Buchbesprechungen Comptes Rendus

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst

Page 6

714
any longer. Ordinary perception is therefore false, a construction that is to at least some extent determined by language, and the desire to see things as they really are- i.e., as the Buddha has supposedly taught them - becomes part and parcel of Buddhism. This desire is not necessarily linked to mystical experiences. This is not to say that no one tried to obtain the required insight through mystical experience; no doubt there were such Buddhists. Others, however, may have tried to obtain such insight by other means. One thinks here, for example, of Nagarjuna, the author of the Malamadhyamakakärikā, who, as it seems, tried to destroy our conception
of ordinary reality by showing its inherent contradictions. It seems likely that a person like Nagarjuna strove to obtain 'unconstructed awareness' in this way. One might yet hesitate to believe that such intellectual activity would produce anything one would like to characterize as "mystical experience".
(iii) The role and function of chapter 4 ("The Buddha and the absolute") in Pyysiäinen's book is not immediately clear. This chapter describes how the Buddha has been conceived by his followers as embodying the Dharma; it discusses the Dharma-body (dharmakaya) in Hinayana and Mahāyāna, the Buddha's skill in means (upayakausalya), his body as symbol of the cosmos, and his otherworldliness. What fails to become clear is what all this has to do with mystical experience. Indeed, while summarizing this chapter in the following chapter 5 ("Conclusion"). Pyysiäinen admits (p. 152): "It is obvious that the Buddhological conceptions contain much mythological elaboration of the meaning of the Buddha and have nothing to do directly with mystical experiences." Then, however, he continues: "But when we move on to the deeper level of Buddhist ontology, we encounter the influence of the mystical way of experiencing, even in the way the Buddha's position has been understood." Unfortunately Pyysiäinen does not argue his position, not even in the chapter concerned (4). Mystical experience is barely mentioned in this chapter, and where it is, one has the impression that different issues are being confused. An example is the following statement, which concludes the section on the Dharma-body (p. 137): "Thus, the figure of the Buddha has been transformed into a symbolic representation par excellence of the mystical experience he attained, as well as of its consequences." This statement speaks of the mystical experience of the Buddha. The transformation of the figure of the Buddha, on the other hand, took place in the heads of people who may never have had any mystical experience; not even Pyysiäinen disagrees with this, if I understand him correctly. This development within Buddhism, seen in this way, illustrates at best the
BUCHBESPRECHUNGEN/COMPTES RENDUES