[Buddha-l] Fsat Mnifdlunses?

[Richard Hayes]

On Aug 13, 2009, at 1:41 AM, andy wrote:

> What does
> interest me,  and it is only a mild interest, please note, is why  
> the equation
> of Yogacara with Western idealism is such an issue.

Dan will no doubt give his own characteristically abusive and  
dismissive reply to this query, but the sense I get is that the  
tendency to equate Yogācāra with idealism stems from the fact that  
pretty much all Indian who criticized the Yogācāra writers depicted  
them as people who denied the reality of the external world. Oddly  
enough, we do find some philosophers, often labelled Yogācāra by  
others (whether they would have put that label on themselves) who put  
forth arguments intended to convince their readers that there cannot  
be an external material world. Dharmakīrti comes to mind, but it  
doesn't really matter. Moreover, Dharmakīrti wrote a treatise designed  
to refute the charge that he must be a solipsist---a charge, as you  
know, routinely leveled at those who deny the reality of the material  
world. The force of this treatise of Dharmakīrti's is to show that one  
can deny the physical world without having to deny that there are  
other minds. Minds, he says, can communicate directly without having  
to use bodies to make sounds and ears to hear them. But if two minds  
are caught up in the same delusion about there being an external  
world, then they will both think they are using physical bodies. That  
sounds a bit like idealism to me.

Given that there were many people who were eventually given the  
Yogācāra label (or the Yogācāra-Madhyamaka label), it would be  
pretty amazing if they all held the same views, even on fairly  
important ontological issues. (After all, how many people labeled  
"Postmodern" even understand each other, let alone agree?) Perhaps we  
should take a page from Rorty's book and modify his famous quip to our  
issue by saying "Yogācāra is just a word in search of a referent."

-- 
Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes