BOOK REVIEWS William S. Waldron. Making Sense of Mind Only: Why Yogācāra Buddhism Matters

A. C1 &) + M%))& !e YogAcAra Buddhist tradition has been a small :eld of research for Western scholars since the mid-twentieth century, and YogAcAra has been taught in university classes in North America since at least the 1970s.Due to the lack of a solid and balanced introductory book for YogAcAra, up to now instructors of introductory courses who have needed course texts have been pretty much forced to patch together a variety of teaching materials according to their own abilities and interests.A number of our colleagues have, over the years, considered writing such a book, but given the breadth, sophistication, and complexity of the YogAcAra tradition, this was always seen to be an onerous task because it would require an immense e8ort to properly cover all of the broad aspects of YogAcAra.Now, however, the job has been done, and done well.William Waldron has, with great care, and working over the course of many years, come up with a masterpiece.!e book not only serves well as an introduction but can also be a study for advanced scholars, as it assiduously guides us through the thorniest issues in the YogAcAra tradition.!e arguments and examples given in this book are many, but they are held together by a single thread: dependent arising.In a sense, YogAcAra can be described as nothing but a profound exercise in understanding and coming to terms with the pervasiveness of dependent arising.In my experience as a scholar of Buddhism, I have come across only one other book that treats dependent arising with this degree of intensity and insight. 1 But a philosophically oriented scholar who might think that this will make Waldron's volume easy to understand would have to be cautioned.What is being articulated here is not the simple image of ontological dependent arising of causal interconnectedness to which we tend to be conditioned: it is an epistemological articulation of dependent arising.We create our own worlds through our own thinking.1 Macy 1991.!is book is not YogAcAra-oriented, but like Waldron's book, it has an extensive conversation with the opinions of scientists on mutual causality in scienti:c disciplines.