Christian Response to Cittamatra "idealism"

[Christos Anesti]

A friend of mine has recently been discussing Cittamatra / Yogacara Buddhism with me. Specifically he was asking me how I feel about their teaching of "mind only" or "experience only". I was hoping some folks here could help me answer this question in a Christian manner. Which aspects of this teaching are compatible with the Christian faith.?Which aspects are neutral and could either be held or rejected by a Christian? Most importantly which aspects are contridctory and harmful to the Christian faith and how would one go about critiquing them without getting a doctorate in Buddhist studies first ? I've read a fair amount on Buddhism but this particular topic isn't something I'm up to speed on. I don't want to give a general critique of Buddhism but focus more specifically on the concept of "mind only" and it's implications.

Here is some background information:

Yogacara - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Basically this school teaches that there is only the continuum of experience and that it is only due to ignorance that we separate things into a grasper and the grasped or hypostatize experiences into separate / discrete objects and persons. It also posits a "store house concsiousness" that it is the basis for all experience and is "perfumed" and "seeded" by karma or action. I probably didn't do it justice here but thats what I gather about it so far.

This talks about the Storehouse consciousness:

Eight Consciousnesses - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I also found this helpful:
Basic ideas of Yogacara Buddhism

"5/ CONSCIOUSNESS



Consciousness is awareness of a "self". The fundamental doctrine of the Yogacara school is "that all phenomenal existence is fabricated by consciousness." Consciousness is the basis of all activities from birth to attaining enlightenment; "...all is based upon the coming into being and the ceasing to be of consciousness, i.e., of distinctions in the mind."


Consciousness is the distinction making activity of the mind, both in making and having distinctions, including the states we consider the conscious as well as the unconscious. Consciousness, in making distinctions between self and other, becomes the subject which treats everything else as object. Consciousness itself is real. It exists as a series, or stream, of successive momentary awareness of events, each immediately replaced by consciousness in the next moment. Consciousness "has no substantiality ...and is dependent on the consciousnessof the preceding instant."
Since everything, until the attainment of wisdom in enlightenment, is consciousness, all objects in the external world are just "representations" in our consciousness. Since everything is just an aspect of consciousness, all phenomenal existence is without intrinsic nature . Therefore, the "I" is illusory and there is no "self" to be found; everything is just a phenomenon of consciousness. Eventually, consciousness that is attached to these representations and makes distinctions has to be clarifiedinto wisdom which is free of all attachments.



There is nothing separate or independent from consciousness. The world is our perceptual construct and an analysis of the unenlightened mind will show different levels of perception which are based in a storehouse consciousness [8] containing the karmic seeds [6] of former actions."

RELS 307 Handout 13: Yogacara Philosophy

 

[Yab Yum]

Translating Buddhist concepts into the Judeo-Christian language must be done with great delicacy. It would be tempting to understand Cittamatra Buddhism in terms of western Idealism but that would be only a half-truth. Western Idealism was a school of thought which arose in response to a completely different series of problems related to epistemology. Cittamatra arose within the Mahayana in order to negate the Hinayana or Sravaka view regarding the reality of a world of outside appearances (the inner world had already been regarded as empty by the Sravaka view but it regarded outside reality as having a basic atomic structure - the Cittamatrins went further by extending the view of emptiness to outside appearances as well as the inner world). Western idealism pertains to obtaining a positive foundation of knowledge, Cittamatra is an apophatic soteriology.

More or less.

 

[wayseer]

I don't want to give a general critique of Buddhism but focus more specifically on the concept of "mind only" and it's implications.

You raise a interesting matter.

It was Cartesian thought that promoted the idea of mind within mind. However, post-modernism has blown all that away. We now know that it is not 'mind'; it is 'language' that defines our horizons.

You and I could not be having this conversation if we were locked in the 'mind only' school. We are having this conversation because we share a set of symbols, imperfect as such symbols tend to be, that make sense to both of us.

 

[mark46]

1) I think that one avenue for you might be to approach this from the view of Bishop George Berkeley whose view of immaterialism is the Western analogue of Cittamatra. Berkeley was certainly able to defend his view from a very Christian perspective. This will provide you with a Western base from which to understand better.

2) For me, this is not where I see the intersection of Buddhism and Christianity, since I reject the immaterialism of Berkeley.

A friend of mine has recently been discussing Cittamatra / Yogacara Buddhism with me. Specifically he was asking me how I feel about their teaching of "mind only" or "experience only". I was hoping some folks here could help me answer this question in a Christian manner. Which aspects of this teaching are compatible with the Christian faith.?Which aspects are neutral and could either be held or rejected by a Christian? Most importantly which aspects are contridctory and harmful to the Christian faith and how would one go about critiquing them without getting a doctorate in Buddhist studies first ? I've read a fair amount on Buddhism but this particular topic isn't something I'm up to speed on. I don't want to give a general critique of Buddhism but focus more specifically on the concept of "mind only" and it's implications.

Here is some background information:

Yogacara - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Basically this school teaches that there is only the continuum of experience and that it is only due to ignorance that we separate things into a grasper and the grasped or hypostatize experiences into separate / discrete objects and persons. It also posits a "store house concsiousness" that it is the basis for all experience and is "perfumed" and "seeded" by karma or action. I probably didn't do it justice here but thats what I gather about it so far.

This talks about the Storehouse consciousness:

Eight Consciousnesses - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I also found this helpful:
Basic ideas of Yogacara Buddhism

"5/ CONSCIOUSNESS



Consciousness is awareness of a "self". The fundamental doctrine of the Yogacara school is "that all phenomenal existence is fabricated by consciousness." Consciousness is the basis of all activities from birth to attaining enlightenment; "...all is based upon the coming into being and the ceasing to be of consciousness, i.e., of distinctions in the mind."


Consciousness is the distinction making activity of the mind, both in making and having distinctions, including the states we consider the conscious as well as the unconscious. Consciousness, in making distinctions between self and other, becomes the subject which treats everything else as object. Consciousness itself is real. It exists as a series, or stream, of successive momentary awareness of events, each immediately replaced by consciousness in the next moment. Consciousness "has no substantiality ...and is dependent on the consciousnessof the preceding instant."
Since everything, until the attainment of wisdom in enlightenment, is consciousness, all objects in the external world are just "representations" in our consciousness. Since everything is just an aspect of consciousness, all phenomenal existence is without intrinsic nature . Therefore, the "I" is illusory and there is no "self" to be found; everything is just a phenomenon of consciousness. Eventually, consciousness that is attached to these representations and makes distinctions has to be clarifiedinto wisdom which is free of all attachments.



There is nothing separate or independent from consciousness. The world is our perceptual construct and an analysis of the unenlightened mind will show different levels of perception which are based in a storehouse consciousness [8] containing the karmic seeds [6] of former actions."

RELS 307 Handout 13: Yogacara Philosophy

 

[BrendanMark]

This discovery of the inner self plays a familiar part in Christian mysticism. But there is a significant difference, which is clearly brought out by St. Augustine. In Zen there seems to be no effort to get beyond the inner self. In Christianity the inner self is simply a stepping stone to an awareness of God. Man is the image of God, and his inner self is a kind of mirror in which God not only sees Himself, but reveals Himself to the “mirror” in which He is reflected. Thus, through the dark, transparent mystery of our own inner being we can, as it were, see God “thorough a glass.” All this is of course pure metaphor. It is a way of saying our being somehow communicates directly with the Being of God, Who is “in us.” If we enter into ourselves, find our true self, and then pass “beyond” the inner “I,” we sail forth into the immense darkness in which we confront the “I AM” of the Almighty.
Merton, Thomas The Inner Experience – Notes on Contemplation [Harper SanFrancisco 2003 William Shannon Ed. p 11]

An important passage from Homily 7 on Ecclesiastes indicates clearly the inability of dianoia to grasp anything, which would constitute an act of comprehension, when it enters the non-discursive. Gregory likens the soul which has passed beyond what is accessible by concepts to someone standing on a cliff and who, when edging his foot over the side, realizes there is no foothold: he becomes dizzy, is thrown into confusion and soon returns to solid ground. So the soul, ‘having nothing it can grab, neither place nor time, neither space nor any other thing which offers our mind something to take hold of, but, slipping from all sides from what it fails to grasp, in dizziness and confusion, it returns again to what is natural to it’. It seems that the nature of the mind is to try to catch hold of something in a discursive act, but when it moves beyond to what cannot be grasped, such as darkness, the divine sanctuary, and, here, an abyss, it cannot function properly and can even experience duress and disorientation, as we can see in this text from In Ecclesiasten.
Laird, Martin – Gregory of Nyssa and the grasp of Faith – Union, Knowledge and Divine Presence [Oxford Early Christian Studies 2004 p. 52]

Laird's Into the Silent Land is a wonderful exploration of Christian meditation/mysticism. There are many texts, ancient and modern, that deal with this issue in depth.

81. Until our minds in purity have transcended our own being and that of all things sequent to God, we have not yet acquired a permanent state of holiness. When this noble state has, by means of love, been established in us, we shall know the power of the divine promise. For we must believe that where the intellect, taking the lead, has by means of love rooted its power, there the saints will find a changeless abode. He who has not transcended himself and all that is in any way subject to intellection, and has not come to abide in the silence beyond intellection, cannot be entirely free from change.

82. . . . he who has advanced altogether beyond intellection, and has renounced it because he has transcended it, has come to dwell to some extent in unity.
Maximus the Confessor – First Century on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God [Philokalia Volume 2, Faber & Faber 1981 p132]

 

[plmarquette]

didn't "the buddha, the enlightened one" say all is meaningless....and illusion

women are of no consequence, and must be reborn as men, who must reject all pleasure, wealth, and tangible things, and become a monk and life a life of prayer and fasting, that the karma debt be paid and they become one with the great nothing ness...

there is no parallel with Christian tenants of faith, for they are based on the doctrines of demons and men, not of God

 

[Christos Anesti]

) I think that one avenue for you might be to approach this from the view of Bishop George Berkeley whose view of immaterialism is the Western analogue of Cittamatra. Berkeley was certainly able to defend his view from a very Christian perspective. This will provide you with a Western base from which to understand better.

Are there any books on the subject you could recommend?

 

[Christos Anesti]

I did find a book at my house that has a chapter on Yogacara and I've been reading that. I want something a little more in depth though.

 

[Yab Yum]

IMHO the best introduction to all of the views - sravaka, cittamatra, yogacara, madhyamaka, shentong, etc.

 

[Yab Yum]

didn't "the buddha, the enlightened one" say all is meaningless....and illusion

women are of no consequence, and must be reborn as men, who must reject all pleasure, wealth, and tangible things, and become a monk and life a life of prayer and fasting, that the karma debt be paid and they become one with the great nothing ness...

there is no parallel with Christian tenants of faith, for they are based on the doctrines of demons and men, not of God

There are many Christian cliches also which are similarly complimentary.

 

[BrendanMark]

I cannot see any particular difference between Yogacara and any other form of Buddhism, for whom Consciousness cannot be ultimately separated and individuated. If there is a particular difference that needs exploration, I haven't seen it so far.

Suzuki's Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist is also quite interesting, and one of the classic texts on the topic.

Christian monasticism is strikingly similar to Buddhism. The difference is that in Western thought, the world is real and not made by our consciousness (Sophistry), whereas in Eastern thought we are a direct manifestation of the divine itself, rather than a creation of it.

[My discussion of] conventional awareness in Christianity relies heavily on this terminology’s account of disjunctive-conjunctive dualism as a principal source of metaphysical difficulty for everyday, ordinary awareness. While the metaphysics of both Buddhism and Hinduism acknowledge that disjunctive-conjunctive dualism describes conventional, everyday awareness, that is, samsāra, they also presume that it is a problem to be solved for conventional awareness and not descriptive of ultimacy. Both traditions presuppose an ultimacy within which the difference between these two roles of awareness collapses. Nicene Christianity, like early Mahāyāna Buddhism and Advaita-Vedānta Hinduism, also acknowledges disjunctive-conjunctive dualism as a problem to be solved by conventional awareness. However, its characterization of and approach to that problem is entirely different. Most important [for my purposes], in its orthodox descriptions of ultimacy it preserves the disjunctive-conjunctive duality. Within the metaphysics of Christian orthodoxy, the human person is ultimately a reality created by God, inherently disjunctive, and not the agency co-originating and maintaining realities. That role, the role of agency ultimate responsible for all realities, belongs to God.
Brainard, F. Samuel – Reality and Mystical Experience [2000 Penn State Press p 186]


For all that the methods and even some of the symbolism is similar when comparing religious traditions, the above highlights some of the fundamental differences that create qualitatively different subjective experience. One raised in the Eastern traditions mentioned would not automatically assume an internal experience of Unity to be an encounter with God—they would characterize such as an experience of Self. The consequences of the difference are also theologically crucial—Christians do not assume they ascend to the Godhead and become aware of their role as co-originator of reality during hypostatic union.

So, even in the unio mystica of East and West, we find crucial differences of interpretation of what this ultimate experience means to us as human beings. Even here we find a disjunction of the One and the Many, or rather a different interpretation of the One is the Many. The Eastern perception seems to be that in union we recognise ourselves as co-originators of reality and transform samsara into Nirvana, where the Western seems to be that although we have a mysterious connection with the Ultimate, we are separate and distinct from it in this life.