Paramaartha and modern constructivists on mysticism:

Epistemological monomorphism versus duomorphism

By Robert K. C. Forman
Philosophy East & West
39:4\1989.10
p.393-418

p. 393
I. INTRODUCTION
One of the axioms of what may be called the
received view in the post-Wittgensteinian humanities
and social sciences is that my experience of
something, say a door, is highly shaped and
conditioned by my concepts, expectations, beliefs,
and so forth about doors. To see an opaque,
four-by-seven-foot, tan, flat, vertical rectangle is,
consciously or unconsciously, to think the word
"door," and hence to expect that it will open, that
it will not fall on my head or spit fire at me, that
it will probably be made of wood or veneered
particle-board, and that I will be able to walk to
some unastonishing place through it. Such commonplace
expectations are part of my concept and experience of
a door. They come to me by way of my language, past
experiences, and beliefs. A great deal of my
experience of that tan rectangle, according to this
received view, is the product of such accumulated
concepts and experiences. Indeed, were it not for my
linguistic and cultural background, I would be
unlikely to know how to respond to the tan rectangle
before me. Let us call this view "constructivism"-for
in significant ways I "construct" my experience of a
door from my expectations, sense input, concepts, and
so forth.
Such a received view is so well accepted as to be
almost an article of faith in the academy. It was
inevitable, then, that scholars of religion would
apply this model to religious experience, especially
to its pinnacle, mystical experience. Like any other
experience, according to the "constructivist" version
of mysticism, the mystic's experience of God, of
Brahman, of the Tao, of `sunyataa and so forth is in
significant ways shaped, formed, and/or constructed
from his or her expectations and concepts of those

notions. Proof of such a statement is hardly

necessary for these constructivists, for they are
capitalizing on the enormous body of literature to
this effect in the study of perception, cognition,
art, and so forth. But if extra proof were needed,
one need only point to the fact that Christians
virtually never have a vision of multiarmed Kaalii,
and Neo-Confucians never see Jesus. Expectations,
concepts, and the background of beliefs clearly limit
and form the mystic's visions.
The constructivist model is the engine which has
driven most of the articles and books written about
mysticism over the last decade. It dominates the two
principal genres of recent books and articles about
mysticism. The first genre is historical: theological
and contextual studies of an individual mystic note
how he or she was influenced in particular ways by
his/her tradition. For example, in the literature
concerning Meister Eckhart's mysticism, with which I
am especially familiar, recent studies have shown how
his thought and experience were influenced by
Neo-Platonism,(1) Augustine,(2) and Saint Thomas.(3)
------------------------Robert K. C. Forman, Ph. D., teaches in the
Department of Religion at Vassar College.
p. 394
The more or less explicit implication here is that
the experiences described by Eckhart were themselves
influenced by his predecessors. Such articles
typically do not argue for the claimed connection
between experience and set; they either assume it or
refer the reader to the second genre of recent
articles which do explicitly argue for this
connection. In the Eckhart literature, for example,
both McGinn and Clark refer to Steven Katz's
well-known article for a defense of this
connection.(4)
Hence, for a defense of the claimed connection
between the background of belief and mystical
experience, the reader must turn to the second type
of recent construtivist literature, the theoretical,
in which theories and methodologies of mysticism are
articulated and defended. Much of recent construetivist
theory has been published in two recent volumes edited
by Steven Katz: using Buddhist meditation practices
as his field of inquiry, Robert Gimello argues that
mystical experiences result from a "psychosomatic
enhancement" of expectations and beliefs.(5) Peter
Moore attempts to draw out the full range of possible
influential factors, which might include not only beliefs
and expectations, but also the music, architecture,

aesthetics, and ethics of a tradition.(6) Elsewhere

William Wainwright argues that mystical experience is
encountered and validated similarly to sense
experiences--that is, my experience of a door.(7)
Jerry Gill argues that, since all experiences are
intentional and hence in significant ways
constructed, mystical experiences must be, too.(8) In
one of the most sophisticated defenses of
constructivism, Wayne Proudfoot argues that mystical
experiences result from a labeling of "visceral
arousals"; since labels are supplied by one's
tradition, mystical experiences must be so shaped.(9)
Smart,(10) Hick,(11) Penehelum,(12) and others have
written in a similar vein.
The most outspoken and renowned defender of the
position is probably Steven Katz, especially in his
article, "Language, Epistemology and Mysticism."(l3)
So frequently glossed is this article that it has
itself become virtually the received view on
mysticism.(l4) No experiences are pure, that is,
unmediated, Katz asserts. Hence, mystical experiences
are also mediated, that is, in part constructed, by
the language and beliefs mystics use to interpret
them. Katz offers as his paradigm case one quite like
that of seeing a door: Monet's mispainting of Notre
Dame. Because he expected them to be so, Monet
substituted Gothic (pointed) arches for the
Romanesque (rounded) ones which were actually
there.(15) In this case, as in mysticism, Katz
asserts, expectations play a key causal role in the
shaping of mystical experiences.
Such men (women, curiously, have so far played a
very minor role in this debate) were opposing the
so-called Perennial Philosophy tradition, which held
that mysticism is largely the same across traditions,
and thus is not the product of tradition-bound
expectations. Authors like Evelyn Underhill, (16)
Aldous Huxley, (l7) Frithjof Schuon, (18) Rudolf
Otto,(19) W. T. Stace,(20) and
p. 395
recently, Huston Smith(21) have all taken such an
approach. From this fact alone, these authors
continue, mystical experiences can serve as a way to
ground a "perennial" philosophy, that is, one which
is held in essence across cultures and times. For
them mysticism is something nearer to an expression
of a fundamental human connectedness with the Divine
which is experienced in a firsthand, unmediated
manner.
The advantages of the constructivist approach

over perennialism are considerable, It cannot but

make stand in relief the differences, both gross and
subtle, between mystics from various faiths. As Katz
states this, his position is a "plea for the
recognition of differences."(22) It provides a
relatively clear epistemological model for mystical
experiences, one which is certainly clearer than the
rather vague suggestions of the perennialists. It
capitalizes on the enormous theoretical and empirical
post-Wittgensteinian literature, bringing the study
of mysticism out of the realm of dogma and into
twentieth-century pluralistic thought. Finally, one
of its claimed virtues is that it can dispense with
the host of a priori assumptions which lent
plausibility to perennialism.
But there are problems with this constructivist
paradigm, many of which my colleagues and I have
elsewhere noted. Perovich and I have pointed out that
the claims of constructivism to be able to handle all
forms of mysticism are not borne out with respect to
Neo-Platonic descriptions of unitive absorption or to
Buddhist claims about cessation meditation.(23) As
Jerry Gill does, constructivists will tend to ignore
or write off nonrelational mystical experiences as
not "fitting" with the paradigm cases. Perovich has
elsewhere argued that the articles which argue for
constructivism are systematically vague and
incomplete: their systematic elusiveness is a device
which protects the pluralism hypothesis.(24) I have
argued that because constructivism is an inherently
conservative thesis, it will have difficulty
accounting for novel or unexpected mystical
experiences--those which come without any or most of
the cognitive preparation on which the theory depends
so heavily.(25) Constructivism is hardpressed to
handle mystical experiences which come "out of the
blue" to the uninitiated, as well as experiences of
the initiated whose shape is unpredicted and utterly
surprising. Focusing on Steven Katz's first article,
Steven Bernhardt pointed out the gaping
incompleteness and inconsistencies in this renowned
piece. Noting that the "pure consciousness event"
does not seem to have enough complexity to be shaped
or constructed, he throws the ball back into the
other camp.(26) Prigge and Kessler argue against the
pluralistic claims of constructivism by arguing that
the Pure Consciousness Event does indeed seem to be
found across many traditions.(27)
In this article I want to add to this growing
anticonstructivist literature by pointing out one
critical and fallacious assumption in the
constructivist position. I mentioned before that Katz
claims that, except for his renowned epistemological
assumption that there are no pure, that is,

unmediated experiences, his position needs to make no

unusual a priori assumptions.
p. 396
Our position is able to accommodate all the evidence
which is accounted for by non-pluralistic accounts
without being reductionistic, i.e. it is able to do
more justice to the specificity of the evidence and
its inherent distinctions and disjunctions than can
the alternative approache. That is to say, our
account neither (a) overlooks any evidence, nor (b)
has any need to simplify the available evidence to
make it fit into comparative or comparable
categories, nor (c) does it begin with a priori
assumptions about the nature of ultimate reality.(28)
By this last statement (c), he means that his
position needs to make no a priori ontological
assumptions, that is, about God's existence or the
nature of the soul. This claim is implicit in many of
the above-mentioned constructivist articles. And it
is, as I noted, an advantage of his position over
perennialism. But to show that constructivism must
make at least one very important and dogmatically
held assumption--one which is unnoticed, undefended,
and implausible--will be the goal of this article.
I shall argue this case by drawing a parallel
between these authors and certain Buddhist writers,
notably the sixth-century Yogaacaarin philosopher and
translator, Paramaartha. We shall see that
Paramaartha describes an epistemological
constructivism which is strikingly similar in its
important respects to the modern constructivist's.
While there are, of course, differences between these
authors, in their versions of ordinary experiences
the fundamental claim that experiences are
significantly built out of concepts, words, and
expectations is identical. Paramaartha, however, does
not end with such a constructivism. He goes on to
describe mystical experiences in completely different
terms. The modern constructivist, on the other hand,
does not. It is my hope that by noting the parallels
and divergences between these two sets of
constructivists we can gain insight into the more
recent ones which may prove helpful as we try to
understand their model for mysticism. Why the modern
writers make the case they do and what it portends
about constructivism in general will be the subject
of my concluding remarks.
One prefatory remark: the above-mentioned
critical articles have, on the whole, focused on one
particular form of mysticism, the Pure Consciousness

Event (PCE), in which one is awake and alert but

devoid of any and all objects for consciousness. One
entertains therein no feeling, sensation, thought,
perception, or even the realization, "Oh, now I am
having an unusual experience." Nothing. I want to
emphasize that I believe that constructivism is
incapable of handling other, perhaps more advanced
forms of mysticism as well, that is, unitive or
illuminative. But I will not be discussing them here;
I, too, will focus on the Pure Consciousness Event.
The reasons I am focusing on this more rudimentary
form of experience are: (a) it seems to play a role
in the epistemological formation of the more advanced
forms, and understanding its philosophical character
should help clarify the character of those more
advanced, complex states of consciousness; (b) the
traditional figure on whom I will focus, Paramaartha,
himself focuses on such experiences in certain critical
p. 397
passages; and (c) because of its character, the
philosophical matter at hand, constructivism, may be
most readily understood with reference to this form
of mystical experience. For these reasons I think it
is reasonable to look at it, saving my discussion of
the more advanced experiences for a later work.
II. YOGAACAARA CONSTRUCTIVISM AND ITS OPPOSITE
Many schools of fourth-century Buddhism, like
today's constructivist, portrayed the ordinary
experienced world as being in large part the result
of the constructive and conditioning activities of
the mind.(29) In the La^nkaavataara Suutra, for
example, there is a considerable emphasis on the role
of language and its power to bind the mind, thereby
keeping one from enlightenment. Words and concepts
are there said to be an artificial creation and born
of convention. There are an infinite set of possible
languages, it states, by any one of which people
could communicate and divide up the world
differently.
If, Mahamati, you say that because of the reality
of words the objects are, this talk lacks in sense.
Words are not known in all the Buddha-lands; words,
Mahaamati, are an artificial creation. In some
Buddha-lands ideas are indicated by looking steadily,
in others by gestures, in still others by a frown, by
the movement of the eyes, by laughing, by yawning, or
by the clearing of the throat, or by recollection, or
by trembling.(30)
From early on, Buddhism thrived in a polygloy and

multilingual world. As its missionaries spread out,

they had to wrestle constantly with translation and
cross-cultural issues. Buddhists perforce had to be
sensitive to the fact that different languages could
slice up the experiential pie differently, and hence
are, to a considerable extent, arbitrary and
conventional.
According to the La^nkaavataara Suutra, the
language that we use sets up the categories of
thought by means of which we perceive and experience.
Separating things by such different names is
technically called vikalpa. This term, which I will
discuss below, may be translated as discrimination or
even construction.(31)
Further, Mahamati, by `discrimination' is meant
that by which names are declared, and there is thus
the indicating of (various) appearances. Saying that
this is such and no other, for instance, saying that
this is an elephant, a horse, a wheel, a pedestrian,
a woman, or a man, each idea thus discriminated is so
determined.(32)
When a person uses a language and concepts, he or
she inevitably discriminates in the terms provided by
that language. As a result people tend to fall into
the habits of perception which their language
engenders, and form attachments to (ta.nhaa,
literally, thirst for) such linguistically engendered
notions.
Mahamati, [ordinary men] cling to names, ideas
and signs; their minds move along (these channels).
As thus they move along, they feed on multiplicity of
objects, and fall into the notion of an ego-soul and
what belongs to it, and cling to salutory
appearances.(33)
p. 398
In the La^nkaavataara Suutra, the key discrimination
which leads to du.hkha, suffering, is the notion of
the ego or the self. Modern mystical constructivists,
to my knowledge, have not offered a corresponding
psychological theory. However, I see no reason for
them to deny some such psychological claim. The claim
that certain key notions of language are critical in
the building up of psychological cathexes and
attachments would fit in readily with the theory.
Aside from its emphasis on such attachments,
however, this suutra's analysis of constructivism
parallels the constructivist's. That is, according to
both, the ordinary mind tends to impose labels

provided in large part by one's language and beliefs,

and thereby develop tradition-informed habits of
perception. According to both, in significant ways
the subject creates or shapes his/her own
experiences. Finally, according to both, one's ideas
and expectations significantly shape and determine
perception.
One of the most systematic Buddhist accounts of
the constructed nature of ordinary perception and
behavior may be found in Paramaartha, especially in
his brief Chuan shih lun (CSL), The Evolution of
Consciousness, which is a translation of and
commentary on the Tri.m`sikaa of Vasubandhu. I turn
to Paramaartha, first, because he was a not
insignificant writer and translator for Chinese and
later Japanese Buddhist thought; second, because his
presentation is especially clear; and third, because
his cognitive psychology is strikingly parallel at
key points to the modern constructivists' philosophy
of mind. My discussion of Paramaartha must perforce
be summary, and I commend Diana Paul's more
exhaustive works on Paramaartha to the interested
reader.(34) I will give an overview of his account of
experience and then turn to his account of perception
in order to draw out the parallels with modern
thought.
In order to allow his reader to gain control of
them, Paramaartha begins this text by offering an
account of mental processes as they are found in
ordinary, everyday states of consciousness. Employing
a term as ancient as Buddhism itself, he maintains
that our behavior and perception are based on a
process of conditioning (pratiityasamutpaada).
Following Vasubandhu, Paramaardha maintains that
in this conditioning process there are three
structural or functional levels within the mind (or,
as he puts it, three kinds of perceiver), each of
which conditions and constructs behavior and
experience.
[Verse 1b:] Next we shall explain the three kinds
of perceiver [or cognizer].
[Verse 2: ] (1) The retributive (vipaka)
consciousness, namely the aalayavij~naana;(2) the
appropriating consciousness, namely the aadaana
vij~naana; (3) the consciousness of sense data,
namely the six [sense] consciousnesses vij~naaptir
vi.sayasya).(35)
Let us look at these in turn. The most
fundamental level is called the aalaya vij~naana, a
term for which Yogaacaara is renowned. It is

fundamentally volitional,
p. 399
representing the capacity of the mind to
construct future acts based upon past habits and
behavior.(36) Insofar as we choose what we attend to
and which aspects of a perception we focus on, it
plays a role in perception as well.
It [the aalaya vij~naana] is called the
fundamental consciousness because all seeds of
conditioned phenomena are dependent upon it and
[called] the "abode" consciousness because it is the
place where all seeds rest....It is also called the
"storehouse" consciousness because it is the place
(sthaana) where all seeds are concealed.(37)
The influences of past habits and behavior are
said to be "stored" in the aalaya vij~naana as
impressions (vaasanaa) or habits; these act like
seeds (biija) which "sprout" into, that is, they
condition and form, future behavior and karma. The
aalaya vij~naana both stores latent habit impressions
and acts as a "switching network" which delivers them
as needed.
The key terms here in the process of forming and
storing perceptual habits are "seeds" and "karma."
The CSL goes into the character of these two at some
length. Vasubandhu's Tri.m`sikaa (verse 19) asserted
"two kinds of latent impressions from past karma"
which are stored in the aalaya vij~naana.(38
According to Paramaartha's gloss, these two kinds of
"seeds" are: (1) latent impressions from past karma
and (2) attachment to the latent impressions from
past karma.'" Attachment to the latent impressions is
a second-order function, after the mere having of
latent impressions. Attachment denotes the
ego-investment in certain discriminated entities.
Hence, the primary elements in the constructive
process are the "latent impressions" that are stored
in the aalaya vij~naana. What are those impressions?
Latent impressions from past karma are identical
to the discriminated [object] and are discriminated
in nature.. [T]he [discriminated] object is the sense
object; the discriminator is consciousness....
As for "the two kinds of latent impressions from
past karma," each impression has two principles: (1)
the object [discriminated], which is the latent
impressions from past karma; (2) the discriminator,
which is the attachment to the latent Impressions
from past karma. The object is [the result of] the

nature of discrimination that can produce a panorama

of phenomena generated from seeds [in the aalaya
vij~naana]. This panorama of phenomena is called the
latent impression from past karma.(40)
Paramaartha is taking a strong constructivist
position here, that the terms by which we pick out an
object play an enormous role (or the entire role) in
composing it. His utterances, "the object is [the
result of] the nature of discrimination that can
produce a panorama of phenomena," and "the object
[discriminated]...is the latent impressions from past
karma" together suggest that the object cannot be
what it is without our constructive, discriminative
processes. The terms we use to pick something out
make up the object in whole or in large part.
Discrimination makes the object what it is.
p. 400
There is a second facet or level of this process.
Let us ponder the example with which we began: my
experience of a door. Insofar as I expect the door to
act just like the other doors in my experience, I
bring my expectations to it, expecting it to open,
not to spit at me, to open on a space into which I
can walk, and so forth. This is how I construct a
door in part with my expectations. A more subtle
aspect of the process of perceiving a door, however,
is the separation of subject from object. The
subject, that is, the "discriminator," is, he notes,
"the attachment to the latent impressions from past
karma." That is, I become attached to (involved with)
certain past experiences as my "self," and then
regard an object (that is, the door) as a something
"over against" my "self." Thus, my experience is
informed by the particular latent impressions
concerning doors and the more general latent
impressions which go into my notions of my self and
the structure of "my" experience as, in modern
parlance, intentional.
Seeds stored in the aalaya vij~naana can lead to
what we might call psychological attachments to
objects or processes as well. Let us use as an
example a man's neurotic compulsion to paint. This
behavioral pattern may be said to be analyzed as
derived from childhood experiences of parental
disdain and not being noticed or seen. The
impressions of that disdain and its concomitant
influences on behavior are said to be "stored" in the
aalaya vij~naana as "seeds" for future behavior and
may be expressed as a compulsion to paint and
display.

The second level of conscious functioning is the

aadaana vij~naana, the "appropriating subject." This
structure conditions all conceptualizations and
perceived objects as inherently intertwined with my
self (to which I have become attached, he says).(41)
Such a focus on the self is in turn based on the
"four defilements" (ignorance, views of the self,
conceit, and self love).(42) The neurotic painter's
identification of himself with his own fame or wealth
may be an example of this level of functioning.
So far, Paramaartha has drawn a psychologically
oriented picture of the constructed character of
experience. Based on the tendencies and desires set
up by the above two functions of consciousness, we
encounter the world in terms of certain habituated
categories and concepts. We see things in terms of
categories and labels which derive from old habits
and impressions: a painter seeing a Gothic arch. Such
an encounter occurs through the constructive
activities of the third and final structure, the
vij~naptir vi.sayasya, objective apperception, the
six "sense consciousnesses," which is the final stage
in our contact with the external world.(43)
Such contact, according to Paramaartha, results
from the interaction of three elements: sense faculty
or intellect (manovij~naana), sense data or ideas,
and consciousness.(44) Paramaartha, here, like
Husserl, maintains that in ordinary experience we are
always conscious of some object, be it external and
p. 401
experienced through the senses or an internal object
like a thought.(45) Any perception of an object has
some conceptual (sa.mj~naa) and some sensory elements
(vedanaa). We perceive no object or thought without
bringing in terms and concepts which in part comprise
it, according to Paramaartha. Discrimination of any
object is conditioned by the characteristics by means
of which we pick it out from the world of objects in
general and distinguish it from other objects in a
similar class. As part of this process we provide it
with a name, Paramaartha notes in his San wu-hsing
lun.(46) This implies that the act of making such
distinctions is part and parcel of and stands in
relationship to a specific language and hence to an
experiential system as a whole. When Paramaartha
suggests that an object has a "discriminated nature,"
he is suggesting that it stands within a system of
discrimination as a whole and is at least in part the
product of discrimination processes made by a
subject.

The perception of an object is thus in part the

result of the application of conceptual categories.
These categories are derived from past experiences
and stand as an element of the conceptual set as a
whole. There is an obvious parallel between
Paramaartha and the modern constructivist on this
point. According to both, ordinary perception,
thought, and behavior are in significant part the
result of mental conditioning or construction.
The Yogaacaara term for construction (translated
above as "discrimination"), vikalpa, is interesting
here. It derives from the root, k.lp, to order,
adapt, arrange. Sometimes it carries the meaning, to
ornament and to embellish. The poet's ornamented,
ordered, but fictitious creations are called
kavikalpanaa. The prefix vi adds a distributive sense;
vi + k.lp can mean to create or contrive, set up
antitheses, and so forth. As employed by Buddhist
thinkers, it connotes the mind's activities of
construction and classification. Like the poet's
spinning out of a fictitious world, the mind was
thought to create (vikalpana) a fictional world for
itself. The term may be translated as "imagination,"
although "mental construction" seems nearest.(47)
Thus, the constructive activities of the mind involve
something akin to the spinning of a conceptual "web"
as a whole, and placing any individual entity or
experience some place on such a web.
In sum, there are unmistakable parallels between
this Yogaacaarin's account of the constructive
activities of the mind and the modern constructivists
like Gombrich, Gill, and Katz, All maintain that the
mind, as Katz notes, "half sees and half creates,"
drawing upon categories of perception based on habits
and language.(48) All maintain that such categories
are not absolute, but are largely conventional and
derived from language and the general background of
experience. All hold to the pluralistic correlative
that one person's or language's conventional
distinctions will differ from another's, and hence,
that experiences engendered by different languages
will differ accordingly.
Now, with reference to ordinary experiences the
differences between Paramaartha
p. 402
and the modern constructivists in respect of
these two accounts of ordinary experience do not
significantly challenge their fundamental agreement.
Probably the most important difference centers on the
character of the critical formative milieu. For the

Buddhist, what shapes experience is "karma," action

or experience as a whole. This notion emphasizes the
role of experience more than language per se, whereas
the modern constructivist focuses his/her attentions
on language (though not to the exclusion of
experience(49) ) . Additionally, according to the
Western world view, only one's biographical
background in this life plays a role. In Yogaacaara,
while this life's background plays the dominant
formative role, karma derived from past lives is also
thought to have its influence.
Finally, Paramaartha writes of an "evolution" of
consciousness into objects. "Consciousness evolves in
two ways: (1) it evolves into selves (aatman); (2) it
evolves into things (dharma). Everything perceived
[or cognized] is included in these two objects [of
cognition]."(50) The Western constructivist would
deny such an evolutionary tenor and would prefer a
more neutral picture of objects and subjects mutually
conditioning one another, or perhaps appearing
together. This seeming discrepancy, however, may be
more apparent than real. Paramaartha does not intend
"evolve" here with the ontological, Darwinian
connotations we may understand. Rather, he means
"evolve" in the psychologically astute way we have
been discussing: the notion of "self" gradually
develops and with it the notion of objects and the
world over against my self. The general picture of
the world as a complex web gradually develops with
experience.(51)
Thus, Paramaartha and the modern constructivists
may disagree about the nature of the beginnings of
our constructions and disagree about precisely which
past habits and concepts shape any experience. These
are disagreements over details. But--and this is the
critical point--on the fundamental claim that
experiences are constructed by language, concept, and
past experiences, they agree profoundly: an ordinary
perceiver's experience of an object is in significant
ways shaped, delimited, and controlled by certain
previously learned, habituated perceptual and
cognitive categories. And this, it goes without
saying, is the key claim in the modern-day
constructivist's account of mysticism.
Perhaps no better confirmation could be found
that their pictures are parallel than this: in her
summary of Paramaartha's cognitive psychology, Diana
Paul's description could be, without changing a word,
a description of the constructivist picture given by
Katz, Gill, Gombrich, and others. Here is her summary
of Paramaartha:
How we perceive and construct our world is

influenced by associations from past experiences and

by the linguistic terms we use to categorize the
world we live in. For example, a child's fear of the
dark may be due to perceiving monsters lurking In his
room at night. These "monsters" may in turn have
p. 403
been shaped by a previous experience in which the
child's parents said a monster would spank the child
if he or she misbehaved. Every time the child
misbehaves, there is the recurrent fear of the dark
associated with fear of punishment. This fear affects
the child's perception, that is, monsters in the
room; the word "dark" can evoke all of these
feelings, perceptions, and ideas in the child.(52)
But that it is devoid of affective content, she
could equally well have used Katz's example of Monet
looking at Notre Dame.(53)
III. ARE MYSTICAL EVENTS CONSTRUCTED?
However, unlike Paramaartha's, the modern-day
constructivist's epistemo logical picture ends here.
For Katz, Gimello, Hick, and others, language,
expectation, and past experiences come together to
create mystical experiences in much the same way that
Monet's past experience led to his sensory
misperception. The construction of mystical
experience is structurally similar or identical to
the construction of sensory experience.(54)
Paramaartha's picture, on the other hand, does
not end here. Taking this constructivistic process as
his problematic, he begins here. He describes the
nature of the constructive process to help the
Buddhist adept understand it -- so that she/he can
gain arhatship or beyond by seeing through this
process: the construction engendered in the aalaya
vij~naana continues unchanged only "until the
attainment of Arhatship," that is, enlightenment.(55)
The functioning of the aadaana vij~naana "and its
associated [mental] states is eliminated in the Arhat
stage, and [these] are also eliminated upon entering
cessation-meditation (nirodha-samaapatti) "(56)
(italics mine) . Since perceptual and behavioral
experiences are constructed and shaped so
significantly by the intellect and its associated
five senses (the mano-vij~naana) , it is most
significant that Paramaartha writes:
On what occasions does this intellect
(mano-vij~naana) not arise? [Verse 34:] A: Except for
these six states--[cessation]
meditation

[nirodhasamaapatti], [meditation associated with the

third level or dhyana in] heavens without
conceptualization (asamj~nii-samaapatti), dreamless
sleep, drunken stupor, unconsciousness, or a coma-the
others always have it [intellect].(57)
In other words, during the first of these states,
nirodhasamapaatti, cessation meditation, the
constructive role played by past experiences and by
previously held concepts, habits, and expectations
ceases.
Such a claim stands as the soteriological raison
d'etre of the CSL--indeed of virtually all Yogaacaara
thought.(58) The picture of the mind as a
constructive agent was put forward, as I noted, in
order to make clear how the practitioner might bring
about its stoppage. 59 By seeing that one brings
about perception based on convention-founded
discrimination, one may stop those discriminations.
Paramaartha, here following Vasubandhu, observes
that if one does not
p. 404
perceive or encounter an object, then the conceptual
system as a whole does not arise. Verse 28 of the
Tri.m`sikaa says:
If the cognizer (vij~naana) does not apprehend
(upalabhate) the objects (aalambanam) , the two
[attachments to objects and to consciousness that grasps
the object, i.e. the attachments which are the product
of the aalaya and aadaana vij~naanas] are not
manifested.(60)
When the adept eliminates all objects of perception,
the aalaya vij~naana--the storehouse of seeds which
provides the interpretive categories -- temporarily
ceases active functioning. Fleshing this out: if no
objects are encountered or discriminated, none of the
mind's constructive activities can occur. Para maartha
comments:
"If the cognizer does not apprehend the object, the
two [attachments to objects and to consciousness that
gasps the object] are not manifested." The "sense
objects" are the objects of Consciousness-Only. Because
there are no objects, there is [also] no activity of
consciousness....These two [sense objects and
consciousness] only refer to two [processes of]
consciousnesses presented with a sense object before
them, but the sense object [presented] before
consciousness is already nonexistent.(61)

Such statements as these have significance for two

kinds of mystical experiences. I cannot here go into the
character of the most advanced form of mystical
experience, nirvaa.na, which involves a change in the
epistemological character of all of one's experience,
even "ordinary" waking experience. In brief, though, it
should be clear that if someone who has attained such a
state does not perceive (even in his everyday
activities) objects as "over against himself," for him
no separation between subject and perceived object
arises, and hence, the various attachments "cannot be
manifested." More relevant for the present study is
this: within meditation, if someone does not temporarily
encounter objects, no objects in nirodhasamaapatti will
be either discriminated or perceived. Hence no activities
of the aalaya vij~naana or the other two aspects of the
perceiver can arise. The aalaya can play no "seeding"
role, the aadaana can form no attachments, and the
manovij~naana can perform no discriminations. The
constructive functions of the ordinary mind, in other
words, are simply abolished in nirodhasamaapatti.(62)
The modern constructivist cannot both maintain his
own philosophical position concerning the etiology of
nirodhasamaapatti and also agree with Paramaartha on
this point. For these accounts of the constructive
activities of the mind in this mystical experience are
categorically opposed.
Now which approach is correct here? Does it make
sense that the Buddhist can bring about an unconstructed
state within him/herself? Or can we assert with
certainty, as Katz does, that "there are no unmediated
experiences"-- that all experiences are in part shaped,
constructed, and so forth?
We might offer a syllogism as a way of articulating
the claim of modern constructivism:
p. 405
All experiences are constructed;
All mystical events are experiences;
Therefore, all mystical events are constructed.
I believe that such a syllogism is actually at
work in recent thought about mysticism. The thinking
is, stated more informally: look, all experiences
have a similar or identical epistemological structure
in that they are all intentional and involve memory,
belief, and so forth. And mystical experiences are,
too. Hence, they are constructed. When Katz, for
example, speaks of the "kind of beings we are," he is
asserting that all experiences are of a like

structure owing to humanity's characteristic nature.

Here is his assertion to this effect:
This much is certain: the mystical experience
must be mediated by the kind of beings we are. And
the kind of beings we are requires that experience be
not only instantaneous and discontinuous, but that it
also involve memory, apprehension, expectation,
language, accumulation of prior experience, concepts,
and expectations, with each experience being built on
the back of all these elements and being shaped anew
by each fresh experience.(63)
Logically, the syllogism above is unimpeachable.
Furthermore, according to some definitions of
"experience," the syllogism is valid and true. If we
take one of Webster's suggestions and define
experience as "personally encountering, undergoing or
living through something, as the observing of an
event, " then "experience" bears an intentional
burden, and all experiences are indeed, according to
Paramaartha and the modern constructivists,
constructed. (For Paramaartha, all such experiences
are in and through the vij~naaptir vi.sayasya,
objective apperception, or the six "sense
consciousnesses," and are a result of the combined
activities of this structure, the aadaana and the
aalaya vij~naana--and hence are the result of
vikalpa, discrimination or construction.) Fine. To
avoid the intentional baggage of the term
"experience," then, I propose henceforward to speak
of mystical "events." But such a neat solution would
be overly facile,
of course, since it would be defining away the very
point at issue and thereby begging the question. The
question at issue is not "is nirodhasamaapatti
correctly called an experience?" but is rather "is
this mystical phenomenon, event, or what have you
correctly understood as constructed?"
As for this second, more interesting question, I
have noted Paramaartha's answer above: since no
objects are encountered, none of the agencies by
whose means people usually interpret and construct
objects are called into action. And I believe, the
claims of the modern constructivists notwithstanding,
that he is largely correct. In order to show why I
believe there are no cognitive constructions in
nirodhasamaapatti, I would like to suggest that there
are three ways by means of which the mind may be
thought to construct or mediate something: it may be
thought to contribute form, to contribute content, or
to be involved in the processes of experiencing.
None, however, I will argue, are herein involved.(64)

p. 406
A. Form
When Katz or Gimello uses such terms as "shape" and
"form," each seems to have a formal, Kantian picture
in mind.65" That is, a concept may be thought to
produce an objective unity out of the formless flux
which is presented to our senses by imposing a form
on it. The imposition of form may be thought to
operate in one of two directions. (1) In Kant's
picture, the operations of the mind impose a unity on
the complexity of the manifold, that is, the many
bits of sensory stimulation are brought to a unity as
an object. For Kant the unity was provided by the
categories. In a more modern view, one could maintain
that the language system provides its own kind of
unity on the formless flux of experience. The
pluralism thesis might be thought to emerge from this
process: that is, the varieties of unity imposed on
the manifold of the given give rise to a variety of
shaped experiences.
(2) The other direction through which form may be
imposed on the flux of experience is this: the given
may be regarded as a formless or seamless whole, and
concepts introduce divisions into this whole. As
Whorf states it, the result of imposing concepts is
an "artificial chopping up of the continuous spread
and flow of existence."(66) As above, the pluralism
thesis grows naturally out of this picture: the
categories in whose terms we introduce distinctions
will differ, and hence experiences will differ.
However virtuous these approaches may be in
unpacking the exigencies of ordinary experience, they
cannot plausibly explain a PCE. The reason is that
any combining of a manifold (as in 1) will to some
extent result in an experience which is complex in
some way. The shaping of a pluriform manifold will
add connections and divisions to such a manifold; it
would not erase complexity entirely. But complexity
is just what is lacking in PCEs.
On the other hand, the notion that concepts lend
complexity to a seamless whole (as in 2) is similarly
incapable of accounting for the PCE. If this process
is occurring during a PCE, then a uniformity (the
seamless whole) becomes divided up into a complexity
in such a way that a new contentless uniformity
results. But by Occam's razor we should eliminate the
intervening step. Concepts which distinguish cannot
be thought to be playing a role in a conscious event
devoid of distinctions. Hence, it is implausible that
concepts lend form in either sense to the PCE.

B. Content
In Monet's Notre Dame experience, expectations
and beliefs led him to introduce certain elements
(which are not present in the flow of sense
perception) into experience. Through an
automatization process he provided himself with
experiential content. Gimello's suggestion that the
mystical experience results from a "psychosomatic
enhancement" of his beliefs and expectations is of a
piece with this notion.(67) So is Katz's statement
that
p. 407
the Buddhist understanding of reality generates the
entire elaborate regime of Buddhist practice, and it
is this understanding of reality which defines in
advance what the Buddhist mystic is seeking and what
we can tell, from the evidence, he finds.(68)
The suggestion here is that expectations somehow
provide the content as well as the form of the
experience. The pluralism thesis grows out of this
notion because different expectations will produce
different experiential content.
Visionary experiences may be quite nicely
explained by this picture of someone providing
his/her own content. The Hindu's context and
background does seem to play a significant role in
the etiology of his vision of Krishna. Furthermore,
it is significant that, to my knowledge, we have no
records of a Christian seeing K.r.s.na or a medieval
Vai.s.navite seeing Christ.
However it is not clear that expectations are
providing content in the empty nirodhasamaapatti we
are considering. My reasons are as follows. (a) There
is no experienced content for consciousness
encountered therein. (b) I have argued elsewhere that
in mysticism expectations are frequently
confounded.(69) The neophyte is the dearest example;
the advanced adept also frequently encounters
phenomena for which she/he was ill prepared. If
expectations are playing the critical role in
providing content here, it is hard to see how someone
can possibly have a counter-expectational experience.
(c) Finally, if the mystic's "set" provides his
content, the different "sets" from the various
traditions should provide sharply different content.
Prigge and Kessler and I have shown elsewhere that we
have experiences from many traditions and ages which
are, at least, not sharply different.(70) I believe

that these experiences have identical definitions:

it is on this basis that I can describe them all with
a single expression: "pure consciousness event." It
is hard to explain why we should see experiences
which are so similar: how could they arise from such
divergent sources if this theory is true?
In sum, nirodhasamaapatti or pure consciousness
events are not plausibly explained as the result of
the subject's providing content.
C. Shaping Process
Not only is the constructivist position
ill-suited to make sense of the experience as it is
reported, it is also ill-suited to account for the
process which, from all we can tell, goes on during
the experience. In ordinary experiences it is
possible (at least in phenomenological theory) to
trace out the succession of epistemological processes
involved during any period of time. Through
introspection one could theoretically be able to
specify just which connections led from this thought
to that one, and from this sensation to that
perception, and so forth. Although a complete list of
shaping processes would be virtually impossible to
draw up, the kind of processes which seem to be
involved are well stated by Katz in a passage already
quoted:
p. 408
[T]he kind of beings that we are requires that
experience be not only instantaneous and
discontinuous, but that it also involve memory,
apprehension, expectation, language, accumulation of
prior experience, concepts, and expectations, with
each experience being built on the back of all these
elements and being shaped anew by each fresh
experience.(71)
It would not be difficult to imagine a succession
of thoughts and perceptions which involved all of
these. We might even show how each and every moment's
experience would be built on the back of the previous
experiences: my feeling of pangs in the belly led to
a comparison with similar pangs remembered from the
past, which led to a memory of a particular dinner,
which led to a recall of that dinner's conversation,
which led to a question asked therein, which led
to....
The point is that such complex connections, if
involved at all, can be traced step by step through
every successive experience. Each fresh experience

stands on the back of and moves forward from each

previous moment in some more or less clearly
specifiable way. Each experience is relatively
discontinuous from each previous experience, and yet
it is related to the previous experience through such
processes as these. These processes--the way I make
connections--may be thought to the way I construct
experiences.
However, it is difficult to see how such
processes may be occurring during nirodhasamaapatti.
For here we have a phenomenon two successive moments
of which are, for all intents and purposes,
identical. No report states, for example, "I had a
rough few moments in my pure consciousness event and
then it grew quieter," or "It was a bright PCE but
got darker," or "At first I thought about thus and
such during my PCE and this led to...." The reports
we have are of a period of time in which, once it
begins, no subjectively observed changes occur. It is
utterly homogeneous. Under such circumstances it is
difficult to see how someone may be differentiating
his or her awareness, remembering this or that,
building on the back of the previous experiences,
shaping the new experience through a process of
comparison or imposition of concepts, and so forth.
There is just not enough complexity to warrant the
claim that such processes are occurring.
The pure consciousness event is a conscious event
which may be described adequately with a single
noncompound sentence. Several studies of its
physiological correlates suggest that it may last as
long as forty-five seconds.(72) Think how complex a
sentence would have to be to describe a
forty-five-second continuum of thoughts! Or how many
sensations and perceptions must be processed,
organized, and sifted through while driving a car
through city traffic for forty-five seconds! It is
hard to see how meditative events are the products of
identical epistemological processes as such ordinary
experiences. One involves comparison, computation,
elimination, and incorporation of sensory input,
determination of direction, and so forth. The other
is more like, if you will, just being present. The
two cases are just not similar.
p. 409
In conclusion, pure consciousness events do not
show signs of being constructed or shaped in either
form, content, or process. But the constructivist
position necessarily requires that one or more of
these three be demonstrably present. Without further
argumentation, the modern constructivist's claim that

such events are significantly shaped, constructed,

and/or formed by epistemological processes like those
which are responsible for ordinary constructed
experiences fails.
How will the modern constructivist presumably
defend his position that Paramaartha is wrong and
that nirodhasamaapatti does not result from the
stoppage of mental constructions? Although no one
answers this question directly, an answer is built
into the structure of Katz's argument. Fundamentally,
it is because we are the "kinds of beings we are"(73)
that all our experience must always involve
constructive activities. For the kind of beings we
are requires that experience involve memory,
concepts, apprehension, expectation, language,
accumulation of prior experience, and so forth with
each experience being built on the back of all
previous ones. Thus, any experience of X--be X God or
nirvaa.na--will be conditioned both linguistically
and cognitively by a variety of factors, including
the expectation of what will be experienced.(74) Even
an attempt to rid ourselves of constructive
activities sets up expectations and, as such,
conditions the resultant experience. Hence, any
possible attempt to rid ourselves of such
constructive activities is doomed to failure.
In bald language, because he is committed to his
constructivist picture of experience as a whole, the
modern constructivist must say that even to lay out a
set of instructions designed to bring about such a
new form of experience would be a wrong-headed
attempt. All experience is, and always will be,
constructed!
I have two comments in response to such an
argument. First, it is not the philosopher's or the
textual critic's place to decide in advance whether a
novel technique can do a job. Whether or not a
meditation technique can effectively eliminate some
set of constructions is an empirical question. The
philosopher's role concerning such matters (as
opposed to purely analytic ones) is to describe and
interpret--but not to legislate.
Secondly, a claim that a set of instructions can
never function to eliminate mental constructions
would itself be a mistake. Just so that we can agree
on what we are talking about, here is a sample of
some instructions. It is from Dogen's Fukan zazengi,
a very famous Zen instruction manual, and from it we
can see how a passage may function not only as a
description, but also as a set of instructions.
In the room which you use for zazen, spread some

thick mats and place a firm, round pillow on them.

Sit on the pillow with your legs crossed either in
the full lotus position or (sit) in the half lotus
position. This means [in the full
p. 410
lotus position] that you place your right foot on
your left thigh, and your left foot on your right
thigh. In the half lotus position, you just put your
left foot on your right thigh with the right foot on
the mat beneath your left thigh].
Loosen your clothes and belt and arrange them
neatly. Next, place your left hand [palm up] in the
palm of your right hand. Both thumb tips should touch
slightly.
Now regulate your posture so you are sitting
properly, leaning neither to the left nor to the
right, forward nor backward. Your ears and shoulders
should be in a straight line, and from the front,
your nose will be in a direct line with your navel.
Place your tongue against the roof of your mouth, and
keep your teeth and lips closed. Your eyes should be
[slightly] open, and your breathing should be soft.
When your body posture is correct, breathe in and
out [once, deeply]. Sway left and right [several
times] and then sit firmly and resolutely. Think
about the unthinkable. How do you think about the
unthinkable? Do not think. These are the essentials
of zazen.
Like most instructions, words like "place your
right foot on your left thigh, and your left foot on
your right thigh" function as a description of the
act of getting into the lotus position, and as an
instruction to do so. Similarly words like "do not
think" also seem simultaneously to describe and
instruct. Hence, it would appear from surface grammar
that these two statements function similarly.
Having heard the instructions "place your right
foot...," someone may perceive or imagine such an act
in just these terms. Having done so, she/he may
employ these words or notions in part to construct
his/her perception. To perceive something as a foot,
as over or under, or as a religious act (an act in a
religious context) already introduces interpretive
and discriminative categories. It acts, mutatis
mutandis, like "look at that door" or "paint those
Gothic archways!"
"Do not think" seems to be similar. It appears at

first glance to be another constructive perceptual

description or instruction which sets up a category
by means of which one will see or perceive something.
Here, however, is where the mistake is. The advocate
of this position is mistaking a deconstructive
instruction for a constructive perceptual description
or instruction.
Not every instructive utterance serves to set up
experiential categories. If you say to Monet, "forget
about your Gothic expectations and look again," you
will not be providing him with new categories for his
experience. Perhaps some other of his previously
acquired expectations or beliefs about buildings may
start playing a role--like what a Romanesque archway
is. But in giving your instruction, you, the
instructor in this case, have not introduced that
expectation or any other to him. You have only told
him that his old one had misled him. You have spoken
in the via negativa, if you will. You have simply
deconstructed, in more modern parlance, his
constructive expectation on the basis of which he had
painted. If he obeys you, your statement will have
played a role in stopping him from constructing his
experience in terms of his habits and expectation.
p. 411
Many instructions serve to deconstruct: "Forget
it," "Put aside your expectations," "Just listen!"
and so forth--all may play a deconstructive role. An
instruction to a painter, "Paint just what is there,"
serves such a role. Inasmuch as a therapist attempts
to decrease compulsive behavioral patterns and leave
the client with greater options and choices,
psychotherapy may be viewed as a deconstructive
activity; so, too, one might understand the scholar's
attempts to read "just what is in the text" and not
impose his or her own beliefs on it. Such
instructions do not attempt to provide a new set of
expectation; all counsel someone to stop perceiving
or behaving on the basis of old perceptual or
behavioral patterns.
Many if not most fields have some set of
deconstructive instructions built into them. This is
one way we have of insuring that our conceptual
systems remain responsive to the world.
The fact that there are deconstructive
instructions may go largely unnoticed. That is
because had Monet been told that he had imposed his
expectations onto his perception, he might have
dropped "Gothic" but he would not have been able to
drop every expectation and belief. There are many

complex and interconnecting levels of construction in

ordinary experience, and no one, relatively simple
deconstructive process could possibly address all of
these.(75)
However, Buddhist instructions and meditation
practices are not as simple as a single
deconstructive remark. The Buddhist procedures are,
as I see them, complex and polyvalent systems of
physiological, psychological, and intellectual
practices and performances which together, it is
hoped, will bring about a progressively less
discriminated form of experience until an entirely
nondiscriminated event occurs, The `deautomatization
achieved by meditation as described by Diekman,(76)
the intellectual transformation described by
Streng, (77) the studied-mindfulness technique of
"meditating while walking," and so forth, taken
together and practiced for years, are designed to
reduce systematically the number and significance of
perceptual and behavioral discriminations. Such
interactive deconstructive techniques together may
serve to do what the system claims for itself, that
is, to allow one to cease discriminating and seeing
in terms of subject and object. This stands as an
aspect of the forgetting model I have elsewhere put
forward for mysticism.(78)
Since the constructivist lays such stress on the
formative role of the tradition itself, it is
especially revealing that Buddhist texts like the
Diamond Suutra and the Fukan zazengi overtly attempt
to dissuade the practitioner from employing
expectations
about
Buddha,
Nirvaa.na,
Boddhisattvaship, and so forth.(79) When Dogen
instructs, "having stopped the various functions of
your mind, give up even the idea of becoming a
Buddha," he singles out the key concept which may
lead one to expect and construct in Buddhist
terms.(80) He encourages his reader or disciple to
cease employing such a loaded idea. As any piece of
language must, this utterance does stand as part of
the language
p. 412
of the tradition; yet his intention is clearly
deconstructive. His instruction is not designed to
function like a constructive perceptual description.
To confuse the two forms of instruction would be a
mistake.
The results of a set of techniques and notions
which intentionally disallow such constructive
processes are inexplicable by the modern-day

constructivist's system. A system which bases

itself on the fact that all experiences are "in part
formed and shaped" by past experiences and
expectations cannot plausibly take seriously the
words of mystics who are attempting in part to undo
just that kind of formation and shaping.
EPISTEMOLOGICAL MONOMORPHISM AND DUOMORPHISM
I have set one school of constructivism up
against another in order to reveal an unnoticed
assumption in modern constructivism. The tacit and
undefended assumption is that all experiences are, in
their foundational structure, epistemologically
uniform. Modern constructivism argues from an
epistemological monomorphism, to coin a term, a
uniform pattern or epistemological structure. The
modern constructivist can argue for his ontological
pluralism based on a dogmatic belief in this
epistemological uniformity.
Katz states that there is "a single
epistemoiogical assumption which has exercised his
thinking," that is, that all experiences are mediated
or constructed.(81) The undisclosed foundation of
that epistemological assumption is that all
experiences are intentional, mediated, constructed,
and more or less like Monet's perception of Notre
Dame. Wainwright and Penehelum base their arguments
on a similar epistemological homogeneity--here
between intentional sense experience and mystical
experience.(82) Gill writes out of the belief that
all experiences are alike in that they are one and
all vectorial and relational.(83) Each tacitly
assumes that all experiences are epistemologically
monomorphic.
Indeed, open-sounding ontological pluralism may
be a smokescreen for the dogmatic belief that all
experiences are structurally identical. It may be
couched innocently--as an epistemological assumption
or as a self-evident truth--but unestablished claim
it is.
Modern constructivists cannot logically accept
Paramaartha's assertions of an epistemological
duomorphism, that is, that some experiences are
conditioned and some are unconditioned. Nor can this
position coherently admit that one can possibly
follow common Buddhist instructions to cease thinking
or perceiving in terms of such loaded notions as
Nirvaa.na, Boddhisattva, and samaadhi. Nor can the
modern constructivist accept the common Zen assertion
that one can and should cease thinking, using
discriminative thought, and so forth.(84) The claim
of epistemological duomorphism is that there are (at

least) two kinds of mental functioning and that they

should not be conflated.
In his inventory of states of consciousness,
Roland Fischer has described a wide range of these
states.(85) He charts a range from "ergotropic,"
hyperaroused
p. 413
hallucinatory experience, through
ordinary
perception, through trophotropic, hypoaroused
samaadhic forms. These all have sharply different
phenomenological signatures. I think that anyone who
assumes without argument that all such forms of
experience are of any single epistemological
structure is guilty of a form of oversimplification.
V. CONCLUDING REMARKS
Allow me to conjecture for a moment. It would not
be an exaggeration to say that until recently
Westerners have not been renowned in the East for
their openness to Eastern ways of thinking about
things. While a few nineteenth-century scholars and
thinkers came to admire what they saw of Hindu and
Buddhist philosophical thought, the more typical
response has been more arrogant. As Evans-Wentz
observed:
Until the Occident outgrows its adolescent
assumption of intellectual and spiritual superiority
over the Wise Men of the East, it will fail to
understand, much less to profit by, the doctrine of
the Voidness."
Until very recently, few believed that the East
had anything of real value to offer us of the Western
philosophical tradition.
Here, however, I believe that we have something
very important to learn from the likes of Dogen and
Paramaartha. Even though the constructivistic picture
may be applicable to most experiences, these men
maintain that, as James put it long ago, there may be
something more. They maintain that there are other
epistemotogical structures, other forms of
consciousness, if you will, of which human beings may
be (they would say "are") capable. One such structure
results, they say, from progressively eliminating
things like habitual expectations, conventional
distinctions, emotions based on childhood
experiences, and even that most ancient of
epistemoiogical structures, the dichotomy between
subject and object.

Certainly such a process of dehabituation does

not seem utterly inconceivable. Is it not conceivable
that the human being is capable of realizing that
such distinctions are more or less conventional? Even
modern philosophers have noted the conventional
character of all conceptual systems. Does the most
likely next step--that one can existentially realize
this in one's own life--not seem equally conceivable?
Does it seem so impossible that, with practice, we
can learn to live without employing the old pigeon
holes?(87)
These Buddhist authors also tell us that the
lives which have been founded on such distinctions
are one and all lives of suffering, du.hkha. The
connections between these two notions are complex,
and I could not hope to present them adequately in a
paragraph or two. But in brief, it should be clear
that the distinctions we draw between rich and poor,
smart and stupid, beautiful and ugly, better and
worse people, health and sickness, and perhaps even
life and death, stand at the cognitive foundation of
our self-perception and the choices
p. 414
we make constantly. Even if presently satisfied, to
prefer wealth or success or happiness over their
respective opposites is to live in subconscious or
conscious dread of just those opposites. As Buddha
saw on his second and third excursions from his
father's palace, to prefer health over sickness and
life over death is ultimately to face disappointment.
Life perceived in terms of such distinctions will
inevitably lead to suffering.
Paramaartha, in typical Buddhist fashion,
prescribes his intellectual and meditative techniques
as an antidote to the problem of the constructed
nature of ordinary experience. He notes that with a
life constructed in part out of terms like "I" and
"you," "good" and "bad," and "life" and "death" comes
suffering. Perhaps, just perhaps, we in the West have
something to be gained by an openness to this way of
thinking. Given the level of pain, anxiety, and
stress in our culture, perhaps it would be wise to
remain open to the possibility that epistemologically
and technically (that is, through meditation
techniques), the Buddhist knows something we do not.
This claim--that there may be more than one
epistemological structure, and that the atypical
(mystical) ones may not be exposed to suffering--may
turn out to be more important than anyone expected.

NOTES
1. James Clark, Meister Eckhart: An Introduction to
the Study of His works with an Anthology of His
Sermons (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1957);
Carl Franklin Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine
Knowledge (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1977).
2. This is one of the key influences identified by
Reiner Schurmann, Meister Eckhart: Mystic and
Philosopher (Bloomington, Indiana: University of
Indiana Press, 1978).
3. Benedict Ashley, O.P., "Three Strands in the
Thought of Eckhart, the Scholastic Theologian,"
The Thomist 42 (1978): 226-239.
4. David Kenneth Clark, "Meister Eckhart as an
Orthodox Christian" (Dissertation, North-western
University, 1984), bases the connection explicitly
on Katz's work. So, too, does Bernard McGinn,
"Meister Eckhart: An Introduction," in
Introduction to the Medieval Mystics of Europe,
ed. Paul Szernach (Bingamton, New York: SUNY
Press, 1984), pp. 237-258.
5. Robert M. Gimello, "Mysticism and Meditation," in
Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, ed. Steven
Katz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978),
pp. 170-199; Robert Gimello, "Mysticism in its
Contexts," in Mysticism and Religious Traditions,
ed. Steven Katz (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1983), pp. 61-88.
6. Peter Moore, "Mystical Experience, Mystical
Doctrine, Mystical Technique, " in Katz, ed.,
Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis, pp. 101-131.
See also "Christian Mysticism and Interpretation:
Some Philosophical Issues Illustrated in the Study
of the Medieval English Mystics," in The Medieval
Mystical Tradition in England: Exeter Symposium
IV, ed. Marion Glasscoe (London: D. S. Brewer,
1987), pp. 154-176.
7. William Wainwright, Mysticism (Madison, Wisconsin:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1981).
8. Jerry Gill, "Mysticism and Mediation," Faith and
Philosophy 1 (1984): 111-121.
9. As represented in his Religious Experience
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
10. Ninian Smart, "Interpretation and Mystical
Experience," Religious Studies 1 (1965): 75-87.
11. John Hick, "Mystical Experience as Cognition," in
Understanding Mysticism, ed. Richard P. Woods,
O.P. (Garden City, New York: Image Books, 1980),
pp. 422-437.
p. 415
12. Terence Penehelum, "Unity and Diversity in

Interpretation of Mysticism, " in Woods, ed.,

Understanding Mysticism, pp. 438-448.
13. Steven Katz, "Language, Epistemology and
Mysticism, " in Mysticism and Philosophical
Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press,
1978) , pp. 22-74; Steven Katz, "The
`Conservative' Character of Mystical Experience,"
in Katz, ed., Mysticism and Religious Traditions,
PP. 3-60.
14. From 1982 to 1984 alone it was glossed in some
fifteen articles. Some of them are: Richard
Jones, "Experience and Conceptualization in
Mystical Knowledge," Zygon 18 (1983): 139-165;
Dierdre Green, "Unity in Diversity [Typology of
Mysticism], " Scottish Journal of Religious
Studies 3 (1982) : 46-58; Jure Kristo, "The
Interpretation of Religious Experience: What do
Mystics Intend When They Talk about Their
Experiences?" Journal of Religion 62 (1982):
21-38; Karel Werner, "Mysticism as Doctrine and
Experience," Religious Traditions 4 (1981): 1-18;
and James Home, "Pure Mysticism and Two-Fold
Typologies: James to Katz," Scottish Journal of
Religious Studies 3 (1982): 3-14. In a recent
American Academy of Religion conference (1985),
no fewer than seven papers were devoted to a
consideration of this article.
15. Katz, "Language, Epistemology and Mysticism,"
p. 30.
16. Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism: A Study in the
Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual
Consciousness (New York: Dutton, 1911; reprint,
1961); and Practical Mysticism (New York: Dutton,
1915, reprint, n.d.).
17. Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (New
York: Harper Colophon Book, 1944; reprint, 1970).
18. Frithjof Schuon, The Transcendental Unity of
Religions, trans. Peter Townsend (New York:
Harper Torchbook, 1975).
19. Rudolf Otto, Mysticism East and West, trans.
Bertha Bracey and Richenda Payne (New York:
Macmillan, 1960).
20. W. T. Stace, Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis
(London: Macmillan, 1960).
21. Huston Smith, Forgotten Truth: The Primordial
Tradition (New York: Harper Colophon Books,
1976). A similar view is found in his more recent
Beyond the Post Modern Mind (New York:
Crossroads, 1982).
22. Katz, "Language, Epistemology and Mysticism,"
p. 25.
23. Anthony Perovich, "Mysticism and Mediation: A
Response to Gill, " Faith and Philosophy 2.
(1985): 179-188; Robert K. C. Forman, "Cessation
in Dogen's Fukanzazengi," Journal of Religion,
under consideration.

24. Anthony Perovich, Jr., "Mysticism and the

Philosophy of Science," The Journal of Religion
65 (1985): 210-221.
25. Robert K. C. Forman, "The Construction of
Mystical Experience, " Faith and Philosophy
(forthcoming, 1988) . The argument here is
amplified in my dissertation, "Constructivism in
Paramartha, Soto Zen Buddhism, and in Eckhart"
(Columbia University, 1988), chap. 6.
26. Steven Bernhardt, "Are Pure Consciousness Events
Unmediated? " in The Problem of Pure
Consciousness, ed. Robert K. C. Forman (New York:
Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
27. Gary Kessler and Norman Prigge, "A Universal
Mystical Experience?" in Forman, ed., The Problem
of Pure Consciousness.
28. Katz, "Language, Epistemology and Mysticism,"
p. 66.
29. The dabate here, which I do not wish to enter, is
whether the Yogaacaara school saw everything as
the creation of language and concept, or rather a
large part of experience. Is there something "out
there" or nothing, or merely something of which
we know nothing? Whatever the answer to this
conundrum, the fact that experience is, as Katz
put it, "at least in part" the result of the
constructive activities of the mind is not at
issue.
30. Chris Gudmunsen, Wittgenstein and Buddhism (New
York: Macmillan, 1977), p. 58; La^nkaavataara
Suutra 226. As noted below, the Buddhist
sensitivity to the possibility of other language
systems may be in part attributed to the polyglot
and pluralistic society amidst which it was born
and grew. That makes another parallel between
these two philosophical systems.
31. On this see Paul Griffiths, "Pure Consciousness
and Indian Buddhism," in Forman, ed., The Problem
of Pure Consciousness.
32. Gudmunsen, p. 58; La^nkaavataara Suutra 226.
p. 416
33. Gudmunsen, p. 58; La^nkaavataara Suutra 225.
34. Diana Paul, Philosophy of Mind in Sixth-Century
China: Paramartha's `Evolution of Consciousness'
(Stanford, California: Stanford University Press,
1984); "An Introductory Note to Paramartha's
Theory of Language," Journal of Indian Philosophy
7, no. 3 (September 1979) : 231-255; "The
Structure of Consciousness in Paramaartha's
Purported Trilogy," Philosophy East and West 31,
no. 3 (July 1981): 297-319. A responsible and
insightful review of this book is by Collete Cox,
in Journal of Asian Studies 45, no. 1 (November

1985): 125-127. A less helpful review is by J. W.

de Jong, Journal of the International Association
of Buddhist Studies 9, no. 1 (1986): 129-133; see
Diana Paul's rebuttal, pp. 133-135, and de Jong's
reply, pp. 135-136. While generally favorable to
Paul's work, these reviewers criticize Paul for
style and organization, and for what they feel
are flaws in translation. Their criticisms,
however, do not affect the theses of the present
article since they do not criticize Paul's
version of Paramaartha's philosophy of mind, the
issue at hand. In the relevant passages I will
make note of their alternative translations.
35. Paul, Philosophy of Mind, p. 155; CSL 61c3-4.
36. Cf. Paul, "The Structure of Consciousness, "
p. 301.
37. Paul, Philosophy of Mind, pp. 153-154; CSL
61c5-6.
38. Paul, Philosophy of Mind, p. 161; CSL 62c20. Cf.
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Charles A. Moore, A
Sourcebook in Indian Philosophy (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1957), p. 336.
39. Paul, Philosophy of Mind, p. 161; CSL 62c20-21.
40. Paul, Philosophy of Mind, pp. 161-162; CSL
63c21-63a6.
41. I am indebted here to Paul, "The Structure of
Consciousness," p. 301.
42. Paul, Philosophy of Mind, p. 155; CSL 62a15;
verse 4a.
43. Paul translates vij~naptir vi.sayasya as the six
sense consciousnesses, which is a somewhat free
rendering. Vij~napti is a technical term which
refers to mental or perceptual events with
intentional objects wherein something is
represented. Her term, if taken literally, misses
this nuance. See here Paul Griffiths, On Being
Mindless (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Press,
1986), p. 80.
44. Paul, Philosophy of Mind, p. 154; CSL 62a6.
45. Theodore Stcherbatsky, The Central Conception of
Buddhism (London, 1923; reprint, Calcutta, 1961),
pp. 46-47: "The element of consciousness
according to the same laws [pratiitysamutpaada]
never appears alone, but always supported by an
object (vi.saya) and a receptive faculty
(indriya)."
46. Paul, "The Structure of Consciousness," p. 305.
47. Here I am indebted to Paul Griffiths, "Pure
Consciousness and Indian Buddhism," in Forman,
ed., The Problem of Pure Consciousness,
pp. 17-18. 48. Katz, "Language, Epistemology
and Mysticism," p. 30, quoting Coleridge.
49. Katz, "Language, Epistemology and Mysticism,"
p. 59, asserts that among other things,
"accumulation of past experience" conditions
present experience.

50. CSL 61c1-2.

51. One of my readers for Philosophy East and West
has claimed that Paramaartha is taking a
subjective idealistic, solipsistic position,
which makes him different from the modern
constructivist. Even if this description of him
were true, on the present matter--that of the
constructed nature of conscious intentional
experience--this difference would have no
bearing. If anything, it would make Paramaartha
even more of a constructivist than the modern
one. However, I do not think it gives an accurate
picture of Paramaartha, since to describe
Paramaartha as an idealist misses his typically
Buddhist assertion that there is no substantial
idealistic absolute creating the external world
(see verse 25a exegesis, in Paul, Philosophy of
Mind, p. 165) . Instead he focuses on the
constructive activities of the mind which
represent the world as over against the self
(verse 24a exegesis, in Paul, ibid., p. 165). Nor
does he deny that there are causes of sense data.
His whole emphasis is on the representational and
constructive activities of the mind. And these,
it need hardly be said, parallel the modern
constructivist's assertions.
52. Paul, Philosophy of Mind, pp. 98-99.
53. Of course Paul, a modern academic, may be thought
to be influenced by the same background of
beliefs as is Katz et al. She may be
reinterpreting Paramaartha here based on her own
p. 417
constructivistic views. Let me say only that I am
in no position to judge her analysis of
Paramaartha. However, I know of no one who has
criticized her on this point.
54. William Wainwright's Mysticism is most explicit
on this point. He argues for a parallel between
sense experience and mystical experience,
implying that the epistemological processes
involved are identical in both.
55. Paul, Philosophy of Mind, p. 155; CSL 62a1l.
56. Translation Cox's, in Journal of Asian Studies
(November 1985), p. 126; Paul, Philosophy of
Mind, p. 155; CSL 62a16, has "being ultimately
eliminated upon entering cessation meditation."
This was criticized by Cox, which criticism was
repeated by de Jong, p. 131. Cox noted, glossing
Sthiramati, that the aadaanavij~nana "though
eliminated upon entering the equipoise of
cessation, nirodha samaapatti, arises again upon
emergence from that equipoise" (p. 126); de Jong
echoes this observation. Cox's "and are also

eliminated" communicates this notion. In her

rebuttal to de Jong, Paul replies that "the text,
according to Paramaartha's rendering of this
verse, does state quite clearly that the
aadaanavij~nana is eliminated absolutely in
cessation meditation" (p. 135) . I will not
attempt to adjudicate this matter, since the
debate does not threaten my point here: during
nirodhasamaapatti the activities of the
aadaanavij~nana are eliminated either transiently
or permanently.
57. Paul, Philosophy of Mind, p. 158; CSL 62b17-19. I
should note that de Jong accuses Paul of
borrowing the two samaapattis (nirodhasamaapatti,
cessation mediation, and asamj~nasamaapatti, the
dhyaana without conceptualization) from
Paramaartha's original source, the Tri.m`sikaa,
and applying it to Paramaatha's text. If de Jong
is correct, I would have to amend the last two
sentences of this paragraph to say that the
Tri.m`sikaa notes that. Paul unfortunately does
not address this criticism.
58. "What seemed important to them [the Yogaacaarins]
was the statement that the Absolute is `Thought,'
in the sense that it is to be sought not in any
object at all, but in the pure subject which is
free from all objects" (Edward Conze, Buddhism:
Its Essence and Development (New York: Harper and
Row, 1959), p. 163).
59. As Alan Sponberg presents it in "Dynamic
Liberation in Yogaacaara Buddhism," The Journal
of the International Association of Buddhist
Studies 2 (1979) : 46-61, the enlightened
individual abides in a state of "nondiscriminating cognition (nirvikalpaka-j~nana)"
in which the discriminating functions are cut off.
This is especially clear in the transic state of
cessation meditation, nirodhasamaapatti, in which
there is an absence of both object and cognition.
60. Paul, Philosophy of Mind, p. 166; CSL 63c2.
61. Paul, Philosophy of Mind, p. 167; CSL 63c13.
62. Paul Griffiths, in "Pure Consciousness and
Buddhism," concurs with this thesis. In his On
Being Mindless, he argues that this state should
not be considered a state of consciousness as we
generally understand the term. This is a matter
which would require a full article to discuss.
But for the present, we do agree that, whatever
we call this empty event, there are no
constructive activities at work therein.
63. Katz, "Language, Epistemology and Mysticism,"
p. 59.
64. For the arguments of this section I am indebted
to Anthony Perovich, "Mysticism and the
Conceptual Structure of Experience" (Philosophy
of Religion Section, American Academy of

Religion, Nov. 21, 1985).

65. Katz, "Language, Epistemology and Mysticism,"
pp. 24-26; Gimello, "Mysticism in its Contexts,"
p. 62.
66. Benjamin Lee Whorf, Language, Thought and
Reality, ed. John Carroll (Cambridge: MIT Press,
1956), p. 253.
67. Robert Gimello, "Mysticism in its Contexts,"
p. 85.
68. Katz, "Language, Epistemology and Mysticism,"
p. 39.
69. Robert Forman, "The Construction of Mystical
Experience."
70. Norman Prigge and Gary Kessler, "A Universal
Mystical Experience?" in Robert K. C. Forman,
Constructivism in Paramaartha, Soto Zen Buddhism
and in Eckhart.
71. Katz, "Language, Epistemology and Mysticism,"
p. 59.
72. John Farrow and J. R. Hebert, "Breath Suspension
during the Transcendental Meditation Technique,"
Psychosomatic Medicine 44 (1981): 133-153; John
Farrow, "Physiological Changes
p. 417
Associated with Transcendental Consciousness, The
State of Least Excitation of Consciousness," in
Scientific Research on the Transcendental
Meditation Program: Collected Papers, vol. 1, ed.
David Orme Johnson (Weggis, Switzerland:
Maharishi European Research University, 1977),
pp. 108-133; J. Russell Hebert, "Periodic
Suspension of Respiration During the
Transcendental Meditation Technique," ibid.,
pp. 134-136.
73. Katz, "Language, Epistemology and Mysticism,"
p. 59.
74. Ibid.
75. E. H. Gombrich, in Art and Illusion: A Study in
the Psychology of Pictorial Representation
(Princetion: Princeton University Press, 1960),
shows how complex are the many layers of
perceptual psychology. See here also his "The
Mask and the Face," in E. H. Gombrich, Julian
Hochberg, and Max Black, Art Perception and
Reality (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1972), pp. 1-46. Also Julian Hochberg's
"The Representation of Things and People," in the
same volume, pp. 47-73.
76. Arthur Diekman, "Deautomatization and the Mystic
Experience, " Psychiatry 29 (1966) : 324-388;
reprinted in Charles Tart, ed., Altered States of
Consciousness (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.,
1969), pp. 23-44.

77. Frederick Streng, Emptiness: A Study in Religious

Meaning (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1967); and
"The Process of Ultimate Transformation in
Naagaarjuna's Maadhyamika," Eastern Buddhist 9,
no. 2 (October 1978): 12-32.
78. Robert Forman,
"The Construction of Mystical
Experience"; this is amplified in the
"Introduction," in Forman, ed., The Problem of
Pure Consciousness.
79. This is quite a common theme in Buddhism. To
take just one example:
Subhuti, what do you think? Does a holy one say
within himself: I have obtained Perfective
Enlightenment?
Subhuti said: No, World-honoured One. Wherefore?
Because there is no such condition as that called
"Perfective Enlightenment." World-honoured One,
if a holy one of Perfective Enlightenment said to
himself "such am I," he would necessarily partake
of the idea of an ego-entity, a personality, a
being, or a separated individuality.
World-honoured One, when the Buddha declares that
I excel amongst holy men in the Yoga of perfect
quiescence, in dwelling in seclusion, and in
freedom from passions, I do not say within
myself: I am a holy one of Perfective
Enlightenment, free from passions. World-honoured
One, if I said within myself: Such am I; you
would not declare: Subhuti finds happiness
abiding in peace, in seclusion in the midst of
the forest. This is because Subhuti abides no
where. (The Diamond Suutra, trans. A. F. Price
and Wong Mou-Lam (Boulder: Shambhala, 1969),
p.35.)
80. Yuho Yokoi, Master Dogen: An Introduction with
Selected Writings (New York: Weatherhill, 1976),
p. 46.
81. Katz, "Language, Epistemology and Mysticism,"
p. 26.
82. Wainwright, Mysticism; Terence Penehelum, "Unity
and Diversity in Interpretation of Mysticism," in
Woods, ed., Understanding Mysticism, pp. 438-448.
83. Gill, "Mysticism and Mediation."
84. In a brief summary of Soto teachings,
"Controlling the Mind," the primate of the modern
Soto Zen school, Roshen Takashina, states the
goal of zazen, sitting in meditation:
Think of not thinking of anything at all. How is
one to think of not thinking of anything at all?
Be without thoughts--this is the secret of
meditation. Being without thoughts is the object
of Zen meditation; the control of body and mind
is only a method of reaching it.... What is meant
by the absence of thoughts? The living samaadhi..
of all the Buddhas is no other than the state of
absolute absence of thoughts....[A]n ancient

says: "In Zen the important thing is to stop the

course of the heart." It means to stop the
workings of our empirical consciousness, the mass
of thoughts, ideas and perceptions. (E. Conze,
Buddhist Scriptures (New York: Penguin, 1979),
p. 138.)
85. Roland Fischer, "A Cartography of the Ecstatic
and Meditative States, " in Woods, ed.,
[Understanding Mysticism, pp. 270-285.
86. W. Y. Evans-Wentz, foreword to The Diamond Sutra
and the Sutra of Hui Neng, trans. A. F. Price and
Wong Mou-Lam (Boulder: Shambhala Press, 1979),
pp. 12-13.
87. Sheldon R. Isenberg and Gene R. Thursby, "A
Perennial Philosophy Perspective on Richard
Rorty's Neo-Pragmatism," International Journal
for Philosophy of Religion 17 (1985): 41-65.