of intellectual hospitality, buddhism and deconstruction

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JOMECJournalJournalism, Media and Cultural Studies

Of Intellectual Hospitality:Buddhism and Deconstruction

Deakin University, Australia

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @edw_ng

Edwin Ng

Keywords

BuddhismDeconstructionIntellectual HospitalityUnconditionality

Aporetic im-possibiityComparative Philosophy


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cf.ac.uk/Jomec/Jomecjournal/6-november2014/Ng_Buddhism.pdf

Abstract

This paper makes a plea of a stronger ethos of intellectual hospitality in dialogical

exchanges between the Western philosophical and non-Western wisdom traditions,focusing in particular on the relationship between (Mahayana) Buddhist teachings andDerridean deconstruction. The main point of reference for this discussion is Zen lineageholder and philosopher, David Loys writings that explores the reciprocity betweenBuddhist and deconstructive understandings to pursue the goal of mutual healing. Loysdiscourse is in principle a laudable attempt at encouraging a stronger ethos ofintellectual hospitality in comparative scholarship. However, I will show that his criticismof deconstructions textual idolatry betrays an inaccurate, myopic reading of Derridaswritings. Loys discourse thus lapses back into the habit of ontotheological closure,whichhe claims the Buddhist approach is better at overcoming than deconstruction; and inenacting, if only unwittingly, one-upmanship, it falls short of the proposed goal of mutual

healing. To develop this argument, I first identify intellectual hospitality as a guiding ethosof an emergent discourse called Buddhist critical-constructive reflection, which cross-

fertilises Buddhist teachings with the knowledge-practices of the secular academy toaddress current issues. Ithen outline the key points of consonance between Buddhistand Derridean thinking before problematising Loys criticism of deconstruction. Aftershowing how Loys proposed objective of mutual healing functions instead to stymiedialogue, I chart a way forward towards renewed intellectual hospitality between the twosets of knowledge-practices by submitting for consideration, the ways in which thebodhisattva ideal of the Mahayana and the Derridean = passion for the impossible sharea commitment of utter response-ability towards incalculable alterity a praxis-ideal that

may be described as unconditional unconditionality unconditionally.

Contributor Note

Edwin Ng teaches media and communication studies at Deakin University, Australia. Hisongoing research explores the reciprocity between Buddhist teachings and radical

thought in critical theory, seeking to redress the general neglect of questions concerningreligion and faith in cultural studies scholarship, and to develop new approaches to thepostcolonial study of Buddhism, especially with regard to the emergent WesternBuddhism. He has published articles on these issues in Cultural Studies Review,

Australian Religion Studies Review(now the Journal for the Academic Study of Religion),and Journal of Buddhist Ethics. Edwin is currently finishing a book manuscript entitled,Buddhism, Cultural Studies, A Profession of Faith.


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www.cf.ac.uk/JOMECjournal @JOMECjournal

2009; Carey 2008; Chidster 1996;Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Dubuisson2003; Gauchet 1999; King 1999;Masuzawa 2005; McCutcheon 1997;

Mendieta 2001; Purushottama and Irvine2009; Twells 2009; van der Veer 1996).

As a committed practicing Buddhist likeLoy, I too profess faith in the potential ofmeditative or contemplative exercises,and would challenge prevailingEurocentric regimes of knowledgeproduction that would disregard the

truth values of Buddhist Dharmateachings. However, whilst Loys reading

of Buddhism and deconstruction is inprinciple a laudable attempt atencouraging an ethos intellectualhospitality in comparative scholarship,

this paper will show that his criticism ofdeconstruction betrays a selective,myopic reading of Derridas writings, and

thus his discourse falls short of itsproposed goal of mutual healingbetween the Buddhist and Western

traditions. My contention is that Loysdiscourse seeks one-upmanship, suchthat rather than intellectual hospitality itlapses back into the habit ofontotheological closure, which he claims

the Buddhist approach is better atovercoming than deconstruction. What

this shows, in other words, is that thehabit of intellectual inhospitality, cutsboth ways. To develop my argument, Iwill first contextualise my own position

as a Buddhist practitioner-scholar withinthe emergent discourse called Buddhistcritical-constructive reflection. I thenoutline the key points of consonancebetween Buddhist and Derridean

thinking before problematising Loyscriticism of deconstruction. After showinghow Loys proposed objective of mutualhealing functions instead to stymiedialogical exchange, I will chart a way

forward towards greater intellectualhospitality between the two sets of

knowledge-practices by submitting forconsideration, the ways in which thebodhisattva ideal of the Mahayana and

the Derridean passion for the impossible

share a commitment of utter response-ability towards incalculable alterity apraxis-ideal that may be described asunconditional unconditionality uncon-ditionally. The paper will conclude withsome extrapolatory remarks on thebroader political significance of such along-term dialogical exercise that adoptsan ethos of intellectual hospitality toinvite mutual enhancement andreciprocal learning.

The intellectual hospitality of Buddhistcritical-constructive reflection

This papers re-evaluation of therelationship between Buddhism anddeconstruction develops as part of myongoing attempt to pursue what JohnMakransky (2008) has proposed as

Buddhist critical-constructive reflection an emergent discourse that reflects thebroader move to decolonise theacademic study of religion (particularly,

the study of non-Western traditions) byreconfiguring it as a multi-perspectival,and poly-methodical form of culturalstudies, one that would become morereflexive of the colonial heritage and/orprevailing secularist, intellectual conceits

of religious studies (King 1999: 54).Buddhist critical-constructive reflectionpursues two reciprocal aims: to use theBuddhist understandings to enhanceacademic research on contemporaryissues; and to use the knowledge-practices of the secular academy to

facilitate the translation and adaptationof Buddhist teachings and formations tocontemporary contexts. In short,Buddhist critical-constructive reflection

explores new interfaces betweenacademia, Buddhism, and society. As an


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expansive, adaptive approach that seeksmutual enhancement and reciprocallearning, it can accommodate suchdiverse projects as dialogical exchange

between psychotherapy and meditativetechniques, Christian and Buddhistpalliative care, neuroscientific andBuddhist understandings of conscious-ness, as well as the philosophical-

theoretical enquiry developed here on(Mahayana) Buddhist and Derridean

thinking.

Regardless of the chosen subject matter,in order for Buddhist critical-constructive

reflection to productively pursue mutualenhancement and reciprocal learning, itmust be anchored by a commitment tonot efface or subordinate the Buddhistpractitioner-scholars faith or affectiveinvestment in soteriological propositionsof Dharma teachings under the will topower-knowledge of the secularacademy. By foregrounding the role of

the subject in its own discourse in this

instance, by not pretending that thescholar researching Buddhism is notpersonally invested in Buddhistsoteriological claims as a practitioner Buddhist critical-constructive reflectioncan begin to defuse the modernsecularist, intellectual conceits of socialscientific norms that have governed theacademic study of religion (especiallynon-Western traditions) with rigid, binaryconceptualisations of subject/object or

insider/outsider. Openness about onesaffective investment or commitment of

faith in the objects of study that onewishes to bring together as subjects ofconversation is crucial for the cultivationof intellectual hospitality, which will behospitable only to the extent that it doesnot negate incommensurable difference.With regard to the habitual dismissive-ness shown by secularist discourses

towards religious truth claims,philosopher of religion Morny Joy (1996:

89) has underscored that it is one thingto demonstrate the inadequacy ofhuman efforts to secure an abidingabsolute. But it is quite another to

dispute the existence of a divineprinciple simply because of theincommensurable levels of discourseinvolved. As will be shown below, Loyattempts to redress this dismissiveattitude in Western scholarship, butdespite proclaiming a commitment towork mindfully with incommensurabledifference, his tunnelled-vision criticismof Derridas textual idolatry and

valorisation of meditative religiouspraxis over deconstructive philosophical

theoria, would repeat the very habit ofintellectual inhospitality he seeks todefuse. But before I reconsider therelationship between Buddhism anddeconstruction, it is I appropriate that Icontextualise my own invested interest inintellectual hospitality by outlining somesalient points about my reciprocalpursuits of Buddhism and post-

structuralist-inflected cultural theory. Ihave elaborated on the specificchallenges circumscribing this cotermin-ous sacred-scholarly profession and thequestion it raises about the role of faithin academia elsewhere, exploring themin the context of cultural studies generalneglect of religion and with regard to theplace of autoethnography in thepostcolonial study of Buddhism (Ng

2012a, 2012b, 2011).I am someone who would pass for apostcolonial Western Buddhist convert.

That is, even though I grew up inSingapore where (Mahayana) Buddhismwas a part of my diasporic Chineseancestral heritage, I only embracedBuddhist teachings after migrating to

Australia in 2002 for tertiary educationand shortly after discovered Western

translations of Buddhist discourses alongwith a passion for academia. My personal


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pursuit of Buddhism has thus alwaysbeen reciprocally informed by myprofessional pursuit of cultural research(with a focus on poststructuralist-

inflected critical theory); and whilst myformal practice of Buddhism is informedby Theravadin teachings, I have alsodrawn inspiration from my informalstudy of the Mahayana (specifically, thepoetry of Chan/Zen and Madhyamikaphilosophy of Nagarjuna). This cotermin-ous sacred-scholarly profession has notdeveloped without significant tensionand feelings of ambivalence about how I

traverse the insider/outsider divides onall sides to at once inherit and betray thereligious/secular legacies of the East/West. With my researching into thehistorical trend of Buddhist modernism,

these feelings became intelligible as thelingering traces of ideological contest-ations between Western(-ised)

translations of Buddhism and the anti-colonial currents of Asian Buddhistrevivalist movements (Gombrich 1993;

Lopez 1995, 2002, 2008; McMahan 2008;Sharf 1993, 1995; Snodgrass 2003,2007). For whether it be the Orientalistreification of a textualised Buddhism asa means to denigrate the perceiveddegeneracy of native Buddhist customs(Almond 1988: 95; Lopez 2008: 9), or theappropriation of Western scientificrationalism by the Protestant Buddhistmovement in Ceylon as a means to

resist colonial rule and Christianmissionisation (Gombrich 1993; Lopez2008: 153-195; see also Prothero 1996),or the underlying Japanese chauvinismand nationalism of D.T. Suzukis (followinghis teacher Soen Shaku) romanticised

translation of Zen (McMahan 2008: 122-134; Sharf 1993; see also Snodgrass2003; Victoria 2006) these struggles forcultural and political legitimacy, whichhave generated reverberations that are

still resonating through contemporaryBuddhist formations, are characterised

by a pervasive habit of one-upmanship.That is, they all perform selective(mis)readings of the others discourse inorder to the assert the superiority of

ones own position. In view of this badhabit, I want to make a plea for astronger ethos of intellectual hospitalityin supporting the dialogical, translationexercise of hosting the stranger(Kearney and Taylor 2011). By drawingattention to Buddhisms anddeconstructions shared commitment tounconditional unconditionality uncondit-ionally, I want to use my in-betweenenunciative position as leverage toperform a version of the cross-readingexercise proposed by Richard Kearney inhis reflections on the hermeneutics of

the religious stranger, where the aim isnot some unitary fusion between theunderstandings of disparate traditionsbut mutual disclosure and enhance-ment:

What happens, for instance, if we

read the text about Shivas pillars offire alongside passages on theBurning Bush or the Christianaccount of Pentecostal flame? Whatnew sparks of understanding andcompassion fly up if we read Hindu

texts on the guha alongsideBuddhist invocations of the void (in

the Heart Sutra) or biblicalreferences to Elijah or Muhammedin his cave, Jonah in the whale,

Jesus in the tomb? What novelpossibilities of semantic resonanceare generated by juxtaposing thesacred bird (hamsa) of Vedantaalongside the dove of Noahs ark orof Christs baptism in the Jordan?(Kearney 2010: 50)

My cross-reading of Buddhist anddeconstructive ideas via a re-evaluation

of Loys writings is not strictly speakinginter-religious, though there will be an


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indirect encounter with certain Judeo-Christian concepts that Derridadeconstructs. Nevertheless, the prin-ciples of intellectual hospitality

underpinning Kearneys suggestionsremain pertinent, in that my aim is tostage a conversation where one traditionconfronts, challenges, augments andamplifies another via collaborativeexchange of symbols and narratives(Taylor 2011: 19). To proceed, we should

first consider the affinities betweenBuddhist and Derridean understandings.

Dependent co-arising and diffrance

Dependent co-arising or co-dependentorigination (Pali: paticcasamupp!da;Sanskrit: prat"tyasamutp!da) is thecentral principle that serves as the basis

for the doctrines and practices of allschools and lineages of Buddhism.Buddhist texts describe it as theliberating insight of Awakening and

recounts the Buddha himself saying,Whoever sees dependent co-arising sees

the Dhamma; whoever sees theDhamma sees dependent co-arising(Th!nissaro 2003). Alternatively, theprinciple of dependent co-arising couldbe glossed as: This being, that exists;

through the arising of this that arises.This not being, that does not exist;through the ceasing of this that ceases.

Dependent co-arising threads throughthe most basic formulation of Buddhistsoteriology, the Four Noble Truths: 1.) the

truth of dukkha, the unavoidableexperience of suffering or existentialdiscontent engendered by theimpermanence of life; 2.) the truth of thegenerative condition of dukkha, or thelatent tendency towards craving which

feeds the habit of clinging to fixed viewsand modes of being in the face ofexistential finitude; 3.) the truth of thecessation of dukkha, the possibility of

transforming the habitual ways we relateto suffering and thus Awakening (nibb!na)to the possibility of liberation fromexistential discontent; 4.) the truth of the

Eightfold Path, the life-practice necessaryfor the transfiguration of the experienceof suffering. Or according to the basic

formulation of dependent co-arising, wecould explicate the Four Noble Truth

thus: through the ceasing of craving,dukkhaceases. It is important, however,not to misinterpret dependent co-arisingas an account of linear causality, butrather to see it as the invariableconcomitance between the arising andceasing of any given phenomenon(Bodhi 1995). Such an account ofemergent causality informs the twelvelinks of becoming:

And what is dependent co-arising?From ignorance as a requisitecondition come fabrications. From

fabrications as a requisite conditioncomes consciousness. From

consciousness as a requisitecondition comes name-and-form.From name-and-form as a requisitecondition come the six sensemedia. From the six sense media asa requisite condition comescontact. From contact as a requisitecondition comes feeling. From

feeling as a requisite conditioncomes craving. From craving as arequisite condition comes clinging/

sustenance. From clinging/susten-ance as a requisite conditioncomes becoming. From becomingas a requisite condition comesbirth. From birth as a requisitecondition, then aging and death,sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress,and despair come into play. Such is

the origination of this entire mass ofstress and suffering. (Th!nissaro

1997a)


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Although accounts of the twelve linkstypically begin with the condition ofignorance, it is not a first cause, nor does

the process end with death as the final

phase. The twelve links loop around togenerate the continuous movement ofwhat is described in Buddhist cosmologyas samsara or the cycle of rebirth. Forour purpose, the focus is on theproposition that every link only arisesreciprocally withor co-dependently uponeach other link. As Jin Y. Park (2006b: 14)points out in her discussion of theconsonances between Buddhist andDerridean thinking, to say that A onlyarises dependently upon B, andreciprocally that if B were absent A doesnot arise, is to describe a nonlinearmovement of causality. Dependent co-arising, in other words, describes amultimodal and multilevel movement ofemergentcausation, and thus articulatesa non-substantialist account of beingand existence. That is to say, it does notpresuppose any substantial entity,

neither a subject nor object that acts asthe agent of the movement ofinterdependency. Park writes:

A being exists at the crossroads of acomplicated web of causes that areboth causes for future happeningsas much as they are effects ofprevious happenings. The next-previous connection exists only in

the linguistic convention, since no

moment however brief it may be can stand still to be identified aspast, present, or future. In thissense, the past has never existed;

the present and future will not everexist; but all the same the past,present, and future influence andare influenced by others. Thedependent co-arising thendemands a maximum level of

awareness of the mutability of abeing. (Park 2006b: 14)

An analogous movement is described byDerridas neologism diffrance, whichhas neither existence nor essence andbelongs to no category of being, present,

or absent (Derrida 1973: 134). Diffranceserves as the strategic note orconnection for the deconstructivemanoeuvre of decentring the meta-physics of presence or logocentrism(Derrida 1973: 134, 137). Throughout thehistory of Western thought, speech hasbeen valorised over writing because thepresence of the speaker is believed tosecure immediacy to Truth. Writing, on

the other hand, is believed to lackimmediacy since it can be reproduced in

the absence of the author. Derrida,however, argues that language functions

through iterability, that for any linguisticsystem to function, it must be able togenerate meaning in the absence of theoriginal speaker or author. Hence,regardless of whether it takes the form ofspeech or writing, language has alwaysbeen repetition, or more precisely,

differential repetition. In speech, writingis already inscribed, and in writing,speech is already inscribed. Language,meaning, conceptuality the apprehend-sion of a subject in relation to an object is possible because of an anteriormovement of differing and deferring,which is what the term diffrance putsinto operation: Whether in the order ofspoken or written discourse, no element

can function as a sign without referringto another element which itself is notsimply present. This interweaving resultsin each element [] being constitutedon the basis of the trace within it of theother elements of the chain or system(Derrida 1981: 23-4). If diffranceindicates any thing, it is movement itselfor the play of trace. Characterised thus,diffranceresonates with dependent co-arising, both of which recall and reaffirm

the differing and deferring movement ofemergent causation, the ever-unfolding


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web of mutually dependent connections.Consider also how Derrida speaks of themiddle voice:

Here in the usage of our languagewe must consider that the ending ance is undecided between activeand passive. And we shall see whywhat is designated by diffrance isneither simply active nor simplypassive, that it announces or recallssomething like the middle voice,

that it speaks of another operationwhich is not an operation, whichcannot be thought of either as a

passion or as an action of a subjectupon an object, as starting from anagent or from a patient, or on thebasis of, or in view of, any of these

terms. (Derrida 1973: 137)

What is announced by the middle voice(la voix moyenne), as Derrida insists,cannot be thought of as the medianpoint between two extremes. To position

the middle thus is to fall back on adualism of either/or that underpins ametaphysics of presence. Rather, themiddle which diffrancerecalls affirms adouble negation of neither/nor thatrelinquishes even its own negation. Or asPark (2006a: 12) puts it, the Derrideanmiddle designates the impossibility ofdrawing a clear-cut demarcationbetween conditions that the history ofphilosophy has defined as binary

opposites and which our linguisticconvention has separated into twoopposite realms namely, the dualismof subject/object. In Buddhism, any suchdualism between the subject and object,or between arising and ceasing, isregarded as an illusory, deluding after-effect generated by the misapprehensionof the movement of dependent co-arising, which announces the Buddhas

middle path or middle way. Atraditional explanation of the middle

way recounts the Buddhas life story,where he first renounced a life ofsensual pleasure as a young prince topursue ascetic practices of bodily

mortification, before renouncing that alsoat the point of near death to settle on apath of moderation between twoextremes, a middle path which led to

Awakening. But this is only a limitedexplanation to illustrate the soteriologicalpragmatism of the middle path. Like themiddle voice of diffrance the middlepath of Buddhism cannot be reduced to

the median point between two extremes it is not to be discovered through a

thinking of the either/or but affirmedthrough a double negation of neither/nor that relinquishes even its ownnegation. In a text from the Pali Canonwhere the Buddha is asked by a follower

to clarify the necessary Right View forthe goal of Awakening, the middle pathis explained thus:

By and large, Kaccayana, this world

is supported by (takes as its object)a polarity, that of existence andnon-existence. But when one sees

the origination of the world as itactually is with right discernment,'non-existence' with reference to

the world does not occur to one.When one sees the cessation of theworld as it actually is with rightdiscernment, 'existence' withreference to the world does not

occur to one. (Th!nissaro 1997b)

The Buddha neither affirms existence nornon-existence, and in so doing arising isaccepted co-dependently and relation-ally with cessation, being with non-being(see Park 2006b: 9). He goes on to say,Everything exists: that is one extreme.Everything doesnt exist: that is asecond extreme. Avoiding these two

extremes, the Tathagata [one who hasthus gone; used by the Buddha when


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referring to himself] teaches theDhamma via the middle [this is followedby an explication of the twelve links ofbecoming] (Th!nissaro 1997b). In the

Mahayana, the middle path is explicatedin the Nirvana Sutra as theunconditioned awareness of Awakening:Buddha-nature neither exists nor non-exists/both exists and non-exists/ []being and non-being combined/This iswhat is called the middle path (quotedin Park 2006b: 10). Like deconstruction,Buddhism evokes the middle to disruptbinary oppositions and dualistic thinking.

This, then, is how Loy glosses theirrelationship:

[Buddhism and deconstructionshare:] similar critiques of self-existence/self-presence; a sharedsuspicion about the ontotheologicalquest for Being, and a correspond-ing emphasis on groundlessness;

the deconstruction of suchtranscendental signifieds into

ungraspable traces of traces; arejection of Truth (with a capital T)as the intellectual attempt to fixateourselves; and the questioning ofboth objectivist and subjectivist

values. (Loy 1993: 483-484)

Reconsidering David Loys Buddhistcritique of deconstruction

In the volume Healing Deconstruction:Postmodern Thought in Buddhism andChristianity, Loy claims that thecollection of essays explores pathwaysopened up by deconstruction but whichDerrida himself was unwilling or unable

to explore that is, the possibility of aleap from theory to practice [] whichis better exemplified in religiousdisciplines (Loy 1996: 2). According to

Loy, the possibility of unmediatedawareness is not something that

deconstruction is able to account forbecause it is ensnared by itspreoccupation with the infinite play oflanguage. Hence, the dialogical exchange

performed by the essays offers healingpossibilities for both religious under-standings and postmodern thinking. On

the one hand, by clarifying howdeconstruction vigilantly exposes thedanger of an idolatry of self-presence,

the exchange can help to correct thelogocentric, ontotheological habits ofreligious knowledge-practices. On theother hand, by refusing the textualidolatry that theoriaencourages when itremains divorced from a more holisticpraxis, the exchange can illuminate away out of the abyss that Nietzschespoke of and into which we findourselves staring in the wake of thepostmodern rupture of grand narrativesabout Truth and Being (Loy 1996: 2).

The dialogical exchange performed byLoy and the contributors to the volume

is ostensibly extending intellectualhospitality towards Buddhist sacredunderstandings (Christian understand-ings are explored too, though this isbeyond the scope of the currentdiscussion). I do not as such contest

their agenda of mutual healing, whichdovetails in principle with the cross-reading exercise of hosting the strangerI am adapting for this paper. But I want

to question the way in which their task of

mutual healing presupposes thatdeconstruction remains bedevilled bytextual idolatry such that it is unable tomake the leap from theory to practice.My counterargument is that such a claimenacts critical inhospitality towardsdeconstruction, because it effaces howDerrida himself, as well as those buildingon his work, have repeatedly explained

that deconstruction is neither merely

concerned with language nor is it anexercise that eschews praxisin favour of


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theoria. If anything, deconstructionchallenges the distinction long held inWestern thought between theory andpractice by disrupting the very dualism

of theoria/praxisitself.

In addition to the edited volume HealingDeconstruction (1996), Loys allegationsabout deconstructions textual idolatryappear in at least three other essays:The Clture of Deconstruction: AMahayana Critique of Derrida (1987),The Deconstruction of Buddhism (1992),and Indras Postmodern Net (1993). ThatIndras Postmodern Net has been

republished more than a decade later inthe anthology Buddhisms andDeconstructions (Park 2006a) issuggestive of the continuing influence ofLoys criticism of deconstruction. In his

first essay on the topic, Loy (1987: 59)claims that Derridas radical critique ofWestern philosophy is defective onlybecause it is not radical enough, and

that Derrida remains in the halfway-

house of proliferating pure textualitywhereas deconstruction could lead to atransformed mode of experiencing theworld. This argument is repeated in thesubsequent essays where the claim isrepeated that Buddhism is more radicalbecause Derridean deconstruction is stilllogocentric, for what needs to bedeconstructed is not just language but

the world we live in and the way we livein it, trapped within a cage of our own

making (Loy 1992: 227-228); Loy (1993:481) asks, What would happen if[Derridas] claims about textuality wereextrapolated into claims about the wholeuniverse? (1993: 481) Employing IndianMadhyamika, Chinese Huayan, and ZenBuddhist understandings, he contends

that Buddhist deconstructive strategiesnot only anticipate Derridas but alsooffer a more thorough deconstruction of

existence, or as he puts it, the whole

universe. Loy illustrates his claim withthe metaphor of Indras Net:

Far away in the heavenly abode of

the great god Indra, there is awonderful net that has been hungby some cunning artificer in such amanner that it stretches outinfinitely in all directions. In accord-ance with the extravagant tastes ofdeities, the artificer has hung asingle glittering jewel in each eyeof the net, and since the net itself isinfinite in all dimensions, the jewelsare infinite in number. There hang

the jewels, glittering like stars of thefirst magnitude, a wonderful sight tobehold. If we now arbitrarily selectone of these jewels for inspectionand look closely at it, we willdiscover that in its polished surface

there are reflected all the otherjewels in the net, infinite in number.Not only that, but each of the jewelsreflected in this one jewel is also

reflecting all the other jewels, sothat there is an infinite reflectingprocess occurring. (quoted in Cook1977: 2)

Indras Net, according to Francis Cooksdescription, symbolises a cosmos inwhich there is an infinitely repeatedinterrelationship among all the membersof the cosmos (1977: 2). If each elementin the net reflects the infinite other

elements, it cannot be said to possesself-presence or be self-existent, for eachelement is thoroughly dependent uponothers. Rather than being self-existent,each element is interpermeated withinfinite other elements. Indras Net, inother words, expresses the principle ofdependent co-arising. If it posits acosmos, it is that which precludes thenotion of a creator or origin, for it has no

center, or perhaps if there is one, it iseverywhere (Cook 1977: 2). Loy then


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compares the wisdom of Indras Net withDerridas claim in Of Grammatology(1978: 36): In this play of representation,

the point of origin becomes ungraspable.

There are things like reflecting pools, andimages, an infinite reference from one to

the other, but no longer a source, aspring. There is no longer simple origin.But whilst Loy acknowledges theaffinities between Buddhism anddeconstruction, he maintains that theexperience of selflessness andinterdependency of self and otherscannot be gained from the study of textsalone, for it requires a leap whichcannot be thought, a leap which couldbe better performed by religiouspractice (Loy 1993: 485). He furthersuggests that if Derridas aim is to seeka nonsite, or a nonphilosophical site,

from which to question philosophy,meditation can be one such nonsite, forinsofar as meditation is a religiouspractice it constitutes the other ofphilosophy, the repressed shadow of our

rationality dismissed and ignoredbecause it challenges the only groundphilosophy has (Loy 1993: 485).

Such a judgment about the supposedsuperiority of meditation or religiouspraxis, I want to suggest, does not givespace to host mutual healing but ratherenacts intellectual inhospitality towardsboth deconstruction and Buddhism. For

to claim that Derridas conceptual

critique lacks the practical applicationsof Buddhist meditation is to efface thespecificities of the respective traditionsand gloss over how the religion/philosophy opposition does not sitcomfortably with either Buddhism ordeconstruction. As Park (2006a: xvii) hasnoted in the introduction to the volumeBuddhisms and Deconstructions, thecomparative project is off-balance from

the start: By juxtaposing the religio-philosophical tradition of Buddhism with

the philosophy of deconstruction, theproject might have attempted to cross

the border of genre as much as that ofgeographic specifics, which could

damage the value of this project.Likewise, in his essay on the affinitiesbetween Derridean deconstruction and

the Madhyamika understanding of theIndo-Tibetan Buddhist sage Nagarjuna(whom Loy also engages with in hiswritings), Ian Mabbett (2006: 22) suggests

that the comparison between the twosystems of thought from such differentcultural environments must be radicallyincommensurable, and the plotting ofsimilarities could only be a jeu desprit.In other words, incommensurabilitybetween Buddhism and deconstructionneed not lead to a critical impasse. Loy(1993: 505) appears to acknowledge this:That there are also major differences isnot an impasse but an opportunity: theplace where fruitful dialogue can occur. I

think such a conversation has much tooffer both parties. Yet, in order to mount

the critique of Derridas textual idolatryLoy has to ignore the specific aims ofdeconstruction and efface the incomm-ensurabilities between Buddhism anddeconstruction, and in so doing stymies

fruitful dialogue. This is evinced by theway he does not work consistently with

the jeu desprit Mabbett speaks of,especially with regard to Derridas ownplayful writings about the text or

textuality. Loy says:Today Jacques Derrida argues thatthe meaning of such a multi-dimensional space [of the text] cannever be completely fulfilled, for thecontinual circulation of signifiersdenies meaning any fixed

foundation or conclusion. Hencetexts never attain self-presence, andthat includes the text that

constitutes me. (1993: 481)


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These claims are followed by thequestion quoted above: What wouldhappen if these claims about textualitywere extrapolated into claims about the

whole universe? On the one hand, Loyappears to acknowledge thatdeconstructions focus on textualitycomplicates the supposed gulf betweenlanguage and reality, such as when hesays that the lack of enduring self-presence of texts includes the the text

that constitutes me (Loy 1993: 481). Yeton the other hand, Loy also asserts thatdeconstruction does not go beyondlanguage, such as when he ponders theimplications of extending Derridas

thinking about textuality onto the wholeuniverse (Loy 1993: 481). Has Loy raiseda question about the search for theoutside of language not alreadyconsidered by Derrida himself? Considerwhat the latter has said (in a publishedinterview that Loy also cites in his essay)about the repeated allegations thatdeconstruction is concerned only with

language: I never cease to be surprisedby critics who see my work as adeclaration that there is nothing beyondlanguage, that we are imprisoned inlanguage; it is in fact, saying the exactopposite. The critique of logocentrism isabove all else the search for the otherof language (Derrida quoted in Kearney1984: 123). Consider also the oneutterance in Derridas lexicon which has

incurred more ire than any other, thenotorious aphorism il ny a pas de hors-texte, or there is nothing outside the

text/no outside-text. Derrida says:

What I call the text implies all thestructures called real, economic,historical, socio-institutional, inshort: all possible referents. Anotherway of recalling once again thatthere is nothing outside the text.

That does not mean that allreferents are suspended, denied, or

enclosed in a book, as people haveclaimed, or have been naive enough

to believe and have accused me ofbelieving. But it does mean that

every referent, all reality has thestructure of a differential trace, and

that one cannot refer to this realexcept in an interpretive exper-ience. (Derrida 1988: 148)

What Derrida variously calls the generaltext, arche-text, textuality, or just text,does not refer only to language ormeaning but also implies all theconstitutive forces of human experience.

Or as Caputo (1997b: 79-80) puts it, Weare always and already, on Derridas

telling, embedded in various networks social, historical, linguistic, political,sexual networks (the list goes onnowadays to include electronic networks,worldwide webs) various horizons orpresuppositions. The word networkswhen used in this context dovetails with

the Buddhist understanding of

dependent co-arising as a web ofmutually conditioning forces thatconstitutes the experience ofphenomenal reality. So when Caputo(1997b: 80) says of the Derrideanunderstanding of text we are all in thesame textual boat together, forced to do

the best we can with such signs andtraces as we can piece together, workingout of one worldwide-web site oranother what the word textual

connotes is not language exclusively butthe movement of trace immanent todifferential repetitions of habit andhabitat, both words and things, forming

the body-minds sense of spatiotemporalexistence-in-this-world. Mabbett makes

the same point:

When we speak of deconstruction,then, there is no unique given

reality with which we can identify itapart from the phenomenal world


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itself, which is a text, a structure orseeming structure whose realnature can be recognized to beincapable of consistent character-

ization once it is seen for what it is.Reality, or all that can berecognized as such, is notsomething that comes to be known,having existed previously. It is aconstruction of knowing. (2006: 25)

Derridas late work, which is discussedbelow, goes some way towards clarifying

the common misconception thatdeconstruction is concerned only with

language, engaging explicitly as it doeswith questions about justice anddemocracy (Derrida 1992a, 1994, 1995,1997, 2001b). But even in his earlierwritings, Derrida (1982: 18) speaks of theworldling of the world, characterisingdiffranceas the name we might give to

the active moving discord of differentforces. In Of Grammatology ethno-centrism is mentioned as a corollary of

logocentrism, and the question of writingvis--vis diffrance or the movement oftrace is also linked to the question ofviolence: What links writing to violence?And what must violence be in order forsomething in it to be equivalent to theoperation of the trace? (Derrida 1978:112) As Elizabeth Grosz (2005: 58) notes,what Derrida investigates here is not thequestion of what writing must be inorder for something in it to be equivalent

to violence: Rather, he seeks out themodes of divergence, ambiguity,impossibility, the aporetic status of

violence itself, a status that it shares withthe trace, and thus with writing,inscription, or difference. That is, Derridadoes not ask how violence is like writing,but rather, what is it in violence, whatoperative element in violence, isequivalent to the trace? (Grosz 2005: 59).

Would Loy agree with commentators likeGrosz and Mabbett that life behaves in a

textual way had he not effaced howDerridas preoccupation of text or

writing is always an intervention againstthe problems of lifeworlds like violence,or how diffrance disrupts thesilence/language dualism as much as

the subject/object dualism? In light ofhow Loy has published a book for ageneral readership entitled The World isMade of Stories (2010), one wonders ifhe has implicitly conceded on this pointabout the textuality of life. But perhapsLoy would still maintain thatdeconstruction only attempts todecentre the dualism of subject/objecttheoretically and offers no practicalmeans to truly forget the self, as the

Japanese Zen master D"gen put it:

To study the Buddha way is to studythe self. To study the self is to forgetthe self. To forget the self is to beactualized by myriad things. When

actualized by myriad things, yourbody and mind as well as thebodies and minds of others dropaway. No trace of realizationremains, and this no-tracecontinues endlessly. (quoted in Loy1993: 503)

Loy asserts in all his essays onBuddhism and deconstruction that sucha realisation requires religious practice,

and specifically meditative exercise:Forgetting itself is how a jewel inIndras Net loses its sense of separationand realizes that it is the Net. Meditationis learning how to die by learning toforget the sense-of-self, which happensby becoming absorbed into onesmeditative-exercise (Loy 1993: 503). Asan authorised teacher of the SanboKyodan lineage of Zen Buddhism a

lineage whose emphasis on meditationis shaped by the hegemonic imperatives


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of Buddhist modernism (Sharf 1995) Loy is no doubt committed to the

transformative potential of a whollyother, unmediated awareness promised

by Buddhism. And here we againconfront one side of the centralproblematic of this paper: how might weextend intellectual hospitality towards

the soteriological truth claim andpromise of Buddhist meditation?

My contention is that the dialogue onmutual healing, as it has developed thus

far, has congealed around the positionpropounded by Loy that meditation is

the necessary practical corrective for amerely theoretical deconstruction. Thisposition turns on a blinkered reading ofDerridas work and effaces its owninhospitable analytical manoeuvres.Moreover, Loys deployment of thereligious practice of meditation as thenecessary corrective to deconstructionstextual idolatry, also unwittingly re-enacts intellectual inhospitality towards

Buddhism. Despite his statedcommitment to non-dualist thinking, in amove that ironically affirms decon-structive ideas about supplementarityand contamination, Loys criticism isremains haunted by an enduring dualismof the Western intellectual tradition heinhabits: like a spectral presence, thereligion/philosophy distinction under-pinning the claim about the correctivenecessity of meditation remains invisible

to Loys non-dualistic critical eye. But asKing (1996) has argued, this dualismcannot be taken for granted, for thereligion/philosophy distinction is notnative to non-Western traditions likeBuddhism. To position, then, Buddhistmeditation as a religious corrective toDerrida's philosophical analysis is touniversalise Eurocentric categories ontoBuddhism, to negate difference. But even

if we bracket these inhospitableanalytical manoeuvres in Loys discourse,

his reading of Buddhist non-dualism withthe metaphor of Indras Net is notunproblematic in itself:

Indras Net implies that when ajewel has no inside, the outside isnot outside. The mind that D"gen[refers] to is not some transcendent

Absolute [] Our minds need torealize that they are absolute in theoriginal sense: unconditioned []

The poststructural realization thatthe meaning of a text cannot betotalized that language/thoughtnever attains a self-presence which

escapes differences is animportant step towards therealization that there is no abiding-place for the mind anywhere withinIndras Net. But the textualdissemination liberated by Derridasdeconstruction will not besatisfactory unless the dualisticsense of self not just its discourse has been deconstructed. (Loy

1993: 505-506; emphasis added)Consider here the observation by RobertMagliola (2006: 246) that even thoughLoy disavows any totalising claim of atranscendent Absolute, his under-standing of Indras Net slips into a formof totalism by making an implicit claimof the all is one and the one is all. Loysunderstanding of Indras Net is informedby the Huayan [Flower Garland] school of

Mahayana Buddhism, which conceives ofPerfect Reality as unchanging. It isbeyond the purview of this paper toconsider the controversies within Huayanover specific doctrinal interpretations.For the purpose of evaluating Loyscriticism of deconstruction, it is sufficient

to highlight Magliolas point that apriori the key ideas of the HuayanSchool, and even more so, the rhetoric

associated with the school, alienate thedeconstructionist: s/he turns a cold


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shoulder (2006: 246). Magliola adds, Nodoubt, Huayan like all Buddhist schools intends its chosen ideas and images[of the mutual identification of the one

and many, and perfect harmony] to serveonly as prajapti [Sanskrit: provisionaldesignation], but this is in fact my point:precisely on this score, vis--visdeconstruction, Huayans unitarinessdoesnt pass muster (Magliola 2006:246). In other words, Loys discoursestakes its claim by seeking recourse in

the kind of ontotheological closure thatdeconstruction questions; Loys claims

that Buddhist deconstructive strategiesare better at overcoming such alogocentric habit notwithstanding, onto-

theological closure is precisely what hiscriticism re-enacts. This is evident in thepassage quoted above. As Magliola(2006: 247) astutely observes, theontotheological closure of Loysdiscourse is exposed by the phrasewithinIndras Net, which reveals that hisrhetoric of inside/outside, and non-

abidingness is unabashedly inside theholism [of Huayan].

To criticise deconstruction Loy has toseek recourse in a rhetoric ofboundaries, of an inside/outside dualismwhich Derrida had repeatedly challengedwith tropes like contamination anddouble-bind, so as to thwart closure,unmarked space, and other hallmarks ofholism (Magliola 2006: 247; Bennington

and Derrida 1993: 306, 310; Kamuf 1991:599). On this point we could further note

that despite quoting the Buddha on howit is unwise to conclude, This alone is

Truth, and everything else is false, Loynevertheless asserts: Awareness ofmutual identity and interpenetration israpidly developing into the onlydoctrine

that makes sense anymore, perhaps theonly one that can save us from

ourselves (1993: 483; emphasis added).

My point in problematising Loysdiscourse is not to dismiss as futile thedialogical exchange between Buddhismand deconstruction (or poststructuralist

thought in general), but merely tounderscore that any such comparativescholarship that aims at mutual healingneeds to mindfully cultivate andmaintain an ethos of intellectualhospitality or to put inversely, it needs

to guard vigilantly against the intellectualinhospitality of habitual one-upmanship.What next for the dialogue, we could ask,after concluding that Buddhism is moreradical? How would this assertion ofone-upmanship enable further dialogue,mutual enhancement and reciprocallearning? To reinvigorate the dialoguebetween Buddhism and poststructuralist

thinking to take seriously thetransformative potential of Buddhistmeditation without positing its super-iority I shall chart a trajectory beyond

the critical impasse by refocusingattention on how Buddhism and

deconstruction both affirm an openhorizon of utter response-ability, sharinga praxis-ideal of what I would callunconditional unconditionality uncon-ditionally.

Unconditional unconditionalityunconditionally

In The Deconstruction of Buddhism, Loy(1992: 228) explains that there is notranscendental injunction to followBuddhist teachings. Rather, thepractitioner accepts ethical precepts andmakes vows to cultivate a certain modeof living conducive to Awakening. As a

follower of the Mahayana, Loys life-practice would be oriented by thebodhisattva ideal, and he wouldpresumably recite the bodhisattva vows

on a regular basis. The precise wordingmay differ according to translations, but


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the principal vows of the bodhisattvaideal are:

Beings are numberless; I vow to

awaken with them.Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow toend them.

Dharma gates are boundless; I vowto enter them.

Buddha's way is unsurpassable; Ivow to become it.

In the spirit of the inventive cross-

reading that Kearney suggests, I want toexperiment with an interpretation of thebodhisattva ideal in terms of whatDerrida repeatedly affirms as thedeconstructions passion for theimpossible. How does one awaken withall beings, end the delusions that causesuffering, enter the dharma gates ofliberation, and become the Buddhas wayof Awakening, if they are numberless,

inexhaustible, boundless, andunsurpassable? Yet, these are the verywords a Mahayana Buddhist would reciteon a regular basis, as if to say: That it isimpossible is precisely why it can andmust be done. The bodhisattva idealcould therefore be read as a pledge ofcommitment to utter response-ability, acommitment to unconditional uncon-ditionality unconditionally. For if one is torelinquish all selfish desires and strive for

the Awakening for all sentient beings,then, to remain faithful to the hopefulaspirations of this radical promise for the

future, of a promising future forcountless other others as Derrida mightsay, it is necessary to undercut onesown desire for bodhisattvahood andeven to refuse to give the path of

Awakening any determinate endpoint. Asa praxis-ideal of unconditional

unconditionality unconditionally, thebodhisattva ideal imagines Awakening as

an ever-receding horizon that, bydefinition, cannot be reached. Yet, that

the horizon is impossible to reach, that itis ever-receding, is what makes it

possible to initiate and navigate ajourney towards any destination in thefirst place. The condition of possibility forembarking on a path of action at onceannounces its impossibility or theimpossibility of circumscribing it in anydeterminate manner, at any rate.Otherwise, how does one extendhospitality towards incalculable alterity,respond to the call of the other, andactualise the potential of alwaysbecoming otherwise, the freedom ofunbecoming, of Awakening? Could it besaid, then, that the bodhisattva aspirantholds a passion for the im-possible, apassion professed by Derrideandeconstruction?

Derridas writings, especially during thelater stage of his career, deal with aseries of possible-impossible aporias,

such as hospitality and forgiveness. Theidea of hospitality that underpins thispaper has been strongly influenced by

this aspect of Derridas work: Hospitalityis the deconstruction of the at-home;deconstruction is hospitality to the other(Derrida 2002: 364). On Derridasaccount, hospitality or to be moreexact, absolute or unconditionalhospitality must be without imperative,order or duty, and hence it is both

inconceivable and incomprehensible(2002: 362). He writes:

The law of hospitality, the expresslaw that governs the generalconcept of hospitality, appears as aparadoxical law, pervertible andperverting. It seems to dictate thatabsolute hospitality should breakwith the law of hospitality as right or

duty, with the pact of hospitality. Toput it in different terms, absolute


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"'


hospitality requires that I open upmy home and that I give not only to

the foreigner [] but to theabsolute, unknown, anonymous

other, and that Igive placeto them,that I let them come, that I let themarrive, and take place in the place Ioffer them, without asking of themeither reciprocity (entering into apact) or even their names. (Derrida2000: 25)

If absolute hospitality must be unlimited,then, there can be no exchange or debtbetween the host and guest. To extend

hospitality to an other, one must havethe power to host; there has to be aclaim of ownership or mastery over adomain in order to welcome whoeverand whatever arrives without demand,expectation, and discrimination. The hostmust be able to set some limitation on

the guest, for if the guest takes over thedomain then one loses the status of hostand the capacity to extend hospitality.

The very condition of possibility for theact of hosting, however, also renders theinaugural promise of absolute hospitalityan impossibility. For to exert ownershipand control is to circumscribe absolutehospitality, which calls, rather, for aresponse of non-mastery or uncon-ditionality. Hospitality as such is alwaysdeferred, never complete, absent to itself.

Yet, the impossible response elicited bythe call of absolute hospitality is why a

welcoming hand can and must beextended why a relationship to theother is possible. The possible-impossible aporia that constituteshospitality does not paralyse decision,but serves as the open horizon ofpossibility for determinate action, for thestriving towards unconditional uncon-ditionality unconditionally, even if such apraxis-ideal always remains unfulfilled as

such: yet to come. So for example, inrelation to the issue of immigration

Derrida says that unconditional andconditional hospitality are irreducible toone another, but that it is in the name ofhyperbolic hospitality that we should

always invent the best dispositions []the most just legislation [] Calculatethe risk, yes, but dont shut the door onwhat cannot be calculated, meaning the

future and the foreigner thats thedouble law of hospitality (2005a: 67).

The same aporetic logic im-possibilisesthe unconditional promise of forgiveness:If I only forgive what is forgivable or

venial, the nonmortal sin, I am not doing

anything that deserves the name offorgiveness. Whence the aporia: it is onlythe unforgivable that ever has to beforgiven (2005a: 160). Forgiveness musttherefore always remain heterogenousto the order of politics or of the juridicalas they are ordinarily understood, and in

this sense it is excessive, hyperbolic,mad (Derrida 200b: 39). The moment a

transgression is deemed forgivable, or

the moment a plea for forgiveness is metby a response, it becomes conditional,an act of calculation, amnesty, or pardon.

Yet, conditional forgiveness must remainin tension with the impossible ideal ofunconditional forgiveness, otherwise

there would be no possibility of anydeterminate act of forgiving as such. Likehospitality, forgiveness is structured,preceded, by a double bind such that itis always incomplete, and hence, always

response-able. Derrida portrays therelationship between the conditional andunconditional thus:

These two poles, the unconditionaland conditional, are absolutelyheterogeneous, and must remainirreducible to one another. They arenonetheless indissociable: if onewants, and it is necessary,

forgiveness to become effective,concrete, historic; if one wants it to


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arrive, to happen by changingthings, it is necessary that thispurity engage itself in a series ofconditions of all kinds (psycho-

sociological, political, etc.). It isbetween these two poles,irreconcilable but indissociable, thatdecisions and responsibilities are tobe taken [] pure andunconditional forgiveness, in order

to have its own meaning, must haveno meaning, no finality, even nointelligibility. It is a madness of theimpossible. It would be necessary

to follow, without letting up, theconsequence of this paradox, or

this aporia. (2001: 44-45)

Derridas treatment of aporetic promiseslike hospitality and forgiveness exposes

the impossibility of being in itself, thedouble bind of temporal experience orwhat he describes (via deconstructivereadings of the Judeo-Christian heritagehe inhabits) as messianicity without

messianism, which articulates anotheriteration of diffrance, the idea thatnothing is simply present to itself. ForDerrida, impossible messianic ideals likehospitality and forgiveness (and can wealso include the aporetic promise ofbodhisattva ideal?) entail the exposure towhat comes or happens. It is theexposure (the desire, the openness, butalso the fear) that opens, that opensitself, that opens us to time, to what

comes upon us, to what arrives orhappens, to the event (Derrida 2003:120). In other words, deconstructionrecalls and affirms the finitude of thehuman condition, our mortality, theabsolute limit, of death, of theincalculable and unforeseeable event

that impossible horizon of a future tocome that makes possible the differingand deferring movement of the trace, the

movement of life, the absence thathaunts the absent presence of the

present. As Derrida (1978: 5) writes in theexergue Of Grammatology, the writing ofdiffrance attests to the utterunpredictability of the absolute future to

come, which can only be anticipated inthe form of an absolute danger. It is thatwhich breaks absolutely with constitutednormality and can only be proclaimed,presented, as a sort of monstrosity. In

this regard, I would join Park in(re)affirming the relationship betweenBuddhism and deconstruction:

To remember the face of death itspresence and absence in our being

is to refresh our existentialcondition of the human being allover again [] Our existence ismarked by an open ending. Withoutopenness toward the inconceiv-ability of the world, we are trapped.Derrida tells us, this is a dangerousplay. Buddhists know that it is noteasy to give up the illusory self wehave created since the beginning-

less beginning of the phylogeny ofthe human mind. Danger anddifficulty, however, do not change

the reality. It might be only througha constant engagement with them

that we may be able to peep into afragment of the groundless groundwhich we call our existence (Park2006b: 18).

So perhaps it is at the impossible

juncture of our mortality wheredeconstruction resonates most stronglywith Buddhism, both standing resolutelyon the groundless ground of being togive witness to the finitude of the humancondition or what Buddhism attests to as

the First Noble Truth of dukkha theacceptance of which is the necessary

first step towards becoming otherwise,the condition of possibility for Awakening,

the arrival of something wholly other:unconditional unconditionality uncon-


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ditionally. To be clear, my point is notthat Buddhism and deconstruction arethe same. Rather, since there is nostraightforward way to arbitrate on

whether a Buddhist or Derrideanapproach to defusing the metaphysics ofpresence is more radical or effective inany event, it is important to refuse thishabit for one-upmanship to cultivate theethos of intellectual hospitality what Iam arguing is simply that one way to gobeyond the impasse of existing debates,is to (re)affirm their shared commitmentof utter response-ability towardsdifference or incalculable alterity, theirshared ethos of unconditionalunconditionality unconditionally.

Conclusion

This paper has addressed the challengeof intellectual hospitality in comparativescholarship on Buddhism and the so-called constructivist paradigm of Western

thought, focussing in particular on theexchange between Mahayana Buddhistunderstandings and Derridean decon-struction. It considered the question ofhow might we engage with the sacredproposition of an unmediated awarenessof reality that is purportedly accessible

via meditative exercises. I argued that itis important not to dismiss suchreligiously informed truth claims simply

because they appear to beincommensurable with constructivistunderstandings about the constitutivehistorical and cultural forces ofexperience. To dismiss them in asweeping manner is to risk perpetuating

the continuing ideological subordinationof Asian sacred traditions and lifeworldsunder the will to knowledge-power of aEuro-Christian-centric intellectual para-digm. The paper then examined how the

writings of David Loy enact intellectualinhospitality when they make Buddhist

deconstructive strategies are moreradical than Derridas deconstruction,which is unable to make the leap from

theory to practice. This argument turns

on a blinkered reading of deconstructionthat effaces the incommensurabilitiesbetween the two sets of knowledge-practices. In so doing, it stymies fruitfuldialogue. To open a path beyond thiscritical impasse, I refocused attention onhow Buddhism, and particularly thebodhisattva ideal upheld in theMahayana, joins deconstruction inaffirming the possible-impossibleaporetic condition of temporal existence.Both of them are committed to what Ihave described as a praxis-ideal ofunconditional unconditionality uncon-ditionally.

By cross-reading the bodhisattva idealwith the im-possible promises ofhospitality and forgiveness, what thispaper has done is, in effect, to drawBuddhist understandings into the ambit

of contemporary philosophical interest inthe messianic, and particularly Derridasthoughts on messianicity withoutmessianism. An examination of themessianic tone adopted in contemporaryradical thought would require a fewstudies of its own.1 For the purpose ofconcluding this paper with someextrapolatory remarks on the broaderpolitical significance of the arguments Ihave presented and to signpost

trajectories for further dialogicalexchange, I want to simply highlight that

the so-called messianic turn marks aconcern not with the determined

theological content of the messianic the specific who, what and when ofredemption so much as a generalized

1 For an overview of the messianic turn in

contemporary thought, see special issues ofJournal of Cultural Research, volume 3,

issues 3-4, 2009.


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ontological, phenomenological, temporal,ethical or political structure that can begleaned within it (Bradley and Fletcher2009: 188). This concern with the

messianic now, to put it another way,cannot be circumscribed by anyconceptual or institutional horizon ofexpectation. Or as Derrida (1994: 211)puts it, to affirm the messianic is to sayyes to the arrivant(e), the come to the

future that cannot be anticipated. Aproblematic that confronts Derridas

thinking of the messianic now (as wellas others like Badiou and !i"ek) is the

thorny question of whether we can evenspeak of a messianic without a Messiah,whether the messianic could indeed bespoken of as a generalised structure ofexperience that exists independently of

the historical event of the Abrahamicrevelations. An analogous problematicconfronts a messianic reading ofBuddhism. If theres a messianic tone inBuddhism (as exemplified by theMahayana praxis-ideal of the

bodhisattva, for example), we could alsoask how it relates to the figure of the

future Buddha or Maitreya Buddha.According to Buddhist discourses, theAwakening of this successor to GautamaBuddha would occur in a future age tocome when the teachings of the Buddhaare forgotten in the world. Is this a formof messianism? Or if not, how might thiseschatological narrative in Buddhism be

drawn into dialogue with currentattempts to think the messianic withoutthe determinate messianisms of theAbrahamic traditions?

These are clearly large philosophicalquestions that require a sustainedconversation between different part-icipants, including Buddhism, andespecially an emergent WesternBuddhism. But, as I have been arguing,

any such conversation must always bemindful of intellectual hospitality. This,

then, I hope, would be the modestcontribution of this paper to the wider

messianic turn in contemporary radicalthought. The conversations-to-comecould begin with intellectual hospitality,if, without effacing the levels ofincommensurability involved in theexchange, they consider how Buddhismmay similarly affirm an absolute futurewith its guiding doctrine of dependentco-arising. For Buddhism anddeconstruction, their shared affirmationof the messianic ought not be seen as arejection of the present. Rather, asBradley and Fletcher (2009: 185) put it,

to imagine an absolute future whoseonly relation to the now takes the formof a total interruption or renunciation isnot to ignore the here-and-now, but toexpose the historical contingency ofevery form of current political orphilosophical organization. In this sense,

the thinking of the messianic now

performs an absolutely timely, currentand ongoing critique of neo-liberalmodernitys own (messianic?) pretensions

to monopolize the now (Bradley andFletcher 2009: 185). This task ofinterrogating the now pledgescommitment to, professes a certain faithin the ontological messianicity inherentin politics, a hopefulness that alsopulsates as the heart of what Foucault

proposed as a critical ontology of thepresent (1984; see Oksala 2012: 153) itperforms a duty of hospitality towards

the incalculable future. Isnt thiscollective task of receiving the whollyother in good faith, a promise ofunconditional unconditionality uncon-ditionally, an invitation for Buddhistcritical-constructive reflection?


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