J. Stone: Some Reflections On Critical Buddhism
J. Stone: Some Reflections On Critical Buddhism
REVIEW ARTICLE
Jacqueline Stone
Jamie H ubbard and Paul L. Swanson , eds” Pruning the Bodhi Tree: The
Storm over Critical Buddhism. Nanzan Library of Religion and Culture,
no. 2. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1997. xxviii + 515 pp.
$45.00 cloth, isbn 0-8248-1908-X; $22.95 paper, isbn 0-8248-1949-7.
1 These are based on the introduction to Hakamaya’s Hongaku shiso hihan (Critiques of
the doctrine of original enlightenment, 1989, pp. 9-10) and are also summarized by Swan
son, pp. 13-14 (unless otherwise indicated, page numbers in this review refer to P runing).
Hakamaya and Matsumoto differ in their approach; while Matsumoto has focused closely on
matters of Buddhist doctrine, Hakamaya is more broadly concerned with issues of contem
porary social and cultural criticism and adopts a more journalistic and confrontational style.
Nonetheless, the two have deeply influenced one another’s thinking, and the above three
points broadly reflect their shared understanding.
2 Those who have wondered what these early modern European thinkers have to do with
normative definitions of Buddhism will find their questions answered in Jamie H ubbard’s
essay, “Topophobia.” Hubbard clarifies both the meaning of these categories in Vico and
Descartes, as well as their appropriation by Hakamaya. Paul Griffiths (pp. 145-60) further
clarifies Critical Buddhist notions o f “topical” and “critical” in light of the distinction
between internalist and externalist epistemologies.
162 Japanese Journal o f Religious Studies 26/1-2
the stricken tree with its two pathetic remaining leaves that adorns the
present volume in Frederick Franck’s eloquent cover art. Can any
thing be salvaged from the Buddhism of East Asia? Hakamaya does
exempt certain figures from his criticism. These include Chih-i (538-
597),patriarch of the T , ien-t,
ai school, who was explicitly critical of
Taoism,and also Dogen (1200-1253),founder of Japanese Soto Zen.
It is in Hakamaya5s reading of Dogen that the apologetic or sectarian
dimension of Critical Buddhism comes into play. For Hakamaya, the
“definitive standpoint for understanding D6gen” is neither the “one-
ness of practice and enlightenment” (shusho itto イ 1
多証一等)nor uorigi-
nal realization ana wondrous practice” {honshd imdshu 本女少イ1 多);
rather, Dogen was throughout his life a staunch critic of original
enlightenment thought. Dogen s critique of the “Senika (Skt. Srenika)
heresy”一 belief in a “spiritual intelligence” (reichi) that survives the
body’s death— is identified by Hakamaya with the influential Tendai
original enlightenment {hongaku) discourse that prevailed in Doeen^
time.3 Also related to the sectarian dimension of critical Buddhism is
Hakamaya5s revisionist reading of D6gen5s twelve-fascicle Shobo genzo
正法目艮蔵. In contrast to the better known 75-fascicle version, which
includes such famous essays as “Tjji ,有 時 (Being-time) or uGenjo
k6an” 現 成 公 案 (The koan realized in reality), the 12-fascicle version,
written late in D6een5s life, contains instructions for novice monks as
well as basic teachings on karmic causality. Where traditional Soto
scholarship has generally regarded the 12-fascicle text as an introduc
tory work for beginning practitioners, Hakamaya revalorizes it as sig
naling a profound shift in D 6gen, s thought, repudiating the views of
his earlier, more philosophical essays that were still influenced by orig
inal enliehtenment thought and reasserting the normative Buddhist
position of causality. This issue, its textual and historical evidence, and
responses from other Soto scholars are insightfully analyzed in Steven
Heine’s contribution to Pruning'. It is unfortunate that some version of
William Bodiford’s “Zen and the Art of Religious Prejudice” (1996)
could not have been included here, though it is cited several times.4
Bodiford also sheds light on the sectarian dimension of Critical Bud
dhism by locating it in the context of boto responses to charges leveled
by burakumin organizations, to the effect that Buddhist institutions
have historically fostered discrimination, for example,by the use of
3 As Hakamaya notes (1989, p. 320), the first to interpret Dogen as a critic of hongaku
thought was the Tenaai scholar Hazama Jik6,in a 1942 essay (reprinted m Hazama 1948,
pp. 298-318). Hazama5s reading has since been widely cited by Soto scholars.
i The editors in fact wished to include it but were limited by space constraints. The same
is true in the case of my wish (expressed below) to have had a contribution from Tsuda
Shin’ichi.
164 Japanese Journal o f Religious Studies 26/1-2
A Question of Substance
King, for example, makes such an argument based on the Fo-hsing lun
仏 性 論 (Buddha nature treatise), attributed to Vasubandhu but most
likely a sinitic apocryphon. In this text, she argues, language about
“Buddha nature” or “thusness” is used out of concern for the novice
bodhisattva likely to misunderstand emptiness in nihilistic terms. The
text affirms the Buddha nature, not as a substantive essence, but as an
upaya to encourage practice by attempting to convey in positive lan
guage what is realized in meditation. King points to places where the
text explicitly denies that it is speaking in essentialist terms. “1 husness
language/5she concludes, is not an ontological theory but a soterio-
logical device. K inff, s nuanced argument might be applied to many
other texts as well. Takasaki Jikido similarly argues that the oneness of
samsara and nirvana represents an existential, not an ontological,
ground (p. 315),and Paul Swanson points out that some Buddha-
nature formulations, such as Chih-i, s three causes of Buddha nature,
are non-substan tialis tic (p. 26).
Also relevant to the substantialist charge is a fascinating exchange
between Matsumoto ^hiro and Yamabe Nobuyoshi. Matsumoto con
tends that tathagata-garbha and certain Yosracara ideas represent dhdtu-
vdda~ th a t is, they postulate a “generative m onism , ,
’ in which all
phenom ena are seen as the “super-loci” produced from dharma-dhatu
or tathagata-garbha as underlying ground. This model, Matsumoto
holds, is inherently discriminatory, because the hierarchy obtaining
among the super-loci (e.e., among the five gotra or classes of beings) is
legitimized in that the distinctions among those who can become bud-
dhas, those who can become sravakas, and those without the nature of
enlightenment, etc.,are all affirmed as being equally the expressions
of dharma-dhatu. Against this, Yamabe suggests that pluralistic gvtra
theory and notions of universal, monistic dharma-dhatu are not neces
sarily connected but may represent two origrinally unrelated elements
incorporated into the Yoeacara tradition at different times that are
incompletely reconciled. In contrast to Matsumoto5s static model of
dhdtu-vdda thought, Yamabe, s argument takes into account the histori
cal development of the Yoeacara tradition. While the non-Yogacara
specialist may not be fully able to evaluate the evidence cited on
either side, this exchange is exemplary for its courtesy and wealth of
supporting philological and textual detail.
Lastly, the “alternative readinsrs” category includes a clever, upost-
modern” reading of Nishitani Keiji suggested by Lin Chen-kuo. While
Critical Buddnism tends to be anti-postmodern (Hakamaya deems post
modernism a reactionary outbreak of irrational mysticism), Lin sees
both postmodernism and critical Buddnism as engaged in the same
S to n e :Reflections on Critical Buddhism 167
J Historically speaking, of course, we might ask how many people in any culture have
embraced their religion by choice.
168 Japanese Journal o f Religious Studies 26/1-2
A Question of Method
6 This helps explain why a text like the Vimalakirti-nirdesa-sutra, despite its relentless
denial o f metaphysical essences, nonetheless falls under the Hakamaya/Matsumoto critique.
While emptiness in this sutra is definitely not a substantial ground, it does suggest spatial
ized notions of all phenomena as universally nondual and interpenetrating. That is, while
not an dtman or ontological essence, emptiness in this sense would correspond to “topos” in
Critical Buddhist usage.
S to n e :Reflections on Critical Buddhism 169
it” (p. 159). Hubbard draws parallels between Critical Buddhism and
the self-consciously “activist” direction taken in such fields as cultural
criticism, women’s studies, and postcolonial studies. “Once one accedes
to the notion that scholars in-scribe even as they de-scribe, ” he writes,
“the move to normative valuation seems the next natural step, per
haps even a morally obligatory step” (xii).
Perhaps. However, from another perspective, the next “natural”
step would be to recognize that, if the notion of “objective” historiog
raphy is undercut by the epistemological impossibility of value-free
observation, then so, equally, is the certainty of normative truth claims.
As Gregory notes:
Awareness of this epistemological predicament [i.e., our
inability to see independently of our particular cultural and
historical context]... can have the salutary effect of freeing us
from the self-righteousness that comes from the belief that we
are in the privileged possession of the “truth.” Indeed, the
spectre of “truth” as an absolute standard by which to discrimi
nate right from wrong (and consequently the question of “true
Buddhism”)carries within itself an authoritarian ideological
potential that is apt to send shivers down the spine of anyone
familiar with the history of religion in the West. (p. 291)
Neither the epistemological difficulties entailed in normative truth
claims, nor the authoritarian dangers of self-righteousness, seem par
ticularly to trouble Critical Buddhism. Sueki Fumihiko, too, notes the
inconsistency of Critical Buddhists in denouncing “objective scholar
ship55even while insisting on the objectivity of their own standards for
truth (p. 334).
As Hubbard notes, many Buddhist scholars have begun to insist
that “there should indeed be a place within academic discourse for
the committed Buddhist to argue his or her ideas about Buddhist
truth” (p. xiii),and they have every right to do so. But there should
also be a place for those whose overriding scholarly question is, not
what constitutes Buddhist truth, but how Buddhists in various times
and places have defined Buddhist truth, under what circumstances,
and with what consequences.7 This is by no means an “objective”
enterprise in the sense of being value-free. In our choice of subject
and focus, in our approach, and in our arguments and conclusions,
historians make value judgments all the time, and it is incumbent
upon us to be as self-critical as possible about how our own cultural
hunerv ghosts, all thines iust as they are, manifest original enlighten
m ent (see for example Sanju shika no kotogaki 三十四箇事書,Tada et al.
1973,p. 176). One can easily see, as Hakamaya argues, how such a
teaching could be deployed to legitimize social hierarchy and oppres
sive rule. There may well be a difference, however, between what logi
cally could have happened, and what historically did happen. More
concrete evidence, including specific examples, is necessary before
one can justifiably conclude, as Hakamaya claims, that this doctrine
from the medieval period on was deployed in overarching fashion as
an authoritarian ideology.8 (similarly, one would like to see some his
torical support for Matsumoto’s suggestion that Yogacara gotra thought
is an areument for social discrimination.)
A move in this direction is assayea in the Pruning' collection by
Ruben Habito, who suggests a connection between honmku thought
and the Japanese ethnocentrism found in a range of late thirteenth-
century documents following the failure of the Mongol invasion
attempts. Haoito contrasts the place of Japan in jie n ’s Gukanshd 愚、管妙
( c .1219),where it is characterized as a “peripheral land” (hendo 辺土)
on the edge of the Buddhist cosmos in the degenerate, last age of the
Buddha-Dharma (mappo 末法 ) ,and more than a century later in Kita-
batake Chikafusa’s Jinno shotoki 神 皇 正 統 記 ( 1339-1343),where Japan
appears at the center of the cosmos as a land destined to enjoy eternal
prosperity under the rule of Am aterasu, s descendents. This cosmolog
ical shift, from periphery to center, finds its theoretical basis, Haoito
suggests, in a “logic of reversal” found in medieval hongaku thought.
O nem al enlightenment thought does indeed employ a “logic of
reversal” (H abito, s “Copernican shut” metaphor was first used in this
context by Kawai Takaakira in 1943). Practice is n ot the cause of
enlightenment but its expression; concrete actualities 爭 ) are valued
over abstract principles (ri M ); and the focus is not the transcendent
Buddha but the ordinary worldling. Beginning in the late thirteenth
century, this logic was appropriated to the so-called reverse honji-smjaku
本地垂迹 thought, which views the kami,who are close at hand, as
prior, and the more abstract buddhas and bodhisattvas as their sec
ondary manifestations. Habito is, I believe, quite right in positmsr a
link between tms “logic of reversal” and the interpretive shifting of
Japan from margin to center of the cosmos during the late thirteenth
and early fourteenth centuries. Unfortunately for a closer evaluation
8 The late historian Kuroda Toshio (1926-1993) also argued that hongaku thought was
archetypical of the ideology of the dom inant kenmitsu (exoteric-esoteric) religious system 権密
体制 that supported the ruling elites (see, for example, Kuroda 1975, pp. 443-45, 487-88).
This remains an inadequately substantiated part of his otherwise compelling theory.
176 Japanese Journal o f Religious Studies 26/1-2
Genshin, or other great Tendai masters of the past; thus the author of
a given text, sometimes even the century when it was written, cannot
be clearly established. Lacking such information, it is hard to under
stand the role this discourse played in the lives and practice of the
scholar-monks who produced it. Thus it has been correspondingly
easy for modern scholars to appropriate it in the service of their own,
contemporary concerns. Chief among these has been to assert the
moral superiority of the Kamakura “new B uddhism , ,
,over and against
the “old B uddhism , ,
,repeatedly depicted in one-dimensional terms as
corrupt and alienated from the religious needs of the common peo
ple. Within this model, hongaku thought is identified with the elitist
religious establishment, and its rejection or transformation, with reli
gious reform. This construction of original enlightenment thought
began in prewar Nichiren sectarian circles and was adopted after the
war by Soto Zen. It was at this point that D 6gen, s “great doubt”~why
the buddhas and patriarchs have launched the aspiration for enlight
enment if the Dharma nature is innate from the outset~as well as his
critique of the “Senika heresy, ,
,began to be widely interpreted as criti
cisms of original enlightenment thought, interpretations not found
before the twentieth century. I have called this the “radical break” the
ory of the new Kamakura Buddhism, because it sees the rejection of
hongaku thought as the defining characteristic of the founders of new
Kamakura Buddhism (Stone 1995 and forthcom ing). Hakamaya^
claim that a critique of original enlightenment thought is the “defini-
tive standpoint for understanding D6gen” stands squarely within this
scholarly context.
However, as Sueki points out (pp. 329-30),there is good evidence
that D6gen5s criticism of the “Senika heresy” may not have been
directed at Tendai hongaku thought at all, but at other, rival interpre
tations of Zen (see also Tamura 1965,pp. 556-64; Faure 1987). The
late Tamura Yoshiro additionally noted many points of structural simi
larity between some of D 6gen, s ideas and those found in medieval
Tendai— including the “absolute now,” “total exertion of a single
th in g ,” “original realization and wondrous practice , ,,etc. (Tamura
1965,pp. 548-52). Hakamaya5s characterization of Dogen can be
made to stand, perhaps, if one also accepts his argument for the pri
macy of the twelve-fascicle Shobo genzo. However, as Sueki says, one
does so at the cost of “a fair appreciation of the work Dogen did in the
prime of life” (p. 331). Matsumoto rightly distances himself from
Hakamaya5s view of Dogen as a thoroughgoing critic of original
enlightenment thought (p. 1 6 1 ).As I have argued elsewhere, the
teachings of the new Kamakura founders, including Dogen and Nichi-
178 Japanese Journal o f Religious Studies 26/1-2
11 The lack of mention of Pure Land thought generally in the Pruninp- essays is striking.
Arguably the form of Buddhism most widespread throughout East Asia, Pure Land Bud
dhism represents neither a straightforward teaching of dependent origination nor a “topi-
cal” doctrine like tathagata-garbha. Thus it would seem to challenge the Critical Buddhist
model of Buddhist history as a struggle between “critical” and “topical” thinKmg.
S to n e :Reflections on Critical Buddhism 179
sized “a pious attitude toward society and nature, which accepted them
just as they are” ( 1974,pp. 45-46).
The ideological and moral dimensions of this emerging Tokugawa
ethos can be seen throughout Buddhist writings of the day. Robert
Bellah,in his study of Tokugawa religion,quotes this anonymous
Shinshu tract:
The will of the Buddha is manifest everywhere and in every
thing, it is present in the person of our teacher, parents,
brother, wife, children, friends and also in the state or com
munity. . . Let us not forget how much we are owing to our
present surroundings, and to regard them with reverence and
love. We must endeavor as much as we can to execute our
duties faithfully, to work for the growth of Buddhism, for the
good of family, state, and society, and thus to requite a thou
sandth part of what we owe to Amida. (Bellah 1985,p. 78)
1‘ M onma Sacmo, for example, has recently implied that scholars adopting a textual or
historical approach to the study of medieval Tendai hongaku doctrine are complicit in the
perpetuation of social injustice because their work does not address the putative “discrimi-
natory” dimension of original enlightenment thought (Monma 1998).
S to n e :Reflections on Critical Buddhism 185
of others and do not extend to one’s own authority over others. A crit
ical view of one’s own authority is an exceedingly rare development...
even among the persecuted” (p. 441,n . 17). The critical force of Criti
cal Buddhism may derive less from its method than from the fact that
it is a movement on the margins, directed against the establishment.
Were it to gain greater influence, would it tolerate the study and dis
cussion of divergent views, or simply impose its “true Buddhism” as
one more form of authoritarianism? Addressing this question will per
haps be the most critical issue that Critical Buddhism has to face.
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