Abstract
This introduction consists of two sections. The first section focuses on the understanding of the nature and identity of Chinese Buddhist philosophy by delving into the relationship of Chinese Buddhist philosophy with its other. This “other” mainly involves Indian Buddhist philosophy, Daoist and Confucian philosophies, and Western philosophy in modern time. The section pays attention to the subversive process of the Chinese assimilation of Indian Buddhist philosophy, a process of interaction, interchange and interpenetration, which is conditioned by multiple social-historical, linguistic-conceptual and practical factors. The process defies the clear-cut distinction of assimilator and assimilated. The outcome is close to something that is neither originally Indian nor originally Chinese. In modern time this dynamic relationship with the other is extended to Western philosophy. The section conducts a survey of this relationship, and promotes a mutual inclusive attitude towards, and benefiting from, each other. The second section offers the outline for each of the remaining 17 chapters.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Mario Poceski points out recently: “[W]e have to be mindful that the Chinese term for ‘school’ (zong) presents us with a number of challenges, given its multiple connotations and its ambivalent uses in a range of contexts. The same term can be used to denote the essential purport of a particular doctrine (that might be associated with a specific scripture, such as the Huayan Jing), a tradition of canonical exegesis or philosophical reflection (e.g. Madhyamaka), a systematization of particular doctrines or practices, or a grouping of practitioners that adhere to a set of teachings or ideals. Often it involves a combination of several of these interpretative possibilities.” (Poceski 2014: 51–52) For different views of these early “schools” or groups of thinkers, see Lü 1979: chapter 6–8; Ch’en 1964: chapter 5–6; Lai 2009: 341–345, in addition to Poceski’s.
- 2.
- 3.
Cf. Wang 2017, “Introduction: A Concise History of Chan Buddhism” and many publications in the section of “Studies on Chan Language, Literary Genre, and Art” of “Bibliography.”
- 4.
This aspect will be further discussed in the ensuing part of this introduction.
- 5.
Cf. Sharf 2002a: 10; Lai 2009: 325–326, 341; Thompson 2014: 231–246; Lin and Radich 2014: 16. Dessein argues that “‘geyi’ originally referred to a particular method of exegesis, restricted to an Abhidharmic context, and not to a more general method of expressing Buddhist ideas in terms of Chinese philosophical terms, i.e. the meaning it was given later. The connection of ‘geyi’ with the numerical lists of categories of elements (shishu 事數) also justifies the use of the element of ‘ge’ in the term ‘geyi’: ‘categorization’.” (Dessein 2015: 288) This is an interesting interpretation on the original nature of the technique of geyi. But the article does not deny the broad sense of geyi being used beyond its original limit. It is this broad sense of geyi that we are discussing here.
- 6.
Contemporary scholars of Chinese Buddhism are divided when applying the Gadamerian notion of “fusion of horizons.” Some attitudes are positive, others negative. See, for instance, Sharf 2002a: 10; and Thompson 2014: 241. As our mentioning of this notion shows, we are positive, although we are aware of “the underlying hermeneutical issues.”
- 7.
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged. p. 132.
- 8.
To my understanding, this meaning is what Derrida termed and criticized as “the classical mode of appropriation.” Derrida 2002: 336.
- 9.
See note 7 above.
- 10.
Many modern and contemporary scholars have assumed that Shenhui 神會 (684–758) and his followers are the main editor of this extant Dunhuang text, based on the observation that the text is heavily influenced by Shenhui’s sectarian rhetoric against the alleged Northern school and its leader Shenxiu 神秀 (ca. 606–706), and that what is exactly taught by Huineng cannot be verified through this text.
- 11.
The most important paragraph involving Zhuangzi’s concept of free flowing dao is found in Chap. 2 of the Zhuangzi. See Zhuangzi Yinde 莊子引得: A Concordance to Chuang Tzu, p. 4. The English translation of the term tong from the text of Zhuangzi is a difficult task. Among various existing English translations of this Chinese word, two are outstanding. One is A. C. Graham’s rendering of it as “interchange” (Graham 1981: 53). More recently, Hinton rendered it as “move freely” (Hinton 1997: 23). Both convey the correct meaning of the original Chinese. Since this Chinese word is, like many other words, polysemous, I think it involves both meanings in the context of Zhuangzi’s use.
- 12.
The earliest appearance of the term “renyun” is from Daoxin 道信’s (580–651) Rudao Anxin Yao Fangbian Famen 入道安心要方便法門, included in the Lengqie Shizi Ji 楞伽師資記 by Jingjue 淨覺 (683-ca. 750). However, it was the Hongzhou masters who most frequently used this term. It also appears in Zongmi 宗密’s (780–841) description of the Hongzhou school in his Zhonghua Chuanxindi Chanmen Shizi Chengxi Tu 中華傳心地禪門師資承襲圖. See Yanagida 1971: 205; Kamata 1971: 308. Also cf. chapter 15, section 1, of this anthology.
- 13.
- 14.
- 15.
For example, there were inclusive attitudes toward Chinese philosophy in Voltaire (1694–1778) and Leibniz (1646–1716). See Clarke 1997: 43–50; also see his account on “The Jesuits and the New Vision of Cathay,” in ibid.: 39–42.
- 16.
- 17.
A typical examination of the misrepresentation of Asian philosophy based mainly on Western philosophical categories can be found in Tuck’s study of the Western interpretation of Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna (see Tuck 1990). Tuck lists various Western interpretations of Nāgārjuna in terms of Kantian philosophy, logical positivism, the late Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, and so forth. This type of Western interpretations unavoidably spreads to the study of Chinese Buddhist philosophy as well, as we can see from some Western readings of Chinese Madhyamaka, Huayan and Chan.
- 18.
Clarke has summarized a sequence of three stages of Western philosophical contacts with the East in the twentieth century as the universalist, the comparative, and the hermeneutical, and indicated that the first stage of subsuming Asian philosophy in a universal whole dominated by Western philosophical categories has ended; the comparative approach is continuously used, but the Western categories and methodologies as standards for comparison are critically questioned; the more recent stage of hermeneutical approach is characterized as going beyond mere comparison but engaging Asian philosophy in contemporary discussions of issues concerning self, mind, consciousness, mind-body dualism, emotions and so on, and even “mediating Western philosophical concepts through Eastern ideas.” It “involves the recognition of diversity, otherness, difference, without thereby separating out East and West into substantive and incommensurable enclaves.” I echo his view and see the third direction as more hopeful and fruitful in this global age. See Clarke 1997: chapter 7.
- 19.
For Feng Youlan’s relationship with neorealism, see Zhao Dezhi 1994, chapter 4, “Feng Youlan Yu Xinshizailun 馮友蘭與新實在論.” For Hu Shi’s relationship with Dewey and pragmatism, see Makeham “Hu Shi and the Search for System” (Makeham 2012: 170). For Liang Shuming’s relationship with Bergsonism, see Thierry Meynard, “Introducing Buddhism as Philosophy: The Case of Liang Shuming, Xiong Shili, and Tang Yongtong” (Makeham 2012: 190).
- 20.
Cf. many chapters and “Introduction” in Makeham 2014.
- 21.
Ibid., chapters 5, 7 and 8.
References
Abe Chōichi 阿部肇一. 1986. Chūgoku zenshūshi no kenkyū: seiji shakaishi-teki kōsatsu 中國禪宗史の研究: 政治社會史的考察 (The Revised Study of the History of Chinese Chan Buddhism: An Examination of Its Political-Social History). Enlarged and revised edition. Tokyo: Kenbun shuppan.
Ch’en, Kenneth. 1964. Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Clarke, J. J., 1997. Oriental Enlightenment: The Encounter between Asian and Western Thought. London and New York: Routledge,
Defoort, Carine. 2006. “Is ‘Chinese Philosophy’ a Proper Name? A Response to Rein Raud.” Philosophy East and West 56.4: 625–660.
Derrida, Jacques. 1984. “Deconstruction and the Other。” In Richard Kearney, ed., Dialogues with Contemporary Continental Thinkers. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 107–126.
———, 2002. “The Right to Philosophy from a Cosmopolitan Point of View.” In Negotiations: Interventions and Interviews 1971–2001. Ed. and Trans. by Elizabeth Rottenberg. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 329–342.
Dessein, Bart. 2015. “Abhidharma in China: Reflections on ‘Matching Meanings’ and Xuanxue.” In Dart Dessein and Weijen Teng, eds., Text, History, and Philosophy: Abhidharma across Buddhist Scholastic Traditions. Laiden, Netherlands: Brill, 279–295.
Faure, Bernard. 1993. Chan Insights and Oversights: An Epistemological Critique of the Chan Buddhism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Foulk, T. Griffith. 1999. “Sung Controversies Concerning the ‘Separate Transmission’ of Ch’an.” In Peter Gregory and Daniel Getz, eds., Buddhism in the Sung. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 220–294.
Graham, A. C., trans. 1981. Chuang-tzu: The Seven Inner Chapters. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Hinton, David, trans. 1997. Chuang Tzu: The Inner Chapters. Washington D. C.: Counterpoint.
Jiang Lansheng 江藍生 and Cao Guangshun 曹廣順. 1997. Tang Wudai Yuyan Cidian 唐五代語言詞典 (Dictionary of the Vocabulary of the Tang and Five Dynasties). Shanghai: Shanghai Jiaoyu Chubanshe.
Kamata Shigeo 鎌田茂雄, trans. and annotate. 1971. Zengen shosenshū tojo 禪源諸詮集都序 (Prolegomenon to the Collection of Expressions of the Chan Source). Zen no goroku 9. Tokyo: Chikuma shobō.
Lai, Whalen. 2009. “Chinese Buddhist Philosophy from Han through Tang.” In Bo Mou, ed., History of Chinese Philosophy. London and New York: Routledge, 324–361.
Lin, Chen-kuo and Michael Radich, eds. 2014. A Distant Mirror: Articulating Indic Ideas in Sixth and Seventh Century Chinese Buddhism. Hamburg, Germany: Hamburg University Press.
Lü Cheng 呂瀓. 1979. Zhongguo Foxue Yuanliu Luejiang 中國佛學源流略講 (Outlines of the Source and Development of Chinese Buddhism). Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.
Makeham, John, ed. 2012. Learning to Emulate the Wise: The Genesis of Chinese Philosophy as an Academic Discipline in Twentieth-Century China. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.
———, ed. 2014. Transforming Consciousness: Yogācāra Thought in Modern China. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nelson, Eric. 2017. Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in Early Twentieth-Century German Thought. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Park, Peter K. J. 2013. Africa, Asia, and the History of Philosophy: Racism in the Formation of the Philosophical Canon, 1780–1830. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Poceski, Mario. 2014. “Buddhism in Chinese History.” In Mario Poceski, ed., The Wiley Blackwell Companion to East and Inner Asian Buddhism. New York: Wiley-Blackwell, 40–62.
Rorty, Richard. 1979. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sharf, Robert. 2002a. Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press.
———, 2002b. “On Pure Land Buddhism and Ch’an/Pure Land Syncretism in Medieval China.” T’oung Pao 88.4–5, 282–331.
Shimuru Ryōji 志村良治. 1984. Chūgoku chūsei gohōshi kenkyū 中國中世語法史研究 (Studies in the Medieval History of Chinese Grammar). Tokyo: Santo sha.
Thompson, John M. 2014. “Mixed up on ‘Matching Terms’ (geyi): Confusions in Cross-Cultural Translation.” In Ithamar Theodor and Zhihua Yao, eds., Brahman and Dao: Comparative Studies of Indian and Chinese Philosophy and Religion. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 231–246.
Tuck, Andrew P. 1990. Comparative Philosophy and the Philosophy of Scholarship: On the Western interpretation of Nāgārjuna. New York: Oxford University Press.
Wang, Youru. 2017. Historical Dictionary of Chan Buddhism. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged. 1993. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster Inc.
Weinstein, Stanley. 1987. Buddhism under the Tang. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wright, Arthur. 1959. Buddhism in Chinese History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Yampolsky, Philip B., trans. 1967. The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. New York: Columbia University Press.
Yanagida Seizan 柳田聖山, ed. and trans. 1971. Shoki no zenshi 初期の禪史 (The Early History of Chan Buddhism). Vol. 1: Ryōga shiji ki, Den hōbō ki 楞伽師資記, 傳法宝記 (Records of the Masters and Disciples of the Lengqie [Jing], Annals of the Transmission of the Dharma Treasure). Zen no goroku 禪の語錄 2. Tokyo: Chikuma shobō.
Zhao Dezhi 趙德志. 1994. Xiandai Xinrujia Yu Xifang Zhexue 現代新儒家與西方哲學 (Modern Neo-Confucian Thinkers and Western Philosophy). Shenyang: Liaoning Daxue Chubanshe.
Zhuangzi Yinde 莊子引得: A Concordance to Chuang Tzu. 1966. Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index Series, Supplement No. 20. Taibei: Chinese Materials and Research Aids Service Center.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature B.V.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Wang, Y. (2018). Introduction: Chinese Buddhist Philosophy and Its “Other”. In: Wang, Y., Wawrytko, S. (eds) Dao Companion to Chinese Buddhist Philosophy. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2939-3_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2939-3_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-2938-6
Online ISBN: 978-90-481-2939-3
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)