Plotinus and Vijnanavada Buddhism Thomas McEvilley Philosophy East and West, Vol. 30, No. 2. (Apr., 1980), pp. 181-193 Stable URL http: flinksjstor-org/sici%sici= 131-8221 % 281980045 2930%3A2%3C 18 1%3APAV BS 3E2.0.CO%3B2-8 Philosophy East and West is currently published by University of Hawai'i Press. Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at bhupulwww.jstororg/about/terms.hunl. JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of « journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial us. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. 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Plotinus himself vacillates ‘between these two emphases in such a way that neither may clearly and finally bbe identified as his essential meaning. In the first case the three hypostases appear as a series of different relationships between unity and multiplicity (Parmenidean Being and non-Being), in the second case, as a series of different states of sensibility or different subject-object relationships: ‘The One: unity—unio mystica—pure subject ‘Mind: unity-in-multiplicity—intuition—interpenetrated subject and object Soul: unity and multiplicity—sensation and discursive thought?—alienated subject and object Most commentators have chosen the ontological emphasis, which brings Plotinus more into line with Plato. If this path is chosen, then Plotinus’ thought displays certain important similarities with the Upanisadic-Vedintic phi- losophy, and a good deal has been written on that subject (though it cannot be said to have been fully explored).? If, on the other hand, the mentalist- idealist aspect of Plotinus is emphasized, then certain similarities emerge between Plotinus and the vijidnavada schools of Buddhism, which have not yet received much attention, though they are perhaps even more striking and comprehensive than the similarities with the Vedanta, This article will offer a general comparison of Plotinus’ system of three hypostases with the ‘risvabhava doctrine of Buddhism. First the mentalist interpretation of Plotinus will be sketched briefly, then the parallels found in the ‘risvabhava doctrine will be presented. To scale the topic down to manageable size, broad structural characteristics of the two systems will be studied without the inspection of details which would necessitate a monographic treatment. 1. THE MENTALIST-IDEALIST INTERPRETATION OF PLOTINUS, ‘The tendency to regard ontological states as different configurations of mind is foreshadowed in the Platonic tradition by Xenocrates’ equation of the One with Mind as a “Monad-Nous,” by Aristotle's description of the prime mover as “the thought which thinks itself” (or “self-realizing mind”), by Albinus’ division of the universe into an inward-turned, nonactive higher Mind and an Thomas MeEviley is Professor inthe Insitute forth Arts a Rice University Php ad 30,90 2 Age 8. by The Ur Pre Ba A iphone182. McEvilley ‘outward-turned, creative lower Mind, and by Numenius’ similar description of absolute and relative realities as “Mind-at-rest” and “*Mind-in-motion.” ‘The Enneads derive, in large part, from this thread of the Platonic tradition and develop it prominently in many passages. With each of Plotinus’ hypostases a particular mode of mental activity is associated which is, in effect, an alternate definition of the hypostasis in epistemological rather than ontological terms. Lower Soul (Nature) is sensation and discursive one-at-a-time reasoning; higher Soul is changeless, unified vision of Mind; Mind is a complete and unchanging awareness of all reality by direct, simultaneous intuition; the One is pure subjectivity with all mani- festations of consciousness folded into itself. In addition, the second hypostasis, Mind, is described as an interpenetrated or interinclusive awareness in which distinctions between part and whole, and knower and known, lose force: Mind is one with each of the forms which it contains and knows, and each of them is thus all of Mind, containing and knowing the whole. Part and whole, knower and known, are not two, but two-in-one; each an aspect of the other, they are distinguishable but inseparable.° Mind is the central reality, in relation to which the others are defined: in the One, these poles or aspects are not only inseparable but indistinguishable; in Soul they appear both distinguishable and separable. Itis important to note that for Plotinus, matter is strictly unreal.® None of the hypostases is described as corporeal. Even Soul, which at its lower edge comprises the world of phenomenality, is described as incorporeal, indivisible and nonspatial, but producing, when conjoined with the illusory and nonspatial “screen” which we misleadingly translate “matter,” the ap- pearances of spatial division which are the life of the body.’ In other words, Plotinus’ universe may be said to be made up of different levels or degrees of subjectivity, which is to say, of mental reaity.* Ontology fades into epis- temology and loses itself there. Mind, says Plotinus, “is its own thoughts.""° Nature “is a vision of itself." Creation is not so much a making (poiesis) asa thinking (theoria): the activity of contemplation (theoria), says Plotinus, produces the object contemplated.? “That all things,” he goes on in the same passage, “including those that are truly beings, are from contemplation [vheoria: contemplation, awareness, vision, consciousness] and are themselves contemplation is clear.” All things are theoremata, “works of contem- plation,” “mind-created objects.” “All things are Traces of Thought and Mind.” It must be observed, however, that Plotinus is not altogether consistent cn this poiesis by theoria. At some times he states that Being is prior to Mind, at others that the two are simultaneous and mutually implicative, and at yet others that all existents are produced by contemplation.'* This incon- sistency, however, does not seriously weaken the interpretation we are pre- senting. It applies only to the hypostasis of the One and arises from Plotinus’