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38. Ibid., 271.
39. Ibid., 281.
40. Ibid., 284. Tilmann Vetter states that this  contradiction in terms is such that
it should lead to the questioning of Buddhist assertions of soteriology about the notion
of such discrimination. This issue leads Vetter to offer the hypothesis that the nondis-
cursive experience of the fourth dhya\na attained by the Buddha was tantamount to his
liberation, and that later tradition superimposed the discursive element upon his teach-
ings and his life narrative. See Tilmann Vetter, The Ideas and Meditative Practices of
Early Buddhism (New York: E. J. Brill, 1988), xxi xxxvi, 3 6.
41. Ibid., 295.
42. Lloyd Pflueger,  Discriminating the Innate Capacity, in The Innate Capac-
ity: Mysticism, Psychology, and Philosophy, ed. Robert K. C. Forman (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1998), 47.
43. Ibid., 48.
Notes to Chapter 2 145
44. Ibid., 52.
45. Ibid., 54.
46. Ibid., 55.
47. Ibid., 56.
48. Ibid., 59.
49. Larson,  Classical Yoga as Neo-Sa\me"khya, 730 32.
50. Ibid., 69.
51. Ibid.
52. In this context, John Dunne has demonstrated how Dharmakêrti and Chan-
drakêrti struggled with finding a way to reconcile what can be referred to as the numi-
nous and cessative characteristics of the Buddha, the fact that according to Maha\ya\na,
the Buddha was at once utterly transcendent and a compassionate guide. It appears that
one of the things that characterizes and differentiates these traditions is to what degree
they have attempted to reconcile the numinous and cessative dimensions of their sote-
riology, or where they exist on that spectrum. Mario D Amato also has noted that from
the viewpoint of the Maha\ya\nasu\tra\lamka\ra, the most significant characteristic of the
Maha\ya\na is that it leads to buddhahood, as opposed to non-Buddhist paths and the
paths of the so-called Hênaya\na, demonstrating the central import of competing ideas
of soteriology. On these issues, see John D. Dunne,  Thoughtless Buddha, Passionate
Buddha, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 64:3 (1993): 525 55; Mario
D Amato,  The Maha\ya\na-Hênaya\na Distinction in the Maha\ya\nasu\tra\lamka\ra: A
Terminological Analysis (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 2000), 134. The
complex range of philosophical and pragmatic issues that embodied liberation present
in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism is dealt with extensively in John J. Makransky, Buddha-
hood Embodied: Sources of Controversy in India and Tibet (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1997).
53. Sharf,  Buddhist Modernism, 94 116.
54. Ibid., 229.
55. Ibid., 231.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid., 236.
58. Ibid., 237 39.
59. Ibid.
60. Ibid. As noted earlier, on this point see King, Orientalism and Religion,
178 80.
61. Ibid., 269.
62. Ibid., 243.
63. Ibid., 261 62.
146 Notes to Chapter 2
64. Ibid.
65. Janet Gyatso,  Healing Burns with Fire: The Facilitations of Experience in
Tibetan Buddhism, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 67:1 (1999):
113 47.
66. YS I.5.
67. Another problem with Sharf s theory arises in the context of his arguing more
broadly against the conception of experience. In doing so, he misconstrues experience
and memory, claiming that inconsistencies in people s memory of certain experiences
demonstrate the constituted nature of experience. In fact, all this observation does is
reveal the constituted and impermanent nature of memory, that our understanding of
experience and our engagement with the world are contingent to some degree upon our
perspective in time and space. Memory tends to be less clear over time, and therefore
interpretation and interpolation may well be active parts of dealing with hazy or long-
forgotten memories. Common experiences are likely to be reported in divergent ways
the farther away in time from the event, and this should be no surprise. People are more
likely to agree about a shared experience if they are closer in spatial and temporal
proximity to the actual event. The experience itself may be understood differently by
the various perceiving subjects, but certain aspects should approximate each other. The
epistemology of Classical Yoga might be invoked here to talk about this distinction,
that memory and direct perception are both modes of experience (smre"ti and pratyakse"a)
but distinct in form and function. It also should be noted that both Classical Yoga and
Buddhism allow for direct types of perception that are at different levels of clarity and
different levels of consistency regarding the actual nature of reality. See Sharf,  Expe-
rience, 107 14.
68. Gyatso,  Healing Burns with Fire, 115.
69. Ibid., 116.
70. Ibid., 138.
71. Ibid., 138 39.
72. Ibid., 120, 126.
73. Mircea Eliade, Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries: The Encounter between Con-
temporary Faiths and Archaic Realities (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), 47 56.
74. The notion of spaciousness has particular relevance in the Buddhist context as
representative of ideas regarding the  skylike nature of mind found in systems such
as Maha\mudra\.
75. Gananath Obeyesekere, Medusa s Hair: An Essay on Personal Symbols and
Religious Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 180.
76. Ibid., 180 81.
77. Ibid.
78. Obeyesekere, The Work of Culture, 68.
79. Ibid.
Notes to Chapter 3 147
80. Ibid., 52.
81. Ibid., 65 67.
82. Speculations on the relationship of neurophysiology to shamanism can be
found in Michael Winkelman, Shamanism: The Neural Ecology of Consciousness and
Healing (Westport, Conn.: Bergin & Garvey, 2000).
83. Frits Staal, Rules without Meaning: Rituals, Mantras, and the Human Sci-
ences (New York: Peter Lang, 1989).
84. It is interesting to note that this view is easily inverted, in arguing that partic-
ular types of religious practice are  anti-evolutionary and result in  primitive modes
of consciousness or awareness.
85. Eliade, Yoga, 66 67.
86. The topic of the siddhis or vibhu\tis offered by Pa\tañjala Yoga has been dis-
cussed at length by Yohanan Grinshpon in Silence Unheard: Deathly Otherness in
Patañjala Yoga (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), 32 35 passim.
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