Review

Author(s): Douglas Dunsmore Daye

Review by: Douglas Dunsmore Daye
Source: Philosophy East and West, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Apr., 1975), pp. 242-243
Published by: University of Hawai'i Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1397944
Accessed: 18-08-2015 09:34 UTC

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242 Book Reviews

existence of such discussions; actual analysis has to be carried out which captures the
analysts' interest without any sort of special pleading.

KARL H. POTTER
Universityof Washington

The BuddhistExperience: Sources and Interpretations,edited and translatedby Stephan

Beyer. Encino, Ca.: Dickenson Publishing Co., 1974. Pp. 280. (Price not given.)

Beyer's second book is a scholarly tour de Jorce which combines a profound and deep
knowledge of Buddhismwith that rarequality in scholars, aestheticand religious sensitivity.
The book exhibits deep insight into the nature of religious experienceand to the existential
needs and mundane human context within which religious experience is often found. For
example, Beyer's inclusion of portions of the Theravada Vinaya texts, shunned by I. B.
Homer (translatorfor the Pali Text Society) because of the mention of such sexual practices
as masturbation, will greatly reduce the gap between the student's perception of Buddhism
and the rather aloof tone of many contemporary anthologies. Also the inclusion of selec-
tions on the techniques of meditation (samadhi,for example, pp. 91 ff.) renders the book
"relevant" to a student audience and gives it a nice flavor of being an insiders' view of
Buddhism (for example, Mila, p. 174). Its tone is human, religious, respectably exotic (in
places), and very suitable for the classroom.
The book represents a milestone in the contextual exposition of Buddhist religious
doctrine. It is superior to most, if not all, other anthologies in the following two respects.
First, Beyer gives one an exposition of the existential, aesthetic, and religious dimensions
common to the whole Buddhist tradition. He did not set out (I take it) to perform the
usual compromise between a strictly theological exposition and a philologically oriented
exposition of Buddhist doctrine; rather he strove to convey the flavor and the taste of the
phenomenology of Buddhist religious experience. He has done just that and he has done
it in a manner superior to other anthologies.
Secondly, the book has the added advantage of not being a collection of alreadyexisting
translations done by diverse hands; rather Beyer has edited and newly translated all the
materials himself. As with Wing-tsit Chan's Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, Beyer's
work exhibits an admirable uniformity of terminology, style, and scholarly methodology.
As a companion volume to Richard Robinson's The BuddhistReligion, Beyer's book
conveys much of the religious flavor and tone of Buddhism understandablylacking in the
former. However, I cannot help but anticipate that the book may be subject to two cri-
ticisms. The first criticism is that the philosophical and theological assumptions within
which Buddhism functions are not apparent in this anthology; of course some of this is
supplied in Robinson's book, but it is somewhat buried and is not immediately and ex-
plicitly apparenteven to the readerof both books. For example, although the basic concept
of karmanis somewhat delineated in both books, the underlying epistemological assump-
tions of Theravada dharmaanalysis, and the ontological and epistemological contexts of
the concept of emptiness (iuinyati) need explication. I fail to see how teachers can explain
the concept of "emptiness"as it is manifested, for example, in the beautiful Japanesehaiku
selections (for example, p. 247) and in the translationsconcerning meditation (for example,

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243

p. 212, 215 ff.) without knowing something about the concept of svabhdvaand the meta-
ontological relation of prajhapti.
A second possible criticism of this anthology may come from those who view Buddhism
(or wish to view Buddhism) as completely compatible with the metaphysical and method-
ological assumptions common to the late nineteenth- and twentieth-century European
religious traditions. They may hold that Beyer's book stresses too strongly, the irrational
and subjective aspects of Buddhism. I would discount such criticisms, should they occur.
There are those who wish to view Buddhism as divorced from both the magic and the
supernormalascetic sramana(seekers)concomitants of the post-Vedic and classical Indian
millenium (200 B.C.-400 A.D.). Beyer's anthology much more than others, represent the
Buddhadharmaas yathibhuta (as it really is).
The anthology is also superior to others, for example, Conze's BuddhistTexts Through
the Ages, in that there is a more balanced exposition of the lay Buddhist social concepts
and the legalistic ones of the community of monks. The range of lay-oriented texts here
is much greater than usual. Beyer ranges from the early northeast Indian context to the
valuable (but usually ignored) texts found in the Tibetian tradition. This is also somewhat
true for the late Japanese traditions. There is very nice balance between the very familiar
selections found in many anthologies such as "The Four Signs" and the valuable but
hitherto obscure Zen and Tibetian selections. The completion of his selections with trans-
lations (in a rather Ezra Pound-like fashion) of Japanese haiku and portions of the Riddles
of the Gateless Gate give the book a feeling of aesthetic symmetry; overall it balances very
nicely between the Buddhist Appollonian and the Dionysian.
In summary,I have only admiration for this anthology. The addition of a short teachers'
manual would be desirable but not absolutely essential. I think that the academic com-
munity will find it a very desirable addition to the increasingsound literatureon Buddhism.

DOUGLAS DUNSMORE DAYE

PhilosophyDepartment
Bowling GreenState University

Islamic Philosophy and the Classical Tradition. Essays presentedby his friends and pupils
to Richard Walzer on his seventiethbirthday,eds. S. M. Stern, Albert Hourani and Vivian
Brown. Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1972. Pp. 548. $25.00.

Articles included in this Festschriftdedicated to a great scholar, who is active in the study
of the transmission of Greek philosophical texts into Arabic,' reflect five distinct orienta-
tions which are of interest to Islamicists in general and to more specialized groups of
readers in particular.
In the first category are essays on Western Greek and medieval philosophy with very
limited reference to Islamic source: the application of "good" to all the categories ac-
cording to Aristotle (J. L. Ackrill, pp. 5-16); a criticism of Aristotle's theory of universals
(S. van den Bergh, pp. 17-26); the terminology for the copula and existence (C. Kahn,
pp. 141-158); the nature of prosleptic propositions and arguments (W. and M. Kneal,
pp. 189-207); and other similar essays.
Second, there are essays concerning the transmission of thought from Greek to Muslim

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