KNOWLEDGE, ACTION, AND THE "ONE BUDDHA-VEHICLE":

A COMPARATIVE APPROACH

By  warren G. frisina

Journal of Chinese Philosophy v.28 n.4 (December 2001)
pp.429-447
 

 Copyright 2001 by Journal of Chinese Philosophy

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This article will draw the Lotus Sutra into an ongoing comparative project exploring the relationship between knowledge and action. I have argued in other publications that the tendency to view knowledge and action as separate and sequentially related is misguided and a contributing factor in many of the confusions that have bedeviled contemporary philosophy and theology.¹ To counter this tendency I appeal to epistemological implications in the neo-Confucian, pragmatist, and process philosophical traditions in an effort to make the case that knowledge and action really are one thing. This article will examine the Lotus Sutra with an eye toward how it handles the relationship between knowledge and action. Specifically, I will argue that the Lotus Sutra presents the "one Buddha-vehicle" as a dynamic, open-ended, and spontaneous form of human responsiveness rather than as a purely mental awakening that corresponds to the "true" nature of things.

        The relationship between knowledge and action is clearly not a front-burner issue in the Lotus Sutra. From what I can see, there are no explicit arguments designed to counter an overly intellectualized approach to Buddhist self-cultivation. I assume this is the case because a purely cognitive view of the boddhisattva path was not an extant option at the time the text was compiled. The Lotus Sutra is, of course, engaged in a strong polemic against the vehicles of learning, realization (Hinayana), and Boddhisattvahood (early Mahayana). If we squint hard, it is perhaps possible to see some of the issues I am concerned with in the Lotus Sutra's efforts to supplant these three earlier forms of Buddhist spiritual practice. In chapter 2, for example, the text reads: "It is not by reasoning, Sariputra, that the law is to be found; it is beyond the pale of reasoning, and must be learnt from the Tathagata."² Such statements could be read to mean that the one Buddha-vehicle goes beyond mere learning about the four noble truths or simple realization of the implications in the twelve-linked chain of dependent causation. I suspect, however, that the line dividing earlier Buddhist spiritual practices from those found in the Lotus Sutra has more to do with the universalism of the one Buddha-vehicle than with the separation of knowledge from action.

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        The above admission may lead readers to ask: "If the quest to demonstrate the unity of knowledge and action is not an issue for the Lotus Sutra, then why try to draw this text into the larger project mentioned above?" The short answer is that we have something to learn by examining a text where the bifurcation of knowledge and action is simply not present at all. For example, those who approach the Lotus Sutra with Platonic, Aristotelian, or Cartesian assumptions about the relationship between knowledge and action are likely to engage in one of two illegitimate interpretive moves. Either they view the Lotus Sutra's notions about the one Buddha-vehicle as a quest for the purely cognitive knowledge, which sets the stage for nirvana, or they find the Lotus Sutra's description of the one Buddha-vehicle oddly incomplete, and something of a challenge to our traditional understanding of what it means to become "enlightened." By pushing beyond these initial confusions, and allowing the text to assert its own presuppositions, we learn something from the way the Lotus Sutra quite naturally links knowledge, action, compassion, and selflessness into a single coherent vision of the optimal form of human existence.

        Some might think it paradoxical that I begin this analysis of the Lotus Sutra with a discussion of neo-Confucianism, pragmatism, and process philosophy. The paradox should be lessened, however, by recalling the extent to which these three traditions share certain ontological and cosmological assumptions with the Lotus Sutra. All promote a relational ontology that rejects the notion that any one thing can be defined apart from how it is linked to everything else. Moreover, each makes some use of an organismic cosmology that characterizes the relations that bind things to one another as instances of value. When a relational ontology is coupled with an organismic cosmology it becomes very difficult to justify an epistemological position that separates cognition from a fully embodied responsiveness to the world's promptings. In these three traditions and in the Lotus Sutra, insight (or knowledge) is always understood in functional terms as a fully embodied responsiveness to the world's promptings. Knowledge is never merely an accurate representation of some external reality. To say we know something means that we are capable of relating to it successfully.

        In sum, the Lotus Sutra contributes to an analysis of the relationship between knowledge and action by urging us to see how the highest form of human self-realization is only achievable by acting in concert with other sentient beings. In the Lotus Sutra, the boddhisattva path is not a mere cognitive awakening to the fundamental character of oneself or the universe at large; it is, rather, an initiation into a mode of activity that is perfectly suited to the needs of others.

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Knowledge and Action in Confucianism, Pragmatism, and Process Thought: Wang, Dewey, and Whitehead
 

Early in the sixteenth century the Chinese neo-Confucian Wang Yang-ming (1472-1529) coined the slogan chih hsing ho-i (the unity of knowledge and action).³ Chih hsing ho-i summarizes Wang's attempt to overcome epistemological errors that he believed were embedded in the then-contemporary understanding of the relationship between knowledge and action. At the time, Wang's colleagues were following a course of study outlined some 300 years earlier by the neo-Confucian scholar Chu Hsi (1130-1200). Chu Hsi had argued that knowledge ought to precede any attempt to act. Specifically, he urged his students to begin their efforts at self-improvement by cultivating a cognitive appreciation for the basic patterns, li, that give individual things their definite character. Ultimately, after learning to appreciate the li in many individual things, Chu Hsi was convinced that scholars could become true sages by cultivating an understanding of the basic patterning process underlying all things. A person who was thus enlightened could then act securely in the knowledge that the dictates of her heart would not overstep the boundaries of right.⁴

        Wang's complaint against this interpretation of Chu Hsi's position⁵ is that it seems inevitably to lead scholars into spiritual dead ends. Wang's colleagues tended to substitute erudition for true understanding, and study never seemed to issue naturally into a specific course of action. After his own attempts to put Chu Hsi's system into effect failed miserably, Wang rejected the very idea of a purely cognitive state that precedes and directs our actions. Knowledge, for Wang, could not precede action because the hsin (heart-mind) is a dynamic organ, one that is always engaged in the process of constructing and reconstructing our relationships with the ever-changing components of our world. Thus, according to Wang, hsin does not mirror the world as a precursor to acting. It is the seat of the will that is itself always involved in determining how we respond to the world's promptings,

        Three centuries later, and half a world away, the American pragmatists (e.g., Peirce, James, and Dewey) initiated their own campaign to reconstruct our understanding of the relationship between knowledge and action. These thinkers saw in the unprecedented success of the scientific method evidence that traditional descriptions of knowledge were inadequate. They concluded that knowing had more to do with interacting with the world than apprehending it in some purely cognitive, timeless way.

        Like Wang, the pragmatists had trouble communicating their insight regarding the relationship between knowledge and action to their con-

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temporaries. But the pragmatists' situation was more difficult than Wang's. In making his case that knowledge and action are really one thing, Wang could appeal to a relational ontology and organismic cosmology that was commonly held by all of Chu Hsi's followers.⁶ Wang had only to point out that in a dynamic world where all things are internally related, there simply could not be a "state of mind" that transcends the process and precedes the action. Peirce, James, and Dewey could not depend on similar assumptions among their contemporaries. Instead, they found themselves struggling against their colleague's faith in a dualistic ontology that presumes an unbridgeable chasm between the cognitive and material realms. Cartesians, for example, posited the existence of a mental realm where some things are knowable with certainty because they are not subject to change. The Cartesian mind is capable of entertaining these fixed immaterial ideas that represent (in some unexplained way) aspects of the always-changing material realm. Though the relationship between minds and bodies was always something of a paradox for Descartes (witness his discussion of the role of the pineal gland), he and all his followers considered the linkage between knowledge, certainty, and fixedness simply a given.

        Unlike Wang, then, the pragmatists needed to posit and argue for an alternative ontology, one that would be consistent with their claims about the unity of knowledge and action. The pragmatic alternative is an ontology that emphasizes continuity (synechism for Peirce) and internal relatedness. Peirce, James, and Dewey each present slightly varying portraits of the world as a dynamic, pluralistic matrix of internally related entities.

        Although some contemporary philosophers tend to downplay it, pragmatic ontological, and metaphysical claims are intimately linked with their epistemological discoveries.⁷ With this alternative ontological position in mind, the pragmatists were in a position to jettison Descartes's assumptions about the link between knowledge, certainty, and fixedness. In the place of Descartes's clear and distinct ideas, they described knowledge as a pattern or habit regulating the way we formulate the relationships that define who/what we are. Knowledge is not a re-presentation or mirroring of the world. It is never certain, or the product of some purely cognitive "god's-eye point of view," Instead, for the pragmatists, knowledge is located in the very patterns of our actions, patterns that are our responses to the world's promptings.

        This description of knowledge shifts the ground on a great many issues. For example, the tendency to divide the world into knowing subjects and known objects is completely undercut. Instead, Dewey (for example) argues that we operate within a continuous transactional field that is only secondarily analyzable into separate subjects and objects.

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Put simply, for Dewey, we must all be together before we can be separated from one another and the things we "know." Where Descartes posited an ontological chasm between knowing minds and the known world, the pragmatists presume a felt-continuity rooted ultimately in the fundamental relatedness at the base of all things. As pragmatists describe us, we don't stand apart from the world like spectators―we engage it directly. Thinking (or "inquiry," as Dewey prefers to call it) occurs when our habitual ways of interacting with the world are unsuccessful relative to some specific goals or expectations. To fix such problems we literally must change our world and ourselves. To be successful, we must change the habits or patterns that structure our relationships. These newly successful patterns are rightly labeled "knowledge."

        To those who know the neo-Confucian and pragmatic traditions, much of what I have said will be familiar even if my particular take on the importance of the relationship between knowledge and action is somewhat novel. It may seem strange to some, however, that I am willing to lump Whitehead's process philosophy in with those who reject the separation of knowledge from action. Whitehead's Platonism, his tendency to talk about "eternal objects," and his quasi-rationalistic tone, all could be described as incompatible with the neo-Confucian and pragmatic theories of knowledge.

        My reading of Whitehead's theory of knowledge is clearly influenced by the neo-Confucian and pragmatic traditions. Although I acknowledge that it is possible to read Whitehead differently, I tend to downplay his discussion of eternal objects and focus more on Part 3 of Process and Reality where he presents a detailed description of how the activity of individual actual entities builds to full-scale human cognition. Viewed from that perspective, Whitehead's theory of knowledge resonates quite nicely with the pragmatic and neo-Confucian positions outlined above. Whitehead's relational ontology is as thoroughgoing as the others are. In Whitehead's case, each individual actual entity becomes what it is through the relationships that it forms. This process of "coming to be" is described as a kind of creative engagement with the world, where each entity literally creates itself in the process of determining how it will be related to everything else. Human cognition, or knowledge, is best understood as a special subset of these very same actions. Cognition is achieved via the complicated movements of an indeterminate number of entities, all acting in concert to achieve some coordinated objective. In this sense, the human "self" is distributed throughout an organism that is itself constituted by the multilayered activities of its subprocesses. Whitehead sometimes talks about the "person" being located in some indeterminate subset of the actual entities that are located somewhere in the interstices of the human brain. But I do not

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find that to be a particularly helpful analogy, and prefer instead to see the individual human self as one outcome of the organism's overall coordinated activities.

        In sum, then, it is fair to say that the unity of knowledge and action is a position that fits comfortably within the neo-Confucian, pragmatist, and process contexts. Put simply, for all three, existence is inherently dynamic because entities are patterns of interactions rather than independent substances. Experience is a specific kind of interactional pattern within the wider interactions constituting individual entities and the universe at large. Knowledge is a species of experience, and, therefore, also a specific kind of interactional pattern. Thus, existence, experience, and knowledge, are first and foremost modes of interaction. This is the common denominator, or line of continuity, that enables thinkers such as Wang, Dewey, and Whitehead to avoid the dualisms that have haunted Western philosophy since the Greek period.

        With this extended introduction into a set of conclusions drawn from neo-Confucianism, pragmatism, and process thought, I would like to turn now to the Lotus Sutra itself to explore important resonances that would lead us to conclude that the one Buddha-vehicle is a specific form of activity within the world rather than a purely cognitive representation of it.
 

Relational Ontology and Lotus Sutra's "One True Law"
 

By now, some readers may have grown impatient with this long "wind-up." I am imagining a reader who says to herself: "Well, this is nice enough for neo-Confucians, pragmatists, and process thinkers, but it doesn't really apply to the Buddhism of the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus Sutra prompts us to engage in a quest that will awaken us to what it calls the 'One True Law,' a law that transcends all material manifestations, and that has been preached and followed by Buddhas from eternity. If the one Buddha-vehicle is anything, it involves a growing awareness of the one fixed immutable truth that we all contain the Buddha nature within us. Reduced to its essence, universal Buddhahood seems to be the fixed objective reality that the one Buddha-vehicle conveys. Therefore, the Lotus Sutra cannot be interpreted to be supporting an open-ended understanding of knowledge as a form of action. There is ultimately only one truth, and any deviation from it is a result of some moral/spiritual failure on our part."
I can appreciate why my reading of the Lotus Sutra might sound a bit strange at first. Most of us quickly assimilate the Lotus Sutra's language of the "One True Law" to a transcendent understanding of law itself. It

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is typical of many philosophers to treat "ideal laws" as if they were immaterial universal principles that are written in the cosmos by some god or an anonymous moral rationality. Viewed this way, they are immutable tools for guiding and measuring our behavior. For most of us, developing a self-conscious awareness of such a law (e.g., Kant) is the first step toward ensuring that our actions do not overstep the boundaries of right.

        This notion of law, however, does not make sense in the Buddhist context. In the West it is supported by Platonic and Cartesian assumptions that render plausible the notion of a purely ideal, unchanging realm that is independent of the imperfect, changing, material realm. I do not see similar ontological premises at work in this Buddhist text.⁸ Instead, I see a dynamic relational ontology whose "principles" or "laws" are implicit in rather than transcendent of the material realm. The whole notion of co-dependent origination seems to militate against the very idea of transcendent Buddhist laws of any kind. After all, if all things are ultimately empty (read: dependent on their causes), then why should the One True Law be given special status? This might sound paradoxical, but it should not be for close readers of the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus Sutra makes something of a habit of revealing how things that seem universally true (e.g., previous Buddha vehicles) are actually only "true" relative to the needs of a particular sentient being at a specific time and place. To "entitize" anything, including the Lotus Sutra's One True Law, is to assert an independent fixed existence. Such a move would seem to violate one of the central premises of the Lotus Sutra's relational ontology. In sum, whatever else the Lotus Sutra might mean by its references to the One True Law, it simply cannot be the same as traditional Western references to an objectively transcendent principle whose reality is independent of its instantiation within the material realm.

        But the Lotus Sutra does repeatedly say that the One True Law revealed within this text is not to be supplanted by any others. What does that mean if not that the One True Law is transcendentally real? What kind of reality does it have? From where I stand, its reality seems dependent on its enactment. That is, we can only "see" the One True Law by analyzing the actions and trajectories of all sentient beings. Absent those actions, it would not be present. Viewed this way, we can better understand the linkage between the One True Law and the universalism of the one Buddha-vehicle. Whereas the Hinayana and some early Mahayana vehicles taught that only a limited number of people were destined to achieve Buddhahood, the Lotus Sutra takes the radical position that every sentient being is already on the boddhisattva path. If it were possible to truly step outside of the one Buddha-vehicle and act

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in such a way as to condemn oneself to utter and complete separation from one's Buddha nature, one would simultaneously be stepping outside of the One True Law. This would limit the One True Law's applicability. Instead, the Lotus Sutra repeatedly urges us to see that every sentient being is destined ultimately for enlightenment, and that the One True Law is manifest in the individual efforts of sentient beings as they work toward their own (and everyone else's) salvation. Viewed this way, the law is universal, and unsupplantable, because it is enacted by all sentient beings all the time.

        A Western thinker might grumble that a moral law that is enacted all the time by everyone―a law that really cannot be violated―could hardly be called a "human" law. But that, of course, is the point I have been trying to make. The Lotus Sutra's understanding of the One True Law simply cannot be subsumed under the general Western understanding of transcendent moral laws. It seems to point to something more fundamental in the character of all sentient beings. Put one way, the One True Law's relation to sentient beings is closer to the way the law of gravity is related to physical objects. All physical objects exhibit gravitational properties, even when they do not seem to be. When gases rise and airplanes fly, they are not violating gravity. They are, in fact, exhibiting it, albeit in an apparently paradoxical manner. Viewed this way, then, the Lotus Sutra seems to be trying to lift up an aspect of sentient life that is universally present, and that seems to ensure that we make progress in our lives, even when it seems that we are not making any progress at all.

        At this point, all I have tried to do is convey the point that the Lotus Sutra's understanding of the One True Law is different from what we may typically mean when we use the term "law." It is best seen as a description of a characteristic embedded in the actions of sentient beings. It has no independent being, or regulatory power. Why this is important will become clearer after we have had a chance to look closely at what the text means by the one Buddha-vehicle.
 

The One Buddha-Vehicle: Successful Actions
 

The one Buddha-vehicle is, of course, the alternative posited by the Lotus Sutra to earlier Hinayana and Mahayana spiritual practices. One of the Lotus Sutra's great accomplishments (from its own point of view) is the way that it manages to explain and reconcile the different Buddhist practices. It subsumes them all under a broader framework, arguing that each is valuable in itself but that they are all only valuable relative to the needs of a specific group of people at a specific time. In

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short, all other vehicles are useful as provisional vehicles and to be supplanted by the Lotus Sutra's final revelation.

        As we begin to analyze the Lotus Sutra's characterization of the one Buddha-vehicle, I think it is interesting to note how the text goes about unveiling it. Instead of listing a series of doctrines to be learned or memorized, it presents us with descriptions of things people, boddhisattvas, or Buddhas have done. When push comes to shove and the text needs to explain what the one Buddha-vehicle is, it routinely tells a story of how people act in specific circumstances. In fact, as one commentator pointed out, taken as a whole the Lotus Sutra tells us the story of the events on Vulture Peak that (among other things) communicate what it takes to lead boddhisattvas toward enlightenment.⁹ It is true, of course, that readers can distill from the stories and parables a set of ethical principles or "rules" to guide our actions. But the Lotus Sutra does not take that route. Instead, it leaves its anecdotes, parables, and legendary tales relatively unadorned by explicit morals other than the occasional explanation of who the main characters represent.

        The main stories are too familiar to bear detailed repeating. I will start with the rich father who rebuilds his relationship with a wayward, destitute son. In this story, the father acts in such a way as to draw his son away from poverty and into a fuller life. He does not offer direct instruction. Instead, he sensitively responds to his child's needs in a way that leads the boy to spontaneously follow a path toward recovery and reassimilation into the community.

        As in many of the Lotus Sutra's other father/child stories, the father represents the Buddha and the son represents the rest of us. Like the son we are often mired in confusion, lost to temptations, ashamed of ourselves, and stubborn to boot. Quite simply, we get confused over what is really good for us, and resistant to the idea of letting go of our delusions. Given our state of mind, telling us what to do is almost never effective, as the rich father discovers when he first asks to have his son brought before him.

        It takes extraordinary sensitivity to be capable of feeling and responding appropriately to someone else's needs. By putting on rags and adapting himself to his son's lifestyle, the rich father displays the well-known Buddhist virtue of compassion. More important than compassion, however, the father demonstrates extraordinary skill in human relatedness. Using "skillful means,"¹⁰ the rich father, like the other fathers in the Lotus Sutra, does rescue his son. The skill, however, is not located in the father's cleverness (as is arguably the case with the father who saves his children from the burning building). Rather, the father's skill is located in the appropriateness of the actions that he undertakes in light of his son's particular needs. It does not take much technical skill

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to put on rags and shovel dung. The skill comes in being sensitive to what his son needs and having the personal wherewithal to act on those needs.

        What, then, are we to take away from this story? There is the obvious call to compassion, but compassion is not presented as an abstract goal or ideal. It is enacted relative to the specific needs that present themselves. The text does not give us a "formula" for identifying what a compassionate act would be in all circumstances. Rather, almost like the Talmud, it iterates examples of people acting in a manner that leads to a successful resolution of some problem. Could it be, then, that the one Buddha-vehicle is best characterized as appropriate actions―actions that lead to a successful outcome of a problem? Well, yes and no.

        My response is ambivalent because at first it seems that success is defined somewhat differently in every instance. In some instances, success involves rescuing others from dangers that they are unaware of (e.g., the children in the burning house). In other instances it involves awakening others to a good that they don't realize is there, or that they feel unworthy of attaining (e.g., the wayward son). In still other instances, it involves overcoming the sheer inertia of human behavior. We often need to be pushed (or lured) into accepting what is good for us (e.g., the wayward son and the hidden gem stories). So to say that the one Buddha-vehicle is best characterized as appropriate actions that lead to a successful outcome of a problem, is true. But the text does not give us a fixed or simple definition of how success is to be defined. It all "depends," so to speak, on the nature of the individual and the specifics of the problem. What does seem consistent through all of this, however, is that the primary actor in each story is acting in accord with someone else's needs. Compassion is truly front and center. But compassion is always tied to the specifics of someone's circumstances. Moreover, compassion always involves acting with others. It is never located in mere feelings, thoughts or ideas. In every instance we learn from the Buddha-figure how to act so as to truly benefit others. In short, the summarizing message of these stories is that success seems always tied to a capacity to resonate with and respond to the needs of others.

        If we connect this understanding of compassion with the observation at the end of the previous section that the One True Law is exhibited by all sentient beings, we begin to get a fuller picture of the Lotus Sutra's claims. All sentient beings exhibit the One True Law. Each is inevitably following a path toward full and complete realization. Where does that path lead? Toward actions fully sensitized to the needs of others. Of course, not all sentient beings have arrived yet at the destination. All the text seems to want to make clear is that we are all heading in the same direction.

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Learning from the Tathagata
 

If it is true that the one Buddha-vehicle is best characterized as a capacity to resonate with and respond to the needs of others, then it seems fair to ask why the Lotus Sutra says that the one Buddha-vehicle can only be learned directly from the Tathagata. Isn't the kind of compassion I have been describing already present, at least to some degree, in the earlier Buddhist vehicles? And, even more puzzling: What does the text mean by an encounter with the Tathagata? The display described in the Lotus Sutra is a rare occurrence (even in the context of Buddhist cosmic time), so we cannot be expecting to witness such an event ourselves. Moreover, if everyone is already a "passenger" on the one Buddha-vehicle, why talk at all about receiving it from the Tathagata? Don't we all already have it?

        One quick answer to these questions is that the Lotus Sutra itself is supposed to stand as the literal embodiment of the one Buddha-vehicle. This text, which is said to be skillfully responsive to every human need, is in some sense a direct encounter with the Tathagata. But this quick answer gives us only part of the story and misses some important clues in the latter half of the text. While it is true that the Lotus Sutra contains all of the skillful promptings we could ever need, it is also the case that the Lotus Sutra claims its central message existed long before the events that it chronicles. Countless Buddhas have preached the Lotus Sutra from the beginning of time. Moreover, when Shakyamuni reveals toward the end of the text that his historical enlightenment is itself merely a skillful illustration, and that his enlightenment reaches all the way back to the beginning of time, the frame of reference for understanding the Tathagata shifts considerably.

        To sort this out, let me turn to this question: What does the Lotus Sutra's one Buddha-way offer beyond what the previous vehicles offered? As I see it, the principle difference is the way it universalizes the boddhisattva path. Everyone is enlisted into the boddhisattva "army," so to speak. We are all already engaged in a quest that ultimately will be successful. True, there may be "detours" along the way. We will misbehave, cling to our fears, or act selfishly. But the scare quotes around detour refer to the fact that viewed from the perspective of the individual, there are no detours. Each of us is following an individualized path that leads inevitably toward complete realization of the Buddhist ideal. Therefore, we are all always being lured forward by the very ideals that the Tathagata teaches. Yes, these are especially distilled and appropriately arranged for us in the Lotus Sutra. But it is just as fair to say that we can find the Tathagata's lessons in the potential for good in every situation that confronts us.

Viewed this way, it might even be fair to say that the Tathagata is

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the potential for good. My only caveat is that we be careful to say that the Tathagata is the potential good in every concrete situation. I say this to distinguish my description of the Tathagata from the more transcendent language of Plato's Form of the Good. While it is possible to see these two concepts as related to one another, I think it important at this point to emphasize that my own reading of the Lotus Sutra leads me to focus on the way the Tathagata embodies the goods that emerge in specific situations, rather than ideal ends. We can find the Tathagata by becoming sensitive to the potentialities m each situation. Of course, we cannot tell what those potentialities are ahead of time. Rather, the skill that the Lotus Sutra sees us cultivating is a willingness to be drawn into actions on behalf of others. Those who are fully developed can act properly every time. Shakyamuni is portrayed as one who has been raised to that level. The rest of us are at varying stages of learning how to allow ourselves to be lured by the Tathagata toward actions that truly benefit others. At the very least, we need the sensitivity to feel precisely where the others are. Else, how can we act on their behalf?
 

Skillfull Means and the Pragmatic Pursuit of the Good
 

At this point, my argument has involved the following steps. First, I argued that neo-Confucianism, pragmatism, and process thought each (in different ways) make the case that knowledge and action are really one thing. Second, I argued that the Lotus Sutra does not make such an argument, but instead simply presumes it. Pure cognitive knowledge, of the kind we often find exalted in Western philosophical and religious quests, seems to be given very little emphasis in the Lotus Sutra. Instead, the text highlights repeatedly a kind of skillful responsiveness to the needs of others. This capacity to act successfully on behalf of others is something that all sentient beings have, and that all sentient beings are in the process of extending or developing. We saw this universalism in my characterizations of the One True Law and in the one Buddha-vehicle. We also saw it in my attempts to generalize the Lotus Sutra's language regarding the Tathagata. My point there was to claim that we learn the Lotus Sutra's "lessons" whenever we pursue the potential for good that emerges in concrete situations. Viewed this way, the Buddha is truly present (at least potentially) in all things.

        To tie all of this together I would like to end by looking briefly at the notion of skillful means. This will contribute to our understanding of the Lotus Sutra's position on knowledge and action and render clearer how they relate to the neo-Confucian, pragmatic, and process positions I outlined at the beginning of this article.

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        Skillful means is the Lotus Sutra's way of describing specific actions that lead toward the most beneficial outcome in a specific situation. Given this definition, we all have some capacity to act skillfully. Shakyamuni has it to a degree that cannot be surpassed. To cultivate our capacity to act skillfully, the Lotus Sutra prompts us to act in ways that open us to the needs of others. Only when we have let go of our own selfish desires are we capable of acting in a way that is truly united with the Tathagata (i.e., the best possible outcome in a given situation). I sometimes tell my students that Buddhism promotes "ego-less utilitarianism," a far more radical position than that suggested by Mill or Bentham!

        Reflections on skillful means have often centered on a few familiar questions. Does it mean that any kind of action is permissible so long as the outcome is favorable? Can anything be justified? Is the Lotus Sutra, for example, promoting lying in some circumstances? Given the direction that I have been taking in the above analysis, I would have to answer that last question with a yes. Of course it is good to lie sometimes. Unlike ethical theories that seek their validation in transcendent universal principles, the Lotus Sutra reminds us that the complexities of life are often not reducible to a few clear and simple rules. If the best outcome in a situation involves deceptions that cause less harm than the good that is created, then of course they should be used. The rich father lies to his children. There were no carts waiting for them. But was he guilty of deception. Only a moral prig would lose sight of the bigger picture and focus on the question of lying. What counts in the Lotus Sutra are the actions themselves and the consequences that they produce. The children were saved. The promised carts could be secured at a later time. Should we use similar deceptions? I think the Lotus Sutra leads us to conclude we should, when the circumstances are right. If my children are ever playing in a burning house, I will use the same technique without qualms. But there is nothing in the text to suggest that deceptions are always appropriate. Should a physician trick a patient by pretending she will get well when she will not? In almost every instance the answer is clearly no, as the cost in loss of dignity and autonomy is far too great to justify the supposed benefit of "easing her final days." The problem that skillful means leaves us with is, oddly enough, an epistemological problem. How do we "know" what the right course of action is? What if we choose to lie and end up hurting someone worse than if we told him or her the truth immediately?

        I am suggesting that the Lotus Sutra does not give us the kind of help we have come to expect in resolving such questions. Typically, we look for universal rules to ensure that we are not acting out of self-interest. There are no such things in the Lotus Sutra, other than the way the text urges us to cultivate a heart that is truly open to the needs of others.

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How do we do that? Given the evidence in the text, all we can do is act on other's behalf and scrupulously work toward the dissolution of any sense that my own good could ever be somehow separate from or in conflict with the good for others. Does this give us certainty in our quest to "do the right thing?" No, it does not. Does it feel unsatisfying? Yes, it does. We've been promised since Descartes that certainty is attainable if only we think hard enough. But the Lotus Sutra gives the lie to that promise and tells us that certainty is beyond the grasp of all, except perhaps those who literally become the Tathagata. As the Tathagata, Shakyamuni is the potential good in each situation. His "actions" are the way the potential goods lure us toward whatever is best in any situation. We, of course, are not always as responsive as we could be to the potential for good. But still it calls us, urging us in the right (that is, the best possible) direction.

        Turning now to pragmatism and process thought, it is easy to see how they present us with a somewhat similar description of this moral cosmos. Instead of sentient beings, Dewey and Whitehead talk of organisms. According to both, organisms are centers of subjective activity directed toward changing goals in an ever-changing environment. For both, the cosmos is a never-ending sequence of indeterminate situations that are rendered determinate and subsequently give rise to the next indeterminate moment.

        The moral dimension to the process and pragmatic cosmos stems from the "interest" each organism has in how an indeterminate moment is rendered determinate. From the perspective of each organism, every indeterminate situation has a beneficial potential outcome which, were it to be attained, would lead directly to the next moment with yet more potential for good. Given what I have said above, I think we can see the Lotus Sutra's Tathagata in the way Deweyan and Whiteheadian organisms pursue the best possible outcome in any indeterminate moment.

        The interesting question, of course, is how "the good" gets denned for each organism. Whitehead and Dewey take very different approaches to resolving this question. As I see it, Dewey is much closer to the Lotus Sutra on this issue than Whitehead is.

        Those who know the process tradition will recall that Whitehead feels compelled to posit that the world as we know it is founded upon an ideal ordering of all the potentialities that could ever be envisioned. He locates this universal ideal in God's primordial nature. Whitehead thought that without such a universal lure there would be no clear explanation for why an entity would find one option any more valuable than another. Even more importantly, he argued that without some sort of divine envisionment we could not really understand how the various competing elements in the world could ever grow toward the coordi-

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nated behavior that leads to the exquisite complexities in the world we experience. In short, true to his famous quotation, Whitehead footnotes Plato by arguing that each entity is lured toward the good in any particular situation because it "feels," in some sense, the relationship between the concrete good that is achievable now and the universal good toward which all things aim. According to Whitehead, we are all locked in an endless dance toward perfection, with Truth, Beauty, and all the other Platonic values serving as transcendent lures.

When I first began to rethink the role of the Tathagata along the lines described above, I was led to the conclusion that it was similar to what Whitehead means by the divine primordial envisagement. After all, both the Tathagata and the primordial envisagement lure temporal organisms/ sentient beings ahead toward some perfect (i.e., unchanging) order outside of time and space. The more I thought about it, however, the less this made sense to me. I began to have a very hard time connecting the Whiteheadian primordial nature with a fully co-dependent Buddhist ontology. Like the Buddhists, Whitehead goes to great lengths to argue that there is no independent or fully transcendent factor in his ontological vision. The category of the Ultimate, for example, is designed to make this very point. But the primordial envisagement of God has always stuck out like a sore thumb for me. It is just "out there," uncaused, and in some fundamental sense unrelated to anything else. Whitehead argues that it is the necessary starting point (hence the name primordial!). But that does not really resolve the puzzle of independent existence. From the Buddhist perspective, Whitehead's primordial envisagement would seem to be the one thing that transcends the causal process.

        For these reasons I turned to Dewey, whose relational ontology and organismic cosmology resonate with Whitehead's on many different levels. But in Dewey there is a self-conscious refusal to posit anything like a divine primordial envisagement. There are, of course, "ideal" potential outcomes for each organism in any given moment. But the term "ideal" here means simply the best that can be envisioned by the organism at that time. It does not point toward some transcendent order that we can only weakly imitate. Each moment offers its own potentialities and gives way to the next moment, which may offer yet another set of potentialities.

        I have always read Dewey as something akin to Whitehead without God. In fact, it was reading Dewey that made me wonder whether Whitehead's eternal objects and dual-natured divinity were really essential to the process position. Dewey describes value as something that literally emerges over time. Instead of being lured by an unchanging ideal order, all organisms operate within a relative frame of locally envisaged possibilities. Dewey calls this frame the organism's "ends-in-view," Viewed this way, each organism plays a role in creating the good as it struggles

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to envisage what may be the best possible outcome in any given situation. Part of the creative process, then, devolves to the individual organisms who (at least at the human level) get to transform the world by positing and pursuing previously unknown values.

        According to Dewey, all organisms have ends-in-view. This resonates nicely with the Lotus Sutra's claim that all sentient beings are subject to the One True Law and that all are already part of the one Buddha-vehicle. Even better, the Lotus Sutra's description of skillful means, as I have interpreted it, fits quite nicely with the pragmatic characterization of inquiry. According to Dewey, an organism engages in inquiry when it is confronted with a problematic situation that its existing habits cannot resolve. At first this may not sound at all similar to the Lotus Sutra's use of the term skillful means. But the reading of skillful means that I have provided above puts the emphasis on a sentient being's ability to select a course of action that maximizes the good in any specific situation. As I read it, the Lotus Sutra seems to be telling us that someone who is practiced at acting on behalf of others will have a greater ability to discern what is best in a given situation. Shakyamuni, for instance, has dissolved his sense of independent selfhood and can be certain that his actions draw the best that can be drawn out of each situation. Unlike Shakyamuni, the rest of us stumble along doing the best we can while engaging in the very process that will eventually enhance our skill at the use of skillful means. For both the Lotus Sutra and Dewey, this process consists of acting in the world. By testing out possibilities and exploring consequences, we learn how best to locate and actualize whatever is the highest good in any given situation.

        The major difference between the Lotus Sutra's skillful means and Dewey's inquiry can be found in the kind of actions that they focus on. Dewey sets us up to see inquiry as an outgrowth of the basic organic need to successfully navigate in a changing dangerous world. His focus is, therefore, more general than what we find in the Lotus Sutra, though it is meant to point directly to the higher human forms of inquiry. The Lotus Sutra's discussion of skillful means focuses instead on the process of perfecting the higher human forms of inquiry (if I can use Dewey's term). Like Dewey, the Lotus Sutra acknowledges that the capacity to pursue skillful means is present in all sentient beings. As I read it, however, the text wants us to see skillful means as a capacity that really does not come into play until a sentient being has been developed to a relatively high degree. Thus, whereas in Dewey's more general discussion of inquiry there is room for some forms of selfish desires (amoebae's after all, act only to secure benefits for themselves), the Lotus Sutra's skillful means really apply only to higher sentient beings that are capable of taking into account and acting upon the needs of others. There is much

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more to be explored in the relationship between Dewey's inquiry and the Lotus Sutra's skillful means, but I want to end by turning finally to Wang Yang-ming where I think we find the closest resonance to the Lotus Sutra's positions.

        Wang, of course, was the author of the slogan chih hsing ho-i (the unity of knowledge and action), and in some sense is the one who initiated me into the line of inquiry that I have been pressing throughout this article. In addition to chih hsing ho-i, Wang also favored another slogan that will help us to see how his position is, in fact, much closer to the Lotus Sutra than either Whitehead or Dewey. Wang argued consistently throughout his life that we should all strive to "form one body with all things." To form one body with all things means learning to let go of the limited, self-serving perspective that typically shapes our own understanding of what is best in any situation. We must make room for a much broader point of view, one that takes into account the needs of all those things that make up our natural world.

        There is a sense in which Wang argues both that we already form one body with all things, and that we need to strive to make this ideal a reality. We already form one body with all things in the sense that we are each interdependent nodes within a dynamic and continuous system. On a minimal level, all things are momentary patterns within the vibratory movements of yin contraction and yang expansion. Or, viewed from another cosmological perspective, we all consist of the same ch'i (energy) whose movements are like waves in the ocean, always interacting and interdependent. But forming one body with all things also points beyond this minimal togetherness that we share with all things. We can create new and potentially better ways to be together. Thus, for Wang, forming one body with all things is something we aim for when we create new more complex or sophisticated patterns that take into account a broader range of potentialities than simply those that serve our own needs. As was true for Dewey, this means that value unfolds as new situations arise and, in at least some instances, are a result of human creative contributions. There is no single ideal order. The ideal in every situation involves expanding our capacity to coordinate our needs with the needs of the things that surround us. Thus, we are already one body with all things because we are all together, but we form one body by literally making up new ways to be together, ways that are not so deeply infected by our own selfish desires.

        Wang's particular take on the unity of knowledge action seems closest to what I have been trying to read out of the Lotus Sutra's understanding of the One True Law, the one Buddha-vehicle, the Tathagata and skillful means. Like the Lotus Sutra, Wang argues that all are born with the capacity to discern what is good, right, or best in any situation.¹¹

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Were there more time and space, it would be fruitful to explore how Wang's understanding of ch'eng (the capacity to create new and better ways of being) can be linked with the Lotus Sutra's understanding of the Tathagata. Wang follows traditional Confucian soteriology in arguing that we each have some capacity to become partners with Tien (heaven) and Earth in the creative process. Humans have improved the cosmos by acting in such a way as to bring forth the vastly complex, and extraordinarily exquisite construct called human culture. What makes human culture a positive contribution to the cosmos is the way it enables us to transcend (to some degree) our selfish points of view so that we can act in ways that are cooperative and coordinated. The Confucian love of ritual is based on the notion that it is through ritual that we create jen (humaneness). Jen, of course, is only possible when one acts in such a way as to take the other person's needs into account. I cannot think of a closer analog to what the Lotus Sutra is urging upon each of us in its articulation of the one Buddha-vehicle.¹²

                                                                                                                                                   HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY 

                                                                                                                                                    Hempstead, New York

Endnotes
 

1. See Warren G. Frisina, The Unity of Knowledge and Action: Toward a Nonrepresentational Theory of Knowledge (Albany: State University of New York Press, forthcoming). This book explores the general quest for a nonrepresentational theory of knowledge in contemporary thinkers such as Charles Taylor, Donald Davidson, Richard Rorty, and Daniel Dennett while arguing that they will not reach their goal without making major adjustments in their metaphysical and ontological assumptions. I recommend that they look to the neo-Confucian Wang Yang-ming, the pragmatist John Dewey, and the process philosophers Alfred North Whitehead for guidance on these issues, since all three traditions have struggled mightily to redefine the relationship between knowledge and action. [Back]

2. H. Kern, trans., Saddharma-Pundarika or the Lotus of the True Law (New York; Dover Publications, Inc., 1963), pp. 40-41.[Back]

3. Tu Wei-ming argues that Wang first advocated the unity of knowledge and action around 1509, right after completing a period of banishment. See Neo-Confucian Thought in Action (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), p. 10.[Back]

4. The paraphrase is mine and taken from the Analects 2:4. See Arthur Waley, The Analects of Confucius (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), p. 88.[Back]

5. I will not address in this article whether the "know first"/"act later" interpretation of Chu Hsi's position is an accurate reading of what he meant.  Wang spent the better part of his life arguing that it was not.[Back]

6. Joseph Needham is perhaps the earliest Western scholar to highlight the extent to which Chinese thought presumes a relational ontology and organismic cosmology. See his Science and Civilization in China, vol. 2 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1956), pp. 279 ff., as well as Benjamin Schwartz's, The World of Thought in Ancient China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 356. Similar arguments along these lines can be found in David Hall and Roger Ames, Thinking Through Confucius (Albany:

State University of New York Press, 1987), and their Anticipating China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995).[Back]

7. Here I am thinking of writers such as Richard Rorty who have promoted Dewey's theory 

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of knowledge while rejecting his metaphysics. See Rorty, "Dewey between Hegel and Darwin," in Modernist Impulses in the Human Sciences 1870-1930, edited by Dorothy Ross (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1994), pp. 54-88. This article can also be found in Rony and Pragmatism: The Philosopher Responds to His Critics, edited by Herman J. Saatkam, Jr. (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1995).[Back]

8. Of course, a case could be made that there are precedents for transcendent principles in earlier Indian thought. My point is that Buddhism generally (and the Lotus Sutra in particular) seems uninterested in developing an analysis of transcendent principles.[Back]

9. I am adapting this insight from a comment in Gene Reeves's article, "Appropriate Means as an Ethical Doctrine in the Lotus Sutra," Journal of Buddhist Ethics 5 (1998): 245.[Back]

10. Ibid. Reeves argues persuasively that the phrase that is usually translated as "skulful means" might better be translated as appropriate means.[Back]

11. Wang, of course, appeals to Mencius to justify this claim. But scholars mostly agree that he was deeply influenced by Chan Buddhism as well.[Back]

12. Having said all of this, I want to acknowledge that there are significant differences between each of the figures that I have tried to draw together into this discussion of the unity of knowledge and action. Delineating those differences, however, would go beyond the limits of this article, requiring even more patience of the reader than I have already elicited. [Back]

Chinese Glossary
 

                                                                chih hsing ho-I                                 知行合一

                                                    li                                                      理

                                                    hsin                                                 心

                                                    yin/yang                                          陰  陽

                                                    ch'i                                                  氣

                                                    T'ien                                                天

                                                    jen                                                   仁