Buddhist Phenomenology (Dan Lusthaus)
Hyper-Intellectual, Reductionistic Yogacara
[My 1-star Amazon Review of “Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical investigation of Yogacara Buddhism and the Ch’eng Wei-shih BY Dan Lusthaus.]
A fan of my books and Amazon reviews procured this text for me, because I wasn’t about to dish out $40 for a text just to ream it in a review. But now that I’ve read it, I’m eager to lambaste it, because, frankly speaking, I have next to zero respect for Dan Lusthaus’ “brand” of Buddhism.
Although I’m hardly a Ken Wilber fan, his statement, “Every man is a philosopher of his level of evolutionary adaptation,” particularly pertains to Dan Lusthaus. To the spiritual cognoscenti, those who have “cracked the cosmic code,” it couldn’t be clearer that that Lusthaus is no more than a pseudo-profound talking head when it comes to Buddha Dharma. His vast erudition and boundless vocabulary can’t hide the fact that he is “uninitiated” (by the Dharma Cloud/Stream, or Sambhogakaya); hence he doesn’t know what Buddhism, and more specifically Yogacara, are really about.
Before I proceed with my review, I should caution readers about Lusthaus’ book: it’s only for intellectual types. Unless you’re somewhat of a wonk, you’ll struggle with the prose. Here’s an example of Lusthaus’ writing: “The relation between consciousness and the hyle is neither genitive nor ablative; whether it is locative, instrumental or dative is arguable; it is accusative.”
In the subchapter What is(n’t) Yogacara at the beginning of the book, Lusthaus presents the essence of his thesis: Yogacara (Mind-only Buddhism) is not metaphysical idealism. The idea that Mind (or Consciousness)-only refers to a universal, all pervading Mind –the One Mind – which has manifested as the all, is absurd to him, and he flatly rejects this point of view, which is that of D.T Suzuki, Edward Conze, W.Y. Evans Wentz, numerous other Buddhist scholars, and countless masters in all the Great Spiritual Traditions. Instead, in a cumbersome, rambling, not always clear, academese style, he argues that “Yogara is Buddhist phenomenology,” and that its critical concern is with epistemological issues, not ontological or metaphysical ones. According to Lusthaus, Yogacara (vijnapti-matra) doesn’t mean “Mind-only,” but rather “nothing but cognition.” And to elaborate this point of view, he devotes considerable space in his book to comparing (and finding much common ground between) Buddhism and Western phenomenology (Husserl and Merleau-Ponty).
Lusthaus’ writes: “Consciousness is not the the ultimate reality or solution, but
the root problem… Consciousness, far from being ubiquitous and eternal, exists
only within the parameters of its possibility for not existing… As one one delves deeper and deeper into the perceptual roots of experience, into the conditionality that constitutes it, no invariant eternal essence is found… for Buddhism, ontology is always and everywhere nothing but an epistemological construction, constituted through action and/as cognition. Awakening or Enlightenment means to see clearly. Therefore Buddhism is concerned with Seeing, not Being.”
My perspective on Buddha Dharma diametrically opposes Lusthaus’ and accords with the metaphysical idealists. And contrary to Lusthaus’ claim that the Yogacara texts support his position, I say they support mine. For example, in my (two-star) Amazon review of “The Lankavatara Sutra,” by Red Pine, I present a pithy, esoteric, groundbreaking exegesis of the Lankavata Sutra, and though 48 people have given my review a thumbs down (versus 15 who have give it a thumbs up), not a single one of them has attempted to refute my arguments. Rather than repeat my entire, rather lengthy exegesis herein, I suggest that those interested check out the review. And I welcome anyone, includy Lusthaus and his fellow pointy-headed Buddhist academics, to attempt to deconstruct it.
Unlike Lusthaus, I’m not an ivory tower intellectual talking out of my posterior orifice. I’m an ultra-advanced spiritual practitioner who channels the Dharma Cloud (the Sambhogakaya, Holy Spirit, or Shakti), into the the Tathagatagarbha (the Heart-cave, or “womb,” which, relative to one’s body, is located two digits to the right of the center of one’s chest). This is where the alaya-vijnana (one’s soul-matrix) is located, where the turning about (or conversion) of one’s consciousness takes place, where one awakens to his Buddha-nature (or True Self), which is coessential with the One Mind (or Divine Being).
There is no Seeing without a Being, or Seer, to see. Nirvana is the end of becoming (samsara); hence it is Be-ing (Cit-Ananada, or Siva-Shakti, or Dharmakaya-Sambhogakaya). Seeing is a function of Being; hence Being has primacy over Seeing, meaning that one must Be before one can See. My advice to Lusthaus is: Toss all your academic epistemology and phenomemology texts in the trash can and read Ayn Rand’s “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”; then, perhaps, you’ll attain a semblance of epistemological clarity.
Lusthaus equates “seeing things as they are” with Enlightenment, but he has no idea what this En-light-ened seeing really means—recognizing all existents as tempory, non-binding modifications or permutations of the radiant transcendental Light-Consciousness. Lusthaus defines “Bodhicitta” as “aspiration for Enlightenment.” “Bodhicitta really means En-Light-ened Consciousness, or Conscious Light. And one achieves Bodhicitta, or Buddhahood, when one permanently unites his consciousness (or soul) with Light-Energy (or Spirit).
If one reads the teachings of the greatest Yogacara, Zen, and Dzogchen teachings, one sees constant reference to the One Mind (timeless Awareness, the Dharmakaya). For example, in the classic text “Zen Teaching of Huang Po,” by John Blofeld, Huang Po, one of the most revered Zen masters in history repeatedly refers to a One Mind that has manifested as all. And unlike Lusthaus, he describes Enlightenment as a “state” of Being. According to Huang Po, there is a single Great Zen Master, the One Mind, or supreme Being, and the essence of Zen is to realize your Essence, or Buddha-nature, as consubstantial with this Absolute Being. If you’re interested in Yogacara writings that champion the Metaphysical-Idealist point of view, get a copy of “Principal Yogacara Texts,” by Rodney P. Devenish.
I could write a book countering all the faulty arguments in “Buddhist Phenomenology,” but because this is just a review and is already too long, I will make just a couple of final points before ending it.
First, original Original Buddhism is fundamentally no different than true Yogacara and Tibetan Dzogchen. In the “Anguttara Nikaya 1.6, the Buddha declares, “Clear Light, O Bhiksus, is [the nature of] the mind (Sanskrit. prabhasvara-citta); nevertheless this is obscured by adventitious defilement.” As I contend in my review of Red Pine’s “The Lankavatara Sutra,” the essence of Yogacara is uniting one’s consciousness with this Clear-Light-Energy (or Dharma Cloud/Stream, or Sambhogakaya), and upon union, realizing the Dharmakaya-Sambhogakaya as one’s Divine Essence-Nature. The esoteric essence of the Lankavatara Sutra is the the descent of the Dharma Cloud, Clear-Light Energy, into Lanka, the Tathagatagharba, where the alaya-vijnana is transformed into a “conduit” to the Dharmakaya-Sambhogakaya.
Second, Lusthaus’ definitions of Buddhist terms are an exoteric joke and reflect his ignorance. For example, he defines Dharmadhatu as “the field of experience.” In reality, the Dharmadhatu is the spaceless “Space,” or Context, or Dimension, in which phenomena, the space-time continuum, appear. Lusthaus, intent to reduce Buddhahood from an ontic realization to an epistemic one, tells us, Tathata, “suchness,” means “seeing thing just as they are.” In reality, Tathata really means Is-ness, or Be-ingness. And what the anti-Essentialist Lusthaus fails to grok is that a Buddha, or Tathagata, is a being who is Be-ing Consciousness-Light-Energy (or Siva-Shakti, or Cit-Ananda, or Dharmakaya-Sambhogakaya). What he also fails to comprehend is that this Consciousness-Light-Energy, this all-pervading “Essence,”or “Substance,” or “Source,” is uncreated, “existing” outside of space and time. The great physicist Bernard d’Espagnat won the Templeton Prize for his research studies which concluded that, prior to and beyond the universe, there must “exist” a hypercosmic Being.
In summary, “Buddhist Phenomenology” exemplifies the academic garbage coming out of our so-called “institutions of higher learning,” and reminds me why, after four frustrating years as an undergrad (at UC San Diego), I had zero interest in pursuing an advanced degree in sociology or philosophy. Howard Gardner, a cousin of mine, is a world-famous Harvard professor, and as bad as I think Howard’s texts are, “Buddhist Phenomenology, by fellow Harvard professor Dan Luathaus, is even worse. Far worse. One star, and one star too many, for this text.
[My 1-star Amazon Review of “Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical investigation of Yogacara Buddhism and the Ch’eng Wei-shih BY Dan Lusthaus.]
A fan of my books and Amazon reviews procured this text for me, because I wasn’t about to dish out $40 for a text just to ream it in a review. But now that I’ve read it, I’m eager to lambaste it, because, frankly speaking, I have next to zero respect for Dan Lusthaus’ “brand” of Buddhism.
Although I’m hardly a Ken Wilber fan, his statement, “Every man is a philosopher of his level of evolutionary adaptation,” particularly pertains to Dan Lusthaus. To the spiritual cognoscenti, those who have “cracked the cosmic code,” it couldn’t be clearer that that Lusthaus is no more than a pseudo-profound talking head when it comes to Buddha Dharma. His vast erudition and boundless vocabulary can’t hide the fact that he is “uninitiated” (by the Dharma Cloud/Stream, or Sambhogakaya); hence he doesn’t know what Buddhism, and more specifically Yogacara, are really about.
Before I proceed with my review, I should caution readers about Lusthaus’ book: it’s only for intellectual types. Unless you’re somewhat of a wonk, you’ll struggle with the prose. Here’s an example of Lusthaus’ writing: “The relation between consciousness and the hyle is neither genitive nor ablative; whether it is locative, instrumental or dative is arguable; it is accusative.”
In the subchapter What is(n’t) Yogacara at the beginning of the book, Lusthaus presents the essence of his thesis: Yogacara (Mind-only Buddhism) is not metaphysical idealism. The idea that Mind (or Consciousness)-only refers to a universal, all pervading Mind –the One Mind – which has manifested as the all, is absurd to him, and he flatly rejects this point of view, which is that of D.T Suzuki, Edward Conze, W.Y. Evans Wentz, numerous other Buddhist scholars, and countless masters in all the Great Spiritual Traditions. Instead, in a cumbersome, rambling, not always clear, academese style, he argues that “Yogara is Buddhist phenomenology,” and that its critical concern is with epistemological issues, not ontological or metaphysical ones. According to Lusthaus, Yogacara (vijnapti-matra) doesn’t mean “Mind-only,” but rather “nothing but cognition.” And to elaborate this point of view, he devotes considerable space in his book to comparing (and finding much common ground between) Buddhism and Western phenomenology (Husserl and Merleau-Ponty).
Lusthaus’ writes: “Consciousness is not the the ultimate reality or solution, but
the root problem… Consciousness, far from being ubiquitous and eternal, exists
only within the parameters of its possibility for not existing… As one one delves deeper and deeper into the perceptual roots of experience, into the conditionality that constitutes it, no invariant eternal essence is found… for Buddhism, ontology is always and everywhere nothing but an epistemological construction, constituted through action and/as cognition. Awakening or Enlightenment means to see clearly. Therefore Buddhism is concerned with Seeing, not Being.”
My perspective on Buddha Dharma diametrically opposes Lusthaus’ and accords with the metaphysical idealists. And contrary to Lusthaus’ claim that the Yogacara texts support his position, I say they support mine. For example, in my (two-star) Amazon review of “The Lankavatara Sutra,” by Red Pine, I present a pithy, esoteric, groundbreaking exegesis of the Lankavata Sutra, and though 48 people have given my review a thumbs down (versus 15 who have give it a thumbs up), not a single one of them has attempted to refute my arguments. Rather than repeat my entire, rather lengthy exegesis herein, I suggest that those interested check out the review. And I welcome anyone, includy Lusthaus and his fellow pointy-headed Buddhist academics, to attempt to deconstruct it.
Unlike Lusthaus, I’m not an ivory tower intellectual talking out of my posterior orifice. I’m an ultra-advanced spiritual practitioner who channels the Dharma Cloud (the Sambhogakaya, Holy Spirit, or Shakti), into the the Tathagatagarbha (the Heart-cave, or “womb,” which, relative to one’s body, is located two digits to the right of the center of one’s chest). This is where the alaya-vijnana (one’s soul-matrix) is located, where the turning about (or conversion) of one’s consciousness takes place, where one awakens to his Buddha-nature (or True Self), which is coessential with the One Mind (or Divine Being).
There is no Seeing without a Being, or Seer, to see. Nirvana is the end of becoming (samsara); hence it is Be-ing (Cit-Ananada, or Siva-Shakti, or Dharmakaya-Sambhogakaya). Seeing is a function of Being; hence Being has primacy over Seeing, meaning that one must Be before one can See. My advice to Lusthaus is: Toss all your academic epistemology and phenomemology texts in the trash can and read Ayn Rand’s “Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology”; then, perhaps, you’ll attain a semblance of epistemological clarity.
Lusthaus equates “seeing things as they are” with Enlightenment, but he has no idea what this En-light-ened seeing really means—recognizing all existents as tempory, non-binding modifications or permutations of the radiant transcendental Light-Consciousness. Lusthaus defines “Bodhicitta” as “aspiration for Enlightenment.” “Bodhicitta really means En-Light-ened Consciousness, or Conscious Light. And one achieves Bodhicitta, or Buddhahood, when one permanently unites his consciousness (or soul) with Light-Energy (or Spirit).
If one reads the teachings of the greatest Yogacara, Zen, and Dzogchen teachings, one sees constant reference to the One Mind (timeless Awareness, the Dharmakaya). For example, in the classic text “Zen Teaching of Huang Po,” by John Blofeld, Huang Po, one of the most revered Zen masters in history repeatedly refers to a One Mind that has manifested as all. And unlike Lusthaus, he describes Enlightenment as a “state” of Being. According to Huang Po, there is a single Great Zen Master, the One Mind, or supreme Being, and the essence of Zen is to realize your Essence, or Buddha-nature, as consubstantial with this Absolute Being. If you’re interested in Yogacara writings that champion the Metaphysical-Idealist point of view, get a copy of “Principal Yogacara Texts,” by Rodney P. Devenish.
I could write a book countering all the faulty arguments in “Buddhist Phenomenology,” but because this is just a review and is already too long, I will make just a couple of final points before ending it.
First, original Original Buddhism is fundamentally no different than true Yogacara and Tibetan Dzogchen. In the “Anguttara Nikaya 1.6, the Buddha declares, “Clear Light, O Bhiksus, is [the nature of] the mind (Sanskrit. prabhasvara-citta); nevertheless this is obscured by adventitious defilement.” As I contend in my review of Red Pine’s “The Lankavatara Sutra,” the essence of Yogacara is uniting one’s consciousness with this Clear-Light-Energy (or Dharma Cloud/Stream, or Sambhogakaya), and upon union, realizing the Dharmakaya-Sambhogakaya as one’s Divine Essence-Nature. The esoteric essence of the Lankavatara Sutra is the the descent of the Dharma Cloud, Clear-Light Energy, into Lanka, the Tathagatagharba, where the alaya-vijnana is transformed into a “conduit” to the Dharmakaya-Sambhogakaya.
Second, Lusthaus’ definitions of Buddhist terms are an exoteric joke and reflect his ignorance. For example, he defines Dharmadhatu as “the field of experience.” In reality, the Dharmadhatu is the spaceless “Space,” or Context, or Dimension, in which phenomena, the space-time continuum, appear. Lusthaus, intent to reduce Buddhahood from an ontic realization to an epistemic one, tells us, Tathata, “suchness,” means “seeing thing just as they are.” In reality, Tathata really means Is-ness, or Be-ingness. And what the anti-Essentialist Lusthaus fails to grok is that a Buddha, or Tathagata, is a being who is Be-ing Consciousness-Light-Energy (or Siva-Shakti, or Cit-Ananda, or Dharmakaya-Sambhogakaya). What he also fails to comprehend is that this Consciousness-Light-Energy, this all-pervading “Essence,”or “Substance,” or “Source,” is uncreated, “existing” outside of space and time. The great physicist Bernard d’Espagnat won the Templeton Prize for his research studies which concluded that, prior to and beyond the universe, there must “exist” a hypercosmic Being.
In summary, “Buddhist Phenomenology” exemplifies the academic garbage coming out of our so-called “institutions of higher learning,” and reminds me why, after four frustrating years as an undergrad (at UC San Diego), I had zero interest in pursuing an advanced degree in sociology or philosophy. Howard Gardner, a cousin of mine, is a world-famous Harvard professor, and as bad as I think Howard’s texts are, “Buddhist Phenomenology, by fellow Harvard professor Dan Luathaus, is even worse. Far worse. One star, and one star too many, for this text.
