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There seems to be a fundamental affinity between Buddhist experiential philosophy based on "seeing things as they are" and Western phenomenology based on a conceptual return "to the things themselves!", in the injunction of Edmund Husserl. Buddhism and phenomenology stress the value of reflecting reality as it is without imposing false images or impressions; hence, the prevalence of the symbolism of the mirror in both stand-points. Of all the Western philosophers and philosophical movements to which Buddhism has been associated by modern scholars, from the pre-Socratics, Plate and Aristotle to Leibniz, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Whitehead and Derrida, phenomenology is surely one of the most fruitful and cogent areas for comparative studies.
Steven Laycock takes a rather unique approach to comparative philosophy which stands in contrast to most methodologies that fall into one of two categories: a one-on-one comparison of a particular philosopher or philosophical system in the West with its counterpart in the East, often despite great differences in chronology in addition to cultural background; or the use of a Western philosophical approach, be it epistemology, existentialism, poststructuralism or phenomenology, to illumine an Eastern text or thinker. Instead, Laycock reverses the second trend and uses Buddhist philosophical reflections based on a meditative experience of emptiness to comment critically on the phenomenological movement, including the works of Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sarter, and Merleau-Ponty, among others. On the Buddhist side, Laycock draws on five main schools of thought, including the early canon, Madhyamika and Yogacara from South Asia and Hua-yen and Zen from East Asia. In particular, he focuses on the paradigmatic quality of the famous Zen
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debate in verse form between the kataphatic approach of Shen-hsiu, who likens the mind to the stand of a bright mirror, and the apophatic approach of Shen-hsiu, who likens the mind to the stand of a bright mirror, and the apophatic approach of Hui-neng, who according to the tradition became the sixth patriarch largely because his verse negated this metaphor.
Throughout the book Laycock explores the similarities between Buddhist and phenomenological attitudes which commonly seek a presuppositionless standpoint by virtue of realizing a state prior to any logical commitment to affirmation or negation. "Akin to Buddhist practice," Laycock writes, "phenomenology is prelogical, not by any means anti-logical, and certainly not illogical. And its consistent concern, not simply with the antelogical, but more searchingly, with the antepredicative, ensures that its thought cannot flee immediate experience in the direction of logical entrainment" (p. 76). For both standpoints, the prelogical mode is attained by practicing a suspension of conceptual judgment - the epoche of Husserl or the Great Doubt of the Zen Buddhist path of which it is said that "the greater the doubt the greater the realization." In addition, both views advocate a middle way, non-essentialist position ever navigating between the extremes of realism and idealism.
The book is divided into two main sections. Part I, "Mind as Mirror," emphasizes the Buddhist view that the enlightened mind mirror reflecting phenomena placed before it without generating delusion or judgment. Both Shen-hsiu and Hui-neng, despite other differences in expressing it, exemplify this truth. Part II, "The Mirroring of Mind," highlights the Western side in which the aim is not to create an enlightened mind but to analyze the intentionality of the way the mind operates. In phenomenology, the mind is to be mirrored or reflected in an analysis that lays bare its role. Thus a fundamental difference between traditions emerges. According to Laycock, "Ecstatic intentionality, the elemental conception of Occidental phenomenology, though it brightens whatever insight falls beneath its illumination, is itself wrapped in deep mystery" (p. 174), which derives from the fundamental gap between "what reality
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is in itself [that] can be reached by consciousness even though it must remain, in principle, radically distinct from and transcendent to consciousness" (pp. 174-5, citing Robert Sokolowski). However, what is left as a profound mystery in the West is made clear by Buddhist soteriology, so that "(t)he Buddhist epoche is transformative, not in the Husserlian sense in which 'the phenomenological reduction first exposes a subjectivity which already accepts the world,' but in its existential-metanoetic transmutation of the very possibility-form of mediate, disingenuous activity" (p. 157).
This book is written in a meditative style, that is, a non-linear, non-systematic style that meanders along various pathways while reflecting on diverse ideas. it works best in exploring the concrete implications of abstract philosophical theories as well as the rich imagery of the mirror in multiple interpretations. However, the book is marred by several flaws. First, the lack of trajectory in the structure of the work frequently leaves the reader bewildered as to the main argument. One is never clear about the overriding conclusions, if any, which Laycock intends to demonstrate. Second, although Laycock consistently shows how traditional Buddhist doctrines seem to anticipate and implicitly criticize modern Western theory, he rarely attempts to show the reverse point - a critique from the standpoint of the West of Buddhist thought, which invariably emerges as the more radical and thoroughgoing philosophical project.
The most serious concern is that Laycock's discussion is frequently undermined by his exposition of Buddhism which relies on translations and secondary sources, many of which are outdated. He sometimes glosses over important differences and debates between Buddhist schools and almost never delves into current scholarly controversies concerning the textual historical context of the doctrines in question. Surprisingly, he does not deal with two very powerful uses of mirror symbolism in East Asian Buddhism, the Hua-yen hall of mirrors reflecting myriad images of the Buddha to demonstrate Indra's Net and the Zen koan about a disciple diligently practicing zazen who is accused by his master of the improbable act of trying to polish a tile to create a mirror. Nor does
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the book reckon with recent studies of Hui-neng and The Platform Sutra, such as the works of John McRae. The author's lack of familiarity with original Buddhist sources means that the book will no doubt be better appreciated by Western phenomenologists than Buddhist specialists, but it nevertheless makes a stimulating contribution to comparative philosophical studies.