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As tempting as it is, I will decline the opportunity to give an edifying response to professor Garner's systematic paper.
I don't plan to take on Rorty or the various systematic bifurcations, such as the internalist/externalist distinction, which reflect Western usage and style, if not substance. I'm primarily interested in the alleged mirroring of Western trends and categories by Eastern thought, which Prof. Garner has undertaken to clarify for us. Hence I don't wish to critique the categories and distinctions brought into play as such -
I'm sure they can be most useful in the appropriate contexts - I only wish to question their appropriateness in reference to Ch'an. The brunt of Garner's analogy between East and West lies in his reading of Ch'an and Hui-Neng's poem, so I will mirror his concern and only address myself to Chuang Tzu and Lao Tzu briefly in conclusion.
Garner draws an analogy between mirror, epistemology and representational thinking. Is an analogy a metaphor, a more specific type of trope, or a literal relation? Garner doesn't say, and frankly I was perplexed and wished we could have heard how analogical thinking deconstructs metaphorical thinking, assuming that they are distinguishable. Nevertheless the analogy, which is not an equation but almost seems to serve as one, asserts that mirroring, in virtue of reflecting external objects within itself as images, represents them (viz. representational thinking), which upon further reflection impels epistemological questions. According to Foucault, Representationalism is the episteme or fundamental epistemic metaphor of Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Western Europe, and is not either the universal human stance or the sole instigative foundation of epistemological activity. There are thus other epistemic root metaphors or paradigms, but here we are
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primarily concerned with Hui-Neng's supposed rejection of the mirror metaphor as a rejection of the epistemological project.
It is not accurate to the Buddhist enterprise, Ch'an included, to claim either (1) it rejects the mirror, or (2) it rejects epistemology for some sort of non-epistemological ontology.[1] If anything, the inverse is the case. Buddhism, from the earliest Pali suttas all the way through Zen and Pure Land, reiterates and explicates one central theme: Buddhism is concerned with Seeing, not Being.
Buddhism, in all its forms and schools,
consistently points to the inseparability of epistemology and ontology - if anything, it
emphasizes the dependence of ontology on epistemological construction, while criticizing
all efforts to trace or assert dependence the other way - hence the well-known rejection
of God, self, Being, etc., as a starting or ending point for the human project. According
to Buddhism, one's way of knowing the world, his capacity to project his propensities
(prapa~nca, kle`sa, etc.), actively constitutes his existential condition. One's
epistemology, and most importantly one's subconscious, presuppositional epistemological
criteria, determines one's conditioning, or one's ontological envelopment; one is
deconditioned
by ripping through the layers of sedimented ontologies to their epistemological roots, a
return. in a sense, to the primal openness (hsu[a]) or
emptiness (`sunyata, k`ung[b]). which is not ontological but
an epistemological stance.
Incidentally Chuang Tzu, I believe, holds a similar view. In chapter Two he writes[2]:
A road is made by people walking on it. Things are so because they are called so. What makes them so? Making them so makes them so.
For Chuang Tzu the True Man is the one who can make everything so, and hence all things are united in his infinite possibilities.
Shen-hsiu's mistake is precisely his ontologization of the mirror metaphor, which Hui-Neng appropriately deconstructs by calling into question Shen-hsiu's epistemological margins.
Let me quickly introduce a bifurcated pair of categories of my own to help clarify this point. We may distinguish between two types of epistemic motives or operations. One I call proscriptive epistemology and the other
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prescriptive epistemology. Buddhism and Taoism reject and criticize the former and advocate the latter.
(1) Proscriptive means to proscribe, to circumscribe, to mark off with marks, discriminations, characteristics (skt. laksana, ch. hsiang[c]), to establish a closure. The word also means to prohibit, restrict. As an epistemological activity it sets rigid, fixed rules by which, and only by which a world can be known, made, verified; it imposes a closure on the possibilities of what may be believable and/or real. Graphically as an encircling closure, it establishes the dichotomy of what is within and permitted and what is without and forbidden. This inner/outer duality is given flesh through the full range of dichotomies; for instance, right, good, beauty, action, etc., may be inner, while what is other, such as wrong, bad, ugliness, pacivity, etc., are proscribed as outer. These dualities, as Derrida points out, are also reflected within the closure, in fact in its very core, as interior distinctions and contradictions.
(2) Prescriptive epistemology is the prescribing of an anti-dotal deconstructive activity. It is what Nietzsche called "geneology"; Foucault, Derrida and Heidegger call "deconstruction" or "archaeology"; what some call radical "Critical Philosophy": what Plato, to be distinguished from Neo-platonic and Augustinian usage, called anamnesis; what Buddha called turning poison into medicine. This activity is epistemological in the sense that it aims at the very fundaments of human knowing in some sort of disciplined manner. It transgresses, breaks through or crosses over the inviolable line of the proscriptive closure, liberating what was bound or confined within it. Hence Lin-ch'i (Jap., Rinzai) says: "When you meet Buddha on the road, kill him!"
Now let us turn to the poems. Garner follows Yampolsky in translating the second line of Shen-hsiu's poem as
The mind is like a clear mirror.
But this is not what the Chinese text says. Rather, it says
The mind is like a bright mirror stand.
Now I'm not exactly sure what that means; presumably it means the mind is the stand or foundation, the ground of the mirror, as if the mirror were
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some secondary or contingent function. Why Yampolsky drops "stand" (t'ai[d]), which Wing-tsit Chan describes as "a mirror stand; chest of drawers with a folding mirror on top"[3], is unfathomable. Its absence proves particularly problematic in view of the fact that Hui-Neng's response is aimed primarily at that word. Hui-Neng says
The bright mirror also has no stand.
Garner, perhaps following Yampolsky too uncritically, has interpreted Hui-Neng to mean by this that he rejects the mirror metaphor, a move which may have made Rorty happy but I am afraid is foreign to Hui-Neng's intentions.
This should be even more clear by the alternate verse attributed to Hui-Neng in the Tun-huang text, which reads
The Mind is the Bodhi-tree.
The body is the bright mirror stand.
The bright mirror is originally clear and pure.
Where can it be stained by dust?
Hui-Neng has almost repeated Shen-hsiu's first two lines verbatim, except he has reversed the location of "Mind" and "body''. it should be noted that in this verse Yampolsky includes "stand" in his translation[4]
This is, to my mind, not a rejection of the mirror metaphor either as minor or as metaphor, but a restatement of the metaphor. one which radically transforms the intent, significance, and pedagogical potential of the mirror. Shen-hsiu's poem and Hui-Neng's both are metaphoric, both use the mirror. Shen-hsiu's aims at Gradual Enlightenment, the perpetual wiping away of impurities and dust - which is to insist on (what Ch'an considers the cardinal error) the dualistic separation of mirror and dust, mind and consciousness, purity and defilement, enlightenment and non-enlightenment, Buddha and sentient beings, samsara and nirvana. Hui-Neng's aims at Sudden Awakening, undermining the very foundations of the dualism in/of the mirror - it has no stand. It stands nowhere, has no particular viewpoint, holds and is attached to no definite principle, notion, bias, or self-interest. All events or objects are reflected in the mirror; they pass through it without its clinging to them - though they themselves may cling or project meanings into what they see
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reflected - "Oh, today I look terrible", or "I look wonderful", or "I'm getting old, look at those wrinkles and grey hair", etc., as if one's very ego-self stood there before one.
Hui-Neng's observation that the mirror has no stand is not only pedagogically and philosophically pregnant with significance, but it is also phenomenologically more accurate than Shen-hsiu's description. Mirrors in fact have no stands. The mirror qua what functions reflectively, is nothing but the empty reflective surface teeming with the images and movements which pass through it. It is neither the same nor different from what it reflects. And though in one sense it is only a surface, it is not two-dimensional but as deep as the realm and vision which reflect upon it. The ornaments by which the mirror is adorned, beautified, sanctified, made special are not in fact the mirror itself, but ways the craftsman aesthetically pays homage to the mirror's function. The mirror has no stand - with or without any particular frame or stand, it is still a mirror. The Mind, with or without any particular thought (nien[e]) is still Mind (hsin[f]).
This brings us to a major point in Garner's paper, concerning epistemological metaphysics and hermeneutics, or what I called proscriptive epistemology. Are images in, of, before, through, in front of, participating in, etc. the mirror? This is not just a semantic question, but the very root of metaphysics. Whatever stand one takes, i.e., whichever word one chooses to satisfy his understanding of the relation between the mirror and its images, in fact even to declare that such things as mirror, image, and relation are distinct entities, is itself an expression of a metaphysical commitment; it is a primal metaphysical proposition which undergirds, embodies, and expresses, it asserts, reifies and grounds itself in a metaphysical origin. In a sense, one's stand on the issue of mirror reflects one's entire metaphysical, cosmological and ontological Weltanshauung.
The question/problem is not "what is the ontological status of objects outside the mirror" - that is to fall into what Garner and others have called the epistemological trap, i.e., proscriptive epistemology; rather it is to focus more intensely on the function of mirroring itself. It may be helpful to note that Chinese nouns can be taken as verbs, etc., so we needn't insist that ''mirror" be taken exclusively in its nominal, substantive sense. Of the three times Chuang Tzu uses Hui-Neng's word for mirror, ching[g], at least two of those occasions are better translated verbally, as "reflecting", rather
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than as "mirror"[5].
One of Hui-Neng's major themes in the Platform Scripture is the interpenetration and mutual interdependence of t'i and yung[h], structure and functioning. In the present context this should serve as a reminder that the mirror, as t'i, is only fully understood as yung, i,e., in its functioning - in this emphasis on yung Hui-Neng in fact is in complete harmony and agreement with all of Buddhism.
Hui-Neng's move is to deconstruct Shen-hsiu's proscriptive epistemology with a prescriptive epistemology, one which takes as its only imperative the direct seeing of the mirror or Mind itself.
These observations are not intended as caustic remarks against Garner, but they seemed necessary because certain consequences of Garner's reading may lead to misunderstandings. I'm referring to the embasis on the everyday in Zen. Being enlightened is called in his paper "when one...makes genuine contact ...with the everyday world." He also writes, "when the Southerners said there was nothing to attain, they meant it." He describes Zen as "the development of unprecedented non-rational techniques for getting aspirants to learn that there was nothing special to be taught'' resulting in a "return to ...ordinary humdrum experience" (emphasis added).
This, to me, sounds more like EST than Ch'an. If enlightenment is nothing but "genuine contact ...with the everyday world", (l)what does genuine" mean, (2) what does the term "contact" presuppose, especially in terms of the subject/object dichotomy. and (3) why do Ch'an masters and monks remain in the monastery rather than becoming everyday fellows, regrowing their hair, marrying, and getting regular jobs? Startlingly disjunctive phenomena such as Ch'an blows, shouts, etc., can only be appreciated within the context of Ch'an training, which is extremely rigid, ritualized and disciplined. We often lose sight of this disciplined aspect of Ch'an, especially given the iconoclastic, outlandish image usually presented in English literature and translations. Yet this dynamic tension between institutionalized rigidity and personal non-habitualness is probably one of Ch'an's most significant koans. If blows, shouts and roguishness are criteria of Ch'an mastery, then redneck America is replete with ten masters!
Ch'an is not "non-rational''; koans are unsolvable questions which have answers. Even today when a monk has an Awakening experience, he is grilled with koans, and he must spontaneously and unhesitatingly answer them.
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Most importantly, what, in Garner's description, would correspond to the term "Awakening" (wu[i]), which, if Ch'an has a core, that would be it?
Ch'an is not a naive realism; it is a kind of intuitive phenomenology. One should not mistake the rejection of transcendental metaphysics for a naive realism - that would be to fall to the other pole of the dichotomy Ch'an seeks to erase.
Though Chuang Tzu only uses the term "mirror" ten times in his text[6], it is implied throughout. Most commentators see the minor not as incidental but as central to Chuang Tzu's vision. In the splendid partial translation which has recently come out by A.C. Graham, Graham goes so far as to say that the mirror metaphor is the principle underlying Chuang Tzu[7]:
The nearest he [Chuang Tzu] comes to formulating his implicit principle is a dictum right at the end of the Inner chapters: "The utmost man uses the heart [mind] like a mirror; he does not escort things as they go or welcome them as they come, he responds but does not store.'
Another recent book, the first book in English which explores Chuang Tzu's thought rather than retranslating, is the exciting and insightful Chuang Tzu: World Philosopher at Play by Kuang-ming Wu. Wu devotes an entire section to mirroring, which he also sees as pivotal to Chuang Tzu. In a lengthy footnote he takes up the relation of Hui-Neng's poem with Chuang Tzu[8]:
Contrary to common impression, the metaphor of "mirror" is less central in Zen Buddhism than in Chuang Tzu... Chuang Tzu's happy meandering consists in the promotion of the mirror- like reflexive function of life in the world.
Chuang Tzu himself writes in ch. 13[9].
Water becomes clear and transparent when in a quiescent stage. How much the more wonderful will be the mind of a sage when poised in quiescence! It is the mirror [chien[j]] of heaven and earth, reflecting [ching[k]] the ten thousand things
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In ch. 5 he says[10]:
I've heard that if the mirror is bright, no dust settles on it; if dust settles, it isn't really bright. When you keep company a long time with a worthy man, you'll be free of faults.
Lao Tzu, in our current versions, does not really indulge in the mirror metaphor. However let me conclude with a line from Lao Tzu's ch. 10, which returns us to the need for Chuang Tzu's arbitration between Hui-Neng and Shen-hsiu. Lao Tzu writes
Can you clean and purify your profound/mysterious insight (hsuan lan[l]), so it will be spotless?
In the Ma-wang-tui silk manuscript B of Lao Tzu, the character lan[m], insight, does not appear. In its stead is the character chien[n], MIRROR.[11]
This paper was delivered at the APA-East, Baltimore, Maryland, December 29, 1982.
1. The importance and use of mirror as a symbol for the Awakened Mind in Buddhism is much too large a topic for even the most rudimentary sketch here. Two examples will have to suffice. In Yogacara Buddhism and subsequently in Tibetan Buddhism (and Ch'an via the Lankavatara Sutra), Awakening is described as a transformation of consciousness. The alaya-vijnana, or fundamental warehouse consciousness in which all conditioned phenomena reciprocally arise and are stored perpetually and which is the substratum of all other consciousnesses/things, is transformed upon Awakening into the Great-Mirror Wisdom. Prajna, Awakened insight/wisdom, is itself synonymous with Mirror. It is perhaps because some scholars underestimated the significance of the alaya to mirror transformation, i.e., the importance and meaning of the mirror metaphor, that
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many have mislabeled Yogacara as "idealism". Cf. Lama Anagarika Govinda, Foundations of Tibetan Mysticism (NY: Samuel Weiser) 1974, pp. 84, 108, etc.; also, Herbert Guenther, The Tantric View of Life (Boulder: Shambhala) 1976, pp. 54f. Hua-yen Buddhism, which has been called the philosophical theory behind Ch'an, considers one of its essential practices to be the Ocean-Mirror Samadhi, a trialectic Awakening of the mirror-mind. Many Ch'an texts make reference to this meditation. For a lucid discussion of the technique, see Garma C.C. Chang, The Buddhist Teaching of Totality (PA: Penn State UP) 1977, pp. 124ff, 156f. As to whether Ch'an rejects the mirror metaphor, this will be one of the major topics discussed below.
2. Burton Watson's translation, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (NY: Columbia UP) 1968, p. 40; cf. Harvard-Yenching Concordance to Chuang Tzu, 2/33f.
3. Wing-tsit Chan, The Platform Scripture (NY: St. John's UP) 1963, p. 173n.23. Cf. p. 35, where he correctly includes "stand" in his translation of Shen-hsiu's poem.
4. Philip Yampolsky, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (NY: Columbia UP) 1967, p. 132. The Chinese text of Shen-hsiu's poem and Hui-Neng's two poems appears in the back of Yampolsky's book on the pages numbered in Chinese numerals 3 and 4. His text has t'ai[d] (stand) in Shen-hsiu's second verse. Besides reversing "mind" and "body" from Shen-hsiu's verses, Hui-Neng makes only one other change-he replaces ju[o], "like, as" (the mind is like a... ) with wei[p], "to deem as, become, etc.". The significance of this substitution is not readily apparent, since wei can be a very ambiguous word with many connotations. It can be used to signal a simile, as ju inevitably does, but it can also serve as a kind of copula, though it usually falls short of signaling an unequivocal equation. Hence Hui-Neng's line may be translated "the body is deemed as (or regarded as) a bright mirror stand", wei in this case signaling the aspect of epistemological construction behind the assigning of names. It may be that there is no definitive reading of this line in English precisely because the Chinese intends the full range of possible meanings, including the ones mentioned here.
5. One instance, from ch. 13 (cf. Concordance 13/4), will be quoted below. The others are Concordance 7/32 and 33/57 (cf. Watson pp. 97 and 372, respectively). Chien[j], Chuang tzu's other word for mirror, occurs seven times in his text. It too is flexible and can sometimes be better read as a verb. Cf. Concordance 5/9f and Watson, p. 69.
6. See the above note, and Concordance 5/97876 and 5/97012. Cf. Watson, pp. 69, 70, 84, and 281.
7. A.C. Graham, Chuang-tzu: the Seven Inner Chapters and other writings from the book Chuang-tzu (London: Allen & Unwin) 1981,p.14. See also his discussion of mirroring on pp. 15ff.
8. Kuang-ming Wu, Chuang Tzu: World Philosopher at Play (CA: Scholars Press) 1982. p. 124n.24. This book is a refreshing, beautiful, philosophical appraisal of Chuang Tzu.
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9. Henry Wei's translation, The Guiding Light of Lao-Tzu (IL: Quest Books) 1982, p. 27. Cf. Concordance 13/4 and Watson, p. 142.
10. Concordance 5/17. Watson's translation, p. 70, with the last sentence modified according to Graham's better reading; cf. Graham, p. 77.
11. Actually the Ma-wang-tui poses a more complicated problem. Text A has chien[q] "to survey, examine, superintend", which is written the same as chien[j], "mirror" except for the absence of the metal radical. Transcribers have thus taken it to mean the latter chien (mirror) (cf. Lao Tzu/MWT (Beijing: Wen Wu) 1976, p.21, and the 1980. ed., pp. 10, 95, 116). Text B replaces lan[m], "insight", with lan[r], which has the nonsensical meaning of "blue, indigo", but is written similarly to the two chiens, except it has the plant radical #140 above it, rather than the metal radical to its left or below. Hence transcribers read this lan also as chien (mirror). Cf. Ariane Pump, Commentary on the Lao Tzu by Wang Pi (Hawaii: UP of Hawaii) 1979, p. 34n.7.