Buddhism in China

1
Buddhism in China

• Madyamica and Yogacara influence
• Schemes of intellectualization of Buddhist
  achievement
• Realize something enlightenment usually not
  speakable
• Madyamika positive to Yogacara Negative
• Buddha nature (Nirvana) as substantive nothing
• Merge into Major Chinese Schools
• ?? Tiantai and ?? Huayan for theory
• ? chan/sim/zen for practice
• Meditation school without meditation (and lots!)

2
Internal External Stories

• Hui Neng symbolizes the simplicity
• Activity and enlightenment
• No dust (no illusions) only pure Buddha-nature
• Paradox of desire final conclusion
• External story of rebellion
• Intellectualized (metaphysical), impractical
• Shift of culture to the South
• Rejects authority (official recognition)
• Politics and taxes
• Daoist painter/poet as author

3
Questions

• Last Quiz
• Final test in prepquestion to Cathy

4
Daoism and Desires

• Desires caused by distinctions
• Like Nietzschegive up the contrast together
• Reject other contrasts (meditation,
  enlightenment)
• Positive about life skill-transcendence goals
• Reject distinction of these and the metaphysical
  othertranscending world
• Not quite this is nirvana more like do not
  conclude there is only the apparent world
• Just stop talking that way and get back to
  savoring your sandwich

5
Great Liberation

• Rush to claim descent from Hui Neng
• Wide variety but Feng's 5 common doctrines
• No (expressible) highest truth
• Spiritual cultivation cannot be cultivated
• In the last resort nothing is gained
• There is nothing much in Buddhist teaching
• In carrying water and chopping wood lies the
  wonderful dao

6
Iconoclastic Stories

• Function like koans?
• Burning or spitting on the Buddha
• Just wood (everything is Buddha)
• No temples, praying, bowing, shaving, begging,
  ritual, chanting
• Chan as Buddhist atheism
• Survival in persecutions

7
Every Moment Zen

• Umbrella to left or right of clogs?

8
Doctor Story

• Begs release from fear of death
• A Koan meaningless
• Absorbed in care for patients and lost fear of
  death
• Zen is care for patients

9
The Strawberry

• Values of eating, drinking, sleeping
• Tiger and strawberry

10
Teaching Techniques

• Interview timeanti-metaphysical
• Spit, beat, shout, awaken!
• Koangive up
• Walking Zen
• Never tell too plainly
• Envy of Confucians

11
Final Jump

• Modern scientific philosophy
• With a social model of language
• Social cooperation rather than picturing the
  world
• Closer to Chinese/Nietzsche conception
• Reality in the back door
• Science as a dao

12
Evolution and Utility

• Some ways of talking dominate, others die out
• Science with the Nietzsche twist
• A social way to survive and thrive
• Science a system of "useful" beliefs
• Natural frameworkalso anti-Plato and
  anti-Descartes

13
Belief Analysis

• Habits of action
• not internal pictures
• Practical (practice) focus
• Successful or not utility and survival
• Different interpretations of success
• Peirce, Dewey, James

14
First Formulation Peirce

• Hard time finding a job and publisher
• Popular mechanics for The Fixation of Belief"
  and How to Make Our Ideas Clear."
• Radical new analysis of belief/doubt
• An "irritation,"
• Belief as a comfortable "habit of action"
• Not a picture of a fact!

15
Practical Problem

• How to achieve that comfort?
• Fixed beliefs allow smooth, efficient action
• Stability and "constancy"
• Requires less of the "disruption" of doubt
• Four candidates tenacity, authority, a priori,
  science/reality