As you may know, the Chinese often refer to the Three Teachings. They are represented in paintings by the three teachers, who can be recognized by their iconography. The stately Confucius with his long combed beard and black scholar’s cap; the rugged Lao Tzu with his scraggily beard and hermit’s robe; and Shakyamuni Buddha, bald or with his ushnisha, the crown of hair. Sometimes Confucius is depicted as handing over a baby Buddha, the newest of the three, to Lao Tzu; sometimes they are on more equal terms. But the idea is that they are more or less harmonious and complementary systems of thought that together tell the history of Chinese religious philosophy, beginning with the two indigenous religions, the scholarship and order of Confucianism complemented by the spontaneity and naturalism of Taoism, and then the transplant from abroad, the transcendentalism of Indian Buddhism.
Thanks to Clara for sharing the Daxue on Friday after zazen. This is one of the most famous Confucian texts, known as The Great Learning. Like the Hannya Shingyo, it is very short but profoundly influential. As with all Confucian thought, there is a great emphasis on the role of ritual and tradition in our moral and social life and on the connection of individual, familial, societal, and global order.
There is an interesting controversy about the text among Neo-Confucian scholars about which virtues lead to which, or where to start. The passage in question is this:
The ancients who wished to manifest their clear character to the world would first bring order to their states. Those who wished to bring order to their states would first regulate their families. Those who wished to regulate their families would first cultivate their personal lives. Those who wished to cultivate their personal lives would first rectify their minds. Those who wished to rectify their minds would first make their wills sincere. Those who wished to make their wills sincere would first extend their knowledge. The extension of knowledge consists in the investigation of things. When things are investigated, knowledge is extended; when knowledge is extended, the will becomes sincere; when the will is sincere, the mind is rectified; when the mind is rectified, the personal life is cultivated; when the personal life is cultivated, the family will be regulated; when the family is regulated, the state will be in order; and when the state is in order, there will be peace throughout the world… All [of us] must regard cultivation of the personal life as the root or foundation. [Wing-Tsit Chan, editor and translator, A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1963), 86-7.]
What constitutes the “cultivation of the personal life” is where the arguments begin. Some say that "investigating things" comes first (this might include both inductive and deductive investigations, observing the world, working from experience, and book learning, but also looking into oneself). Others argue that "sincerity of will" is primary, and that without it, there can be no clear apprehension of the way of the world.
I am no Confucian scholar. But this seems like a false dichotomy, at least from a Zen perspective. Surely there can be no value in "sincerity of will" if it is rooted in ignorance (ignorance, one of the poisons, not being the same thing as innocence, of course). We see lots of “sincere” people all around us, sincere but stupid. One can be perfectly sincere, but without knowledge of the way things are, or even rejecting evidence of how they are. In that case, one's actions can only be harmful to oneself and others. As Sylvia Townsend Warner describes some “sincere” characters in one of her novels, "Like many stupid people, they possessed acute instincts." Of course they do: that's how the stupid survive and even thrive in this world.
On the other hand, one can be knowledgeable about the world and act on that knowledge cynically. These people know how business works, how to make profits, how to exploit natural resources and how to exploit people (known to them not as people but as “human resources”). They know how to put out propaganda, and how to manage individuals and control populations; but they don't realize how destructive their actions can be, or they don't care. They are the bad capitalists, the bad socialists, the bad communists, the bad fascists, the bad anarchists. These people of course are also stupid; they are morally stupid.
Knowledge and sincerity must go hand in hand. Or as we might say, right thought must be married to right intention. Or more simply, we strive for the compassionate wisdom of the Hannya Shingyo, the wisdom that goes beyond. The practice of mushotoku.
* * *
You may have heard the story of the Three Vinegar Tasters. They are the same three sages or teachers from before. Standing at a barrel, each takes a taste of the bitterness of life. Confucius concludes that the wine used to be good but has gone bad; only the ancients were in harmony with life, and we are now out of control; only a strict adherence to order will bring us back in harmony. The Buddha tastes the bitterness of life and says that suffering is our lot in life; only our individual adherence to the eightfold path can bring an end to suffering in this life in the form of enlightenment and nirvana. Lao Tzu finds the vinegar to be just as it was supposed to be, an indication of one aspect of life that can only be appreciated with its opposite, heaven with earth, the bitter with the sweet; it is only we who are not in tune with nature and the harmonious oppositions of the Dao, the Way.
You will probably think that our Zen practice resembles more of the Taoist point of view than the Buddhist. And you’d be right. Because we actually follow a Fourth Teaching, the Way of Zen, which is both like and unlike the other three.
When Bodhidharma brought Buddhism from India to China, he brought the transcendent meditation of Indian dhyana, where it met the indigenous Taoist meditation called “the art of sitting and forgetting.” And thus we have the progression of dhyana to Chan to Zen. We often simplify all this to say that when Bodhidharma came to China, Buddhism was married with Taoism, and thus was born Zen. Better to say maybe that Taoism adopted Buddhism, which is why we see in some paintings Confucius handing over a baby Buddha to Lao Tzu to raise.
And when Buddhism reached maturity in China, it became embodied in Bodhidharma as Chan or Zen. The fierce Bodhidharma of Zen is something very different than from the serene Shakyamuni of Indian Buddhism.
Bodhidharma, then, might be regarded as the Fourth Sage and Zen as the Fourth Teaching, since it differs from the other teachings but is in the same family.
Some people think we--here in this dojo, this temple--rely too much on ritual and tradition, like the Confucianist: that our ceremonies smack of ritualistic Catholicism, too rigid, too much bowing, incense and nonsense. Others, of course, would say that we stray too much from the Ancient rituals and aren’t rigid enough. I think we keep a balance. We haven’t thrown out ritual and tradition, but we don’t worship it as the be all and end all.
Some people would say that we are not really Buddhists, or not very good Buddhists because we don’t pray or chant enough; we don’t preach veganism or vegetarianism; we don’t necessarily believe in reincarnation or karma or the interconnectedness of all things or impermanence or anything else, for that matter.
We don’t grimace and sneer and boohoo at the vinegar of life, but use it in our salad dressing.
Some people would say we are more like Taoists, seeing harmony in all things, but we aren’t very good Taoists either because we don’t levitate or practice magic, or believe in the “elixirs” of immortality.
No doubt, Deshimaru’s Zen--at least as we practice it--is often more Taoist than Buddhist, more Buddhist than Confucian. But we are even more Western than that. Nontheistic. Humanistic. We even believe in science! When push comes to shove, and religious dogma is questioned by science, science has to win.
Because, to return to the Daxue, we emphasize equally “investigating things” and “sincerity of will.”
This is why it is most clarifying to see Four Sages, Four Teachers, with Bodhidharma on the same level as Confucius, Lao Tzu, and Shakyamuni.
Deshimaru is often called the Modern Bodhidharma. Just as Bodhidharma brought Zen from the West to China, Deshimaru brought Zen to the West, to France. His Zen is our Zen, neither Indian nor Chinese, neither Japanese nor Western. The practice of compassionate wisdom goes beyond any of these cultural reactions to the bitterness of life. This must be the basis of our own Great Learning.
— Richard Collins
