Illusionism (maayavaada) in late T'ang Buddhism:
A hypothesis on the philosophical roots of the Round
Enlightenment Suutra (Yuan-chueh-ching)
By Whalen W. Lai
Philosophy East and West
vol 28 no. 1
1978.01
p.39-51
(c) by University of Hawaii Press
p. 39
One of the persistent charges made by the
Neo-Confucian master Chu Hsi(b) against the Buddhists
was that the Buddhists dwelt upon the vacuous
(hsu(c) ) and were unable to deal with reality
(shih(d)) as the Confucians could.(1) As a general
indictment against the otherworldly lifestyle of the
monks who left behind the substantive world of human
relationships, Chu Hsi's statement was not incorrect.
The innerworldly mysticism of the Ch'an tradition
notwithstanding, Buddhist individualism did not place
priority in loyalty or filial piety. However, Chu Hsi
also intended his criticism to be directed at the
philosophical nihilism of the Buddhists. This charge
against Buddhist nihilism is more difficult to
accept,;because major T'ang Buddhist schools such as
T'ien-t'ai(e) and Hua-yen(f) had consciously
transcended what they perceived as "nihilism" in the
emptiness philosophy (`Suunyavaada).(2) Armed with
such concepts as a`suunya tathaagatagarbha (the
not-empty embryonic Buddha) , Buddha-nature,
shih-hsiang(g) (the "concrete" reality, dharmataa),
and chen-ju(h) (the "true" such, suchness,
tathataa),(3) the T'ang schools intentionally negated
mere nihilism. Was Chu Hsi a mere polemicist? Was the
charge of "nihilism" a matter of relative nihilism?
Or was there a more immediate basis for Chu Hsi's
indignation? I would like to consider, in this essay,
the last alternative, namely, that despite the
"positivism" of T'ien-t'ai and Hua-yen thought in the
sixth and seventh centuries, there was a significant
turn back to an illusionist tradition in the eighth
that left a legacy in subsequent times. Chu Hsi
apparently was reacting against this heritage. In
support of this hypothesis is the fact that in
writing against the Buddhists, Chu Hsi based himself
predominantly on two Buddhist works that emerged in
the eighth century: the companion texts of the
philosophical or theoretical Yuan-chueh-ching (Round
Enlightenment Suutra) and the meditative or practical
`Sura.ngama suutra.(4) Both of these texts have been
rendered into English, in due respect for their
popularity among Ch'an circles, by Charles Luk;(5)
abbreviated as YCC and SGS. The two texts will be
analyzed (especially the YCC) in terms of a possible
shift toward "illusionism" in late T'ang Buddhist
thought. The term "illusionism" recalls the term
maayaavaada that was used by the opponents of Advaita
Vedaanta against `Sankara. That association is not
intended here, but the YCC does have a strong dose of
the Chinese word huan(i), illusion, often used to
render maayaa. The YCC represents a Chinese Buddhist
formulation of maayaavaada, one free from the
aatman-Brahman tradition of Vedaanta.
The full title of the YCC is Tn-fang-kuang
Yuan-chueh hsiu-to-lo liao-i-ching(j) , supposedly
translated from a Sanskrit text by a north Indian
Kashmir monk, Chueh-chiu(k), in 718 at the famous
White Horse Temple at Lo-yang. There is no other
supporting evidence for this, and the Buddhist
Catalogue of the K'ai-yuan era, (l) 730, already
doubted this legend when it recorded it.(6) The full
p. 40
title itself is somewhat an anomaly, since the word
suutra appears two times, phonetically as
"hsiu-to-lo" in the middle and then as "ching" at the
end, (7) The term "yuan-chueh, " round (that is,
perfect) enlightenment, though not without Sanskrit
parallels, has a more immediate cousin, it seems, in
the T'ien-t'ai and Hua-yen association of the term
yuan with perfection. The YCC speaks of the
yuan-chueh-miao-hsin(m) , the round-enlightened,
mysterious mind and the SGS speaks of the
ju-lai-tsang miao-chen-ju-hsin(n) , the
tathaagatagarba, mysterious, suchness mind. These are
typical Chinese compounds created for stronger
impacts. The term miao is drawn from the Taoist
recognition of the mystery involved in the passage
from passivity to activity; miao designates the
"initial movements." Philosophically, both the YCC
and the SGS drew upon the ideas found in the
Awakening of Faith in Mahayana (AFM). Tsung-mi, the
authorative commentator of the YCC, said it as
follows:
Item four: To differentiate the degree of profundity
of the teachings. The YCC utilizes the AFM to
understand the various tainted dharmas and their
fivefold sequence in order to establish the various
depths of understanding among the schools in
Buddhism, In the AFM, it is said that (1) the One
Mind is the sole source of all realities; (2) the One
Mind has two aspects, the Suchness Mind the essence
of which is beyond Life and Death and the Phenomenal
Mind which, grounded upon the Tathaagatagarbha, is
fused with Life and Death (sa.msaara) to produce the
aalayavij~naana; (3) the aalayavij~naana has two
aspects, the enlightened half which is essentially
distinct and separate from the flow of momentary
consciousness and the non-enlightened half, the
common mind that arises because of ignorance of the
union of Mind with Suchness; (4) from this common
mind arise three subtle defilements, (a) the
activated mind touched off by ignorance, (b) the
evolving mind desiring to perceive, and (c) the
manifesting mind that creates external illusions; (5)
from that arise six coarse defilements:forms of
knowledge, continuity of object, psychic clinging,
nominal existence. karma and bondage to suffering. In
the classification the various schools, the
Jen-t'ien-chiao can be said to address to karma, the
Hiinayaana teachings to the preceding four coarse
defilements, the Yogaacaara teaching to the three
subtle defilements, but only the Final and Sudden
Teaching intuits the total sequence that emerges out
of the One Mind as the source of all. This
fountainhead of One Mind is the Yuan-chueh-miao-hsin
in the YCC. The YCC establishes the doctrine of
Perfect Enlightenment and recognizes that both the
pure and impure dharmas are all manifestations of
this enlightened mind. [The suutra can be divided
into sections:] From the beginning to the end of the
Ma~nju`sri chapter, the YCC reveals the Suchness Mind
and the Phenomenal Mind in the form of the
differentiating tathaagatagarbha.
The chapter of the Bodhisattva Universal Seeing
concerns a priori and incipient enlightenment,
demonstrating that wu-ming(o) (avidyaa) is simply
pu-chueh(p) , nonenlightenment [yet to be
enlightened].
The chapter on Pure Karma deals with the three subtle
defilements and the first two of the six coarse
defilements.
The chapter on Maitreya deals with the cycle of
sa.msaara, cause and effect, that is, the last of the
coarse defilements.
The fifth and last section understands that the Round
Enlightenment comprehends and subsumes all of the
above within itself.(8)
The meaning of the title of YCC is accordingly
deep and profound. The general drive in the
philosophy of the YCC is indeed grounded upon the
p. 41
optimism concerning and the comprehensiveness seen in
the Mind. However, the reader should be forewarned
that although the ideological link between the AFM
and the YCC is there,(9) he would probably not find,
on his first reading, all the nuances Tsung-mi
attributed to the structure of the YCC.(10) There are
reasons (discussed infra) to believe that Tsung-mi(q)
read the much more analytical philosophy of the AFM
into the YCC, which began as an intentional
simplification of the "mind only" philosophy found in
the AFM. Take for example the following passage from
the Maitreya chapter:
Sons of good families, all sentient beings produce
avidyaa because of their lust and greed and therefore
they become classifiable into the five different
grades (pa~ncagotraa.ni).
The position of grades is dependent upon two
hindrances; the hindrance due to ignorance of the
principle (li) which prevents the Right View, and the
hindrance due to fact (shih) which precipitates Life
and Death. What are the five grades? Sons of good
families, if the two hindrances are not put an end
to, then the person will not be enlightened. If the
person proceeds to eliminate lust and greed, and can
eliminate the hindrance due to fact, he will enter
into the path of the `sraavaka and the pratyekabuddha
but not yet into the path of the bodhisattva. If both
(principle and fact) hindrances are suppressed, then
the person can be enlightened into the bodhisattva
realm. If the two are terminally ended, then he will
enter into the Ju-lai-tsang miao-yuan-chueh, the
mysterious Perfect Enlightenment of the
Tathaagatagarbha, and pass onto the Great
Nirvana.(11)
The above passage is philosophically dependent on
the AFM and on Fa-tsang's(r) speculations on
principle (noumena) and fact (phenomena),(12) but the
formulation shows that the writer was very liberally
syncretizing items together. The five grades are not
fully covered. Traditionally, the five refers to the
five types of the triyaana (`sraavaka,
pratyekabuddha, and bodhisattva), the indeterminate
type and the person without buddha-nature, agotra.
The YCC, following the Chinese denial of the agotra
type, seems to bend it into those of the `sraavaka,
pratyekabuddha, bodhisattva, perfect enlightenment,
and the yet-to-be-enlightened.(13) Similarly, the YCC
takes the liberty of finding in "lust and greed" a
cause for avidyaa, ignorance, which should be the
irreducible first cause. This move is contrary to the
normal sequence in the twelve nidaanas in which
"cravings" is subsequent to primal ignorance. This
poetic license on the part of the YCC belongs more to
a Confucian moralist in weighing against general
avarice. An illuminating parallel may be found in the
SGS which says at one point, "In the various
world-realms, father, mother, son and grandson
confinue nonstop because of basic greed and
desire."(14) The family-centered language is Chinese.
The YCC has a similar condemnation of ai(s), love. In
its alignment of li and shih(t) to the two basic
hindrances, the YCC is also making an Innovative move
in associating shih, fact or phenomena, with the
traditional Second hindrance, hindrance by kle`sa,
mental defilements. In short, the YCC takes an
overview of basic ideas and motifs current in T'ang
Buddhist circles and synthesizes these ideas in such
a general way that precisely because of its
p. 42
"comprehensive abstraction" the YCC has endeared
itself to the Chinese Buddhists since.
The YCC, however, is more than a syncretic jumble
of ideas, because it also has a very powerful central
thesis. The format of the sutra is rather simple.
Without the usual extravangaza of many Mahayana
sutras, the YCC depicts a master-disciple exchange.
In a gathering of bodhisattvas around the Buddha, a
badhisattva will rise and approach the Buddha with a
question and receive a discourse. The discourses are
fairly gnostic, that is, intellectualist. The set of
stock metaphors is also limited. The most famous one
is the analogy of k'ung-hua(u), "flower in the air,"
a symbol of an empty mirage of a flower (hua)
grounded upon empty space (k'ung). K'ung-hua attains
idiomatic usage in Chinese and I suspect the
unintended semantic association with the emptiness
philosophy, k'ung (empty) as in k'ung-chung(v) and
with the Avatamsaka (garland) school, hua, as in
Hua-yen, might reflect its original intention to
synthesize these two streams.(l5) The basic message
of the YCC is also simple. All men have the
yuan-chueh, perfect enlightenment, in them. Greed,
lust, and love hide this given reality and ignorance
produces all the illusions. Through dialectical
negation that pierces through the k'ung-hua illusion
of existents themselves, the original miao-hsin,
mysterious mind, will be regained. Significantly. the
YCC is free from much of the Yogaacaara analysis of
various consciousnesses, three truths, and so on and
is thoroughly dictated by the Madhyamika negation,
but in a somewhat Chinese style. However. the most
frequently occuring term is not k'ung, the
traditional word for `suunya or `suunyataa that has
enticed Chinese Buddhists since the third century.
The favorite word instead is huan, illusion,
illusory, maayaa. The following section from the
Samantabhadra chapter is perhaps most representative
of the usage and the central philosophy of the YCC.
For effect, I have chosen to substitute maayaa where
huan occurs on the assumption that the reader
recognizes the power of this word more than the
Chinese huan or the English "illusion".
Sons of Good Families, all sentient maayaa
transformations are due to the
Tathaagata-Round-Enlightenment-Mysterious-Mind, just
as the empty flower, k'ung-hua, is borne up by
emptiness itself. Although the maayaa flowers are
destroyed, the emptiness itself has not changed.
Likewise, sentient beings' maayaa-mind might vanish
with the maayaa of world-reality, but even when all
maayaa are destroyed, the Mind shall remain
unchanged. We may describe enlightenment vis a vis (a
contrast with) maayaa, but that description itself is
maayaa. We may speak of enlightenment independently
[absolutely] but, that statement too is not
independent of maayaa. To say that there is no
enlightenment is the same [that is, deluding]. Maayaa
[as a pseudo-reality] may be destroyed, but the name
or attribute has not changed.
Sons of Good Families, bodhisattvas and sentient
beings living in this age of the Degenerate Dharma
must flee from all maayaa transformations and stand
firm on the Mind that dissociates itself from it.
However, the "mind" being also maayaa, it too should
be discarded. The act of dissociating or discarding,
of illusion too should be left behind for good until
finally maayaa is destroyed and one has nothing more
to remove. This is like rubbing two sticks together
to
p. 43
produce a fire. The fire produced consumes the wood
itself and then itself becomes extinguished (when the
wood is consumed). The art of cultivating maayaa in
the midst of maayaa is comparable to that. However,
although all maayaa has ended, one does not thereby
become extinct.
Sons of Good Families, the act of realizing all
is maayaa and thereby leaving the world behind would
be a sign of the failure to exercise upaaya (skillful
means). Departing from even that (final) fixation and
becoming fully enlightened, one realizes that there
is really no progress (made) and no incipiency (of
enlightenment). All bodhisattvas and sentient beings
of the age of the Degenerate Dharma, if you would so
cultivate yourself, you can then truly depart from
all maayaa.
The World-Honored One, wishing to emphasize the
message, then speaks in verse:
Samantabhadra, you should recognize
From beginningless time
There was maayaa and ignorance
Produced (nonetheless) by the Tathaagata
Round Enlightenment Mind.
Like the flower in the air,
It exists by virtue of emptiness,
The empty flower can be erased but
The empty space remains.
All maayaa is from enlightenment itself.
When maayaa disappears, enlightenment will be perfect for
It never changes either.
If bodhisattvas
And sentient beings of the last age
Depart far far away from maayaa,
The maayaa will itself disappear,
Like the fire generated from the wood --
It consumes the wood and goes out.
Within enlightenment there is no earlier or later.
Within upaaya all is the same.(l6)
In this passage, huan occurs more than twenty times.
The passage echoes the idea found in the AFM: the a
priori subsistance of the enlightenment essence and
the futility to speak of acquiring (earlier or later)
enlightenment.(l7) However, it goes further than the
AFM in its reliance on the negative dialectics; it
does so partly by bypassing the Yogaacaara analytism.
The YCC synthesized the basic philosophical idealism
of Yogaacaara and grafted this maayaa idealism to the
older `Suunyavaada. The YCC systematically undercut
all ontological surity, repudiating even any "being"
to mind and enlightenment. It is therefore natural
that the later Ch'an(w) tradition--whenever it was
drawn to a written scripture--would turn to the
YCC,(18) and it is natural that Chu Hsi would see
"nihilism" in this tradition.
Since the YCC (and the SGS) seem to be fabricated
works by the Chinese, the inquiry necessarily leads
to from which circle in T'ang? The YCC was an early
eighth-century work, emerging some time after the
active years of Fa-tsang (circa 700) and before the
K'ai-yuan Catalogue in 730. Tsung-mi
p. 44
mentioned a tradition which associated the YCC and
SGS both to a little-known figure, the monk
Wei-ch'ueh, who commented on both YCC and SGS.(19)
Mochizuki Shingo(x) conjectures that both works
developed around Wei-ch'ueh(y).
The SGS based part of its philosophy on
Bhaavaviveka, a Madhyamika master in India, around
600. It cites from the Ta-ch'eng chang-chen-lun(z)
the following `sloka:
The true nature exists but it is empty. Things are
created illusions out of causation. Whereas the wu
wei(aa) absolute is beyond life and death
(sa.msaara), the unreal (maayaa) is like a flower in
thin air.(20)
The `sloka does form the underpinning of the SGS as
well as the YCC. It asserts the primacy of emptiness.
According to a record preserved in the Japanese
Buddhist tradition, the reassertion of the primacy of
emptiness was not well-received by some Chinese at
the time. Doubt was cast upon the SGS for
philosophical reasons. The Japanese record gives this
exchange:
Question: Where does this philosophy [found by
Bhaavaviveka] in the Buddha's teaching come from?
Answer: Chapter five in the Surangama suutra: "The
true nature exists but it is empty. Things are
created illusions out of causation. Whereas the wu
wet absolute is beyond life and death, the unreal is
like a flower in thin air." It says that illusion
itself reveals what is true [that is, from emptiness
is the true nature known] and that (concept-entities
like) "true" and "deluded" are (in turn) just two
more illusions. Such (conceptual) knowledge is not
yet the insight into the "true'' which in itself is
also "without the self-nature of truth." Where, after
all, is the seer and the seen [in the ultimate
illusion]?
Question: If that (negative) philosophy is the
Buddha's teaching, why had T'ang Buddhist masters
Chi-kuo(ab) and others questioned its authenticity?
Answer: This is because within the Chinese San-lun
(Madhyamika) school, there were two transmissions.
One party says that the suutra is fabricated and
cannot be the word of the Buddha. The other party
says that it is an authentic work and that even
though the cited passage is the same (in SGS as in
the Cheng-chen-lun by Bhaavaviveka) there is a
difference in the meaning intended by the two.
Bhaavaviveka may be wrong but the suutra is not.(21)
The suutra, being regarded here as the authentic
words of the Buddha, is seen in China as the original
that Bhaavaviveka, who probably failed to subscribe
to the Yuan-chueh-hsin ideology, "misquoted." Behind
these cryptic remarks is hidden very probably a
controversy that requires some explanation. The
following however, can only be provisional, since we
have only glimpses here and there into the tensions
at that time.
Mochizuki says that the preceding record is the
only reference we have concerning a schism within the
San-lun tradition.(22) The major party of the San-lun
school apparently sided with the critics of the SGS,
while the defenders of the SGS felt the need also to
dissociate themselves from Bhaavaviveka. Why? The
answer lies perhaps in this: Bhaavaviveka, around 600
in India, defended the Madhyamika position against
the new philosophy of the Yogaacaarins.
p. 45
Whereas the Yogaacaara school reintroduced a
substantive entity, a cryptoaatman, in its concept of
the aalayavij~naana, a philosophy of "there being no
reality without but there is an entity within,''
Bhaavaviveka reasserted the Sunyaavaada position that
"there is provisional reality at the mundane level,
but in truth, at the ultimate level, paramaartha, all
is empty."(23) It was a tension between a subjective
idealism (Yogaacaara) and an epistemic denial by
Suunyavaada of all realities.(24) The major party of
the Chinese San-lun school probably sided then with
the Chinese Yogaacaara school against the SGS
supporters and Bhaavaviveka. This is because the
major party shared with the Chinese Fa-hsiang(ad) the
idea of a concrete (real) tathataa, Suchness. The
Chinese Fa-hsiang school was based on an importation
of the tradition of Dharmapaala by Hsuan-tsang(ae).
Dharmapaala was supposed to have had a heated debate
with Bhaavaviveka, (25) and Hsuan-tsang seems to
repeat a similar debate with another
Madhyamika-supporter in Naalandaa.(26) The charge
Hsuan-tsang had against the emptiness tradition was
that the latter knew only about the falsehood or
illusion of parikalpita, without touching upon the
higher paratantra and parini.spanna and that the
Suunyavaada analysis of illusion cannot be applied to
the "perfect" reality at the parini.spanna level of
truth. The countercharge against the Yogaacaarins by
the Madhyamika supporters was that in the end, there
is no absolute that can be grasped, and all the
discussions about parini.spanna itself is in the
realm of provisional, unreal, conceptual
discourse.(27) It is possible that in the early
eighth century. the Chinese San-lun school witnessed
a similar dissension within itself. Also, there
allegedly was a new transmission of Madhyamika
philosophy from Diipa.mkara to Fa-tsang of the
Hua-yen school. In Fa-tsang's Commentary on the
Twelve Gates, Shih-erh-men-lun(af) references were
made to a tradition of controversy and separate
lineages in Naalandaa.(28) The data are fairly
confused and complicated.(29) For that reason. I will
not go into the details here but seek to, in a
simpler format, propose a hypothesis concerning the
origin of the YCC and the SGS.
The philosophy of illusionism in the YCC is
definitely simpler than that articulated by
Bhaavaviveka in his surviving works.(30) The YCC does
not address itself to Yogaacaara controversies. and
it does not totally deny a "substantive" core: the
Yuan-chueh hsin is still basically the One Suchness
Mind found in the AFM. (It is for this reason. I
think, that the members of the pro-SGS clique would
not associate themselves with Bhaavaviveka's
`saastra.(31) Cleverly the YCC blends together the
positive doctrine of the One Mind but guards against
the idolatry of a concept of "one,'' or "mind." We
can contrast the two key metaphors in the YCC and the
AFM to show their implications:
YCC (SGS) AFM
metaphor of k'ung-hua: metaphor of water-wave:(32)
Flower (phenomena) in thin air Waves (phenomena) are grounded in
depends on emptiness (space). water (noumena).
p. 46
Flower disappears, but the Waves can be calmed, the water
space remains. remains.
Space is itself empty. Water is symbolic of reality.
False being (flower) overlays Becoming (waves, sa.msaara) is
actual non-being (space). generated out of Being (water).
Although the YCC relies on the AFM and admits all
things (including maayaa) to be generated out of the
Round Enlightenment Mind, the YCC recognizes that all
metaphors are finally unreal. There is, as it says,
no such thing as k'ung-hua, a flower in midair. The
AFM is more "realist" and assumes that the concrete
water-wave metaphor does reflect a concrete reality.
The YCC is not interested in the details of
"generation of phenomena from noumena" (Suchness
Causation in Hua-yen) but much more readily sees an
essential and immediate identity between
phenomena-flower and phenomena-air. Both the flower
and the air are empty in their self-nature
(svabhaava-`suunya). In the AFM, the water and the
wave are not empty but are similarly watery: water is
waves and vice versa ontologically. In the YCC,
however, the flower (in its form) is not the thin
air. There is no ontological continuity. Rather, the
YCC recalls the insights of Naagaarjuna in a simple
metaphor (drawn perhaps from Bhaavaviveka) that all
forms (lak.sa.na like the flower) are empty (without
self-nature), that they seemingly are because of
emptiness (space) but this basic higher paramaartha
emptiness essence (`svabhaavaa) is no more an entity
that one can grasp. Reality is a mirage-like a flower
in thin air, supported by emptiness, which itself is
empty. Emptiness itself has to be emptied (`suunyata-
`sunyata).
More than the Hua-yen tradition, the school that
was critical of any conceptual security was Ch'an.
Within the various schools of Ch'an, the branch most
alert to the danger in absolutizing even such
concepts as "mind" was the Niu-t'ou(ag) branch, which
was influenced by the earlier San-lun tradition of
Chi-tsang(33). However. since most Ch'an traditions
(Tung-shan(af), for example. despite its opposition
to Niu-t'ou)(34) in their most alert moments would
not cling onto any concepts of "One," the "True." or
the "Mind" (or their combination), it would be
somewhat difficult to pinpoint the alleged Ch'an
origin of the YCC. Suffice to say that the YCC seems
to lean toward the greater simpliste of Ch'an and
that it was supported by a faction of the San-lun
school at the time.
Because of the oblique critique against the
"concrete, ontological thingking" of the Hua-yen
tradition in the YCC, it is perhaps necessary here to
return once more to Tsung-mi, the authorative
commentator of this suutra. Despite his Ch'an
background. Tsung-mi (whenever he writes long
treatises) too often allows the Hua-yen scholastic
side to get the better of him. In this regard, the
passage cited earlier represents, from a purist point
of view, a distortion (or, better a recomplication)
the matter of enlightenment, there is neither the
"earlier" or the "latter,"
p. 47
Tsung-mi would not hesitate to apply his analytical
skill and come up with different modes of
enlightenment and various degrees of
nonenlightenment. A classical example is his
concluding diagram and remarks in his Ch'an-yuan
chu-ch'uan-chi tu-hsu(ai) [On Ch'an Schools] (Taisho
48, #2015).(35) In a style worthy of a literati,
Tsung-mi describes all the modes of original
enlightenment through an analogy of a "wealthy man
dwelling securely in his home." Since I have dealt
with this elsewhere,(36) I will turn instead to his
commentary on the YCC and selected a passage to show
how Illusionism has been given a slight positive
twist by Tsung-mi. In an interesting reference to
Chuang-tzu and his butterfly dream, Tsung-mi gives an
interesting critique against Consciousness-Only
(Wei-shih(aj). Vij~natimaatrataa) in a Chinese style:
"Why ONLY Consciousness?"
Why then do they say "Consciousness Only" [a
philosophy that affirms the one-sided reality of the
seer and not the seen]? This is because they in their
delusion fail to grasp the one Mind [that truly would
better unite the seer and the seen]. (Asleep like
Chuane-tzu(ak,) we in our ignorance generate the
various defilements; but only the Dream is
"Consciousness Only"! [Not the awakened, enligfitened
state.] The Yogaacaara school, fixated to the Dream,
makes inner/ outer distinctions [between the
(subjective) thought of a butterfly and the
(objective) dreamt-of butterfly.] This distinction is
inferior because (in a higher stage) the
consciousness is the consciousness of the object and
vice versa [consciousness and object are
One.]....There is in the end only One Mine....
Although in (undeluded Dream) the dream-thought is no
more real than the dreamt-of butterfly (i.e. they are
both illusory), the dreamer (Chuang-tzu) is himself
not illusory.(37) [The deluded consciousness is
grounded in the undeluded True Mind.]
In a subtle way, Tsung-mi the "realist" assigns
maayaa or huan to his discussion of the dream
sequence. Dualities are then the structure of deluded
relationships. In the end, the ''preferred" state is
the basic unity of the undeluded Mind, that is, in
this analogy, the awakened or enlightened Chuang-tzu.
In
This awakened state, huan is no longer operative.
Tsung-mi therefore makes a fairly sharp distinction
between dream and reality, illusion and
enlightenment. I cannot help feeling -- if not
always, then at least at times -- that Tsung-mi has
put a limit to the applicability of the maayaavaada
"negation dialectics.'' In Tsung-mi, there is a
confidence in some sacred item that cannot be
negated. Unlike Chuang-tzu who was not sure whether
he was a man who dreamt himself a butterfly or a
butterfly now thinking it was a man. Tsung mi, in his
confidence, looks too much like his "contented
wealthy man dwelling in his home." In using a
black-and-white dream versus awakened-state analogy,
he has taken out the sting in the k'ung-hua metaphor
and in true Maayaavaada.(38)
In this article, I have tried to account for the
reason Chu Hsi would characterize Buddhism as
dwelling in the hsu, vacuous.(309) I tried to
showlc~tone reason was the popularity of the Round
Enlightenment Suutra among those of the Ch'an circle
whom he knew. This work, produced probably by the
Chinese in the early eighth century, represents an
"illusionist" reformulation of the
p. 48
Madhyamika philosophy. Based on the Awakening of
Faith, it nevertheless seeks to undercut the
"concrete" strand in T'ang Buddhist thought and
probably helps the growth of the Ch'an tradition.
The Outlooks of YCC, Tsung-mi, and Wei-shih
YCC TSUNG-MI WEI-SHIH
All realities are empty Phenomenal realities are All phenomenal realities
(huan). Phenomena seemingly empty but are mere representations
(`flower') are illusion actually grounded in a (Consciousness
(`in the air') upon Positive Ultimate Only) except the
illusion (`air, empty Reality (True Mind). nonrepresentational
space'). tathataa.
There is a True Mind, The True Mind is The aalayavij~naana is a
the yuan-chueh-hsin, clearly not empty representation-creating
but the "mind" too is (a`suunya) and, in fact, consciousness and not
conceptuaily "empty." is dynamically creative. always suchness itself.
The ideal is to realize The ideal is to realize The ideal is to recognize
all is huan, maayaa. all is the True Mind. that consciousness and
Subject and object object are interdependent,
unites in the True Mind, and both should
citta tathataa. be ceased.
In response to Tsung-mi Tsung-mi criticizes Wei- Wei-shih would argue
(see passage to the shih for seeing only the that tathataa is not
right), YCC would say illusion of consciousness' empty, but it is not the
that the Dreamer is dreams and not Absolute Subject either.
part of the overall seeing the Reality of the
maayaa. Dreamer (the True
Mind).
Basic philosophy: Basic philosophy: Basic philosophy:
systematic `suunyavaada primarily drawn from Indian Yogaacaara of
(mayaavaada) gingerly the AFM and Hua-yen, Dharmapaala, systematically
grafted to the True and the `positive' epistemological.
Mind (yuan-chueh) element of southern
tradition in China. Ch'an of Shen-hui.
Affinity with Niu-t'ou
(?) and San-lun (?).
NOTES
1. See Galen Eugene Sargent, Tchou Hi contre le
Bouddhisme (Paris, 1955) ; hereafter cited as
Sargent Tchou Hi.
2. This is obvious in their tenet-classification in
which Madhyamika is usually placed, as a
"phenomena-negating" school and not yet a
"noumena-affirming" school. Both T'ien-t'ai and
Hua-yen, of course, relied on Naagaarjuna.
3. The Chinese adjectives, shih and chen, were
consciously so used to make a "realist" point,
which is almost impossible in the Sanskrit
original.
4. See Sargent, Tchou Hi. In the Introduction he
traces all the sources.
p. 49
5. Charles Luk, `Suura^ngamasuutra (London, 1966) and
"The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment" in Ch'an and
Zen Teaching, volume 3 (London, 1968).
6. Mochizuki Shingo, Jodokyo no kigen to
hattatsu(al) (Tokyo, 1930) , p. 244, citing
K'ai-yuan shih-chiao lu, ch. 9. Tsung-mi in
Yuan-chueh-ching tashu I,A,2, felt defensive about
its origin but placed it at 693 instead; ibid., p.
245. However, the work is not mentioned in the
Ta-Chou Cata- logue of suutras of 695. Early
eighth century is the logical dating.
7. Nanjo(am) gives the reconstructed title of
Muhaavaipulya-puur.nabuddha-suutra-prasannarth
suutra; the term "liao-i" is found in the SGS
title; see ibid., pp. 246-247. The distinction of
liao-i, pu-liao-i goes back to India.
8. Zokuzo --1. 14, 2, pp. 116-117. For easy
reference, see full citation in Bussho kaisetsu
daijiten(an), 1:298bcd. Tsung-mi's resume here is
a virtual summary of the main body of the AFM; see
Hakeda Yoshito, trans., Awakening of Faith
Attributed to A`svagho.sa (New York, 1967).
9. Compare, for example, the passage at the end of
the Ma~nju`sri chapter in the YCC (Taisho(ao), 17,
p. 913c): "Its nature being empty like space, it
never moves for the tathaagatagarbha is beyond
life and death, having neither knowledge nor
perception but is of the nature of the
Dharmadhaatu: thorough, complete, round, full and
all pervasive" with the AFM, trans. cit., pp.
32-36.
10. Yuji Ryoei wrote a series of articles on the
Engakukyo (YCC) and published Engakukyo
kenkyuu(ap) (n.d., n.p.); unfortunately, these
were not available to me during my research at
Harvard.
11. Taisho, 17, p, 916b; see Mochizuki, p. 250.
12. YCC also used a favorite Hua-yen term,
"nonobstruction," see Taisho, 17, p. 917c. The
term, however, was already in use in the Six
Dynasties.
13. The five grades are aligned to the six tainted
minds in the AFM; Taisho, 17, 916bc. The AFM does
not itself refer to pa~ncagotraa.ni.
14. Taisho, 19, p. 120b. Both reflect a Confucian
moralistic concern.
15. In Ch'an legend, Buddha too held up a flower to
Kaa`syapa. (In the air?)
16. Taisho, 17, p. 914ab. My translation 1 see Luk,
Ch'an and Zen Teaching, 3. 180-182. Huan occurs
all over the YCC. Confer Zokuzo(aq). 1.14.2, pp.
138-140.
17. Since the YCC is committed philosophically to
sudden enlightenment, Ch'an influence was
probably there; Mochizuki, p. 251; compare the
Platform Suutra.
18. The YCC was well received by T'ien-t'ai. Hua-yen.
and Ch'an: see Daizokyo koza(ar), vol. 23 (Tokyo:
1934) , pp. 129-134. Japan's Dogen, however,
questioned its authenticity, p. 126.
19. Wei-ch'ueh flourished around 766; biography in
Sung Kao-seng-chuan(as), (T. 50, p. 738bc). He
was associated with Ch'an and Hua-yen.
20. Taisho, 19, 124c; on the possible fabrication of
SGS. see Mochizuki, pp. 229-238. Luk's
translation of SGS should be used with care.
21. In Fusho (Japanese monk) Daijo sanron
daigisho(at), 3; cited by Mochizuki. p. 239. The
SGS and YCC were basic texts used by the Chinese.
22. It seems to be like this:
"There is true nature" -----> Chi-kuo ---> siding
with Fa-hsiang.
San-lun
"True nature too is empty" --> Wei-ch'ueh -->
representing YCC, SGS.
23. Mochizuki's characterization, pp. 240-244.
Bhaavaviveka is for "mundane being: truly empty"
while Yogaacaara stands for "outer nonbeing;
inner being" (su-yu chen-k'ung, nei-yu
wai-wu(au)).
24. See reconstruction of this tension by Ishii
Kyodo, Kegon kyogaku seiritsushi(ay) (Tokyo,
1960), pp. 266-274.
25. This is supposed to be a heated debate, but Ishii
wonders with Maeda Eun (in Maeda's Daijo Bukkyo
shiron(aw), p. 187), whether the debate has not
been overdramatized since Hsuan-tsang himself
recorded in his Journey to the West chronicle
(Taisho, 50, p. 931) that Bhaavaviveka respected
Dharmapaala. That, however, may be Hsuan-tsang's
bias.
26. See record of debate in his biography in Tuisho,
50, p. 244.
27. The Madhyamika group was defeated and supposedly
left Naaandaa to stay in a Mahaabodhi temple.
28. Taisho, 42, p. 313.
29. See Ishii, Kegan kyogaku. The difficulty lies in
linking the Indian controversy with the
p. 50
Chinese one, because the YCC affiliation with the
AFM and Hua-yen would put it on the "positive" side,
more positive than even Chi-kuo and Fa-hsiang (see
diagram note 22, herein).
30. See Yamaguchi Susumu, Bukkyo ni okeru "yu " to
"wu" to-no tairon(ax) (Kyoto, 1935? ) on this
debate between `being' and `nonbeing',
31. The clique finds Bhavaviveka too nihilistic; see
note 29 herein.
32. See Hakeda, Awakening of Faith, pp. 41, 55, for
the original metaphor in the AFM.
33. For a short discussion, see my "Four Stages in
the Radicalization of Ch'an" (manuscript, 1976).
34. "Keep to the One True Mind" is a doctrine related
to Tao-hsin(ay) but see Kamata Shigeo, Shumitsu
kyogaku no shisoshi teki kenkyuu (Tokyo, 1975),
pp. 168-171.
35. Kamata's trans. in Zen no Goroku 9 (Tokyo, 1971):
231-247.
36. Full English translation of this section has been
made by Jan Yun-hua of McMaster and in a recent
University of Columbia master's thesis.
37. Zokuzo -- 1, 14. 2, p. 212. Tsung-mi belittles
Yogaacaara, calling it " Wei-yu-shih''--there is
only consciousness. The higher philosophy he
espouses would be a form of union of both citta
and ruupa, subject and object. The structure of
his argument is like this:
YOGAACAARA Deluded Dream Consciousness. There is
ONLY consciousness.
AFM / CH'AN waken True One Mind which encompasses
BOTH `I' and `It.'
38. Compare the use of the dream analogy by the YCC
itself (Taisho 17, 913b): "Ignorance has no
substance (empty); like the man dreaming in his
dream, (avidyaa [like the dream]) is not without
reality though. Awaken, one knows--there is
however nothing to be gained," (Punctuation in
the Taisho is, I think, incorrect). The point
here is different from Tsung-mi's. Empty as
avidyaa may be, it can create the seeming reality
of a dream. Yet the enlightened man will realize
that there is nothing that can be grasped.
Tsung-mi grasps on to the True Mind as the
absolute that creates even the illusory dream. To
YCCI reality is the dream.
39. The essay does not claim to be in any way
exhaustive in trying to account why Chu Hsi so
denounced Buddhism. I do believe polemics and
relative nihilism played a part in his outlook.
a 圓覺經 w 禪
b 朱熹 x 望月信亨
c 虛 y 惟殼
d 實 z 大乘掌珍論(卷上)
e 天台 aa 無為
f 華嚴 ab 基廓
g 實相 ac 三論
h 真如 ad 法相
i 幻 ae 玄奘
j 大方廣圓覺修多羅了義經 af 十二門論
k 覺救(佛陀多羅) ag 牛頭
l 開元釋教錄 ah 東山
m 圓覺妙心 ai 禪源諸論集都序
n 如來藏妙真如心 aj 唯識
o 無明 ak 莊子
p 不覺 al 淨土教ソ起源シ發達
q 宗密 am 南條文雄
r 法藏 an 佛書解說大辭典
s 愛 ao 大正新修大藏經
t 理事 ap 湯次了榮:圓覺經ソ研究
u 空華 aq 續藏
v 空宗 af 大藏經講座
p. 51
as 宋高僧傳 aw 田前慧雲: 大乘佛教史
at 普照: 大乘三論大義 ax 山口益佛 : 教ズれんペ有シ無ソ對論
au 俗有真空, 內有外無 ay 道信
av 石井教道: 華嚴教學成立史 az 謙回茂雄: 宗密教學ソ思想的研究