Further developments of the two truths theory in China:
the Ch'eng-shih-lun(a) Tradition and Chou Yung's San-tsung-lun(b)
By Whalen W. Lai
Philosophy East and West
Volume 30,no.2(April 1980)
P136-161
(C) by the University Press of Hawaii
P.139
The "two truths" theory stands as one of the key
Mahaayaana doctrines. Although not unknown to early
Buddhism,(1) the classic formulation was given by
Naagaarjuna (ca. 150 A.D.) , founder of the
Maadhyamika philosophy. In his Maadhyamikakaarikaas,
he writes
The teaching by the Buddhas of the dharma has
recourse to two truths:
The world-ensconced truth and the truth which is
the highest sense.
Those who do not know the distribution of the two
kinds of truth
Do not know the profound 'point' in the teaching
of the Buddha.
The highest sense is not taught apart from the
conventional.
And without having understood the highest sense
one cannot understand nirvaana.
He who perceives dependent co-origination
[pratiityasamutpaada]
Also understands sorrow, origination, and
destruction as well as the path.(2)
The highest truth, paramaartha-satya, pertains
to the inexpressible wisdom, praj~naa, that is, the
realization of the emptiness, 'suunyataa, of all
realities. Ultimately nondiscursive, the highest
truth is not taught apart from the conventional or
mundane truth, sa.mv.rti-satya, the domain of
compassion (karu.naa) and expediency (upaaya). Our
everyday knowledge of the world and of the way it
works (that is, the sciences) pertains to the lower
level of discourse and depends on the nominal
assumption of basic substances or realities,
svabhaava (selfnature) . In truth, however, all
things are empty, svabhaava-'suunya (devoid of
self-nature) . Thus Naagaarjuna insisted on a
critical distinction of these two levels of truth
and their functions.
nondiscursive
highest truth wisdom(praj~naa) emptiness('suunyataa)
-----------------------------------------------
discursive
mundane truth compassion (karu.naa) expediency (upaaya)
That the Absolute or "Ultimate Reality" is
beyond all words is probably acknowledged by all
mystics. The Chinese know of this; the wisdom of
Lao-tzu's(c) treatise begins:
The Tao that can be spoken of is no longer the
eternal Tao,
The name that can be named is no longer the
eternal name.(3)
However, the uniqueness of the Maadhyamikakaarikaas,
vis a vis the Lao-tzu and most mystical writings, is
that it is a thoroughly critical philosophy in the
Kantian sense. It exposes the antinomies innate to
the very structure of concepts and "realistic"
thinking and explodes even the assumptions of any
'Absolute', 'Ultimate Reality', or 'eternal Tao'.
All forms of ideation are empty; all presumptions of
self-nature are flawed. It is not that "words cannot
exhaust
Whalen W. Lai is an Assistant Professor in the
Department of Religious Studies at the University
of California, Davis.
P.140
the (fullest) meaning (of the Tao)," as Wang Pi(d)
the Neo-Taoist so aptly put it(4); it is rather that
"words are non-words" as the spokesmen for the
Emptiness philosophy so countered in fifth-century
China. Words (like "table") only help to falsify the
everchanging reality (by suggesting "table-ness").
By turning words against themselves, i-yen
p'o-yen(e), Naagaarjuna's philosophy can claim its
distinction among philosophies. In its discursive
and rational argument, the Maadhyamikakaarikaas
belongs no less to the realm of conventional truth.
By precisely exposing the emptiness of reason
itself, the Maadhyamikakaarikaas functions
dialecticaily as a vehicle for the highest truth, a
"finger pointing to the moon."(5) Historically, the
"two truths" theory helped to legitimize the 'New
Wisdom' in Mahaayaana (praj~naa) by demoting all
previous (Hiinayaana) truths to mere expediency
(upaaya) taught by the Buddha to his lesser
audience. Accordingly, it has been said, and it is
true to a great extent,(6) that the Two Truths
superseded the Four Noble Truths (that there is
suffering, a cause to suffering, the cessation to
it, and the path to its cessation) . The
praj~naapaaramitaa corpus considers the realities of
the Four Noble Truths to be just as empty and
unreal. The Four Noble Truths do not constitute
praj~naa but are one set of mundane truths taught
in upaaya.(7) The above preamble, setting up the
parameters for the present study, is, by necessity,
terse. It cannot claim to exhaust the complexities in
Indic Maadhyamika. However, it will introduce us to
an analysis of further developments of the "two
truths" theory in China during the fifth and sixth
centuries.(8)
In the period after the death of
Kumaarajiiva(412), the introducer of Naagaarjuna to
China, a peculiar set of circumstances led to a
confusion of the Four Noble Truths and the Two
Truths, a confusion of ontological distinctions
(sa.msaara and nirvaa.na as discrete polar entities)
with epistemic distinctions (the two levels of truth
as ways of knowledge). The confusion touched off
innovative speculations on "three truths" and even
"fourfold two truths" that had no direct precedence
in Indic Maadhyamika. The present essay is one in a
series to aid in understanding the historical
evolution of Sinitic Maadhyamika. It will focus on
the Ch'eng-shih tradition (scholarship specializing
on the Ch'eng-shih-lun [Satyasiddhi?] by Harivarman)
and Chou Yung's critique in his San-tsung-lun
(Treatise on the Three Schools [on the "two truths"
theories of his time]). Chou Yung was claimed later
by Chi-tsang(f) as an offshoot of the neo-San-lun(g)
(the new Three Treatises) movement that succeeded to
dethrone Harivarman and restore the orthodoxy of
Naagaarjuna.
THE TEXT AND THE CONTEXT
The Emptiness philosophy of the
Praj~naapaaramitaa Suutras was already known to
China prior to the fifth century. The idea of
'suunyataa struck a chord within Neo-Taoists
speculating on wu, "nothingness." Wang Pi's reading
of Lao-tzu chapter 40, "...and being, yu, comes from
wu, nonbeing(h)," was one means by which the early
Praj~naa-ists accommodated 'suunyataa. As yet, the
Chinese did
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not have the guidance of Naagaarjuna. After
Kumaarajiiva made available in translation
Naagaarjuna's treatises, Seng Chao(i) was able to
launch the first critical campaign against the
confusion of 'suunyataa with wu. He took to task the
pen-wu(j) (original nonbeing) school by showing how
things are empty because they do not have a
self-nature as such--and not because things evolve
into being(yu) from a primodial nothingness
(pen-wu). Cosmogony might be a Taoist concern, but
it is not a Buddhist one. The Buddha was not
concerned with origins. He had discovered the truth
of conditioned coarising (pratiityasamutpaada). Seng
Chao, however, also attacked the yuan-hui(k)
(confluence of conditions, pratyaya) school that
sought to justify emptiness on the basis that things
are produced by cause and condition. The school had
failed to realize that the causes and the conditions
are just as empty.(9) Since Seng Chao has attracted
almost disproportionate scholarly attention at the
moment, his Chao-lun(l) requires no further
introduction here. Historically though, Seng Chao's
influence was short-lived. He was even disowned at
times by Chi-tsang, and is traditionally excluded
from the San-lun lineage proper.(10)
What dominated China during the Southern
Dynasties was not Naagaarjuna but Harivarman, author
of the Ch'eng-shih-lun (Treatise to establish the
real Truth). Kumaarajiiva translated this treatise
late in his life (411-412). The work was picked up
almost immediately by Seng Tao(m) and Seng Jui(n).
The subsequent popularity of this work proved to be
an embarrassment to the later revivers of the
San-lun heritage of Naagaarjuna. Chi-tsang had to
blame the king, to whom the treatise was dedicated
(a common practice) , for urging a reluctant
Kumaarajiiva to translate this inferior treatise.
The popularity of the Ch'eng-shih-lun was even said
to be the work of the Devil, Mara, himself. Since I
hope to deal with the historical significance of the
Ch'eng-shih-lun elsewhere, I will not go into it in
any details here.(11)' Suffice it is to note,
perhaps somewhat dogmatically, that there were good
reasons why Harivarman was embraced.(1) Harivarman
co-opted the Emptiness philosophy by incorporating
it into his abhidharma analysis. A literal emptiness
or void is reached by him through a systematic
reduction of reality into microscopic elements.
Chi-tsang later derided this process as hsi-k'ung(o)
or "destructed void." Hsi-k'ung however had the
advantage of being similar to the Taoist reduction
of yu-wei(p) (action; active dharmas) until
wu-wei(q) (nonaction; nothingness, nirvaa.na) is
reached, (12) without the disadvantage of the
cosmogonic regression into pen-wu.(2) Naagaarjuna
had warned against appropriating wrongly emptiness:
"Incurable are those who hold onto 'emptiness' as a
viewpoint."(13) He taught the "two truths, " but
left the Chinese--perhaps not the Indians--with the
problem of how to handle this final dualism. Are the
two truths also to be emptied? Seng Chao at times
seems to regard the two truths as two realities that
flow out of 'one thing'.(14) For better or for
worse, Harivarman was appreciated for rationalizing
the relationship between the two truths. More than
Seng Chao, the Ch'eng-shih specialists explored this
relationship.(3) Emptiness was regarded
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to be too nihilistic a label; even Kumaarajiiva
repeatedly introduced or introjected the idea of
shih-hsiang(r), "real form" (that is, dharmataa,
reality-as-is). I suspect the title of Harivarman's
treatise, Ch'eng-shih-lun, was concocted by
Kumaarajiiva himself. Harivarman establishes
(ch'eng) something as real or solid (shih). Soon
after Kumaarajiiva passed away, the South was drawn
to the Mahaaparinirvaana suutra which just happened
to promise a permanent, higher reality called the
mahaanirvaa.na qua Buddha-nature.(15) BY a coincidence,
this suutra designates this new "reality" as the
"one truth"; this resonates with Harivarman's
similar selection of the third truth (nirodha,
cessation) of the Four Noble Truths as the one
paramaartha-satya.(16) Thus the Hiinayaana nirodha,
the Praj~naapaaramitaa Suutra's "highest truth, "
and the Mahaaparinirvaa.na Suutra's "permanent great
nirvaa.na" were hopelessly blended into one another.
(4) Harivarman's interest in abhidharmic being,
svabhaava, and ultimate emptiness, 'suunyataa,
caught the Chinese imagination. China was still
toying with the Taoist mystery of yu and wu. The
apparent dualism could thus be handled by recourse
to pen-mo(s), origin and end, or by t'i-yung(t),
substance and function.(17) The Ch'eng-shih masters
excelled in this game; only with Chi-tsang did the
full four-cornered dialectics and the proper
appreciation of the "eight negations" in the
Maadhayamikakaarikaas return.
Much energy was spent on conceptualizing the two
truths. These two epistemic ways of knowledge were
aligned with the two ontological realities of
sa.msaara and nirvaa.na, with being and nonbeing,
with pen and mo, and with t'i and yung. Once the two
truths were mistaken as two realities, a resolution
by a "one truth," that is, one reality was called
for, thus leading to the Sinitic innovations of a
third truth and other pyramids of two truths. The
interest in emptiness in the fourth century was thus
superseded by the new focus on the two truths in the
fifth. Renewed appreciation of the concept of the
"middle" (the Middle Path) came only in the sixth
century with the Neo-San-lun movement. Sakaino
Koyo(u) pointed this out:
The neo-San-lun tradition and the Ch'eng-shih
tradition fought among themselves primarily over the
idea of the highest and the mundane two truths. The
"two truths" theory originated in India out of the
debate on the real and the empty. It became
increasingly complicated when introduced to China
until finally the neo-San-lun school gained the
superior insight into the "two truths wherein
nothing is graspable" The difference (between
Ch'eng-shih and neo-San-lun) must be traced to their
divergence over the middle path. It is the middle
path of the "eight negations" permitting no grasping
(apraaptyavya) that defeated the Ch'eng-shih
master's understanding of the middle [as the the
positive union of the two truths].(18)
It is in this light that we will examine and judge
Chou Yung's treatise.
There is much confusion surrounding Chou Yung's
San-tsung-lun. The text has not survived and Chou
Yung's standing remains suspect. According to the
Nan-Ch'i-shu(v) (Record of the southern Ch'i
dynasty), Chou Yung was a gentry Buddhist well
honored by the emperor of the previous Sung dynasty.
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He was pious and learned and he tried to reform the
emperor, not by abstract discussions on ming, names
and li(w), or principles, but simply by retelling
tales of karmic retributions. A mountain hermit who
dispensed with his wife's companionship, Chou Yung
followed a vegetarian diet and mingled with such
eminent monks as Fa-yun(x). He was said to value the
praj~naa tradition, endorsing San-lun and condemning
Harivarman for his tedious "enumerationism"
(Vaibhaa.sika style).(19) It is then said:
At the time in the capital there were masters who
established various meanings of the two truths.
Three schools existed, each espousing a different
idea. Chou Yung authored the San-tsung-lun locating
the thread that runs through the three schools.(20)
(Italics mine.)
A layman, Chou Yung was hesitant to publicly
criticize the monks, but sramana Chih-lin(y)
encouraged him to do so. Himself an author of a "two
truths" treatise and a commentator of the
Shih-erh-men-lun(z) (Treatise of twelve gates
attributed to Naagaarjuna), Chih-lin in a letter
said that he found Chou Yung's stand similar to his
own "held since his twenties..., one few gained
since the time of Kumaarajiiva."(21) The
Nan-Ch'i-shu then recalls:
(Chou Yung) in his San-tsung-lun set up the schools
of Pu-k'ung chia-ming(aa) ("not negating provisional
reality") , k'ung chia-ming(ab) ("negating
provisional reality") and chia-ming k'ung(ac)
("[realizing that] provisional reality as such is
empty or negative"). He establish the (second)
school [the antithesis] to undermine the (first)
[the thesis] and set up the (third) school to
undermine the former two [the thesis and the
antithesis].(22)
This is all that is left of the San-tsung-lun
treatise. Yet in simple English that cannot do full
justice to the clever juggling of the words in the
Chinese original, Chou Yung's point is as follows:
There are three schools or styles of interpretation:
the realist who fails ultimately to negate nominal
reality, the nihilist who does succeed, and the best
spokesman who sees that reality (chia-ming) is as
such negative (k'ung, empty). Although we do not
have the full treatise, enough of the dialectical
structure remained in the retelling from which we
can eventually reconstruct Chou Yung's intentions.
There are, however, some thorny issues.
QUERY: THE IDENTITY OF THE THREE SCHOOLS
The San-tsung-lun was judged to be the first volley
of fire against the heterodox Ch'eng-shih
interpretation of the two truths. Insofar as that
Chou Yung had a natural sympathy for praj~naa and
San-lun, this evaluation is not unjustified.
However, because Chi-tsang (549-623) of the
Neo-San-lun school wanted to dissociate his own
lineage from Ch'eng-shih and sharply undermine
Harivarman's standing among his contemporaries, he
was pressed to produce the idea of a San-lun
lineage. The creation of such retrospective lineages
by Sui Buddhists only made havoc with history. It is
not possible to unravel the real and the legendary
links here.(23) We do know that a Neo-San-lun
revival began at
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Mount She with Seng Lang(ad) (his identity is itself
a controversy) and that San-lun split away from
Ch'eng-shih at that point. Prior to that, the
Ch'eng-shih masters did not regard themselves, nor
was there anyone there to so regard them, as
deviating from Naagaarjuna. Harivarman was simply
the most able interpreter of the two truths. It does
not make much sense then to differentiate San-lun
and Ch'eng-shih.(24) Even Chou Yung, critical of
Harivarman's tedious analysis, consented to be a
ghost writer for a preface to an imperially
sponsored abridgement of Harivarman's treatise. The
fact that he found Harivarman tedious in certain
aspects does not necessarily mean he disowned
Harivarman totally; he might be echoing the imperial
uneasiness over excessive scholasticism. We know
that Chou Yung befriended with Ch'eng-shih masters.
Chi-tsang, however, claimed Chou Yung as an
intellectual proteg of Seng Lang. This way, the
San-tsung-lun could be rallied to his own San-lun
advantage. Seng Lang arrived in the southern capical
early in the Ch'i period (some time after 479), but
Chih-lin who urged Chou Yung to complete the
San-tsung-lun soon died (in 484). It would seem
unlikely that Chou Yung was indebted to Seng Lang.
If the San-tsung-lun was finished within the Sung
period (before 479) when Chih-lin was visiting the
capital, Chou Yung could doubly not have been
"instructed by Seng Lang, thereby authoring the
San-tsung-lun."(25) I believe that there were enough
resources in the fusion of Naagaarjuna and
Harivarman in the fifth century within the so-called
Ch'eng-shih circle for Chou Yung, a layman versed in
San-lun and Ch'eng-shih (as yet undifferentiated),
to produce an internal critique called the
San-tsung-lun.
The usual identification of the third school
("provisional reality as empty") with Chou Yung's
own stand is equally hasty.(26) Any Mahaayaana
thinker worth his salt then realized how "form is
emptiness." The Nan-Ch'i-shu clearly stated that the
three schools were current in Chou Yung's time; and
it remembered Chou Yung, not for endorsing the third
school that already existed, but for his ability to
find the thread running through them. The genius of
Chou Yung lies in the dialectical structure of the
whole San-tsung-lun, not in one of its parts. That
he was above the three schools is evident in his
exchange with the Taoist Chang Jung(ae):
Concerning the doctrine of fei-yu fei-wu(af)
("['suunyataa as] neither being nor nonbeing"), the
san-tsung (the three schools or the third school)
are still clouded (yn (ag): "muddled") in their
understanding.(27)
The third school could see how being as such is
nonbeing, but "neither being nor nonbeing" seems to
lie outside its grasp. Such exercise in further
negation was pursued by many, and the third school
needed hardly to have the last word. (Such further
negation is found even in a royal preface; see also
the dialectics of T'an-ch'ien(ah) in the sixth
century.(28) Chou Yung prided himself in being able
to "take hold and let go." It is that freedom that
truly represents his superiority.
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Therefore my treatise on the three schools (is such
that) I can take and break, bridle and let go. There
is (no position) that can transcend its limits
(dialectics).(29)
That Chou Yung did not set up any dogmatic "last
word" but provided an open structure adaptable to
new situations explains several anomalies in the
San-tsung-lun tradition. It explains not only why
the treatise was lost (it was superseded by more
sophisticated structures), but why the gist of his
argument was never forgotten. It explains, above
all, why its sponsor Chih-lin and its author Chou
Yung could have the ironic misfortune of being
classified sometimes under the first of the three
schools. (Ancho had a hard time dealing with Chou
Yung's fail from grace.(30)) It was simply because
later sophisticated versions of the san-tsung could
so demote its creator. It also explains why it is
difficult to place some post-Chou Yung theorists
into the three schools; some of them can and do
occupy two schools simultaneously. The dialectical
structure of thesis, antithesis, and final negation
(of both thesis and antithesis) is the lasting,
endearing contribution of Chou Yung. That alone
pointed ahead to the "emptiness that has nothing
graspable." The actual contents of the three schools
are, in that sense, incidental and variable. They
could be and were indeed modified in time.
For that same reason, Chou Yung's scheme should
not be reduced to being an updated version of Seng
Chao's criticism of the Praj~naa-ists mentioned
earlier. It is true that parallels exist: that the
yan-hui (confluence of conditions) school, pu-k'ung
chia-ming, failed to negate the provisional reality
of cause and conditions; that the pen-wu (basically
empty) school did succeed, that is, k'ung-chia-ming;
and that Seng Chao's own pu-chen k'ung(ai) (the
not-real is empty) well corresponds to chia-ming
k'ung (provisional reality is empty).(31) However,
Seng Chao's criticism did not involve a dialectical
progression. Chou Yung's semantics, his juggling
with the same three or four words, did. Seng Chao's
position is identifiable with his last school. Chou
Yung's positionless position permits him to rise
above all three schools. Thus Chou Yung's treatise
is far more significant. The three schools of Chou
Yung would, in fact, become the "three truths" in
T'ien-t'ai Maadhyamika (the real aspect, the empty
aspect, and the middle aspect).
Aside from the Nan-Ch'i-shu recollection of the
San-tsung-lun, there are the accounts by Chi-tsang
and by Ancho(aj) (763-814) of Japan. Those fragments
have now been published in translation by Leon
Hurvitz.(32) The interested reader should consult
that translation and its copious notes. I shall,
however, follow a more historical approach in
tracing the possible evolution of the "three
schools" structure, and therefore my conclusions are
necessarily different.(33) Professor Hurvitz has
excluded from consideration the Ch'eng-shih
tradition, which is the original milieu for Chou
Yung. He followed instead Chi-tsang and Ancho, both
who spoke really for a different era. For example,
Hurvitz' study brought in the "three truths or
natures" (trisvabhaava) theory
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of the Yogacarins. This has no relevance in the
fifth and early sixth century. The three truths
referred then to a Chinese "third truth" that unites
the "two truths" dualism that China perceived.
Chi-tsang already confused the issues by bringing in
Yogaacara which he had to confront in the Sui
period.(34) Hurvitz also focused less on the hidden
meanings of the two key metaphors, the "meatless
chestnut'' (for the first school) and the "bobbing
melon" (for the second), provided by Seng Ch'an.
I shall draw out their Sinitic implications that are
supportable by a later remark of Ssu-ming
Chih-li(ak) in Sung.(35) Our concerted effort should
help to cast light on the full ramification of this
intriguing text.
It is not possible to identify neatly the
original san-tsung to which Chou Yung addressed
himself. For reasons stated already, it is not
advisable to assume that the first two represented
Ch'eng-shih and the third San-lun.(36) We may assume
that his contemporaries were better informed than
the praj~naa opponents of Seng Chao but that they
still made similar mistakes. The state of the
surviving records requires us to go on to the next
stage: the additional contribution to the san-tsung
analysis by Seng Ch'uan,(al) the student of Seng
Lang and possibly the first real exposer of the
fallacies of the Ch'eng-shih masters.
NEW METAPHORS: THE MEATLESS CHESTNUT AND THE BOBBING
MELON
Seng Ch'an.appropriated the san-tsung analysis of
Chou Yung and added to it two metaphors.(37) He
compared the first school, the realist, to holding
on to a "meatless chestnut." There is no real
substance (hsing-shih(am)) to phenomena but the
appearance (hsiang(an), form) is real enough. There
is no self-nature, svabhaava, but there is the
provisionally real.(38) This dualistic distinction
of inner emptiness and outer reality constitutes the
two truths, that is, two levels of reality. These
two aspects are, however, kept distinct. Chi-tsang
reports:
The two truths theory of the "Rodent-gnawed
chestnut" school (says): The suutra has elucidated
that all forms are empty. This school takes that to
mean that there is the absence of a permanent nature
to the form but there is not the absence of the form
as such. This view is comparable to a chestnut
gnawed (empty) by rodents. The meat inside is all
gone, but the shell remains intact. The external is
as it was. Therefore it is called "empty
chestnut."(39)
Chi-tsang added the remarks, "In other words, it is
the union of being and emptiness that produces
(phenomenal) reality."(40) Reality is empty but
there is the outer form. Together they make up the
phenomenal world.
Ancho listed Chih-lin and Sarvastivaada under
this school,(41) but the immediate choice should be
that strand in the Ch'eng-shih-lun that urged
hsi-k'ung, the systematic reduction of apparent
reality to essential emptiness.
Analyzing the five objects (of sense: form, sound,
smell, taste, and touch) the (Ch'eng-shih) school
reduces them to molecules, and further reduces
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them to even finer atoms, and by repeating the
process the school finally attains the finest
element.... Going one step further, the school
attains the void.(42)
The metaphor of a rodent gnawing away at the
substance of reality fits this picture well. The
Ch'eng-shih tradition did not deny the "shell"; that
shell remained, for all practical purposes,
untouched by the "gnawing.
The five skandhas are in essence empty, but from the
perspective of the mundane truth, they nonetheless
are.(43)
The Ch'eng-shih masters could hereby "gain the
highest truth without abandoning the mundane truth."
It is only that the world is false and devoid of
substance like a rodent-gnawed chestnut.(44) By
affirming the independent existence of the two
truths, this school is judged to have pu-k'ung
erh-ti(ao), not negated the two truths (that is,
realities). The Ch'eng-shih-lun has so understood
these two aspects of reality:
This 'saastra has two teachings: one, the worldly
and two, the highest teaching. From the perspective
of the mundane, there is said to be being (self,
aatman).... From the perspective of the highest
truth, everything is said to be empty and void.(45)
We may think that this "meatless chestnut"
school is inferior, but the Ch'eng-shih masters then
prided themselves in adhering to the praj~naa dictum
of "discoursing on the dharmataa
([chu-fa]-shih-hsiang(ap), the real form of the
various dharmas) , without doing violation to
provisional reality."(46) In their heydays, they
accused both the Abhidharmist and the San-lun master
for their respective realist and nihilist bias
instead!
The Abhidharmist is able to establish (dharmas) but
unable to negate (them). The San-lun tradition can
negate but cannot establish (affirm) . (Only)
Ch'eng-shih masters can both affirm and negate.(47)
Ch'eng-shih would rather "hold on to a view of the
self [pudgala] than to hold stubbornly onto
emptiness." They charged that "holding on to
emptiness aside from being (as San-lun did) is
wrongly holding on to emptiness; holding on to
emptiness in the midst of being (as they did) is
rightly holding on to emptiness."(48) In other
words, they had the best of the two worlds, the
svabhaava'suunyataa ("meatlessness") and
reality-as-is ("shell"). This is realizing "forms
are empty" without thereby abandoning sa.msaara and
the reality we live in. This, to them, befits the
true bodhisattvic stand.
Ancho's suggestion that the "meatless chestnut"
described the position of the Sarvaastivaadins is
philosophically not impossible. In that case, the
Sarvaastivaadins proved the emptiness of the self
(aatman) by showing that it was only made up of
component elements (dharmas) . The anaatman or
nosubstance is the "meatlessness"; the dharmas
constitute the "shell" of appearance. However, it is
unlikely that Chou Yung had Sarvastivaada in mind;
P.148
the butt of his criticism had to be the "two truths"
theorists of the Ch'eng-shih persuasion. Ancho's
relegation of Chih-lin to this first school is
ironic, regrettable but not totally impossible
either. If the original treatise of Chou Yung was
directed at the later day yan-hui "causalist"
(the first school) and the surviving pen-wu
"nihilist" (the second school), then there is no
reason the Ch'eng-shih scholarship of a Chih-lin
should not see itself in the third school. The
causalist failed to empty causative phenomena, that
is, the chestnut; the nihilist went to the extreme
of abolishing them totally, that is, no chestnut;
ergo, the Ch'eng-shih master who could accept the
phenomenal form as essentially empty, that is,
"meatless chestnut" would have the best solution. As
Chi-tsang's comment says, "(For this school), it is
the union of being and nonbeing that produces
(phenomenal) reality." My guess is that this indeed
was the thesis of Chou Yung endorsed by Chih-lin. It
is Seng Ch'an who further complicated the san-tsung
analysis by reclassifying that thesis under the
limitations of the first, newly reformulated by him
in another round of debate.
From Seng Ch'an's loftier heights, the "meatless
chestnut" school was flawed on two accounts: (1) the
compartmentalization of inner and outer, substance
and form, meat and shell; and (2) the failure to
empty the two truths alias realities by keeping them
separate and dualistic. Perhaps too much of a Taoist
division of essence and phenomenon persisted; a pure
Buddhist should be a thoroughgoing phenomenalist.(49)
From Chi-tsang's point of view, the Ch'eng-shih
masters' pride in astriding the two worlds of
paramaartha and sa.mv.rti-satya was pride misplaced.
There are not two worlds; there is only one reality.
San-lun does not hold stubbornly onto emptiness;
Ch'eng-shih unknowingly does!(50) We can sympathize
with that transvaluation of Ch'eng-shih as we turn
to the next metaphor, the "bobbing melon," used to
describe the second school.
Seng Ch'an's metaphor of the "bobbing melon"
is ingenious, but one so subtle that even Chi-tsang
failed to do it full justice:
The second (school) negates provisional reality,
seeing that the mundane truth (reality) in toto
(chu-t'i(aq) , the whole body) cannot be gained
[independent of the highest truth]. As a person
takes a "provisional reality" perspective, then the
whole reality is mundane. However, as he takes an
"emptiness" perspective, the same is paramaartha.
This is comparable to sinking a melon in water.
Raise your hand and the melon in toto appears; this
is the mundane truth (reality) Push it down and the
melon disappears; this is the highest truth
(reality).51
In reading this passage, it is necessary to remind
oneself again of the misalliance of the Two Truths
and the Four Noble Truths by Harivarman. The word
"truth" also implies "reality."(52) Chu-t'i, "in
toto," is the crucial phrase, for it helps to
distinguish the second school's totalistic outlook
from the compartmentalized inner/outer outlook of
the first(53); and the term "perspective,"
P.149
kuan, has the ambiguity of meaning also meditative
focus or vipa'sana. The T'ien-t'ai school would
inherit this when it talked about the "three truths"
as the "three kuans."
The "bobbing melon" conveys this: that the same
reality, from two perspectives, can be in toto being
or nonbeing. When the melon bobs out of the water,
there is only being. When it is submerged, there is
only nonbeing.(54) No longer is being/nonbeing
compartmentalized into inner/outer. The shell and
the meat are two substances; but the bobbing
melon--here one moment, gone the next--is one
reality. Whether Naagaarjuna would accept the logic
that being and nonbeing, sat and asat, can be so
fully identitical (in one melon albeit in two time
brackets) is not immediately relevant.(55) Whether
it makes any sense in Sanskrit to say "emptying the
two truths" (k'ung erh-ti, the other label for this
school) need not concern us here. The truth in the
historicocultural context of sixth-century China is
that this "bobbing melon" school represented a more
subtle understanding of the union of opposites in
the basic dictum "form (being) is emptiness
(nonbeing)."
The basis for this second school can be traced
also to the Ch'eng-shih-lun. Harivarman had accepted
that reality is empty from the highest perspective,
and real from the mundane perspective. Harivarman
devoted a major section of his work to imitating
Naagaarjuna in showing how contrary positions can be
held simultaneously. For example, on ruupa (form),
he argued that the four great elements are only
provisionally real and yet in truth existent. In the
section on vij~naana (consciousness), he argued for
the multiplicity of minds, the singularity of mind,
the negation of multiplicity, as well as the
singularity of mind. Under the section on
nirodha-satya (truth of cessation), he demonstrated
further pointed negations of opposing views.(56)
Thus we find him saying, "The five skandhas are in
truth empty; they exist as reality only on account
of the mundane truth." In the next breath, he would
be saying, "As the suutra has said...the five
skandhas as such are also the highest truth and are
thereby empty."(57) In that sense, he was "sinking a
melon (reality) in water": at one moment, it is
existent but in another, it is empty. This peculiar
way of handling the two truths (realities) can
perhaps even be defended on Maadhyamika grounds.(58)
Under scrutiny, the "bobbing melon" school is
flawed. From the standpoint of the third school, the
second school still fails to fully identify form and
emptiness. It is true that the "bobbing melon"
excells over the "meatless chestnut," but still
being and nonbeing, form and emptiness, alternate in
time, if not in space. Furthermore, from the
standpoint of San-lnn, Harivarman's dialectics is
more sophistry of "both/and," and not authentic
"neither/nor." Harivarman shows the validity of one
position, the thesis, and then shifts ground to show
the viability of its opposite position, the
antithesis, and so on. He pits one option against
another and vice versa. Naagaarjuna would have
stayed with the one option and showed how, innate in
that very one option,
P.150
lies already its own destruction. Seng Ch'uan's
metaphor is meant to mock the Ch'eng-shih sophistry.
Bobbing the melon in and out of reality still has
not answered the question about the nature of the
melon itself; is it in itself truly real or is it
not? By merely cleverly changing one's perspective,
taking a realist stand (mundane truth) and then
adopting a nihilist stand (highest truth), is not
enough. The melon might have two sides, a yin and a
yang, but should one not question also the "melon"
and the yin-yang(ar) claims themselves? Are not the
melon and yin-yang another false construct?
That certain persons should be attracted to the
second school's interpretation of the two truths is
understandable. The yin-yang-esque logic has its
appeal and is assuredly easier to master than purist
Maadhyamika. There is a precedence for it in Taoist
thought also. Chuang-tzu(as) has said, "From the
perspective of the Tao, all things are the same.
From the perspective of the things themselves, there
are indeed differences."(59) The sage sees the basic
equality of things; the common people see only their
apparent variations. The former, t'i-wu, embodies
nonbeing; the latter is trapped among ontic
realities. No less than Seng Chao himself had
resorted to this Taoist logic. It was a common
practice to so interpret the highest truth as "sage
truth known to sages" and the mundane truth as
"common truth known to common people." Seng Chao
said, "The common people look for passivity within
movement, but I seek movement within passivity." The
sage knows that "things do not move," but common
people assume that they do. "The mundane truth sees
movement; the highest truth sees not."(60) If Seng
Chao would lapse into that double standard, lesser
minds could have easily so misappropriated
Naagaarjuna's theory of two truths. The two truths
became two aspects of the same reality, each
contributing to the whole Truth. For Naagaarjuna,
there is a wrong way that is useful for daily living
and a right way that alone guarantees wisdom. For
the Chinese, these two ways are two sides of truth
and only together, in harmony, would they constitute
the complete, perfect, flawless insight.(61)
Whatever one might say about the shortcomings of the
Ch'eng-shih position, it is that harmonism that
would reemerge in T'ien-t'ai(at). The greater and
more positive assessment of mundane knowledge
(sa.mv.rtisatya) in the whole scheme of truth
characterizes even Chi-tsang's understanding of the
two truths. A concrete example of the "bobbing
melon" dialectics will be introduced later.
THE METAPHORLESS THIRD SCHOOL AND THE FINAL PARADOX
Seng Ch'an had no bad words for the third school,
no deriding metaphor. The third school simply,
almost dogmatically, realizes that provisional
reality, chia-ming, is as such empty, k'ung. Form is
emptiness.
(The third school) in general says that provisional
reality, as it is, is emptiness itself. Now this
idea originated with Seng Chao's Pu-chen k'ung-lun
(On the unreal as the empty) which says, "Though it
is, it is not. Though it is not, it is.
P.151
'Is-and-yet-is-not' denotes its nonbeing. 'Not-is-
and-yet-is' denotes its non-nonbeing. Such being the
case, it is not that there is no thing; it is only
that the thing itself is not a real thing. Things
being not truly things, how can things be
instrumental to other things?" Master Chao says, "All
things are not real things; they are false--and that
constitutes emptiness."(62)
This ultimate paradox, wherein being is nonbeing,
was also judged by Chi-tsang to be indebted to Seng
Lang's revival of the authentic middle astriding
"both being and nonbeing with no bias." The identity
of being and nonbeing or form and emptiness was also
so regarded to be the Buddha's insight by Chou Yung.
In his letter to Chang Jung, the Taoist, he writes:
Penetrating being and nonbeing is known only to the
Buddha. Knowledge of nonbeing and being [as discrete
entities] I grant the Taoist to have, but the
attainment of "neither being nor nonbeing" [the
middle path] is never reached by the Taoist.(63)
The third school, in seeing chia-ming as k'ung,
represents nitartha wisdom.
Little more can be said of the third school, but
as I argued earlier, it is the structure of the
three schools in their progression, not the content
of the third school, which is of ultimate
significance. The first realist school accepts
emptiness without destroying reality; the second
school is cited by Chou Yung to undermine the first,
for it manages to intuit emptiness itself through
reality; the third school is chosen by Chou Yung to
further undermine the preceding two schools, for now
it finally realizes that reality as such is empty.
Perhaps unknown to Chou Yung, he had already
anticipated the T'ien-t'ai idea of the "three
truths." The first school corresponds to what master
Chih-i(au) saw as the chia(av) (provisionally real)
perspective; it sets up reality. The second school
corresponds to Chih-i's k'ung (emptiness)
perspective; it sets up nonreality. The third school
mediates and transcends the first two schools; it
represents Chih-i's idea of the chung(aw) (middle
path) perspective. In T'ien-t'ai Maadhyamiks, the
real, the empty and the middle together constitute
the one reality of dharmataa that is correlated
(yueh(ax)) to the mind. Mind and reality has
three aspects, kan(ay) (vipassana) alias three truths,
ti (satya). On a separate occasion, I will show how
the Ch'eng-shih masters helped to create a "three
truths" structure that has nothing to do with the
Yogaacaara idea of the trisvabhaava.(64) Here I will
only consider how Ch'eng-shih triggered off
Chi-tsang's search for yet his "fourfold two
truths." However, first we have to understand how
Chou Yung's San-tsung-lun prompted the search for
higher syntheses.
The Sun-tsung-lun's semantics led those who came
after Chou Yung to regard the third school either as
the transcendence of, or else, as the summation of
the first two schools. The first is realistic; the
second is nihilistic; the third unites realism and
nihilism by seeing how the real as such is the
empty. This sets up a kind of Hegelian summation in
which the third is a synthesis that sublates
(aufgsben) the thesis and the antithesis. Strictly
speaking, Naagaarjuna's
P152
Maadhyamika mitigates against such build-up of a
higher synthesis. 'Suunyavaada should stay with an
eternal antithesis. Any positive dialectics would
lead only to an infinite progression. Indeed, we
would have threefold and fourfold two truths, as we
will see later. However, Ch'eng-shih was forced to
go that route once it mistook the two truths to be
two realities. Since ultimately there is only one
reality, the two truths that correspond to the
mundane and the supramundane would have to meet in a
still higher ("third") truth-reality wherein
sa.msaara is nirvaa.na and being is nonbeing. What is
the third school in Chou Yung would then become the
third truth (the middle) in others. The inertia
pushing for higher syntheses was manifested within
the Ch'eng-shih circle. The seeds were sown in the
fifth century.
THE EMERGENCE OF A THREEFOLD MIDDLE PATH IN
CHIH-TSANG(az)
According to the partisan retelling of traditions by
Chi-tsang, the discovery of the "middle" as the
"third truth" bridging the real and the empty was
made by Seng Lang but was stolen by Ch'eng-shih
master, Chih-tsang. I believe that Chih-tsang could
well have developed it out of seminal ideas found as
early as in Hsien-liang(ba) , a fifth-century
Ch'eng-shih master. We will see below also how the
basic san-tsung or "three schools" was revised and
grew in sophistication in time and why some
spokesmen cannot fit easily into just one or even
two of Chou Yung's original categories.
Hsien-liang, alias Hui-liang(bb), could have
been the teacher of Chih-lin himself.(65) His theory
of the two truths is reportedly this:
(All things) are empty within and is devoid of a
self. The selfless phenomenon, wu-chu chu-fa(bc),
represents the mundane truth. The phenomanal
selflessness, chu-fa wu-chu(bd), is the highest
truth. This is the intention of the Vaibhaasika
canon that elucidated the two truths of principle,
li and fact, shih(be).(66)
Because Hsien-liang said "Things are empty within"
(while real without), he is usually classified under
the first school. If we look deeper though, his
position can be more than that of the "meatless
chestnut." He cleverly juxtaposted the Chinese
compound, wu-chu and chu-fa, so that depending on
which of the two is made the subject (selflessness
or phenomena?) the same reality is eligible to being
the highest or the mundane truth. From that
perspective, Hsien-liang could easily represent the
second school's "bobbing a melon in and out of
water."(67) Reality is a two-faced Janus.
ONE chu-fa WU-CHU: phenomenal selflessness,
REALITY paramaartha, `suunyataa
-------||----------------------------------
dharmataa wu-chu CHU-FA: selfless phenomena,
sa.mv.rti-satya, the real
Such juggling with the ambivalence of the two
realities was perfected by Chih-tsang of the sixth
century during the Liang dynasty. A leading scholar
of the Mahaaparinirvaa.na Suutra, this Ch'eng-shih
expert further subdivided Hsien-liang's structure
(see diagram) to produce a "middle path of the two
P.153
truths." So intricate is Chih-tsang's system that
Chi-tsang himself did not know whether to classify
it as "bobbing melon" or under the third school.
Chih-tsang apparently said:
What is the middle path of the two truths? (It is
this.) That various dharmas rose means that they are
not in tune to dharmataa [the unborn]. As they are
not in tune [to the empty dharmataa], therefore they
are (real). Their reality, however, is deluded
reality because (in essence) they are empty. This is
the mundane truth. Nevertheless, being in essence
vacuous, they are without form. Formless, they are
also of the highest truth. The highest truth is the
nonbeing that is "neither being nor nonbeing." As
deluded existence, mundane reality is not without
being. "Not without being and yet existing" is the
nature of provisional reality.(68)
Therefore things are in toto the (highest) truth and
not (mundane) being. They are also in toto mundane
and not nonbeing (empty). This (union of) not-being
and not-nonbeing is the one middle path mediating
the real (highest truth) and the mundane (truth).
The highest truth being formless, the middle path of
the highest truth is "neither being nor nonbeing."
The mundane truth pertains to causes and conditions.
Causative reality is false, the result of being
negative; it is not real. However, since what is
negative cannot create any result [and yet there are
the caused results], it is not unreal either. This
"neither real nor unreal" is the middle path of the
mundane truth.(69)
In assuming two aspects to one reality, that is, in
toto true and in toto false, Chih-tsang seems to
belong to the "bobbing melon" school. In finding a
middle path uniting the two truths, he might qualify
for the third school, thus Chi-tsang had to bitterly
concede.(70)
Basically, Chih-tsang's dialectics is based on
the ambiguity of the attributes of reality. The
following diagram explains his reasoning.
by nature FORMLESS "neither being nor nonbeing"------|
Highest ------------------ |
Truth in truth NOTUNREAL as hightes middle path MIDDLE PATH
UNITING THE
-------------------------------------------------------
TWO TRUTHS'
in substance EMPTY "neither real nor MIDDLE PATHS
Mundane ------------------ unreal" as mundane |
Truth as illusion REAL middle path ---------------------|
The highest truth is truth without reality; the
mundane truth is reality without truth. Each has its
own paradox or middle path. Where they complement
one another is the third middle path uniting the two
truths. The Chinese language allows the blending of
value ("truth") and fact ("real") both described by
the same term (true, real). Chih-tsang's clever idea
of a middle path here might be influenced by the
Neo-San-lun revival of the concept of the middle.
Chi-tsang so accused Chih-tsang of stealing and
distorting the three truths doctrine of
neo-San-lun.(71) Yet the middle as that which
mediates the realist and the nihilist position is
already suggested by the San-tsung-lun's threefold
structure. If so, Chih-tsang, as well as She-shan
San-lun masters, might well have learned indirectly
from Chou Yung, but in decidedly different fashions.
P.154
BEYOND CH'ENG-SHIH: CHI-TSANG'S "FOURFOLD TWO
TRUTHS"
The San-lun revival ended in the defeat of
Ch'eng-shih. Chi-tsang undercut the various "two
truths'' system produced by his ideological foes.
Yet as a praasa^ngika philosopher, he had to build
his case upon the rubble he made of his opponents.
It was his duty to destroy their position by going
along with it and showing its shortcomings. The
intellectual evolution of Chi-Tsang's thought cannot
be dealt with here, but we may look at how, in
review, he refined and substantially changed the
import of Chih-tsang's dialectics.
In his account of the "meatless chestnut"
school, Chi-tsang added the comment that it is "the
union of being and emptiness that produces
(phenomenal) reality." The shell (being) and the
meatlessness (emptiness) constitute together the
phenomenon of the meatless chestnut. Probably, the
school originally intended `being' to denote the
mundane truth and 'emptiness' the highest truth.
Together they constitute reality or dharmataa.
Chi-tsang, however, seemed to give that a new twist;
to him, they constitute only mundane or phenomenal
reality, leaving their negation, "neither being nor
nonbeing, " as the highest truth-reality or
dharmataa. If so, he had demoted the "meatless
chestnut" to being a "two truths" system of a lower
order (see A) and providing the transcendence of
that system by another "two truths" of a superior
order (see B). Read upward from the left.
Lower Two Truths(A) Higher Two Truths(B)
----------------------------------
/ | "neither being nor nonbeing" |
/ | constituting the hightest truth|
---------------------------------|--------------------------------|
| paramaartha as |zunion in{ |meatless chestnut reclassified: |
| empty substance |umeatlesst |union of being and nonbeing |
| --------------- ||chestnut} |constituting the mundane truth |
| real appearance | | |
|------------------|-------------|--------------------------------|
It is as if the Ch'eng-shih masters were satisfied
with the "meatless chestnut" as the ultimate reality
whereas Chi-tsang aspired for a higher state of
'suunyataa wherein neither the form (of the
nutshell) nor the essence (of the meatless core)
could be seen. Form and essence, the duality of
reality and nonreality, have to be further negated,
transcended.(72)
Chi-tsang's move to further negate any noetic
pairs assumed by the Ch'eng-shih masters is fully
justified. The Ch'eng-shih tradition had made the
mistake of confusing the epistemic ("two truths")
with the ontological ("two realities"). It had
thereby pushed for a transcending of the dualism of
the two truth-realities. Not knowing that the epistemic
two truths did not constitute another set of
opposites, the Ch'eng-shih master trapped himself
into their possible union. Thus Chih-tsang wanted to
find the mean harmonizing the two truths. In the end,
the Ch'eng-shih masters mistakenly thought that the
two truth-
P.155
realities could be intellectually or rationally
grasped, that is, that by formulating a synthesis of
the two truths upon the model of "sa.msaara is
nirvaa.na; form is emptiness; the mundane is the
real etc.," they had praj~naa in hand. The truth is,
according to Naagaarjuna: praj~naa is not so
conceptualizable and wisdom is learning to let go of
all constructs, even the constructs like the
structure of the two truths. "Meatless chestnut,"
"bobbing melon" and whatever are only metaphors and
pointers, rafts to be forsaken once the goal of
enlightenment is reached. Given the fact that the
Ch'eng-shih masters had already speculated on the
structures of the two truths and had built up their
nice artifacts of schemes, Chi-tsang could only
responsibly "pull the rug from under them" at every
corner and turn. If the Ch'eng-shih master thought
the "meatless chestnut" described dharmataa,
Chi-tsang would have to counter by saying that the
state wherein there is "neither the meatlessness nor
the chestnut shell" is the true dharmataa. And if
then the opponent latched onto "neither the
meatlessness nor the chestnut shell as the
dharmataa," then it is the duty of praasa^ngika to
further say, "No, it is neither the not-meatlessness
nor the not-chestnut shell which is the true
dharmataa." This is because in the end, all words
such as being, nonbeing, not-being, not-nonbeing,
and other (these compounds were in use then) are
just mere words. Their tongue-twisting charm
notwithstanding, one must go beyond their verbal
games.
Chi-tsang demonstrated this transcendence of
wordplays in his famous "fourfold two truths." The
following diagram is an extension of the momentum
started in the last diagram, going beyond a
two-stepped two truths to a full four-stepped two
truths. Theoretically it can go on ad infinitum, but
Chi-tsang prudentially ended it in the fourth
step(73) (partly because no one to date ventured
beyond Seng-lang's or Chih-tsang's "threefold middle
path"). Each step is one step up a higher two
truths. The upper box in each is the highest truth
negating the lower box, the mundane truth; the lower
box (in the second to fourth step) subsumes the two
truths that went before, remolding them into its own
mundane truth. Read from left to right upward.
The use of serial negations might suggest
influence from Chuang-tzu, (74) but Chi-tsang
remained faithful to Naagaarjuna in spirit. Unlike
the third middle path in Chih-tsang which unites the
two truths, Chi-tsang's middle paths (upper boxes)
remain consistently negative. They offer no secure
syn-thesis, only a perpetual anti-thesis or
non-thesis, the creative insecurity or freedom from
all mental ays and nays.
The crowning touch to Chi-tsang's insights is
his reversal of the Ch'eng-shih fallacy that mistook
the two truths as two realities. Chih-tsang's third
middle path unites the two truths because he
thought, as sa.msaara and nirvaa.na, the two truths
should be so ontologically united. Chi-tsang, on the
other hand, knew the real purpose of the two truths.
The two truths are not descriptive of dharmataa. The
highest truth is indescribable; the lower truth
describes but falliciously. Neither describes the
"principle."
P.156
The two truths pertain to chiao(bf), teachings
(didactics) , not to li(bg), principle (in the
object-realm). They were set up to offset dualistic
(discriminatory) thinkings of common men. They are
the means pointing to the nondual, just as the
finger points to the moon. The principle is not in
the finger. In the end there is only one reality.
Only expediency dictates the division of truth into
two as it does the division of the one vehicle into
three.(75)
With this, Chi-tsang called an end to the arabesque
of Ch'eng-shih speculation on the two
truth-realities (sic). With this, too, he recovered
the original spirit of Chou Yung's San-tsung-lun.
The three schools listed by Chou Yung were meant, I
would argue, not just as an objective account of
three contemporary opinions on being and nonbeing.
The schools were structured so the second would
undermine the first, and the third would undermine
the first and the second. Comparable to Chi-tsang's
more elaborate fourfold two truths, Chou Yung
strived not for the final word in the third school.
There is no final word, no final stand, in
Maadhyamika. There is only the emptiness of
not-to-grasp (onto absolutes). There is only the
freedom, as Chou Yung said, to "take and break,
bridle and let go." The final message in the
San-tsung-lun is the silence of the unspoken "fourth
school"--Chou Yung's own positionless position.
POSTSCRIPT: CHIH-LI ON THREE SCHOOLS OF IDENTITY
Chou Yung's San-tsung-lun was a response to the
Ch'eng-shih speculation on the two truths. All three
reported schools tried to handle the issue of
identity what is meant by "form is emptiness" or
"sa.msaara is nirvaa.na"? All three endorsed the
basic identity but struggled to make sense of it.
The first school did not want to reduce form to
emptiness, therefore it made the distinction between
external form and internal emptiness. The second
school did not want to subscribe to the
essence/phenomena dualism of the first, therefore it
tried
P.157
hard to merge the two, being and nonbeing, into a
singular entity. This school, however, accepted a
preliminary separation of form and emptiness and
only then tried to show how they indeed coincided.
The third school in contrast begins with their
identity, demonstrating the fallacy of any
pre-supposition of separate status. It discovers the
true advaya.
The issue of identity or hsiang-chi(bh) is
crucial to Mahaayaana. The proper, middle path,
understanding must avoid any bias for either the
form (realism) or the emptiness (nihilism). The
classic statement on the variants in understanding
hsiang-chi is given by Sung T'ien-t'ai master,
Chih-li of Ssu-ming. My interpretation of Chou Yung
and Seng Ch'an finds direct support here. Chih-li
considered three types of identity:
1. The identity of the conjunction of two
separate entities
2. The identity of back-to-back reversals of
one substance
3. The identity of one indivisible substance
here and now.
The first is similar to the first school in Chou
Yung. Here, although "form is empty," form and
emptiness are kept apart as two entities in
conjunction. The second recalls Chou Yung's second
school. The same reality, the melon, is turned
completely around from being to nonbeing. The third
comes close to Chou Yung's third school in that it
never ever accepted anything less than the basic
nondual (advaya) nature of the one reality.(76)
There are some differences between Chou Yung and
Chih-li but that is due to the refinement of ideas
and Chih-li's defense of the T'ien-t'ai worldview in
a very different age. Just as Chou Yung was
superseded in authority by Seng Ch'an, so Chih-li
too made minute but extremely clever distinctions
that Seng Ch'uan could not anticipate. Chih-li was
critical of Ch'an(bi) and its understanding of
identity. For Chih-li, Ch'an's fascination with
emptiness and nothingness spelled of the danger of
reducing form into emptiness, of betraying sa.msaara
in a "sudden turn, back to back" of it into
nirvaa.na. If that happened, then the middle path
that stayed balanced between extremes would be
tipped in favor of the empty and the nirvanic.
Indeed, Ch'an philosophy (if not Ch'an practice)
valued negative vocabularies more than the idea of
the "middle, " and by Sung times, wu, nonbeing,
gained a symbolic prominence unknown even to early
Ch'an.(77) Chih-li regarded his own school,
T'ien-t'ai, to be in full control of the third and
best option. Only T'ien-t'ai could realize in theory
and in practice the identity of sa.msaara and
nirvaa.na wherein sa.msaara as-it-is (unchanged, not
transvaluated, remaining fully samsaric) is realized
as nirvaa.na. Only in T'ien-t'ai can kle'sa,
defilements, as kle'sa (in its full reality, not
annihilated) be one with bodhi. Evil is not
abolished for the sake of the good, for evil has its
own place in the totality of reality. Chih-li could
argued for this very positive acceptance of
reality-as-is because of the nature of T'ien-t'ai
thought that endorsed hsing-o(bj) (nature as evil),
hsing-chu(bk) (full potentiality) and a "three
truths" theory that insisted on accepting even the
negative element
P.158
(chia, false) as part and parcel of the whole. These
are ideas that had not crystallized at the time of
Chou Yung or Seng Ch'an. Putting these ideas
aside, however, Chou Yung, Seng Ch'an, and Chih-li
are in essential agreement on the relative merits of
their three schools.
NOTES
1. See Nishi Yoshio, "Shoki Bukkyo ni okeru
nitaisetsu" ["The Two Truths theory in early
Buddhism"], in Miyamoto Shoson, et al., ed. Indogaku
to Buddkyogaku no shomondai (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1951),
pp. 373-396.
2. Maadhyamikakaarikaas (hereafter cited as MK),
XXIV, 8-10, following the translation in Frederick
J. Streng, "The Significance of Pratiityasamutpaada"
in Mervyn Sprung, ed., The Problem of Two Truths in
Buddhism and Vedaanta (Dordrecht, Netherlands:
Reidel, 1973), p. 27.
3. Lao-tzu, I, my translation.
4. Wang Pi does not question words' claim to
meaning, only that the words are insufficient to
convey the full meaning.
5. A Ch'an (Zen) metaphor that has now become
common property.
6. The survival of the Four Noble Truths in
Mahaayaana suutras and 'saastras is documented in
the appendix in Furuhara Ryogon, Shitairon no
kenkyuu [A study of the Catu.hsatya-Nirde'sa by
Vasuvarman] (Kyoto: Nagata Bunshodo, 1972).
7. MK, XXIV, 1-6, 19-20.
8. See Whalen Lai, "Sinitic Understanding of the
Two Truths Theory in the Liang Dynasty: Ontological
Gnosticism in the Thoughts of Prince Chao-ming,"
Philosophy East and West 28, no. 3 (1978): 339-351.
9. See Tsukamoto Zenryu, et al., ed., Joron
kenkyuu (Kyoto: Kyoto University, 1959), 2 vols.
10. Japanese Sanron (San-lun) lineage depicts
Tao-sheng(bl) and T'an-chi(bm) as successors to
Kumaarajiiva and predecessors to Seng Lang; see
Takakusu Junjiro's account in The Essentials of
Buddhist Philosophy (Honolulu: University of Hawaii,
1947), p. 99.
11. See my "The Meaning of Ch'eng-shih: Should
Harivarman be Judged as a Nihilist?" (manuscript,
1978).
12. Lao-tzu, 48.
13. MK, XIII, 8, following Streng, op. cit., p.
32.
14. Seng Chao assumed that there can be two
languages corresponding to the two truth-realities.
For Naagaarjuna, there is no language that can
correlate with praj~naa.
15. See Whalen Lai, "The Mahaaparinirvaa.na
Suutra and its Earliest Interpreters in China"
(forthcoming, Journal of the American Oriental
Society).
16. Ch'eng-shih-lun, section on "one truth,"
Taisho Daizokyo (hereafter cited as T.), 32, pp.
362c-64a. The mahaanirvaa.na of the suutra has the
attribute of sat and aatman; the nirodha-satya of
the 'saastra does not. This created some problems
for the Ch'eng-shih masters who aligned the two.
17. See Whalen Lai, "Chou Yung vs. Chang Jung
(on 'Suunyata): The pen-mo yu-wu Controversy in
Fifth Century China," Journal of the International
Association of Buddhist Studies 1, no. 2(1979):
23-44.
18. See Sakaino Koyo, "Jojitsu daijogi"
("Satyasiddhi as Mahayanist") in Tokiwa Daijo
kanreki kinenshu (Tokyo, 1933), p. 128.
19. See T'ang Yung-t'ung, Han-Wei liang-Chin
Nan-pei-ch'ao fo-chiao-shih (Peking reissue of 1938
Shang-wu edition: Chuang-hua, 1955), pp. 431-433,
733-734.
20. Cited by T'ang, ibid., p. 740.
21. Ibid., pp. 737f.
22. Text edited and rearranged by T'ang, ibid.,
p. 741; translation mine, with Hegelian terms for
the purpose of later discussion.
P.159
23. The San-lun lineage has been critically
examined by Sakaino Koyo, and his opinion has been
incorporated into modern retellings. It is again
reviewed in Hirai Shun'ei, Chuugoku hanya shisoshi
kenkyuu (Tokyo: Shunjuusha, 1976). Hirai tends to
defend traditional opinions.
24. I would still use the term "Ch'eng-shih" in
my discussion, but the reader should know that this
is too puristic and anachronistic.
25. T'ang, op. cit., pp. 734-740, esp. 737,
738f.
26. Ibid., p.741. I disagree with T'ang and
others over this.
27. T.52, p. 41a, my translation. The passage is
taken in a different sense by T'ang, op. cit.,
p.751, especially over the meaning of yun. T'ang
considers the penetration of "being and nonbeing"
(by the wise) as immediately the attainment of
"neither being nor nonbeing" and that the latter is
yun (comprehended) by the san-tsung (the third
school). Yun can mean both "to include" or "to be
obscured."
28. Emperor Wu of Liang used fei-yin
fei-kuo(bn), neither cause nor effect, in a preface
(T. 52, p. 242c);T'an-ch'ien used similar logic in
his Wang-shih-fei-lun(bo) [Essay on terminating
opposites].
29. T. 52, p. 40b; T'ang, op. cit., p. 741. See
my essay cited in note 17.
30. Ancho cited Chun-cheng(bp) to that effect;
see T'ang, ibid., p. 750.
31. This is my alignment. Chi-tsang did it
differently, placing the chi-se(bg) school of Chih
Tun(br) first and yuan-hui second. T'ang follows
Chi-tsang; op. cit., pp. 743, 746. The reasons for
my departure from the two are: (a) the scheme is
flexible, (b) Seng Chao's criticism of Chih Tun is
unfair; (c) even if Chih Tun was a realist who
abided with the forms, se, he never gnawed away at
reality to produce nothingness; (d) Chi-tsang
misaligned yuan-hui with the nihilist because he
missed seeing the meaning of the "bobbing melon."
See notes 51, 54 herein.
32. Hurvitz, "The First Systematizations of
Buddhist Thought in China," Journal of Chinese
Philosophy 2, no. 4 (1975): 361-388.
33. My divergence from Hurvitz and T'ang is
evident if comparisions are made.
34. See Hurvitz, op. cit., p. 374. Ancho
recognized how Chou Yung was addressing Ch'eng-shih
and inferred Chi-tsang confronted Yogaacara.
35. See postscript at the end.
36. The three were just inferior and superior
spokesmen for the then syncretic Ch'eng-shih (with
San-lun) points of view.
37. Since Fa-lang(bs), student of Seng Ch'uan,
had apparently cited a "former authority" in his
Shan-men hsuan-i(bt) and since Chi-tsang, student of
Fa-lang, referred to that authority of the metaphors
as "a man of late," it is usually assumed that the
person is Seng Ch'uan; see T'ang, op. cit., p. 749.
38. Ibid., p. 742.
39. Citing from Chi-tsang's Erh-ti-i; ibid.
40. I am suggesting this as Chi-tsang's added
remarks; ibid.
41. To me, Sarvastivaada should endorse "no
chestnut (aatman, whole) but the meat (dharmas,
parts)." But see my later apology on behalf of
Ancho.
42. Takakusu, op. cit., p. 78.
43. Cited by T'ang, op. cit., p. 746.
44. From Chun-cheng, Ta-ch'eng shih-lun hsuan-i;
cited by T'ang, ibid., p. 742.
45. T. 32, p. 248a
46. T'ang, ibid., p. 743, a trait claimed by
San-lun also.
47. Sakaino citing the Ta-ch'eng hsuan-lun in
his op. cit., p. 131.
48. Ibid., from a source cited by Ancho.
49. Hsing-hsiang(bu), essence and form, are not
without Sanskrit parallels; see Hurvitz, op. cit.,
p. 372. And a thoroughgoing phenomenalism might have
been undermined already by the abhidharmic interest
in svabhaava; see David J. Kalupahana, Buddhist
Philosophy. A Historical Analysis (Honolulu, Hawaii:
University Press of Hawaii, 1976),p.99.
50. This is Chi-tsang's judgment which might be
partisan; see note 11.
51. Passage cited by T'ang, op. cit., p. 745,
and Hurvitz, op. cit., p. 372. Chi-tsang missed the
meaning of the "bobbing melon" metaphor; see note
31, herein. And Hurvitz was unsure; ibid., p.385,
note 25.
52. My previous study (see note 8 herein) traced
the ontologization to Taoism alone. Since
P.160
then, I have seen Harivarman's role in this.
53. The term chu-t'i (in toto) will appear in
key philosophical discussions later, for example, in
Wonhyo's commentary on the Awakening of Faith in
Mahayana.
54. T'ang, op. cit., p. 747; Hurvitz, op. cit.,
p. 375. The source is Ancho, but Ancho concluded
wrongly that being and nonbeing are thereby mutually
exclusive. The opposite is true: a thing can be
both. Chi-tsang thought the metaphor fit the
yuan-hui thesis: that a thing, nonexistent before,
comes into being due to the confluence of
conditions. He was wrong. The metaphor has nothing
to do with Yogaacara either.
55. Logic would say no.
56. See chapter heading in T. 32, pp. 4-6.
57. Cited by T'ang, op. cit., p. 746.
58. Hurvitz finds the second school viable and
sensible; op. cit., p. 380.
59. Chuang-tzu, 17.
60. Seng Chao on "Things Do Not Move," in T. 45,
p. 151.
61. Thus, in T'ien-t'ai, paramaartha-'suunyataa
is considered incomplete.
62. T'ang, op. cit., p. 752, citing Chi-tsang.
63. T. 52, p. 41a; see my study cited in note
17, herein.
64. T'ien-t'ai master Hui-wen(bv) (550-577)
allegedly discovered the three truth in the
Mahaapraj~naapaaramitaa 'Saastra of Naagaarjuna
"with no help" (from Ch'eng-shih, one of his
bitterest enemies).
65. Same perhaps as Tao-liang, author of a
commentary on the Ch'eng-shih-lun. This Seng
Liang(bw) , a scholar of the Mahaaparinirvaa.na
Suutra changed his name to Hsien-liang after he was
exiled to the south; see T'ang, op. cit., p. 745.
66. Ibid., p. 744, citing Ancho.
67. He might even qualify for the third school
if one wants to push this.
68. Ibid., p.747-748, from Ancho; the text is
corrupted.
69. Ibid., p. 748. Compare this with Chi-tsang's
three truths in Takakusu, op. cit., p. 104.
70. T'ang, op. cit., p. 748-749.
71. Ibid., p. 749. Chi-tsang had strong words
against Chih-tsang; see T. 45, p. 115b.
72. T'ang, op. cit., p. 743. "Sarvaastivaada
affirms the reality of dharma substance. Ch'eng-shih
holds that there is form but no essense. Mahaayaana
praj~naa tradition says that there is neither the
substance nor the form." Chi-tsang would therefore
deny the shell/meat distinction.
73. See note 71, Chi-tsang at first used the
threefold two truths.
74. Chuang-tzu, ch. 2; see Hurvitz, op. cit., p.
368, where A. C. Graham's translation is cited.
75. T. 45, p. 15a.
76. For short treatment, see Takao Giken, Sodai
Bukkyoshi no kenkyuu (Kyoto: Hokke'en, 1975) .
Chih-li's actual words for the three kinds of
identity are (1) "Two things mutually joining,"(bx)
(2) "Back and front double turnover,"(by) and (3)
"Whole body as is"(bz). This set has been cited
repeatedly in later Buddhist exegesis.
77. The idea of the "middle" (chung) and even
"emptiness" (k'ung) faded to the background in Sung
Ch'an ideology. The "wu" in the Wu-men-kuan
[Gateless Gate], a kung-an collection focusing on
wu, carried the day.
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