Intro Philosophy: Daoism, Lao Zi & Zhuang Zi
This week, we will be studying the two most central texts of Chinese Daoism: the Dao De Jing of Laozi, and the book of the ‘second patriarch’ of Daoism, Zhuangzi. Daoism has always been dear to my heart, as I have an old printing of the Dao (on the book, the ‘Tao Te Ching’, now typically and more accurately written ‘Dao De Jing’) which I loved when I was a kid with black and white photos of beaches and sea gulls in fog accompanying the text. It was only later in my studies that I was able to have a real love of the text, which at first seemed simply mysterious poetry.
Daoism is often opposed to Confucianism as a skeptical and mystical school of thought vs. Confucianism which is a more traditionalist and dogmatic school. Indeed, Daoism is one of the most powerful skeptical schools of thought in history, and during the later years of the Han dynasty peasants and scholars turned from Confucianism to Daoism in support of innovation and revolution (such as the famous Yellow turban rebellions of 184 and 187 CE). Daoist sages are often ordinary men and women. However it is also clear that Confucius was critical of tradition, politics, knowledge and judgement, and Daoism became an orthodox religious system that was used by the Han and later dynasties to control and pacify the people.
While Confucianism advocates city life, study, and the structure of the family and state, Daoism advocates returning to nature and the natural (ziran), simplicity, meditation, and questioning all human understanding. Confucianism argues that we should cultivate and civilize ourselves through education and tradition, Daoism argues that we should return to our natural state and let nature run its course, thus reaching a state of completion. Rather than study harder to understand more distinctions between things, Daoism argues we should work hard to forget the understandings and distinctions we have stored up in ourselves already. Daoists would agree with Confucius that “a noble person is not a pot”, but rather than add and stir they would have us empty it out.
Many are familiar with the Daoist image of the Yin and Yang intertwining female earth energy of darkness and male sky energy of light, however only few know that the symbol originally comes from the Yin Yang school, one of the hundred schools of thought from the warring states and hundred schools period of Chinese philosophy. The Daoists got the symbol from this school, and followed similar ideas about things being constituted by opposing forces. The symbol has also been identified as a solar calendar that charts daylight hours over the course of a year, important for farmers who were supporters and sources of both the Yin Yang and Daoist schools of thought. When the Han unified China, they patronized Confucianism and Daoism but not the Yin Yang school and others that disappeared without their support.
The most important concept for Daoism (and, interestingly, the mystics of most religions) is the Great One, the All. Like Confucius and Confucianism, Daoism followed the Zhou Dynasty before the Han in speaking about the Way (Dao) of heaven and the mandate of heaven but less about the ‘Lord of Heaven’, showing us the same abstraction and evolution from polytheism to monotheism to philosophical monism we found in ancient Egypt, India and Greece. Like in ancient Egypt and India, but unlike ancient Greece after the spread of Christianity, ancient China kept traditional polytheism as their philosophers moved toward monism. In Daoism, you can find many gods and the Dao, the Way, being praised and venerated beyond all particular beings.
Daoism argues that one should remove one-sided judgments and desires from the mind such that harmony with the whole, with the One, is achieved. This is similar in many ways to the Indian Jain idea of anekantavada, ‘non-one-sidedness’. My favorite quote from the Zhuang Zi, which can serve as a great slogan for skepticism and relativism is, “A sage too has a this and a that, but his that has a this, and his this has a that”. We also find in the Zhuangzi accusations that other schools are one-sided in their theories and thus not clear on the whole.
With regard to the Confucians and the Moists, what one calls right the other calls wrong, but if we want to right their wrongs and wrong their rights, the best thing to use is clarity.
A key concept for Daoism is wu-wei, ‘non-action’. The idea is to get what you want by being patient and doing less, not more, to see results. This increases one’s ability to perceive changing circumstances and opportunities in the situation that one would miss if hurried or over-exerting. The idea is to act less but still act, not to simply not act at all. Acting with moderation and simplicity in mind conserves energy and prevents mistakes that can be avoided. Patience and awareness are valued over speed and focus.
There is a medieval Japanese story that illustrates wu-wei well. A local lord has three sons, and must decide who should inherit his position. He tests them by placing a pillow on the sliding door to his room and calling them one at a time. The eldest son enters and annihilates the pillow in a frenzy of skilled sword strikes. The middle son draws his sword but sees the pillow in midair and catches it. The youngest son sees the pillow on the door, tucks it under his arm and enters the room to the joy of his father. Those familiar with Aikido, the Japanese martial art, will recognize the concept of wu-wei as it is physically used: one defeats one’s opponent by moving out of their way and allowing the situation to take its course, not by directly striking them.
It is traditionally held that Laozi, whose name simply means ‘Old Master’, lived sometime around 600 BCE, and Zhuangzi, the second patriarch of Daoism, lived from 370-290 BCE. Not much is known about either patriarch. Zhuangzi’s life and dates are better known. He worked as a overseer of a lacquer warehouse, a place for mass-producing bento boxes, vases and plates with glazes. According to his text, written by his students and followers, he was a friend of many philosophers including the Logicians Hui Shi and Gongsun Long. Laozi was traditionally said to have been an archivist of the Imperial library who Confucius wanted to study under but was rejected. Modern scholarship considers Laozi to be a combination of at least three old masters whose life stories were mixed together as the tradition settled.
The Dao De Jing of Lao Zi
Laozi is said to have given up on life in politically turbulent China and rode a water buffalo west to live as a hermit. As he was about to leave the state, he was recognized by the border guard Yin Xi who pleaded with him to leave his teachings for the people before leaving society. Laozi consented and in the dirt road wrote the 81 passages of the Dao De Jing (a sacred number, 9 times 9, each of which is 3 times 3) before disappearing forever. Because no one witnessed his death, he is considered an immortal like other Daoist sages.
The first chapter, opening verse, of the Dao De Jing, famously reads:
The Dao can be talked about, but not the Eternal Dao. Names can be named, but not the Eternal Name. As the origin of heaven and earth, it is nameless.
The All, or the One, includes everything. Thus, there is no proper or particular name. The All does not need a particular name, because there is nothing in particular that one can judge about it. It is the source of all things, so it could be called ‘green’, ‘not green’, ‘life’, ‘death’,‘both’ or ‘neither’, with equal but equally incomplete meaning. The same, of course, goes for any adjective. Just as any particular thing has its opposite (hot and cold, good and evil), the One is the source of all opposites, and thus is neither and both of each particular thing. Notice the duality of heaven and earth, of open sky and closed ground. Sometimes we think being solid and limited is good, other times we feel that being open and free is good. In fact, the All is all solidity (order) and freedom (chaos), so it is the source of all closure and openness. In the first three lines, we have much of Daoist thought already.
In chapter 8 of the Dao, we learn that the Dao is like water. This is a common metaphor that Daoism employs to describe how the way and nature of things is fluid, like water, getting down into the lowest and tightest cracks and divisions. The Dao has no status or pride, and so like the Daoist sage the Way is down amongst the poor and the common, together as one with the things people avoid and despise as well as the things people exalt and desire.
Chapter 9 of the Dao is a classic example of Daoist reasoning by contradiction. All things have contradictory properties, but this is hard for our one sided judgments and views to see. Thus, we are told that if we continue to sharpen a sword it goes dull, and if we store up enough valuables they will surely attract thieves, and so no one can fully protect a palace of gold and diamonds. “When you have done your work, retire” means to do just enough for the present situation, but not build up merit or riches, for they will bring you trouble.
Chapter 10 asks if we can make our strength united with softness like a little child. It says that growing while refraining from dominating is the secret to life.
Chapter 11 of the Dao is my favorite. I find it very important for understanding the duality of positive and negative, the solid and empty we saw in heaven-and-earth of chapter 1. We are told that a wheel is only useful because of the emptiness at the center. When you first look at a wheel, you see it as a simply solid thing. Then, if you look again, you will see that the emptiness, not just the substance, is important too. Imagine if a house was not mostly empty, but was solid through and through. You would not be able to get inside it! May as well build the house in outer space. Solid and empty get their meanings, their uses, from a mutual relationship, not from one being the only thing and the other merely false. I love this verse, as it is very close to Hegel’s idea of positive, negative, and synthesis. The synthesis here would be seeing not just the solid wheel, nor simply the emptiness, but both working together.
Human truth is quite relative. At first, one believes particular things are absolute. After negative experiences, it is easy to be discouraged and only see the limitations and emptiness of beliefs. This would be like focusing on first the solidity and then the emptiness of the wheel exclusively. The point is not to stop at the emptiness however, but to see that both sides work together to make the wheel, all things, and life itself, what it is. There is a Zen Buddhist Koan which says something very similar: “First practicing (Zen), I saw a rock as a rock…then, I saw it as not a rock…finally, I saw it as truly a rock.”
In Chapter 22, we read that the sage does not boast, and is thus admired by everyone, that he does not want to shine, and is thus will be enlightened, that he does not seek excellence, and is thus exalted, that because he does not argue, no one can argue with him. Most people assume that they know what is simply good, and what is simply bad, and they are not afraid to tell you so. Only the sage, the wise person, knows not to boast about anything but to enjoy and appreciate things just as they are, and thus the sage is far less annoying than the average person. This takes practice and patience, something the average person does not have the patience for before making a quick and certain judgment leading to action. If you desire nothing, “everything will flock to you”, and you have whatever you need right at hand in any situation. This is opposite the common understanding, which says that you must want something and relentlessly seek it in order to have it. Patient action is often more fruitful then strenuous action.
In Chapter 25, we read that there is only one thing that is complete and turns in a perfect circle without endangering itself, the “Mother of All”. The texts says, “I call the Dao...Painfully giving it a name, I call it great”.
Chapter 33 reads, “Whoever knows others is clever. Whoever knows himself is wise. Whoever conquers others has force. Whoever conquers themselves is truly strong.”
Chapter 36 reads, “What you want to weaken you must first allow to grow strong. What you want to destroy, you must first allow to flourish. From whomever you want to take away, to him you must first give.
In Chapter 42 we read, “The strong do not die a natural death”, or “The violent die a violent death”. This is quite similar to Jesus saying, ‘those who live by the sword die by the sword’. Try to gain for yourself, and the great balance of all things will cut you down, doing to you what you do to others. In the Zhuangzi, twice there appears the example of a gnarled old tree which outlives other trees because it does not grow powerful and strong and is thus not cut down and used to build other things by woodcutters and carpenters.
In Chapter 43, we read, “The softest thing on earth overtakes the hardest thing...From this one recognizes the value of non-action (wu-wei).” This calls to mind a seashore, with the waves of soft fluid water battering the hard rock cliffs to make sand where the water and land meet.
Chapter 46 reads, “When the Dao rules on earth, racehorses are used to pull dung carts. When the Dao has been lost on earth, warhorses are raised on green fields. There is no greater defect than many desires. There is no greater evil than to not know sufficiency...Therefore, the sufficiency of sufficiency is lasting sufficiency.”
Chapter 56 reads, “Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.”
Chapter 60 reads, “A great nation must be led the way one fries a small fish. If one administers the world according to the Dao, then the ancestors do not swarm about as spirits. Not that the ancestors are not spirits, but their spirits do not harm humanity.”
Chapter 63 reads, “Whoever practices non-action occupies themselves with not being occupied, finds taste in what is tasteless, sees the great in the small and the much in the little...Plan what is difficult while it is still easy. Do the hard thing while it is still small. Everything heavy on earth begins as something light. Everything on earth begins as something small.”
Chapter 64 reads, “The tallest tree trunk grows from a sprout as thin as a hair. A tower nine stories high is built from a small pile of earth. A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single footstep in front of your feet.”
Chapter 67 reads, “I have three treasures that I treasure an guard. The first is called ‘love’. The second is called ‘sufficiency’. The third is called ‘not daring to lead the world’.
Chapter 68 reads, “Whoever knows how to lead well is not warlike. Whoever knows how to fight well is not angry. Whoever knows how to conquer enemies does not fight them. Whoever knows how to use men well keeps themselves low.”
Chapter 71 reads “To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, this is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, this is mental sickness”. Knowledge is always focusing on one thing. When you focus on one thing, you ignore everything else. This is crucial to seeing how our knowledge is always human perspective, and how it can always be improved and extended.
Chapter 76 reads, “When we enter life we are soft and weak. When we die we are hard and strong. Plants when they enter life are soft and tender. When they die they are dry and stiff. Therefore the hard and strong are companions of death, and the soft and weak are companions of life. Therefore, when weapons are strong they are not victorious. When trees are strong they are cut down.”
The last Chapter, 81, reads, “True words are not beautiful. Beautiful words are not true...The more the sages do for others, the more they possess. The more they give to others, the more they have.”
The Book of Zhuang Zi
While Laozi’s Dao De Jing is concerned with how to properly live as a community and sounds like political advice to rulers and officials in many places, Zhuangzi’s text, known under his name as ‘The Zhuangzi’, is concerned with the individual mind, with human judgements and attitude. It argues that individuals should seek freedom and happiness through simplicity and open-mindedness. Zhuangzi may have been from the Sung region of ancient China, a place torn apart by political conflicts from within and conquered repeatedly by neighboring regions. Zhuangzi repeatedly suggests that if one takes the long view over many lifetimes, the bad comes with the good and it is all part of one process and whole. While other Chinese masters suggested various ways one could structure the state, as Laozi does in places, Zhuangzi is entirely concerned with liberating the individual mind in a chaotic and close-minded world.
Zhuangzi does speak of Laozi in several places in the text, as he does of many other sages and masters drawing from their teachings as well as being critical of some. In one passage, he tells us that Nan-jung Chu went to see Laozi for advice, who asked him as he entered, “Why have you brought this crowd of people with you?”. Nan-jung spun around, to find no one behind him, as Laozi was referring to the attachments and memories Nan-jung carried with him. Many assumed along with the Daoist tradition that Zhuangzi was familiar with Laozi’s Dao De Jing because both are considered the patriarchs of Daoism and Zhuangzi seems to quote the Dao De Jing in places, however modern scholarship does not know whether Zhuangzi had ever read Laozi’s work or whether both texts are drawing from the same sources. Both patriarch’s books were likely added to by other authors, and it was only by the time of the Han dynasty around 200 BCE that the two texts were set as they remain today.
The Zhuangzi was a major influence on Zen Buddhism, which unlike other Buddhist schools was a native Chinese tradition that was cross-pollinated with Daoism from its beginning. Many Zen koan stories contain lines that are similar if not identical to the Zhuangzi. Joshu, my favorite Zen master who lived about 700 CE, quotes the Zhuangzi to a monk in training, “Ships can not sail where the water is too shallow”. Like Joshu and Zen, Zhuangzi enjoyed using humor (as did Heraclitus) much more than other philosophers, using it to shock and free people from their judgements, understandings and limitations.
In several places of the Zhuangzi, we see the idea of perspective presented the same way as we saw in Heraclitus. We are told that Mao Quiang and Lady Li were legendary beautiful women, but minnows were frightened of them when they gazed into a stream, and birds and deer were frightened by them when they walked through the forest. Heraclitus said that all human beauty and achievement is nothing but apes to the gods. Who knows what is beautiful, humans, birds, fish, or deer? Zhuangzi asks which of them knows what tastes good.
Often, the heroes of Zhuangzi are common people, woodcutters, fishermen, butchers, carpenters, ex-cons, and others of low status. In two places, Zhuangzi seems to exalt while mock Confucius who praises two sages who have had their legs cut off for committing crimes but have flocks of followers. Confucius is made to say that his own teachings are the lowly ways of humans, but these sages know the way of heaven, the Dao, and he would become their student if he only had the time. Confucius says to Wang Dai, who asks about one of the legless sages, “If you look at them from the point of view of their differences, then there is liver and gall (two organs in the body), Ch’u and Yueh (two warring kingdoms in China), but if you look at them from the point of view of their sameness, then the ten thousand things are all one.”
We are told that the emperor learns how to rule his kingdom by listening to Cook Ting, who tells the emperor that he has learned over a lifetime how to cut up oxen with his knife that never dulls because he knows instinctively where the spaces are. We hear about the woodcutter scolding his apprentice for saying that an old gnarled tree is useless, replying that what is useless in some ways is useful in others, such as a tree no one will cut down providing a shady spot for centuries.
When Zhuangzi is asked by Dung Kuo where the way of heaven is, Zhuangzi says it is everywhere. Dung Kuo asks him to be more specific, so Zhuangzi says it is in the ant, in grass, in tile shards, in piss and in shit, horrifying Dung Kuo progressively. Like the Laozi text, the Zhuangzi continuously suggests that we see the lowest things as beautiful, and avoid striving for and hoarding the things people desire to be happy and free.
In the first passage of the Zhuangzi, the mythical Peng bird is mocked by the dove and the cicada (a large grasshopper-like insect) for flying high and far in the sky. They have no frame of reference to understand such an act, as they die every winter and do not survive by migrating south. Several times Zhuangzi is told by other sages that his wisdom is foolish and useless, but Zhuangzi replies, much like the Dao text, that there are no things which are not foolish or useless, but this does not stop them from also being serious and useful.
In another passage, Chien Wu tells Lien Shu that he has heard talk of a holy sage living on a mountain top who is gentle and shy like a young girl, does not eat anything but drinks dew, rides a dragon through they sky and can protect people and animals from illness. Chien Wu says this is clearly insane and he refuses to believe it. Lien Shu replies:
We can’t expect a blind man to appreciate beautiful patterns or a deaf man to listen to bells and drums, and blindness and deafness are not confined to the body alone. The understanding has them too, as your words have just now shown. This man, with his virtue, is about to embrace the ten thousand things and roll them all into one.
The philosopher and logician Huizi tells Zhuangzi that a king gave him seeds of a huge gourd, but when he planted the seeds and grew huge gourds they were so large that he could not use them as containers so he smashed them. Zhuangzi tells him he should have used them as boats, and “Obviously you still have a lot of underbrush in your head!” Huizi tells Zhuangzi that he has a large gnarled tree, which is as useless as Zhuangzi’s reasoning. Zhuangzi replies that if no ax will cut it down, it makes a great shaded place for taking a nap.
Tzu Ch’i tells Tzu Yu that when the wind blows you can hear many sounds made by many things, including the whistling of trees and the wailing of hollow logs, but there is only one wind. He then says:
Words are not just wind. Words have something to say, but if what they have to say is not fixed, then do they really say something, or do they say nothing? People suppose that words are different from the peeps of baby birds, but is there any difference, or isn’t there? What does the Way rely upon, such that we have true and false? What do words rely upon, such that we have right and wrong?...When the Way relies on little accomplishments and words rely on vain show, then we have the rights and wrongs of the Confucians and the Moists. What one calls right the other calls wrong, and what one calls wrong the other calls right, but if we want to right their wrongs and wrong their rights, then the best thing to use is clarity. Everything has its ‘that’, and everything has its ‘this’. From the point of view of ‘that’, you cannot see it, but through understanding you can know it, so I say, ‘that’ comes out of ‘this’ and ‘this’ depends on ‘that’, which is to say ‘this’ and ‘that’ give birth to each other...Therefore the sage does not proceed in such a way, but illuminates all in the light of heaven. A sage too has a ‘this’ and a ‘that’, but a sage’s ‘that’ has a ‘this’, and a sage’s ‘this’ has a ‘that’. A sage’s ‘that’ has both a right and a wrong in it, and a sage’s ‘this’ too has both a right and a wrong in it, so does a sage still have a ‘this’ and ‘that’? A state in which ‘this’ and ‘that’ no longer find their opposites is called the hinge of the Way. When the hinge is fitted into the socket, it can respond endlessly. Its right then is a single endlessness and its wrong too is a single endlessness, so I say the best thing to use is clarity...
To wear out your brain trying to make things into one without realizing that they are all the same is called “three in the morning”. What do I mean by “three in the morning”? When the monkey trainer was handing out acorns, he said, “You get three in the morning and four at night.” This made all the monkeys furious. “Well then,” he said, “you get four in the morning and three at night.” The monkeys were all delighted. There was no change in the reality behind the words, and yet the monkeys responded with joy and anger. Let them, if they want to. The sage harmonizes with both right and wrong and rests in heaven, the equalizer.
Because right and wrong appeared, the Way was injured, and because the Way was injured, love became complete, but do such things as completion and injury really exist, or do they not?
Those who divide fail to divide. Those who discriminate fail to discriminate. What does this mean, you ask? The sage embraces things. Ordinary people discriminate among things and parade their discriminations in front of others. So I say, those who discriminate fail to see.
Nieh Ch’ueh asks Wang Ni about something everyone can agree to. Wang Ni replies:
If someone sleeps in a damp place, their back aches and he ends up half paralyzed, but is this true of a carp? If someone lives in a tree, they are terrified and shake with fright, but is this true of a monkey? Of these three creatures, which knows the proper place to live? We eat the flesh of grass-fed and grain-fed animals, deer eat grass, centipedes find snakes tasty, and hawks and falcons love mice. Of these four, who knows how food ought to taste? Monkeys pair with monkeys, deer go out with deer, and fish play around with fish. men claim that Mao-Ch’iang and Lady Li were beautiful, but if fish saw them they would dive to the bottom of the stream, if birds saw them they would fly away, and if deer saw them they would break into a run. Of these four, which knows the standard of beauty for the world?
Chuchuehzi said to Changwuzi, “I have heard Confucius say that the sage does not work at anything, does not pursue profit, does not dodge harm, does not enjoy being sought after, does not follow the Way, says nothing yet says something, says something yet says nothing, and wanders beyond the dust and grime. Confucius himself regarded these as wild and flippant words, though I believe they describe the working of the mysterious Way. What do you think of them?” Changwuzi said, “Even the Yellow Emperor would be confused if he heard such words, so how could you expect Confucius to understand them? Whats more, you’re too hasty in your own appraisal. You see an egg and demand a crowing rooster, see a crossbow pellet and demand a roast dove. I’m going to try speaking some reckless words and I want you to listen to them recklessly. How will that be? The sage leans on the sun and the moon, tucks the universe under his arm, merges himself with things, leaves the confusion and muddle as it is, and looks on slaves as exalted. Ordinary people strain and struggle. The sage is stupid and blockish. The sage takes part in ten thousand ages and achieves simplicity in oneness...Confucius and you are both dreaming, and when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle.
In the most famous passage of the book, Zhuangzi dreamt that he was a butterfly and forgot that he was Zhuangzi. When he woke, he no longer knew whether he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he is Zhuangzi.
Another famous metaphor used is that of the praying mantis that waved its arms angrily in front of an approaching carriage, unaware that it is incapable of stopping it. It suggests that we move in response to life rather than hold our ground taking pride in our own abilities.
We read in one passage about the True Man, who sounds quite similar to Nietzsche’s Super Man (Ubermensch) who understands the world and himself to be beyond good and evil:
What do I mean by a True Man? The True Man of ancient times did not rebel against want, did not grow proud in plenty, and did not plan his affairs. A man like this could commit and error and not regret it, could meet with success and not make a show. A man like this could climb the high places and not be frightened...He didn’t forget where he began. He didn’t try to find out where he would end. He received something and took pleasure in it. he forgot about it and handed it back again. This is what I call not using the mind to repel the Way, not using man to help out Heaven.
You hide your boat in the ravine and your fish net in the swamp and tell yourself that they will be safe, but in the middle of the night a strong man shoulders them and carries them off, and in your stupidity you don’t know why it happened. You think you do right to hide little things in big ones, and yet they get away from you, but if you were to hide the world in the world, so that nothing could get away, this would be the final reality of the constancy of things.
That which kills life does not die. That which gives life does not live. This is the kind of thing it is. There’s nothing it doesn’t send off, nothing it doesn’t welcome, nothing it doesn’t destroy, nothing it doesn’t complete.
Jo of the North Sea said, “You can’t discuss the ocean with a well frog. He’s limited by the space he lives in. You can’t discuss ice with a summer insect. He’s bound to a single season. You can’t discuss the Way with a cramped scholar. He’s shackled by his doctrines. Now you have come out beyond your banks and borders and have seen the great sea, so you realize your own insignificance. From now on it will be possible to talk to you about the Great Principle.
Jo of the North Sea said, “From the point of view of the Way, things have no nobility or meanness. From the point of view of things themselves, each regards itself as noble and other things as mean. From the point of view of common opinion, nobility and meanness are not determined by the individual himself. From the point of view of differences, if we regard a thing as big because there is a certain bigness to it, then among all the ten thousand things there are none that are not big. If we regard a thing as small because there is a certain smallness to it, then among the ten thousand things there are none that are not small. If we know that heaven and earth are tiny grains and the tip of a hair is a range of mountains, then we have perceived the law of difference. From the point of view of function, if we regard a thing as useful because there s a certain usefulness to it, then among all the ten thousand things there are none that are not useful. If we regard a thing as useless because there is a certain uselessness to it, then among the ten thousand things none that are not useless. If we know that east and west are mutually opposed but that one cannot do without the other, then we can estimate degree of use.
If someone can swim underwater, they may never have seen a boat before and still they’ll know how to handle it. That’s because they see the water as so much dry land, and regards the capsizing of a boat as they would the overturning of a cart. The ten thousand things may all be capsizing and turning over at the same time right in from of them and it can’t get at them and affect what’s inside, so where could they go and not be at ease? When you’re betting for tiles in an archery contest, you shoot with skill. When you’re betting for fancy belt buckles, you worry about your aim, and when you’re betting for real gold, you’re a nervous wreck. Your skill is the same in all three cases, but because one prize means more to you than another, you let outside considerations weigh on your mind. They who look too hard on the outside get clumsy on the inside.
This passage reminds me of a metaphor used by the psychotherapist Milton Erickson. If you put a board on the ground, everyone can walk across it with confidence. If you put the same board three hundred feet up in the air, most people would be terrified, even though walking across the board is the same set of physical motions. Erickson is thinking of clients petrified by fear, such as codependents who can’t leave their abusive partner by taking several steps to the door and then several more out it.
Huizi said to Zhuangzi, “Your words are useless!” Zhuangzi replied, “A man has to understand the useless before you can talk to him about the useful. The earth is certainly vast and broad, though a man uses no more of it than the area he puts his feet on. If, however, you were to dig away all the earth from around his feet until you reach the Yellow Springs, then would the man still be able to make use of it?” “No, it would be useless,” said Huizi. “It is obvious, then,” said Zhuangzi, that the useless has its use.”
The fish trap exists because of the fish. Once you’ve gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit. Once you’ve gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning. Once you’ve gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so that I can have a word with him?
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Asian Philosophy: Midterm Review
So far, we have studied Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism in the class. The midterm will have three types of questions testing your knowledge of the material from the readings and lectures. First, there will be multiple choice questions. Second, there will be fill-in-the-blank questions. Third, there will be short answer questions. The first two types of questions are straight forward. Choose the answer or fill in the blank as best as you can. For the short answer questions, you will be given a list of concepts we have studied (such as the Jain leaky boat, the Upanishads’ ‘Tat Tvam Asi’, the Buddhist metaphor of the monkey mind, etc, in bold below) from which you must select four and write a comprehensive third to a half page explanation for each you select. You should demonstrate that you understand the meaning of the concept, that you can connect it to other material from the class, and that you can apply it to examples from your own experience or outside material (print or video, fictional or nonfictional). If you demonstrate each of these three things and complete the required page length, you will get full points for your answer.
Hinduism (Vedas, Upanishads, Epics & Orthodox Schools)
Hinduism a rich diversity of traditions and schools, Vedas lead to Upanishads that lead to Vedanta, many gods/one god/monism, Brahma vs. Brahman, Six orthodox schools & three unorthodox schools rise in the golden age of Indian thought after the Upanishads, three paths of worship & devotion (Bhakti, Raja & Jnana yoga), Bhakti Shaivism & Vaishnavism, Vishnu as preserver/savior & Shiva as destroyer/transformer, darshana as seeing/being seen, intermediate goal of better rebirth and ultimate goal of moksha/nirvana, additional goals of dharma, kama & artha (discipline, pleasure & comfort), wootz and mathematical concepts of zero, variable & infinite series important to algebra, knowing the self (atmavidya), self vs. no-self (atman & anatman), Vedic passages questioning the gods, Does Indra exist, purchase Indra for modest price, boneless One, frogs like priests, Upanishads (‘sitting down beside’) use Vedas as metaphors about the self & cosmos, Tat Tvam Asi (That Is You), essence mudra, appeal beyond the caste system, beyond knowledge & non-knowledge, becoming as destruction, Jabala’s fig seed & salt water, Ramayana, Mahabharata & Arjuna’s duty, Maya as illusion/trickster/demon, Vedanta schools of Shamkara vs. Ramanuja (monism vs. theism), Vaisheshika school of Kanada & atomism, general/particular/inherence, fire as energy, sound as impermanent, water cycle & inertia, Nyaya school of Gautama, debates & proofs
The Unorthodox Schools of Indian Thought (Charvaka & Jainism)
Charvaka skepticism & materialism, gods, afterlife & all inference as illusion, comparison with Wittgenstein’s ‘facts, not things’, consciousness as fermentation of alcohol, Jainism as relative of Buddhism, two Jain principles of skepticism (non-one-endedness & truth is hypothetical), seven points of view (describable & indescribable), absolute vs. relative truth debate, pot as being/non-being, teaching & discipline in spite of relativism, cycles of the cosmos (kalpas), Tirthankaras, karma as bondage & bad, Jain leaky boat, radical non-violence & vegetarianism
Buddhism (India, Tibet, China & Japan)
Life of the Buddha, the four sights (sick, old, dead, holy), period of austere Jain-like practice, balance over self-hate/annihilation, Buddha vs. Budai the laughing monk, four noble truths, eightfold path, five abilities (wisdom highest), the middle way, impermanence, monkey mind, codependent arising, emptiness as openness/compassion, dueling mudras, meditation practices, Theravada (“Hinayana”) vs. Mahayana, three vows, three ways of being involved in the sangha, popular movement of Mahayana, naga princess story, Buddha nature (from seed to reality), bodhisattvas & vow, superiority to arhats, completion of wisdom sutras, questioning Subhuti to demonstrate understanding transmission, Buddhist logic, dominant causes vs. essences, study, reflection & meditation, Nagarjuna & the Madhyamaka school vs. Yogachara school, the catuskoti
Tibetan culture transformed by Buddhism, Indian sutras & Nagarjuna kept, demons & profane/sacred images, Chinese Zen controversy, celebrity debaters, Book of the Dead, Chinese Han weakening as Buddhism gaining a foothold, Daoism appeal, Chinese concrete vs. Indian abstract, issue with monastery vs. traditional family, Pure Land practice, Shinran & Jodoshinshu, gradual vs. sudden enlightenment, Neo-Confucian use of Buddhist teachings, modern Chinese interpretations, Nishida Kitaro
Zen sitting, unorthodox methods, Buddha holds up a lotus, Bodhidharma vs. Emperor Wu, Hui Neng’s verses, flag, wind & minds moving, Joshu’s dog, Gutei’s finger, Nansen, Joshu & the cat, Joshu’s avoid picking & choosing, compulsive passions are Buddha, tale of old woman burning down the hut, girl in the kimono, samurai & the gates of hell, Basho’s frog
Hinduism (Vedas, Upanishads, Epics & Orthodox Schools)
Hinduism a rich diversity of traditions and schools, Vedas lead to Upanishads that lead to Vedanta, many gods/one god/monism, Brahma vs. Brahman, Six orthodox schools & three unorthodox schools rise in the golden age of Indian thought after the Upanishads, three paths of worship & devotion (Bhakti, Raja & Jnana yoga), Bhakti Shaivism & Vaishnavism, Vishnu as preserver/savior & Shiva as destroyer/transformer, darshana as seeing/being seen, intermediate goal of better rebirth and ultimate goal of moksha/nirvana, additional goals of dharma, kama & artha (discipline, pleasure & comfort), wootz and mathematical concepts of zero, variable & infinite series important to algebra, knowing the self (atmavidya), self vs. no-self (atman & anatman), Vedic passages questioning the gods, Does Indra exist, purchase Indra for modest price, boneless One, frogs like priests, Upanishads (‘sitting down beside’) use Vedas as metaphors about the self & cosmos, Tat Tvam Asi (That Is You), essence mudra, appeal beyond the caste system, beyond knowledge & non-knowledge, becoming as destruction, Jabala’s fig seed & salt water, Ramayana, Mahabharata & Arjuna’s duty, Maya as illusion/trickster/demon, Vedanta schools of Shamkara vs. Ramanuja (monism vs. theism), Vaisheshika school of Kanada & atomism, general/particular/inherence, fire as energy, sound as impermanent, water cycle & inertia, Nyaya school of Gautama, debates & proofs
The Unorthodox Schools of Indian Thought (Charvaka & Jainism)
Charvaka skepticism & materialism, gods, afterlife & all inference as illusion, comparison with Wittgenstein’s ‘facts, not things’, consciousness as fermentation of alcohol, Jainism as relative of Buddhism, two Jain principles of skepticism (non-one-endedness & truth is hypothetical), seven points of view (describable & indescribable), absolute vs. relative truth debate, pot as being/non-being, teaching & discipline in spite of relativism, cycles of the cosmos (kalpas), Tirthankaras, karma as bondage & bad, Jain leaky boat, radical non-violence & vegetarianism
Buddhism (India, Tibet, China & Japan)
Life of the Buddha, the four sights (sick, old, dead, holy), period of austere Jain-like practice, balance over self-hate/annihilation, Buddha vs. Budai the laughing monk, four noble truths, eightfold path, five abilities (wisdom highest), the middle way, impermanence, monkey mind, codependent arising, emptiness as openness/compassion, dueling mudras, meditation practices, Theravada (“Hinayana”) vs. Mahayana, three vows, three ways of being involved in the sangha, popular movement of Mahayana, naga princess story, Buddha nature (from seed to reality), bodhisattvas & vow, superiority to arhats, completion of wisdom sutras, questioning Subhuti to demonstrate understanding transmission, Buddhist logic, dominant causes vs. essences, study, reflection & meditation, Nagarjuna & the Madhyamaka school vs. Yogachara school, the catuskoti
Tibetan culture transformed by Buddhism, Indian sutras & Nagarjuna kept, demons & profane/sacred images, Chinese Zen controversy, celebrity debaters, Book of the Dead, Chinese Han weakening as Buddhism gaining a foothold, Daoism appeal, Chinese concrete vs. Indian abstract, issue with monastery vs. traditional family, Pure Land practice, Shinran & Jodoshinshu, gradual vs. sudden enlightenment, Neo-Confucian use of Buddhist teachings, modern Chinese interpretations, Nishida Kitaro
Zen sitting, unorthodox methods, Buddha holds up a lotus, Bodhidharma vs. Emperor Wu, Hui Neng’s verses, flag, wind & minds moving, Joshu’s dog, Gutei’s finger, Nansen, Joshu & the cat, Joshu’s avoid picking & choosing, compulsive passions are Buddha, tale of old woman burning down the hut, girl in the kimono, samurai & the gates of hell, Basho’s frog
Friday, October 7, 2011
Logic: Chinese Paradox
Logic: Chinese Paradox
In China, we find Daoists, Logicians and Zen monks (Chan in Chinese) showing the skeptical side of logic and human thought that we have already seen in India (Jainism & Buddhism) and Greece (Heraclitus, Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus).
DAOISM: LAOZI & ZHUANGZI
The Dao De Jing (formerly the Tao Te Ching under the old Wade-Giles system from the 1800s) is the book by the first Daoist patriarch Laozi (600 BCE) according to tradition. This book and the book of the second Daoist Patriarch Zhuangzi (370-300 BCE) have many excellent examples of some and some not, paradox and contradiction. We will consider some of these before the paradoxes of the Chinese logicians Hui Shi and Gongsun Long.
Chapter 11 of the Dao is one of my favorites. It tells us that a wheel is only useful because of the hole in the center. The same is true of a jar made of clay, and the space in a room as well as the doors and windows. We naturally think of things as positives, as beings, but non-being, the holes and emptiness, goes hand in hand with the being to make it what it is. This is quite similar to the example of the pot found in Jain and Buddhist logic. Things both are and are not in very specific ways to be what they are. The wheel is both solid and empty at the same time, but not in all of its parts equally. Positive and negative, being and non-being, work together to make things what they are. In a similar way, as we saw with Heraclitus, things must not be, then become what they are, and then stop being what they are to be an individual thing. Being, non-being, becoming, and unbecoming must all happen continuously for a thing to be what it is.
There is a Buddhist koan that says at first we see a thing as a thing, then after practice and contemplation we see the thing as a non-thing (a concept, or illusion), and then after further practice and contemplation we again see the thing as a thing (but also, in this third stage, as also a non-thing, our conception). Hegel, whose logic we will learn later, sees this same three-fold process in every stage of individual thought and history of philosophy. At first, if asked, the wheel is a thing, not a nothing or non-thing. Then, we see the hole when it is pointed out to us. Finally, we can see that the solidity and the emptiness of the wheel are both necessary and essential to the wheel being what it is together.
In the Zhuang Zi there are many excellent passages. There are many parts of the text that are almost identical to fragments of Heraclitus. Both Zhuang Zi and Heraclitus say that things can be good to some and bad to others at the same time, dependent on the perspective of the viewer. Heraclitus says that salt water is poisonous for us to drink, but not for the fish who require it to live and breathe. Heraclitus also says that pigs like to bathe in filth. Zhuang Zi asks us which animal knows what tastes good if each eats something different? He says that birds like to sleep in trees, but humans certainly do not. Both thinkers say that humans are ugly to non-humans. Zhuang Zi says that the legendary beautiful women Lady Mao and Lady Qiang frightened minnows, deer and birds when they walked through the forest. Clearly, human beauty is of no matter to animals who find us frightening and ugly. Another passage asks if words say something or nothing and compares them to the peeps of baby birds. Our words relatively say things, but may mean nothing in a thousand years. This does not prevent them from meaning something powerfully today to many people.
Another of my favorite passages tells us, “A sage too has a this and a that, but his that has a this, and his this has a that.” Speaking of the Confucians and the Moists (two competing schools of Chinese thought at the time the text is being written) it says what one school calls right the other school calls wrong, but if we want to right their wrongs and wrong their rights, the best thing to use is clarity. Notice how similar this is to Jain and Buddhist logic’s conception of attachment to partial viewpoints. It suggests that a sage would see the wrong to a right and the right to a wrong, would see how something said is both meaningful and yet meaningless, and thus have more ability to mean many different things.
Another passage which is important for the two logicians to follow says that among the 10,000 things (the number 10,000 means ‘everything’ in the Chinese tradition, much as we would use the word ‘million’ or ‘billion’ today) there are none that are not big, small, right, wrong, useful and useless. If we consider relativity, any particular thing must be bigger that some other thing and smaller than some other thing. If right and wrong, useful and useless are similarly relative, then the sage should see the back and forth, the some and some not to each of these in considering each individual thing.
THE SCHOOL OF NAMES LOGICIANS: HUI SHI & GONGSUN LONG
Hui Shi (380-305 BCE) is famous for his ten paradoxes which are very similar to those of the ancient Greek thinker Zeno, paradoxes of size, location and motion. Hui Shi appears as a friend and fellow philosopher in the Zhuangzi many times, where he is also called Huizi, ‘Master Hui’. In one passage, while passing the grave of Hui Shi’s grave Zhuangzi laments that he has no one he can talk to anymore. In another, the two are walking together by the Hao river dam when Zhuangzi remarks that the fish love to dart back and forth. Hui Shi replies that he can not know that, because he is not a fish. Zhuangzi replies that Hui Shi is not himself, so how does he know he does not know that? Hui Shi maintains that he can’t know about what fish like, so Zhuangzi points out that Hui Shi asked him, “How do you know that?”, so Hui Shi assumed that he knew it already, and as far as ‘how’, he knows it by standing by the Hao river dam. The two disagree, but they are clearly friends who enjoy arguing together.
Hui Shi’s second paradox says that that which has no thickness cannot be piled up but can be a thousand li (measure of distance) in dimension. He seems to have a line or surface in mind, which is one or two dimensional over any length yet lacking second or third dimensional width.
Hui Shi’s third paradox says that the heavens are as low as the earth and mountains and marshes are on the same level. Indeed, at the horizon the heavens are as low as the earth and mountains must meet the marshland to rise above it as they do.
His fourth paradox says that the sun at noon is the sun setting, and the thing born is the thing dying. The sun does begin setting right at noon, and as soon as something is born it is transforming and moving towards its death, thus constantly dying.
His fifth paradox says that the lesser similarity is that great similarity is different from small similarity, but the greater similarity is that all things are similar and different from one another. Consider a bowl of apples and oranges. All are round, all are fruit, and all are edible, yet it is easy to see that the apples are more similar to each other than the oranges. It is easy, and thus it is lesser, to see that apples are not oranges and oranges are not apples. It is difficult, obscured by this easy judgement and thus greater, to see that no two apples or oranges are alike and, at the same time, all contents of the bowl are alike. It is easier to see the categories of apples and oranges than it is to see that similarity and difference do not stop at the categories they create for us, but go clear beyond them to unite everything in similarity and difference.
When he says one goes to the state of Yueh today and arrives there yesterday, this is a famous puzzle that is quite like the wisdom tales we read in the beginning of the semester. If one crosses the border of Yueh at the stroke of midnight, then one was in Yueh and not in Yueh both today and yesterday, so one could say that one was going there today and arrived yesterday. We can also say that we were going to Yueh today and yesterday, and arrived there today and yesterday, but you can select the parts to say that are most paradoxical. This is very similar to Gongsun Long’s ‘A white horse is not a horse’ argument.
Gongsun Long (325-250 BCE) also appears in the Zhuangzi, where he says:
“When I grew up, I understood the practice of kindness and duty. I united the same and different, separated hard from white, made so the not-so and admissible the inadmissible. I confounded the wits of the hundred schools and exhausted the eloquence of countless speakers. I took myself to have reached the ultimate.”
Gongsun’s writings are now lost, but his famous ‘A White Horse Is Not A Horse’ argument lives on. Many say that this argument is faulty, but if we follow the thinking of the Daoists and Hui Shi we can see that they are quibling, and Gongsun is showing us the two types of ‘is’ we saw earlier in Buddhist Logic and that we will see again with Wittgenstein. Gongsun does not mean that a white horse is not in any way a horse, but that in one particular way “a white horse” is not the same thing as “a horse”. He argues that if one brings a yellow horse, it would not fit the description “a white horse” but it would do fine for the description “a horse”. The two are thus different sets and are not identical though one set is a subset of the other. This means that “a white horse” is and is not “a horse” (in one way “is” and in another way “is not”), and so he can truly say that “a white horse is not a horse”, like Hui Shi saying the parts of the full truth that sound most paradoxical when said side by side.
Consider that your finger is you but also is not you. If we use “is” in terms of strict identity (like Clark Kent is Superman) then your finger is not you because you are much more than a finger. However, if we use “is” to mean a part incorporated within a thing (like a tree is green, or trees are green things) then your finger is you because it is part of you. Bill Clinton famously tried explaining this with his “that depends what your definition of ‘is’ is”, which did not gain him much sympathy. Being an individual human, you are and are not humanity. In fact, you are only one human out of quadrillions so far, so you are not very much of humanity at all, but what are you more than a human?
THE ZEN PATRIARCHS HUI-NENG & JOSHU
Hui-Neng (683-713 CE) became one of the central patriarchs of the Zen Buddhist tradition by outdoing his fellow student in a poetry competition to see who had the superior understanding and would succeed the master. Hui-Neng was illiterate as well as a southerner from Canton who was considered an inferior barbarian by his fellow monks. The head monk, who everyone expected to be the next master wrote:
The body is the Bodhi Tree
The mind is a clear mirror on a stand
Take care to wipe it continuously
Never letting dust cling
Late at night, Hui Neng had a boy read the verse to him and write the following reply:
There is no Bodhi Tree
Nor is there a stand with a mirror
All things are originally empty
Where can the dust cling?
The master called Hui-Neng and said that this verse showed the superior understanding. Consider the similarity of this exchange to chapter 11 of the Dao. The head monk used traditional Buddhist metaphors, but Hui Neng supplied their complimentary meaning.
Joshu (780 CE) is my favorite Chan/Zen thinker. Many of his short quotes became focal koans for study by students of Zen and are featured prominently in the two most famous koan collections of medieval China, The Gateless Gate and The Blue Cliff Record. Here are some of my favorites.
Joshu said to the assembly, “The ultimate way is without difficulty. Just avoid picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken, ‘this is picking and choosing’, ‘this is clarity’. This old monk does not abide in clarity. Do you still preserve anything or not?”
A monk asked, “Since you do not abide within clarity, what do you preserve?”
Joshu replied, “I don’t know either.”
The monk asked, “Since you don’t know, why do you say that you do not abide in clarity?”
Joshu said, “It is enough to ask about the matter. Bow and withdraw.”
A monk asked, “The many things return to the one. Where does the one return to?”
Joshu said, When I was in the state of Chou, I made a hempen shirt. It weighted 7 pounds.”
A monk asked, “What is the Buddha’s true experience of reality?”
The master said, “Is there anything else you don’t like?”
A monk asked, “What is that which is spiritual?”
The master said, “A puddle of piss in the Pure Land.”
The monk said, “I ask you to reveal it to me.”
The master said, “Don’t tempt me.”
A monk asked, “What is the fact that I accept responsibility for?”
The master said, “To the ends of time you’ll never single it out.”
A monk asked, “I have just come here and know nothing. What are my duties?”
The master said, “What is your name?”
The monk said, “Hui-han.”
The master said, “A fine ‘knowing nothing’ that is.”
A monk asked, “It’s not yet clear to me, who is the patriarch of this land?”
The master said, “Bodhidharma has come, so here we are all patriarchs.”
The monk said, “What number generation are you?” (What position in the Zen lineage?)
The master said, “I do not fall into any position.”
The monk said, “Where are you?”
The master said, “Inside your ears.”
Doctor Ts’ui asked, “Does an accomplished person go to hell or not?”
The master said, “I entered at the head of the line.”
The doctor asked, “You are an accomplished person. Why do you go to hell?”
The master said, “If I had not gone, how could I have met you?”
A monk asked, “What is the perfect question?”
The master said, “Wrong!”
A monk asked, “What are honest words?”
The master said, “Your mother is ugly.”
A monk asked, “Two mirrors are facing each other. Which is the clearest?”
The master said, “Your eyelids hang over Mount Sumaru.”
A monk said, “I don’t have a special question. Please don’t give a special reply.”
The master said, “How extraordinary.”
The master and an official were walking the the garden and saw a rabbit run away.
The official said, “You are a great and accomplished person. Why did the rabbit run away?”
The master said, “Because I like to kill.”
A monk asked, “What is the unending depth of the deep?”
The master said, “Your questioning me is the unending depth of the deep.”
In China, we find Daoists, Logicians and Zen monks (Chan in Chinese) showing the skeptical side of logic and human thought that we have already seen in India (Jainism & Buddhism) and Greece (Heraclitus, Pyrrho and Sextus Empiricus).
DAOISM: LAOZI & ZHUANGZI
The Dao De Jing (formerly the Tao Te Ching under the old Wade-Giles system from the 1800s) is the book by the first Daoist patriarch Laozi (600 BCE) according to tradition. This book and the book of the second Daoist Patriarch Zhuangzi (370-300 BCE) have many excellent examples of some and some not, paradox and contradiction. We will consider some of these before the paradoxes of the Chinese logicians Hui Shi and Gongsun Long.
Chapter 11 of the Dao is one of my favorites. It tells us that a wheel is only useful because of the hole in the center. The same is true of a jar made of clay, and the space in a room as well as the doors and windows. We naturally think of things as positives, as beings, but non-being, the holes and emptiness, goes hand in hand with the being to make it what it is. This is quite similar to the example of the pot found in Jain and Buddhist logic. Things both are and are not in very specific ways to be what they are. The wheel is both solid and empty at the same time, but not in all of its parts equally. Positive and negative, being and non-being, work together to make things what they are. In a similar way, as we saw with Heraclitus, things must not be, then become what they are, and then stop being what they are to be an individual thing. Being, non-being, becoming, and unbecoming must all happen continuously for a thing to be what it is.
There is a Buddhist koan that says at first we see a thing as a thing, then after practice and contemplation we see the thing as a non-thing (a concept, or illusion), and then after further practice and contemplation we again see the thing as a thing (but also, in this third stage, as also a non-thing, our conception). Hegel, whose logic we will learn later, sees this same three-fold process in every stage of individual thought and history of philosophy. At first, if asked, the wheel is a thing, not a nothing or non-thing. Then, we see the hole when it is pointed out to us. Finally, we can see that the solidity and the emptiness of the wheel are both necessary and essential to the wheel being what it is together.
In the Zhuang Zi there are many excellent passages. There are many parts of the text that are almost identical to fragments of Heraclitus. Both Zhuang Zi and Heraclitus say that things can be good to some and bad to others at the same time, dependent on the perspective of the viewer. Heraclitus says that salt water is poisonous for us to drink, but not for the fish who require it to live and breathe. Heraclitus also says that pigs like to bathe in filth. Zhuang Zi asks us which animal knows what tastes good if each eats something different? He says that birds like to sleep in trees, but humans certainly do not. Both thinkers say that humans are ugly to non-humans. Zhuang Zi says that the legendary beautiful women Lady Mao and Lady Qiang frightened minnows, deer and birds when they walked through the forest. Clearly, human beauty is of no matter to animals who find us frightening and ugly. Another passage asks if words say something or nothing and compares them to the peeps of baby birds. Our words relatively say things, but may mean nothing in a thousand years. This does not prevent them from meaning something powerfully today to many people.
Another of my favorite passages tells us, “A sage too has a this and a that, but his that has a this, and his this has a that.” Speaking of the Confucians and the Moists (two competing schools of Chinese thought at the time the text is being written) it says what one school calls right the other school calls wrong, but if we want to right their wrongs and wrong their rights, the best thing to use is clarity. Notice how similar this is to Jain and Buddhist logic’s conception of attachment to partial viewpoints. It suggests that a sage would see the wrong to a right and the right to a wrong, would see how something said is both meaningful and yet meaningless, and thus have more ability to mean many different things.
Another passage which is important for the two logicians to follow says that among the 10,000 things (the number 10,000 means ‘everything’ in the Chinese tradition, much as we would use the word ‘million’ or ‘billion’ today) there are none that are not big, small, right, wrong, useful and useless. If we consider relativity, any particular thing must be bigger that some other thing and smaller than some other thing. If right and wrong, useful and useless are similarly relative, then the sage should see the back and forth, the some and some not to each of these in considering each individual thing.
THE SCHOOL OF NAMES LOGICIANS: HUI SHI & GONGSUN LONG
Hui Shi (380-305 BCE) is famous for his ten paradoxes which are very similar to those of the ancient Greek thinker Zeno, paradoxes of size, location and motion. Hui Shi appears as a friend and fellow philosopher in the Zhuangzi many times, where he is also called Huizi, ‘Master Hui’. In one passage, while passing the grave of Hui Shi’s grave Zhuangzi laments that he has no one he can talk to anymore. In another, the two are walking together by the Hao river dam when Zhuangzi remarks that the fish love to dart back and forth. Hui Shi replies that he can not know that, because he is not a fish. Zhuangzi replies that Hui Shi is not himself, so how does he know he does not know that? Hui Shi maintains that he can’t know about what fish like, so Zhuangzi points out that Hui Shi asked him, “How do you know that?”, so Hui Shi assumed that he knew it already, and as far as ‘how’, he knows it by standing by the Hao river dam. The two disagree, but they are clearly friends who enjoy arguing together.
Hui Shi’s second paradox says that that which has no thickness cannot be piled up but can be a thousand li (measure of distance) in dimension. He seems to have a line or surface in mind, which is one or two dimensional over any length yet lacking second or third dimensional width.
Hui Shi’s third paradox says that the heavens are as low as the earth and mountains and marshes are on the same level. Indeed, at the horizon the heavens are as low as the earth and mountains must meet the marshland to rise above it as they do.
His fourth paradox says that the sun at noon is the sun setting, and the thing born is the thing dying. The sun does begin setting right at noon, and as soon as something is born it is transforming and moving towards its death, thus constantly dying.
His fifth paradox says that the lesser similarity is that great similarity is different from small similarity, but the greater similarity is that all things are similar and different from one another. Consider a bowl of apples and oranges. All are round, all are fruit, and all are edible, yet it is easy to see that the apples are more similar to each other than the oranges. It is easy, and thus it is lesser, to see that apples are not oranges and oranges are not apples. It is difficult, obscured by this easy judgement and thus greater, to see that no two apples or oranges are alike and, at the same time, all contents of the bowl are alike. It is easier to see the categories of apples and oranges than it is to see that similarity and difference do not stop at the categories they create for us, but go clear beyond them to unite everything in similarity and difference.
When he says one goes to the state of Yueh today and arrives there yesterday, this is a famous puzzle that is quite like the wisdom tales we read in the beginning of the semester. If one crosses the border of Yueh at the stroke of midnight, then one was in Yueh and not in Yueh both today and yesterday, so one could say that one was going there today and arrived yesterday. We can also say that we were going to Yueh today and yesterday, and arrived there today and yesterday, but you can select the parts to say that are most paradoxical. This is very similar to Gongsun Long’s ‘A white horse is not a horse’ argument.
Gongsun Long (325-250 BCE) also appears in the Zhuangzi, where he says:
“When I grew up, I understood the practice of kindness and duty. I united the same and different, separated hard from white, made so the not-so and admissible the inadmissible. I confounded the wits of the hundred schools and exhausted the eloquence of countless speakers. I took myself to have reached the ultimate.”
Gongsun’s writings are now lost, but his famous ‘A White Horse Is Not A Horse’ argument lives on. Many say that this argument is faulty, but if we follow the thinking of the Daoists and Hui Shi we can see that they are quibling, and Gongsun is showing us the two types of ‘is’ we saw earlier in Buddhist Logic and that we will see again with Wittgenstein. Gongsun does not mean that a white horse is not in any way a horse, but that in one particular way “a white horse” is not the same thing as “a horse”. He argues that if one brings a yellow horse, it would not fit the description “a white horse” but it would do fine for the description “a horse”. The two are thus different sets and are not identical though one set is a subset of the other. This means that “a white horse” is and is not “a horse” (in one way “is” and in another way “is not”), and so he can truly say that “a white horse is not a horse”, like Hui Shi saying the parts of the full truth that sound most paradoxical when said side by side.
Consider that your finger is you but also is not you. If we use “is” in terms of strict identity (like Clark Kent is Superman) then your finger is not you because you are much more than a finger. However, if we use “is” to mean a part incorporated within a thing (like a tree is green, or trees are green things) then your finger is you because it is part of you. Bill Clinton famously tried explaining this with his “that depends what your definition of ‘is’ is”, which did not gain him much sympathy. Being an individual human, you are and are not humanity. In fact, you are only one human out of quadrillions so far, so you are not very much of humanity at all, but what are you more than a human?
THE ZEN PATRIARCHS HUI-NENG & JOSHU
Hui-Neng (683-713 CE) became one of the central patriarchs of the Zen Buddhist tradition by outdoing his fellow student in a poetry competition to see who had the superior understanding and would succeed the master. Hui-Neng was illiterate as well as a southerner from Canton who was considered an inferior barbarian by his fellow monks. The head monk, who everyone expected to be the next master wrote:
The body is the Bodhi Tree
The mind is a clear mirror on a stand
Take care to wipe it continuously
Never letting dust cling
Late at night, Hui Neng had a boy read the verse to him and write the following reply:
There is no Bodhi Tree
Nor is there a stand with a mirror
All things are originally empty
Where can the dust cling?
The master called Hui-Neng and said that this verse showed the superior understanding. Consider the similarity of this exchange to chapter 11 of the Dao. The head monk used traditional Buddhist metaphors, but Hui Neng supplied their complimentary meaning.
Joshu (780 CE) is my favorite Chan/Zen thinker. Many of his short quotes became focal koans for study by students of Zen and are featured prominently in the two most famous koan collections of medieval China, The Gateless Gate and The Blue Cliff Record. Here are some of my favorites.
Joshu said to the assembly, “The ultimate way is without difficulty. Just avoid picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken, ‘this is picking and choosing’, ‘this is clarity’. This old monk does not abide in clarity. Do you still preserve anything or not?”
A monk asked, “Since you do not abide within clarity, what do you preserve?”
Joshu replied, “I don’t know either.”
The monk asked, “Since you don’t know, why do you say that you do not abide in clarity?”
Joshu said, “It is enough to ask about the matter. Bow and withdraw.”
A monk asked, “The many things return to the one. Where does the one return to?”
Joshu said, When I was in the state of Chou, I made a hempen shirt. It weighted 7 pounds.”
A monk asked, “What is the Buddha’s true experience of reality?”
The master said, “Is there anything else you don’t like?”
A monk asked, “What is that which is spiritual?”
The master said, “A puddle of piss in the Pure Land.”
The monk said, “I ask you to reveal it to me.”
The master said, “Don’t tempt me.”
A monk asked, “What is the fact that I accept responsibility for?”
The master said, “To the ends of time you’ll never single it out.”
A monk asked, “I have just come here and know nothing. What are my duties?”
The master said, “What is your name?”
The monk said, “Hui-han.”
The master said, “A fine ‘knowing nothing’ that is.”
A monk asked, “It’s not yet clear to me, who is the patriarch of this land?”
The master said, “Bodhidharma has come, so here we are all patriarchs.”
The monk said, “What number generation are you?” (What position in the Zen lineage?)
The master said, “I do not fall into any position.”
The monk said, “Where are you?”
The master said, “Inside your ears.”
Doctor Ts’ui asked, “Does an accomplished person go to hell or not?”
The master said, “I entered at the head of the line.”
The doctor asked, “You are an accomplished person. Why do you go to hell?”
The master said, “If I had not gone, how could I have met you?”
A monk asked, “What is the perfect question?”
The master said, “Wrong!”
A monk asked, “What are honest words?”
The master said, “Your mother is ugly.”
A monk asked, “Two mirrors are facing each other. Which is the clearest?”
The master said, “Your eyelids hang over Mount Sumaru.”
A monk said, “I don’t have a special question. Please don’t give a special reply.”
The master said, “How extraordinary.”
The master and an official were walking the the garden and saw a rabbit run away.
The official said, “You are a great and accomplished person. Why did the rabbit run away?”
The master said, “Because I like to kill.”
A monk asked, “What is the unending depth of the deep?”
The master said, “Your questioning me is the unending depth of the deep.”
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Asian Philosophy: Zen
Bodhidharma & the Birth of Zen
Because the Chan (Chinese) or Son (Korean) or Zen (Japanese) school continued to thrive in Japan, I will consistently use the Japanese names and terms in this lecture, even thought Zen started as Chan in China. Zen means ‘sitting’, and the school concentrates not on the chanting of sutras or the support of deities but on meditation and study. It is known for using radical and unorthodox means, such as shouting, slapping, joking, and any other way of breaking through rigid understandings to achieve insight and enlightenment.
In Zen, we can see a mix of Indian abstract psychology with Chinese concrete analogy as we discussed last week. In particular, Zen is heavily influenced by Daoism and uses its teachings and metaphors regularly. Unlike Pure Land Buddhism and other schools of the Mahayana tradition, Zen originated in China and had no precedent in India according to modern scholarship. The Zen tradition, however, traces an unbroken chain of an “inexpressible transmission, outside the sutras” all the way back to the Buddha himself. It is considered the first koan, the first case, It serves not only as a historical record of the lineage but as an object of study for students. It appears in many koan collections, including The Gateless Gate, the most popular collection.
Once the Buddha came before the assembly to lecture, but instead of speaking held up a lotus flower. Everyone was silent, but Mahakashapa smiled. The Buddha said, “I have the eye of the true teaching, not expressible in words, but transmitted beyond teaching. I have given it to Mahakashapa.
According to the tradition, after Mahakashapa there were twenty six patriarchs who received the inexpressible transmission before Bodhidharma left India and traveled to China to spread the inexpressible there. Though this makes him the twenty eighth patriarch, he is called the fist patriarch of the Chinese tradition. In fact, it is quite likely that he was the first and the twenty six were invented after the tradition spread to link his own focus on sitting meditation to the original Buddha. In much of what follows, we will learn from the tradition as taught while remaining aware that modern scholarship has called much of the historical accuracy of each event into question today.
Bodhidharma came to southern China and is said to have arrived at the palace to speak with Emperor Wu, a great patron of Pure Land and other schools of Buddhism.
The emperor asked Bodhidharma, “I have built many temples, copied many books, and supported many monasteries of monks and nuns. What merit have I gained?”
Bodhidharma replied, “None whatsoever. These things are shadows. Real merit is wisdom.”
The emperor, taken aback, asked, “What is the principle of the sacred dharma?”
Bodhidharma replied, “Everything is empty. Nothing is sacred.”
The emperor, enraged, asked, “Who is this who stands before me?”
Bodhidharma replied, “I do not know”, and left the palace.
Bodhidharma is said to have practiced wall-sitting, staring at a wall while meditating, which he did in caves and at the Shaolin monastery where he is also said to have started Kung Fu as a set of physical exercises for the monks there. Shaolin is known today to have been a Daoist god who became a Buddhist goddess, and it could be that Kung Fu is derived from earlier Daoist Tai Chi exercises, which may have been influenced by Indian yogic postures.
After Bodhidharma, Hui Neng (638 - 713 CE), the sixth patriarch, is the most revered in the tradition. He was an illiterate wood cutter from Canton who became enlightened on hearing a passage from the Diamond sutra and decided to join a monastery. Hongren, the fifth patriarch and master of the monastery told him that he was a southern barbarian, and could not expect to achieve buddhahood. Hui Neng replied that north and south make no difference with regard to buddha-nature, and the master accepted him. Hui Neng was ridiculed by other monks, but he continued to practice and achieve understanding. When the time came for Hongren to appoint a successor, he asked that monks write a verse to show what understanding of Zen they had achieved. The head monk, who was expected to become the successor, wrote:
The body is the Bodhi Tree
The mind is a clear mirror on a stand
Take care to wipe it continuously
Never letting dust cling
Late at night, Hui Neng had a boy read the verse to him write the following reply:
There is no Bodhi Tree
Nor is there a stand with a mirror
All things are originally empty
Where can the dust cling?
According to the tradition, Hongren gave the lineage to Hui Neng, who went on to found the Southern School, the school that survived to become the tradition today. Modern scholarship has revealed that Hui Neng founded the school, but he may never have known Hongren. Hui Neng is said to have taught:
No permanence, no impermanence
No arrival, no departure
No exterior, no interior
No origination, no extinction
Another famous even in Hui Neng’s story that is found as a koan for study in The Gateless Gate:
Two monks were arguing about a flag as Hui Neng was passing by. One monk was argued that the flag was moving, while the other argued that the wind was moving.
Hui Neng replied, “It is your minds that are moving.”
Koans of The Gateless Gate
The Gateless Gate (Mumonkan in Japanese) was compiled by Wumen in 1228 for teaching at a monastic retreat. He claims that the collection, including the title, were thrown together without much thought. Along with The Blue Cliff Record, it is the most popular collection of koans in the tradition for hundreds of years. It contains many of the central moments of Zen.
A monk asked Joshu, “Does a dog have Buddha-nature or not?”
Joshu replied, “Not” (mu, ‘empty’ or ‘non-being’)
Gutei raised one finger whenever asked about Zen. A boy began imitating him, and when anyone would ask him about Gutei’s teaching he would raise one finger. Gutei saw him doing this, and cut off the boy’s finger. As the boy ran off screaming, Gutei called out to him. When the boy turned around, Gutei raised one finger, and the boy was enlightened.
Kyogen said, “Zen is like a man hanging in a tree by his teeth, asked ‘Why did Bodhidharma come to China from India?’ If the man does not answer, he fails, and if he does answer, he falls and loses his life. Now what shall he do?”
Joshu went to see a monk and asked him, “What is, is what?” The monk raised his fist.
Joshu replied, “Ships cannot remain where the water is too shallow” and left.
A few days later Joshu returned and asked him the same question. The monk raised a fist.
Joshu said, “Well given, well taken, well killed, well saved” and bowed to the monk.
Zuigan would say to himself every day, “Master”, and answer, “Yes, sir””
“Become Sober”, “Yes Sir”, “And do not be deceived by others”, “Yes, sir. Yes sir.”
When Joshu was still studying with Nansen (Nanquan), Nansen saw the monks of the eastern and western halls fighting over a cat.
He took the cat and said, “If any of you can say a turning word, you can save the cat.”
No one answered, and Nansen cut the cat in two. Later Joshu returned to the monastery and Nansen told him about it. Joshu removed his sandals, placed them on his head, and walked out.
Nansen said, “If he had only been here, he could have saved the cat.”
Hyakujo decided to test the assembly and put a water vase on the ground.
He asked, “Who can say what this is without calling its name?”
The chief monk said, “No one can call it a wooden shoe.”
Isan, the cook, kicked over the vase and walked out.
Hyakujo smiled and said, “The chief monk loses.”
A monk asked Kembo, “All Buddhas of the universe enter by one road. Where is it?”
Kembo drew the number one in the air and replied, “Here it is.”
The monk went to Ummon and asked the same question. Ummon said, “This fan will reach to the 33rd heaven and hit the nose of the presiding deity there.”
Koans from The Blue Cliff Record
The Blue Cliff Record was compiled in the Song Dynasty in 1125 CE. It is the second most popular koan collection after The Gateless Gate, containing 100 koans, 82 of which were taken from the earlier koan collection, The Transmission of the Lamp. It has extensive commentaries written by generation after generation of Zen roshi (masters). The commentary is always amusing, as whenever someone seems to win, the commentary calls him the loser, as if to keep the student from ever settling down in conceptions.
Joshu said to the assembly, “The ultimate way is without difficulty. Just avoid picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken, ‘this is picking and choosing’, ‘this is clarity’. This old monk does not abide in clarity. Do you still preserve anything or not?”
A monk asked, “Since you do not abide within clarity, what do you preserve?”
Joshu replied, “I don’t know either.”
The monk asked, “Since you don’t know, why do you say that you do not abide in clarity?”
Joshu said, “It is enough to ask about the matter. Bow and withdraw.”
A monk asked, “What is the meaning of the patriarch coming from the West?”
Hsiang Lin said, “Sitting for a long time becomes tiresome.”
The hermit of Lotus Flower Peak held up his staff before the assembly and said, “When the ancients got here, why didn’t they agree to stay here?”
No one answered, so he replied, “Because they gained no strength on the path.”
He then asked, “In the end, how is it?”
No one answered, so he replied, “With my staff accross my shoulders, I pay no heed to people. I go straight into the endless mountains.”
A monk asked, “The many things return to the one. Where does the one return to?”
Joshu said, When I was in the state of Chou, I made a hempen shirt. It weighted 7 pounds.”
The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu
Zhaozhou (778 - 897 CE), Joshu in Japanese, is my favorite Zen master of ancient China and the koan tradition. He trained with Nanquan (709 - 788 CE), and both appear in prominent positions in the Gateless Gate and Blue Cliff Record koan collections. The famous koan about Nanquan killing the cat with Joshu walking out was one of the most discussed koans in monasteries of China and Japan. In the Gateless Gate, Joshu’s famous koan about the dog’s buddha nature is the first koan of the collection and he is featured in five of the 48 of the collection. Joshu’s koan about “not picking and choosing” is the second case of the Blue Cliff Record. He is not in the official line from patriarch to patriarch, but he is one of the most famous Zen masters of the tradition in spite of this.
Joshu is a trickster, and it is debated whether he was inspired by Daoist sages. Many of his koan cases sound like jokes. In two he seems to say sexually suggestive things to nuns. He sometimes bursts out laughing as his final response to monk’s questions. His koan collection is by far one of the most entertaining to read.
A monk asked, “What is the Buddha’s true experience of reality?”
The master said, “Is there anything else you don’t like?”
A monk asked, “What is Zhaozhou’s master?”
The master shouted, “You hooped barrel!”
The monk answered, “Yes?”
The master said, “Well done, hooped barrel.”
A monk asked, “What is an imbecile?”
The master said, “I’m not as good as you.”
The monk said, “I’m not trying to be anything.”
The master said, “Why are you being an imbecile?”
A monk asked, “How can you not lead the multitudes of the world astray?”
The master stuck out his foot.
The monk took off one of the master’s sandals.
The master brought back his foot.
The monk could say nothing more.
A monk asked, “What is that which is spiritual?”
The master said, “A puddle of piss in the Pure Land.”
The monk said, “I ask you to reveal it to me.”
The master said, “Don’t tempt me.”
A monk asked, “‘The Great Way has no root’, how can it be expressed?”
The master said, “You just expressed it.”
The monk said, “What about ‘no root’?”
The master said, “There is no root. Where is it that you are being bound up?”
A monk asked, “The solitary moon is in the sky. From where does its light emanate?”
The master said, “From where does the moon emanate?”
The master said, “I can make one blade of grass a sixteen foot golden Buddha, and I can make a sixteen foot gold Buddha into one blade of grass. Buddha is compulsive passions. Compulsive passions are Buddha.”
A monk asked, “For the sake of whom does Buddha become compulsive passions?”
The master said, “For the sake of all people Buddha becomes compulsive passions.”
The monk asked, “How can they be escaped?”
The master said, “What’s the use of escaping?”
A monk asked, “What about it when the three-pronged sword has not yet fallen?”
The master said, “Densely packed together.”
The monk asked, “What about after it has fallen?”
The master said, “Wide open spaces.”
A monk asked, “What is the fact that I accept responsibility for?”
The master said, “To the ends of time you’ll never single it out.”
A monk asked, “I have just come here and know nothing. What are my duties?”
The master said, “What is your name?”
The monk said, “Hui-han.”
The master said, “A fine ‘knowing nothing’ that is.”
A monk asked, “It’s not yet clear to me, who is the patriarch of this land?”
The master said, “Bodhidharma has come, so here we are all patriarchs.”
The monk said, “What number generation are you?” (What position in the Zen lineage?)
The master said, “I do not fall into any position.”
The monk said, “Where are you?”
The master said, “Inside your ears.”
Doctor Ts’ui asked, “Does an accomplished person go to hell or not?”
The master said, “I entered at the head of the line.”
The doctor asked, “You are an accomplished person. Why do you go to hell?”
The master said, “If I had not gone, how could I have met you?”
A monk asked, “The second patriarch cut off his arm, what sort of act is that?”
The master said, “He was throwing his whole self into it.”
A monk asked, “What is the perfect question?”
The master said, “Wrong!”
A monk asked, “What are honest words?”
The master said, “Your mother is ugly.”
A monk asked, “Two mirrors are facing each other. Which is the clearest?”
The master said, “Your eyelids hang over Mount Sumaru.”
A monk said, “I don’t have a special question. Please don’t give a special reply.”
The master said, “How extraordinary.”
A monk asked, “What is the unending depth of the deep?”
The master said, “Your questioning me is the unending depth of the deep.”
Hoju asked Koteiko, “Aren’t you Koteiko?”
Koteiko said, “You’re too kind.”
Hoju asked, “Can you nail up the sky or not?”
Koteiko said, “Please try to nail up the sky.”
Hoju slapped him and said, “After this some jabbering scholar will explain this for you.”
Koteiko told the master about this. The master said, “Why did you make him hit you?”
The master and an official were walking the the garden and saw a rabbit run away.
The official said, “You are a great and accomplished person. Why did the rabbit run away?”
The master said, “I like to kill.”
The master found the two sages Kanzan and Jittoju on Mount T’ien-tai.
The master said, “For a long time I have heard about Kanzan and Jittoju, but having come here I just see two water buffalo.”
The sages put their fingers on their heads like horns.
The master said, “Shoo! Shoo!”
The sages gnashed their teeth and glared at each other.
When asked about this later, the master laughed heartily.
The master came to Po-chang’s monastery. Po-chang asked, “Where have you come from?”
The master said, “From Nanquan.”
Po-chang asked, “What has Nanquan been saying to instruct people?”
The master said, “One time he said, ‘One with no attainment should be strict and solemn.”
Po-chang scoffed at this, and the master looked startled.
Po-chang said, “That’s a fine ‘strict and solemn.”
The master did a little dance and left.
Tales from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones
This book, complied by Paul Reps, was one of the first I encountered in grade school. After reading some of these stories, I knew that there was something extraordinary in Zen. He has collected some of the most striking stories from over 700 years of the tradition.
An old woman in China had supported a monk in a hut in her yard for over twenty years. She decided to test his progress. She told a young girl to embrace and caress him. When she did, the monk replied, “An old tree grows on a cold rock in winter. Nowhere is there any warmth.” When she heard this, the woman was outraged that, while he had done nothing passionate, he had done nothing compassionate towards the girl either, and she promptly burned down the hut.
Notice that an old woman trumps a monk in this story, and that if there is no warmth anywhere then the monk must not mind if his hut is on fire.
Two monks were traveling in the rain down a muddy town road. Around a bend, they found a beautiful girl in a kimono unable to cross. One offered his help, picked her up and carried her over the mud. After the monks had reached an inn later, the second turned to him and scolded him for dangerously becoming involved with the girl, and the first replied, “I left the girl back there. Why are you still carrying her with you?”
Mokusen was approached by a villager who was upset with the stinginess of his wife. Mokusen visited her, clenched his hand in a fist and asked her, “What if my hand were always like that?” She replied that it would be deformed. Then he stretched out his open hand and asked the same question again, and she replied again that it would be deformed. Mokusen nodded and left.
One night Shichiri was meditating when a thief broke in and demanded money. Shichiri replied that the money was in the drawer and he was not to be disturbed. As the thief was taking the money, Shichiri asked that some be left, as he had taxes to pay. As the thief went to leave, Shichiri added that he should be thanked for the gift. Later, after the thief was caught, Shichiri told the officials, “This man is no thief. I gave him the money and he thanked me.” After getting out of prison, the thief became Shichiri’s student.
A samurai came to Hakuin and asked whether there was in fact a heaven or a hell. Hakuin replied that the man was as ugly as a beggar, and when the soldier raised his sword to kill Hakuin, Hakuin said, “Here open the gates of hell.” The samurai understood, and put his sword away. Hakuin said, “Here open the gates of paradise.”
Hogen was visited by traveling monks who were arguing about subjectivity and objectivity. He asked them about a large stone in the yard, and whether it was inside or outside the mind. One said that from a Buddhist viewpoint the stone was inside the mind. Hogen replied that his head must be very heavy to carry around a stone like that around in his mind.
Sengai was asked to write calligraphy for the prosperity of a rich man’s family. On a large sheet of paper, he wrote, “Father dies, son dies, grandson dies.” The rich man became angry, but Sengai explained that if each generation passes away in the proper order, it would be the happiest course for the entire family.
Basho, Master of Haiku
Basho (1644 - 1694 CE) was not a Zen monk, but he did practice Zen meditation and Zen influenced his haiku poetry. He is revered as the greatest haiku master, and many of his poems reflect the natural simplicity of the Japanese Zen tradition. His most famous poem, the first below, reflects this well, as well as the others that follow.
The old pond
A frog jumps in
The splash of the water
In the morning dew
Dirtied, cool
A muddy melon
A day when Mount Fuji
Is obscured by rain
How interesting
The glory of the dawn
This too cannot be
my friend
Let my name
Be traveler
First rains
You are the butterfly
And I the dreaming heart
Of Zhuangzi
Because the Chan (Chinese) or Son (Korean) or Zen (Japanese) school continued to thrive in Japan, I will consistently use the Japanese names and terms in this lecture, even thought Zen started as Chan in China. Zen means ‘sitting’, and the school concentrates not on the chanting of sutras or the support of deities but on meditation and study. It is known for using radical and unorthodox means, such as shouting, slapping, joking, and any other way of breaking through rigid understandings to achieve insight and enlightenment.
In Zen, we can see a mix of Indian abstract psychology with Chinese concrete analogy as we discussed last week. In particular, Zen is heavily influenced by Daoism and uses its teachings and metaphors regularly. Unlike Pure Land Buddhism and other schools of the Mahayana tradition, Zen originated in China and had no precedent in India according to modern scholarship. The Zen tradition, however, traces an unbroken chain of an “inexpressible transmission, outside the sutras” all the way back to the Buddha himself. It is considered the first koan, the first case, It serves not only as a historical record of the lineage but as an object of study for students. It appears in many koan collections, including The Gateless Gate, the most popular collection.
Once the Buddha came before the assembly to lecture, but instead of speaking held up a lotus flower. Everyone was silent, but Mahakashapa smiled. The Buddha said, “I have the eye of the true teaching, not expressible in words, but transmitted beyond teaching. I have given it to Mahakashapa.
According to the tradition, after Mahakashapa there were twenty six patriarchs who received the inexpressible transmission before Bodhidharma left India and traveled to China to spread the inexpressible there. Though this makes him the twenty eighth patriarch, he is called the fist patriarch of the Chinese tradition. In fact, it is quite likely that he was the first and the twenty six were invented after the tradition spread to link his own focus on sitting meditation to the original Buddha. In much of what follows, we will learn from the tradition as taught while remaining aware that modern scholarship has called much of the historical accuracy of each event into question today.
Bodhidharma came to southern China and is said to have arrived at the palace to speak with Emperor Wu, a great patron of Pure Land and other schools of Buddhism.
The emperor asked Bodhidharma, “I have built many temples, copied many books, and supported many monasteries of monks and nuns. What merit have I gained?”
Bodhidharma replied, “None whatsoever. These things are shadows. Real merit is wisdom.”
The emperor, taken aback, asked, “What is the principle of the sacred dharma?”
Bodhidharma replied, “Everything is empty. Nothing is sacred.”
The emperor, enraged, asked, “Who is this who stands before me?”
Bodhidharma replied, “I do not know”, and left the palace.
Bodhidharma is said to have practiced wall-sitting, staring at a wall while meditating, which he did in caves and at the Shaolin monastery where he is also said to have started Kung Fu as a set of physical exercises for the monks there. Shaolin is known today to have been a Daoist god who became a Buddhist goddess, and it could be that Kung Fu is derived from earlier Daoist Tai Chi exercises, which may have been influenced by Indian yogic postures.
After Bodhidharma, Hui Neng (638 - 713 CE), the sixth patriarch, is the most revered in the tradition. He was an illiterate wood cutter from Canton who became enlightened on hearing a passage from the Diamond sutra and decided to join a monastery. Hongren, the fifth patriarch and master of the monastery told him that he was a southern barbarian, and could not expect to achieve buddhahood. Hui Neng replied that north and south make no difference with regard to buddha-nature, and the master accepted him. Hui Neng was ridiculed by other monks, but he continued to practice and achieve understanding. When the time came for Hongren to appoint a successor, he asked that monks write a verse to show what understanding of Zen they had achieved. The head monk, who was expected to become the successor, wrote:
The body is the Bodhi Tree
The mind is a clear mirror on a stand
Take care to wipe it continuously
Never letting dust cling
Late at night, Hui Neng had a boy read the verse to him write the following reply:
There is no Bodhi Tree
Nor is there a stand with a mirror
All things are originally empty
Where can the dust cling?
According to the tradition, Hongren gave the lineage to Hui Neng, who went on to found the Southern School, the school that survived to become the tradition today. Modern scholarship has revealed that Hui Neng founded the school, but he may never have known Hongren. Hui Neng is said to have taught:
No permanence, no impermanence
No arrival, no departure
No exterior, no interior
No origination, no extinction
Another famous even in Hui Neng’s story that is found as a koan for study in The Gateless Gate:
Two monks were arguing about a flag as Hui Neng was passing by. One monk was argued that the flag was moving, while the other argued that the wind was moving.
Hui Neng replied, “It is your minds that are moving.”
Koans of The Gateless Gate
The Gateless Gate (Mumonkan in Japanese) was compiled by Wumen in 1228 for teaching at a monastic retreat. He claims that the collection, including the title, were thrown together without much thought. Along with The Blue Cliff Record, it is the most popular collection of koans in the tradition for hundreds of years. It contains many of the central moments of Zen.
A monk asked Joshu, “Does a dog have Buddha-nature or not?”
Joshu replied, “Not” (mu, ‘empty’ or ‘non-being’)
Gutei raised one finger whenever asked about Zen. A boy began imitating him, and when anyone would ask him about Gutei’s teaching he would raise one finger. Gutei saw him doing this, and cut off the boy’s finger. As the boy ran off screaming, Gutei called out to him. When the boy turned around, Gutei raised one finger, and the boy was enlightened.
Kyogen said, “Zen is like a man hanging in a tree by his teeth, asked ‘Why did Bodhidharma come to China from India?’ If the man does not answer, he fails, and if he does answer, he falls and loses his life. Now what shall he do?”
Joshu went to see a monk and asked him, “What is, is what?” The monk raised his fist.
Joshu replied, “Ships cannot remain where the water is too shallow” and left.
A few days later Joshu returned and asked him the same question. The monk raised a fist.
Joshu said, “Well given, well taken, well killed, well saved” and bowed to the monk.
Zuigan would say to himself every day, “Master”, and answer, “Yes, sir””
“Become Sober”, “Yes Sir”, “And do not be deceived by others”, “Yes, sir. Yes sir.”
When Joshu was still studying with Nansen (Nanquan), Nansen saw the monks of the eastern and western halls fighting over a cat.
He took the cat and said, “If any of you can say a turning word, you can save the cat.”
No one answered, and Nansen cut the cat in two. Later Joshu returned to the monastery and Nansen told him about it. Joshu removed his sandals, placed them on his head, and walked out.
Nansen said, “If he had only been here, he could have saved the cat.”
Hyakujo decided to test the assembly and put a water vase on the ground.
He asked, “Who can say what this is without calling its name?”
The chief monk said, “No one can call it a wooden shoe.”
Isan, the cook, kicked over the vase and walked out.
Hyakujo smiled and said, “The chief monk loses.”
A monk asked Kembo, “All Buddhas of the universe enter by one road. Where is it?”
Kembo drew the number one in the air and replied, “Here it is.”
The monk went to Ummon and asked the same question. Ummon said, “This fan will reach to the 33rd heaven and hit the nose of the presiding deity there.”
Koans from The Blue Cliff Record
The Blue Cliff Record was compiled in the Song Dynasty in 1125 CE. It is the second most popular koan collection after The Gateless Gate, containing 100 koans, 82 of which were taken from the earlier koan collection, The Transmission of the Lamp. It has extensive commentaries written by generation after generation of Zen roshi (masters). The commentary is always amusing, as whenever someone seems to win, the commentary calls him the loser, as if to keep the student from ever settling down in conceptions.
Joshu said to the assembly, “The ultimate way is without difficulty. Just avoid picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken, ‘this is picking and choosing’, ‘this is clarity’. This old monk does not abide in clarity. Do you still preserve anything or not?”
A monk asked, “Since you do not abide within clarity, what do you preserve?”
Joshu replied, “I don’t know either.”
The monk asked, “Since you don’t know, why do you say that you do not abide in clarity?”
Joshu said, “It is enough to ask about the matter. Bow and withdraw.”
A monk asked, “What is the meaning of the patriarch coming from the West?”
Hsiang Lin said, “Sitting for a long time becomes tiresome.”
The hermit of Lotus Flower Peak held up his staff before the assembly and said, “When the ancients got here, why didn’t they agree to stay here?”
No one answered, so he replied, “Because they gained no strength on the path.”
He then asked, “In the end, how is it?”
No one answered, so he replied, “With my staff accross my shoulders, I pay no heed to people. I go straight into the endless mountains.”
A monk asked, “The many things return to the one. Where does the one return to?”
Joshu said, When I was in the state of Chou, I made a hempen shirt. It weighted 7 pounds.”
The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu
Zhaozhou (778 - 897 CE), Joshu in Japanese, is my favorite Zen master of ancient China and the koan tradition. He trained with Nanquan (709 - 788 CE), and both appear in prominent positions in the Gateless Gate and Blue Cliff Record koan collections. The famous koan about Nanquan killing the cat with Joshu walking out was one of the most discussed koans in monasteries of China and Japan. In the Gateless Gate, Joshu’s famous koan about the dog’s buddha nature is the first koan of the collection and he is featured in five of the 48 of the collection. Joshu’s koan about “not picking and choosing” is the second case of the Blue Cliff Record. He is not in the official line from patriarch to patriarch, but he is one of the most famous Zen masters of the tradition in spite of this.
Joshu is a trickster, and it is debated whether he was inspired by Daoist sages. Many of his koan cases sound like jokes. In two he seems to say sexually suggestive things to nuns. He sometimes bursts out laughing as his final response to monk’s questions. His koan collection is by far one of the most entertaining to read.
A monk asked, “What is the Buddha’s true experience of reality?”
The master said, “Is there anything else you don’t like?”
A monk asked, “What is Zhaozhou’s master?”
The master shouted, “You hooped barrel!”
The monk answered, “Yes?”
The master said, “Well done, hooped barrel.”
A monk asked, “What is an imbecile?”
The master said, “I’m not as good as you.”
The monk said, “I’m not trying to be anything.”
The master said, “Why are you being an imbecile?”
A monk asked, “How can you not lead the multitudes of the world astray?”
The master stuck out his foot.
The monk took off one of the master’s sandals.
The master brought back his foot.
The monk could say nothing more.
A monk asked, “What is that which is spiritual?”
The master said, “A puddle of piss in the Pure Land.”
The monk said, “I ask you to reveal it to me.”
The master said, “Don’t tempt me.”
A monk asked, “‘The Great Way has no root’, how can it be expressed?”
The master said, “You just expressed it.”
The monk said, “What about ‘no root’?”
The master said, “There is no root. Where is it that you are being bound up?”
A monk asked, “The solitary moon is in the sky. From where does its light emanate?”
The master said, “From where does the moon emanate?”
The master said, “I can make one blade of grass a sixteen foot golden Buddha, and I can make a sixteen foot gold Buddha into one blade of grass. Buddha is compulsive passions. Compulsive passions are Buddha.”
A monk asked, “For the sake of whom does Buddha become compulsive passions?”
The master said, “For the sake of all people Buddha becomes compulsive passions.”
The monk asked, “How can they be escaped?”
The master said, “What’s the use of escaping?”
A monk asked, “What about it when the three-pronged sword has not yet fallen?”
The master said, “Densely packed together.”
The monk asked, “What about after it has fallen?”
The master said, “Wide open spaces.”
A monk asked, “What is the fact that I accept responsibility for?”
The master said, “To the ends of time you’ll never single it out.”
A monk asked, “I have just come here and know nothing. What are my duties?”
The master said, “What is your name?”
The monk said, “Hui-han.”
The master said, “A fine ‘knowing nothing’ that is.”
A monk asked, “It’s not yet clear to me, who is the patriarch of this land?”
The master said, “Bodhidharma has come, so here we are all patriarchs.”
The monk said, “What number generation are you?” (What position in the Zen lineage?)
The master said, “I do not fall into any position.”
The monk said, “Where are you?”
The master said, “Inside your ears.”
Doctor Ts’ui asked, “Does an accomplished person go to hell or not?”
The master said, “I entered at the head of the line.”
The doctor asked, “You are an accomplished person. Why do you go to hell?”
The master said, “If I had not gone, how could I have met you?”
A monk asked, “The second patriarch cut off his arm, what sort of act is that?”
The master said, “He was throwing his whole self into it.”
A monk asked, “What is the perfect question?”
The master said, “Wrong!”
A monk asked, “What are honest words?”
The master said, “Your mother is ugly.”
A monk asked, “Two mirrors are facing each other. Which is the clearest?”
The master said, “Your eyelids hang over Mount Sumaru.”
A monk said, “I don’t have a special question. Please don’t give a special reply.”
The master said, “How extraordinary.”
A monk asked, “What is the unending depth of the deep?”
The master said, “Your questioning me is the unending depth of the deep.”
Hoju asked Koteiko, “Aren’t you Koteiko?”
Koteiko said, “You’re too kind.”
Hoju asked, “Can you nail up the sky or not?”
Koteiko said, “Please try to nail up the sky.”
Hoju slapped him and said, “After this some jabbering scholar will explain this for you.”
Koteiko told the master about this. The master said, “Why did you make him hit you?”
The master and an official were walking the the garden and saw a rabbit run away.
The official said, “You are a great and accomplished person. Why did the rabbit run away?”
The master said, “I like to kill.”
The master found the two sages Kanzan and Jittoju on Mount T’ien-tai.
The master said, “For a long time I have heard about Kanzan and Jittoju, but having come here I just see two water buffalo.”
The sages put their fingers on their heads like horns.
The master said, “Shoo! Shoo!”
The sages gnashed their teeth and glared at each other.
When asked about this later, the master laughed heartily.
The master came to Po-chang’s monastery. Po-chang asked, “Where have you come from?”
The master said, “From Nanquan.”
Po-chang asked, “What has Nanquan been saying to instruct people?”
The master said, “One time he said, ‘One with no attainment should be strict and solemn.”
Po-chang scoffed at this, and the master looked startled.
Po-chang said, “That’s a fine ‘strict and solemn.”
The master did a little dance and left.
Tales from Zen Flesh, Zen Bones
This book, complied by Paul Reps, was one of the first I encountered in grade school. After reading some of these stories, I knew that there was something extraordinary in Zen. He has collected some of the most striking stories from over 700 years of the tradition.
An old woman in China had supported a monk in a hut in her yard for over twenty years. She decided to test his progress. She told a young girl to embrace and caress him. When she did, the monk replied, “An old tree grows on a cold rock in winter. Nowhere is there any warmth.” When she heard this, the woman was outraged that, while he had done nothing passionate, he had done nothing compassionate towards the girl either, and she promptly burned down the hut.
Notice that an old woman trumps a monk in this story, and that if there is no warmth anywhere then the monk must not mind if his hut is on fire.
Two monks were traveling in the rain down a muddy town road. Around a bend, they found a beautiful girl in a kimono unable to cross. One offered his help, picked her up and carried her over the mud. After the monks had reached an inn later, the second turned to him and scolded him for dangerously becoming involved with the girl, and the first replied, “I left the girl back there. Why are you still carrying her with you?”
Mokusen was approached by a villager who was upset with the stinginess of his wife. Mokusen visited her, clenched his hand in a fist and asked her, “What if my hand were always like that?” She replied that it would be deformed. Then he stretched out his open hand and asked the same question again, and she replied again that it would be deformed. Mokusen nodded and left.
One night Shichiri was meditating when a thief broke in and demanded money. Shichiri replied that the money was in the drawer and he was not to be disturbed. As the thief was taking the money, Shichiri asked that some be left, as he had taxes to pay. As the thief went to leave, Shichiri added that he should be thanked for the gift. Later, after the thief was caught, Shichiri told the officials, “This man is no thief. I gave him the money and he thanked me.” After getting out of prison, the thief became Shichiri’s student.
A samurai came to Hakuin and asked whether there was in fact a heaven or a hell. Hakuin replied that the man was as ugly as a beggar, and when the soldier raised his sword to kill Hakuin, Hakuin said, “Here open the gates of hell.” The samurai understood, and put his sword away. Hakuin said, “Here open the gates of paradise.”
Hogen was visited by traveling monks who were arguing about subjectivity and objectivity. He asked them about a large stone in the yard, and whether it was inside or outside the mind. One said that from a Buddhist viewpoint the stone was inside the mind. Hogen replied that his head must be very heavy to carry around a stone like that around in his mind.
Sengai was asked to write calligraphy for the prosperity of a rich man’s family. On a large sheet of paper, he wrote, “Father dies, son dies, grandson dies.” The rich man became angry, but Sengai explained that if each generation passes away in the proper order, it would be the happiest course for the entire family.
Basho, Master of Haiku
Basho (1644 - 1694 CE) was not a Zen monk, but he did practice Zen meditation and Zen influenced his haiku poetry. He is revered as the greatest haiku master, and many of his poems reflect the natural simplicity of the Japanese Zen tradition. His most famous poem, the first below, reflects this well, as well as the others that follow.
The old pond
A frog jumps in
The splash of the water
In the morning dew
Dirtied, cool
A muddy melon
A day when Mount Fuji
Is obscured by rain
How interesting
The glory of the dawn
This too cannot be
my friend
Let my name
Be traveler
First rains
You are the butterfly
And I the dreaming heart
Of Zhuangzi
Logic: Midterm Review
Form of the Midterm: First 20 – 30 multiple choice questions about the lectures (ex: Aristotle thinks that skeptics like Heraclitus are no better than PLANTS, Kanada believes there are 6 categories, including KARMA/action, etc). Second, 8 short answers that demonstrate your knowledge of the forms that we have learned so far (ex: recreate the square of opposition, the forms of syllogisms, Nyaya proof), essentially the questions from the assignments. No essay.
Logic, Magic and Riddles: We read in Malinowski’s Rational Mastery by Man of His Surroundings that tribes use all of the grammatical forms and pieces of reasoning that we all use. We saw difference of practice and theory, constantly intertwined, in the difference between shallow water fishing and deep sea fishing. We saw in the next article that in baseball, the same sort of split occurs between hitting/pitching and fielding. In wisdom tales, understanding contradiction. Logic switched from the study of debate in early cultures to foundations of mathematics in modern times with the rise of algebra.
Kanada: Karma as action/energy. We saw the basic structure of IF-THEN hypothetical statements. The Modus Tollens transformation: (If p then q), means also (if not q then not p). Ex: If we know “If there are clouds then there is rain”, we know “If there is no rain then there are no clouds”.
Nyaya: We saw the Nyaya form of the two sided debate: (X is Y) vs. (X is not Y). We saw that there are four sources of knowledge: perception, inference, comparison, and testimony.
Inference shows us induction leading to deduction, gathering leading to rules/principles.
The Nyaya proof: Rule, Example, Reason, Conclusion
Wherever there is smoke, there is fire. As in a kitchen.
Because the hill is smoky, therefore the hill is on fire.
Whatever is produced is not eternal, as a pot. (If p, then n, pot is both)
Because it is produced, Sound is not eternal. (Because s is p, s is n)
Note the subtle attack on the older tradition of the Vedas in the last two examples.
While Nyaya scholars believe X is Y or not Y, exclusively, we see that Jains think it must be some Y and some not Y, neither ALL or None. Buddhists argue that X can in some part, sometimes and somewhere be Y but also in other parts, other times and other places not be Y. Nagarjuna’s Catuskoti (is, is not, is and is not, neither is nor is not)
Aristotle: Genus and Species (ex: animal, human), substances can have contrary qualities but only at different times, “if someone admits contrary qualities, his contention is unsound”, skeptics are destroyers, plants.
Square of opposition, All X is Y, No X is Y, Some X is Y, Some X is not Y as four corners.
Top pair (universals) can’t both be true, bottom pair (particulars) can’t both be false.
If we know All X is Y is true, then we know two things are false: No X is Y & Some X is not Y.
If we know No X is Y, then we know All X is Y and Some X is Y are false.
If we know Some X is Y, then we know No X is Y is false.
If we know Some X is not Y, then we know All X is Y is false.
Exclusive and Inclusive OR:
Inclusive Or: X or Y and you can choose more than one.
Exclusive Or: X or Y but you can only choose one exclusively.
The Four Forms of the Perfect Syllogism:
First, the Positive Universal, ‘Barbara’:
All A are B, All B are C, therefore All A are C.
Example: If it’s a human, animal, living thing.
(Venn diagram of A within B, B within C, or partially/fully collapsed)
Second, the Negative Universal, ‘Celarent’
All A are B, No B are C, therefore No A are C.
Ex: All men are animals, No animals are stone, therefore No men are made of stone.
Third, the Positive Particular, ‘Darii’
Some A are B, All B are C, therefore Some A are C.
Ex: Some animals are humans, All humans are funny, therefore some animals are funny.
Fourth, the Negative Particular, ‘Ferio’:
Some A are B, No B are C, therefore Some A are not C.
Ex: Some animals are humans, No humans are reptiles, therefore Some H are not R.
Greek Skepticism: Heraclitus says do not trust experts, we are all a bunch of apes. Pyrrho argues anything against anybody, then the opposite. Sextus Empiricus says inference can be wrong.
Chinese Paradox: Lao Zi’s Wheel (positive, negative, both), Zhuang Zi’s perspective, sage’s this always has a that, Hui Shi’s left today arrived yesterday and greater and lesser similarity and difference, Gongsun Long’s white horse is not a horse argument and two uses of “is”.
Logic, Magic and Riddles: We read in Malinowski’s Rational Mastery by Man of His Surroundings that tribes use all of the grammatical forms and pieces of reasoning that we all use. We saw difference of practice and theory, constantly intertwined, in the difference between shallow water fishing and deep sea fishing. We saw in the next article that in baseball, the same sort of split occurs between hitting/pitching and fielding. In wisdom tales, understanding contradiction. Logic switched from the study of debate in early cultures to foundations of mathematics in modern times with the rise of algebra.
Kanada: Karma as action/energy. We saw the basic structure of IF-THEN hypothetical statements. The Modus Tollens transformation: (If p then q), means also (if not q then not p). Ex: If we know “If there are clouds then there is rain”, we know “If there is no rain then there are no clouds”.
Nyaya: We saw the Nyaya form of the two sided debate: (X is Y) vs. (X is not Y). We saw that there are four sources of knowledge: perception, inference, comparison, and testimony.
Inference shows us induction leading to deduction, gathering leading to rules/principles.
The Nyaya proof: Rule, Example, Reason, Conclusion
Wherever there is smoke, there is fire. As in a kitchen.
Because the hill is smoky, therefore the hill is on fire.
Whatever is produced is not eternal, as a pot. (If p, then n, pot is both)
Because it is produced, Sound is not eternal. (Because s is p, s is n)
Note the subtle attack on the older tradition of the Vedas in the last two examples.
While Nyaya scholars believe X is Y or not Y, exclusively, we see that Jains think it must be some Y and some not Y, neither ALL or None. Buddhists argue that X can in some part, sometimes and somewhere be Y but also in other parts, other times and other places not be Y. Nagarjuna’s Catuskoti (is, is not, is and is not, neither is nor is not)
Aristotle: Genus and Species (ex: animal, human), substances can have contrary qualities but only at different times, “if someone admits contrary qualities, his contention is unsound”, skeptics are destroyers, plants.
Square of opposition, All X is Y, No X is Y, Some X is Y, Some X is not Y as four corners.
Top pair (universals) can’t both be true, bottom pair (particulars) can’t both be false.
If we know All X is Y is true, then we know two things are false: No X is Y & Some X is not Y.
If we know No X is Y, then we know All X is Y and Some X is Y are false.
If we know Some X is Y, then we know No X is Y is false.
If we know Some X is not Y, then we know All X is Y is false.
Exclusive and Inclusive OR:
Inclusive Or: X or Y and you can choose more than one.
Exclusive Or: X or Y but you can only choose one exclusively.
The Four Forms of the Perfect Syllogism:
First, the Positive Universal, ‘Barbara’:
All A are B, All B are C, therefore All A are C.
Example: If it’s a human, animal, living thing.
(Venn diagram of A within B, B within C, or partially/fully collapsed)
Second, the Negative Universal, ‘Celarent’
All A are B, No B are C, therefore No A are C.
Ex: All men are animals, No animals are stone, therefore No men are made of stone.
Third, the Positive Particular, ‘Darii’
Some A are B, All B are C, therefore Some A are C.
Ex: Some animals are humans, All humans are funny, therefore some animals are funny.
Fourth, the Negative Particular, ‘Ferio’:
Some A are B, No B are C, therefore Some A are not C.
Ex: Some animals are humans, No humans are reptiles, therefore Some H are not R.
Greek Skepticism: Heraclitus says do not trust experts, we are all a bunch of apes. Pyrrho argues anything against anybody, then the opposite. Sextus Empiricus says inference can be wrong.
Chinese Paradox: Lao Zi’s Wheel (positive, negative, both), Zhuang Zi’s perspective, sage’s this always has a that, Hui Shi’s left today arrived yesterday and greater and lesser similarity and difference, Gongsun Long’s white horse is not a horse argument and two uses of “is”.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Intro Philosophy: Confucius
Introduction to Chinese Philosophy
As we have seen in the course so far, systems of thought are not simply dogmatic answers, but cultures of questioning as much as answering. We saw Shamans go on vision quests to learn the sources of problems, and the Egyptian wisdom proverbs question authority, social status, consumption (over eating and drinking), expertise, and other aspects of human life and society. Now, we move to China and examine one of the foremost ethical geniuses of world history: Grand Master Kong, Kong Fu Zi, or as he is known to us, Confucius, the Latinized name transliterated by Catholic Jesuit missionaries who got to China in the 1600s and were astounded to find that the most influential philosopher in thousands of years of Chinese history has teachings very similar to Jesus. Confucius was dedicated to the idea that the individual can obtain fullness and happiness by placing others before oneself and by recognizing the desires of others as equal to the desires one has for oneself.
Before we start in on the schools and sages of the Chinese tradition, first we must cover the shift in transliteration of Chinese into Phoenician/Roman alphabetic characters. Today, we use the Pinyin system, adopted by the People’s Republic of China in 1958, adopted by other countries by the 1980s. It still has problems, but is vastly superior to the Wade-Giles system invented in Britain in the 1800s. When you read books from the 60s and 70s, you find the word Dao spelled ‘Tao’. This is because the Wade-Giles ‘t’ became ‘d’, and so the Daoist classic the ‘Tao Te Ching’ became today the ‘Dao De Jing’. What was once the capital city ‘Peiking’ is now ‘Beijing’. Important for Chinese Philosophy, while the Latinized names ‘Confucius’ and ‘Mencius’ remained the same, all other names changed, particularly the suffix for ‘master’, which was ‘Tzu’ but is today ‘Zi’ (pronounced something like ‘tzih’ with a soft ‘t’ in front). My favorite Chinese philosopher used to be ‘Chuang Tzu’, but is today ‘Zhuangzi’, or Master Zhuang. Similarly ‘Lao Tzu’ is today Laozi, Master Lao, and ‘Mo Tzu’ is Mozi, Master Mo. None of these names unfortunately appear in spell check either way. Luckily, Wikipedia is a good tool for dealing with this annoying situation, for if you search for a name either way, it sends you to the right page with the modern Pinyin name. I use this all the time, even though I have studied these guys for years.
Chinese Philosophy and The Period of the Hundred Philosophers/Schools
One would like to think that times of peace and prosperity are good for systems of thought, but times of civil war and disintegration of empires seems best for thinkers and systems of thought. This was true in ancient Egypt, India, Greece, and true in the golden age of ancient Chinese thought as well. Human beings only rethink problems when they are faced with them, and they are only able to teach new and countercultural solutions when the orthodoxy is weak and failing. In Confucius’ China there were great problems in the Warring States period (500 – 220 BCE) as many kings came and went, each calling themselves ‘mandated by heaven’. Interestingly, this same period is known as the golden age of Chinese thought, the Period of the Hundred Philosophies, also called the Period of the Hundred Schools and Period of the Hundred Sages.
As we have learned with ancient cosmology, the worldview of ancient Egypt and Persia that influenced all three of the axial age powers (ancient India, Greece and China), the world was thought to be built like a person and order was thought to be spoken downward from the heavens to the earth. In ancient China, it was said that if a king was good he would be supported and affirmed by the voice of heaven, which in speaking for a king gave the king the ‘mandate of heaven’ and allow him and the empire to prosper. This is very similar to most other polytheistic and monotheistic cultures of the ancient world. If the king does not follow the way of heaven, the gods or god stops speaking for the king, and someone else comes along and takes the king’s place. Each new king claims that the old king was ‘no longer spoken for’, so the populations of Greece, India etc. find themselves wondering: who or what kind of king exactly does heaven (the heavens) speak for, and why?
The Period of the Hundred Philosophers or Hundred Schools, as it is called, came with the Warring States Period after the Zhou dynasty crumbled and ended with the Han dynasty. While there may not have been a hundred separate schools, there were many schools of thought in this time but many and their teachings did not survive. The four most popular and famous philosophies were Confucianism, Daoism, Moism, and Legalism. The Han did not like the authoritarianism of the Legalists, who believed in harsh punishments and strict laws (likely because the Han were trying to win over the people at a prosperous time with many options), but they also did not like the communalism of the Moists who believed that war should be abolished and, like in Plato’s ideal republic, all property and family shared in common (likely because the Han were trying to hold down a prosperous and diverse empire).
The Han chose, in supporting education, scholarship and the arts, to patronize Confucianism and Daoism. Confucianism included Confucius (550 – 480 BCE), and the two central and early Confucians, Mencius (Men Zi, 370 – 290 BCE) and Xun Zi (312-230 BCE). Daoism included Lao Zi (600 – 500? BCE), supposed author of the Dao De Jing, and Zhuang Zi (370 – 300 BCE), though these two figures would not have known themselves to be ‘Daoists’ any more than Confucius would have known his followers would go on to found the central system of Chinese thought and politics.
Confucius and the Daoists we will examine next week proposed different solutions to this problem. The Daoists believed that going off into nature and rejecting human ways was best for cultivating the individual, while Confucius believed that the city, morality and study were best for cultivating human virtues. Thus, while Confucius and the Daoists were both questioners of individual desires and judgment, Confucius believed we should turn to civilization and cultivation to realize our true nature and the Daoists believed we should turn away from civilization and back to simplicity and the natural to realize our true nature.
Confucius, the Daoists and others speak of the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ (Tianming) and the ‘Way’ (Dao) of heaven (Tiandao) but not of the Lord of Heaven. In India, Greece, China, and many other places, we can see that first many tribes and their gods were drawn into polytheistic (many gods) systems (as we focused on last week), and then after this these were drawn into monotheistic (one god) systems. We can see that many gods with human like desires become one god with human like desires, and then this one god becomes more and more abstract. We see the same pattern in China, where polytheism grew into a monotheistic and then abstract monist ‘Way’ or ‘Mandate’. Essentially, the All Lord becomes simply the mind of the universe or the ‘way’ or ‘order’ of things. The Zhou and earlier empires spoke of the Lord of Heaven, but Confucius and the Daoists in the Warring States period do not speak of the Lord of Heaven, but rather the Mandate and Way, showing us that, like the golden age of thought in ancient India and Greece, the revered thinkers were challenging the old tradition with philosophical monism that questioned the very shape of cosmology itself while extending it.
Confucius and his System of Thought
Just like we had with Egypt last week, Confucius (550-480 BCE) believes that the heart is the center of the human being. Notice that this ‘center’ is both mental and physical, fitting with cosmology, psychology and medical practices. Confucius is often understood as a champion of traditional order and ritual, as he is a proponent of civilization and education against the Daoists who are proponents of nature and meditation. However, it is clear from the Analects that Confucius believed it was more important to have right insight rather than right ritual or tradition, to have right intentions than right actions, i.e. ‘one’s heart is in the right place’.
Confucius was a master of ritual, an official position important for civil ceremonies and legal practice as they still are in courts of law and political processes today. Confucius believed that ritual was the strength of a society and one should perform the rituals, but he also believed that the worst thing was to do ritual without the proper intention. Confucius would say to a churchgoer today: it is more important to enjoy your church than to attend your church, for if you do not enjoy it whole heartedly you should not go. Consider the more secular example of giving a gift to a friend. If you give gifts so that you can borrow someone’s car, you corrupt the act of giving gifts, which should be done without expectations of repayment. It would be better, according to Confucius, to not give gifts to friends than to give them expecting repayment. Empty ritual, ritual simply for the motions rather than authentic love for and continuity with one’s society, is the worst thing, and thus it would be better in such a case to avoid false ritual and simply not perform the ritual at all. This point is often lost when people focus on Confucius’ great love of ritual and traditional culture.
A good example of this point is Analects 5.5 (and yes, these are standardized so no matter the translation, ‘5.5’ is always the fifth aphorism of the fifth chapter or book, just like the Bible and Koran are standardized with numbers): Confucius says that Ran Yong does not need eloquence (civilized speech) if he is not good. Another good example is 11.10, where Confucius is grieving ‘inappropriately’ for his favorite student, and tells his students who complain that genuine love and expression of emotion is more important than being polite or pleasant (right intention trumps right outer form). However, the best example is clearly 3.26, “Authority without generosity, ceremony without reverence, mourning without grief, these things I cannot bear to contemplate”.
Because the Han and many later Chinese dynasties used Confucius as a voice supporting subordination to authority, and because Confucius does indeed say to obey the father and obey the chain of command, it is often overlooked that, just as intention is more important than tradition, unjust fathers and unjust states must be corrected. Many times Confucius says that truth must be spoken to power. How will things change if no one complains? In one passage, Confucius tells his students they should rise up and overthrow an unjust local prince. One should be subordinate to authority, but only just and good authority and tradition.
Confucius was a great champion of scholarship. Like Plato, Confucius believed that society should not be an aristocracy but rather a meritocracy. Confucius believed that scholarship was necessary for developing the heart, and the ‘gentleman’, Confucius’ word for the great person, developed love for others and knowledge through study of the classic texts. As scholars have pointed out, while it has often been translated ‘gentleMAN’, the term is gender neutral and Confucius was talking about the righteous rather than the nobly born, though the term was used before Confucius to refer exclusively to nobles before him. When we see the term in the text, it can also be translated as ‘the noble’, meaning anyone of either gender or social status who is an excellent human being.
Needless to say, Confucius’ Analects became one of the central texts for devoted study in Chinese society, and Confucius became an ancestor revered by devotees with ritual. Confucius is credited as the father of China’s civil service system, a system in which anyone who tested well, regardless of their position in society, was given a government position. This is similar to the development of types of scribes in Egypt. It is just such a development that we call ‘the middle class’, the individuals who through study and work can rise or fall in position to fit the many niches required to run large cities and systems. What Plato recognized in Egypt, Confucius was much more successful in implementing in Chinese society, though unfortunately only after his death. Confucius himself always hoped for a good position, but did not succeed in obtaining one during his own life though he did teach many students and was revered by many of them, including powerful nobility.
Just as Confucius taught that intention is more important than action, he hated scholarship for show without genuine love of learning and discovery of human nature. A good example is 4.9, ‘if a scholar is ashamed of his shabby clothes or poor food, he is not worth listening to’. He also taught that we should balance learning with critical reflection, just as Buddha did, though Buddha, like Daoists, argued that study and critical reflection also needed meditation whereas Confucius saw study as superior to meditation. In the analects, Confucius says that studying without thinking is useless, but thinking without studying is dangerous, showing us that he does believe in individual insight but is traditional and believes in studying the traditional classics. He says, “The noble person is not a pot”, meaning that we are not containers for knowledge but should transform and reflect on what we study.
Confucius was a genius at seeing himself as equal to everyone, and he encouraged this attitude as the path to excellence itself. It was this point that the Jesuits found fascinating in comparing Confucianism to Christianity. Most of us have likely heard the ‘Golden Rule’, which is paraphrased from Confucius: ‘treat others the way you want to be treated’. While Jesus says, ‘don’t treat others how you do NOT want to be treated’, we can understand them to be one and the same. My favorite example is 7.22: Confucius says that if you put yourself with any two people at random, you can take their strengths as a model to follow and their faults as a warning. Clearly, Confucius believed that we all share the same set of strengths and faults, no matter how talented (or horrible) we happen to individually be or where our talents are. Confucius taught that NO ONE is perfect, not even himself, but there is good in everyone and everything, and we had best remember that we will never lose any of our connection to our fellow human beings if we only remember to look hard enough for it. Another excellent example from the Analects: “When you see a worthy man, seek to emulate him…When you see an unworthy man, examine yourself”.
Mencius & Xunzi
Confucius had two followers who became the famous two poles of interpretation of the Analects. Mencius or Menzi, the second patriarch of Confucianism by popular consent in the tradition, believed that Confucius taught that the human being is basically good and develops the heart, growing and developing the virtues through love. He argued that because the human individual is essentially good, we need ritual to guide our growth but love is the true essence. Xunzi, the third patriarch of Confucianism, a cynic and conservative, argued that the human being is essentially evil and without the rituals and tradition to hold our nature back we would be selfish and uncivilized. This remains the major split in Confucian thought, which accommodates both opinions while leaning more toward Menzi.
Menzi uses the famous example of a child about to fall into a well, arguing that anyone watching a child near a well would naturally grow anxious, even the most evil of people. Menzi argues that civilization began when people saw the corpses of relatives being attacked by animals and insects and felt compassion and grief. It is true that burial sites are some of the first archeological finds we have of human culture. Both Menzi and Xunzi, who attacks Menzi’s position later by name, use the example of little children to argue that human beings are good and human beings are evil. Menzi says that we know little children are good, before they are educated and taught manners. Xunzi says we know little children are evil, before they are educated and taught manners. Happy children are indeed lovable, and angry children are indeed immature. Many great thinkers, including Jesus and Nietzsche, teach us ‘be like a little child’, but we often tell others, ‘don’t be like a little child’. Opposite truths are often equally true.
Neo-Confucianism, Zhu Xi & Wang Yang Ming
About 1100 CE, Confucianism merged with Daoist and Buddhist ideas to form a Confucian revival called Neo-Confucianism by scholars today. Buddhist metaphors such as the pearl at the bottom of the muddy lake and the sun emerging from behind the clouds were reinterpreted in light of Confucianism and Daoism. The major figure of this revival was Zhu Xi (1130-1200 CE), who argued that all three traditions were teaching the same truth but that Confucius was the superior and primary teacher. The Neo-Confucians were trying to put Confucianism back into its primary place in Chinese culture after losing much ground to Buddhism over the previous five hundred years.
Wang Yang Ming (1470 – 1530 CE) one of the most revered Neo-Confucians, was famous for the idea of the unity of knowledge and action. While Confucius taught that intention and action are distinct things, Wang Yang Ming taught the complementary truth that the two are interactive as one whole. While someone can say that they know something, we can judge whether they truly know or not by how they act. An example he uses is if someone says they know that a smell is bad, but they do not act like it is bad (gagging, opening a window, pointing at their younger sibling), we could say that they do not really know that the smell is bad but only saying the smell is bad. In the same way, if we know someone is a good person we do not get nervous around them or hide our valuables when they come over. If we did, it could be said that we do not truly know they are good because we do not act like they are trustworthy.
Confucius’ Analects
Confucius shows us a brilliant development of questioning the individual and state that we have already seen develop elsewhere. When people gather, they can see each other and see groups, and are questioning and skeptical of themselves, other individuals, and group organizations.
First we look at the criticism of the individual, clearing the individual heart and putting oneself in tune with the Way. Then we look at criticism of the state, and see that the same shape applies.
Second, notice the passages where Confucius is criticizing sages who go to nature and do not study. Pay attention to this for next week, as these are early Daoists who have different opinions than Confucius about the cultivation of the human individual.
Criticism of the Individual:
(4.12) He who acts out of self interest arouses much resentment.
(5.5) ‘Ran Yong is good but not eloquent’- I don’t know if he is good, but he certainly does not need eloquence if he isn’t.
(11.10) Yan Hui died. ‘Master, this grief isn’t right’ C; ‘What sort of grief for such a man is right?
Criticism of Luxury:
(5.18) Master said: Zang Sunchen built a house for his tortoise, with pillars in the shape of mountains and rafters decorated with duckweed. Has he lost his mind?
(7.16) Even if you have only coarse grain, water and your arm for a pillow, you may still be happy. Riches and honors without justice are to me as fleeting clouds.
Criticism of Ritual without Virtue:
(3.26) authority without generosity, ceremony without reverence, mourning without grief, these things I cannot bear to contemplate.
(4.13) If one cannot govern by observing ritual and showing compassion, what is the use of ritual?
Scholarship without greed or want of career:
(4.9) If a scholar is ashamed of his shabby clothes or poor food, he is not worth listening to.
Haven’t seen someone who studies without any thought of career.
Good is at Hand (7.30) but no one is perfect (7.26)
Says again and again that he is not perfect, nor has he met perfection…
(7.33) My seal is as strong as anyone’s, but I have not succeeded in living nobly.
yet: ‘Is goodness out of reach? As soon as I long for goodness, goodness is at hand.’
(7.34) I make no claims to wisdom or to human perfection- how would I dare? Yet my aim never flags and I never tire of teaching people.
Disciple: ‘This is what we fail to follow.’
Criticism of Selfishness and Pride:
Whatever one’s position, you always share the faults and talents of everyone.
Thus, you have to work to compare self with others, as not intuitive.
You should compare yourself to others, reflect yourself through others no matter how you judge them to be, and work to get over selfishness and become compassionate and balanced (the way of heaven, opposed to selfish desire for lower).
Confucius values joining all of humanity, not being selfish.
(7.22) Put me with any two people at random- they will invariably have something to teach me. I can take their qualities as a model and their defects as a warning.
(9.8) Am I knowledgeable? No. A Bumpkin asked me a question, and my mind went blank. Still, I hammered at his problem from all sides, till I worked out something.
(1.16) Don’t worry if others don’t recognize your merits: worry that you may not
recognize theirs.
(2.13) Practice what you preach.
(4.17) When you see a worthy man, seek to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, examine yourself.
(5.12) Zigong ‘I do not want to do to others…’ C: you’re not that far yet…
(11.4) Yan Hui is of no help to me: whatever I say pleases him.
(9.28) It is in the cold of winter that you see how green the pines and cypresses are.
(15.23) A gentleman does not approve of a person because he expresses a certain opinion, nor does he reject an opinion because it is expressed by a particular person.
(15.24) ‘Single word to guide one’s life?’ C- Reciprocity: do not do to others…
(19.21) A gentleman’s mistake is like an eclipse of the sun or moon.
When happens, everyone notices, and when corrected everyone looks up in admiration.
Good as Unknown, Beyond Judgment and Opinion:
(9.17) The master stood by a river and said: ‘Everything flows like this, without ceasing’
(note Heraclitus)
(2.17) Master said: Knowledge is to take the known as known and unknown as unknown.
(pre 3.14) (quoted by Wittgenstein) About what we don’t know we must keep silent.
(5.13) Our master’s views on culture can be gathered, but you can’t hear his views on the nature of things or the Way of Heaven.
(7.21) The master never talked of miracles, violence, disorders, spirits.
(7.35) Confucius is ill, student: ‘pray to spirits above & spirits below’
Con: In that case, I have been praying for a long time already.
(note not a rejection of the spiritual, but a knowing unknowing)
(11.12) Asked how to serve spirits, says: You have not yet learned how to serve man, how could you learn to serve the spirits?
Death: You do not yet know life, how can you learn about death?
Middle Way: (Buddha, Heraclitus)
(6.17) Who would leave a house without using the door? Why do people seek to walk outside the way?
(6.29) The power of the middle way is supreme, and yet it is not found among the people anymore. (notice restore the golden age)
Reform the old, bring in the new:
(2.11) He who by revising the old knows the new is fit to be a teacher.
(2.12) A gentleman is not a pot.
(Pre 3.4 cut off) each generation has added and dropped from the ritual, so we know what people will look like 100 generations from now (they will add and drop)
In pursuit of virtue, do not be afraid to outpace your teacher (15.36)
Criticism of the State:
Confucius is not a compliant sheep when it comes to the state.
His criticism of individual judgment and pride is matched by criticism of the state.
(11.17) Rich student tyrant: C- attach him: you have my permission.
Sees private interest trapped in the state (nobles disunifying Zhou court, into warring states).
(13.15) asked by Duke: Is there a single maxim/rule that could ruin a country?
C- The prince should never suffer contradiction. When in error, prince should be told.
(13.24) ‘What if everyone likes a man?’ C- Not enough
‘What if everyone hates him?’ C- Not enough: Good should love, bad should hate.
(13.20) ‘present politicians?’ Those puny creatures are not even worth mentioning.
(9.26) One cannot deny the humblest man his free will.
Criticism of Daoism and its sages retreat into Nature:
Just as Confucius appears in Daoist texts as an ally but inferior rival, so do proto-Daoist sages in the Analects. This is very much like Buddha vs. the Jains, in that other group isn’t mentioned by name, but found not to be in balance but extremists. Daoists wanted to escape into nature, while Confucians believe in the value of the city and embracing not escaping humankind. Believe in balance, like Daoists, but seek to balance the city, not escape into the perfect balance of nature from the city. Daoists are more skeptical of society.
(18.16) One cannot associate with birds and beasts. If the world were following the way, I would not have to reform it.
It is not right to be a hermit, and discard human relationships to preserve one’s purity.
(18.18) I do things differently. I follow no rigid prescriptions on what should or should not be done.
(4.1) It is beautiful to live amidst humanity. It is hardly wise to live in a place destitute of people (don’t be a Daoist hermit).
Criticism of Meditation (D and later B), to Confucians not as good as study:
(15.31) I once to meditate went without food for a day and a night without sleep.
It was no use. It is better to study.
Numerous criticisms of inactivity, inferior to activity, study and effort:
(2.1): At 15, I set my mind upon learning. At 30, I took my stand. At 40 I had no doubts. At 50, I knew the will (mandate) of heaven. At 60, my ear was attuned. At 70, I follow all the desires of my heart without breaking any rule.
(4.2) A good man rests in his humanity. A wise man profits from his humanity.
As we have seen in the course so far, systems of thought are not simply dogmatic answers, but cultures of questioning as much as answering. We saw Shamans go on vision quests to learn the sources of problems, and the Egyptian wisdom proverbs question authority, social status, consumption (over eating and drinking), expertise, and other aspects of human life and society. Now, we move to China and examine one of the foremost ethical geniuses of world history: Grand Master Kong, Kong Fu Zi, or as he is known to us, Confucius, the Latinized name transliterated by Catholic Jesuit missionaries who got to China in the 1600s and were astounded to find that the most influential philosopher in thousands of years of Chinese history has teachings very similar to Jesus. Confucius was dedicated to the idea that the individual can obtain fullness and happiness by placing others before oneself and by recognizing the desires of others as equal to the desires one has for oneself.
Before we start in on the schools and sages of the Chinese tradition, first we must cover the shift in transliteration of Chinese into Phoenician/Roman alphabetic characters. Today, we use the Pinyin system, adopted by the People’s Republic of China in 1958, adopted by other countries by the 1980s. It still has problems, but is vastly superior to the Wade-Giles system invented in Britain in the 1800s. When you read books from the 60s and 70s, you find the word Dao spelled ‘Tao’. This is because the Wade-Giles ‘t’ became ‘d’, and so the Daoist classic the ‘Tao Te Ching’ became today the ‘Dao De Jing’. What was once the capital city ‘Peiking’ is now ‘Beijing’. Important for Chinese Philosophy, while the Latinized names ‘Confucius’ and ‘Mencius’ remained the same, all other names changed, particularly the suffix for ‘master’, which was ‘Tzu’ but is today ‘Zi’ (pronounced something like ‘tzih’ with a soft ‘t’ in front). My favorite Chinese philosopher used to be ‘Chuang Tzu’, but is today ‘Zhuangzi’, or Master Zhuang. Similarly ‘Lao Tzu’ is today Laozi, Master Lao, and ‘Mo Tzu’ is Mozi, Master Mo. None of these names unfortunately appear in spell check either way. Luckily, Wikipedia is a good tool for dealing with this annoying situation, for if you search for a name either way, it sends you to the right page with the modern Pinyin name. I use this all the time, even though I have studied these guys for years.
Chinese Philosophy and The Period of the Hundred Philosophers/Schools
One would like to think that times of peace and prosperity are good for systems of thought, but times of civil war and disintegration of empires seems best for thinkers and systems of thought. This was true in ancient Egypt, India, Greece, and true in the golden age of ancient Chinese thought as well. Human beings only rethink problems when they are faced with them, and they are only able to teach new and countercultural solutions when the orthodoxy is weak and failing. In Confucius’ China there were great problems in the Warring States period (500 – 220 BCE) as many kings came and went, each calling themselves ‘mandated by heaven’. Interestingly, this same period is known as the golden age of Chinese thought, the Period of the Hundred Philosophies, also called the Period of the Hundred Schools and Period of the Hundred Sages.
As we have learned with ancient cosmology, the worldview of ancient Egypt and Persia that influenced all three of the axial age powers (ancient India, Greece and China), the world was thought to be built like a person and order was thought to be spoken downward from the heavens to the earth. In ancient China, it was said that if a king was good he would be supported and affirmed by the voice of heaven, which in speaking for a king gave the king the ‘mandate of heaven’ and allow him and the empire to prosper. This is very similar to most other polytheistic and monotheistic cultures of the ancient world. If the king does not follow the way of heaven, the gods or god stops speaking for the king, and someone else comes along and takes the king’s place. Each new king claims that the old king was ‘no longer spoken for’, so the populations of Greece, India etc. find themselves wondering: who or what kind of king exactly does heaven (the heavens) speak for, and why?
The Period of the Hundred Philosophers or Hundred Schools, as it is called, came with the Warring States Period after the Zhou dynasty crumbled and ended with the Han dynasty. While there may not have been a hundred separate schools, there were many schools of thought in this time but many and their teachings did not survive. The four most popular and famous philosophies were Confucianism, Daoism, Moism, and Legalism. The Han did not like the authoritarianism of the Legalists, who believed in harsh punishments and strict laws (likely because the Han were trying to win over the people at a prosperous time with many options), but they also did not like the communalism of the Moists who believed that war should be abolished and, like in Plato’s ideal republic, all property and family shared in common (likely because the Han were trying to hold down a prosperous and diverse empire).
The Han chose, in supporting education, scholarship and the arts, to patronize Confucianism and Daoism. Confucianism included Confucius (550 – 480 BCE), and the two central and early Confucians, Mencius (Men Zi, 370 – 290 BCE) and Xun Zi (312-230 BCE). Daoism included Lao Zi (600 – 500? BCE), supposed author of the Dao De Jing, and Zhuang Zi (370 – 300 BCE), though these two figures would not have known themselves to be ‘Daoists’ any more than Confucius would have known his followers would go on to found the central system of Chinese thought and politics.
Confucius and the Daoists we will examine next week proposed different solutions to this problem. The Daoists believed that going off into nature and rejecting human ways was best for cultivating the individual, while Confucius believed that the city, morality and study were best for cultivating human virtues. Thus, while Confucius and the Daoists were both questioners of individual desires and judgment, Confucius believed we should turn to civilization and cultivation to realize our true nature and the Daoists believed we should turn away from civilization and back to simplicity and the natural to realize our true nature.
Confucius, the Daoists and others speak of the ‘Mandate of Heaven’ (Tianming) and the ‘Way’ (Dao) of heaven (Tiandao) but not of the Lord of Heaven. In India, Greece, China, and many other places, we can see that first many tribes and their gods were drawn into polytheistic (many gods) systems (as we focused on last week), and then after this these were drawn into monotheistic (one god) systems. We can see that many gods with human like desires become one god with human like desires, and then this one god becomes more and more abstract. We see the same pattern in China, where polytheism grew into a monotheistic and then abstract monist ‘Way’ or ‘Mandate’. Essentially, the All Lord becomes simply the mind of the universe or the ‘way’ or ‘order’ of things. The Zhou and earlier empires spoke of the Lord of Heaven, but Confucius and the Daoists in the Warring States period do not speak of the Lord of Heaven, but rather the Mandate and Way, showing us that, like the golden age of thought in ancient India and Greece, the revered thinkers were challenging the old tradition with philosophical monism that questioned the very shape of cosmology itself while extending it.
Confucius and his System of Thought
Just like we had with Egypt last week, Confucius (550-480 BCE) believes that the heart is the center of the human being. Notice that this ‘center’ is both mental and physical, fitting with cosmology, psychology and medical practices. Confucius is often understood as a champion of traditional order and ritual, as he is a proponent of civilization and education against the Daoists who are proponents of nature and meditation. However, it is clear from the Analects that Confucius believed it was more important to have right insight rather than right ritual or tradition, to have right intentions than right actions, i.e. ‘one’s heart is in the right place’.
Confucius was a master of ritual, an official position important for civil ceremonies and legal practice as they still are in courts of law and political processes today. Confucius believed that ritual was the strength of a society and one should perform the rituals, but he also believed that the worst thing was to do ritual without the proper intention. Confucius would say to a churchgoer today: it is more important to enjoy your church than to attend your church, for if you do not enjoy it whole heartedly you should not go. Consider the more secular example of giving a gift to a friend. If you give gifts so that you can borrow someone’s car, you corrupt the act of giving gifts, which should be done without expectations of repayment. It would be better, according to Confucius, to not give gifts to friends than to give them expecting repayment. Empty ritual, ritual simply for the motions rather than authentic love for and continuity with one’s society, is the worst thing, and thus it would be better in such a case to avoid false ritual and simply not perform the ritual at all. This point is often lost when people focus on Confucius’ great love of ritual and traditional culture.
A good example of this point is Analects 5.5 (and yes, these are standardized so no matter the translation, ‘5.5’ is always the fifth aphorism of the fifth chapter or book, just like the Bible and Koran are standardized with numbers): Confucius says that Ran Yong does not need eloquence (civilized speech) if he is not good. Another good example is 11.10, where Confucius is grieving ‘inappropriately’ for his favorite student, and tells his students who complain that genuine love and expression of emotion is more important than being polite or pleasant (right intention trumps right outer form). However, the best example is clearly 3.26, “Authority without generosity, ceremony without reverence, mourning without grief, these things I cannot bear to contemplate”.
Because the Han and many later Chinese dynasties used Confucius as a voice supporting subordination to authority, and because Confucius does indeed say to obey the father and obey the chain of command, it is often overlooked that, just as intention is more important than tradition, unjust fathers and unjust states must be corrected. Many times Confucius says that truth must be spoken to power. How will things change if no one complains? In one passage, Confucius tells his students they should rise up and overthrow an unjust local prince. One should be subordinate to authority, but only just and good authority and tradition.
Confucius was a great champion of scholarship. Like Plato, Confucius believed that society should not be an aristocracy but rather a meritocracy. Confucius believed that scholarship was necessary for developing the heart, and the ‘gentleman’, Confucius’ word for the great person, developed love for others and knowledge through study of the classic texts. As scholars have pointed out, while it has often been translated ‘gentleMAN’, the term is gender neutral and Confucius was talking about the righteous rather than the nobly born, though the term was used before Confucius to refer exclusively to nobles before him. When we see the term in the text, it can also be translated as ‘the noble’, meaning anyone of either gender or social status who is an excellent human being.
Needless to say, Confucius’ Analects became one of the central texts for devoted study in Chinese society, and Confucius became an ancestor revered by devotees with ritual. Confucius is credited as the father of China’s civil service system, a system in which anyone who tested well, regardless of their position in society, was given a government position. This is similar to the development of types of scribes in Egypt. It is just such a development that we call ‘the middle class’, the individuals who through study and work can rise or fall in position to fit the many niches required to run large cities and systems. What Plato recognized in Egypt, Confucius was much more successful in implementing in Chinese society, though unfortunately only after his death. Confucius himself always hoped for a good position, but did not succeed in obtaining one during his own life though he did teach many students and was revered by many of them, including powerful nobility.
Just as Confucius taught that intention is more important than action, he hated scholarship for show without genuine love of learning and discovery of human nature. A good example is 4.9, ‘if a scholar is ashamed of his shabby clothes or poor food, he is not worth listening to’. He also taught that we should balance learning with critical reflection, just as Buddha did, though Buddha, like Daoists, argued that study and critical reflection also needed meditation whereas Confucius saw study as superior to meditation. In the analects, Confucius says that studying without thinking is useless, but thinking without studying is dangerous, showing us that he does believe in individual insight but is traditional and believes in studying the traditional classics. He says, “The noble person is not a pot”, meaning that we are not containers for knowledge but should transform and reflect on what we study.
Confucius was a genius at seeing himself as equal to everyone, and he encouraged this attitude as the path to excellence itself. It was this point that the Jesuits found fascinating in comparing Confucianism to Christianity. Most of us have likely heard the ‘Golden Rule’, which is paraphrased from Confucius: ‘treat others the way you want to be treated’. While Jesus says, ‘don’t treat others how you do NOT want to be treated’, we can understand them to be one and the same. My favorite example is 7.22: Confucius says that if you put yourself with any two people at random, you can take their strengths as a model to follow and their faults as a warning. Clearly, Confucius believed that we all share the same set of strengths and faults, no matter how talented (or horrible) we happen to individually be or where our talents are. Confucius taught that NO ONE is perfect, not even himself, but there is good in everyone and everything, and we had best remember that we will never lose any of our connection to our fellow human beings if we only remember to look hard enough for it. Another excellent example from the Analects: “When you see a worthy man, seek to emulate him…When you see an unworthy man, examine yourself”.
Mencius & Xunzi
Confucius had two followers who became the famous two poles of interpretation of the Analects. Mencius or Menzi, the second patriarch of Confucianism by popular consent in the tradition, believed that Confucius taught that the human being is basically good and develops the heart, growing and developing the virtues through love. He argued that because the human individual is essentially good, we need ritual to guide our growth but love is the true essence. Xunzi, the third patriarch of Confucianism, a cynic and conservative, argued that the human being is essentially evil and without the rituals and tradition to hold our nature back we would be selfish and uncivilized. This remains the major split in Confucian thought, which accommodates both opinions while leaning more toward Menzi.
Menzi uses the famous example of a child about to fall into a well, arguing that anyone watching a child near a well would naturally grow anxious, even the most evil of people. Menzi argues that civilization began when people saw the corpses of relatives being attacked by animals and insects and felt compassion and grief. It is true that burial sites are some of the first archeological finds we have of human culture. Both Menzi and Xunzi, who attacks Menzi’s position later by name, use the example of little children to argue that human beings are good and human beings are evil. Menzi says that we know little children are good, before they are educated and taught manners. Xunzi says we know little children are evil, before they are educated and taught manners. Happy children are indeed lovable, and angry children are indeed immature. Many great thinkers, including Jesus and Nietzsche, teach us ‘be like a little child’, but we often tell others, ‘don’t be like a little child’. Opposite truths are often equally true.
Neo-Confucianism, Zhu Xi & Wang Yang Ming
About 1100 CE, Confucianism merged with Daoist and Buddhist ideas to form a Confucian revival called Neo-Confucianism by scholars today. Buddhist metaphors such as the pearl at the bottom of the muddy lake and the sun emerging from behind the clouds were reinterpreted in light of Confucianism and Daoism. The major figure of this revival was Zhu Xi (1130-1200 CE), who argued that all three traditions were teaching the same truth but that Confucius was the superior and primary teacher. The Neo-Confucians were trying to put Confucianism back into its primary place in Chinese culture after losing much ground to Buddhism over the previous five hundred years.
Wang Yang Ming (1470 – 1530 CE) one of the most revered Neo-Confucians, was famous for the idea of the unity of knowledge and action. While Confucius taught that intention and action are distinct things, Wang Yang Ming taught the complementary truth that the two are interactive as one whole. While someone can say that they know something, we can judge whether they truly know or not by how they act. An example he uses is if someone says they know that a smell is bad, but they do not act like it is bad (gagging, opening a window, pointing at their younger sibling), we could say that they do not really know that the smell is bad but only saying the smell is bad. In the same way, if we know someone is a good person we do not get nervous around them or hide our valuables when they come over. If we did, it could be said that we do not truly know they are good because we do not act like they are trustworthy.
Confucius’ Analects
Confucius shows us a brilliant development of questioning the individual and state that we have already seen develop elsewhere. When people gather, they can see each other and see groups, and are questioning and skeptical of themselves, other individuals, and group organizations.
First we look at the criticism of the individual, clearing the individual heart and putting oneself in tune with the Way. Then we look at criticism of the state, and see that the same shape applies.
Second, notice the passages where Confucius is criticizing sages who go to nature and do not study. Pay attention to this for next week, as these are early Daoists who have different opinions than Confucius about the cultivation of the human individual.
Criticism of the Individual:
(4.12) He who acts out of self interest arouses much resentment.
(5.5) ‘Ran Yong is good but not eloquent’- I don’t know if he is good, but he certainly does not need eloquence if he isn’t.
(11.10) Yan Hui died. ‘Master, this grief isn’t right’ C; ‘What sort of grief for such a man is right?
Criticism of Luxury:
(5.18) Master said: Zang Sunchen built a house for his tortoise, with pillars in the shape of mountains and rafters decorated with duckweed. Has he lost his mind?
(7.16) Even if you have only coarse grain, water and your arm for a pillow, you may still be happy. Riches and honors without justice are to me as fleeting clouds.
Criticism of Ritual without Virtue:
(3.26) authority without generosity, ceremony without reverence, mourning without grief, these things I cannot bear to contemplate.
(4.13) If one cannot govern by observing ritual and showing compassion, what is the use of ritual?
Scholarship without greed or want of career:
(4.9) If a scholar is ashamed of his shabby clothes or poor food, he is not worth listening to.
Haven’t seen someone who studies without any thought of career.
Good is at Hand (7.30) but no one is perfect (7.26)
Says again and again that he is not perfect, nor has he met perfection…
(7.33) My seal is as strong as anyone’s, but I have not succeeded in living nobly.
yet: ‘Is goodness out of reach? As soon as I long for goodness, goodness is at hand.’
(7.34) I make no claims to wisdom or to human perfection- how would I dare? Yet my aim never flags and I never tire of teaching people.
Disciple: ‘This is what we fail to follow.’
Criticism of Selfishness and Pride:
Whatever one’s position, you always share the faults and talents of everyone.
Thus, you have to work to compare self with others, as not intuitive.
You should compare yourself to others, reflect yourself through others no matter how you judge them to be, and work to get over selfishness and become compassionate and balanced (the way of heaven, opposed to selfish desire for lower).
Confucius values joining all of humanity, not being selfish.
(7.22) Put me with any two people at random- they will invariably have something to teach me. I can take their qualities as a model and their defects as a warning.
(9.8) Am I knowledgeable? No. A Bumpkin asked me a question, and my mind went blank. Still, I hammered at his problem from all sides, till I worked out something.
(1.16) Don’t worry if others don’t recognize your merits: worry that you may not
recognize theirs.
(2.13) Practice what you preach.
(4.17) When you see a worthy man, seek to emulate him. When you see an unworthy man, examine yourself.
(5.12) Zigong ‘I do not want to do to others…’ C: you’re not that far yet…
(11.4) Yan Hui is of no help to me: whatever I say pleases him.
(9.28) It is in the cold of winter that you see how green the pines and cypresses are.
(15.23) A gentleman does not approve of a person because he expresses a certain opinion, nor does he reject an opinion because it is expressed by a particular person.
(15.24) ‘Single word to guide one’s life?’ C- Reciprocity: do not do to others…
(19.21) A gentleman’s mistake is like an eclipse of the sun or moon.
When happens, everyone notices, and when corrected everyone looks up in admiration.
Good as Unknown, Beyond Judgment and Opinion:
(9.17) The master stood by a river and said: ‘Everything flows like this, without ceasing’
(note Heraclitus)
(2.17) Master said: Knowledge is to take the known as known and unknown as unknown.
(pre 3.14) (quoted by Wittgenstein) About what we don’t know we must keep silent.
(5.13) Our master’s views on culture can be gathered, but you can’t hear his views on the nature of things or the Way of Heaven.
(7.21) The master never talked of miracles, violence, disorders, spirits.
(7.35) Confucius is ill, student: ‘pray to spirits above & spirits below’
Con: In that case, I have been praying for a long time already.
(note not a rejection of the spiritual, but a knowing unknowing)
(11.12) Asked how to serve spirits, says: You have not yet learned how to serve man, how could you learn to serve the spirits?
Death: You do not yet know life, how can you learn about death?
Middle Way: (Buddha, Heraclitus)
(6.17) Who would leave a house without using the door? Why do people seek to walk outside the way?
(6.29) The power of the middle way is supreme, and yet it is not found among the people anymore. (notice restore the golden age)
Reform the old, bring in the new:
(2.11) He who by revising the old knows the new is fit to be a teacher.
(2.12) A gentleman is not a pot.
(Pre 3.4 cut off) each generation has added and dropped from the ritual, so we know what people will look like 100 generations from now (they will add and drop)
In pursuit of virtue, do not be afraid to outpace your teacher (15.36)
Criticism of the State:
Confucius is not a compliant sheep when it comes to the state.
His criticism of individual judgment and pride is matched by criticism of the state.
(11.17) Rich student tyrant: C- attach him: you have my permission.
Sees private interest trapped in the state (nobles disunifying Zhou court, into warring states).
(13.15) asked by Duke: Is there a single maxim/rule that could ruin a country?
C- The prince should never suffer contradiction. When in error, prince should be told.
(13.24) ‘What if everyone likes a man?’ C- Not enough
‘What if everyone hates him?’ C- Not enough: Good should love, bad should hate.
(13.20) ‘present politicians?’ Those puny creatures are not even worth mentioning.
(9.26) One cannot deny the humblest man his free will.
Criticism of Daoism and its sages retreat into Nature:
Just as Confucius appears in Daoist texts as an ally but inferior rival, so do proto-Daoist sages in the Analects. This is very much like Buddha vs. the Jains, in that other group isn’t mentioned by name, but found not to be in balance but extremists. Daoists wanted to escape into nature, while Confucians believe in the value of the city and embracing not escaping humankind. Believe in balance, like Daoists, but seek to balance the city, not escape into the perfect balance of nature from the city. Daoists are more skeptical of society.
(18.16) One cannot associate with birds and beasts. If the world were following the way, I would not have to reform it.
It is not right to be a hermit, and discard human relationships to preserve one’s purity.
(18.18) I do things differently. I follow no rigid prescriptions on what should or should not be done.
(4.1) It is beautiful to live amidst humanity. It is hardly wise to live in a place destitute of people (don’t be a Daoist hermit).
Criticism of Meditation (D and later B), to Confucians not as good as study:
(15.31) I once to meditate went without food for a day and a night without sleep.
It was no use. It is better to study.
Numerous criticisms of inactivity, inferior to activity, study and effort:
(2.1): At 15, I set my mind upon learning. At 30, I took my stand. At 40 I had no doubts. At 50, I knew the will (mandate) of heaven. At 60, my ear was attuned. At 70, I follow all the desires of my heart without breaking any rule.
(4.2) A good man rests in his humanity. A wise man profits from his humanity.
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