1
Historical overview
The development of Chinese Buddhist philosophy can be divided
roughly into four periods: (1) the early introduction of Indian and Central Asian
Buddhism (first-fourth centuries ad); (2) the formative development of Chinese
versions of Indian and Central Asian Schools (fifth-seventh centuries); (3) the
emergence of distinctively Sinitic Buddhist schools (seventh-twelfth centuries);
and (4) the continuance of Chinese Buddhism into the present day (thirteenth century
onwards).
From the fourth through the seventh centuries, Buddhists periodically
realized that the positions being engendered in China were at variance with their
Indian antecedents, and attempted to correct the problem, either through the introduction
of additional translations or by clarifying differences between Buddhist and native
Chinese ideas. By the eighth century, the Chinese had apparently become satisfied
with the types of Buddhism they had developed, since from then on they lost interest
in Indian commentaries and treatises and instead turned their attention toward
Chinese commentaries on the Buddhist scriptures - such as the Lotus Sutra and
Huayan Sutra - that had assumed importance for Chinese Buddhist traditions. Moreover,
even though missionaries continued to arrive in China and new translations continued
to be produced through the thirteenth century, none of the significant developments
in Indian Buddhism (such as Buddhist syllogistic logic) from the seventh century
onwards had any lasting impact on Chinese Buddhism, and many important texts and
thinkers (for example, Dharmakirti, Candrakirti, Santarak?ita) remained virtually
unknown in East Asia until modern times.
2
Earliest developments
The first undisputed reference to Buddhism in China is
an edict by Emperor Ming to Liu Ying, king of Qu, in the year ad 65, which mentions
sacrifices performed by the king to Buddha as well as favourable treatment for
Buddhist monks and laymen; the edict also identifies King Liu Ying as a follower
of Huang-Lao Daoism. For the next few centuries, the Chinese continued to view
Buddhist texts and practices as a part of or supplement to Daoism. Buddhism seemed
to share important issues with the types of Daoism practised in this period, including
the metaphysical primacy of emptiness, meditation techniques, dietary and behavioural
disciplines, afterlife theories connected to moral and behavioural discipline,
expansive pantheons and cosmologies, striving for the soteriological transformation
of the ordinary human condition, rigorous and subtle intellectual traditions,
and magical and yogic powers. These affinities, however, were more apparent than
real, since the Buddhist approaches to these issues usually differed sharply from
their Daoist counterparts, though Buddhists did not assert their distinctiveness
until the fifth century.
Buddhist monks and businessmen representing a variety
of Buddhist schools and disciplines continued to arrive in China, establishing
Buddhist communities in Loyang and elsewhere. It took several centuries for the
Chinese to notice how disparate the various forms of Buddhism really were. Initially
the Chinese were most interested in Buddhist meditation techniques, including
chanting and visualizations, which they adopted as supplements to Daoistic techniques.
Daoism held out the promise that one could become a sage or perfected person,
or even an immortal, but the exact details of how to accomplish this transformation
remained elusive and vague. In comparison to many of the Daoist texts which were
esoteric, hard to find, and frequently obscure in presentation, Buddhist texts
seemed systematic and detailed, providing step-by-step procedures for practitioners.
Along
with meditation manuals, the earliest Buddhist texts to become popular in China
were Avadana materials (legends of the Buddha and Buddhist heroes) and the Perfection
of Wisdom Scriptures (Prajñaparamita Sutras). About half a dozen schools
formed around varying interpretations of the Perfection of Wisdom Scriptures,
mixing ideas found in these and other Buddhist texts with concepts prominent among
Chinese intelligentsia. One Prajñaschool, called the Original Nothingness
school (Benwu), adopted a neo-Daoist cosmology: everything has emerged from a
primordial, original emptiness, and everything returns to that void. This was
a thorough misconstrual of Buddhist emptiness. Another school, called the Mind
Empty school (Xinwu), equated the primordial Nothing with the nature of mind.
Each of the Prajñaschools managed either to promote a metaphysical substantialized
emptiness which they opposed to form, or smuggle an eternal self or spirit into
their formulations, despite Buddhism's emphatic rejection of the notion of permanent
selfhood.
Dao'an (ad 312-85) criticized the Prajñaschools, challenging
their faithfulness to authentic Buddhist positions as well as the translation
methodologies behind the texts they and other Chinese Buddhists had come to rely
on. In particular, he criticized the practice of 'matching the meanings' (geyi),
by which translators seeking Chinese equivalents for Indian Buddhist technical
terms and concepts borrowed heavily from Daoist literature. This 'matching of
meanings' was a mixed blessing. Packaging Buddhist ideas in familiar terms made
them amenable and understandable, but the 'matches' were often less than perfect,
distorting or misrepresenting Buddhism. For instance, early translators chose
a well-known Daoist and Confucian term, wuwei (nondeliberative activity), to translate
nirva?a. Arguably, wuwei and nirva?a represent the teloi of Daoism and Buddhism,
respectively, but it is not obvious that they denote the same telos . Later, to
emphasize the uniqueness of Buddhist nirva?a, translators dropped wuwei in favour
of a transliteration, niepan. Wuwei was retained to render another important Buddhist
notion, asa?sk?ta (unconditioned). The semantic connotations of Daoist wuwei and
Buddhist wuwei, while possibly overlapping in some senses, were nonetheless quite
distinct: for Daoists it meant a mode of interacting effortlessly and naturally
with the world, while for Buddhists it denoted something unaffected by causes
and conditions, that neither arose nor ceased. Chinese readers inevitably came
to conflate the semantic ranges of such terms, which over the centuries led to
some distinctively Chinese Buddhist concepts. After Dao'an, Chinese Buddhism asserted
its distinctiveness from native Chinese traditions and Buddhists adopted increasingly
critical hermeneutic approaches to translation.
3
Indian transplants: Madhyamaka and icchantikas
In the critical environment
that followed Dao'an, two sets of events moved Chinese Buddhism in new directions.
First, Kumarajiva, a Mahayana Buddhist from Kucha in Central Asia, was brought
to Changan, the Chinese capital, in 401. Under the auspices of the ruler, he began
translating numerous important works with the help of hundreds of assistants,
including some of the brightest minds of his day. Some works, such as the Lotus
Sutra, Vimalakirti Sutra and Diamond Sutra, quickly became popular classics. He
also introduced the emptiness philosophy of Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka thought, which
in China came to be called the Three Treatise School (Sanlun) after the three
Madhyamaka texts he translated: the Madhyamaka-karikas, the Twelve Gate Treatise
and Aryadeva's One Hundred Verse Treatise. In a series of famous letters exchanged
with a disciple of Dao'an, Huiyuan (344-416), who had mastered most of the Buddhist
theory and practice known in China up to that time, Kumarajiva attacked the shortcomings
of the current Chinese Buddhist theories and argued persuasively for the preeminence
of Madhyamaka in matters of both theory and practice. His leading disciple, Seng
Zhao (384-414), further popularized Madhyamaka thought by packaging it in an exquisite
adoption of the literary style of Laozi and Zhuangzi, both of whom were extremely
popular amongst literati at that time. Sanlun thought continued to spread through
the fifth through seventh centuries, greatly influencing other Buddhist schools.
After Jizang (549-623), who attempted to synthesize Madhyamakan emptiness with
the Buddha-nature and tathagatagarbha thought gaining prominence at his time,
the Sanlun school declined, its most important ideas absorbed by other schools.
Second,
in 418 Faxian (the first Chinese monk successfully to return to China with scriptures
from pilgrimage to India) and Buddhabhadra produced a partial translation of the
Mahayana Nirva?a Sutra. One of the topics it discusses is the icchantika, incorrigible
beings lacking the requisites for achieving enlightenment. Daosheng (c.360-434),
a disciple of Huiyuan, convinced that all beings, including icchantikas, must
possess Buddha-nature and hence are capable of enlightenment, insisted that the
Nirva?a Sutra be understood in that light. Since that violated the obvious meaning
of the text, Daosheng was unanimously rebuked, whereupon he left the capital in
disgrace. In ad 421, a new translation by Dharmak?ema of the Nirva?a Sutra based
on a Central Asian original appeared containing sections absent from the previous
version. The twenty-third chapter of Dharmak?ema's version contained passages
declaring that Buddha-nature was indeed universal, and that even icchantikas possessed
it and could thus reach the goal. Daosheng's detractors in the capital were humbled,
suddenly impressed at his prescience. The lesson was never forgotten, so that
two centuries later, when Xuan Zang (600-64) translated Indian texts that once
again declared that icchantikas lacked the requisite qualities to attain enlightenment,
his school was attacked from all quarters as promoting a less than 'Mahayanic'
doctrine. However, it should be noted that there is no clear precedent or term
in Indian Buddhism for 'Buddha-nature'; the notion probably either arose in China
through a certain degree of license taken by translators when rendering terms
like buddhatva ('Buddhahood', an accomplishment, not a primordial ontological
ground), or it developed from nascent forms of the theory possibly constructed
in Central Asia. However, from this moment on, Buddha-nature become one of the
foundational tenets of virtually all forms of East Asian Buddhism.
4 Indian transplants: tathagatagarbha and Yogacara
A
dispute at the start of the sixth century presaged a conflict that would take
the Chinese Buddhists more than two centuries to settle. Two Indian monks collaborated
on a translation of Vasubandhu's Dasabhumikasuutra sastra (Treatise on the Ten
Stages Sutra; in Chinese, Shidijing lun, or Dilun for short). The Dilun described
the ten stages through which a bodhisattva proceeded on the way to nirva?a, and
Vasubandhu's exposition of it highlighted aspects most in accord with the tenets
of the Yogacara school . While translating, an irreconcilable difference of interpretation
broke out between the two translators, Bodhiruci and Ratnamati. Bodhiruci's reading
followed a relatively orthodox Yogacara line, while Ratnamati's interpretation
leaned heavily toward a Buddhist ideology only beginning to receive attention
in China, tathagatagarbha thought. Bodhiruci went on to translate roughly forty
additional texts, and was later embraced by both the Huayan and Pure Land traditions
as one of their early influences (see §§8, 10). Ratnamati later collaborated
with several other translators on a number of other texts. Both sides attempted
to ground their positions on interpretations of key texts, especially the Dilun.
The Yogacara versus Yogacara-tathagatagarbha conflict became one of the critical
debates amongst sixth and seventh century Chinese Buddhists.
Yogacara focused
on the mind and distinguished eight types of consciousness: five sensory consciousnesses;
an empirical organizer of sensory data (mano-vijñana); a self-absorbed,
appropriative consciousness (manas); and the eighth, a warehouse consciousness
(alaya-vijñana) that retained the karmic impressions of past experiences
and coloured new experiences on the basis of that previous conditioning. The eighth
consciousness was also the fundamental consciousness. Each individual is constituted
by the karmic stream of one's own alaya-vijñana, that is, one's karmic
conditioning. Since, like a stream, the alaya-vijñana is reconfigured each
moment in response to constantly changing conditions, it is not a permanent self,
although, being nothing more than a sequential chain of causes and effects, it
provides sufficient stability for an individual to maintain a sense of continuity.
According to classical Yogacara texts, the mind (that is, alaya-vijñana
and the mental events associated with it) is the problem, and enlightenment results
from bringing this consciousness to an end, replacing it with the Great Mirror
Cognition (adarsa-jñana); instead of discriminating consciousness, one
has direct immediate cognition of things just as they are, as impartially and
comprehensively as a mirror. This type of enlightenment occurs during the eighth
stage according to the Dilun and other texts.
The term tathagatagarbha (in
Chinese, rulaizang) derives from two words: tathagata (Chinese, rulai) is an epithet
of the Buddha, meaning either 'thus come' or 'thus gone'; garbha means embryo,
womb or matrix, and was translated into Chinese as zang, meaning 'repository'.
In its earliest appearances in Buddhist texts, tathagatagarbha (repository of
buddhahood) signified the inherent capacity of humans (and sometimes other sentient
beings) to achieve buddhahood. Over time the concept expanded and came to signify
the original pristine pure ontological Buddha-ness intrinsic in all things, a
pure nature that is obscured or covered over by defilements (Sanskrit, klesa;
Chinese fannao), that is, mental, cognitive, psychological, moral and emotional
obstructions. It was treated as a synonym for Buddha-nature, though Buddha-nature
dynamically understood as engaged in a struggle against defilements and impurities.
In Chinese Buddhism especially, the soteriological goal consisted in a return
to or recovering of that original nature by overcoming or eliminating the defilements.
The battle between the pure and impure, light and dark, enlightenment and ignorance,
good and evil and so on, took on such epic proportions in Chinese Buddhist literature
that some scholars have compared it to Zoroastrian or Manichean themes, though
evidence for the influence of those religions on Buddhist thought has been more
suggestive than definitive.
In their classical formulations the alaya-vijñana
and tathagatagarbha were distinct items differing from each other in important
ways - for instance, enlightenment entailed bringing the alaya-vijñana
to an end, while it meant actualizing the tathagatagarbha; the alaya-vijñana
functioned as the karmic mechanism par excellence, while tathagatagarbha was considered
the antipode to all karmic defilements. Nonetheless some Buddhist texts, such
as the La?kavatara Sutra, conflated the two. Those identifying the two argued
that the alaya-vijñana, like tathagatagarbha, was pure and its purity became
permanently established after enlightenment. Those opposing the conflation countered
that the alaya-vijñana was itself defiled and needed to be eliminated in
order to reach enlightenment. For the conflators, tathagatagarbha was identified
with Buddha-nature and with mind (xin). Mind was considered pure, eternal, and
the ontological ground of reality (Dharma-dhatu), while defiled thought-instants
(nian) that engaged in delusionary false discriminations had to be eliminated.
Once nian were eliminated, the true, pure nature of the mind would brilliantly
shine forth, like the sun coming out from behind the clouds.
A third view was
added when Paramartha, another Indian translator with his own unique interpretation
of Yogacara, arrived in the middle of the sixth century. For his followers the
most important of his translations was the She dasheng lun (Sanskrit title, Mahayanasa?graha),
or Shelun, a quasi-systematic exposition of Yogacara theory by one its founders,
Asa?ga. In some of his translations he added a ninth consciousness beyond the
usual eight, a 'pure consciousness' that would pervade unhindered once the defiled
alaya-vijñana was destroyed. His translations, which sometimes took liberties
with the Sanskrit originals, offered a more sophisticated version of the conflation
theory.
5 The Awakening of Faith
in Mahayana
These debates and their ramifications dominated Chinese Buddhist
thought in the sixth century. On one side was a substantialistic nondual metaphysic
whose eternalistic ground was variously called Buddha-nature, mind, tathagatagarbha,
Dharma-dhatu and suchness (tathata; in Chinese, rulai). On the other side was
an anti-substantialist critique that eschewed any form of metaphysical reification,
emphasizing emptiness as the absence of permanent selfhood or independent essence
in anything. To the anti-substantialists the tathagatagarbha position sounded
dangerously close to the notion of eternalistic, reified selfhood that Buddha
had rejected. Mahayana texts had declared that there were four conceptual perversions
or reversals behind human delusion: (1) seeing a self in what lacks self; (2)
seeing permanence in the impermanent; (3) seeing happiness in what is suffering;
and (4) seeing purity in the impure. Yet starting with the earliest tathagatagarbha
texts - such as The Lion's Roar of Queen Srimala - tathagatagarbha was brazenly
defined as 'self, eternal, happiness and pure'. In the face of these and other
disparities, the Chinese asked how, if there is only one dharma (teaching), there
can be such incommensurate variety.
The Awakening of Faith in Mahayana, a Chinese
composition purporting to be a translation by Paramartha of an Indian text, became
an instant classic by offering a masterly synthesis of Buddhist teachings that
seemed to resolve many of the disparities. Its central tenet is that there is
one Mind that has two aspects. One aspect is suchness and the other is sa?sara,
the cycle of birth and death, arising and ceasing. Suchness also has two aspects,
emptiness and non-empty. Emptiness in this text means suchness is beyond predication,
neither one nor many, neither the same nor different. Non-empty means it is endowed
with all the marvellous qualities and merits of a Buddha, 'as numerous as the
sands along the banks of the Ganges'. The link between suchness and the realm
of arising and ceasing is tathagatagarbha in association with the alaya-vijñana.
Ignorance, enlightenment and pursuit of the Path are all on the arising and ceasing
side.
In a pivotal passage that would become foundational for most forms of
Chinese, Korean and Japanese Buddhism, the Awakening of Faith in Mahayana states
that on the basis of Original Enlightenment there is non-enlightenment; on the
basis of non-enlightenment there is initial enlightenment; and on the basis of
initial enlightenment there is final enlightenment, which is the full realization
of original enlightenment. Beyond the problem of theodicy that it raises (the
text does not offer a clear explanation for why or how non-enlightenment arises),
several issues emerge. First, suddenly there is no longer simply one enlightenment
that is achieved at the culmination of a spiritual path, but instead several enlightenments,
one of which (original enlightenment) precedes even entering the path. What the
text calls initial enlightenment had been termed bodhicitta or cittotpada (arousing
the aspiration for enlightenment) in previous Buddhist literature. Arousing this
aspiration is what the title Awakening of Faith in Mahayana signifies. Now, rather
than marking a singular, ultimate achievement, the term 'enlightenment' referred
to several things: an atemporal originary ground upon which everything else plays
out, including non-enlightenment; one's initial resolve or insight that leads
one to begin pursuing the path; the final achievement at the end of the path,
an achievement that is not only anticlimactic, but is little more than an unravelling
of the intersection of original and initial enlightenment. This reinforced the
conviction of Chinese Buddhists that the conflationist approach, with its emphasis
on Buddha-nature or mind as ground, was the correct view.
One of the first
to recognize the importance of the Awakening of Faith in Mahayana was a Korean
monk named Wônhyo. He wrote a commentary on the text that reached China,
where it influenced Fazang, a foundational thinker of the Huayan school, who used
its ideas as a major cornerstone for his thinking. Since the Dilun, originally
an independent text, had eventually been incorporated into the Huayan Sutra as
one of its chapters, and that scripture became the basic text of the Huayan school,
many of the issues that had emerged from the debates on the Dilun were absorbed
and reconfigured by the Huayan thinkers. In a sense, it was ultimately Ratnamati's
interpretation that prevailed after two centuries of debate. The Awakening of
Faith in Mahayana became pivotal for Chinese Buddhism, is still one of the foundations
of Korean Buddhism and, though it has been eclipsed in Japan by other texts such
as the Lotus Sutra, many of its ideas, such as the idea of original enlightenment
(hongaku), still exert a profound influence. This text set the stage for the development
of distinctively East Asian forms of Buddhism.
6
The Chinese Buddhist Schools
Although the ideas and literature of many different
forms of Buddhism reached China - including Sarvastivada, Mahisasika, Sa?mitiya,
Dharmaguptaka, Sautrantika and others - only Madhyamaka and Yogacara developed
Chinese schools and lineages. Madhyamaka disappeared as an independent school
after Jizang, but its influence and the preeminence of Nagarjuna never abated.
The sixth century was basically a battleground of competing Yogacaric theories.
In
the seventh century the famous Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang (600-64) spent sixteen
years travelling in Central Asia and India. He returned to China in 645 and translated
seventy-four works. Due in part to his accomplishments as a traveller and translator,
and in part to the eminent favour bestowed on him by the Chinese emperor upon
his return, Xuanzang became the most prominent East Asian Buddhist of his generation.
He promoted an orthodox form of Yogacara as it was then being practised in India,
and students flocked to him from Japan and Korea as well as China. Not everyone
was enamoured of the Buddhist ideology he had brought back. Zhiyan (602-68), who
would later be considered one of the patriarchs of the Huayan school, was openly
critical of Xuanzang's teachings, and Fazang had joined Xuanzang's translation
committee late in Xuanzang's life, only to quit in disgust at Xuanzang's 'distorted'
views. While in India, Xuanzang had discovered how far Chinese Buddhism had deviated
from its Indian source, and his translations and teachings were deliberate attempts
to bring Chinese Buddhism back in line with Indian teachings. The ideas he opposed
(primarily but not exclusively those that had been promoted by Paramartha's school)
were already deeply entrenched in Chinese Buddhist thinking. While he was alive
his pre-eminence made him unassailable, but once he died his detractors attacked
his successor, Kuiji (632-82), and successfully returned Chinese and East Asian
Buddhism to the trajectory established by the conflationists. (Wônch'uk,
a Korean student of Xuanzang, was a rival of Kuiji who fared better with the revivalists
since he attempted to harmonize the teachings of Paramartha and Xuanzang.) The
underlying ideology of this resurgence, which reached its intellectual apex over
the course of the Tang and Song Dynasties (sixth-twelfth centuries), was neatly
summarized by the label 'dharma-nature' (faxing), that is, the metaphysical ground
of Buddha-nature qua dharma-dhatu qua mind-nature qua tathagatagarbha. Fazang
argued that orthodox Yogacara only understood dharma characteristics (faxiang),
that is, phenomenal appearances, but not the deeper underlying metaphysical reality,
'dharma-nature'. After Fazang, all the Sinitic Buddhist schools considered themselves
dharma-nature schools; Yogacara and sometimes Sanlun were considered merely dharma
characteristics schools.
Four dharma-nature schools emerged. Each school eventually
compiled a list of its patriarchs through whom its teachings were believed to
have been transmitted. Modern scholarship in Japan and the West has shown that
these lineages were usually forged long after the fact, and frequently were erroneous
or distorted the actual historical events. For instance, while Huiyuan was an
active promoter of the Sarvastivadin teachings introduced during his time by Sanghadeva
and Buddhabhadra, the later Pure Land schools dubbed him their initial Chinese
patriarch on the basis of his alleged participation in Amitabha rituals, allegations
that were probably first concocted during the Tang Dynasty. Similarly, the lineage
of six Chan patriarchs from Bodhidharma to Huineng is unlikely; the Huayan lineage
(Du Shun to Zhiyan to Fazang to Chengguan) was largely an invention of the 'fourth'
patriarch, Chengguan: his predecessors were unaware that they were starting a
new lineage and rather thought that they were reviving the true old-time religion
of Paramartha. It was also during the Tang dynasty that Tantra briefly passed
through China, from whence it was brought to Japan and became firmly established
as the Shingon school.
7 The Chinese
Buddhist Schools: Tiantai
Though considered its third patriarch, the intellectual
founder of the Tiantai school was Zhiyi (538-97). Responding to the proliferation
of different Buddhist theories and practices, he proposed a masterly, detailed
synthesis that definitively set Chinese Buddhism in its own direction. To the
question of why there was an abundance of incommensurate teachings despite the
fact that there could only be one dharma, Zhiyi replied that all the different
vehicles of Buddhism were ultimately one vehicle (eka-yana), an idea championed
by the Lotus Sutra. More specifically, he offered a panjiao, or classificatory
scheme of teachings, to explain the discrepancies. His panjiao was complex and
brilliant (and further refined much later by Chegwan, a Korean Tiantai monk in
China), but in simple form it can be summarized as follows.
Buddha offered
different teachings to different audiences based on the differing capacities of
audiences to comprehend what he preached. According to the basic narrative, which
became the way all Chinese Buddhists thought of Buddha's teaching career, upon
reaching enlightenment under the Bodhi Tree, Buddha, enraptured by his new vision,
began to describe that vision in immediate and exuberant terms. This became the
Huayan Sutra. (In reality, this 'sutra' is a collection of disparate texts - none
probably composed earlier than the third century ad - that were gradually compiled
together over several more centuries.) When he finished (it took two or three
weeks) he realized that no one had understood the sublime meaning of his words,
and immediately began to teach a simplified, preparatory teaching which became
the Hinayana teachings. After twenty years of preparatory teachings, he introduced
the next level, beginners' Mahayana (basically Yogacara and Madhyamaka). In the
next period he introduced advanced Mahayana (the Vaipulya Sutras), and finally
in his last days, having now trained many advanced students, he preached the Lotus
Sutra and the Nirva?a Sutra. In effect this panjiao asserts that the two highest
sutras offered by Buddha were the Huayan and Lotus; but whereas the Huayan was
too sublime to be understood by any save the most advanced or enlightened students,
the Lotus represented Buddha's most comprehensive, cumulative, mature and accessible
teaching, every bit as sublime as the Huayan, but now presented in a pedagogically
effective manner. For that reason, Zhiyi made the Lotus Sutra the foundational
text of Tiantai. As for the remaining teachings, as the Lotus itself explains,
different 'truths' can be superseded once they have served their task of raising
one to a higher level where a different 'truth' holds sway. Buddhism, according
to the Lotus and Tiantai, is a system of expedient means (upaya) leading one with
partial truths to ever greater, more comprehensive truths. Tiantai teachings are
'Round Teachings', meaning that they encircle or encompass everything and, lacking
sharp edges, are therefore Perfect. Other forms of Buddhism are not 'wrong', but
are only partial visions of the One Vehicle that Tiantai most perfectly and completely
embodies.
Zhiyi, based on an exhaustive exposition of a verse from Nagarjuna's
Madhyamaka-karikas (24: 18), devised a theory of three truths: provisional, empty
and middle. The first two are mirror images of each other, two ways of speaking
about causes and conditions. A table can provisionally be called a table, since
its perceptible form has arisen through causes and conditions, and it only exists
provisionally on the basis of those temporary conditions. The table is empty because,
being the product of causes and conditions, it lacks its own intrinsic, independent
nature. It is 'middle' because neither the provisional nor the empty truth about
the table fully captures its reality. It is both provisional and empty, and simultaneously
neither provisional nor empty. As Zhiyi put it, 'wondrous being is identical to
true emptiness'. Zhiyi sought many ways to express the nondual middle truth. For
instance, rejecting the obvious dualism of the distinction most of his contemporaries
made between pure mind (xin) and deluded thought-instants (nian), Zhiyi declared
that every deluded thought-instant was identical to three thousand chilicosms.
The details of the formulas he used to arrive at the number three thousand is
less important than fact that it is meant to encompass the full extent of Buddhist
cosmological metaphysics. The whole universe in all its dimensions is entailed
in every moment of thought. Rather than attempt to eliminate deluded thinking
to reach a purified mind, Zhiyi claimed each moment of deluded thinking was already
identical to enlightenment. One merely has to see the mind and its operations
as they are. This idea was later taken over by the Chan (Zen) school, which expressed
it in sayings such as 'Zen mind is everyday mind'.
The middle approach is also
evident in the Tiantai notion of three gates, or three methods of access to enlightened
vision: the Buddha-gate, the gate of sentient beings and the mind-gate. The Buddha-gate
was considered too difficult, too abstruse, too remote; one had to be a Buddha
already to fully comprehend it. The sentient-being gate (the various methods taught
and practised by any sort of being) was also too difficult because there are too
many different types of sentient beings all with their own types of delusions,
so that this gate is a confusing cacophony of disparate methods, some which may
not be appropriate for some beings. The easiest and hence preferable gate was
the mind-gate. It is no more remote than this very moment of cognition, its diversity
can be observed in every thought-instant, and nothing could ever be more appropriately
suited for an individual than to observe one's own mind. Tiantai cultivated many
types of meditation for that purpose.
8
The Chinese Buddhist Schools: Huayan
Drawing on a panjiao similar to that of
Zhiyi, the Huayan school chose the Huayan Sutra (Sanskrit title Avata?saka Sutra,
Chinese Huayan jing) for its foundational scripture. What immediately differentiates
Huayan from typically Indian approaches is that instead of concentrating on a
diagnosis of the human problem, and exhorting and prescribing solutions for it,
Huayan immediately begins from the point of view of enlightenment. In other words,
its discourse represents a nirvanic perspective rather than a samsaric perspective.
Instead of detailing the steps that would lead one from ignorance to enlightenment,
Huayan immediately endeavours to describe how everything looks through enlightened
eyes.
Like Tiantai, Huayan offers a totalistic, encompassing 'round' view.
A lived world as constituted through a form of life experience is called a dharma-dhatu.
Chengguan, the 'fourth' Huayan patriarch, described four types of dharma-dhatus,
each successively encompassing its predecessors. The first is shi, which means
'event', 'affair' or 'thing'. This is the realm where things are experienced as
discrete individual items. The second is called li (principle), which in Chinese
usage usually implies the principal metaphysical order that subtends events as
well as the rational principles that explicate that order. Often li is used by
Buddhists as a synonym for emptiness. The first sustained analysis based on the
relation of li and shi was undertaken by the Korean monk Wônhyo in his commentary
on the Awakening of Faith in Mahayana, which influenced early Huayan thinkers
like Fazang. The li-shi model went on to become an important analytic tool for
all sorts of East Asian philosophers, not just Buddhists. In the realm of li,
one clearly sees the principles that relate shi to each other, but the principles
are more important than the individual events. In the third realm, one sees the
mutual interpenetration or 'non-obstruction' of li and shi (lishi wu'ai). Rather
than seeing events while being oblivious to principle, or concentrating on principle
while ignoring events, in this realm events are seen as instantiations of principle,
and principle is nothing more than the order by which events relate to each other.
In
the fourth and culminating dharma-dhatu, one sees the mutual interpenetration
and non-obstruction of all events (shishi wu'ai). In this realm, everything is
causally related to everything else. Huayan illustrates this with the image of
Indra's net, a vast net that encompasses the universe. A special jewel is found
at the intersection of every horizontal and vertical weave in the net, special
because each jewel reflects every other jewel in the net, so that looking into
any one jewel, one sees them all. Every event or thing can disclose the whole
universe because all mutually interpenetrate each other without barriers or obstruction.
This
form of nondualism is not monistic because shishi wu'ai does not obliterate the
distinctions between things, but rather insists that everything is connected to
everything else without losing distinctiveness. Identity and difference, in this
view, are merely two sides of the same coin, which, though a single coin, still
has two distinct sides that should not be confused for each other. Mutual interpenetration
is temporal as well as spatial; past, present and future mutually interpenetrate.
Hence according to Huayan, to enter the path towards final enlightenment is, in
an important sense, to have already arrived at that destination.
9
The Chinese Buddhist Schools: Chan
Better known in the West by its Japanese
pronunciation, Zen, Chan emerged as a reaction against the increasing scholastic
complexities of the Tiantai and Huayan schools and their voluminous, hairsplitting
literature, which, some Chan practitioners believed, could be more of an obstacle
than an aid to enlightenment. The Pali term for meditative absorption, jhana (Sanskrit,
dhyana), was transliterated into Chinese as Channa, and then shortened to Chan.
Until the early Tang Dynasty, chanshi (Chan master) meant a monk adept at meditation,
though it did not specify what sorts of meditation he was practising. Some monks
were called dharma masters (fashi), some were called scriptural masters (zangshi),
some were called disciplinary masters (lushi) and some were meditation masters.
These titles could be applied to a monk (or nun) of any school, since they denoted
one's methodological focus rather than one's ideological leanings.
Chan begins
to denote a specific doctrinal and meditative ideology around the time of Huineng
(638-713). Although Chan tradition describes a transmission by five patriarchs
culminating in Huineng as the sixth patriarch, as noted above, that transmission
is more fiction than fact. Huineng's followers established the Southern School
of Chan, which unleashed a polemical tirade against the Northern School. Since
the Northern School disappeared about a thousand years ago, our only source of
information on these schools was the prejudiced accounts of the Southern School,
until the discovery at Dunhuang early this century of Northern School documents.
We now know that many different versions of lineage histories were circulated,
and, more importantly, that the positions attributed to the Northerners by their
Southern rivals were grossly inaccurate and unfair. In fact, the Northern School
had initially been the more successful of the two, but its success led to its
ultimate ruin, since its growing dependence on Imperial patronage made it a vulnerable
target during times of Imperial persecution of Buddhism. The Southern School,
because it had taken root in remote areas less affected by actions of the Central
government, survived the persecutions relatively intact.
Huineng is depicted
in the Platform Sutra (authored by his leading follower and promoter, Shenhui)
as an illiterate seller of firewood who experiences sudden enlightenment while
overhearing someone reciting the Diamond Sutra. He joins a monastery where, without
any official training in scriptures or meditation, he demonstrates that his enlightenment
is more profound than all the monks who had been practising for years. Hence sudden
enlightenment is one of the main tenets of the Platform Sutra (and subsequently
for all forms of Chan). Another is 'direct pointing at mind', which, similar to
the Tiantai approach, means that what is important is to observe one's own mind,
to recognize that the nature of one's mind is Buddha-nature itself.
While some
Buddhists had argued that the goal was wisdom, and meditation was merely a means
to that goal, Huineng argued for the inseparability of meditation and wisdom.
Using an analytic device probably introduced by the so-called neo-Daoist Wang
Bi (226-49), the tiyong model, Huineng claimed that meditation is the essence
(ti) of wisdom, and wisdom is the function (yong) of meditation. Wisdom does not
produce meditation, nor does meditation produce wisdom; nor are meditation and
wisdom different from each other. He drew an analogy to a lamp: the lamp is the
ti, while its light is the yong. Wherever there is a (lit) lamp, there is light;
wherever there is lamplight, there is a lamp. Lamp and light are different in
name but identical in substance (ti), hence nondual.
Huineng's style of Chan
was still sober, calm, rational, and rooted in commonly accepted Buddhist tenets.
New and more radical elements were soon incorporated into Chan, some iconoclastically
renouncing meditation and practice as well as scholasticism, and others trying
earnestly to work out a rational system by which Chan could be syncretized with
the other schools. Zongmi (780-841) considered a patriarch of both the Chan and
Huayan schools, attempted just such a synthesis, but his sober approach was soon
overshadowed in China by more abrupt, startling forms of Chan.
Of the 'Five
Houses of Chan', only the Linji school survives today in China, Taiwan and Korea.
Based on the teachings of Linji (d. 867), this school possibly provided Buddhism
with its most 'Chinese' voice. Chan literature of the Linji and related schools
were among the first texts ever written in vernacular as opposed to classical
Chinese. Daoist elements also began to appear prominently. Zhuangzi's 'true man'
becomes Linji's 'true man of no rank' who is going in and out of each person's
face this very moment, and is always right here before one. The anecdotal humour
associated with Zhuangzi's stories and the irreverent exploits of the Bamboo Sages
of the Six Dynasties period clearly infused the style of Chan anecdotes. Rather
than indulge in elaborate, complicated theoretical abstractions, Chan focused
on experience as lived, in terms familiar to anyone immersed in Chinese culture
(though often exotic to Western students, which has led to the common misconception
that Chan is nonsensical or obscurantist).
Teaching techniques began to overshadow
doctrinal content. At the heart of Chan training are the exchanges between teacher
and student. Records, called gongan, were compiled of classic encounters, and
even these eventually became part of the teaching techniques, as they were presented
to students as riddles to concentrate on during meditation. To disrupt the sort
of idle or pernicious speculation that could prove a hindrance to enlightenment,
abrupt and shocking techniques were employed, from radical statements such as,
'If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him!', to exchanges punctuated by blows
and shouts (all the more startling in the subdued monastic atmosphere in which
they would unexpectedly occur). Linji's methods were designed to make students
confront and overcome their mental and emotional habits and crutches, so as to
become truly free and independent. Even dependency on Buddhism could be such a
crutch. Linji summarized his teaching with the phrase: 'Don't be deceived.'
10
The Chinese Buddhist Schools: Pure Land
All forms of Chinese Buddhism, including
Chan, contain devotional elements and rituals, but for Pure Land Buddhists devotionalism
is the essence. The origins of Pure Land Buddhism are somewhat unclear. While
undoubtedly devotional practices were imported to China by monks and laity (and
these were blended with native Chinese forms of devotionalism), there does not
seem to be a distinct school in India devoted to rebirth in Amitabha's Pure Land.
As noted earlier, the traditional lineages are not very helpful for reconstructing
the school's history. According to tradition, early contributors to Pure Land
thought and practice include Tanluan (476-542), Dao Chuo (562-645) and his student
Shandao (613-81). The term 'Pure Land' (jingtu) may itself be largely a product
of certain license taken by translators. The term jingtu appears in Kumarajiva's
translation of the Vimalakirti Sutra where the Tibetan version simply has 'Buddha
lands' (the Sanskrit version is no longer extant). Apparently, Xuanzang was the
first explicitly to associate Sukhavati (Amitabha's Paradise) with the term 'pure
land'. The main scriptures for Pure Land practice were the Larger and Smaller
Sukhavati-vyuha Sutras and the Guan Wuliangshuofo jing.
At the beginning of
the Tang Dynasty, several forms of Buddhist devotionalism were popular, including
cults devoted to Mañjusri(Bodhisattva of Wisdom), Guanyin (Bodhisattva
of Compassion, at that time particularly popular as a patron saint and protector
of travellers), Maitreya (the future Buddha) and Amita (a conflation of Amitabha
and Amitayus whose names mean 'Infinite Light' and 'Infinite Life' respectively,
and are possibly deities of Central Asian origin). Arguably the most popular form
of devotionalism was the Maitreya cult. The Empress Wu (r. 683-705), a great patron
of Buddhism but generally reviled in Chinese history as an unscrupulous usurper,
considered herself an incarnation of Maitreya. Due to her unpopularity once dethroned,
people wanted to distance themselves from her and anything associated with her.
Unfortunately this effectively extinguished Maitreya worship in China. Worshippers
of Amita filled the void.
Pure Land theology maintained that people were living
in the age of degenerate dharma, when study and personal effort were insufficient
for making progress on the path to liberation. Relying on one's own efforts was
in fact deemed a form of self-theory, or the selfishness and arrogance that comes
from erroneous views of self. Rather than indulge in egoistic fantasies, one ought
to rely on the power and grace of Amita. Amita was a buddha (whether he was an
earlier incarnation of the historical Buddha or another person altogether is answered
differently by different Pure Land sources) who, while still a bodhisattva, vowed
to help sentient beings once he became a buddha. He has the power to transfer
to anyone he deems worthy sufficient merit to enable them to be born in his Pure
Land, the Western Paradise. In the earliest forms of Pure Land devotionalism a
variety of practices were cultivated, but these were eventually pared down to
chanting the nianfo, literally 'remembrance of Buddhas' (in Sanskrit, buddhanusm?ti),
which in Chinese is 'Na-mu A-mi-to Fo' (Hail Amita Buddha).
11
Sinicizing Buddhist concepts
Since the time of Mencius, the ultimate ontological
issue in China was the question of human nature and mind (which Mencius and most
Chinese thinkers treated as synonyms). Pre-Han Chinese philosophers had debated
whether human nature was originally good, bad or neutral. The written Chinese
character for 'nature', xing, consists of two parts: the left side means 'mind'
and the right side means 'birth', which led Chinese thinkers to debate whether
human nature was determined by what one is born with, namely appetites and desires,
or whether it reflects the nature of one's mind, which in Chinese thought invariably
carried an onto-ethical rather than strictly cognitive connotation. The word xin
literally means 'heart', indicating that - unlike Western conceptions that draw
a sharp line between the head and the heart - for the Chinese, thinking and feeling
originated in the same bodily locus. Feeling empathy or compassion as well as
rationally abstracting principles and formulating ethical codes were all activities
of xin, heart-and-mind.
Indian Buddhism had little to say about human nature,
with many forms of Buddhism rejecting the very concept of essential nature. Some
of the early polemics against Buddhism in China explicitly attacked it for neglecting
to address the question of human nature. The notion of Buddha-nature was developed,
in part, to redress that failing. Since Indian Buddhists were deeply interested
in the mind in terms of cognitive processes such as perception, thinking, attention
and so on, it was a natural step for the Chinese to read these initially in the
light of the Chinese discourse on mind, and to further develop interpretations
of this material in line with Chinese concerns. Hence passages that in Sanskrit
dealt primarily with epistemology or cognitive conditions often became, in their
Chinese renderings, psycho-moral descriptions. The Sanskrit term ekacitta, a mind
with singular focus (but literally meaning 'one mind') becomes the metaphysical
one mind of the Awakening of Faith in Mahayana. Similarly, Indian and Chinese
philosophers had developed very different types of causal theories. Indian Buddhists
accepted only efficient causes as real, while Chinese Buddhists tended to interpret
Buddhist causal theories as examples of formal causes.
12
Sinicizing Buddhist concepts: emptiness
Before Buddhism entered China Daoists
had already embraced a notion of emptiness which it took Buddhists several centuries
to realize was significantly different from their own. Laozi had contrasted the
empty or open (xu) with the solid. What made a wheel functional was its empty
hub; what made a vessel or room functional was its open space. Hence emptiness
(or openness) is not worthless but rather the key to functionality and usefulness.
Later Daoists contrasted existents (you) with nonexistence (wu), and claimed that
all existence emerges from nonexistence and ultimately returns to nonexistence.
Some Chinese metaphysicians, such as Wang Bi, wrote about primordial nonexistence
(yuan wu, benwu) as the metaphysical source, destination and substratum for all
existent things. Thus form and emptiness were opposed, contrasting poles, and
emptiness had primacy.
Some early Chinese Buddhists interpreted Buddhist emptiness
in the same fashion, especially in the Prajñaschools. Eventually Buddhists
realized, as the Heart Sutra says, that form and emptiness are not opposed to
each other, but that 'form itself is emptiness, emptiness itself is form, form
is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form.' In other
words, Buddhist 'emptiness' did not mean 'open' or 'nonexistence'. Emptiness (sunyata)
signified the absence of an eternal, independent, self-causing, invariant, essential
self-nature (svabhava) or selfhood (atman) in any thing or person. Whatever existed
did so by virtue of a perpetually changing web of causes and conditions that themselves
were products of other causes and conditions. Stated simplistically, emptiness
does not mean that a table is unreal or nonexistent, or that its solid texture
or colour are unreal; it does mean that the concept of tableness is unreal, and
that the abstractions 'solidity' and 'colour' are unreal apart from the discrete
and particular sensations one has at specific moments due to specific causes and
conditions. Buddhist emptiness is not a primal void, but the absence of self-essence.
To avoid being confused with Daoist concepts of emptiness, the Buddhists eventually
chose a new term, kong, to render their 'emptiness'.
Emptiness is neither the
origin nor terminus for forms; forms themselves at any moment are emptiness. Since
everything is causally connected with everything else, and there are no independent
identities beyond or behind such causes and conditions, everything, according
to Huayan, mutually interpenetrates and conditions everything else. Every thing
defines and is defined by every other thing.
13
Sinicizing Buddhist concepts: suffering and ignorance
For all forms of Indian
Buddhism, the fundamental fact with which Buddhism begins, and the problem it
attempts to solve, is the problem of suffering (du?kha). The first of the Four
Noble Truths is: 'All is suffering.' Suffering does not mean simply pain. Buddhism
does not deny joy, pleasure, delight and so on; but it claims that all is impermanent,
so that whatever the source of a particular pleasure, that pleasure can never
be permanent. The more pleasure one feels, the greater becomes one's attachment
to the presumed source. The greater the attachment, the greater the pain at the
loss of that pleasure. Since everything is impermanent, such loss is inevitable.
So, ironically, pleasure itself is 'suffering'. Suffering is the affective reaction
to impermanence. According to general Buddhist causal analysis, the causes of
suffering are desire and ignorance. We desire permanent pleasures because we are
ignorant of the fact that all is impermanent, empty of eternal selfhood. As the
Four Noble Truths state, these causes of suffering can be eliminated, and Buddhism
is the method or path for eliminating those causes. The purpose of Buddhism, then,
is the elimination of suffering.
Chinese Buddhist texts do occasionally mention
suffering, but usually in passing. Instead the root problem became ignorance.
Discussions of the dialectical conflict between ignorance and enlightenment grew
so pervasive that suffering was all but forgotten. This shift helped reinforce
the emphasis on mind and mind-nature. Enlightenment was no longer defined as awakening
to the causes of suffering, but instead denoted seeing the nature of the mind
itself.
14 Sinicizing Buddhist concepts:
is Buddha-nature good or evil?
The pre-Han debate about whether human nature
is good, evil or neutral was echoed in debates between Chinese Buddhists about
Buddha-nature. Huayan contended that Buddha-nature and tathagatagarbha were pristinely
pure and good, filled with infinite good merits and qualities. In the fully realized
perfection of Buddha-nature all evil, impurities and delusions have been eradicated.
This
position was opposed by Tiantai, which argued that some evil (that is, some ignorance)
remains in Buddha-nature. Following the Daoist sense of nonduality, in which good
and evil or pure and impure are complimentary opposites as impossible to separate
from each other as East from West, Tiantai accused Huayan of dualistic extremism.
From the Tiantai perspective, Huayan's 'obsession' with purity and goodness was
one-sided and dualistic. Moreover, Tiantai insisted that it is necessary for Buddha-nature
to retain some traces of evil and delusion in order to understand and empathize
with the plight of ordinary sentient beings. If one becomes too rarefied, too
transcendent, one loses touch with the everyday reality in which people wander
deludedly, and thus one becomes incapable of effectively saving such people. Buddhahood,
for Tiantai, was not simply a matter of correctly seeing or understanding in a
'pure' way, but was at its core salvific; Buddhahood is the active liberation
of sentient beings from ignorance.
The debate on Buddha-nature heated up during
the Song Dynasty. Heterodox forms of Tiantai tinged with Huayan's 'purity obsession'
appeared, and these were challenged sharply by the orthodox Tiantai thinkers from
their headquarters on Tiantai mountain (from which the school took its name).
The heterodox schools were labeled the Off-Mountain groups, while the orthodoxy
styled itself the On-Mountain group. Zhili (959-1028), one of the On-Mountain
leaders, had a keen intellect alert to the subtlest hints of Huayan-like thinking
lurking in the rhetoric of Off-Mountain thinkers; his writings systematically
ferret out and refute those implications with a logical sophistication rarely
equalled amongst Chinese Buddhist philosophers.
These debates gain additional
importance when viewed in the larger context of Chinese intellectual history.
In the pre-Han period, Mencius' contention that human nature is originally good
did not prove persuasive. Others argued that human nature was essentially neutral
and subject to the influence of external conditions. Another early Confucian,
Xunzi, had argued that human nature was basically selfish and greedy, which is
why human society needs sages such as Confucius to guide them beyond the baseness
of their own nature. Han Confucians sided with Xunzi rather Mencius. The Tiantai
position, by insisting that some evil and ignorance exists even in Buddha-nature,
was close to some readings of Xunzi's position, while the idealistic optimism
of the Huayan view clearly showed parallels with Mencius. Between the Han and
Song Dynasties (third through tenth centuries), Confucianism was by and large
intellectually stagnant. It found new vitality in the Song in part by reabsorbing
back into itself the elements it had 'lent' to the Buddhists (and to some extent
Daoists as well). The elements they took back had been modified and expanded by
the Buddhists, and given metaphysical foundations that the neo-Confucians retained
and continued to rework. Neo-Confucian thinkers, especially after Zhu Xi (1130-1200),
rediscovered Mencius and unanimously embraced his view of the original goodness
of human nature. Looked at another way, neo-Confucianism adopted Huayan's metaphysics
of nature. Zhu Xi's famous dialectic of principle (li) and 'material-energy' (qi)
owed more than a little to Huayan's li and shi metaphysics.
LUSTHAUS, DAN (1998). Buddhist philosophy, Chinese. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Retrieved May 25, 2005, from http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/