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coherence get at the literal definition of sama\dhi yet do not convey as directly the implicit senses of same"prajña\ta and asame"prajña\ta.48 Gerald Larson Reinterpreting Religious Experience 39 identifies the respective states as cognitive intensive and cognitive restric- tive, as Frauwallner had identified them, with the addition of the idea that they are complementary rather than competing techniques.49 Pflueger argues in an interesting way that rather than building up an experience via lan- guage, one deconstructs language and by extension all manifestations of phenomenal existence in order to dwell in the primordial and transcendent state of liberation.50 An overemphasis on aloneness may be problematic, however, in that even though kaivalya is literally aloneness, it may be more appropriate to define it as separation. 51 This definition, as separation, can be said to be at least partially consistent with Whicher s postulation of cittavre"ttinirodha as the cessation of the misidentification with mental fluctuations and empha- sizes separation from affliction rather than isolation from the world. One problem, however, in postulating this is that it may be at odds with the notion of pratiprasava, which seems to imply that there is a return to the origin of the manifestations of prakre"ti. On the other hand, pratiprasava as an absolute interpretation is problematic as well, as the world still exists for other beings, as well as, presumably, for the yoga practitioner that has not yet passed away. Could pratiprasava then mean something to the effect that one has withdrawn from identification with manifest reality, but nevertheless that one manifests a mind and body, one that dwells in the perfection of viveka-jña\na? The ambi- guity of kaivalya and, by comparison, nirva\ne"a is an important issue in this respect. Does a person who reaches kaivalya simply pass away, or is kaivalya dependent upon physical death or simultaneous with it such as the notion of aloka (nonworldliness) that contextualizes kaivalya in Jainism? What about the tension between Therava\da and Maha\ya\na representations of Buddhist liberation that suggests a number of key distinctions such as those implied by the use of the terms nirva\ne"a, parinirva\ne"a, and apratise"èha-nirva\ne"a? Such ques- tions get at the underlying issue of how liberation is manifested in the world, if at all, and how it is characterized as being numinous or cessative, relating to both soteriological and mythical-cosmological attitudes.52 THE LIMITS OF MEDITATIVE EXPERIENCE AND INTERPRETATION Robert Sharf has recently noted a number of the problematic aspects of talk- ing about meditation in the context of religious experience and its interpreta- tion. He attempts to dismantle the notion of religious experience and even to some extent the term experience itself as a means for understanding reli- gious phenomena. Claiming that this term has not been subjected to signifi- cantly rigorous analysis, he aims to demonstrate how experience, like its cousins mystical and religious, is a problematic term, often held to be 40 Sama\dhi self-evident in meaning, though only presumptively so.53 Furthermore, the privileging of the term experience is understood to be a means of defending religion against a secular critique and establishing religious studies as an autonomous entity in the academic sphere.54 Sharf also portrays the study of Buddhism as being uniquely concerned with meditative experience.55 This argument hinges upon the idea that South Asian, Southeast Asian, and Japan- ese authors and religious leaders have adapted to orientalist discourses by pre- senting the Hindu and Buddhist traditions as uniquely experiential and medi- tative. Thus Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, D. T. Suzuki, and others are understood to have reified and essentially created conceptions of Hinduism and Buddhism that catered to European and American audiences that were captivated by ideas about religion that meshed with their own ideas of empiri- cism, philosophy, and psychology.56 Sharf further argues that premodern Buddhist treatises on meditation, ma\rga literature, are prescriptive rather than descriptive in contrast to their portrayal as experiential texts. Buddhist texts such as the Bodhisattvabhu\mi, Bha\vana\krama, Lam Rim Chen Mo, Visuddhimagga and others are under- stood to be far from descriptive accounts of meditative practice, being instead prescriptive and analytical accounts of such types of practice.57 According to this argument, the discursive nature of these treatises demon- strates that they were meant to be understood on a conceptual level and were rarely put into actual practice. Sharf argues that scholars such as Paul Grif- fiths are wrong to assume that meditative states are concretely manifested in practice.58 Instead, they are the products of reflection upon Buddhist philos- ophy and practice as presented in texts and in theory, without implying recourse to practical understanding.59 Philosophies such as Yoga\ca\ra can be understood without the necessity of appealing to experience, especially since certain philosophers such as Dharmakêrti and Chandrakêrti were suspicious of truth claims based upon experience.60 Meditation could be thought of as enacting a state rather than engendering it, meditation being the ritualiza- tion of experience.61 A basic question that can be asked about Sharf s criti- cisms is to what degree this is simply trading one category, meditation, for another one, ritual, that is equally as vague. It may also be examined whether this distinction between enacting and engendering is one that Buddhist them- selves would make, or whether this itself is a scholarly imposition from with- out. In tantra, for example, the relationship between meditation and ritual can be argued to be a fluid one, to such a degree that distinguishing between them proves counterintuitive. It is more accurate to think of meditation and ritual as existing on a continuum rather than standing in absolute opposition or [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ] |