Process Metaphysics and Hua

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/ew90941.htm[11/2/2010 2:07:59 PM]

Book ReviewProcess Metaphysics and Hua-yen Buddhism;

A Critical Study of Cumulative Penetration vs. InterpenetrationBy David Applebaum

Philosophy East and West V.34 (1984) P107~108

Copyright 1984 by University Press of HawaiiHonolulu, HI [US] (http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/index.html)

P107Process Metaphysics and Hua-Yen Buddhism. By Steve Odin. Albany, New York: State University of NewYork Press, 1982. Pp. xx + 242. $10.95. Paper.Odin's work undertakes a major project in comparative philosophy: to explore analytically the claim that Hua-Yen Buddhism (Kegon in Japanese) is metaphysically indistinguishable from the process philosophy ofWhitehead. The book is important, both because of Odin's energetic pursuit of his investigation, and becauseof the methodological questions it raises with regard to comparative studies in general. Odin's main thesis is that Hua-Yen Buddhism, as developed in Priest Uisang's Ocean Seal , posits ametaphysics in which all events interpenetrate (yung-t'ung) completely, whereas Whitehead's thought allowsfor a more conditioned penetration. Part I expounds, often with deep insight, the Hua-Yen vision ofnonobstructed interpenetration. Its twofold aspect li-shih-wu-ai (interpenetration between universal andparticular) and shih-shih-wu-ai (interpenetration between particular and particular) yields a universe in whichdialectical interspersal has reached its completion. Subject and object, many and one, particular anduniversal interfuse nonobstructively (wu-ai), the result being a "block universe" in which time's arrow doesnot take flight. Radical nonobstructiveness, in the Hua-Yen sense, has the effect of denying a necessarycondition for efficient causation: temporal antecedence. As Fa-tsang puts it, "Because an instant has nosubstance, it penetrates the infinitely long periods, and because the periods have no substance, they arefully contained in a single instant" (p. 22). Influence between events is established a la Leibniz, by recourseto internal relations, or mutual identification (hsiang-chi), which becomes the basis for Hua-Yen's positivereinterpretation of nonsubstantiality (nihsvabh?vata) and dependent origination (prati?tyasamutp?da.) The linchpin of Odin's processual critique of Hua-Yen seems at first to turn on his rejection of itssymmetrical theory of causation. For Whitehead, causal inheritance implies a transmission from past topresent to future. As such, it is asymmetrical, positing the cumulative penetration of events in events. But, infact, his real contention is normative: that Hua-Yen gives no account of freedom, or novelty, in the wayWhitehead allows when he says, "The many become one and are increased by it" (Process and Reality, p.21). The emergent synthesis of novel actuality, as analyzed in Part II, shares all the basic ontologicalcommitments of Hua-Yen, such as ?unyat? (understood as universal relativity) and dharmad?tu (cosmicmatrix of suchness). Importantly, however, its primacy of causal interpenetration spells creative advance intothe future. Specifically, concrescence, or creative synthesis, Odin contends, gives a more adequate accountof our primordial feelings of creativity and causal immanence, as well as their metaphysical systematization,than does Hua-Yen's thought of interpenetration. This point is reinforced by Whitehead's theory of feelingsas the vehicle of causal transmission. This theory implies that contemporary events do not necessarily sharethe same cosmic remembrance. As Whitehead says, 'The causal independence of contemporary occasionsis the ground for the freedom within this Universe" (Adventures in Ideas, p. 198). Odin is at his best in Part I when he elaborates Hua-Yen's rejection of N?g?rjuna's negative dialectic. Itsrestatement of sunyat? in terms of "fulness, togetherness, and interdependence" (p. 23) gives him thegrounds for developing Guenther's views on the Tantric perceptual field. Sunyat? becomes the

P108descriptive profile of 'horizons-phenomena' encircling the focal core of the perceptual field at the noematicobject pole, whereas prajna correlates with the 'non-focal' or 'decentered' act of perceptual awarenessachieved through a radical reversal at the poetic or constituting subject pole. (p. 33)

Process Metaphysics and Hua

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/ew90941.htm[11/2/2010 2:07:59 PM]

Noetic reversal, Gelassenheit (Heidegger's phrase), or openness then becomes the perceptible counterpartof the ontological state described by both Hua-Yen and Whitehead. There is a brief but useful discussion ofpraxis, referring to Merleau-Ponty's work on primary and secondary attention, and to Husserl's writings onimaginative variation. In contrast. Part II lacks a clear focus. In critique, Odin soon finds the interrelatedness of Whitehead'scategories an obstacle to succinctness. After making the point that creative synthesis is "but a momentaryproduction of novel togetherness" (p. 73), Odin is forced into a detailed exposition of the theory ofprehensions, including negative prehensions (chapter 8), What the reader misses is a straightforwardaccount of how Whitehead’s impressive conceptual apparatus comes into play in defeating the Hua-Yenposition. Or, returning to the methodological issues raised by Odin's study, if it does. What are, for instance, thecriteria of validity for any ultimate metaphysical position. East or West? Are there any, short of those internalto any system organizing the results of primordial experience? If there are, do systems converge, or diverge,or run parallel? Some attention to this dimension of research might have led Odin to the Hegelian positionthat Hua-Yen is entitled to its dialectic rejoinder. Odin has asserted that Hua-Yen leaves out any account ofmetaphysical freedom, and, by the way, vitiating its own theory of karma (p. 108). Why couldn't Hua-Yenclaim, as it would, that the concept of freedom flies in the face of reality, that it lacks all soteriological value,and that (as Hegel would have it) freedom is necessity? Put another way, if Whiteheadian freedom consistsin synthesizing a "newly emergent element," how does this transcend the Hua-Yen position of allowing whatis to stand forth as it is and must be? It is one of the values of Odin's work that it provokes such questions. The book also contains a highly suggestive essay relating process thought to Tantric trik?ya theory, withreference to the collective unconscious (both Jung's and the ?laya consciousness of Buddhism). In addition,Odin provides an original translation of Uisang's Autocommentary on the Ocean Seal, a valuable piece ofwork. There is no bibliography; one would have been useful.