The early Prajnaa schools, especially Hsin-wu

·期刊原文
The early Praj~naa schools, especially "Hsin-wu," reconsidered

By Whalen W. Lai
Philosophy east and west
volume 33. no.1(January, 1980)
P.31-P.77
(C) bye the University Press of Hawaii.

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P.31

Prior to the coming to China of Kumaarajiiva(401)
and the introduction of Naagaarjuna's treatises, the
Chinese Buddhists were attracted to the Emptiness
philosophy of the Praj~naapaaramitaa Suutras
themselves. They produced the so-called "six
Praj~naa-ist schools" on their own, but these came
under the ax in the fifth century with the Pu-chen
k'ung lun(a), (The Emptiness of the Unreal) of
Seng-chao(b) (383-414). There have been several
detailed studies of the early Praj~naa schools, but
they all bought the judgment that the Hsin-wu(c)
(Mind as Empty) school was the most blameworthy,
being allegedly the concoction of two schemers who
wanted to make a living out of it.(1) The uncritical
acceptance of this legend, from the poisoned pen of
the anti-Hsin-wu forces, has meant until now a
misreading of the whole dialectical interaction
between the six schools. Far from being the black
sheep of the lot, Min-tu's thesis of Hsin-wu was, in
its time, the necessary corrective to a certain
mistake in the predominant school. The thesis
triggered off a series of experimentations seeking
the best solutions to the problem. Each later school
tried to incorporate and answer the critique of
Hsin-wu, the last--the Chi-se(d) school of Chih Tun
(Tao-lin(e) ) --proposing a little understood
"three-stepped" resolution of the tension. Because
scholars overly trust Seng-chao's citation of and
judgment against his predecessors, this historical
dialectic is further obscured. Actually, Seng-chao
himself belongs to that dialectical unfolding that
reached beyond him into the still unclarified "Six
Two-Truths Schools."

The present essay will unravel this hidden
story, redressing especially the wrong done to the
Hsin-wu school, by recreating the dynamics that
brought forth the theses, antitheses, and syntheses.
One way to approach this is to correct point by
point the mistakes of past studies, but after
several drafts it appears that such backtracking in
reverse gear, as it were, only makes following the
argument more difficult, It is better to start with
a clean slate and narrate the reconstructed events
in their roughly chronological order. This is the
approach adopted below. My disagreements with past
judgments will be noted in the process with some
brief notation at the end. This is because, in part,
the strength of the approach here lies in its
overall economy in unravelling the hidden logic
ruling these schools. It provides a far clearer
picture of what the issues and the options were at
the time. Clarity is not necessarily the criterion
for truth. The historical specifics of these schools
remain muddled and might well be truly so, but I
believe the following account, insofar as it can
elucidate quite a number of unsolved points in the
history of these early schools, may recommend itself
over other options to date.

Before procceding, it is necessary to introduce
the general thesis and antithesis in this
dialectical interplay. The Pen-wu(f) or "Original
Nothingness" school was

P.62

the first and most basic school. When it is
represented by the much revered Tao-an(g), even
Seng-chao would defer to it somewhat, even as he
criticized it. (See the later discussion on this
inference.) The Hsin-wu school was the first and
major challenger, It is customary to condemn Hsin-wu
for psychological subjectivism. This is what
Seng-chao did, though he was not the first to do so.
Hsin-wu is accused of "emptying the mind" without
considering the emptiness of the object itself. The
truth of the matter is that Hsin-wu consciously
refused so to empty the object, because that
mode-"objective nihilism"--was its accusation
against the Pen-wu school. In other words, there
were two basic approaches to solving the meaning of
Emptiness, the objective Pen-wu way and the
subjective Hsin-wu way, each with a possible
fallacy, nihilism or psychologism. In the unfolding
of the other four schools--which are actually
dialectical sub-schools responding to that above
tension and are almost all aligned against Hsin-wu
(see infra)--there were real attempts to (a) either
reform the original, naive Pen-wu to guard it from
the Hsin-wu critique, or (b) co-opt Hsin-wu into
itself to defuse its criticism. The reason why
Hsin-wu was blackballed is simple. This is the first
anaatmavaada school in China at a time when
everybody else believed in the necessity of an
"immortal soul" carrying the karman due from one
life to another; anaatman was part of the Hsin-wu
thesis, "Self-as-Empty." The eventual "defeat" of
Hsin-wu under Seng-chao is also understandable;
Maadhyamika was committed to analyzing the emptiness
of the dharmas in and of themselves without recourse
to a theory of mind. Hsin-wu was indeed outside the
mainstream of most (not all) scriptural authority
then, but this very fact only explains why the
Hsin-wu position (if not the school as such)
regained prominence by the late sixth century when
Yogaacaara's impact was finally felt among Chinese
Buddhists like T'an-ch'ien(h). Below we will trace
the dialectical interplay down to roughly the time
of Seng-chao.

THE FIRST THESIS AND ANTITHESIS: NAIVE PEN-WU VS.
CRITICAL HSIN-WU

When the Chinese in the fourth century appropriated
the doctrine of Emptiness, they could not possibly
have freed themselves from the philosophy of Wang
Pi, the Neo-Taoist, who had previously argued for
wu(i) (Non-being, there-being-not) as the ground of
all yu(j) (Being, there-being). It is therefore not
surprising that the first known Praj~naa school is
the naive Pen-wu school of Fa-shen(k). Fa-shen must
have proposed his understanding in the South before
326, because that was roughly when Min-tu crossed
the river and created quite a stir with his Hsin-wu
thesis. Fa-shen was possibly a disciple of
Dharmarak.sa. and he was a ming-seng(l) (monk of
renown) who moved around the powerful and the mighty
of the capitol. This is Prof. Richard M. Mather's
notation on him:

CHU CH'IEN (Fa-shen, alias Tao-ch'ien(m) ) .
286-374.KSC (Kao-seng chuan(n) ) 4; Taisho
(Daizokyo)(o) 50.347c-348b. A Buddhist monk from
unknown family, who is said in the KSC to have been
the younger brother of Wang Tun(P). He first studied
with Confucian scholar Liu Yuan-chen(q), then after
reading the Lotus

P.63

Suutra (Saddharmapu.n.dariika [trans. Dharmarak.sal)
entered the Sa^ngha in his eighteenth year. During
the Troubles attending the fall of the Western Chin
(307-312) he fled south and enjoyed the favor of
emperors and courtiers at the Eastern Chin capital
(Chien-k'ang(r), later retiring to the K'uai-chi(8)
area (Chekiang) where he died in his eighty-ninth
year. [The Shih-shuo Hsin-yu(t) has six entries on
him.](2)

To Fa-shen is attributed this reported theory about
Pen-wu:

What is Pen-wu? It is gaping like a hole and is
formless. Yet from it all things are born. Although
things can give birth to other things, yet only
non-being can serve as the origin to all. Thus the
Buddha told Brahmaa that the Four Great Elements
themselves came from empty space.(3)
We need hardly note that Fa-shen mistakenly reduces
`suunyataa (Emptiness) to the Taoist wu (non-being,
mother of all beings) and confused it with sheer
empty space (aakaa`sa). As Fa-shen was remembered as
a famous debater, we may assume that his thesis was
then well received enough to represent the dominant
understanding of Emptiness. His fame apparently was
eclipsed somewhat later, for we read of him chiding
the young for daring to discuss him saying, "You
yellow-billed fledglings, don't criticize or discuss
the gentlemen of the past."(4) Who knows, maybe a
cause of this is Chih Min-tu(u).

As stated, the Pen-wu thesis deserved to be
undercut, but that it took Min-tu to do it must show
somewhat the poverty of other philosophers.
Unfortunately, we have this legend perpetuated among
the ming-shih(v) (men of renown) circle, as recalled
here by the Shih-shuo Hsin-yu:

When the monk Chih Min-tu was about to flee
southward across the Yangtze river (between 326 and
342), he had as his companion a northern (ts'ang(w))
monk. Min-tu plotted with him, saying, "If we go to
the land east of the river with nothing but the old
theory, I'm afraid we'll never manage to eat." So
together they concocted the "Theory of Mental
Nonexistence" (hsin-wu i).(x)

As it turned out, this northern monk never
succeeded in crossing the river, but Min-tu actually
expounded the theory in the south for many years.

Later another northern monk came south to whom
the former monk had entrusted the following message:
"Tell Min-tu for me that the `Theory of
Nonexistence' is completely unfounded. We concocted
this scheme as an expedient to save ourselves from
starvation and nothing more. Don't go on with it;
otherwise you'll be betraying the Tathaagata."(5)

This legend has depicted Min-tu as a scheming monk
who reduced Hsin-wu to pure fabrication without
scriptural basis. This has done a great disservice
to what probably was the most advanced Praj~naa
school.

We have first justly to discard the above as an
attack ad hominem from the pro-Fa-shen circle when
the latter could not counter Min-tu on more noble
grounds. As Zurcher noted already, there are
passages in the Praj~naapaaramitaa Suutra supporting
Min-tu's thesis and Min-tu was notably the first to
compile a catalogue of suutras.(6) Although I do not
think Min-tu's thesis was just based on the suutra's
advocation of "emptying the mind" (of subjective
concepts), there is little to

P.64

gainsay that he was a learned monk. Sun Ch'o(y), a
disciple of Chih Tao-lin and champion of his Chi-se
school, did not let ideological difference distort
his memory of Min-tu as one "talented and
knowledgeable. pure and outstanding.'' Far from
being a monk who wanted fame (ming) Min-tu was
remembered by him as "pure'' and, as may be seen
below, as "plain."

... refined yet plain
Who love what is, and yet pluck the new,
Holding them both for all to see,
You can surpass all other men(7)

If anyone was making a fine living off his wits it
was Fa-shen, who is well remembered for this bon mot
to the question why a monk should enjoy himself
within the vermillion gate (house of the wealthy):
"You naturally see it as a vermillion gate; to this
indigent monk it's as if he were enjoying himself
within a mat door."(8) The image of Min-tu as a
schemer for food and fame is clearly a projection by
the southern ming-shih of their life goal upon a
seeming upstart that managed to capture quite an
audience--as we will further see below.

What was Hsin-wu and why was it so offensive to
the old guard? We do not have Min-tu's position
preserved, and I would not use Seng-chao's. (Any
good praasa^ngika dialectician would type-cast his
opponent, and Seng-chao did no less.) Despite the
polemical nature of the Shih-shuo Hsin-yu account,
it still affords us, with some amendments, the
contemporary problematic. It is found in the
reference to the "old theory" that Min-tu supposedly
violated. The commentary by Liu Chun(z) (early 6th
century) explains:

The "old theory" stated: "When one possesses
omniscience, and through it is able to illumine all
things, then the myriad bonds come to an end, and
this state is called Empty Nonexistence
(k'ung-wu(aa)). Because it abides eternally and does
not change, it is called Subtle Existence
(miao-yu(ab)." The "new theory" of Nonexistence, on
the other hand, stales: "The substance (t'i(ac)) of
omniscience is hollow, like the Great Void
(t'ai-hsu(ad)). Though void, it is nonetheless able
to know; though nonexistent, it is nonetheless able
to respond. That which occupies the ldeal(tsung(ac))
and reaches the Ultimate (chi(af)), is it not
Nonexistence also?"

There might be some anachronism here: the "abiding
eternally" was not fully formulated until the
Buddha-nature doctrine of the Nirvaana Suutra was
known. My more philosophical rendition of the
passage would be, after taking chung-chih(ag) more
loosely as "seed of wisdom" and reading the last
line differently:

The old theory says that the seed of wisdom is real
(shih-yu(ah), (9) thereby it can illuminate all.
However, as the bonds are ended, it is called empty
nonbeing, (The wisdom seed) that subsists unchanged
is called subtle being. The new theory says the seed
or wisdom itself is hollow like empty space.
(arguing that precisely) as it is vacuous, it can
know; as it is empty, it can respond. But [notes the
commentator], if it can so abide in the principle
and penetrate the Ultimate, can it be called
"nonexistent"?(10)

P.65

The old theory affirms the reality of a
wisdom-essence, and would apply the negative terms
like `empty nonbeing' only to the act of negating
the defilements. As far as it is concerned, the
wisdom-essence remains real and is there all the
time. This accords with what I see as the prevalent
understanding prior to Min-tu, as attested to by the
basic assumptions in the shen-pu-mieh(al) debate.

The unsettling new thesis of Min-tu reduced the
wisdom-essence itself to nonbeing. Praj~naa itself
is `suunya or is `suunyataa. There is no more reason
for regarding 'nonbeing' to be just the negation of
the defilements. However, given the then Chinese
acceptance of the Principle or the Ultimate as
somehow 'real', even the commentator wonders how the
absolute can be so nihilized. But, of course, the
whole point in the Praj~naapaaramitaa Suutra is to
negate any real absolute, to say that the principle
itself is empty or is symbolized by emptiness. What
upset the Chinese then is that Min-tu, in fact,
eliminated the last vestige of realism, which at the
time meant the immortal soul (shen). Up to the time
of Tao-an and not until the era of Kumaarajiiva, the
Chinese assumed this shen to denote a wisdom-essence
that would one day be united with the cosmic shen or
the Ultimate. Chinese also need this shen--in a
separate function--as the agent to carry over karman
from one life to the next. In this imperfect
understanding of Buddhist anaatamvaada, the majority
simply could not entertain the possibility that shen
too must 'die' (mieh(aj)). It is not possible to
rehash the long Chinese assumptions about this
immortal soul, though I trust this is a theme
familiar to many, except that to them, that
discussion was not associated with the Hsin-wu
controversy. The one scholar who recognized this
connection is T'ang Yung-t'ung(ak) who put it
succinctly as follows:

Han Buddhist thought focused on the matter of
"returning to the base, pen(al)"; it locates the
source [of all things] in the mind. Wei-Chin
Buddhists and Neo-Taoists speculated more on the
(objective) structure of original nonbeing
(pen-wu(am)) preceding subsequent being (mo-yu(an)).
This change of emphasis roughly parallels the Han
interest in religious Taoism [the art of nurturing
the spirit] to the Wei-Chin interest in speculative
Taoism [the park Principle].... Thus since Han, many
Buddhists would discourse on the form as empty
(se-k'ung(ao)) but few would regard the mind itself
as empty (k'ung-hsin(ap)). Note: At the time the
Chinese translation of anaatman was by way of Lao
Tzu's fei-shen(aq) ) , "not of the body" i.e.
dissociating oneself [one's spirit] from the body.
This explains why the repeated attacks on the
Hsin-wu school by the leading spokesmen of the
time.(11)

The Hsin-wu school was the only school that took
anaatman or aatmasuunyataa and the emptiness, not
just of form but also of the psychic skandhas,
seriously, without the usual hedging in by
stipulating that the essence-spirit (seed-wisdom) is
not emptied or how emptiness refers only to ending
the bonds. In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed
man is however not the king. Hsin-wu was condemned
as a heresy, and when it rallied scriptures to its
own defense, Min-tu was attacked ad hominem as a
fake and a charlatan. And we accepted that myth-even
T'ang Yung-t'ung did--of a nameless co-conspirator
who "confessed"!

P.66

THE SECOND ROUND OF CONFLICT: T'AN-I(ar) VERSUS
TAO-HENG(as)

Min-tu was hated but could not be defeated. Although
we do not have Min-tu's original thesis, we do have
the report of a Hsin-wu position by a follower.
Fa-wen used to be a disciple of Fa-shen but he was
swayed to the other camp. His position is reported
as follows:

By being, we must mean form. By nonbeing, we must
mean the formless. One cannot say that form is
nonbeing or that nonbeing has existence. What exists
must exist; form has to be truly form.

We cannot reduce being into nonbeing. The argument
is logical, and duplicates Kuo Hsiang's(at) critique
of Wang Pi(au). But clearly the suutra says, "Form
is Emptiness." If so, how are we to understand
that--if not literally?

When the suutra says that form is emptiness, it is
only asking you to put a stop to the mind so that
would not be drawn into the external forms. When the
external forms are no longer found (in the mind)
within, would not things indeed appear as empty?
Surely the suutra is not saying that there is
nothing out there and calls that the formless.(12)

We will shelve for the moment the question whether
or not Fa-wen's psychologism can be regarded as
Min-tu's own position. The important item is the
closing rhetoric. Fa-wen was denouncing his former
teacher Fa-shen for a naive reduction of forms into
formless. The Praj~naapaaramitaa Suutra never says
that there are no tables or chairs before us; it
never meant to say that the world is one big gaping
hole. But if it is not nihilism, what is it? Let us
postpone our answer and bear witness to how the
dialogue continued.

While the Southerners were speculating on
Emptiness, Tao-an was heading his group in the
North. In 263, he dispatched Hui-yuan(av) to the
Southern capital to minister to another of his
disciples. Fa-t'ai(aw) that he had sent (263) South
earlier. Fa-t'ai had been taken sick; later Hui-yuan
would return to Tao-an's side before his final
departure to Lu-shan(ax). It is on this trip that
Hui-yuan participated in another famous
debate--again, unfairly told, as follows:

At the time, the monk Tao-heng well-versed and
talented held the Hsin-wu thesis, spreading it far
and wide In Ching-chou(ay). Fa-t'ai remarked, "This
is a heresy; it must he refuted." Thereupon he
summoned the eminent monks and appointed his
disciple T'an-i [the Elder I] to refute Tao-heng.
Scriptures were cited as many rounds Were exchanged
but Tao-heng employing his rhetorical skill was not
about to yield. It was late so they met again the
next day. Hui-yuan was in the audience and he raised
some objections. It was like daggers drawn. Heng
began to realize that be was drifting from the path.
He lost composure and was hitting the table,
speaking out of turn. Hui-yuan then remarked, "How
you make haste without hurrying, but alas where is
that getting you!" Those in attendance laughed.
Henceforth, the Hsin-wu doctrine died.(13)

The death of Hsin-wu was announced somewhat
prematurely. And a closer reading would show(a) if
Tao-heng could cite scripture to support the thesis
a

P.67

whole day, Hsin-wu was no concocted myth, and (b)
how in typical ch'ing-t'an (pure talk) style,
Hui-yuan committed another "character assassination"
of a Hsin-wu spokesman without really answering that
thesis on objective grounds. Hui-yuan's remark was,
of course, a reference to the line in the I
Ching(az) describing how the shen (soul) functions.
Shen hastens forth without hurrying (physically
across), arriving without (spatially) transversing.
To Hui-yuan's companions who had accepted the
immortal soul (shen) as a datum in Buddhist
teachings, his remark was an "insider's joke." He
was saying, in effect, "For someone who denies the
existence of the shen (that is, Hsin-wu), your
spirit surely is agitated, but you are getting
nowhere with it!" The congregation laughed, but they
only laughed because shen was a self-evident truth
to them. Hui-yuan did not defeat Tao-heng except
subjectively; the Hsin-wu school would continue
flourishing, capturing probably the Younger I that
was Fa-t'ai's disciple (see below); this Tao-i(ba)
would co-opt Hsin-wu to build his Huan-hua school.

Fa-t'ai is sometimes classified as being of the
"variant Pen-wu school." We do not know what his
position is, but we suspect that it reflected the
stand of Tao-an. Tao-an is typed "Pen-wu," but
sometimes, in due respect to this master, his
position is called Hsing-k'ung(bb)
(svabhaava`suunya)(14) so he would not be tainted by
the mistakes of naive Pen-wu. We have Tao-an's
reflection, but to appreciate his thesis better, we
should note this aside. In 365, when Hui-yuan came
South to tend to Fa-t'ai, Tao-an held (as he would
to his death) the belief in the canonical status of
the shen. This shen was apparently very
"realistically" conceived, that is, as an "entity"
of some kind, almost like a "ghost." A more sublime
understanding of shen existed; it was spelled out in
the I Ching; namely, that it is that "in which yin
and yang are yet to be differentiated(bc)," which is
more like a Weltgeist of a shen. (The statement
either means that it predated the differentiation
into yin and yang, or else describes the mysterious,
transformative power of shen that may not be slotted
into a definitive yin or yang.) What is curious is
that it appears that no one before 365 thought of
postulating this more sublime understanding as the
way to appreciate the immortal soul. It was left to
the monk Chu Seng-fu(bd) to make in 365 this
suggestion in his Shen wu-hsing lun(be) (The Soul
has No Form.)(15)

If spirit has form, it would come under shu(bf)
[numbers. either the destiny of life or the mutable
numericals associated with yin-yang]. What is
numbered has an end. The spirit has no end;
therefore it has no form.(16)

It was a simple but crisp argument. If shen is
material, it must end. If shen is truly immortal, it
has to transcend form, predate form, predate
yin-yang. It is this sublime, non-material, formless
understanding or shen that Hui-yuan picked up on
this trip, it seems, for later it appears in his
Shen pu-mieh lun(bg) (On the Immortality of the
Soul) when he defended not bowing to kings.(17)

I would suggest that Hui-yuan who witnessed
Tao-heng's arguments against Pen-wu and for Hsin-wu
also learned from it or at least reported the
exchange to

P.68

Tao-an. This would explain the better "Pen-wu"
position of Tao-an, one superior to Fa-shen's only
because it qualifies itself in such a way as to
offset anticipated criticisms from Hsin-wu. The
following is a position thought to be Tao-an's, now
found in the biography of T'an-ch'i in the Ming-seng
chuan-ch'ao(bo) , excerpted from the Liu-chia
ch'i-tsung-lun(bl) (On the Six Schools and Seven
Lineages) of T'an-ch'i himself:

Before the mysterious creation, there was only
spaciousness. Then as the original ether fused and
changed, the myriad manifestations took on form.
Although the forms contribute to the (further)
transformations, yet that which brought about the
changes themselves is the tzu-jan(bj) (self-be of
Nature). Nature being simply what-is, how then can
we speak of a creator? Thus we know that although
Nonbeing preceded the original transformations and
Emptiness is the source of all things, we really do
not mean to say that the myriad things are born out
of some primordial spaciousness.(18)

The first half sounds just like Fa-shen. The second
half cleverly qualifies it as if answering the
critique of Fa-wen. It circumscribed nihilistic
reduction by recalling the notion of tzu-jan, used
then to render tathataa, to ensure that no temporal
priority of Nonbeing to being is implied; in other
words, forms are not born out of nothingness. The
use of tzu-jan to show how Heaven and Earth simply
are, and are not created, was previously used by Kuo
Hsiang. But it is the closing remarks that are
perhaps the most intriguing:

What the common man is obstructed with (in
understanding) is his fixation with subsequent
things. If he only rests his mind in original
nothingness (pen-hsin yu wu(bk) ), the (mental)
burdens will be lifted. This is the meaning of
"elevating the origin to the repressing of the
subsequents."(19)

T'ang Yung-t'ung had to wonder where Tao-an derived
this idea from.(20) It would seem to be a typical
Pen-wu co-opting of the Hsin-wu psychology. In this
way 1 believe the Pen-wu school actively sought to
respond to the challenge.

THREE OTHER RESPONSES TO THE HSIN-WU THESIS

The dominant Praj~naa sector had to somehow counter
the Hsin-wu critique. If as the latter argued, the
suutra could not possibly have reduced form to its
logical opposite, what then did it mean by "Form is
Emptiness"? If the dominant group still believed in
shen, how could this positive element be salvaged in
face of Hsin-wu's denial of an aatman? Put into such
a framework, the next three schools' response can
now he seen as logical solutions.

The Huan-hua(bl) or "Illusion" school avoided
reduction of the real into the unreal; it proposed
that reality is illusion. The word is is "t'ung(bm)"
"(same as): the illusions are real no less. Then it
elevates the shen to the higher (chen(bn), 'real' in
a value sense of `true') truth to preserve its
sanctity, in effect accepting Hsin-wu (false self
and false object-illusions) as the lower truth,
while affirming the real Principle and real Self of
the original Pen-wu scholars as the highest truth,
paramaartha.

P.69

All dharmas are the same as (t'ung) emptiness; they
are like a magical illusion. As they are illusory,
this is called the mundane truth. The spirit
(hsin-shen(bo): "mind-spirit") is true; it is not
empty; this constitutes the higher truth. If the
spirit is empty, how can the teaching [concerning
karmic justice through rebirths] be taught; or how
can contemplation [spiritual perfection involving
shen] be practised? What separates the common man
and the saint is after all shen [the latter's
godlike-ness]. Therefore we know the spirit cannot
be empty.(21)

The school was proposed by Tao-i, who with T'an-i
used to be the Younger and the Elder I disciples of
Fa-t'ai. Since in 365, when T'an-i was appointed to
defend Pen-wu by Fa-t'ai, no mention is made of this
younger I's creation of a new school, we may presume
that that came later, in response to the Hsin-wu
challenge. Tao-i incorporated Hsin-wu as the mundane
huan-hua (illusion).

The other two schools came out of Yu Fa-lan(bp).
He had migrated from the North and stayed close to
Chih Tao-lin's retreat before undertaking the first
fatal attempt to reach India by sea. Yu Fa-lan died
in Indo-China in 355. His disciple Yu Tao-sui also
perished with him. It is this disciple that proposed
the perhaps most Hiinayaanist understanding of
Emptiness in his Yuan-hui(bq) (Confluence of
Conditions) thesis:

The confluence of conditions creates being; this is
the mundane truth. The reduction to Emptiness is the
highest truth. This is comparable to gathering wood
and earth to build a house. Before the conditions
(wood and earth) come together, there is no house.
The house is mere name that has no substance.(22)

This is comparable to Naagasena's analogy of the
parts of a chariot. The further reduction of the
parts to Emptiness still constitutes ontological
nihilism. This school could have been exempted from
any Hsin-wu influence. The metaphor of the house was
borrowed by Tsung Ping(br) in his Ming-fo-lun(bs)
and that led some confusion of this school with Chih
Tun's more sophisticated Chi-se school. More on that
confusion later.

Another student of Yu Fa-lan who did not go on
that fateful trip founded the Shih-han(bt)
(sometimes Han-shih) school some time after 362.
This one accepted the psychologism of Hsin-wu, but
cleverly distinguishes the shih (consciousness, or
hsin(bu), mind) from the higher shen (spirit). It
either proposes Shih-han, that is, the world of
objects being subsumed (han) under the function of
consciousness (shih); or Han-shih, that is, such a
consciousness is subsumed (han) under the spirit.
Either way, it demotes the mutable world of objects
and mind to the lower truth. This Yu Fa-k'ai(bv)
proposed:

The Three Realms are the abode of the long night.
The mind-consciousness (hsin-shih) is indeed the
author of this great dream. What we see as myriad
realities are realities seen in a dream. When we are
awakened or when it is dawn, the delusions are
exposed. The perverted deluded consciousness will
end; the Three Realms are then all empty. At that
point there is no further life or death.(23)

This is saying that the triloka correspond to mind
only, whereas enlightenment corresponds to their
absence. However, since the thesis is also known as
Shen erh-

P.70

ti(bw) (The Two Truths of the Spirit) or Hun-shih
erh-ti(bx) (The Two Truths of the Deluded
Consciousness). it is clear that the hsin that is
emptied is the deluded mind and that a
transcendental shen always remains as the immortal
soul and guarantor of enlightenment, as paramartha.

All three schools above are minor; two co-opted
Hsin-wu, but demoted it to a mundane truth. Yuan-hui
preserved the 'objective' analysis without recourse
to psychologism, but none of these figured as a new
option.

THE FIRST DIALECTICAL SYNTHESIS: THE CHI-SE SCHOOL
OF CHIH TUN

The real option came with Chih Tun, a contemporary
and a neighbouring retiree of Fa-shen and Yu Fa-lan.
To resolve the meaning of " Form is Emptiness," Chih
Tun proposed chi-se. Instead of Tao-i's use of the
word "t'ung" (same as), Chih Tun used chi which can
have two readings (in Japanese, tsuku vs.
sunawachi). One reading came down to us in the
famous formula, standardized primarily by
Kumaarajiiva, "form is emptiness": se chi shih
k'ung(by) . Here chi (in a double copula
construction, chi-shih) means "is" or "totally
identical with." Kumaarajiiva's choice might have
been influenced by Chih Tun's usage, but I believe
Chih Tun intended chi to be used more in its second
meaning, namely, "going along with," "while abiding
in" (Japanese, o tsuite). The proofs have to be
inferred.

Proof(a): A famous but lost treatise by Chih Tun is
titled Chi-se yu-hsuan(bl), where the
construction only allows the reading of
"while abiding in of being in the middle
of form (reality) , to rove freely
nonetheless in the mysteries."

Proof(b): We do not see Chih Tun reversing chi-se
into chi-k'ung(ca); the revelsal would be
logical if chi functions like a qua (form
qua emptiness emptiness qua form). Chi is
not used as "is."

This second point is crucial. The reason is this:
Chih Tun was responding as others were to the
Hsin-wu challenge. Hsin-wu argued that one simply
cannot dismiss form in a nihilistic adoration of
Emptiness. Chih Tun was replying: We do not so
destroy form: rather we discover Emptiness in the
midst of these very real forms themselves while
going along with or abiding in them. This is the
meaning of chi-se. Given the context of Hsin-wu's
critique, it makes no sense to say chi-k'ung
(abiding in Emptiness). As the charge was nihilism,
so the defense was how he, Chih Tun, did not abandon
form, that is, how he abided in form.

Unfortunately, Chih Tun's position has been
repeatedly misrepresented sometimes corrupted into a
case of Yuan-hui as if Chih Tun was Hinayanist
causalist. Seng-chao had to shoulder some of that
blame when he said:

As to Chi-se, it understands that form is not
self-formed and how, even as it is form, it is not
form. but(I say) by form on means form as form, not
that form is form only after it has been in-form-ed
by other forms. So although (Chi-se) says how
directly form is not self-formed, he has yet to
realize that form (as such) is not form.(24)

P.71

The last line above is correct. Sneg-chao realized
that form is immediately not-form; this is spelled
out in his Pu-chen k'ung lun, the treatise to show
how `form' being pu-chen (not real) is as such
`emptiness' (k'ung). Compared with Seng-chao, Chih
Tun indeed did not understand "total identity" (chi
as qua), for as Seng-jui says, "(they were) all
biased and unable to grasp chi." However, the reason
Chih Tun had to refuse the total identification of
form and emptiness is that he was working against
the charge by the Hsin-wu school; this school had
condemned the Pen-wu (and related `objectie'
Praj~naa) school for reducing form to emptiness, as
if forms do not exist. Note, therefore, the rider to
this position which I believe reflects Chih Tun's
stand best:

The nature of form is that it does not have form by
itself. Because form has no being by itself, it is
empty even as it is form. Therefore we say form as
such is emptiness. Yet, on the other hand, (we
insist) that form is different emptiness.(25)
(Italics added.)

Of the later recorders, only Hui-ta(cb) had a better
recollection of the issue, namely that chi-se did
not mean allowing form or emptiness to destroy each
another. It kept the necessary tension to avoid both
realism and nihilism.

In his Chi-se-lun, Dharma-master Chih Tun states
that he regards form as empty--never that form is
opposed to or destroying emptiness. This is the best
way to put forth his thesis. Why? Because the nature
of form is that although it is form, it is also
empty. This is the same with knowledge(chih)(cc).
It, too, is not self-knowing, and even as it knows
(actively), it is also forever quiescent.(26)

Knowledge as knowledge is also not knowledge by
itself, just as form (known) as form is somehow also
not form. Here it may be that the theorist was
suggesting the relatively of object-form and
subject-knowing. If so, he might be following the
"new theory" of Hsin-wu itself in denying the
reality of the hsin as the knowing subject. However,
Chih Tun would affirm the reality of praj~naa
(wisdom, chih(cd), higher than knowledge); he only
incorporated into Chi-se elements of Hsin-wu
psychologism, while rejecting its denial of the
immortal soul.

But why is form not form by itself? We do not
have a clear answer from Chih Tun. Seng-chao took it
to mean that form is in-form-ed by other forms,
se-se erh-wei-se(ce). His criticism is as follows:

As to things being things to other things, this is
based on 3 (prior) distinction between the thing
predicating and the thing being predicated. But
because that which makes things things is itself not
a thing, therefore things are not things.(27)

What he is saying is that to deny reality to a thing
because it exists relative to other things is to
forget that those other things themselves are also
empty. In other words, it was an unnecessary move.
However, in defense of Chih Tun, it should be noted
that he was forced to avoid directly directly
reducing things to emptiness ("nihilism"). It is
also possible that he argued for the relative status
of things to expose its lack of absolute
self-nature. For example, insofar as an object is
known via a subject, the object is empty of
independent reality. Or, to pursue the above

P.72

point about knowledge, insofar as knowledge is never
self-knowing, being always the knowledge of
something, it is also necessarily empty. So far, I
see no objection to that.

Yuan-k'ang(cf) later reduced Chih Tun's position
to that of Yuan-hui and reached a conclusion that is
equally problematical. He said:

(Seng-chao) is saying that Master Lin knew only how
form is not self-formed, that is. that it is only
produced by cause and conditions; (Lin) did not know
that form as such is empty, but retained the idea
that form is provisionally real.(28)

Why should not form remain provisionally real?
Emptiness is provisional reality. Yuan-k'ang was
probably confusing Chih Tun with Tsung Ping who
said:

Form is not self-formed, therefore though it is
form, it is also empty. As there is the confluence
of conditions, there is being. By itself, a thing
has no being. It is like illusion or dream objects;
what seems to be there is not really there. (Also)
the future is not yet; the past is gone by; the
present never stays still. Thus there is no fixed
being.(29)

Tsung Ping is tossing up a smorgasbord of
Praj~naa-ist theories; he should not be regarded as
a spokesman explaining Chih Tun's thesis.

What then did Chih Tun mean by chi-se? What is
'informed by form' or se-se? At present there is no
clear answer. I do not think that Chih Tun
postulated an ultimate Nonbeing that imparts being
to being, as Chuang Tzu would say "that which made
things into things is itself not a thing." Chih Tun
is known for a new commentary on the Chuang-tzu
chapter on hsiao-yao(cg), and a fragment comes down
with this poetic line, wu-wu yu-wu erh pu-wu
yu-wu(ch), which may be rendered as "To make use of
things as things (wu-wu) in the midst of things
(yu-wu) without thereby becoming oneself a thing
among things(pu-wu yu-wu)." I think his use of the
double wu here is similar to his use of the double
se. Both tell of a spiritual freedom allowing him to
be with things (chi-se) while roving in Emptiness
(yao-hsuan). I am not entirely confident how to
translate that into svabhaava-analysis or
`suunyataa-intuition, but I believe that this comes
closest to the spirit of his Chi-se philosophy,
namely, an ability to dwell in the midst of form
(chi-se) as forms and without reducing them to
emptiness, and simultaneously to fathom through them
the freedom that is Emptiness. That remains,
however, a suggestion. We may conclude with
something more concrete, by turning to a disciple of
Chih Tun and his thesis.

Tucked away in the correspondence or titles of
correspondence among Praj~naaists is a reference to
a san-fan(ci) technique (or something) that time has
succeeded in forgetting. Now we are not sure how
even fan(cj) should be written: as "times" (as in
once, twice, thrice) , as "turnover" (as in
somersaulting) , or as flag (whatever that can
mean)?(30) I prefer to see it as three turnovers for
no better reason that that seems to describe well
the dialectical progression. In a letter to a
friend, Hsi Ch'ao(ck), a disciple of Chih Tun,
notes:

Recently there has been much discussion on san-fan.
Most people prefer first to

P.73

contemplate form and emptiness, then consciousness;
all these pertain to one reality, but men rely on
such double contemplation. It seems to be the best
approach, though.(31)

Hsi Ch'ao did not elaborate on this, but then in his
Feng-fa-yao(cl) (The Essentials of Faith), he seems
to demonstrate what this technique is all about. I
believe we witness here the synthesis of the
objective Praj~naa and the subjective Praj~naa
approach, previously represented by Pen-wu and
Hsin-wu, but now subsumed by the synthesis of a
Chi-se approach. The essay has been translated by
Zurcher, but since the philosophic finery is not
evident there, this is a new, more analytical
reading, section by section:

Now by Emptiness is meant a forgetting of the self;
(by this), however, is not meant the 'residence' in
us (does not mean forgetting the shen).

The first half is the Hsin-wu position. Emptiness is
realized when one, as Chuang Tzu would say, forgets
oneself. The second line, however, makes sure that
the shen--which in Chuang-tzu, Kuan-tzu(cm), and so
forth, is referred to as abiding in a "residence,
hall, sanctuary" in man, especially deep in the
mind--is not what is being forgotten along with
everything else. Hsi Ch'ao like the majority could
not live without this postulate shen. He then goes
on to explain the 'steps':

Nonbeing is truly nonbeing. However, to hold on to
this is to be (also) obstructed. Being is likewise
being. However, by a double forgetting [of both
being and nonbeing] we may attain the mysterious
liberation.

Following Fa-wen and more closely Chih Tun, Hsi
ch'ao refused to commit the illogic of reducing
being to nonbeing or vice versa. One must forget
both because any grasping on to either as absolute
would be obstructing. How? By moving inward. The
'objective' issue is solved by understanding the
'subject':

That is, ideas of 'being' and 'nonbeing' come from
the 'one inch square' [metaphor for the mind].
Ultimately they have nothing to do with the external
world. Although one employs such concepts in our
daily dealings with things, yet when our
(discriminatory) feelings are spent there is,
mysteriously, only the oneness with the Principle.
How can it be said that Nonbeing is attained when
Being is destroyed, or the Ultimate is reached when
we reduce [ad nihilum]? (32)

By realizing the subjective origin of the concepts
of being and nonbeing and their provisional reality
for mundane discourses, one may transcend such
partiality and become one with the One. The first
half here is the classic Hsin-wu technique: empty
the world, not by denying its reality, but by simply
emptying the mind of false preconceptions. The
second half however, harkens back to the immortal
soul and the real Principle. By so doing, Hsi Ch'ao
defended the orthodox stream of Tao-an and
reinstated the credal shen and the ultimate as
Reality, while at the same time borrowing the
Hsin-wu wisdom. He avoided objective nihilism
(Pen-wu) and subjective nihilism (Hsin-wu), by a
triple-take san-fan method: first by contemplating
form and emptiness (how form is emptiness,
emptiness form; then why form cannot be simply empty
or emptiness dressed as form); and then by

P.74

contemplating consciousness (how 'form' and
'emptiness' are ultimately conceptual constructs of
the mind). All these point back to the one Reality.
The three steps thus complete the circle.

Thus, before Seng-chao provided his critique of
the three selective schools in his Pu-chen k'ung
lun, Chih Tun in the old days was doing the same:
pitting Pen-wu against Hsin-wu and coming up with
the perfect Middle Path of his own Chi-se. Seng-chao
only one-upped Chih Tun in this continual saga of
skillful dialecticians. He was gentler on Pen-wu
because it was always the orthodox school and one
favouring objective analysis. He was critical of
Hsin-wu because this had always been judged the
threat. And he laboured to undercut the last
synthesis, that of Chih Tun. In all fairness, Chih
Tun was not that naive, but also in all fairness,
Seng-chao was a superior thinker. The reason is
this: until Chih Tun the discussion on form and
emptiness always proceeds on the assumption that we
are dealing with two discrete items at first: Being
and Nonbeing. Pen-wu reduced one to the other;
Hsin-wu knew instinctively that was wrong; Chi-se
avoided the reduction but tried to stand astride the
two worlds, that is, "roving in the mysteries
(Nonbeing) while in the midst of things (Being)." It
took Kumaarajiiva's teaching and Seng-chao's
learning to realize, more completely than even Hsi
Ch'ao ever would, that we do not commence with two
realities and then try to find the One. There never
were two realities; only two views of the same. The
issue is not how to reconcile Being and Nonbeing;
the matter is recognizing, as Seng-chao puts it, the
Emptiness that is the Unreal itself. Finally, too,
Kumaarajiiva helped to dispel the need for the shen,
at least in the better discourses of his followers,
so that many of the old barriers to understanding
aatma-`suunya were dismantled by the early fifth
century. Our reconstruction of the "historical
dialectics" has put the philosophical dialectics in
a new light. We defend the unsung hero that is
Min-tu, his inroad into many reformed Pen-wu
schools, and the skillful resolution of the basic
tensions by Hsi Ch'ao prior to the achievements of
Seng-chao but soon overlooked and covered up by
them.

POSTSCRIPT: THE FURTHER SIX TWO-TRUTHS SCHOOLS

Of course, if we believe that the historical
dialectics contributes to the unfolding of
philosophic dialectics itself, it follows that the
story does not end in Seng-chao either. Already
Hui-ta, in the preface to his commentary on the Chao
lun(cn), noted how T'an-ch'i has listed beyond the
six schools," and seven lineages also an expanded
"twelve schools that is, six more Two Truths
schools. In T'ang, Yuan-k'ang cited these in greater
detail:

In the Liang dynasty, Pao-ch'ang(co) wrote Hsu-fa
lun(cp) in 160 serolls citing a Sung treatise on Six
Schools and Seven Lineages by Shih T'an-ch'i of the
chuang-yen(cq) Temple. Therein are discussed the six
schools subdivided into seven: (1) Pen-wu, (2)
variant Pen-wu, (3) Chi-se, (4) Shih-han, (5)
Huan-hua, (6) Hsin-wu, (7) Yuan-hui. The basic six
and the variant make seven. Also mentioned is a
count of twelve taken from the Shih-hsiang liu-chia
lun(cr) (Six Schools on Dharmataa) by Shih Pao-chien
of the lower Ting-lin(cs) Temple. Therein someone
inquired about

P.75

the unity of the Two Truths and six such schools
were given as answer.... These with the previous six
add up to twelve; that is what (Hui-ta) meant by an
expanded twelve schools.(33)

Attempts to identify these six Two-Truths with
any definitude have yet to succeed. The suggestion
offered after the translation is merely a
suggestion, something to alert us to how the
dialectics developed:

The first school regards as empty that which is in
principle not real, and as real what common people
regard as true. The empty is the highest truth; the
real is the mundane truth. [A later Pen-wu school?]
The second school regards as empty the self-nature
of form that is shown to be empty, and as real the
form that is indeed form. [Chi-se?] The third school
regards as empty the psychic vacuity (wu-hsin(ct))
that has dissociated itself from the external
conditions, and as real the conjunction of
conditions (yuan-hui) creating that mind.
[Shih-han?] The fourth school regards as empty the
consciousness (hsin) born of conditions, and as real
the distinct and separate mind transcending all
conditionalities. [Huan-hua] The fifth school
regards as empty the empty mind (hsin-k'ung(cu)) of
perverted views and the discriminative ideas, and as
real the mind that does not negate cause and
conditions. [Hsin-wu?] The sixth school regards as
empty the material on which all forms depend and
what has been shown to be empty, and as real the
provisional reality assumed in the mundane realm of
discourse(34) [Yuan-hui?]

Maybe there is a dialectical progression to the
series, namely: (1) the first school (Pen-wu) sees
emptiness as distinct from real appearance; (2) the
second school (Chi-se) accepts emptiness of form
without destroying form; (3) the third school
(Shih-han) distinguishes the real subject-object
consciousness from the empty conditioned mind; (4)
the fourth school (Huan-hua) further postulates an
unconditional mind as the ultimate reality; (5) the
fifth school (Hsin-wu) accepts anaatman at both
levels; and (6) the last (a sophisticated Yuan-hui)
uses pratiityasamutpaada at both levels, identifying
finally the svabhaava`suunyataa with the mental
construction of the mundane life."(35) The above is
so much speculation, added as a postscript. The
point is not to unravel these six Two-Truths
schools, but to underline once more how the
dialectics developed. The early Praj~naa schools are
not "dead" schools, as much treatment manages to
render them; any good philosophy is always a living
option--in its time, beyond its time, and even here
and now as we have shown.(36)

NOTES

1. See, for example, Walter Liebenthal.
Chao-lun: The Treatise of Seng-chao, new ed. (Hong
Kong: Hong Kong University, 1968); Imai Usaburo,
"Rokka shiehishuron no seiritsu," appended to his
Sodai Ekigaku no kenkyuu(Tokyo:1958); Leon Hurvitz,
"The First Systematization of Buddhist Thought in
China, " Journal of Chinese Philosophy 2, no.
4(1975), pp.361-388. Most of the data used in this
essay are available in T'ang Yung-t'ung, Han-wei
liang-Chin Nan-pei-chao Fo-chiao-shih (Peking:
Chung-hua reissue, 1955) . I shall use this,
hereafter cited as T'ang, as the basic reference.

2. Mather trans. of Shih-shuo Hsin-yu. A New
Account of Tales of the World (Minneapolis,
Minnesota: University of Minnesota, 1976), p.513.

P.76

3. T'ang citing Ancho's Chuuron soki(cv) (essay
trans. by Hurvitz, see note 1) in T'ang, pp.
252-253. For textual information, see T'ang and
Hurvitz.

4. Mather, pp. 171-172.

5. Mather. p. 447.

6. Erik Zurcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China
(Leiden: Brill, 1959) . 1, pp. 99-102. Zurcher
provides good background information on him and
others.

7. Cited by Mather, p. 447.

8. Mather, p. 54.

9. Included in Mather's trans., p. 447.

10. The text has yu-shih(cw); I follow T'ang, p.
270. The last line is read differently.

11. T'ang, p. 275.

12. T'ang, p. 271, citing Ancho.

13. T'ang, p. 267, citing the Kao-seng-chuan, T.
50, p. 254c.

14. Seng-jui so honoured Tao-an, his master. See
T'ang, p. 249; T'ang showed the same deference such
that he would apparently not draw the logical
conclusion.

15. Zurcher, I, pp. 147-148; also p. 207. See T.
50, p. 355bc.

16. Ibid. Translation based on Zurcher's
citation, II, p. 369, no. 335. A rare find in my
judgement.

17. In T. 52, pp. 31b-32a; the usage is taken
over by Tsung Ping in his Ming-fo-lun, T. 52, pp.
9-16, which also employs the Han-shih psychology.

18. T'ang, pp. 246-247.

19. Ibid. Pen-hsin yu-wu serves to re-ontologize
the hsin-wu thesis.

20. T'ang, p. 249. Note how Tao-an still
subscribed to the Han pen-wu mo-yu.

21. T'ang, pp. 265-266, citing Ancho.

22. T'ang, pp. 272-273, citing Ancho.

23. T'ang, p. 264, citing Chi-tsang's
Chung-lun-shu(cx).

24. Chao-lun, T. 42, p. 152a. My translation.

25. T'ang, p. 259, citing Chih Tun himself.

26. T'ang, p. 259, citing his Chao lun-shu(cy)
(Chen dynasty work).

27. Chao-lun, T. 42, p. 152a. My interpretation.

28. T'ang, p. 262, citing from his Chao lun-shu
(T'ang dynasty).

29. T'ang, p. 262, citing his letter to Ho
Ch'eng-t'ien.

30. Also known as san-hsing(cz) (three deeds,
paths); the records prefer "banner" for fan. I took
the clue from T'ang, pp. 258-259, noting three
essays on san-hsing by Hsi Ch'ao and one essay each
on or mentioning san-fan by Hsi Ch'ao and Chih Tun.

31. Ibid.

32. T'ang, p. 263, citing the Feng-fa-yao.

33. Cited by T'ang, p. 231, from T. 45, p. 163b.

34. Ibid.

35. T'ang had suggested, ibid., some preliminary
alignments, but this progression here is my
dialectical construction (and assumption) to show
how the early six Praj~na options, said to be slain
by Sena-chao, could nonetheless be updated to
greater sophistication. Yuan-hui is the extreme
example.

36. In adherence with the philosophyical
discourse. I have kept the historical and textual
issues to a minimum; past scholars have covered
those aspects sufliciently not to require rehashing
here.