RETHINKING THE WHITEHEADIAN GOD AND CHAN/ZEN BUDDHISM IN THE TRADITION OF THE YI JING

By Gu, Linyu

Journal of Chinese Philosophy (March 2002) v.29 p81-92

Blackwell Publishers on behalf of the International Society for Chinese Philosophy

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

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During the past several decades, there have been many comparative studies of Japanese Zen Buddhism and Western thought. The present article asks; How can Zen. which is a redeveloped form of Chinese Chan Buddhism, be compared with the philosophy of Whitehead?

     I maintain that there is a distinctive affinity between the process doctrine of God in the West and Chan/Zen Buddhism in the East. This comparative relation provides important clues to bridging the gap between divinity and humanity, heaven and the world, and God/Buddha and the human self.

      My discussion argues that the Chinese philosophy of the Yi Jing (or The Book of Changes) presents an original ground that allows the process God and Buddha in Chan/Zen to share a fundamental affinity. In effect, these two divine powers can provide a harmonious unification of the world and human self. This approach requires a critical rethinking of Whitehead. Chinese Chan Buddhism, and modern Japanese Zen in the light of the Yi Jing tradition. Without a careful look into the root impact of the Chinese philosophical yi tradition, an attempt at finding a link between Chan/Zen and the concept of God would be misleading ^[1] 'The Yi Jing is a rich. originative source that can be used to compare both Chan/Zen Buddhism and process studies. This fundamental ground can be best appreciated through a mastery of the Chinese source materials.

Yi Chan: oneness of Tian (Universe), Ren (Human Self), and Fo (Buddha)

To begin, it is important to make a distinction between Chinese Chan Buddhism and its Japanese successor. Zen (Chan in Chinese). The former should be characterized as yi Chan, whereas the latter should be called "modern Zen" (dang dai Chan in Chinese ^[2] ). It is a historical fact

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that Chinese culture did not simply duplicate Indian Buddhist traditions; rather, China transformed it into Chinese Chan Buddhism. The achievement of Chan Buddhism is its rebirthing of the Mahayana tradition within the multiple dimensions of the Chinese tradition. The source of this reconstruction is the Yi Jing philosophy that underlies both Confucianism and Taoism. As Weikang Gu observes. "From the very first moment that Indian Buddhism appeared in Han China, Chinese Buddhism had been following its own path and discovering its humanistic directions." ^[3] This underscores the fact that Indian Buddhism was intimately rooted in the Chinese tradition of the Yi Jing. This contribution of the yi culture to Chinese Buddhism made the Buddha a more personal and reachable character—he lost his estranged and alienated features,

     Chinese Chan Buddhism provides a similar service for process theology. In Chan Buddhism, one is to feel the presence of Buddha in every living being and to attain the goal of nirvana means to gain wisdom by engaging in a daily practice. Thus, the image of the Buddha is not some transcendentally inhuman teacher who carries out his mission and passes it into nirvana. Rather, the Buddha is a human being who is the embodiment of the entire universe, and who lives in the ways of the world itself and then enters into nirvana. Neither is this Buddha a detached sage living in a world far above this world. He becomes the way of attaining enlightenment (wu) for all living beings.

     What was the framework that allowed Mahayana Buddhism to be converted into its Chinese Chan form? Upon its introduction into China at the time of the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 a.d.), Indian Buddhism immediately confronted Confucianism and Taoism. What has not been sufficiently emphasized by most scholars is the fact that the two main schools of Confucianism and Taoism were both originally derived from the same source in the cosmological humanism of the Yi Jing tradition, namely, yu zhou ren wen zhu yi. This way of thinking is rooted in the Yi Jing, which contributes a pattern of unity in multiplicity, namely, tian ren he yi, the oneness of heaven and man, through which the cosmological world is merged into the human world.

    Based on the Yi Jing insights, Confucianism asserts that the goat of fen (humanity ^[4] ), the central idea for human ethics, is to cultivate the self according to the universal law of heaven and earth. In a similar understanding of the close relationship between the universe and human self, Taoism specifies that dao itself is the natural course for both cosmological world and human world to follow in order to bring a human self back to the dao of the universe. In contrast to the conventional opinion that stresses the differences between these two schools ^[5] , at this level, I suggest that Confucianism and Taoism originally grew out of the same root: Yi Jing cosmological humanism. The point is that both Confucian and Taoist thought grounded their ideas on the unification of heaven, earth,

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and humanity in the already fully developed Yi Jing doctrine of yin/yang bipolarity. although the Confucians maintain the emphasis on the development of humanization whereas Taoists stress the cosmological process, in this context. Da Cheng (the Great Vehicle), or Mahayana Buddhism was much more culturally absorbed by Chinese native traditions than were Xiao Cheng (the Lesser Vehicle) or Hinayana Buddhism, and therefore finally became established as Chinese Chan Buddhism. From this point of view, Chinese philosophy, rooted in the Yi Jing tradition, is essentially an active and involved contemplation of the human world and its response to cosmic surroundings.^[6] What the Yi Jing philosophy offered to the growth of Chan Buddhism (as modulated by the voices of Confucianism and Taoism) is its fundamental idea of tian ren he yi. It is therefore possible to characterize Chinese Chan as the yi Chan or the Chan derived from the Yi Jing.

The Xi Ci of the Yi Jing states:

    The ceaseless creativity is called yi (changes)... The comprehension of the changes is called shi (practical doing). The unfathomable in yin and yang is called shen (the power of the nature). ^[7]

    Since in this way man comes to resemble heaven and earth, he is not in conflict with them. His wisdom embraces all things, and his tao brings order into the whole world; therefore he does not err. He is active everywhere but does not let himself be carried away. He rejoices in heaven and has knowledge of fate, therefore he is free of care. He is consent with his circumstances and genuine in his kindness, therefore he can practice love. ^[8] " 

In this manner, "cosmological," "humanistic," and "practical" are considered as the three particularly salient characteristics of the Yi Jing motif, which likely laid a general influence on Chinese Chan Buddhism.

      Chan is the Chinese term for dhyana (meditation) in Sanskrit, which indicates the religious discipline of achieving a tranquilized mind and inner consciousness. This effort to assert one's self-cultivation dhyana (chan) practice demonstrates the strong correspondence between Buddhism and the practical dimension of the Chinese yi tradition. Likewise, the practice of dhyana invited Chinese traditions to find similar dimensions in their own resources and thereby accept a foreign deity. Such a common interest finds its real expression in the Yi Jing cosmology's insistence on the need for human beings to conduct themselves in accord with their cosmological environment. This demand reflects the spirit of cosmological humanism in the Yi Jing, which in turn was promoted by Confucianism and Taoism.

      It was in this spirit that the sixth patriarch of Chan Buddhism, Hui Neng, introduced a new form of maturity within Chinese Buddhism and, thereby, reconstructed Indian Buddhism with its emphases on emptiness, elaborate imagery, and conceptual constructions. This amalgam founded the Nan Chan (the Southern Chan School), ^[9] which became the

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mainstream of Chinese Buddhist schools and subsequently spread to Japan, where it grew into contemporary Zen. It was the practical nature. of the Chinese tradition that enabled Chan Buddhism to break away from its Indian dependence upon sacred literature, ritual worship, and metaphysical speculation. This also led to the Chan understanding that the Buddha-nature may be realized in everyone and everything by a process of instantaneous enlightenment, namely, dun wu. In consonance with its spirit of naturalness and creativity, this new Buddhism left no room for artificiality and required the Chan masters to live a practical, everyday life. Chinese Buddhism was now in a position to move forward with a fresh mind that revitalized a formerly foreign practice.

  In the Tan .Jing (The Platform Sutra), the well-known stanza of Hui Neng declares:

Enlightenment is not a tree to begin with, Nor is the Mind a mirror stand, Since originally there was nothing, Whereon would the dust fall? ^[10] "

  For this composition, Hui Neng received the patriarchal robe from Hong Ren and was named the sixth patriarch of Chan Buddhism. His words are in deep accord with the Chinese Buddhist tradition that rejects the overly speculative aspects of Tian Tai, Hua Yan, and Wei Shi schools, for Chan Buddhism appeals more to the cosmological. humanistic, and practical directions in the Yijing philosophy, namely, the cosmology of tian ren he yi. Therefore, in Chan thought not much attention is paid to sacred scriptures, images, and the divine nature of the Buddha. Rather, attention is given to the realization of enlightenment (wu) as directly attained in a person's own nature and experience. This enlightenment merges the world (shi jie), I (wo), and Buddha (fo) into one.^[11] Thus, for Chinese Chan masters, enlightenment is not so much a matter of religious devotions as it is the act of looking directly into one's own mind.

  To reach such a fundamental unity of the world-I-Buddha, Chan teachings attempt to make no distinction or differentiation between our subjective mind and the objective world. By avoiding a dependence on language. Chan Buddhism maintains that the Buddha-nature can only be discovered in a wordless way—that is, a way of bu li wen zi (abandoning literature and words). For Chan masters, dun wu is the tranquil and direct awakening of the Buddha-nature, and it is attained by banishing everything standing in the way, including Buddha himself. This meaning of wu requires that one should return to the natural practice of ordinary life—eat. drink, work—as naturally as all other things in the universe. Such a state of enlightenment profoundly reflects the influence of the Yi jing insights discussed above: "He is content with his circum-

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stances and genuine in his kindness, therefore he can practice love." Now. the world, I, and Buddha no longer differ from each other while heaven, earth, and man meet in a harmony (tian ren he yi).

DANG  DAI CHAN : ONENESS OF ZETTAI MU ( ABSOLUTE NOTHINGNESS )

In what follows, special attention shall be given to a problem in this field that has received insufficient scholarly attention: Neglect of the origins of Chan Buddhism and its Yi Jing inspiration has led to incomplete and overly narrow popular comparisons between Japanese Zen (Chan in Chinese) and process studies ^[12] Thus Zen, the offspring of Chan, has been studied without a sufficient understanding of its fundamental background, and this error has led to incoherent interpretations. Without returning to its Chan origins, Japanese Zen Buddhism cannot equip itself with a metaphysics that can stand up to the rigorous standards of Western thought. If one is ignorant of the degree of philosophical sophistication in the Yi Jing, one may not have the resources to answer these questions: How could Chan or Zen become thoroughly known to the West? What advantages flow to Zen from acknowledging its Yi Jing origins? And, finally, how can Zen continue to attract Western interest and provide a rich ground for its eventual integration within Western culture?

     Given the above discussions, I propose that (although many studies have overlooked it) Southern Chan's central and originative idea on the "oneness of the world-I-Buddha" takes on an essential and profound importance. On the other hand. it is important to acknowledge the ways in which Japanese Zen has retained and introduced to the West the central insights of Chinese Chan. In so doing, modern Zen can be therefore characterized as dang dai Chan.

     It was during the Song dynasty of China (Kamakura period in Japan) in 1227 that the foremost and distinctive Japanese Zen master Dogen (1200-1253) completed his training in Buddhism in China and returned to Japan. It was there that he founded Japanese Solo Zen (Cao Dong Zong in Chinese). In rejecting all existing forms of Buddhism in Japan as inauthentic, he began to introduce what he believed to be genuine Buddhism from Song China. Meanwhile, Dogen was unsatisfied with merely introducing and restating the guidance from his Chinese Chan teacher: in his own way, he reinterpreted the classical sutras and uniquely proclaimed that the right dharma (the truth of Buddha) in Mahayana Buddhism reveals itself most profoundly in the Buddha's own self-enlightenment. Furthermore, based on this position, Dogen

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introduced his central ideas that "All beings are the Buddha-nature" and that the Buddha-nature can only be attained through the "oneness of practice and enlightenment." He writes:

    As for the truth of the Buddha-nature: the Buddha-nature is not incorporated prior to attaining Buddhahood; it is incorporated upon the attainment of Buddhahood. The Buddha-nature is always manifested simultaneously with the attainment of Buddhahood. This truth should be deeply, deeply penetrated in concentrated practice. There has to be twenty or even thirty years of diligent Zen Practice.^[13]

These expressions reflect Hui Neng's formulation of the unity that world-I-Buddha provides as the ground of enlightenment. They also mirror Hui Neng's insistence that the follower of the Buddha must seek his own nature through daily practice. For Chan, one apprehends the Buddha-nature within himself: He experiences an awakening or enlightenment called wu in Chinese, which is the oneness merged with the whole universe. Dogen's formulation is similar since for him enlightenment is understood to be the oneness of practice and attainment. Likewise for Dogen, the Buddha-nature is realized in one's direct experience and attainment of the Buddha dharma nature. We can see, then. that Buddha himself does not have all the truth, but rather the most truth that any person could possibly have. To attain this truth is to realize the Buddha-nature in a continuous and ceaseless practice. This practice is itself the practice of finding the truth in oneself.

      Just as Dogen was an original figure who transplanted Chinese Chan Buddhism into the land of Japan, so also Daisetz T. Suzuki (1870-1966) was a modern Zen master whose evident contribution and unique accomplishment was to have systematically transported Zen Buddhism to the West in the twentieth century. And of equal significance is his comparison of Mahayana Buddhism with Christianity. What Zen means to Suzuki, can be simply stated as "the discipline in enlightenment," namely, satori in Japanese. In continuing Hui Neng's insight into the importance of ordinary human life, Suzuki also emphasizes that Zen is the realization of a person's true nature. He challenges the Indian Buddhist tendency to advocate a world-fleeing form of life. Suzuki explicitly says:

While the Chinese mind was profoundly stimulated by the Indian way of thinking, it never lost its touch with the plurality of things, it never neglected the practical side of our daily life.^[14]

     In addition, Suzuki correctly underscores the historical fact that as soon as Chinese Buddhism had gathered their forces and were strong enough to stand by themselves, their first accomplishment was to establish

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a special form of monasticism quite distinct from the Indian tradition. Suzuki also emphasizes the fact that Zen discipline consists in attaining a form of enlightenment, satori, whose meaning resides hidden in our daily and concrete experiences such as eating and working. Equally striking is Suzuki's insistence that artistic experience plays a centrally important part in Zen daily practice. A Zen man is an artist who transforms his own life into a work of creation, which exists in the mind of Buddha.

      Suzuki is in general agreement with the common opinion that Taoism was a great source of inspiration for Zen. This is due to Taoism's belief that tao inhabits all the facets of everyday life. Although it is true that Taoism supplemented Chinese Chan thought. Suzuki's position reveals that he has not fully understood the Yi Jing sources underlying Taoist thinking. In general, Taoism is not the equal of Yi Jing thought when it comes to emphasizing the practical process of achieving self-realization in the oneness of human nature and the world. In Yi Jing thought, the idea of guan (contemplation) expresses a full sense of the importance of daily life. Taoism, on the other hand, can often encourage a mood of aloof observation that disdains the daily world of work and struggle.

      Modern Japanese Zen Buddhist thought has found its most effective expression in the vigorous "'Kyoto School" (Kyoto Gakuha) founded by Nishida Kitaro ("1870-1945) in modern Japan. Through the contributions of this group of philosophers, Zen Buddhist thought gained a masterful intellectual framework. This achievement dazzled the philosophical world, and thus Nishida Kitaro's philosophy of "absolute nothingness (zettai mu)" came to be honored as Japan's unique contribution to philosophy. Nishida and Suzuki were both born in Kanazawa. Ishigawa, in 1870, but the two classmates and lifelong friends took two different journeys: Suzuki became widely known throughout the world as an exponent of Zen Buddhism; Nishida was recognized as one of the foremost philosophers in Japan. They both shared in the task of wedding Zen to philosophy and merging aspects of Eastern and Western culture.

    As with Dogen and Suzuki, Nishida's major concern lies in the experience of the human self and its task of self-enlightenment, shin no jiko ("true self").^[15] He describes this doctrine of the "true self" as follows:

Our self, as the unifier of spirit, is the fundamental unifying activity of reality. According to one school of psychology, the self is simply a union of ideas and feelings apart from which there is no self. This view neglects the side of unity and entails consideration of the self from the side of analytical distinctions only .. -Things are established by a unity, and Ideas and feelings are made into concrete reality through the power of a unifying self. This unifying power called the self is an expression of the unifying power of reality .. . Our self is therefore felt to be always creative, free, and infinitely active.^[16]

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It is not difficult to see that Nishida's treatment of the problem of the self continues to explore the idea advocated in the Southern Chan on the unity of the world and Buddha and 1. This "oneness" in Nishida is found in his concept of "place" (basho), ^[17] which, in common with Hui Neng. is a Zen experience of meditation, whereby in the depth of self-awareness all distinctions are vanished into one experience. However, by applying Hegel's logic to his concept of "place," Nishida also reclaims the theory of "absolute negation" as a philosophical idea that is not solely dependent on the religious values of Zen Buddhism.

PROCESS GOD: ONENESS  OF DIVINITY  AND THE WORLD

In the above, I pointed out the original affinity between the Yi Jing, Chan, and Zen Buddhism as regards the fundamental idea of harmonizing heaven and earth with human experience. To deepen this view, I now invite Alfred North Whitehead, the great philosopher and theologian, to join our study of the Yi Jing, Chan/Zen, and the process God. Within this set of thinkers we will see the inseparable and mutual correspondence between divinity and humanity, and the world and God, or Buddha. that exists between Chan/Zen Buddhism and Whitehead. Most important, these considerations will help us respond to the questions and issues raised at the beginning of this article.

    The fundamental concern of yi Chan, as well as modern Zen, is bridging the distance between our mind and the world, and between the finite and the infinite. This bridge is built by the holistic activity of the instantaneous enlightenment through which the oneness of divinity and humanity, and Buddha and oneself are experienced. It is my view that this unifying method of practice is primarily the experience of tian ren he yi (merging and harmonizing the universe and human being) as presented in the yin-yang methodology of the Yi Jing. This act of experience can be best understood by bringing together yi Chan and Whitehead through the Yi Jing principle of yin-yang. Whitehead supposes that the process of experience is a creative harmony within which a mutual movement of dipolar forces (both physical and mental) takes place. The implications of the yin-yang theory in the Yi Jing can be used to reconcile this Whiteheadian harmony of dipolar processes with the harmony of tai ji (Great Primal Beginning) formed by yin and yang forces. In yi thinking, the world is a trinity of heaven, earth, and man, and it is led by the mutual transformation of yin and yang, in order to gain a harmonized end in which man and the world are inseparable. Both Whitehead and the Yi Jing agree that our primary experience lies in the mutual correspondence between dipolar powers, and the attainment of a harmony of two opposites.

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    I interpret Whitehead's understanding of the world of process as one dominated by the transmission of feelings. In Whitehead's description, the world is a state of emotional flux, which he terms "feelings." These feelings make up the really real things of the universe, which are termed "actual occasions" (i.e., “actual entities”). These moments of process are the primary subject matter of process philosophy. The process of an "actual occasion" is an attempt to achieve its goal or "subjective aim." This is both its becoming and its passing away. The growth of these "actual occasions" is termed "concrescence," by which is meant the growing together of feelings in such a way that one final actual occasion comes to be and then passes away. In Whitehead's paradigm, reality can be understood as a passage of feelings; his use of the language of feeling reveals his attempt to interpret reality as a living process of harmonious emotion.

  What leads this emotion to grow and develop? According to Whitehead, God supplies an "initial aim" that lures and guides the development of actual occasions. God's impact on the world of actual occasions is neither transcendent nor impersonal—rather, it is immanent and personal. Whitehead writes:

God and the actual world jointly constitute the character of the creativity for the initial phase of the novel concrescence. ^[18] "

Whitehead understands God and the world as locked together in a mutual and continuous creative advance. While God is considered a creator, he is also immanent in the actual world. As a result, God is in this world. God is an intimate guide and lure providing opportunities for growth and harmony for the creatures of this world. God's power is not that of the despot who condemns or the ruler who judges. Whitehead's God acts through persuasion, so that hope for a loving harmony and oneness always remains within the world. Thus God, the creatures of this world, and the creative advance that marks the passage of this world are together with each other in a creative unity that moves toward the future,

   Whitehead explains this agency this way:

The creativity is not an external agency with its own ulterior purposes. All actual entities share with God this characteristic of self-causation. For this reason every actual entity also shares with God the characteristic of transcending all other actual entities, including God. The universe is thus a creative advance into novelty.^[19]

Whitehead has reinterpreted the classical conception of divine creation whereby, in biblical language. God is described as a creator who is distant from the world. For Whitehead, God creates the world and the world creates God; God transcends the world and the world transcends

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God; God is one and the world is many, while the world is one and God is many. The Whiteheadian God is a process whereby the world is positively assisted in its drive toward harmony.

    To conclude this comparative inquiry into Whitehead's process God and Chan/Zen Buddhism, I wish to underline the fact that both views consider God or divine holiness to be a real factor in this world and not to be resident in some other far-off land. For Whitehead, God is immanent in the world rather than above and beyond it. For Chan/Zen Buddhism, there is a fundamental goodness in the world that can be touched and experienced through right practice and right living. There also exists a fundamental agreement between Whitehead and yi Chan insofar as both postulate that a fundamental polarity exercises power throughout the cosmos: for Whitehead, it is the physical and mental dimensions of experience; for Yi Chan, it is the yin-yang methodology sourced from the Yi Jing.

     Real differences remain. Whitehead's God retains a transcendental dimension called the primordial nature, which harbors eternally all potentials for goodness. God is in the world, hut is not the world. In this sense, it could be said that Whitehead has failed to radically and thoroughly break with the essential idea of a God who is beyond time and space. For Chan/Zen Buddhism, the Buddha is the nature of our own self. Be that as it may, there remains the fact that no effective comparative study of Chan/Zen Buddhism and process philosophy can afford to neglect the importance of the Chinese yi Chan tradition.

UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA Honolulu. Hawaii

ENDNOTES

[1]. I am opposed to the prevalent view that Taoism functioned as the main influence on Chan Buddhism.

[2]. Weikang Gu, Chan Zong Liu Bian (Six evolutionary highlights of Chan Buddhism) (Taipei: Dong Da Book Company, 1994), p. 265. [BACK]

[3]. Weikang Gu. Chan jing He Liu Lue. (An inquiry into integrating Pure Land in Chan) (Taipei: Dong Da Book Company, 1997).p, 1.

[4]. For ren. many other translations employ "benevolence." [BACK]

[5]. Feng Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1952). [BACK]

[6]. Linyu Cu. Time and Self in Whitehead, Yi and Zen: A Comparative Study (Ann Arbor, MI: A Bell & Howell Co., 1998), p. 86.

[7]. Zhu Xi, Zhou Yi Ben Yi (The original meaning of the Yi Jing) (Beijing: Peking University Press-1992)-pp. 141-142.

[8]. Richard Wilhelm and Cary F. Baynes, The I Ching (Princeton. NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977), pp. 294-295. [BACK]

[9]. Weikang Gu, Chan Zong Liu Bain, p. 11.

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[10]. Kenneth K. S. Ch'en, Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1964), p. 355.                                                

[11]- Weikang Gu, Chan Zong Liu Bian. p. 232. [BACK]

[12]. Abe Masao. Zen and Western Thought (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1985). [BACK]

[13]. William R. LaFleur, trans.. Dogen Studies (Honolulu; University of Hawaii Press, 1985), p. 103. [BACK]

[14]. Daisetz T. Suzuki. Zen and Japanese Culture (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973), p. 3.

[15]. Kosaka Kunitsugu, Nishida Kitaro Tetsugaku No Kenkyu (The study of Nishida Kitaro's philosophy) (Kyoto: Minerua Press, 1991). p. 77. [BACK]

[16]. Nishida Kitaro. An Inquiry into the Good (New Haven/London: Yale University Press. 1900), pp. 76-77.

[17]. Nishida Kitaro. Last Writings (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987). p. 15, [BACK]

[18]. Alfred North Whitehead. Process and Reality (New York/London: The Free Press, 1978), p. 245.

[19]. Ibid.,p.222. [BACK]