A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (40 page)

Because of this subtle sensitivity, these men of feng liu spirit were often impressed by things that would not ordinarily impress others. They had sentiments about life and the universe as a whole, and also about their own sensitivity and sentiments. The Shih-shuo tells us that when Wang Ch'in ascended the Mao Mountain (in present Shantung province), he wept and said: "Wang Po-yu of Lang-ya [i.e., myself] must at last die for his emotions." (Ch. 23.)

392

NEO-TAOISM:THE SENTIMENTALISTS

The Factor of Sex

In the West, romanticism often has in it an element of sex. The Chinese term feng Iiu also has thai implication, especially in its later usage. The attitude of the Chin Neo—Taoists towards sex, however, seems to be purely aesthetic rather than sensuous. As illustration, the Shih-shuo tells us that the neighbor of Juan Chi had a beautiful wife. The neighbor was a wine merchant, and Juan Chi used to go to his house to drink with the merchant s wife. When Juan became drunk, he would sleep beside her. The husband at first was naturally suspicious, but after paying careful attention, he found that Juan Chi did nothing more than sleep there. (Ch. 23-)

The Shih-shuo says again that Shan T'ao (2.05-2.83, statesman and general), Chi K ang, and Juan Chi were great friends. Shan Ta o ' s wife, Han, noticed the close friendship of the three and asked her husband about it. Shan T ao said: At present they are the only men who can be my friends. It was the custom in China then that a lady was not allowed lo be introduced to the friends of her husband. Hence Han told her husband that, when next his two friends came, she would like to have a secret peep at them. So on the next visit, she asked her husband to have them stay overnight. She prepared a feast for them, and, during the night, peeped in at the guests through a hole in the wall. So absorbed was she in looking at them that she stood there the whole night. In the morning the husband came to her room and asked: "What do you think of them?' She replied: "In talent you are not equal to them, but with your knowledge, you can make friends with them. To this Shan T

ao said: "They, also, consider my knowledge to be superior." (Ch. 19.) Thus both Juan Chi and the Lady Han seemed to enjoy the beauty of the opposite sex without any sensuous inclinations. Or, it may be said, they enjoyed the beauty, forgetting the sex element.

Such are the characteristics of the, feng Iiu spirit of the Chin NeoTaoists. According to them, feng Iiu derives from tzu-jan (spontaneity, naturalness), and tzu-jan stands in opposition to ming chiao (morals and institutions), which form the classical tradition of Confucianism. Even in this period, however, when Confucianism was in eclipse, one famous scholar and writer named Yiieh Kuang (died 3°4) said: "In the ming-chiao, too, there is fundamentally room for happiness. (Shih—shuo, ch. I.) As we shall see in chapter twenty -four, Neo -Confucianism was an attempt to find such happiness in ming-chiao.

394 NEO-TAOISM:THE SENTIMENTALISTS

CHAPTER 21

THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE BUDDHISM

lHF, introduction of Buddhism into China has been one of the greatest events in Chinese history, and since its coming, it has been a major factor in Chinese civilization, exercising particular influence on religion, philosophy, art, and literature.

Introduction and Development of Buddhism in China

The exact date of the introduction of Buddhism is a disputed problem not yet settled by historians, but it took place probably in the first half of the first cenlury A.D. Traditionally, it is said to have entered during the reign of Emperor Ming (58-75), but there is now evidence that it had already been heard of in China before this time. Its subsequent spread was a long and gradual process. From Chinese literary sources we know that in the first and second centuries A.D., Buddhism was considered as a religion of the occult arts, not greatly differing from the occultism of the Yin— Yang school or of the later Taoist religion.

In the second century the theory was actually developed in certain circles that Buddha had been nothing more than a disciple of T Shih Chi or Historical Records (ch. 63), where it is said that Lao Tzu, late in life, disappeared and nobody knew where he went. Elaborating this statement, ardent Taoists created the story that when Lao Tzu went to the West, he finally reached India, where he taught the Buddha and other Indians, and had a total of twenty-nine disciples. The implication was that the teaching of the Buddhist Sutras (sacred texts) was simply a foreign variant of thai of the Too Te Ching, that is, of the Lao-tzu.

In the third and fourth centuries an increasing number of Buddhist texts of a more metaphysical nature was translated, so that Buddhism became better understood. At this time Buddhism was regarded as similar to philosophical Taoism, especially the philosophy of Chuang Tzu, rather than to Taoism 396 THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE BUDDHISM

as a religion. Often the Buddhist writings were interpreted with ideas taken from philosophical Taoism.

This method was called that of ko yi, that is, interpretation by analogy.

Such a method naturally led to inaccuracy and distortion. Hence in the fifth century, by which time the flood of translations was rapidly increasing, the use of analogy was definitely abandoned. Yet the fact remains that the great Buddhist writers of the fifth century, even including the Indian teacher, Kumarajiva, continued to use Taoist terminology, such as Yu (Being, existent), Wu (Non—being, non-existent), yu—wei (action) and wu—wei (non—action), to express Buddhist ideas. The difference between this practice and the method of analogy, however, is that in the latter one sees only the superficial similarity of words, while in the former one sees the inner connections of the ideas expressed by them. Hence, judging from the nature of the works of these writers, this practice, as we shall see later, did not indicate any misunderstanding or distortion of Buddhism, but rather a synthesis of Indian Buddhism with Taoism, leading to the foundation of a Chinese form of Buddhism.

Here it should be pointed out that the terms, Chinese Buddhism and Buddhism in China, are not necessarily synonymous. Thus there were certain schools of Buddhism which confined themselves to the religious and philosophical tradition of India, and made no contact with those of China. An example is the school known by the Chinese as the Hsiang Isung or Wei-shih tsung (School of Subjective Idealism), which was introduced by the famous Chinese pilgrim to India, Hsuan-tsang (596-664).

Schools like this may be called Buddhism in China. Their influence was confined to restricted groups of people and limited periods. They did not and could not reach the thought of every intellectual, and therefore played little or no part in the development of what may be called the Chinese mind.

On the other hand, Chinese Buddhism is the form of Buddhism that has made contact with Chinese thought and thus has developed in conjunction with Chinese philosophical tradition. In later pages we will see that the Middle Path school of Buddhism bears some similarity to philosophical Taoism. Its interaction with the latter resulted in the Ch an or Zen school, which though Buddhist, is at the same time Chinese. Although a school of Buddhism, its influence on Chinese philosophy, literature, and art has been far reaching.

General Concepts of Buddhism

Following the introduction of Buddhism into China, tremendous efforts were made to translate the Buddhist texts into Chinese. Texts of both the Hi-nayana (Small Vehicle) and Mahayana (Great Vehicle) divisions of Buddhism were translated, but only the latter gained a permanent place in Chinese Buddhism.

398 . THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE BUDDHISM

On the whole, the way in which Mahayana Buddhism most influenced the Chinese has been in its concept of the Universal Mind, and in what may be called its negative method of metaphysics. Before going into a discussion of these, we must first survey some of the general concepts of Buddhism.

Although there are many schools of Buddhism, each with something different to offer, all generally agree in their belief in the theory of Karma (translated in Chinese as Yeh). Karma or Yeh is usually rendered in English as deed or action, but its actual meaning is much wider than that, for what it covers is not merely confined to overt action, but also includes what an individual sentient being speaks and thinks. According to Buddhism, all the phenomena of the universe, or, to be more exact, of the universe of an individual sentient being, are the manifestations of his mind. Whenever he acts, speaks, or even thinks, his mind is doing something, and that something must produce its results, no matter how far in the future. This result is the retribution of the Karma. The Karma is the cause and its retribution is the effect. The being of an individual is made up of a chain of causes and effects.

The present life of a sentient being is only one aspect in this whole process. Death is not the end of his being, but is only another aspect of the process. What an individual is in this life, comes as a result of what he did in the past, and what he does in the present will determine what he will be in the future.

Hence what he does now will bear its fruits in a future life, and what he will do then will again bear its fruits in yet another future life, and so on ad infinitum. This chain of causation is what is called Samsara, the Wheel of Birth and Death. It is the main source from which come the sufferings of individual sentient beings.

According to Buddhism, all these sufferings arise from the individual s fundamental Ignorance of the nature of things. All things in the universe are the manifestations of the mind and therefore are illusory and impermanent, yet the individual ignorantly craves for and cleaves to them. This fundamental Ignorance is called Avidya, which in Chinese is translated as Wu-ming, non-enlightenment. From Ignorance come the craving for and cleaving to life, because of which the individual is bound to the elernal Wheel of Birth and Death, from which he can never escape.

The only hope for escape lies in replacing Ignorance with Enlightenment, which in Sanskrit is called Bodhi. All the teachings and practices of the various Buddhist schools are attempts to contribute something to the Bodhi. From them the individual, in the course of many rebirths, may accumulate Karma which does not crave for and cleave to things, but avoids craving and cleaving. The result is an emancipation of the individual possessing this Karma from the Wheel of Birth and Death. And this emancipation is called JVir- vana.

What, exactly, does the state of Nirvana signify? It may be said to be the identification of the individual with the Universal Mind, or with what is

4OO THE FOUNDATION OF CHINESE BUDDHISM

called the Buddha-nature; or it is the realization or self-consciousness of the individual's original identification with the Universal Mind. He is the Universal Mind, but formerly he did not realize it, or was not self—conscious of it. The school of Mahayana Buddhism known by the Chinese as the Hsing tsung or School of Universal Mind expounded this theory. (For this school, hsing or nature and hsin or mind are the same.) In expounding it, the school introduced the idea of Universal Mind into Chinese thought.

There were other schools of Mahayana Buddhism, however, such as that known by the Chinese as the K ung tsung or School of Emptiness, also known as the School of the Middle Path, which would not describe Nirvana in this way. Their method of approach is what I call the negative method.

The Theory of Double

Truth 1

i

This School of the Middle Path proposed what it called the theory of dou— j ble truth: truth in the common sense and truth in the higher sense. Further— |

more, it maintained, not only are there these two kinds of truth, but they < both exist on varying levels. Thus what, on the lower level, is truth in the j higher sense, becomes, on the higher level, merely truth in the common '

sense. One of the great Chinese Masters of this school, Chi-tsang (549-623), j describes this theory as including the three following levels of double truth: !

(1) The common people take all things as really yu (having being, existent) j and know nothing about wu (having no being, non-existent). Therefore the ■ Buddhas have told them that actually all things are wu and empty. On this level, to say that all things are yu is the common sense truth, and to say that • all things are wu

is the higher sense

truth. j (2) To say that all things are yu is one-sided, but to say that all things are wu is also one-sided. They are both one-sided, because they give people the wrong impression that wu or non-existence only results from the absence or removal of yu or existence. Yet in actual fact, what is yu is simultaneously what is wu. For instance, the table standing before us need not be destroyed in order to show that it is ceasing to exist. In actual fact it is ceasing to exist all the time. The reason for this is that when one starts to destroy the table, the table which one thus intends to destroy has already ceased to exist. The table of this actual moment is no longer the table of the preceding moment. It only looks like that of the preceding moment. Therefore on the second level of double truth, to say that all things are yu and to say that all things are wu are both equally common sense truth. What one ought to say is that the not—one—sided middle path consists in understanding that things are neither yu nor wu. This is the higher sense truth.