Empty Logic: Madhyamike Buddhism from Chinese Soruces

·期刊原文

Empty Logic: Madhyamike Buddhism from Chinese Soruces

By Hsueh-li Cheng's

Alan FoxJournal of Chinese Philosophy

Vol. 13 1986 P.361-365

Copyright(c) 1986 by Dialogue Publishing Company

Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.

P.361

The publication of Hsueh-li Cheng's Empty Logic
represents the attempt to address the need for a
general introduction to the 'topic of Madhyamika
Buddhism, and particularly of Chinese Madhyamika.
The text covers the basic philosophy and arguments
of Madhyamika, as well as discussing its possible
influence on other forms of Buddhist thought,
including Zen.
It is difficult to find a comprehensive text on
Madhyamika which on the one hand takes into
consideration the recent developments in scholarship
and on the other hand does not confuse the issue
with misunderstandings and mistranslations of the
basic terms of Madhyamika. The most popular text
available up until now was T.K.V. Murti's the
Central Philosophy of Buddhism. This text fell into
the common trap of treating Madhyamika as a
"nihilistic" from of Buddhist thought, a
misconception that modern scholarship has managed to
correct. One lesser known but more effective text
was Richard Robinson's Early Madhyamika in India and
China. Although covering much of the same territory
as Cheng's book, Robinson's work is much more
technical and probably better suited to the scholar
with more experience in handling the intricacies of
Madhyamika thought.
Beside these studies, the student of Madhyamika
also has recourse to several of the original texts.
Nagarjuna's Doctrine of the Middle Way, for example
has been translated numerous times, including Mervyn
Sprung's version of Candrakirti's Prasannapada and
Kenneth Inada's translation of the
Mulamadhyamikakarikas. Others, including Frederick
Streng, have also provided translations of
Nagarjuna's central work. All of these, however,
face the same problem of preserving the texture of
Madhyamika logic without resorting to nihilistic
terminology. This is also a problem in Cheng's
previous translation of Nagarjuna's Twelve Gate
Treatise (Shi Er Men Lun). As I will point out, the
danger of fixing the Madhyamika position without
failing into misuse of language is difficult to
overcome.

P.362

Professor Cheng goes about his task by first
providing a general introduction to Buddhist
thougth, followed by a discussion of the Indian
roots of Madhyamika. The rest of the introductory
material centers around the subsequent development
of the philosophy in India and China. The second
chapter deals with principle Madhyamika doctrines,
such as the notion of the Middle Way, the Twofold
Truth, Chi Tsang's notion of "The Refutation of
Erroneous Views as the Illumination of Right Views,"
and finally he discusses the meaning of Emptiness or
Sunyata (Kung) . Chapter Three examines the
connections and continuity between Madhyamika and
Zen, particulary in terms of the ideas presented in
Chapter two. Chapter Four presents the Madhyamika
treatment of various philosophical issues, such as
the problems of God, Reality, and Knowledge, while
Chapter Five compares Nagarjuna with Wittgenstein
and Kant.
In addition to the material presented in the
text, there are also some useful additions for the
scholar. Included are a listing of Chinese terms, a
glossary of various Buddhist terms, and indices of
names and subjects. Finally, a selected bibliography
is also provided. These are welcome items, as is
Cheng's custom of providing the Chinese and Sanskrit
terminology for terms that resist adequate
translation.
There are problems,however,with the presentation.
A minor criticism is that, although the book
purports to be a discussion of "Madhyamika Buddhism,
from Chinese Sources," the table of contents does
not list anything even vaguely Chinese. Cheng does,
however, discuss the works of the important San Lun
masters such as Chi Tsang, Kumarajiva, Seng Chao,
and others, but the casual reader would be apt to
get the wrong impression if he were to scan the
table of contents for a clue as to what the book
were about.
More significant problems arise during the
philosophical discussion, however. In his discussion
of the "Twofold Truth," Cheng uses this common
translation for the Chinese term "Er Di Yi." The
Chinese term more accurately indicates what is
meant, since even Cheng agrees that this" ....two
fold truth refers neither to two fixed sets of truth
nor stands for two realities." "Er Di Yi" is more
effectively translated as "levels of understanding"
or, as Soothill's Chinese Buddhist Dictionary puts
it, "two forms of statement" or "two meanings." If
Cheng agrees, as he seems to, that "Truth" is not
the issue here, then why use the term in the first
place? Surely it can only be

P.363

a source of confusion, perpetuating the traditional
misunderstanding of this distinction.
Another misuse of the term " Truth " occurs when
he uses it, repeatedly, as a translation for the
term "Dharma" (fa)(b). Surely by now most Buddhist
scholars agree that Buddha was not concerned with
the "Truth" per se, but rather with presenting a set
of techniques designed to encourage individuals to
become liberated. The notion that one thing is
"true" and something else is not, can only serve as
a limitation in this project. In general, Cheng
seems to be prone to the indiscriminate use of terms
such as "Absolute Truth."
His discussion of Yogacara reveals a confusion
between "mind" and "ideas", as he accepts the
popular misunderstnading of Yogacara as "Idealism."
He claims (page 26) that "The Yogacara maintained
that behind the phenomenal world there is a
noumenal, ultimate reality; this is mind or
consciousness. It is not the ordinary psychological
mind but Suchness  " We are just starting to
understand that Yogacara was not presenting a system
of ontology, but rather a system of closure. Rather
than claiming the Mind is the only Reality, they
would seem to be saying that the nature of the
reality is determinable solely through consciousness
or experience of reality, that the nature of reality
is consciousness. We need not read ontology into the
Yogacara project, since that assumes a basic
contradiction of the fundamental Buddhist notion of
"Wu Wo, Wu Fa," or "absence of reality in self and
in dharmas (in this sense read 'things)."
Cheng also betrays his carelessness in the use
of language when he refers to the "Madhyamika view
of God." I don't think that a true Madhyamaka would
claim to have any particular "view" of God.
Besides this carelessness, Cheng also gives too
little attention to some very important
considerations. For instance, he does not seem to be
aware of the existence of the Svatantrike school of
Madhyamika thought when he claims that "According to
the teaching of emptiness as the middle way, it is
even erroneous to hold a contextual view of
meaning." Surely this is true if we consider only
Candrakirti;s Prasangika school of thought, but the
Svatantrika school of Bhavaviveka thought that the
only possible view of meaning is provisional and
contextual.
Perhaps the most troubling phlosophical point in
the text is the apparent contradiction between
statements made by Nagarjuna in two

P.364

different contexts. Cheng paraphrases Nagarjuna's
agrument against Sunyata as nihilism from the Twelve
Gate Treatise:

"....if the essence of all things were fixed
and determinate [as would be the case if one
were not to accept the notion of Sunyata],
there would be no such phenomena as change,
origination, and destruction, and hence there
would be no suffering. Since there would be no
noble truth of suffering, there could be no
noble truth of the origin of suffering, the
cessation of suffering, and the way leading to
the cessation of suffering. If there were no
Four Noble Truths, there would be no four
fruits of 'sramana.' Without the four fruits,
there would be no goal for religious life and
realization of the Sangha would not be
possible."

He goes on to quote Nagarjuna: "Without the noble
truths the true Dharma would not exist. Without the
Dharma and Sangha, how could there be the Buddha?"
This seems to contradict Nagarjuna's comprehensive
dismissal of causal efficacy in the Doctrine of the
Middle Way, especially the chapter on Nirvana, and
elsewhere. The only way to reconcile these two types
of statements is to bear in mind that Nagarjuna is
making statements in a corrective manner, not a
propositional one. In each instance, he is arguing
primarily against Buddhist philosophers who on the
one hand claim causal efficacy with its implications
of positive existence, and on the other hand
denounce the nihilistic implications of Sunyata, or
emptiness. Nagarjuna is trying to show that both
positions lead to logical contradictions. This is
not made clear in Cheng's treatment of the issue.
In general, the text must be considered an im-
portant work for its usefulness as an introductory
text in an area where no such introductory texts
axist, but the reader should be aware that Professor
Cheng sometimes displays some carelessness in his
use of terminology. Certainly the decision as to
what to include and what not to include in a text is
a personal one, but sometimes the lack of context
obscures the issues involved.