcendental subjectivity" in which constitution is rooted, and to

which the "re/duction" leads us. Transcendental subjectivity, the

"phenomenological residue" of the reduction, is absolutely factical,

being, in a term rich with Buddhist significance, quite simply "such"

as it is. This ultimate level of "suchness" is the material for constitutive

"animation,"pure potentiality for significant form-taking.Inasmuch

as theories are underdetermined by their data,alternative,but equally

explanatory,theories functioning thus as 'perspectives" on the body

of experience to be explained, it must be said that transcendental

subjectivity lies decisively beyond the power of explanation. All

perspectives are, ultimately, perspectives upon this universal field

of factical experience. In the words of Hui-ke(j),

The fact is that there is nothing explicable or

inexplicable in Reality itself, which is the state of all

things that are.(16)

It may prove more than mere speculative excess to suggest that the

Buddhist notion of "suchness"(tathata)is indistinguishable, in crucial

respects, from the universal invariance of the Husserlian world-pole.

The world-pole is the- universal invariant, and transcendental

subjectivity,we may say, is its invariance.

　

For this Suchness is something uniform, something beyond

going and coming, something eternally abiding (sthitita),

above change and separateness and discrimination

(nirvikalpa), absolutely one, betraying no traces of

conscious striving, etc.

　

And it seems equally plausible that the notion of "emptiness"

(sunyata) is likewise indistinguishable from the world-horizon. Though

enacting distinguishable phenomenological roles, the one revealing

the other revealed, emptiness and suchness are nonetheless

continuous and identical. Moreover, the distinction itself is not

absolute, but relativized to points

　

P.197

on the universal reflecting surface. The delimitation of suchness and

emptiness is a "sliding" distinction analogous to the horizonal

delimitation of earth and sky. It is a distinction of phenomenological

role, rather than the demarcation of distinct substances. Indeed, the

relativization of the distinction ensures that suchness and emptiness

are devoid of "own being" (svabhavata).

While, as earlier noted, we may concur entirely with Guenther's

description of sunyata as "openness," nonetheless; his identification

of sunyata with the field of consciousness(18) deserves further reflection.

The logic of the Net of Jewels demands that all other dharma-jewels

be visible, not merely as structures within the background of a given

focal shih(c), but precisely in and through each shih(c). As Tu-shun(a)

inculcates,

　

... when a Boddhisattva observes form, he sees

Voidness,and when he observes Voidness,he sees form ..(19)

　

For the enlightened mind, the perceptual object ("form") is itself

a prefectly diaphanous,perfectly "void,"revelation of the

dhamzadhatu. Each shih(c) is a window on the universe.

Understanding by "field" the totality of intentional objects available

to consciousness at a given moment, a totality structured ineluctably

by thematic suppression, and thus informed by an intermediate

horizon, it seems clear that sunyata cannot, at least in this sense,

properly be identified with the field of consciousness. Insofar as the

intermediate horizon structures the field, the world-horizon remains

in obscurity. Hence, if, as Guenther suggests, sunyata is to be

identified with the field, this identification is subject to the provision

that the "field" is not in itself to be demarcated into concentric

regions of attentional magnitude. The "field," then, in the only sense

appropriately identified with sunyata, must be a structure of "pure"

experience prior to the active intensification of attention. Being thus

devoid of egological agency, it must, in the Husserlian acceptation,

be "passive." It seems, then, that the most fitting Husserlian

analogue for sunyata is, not the horizonally informed field of

consciousness, but

　

The "living present," the "passive," primordial pre-egological

　

P.198

upsurge, or "primal presencing," of the conscious "now" of

experience prior to the bifurcations of phenomenon and

noumenon, act and sensum, form and matter, self and

nonself,"I" and "Other,"the temporal and the

transtemporal.(20)

　

Nagarjuna understood "emptiness" (sunyata) as the process of

"originating dependently," and, identifying emptiness with

non-substantiality (nihsabhavata), declared that 'Whatever comes

into existence presupposing something else is without self-existence

(svabhavata)."(21) The shih(c) of Hua-yen metaphysics "presuppose

something else," not in the natural scientific sense of being externally

related changes or events embedded in a linearly-ordered deterministic

system,but in the sense that a "disclosure" presupposes the "disclosed,"

a manifestation presupposes the manifest. Presupposition is

"through-ness." It is not a merely conceptual, but rather, a

phenomenological connection uniting revelation and revealed.

Revelation and revaled function, however, reciprocally. The one reveals

the other as much as the other reveals the one. The object, as it were,

"looks back." We have seen that shih(c) symmetrically presuppose

one another, and that shih(c) and li(b),"jewel" and "net," presuppose

one another as well. At the final rung of Tu-shun(a)'s ladder we ascend

to the culminating realization of universal reciprocal presupposition: "all"

in "all." Not only are li(b) and shih(c) transparent to one another, li(b)

is transparent to itself.

The foregoing reflections have brought to light certain salient affinities

between Husserlian phenomenology and the enlightened vision of Huayen

Buddhism. We have not, however, attempted to conceal crucial points

of apparent divergence. And we should accordingly offer a final word

of reconciliation. The word is "appresence." Appresence is the

"presence" enjoyed in apperception, the counterfactual mode of mind.

Appresence is the species of conscious "presence" which subtends,

and is thus more profound than, the intrusive presence of sensory

illustration and its absence. Transcendence, as we have seen, is the

key to an Husserlian envisionment of absolute phenomenological

harmony. For without transcendence, we can neither conceive nor

apperceive the "absolute presence" which would exhibit the

unimpeded interpenetration of its

　

P.199

reciprocally founding moments. Absolute presence is, however, given

to consciousness only in appresence, not in presence. As Husserl

firmly maintains, the presentational manifestation of absolute presence

would spell the abolition of transcendence. Its appresentational

manifestation,however,leaves transcendence intact, since it in no way

conflicts with the necessary finity and partiality of sensory presence.

Apperception thus has the dual function of simultaneously preserving

transcendence and delivering to consciousness its complete dissolution

into immanence. Appresence, then, which stands as an irresistible

analogue of "suchness" (tathata), is, more than the merely abstract

invariance of the world-pole, the only possible presence of the great

"emptying" of transcendence, into immanence, an "emptying" at once

thoroughly accomplished in apperception and infinitely beyond

presentational accomplishment.

KANEOHI, HAWALL

NOTE

Leibniz's philosophical view is, of course, quite patently
informed by the paradigm of interpenetration.

　

Every individual substance [monad] expresses the whole

universe in its own manner....Each substance is like an

entire world and like a living mirror ....of the whole world

which it portrays, each one in its own fashion.... Thus the

universe is multiplied in some sort as many times as there

are substances....It can indeed be said that every

substance ... expresses, although confusedly, all that

happens in the universe, past, present and future.

　

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, "Discourse on Metaphysics," in

Leibniz: Basic Writings, trans. G. R. Montgomery (La

Salle: Open Court, 1968), pp. 14-5.

　

2. Cf. Steve Odin's significant study, Process Metaphysics and

Hua-yen Buddhism: A Critical Study of Cumulative

Penetration vs. Interpenetration (Albany:SUNY Press,

1982)

　

3. Tu-shun, "On the Meditation of Dharmadhatu," Garma C. C.

Chang, trans., in The Buddhist Teaching of Totality: The

Philosophy of Hwa Yen Buddhism (University Park:

Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977), p. 219.

　

P.200

4. D. T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, 3rd series, ed.

by Christmas Humphreys (New York: Samuel Weiser, Inc.,

1976), pp. 77--8.

　

5. Herbert V. Guenther and Chogyam Trungpa, The Dawn of Tantra

(Boulder:Shambhah, 1965), p. 27-30.

　

6. Tao-hsin, as translated in Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism

III, p. 29.

　

7. James G. Hart, "A Precis of an Husserlian Philosophical

Theology," in Steven W, Laycock and James G. Hart, eds.,

Essays in Phenomenological Theology (Albany: SUNY Press,

1986), p. 96.

　

8. Ibid.,p.98.

　

9. Plotinus, The Enneads, trans.Stephen MacKenna (London:

Farber and Farber, 1969), V viii 4, p. 425.

　

10. Suzuki,Essays in Zen Buddhism III,p. 100.

　

11. Fa-tsang, "On the Golden Lion," trans. Garma C. C. Chang,

in The Buddhist Teaching of Totality (University Park:

Pennsylvania State University Press, 1977),p.229.

　

12.Edmund Husserl, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure

Phenomenology, trans.W. R: Gibson (New York: Macmillan,

1931), p.123.

　

13. Edmund Husserl, The Phenomenology of Internal Time-

Consciousness, as quoted in Robert Sokolowski, The

Formation of Husserl's Concept of Constitution

(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1964), p. 92.

　

14. Fa-tsang, "One the Golden Lion," Garma C. C. Chang, trans.,

in The Buddhist Teaching of Totality, p. 23.

　

15. Tu-shun, "On the Meditation of Dharmadhatu,"p. 217.

　

16. Masters and Disciples of Lanka, translated in Suzuki,

Essays in Zen Buddhism III, p. 22.

　

17. Astasahasrika-prajna paramita,Chapter XXVI, "Tathata,"

translated in Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism III, p. 116.

　

18. Guenther claims that "In the shunyata experience, the

attention is on the field rather than on its contents."

Guenther & Chogyam Trungpa, The Dawn of Tantra, p. 27.

19. Tu-shun, "On the Meditation of Dharmadhatu," p. 211.

20. Cf. James G. Hart's lucid discussion of the various modes

of coincidence exemplified by the primal presencing of

Husserlian phenomenology in his essay, "A Precis of an

Husserlian Philosophical Theology," pp. 92-8.

21. Nagarjuna, "Fundamentals of the Middle Way:

Multamadhyamika-Karikas," trans. Fredrick J. Streng, in

Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning (New York:

Abingdon Press, 1967), 7:16, p. 191.