Customer Reviews

Nonduality: A Study in Comparative Philosophy

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As an undergraduate student, focusing on Hindu Studies and Indian Philosophy, I wrote my senior thesis on comparative systems of nondualistic philosophy in Indian religion. As I grapppled with the idea of nonduality, trying to wrap my brain around the concept, trying to tie together all I had learned in my studies on Kashmir Shavism, Vedanta, and Tantric Buddhism, I was recommended Loy's book by my professor.

David Loy manages to connect western and eastern philsophy and psychology to create an interpretation of nonduality that resonates with the western mind. Loy strengthens his interpretation by setting out philosophically, steering psychologically, and reinforcing with literature. Loy's book is a delight to read, is easy to understand, and is thought-provoking throughout.

Included in this text is the most complete exposition of nonduality and eastern thought as pertaining to post modern literary theory, dealing mainly with Derrida. Few have attempted to correlate these apparentaly discordant traditions, and I beleive Loy does it best, re-presenting much of his scholarship in previous articles with new twists and interpretations, though never regurgitating old work.

I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in eastern thought; it makes an excellant introduction for the beginner and a place of growth for the intermediate. The text would also be of great value to anyone teaching eastern thought becuase it is so inclusive and clear-speaking. Its phenomenological-existential edge will make it appealing, breathing life into an amazing topic, which is so often presented in a poor and dry manner.

I find this book truly amazing and I hope it receives all the attention it deserves. The term "nonduality" is mentioned again and again in books on Buddhism and Eastern philosophy. Here, the author makes an amazing discussion of what nonduality means, as far as word can express this.

This book is not "easy-reading" in all places, but it's very well worth the effort. The chapters on "nondual perception" and "deconstruction of dualism" are absolutely amazing. I have reread this book and parts of it many times, and will have to do so again.

David Loy has done a superb job of being true to the standards of academic comparative philosophy, true to the traditions, and true to direct pointing to transconceptual awareness, all at the same time--which is every bit as rare as it is desperately needed. But then, I would expect nothing less from a philosophy professor who is also a spiritual teacher in the Zen tradition. Don't pass this one up.

I have studied this book on and off for a decade. My interest is in philosophy of mind, not in religious issues, but this work is one of the very few that offers a true alternative to the all the untenable and currently accepted views of person-in-world (esp.: material reduction; dualism; functionalism; neutral monism). It lacks a psychogenetic-developmental perspective, and I hope to fill that important and illuminating gap some day in a companioon volume.

This book is absolutely brilliant. If you're grappling with the subject of nonduality then this should put you straight (at least intellectually!) - I've read parts of this book numerous times, and the sections on the deconstruction of nonduality and Derrida are mindblowing stuff. Loy has nailed 'it'.

Flawed? Only in the sense that it uses language to describe something that subverts language and avoids description. That's saying a lot, but Loy can be forgiven for that - even Lao Tsu and Nagarjuna wrote a book!

I am a great admirer of David Loy's work, especially his book "Lack and Transcendence." This work is chock full of fascinating information and discussions, and I have learned a great deal from it, but the material Loy presents for discussion is a good deal better than the conclusions he draws from it. Loy's philosophical background is in the Heidegger/Derrida continental tradition, and unfortunately he has inherited some of the logical sloppiness of that tradition. Worse, and this is a flaw that pervades just about the whole book, is that he seems not to fully understand that
Nagarjuna's two truths theory means that you cannot meaningfully mix the conventional mode of discourse with the ultimate mode of discourse. Certainly you cannot draw logical conclusions from such a mixture. This failure to grasp the most foundational point of Madhyamika leads to a variety of confusions, as evidenced in Loy's discusson of the role of sense organs in non-dual perception. Worse, it completely undermines the thesis of his central chapter, the Deconstruction of Dualism, in which Loy tries to show the fundamental identity of the different non-dual traditions he discusses: Mahayana Buddhism, Sankara's Advaita Vedanta, and Taoism. Loy's is certainly the most sophisticated attempt I have seen to defend this "perennial philosophy," blenderized view of eastern religions. Aldous Huxley had the same notion, but all either of them succeed in doing is to create the proverbial coal bin at midnight in which all cats are black.

But I still recommend this book. It is full of treasures, and it is a pleasure to enter into a mental discussion with a writer as sharp and learned as Loy.

David Loys book is simply too far ahead of its time. That's why it is so under-appreciated (see the lukewarm editorial reviews).
In 20 years this will be a classic. If your "on the verge" this book can help you do the quantum-leap.

I stumbled onto David Loy's work after years of reading books concerning Heidegger, phenomenology and (recently) Buddhism. And I will have to say that I am now a very enthusiastic David Loy fan. This book has provided a kind of philosophical "glue" that has suddently made sense of the past 15 years of Heidegger. If you are interested in Buddhism and phenomenology I strongly suggest you buy up everything David Loy has written and read it twice. Very accessible. Very creative.

David Loy's is a well-written and brilliant study of Nonduality in Vedanta, Buddhism, Taoism and certain modern thinkers, whose aim is "to encourage readers to work toward overcoming their own sense of subject-object duality" by attaining Nondual Awareness.

Reading it we learn that Nondual Awareness is just about the most important thing of all that we have to understand. After all, everything is made of consciousness, you cannot be aware of or know anything unless it is present in and as consciousness, and David Loy's book can be of considerable help in understanding what we and the world really are and what our mind is doing when we think we are thinking, perceiving, and acting.

I have little else to add to the excellent comments others have already made except to point out that, considering its high price, the physical format of this book is very disappointing.

My own copy is the recent Humanity Books (NY, 1999) paperback reprint. Although manufactured in the USA, the printing lacks the sharpness and clarity one expects of an American book, many pages have ink smudges, the book is imperfectly bound with the last page crumpled, and, worst of all, it has one of those brittle glued spines that has already begun to crack.

It looks, in other words, more like certain poorly produced Indian books than an American book and is clearly not going to stand up to much handling at all.

One hopes that David Loy finds a publisher who is going to treat his work with the respect it deserves when he next publishes.