Skillful in Means

Skillful in Means: The Buddha and the Whiteheadian God

By Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki

Journal of Chinese Philosophy v.28 n.4 (December 2001)

p415-428

Oxford, England [UK] (http://www.blackwellpublishers.co.uk/default.htm)

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On a recent trip to Korea I sat at a low table with several professors from Methodist Theological Seminary for our evening meal. The dishes were displayed before us in a wonderful variety of color, kind, size, taste, and consistency. We used our chopsticks to dip now into this dish, now into that, and so the meal proceeded when one of my Korean colleagues made an astute observation: "This is the difference between east and west," said he. "In the west, you each have your own individual plate, and the meal is served sequentially. There is the appetizer, followed by the salad, followed by the soup, followed by the entree, and so forth. But here we have an all-at-once quality to our meal, and we share communally, not individually. Linear time and individuality define your approach to things, whereas the spatial simultaneity of things marks our more communal sensitivities."

And I thought of this in my reading of the delightful feast of the spirit presented in the Lotus Sutra. To a linear mind, the encounter with vast and numberless kalpas and boddhisattvas and mahasattvas and jewels and flowers and all manner of things becomes staggering and mythical. How can such a succession be? And perhaps the answer is rather like that meal. It portrays an all-at-onceness of all interdependent beings from whatever times, not in negation of their linear discreteness, but like a deeper dimension of that discreteness, holding all-at-onceness and linear discreteness together. For indeed, while the meal is fully present before us, we eat of it bite by bite, sequentially, enjoying both the taste of each dish and the all-at-once display of the meal before us.

And so this linear-oriented Westerner, steeped in Whiteheadian metaphysics, comes to dine at the table of the Sutra using the "fork" of process philosophy to partake of the feast. I wholeheartedly acknowledge that chopsticks are more suited to this table, and that here I am clumsy where others are graceful. My excuse for even approaching the Sutra in an academic context is that in some ways the Lotus illumines the metaphysics of process thought. And I am teased with the—fanciful?— notion that process metaphysics might just be one of the tools used by a

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Buddha who is skillful-in-means to lure linear people toward the Buddha's own deep insights.

But linear thinker that I am, I deal first with dimensions of skillful means found in the Sutra and in process, and the relation of skillful means to a pragmatic notion of truth. In process thought it is God who is "skillful in means," while in the Sutra, it is of course the Buddha. I turn, then, to consideration of a peculiar similarity between the process notion of God, and chapter 16 of the Sutra, which deals with "The Life Span of the One Who is to Come." ^[1] Is it possible that the parallels between God and Buddha give new insight to what has often been considered problematic in process thought, the notion of God as a single "actual entity"? And finally, I consider the implications of skillful means for religious pluralism.

Skillful IN Means

As is well known, the Lotus Sutra speaks at great length about the sense in which the Buddha adapts the teachings of the Sutra to the abilities and conditions of the recipients. Parable after parable brings home the point. Most famous, perhaps, is that of the burning house and the children at play. The father entices his sons from the house by promising each child a cart adapted to his particular likes. In response to the promise, the children run not so much from the house as toward the promised carts, only to find that they are not there! Instead, the father has provided the most Wonderful Cart, more than they had been able to imagine while engrossed in their play within the disintegrating house. Freed from all danger, they ride the cart toward Buddhahood.

But my favorite parable is that of the rain cloud. There are thousands of species of growing things of various sizes and conditions in all sorts of soils and topographies and climates. A dense rain cloud covers them all, in a moment saturating them all. Each receives the moisture according to its kind, and grows according to its kind and according to its own peculiarities; "Though each of these plants and trees grows in the same earth and is moistened by the same rain, each has its differences and particulars." ^[2]

The Buddha provides that which is peculiarly suited to the needs of each recipient in order that the recipient might move toward Buddha-hood (and in this Sutra, there is no one at all who does not have some capacity for Buddhahood). In the parable of the burning house, the Buddha promises different things to each recipient; in the parable of the cloud, the Buddha offers the same thing, the rain, but it is received differently according to the capacities of the recipient. Thus, whether the means in view is a lure toward novelty or an adaptation to a condition,

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the Buddha knows precisely how to draw the recipient toward his/her/ its best interests.

In these and similar parables, truth is measured pragmatically according to its function. The Law may indeed be the truth of all things, but in this world of suffering, truth is whatever leads one beyond suffering toward Buddhahood. There is some resemblance to Soren Kierkegaard's telling phrase, deceiving people into truth, except that deception in the Buddha's case is only a deception if measured by this world of flux and suffering. Measured by the person's true need, which is to move beyond flux and suffering, the so-called deception is in fact a skillful means toward the truth of the Buddha's teaching. That which is true is right perceptions that lead the subject toward deliverance from attachments, from what are called "outflows." Thus, the issue is not so much whether this statement or that statement—or this doctrine or that doctrine—is true on its own, but whether it is useful toward release from suffering, from attachments, from "selfness." Insofar as a doctrine or teaching promotes one's growth toward this freedom, it is true. Truth in this sense seems to be a process, not a steady state of affairs. It is created relative to one's condition, like the "not-there" carts, and adapted to one's capacities, like the refreshing rain.

Is the Law itself true beyond the pragmatism of doctrines? While the Law is True, wisdom seems to be a far more important word in the Sutra than truth as such. The Buddha describes himself as "the Thus Come One [who] knows that this is the Law of one form, one flavor, namely, the form of emancipation, the form of separation, the form of extinction, the form of ultimate nirvana, of constant tranquility and extinction, which in the end finds its destination in emptiness." ^[3] This Law is more like a kind of existence than a proposition; hence, "true" and "truth" do not seem to be particularly applicable words save as they simply describe the "isness" of that Law, that existence. Perceived from the point of view of one striving toward Buddhahood, the Law is indeed Truth. But in that Law, rather than toward that Law, "truth" is emptiness. Hence, it is a word that no longer seems to apply. It is more as if truth belongs to the world of flux, and thus is adaptable to a living being's condition. In this world of flux, truth is measured by its results, and, hence, truth is one of the skillful means used by the Buddha.

Even the four noble truths can be understood as skillful means. In chapter 3, "Simile and Parable," the truths are stated thus;

The rule of suffering which the Buddha preaches is true and never varies.

If there are living beings who do not understand the root of suffering, who are deeply attached to the causes of suffering and cannot for a moment put them aside, because they are that way, the Buddha uses expedient means to preach the way. As to the cause of all suffering, it

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has its root in greed and desire. If greed and desire are wiped out it will have no place to dwell. To wipe out all suffering—this is called the third rule. For the sake of this rule, the rule of extinction, one practices the way. And when one escapes from the bonds of suffering, this is called attaining emancipation. ^[4]

These truths are relative to the condition of those who are in need of emancipation; they do not seem to apply to emancipation itself, where it could seem that all truths fall away. "Truth" is a skillful means.

Why and how do I relate this to process philosophy? First of all, there is the likeness between the Buddha's infinite skill in adapting to the needs of living beings, and the sense in which God's initial aims, given to every creature whatsoever, are adapted to the conditions of the creatures.

In Whitehead's thought, as in Buddhist thought, all existence is interdependent. For Whitehead, each momentary bit of existence is a process of integrating feelings of the past with some sense of what the future can be. This is a movement, a concrescence, a making actual that takes place between what has been and what might yet be. The stubborn givenness of the past and a future currently made possible are integrated, and in the process, the present becomes. Fluidity marks the process. There is a creative transition of energy, or influence, that constitutes the movement of becoming that constitutes each new entity. And having become, the entity is no more. Its subjectivity is exhausted in its becoming, so that its continuing influence is objective, devoid of subjectivity as an objective influence on its own successors. Thus, existence is transitory, fleeting, a continuous movement that can be measured either as from the future into the past, or from the past and into a future. The ephemeral present is the movement itself. Is this not akin to the Buddha's statement, "All phenomena are empty, without being, without any constant abiding, without arising or extinction"? ^[5]

The world of things and people are compilations and complexities of innumerable instances of becoming. Indeed, the Sutra's frequent reference to kalpas upon kalpas would be applicable to the instances of becoming involved in any enduring thing, such as people or rocks or trees or planets or suns. But Whitehead's concern in Process and Reality ^[6] is less the development of the visible world of people and our environment, and more the nature of the underlying process yielding this visible world. And at this level, Whitehead addresses a fundamental question as to the ground of the possibilities that constitute the future for each becoming.

Possibilities as a future are essential to the becoming entity. Possibilities do not float into the universe out of nowhere, nor can they be derived from the past alone. In the very nature of the case, possibilities are infinite (like a trillion times ten trillion kalpas?). Hence, an infinite

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being is required to ground infinite possibilities. Whitehead named this ground the primordial nature of God. It is God who offers to each becoming entity a particular possibility for its own becoming.

How these possibilities are mediated to every creature, living and nonliving, is how Whitehead's God is skillful in means. The Lotus says, "The Buddha must know what is in our hearts," ^[7] and the Buddha says, "The Thus Come One ... sees all persons as they undergo suffering and anxiety, seeking to gain emancipation, baffling with the devils, and for the sake of these living beings he preaches various doctrines, employing great expedient means and preaching these sutras." ^[8] Likewise, the Whiteheadian God experiences all creatures, knowing them in their every circumstance, understanding them more clearly than they can understand themselves. Their pasts can be overwhelming, pushing them to little more than rote repetition were it not for the role of possibilities, In and through the actualization of possibilities, transcendence of patterns of the past is possible, novelty can occur, growth can happen. But for these goods to become real, these goods must be truly realizable, adapted to the particular context and circumstance of the becoming entity. God performs this function. Knowing the past, God also knows the best future that is possible for this unique entity.

While God offers these possibilities ("initial aims") at the base level of the becoming actual entity, they are of immeasurable importance for composite realities that are capable of forms of endurance. Endurance itself is a process sustained in and through infinite moments, infinite changes, infinite dependencies. For enduring creatures, such as ourselves, the momentary possibilities are transmuted into short-term and long-term realizable futures that draw us toward various goals.

But goals can be good or bad relative to the individual and the wider context. Conflicting goods, competing values, survival needs, and instincts all come to consciousness in complex creatures, and can deflect us from goals that work toward the well-being of the whole. Like the Lotus, Whitehead posits the good not as a reified state, but as a communal quality of well-being that can be attained in a variety of ways. God is skillful in means in drawing occasions toward what breadth and depths of harmony are possible for them.

Is "truth" pragmatic for the skillful-in-means God, as it seems to be for the skillful-in-means Buddha? The question is complex in Western thought given our long history of a correspondence theory of truth, whereby truth was measured by conformity between one's thoughts and that about which one thinks. The breakdown in this theory was most singularly marked by Immanuel Kant's insight into the categories of the mind that necessarily shape our knowing. What we know is so deeply influenced by the categories our minds impose upon our sense percep-

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tions that we have no way of knowing whether our knowledge conforms

to its object or not. Kant actually was more definite than this, stating that what we know is the phenomenal world of appearances, not the noumenal world of what really is.

Kant's theories, which spawned many complexities down to our present time, presuppose a split between subject and object. White-head's understanding of a more fluid and relational existence blurs the lines of distinction between knower and known. That which is "there" gives itself to all successors, participating in their own becoming, so that the "there" is also partially "here" for every successor occasion (something like those co-present kalpas, spreading in every direction). What is known, then, is the internal influence of the "there-here." The knowledge is perspectival, and therefore a knowledge of the "there" as experienced "here." Kant's notion of the categories of the mind are somewhat apt, since there is no pure repetition of that which is known. But from a Whiteheadian perspective, Kant is wrong in thinking there is no real relation between knowledge and what one knows.

Given this, truth has several dimensions. Truth is the "isness" of things in which one is a participant as well as a knower; in this sense, truth relates to approximations of conformity between knower and known. That is, there is a basis for some degree of conformity between thought and object. But truth, as in the Lotus Sutra, is more than a statement about relations between events of the past. Truth is also created in the movement toward a novel future, for that which is real is continuously being created. In a sense, one form of truth relates to knowledge about events that are now past, but another form of truth relates to actualization of things that might yet be. Truth is created in the creation of the actual out of the possible, for this movement is itself a new form of "isness" entering into its own fleeting moment in the universe. In this sense, truth is pragmatic for Whitehead, for truth is instrumental, leading toward a goal.

So, then, can initial aims be skillful means toward the creation of truth relative to bringing about a future? To put it another way, can I draw a parallel between God and initial aims, and the Buddha calling to the children that they will find various kinds of carts that in fact are not there? The Buddha reached the children's true desires through the means of false desires, which is to say that their deepest desire was their deepest well-being, which is Buddhahood. Because their false desires blinded them, the Buddha could not reach their true desires directly, and therefore reached them indirectly through turning their false desires into skillful means.

If the Whiteheadian God has a goal, then initial aims can in fact be parallel to the Buddha's skillful means. In Adventures of Ideas, ^[9] White-

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head suggests a goal under the categories of zest, adventure, beauty, and truth, finally categorizing all of them under the rubric of Peace. The goal bespeaks a quality of existence. That is, the goal is neither a "heaven" nor a "hell," nor any particular location. Rather, it is a quality of existence that can obtain in any location in a great variety of forms. Alms toward such a quality of existence must always take account of the particular circumstances of the entity, with these particularities including personal, social, and environmental conditions. Obstacles to Peace abound, often including even the incapacity of the entity to discern that which is truly Peace. Thus aims toward Peace may necessarily lead in a circuitous path, and only if the Whiteheadian God is as skillful in means as the Buddha can the goal of Peace be assured.

To read Whitehead after reading the Lotus Sutra (albeit one has dined at the Sutra's table with nothing but a fork) illumines the magnitude of the task for God if Peace is truly a goal. Peace must be addressed in as infinite a number of ways as there are actual entities, and it must be addressed in a situation of ultimate fluidity and transitoriness. Does the Buddha suggest that precisely in this fluidity of vast interrelationship and transitoriness there is Peace? Does the Buddha suggest that because we all participate in this fluidity of vast interrelationships and transitoriness, then we all have the Buddha Nature, which is both means and goal? If so, then the Lotus Sutra illumines the Whiteheadian goal, and in one sense suggests that the goal may be goal-lessness itself, which would be acceptance of the process as a whole as an ultimate joy of complex zest, adventure, beauty, and truth, which is Peace. If this is the goal, it is one in which we are each, by definition, already a participant, even as we seek fuller realization of Peace for all beings.

In the Lotus, the goal of Buddhahood is one that can be achieved either very quickly (witness Sagara, the eight-year-old Dragon King's daughter), or over a very long period of many lives. But there is time enough, given the assumption of rebirth as a symptom of not yet having attained Buddhahood. But there is usually no such assumption of rebirth in Western modes of thought. What of Peace, then, when one life is not enough? And here we need to turn to the interesting parallels between the Whiteheadian God and the Buddha.

The God AND THE Buddha

I had always understood Buddhism to be nontheistic in its insistence on nondualism. From a Buddhist point of view, I thought, a God introduces a dualism that is antagonistic to the interrelatedness of all things. The Whiteheadian notion is that God is not separate from this interrelated-

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ness, but in fact is the chief exemplification of it, and, in this sense, process thought is also nondualistic, but theistically so.

In reading the Lotus Sutra I am struck by the godlike characteristics of this Buddha.

Godlike qualities in Western thought usually refer to issues of divine everlastingness, omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence, although there is considerable theological divergence in how these terms are interpreted by one theologian or another. How would they be interpreted in reference to the Buddha?

With regard to everlastingness, the early portions of the Sutra speak of the Buddha's extinction, which seems to be a death without rebirth, which certainly challenges the notion of everlastingness. But in chapter 16, "The Life-Span of the Thus Come One," the Buddha states, "In order to save living beings, as an expedient means I appear to enter nirvana but in truth 1 do not pass into extinction. I am always here, preaching the Law. I am always here, but through my transcendental powers I make it so that living beings in their befuddlement do not see me even when close by." ^[10] If those who are captured by the senses know that the Buddha is "constantly in the world and never enters extinction, they will grow arrogant and selfish, or become discouraged and neglectful." ^[11] Thus, "extinction" is but a skillful means to be used, when useful, to awaken others to hear the Sutra. It is equivalent to the promise to the children of a "donkey-drawn cart," when in reality they would receive the Wonderful Cart of the Sutra itself.

Not only has the Buddha never been extinct, but the Buddha encompasses all times, and so is present to all times. Story after story is given of Buddhas in the immeasurable past, finally yielding to the speaking Buddha identifying himself with those Buddhas. Furthermore, insofar as there are other Buddhas who appear to be distinct, since they are speaking to the Shakyamuni Buddha, they are in reality emanations of the one Buddha. Chapter 11, entitled "The Emergence of the Treasure Tower," states: "At that time the emanations of Shakyamuni Buddha from the eastern region, Buddhas in lands equal in number to hundreds, thousands, ten thousands, millions of nayutas of Ganges sands, each preaching the Law, had assembled there." ^[12] It is as if there is one Buddha Nature, infinitely extended, encompassing all times, confined to none, and yet this infinite Buddha Nature is personal.

Further, this Buddha knows all things. Sometimes this knowledge is expressed in relation to the Law of emptiness, as in chapter 8, "Prophecy for 500 Disciples"; "... concerning the Law of emptiness preached by the Buddhas he has a clear and thorough understanding, he has gained the four unlimited kinds of knowledge, and is at all times capable of preaching the Law in a lucid and pure manner, free of doubts and

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perplexities." ^[13] But the Buddha is no less knowledgeable about all states of affairs, and indeed, must be if he is to be skillful in means in adapting the teaching to the capacities of the recipients: "Always I am aware of which living beings practice the way and which do not, and in response to their needs for salvation I preach various doctrines for them," ^[14] If the Buddha did not know the precise condition of the living being, the Buddha could not adapt the Law appropriately for their circumstances, which would leave the living beings bereft of the needed help. Thus, the effectiveness of the Buddha's infinite compassion requires an infinite knowledge of the condition of every living being.

But if the Buddha knows the conditions of every living being, is there anything that the Buddha does not know? Given the total interdependence of things, the knowledge of living beings, to be complete, must also include a knowledge of nonliving things. Here, of course, an ambiguity appears, for the line between living and nonliving is not clear. Is "sentience" a definition of living? In a process world, all occasions of existence whatsoever have "sentience" as the capacity to feel the influence of the past. In the Lotus world, the interdependence of things means that if the Buddha knows living things, then the Buddha must also know the nonliving things that impinge upon them. But given the all-encompassing interdependence of being, this would mean to know all things.

And what is the power of this Buddha? His power is the power of compassion. There is no sense at all of the unilateral power often assigned in Western ideas of God, for the Buddha can only lure living beings toward their well-being, not force them to it. Indeed, given the inherent capacity and tendency toward well-being in every creature, given time enough, they will respond to this lure. All will become Buddhas, howsoever many lifetimes it takes. The compassionate Buddha leads them with skillful means.

The parallels with the process God are striking. As an actual entity, Whitehead's notion of God embraces all things through prehension into the Consequent Nature. God feels every actual entity as it has occurred throughout all time. Once prehended, that which God has felt is everlastingly integrated within the dynamism of God, not to the annihilation of that which was, but to the ever-increasing complexity of the God who includes a manyness that rivals the "sands of the Ganges" within the divine unity. Since God, like the Buddha, is everlasting, and since God is one, there is a co-presence of all things in God, like the spread-out table of my Korean colleague—or like the opening pictures of the Sutra portraying the Buddha surrounded by living creatures from innumerable ages. I am not sure how co-presence in God compares to the co-presence of all things in the Lotus Sutra; if it is a nontemporal as well as temporal

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co-presence, then it would be very similar to the process notion. AIl things have the Buddha Nature, and therefore all things have the capacity to achieve Buddhahood. This is a temporal process, but the Sutra's setting spans all temporalities. Is the experience of the Buddha Nature a spanning of temporality? Is it a co-presence through full participation in the Buddha?

In neither the Sutra nor in process thought does co-presence of any type invalidate or annihilate the transitory existence of things in the world of becoming. To the contrary, it is only because of the world of becoming that God is God at all: no world, no God. Without relation, there is no existence. God depends upon the world for the novelty of actuality, just as the world depends upon God for the novelty of possibility. The transitory world of becoming is absolutely essential; it is not the opposite of God, it is, along with God, simply the way things are. The transitory world is necessary to the becoming of God; the everlastingly becoming God is essential to the becoming of the world.

While it is true to say that everything that ever has been is co-present within God, it is also true to say that God is co-present to every becoming entity in the entire universe. There is a pervasive sense of presence in this philosophy, even while it describes a world that ceaselessly becomes and passes away in its momentary events. Presence is through prehension, the feeling of otherness taken into, or emerging into, the becoming of the momentary subject. God is present to the world, offering it its best future at all of its standpoints, and the world is present to God, taken into the everlasting divine becoming.

And what of God's knowledge? Unlike Western classical notions of God's knowledge, which posited that God knows all things as they have been, are, and will be, the process God's knowledge is of that which is actual and that which is possible. Because God receives every completed actuality within the divine becoming. God knows every actuality fully—better than it knew itself. Also, since God is the ground and source of all possibilities. God knows all possible futures. The only thing relatively unknown to God is what each becoming occasion of existence is doing with its past and its possible future during its own momentary present. In this privacy is the world's reality apart from God. God waits for each momentary becoming to complete itself in order to receive it feelingly into the divine nature, whereupon it is completely known.

Because this prehension of the world into co-presence with God is God's full knowledge of the world in its every moment of completion, it is also the means by which God adapts future possibilities for the occasions' successors in the always newly becoming world. God's knowledge is the basis of God's skillful means. Just as for the Buddha, God's presentation of possibilities is a compassionate lure toward the good; its

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power is in its attractiveness. This attractiveness, in turn, is entirely suited to the capacity of the becoming occasion to actualize the presented lure. While God thus lures the world toward forms of good that it can sustain, whether or not the world accepts that compassionate lure rests with the decision of the becoming world. Hence, God cannot totally control the world; God must work with the world in its own variations of freedom. God's power is a power of compassion.

There have been technical problems in Whiteheadian philosophy concerning the everlastingness of God. A number of philosophers have felt that Whitehead was wrong in considering God an everlasting actual entity on the grounds that a co-present entity cannot be prehended. Rather, they have amended Whitehead's philosophy so that God becomes more thoroughly a part of the flux, coming into being and perishing in every moment, somewhat in the manner of human beings. The co-presence of things in God is posited as an objective co-presence, similar to one person's memory of things that have occurred in the past. Elsewhere I have argued the metaphysical reasons why God as an everlasting entity is not a violation of co-presence, and I will not repeat that here. But can the Lotus Sutra illumine some of the value contained in Whitehead's original vision of God as a single entity?

The Buddha of the Sutra is a co-present one, encompassing all times in compassion, and never entering extinction. I suspect it would be too much of a parallel if the Lotus included a sensitivity such as I outlined above concerning the world in God. And yet there seems to be a twofold participation in the Buddha Nature. On the one hand, this nature is innate to all beings, but on the other hand, it is an achievement made possible through the compassionate means employed by the Buddha. This achievement is qualified in the closing chapters of the Sutra by continual references to a joy beyond surpassing.

And yet the realm of realized Buddhahood is more than extinction; it is exceedingly active. The Boddhisattvas are all emanations of the Buddha, ceaselessly occupied in works of compassion, encouraging living beings toward Buddhahood. The Buddha also, whether in periods of profound meditation or of preaching, is continuously exercising compassion. Extinction, as mentioned above, is more a skillful means toward the Buddha Nature than a state of death without rebirth. Thus, the level of realized Buddhahood is intensely interactive with the transitory world, even while it is also everlasting in its joy, which is its embrace of all that has ever been.

These same things can be said of the everlastingly becoming Whiteheadian God that never enters extinction (as do the successive occasions of the serial God). Precisely in its everlastingness, God holds all that has been within the compassionate Peace of God's own dynamism.

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This is no quiescent peace. To the contrary, it is the continuous result of zest, adventure, truth, and beauty as the ever-newly-completed universe is everlastingly taken into God. To participate in this Peace is to experience unsurpassable joy. But also, all involved in this everlasting Peace must necessarily be involved in God's aims of compassion toward the continuously becoming world. That is, the Whiteheadian God is continuously providing the becoming world with initial aims toward its various possibilities for good. But this everlastingly becoming entity is whole, not fractured. Primordial and consequent natures exist in deepest interpenetration. Thus, all who participate in God (which is to say, whatever has ever become) also participate in God's compassionate activity through initial aims, influencing the becoming world.

Oddly enough, one could even make room in this Lotus-like interpretation of the Whiteheadian God for an infinite number of Boddhisattvas working within the temporal flux. As God influences the world, there are degrees of responsiveness in the world to God's aims. To respond fully to God in this flux of history is to embody God's aims, and to work toward earthly forms of Peace. Within Christianity, Christ is called the incarnation of God, the full embodiment of the nature of God in the world for the purpose of compassionately preaching and enacting the Kingdom of God. There is no reason in principle why such an incarnation should be restricted to one individual; to the contrary, the very compassion of God is best served if as many "Christs" as possible are incarnate all over the world. As eminent a Christian theologian as Martin Luther taught that all Christians should be "little Christs." Of course, if God seeks incarnations throughout the universe for the purpose of eliciting creatures' yearnings and progress toward Peace, then the naming of these incarnations would vary depending upon the culture into which the incarnation came; "Boddhisattva" could easily serve!

What Whitehead says about the single everlastingly concrescing God and the infinite manyness of the world in Part V of Process and Reality is like a metaphysical picture of what the Lotus seems to be offering in its own unique vision of the one Buddha and the infinite manyness of the temporal world. The nature of God affects all things; the Buddha Nature is in all things. All things participate in God, and realization of the Buddha Nature appears to be a full participation in the Buddha.

But now I am surely far afield. Surely it cannot be the case that the Lotus and process thought are so similar; surely the "fork" with which I dine at the Sutra's lavish table has affected the taste of its delectable food. Perhaps there is no Buddha at all, and only the Buddha Nature; I am too Western in suggesting that the Lotus portrays the Buddha in a way so similar to how Whitehead portrays God! Be that as it may, let me merely suggest in summary that contemplating the Buddha as the one

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who encompasses all times and everlastingly works compassionately with worlds upon worlds, all of which share the capacity to achieve Buddhahood, illumines the process notion of God as an actual entity.

A pluralist postscript

To Whiteheadian eyes, there are illumining similarities between the Sutra and a process vision of the world. These parallels do not necessarily signify commensurate ways of thinking, for each rests within a context of radically different sensitivities built up within divergent cultures. But now those cultures are in continuous contact with one another, affecting one another and asking questions about each other's ways of thinking. And so when one reads in the Sutra, "Because living beings have different natures, different desires, different actions, and different ways of thinking and making distinctions, and because I want to enable them to put down good roots, I employ a variety of causes and conditions, similes, parables, and phrases and preach different doctrines. This, the Buddha's work, I have never for a moment neglected," ^[15] one is led to musing. Could it be that the Buddha uses process thought as a skillful means for Westerners? Is the everlasting flux of process, accompanied by those intimations of Peace, the Buddha's compassionate adaptation of Buddhist insight to the capacities of Western hearers?

But then again, of course, there is the everlasting God of process philosophy. One reads,"... no two actualities can be torn apart; each is all in all. Thus each temporal occasion embodies God, and is embodied in God, In God's nature, permanence is primordial and flux is derivative from the World: in the World's nature, flux is primordial and permanence is derivative from God." ^[16] Is it the process God, then, who is embodied within Buddhism, leading Buddhists to see the truth of the world's transitoriness, but also to intuit that primordial Peace? Is Buddhism a skillful means whereby the process God leads Buddhists to enlightenment?

Of course, one could phrase these as statements instead of questions. The Buddhist God uses the expedient means of process thought to lead Westerners to realization of the Buddha Nature. The process God expediently uses initial aims of Buddhism to lead Easterners to realization of Peace.

If "Peace" and "Buddha Nature" are qualities of joy in the midst of suffering, of permanence in the midst of flux, of intimations of what might be in a world always in the process of striving, then perhaps these two namings are not so far apart. It may not even much matter which naming one uses, save that one may be more suited to one's cultural

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sensitivities than the other. "Peace" and "Buddha Nature" are both comfortable with diversity—and more than that, each requires diversity in order to be itself. Neither "Peace" nor "Buddha Nature" negates the value of this multifarious world of becoming in which we are immersed. In the process and Buddhist affirmations of diversity, and particularly in their respective uses of skillful means toward Peace/Buddha Nature, there is ample room for cultural and religious diversity. The religions of East and West become friends, not competitors, and each has a place in the other's requisite diversity.

So then, by considering the Lotus Sutra and process thought together, we might reach a deeper clarity concerning skillful means, the nature of truth, the compassion of the Buddha and/or God, and the value of religious diversity. The table set before us contains all that we need in an all-at-onceness, inviting us to eat one thing after another until we are full.

CLAREMONT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY

Claremont, California

Endnotes

[1]. I am using Burton Watson's translation of The Lotus Sutra (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993); hereafter cited as LS.

[2]. LS.p.98.

[3]. LS,p.300.

[4]. LS,p.72.

[5]. LS,p.200.

[6]. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, corrected edition, David Ray Griffin and Donald Sherburne, eds. (New York: Free Press, 1978).

[7]. LS,p.l95.

[8]. LS, p. 208.

[9]. Alfred North 'Whitehead, Adventures of Ideas (New York: Macmillan, 1933).

[10]. LS,p.229.

[11]. LS,p.227.

[12]. LS,p.l74.

[13]. LS,p.l44.

[14]. LS,p.232.

[15]. LS,p.l5.

[16]. Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 348.