Living Yogacara (Tagawa Shun'ei, Charles Muller)

Tagawa Shun’ei, abbot of Köfukuji, was born in 1947 in Nara. A graduate of Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, he has spent his life as a Hossö monk in Köfukuji, and is presently its abbot. In his extensive activity as a teacher and disseminator of Hossö doctrine, along with information regarding Köfukuji (a world heritage cultural site) and its considerable store of cultural treasures, Ven. Tagawa stands out among modern-day Japanese Buddhist monks. As one can tell from reading this book, his mastery of Yogäcära doctrine is deep, and he is especially well-studied in the works of the earlier monks of the Hossö lineage, having published, for example, in 2004, the book Jökei: Gumei hosshin shü wo уomu (“Jökei: A Reading of the Anthology of the Mind Arisen from Foolishness”; Tokyo, Shunjüsha). He has been running for several years a regular lecture series that alternates, on approximately a biweekly basis, between Nara and Tokyo, consisting of lectures on Buddhist art and culture by academic specialists, along with lectures on Yogäcära delivered by himself and noted Japanese researchers of yuishiki.

A. Charles Muller, translator, is a professor in the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology at the University of Tokyo. He is the translator for The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment: Korean Buddhism's Guide to Meditation (SUNY Press, 1999), and is founder and managing editor of both the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism and the H-Buddhism Buddhist Scholars Information Network.

In recent years, Japan has seen a noticeable interest developing in the Indian and post-Indian forms of Buddhism that served as the backdrop for the formation of the Heian and Kamakura Buddhism. The general public has come to understand that there are doctrinal teachings of Buddhism upon which such foundational Japanese masters as Kükai and Saichö, Shinran, Dögen, and Nichiren greatly relied in making their own impact on their local form of the tradition. One of these Buddhist doctrinal systems that originates in India is that of Yogäcära Buddhism—commonly referred to in East Asia as “Consciousness-only Buddhism.”

The Indian Buddhist schools of Abhidharma and Yogäcära together form a extremely detailed and complex scholarly system. To indicate the difficulties involved in learning these two extremely complex Buddhist doctrinal systems, there is an old saying, “Yogäcära three years, Abhidharma eight years,” reflecting the amount of time it is thought to take to truly master these two systems.

Although Yogäcära Buddhism is a notoriously complex doctrinal system, at the same time it is a straightforward and realistic teaching that offers much that we can draw upon for application to our daily lives. However, due to its complexity, truly accessible introductory works written on the topic have been few and far between: detailed complexity and simplicity don’t go so well with each other.

Despite the difficulties to be seen in putting together a good introductory work on Yogäcära, Japanese specialists in this area have made efforts to compose and publish some relatively easy introductory works for public consumption, which has in turn led to an increase in interest on the part of general readers. Nonetheless, we still often hear complaints from readers that these books are too difficult, and it is thus in response to these voices that I have endeavored to write a book that avoids discussion of hair-splitting details, and which, in as simple a language as possible, provides an introductory account of the basic Yogäcära teachings.

While Yogäcära may on one hand be characterized as nothing more than the extended study of basic Buddhist doctrine, it is also something that is complete as a single religious system in itself. Therefore, in teaching about Yogäcära, it is not merely my intention to select a list of essential items and explain how these are experienced in the course of living one s daily living. Rather, it is my intention to explain the religious significance of these teachings, and exactly how, as a whole, they can be appropriated and applied in our daily lives.

This does not mean that this is the only way the book is to be read—I think that this is something that needs to be tried and tested by each reader from his own standpoint. One should be able to gain personal access to the Yogäcära teachings while at the same time apply these within the framework of understanding Buddhism that one has developed heretofore. If this book can in any way help to facilitate such an approach, I will be very grateful.

Tagawa Shun’ei March 6,1989

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