The Close(d) Reading of a Text: 
		A Re-Consideration of the ‘Idealism” of the Buddhist Yogacara Tradition

	Are serious scholars often in the habit of seeing things, hallucinating, when they subject a text to a ‘close reading’? In this respect words almost fail me when considering the so-called ‘idealism’ of the Yogacara Tradition. It is almost as if scholars have a religious chant that must be re-iterated ad nauseam. That this type of text is ‘idealistic’ period! Fortunately, I am not alone in this regard and I am finding an increasing number of scholars coming to a similar conclusion, namely, that the Yogacara are not idealists, certainly not in the usual sense of that term. Let me examine this apparent anomaly and see what lessons-there-are-for-us that should be drawn from this type of situation.
	
	In this paper I am going to examine very briefly the following:

1.	The history of this mis-appellation of idealism.
2.	Outline my opinion that the texts of this tradition are expressed in a transcendental-	phenomenological mode.
3.	Show that a number of examples from key texts where this type of reading, as discussed in 
	the second section of this paper, makes better sense of the general style of this tradition.
4.	Note some idealistic-like aspects of these texts that could be mis-construed as idealistic in intent.
5.	In the form of a conclusion note the obvious morals to be drawn from this brief discussion.

1.	The History of this Mis-Appellation of Idealism

	A scholar must start somewhere within a hermeneutic tradition in the reading of a certain text. Then, having begun, they must soon ask themselves, in making a close reading of that text, whether that type of reading actually does justice to that text. It is a hermeneutic axiom or maxim of mine that our hermeneutic ‘investment’ must produce a ‘dividend’ greater than the ‘capital’ invested in that activity. I.e., hermeneutic output must be greater than hermeneutic input. Otherwise we are merely reading into that text what we want to find there, in essence ‘re-writing’ this text to get it to say what we would like it to mean.
	No doubt a scholar who starts to read a text for the first time is subject to the ‘interpretive pressure’ of how that text, or type of text, was read prior to their own individual reading of it. In this case an idealistic prejudgment, or prejudice, of this tradition’s texts coincides with their very production, being dismissed e.g., by the critical, contemporaneous Madhyamika Tradition. Springing from a very similar soil, e.g., the Perfection of Wisdom Tradition(s), it would suit them to make a convenient contrast with their own position in the form of a polemical slur especially as the Yogacara would appear to be in truth close allies, or bedfellows, despite having arisen, in turn, through a critique of this tradition of the Madhyamika. Just as Hindu schools of thought would often dismiss the Madhyamika as ‘nihilist’ in turn the Madhyamika would dismiss the Yogacara as ‘idealist’. Indeed, it would appear, it was this ‘nihilist retort’ that spurred on the Yogacara to rethink the role of consciousness in a more positive phenomenological light while maintaining much of the critical force of the Madhyamikan critique.
	Later, certain politically dominant forms of traditional Tibetan scholarship would regard Yogacara thought as only ‘provisional,’ as only a certain stage on the path to enlightenment, and in a sense turn philosophical progress around to support the relatively earlier tradition of the Madhyamika (despite its own ongoing development through debate with the Yogacara).
	Chinese scholarship would appear in time to have seized upon the latter part of this tradition which, superficially, does appear to have a pronounced idealistic flavour. In section four of this paper I will make some compressed comments about this apparently increasing idealistic trend that might be ascribed to this tradition in its later developments.
	Today, under the influence of various forms of Hindu idealism, traditional Chinese and Tibetan scholarship and the learned weight of Western scholarship the Yogacara are almost automatically subsumed under the rubric of an ‘idealistic tradition’ as exemplified by Berkeley, e.g.
	But a close reading of key texts of this tradition, if I am correct, should have put paid to this mis-appellation of ‘idealist’. So how can we account for this anomaly?!

2.	The Transcendental-Phenomenological Character of the Yogacara Tradition.

	In my opinion the characteristic texts of this tradition are essentially phenomenological and transcendental in complexion. Without an appreciation of this type of textual constitution any other hermeneutic lens brought to bear upon this type of text will not allow us to read them in their own light. No doubt an interpretative pressure along the lines of an idealist (mis-)reading can now be given a free hand to distort the meaning and meaningfulness of this tradition. On my bookcase I have a number of books discussing this tradition that pre-empt this issue by declaring in their very titles that this tradition was an idealistic one. We don’t even have to open these books to find ourselves already subject to this interpretative pressure just alluded to.
	Boldly expressed ‘idealism’ states that things are merely constituted by mind, or Mind, and that there are no other things, certainly not in a material sense other than as appearances or illusions of material objects as entertained in consciousness, etc.
	However, this tradition of the Yogacara states, more or less, that what we have to hand are phenomena constituted in intentional consciousness within, effectively, a transcendental suspension that suspends all ontological commitments be they external in orientation, towards some sense of a world, or, internal in orientation, towards some sense of a self. 
	Idealism states that all things are constituted by mind, or Mind, and therefore are mental in flavour. On the other hand a properly exercised transcendental-phenomenology would state the obvious that all things are constituted in intentional constitution and go no further other than to describe the essential nature of that type of constitution, certainly not speculating as to what these phenomenal presentations might ‘represent’. This type of tradition is not interested in speculating as to what type of representations those presentations might represent, or, re-present. To overlook the crucial part played by a transcendental suspension can only lead to a complete misunderstanding of the dynamics, and style, of this type of text.
	How could such a mistake be made? 

3.	Some Key Points or ‘Turns’ Made by this Type of Tradition.

	For a start this tradition very early on in its genesis declares all things to be ‘cittamatra’ a term often translated as ‘Mind-only’. The expression ‘matra’ comes from the root ‘ma’ - ‘to measure’. At the end of compounds it means - ‘only’, ‘sole’, ‘alone’, or ‘mere’. In this context it is best seen as ‘merely phenomenal/mere phenomenon’, i.e., as only that constituted in intentional consciousness’. In this regard a similar discussion of Husserl springs to mind when he discusses ‘mere phenomena’.
	The influential commentator and philosopher Vasubandhu, virtually at the beginning of this tradition, further states that mind (citta) is also equivalent to the expressions mind/intellect (manas), consciousness (vijnana) and vijnapti (an intentional construction constituted in intentional consciousness, sometimes translated by the expression ‘perception’ which I think is misleading and does an inadequate justice to the technical sense of this term, e.g., pace Anacker). Moreover, in the next breath, states that ‘matra’ is said to rule out an  object  (i.e., an (external) object of sense or an (internal) object of understanding). 
	To illustrate this type of point Vasubandhu gives us the example of someone with the optical disorder of seeing hair before the eyes even though that hair is correctly non-existent. In other words objects can be seen with out there being objects, therefore, as I would put it, why invest in a duplicated ontology that matches phenomenal presentations with their assumed representational correlates.
	Then in this same text he conducts a thought experiment concerning our experience of dreams to the effect that we don’t need, nor could have recourse to, an ontological duplication that mirrors, or rather allows our ‘representations’ to mirror, the so called ‘real world’ or ‘external world’. But all this anti-representationalism is, more often than not, completely misunderstood as an exercise in idealism when the example of dreams is merely used to illustrate that dreams do not need real object correlates to those seen in a dream and therefore that being the case why do we bother when either awake or asleep to endlessly duplicate our ontology with a plethora of objects that we cannot possibly have a direct acquaintance with being correctly of only a speculative nature! What we have to hand are phenomena and phenomena are constituted in intentional consciousness for us by us! What more do we need?
	In another text Vasubandhu’s commentary tells us that just as ‘there is no external world’ there can equally be ‘no internal world’, nor their conjunction, in the from of a ‘body’ as these orientations are just that ‘orientations’ and not spheres of engaged interest being intrinsically empty.
	What are we left with? In my understanding, in effect nothing other than the ‘life-world’. Or as Vasubandhu would say the ‘three realms of existence.’ And a host of other expressions are also used!
	A transcendental philosophy is ‘transcendental’ by virtue of a transcendental suspension (and processes of reduction and reconstitution). By what means and in what manner could a philosopher like Vasubandhu, e.g., institute a transcendental suspension?
	In commenting on the text that states “Cognizing by ‘direct perception’ is like in a dream, etc.” he states “For it is without an object (of (external) sense or (internal) understanding), as has been made known previously (by my previous argument).”
	In effect telling us that there is no real ontological difference between dream objects and objects of apparent sense because both are constituted in intentional consciousness. The only differences that can be found are in the nature of our different types of modal appreciation since the ‘causal-effectiveness’ of those different forms of modal appreciation perform differently in keeping with the nature of those various modalities. In other words ‘dream food might appear to satisfy you in your sleep it wouldn’t keep you alive in daily life...
	That essentially everything is treated metaphorically, i.e., as ‘both like and not like’ that state of affairs as entertained in that type of comparison. The (life-)world may be like a dream it is not to be dismissed as just a dream in a literal sense. By keeping the sense of the metaphorical open a transcendental suspension is equally kept open and ongoing...!
	And here we have a clue that might explain the apparent increasing idealistic flavour of this tradition as it appears to have developed in the complexities of its historical development(s)?

4.	Some ‘Idealistic’ Aspects of this Tradition Misconstrued as Instances of an Idealism

	This emphasis upon the sense of the metaphorical ‘is and is not’ entertained simultaneously and continuously is one way a transcendental suspension is put in play and left in play. No doubt this seeing the world like a magical dream, and all other metaphors used left in play, e.g., seeds, waves, various forms of illusion, in time contributed to an increasing idealistic-like flavour? As long as the metaphorical is left in play and is not treated literally, and provisionally, this charge of ‘idealism’ must be dismissed. If a text said the ‘world was just a dream pure and simple’ then this charge could indeed apply. I am sure that certain ‘metaphorical images’ with powerful religious connotations and salvic implications might well appear in the minds of the relatively uneducated through endless repetition to suggest that a literal, dogmatic interpretation was perfectly in order. That this tendency in all probability through processes of misunderstanding would have manifested itself in the temporal unravelling of the ramifications of this tradition (especially in China with respect to the historical processes of translation and their reception?) and in this light would also contribute to an idealistic-like interpretation being imposed upon this type of text and its ensuing traditions of interpretation! In our research on this issue of later idealistic-like developments of this tradition we must tread very carefully over this potential minefield. However, as long as texts insist upon operating within a transcendental suspension, by what ever means of its instantiation, we can not be too hard and fast with this classification of ‘idealist.’ Indeed, only when a transcendental suspension can be shown to not be invoked that we can then start to investigate whether this label has any real relevance.

5.	What Morals can we Draw from this Exposition

	As hermeneuts (and hermeneutists) we must pay an equal attention to both ‘the reading of our text’ and ‘our reading of our reading of that text’! Therefore we have this superficial paradox ‘that in the close reading of a text we must also stand back from it’! Otherwise our reading of that text becomes a closed reading, a manifestly ‘mis-read’ reading of that text! Moreover in the productive reading of a text there must be a hermeneutic excess, the realization of a dividend that can only be critically appreciated by our simultaneously paying a close attention to the text on one hand, and, on the other, our being able to stand back from it in order to determine the correct nature of its ‘meta-textual’ constitution or ‘genre.’. An existential dance that if not properly conducted can only take us down the dark paths of real illusion, delusion and virtual hallucination and make a mockery of that profession of the ‘critical philosopher!!’
	This all far too pervasive phenomenon of ‘misreading’ is not adequately taken into account if we merely state that all readings are going to be misreadings, period! Undoubtably this truism must be accepted that all reading initially are mis-read, and the observation that no reading can abrogate to itself an absolute confidence to itself. But there is a middle ground where our initial misreading of a text is seen to be just that, namely, a misreading. Then, if we find ourselves in a position to continue, we go on and refine that ongoing reading of that text. Invoking various hermeneutic tricks of the trade, such as this principle of hermeneutic excess, a mutual conformity between text(s) and meta-text(s), etc., in the process finding ourselves apparently re-appropriating that text, coming to an apparent understanding of its intentional constitution....
	Lastly, let me note that Husserl himself complains that his transcendental-phenomenological research was often misconstrued as some form of a Berekeleyan idealism and it would seem for just the same sort of reasons that the Yogacara have been misunderstood both historically and recently. A transcendental philosophy cannot be introduced and defined and understood in the midst of the natural attitude. Only in the creation of a contrast with the natural attitude (samsara) can we then go on to understand the nature of the transcendental point of view (nirvana) and their mutual coincidence and source in the all embracing unity and reality of the lifeworld (dharmadhatu/pratityasamutpada, etc.). I have found these apparent parallels between the modern philosopher Husserl and representatives of the Yogacara, e.g., Vasubandhu, fascinating and have discovered that both traditions can act as a virtual commentary upon the other, in the process enriching our understanding of both traditions. Moreover, it is my belief that the hermeneutic excess realized in such a commentary should place us in a better position to offer a deeper and more sane critique of our Postmodern era; preparing the ground for the advent of a Contemporary era more appropriate to our psychic needs! 
						Noël Tointon, Sydney/(Leura), 30.10.99/(14.11.99).