From: cup.portal.com!Tagi%portal@uunet.UU.NET
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Eastern Philosophy
Date: 28 Sep 92 17:44:17 GMT
Article-I.D.: qiclab.1992Oct1.160833.22040
Organization: ----

9209.28 e.v.

[Where did this thread come from?  Ah well.  Here is my response.]


John Baez quotes Mitsuharu Hadeishi (MH) and writes, I respond:


MH:

..Zen is widely known
to be quite similar to Taoism (in fact I have even heard it said
by some Taoists that they think Zen was a Taoist conspiracy
to infiltrate Buddhism, the similarity is so profound.)  Since Zen
is also similar to Tibetan Buddhism at its core (which is the
closest thing to Indian Buddhism surviving today), I don't think the
argument that the reason Zen is so much like Taoism
can be attributed entirely to Chinese influence, since Tibetan
Buddhism antedates Chinese Buddhism.  Of course, this
is all getting rather silly....


Response:

SIMILAR?   Hehehehehehe.  My understanding is that Taoism is the
MOTHER of Ch'an (as Buddhism - Dhyana - is the father) and that Zen
is the mutation of their Child.

Zen/Tibetan B/Taoism were all manifestations of Tantric shamanism which
proceeded to disintegrate as they became organized.


John:

Indeed.  Red is similar to orange, which is similar to yellow, which
is similar to green.


Response:

Doesn't the fact that Japan gets much of its ancient cultural influences
from China count for anything?  Maybe I'm missing something here.  Didn't
Zen arise from Ch'an, which arose from Dhyana?  Aren't these tranformations
of Buddhism through Indian/Chinese/Japanese cultures?



MH:

There are several central Taoist teachings, for
example, from the first chapter of the Tao Teh Ching:

"The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao;
The name that can be defined is not the unchanging name."

[whose translation is this?]

This is, of course [?], an admonition to avoid
the trap of the discursive mind; it is saying that any fixed
system of ideas (the nameable) is going to miss the truth to some
degree.  


Response:

To think that a translation contains the power and beauty
of Lao Tzu is to entirely miss the point.  One might also say
that 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and
the Word WAS God' (paraphrase?) is an apology for philolinguistics.


MH:

Now, from an original Indian Buddhist sutra
(the Diamond Sutra in loose translation):

(Quoting Subhuti, a bodhisattva in attendance in a
conversation with Shakyamuni Buddha):

" . . . . the things taught by the well-
traveled one are, in their essential nature, inconceivable and
inscrutable; they are neither existent nor non-existent; they are
neither phenomena nor noumena. What does this mean? It means that
buddhas and bodhisattvas are not enlightened by fixed teachings,
but by an intuitive process, spontaneous and natural."


Response:

Such a pointed and directed assertion is unbecoming of any supposed
'bodhisattva'.  Claims are never made by Buddhas or bodhisattvas.
They just mill around with words.


MH:

Elsewhere in the Diamond Sutra, Shakyamuni says:

"When the well-traveled one, in teaching, uses
conceptions and ideas, people should remember the unreality
of all such concepts and ideas. They should recall that the
well-traveled one, in teaching spiritual truths, always uses
such notions in the way that a raft is used to cross a river."


Response:

This is similar to the way that some Taoists speak of 'using words
and concepts as nets with which to trap the Fish of Liberation and
then casting the nets aside' (my paraphrase).  Same ideas, different
words.  Then again, think about the 'Telephone Game'.  I tell you.
You whisper in a different language to a bodhisattva.  The bodhisattva
mumbles to Shakyamuni.  Think the message got through?  Is all wisdom
personal?


MH:

This is what I mean by "fluid epistemology."
Both Taoism and Buddhism exercise a tremendous amount of
non-effort (:-) to get this point across to their students
in a direct way, that is, in a way in which they *really*
understand this directly, with their whole being (not just
intellectually).


Response:

I find that the best teachers simply keep changing their admonitions. 
Otherwise the student seizes upon the 'teaching' even when the teaching
is not to seize upon the teaching.  The student soon may be heard telling
others that the teaching-to-not-seize-upon-teachings is pure and perfect,
that it cannot be faulted, that it is of divine origin. ;>

No, it is much more profound to teach the ambiguity of a Lao Tzu, the
simple flora of a Buddha or the radical self-contradiction of a Crowley.


John:

[beautiful and verbose exposition of nontranslatability of terms omitted]

I will try to get my fiancee to provide an alternate translation of
that famous first passage in order to illustrate.)


Response:

How about 'The tao which can be taoed is not the true tao.'?
'The name which can be named is not the true name.'?


MH:

This is essentially the same notion of non-action,
in my opinion.  Taoists obviously are not advocating that
people do nothing at all; simply that when they act, they
do not act in a kind of ego-centered manner.  


Response:

Every fibre of my taoist-being revulsed at this paragraph.
Taoism is individualism.  You are beginning to speak of Taoism
as it if had become Confucianism.  Ugh!


John:

Since Chinese has no concept of an "ego," I can't imagine that
Lao-Tsu (the quasi-mythical author) could have been arguing against
acting in an "ego-centered manner."  Indeed, there have been many
studies of Chinese culture and politics which try to understand the
implications of the very different Chinese concept of "person".


Response:

I'd like to heard more about the Chinese concept of 'person'.


MH:

I have tended to lean toward the Buddhist
view, though, and I have noticed that Buddhists in
general seem to be quicker to notice similarities with
Taoism than Taoists are willing to do the converse.  I'm
not really sure why this is.  


Response:

This is because most Buddhism has been thoroughly corrupted and debased.
It is no longer a means toward liberation, it is a means toward serving
society.  This becomes true of all organized religions eventually.  Taoists
(and I am speaking about the literati, the philosophers, not the devotionals)
are, on the whole, more balanced than this and would like to pair Taoism
with Confucianism but not subsume one to the other.  Buddhism is becoming 
a Confucianist servant.



John:

I suppose I must be a Taoist then.  Us Taoists aren't interested
in "nirvana" and "compassion for all beings," and bodhisattvas
make us snicker, so you'd better watch out!  :-)


Response:

Yupperoo.  Tantrism has to do with 'being perfect now', not some sort of
sitting-pill to assuage the doctor-demons.  A bodhisattva is not a person,
she is an acorn.  The oak of the matter is what Buddha is all about.
Plain language makes for simpletons.  Simplicity is perfection, but it is
not liberation.  Suffering arises from attaching oneself to this simplicity.
Taoism is about playing with it, not attaching oneself to it.  Simple
language (that which can be understood easily) is the enemy of truth.
Science and Religion are twins without heads.


Thyagi (the Water-dragon)
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Confused?   Fused with all?  Entertained?  These ravings are insignificant.