Please read the original here:
http://www.daoiststudies.org/syl.goul.tao.php
Keywords:
Taoism, a study course description
by John Goulde, Sweet Briar College
Course Description: This course will introduce the student to the history and development of Taoism in the countries of China, Korea, and Japan. Emphasis will be placed on understanding the diversity of Taoisms that have appeared in East Asia and the religious, philosophical, ritualistic and socio-political impact they have had in the three countries surveyed.
Requirements : 1. Attendance at all classes and active participation in the discussion of the material prepared ahead of time; 2. Completion of one three-hour take-home mid-term examination and one three-hour take-home final examination; 3. Completion of one expository research paper approximately 15-18 pages on a topic related to the course. Readings for the course will be taken from the following required texts and from photocopied articles and books placed on reserve in the library.
Books for Purchase at the Book Shop
Wu Yao-yü, The Taoist Tradition in Chinese Thought
Livia Kohn, The Taoist Experience: An Anthology
Books on Reserve (RES) and Books in the Reference Room (REF)
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1980
The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature
P.Andersen, The Method of Holding the Three Ones
Felicia Bock, trans. Classical Learning and Taoist Practices in Early Japan
K. Dewoskin, Doctors, Diviners, and Magicians in Ancient China
P. Ebrey and P. Gregory, Religion and Society in T'ang and Sung China
Livia Kohn, Taoist Mystical Philosophy
I. Robinet, Taoist Meditation
M. Saso, Blue Dragon White Tiger
M. Saso, The Teachings of Taoist Master Chuang
Julian Pas, A Select Bibliography on Taoism
Isabelle Robinet, Taoist Meditation
J. Ware, Alchemy, Medicine and Religion
Topics and Readings
Taoism at its Source in China
Introduction to the course/Defining the terms: "Taoism" "Taoist Thought", etc. The Use of Taoism in American Pop Culture
Philosophical Taoism vs. Religious Taoism?
Wu, 1-7; Kohn, 1-7; Nathin Sivin, "On the Word 'Taoist' as a Source of Perplexity" (photocopy).
Overview of Taoist History and Literature
Anna Seidel et. al, ˜Encyclopaedia Britannica?: "Taoism" (photocopy and REF); Laurence Thompson, "Taoism: Classic and Canon", taken from Denny, F. edit. The Holy Book in Comparative Perspective, Chapter 10 (photocopy and RES), Stephen Bokenkamp, "Taoist Literature Part I: Through the T'ang Dynasty " from The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature ( photocopy and REF)
The "Tao" of Taoism according to Lao Tzu
Wu, 8-77; Kohn, 11- 29, Handouts on Lao-Chuang
The "Tao" of Taoism according to Chuang Tzu
Wu 78-140; Kohn, 29-32; Handouts on Lao-Chuang
Five Phase Theory / Five Phase Correspondences and Lieh Tzu's Feathered Men
Wu, 180-218; "The Creation, Structure, and Working of the Universe" from Sources in Chinese Tradition, Vol 1 ( photocopy)
The Fangshih ( local experts) Applications of Cosmologies
K. Dewoskin, Doctors, Diviners and Magicians of Ancient China (photocopy). Wu 141-154; Michael Loewe, "Oracles and Divination: China" (photocopy); Sarah Rossbach, "Feng Shui" (photocopy)
History of Taoist Organizations
Michael Saso, "Historical Origins" from The Teachings of Taoist Master Chuang ( extract photocopy)
The Yellow Turbans and the Way of Heavenly Masters
Wu, 155-179 ; Howard Levy,˜Yellow Turban Religion and Rebellion at the End of the Han ˜ (photocopy)
Neo-Taoism/ Confucianism/ Buddhism
Kohn, 63-92, Davis and Wu, An Ancient Chinese Treatise on Alchemy entitled Ts'an T'ung Ch'i (photocopy)
The Quest for immortality and the appearance of Taoist communities
James Ware, Alchemy, Medicine and Religionin China (photocopy); Isabelle Robinet, "Metamorphosis and Deliverance from the Corpse in Taoism˜ History of Religion, University of Chicago, 1979 (photocopy)
The Highest Clarity Community: Holding to the One and Worship of the Gods
Poul Andersen, The Method of Holding the Three Ones (photocopy and RES) Livia Kohn, The Five Precepts of the Venerable Lord ( photocopy); James Webster, trans. The Kan Ying Pien (photocopy and RES)
The Ling Pao Reform, Talismans, Magic. T'ang Ritualism
Judith Boltz, ˜Not by the Seal of Office Alone? Chapter 7 in Religion and Society in T'ang and Sung China
The Appearance of Inner Alchemy (neidan)
Thomas Boehmer, ˜Taoist Alchemy: A Sympathetic Approach through Symbols" in M. Saso and D. Chappell, Buddhist and Taoist Studies Vol 1(photocopy); Kohn
The Complete Perfection Community
Rolf Homann, trans., The Pai Wen P'ien or the Hundred Questions (photocopy) Herbert Franke, Der Tempel der reinen Vollendung in Hsiu-wu, ein Betrag zum Chuan-Chen-Taoismus der Chin-Zeit , Monumenta Serica Vol 44, 1994 (photocopy); Florian Reiter, Uberlegungen zur Bedeutung des Buddhismus fur den Chuan-Chen-Taoismus im China, Monumenta Serica Vol. 42, 1994 (photocopy), Tour the Baiyunguan: Powerpoint Presentation.
The Roles of Taoism in Politics and Chinese Society
Anna Seidel, "Taoist Messianism" (photocopy); Vincent Shih, "Some Chinese Rebel Ideologies, T'oung Pao, 44 (1956), pp.150-226 (photocopy): James Webster, trans, The Kan Ying Ping: Book of Rewards and Punishments, Shanghai, 1918.
Taoist Rituals/ Taoist Pantheon
Terry Kleeman, "The Expansion of the Wen-Ch'ang Cult", Chapter 2 in Religion and Society in T'ang and Sung China (photocopy and RES); Valerie Hansen, ˜Gods on Walls˜, Chapter 3 in Religion and Society in T'ang and Sung China ( photocopy and RES), John Keupers, " A Description of the Fa-ch'ang Ritual as Practiced by the Lu-Shan Taoists of Northern Taiwan" from (photocopy); Duane Pang, "The P'u-tu Ritual: A Celebration of the Chinese community of Honolulu" from Videotape from BBC
Taoism in China Today
M. Saso, Blue Dragon White Tiger, "Chapter 8: Religion in China Today" ( extract photocopy); Bill Porter, Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits ( extract photocopy and RES); Kenneth Dean, Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China, (extract photocopy)
Taoism in the Arts of China
Stephen Little, Realm of the Immortals: Daoism in the Arts of China 1988 ( RES )
Taoism in Korea
Taoism in Korea : Introduction in the Three Kingdoms' Period
Taoism and Medicine in Korea in the Silla Period - Macrobiotics
Song Hang-nyong, "A Short History of Taoism in Korea" from from Togyo wa Han'guk sasang (Taoism and Korean Thought) ( photocopy)
Lee Jong-Eun, Taoism in Korean Literature" from Togyo wa Han'guk sasang (Taoism and Korean Thought) photocopy)
Taoism and Geomancy in the Silla-Koryô Period
Choi Chang-Jo, 'Pungsu, The Korean Traditional Geographic Thoughts (sic)" from Togyo wa Han'guk sasang (Taoism and Korean Thought), 1987
Taoist Ritualism in the Koryô
Peter Yun, The Court Taoist Rituals of the Koryô Dynasty ( photocopy)
Choson Period Alchemical Studies
Ch'a chu-Hwan, "Kim Sisup and Taoism" from Togyo wa Han'guk sasang (Taoism and Korean Thought) ( photocopy); John Goulde, "Selections from the Haedong chondorok and Haedong ijok" ( unpublished manuscript)
Taoist Revivals in Korea
Don Baker, Taoism in Contemporary Korea (photocopy of unpublished article)
Videotape: Tanhak
Roles of Taoism in Korean Society Today
Don Baker, Inventing the World's Oldest Scripture: The Celestial Amulet Classic (photocopy of unpublished article)
Taoism in Japan: Cultural Background
Paul Varley, Japanese Culture ( photocopy)
Introduction of Taoism into Japan
Felicia Bock, trans. Classical Learning and Taoist Practices in Early Japan: Chaps 1-4, pp 1-48
Japanese Medical Taoism/Calendrical Theory
Kohn, 148-159
Yoshinobu Sakade, "Longevity Techniques in Japan; Ancient Sources and Contemporary Studies" in Livia Kohn, Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques ( RES)
H. Byron Earhart, "Religious Taoism" from Japanese Religions Handout
Alchemical Studies/ Taoism and Shinto
Earhart, " The Closeness of Man, Gods, and Nature" in Earhart, Japanese Religion,
Role of Taoism in Japanese Religious Worlds
"Yamaga Soko and the Origins of Bushido" from Sources of Japanese Tradition, Vol 1 (photocopy)
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Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
9/15/2007
Buddhism in China,Japan and Korea
Please read the original here:
http://www.hinduism.co.za/buddhism1.htm
Keywords:
Religion, Buddhism
Buddhism in China,Japan and Korea
By Swami Abhedananda, Sri Ramakrishna Vedanta Math
Calcutta, India.
In 522 AD Buddhism was introduced in Japan by a Chinese Buddhist, Shiba-Tatsu by name, who lived in Japan as a naturalised Japanese subject. He built a small temple of Buddha at Saktahara in Yamato. But at this time Buddhist doctrines did not become popular among the Japanese. It is well known to the historians that in 65 AD China sent a mission to India to bring some relics of Buddha and some copies of the Buddhist scriptures. The mission returned to China after two years in 67 AD. Within three centuries after this, Buddhism was well established in Korea. The king of Hakusai, in Korea sent a golden image of Buddha and some of the sacred scriptures to the Mikado of Japan in 522 AD. In the following year the Mikado had an image of Buddha carved out of a log of camphor-wood tree that was found ashore near the capital and had it set up in his palace. In 554 AD nine Buddhist monks came from Korea to take the place of the seven who were sent before by the King of Hakusai. They belonged to Jo-Jitsu and Sanron sects, which are now not recognised in Japan.
During the reign of the Mikado Bidatsu Tenno, the king of Hakusai, sent to Japan in 576 AD a number of sacred books and more monks and nuns, the teachers belonging to Ritsu and Zen sects among the Buddhists, together with an exorcising monk, and architect and an image-maker. In 584 AD two Japanese brought from Korea the images of Shaka (Sakyamuni) and Miroka (Maitreya-Bodhisattwa). The owner of these as well as some of the relics of Buddha’s body named Sogono-Iname, the son of Umako, built the first pagoda in Japan and had them enshrined.
Within a short time after this there broke out a pestilence, which caused Buddhism to be suppressed for a while. But Umako received special permission from the Mikado to practise privately the sacred rites of this new faith. The next Mikado was cured of his dangerous illness by the Buddhist priests, and for this reason he favoured the spread of Buddhism in Japan.
In the reign of this Mikado great many monks were invited over from Korea to spread the teachings of Buddha. Some of the most celebrated Buddhist temples were built in Japan during this period, such as Tennoji at Ozaka, Udzumasa near the modern Kioto, Asuka-dera, Darumaji, Tayema-dera, Kume-dera, and Tachibanadera in Yamato. Probably (Hinayana) Sho-jo doctrines were preached by three Korean monks.
In 623 AD the Chinese monks came for the first time to Japan. The number of temples and monasteries began to increase steadily. In 625 AD Buddhism was taught publicly in Japan. The Mikado Kotoku Tenno was a staunch follower of Buddhism. During his reign (645-654 AD) a Japanese monk named Do-sho was sent to China to study under Yuan-chuang (Hiuen Thsang), the great pilgrim who spent many years in India. He is called Gen-jo Sanzo by the Japanese. But Yuan-chuang referred him to the monk Eman of the Zen sect from whom Do-sho received instruction on the practice of meditation. In 658 AD two other Japanese monks were sent to China to study under this celebrated pilgrim.
The Mikado Temmu Tenno reigned between 673 and 686 AD. He endowed the monasteries with lands and made them independent of all government control. He built the temple Yukushi-ji near Nara and ordered by edicts that every house in Japan should have a Buddhist shrine and some sacred scriptures of Buddhism. Cremation was first practised in Japan in 700 AD. In 710 AD was built at Nara the great monastery of Kobuku-ji.
The Mikado Sho-mu Tenno decreed in 737 AD, after an epidemic of small-pox which almost depopulated the country, that a large monastery should be established in each province. The seven-storied pagodas each were also built by him in each province. He further gave the order to copy more of the Buddhist scriptures. It was he who founded the great temple at Nara which holds the colossal statue of Dai-nichi Nio-rai.
In 737 AD an Indian monk named Baramon (Brahmin) Sojo visited Japan landing at the port of Ozaka where he was met by the celebrated priest Gio-gi Bosatsu (Bidhisattwa). This title was conferred on the priest (Gio-gi) by Sho-mu Tenno. Later on, this title of Bosatsu was abused by the noble men of Japan, and that abuse was stopped by the edict of the Mikado Iyeyasu in the beginning of the 17th Century.
In 754 AD a Chinese monk named Chieu-Chen (Kan-shin in Japanese) visited Japan and introduced the doctrines of Ritsu sect. It was through his influence the Mikado Sho-mu Tenno renounced his throne and joined the monastic order. His daughter Ko-Ken Tenno became a nun. Following the example of the Mikado four hundred persons of high rank renounced the world and became monks. His example was also followed by other ruling Mikados who succeeded him.
In 767 AD the temple at Nikko was founded by the monk Sho-do. In 805 AD the doctrines of the Tendai sect were introduced from China by the monk Den-gio Dai-shi, the first Abbot of Hei-Yei-Zan. In 806 AD Kobo Dai-shi returned from China and promulgated the teachings of Yogachara school and founded the sect called Shin-gon. His teacher was the Chinese Kei-Kwa (Hui-Kuo). Three centuries later Rio-nin founded the sect Yu-dzu Nembutsu. In the end of the 12th century the Jo-do sect was established by Ho-nen Sho-nin. There are many sub-sects of the eight principal sects among the Buddhists of Japan. The following table shows these eight with the number of temples or monasteries belonging to each:
Temples and monasteries
Tendai ( 3 sub-sections) 5088
Shin-gou ( 2 sub-sections) 13,358
Jo-do ( 3 sub-sections) 8,478
Rinzai ( 9 sub-sections) 7,081
Zen So-to ( 9 sub-sections) 14,021
O-baku Shin (10 sub-sections) 18,783
Nichi-ren ( 7 sub-sections) 5,085
Ji 501
Yu-dzu Nem-butsu 347
The three sub-sects of Teu-dai Shiu are:
Euriaku-ji. The principal deity of this sub-sect is Yakushi Nio-rai (Bhaishajyaguru) with whom are associated two Bodhisattvas (Bo-Satsu) Nikko and Gwakko; Bouten (Brahma); Tai-Shaku (Indra) the Shi-Tenno (four kings of the Devas or gods); and the Jiu-ni-Jin-sho (twelve divine leaders). All of these are placed on the altar.
The Midera sub-sect worship Mi-roku Bo-satu (Maitreya Bodhisattva).
The Shin-Sei sub-sect worship Amida Nio-rai (Amitabha Tathagata) as their principal deity.
The Ten-dai sect is named after the mountain Tientai Shan in China, where the founder of this sect Chi-sha Dai-shi. A Chinese monk first taught his doctrines.
The sacred book of this sect is Ho-ke-kio (Saddharma-Prajnaparamita-Sutra-Sastra) called Chi-ron and supplemented by Ne-han-gio (Mahaparinirvana-Sutra). In the Chi-ron is given the law of meditation by which the aspirant is enabled to recognise the Buddha under all forms he has assumed in order to save mankind. According to this sect the principal means for attaining spiritual insight is meditation and the practice of asceticism (Kwam-mon) which is confined to monks.
The central doctrine of this sect is that Nirvana means the ultimate result of existence. It is a state in which the individual remains unaffected by anything external, and consequently, is devoid of feeling, thought or passion. This absolute unconditioned existence is called Mu-I (Asamskrita). It is the annihilation of conditions and not of the substance of the individual. To the uninitiated it will be regarded as the absolute non-existence.
This sect reverences Shaka (Sakyamuni), Monju (Manjusri), Fugen (Samantabhadra), Fu-do (Achala), Kwan-non (Avalokiteswara) under his different forms such as the eleven faced, the horse headed, the thousand-handed, the Holy, Dainichi (Vairochana), Ashuku (Akshobhya), Ho-sho (Ratnasambhava). The Ten-dai sect formerly worshipped numerous Shinto gods, such as Sanno, Tenjin Sama, Inari, Shimmei, Otori, Hachiman and Godzu Tenno. These were explained as the Avataras (incarnations) of the Buddhist deities. For instance, Inari was Kwan-non (Avalokiteswara).
After the revolution of 1868 AD Buddhism in Japan was separated from Shintoism, which from that year was made the state religion of Japan. Shin-gon-shiu sect derives its name from the Chinese word for Mantra in Sanskrit. It is identical with Yogachara school which was founded by Riu-ju (Nagarjuna) or Riu-mio. He is said also to have taught the doctrine of Dai-nichi (Vairochana). The doctrines of this sect are based on the three Sutras: the Dai-nichi Kio (Mahavairochana-bisambodhi-Sutra), the So-shit-Chi-kio (Susiddhi-karama-Mahatantra-sadhanopasika-Patra) and the Kon-go (Vajrachakra-Sutra). This sect observes mystic rites with signs (mudra), Shin-mitsu, go-mitsu (dharana) and I-mitsu (dhyana). This and Ten-dai sect teach the practice of fasting for purification. Vairochana was the founder of this school. He transmitted the doctrines to Kon-go (Vajrasattva) who was succeeded by Riu-mio (Nagarjuna). Kobo-Dai shi introduced this sect into Japan.
According to the teaching of this sect every human being possesses within himself the six elements of the spiritual body (dharmakaya) but is unconscious of them until Dai-nichi enters into his heart and enables him to recognise the truth. Through the practice of the above mentioned mystic rites under the guidance of Ajari one may gain perfect knowledge. The deities of this sect are within the soul. They are states of the mind. Dai-Nichi (Vairochana) is explained to be the sum total of all sentient beings.
Zen Shiu is the contemplative school in China. It was founded by the Indian Dharma who came to China in 527 AD and died there about eight years later. He was the first of the Chinese Patriarchs. The principal teachings of this sect are that truth cannot be expressed by the words of the mouth, that it is only by introspection that the meaning of Buddha can be learnt. It is unnecessary to worship him or to study the sacred scriptures, still it allows the study of Dai-hannia-Kio simply as a means of educating the intellect. Its creed is: "Look within and there you will find the Buddha". In most of the temples of this sect Shaka (Shakya) is placed upon the altar between Kasho (Kashlyapa) and Anan (Ananda). The Trinity of this sect is Shaka, Miroku (Maitreya) and Amida (Amitabha). In Japan this sect has two branches Rin-zai and So-to named after two Chinese monks of the 9th century. The Ohaku sub-sect was founded in Japan by In-gen, the Chinese monk.
Jo-do Shin sect was founded by the Indian monk Me-mio (Asvaghosha). It was introduced in China by Bodairushi (Bodhiruchi) who translated Vasubandhu's Shastra and other Upadesha into Chinese. The Tendai sect teaches that the study of the whole canon and the practice of asceticism and meditation are the means of attaining salvation. But this sect believes in the teaching of Riu-ju (Nagarjuna) who taught that it is impossible to attain salvation by individual efforts in this age of the decay of religion, and substituted for this difficult path to Nirvana the simple faith in the all-saving power of Amida (Amitabha). This relying upon the strength of another is called Ta-riki. Their Mantra is "Ta-riki chin no ji-riki" (self-effort depending on the effort of another). Jo-do means (Sukhavati) where all mankind will eventually go before attaining to perfect Buddhaship.
In the temple of this sect Amida is chiefly worshipped. Sometimes the Shinto deities Inar and Benteu are worshipped. Chion-In at Kioto and Zo-jo-ji at Tokio are the principal seats of the two chief divisions of this sect. Nichi-reu-shiu is purely a Japanese sect. The principal belief of this sect is that all living creatures, plants and even this earth will eventually attain to Buddhahood. But man must work out his own salvation by practising according to the teachings of Buddha and by constant prayer and not by the grace of Amitabha as taught by Jo-do and Shin sects. There are two forms of teachings of this sect; the one symbolic for the lay people, the other the pure truth for the advanced students. This sect worships Shakya and believes that 3000 years after the year of the birth of Shakya there will come Miroku (Maitreya) who will convert all those who have not yet attained to Buddhahood. The lotus is the emblem of Shaka. Niche-reu was the founder of this sect.
Shin-shin sect has much similarity with the Jo-do sect in their worship of Amida (Amitabha) and in the use of the Sukhavativyuha-Sutra (smaller) as the basis of its doctrine. It differs from the Jo-do sect on the most important point of the doctrine. Jo-do teaches that salvation can be gained by simply repeating the invocation to Amida, while this sect teaches that salvation is to be attained by faith in the power and willingness of Amida to save mankind, and that the invocation is to be used like an act of thanks-giving. Through faith alone one is taken after death under Amida’s protection. While Jo-do sect believes Amida will come to meet the soul after death and take it to paradise.
This sect is called the Protestantism of Japan, as the priests are allowed to marry. It is popularly known in Japan as the sect of Nishi Hon-gwani at Kioto. This sect has the richest temples and does the missionary work in China and Korea and maintain a high standard of education among the neophytes. This sect believes that salvation or Nirvana means happiness and is the state of Buddha. It teaches the doctrine of "Help from Amida".
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BACK TO
Uwe's Archive Pages
http://www.hinduism.co.za/buddhism1.htm
Keywords:
Religion, Buddhism
Buddhism in China,Japan and Korea
By Swami Abhedananda, Sri Ramakrishna Vedanta Math
Calcutta, India.
In 522 AD Buddhism was introduced in Japan by a Chinese Buddhist, Shiba-Tatsu by name, who lived in Japan as a naturalised Japanese subject. He built a small temple of Buddha at Saktahara in Yamato. But at this time Buddhist doctrines did not become popular among the Japanese. It is well known to the historians that in 65 AD China sent a mission to India to bring some relics of Buddha and some copies of the Buddhist scriptures. The mission returned to China after two years in 67 AD. Within three centuries after this, Buddhism was well established in Korea. The king of Hakusai, in Korea sent a golden image of Buddha and some of the sacred scriptures to the Mikado of Japan in 522 AD. In the following year the Mikado had an image of Buddha carved out of a log of camphor-wood tree that was found ashore near the capital and had it set up in his palace. In 554 AD nine Buddhist monks came from Korea to take the place of the seven who were sent before by the King of Hakusai. They belonged to Jo-Jitsu and Sanron sects, which are now not recognised in Japan.
During the reign of the Mikado Bidatsu Tenno, the king of Hakusai, sent to Japan in 576 AD a number of sacred books and more monks and nuns, the teachers belonging to Ritsu and Zen sects among the Buddhists, together with an exorcising monk, and architect and an image-maker. In 584 AD two Japanese brought from Korea the images of Shaka (Sakyamuni) and Miroka (Maitreya-Bodhisattwa). The owner of these as well as some of the relics of Buddha’s body named Sogono-Iname, the son of Umako, built the first pagoda in Japan and had them enshrined.
Within a short time after this there broke out a pestilence, which caused Buddhism to be suppressed for a while. But Umako received special permission from the Mikado to practise privately the sacred rites of this new faith. The next Mikado was cured of his dangerous illness by the Buddhist priests, and for this reason he favoured the spread of Buddhism in Japan.
In the reign of this Mikado great many monks were invited over from Korea to spread the teachings of Buddha. Some of the most celebrated Buddhist temples were built in Japan during this period, such as Tennoji at Ozaka, Udzumasa near the modern Kioto, Asuka-dera, Darumaji, Tayema-dera, Kume-dera, and Tachibanadera in Yamato. Probably (Hinayana) Sho-jo doctrines were preached by three Korean monks.
In 623 AD the Chinese monks came for the first time to Japan. The number of temples and monasteries began to increase steadily. In 625 AD Buddhism was taught publicly in Japan. The Mikado Kotoku Tenno was a staunch follower of Buddhism. During his reign (645-654 AD) a Japanese monk named Do-sho was sent to China to study under Yuan-chuang (Hiuen Thsang), the great pilgrim who spent many years in India. He is called Gen-jo Sanzo by the Japanese. But Yuan-chuang referred him to the monk Eman of the Zen sect from whom Do-sho received instruction on the practice of meditation. In 658 AD two other Japanese monks were sent to China to study under this celebrated pilgrim.
The Mikado Temmu Tenno reigned between 673 and 686 AD. He endowed the monasteries with lands and made them independent of all government control. He built the temple Yukushi-ji near Nara and ordered by edicts that every house in Japan should have a Buddhist shrine and some sacred scriptures of Buddhism. Cremation was first practised in Japan in 700 AD. In 710 AD was built at Nara the great monastery of Kobuku-ji.
The Mikado Sho-mu Tenno decreed in 737 AD, after an epidemic of small-pox which almost depopulated the country, that a large monastery should be established in each province. The seven-storied pagodas each were also built by him in each province. He further gave the order to copy more of the Buddhist scriptures. It was he who founded the great temple at Nara which holds the colossal statue of Dai-nichi Nio-rai.
In 737 AD an Indian monk named Baramon (Brahmin) Sojo visited Japan landing at the port of Ozaka where he was met by the celebrated priest Gio-gi Bosatsu (Bidhisattwa). This title was conferred on the priest (Gio-gi) by Sho-mu Tenno. Later on, this title of Bosatsu was abused by the noble men of Japan, and that abuse was stopped by the edict of the Mikado Iyeyasu in the beginning of the 17th Century.
In 754 AD a Chinese monk named Chieu-Chen (Kan-shin in Japanese) visited Japan and introduced the doctrines of Ritsu sect. It was through his influence the Mikado Sho-mu Tenno renounced his throne and joined the monastic order. His daughter Ko-Ken Tenno became a nun. Following the example of the Mikado four hundred persons of high rank renounced the world and became monks. His example was also followed by other ruling Mikados who succeeded him.
In 767 AD the temple at Nikko was founded by the monk Sho-do. In 805 AD the doctrines of the Tendai sect were introduced from China by the monk Den-gio Dai-shi, the first Abbot of Hei-Yei-Zan. In 806 AD Kobo Dai-shi returned from China and promulgated the teachings of Yogachara school and founded the sect called Shin-gon. His teacher was the Chinese Kei-Kwa (Hui-Kuo). Three centuries later Rio-nin founded the sect Yu-dzu Nembutsu. In the end of the 12th century the Jo-do sect was established by Ho-nen Sho-nin. There are many sub-sects of the eight principal sects among the Buddhists of Japan. The following table shows these eight with the number of temples or monasteries belonging to each:
Temples and monasteries
Tendai ( 3 sub-sections) 5088
Shin-gou ( 2 sub-sections) 13,358
Jo-do ( 3 sub-sections) 8,478
Rinzai ( 9 sub-sections) 7,081
Zen So-to ( 9 sub-sections) 14,021
O-baku Shin (10 sub-sections) 18,783
Nichi-ren ( 7 sub-sections) 5,085
Ji 501
Yu-dzu Nem-butsu 347
The three sub-sects of Teu-dai Shiu are:
Euriaku-ji. The principal deity of this sub-sect is Yakushi Nio-rai (Bhaishajyaguru) with whom are associated two Bodhisattvas (Bo-Satsu) Nikko and Gwakko; Bouten (Brahma); Tai-Shaku (Indra) the Shi-Tenno (four kings of the Devas or gods); and the Jiu-ni-Jin-sho (twelve divine leaders). All of these are placed on the altar.
The Midera sub-sect worship Mi-roku Bo-satu (Maitreya Bodhisattva).
The Shin-Sei sub-sect worship Amida Nio-rai (Amitabha Tathagata) as their principal deity.
The Ten-dai sect is named after the mountain Tientai Shan in China, where the founder of this sect Chi-sha Dai-shi. A Chinese monk first taught his doctrines.
The sacred book of this sect is Ho-ke-kio (Saddharma-Prajnaparamita-Sutra-Sastra) called Chi-ron and supplemented by Ne-han-gio (Mahaparinirvana-Sutra). In the Chi-ron is given the law of meditation by which the aspirant is enabled to recognise the Buddha under all forms he has assumed in order to save mankind. According to this sect the principal means for attaining spiritual insight is meditation and the practice of asceticism (Kwam-mon) which is confined to monks.
The central doctrine of this sect is that Nirvana means the ultimate result of existence. It is a state in which the individual remains unaffected by anything external, and consequently, is devoid of feeling, thought or passion. This absolute unconditioned existence is called Mu-I (Asamskrita). It is the annihilation of conditions and not of the substance of the individual. To the uninitiated it will be regarded as the absolute non-existence.
This sect reverences Shaka (Sakyamuni), Monju (Manjusri), Fugen (Samantabhadra), Fu-do (Achala), Kwan-non (Avalokiteswara) under his different forms such as the eleven faced, the horse headed, the thousand-handed, the Holy, Dainichi (Vairochana), Ashuku (Akshobhya), Ho-sho (Ratnasambhava). The Ten-dai sect formerly worshipped numerous Shinto gods, such as Sanno, Tenjin Sama, Inari, Shimmei, Otori, Hachiman and Godzu Tenno. These were explained as the Avataras (incarnations) of the Buddhist deities. For instance, Inari was Kwan-non (Avalokiteswara).
After the revolution of 1868 AD Buddhism in Japan was separated from Shintoism, which from that year was made the state religion of Japan. Shin-gon-shiu sect derives its name from the Chinese word for Mantra in Sanskrit. It is identical with Yogachara school which was founded by Riu-ju (Nagarjuna) or Riu-mio. He is said also to have taught the doctrine of Dai-nichi (Vairochana). The doctrines of this sect are based on the three Sutras: the Dai-nichi Kio (Mahavairochana-bisambodhi-Sutra), the So-shit-Chi-kio (Susiddhi-karama-Mahatantra-sadhanopasika-Patra) and the Kon-go (Vajrachakra-Sutra). This sect observes mystic rites with signs (mudra), Shin-mitsu, go-mitsu (dharana) and I-mitsu (dhyana). This and Ten-dai sect teach the practice of fasting for purification. Vairochana was the founder of this school. He transmitted the doctrines to Kon-go (Vajrasattva) who was succeeded by Riu-mio (Nagarjuna). Kobo-Dai shi introduced this sect into Japan.
According to the teaching of this sect every human being possesses within himself the six elements of the spiritual body (dharmakaya) but is unconscious of them until Dai-nichi enters into his heart and enables him to recognise the truth. Through the practice of the above mentioned mystic rites under the guidance of Ajari one may gain perfect knowledge. The deities of this sect are within the soul. They are states of the mind. Dai-Nichi (Vairochana) is explained to be the sum total of all sentient beings.
Zen Shiu is the contemplative school in China. It was founded by the Indian Dharma who came to China in 527 AD and died there about eight years later. He was the first of the Chinese Patriarchs. The principal teachings of this sect are that truth cannot be expressed by the words of the mouth, that it is only by introspection that the meaning of Buddha can be learnt. It is unnecessary to worship him or to study the sacred scriptures, still it allows the study of Dai-hannia-Kio simply as a means of educating the intellect. Its creed is: "Look within and there you will find the Buddha". In most of the temples of this sect Shaka (Shakya) is placed upon the altar between Kasho (Kashlyapa) and Anan (Ananda). The Trinity of this sect is Shaka, Miroku (Maitreya) and Amida (Amitabha). In Japan this sect has two branches Rin-zai and So-to named after two Chinese monks of the 9th century. The Ohaku sub-sect was founded in Japan by In-gen, the Chinese monk.
Jo-do Shin sect was founded by the Indian monk Me-mio (Asvaghosha). It was introduced in China by Bodairushi (Bodhiruchi) who translated Vasubandhu's Shastra and other Upadesha into Chinese. The Tendai sect teaches that the study of the whole canon and the practice of asceticism and meditation are the means of attaining salvation. But this sect believes in the teaching of Riu-ju (Nagarjuna) who taught that it is impossible to attain salvation by individual efforts in this age of the decay of religion, and substituted for this difficult path to Nirvana the simple faith in the all-saving power of Amida (Amitabha). This relying upon the strength of another is called Ta-riki. Their Mantra is "Ta-riki chin no ji-riki" (self-effort depending on the effort of another). Jo-do means (Sukhavati) where all mankind will eventually go before attaining to perfect Buddhaship.
In the temple of this sect Amida is chiefly worshipped. Sometimes the Shinto deities Inar and Benteu are worshipped. Chion-In at Kioto and Zo-jo-ji at Tokio are the principal seats of the two chief divisions of this sect. Nichi-reu-shiu is purely a Japanese sect. The principal belief of this sect is that all living creatures, plants and even this earth will eventually attain to Buddhahood. But man must work out his own salvation by practising according to the teachings of Buddha and by constant prayer and not by the grace of Amitabha as taught by Jo-do and Shin sects. There are two forms of teachings of this sect; the one symbolic for the lay people, the other the pure truth for the advanced students. This sect worships Shakya and believes that 3000 years after the year of the birth of Shakya there will come Miroku (Maitreya) who will convert all those who have not yet attained to Buddhahood. The lotus is the emblem of Shaka. Niche-reu was the founder of this sect.
Shin-shin sect has much similarity with the Jo-do sect in their worship of Amida (Amitabha) and in the use of the Sukhavativyuha-Sutra (smaller) as the basis of its doctrine. It differs from the Jo-do sect on the most important point of the doctrine. Jo-do teaches that salvation can be gained by simply repeating the invocation to Amida, while this sect teaches that salvation is to be attained by faith in the power and willingness of Amida to save mankind, and that the invocation is to be used like an act of thanks-giving. Through faith alone one is taken after death under Amida’s protection. While Jo-do sect believes Amida will come to meet the soul after death and take it to paradise.
This sect is called the Protestantism of Japan, as the priests are allowed to marry. It is popularly known in Japan as the sect of Nishi Hon-gwani at Kioto. This sect has the richest temples and does the missionary work in China and Korea and maintain a high standard of education among the neophytes. This sect believes that salvation or Nirvana means happiness and is the state of Buddha. It teaches the doctrine of "Help from Amida".
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8/23/2006
Graham Priest: Western perspectives on Buddhist thought
Please find attached a link to a recent ABC Radio interview with the Melbourne philosopher Graham Priest on some Western perspectives on Buddhist thought.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopherszone/stories/2006/1715982.htm
Alan Saunders: Hello, and welcome to The Philosopher's Zone . I'm Alan Saunders.
This week, Buddhist philosophy, and it's Buddhism from an unexpected quarter.
Graham Priest is Boyce Gibson Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, and he's got a strong background in mathematics, having been educated, as I was, at the very hard-nosed London School of Economics. So how did he find Buddhism? And more to the point, what does he find in Buddhism?
Graham Priest: I was trained as a mathematician, so when I started teaching philosophy, I had a fairly impoverished education, as a philosopher, and I spent a lot of time working on it, educating myself and finding out what all the bits of philosophy are and how they interact. And in many ways philosophy is like a big and rather sprawling city, so when you start as a professional philosopher you're very familiar with one part of it. As you're around longer you get to know other parts, but it's a bit like going on the subway, in that you come up in various suburbs, and you know them but you don't know how they're all connected. But gradually, as you're around longer, you start seeing how all the suburbs fit together. And about ten years ago I was starting to feel that I knew how philosophy held together, and then I discovered there was actually half the city I was missing. It's a bit like Berlin before the fall of the wall. What happened on the other side I just had no clue about. And as you pointed out, Western philosophers I think still often think of Eastern philosophies as not really philosophy at all; they're mysticism, they're religion, that they're not worth seriously engaging with. It must be said that if they have these views, they have them largely from a position of ignorance because they've never read most of it, and if they had, they really wouldn't have this view. But that's been the traditional view.
However, the Berlin Wall, as it were, is coming down, and it started to come down for me about ten years ago when I met people who knew more about Asian philosophy than I did, which wasn't hard actually at the time, and started talking to them about it and discussing the ideas, and discovered two things. First of all, they were dealing with issues that were very familiar to me from a Western perspective: ethical issues, God, the soul, epistemology, logic, you , the standard canon in the West, so it was familiar to me. But they also had very distinctive takes on certain things, which I found fascinating. So at that stage I decided to cross the Berlin Wall and explore the other side, as it were.
Alan Saunders: I think there are two questions I want to ask arising out of that. One is, you say that the misapprehension of Asian philosophy in the West is that it's mysticism or it's religion or so on, but it is the case, isn't it, that philosophy is a European word, it's a word of Greek origin, it defines a particular sort of intellectual activity. There is no reason why other cultures should divide up the world or the intellectual sphere in exactly the way that we do, so it might not be surprising if we found mysticism or religion adjoining what we might recognise as philosophy in their bodies of thought; it's simply a different way of portioning things out.
Graham Priest: Look, it's certainly true that the word 'philosophy' is a Greek invention; so is the word 'science' for that matter. Science knows no boundaries, I think philosophy knows no boundaries either, because in some sense, doing philosophy is something that's integral to the human psyche, if I can put it like that, in that it deals with issues that we all as human beings and thinking beings must engage with. So I think one should expect to find philosophy or something like it in most cultures.
Now having said that, it's true that in most Eastern countries philosophy is still closely connected with religion, of course it depends on what you call religion, I mean is Confucianism a religion? It's naturalistic, it's atheistic, so we might argue about what a religion is, but generally I think it's fair to say that it's attached closely to religion. But then it was in the West for at least 1,000, 1500 years, where philosophy and Christianity were tightly interlocked. The big difference I think, a big difference, within Eastern philosophies or Western philosophies, was that the West had a scientific revolution which had an enormous impact on philosophy and it became firmly divorced from religion. Now this never happened in the same way in the East, or at least it hasn't happened until perhaps recently. And so I think it's still possible to look over the Berlin Wall and just see that it's connected to religion. I think that's not philosophy. But you mustn't forget that so much history of Western philosophy was done in tandem with religion. But that doesn't mean it's philosophy of religion, it just means that a number of the issues that are involved, the ethics, the metaphysics, the epistemology, are integrally linked with issues that we might think of as religious. But that doesn't mean it's not philosophy, it just means that it's got religious connections in some sense.
Alan Saunders: The other question that arises from what you said is - I suppose if I were to pick a philosophical tradition that you as somebody with a background in mathematics might be attracted to amongst Asian philosophical traditions, I would have thought you might have gone to India, which has a tradition of mathematics, it has a tradition of logic. What was the appeal of Buddhism?
Graham Priest: Well, it's true that I have a training in mathematics, but all things philosophical interest me. There wasn't actually an obvious place to go for looking to mathematical logic in the East because that didn't develop in the same way that it developed in the West. There was a big revolution in logic at the start of 20th century, there was nothing ever similar in the West, so there weren't any obvious places to go.
On the question of Buddhism, one should remember that Buddhism is Indian; it developed in India about two and a half thousand years ago, but just speaking of Buddhism is a slight misnomer in some ways because there's not just one Buddhism, there are many Buddhisms, just as there are many Christianities, and although there's not much Buddhism in India now, of course it's diffused throughout the Asian region. One enormous change that was undergone by Buddhism was when it moves into China, and so whole new kinds of Buddhism developed in China, which in many ways are very different. Even with India there are different Buddhist traditions, but I think a very major divide is between Chinese Buddhisms and Indian Buddhisms. And interestingly enough, what we're seeing now is Buddhism enter Western cultures and I suspect it's going to go in the same kind of transformation that it underwent when it went into China, because it's absorbing new ideas and influences. Quite what's going to come out of that it will be interesting to see.
Alan Saunders: A little while ago I asked a friend who's a Buddhist about the Buddhist conception of the self. And she said, 'Well there's no self in Buddhism', and then she spent some time explaining to me what this self that didn't exist actually was. So let's begin with that. Given that consciousness is such a happening issue in analytical philosophy at the moment. How do Buddhists approach the question of the self and of consciousness?
Graham Priest: Well, your friend told you roughly the right thing: there's no self in Buddhism. And that can sound kind of paradoxical because I'm sitting here talking to you, and in that sense there clearly is some self. But think of it like this: think of your car, assuming you have a car; I don't, but most people do.
Alan Saunders: No, neither do I actually, so this is a dialogue of the deaf, but never mind.
Graham Priest: Think of our hypothetical cars. What makes the car what it is? What makes it the same car from day to day? And you might say, Well, it's the same parts. But as you replace parts, they wear out, the parts change; well maybe it's the registration plates; that's what the Motor Office defines the car to be. But then you can take the car in most States and it gets new registration plates and so on. So in some sense there's a car there, but really, calling it a car is just a conventional way of looking at a bunch of things that have come together for a while, changed, hang together for a while and then fall apart. And the Buddhist conception of the self is largely like that. We call someone Alan Saunders because it's a nice convenient way of referring to a bunch of things that have temporarily come together, but they did come together, they'll eventually fall apart and that's it.
The parts that constitute you are theorised in many ways in Buddhism. Your body is certainly one of them, your mental states are another. But Buddhist psychology, or moral psychology, has a long tradition of analysing mental states and it makes many distinctions, much more than just the crude consciousness states. I mean, it distinguishes between your emotions, your drives, your thought processes and so on. And these are just some of the bits, like the carburettor and the steering wheel and the chassis, which come together to make what is temporarily you.
Alan Saunders: Well, let's take a classic sort of crucial argument from Western philosophy. John Locke, the late 17th century English philosopher, argued that 'I persist in being because of my memory'. And then in the 18th century, the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid said, well, imagine this situation: you have the young boy who is told off for stealing some apples. He grows up, he becomes a military officer, he captures the enemy's flag, and then he pursues a distinguished military career and becomes the Old General. Now the Old General remembers being the young officer who captured the enemy's flag, and back then the young officer who was capturing the enemy's flag remembered being the young boy who stole the apples, but the Old General doesn't remember being the young boy, it's too long ago. And Reid thought this was a real problem for the notion of memory as establishing who we are, because if the boy, A, equalled the young officer, B, and B, the young officer equalled the Old General, C, we seem to have a situation where A equals B and B equals C, but A doesn't equal C, w hich is very, very strange. Would this simply not be a problem in Buddhism?
Graham Priest: Well, this is an argument which would be very comfortable to Buddhists just because there is no thing, no one constant remaining which identifies the self. If you recall, the near contemporary of Locke in some ways held very similar views to a Buddhist view. I mean, it's sometimes dubbed 'the bundle theory' of the self. So there's just a bunch of mental states. I mean, Hume didn't consider the body in the way the Buddhists do.
Alan Saunders: This is David Hume the 18th Century Scottish philosopher.
Graham Priest: That's right, yes. And he said, once you introspect, if you introspect really hard, you don't find anything, any constant self, as it were, all there is is this bundle of things, and that's one way you could put the Buddhist view. But talking of Western philosophy, Wittgenstein, the 20th century German-English philosopher talked about identity through time, like this: take a rope, for example, one of these thick ropes that you might get at a wharf, and when you look at it you tend to think of it as a single thing. But if you examine the rope carefully what you'll find is that it's made of lots of little strands, and some strands are longer than others; no strand runs for the whole rope, but nonetheless, because they weave together in a certain way, they constitute a single thing. And I think that's actually quite a good analogy for a Buddhist too, because the little elements that constitute you are changing all the time; some of them are long, some of then are short, but there's nothing that remains constant over the whole time: they're just a sort of continuity, and at both ends, as it were, the rope frays.
Alan Saunders: Is my belief which, however much I read Wittgenstein, and however much I read Hume, and no doubt however much I were to read Buddhism, is my belief that there is a substantial 'me', and certainly it is a belief that I find it very difficult to eradicate: is it an illusion, and is it an illusion which a Buddhist say I need to overcome?
Graham Priest: Absolutely. The view that there is a permanent self is something that all of us have, but it isn't correct, because there is nothing permanent in life, self included. And that's one of the things you have to get your head around if you're a Buddhist; everything is impermanent and that's you and me just as much as anything else. And this fact is closely connected with some of the more religious aspects of Buddhism, namely the fact that we don't live in a very happy place if you're a Buddhist, maybe we should come back to that, but one of the things which causes a lot of the unhappiness in life precisely is this illusion we have that we have a self; we're very, very attached to ourselves and the attachment to the self is a great cause of any happiness in our lives. So this is an illusion and a very important illusion in Buddhism.
Alan Saunders: Given that I am just a rope made of various threads, do I differ substantially from other apparently nonsentient things in the world?
Graham Priest: Oh yes, because you have sentient aspects and other things don't. So that makes you very different in many ways, or makes the local conglomeration, which is currently you, very different.
Alan Saunders: But my being is defined, is it, by the relations into which various aspects of me enter with each other?
Graham Priest: It depends what you mean. Yes, in the sense that I mean the existence of our non-existent cars, in whatever sense they do exist, to the relationship between the various parts coming together in a certain way, and the same for you and me.
Alan Saunders: Is this a concept of internal relations? John Anderson, the famous Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney, who's very, very against European idealism; when I first encountered his work I was reading that he very much disliked something that he called internal relations, and not having been educated in that aspect of philosophy, I had no idea what he was talking about. But I now gather that what it means is, an internal relation is a relation which defines the thing which enters into that relation; it's part of the description of that thing. And it immediately seemed to me that the world was full of internal relations, that, just to get back to cars, an axle in a car is just a bit of metal unless it has a relationship with a couple of wheels; that's what makes it an axle. So that would be the Buddhist account, would it?
Graham Priest: Yes look, the jargon of internal and external relations is not one that you find as far as I'm aware, in Indian and Chinese traditions, but I think that their views would be very similar, and I think you've put it well, that one can think of the self as being constituted by these internal relations. Something very interesting happens in later Buddhist philosophy, well I'm talking about around the rise of the Common Era. Early Buddhists are very concerned with the self, for soteriological reasons. But then you get a rise of a whole new kind of Buddhism in India, called Mahayana Buddhism, who generalise the insight, as it were, that exists in earlier Buddhism, not just the self but to everything. So probably the greatest Buddhist philosopher is a man called Nagarjuna in the 1st or 2nd century, we don't really know, who argued that the kind of insubstantiality that earlier Buddhist philosophers talked of as applying to the self, applies to all thing. So it's not just that the person who's divided into parts, but those parts themselves only exist in the way that you just described, namely they exist only in relationship to other things.
So the view becomes that everything is not only impermanent but it's properties, and perhaps more importantly its existence itself, it is and it has, only in relationship to other things. So all things exist only in this related way, and you can think of these as the internal relationships you're talking about.
Alan Saunders: What are the ethical implications of this? I can see that one ethical consequence that you might draw from this is that nothing really matters. Another consequence you might draw, an alternative consequence you might draw is that we owe something to everything. So where does Buddhism take us there, ethically?
Graham Priest: Well that's a very interesting question. I think we'll have to backtrack a little bit and talk about the ethical aspects of Buddhism at the beginning, because as I mentioned just now, the Buddha formed the view that this is not a very happy place, I mean, in that I think he's on to something. Look around the world with an unbiased opinion, and you'll see that as Mill put it, J.S. Mill, unless you look at the world in a very strange fashion, the world does not seem to be built in such a way that it's conducive for human happiness. So in many ways, human life is unsatisfactory, and one thing the Buddha did was to try the diagnosis of why this arises. And it arises because we are largely ignorant about the way the world is. We don't understand its impermanence, including the impermanence of the self, and we get very attached to things, far too attached to things, and of course when things disappear as they normally do, we get very upset. So the original ethical point of Buddhism, as it were, was soteriological; it was to show people 'the world aright', again if I can use a Wittengensteinian metaphor, so that they don't experience the unhappiness and the suffering that people do in life. So that's the Buddhist picture up to about the rise of the Common Era, so you know, zero AD.
After the rise of the new form of Buddhism, Mahayana, the older form survives in the form of Theravada, so it's still around, but after the rise of Mahayana, where people took this picture of the inter-relatedness of things to heart, then what emerges is the thought that my wellbeing as a creature is integrally connected to the wellbeing of other beings because of this doctrine of internal relations, as you put it. So in the end, I cannot rest content unless all others sentient beings achieve the state of enlightenment as well. I mean, the word is Nirvana in Sanskrit, but enlightenment, or awakening, is probably a better word. It's a genuine realisation of how things are and as a consequence of this the transcendence of the unhappiness and the suffering in life, and in the Mahayana picture, because all things are connected, if I do this then everybody else has to do this too. So later Buddhism especially is a very compassionate religion, because my goal is the awakening, not just of myself but for all creatures who suffer.
Alan Saunders: You briefly used the word 'Nirvana', and you then more or less translated it as enlightenment. This is a word that seems to be in various sort of accounts of Buddhism that I've read, to be somewhat contested. Some people say that it simply means non-existence. What do you take it to mean?
Graham Priest: OK. This is the word that certainly gets understood in a number of different ways in the Buddhist traditions. You can see why maybe thought of as non-existent sometimes, I mean, especially in the early Buddhist writings, the Buddha speaks of the candle blowing out and things like that. But you must remember that you don't exist anyway, so to speak of non-existence in this sense is very misleading. I mean, there's a rearrangement of stuff, and what we conventionally call you, just all the parts fall apart and that's it. That doesn't tell you much about Nirvana as such.
Nirvana is this state you reach supposedly, I mean I've never tried to get it, I doubt if I ever will, not in this lifetime anyway. Nirvana is this state where you see reality as it actually is; you see how things are, you see their impermanency, see their interconnectedness, and as a result of this you cease to be attached to things and thereby transcend the suffering and unhappiness of life. And you can do this while you're alive in conventional terms, I mean, you don't have to wait till you die. The Buddha supposedly achieved enlightenment in his lifetime and was able to see things like this. So Nirvana is a certain state that you reach in this lifetime. What happens after you die in conventional terms, that's another story and different Buddhists think about this in different ways. But Nirvana is just this good state that you want to be in, where you're suffering and your ignorance will disappear.
Alan Saunders: Does this differ from just being totally absorbed by some activity and not thinking about myself while I'm doing it? I know that when I was studying logic that if I was working hard on a logical proof, or usually working hard on trying to understand one, I wasn't aware of myself, I was just aware of what was on the page in front of me.
Graham Priest: Yes, that's a really interesting question. I think it's useful to think in terms of the transition that Buddhism makes when it goes into China. Let me explain. Meditation has always been a fundamental aspect of Buddhist practice, and the point of meditation is to get you to see the world aright, and then there are various things which people do to do that. And some of the phases of meditation are this intense mental focus, and in the Buddhist context you tend to do this in a meditation hall, a meditation sequence, so it is something that is actually removed from the rest of life. OK.
Now when Buddhism goes into China it becomes much more naturalistic in many ways. There's an enormous influence of Taoism on Buddhism, and it's important for the Chinese that Buddhist practice is locked much more into ordinary everyday life than it is in India, which always had a sort of priestly tradition and a tradition of withdrawing from life. Sort of the Chinese are much more engaged in life. This is a sweeping and crass generalisation, but it'll do for the moment. And there are many forms of Chinese Buddhism, but probably the most famous in the West is Chang, or Zen, as it's usually known by its Japanese name. And in Zen, it's very clear that this state of intense focus and concentration doesn't have to be found simply in sessions of meditation; those are there as well, but it's to be found in all kinds of things.
There's a famous question to some Zen master. What is awakening? And the Zen master said, well, it's just growing rice and making our meals and eating them and going to bed - which sounds kind of whacky But the point that he was making, as far as I understand it, is that it's not the what you do, it's the how you do it, and all things are done with this focus on the present. The whole distinction between the thinker thinking of something, and the thing thought about just disappears. This sort of fundamental duality in Western philosophy between the subject and object just disappears. It's a very distinctive phenomenological experience. I think actually most people have had it who do long distance driving. If you're driving a car for five or six hours out in the country, after a while if you're not chatting or listening to music you just become thoroughly absorbed in the driving, and it ceases to be you driving, it ceases to be the driving that you're conscious of; there is just the driving. And I think this is a very common experience of this kind of state of intense focus in which the subject-object duality disappears. So yes, I think the brief answer to your question is Yes.
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Australian Association of Buddhist Studies
http://www.buddhiststudies.org.au/
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http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopherszone/stories/2006/1715982.htm
Alan Saunders: Hello, and welcome to The Philosopher's Zone . I'm Alan Saunders.
This week, Buddhist philosophy, and it's Buddhism from an unexpected quarter.
Graham Priest is Boyce Gibson Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, and he's got a strong background in mathematics, having been educated, as I was, at the very hard-nosed London School of Economics. So how did he find Buddhism? And more to the point, what does he find in Buddhism?
Graham Priest: I was trained as a mathematician, so when I started teaching philosophy, I had a fairly impoverished education, as a philosopher, and I spent a lot of time working on it, educating myself and finding out what all the bits of philosophy are and how they interact. And in many ways philosophy is like a big and rather sprawling city, so when you start as a professional philosopher you're very familiar with one part of it. As you're around longer you get to know other parts, but it's a bit like going on the subway, in that you come up in various suburbs, and you know them but you don't know how they're all connected. But gradually, as you're around longer, you start seeing how all the suburbs fit together. And about ten years ago I was starting to feel that I knew how philosophy held together, and then I discovered there was actually half the city I was missing. It's a bit like Berlin before the fall of the wall. What happened on the other side I just had no clue about. And as you pointed out, Western philosophers I think still often think of Eastern philosophies as not really philosophy at all; they're mysticism, they're religion, that they're not worth seriously engaging with. It must be said that if they have these views, they have them largely from a position of ignorance because they've never read most of it, and if they had, they really wouldn't have this view. But that's been the traditional view.
However, the Berlin Wall, as it were, is coming down, and it started to come down for me about ten years ago when I met people who knew more about Asian philosophy than I did, which wasn't hard actually at the time, and started talking to them about it and discussing the ideas, and discovered two things. First of all, they were dealing with issues that were very familiar to me from a Western perspective: ethical issues, God, the soul, epistemology, logic, you , the standard canon in the West, so it was familiar to me. But they also had very distinctive takes on certain things, which I found fascinating. So at that stage I decided to cross the Berlin Wall and explore the other side, as it were.
Alan Saunders: I think there are two questions I want to ask arising out of that. One is, you say that the misapprehension of Asian philosophy in the West is that it's mysticism or it's religion or so on, but it is the case, isn't it, that philosophy is a European word, it's a word of Greek origin, it defines a particular sort of intellectual activity. There is no reason why other cultures should divide up the world or the intellectual sphere in exactly the way that we do, so it might not be surprising if we found mysticism or religion adjoining what we might recognise as philosophy in their bodies of thought; it's simply a different way of portioning things out.
Graham Priest: Look, it's certainly true that the word 'philosophy' is a Greek invention; so is the word 'science' for that matter. Science knows no boundaries, I think philosophy knows no boundaries either, because in some sense, doing philosophy is something that's integral to the human psyche, if I can put it like that, in that it deals with issues that we all as human beings and thinking beings must engage with. So I think one should expect to find philosophy or something like it in most cultures.
Now having said that, it's true that in most Eastern countries philosophy is still closely connected with religion, of course it depends on what you call religion, I mean is Confucianism a religion? It's naturalistic, it's atheistic, so we might argue about what a religion is, but generally I think it's fair to say that it's attached closely to religion. But then it was in the West for at least 1,000, 1500 years, where philosophy and Christianity were tightly interlocked. The big difference I think, a big difference, within Eastern philosophies or Western philosophies, was that the West had a scientific revolution which had an enormous impact on philosophy and it became firmly divorced from religion. Now this never happened in the same way in the East, or at least it hasn't happened until perhaps recently. And so I think it's still possible to look over the Berlin Wall and just see that it's connected to religion. I think that's not philosophy. But you mustn't forget that so much history of Western philosophy was done in tandem with religion. But that doesn't mean it's philosophy of religion, it just means that a number of the issues that are involved, the ethics, the metaphysics, the epistemology, are integrally linked with issues that we might think of as religious. But that doesn't mean it's not philosophy, it just means that it's got religious connections in some sense.
Alan Saunders: The other question that arises from what you said is - I suppose if I were to pick a philosophical tradition that you as somebody with a background in mathematics might be attracted to amongst Asian philosophical traditions, I would have thought you might have gone to India, which has a tradition of mathematics, it has a tradition of logic. What was the appeal of Buddhism?
Graham Priest: Well, it's true that I have a training in mathematics, but all things philosophical interest me. There wasn't actually an obvious place to go for looking to mathematical logic in the East because that didn't develop in the same way that it developed in the West. There was a big revolution in logic at the start of 20th century, there was nothing ever similar in the West, so there weren't any obvious places to go.
On the question of Buddhism, one should remember that Buddhism is Indian; it developed in India about two and a half thousand years ago, but just speaking of Buddhism is a slight misnomer in some ways because there's not just one Buddhism, there are many Buddhisms, just as there are many Christianities, and although there's not much Buddhism in India now, of course it's diffused throughout the Asian region. One enormous change that was undergone by Buddhism was when it moves into China, and so whole new kinds of Buddhism developed in China, which in many ways are very different. Even with India there are different Buddhist traditions, but I think a very major divide is between Chinese Buddhisms and Indian Buddhisms. And interestingly enough, what we're seeing now is Buddhism enter Western cultures and I suspect it's going to go in the same kind of transformation that it underwent when it went into China, because it's absorbing new ideas and influences. Quite what's going to come out of that it will be interesting to see.
Alan Saunders: A little while ago I asked a friend who's a Buddhist about the Buddhist conception of the self. And she said, 'Well there's no self in Buddhism', and then she spent some time explaining to me what this self that didn't exist actually was. So let's begin with that. Given that consciousness is such a happening issue in analytical philosophy at the moment. How do Buddhists approach the question of the self and of consciousness?
Graham Priest: Well, your friend told you roughly the right thing: there's no self in Buddhism. And that can sound kind of paradoxical because I'm sitting here talking to you, and in that sense there clearly is some self. But think of it like this: think of your car, assuming you have a car; I don't, but most people do.
Alan Saunders: No, neither do I actually, so this is a dialogue of the deaf, but never mind.
Graham Priest: Think of our hypothetical cars. What makes the car what it is? What makes it the same car from day to day? And you might say, Well, it's the same parts. But as you replace parts, they wear out, the parts change; well maybe it's the registration plates; that's what the Motor Office defines the car to be. But then you can take the car in most States and it gets new registration plates and so on. So in some sense there's a car there, but really, calling it a car is just a conventional way of looking at a bunch of things that have come together for a while, changed, hang together for a while and then fall apart. And the Buddhist conception of the self is largely like that. We call someone Alan Saunders because it's a nice convenient way of referring to a bunch of things that have temporarily come together, but they did come together, they'll eventually fall apart and that's it.
The parts that constitute you are theorised in many ways in Buddhism. Your body is certainly one of them, your mental states are another. But Buddhist psychology, or moral psychology, has a long tradition of analysing mental states and it makes many distinctions, much more than just the crude consciousness states. I mean, it distinguishes between your emotions, your drives, your thought processes and so on. And these are just some of the bits, like the carburettor and the steering wheel and the chassis, which come together to make what is temporarily you.
Alan Saunders: Well, let's take a classic sort of crucial argument from Western philosophy. John Locke, the late 17th century English philosopher, argued that 'I persist in being because of my memory'. And then in the 18th century, the Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid said, well, imagine this situation: you have the young boy who is told off for stealing some apples. He grows up, he becomes a military officer, he captures the enemy's flag, and then he pursues a distinguished military career and becomes the Old General. Now the Old General remembers being the young officer who captured the enemy's flag, and back then the young officer who was capturing the enemy's flag remembered being the young boy who stole the apples, but the Old General doesn't remember being the young boy, it's too long ago. And Reid thought this was a real problem for the notion of memory as establishing who we are, because if the boy, A, equalled the young officer, B, and B, the young officer equalled the Old General, C, we seem to have a situation where A equals B and B equals C, but A doesn't equal C, w hich is very, very strange. Would this simply not be a problem in Buddhism?
Graham Priest: Well, this is an argument which would be very comfortable to Buddhists just because there is no thing, no one constant remaining which identifies the self. If you recall, the near contemporary of Locke in some ways held very similar views to a Buddhist view. I mean, it's sometimes dubbed 'the bundle theory' of the self. So there's just a bunch of mental states. I mean, Hume didn't consider the body in the way the Buddhists do.
Alan Saunders: This is David Hume the 18th Century Scottish philosopher.
Graham Priest: That's right, yes. And he said, once you introspect, if you introspect really hard, you don't find anything, any constant self, as it were, all there is is this bundle of things, and that's one way you could put the Buddhist view. But talking of Western philosophy, Wittgenstein, the 20th century German-English philosopher talked about identity through time, like this: take a rope, for example, one of these thick ropes that you might get at a wharf, and when you look at it you tend to think of it as a single thing. But if you examine the rope carefully what you'll find is that it's made of lots of little strands, and some strands are longer than others; no strand runs for the whole rope, but nonetheless, because they weave together in a certain way, they constitute a single thing. And I think that's actually quite a good analogy for a Buddhist too, because the little elements that constitute you are changing all the time; some of them are long, some of then are short, but there's nothing that remains constant over the whole time: they're just a sort of continuity, and at both ends, as it were, the rope frays.
Alan Saunders: Is my belief which, however much I read Wittgenstein, and however much I read Hume, and no doubt however much I were to read Buddhism, is my belief that there is a substantial 'me', and certainly it is a belief that I find it very difficult to eradicate: is it an illusion, and is it an illusion which a Buddhist say I need to overcome?
Graham Priest: Absolutely. The view that there is a permanent self is something that all of us have, but it isn't correct, because there is nothing permanent in life, self included. And that's one of the things you have to get your head around if you're a Buddhist; everything is impermanent and that's you and me just as much as anything else. And this fact is closely connected with some of the more religious aspects of Buddhism, namely the fact that we don't live in a very happy place if you're a Buddhist, maybe we should come back to that, but one of the things which causes a lot of the unhappiness in life precisely is this illusion we have that we have a self; we're very, very attached to ourselves and the attachment to the self is a great cause of any happiness in our lives. So this is an illusion and a very important illusion in Buddhism.
Alan Saunders: Given that I am just a rope made of various threads, do I differ substantially from other apparently nonsentient things in the world?
Graham Priest: Oh yes, because you have sentient aspects and other things don't. So that makes you very different in many ways, or makes the local conglomeration, which is currently you, very different.
Alan Saunders: But my being is defined, is it, by the relations into which various aspects of me enter with each other?
Graham Priest: It depends what you mean. Yes, in the sense that I mean the existence of our non-existent cars, in whatever sense they do exist, to the relationship between the various parts coming together in a certain way, and the same for you and me.
Alan Saunders: Is this a concept of internal relations? John Anderson, the famous Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney, who's very, very against European idealism; when I first encountered his work I was reading that he very much disliked something that he called internal relations, and not having been educated in that aspect of philosophy, I had no idea what he was talking about. But I now gather that what it means is, an internal relation is a relation which defines the thing which enters into that relation; it's part of the description of that thing. And it immediately seemed to me that the world was full of internal relations, that, just to get back to cars, an axle in a car is just a bit of metal unless it has a relationship with a couple of wheels; that's what makes it an axle. So that would be the Buddhist account, would it?
Graham Priest: Yes look, the jargon of internal and external relations is not one that you find as far as I'm aware, in Indian and Chinese traditions, but I think that their views would be very similar, and I think you've put it well, that one can think of the self as being constituted by these internal relations. Something very interesting happens in later Buddhist philosophy, well I'm talking about around the rise of the Common Era. Early Buddhists are very concerned with the self, for soteriological reasons. But then you get a rise of a whole new kind of Buddhism in India, called Mahayana Buddhism, who generalise the insight, as it were, that exists in earlier Buddhism, not just the self but to everything. So probably the greatest Buddhist philosopher is a man called Nagarjuna in the 1st or 2nd century, we don't really know, who argued that the kind of insubstantiality that earlier Buddhist philosophers talked of as applying to the self, applies to all thing. So it's not just that the person who's divided into parts, but those parts themselves only exist in the way that you just described, namely they exist only in relationship to other things.
So the view becomes that everything is not only impermanent but it's properties, and perhaps more importantly its existence itself, it is and it has, only in relationship to other things. So all things exist only in this related way, and you can think of these as the internal relationships you're talking about.
Alan Saunders: What are the ethical implications of this? I can see that one ethical consequence that you might draw from this is that nothing really matters. Another consequence you might draw, an alternative consequence you might draw is that we owe something to everything. So where does Buddhism take us there, ethically?
Graham Priest: Well that's a very interesting question. I think we'll have to backtrack a little bit and talk about the ethical aspects of Buddhism at the beginning, because as I mentioned just now, the Buddha formed the view that this is not a very happy place, I mean, in that I think he's on to something. Look around the world with an unbiased opinion, and you'll see that as Mill put it, J.S. Mill, unless you look at the world in a very strange fashion, the world does not seem to be built in such a way that it's conducive for human happiness. So in many ways, human life is unsatisfactory, and one thing the Buddha did was to try the diagnosis of why this arises. And it arises because we are largely ignorant about the way the world is. We don't understand its impermanence, including the impermanence of the self, and we get very attached to things, far too attached to things, and of course when things disappear as they normally do, we get very upset. So the original ethical point of Buddhism, as it were, was soteriological; it was to show people 'the world aright', again if I can use a Wittengensteinian metaphor, so that they don't experience the unhappiness and the suffering that people do in life. So that's the Buddhist picture up to about the rise of the Common Era, so you know, zero AD.
After the rise of the new form of Buddhism, Mahayana, the older form survives in the form of Theravada, so it's still around, but after the rise of Mahayana, where people took this picture of the inter-relatedness of things to heart, then what emerges is the thought that my wellbeing as a creature is integrally connected to the wellbeing of other beings because of this doctrine of internal relations, as you put it. So in the end, I cannot rest content unless all others sentient beings achieve the state of enlightenment as well. I mean, the word is Nirvana in Sanskrit, but enlightenment, or awakening, is probably a better word. It's a genuine realisation of how things are and as a consequence of this the transcendence of the unhappiness and the suffering in life, and in the Mahayana picture, because all things are connected, if I do this then everybody else has to do this too. So later Buddhism especially is a very compassionate religion, because my goal is the awakening, not just of myself but for all creatures who suffer.
Alan Saunders: You briefly used the word 'Nirvana', and you then more or less translated it as enlightenment. This is a word that seems to be in various sort of accounts of Buddhism that I've read, to be somewhat contested. Some people say that it simply means non-existence. What do you take it to mean?
Graham Priest: OK. This is the word that certainly gets understood in a number of different ways in the Buddhist traditions. You can see why maybe thought of as non-existent sometimes, I mean, especially in the early Buddhist writings, the Buddha speaks of the candle blowing out and things like that. But you must remember that you don't exist anyway, so to speak of non-existence in this sense is very misleading. I mean, there's a rearrangement of stuff, and what we conventionally call you, just all the parts fall apart and that's it. That doesn't tell you much about Nirvana as such.
Nirvana is this state you reach supposedly, I mean I've never tried to get it, I doubt if I ever will, not in this lifetime anyway. Nirvana is this state where you see reality as it actually is; you see how things are, you see their impermanency, see their interconnectedness, and as a result of this you cease to be attached to things and thereby transcend the suffering and unhappiness of life. And you can do this while you're alive in conventional terms, I mean, you don't have to wait till you die. The Buddha supposedly achieved enlightenment in his lifetime and was able to see things like this. So Nirvana is a certain state that you reach in this lifetime. What happens after you die in conventional terms, that's another story and different Buddhists think about this in different ways. But Nirvana is just this good state that you want to be in, where you're suffering and your ignorance will disappear.
Alan Saunders: Does this differ from just being totally absorbed by some activity and not thinking about myself while I'm doing it? I know that when I was studying logic that if I was working hard on a logical proof, or usually working hard on trying to understand one, I wasn't aware of myself, I was just aware of what was on the page in front of me.
Graham Priest: Yes, that's a really interesting question. I think it's useful to think in terms of the transition that Buddhism makes when it goes into China. Let me explain. Meditation has always been a fundamental aspect of Buddhist practice, and the point of meditation is to get you to see the world aright, and then there are various things which people do to do that. And some of the phases of meditation are this intense mental focus, and in the Buddhist context you tend to do this in a meditation hall, a meditation sequence, so it is something that is actually removed from the rest of life. OK.
Now when Buddhism goes into China it becomes much more naturalistic in many ways. There's an enormous influence of Taoism on Buddhism, and it's important for the Chinese that Buddhist practice is locked much more into ordinary everyday life than it is in India, which always had a sort of priestly tradition and a tradition of withdrawing from life. Sort of the Chinese are much more engaged in life. This is a sweeping and crass generalisation, but it'll do for the moment. And there are many forms of Chinese Buddhism, but probably the most famous in the West is Chang, or Zen, as it's usually known by its Japanese name. And in Zen, it's very clear that this state of intense focus and concentration doesn't have to be found simply in sessions of meditation; those are there as well, but it's to be found in all kinds of things.
There's a famous question to some Zen master. What is awakening? And the Zen master said, well, it's just growing rice and making our meals and eating them and going to bed - which sounds kind of whacky But the point that he was making, as far as I understand it, is that it's not the what you do, it's the how you do it, and all things are done with this focus on the present. The whole distinction between the thinker thinking of something, and the thing thought about just disappears. This sort of fundamental duality in Western philosophy between the subject and object just disappears. It's a very distinctive phenomenological experience. I think actually most people have had it who do long distance driving. If you're driving a car for five or six hours out in the country, after a while if you're not chatting or listening to music you just become thoroughly absorbed in the driving, and it ceases to be you driving, it ceases to be the driving that you're conscious of; there is just the driving. And I think this is a very common experience of this kind of state of intense focus in which the subject-object duality disappears. So yes, I think the brief answer to your question is Yes.
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Australian Association of Buddhist Studies
http://www.buddhiststudies.org.au/
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