Systems philosophy as a hermeneutic for Buddhist teachings

·期刊原文
Systems philosophy as a hermeneutic for Buddhist teachings

Joanna Rogers Macy
Philosophy East and West 26, no 1, January 1976.
(c) by The University Press of Hawaii.
pp.21-32

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p.21

Correlations between systems philosophy, as developed
and articulated by Ervin Laszlo,(1) and Buddhist
thought suggest the possibility that the one can
serve as a tool for interpreting the other. The
hermeneutical possibility appears to be reciprocal.
For its part, Buddhism could endow systems' insights
into cybernetic process with religious
meaning-helping us see, in systemic patterns, causes
for both man's suffering and his liberation, and
offering methods for utilizing these insights in
religious techniques. At the same time. systems
philosophy could (a) provide a schema for
interpreting the principles of causal process
perceived in Buddhist thought and at work in
Buddhist practice; and (b) both broaden this vision
and integrate it with the sciences by revealing the
operation of these principles throughout the
observable universe.
Due to limitations of time and space, this essay
will deal only with the hermeneutical function that
systems can play for Buddhism under point (a) above
and, at that, in a necessarily rudimentary fashion.
In this initial and exploratory-step, it will reflect
first, in section I, upon those commonalities which
suggest the suitability of interpretive interaction
between the two views of life. Then in section II, as
a trial effort, Laszlo's cybernetic models will be
applied to two aspects of the Buddhist experience:
the concept and practice of mindfulness in the
Theravaadin tradition, and those of projection in the
Mahaayaana. It is hoped that this experiment will
appear promising enough to warrant further
explorations in the mutual application of systems
philosophy and Buddhism.

I

Why do we suggest that Laszlo's systems theory can be
applied to Buddhist principles without its distorting
the message of the dharma? It is because fundamental
assumptions are shared by both--assumptions about the
nature and purpose of their philosophic inquiry, as
well as about the nature of reality. Let us look at
these in turn before proceeding further.
The Buddha, in formulating the dharma, did not
address himself to questions relating to the ultimate
source and status of things. Whether the world is
infinite, or eternal, or whether the saint exists
after death, etc., were questions he refused to deal
with, saying that "they tend not to edification"(2)
What he sought and offered was not metaphysics but
method, not a "why" or a "what," but a "how": how it
happens that we suffer, how we can become free, based
on how things work. His insight into "how things
work" constituted his enlightenment.(3) This
perception of causal law, dependent coorigination
(pratiityasamut paada), was set forth as a reason and
a call for man to take choice.(4) It was offered, not
as a comfort, but as a tool-a lever on destiny.
Laszlo's purpose in doing philosophy is obviously
analogous: he focuses on "how things work" so that
man can perceive his own functioning, as a system and
subsystem, and thereby free himself to act
responsibly. He acknowledges as legitimate but does
not

p.22

pursue the human cognitive quest for the ultimate
truth.
The reluctance of both parties to make
ontological claims sets them apart from philosophy as
traditionally conceived (even raising the question of
the extent to which they are "philosophy"); and it
also facilitates their hermeneutic interaction.
Systems philosophy neither requires not implies the
denial of nirvaa.na; and, with the probable exception
of those forms of Mahaayaana which see man's
liberation as dependent on a supernatural saving
power, I would suggest that there are few if any
Buddhist beliefs which could not be harmonized with
a systems view of cybernetic process to the
satisfaction of both parties. While the efficacy of
faith can be explained in cybernetic terms. the
response of the faithful to such an interpretation
would vary. In the case of such faith forms as the
Pure Land sect, adherents might suspect a vitiation
of the role of Amitabha's grace. Adherents of
Vajrayaana, on the other hand, would, I believe,
accept a cybernetic interpretation inasmuch as they
themselves acknowledge their deities as
psychological projections and consciously utilize
them as such.(5)
As the philosophic aims are similar (seeking the
"how" of things for purposes of man's freedom), so is
the epistemological approach of systems and the
Buddha. Laszlo, while as open to empirical data as
any scientist, qualifies himself as an
empiricist-rationalist because he recognizes that
rational inference is required to make sense of
perception, and that his "primary presuppositions"
(that the world exists and that it is intelligibly
ordered) are not empirically verifiable.(6) The
Buddha was in a similar fashion an empiricist. He
declined belief in the existence of that which was
avi.saya, beyond experience (thereby opposing the
Vedaantins who posited an imperceptible AAtman), and
he also rejected the radical empiricism of those
materialists of his time who denied the validity of
inference.(7) As an empiricist, he had not the wealth
of data to draw on that twentieth-century sciences
offer Laszlo, but he had, in addition to commonsense
experience, a different kind--one which probably
exceeds Laszlo's notion of "empirical." The "higher
knowledges," attained through meditation, permitted
him to perceive the fundamental orderliness which
Laszlo posits by rational surmise.(8)
Having considered the kind of philosophic inquiry
we encounter in systems philosophy and Buddhism, let
us consider now what view of the nature of things
these inquiries yield. We will focus on four
fundamental affirmations on which the two
philosophies agree-affirmations relating to change,
causation, the relation of mind to matter, and the
separate existence of the self. In so doing, we will
note that on these basic issues they appear to be
closer to each other than to other philosophies East
or West.
Both systems and Buddhism offer a vision of
reality where there is no immutable essence other
than that definitive of process itself; no realm or
entity stands over against the process of change. All
is in motion, all is subject to ceaseless flux and
transformation, arising and passing away. The Buddha
stood

p.23

in clear opposition to all orthodox thought in India,
as well as all other hererodox thought, when he
maintained that the real resided, not in any
substance, physical, psychic, or supernatural, but in
change itself.(9) All is anitya, transient. Man's
grief arises from positing an enduring self where no
self endures, from seeking to protect it from change
when his very law is change. Laszlo similarly sees a
universe made-up, not of things but of flows. "What
flows is a mysterious. non-individualized something
we call energy."(10) No essence or aspect of reality
remains outside of, aloof from, or undefined by its
inherently unsubstantial currents. In his refusal to
make an exception to this and posit an enduring
entity ("Platonic ideas, or Whiteheadian eternal
objects, are rejected as uncalled for"),(11) he comes
closer to Buddhism than does process philosophy.
This change is not random, it is not a mere
Heraclitean flux. There is a "causal orderliness," as
the Buddha said, or according to systems, a "pattern
to the flow." The Buddha described the vision that
arose on the night of his enlightenment as a
"relatedness of this to that," and he most frequently
explained it in the four-part formula: "This being,
that comes to be; from the arising of this, that
arises; this not being, that becomes not; from the
ceasing of this, that ceases."(l2) This kind of
causality was a new idea: it stood against the Vedic
concept of svadhaa ("own power," that is, power
inherent in cause to produce effect) and against the
Vedaantin and Saamkhyan ideas of satkaaryavaada
(effect preexisting in the cause), which are
themselves closer to Aristotle's efficient causation
and subsequent traditional Western views than to the
Buddhist vision. The Buddha saw causation as a
function of relationship, not inherent power, and of
the interaction of a multiplicity of factors where
cause and effect cannot be isolated or traced in a
linear sequence. No effect arises without cause, yet
no effect is predetermined-for its causes are
multiple and mutually effecting; hence there can be
novelty as well as order. The Buddha and his
followers saw this as central to the Dharma: if man's
suffering comes from change and the nonacceptance of
change (the Second Noble Truth), his freedom comes
through knowledge of the causal order inherent in
change (the Third Noble Truth). For in this causal
order he is not victim, but coactor-deriving his
freedom and hope, not from an outside agency, but
from the order itself where cause and effect
interrelate in mutual determination.
Laszlo's concept of interdetermination appears
consonant with Buddhist causality. He sees "the
universe as an interdetermined network of mutually
qualifying causes and effects."(13) Not only is there
a multiplicity of causes for each effect, but each
causal agent is reciprocally modified by the effect
it produces. Hence freedom is assigned "to particular
entities in processing their inputs ('prime causes')
and producing outputs ('reciprocal causes')."(14)
Laszlo's objection to the "one-way causal connection
to actuality," represented by Whitehead's eternal
objects and notion of God as efficient cause,(15) is
one which the early Buddhists would have raised,
opposed as they were to ideas of svadhaa.

p.24

A third fundamental assumption, which systems and
Buddhism share, is that of the nondichotomous
relation between mind and matter. The Buddha taught
that consciousness could not develop apart from
matter, sensation, or perception, and to say that it
does "would be speaking of something that does not
exist."(16) In the twelvefold Chain of Causation by
which the early Buddhists illustrated the arising of
causal factors in the round of rebirth, the factor of
consciousness or cognition (vij~naana) was presented
as coarising with naamaruupa, name-and-form.
Consciousness appears along with the emergence of a
psychophysical entity, a Verbally identifiable and
sensorily apprehendable form; each supports the other
in an interdependence that is often likened to that
of two sheaves of grain propped upright together.(17)
This view, echoed throughout the early texts,
contrasts with the spirit-matter dualism which,
disguised or acknowledge, was inherent in all the
other philosophic movements of the time of the
Buddha--with the Vedaantin view of consciousness as
pure essence antecedent to matter, and with the Jaina
view of consciousness as categorically distinct from
and imprisoned by matter, and with the Materialist
view of consciousness as epiphenomenal to matter. The
Buddha eliminated the dichotomy these philosophies
upheld, for the perspective of pratiityasamupaada was
clear: spirit and matter arise in conjunction and
cannot be known or posited apart from each other.
Laszlo also struggles against both dichotomous
and reductionistic solutions to the mind-matter
riddle. On the one hand, he denies Cartesian dualism
as inelegant, unwarranted, and unsupported by
empirical data. On the other hand, he rejects
attempts to explain mind in terms of matter or matter
in terms of mind, seeing either effort as involving a
suppression of evidence. His solution,
biperspectivism, is to see them as correlative
aspects of the universal experience-mind relating to
the interiority of being, the "lived" dimension, and
matter to the observable dimension. "The phenomenon
of mind," he says, "is neither an intrusion into the
cosmos from some outside agency, nor the emergence of
something out of nothing. Mind is but the internal
aspect of the connectivity of systems within the
matrix. It is there as a possibility within the
undifferentiated continuum, and evolves into more
explicit forms as the matrix differentiates into
relatively discrete, self-maintaining systems."(18)
Self-reflective mentality appears when the system
reaches a level of complexity which demands conscious
monitoring and evaluative and corrective functions.
These functions require conscious choice--a freedom
which does not evolve out of matter but is rather a
potentiality in the system now actualized in its
operation.
Given these shared views on flow,
interdetermination, and the mind-matter relationship,
it is not surprising that the two philosophies agree
in rejecting a dichotomy between subject and object,
self and other. The Buddha refused to subscribe to
belief in an enduring, substantial self because he
found no empirical evidence to support it. Experience
could be adequately understood as a series of
psychophysical events, dharmas. Systems takes a
similar position

p.25

because it finds that substantial self cannot be
empirically isolated from its supporting environment.
"We must do away with the subject-object distinction
in analyzing experience... (for experience is) a
continous chain of events, from which we cannot,
without arbitrariness, abstract an entity called
'organism' and another called 'environment'."(19)
The points developed above, although brief and
incomplete in regard to the perspective which systems
and Buddhism share, do indicate it remarkable
consonance between the two philosophies despite the
two-and-a-half millenia which separate their
emergence. This consonance, furthermore, is evident
in spite of differences in goals: while both seek to
free man by showing him "how things work," such
freedom is perceived in qualitatively different
terms. For systems philosophy it is the capacity to
act more consciously, intelligently, and harmoniously
within the natural and social systemic hierarchy.
For Buddhism, the goal lies beyond knowledge and
action--it entails a transformation of consciousness
itself, the enlightenment which happens with the
cessation of craving and the experience of the
dissolution of separate selfhood. Yet the difference
of dimension in their goals does not diminish the
similarities we have noted in their views. By virtue
of these, systems and Buddhism seem to be equipped to
engage in fruitful dialogue.
One particular gain from such a dialogue would be
the discovery that systems could provide a fresher
and perhaps currently more rewarding approach to
early Buddhist thought than interpretations stemming
from an essentialist outlook. Scholarship undertaken
with substantialist preconceptions tends to blur the
differences between the Buddha's teachings and the
Vedaantins he opposed. Marxist scholars offer a
corrective of sorts to the idealist bias but can
betray in this effort a substantialism of their own.
In either case, the radical newness of the Buddha's
vision of process and causality, in terms of the
thought of his time, is easily overlooked and
undervalued. Systems, sharing this vision to a unique
degree, offers possibilities for distinguishing and
clarifying important elements in Buddhist thought,
both in reference to other philosophies and within
the historical development of Buddhism itself.

II

The cybernetic models which we will apply to two
examples of Buddhist teachings are those designs of
information and energy circuits which Laszlo presents
as basic to all natural systems on and above the
sensory-congnitive level.(20) These models chart
invariances, principles, or isomorphisms in the
functioning of all cognitive systems as they interact
with the environment, processing data and extracting
energy, information, and meaning. Laszlo devotes a
great deal of attention to showing how their
operation reveals the telic nature of the system as
it evolves toward greater complexity,
interdependence, and emergence of value. For reasons
of brevity, and because our focus here is limited to
the applicability of the circuit model, these
considerations

p.26

must remain tacit.
Let us briefly review the system, (representing
here the cognitive, psychosocial functioning of a
human being), and the terms to which we will refer in
our analyses.
Input from the environment (E) arrives in the
form of percepts (P). These P's are decoded or
understood by the system's code (C), which extracts
message from noise through gestalten which order
sensory apprehensions and through constructs which
permit conceptual apprehension. The system acts upon
the environment (E), to effect subsequent P's,
through its output or response (R); this feedback
function is essential to the life process on any and
every level.

Where P's match C's, the feedback is negative.
That means that the output (R) is produced on the
basis of the C's, thereby projecting the codes upon
the environment (E). In so doing, it conditions the
input, subsequent P's, to maximize their chances of
satisfying the C's. By this process E is brought into
increasing conformity with C to answer the needs and
maintain the pattern of the system. Laszlo terms this
operation adaptive self-stabilization, or Systems
Cybernetics I:

Where P's do not match C's, positive feedback
results. Exploratory selforganization then takes
place, a search for new C's by which to deal with the
new P's. As constructs are found or developed which
can organize the percepts, the feedback switches to
negative and the new C's are incorporated and
stabilized. The system has a new "map" of the
environment. Laszlo terms this operation adaptive
self-organization, or Systems Cybernetics II:

p.27

Let us consider the practice of mindfulness
meditation in the Theravaadin Buddhist tradition as
an example of adaptive self-organization or
Cybernetics II.
Known variously as satipa.t.thaana or vipasyanaa
or insight meditation, it is held by Theravaadins to
be chief of all Buddhist meditations--the one Gautama
practiced the last two weeks under the bodhi tree
before his enlightenment and the only one he gave to
his followers. In this century in Burma it has been
adapted for wider lay usage.(21) It differs from
Hindu and other Buddhist meditations in that it is
not contemplative of a truth, essence or object and
in that its purpose is not to concentrate or
tranquilize the mind. It aims to provide insight into
the nature of things by training the mind to watch
the mind. It does not, like yoga, trance, or
samaadhi, seek to withdraw from sensory input, but to
sharpen the awareness of its occurrence. Nor does it
seek to curtail or censor spontaneous mental
occurrences. The meditator is to accord Bare
Attention to all that arises in the mind-body: Bare
Attention and nothing more, no discursive thought, no
pondering of truths or interior conversations, just
the noting of what arises, without editorial comment.
The result of this practice, which is arduous, is a
first hand and liberating experience of the
transient and nonsubstantial nature of reality: all
is, indeed, a rapid flux of psychophysical events,
dharmas, wherein is no "I" to be protected or
enhanced.
The meditator is instructed to begin with
attention to the breath. Whatever occurrences then
intervene, physical sensations or mental events, are
to be merely noted--but not followed up by action or
discursive thought. When action or discursive thought
interrupt the bare noting of events, the meditator
notes the lapse and returns to the level of Bare
Attention--but not by force; the trick is to observe,
not manipulate.
Viewing the meditation now as cybernetic process,
we note that what seems to be occurring in Bare
Attention is an effort to prehend the P's before they
are coded by established C's. The meditator seeks to
register the raw data of physical sensations and the
arising of mental events without interpreting them
according to previously formed gestalten or
constructs. BY remaining aloof from discursive
thought, which operates in terms of established C's,
he refrains

p.28

from perpetuating the validity of these old C's.
Rather than processing the noise to extract message,
he, in effect. switches off the message in order to
receive more of the noise. This amounts to a
deliberate attempt to produce mismatching and
positive feedback. P's are "unhooked" from previous
C's, which are first set aside, and later
decomissioned if inadequate to deal with the new
perceptions.
For example, as awareness is widened to the rush
of impersonal psychophysical events, wherein no
permanent "I" is evident, old C's, based on the
assumption of an enduring self, are dismantled.
Subsequently new C's (in this case, the Buddhist
doctrine of no-self) are mapped into the codes of the
system. The cybernetic circuit, used in this way, is
particularly suitable to the validation of this
Buddhist doctrine, since, as Laszlo points out, "in
such analysis (of experience) we do not see a
categorical 'I' against a categorically distinct
'you' or 'it'."(22)
Such use of Cybernetics II, to deliberately
dismantle C's by producing mismatch and positive
feedback, is evident in a variety of religious and
aesthetic efforts. Don Juan teaching Carlos Castaneda
how to "see," by, for example, trying to define
visual perceptions in terms of shadow or space
instead of the solid form, is an analogous instance
of unhingeing old habits of interpreting the world.
Rimbaud's "d俽奼lement des sens" is a similar
case. The French poet sought to open himself to new
vision, in spite of the painfulness of the initially
resulting disorientation-though what he actually
'derailed' was not his senses but his C's. Some
motivations and consequences of drug experience are,
likewise, of this type.
A systems analysis of Vipasyanaa permits us to
see how distinctively and categorically it differs
from contemplative meditation, which functions to
control, center, and pacify the mind. Of this nature
are all Buddhist practices of the 'samatha or
samaadhi-type, the trances, and the Brahmavihaaras,
etc., as well, I would venture, as all Hindu yoga.
There through concentration on a given gestalt (be it
breath, mantra, image, or concept), attention is
withdrawn from sensory experience and from the mental
static of memory and fantasy. Onepointed focus on a
C is used first to suppress and then transcend
reception of P's. Reception is narrowed, so to speak,
to those P's produced on the basis of the chosen C;
the unvarying nature of these P's (like a steady
sound one ceases to hear) may related to the
experience of merging which then can occur. In any
event, a process of matching and negative feedback
obtains there, a function of Cybernetics I which we
will examine below in a particular context.
The uniqueness of Vipasyanaa, as in the Burmese
Satipa.t.thana method, lies in the fact that it is an
analysis, not a manipulation or transcending, of
experience-a literal "breaking down" of the data of
experience, leading to the dismantling of old
gestalten and permitting reorganization of
constructs. Laszlo's models can be useful in
clarifying this and helping us see how, when, and why
this "insight" technique is employed--why, for
example, contem-

p.29

porary Buddhist teachers warn against premature
enjoyment of trance, before sufficient Vipasyanaa
work, (23) and why the Buddha, in contrast to
Vedantins, saw the enlightenment experience as
clearly distinct from samaadhi.

For teachings to which to apply Cybernetics I,
which Laszlo calls adaptive self-stabilization, let
us. turning to the Mahaayaana tradition, look at
practices wherein the adept seeks to deepen his
realizations of, and transform his vision by, truths
which he has already accepted.
We will take two examples. From the
Praj~naapaaramitaa we will look at the act of
parinaamana, in which the bodhisattva turns samsaric
experience into enlightenment by offering or
transferring to the world his meditations on the
goodness of the buddhas and all living beings. From
Vajrayaana we will consider the practice of
visualization, the mental construction, and
dissolution of an image of the deity. Both are
instances of psychological projection.
Cybernetically, projection is understood as a
function of adaptive self-stabilization or Cybernetics
I, where through negative feedback the output R
conditions E to provide the P's which will match the
C's (see second diagram). It is a function essential
to the survival of the system, for it stabilizes the
coding patterns and maintains their correlation with
the environment. "In this (negative) feedback
activity we 'project our codes': shape and structure
our environment with a view to bringing about
perceptually cognizable things and events. (These are
the kinds of things which are relevant to our needs,
behaviour patterns and projects.)"(24) The scientist
projects his construct (C) upon the environment to
test or confirm his hypothesis; the artist projects
his aesthetic vision (C) upon the material in
creating a work of art. We project, in other words,
in order to fully experience, understand and utilise
our C's. We experience and understand them by getting
P's which appear then as examples or, to use Laszlo's
term, "transformations," of C. As he puts it, "We
enjoy our C's when we interpret P's in their
terms."(25)
The use of projection in religious activity is
not different. Religious constructs are projected in
order to be more fully experienced and enjoyed
through interpreting consequent P's in their terms.
Often this operation is subsequent to a dismantling
and exploratory process (Cybernetics II), whereby new
C's are acquired or developed; the "realization" of
these C's is then stabilized and deepened through
their projection (Cybernetics I). Projection, which
occurs as soon as and as long as there is negative
feedback and which is for most cognitive systems
unconscious, operates in religious practice to bring
the system into greater conformity with the religious
ideal, by transforming C's into P's.
Now to turn to our examples in Mahaayaana
teachings.
The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand
Lines,(26) appearing in the first century B. C.,
tells how the bodhisattva turns concept to experience
by performance of parinaamana. In this act (the term
means to transform, change, turn over, dedicate), the
bodhisattva meditates upon the saving power of all
the

p.30

buddhas, envisions their beneficent presence
extending through time and space. He also
contemplates in his imagination the "roots of
goodness" in all brings that ever lived, all the
deeds of kindness ever done--by gods, men, ghosts,
even animals. This power and goodness he then takes
as wealth: in his mind he makes a pile of this
wealth, rolls it in a ball, weighs it. Then with both
jubilation and the knowledge of its emptiness and
nonsubstantiality (this latter factor is requisite),
he offers it to the weal and enlightenment of all the
world. This turning over is also into his own
enlightenment--that clarified vision which includes
the capacity to see the world as the dharmakaaya, the
body of buddhahood.
Viewed as a systems process, parinaamana fits
Cybernetics I. The concepts of the power of all the
buddhas and the merit acquired by all creatures
constitute the code C, which in meditation (R) is
then offered, given forth, projected outward upon
sa.msaara (E) in an act of celebration and sharing. E
is shaped by this projection of sa.msaara
transfigured, as incoming P's are registered in terms
of the dharmakaaya. Laszlo, describing Cybernetics I,
speaks of P's as transformation of C--and in this
instance the term has resonance, being also a literal
meaning of the Sanskrit parinaamana.
Our second example of the applicability of
Cybernetics I draws from the more elaborate and
controlled projections of Tibetan Buddhism. In
Vajrayaana practice visualizations play a central
role. The Yidam, one's tutelary deity, is not only
meditated upon in its painted or sculpted form, but a
strenuous and lengthy training is undertaken to
enable one to picture it in the mind's eye with
clarity and precision.(27) Each detail of color,
gesture, accoutrement is carved vivid on the mind and
assembled in the imagination to form the whole
figure. The adept, having constructed the mental
image--Vajrasattva, for instance-now contemplates the
deity, addresses prayers to him, and receives his
blessing. He pictures and feels the cleansing flow as
Vajrasattva purifies him. Then he identifies, thinks
"I am Vajrasattva." And at the same time he remembers
that Vajrasattva is void, a creation of imagination,
just as he, the adept himself, is void and a creation
of imagination. Gradually he lets the visualization
dissolve--into the Void, the empty fountain of all
being.
Interpreted cybernetically, the concepts, C's,
which the adept experiences hereby, appear to be
threefold: (a) the particular power which the deity
represents (for example, wisdom, purity, compassion,
etc.), (b) his identity with this power, its presence
and availability within him, and (c) its
nonsubstantiality, in essence void. These C's are
entertained consciously as he concentrates upon the
visualization, building it up and dissolving it. P's
produced during the visualization mirror, of course,
his C's. P's occurring subsequently are also affected
to the extent that the adept has become through the
exercise more aware of the emptiness and
transformability of E, and of the power in himself
which the deity manifested.
A point which bears repetition is that these
Mahaayaana teachings insist on the

p.31

awareness that such projections are void and without
substance. In contrast to commonplace views where the
appellation of "mere projection" is understood as
deprecatory, here its power to illumine and transform
is seen to be enhanced by its being perceived as
empty, without basis. "There can be no turning over
(parinaamana) for someone who perceives a basis."(28)
It is the bodhisattva's skill-in-means to know that in
the transformation no concrete transformation takes
place, "nothing passed on, nothing destroyed."(29)
The efficacy of the act is seen precisely in terms of
its consciously being a "mere projection."
Like Buddhism, systems philosophy perceives and
posits the operative effecacy of universals which are
in themselves empty. "We are dealing." says Laszlo,
"with two kinds of 'universals': the concrete flow
patterns in the natural universe and the
abstract-general categories whereby they are coded in
the mind. Yet it is fallacious to conclude from this
that what is given is only the former, and relegate
the abstract universals to the shadow realm of a
transcendant ego' or 'constitutive consciousness.'
Abstract universals are as much an element in the
process as the concrete flow-pattern universals
are."(30) In other words, when universals are
accepted as without substance, that is, not set apart
from the flow-pattern but seen as a decoding element
in the flow, they are "real" and applicable.
Such an approach seems well suited for the study
of Buddhist teachings-which themselves imply no more
substantial claim to metaphysical ultimacy than the
effective decoding of the samsaric flow-pattern of
experience. Therefore, to interpret these teachings
in terms of cybernetic systems need entail no
devaluation of their truth. On the contrary, a
re-cognition of their enduring accuracy and
applicability can result.
Because it shares with the Buddhist teachings
basic assumptions about its task and the nature of
life, because it recognizes the reality of universals
and values, which are by nature void, without
relegating them, as Laszlo put it, to a "shadow
realm," systems appears as an appropriate vehicle to
bring these teachings into wider dialogue with modern
science--and the needs of modern man. In such an
intercourse, the dharma can speak to systems
philosophy as systems moves toward a recognition and
expression of values which set free.

NOTES

(1) Introduction to Systems Philosophy, Toward a New
Paradigm of Contemporary Thought (New York:
Harper Torchbook, 1972), hereafter cited as ISP;
System, Structure and Experience. Toward a
Scientific Theory of Mind (New York: Gordon &
Breach Scientific Publishers, 1969) hereafter
cited as SSE; and The Systems View of the World
(New York: Braziller, 1972) hereafter cited as
SVW.

(2) Majjhima Nikaaya, Sutta 63 in Middle Length
Sayings, Paali Text Society, trans. I. B. Horner
(London: Luzac & Co., 1957).

(3) See Sa.myutta Nikaya, II, introduction by T. W.
Rhys Davids, in Kindred Sayings, Vol. 2, Paali
Text Society (London: Luzac, 1952).

p.32

(4) Cf. the Third and Fourth Noble Truths; also
A^nguttara Nikaaya I, 173 where the Buddha
attacks contemporary views which deny meaningful
change and provide "neither the desire to do, not
the effort to do nor the necessity to do this
deed or abstain from that deed." Gradual Sayings
Vol. 1 Paali Text Society, tr. F. L. Woodward.

(5) See part II below.

(6) ISP, p. 8.

(7) David J. Kalupahana, "A Buddhist Tract on
Empiricism." Philosophy East and West 19, No. 1
Jan. 1969:65.

(8) "Early Buddhism compares with modern Empiricism,
with the exception that unlike modern Empiricism,
Buddhism recognized the validity of the data of
extrasensory perception and of the experiential
content of mysticism." Kalupahana, "A Buddhist
Tract."

(9) In section I, I am referring to Buddhist thought
as it is expressed in the early texts, the
Nikaayas and Vinaya. While these are honored by
all Buddhists, some later schools moved closer to
views that could be understood as essentialist.
In this respect the Yogaacaarins, for example,
might be excluded from the above comment,
depending on the interpretation accorded the
aalaya-vij~naana.

(10) SVW, p. 80.

(11) ISP, p. 294. Note: It might appear that Laszlo's
cybernetic "invariances" acquire for him an
ontological status analogous to eternal objects,
but the fact remains that he see them as factors
or laws of change (confer the Dharma), not as
external agents influencing or acting upon
change.

(12) Sa.myutta Nikaaya II. 27.

(13) ISP, p. 246

(14) ISP, p. 247

(15) ISP, p. 245

(16) Sa.myutta Nikaaya III. 57

(17) Sa.myutta Nikaaya II. 67; confer also Sutta
Nipata I.

(18) ISP, p. 293

(19) SSE, p. 21.

(20) SSE, chap. 1, and ISP, chap. 4.

(21) For a detailed description of this meditation
method, see Nyanaponika Thera, The Heart of
Buddhist Meditation (London: Rider & Co., 1962).

(22) SSE, p. 21

(23) Cf M. B. Byles, Journey into Burmese Silence
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1962), chap. 5.

(24) SSE, p. 44.

(25) SSE, p. 63.

(26) Chap. 6, trans. E. Conze (Bolinas Calif.: Four
Seasons Foundation, 1973).

(27) Confer John Blofeld, The Tantric Mysticism of
Tibet (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1970): Stephan
Beyer, The Cult of Tara (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1973).

(28) Perfection of' Wisdom, VI 152.

(29) Perfection of Wisdom, VI. 163.

(30) ISP, p. 294.