Mahayana Buddhism and Japanese Thought

·期刊原文
Mahayana Buddhism and Japanese Thought

HIDEO KISHMOTO
Philosophy East and West 4, no. 3, OCTOBER 1954.
(c) by The University Press of Hawaii.
p.215-223

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p.215

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN the culture-patterns of
East and West has been discussed in various ways
Every point of difference raised seems to have been
disputed by someone. But, generally speaking the
existence of sharp contrast is admitted. The purpose
here is to discuss the basic nature of Mahaayaana
Buddhism--the later form of Buddhism developed mainly
in China and Japan-and see whether some
characteristics of the culture and the way of
thinking of the Japanese people may not be clarified
thereby.
During the course of Japanese history for the
past two thousand years, various trends of thought
systematized and unsytematized have become integral
parts of Japanese culture. There were indigenous
types of thought which were later organized as
Shinto. There was Confucian philosophy from China,
which became the backbone of the moral principles of
Japanese society. The nature-mysticism of Taoism from
China also permeated the Japanese mind. And, there
was Buddhism, Buddhism in the form
of.Mahaayaanas, which originally come from India,
but, again, by way of China Buddhism was introduced
into Japan in the middle of the sixth century. During
the span of fourteen hundred years since then, it has
permeated the thinking of the entire country. Along
with Shinto or, rather, rising beyond Shinto
Buddhism has often been the sate religion under
various regimes. For instance, under the Tokugawa
regime, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
all Japanese citizens were registered by national law
as members of one of the Buddhist temples;' In
contemporary Japan, there are about eighty-five
thousand Buddhist temples and one hundred thousand
ordained priests. It may well be maintained that
Buddhism has been historically the most influential
trend of thought in Japan.
The main concern here is Mahaayaana Buddhism,
but, to make the Mahaayaana clear, one must examine,
briefly, the original form of Buddhism. Buddhism was
founded in India in the sixth century B.C. The core
of the original doctrine of the Buddha is
succinctly sunned up in his so-called

p.216

"Four Noble Truths." Truth number one: The given
world is full of agonies. Worldly life is hopelessly
painful. Truth number true: Why is this so? It is
because at the depth of each individual's mind there
are cravings and desires, which make him
over-attached to worldly matter. They make the mind
distorted and dissatisfied. Thus, life becomes
miserable. Truth number three: So, the way to make
the best of life is to check such cravings and reach
the stage of nirvaa.na "Nirvaa.na." meaning "blown
out, is the state of existence in which the light of
life is blown out because all the flames of cravings
have been extinguished. Truth number four: As the
concrete means to check those cravings and reach
nirvaa.na, a system of mental discipline is given.
The most important part of the system consists in the
method of rigorous contemplation, which is variously
called dhyaana, yoga, or zen.
Such is the fundamental framework of the Buddha's
teachings. In this connection and in relation to
later statements it might be well to comment briefly
on the result of such Buddhist mental discipline.
'Through patient practice of it, mainly
contemplation, one's mind becomes more and more
purified and tranquilized. And, at Iast, one is
supposed to be able to reach ealightenment, an
awakening of the mind to a higher experience. When
one attains enlightenment, one's mind is filled with
happiness and peace. One feels no more cravings in
the mind. And there is nothing more to worry about.
The outside world is perceived with new, fresh value.
This procedure involves nothing mysterious or occult.
This is a purely psychological achievement.
The teachings expounded by the Buddha, however,
were colored at many points by the ontologica1 ideas
of traditional Indian thought. The Buddha was, after
all, a child of his age. In India, at that time, the
philosophy of the Upani.sads had already mode great
progress. The pessimistic view of life, concepts of
karma and transmigration, and the idea of nirvaa.na
were all in the Upani.sads. The Buddhist notion of
cravings is also connected with the concept of karma.
Karma is a kind of ontological latent force,
comparable to inertia in physical science. Cravings
cause karma. The force of karma ties a person down to
the world of misery. So long as one carries karma,
one cannot escape worldly lives, one life after
another. Therefore, there is transmigration. When one
reaches enlightenment, and controls or relinquishes
entirely his cravings and karma, for him
transmigration is over. Thus, he enters nirvaa.na.
The ultimate ideal set by traditional Indian thought
was to become free from the chain of repetitious
births and deaths and to disappear from this world.
In other words, funddamentally, traditional Indian
thought did not approve of life in this world. It was
a negativism.The

p.217

Buddha accepted such concepts and took them into his
system of thought. So, with him, too enlightenment
and nirvaa.na, were almost synonymous. To become
fully enlightened mean to disappear from this world.
Though the Mahaayaana thinkers later gave a
drastic turn to-or away from-the negativistic
attitude of the earlier Buddhism, many concepts of
the original doctrine of the Buddha were carried over
into Japan as parts of Mahaayaana Buddhism, and had
a strong influece on the mind of the Japanese people.
The non-theistic form of Buddhist doctrine is one
example of this, with the consequence that it
emphasized dharma, law. The religious ideal of the
main trends of Buddhism had nothing to do with the
idea of a supernatural god. Some aspects of typical
Japanese attitudes may have been derived from this
non-theistic aspect of Buddhism. The Japanese look at
social relations more from the point of view of
irresistible cosmic law than with the spirit of
universal love. They accept human destiny in terms of
fatalistic relations of came and effect, rather than
appealing to the supernatural for special favors from
above.
The non-ego theory of the Buddha was another
signficant point. According to the Buddha a human
being is only a set of integrated psychophysical
elements. Then is no central soul or self. To believe
in the existence of soul is nothing but the result of
distorted introspection. Apparently, for the
soul-believing Japanese, it was rather diffcult to
grasp this conception. But Buddhism has at least
discouraged on the part of th Japanese both the
growth of an egocentric attitude and the development
of an individualistic conception of society.
For present purposes, however, the more,
important points in the original doctrine of the
Buddha are: (1) his emphasis on the subjective aspect
of value. He was not too much interested in changing
environmental conditions to make life happier. His
usual attitude toward the environment was simply to
accept it as given. Accepting given situations, the
finding of happiness within oneself by means of
changing the subjective attitude was the essence of
his teaching. (2) This emphasis on the subjecdve
aspect of value is justified because of the
possibility of tht attainment of a higher experience.
This higher experience is potentially attainable by
everybody. By reaching this higher experience, one
can find new value in this environmental situation.
When full enlightenment is achieved, one should be
happy in spite of any environmental situation. These
two points, namely, the emphasis on the
subjective aspect of value and the advocacy of the
attainment of a higher experience, seem to be the
persistent characteristics of Buddhism.

p.218

When tbe scholastics of Hiinayaana or early
Buddhism become too preoccupied with intellectual
analysis of the elements of the psychophysical world,
Naagaarjuna, the first outstanding advocate of
Mahaayaana Buddhism, came forward in the second
century to tell them that the essential point of the
Buddha's teaching was not centered on such
intellectual matters. To demonstrate the point of
departure clearly, he enumerated several intellectual
categories, and drastically denied that any of them
had to do with the essntial point of tbe Buddha's
teaching. Then he brought forth a new term to point
out the sphere of higher experience. Had he been a
German mystic philosopber like Rudolf Otto, he might
have said "irrational," but Naagaarjuna used instead
the word "suunya," which means "void" or "empty."(1)
Such emphasis on the significance of the higher
experience as the concrete ideal gave enlightenment a
positive aspect. Enlighttenment is, after all, a
psychological achievement. Why can a man not enioy
this worldly life, after reaching the higher
experience of enlightenment? Enlightenment, as
a psychological achievement, thus became
differentiated from the ontological notion of
nirvaa.na, disappearance from tbe world. The ideas of
enlightenment and nirvaa.na, which had been used as
if synonymous are now separate. Enlightnment came to
the front, and nirvaa.na retired to the backgrouod.
This shift of emphasis gave Buddhism almost a
Copernican turn. A negativistic attitude toward life
was transformed into an affirmative one. A man my
achieve enlightenment and still live in this world.
Not only that, but to become enlightened in this
worldly life has become the ultimate aim of
Mahaayaana 'Buddhism. Discarding the Indian
pessimistic view, Mahaayaana Buddhism experienced
almost a new birth as an affirmative system of life.
Such a basic change in Buddhism necessarily
affected the interpretation of the first concept of
the Four Noble Truths. The first Truth says that this
worldly life is full of pain. This statement still
holds but only within the limit of the state of mind
of the ordinary, unenlightened person. In other
words, it holds for the lower values of life. Once
one is enlightened, the same life takes on new value.
The worldly life becomes a happy me one. One should
remember that this is not to be brougbt about by the
objective improvement of worldly conditions, but by
subjective change. To use the terminology of
Naagaarjuna, it can be said that, facing the same
environment, one can have either the supreme
situation (paramartha sasya) or the ordinary worldly
situation (loksamv.rtti satya) .(2) So, Mahaayaana
Buddhism admits at
_____________________________________________________

(1) Rudolph Otto, The Idea of the Holy, John, W.
Harvey, trana. (2d ed, London. New York, Toronto:
Oxford University Press, 1950).

(2) Edward J. Thomas, The History of Buddhist Thought
(London: kegan Paul, Trench, Trner & Co., Ltd.;
New York: A.A.Knopf, 1933).pp. 212 ff.

p.219

least two standards of value. In this sense, it may
be called a multi-valued system.
In Japan Mahaayaana Buddhism has been diversified
into strikingly different branches or schools, each
working out an elaborate scheme of tenets. But, with
all the divergences, these "schools" are unanimous in
stressing the significance of this basic point of the
pluralism of value standards.
For instance, Zen Buddhism is one of the powerful
Mahaayaana branches, and has been deeply influential
in Japanese culture. It is a system of practical
mysticism. It tries to lead its followers straight to
enlightenment by the rigorous practice of
contemplation. This system is very much afraid of the
confusion between the real experience of
enlightenment and an intellectual explanation about
enlightenment, because the confusion is fatal. It
teaches that the experience of enlightenment is like
the moon. And the explanation of it is like a finger.
A finger is certainly useful to point out where the
moon is. But the finger is not the moon. If the
finger and the moon we mixed up so that the finger is
thought of as the moon itself, the mistake is
serious. Unless one realizes the difference of the
two spheres of experience and the two standards of
value, one will never reach the higher value of life
which Zen advocates.(3)
Zen aims at the subjective achievement and not
the objetive change. The coctention of Zen is that,
in spite of one's enlightenment, the outside world
will remain just the same as before. Willow leaves
remain as green as ever, and red flowers as red, they
say. But after reaching enlightenment, to see them
will give a pleasure and happiness never experienced
before. That is things do not change but higher
values appear and am attached to them.
Since the sphere of higher experience is beyond
intellectual description, the only way to represent
it is by mean of symbolic expressions. The enormous
symbolic and ritualistic structure of Shingon
Buddhism, which has flourished in Japan since the
ninth century, is based on this conception. Shingon
is a dualstic system. Its dualism consists of sphere
of phenomemal representation and the sphere of
ultimate reality--an ontological scheme showing the
existence of the two different spheres of vain in the
universe.(4)
In Tendai Buddhism,(5) the most philosophical
branch of Mahaayaana, we also find on elaborate
system of mystical metaphysics with the same
pluralis-
_____________________________________________________

(3) Daisetz T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, 3
vols. (London: Luzac & Co, first series, 1927;
second series, 1933; third series, 1934).

(4) Masaharu Anesaki, History of Japanese Religion
(London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trner & Co., Ltd,
1930), pp. 123-133.

(5) Masaharu Anesaki, ibid., pp.113-116; Masaharu
Anesaki, Nichiren, the Buddhist Prophet
(Cambridge: Harvad University Press, 1916). For
the exposition of Saddharrma-pu.n.dariika-suutra,
on which the Tendai doctrine is based, see pp.16
ff.

p.220

tic tendency. It maintains that the eternal is in the
temporal, and that the temporal is in the eternal.
The universal can be found in the individual, and the
individual in the universal. Each individual has his
own standard of value, which is at the same time
universal value. Truth is everywhere. Truth is
pluralistic. When truth becomes pluralistic, it loses
its absolute value. So, though truth is relative, it
is still colored by the difference of standards of
value. Now, ultimate value is set on the higher
experience. Truths are divided into truth of
intrinsic value and the truth of instrumental value.
Admitting the difference in these two kinds of truth,
the pluralism of Tendai still puts stress on the
significance of both of them. A simple but celebrated
parable about a house on fire is told in the Hokekyo
scripture (Saddharma-pu.n.dariika-suutra):
A house was on fire. Unfortunately, a little
child was left in the house. People tried to persuade
him to come out, telling him of the danger of fire.
But, being too small a child, he could not understand
the meaning of the danger of fire. So, people brought
out a beautiful decorated car and showed it to him.
The child was attracted by the beauty of the car, and
wanted to take a ride on it, So, he came art. Thus,
he was saved.(6)
This famous parable is supposed to explain the
pluralism of truth as well as the significance of
truth as a means. The ultimate truth does not change.
But, truth as means must vary in conrrespondence with
the occasion and the ability of the person. Tendai
goes even so far is to my that, if the cuase is
right, a lie can be respectable as the means.
One strange development in Mahaayaana out of the
original non-theistic doctrine of Buddhism is the
so-called Pure Land Buddhism. It takes a theistic
form and has been formidably influential in Japan. A
Buddha, Buddha Amitaabha, and his paradise are
recognized. The Pure Land School teaches that by
faith and devotional practice to Buddha Amitaabha,
all shall be saved, and promises eternal life and
happiness in his paradise. But, even this theistic
system, when the ultimate existence of Buddha
Amitaabha and paradise it questioned, suddenly
becomes deeper and more complicated. Its doctrine
admits that the most important thing is for people to
get rid of worldly agonies, feel saved, and attain
peace of mind, not the ultimate existence of Buddha
or paradise. The justification for such a theistic
scheme lies in its being a means. It is justified
became it is the only means of producing the ideal
effect for the mass. So, logically, those who an
reach the higher
_____________________________________________________

(6) H.Kern trans., The Saddharma-pu.n.dariika or, The
Lotus of the True law, Sacred Books of the East,
Vol.XXI (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1884),pp.72 ff. 

p.221

experience directly have no need to be involved in
such theistic beliefs.
Such, then, are the essential teachings and
attitudes of Mahaayaana Buddhism. It can be treated
as a multi-valued system. The fact that such an
unusual system has been developing so long in Japan
and has developed in such a formidably complicated
way seems to be worthy of serious notice.
In spite of the great divergence of the various
sectarian doctrines so far discussed, they have
common points of emphasis. As has been said before,
one is the emphasis on the subjective aspect of
value. That is, to make the same given environment
happier depends upon a change of subjective attitude.
The other emphasis is the advocacy of higher
experience. One should not take the ordinary worldly
experience as the only kind of experience one can
have. There is unfathomable depth in human
experience.
Now, our further interest is to inquire how for
and in what way this pattern of thought has molded
the ways of thinking and the attitudes of the
Japanese people. Of course, the influence of Buddhism
on Japanese culture is much more far-reaching than
the two basic points just mentioned, going into every
aspect of society and the life of the people. But,
our approach here will be confined for the time
being to these points. And presuming that such a
pattern of thought has been saturating the thinking
of a people for hundreds and hundreds of years, it
must have affected to a considerable extent their way
of thinking and their attitudes. The question is:
What are the most conspicuous features of this
influence?(7)
The peculiar nature of the aesthetic value of the
Japanese fine arts is often noticed-its intuitive,
detached, and subdued quality. The subjective values
of the arts are deeply appreciated by Japanese
artists. The aspirations of the artists are also
directed toward the achievement of the higher
experience. The ultimate aesthetic value is closely
connected with the notion of a higher experience to
create beautiful things, but ultimately to reach this
higher state of mind. The skills and techniques of
the arts are often discussed as nothing more than the
means to reach this deeper aesthetic value. It is
commonly admitted that religious enlightenment and
aesthetic enlightenment are the same thing; the only
difference is the matter of approach. The peculiar
quality of Japanese art may be at least partially
explained as a product of such at attitude.(8)
The ethical system has had a strange position in
Japanese society. Mahaayaana Buddhism did not take up
ethical problems as seriously as, for instance,
Christianity has. The Buddhist emphasis was on the
sphere of higher experi-
_____________________________________________________

(7) Masaharu Anesaki, The Religious Life of the
Japanese People (Tokyo: Kokusai Bunka Shinkokai,
1938); Masaharu Anesaki, Art, Life and Nature in
Japan (Boston: Marshall Jones Co., 1933).

(8) Eugen Herrigel, Zen in the Art of Arhery, R.S.C.
Hull, trans. (New York: Pantheon Books, 1953).

p.222

ence, which it detached from the life of the ordinary
sensory world. So, Buddhism did not show too keen an
interest in the moral discipline of daily life.
Rather, it put its stress on the point that the
religious ideal is beyond the ken of the good and bad
of morality. Shinran, the reformer of Pure Land
Buddhism, said with deep appeal to the Japanese mind,
"Even a good man is saved, why not a bad man" As the
result of this, the Japanese have the general
attitude of taking moral principles as merely
conventional. The moral principles have been taken
care of in Japan by the Confucian theory, independent
of religion. In other words,in Japan, religion red
morals have been based on dfferent principles.
Often the Japanese me criticized as being weak in
scientific thinking and underdeveloped in social
concern. This map be true, to a attain extent. It is
due partly to Japan's late acceptance of modern
civilization. But, also, the influence of the
Buddhist thought-pattern must not be overlooked. Its
influence has made the Japanese mind tend to accept
the environment as a given situation and concentrate
in efforts on the subjective side, instead d going
out and pursuing knowledge about physical and social
matters. This has not helped to stimulate scientific
thinking a social concern. For instance, the modern
ideal of Mahaayaana Buddhism also emphasizes the
possibility and the ideal of finding paradise in this
world. But the way it takes is different from that of
Christianity. Unlike the so-called social gospel of
Christianity, which seeks to reform and reconstruct
society and establish a better world as the Kingdom
of God, Buddhism tries to change the minds of the
people. When a man is enlightened the world will have
the values of paradise.
The expression "oriental resignation" is used
with good reason, as a way to describe the attitude
of the Japanese. The Japanese certainly seem to take
such an attitude very often. A Japanese often says
Sbikata ga nai," which means, "It cannot be helped"
But such resignation an the part of the Japanese,
which may seem to the Westerner to be simply the
giving up or the abandoning of things, may not be as
simple a mode of behaviour as it seems. To attribute
this solely to the psychologica1 effect of the
regimented social life of the Japanese feudalistic
age is much too simple.(9) "Oriental resignation"
involves more complicated mental procedure than
appears on the surface. When a Japanese assumes the
attitude of resignation, very often he is trying
with great mental effort to accept the given
situation courageously. It may be even harder than
going ahead without resignation. But the Japanese do
this because it is their mental habit to
_____________________________________________________

(9) Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1946)

p.223

do so. Since the Japanese reveals in his overt
expression little of the complicated process that is
going on in his mind, his attitude is likely to be
taken as simple resignation.
To accept a given situation courageously and
calmly has been a traditional source of pride for
most Japanese. The most serious situation of all,
with no way of escape, is death. The Japanese are
generally keenly concerned with the problem of how to
accept the coming of death. Are you prepared a die?
Or, in what kind of attitude are you going to die?
These are favorite questions of Zen Buddhism. The
Japanese are more concerned with whether or not one
dies in a peaceful and happy state of mind than
whether or not one dies in physical agony. So, in
Japanese culture, death is not merely the natural end
of life, but is the last important achievement of
one's life. Death is, in that sense, within the
range of one's life. This may also give some clue to
an understanding of the peculiar status of suicide
among the Japanese.
During the long history of Japan, the influence
of the pattern of Buddhist thought must have deeply
influenced the ways of thinking and the attitudes of
the Japanese people. But,since the beginning of the
Meiji Restoration in 1868, Western concepts have come
into Japan, with their rationalism objectivism,
science-ism and "system-ism" Everywhere they are
having a strong influence on traditional Japanese
culture. How long the traditional Japanese mentality
which has been described above will endure, or what
kind of alteration it will undergo, remains to be
seen.