Lecture 7: Chinese Mahayana Buddhist Schools

Question 1

What are the names of five Chinese Mahayana Buddhist schools?

Answer 1

1. Sanlun (Three Treatises) School
2. Weishi (Consciousness-Only) School
3. Tiantai School
4. Huayan School
5. Pure Land Buddhism
6. Chan Buddhism

Question 2

What are the three treatises referred to by the Sanlun School?

Answer 2

1. Treatise on the Middle Doctrine
2. Twelve Gates Treatise
3. Treatise of Hundred Verses

Question 3

What are the three meanings of “emptiness” according to Seng Zhao? Which one among them is most emphasized by Chinese Mahayana Buddhism? Why?

Answer 3

• On an ontological level, it means interdependent causation or causal interdependence: yuanqi xinkong.
• On a spiritual level, it means spiritual freedom in terms of non-attachment.
• On a linguistic level, it refers to how language is a human construct and there is no fixed correspondence between a linguistic term and the reality.
• Seng Zhao cherised the spiritual meaning because it highlights the Chinese point to emptiness, freedom and no attachment to things like your emotions, transcendental self, or even emptiness. If you attach to emptiness and consider everything to be empty, then you can’t deal with everyday affairs. If you can’t empty your emptiness, it becomes a stubborn emptiness.

Question 4

Explain the concept of wisdom and the three types of wisdom according to Jizang.

Answer 4

For the Sanlun School, emptiness is the ultimate reality, the attainment of which is Prajñā (wisdom). In wisdom, all dharmas conceived from Śūnyata (emptiness) show no sign of differentiation and are all equal, since all are equally empty and equally without gain, as different facets or manifestations of the same Buddhatathatā. For Jizhang, there are three types of wisdom:

1. Genuine wisdom (shixiang prajñā): a genuine insight into emptiness as the Ultimate Reality.
2. Illuminant wisdom (zhengguan prajñā): using your genuine wisdom, seeing everything as empty, to illuminate everything to see they are empty and are but facets of the same Ultimate Reality.
3. Linguistic wisdom (wenzi prajñā): the capacity to use linguistic devices to reveal emptiness in all things and elucidate the unity between Ultimate Reality and its various facets.

Question 5

Explain the “negative dialectics” in the twofold truth according to Jizhang. Is there any problem in Fung’s interpretation?

Answer 5

The Sanlun School uses double negation to achieve Ultimate Reality. The Twofold Treaty is a famous essay by Jizang. On the first level, for the ordinary person there is being. But this should be denied. Whether you think there is both being or nonbeing, you should reject that either exist. (Since they exist dually, with one you have the other anyways.) You have to deny dualism to have true emptiness. If you don’t deny both being and nonbeing, there is still something in the middle. One-sidedness and Middleness are also dualistic, and thus you have to deny Middleness too. Overall, you have to deny everything.

Question 6

Explain how Jizang sees the pragmatic use of philosophical discourse.

Answer 6

• On the psychological level, there is a therapeutic function in Sanlun’s dialectical discourse. You can treat all your illnesses caused by attachment, because attachment is the basis for all illnesses according to the Sanlun School.
• On the doctrinal level, it can demolish perverse doctrines and show the correct one, that is, it has a function of deconstruction vis-à-vis any biased doctrine (since all doctrines are limited, and therefore biased), not limited only to critique of ideology (those ideas, even scientific or philosophical, that have a social effect), but the deconstruction of both the object and the subject of criticism.

Question 7

Is there any difficulty with Fung Yu-lan’s distinction between Buddhism in China and Chinese Buddhism and his examples for illustrating this distinction?

Answer 7

• Fung makes the distinction between “Buddhism in China” and “Chinese Buddhism,” taking the Weishi school as the example of “Buddhism in China,” and the Sanlun School as the example of “Chinese Buddhism.”
• This distinction is justifiable to some degree, however, in the sense that both Weishi and Sanlun come from Indian Mahayana Buddhism, that is, Sanlun from Madhyamika, and Weishi from Yogacara.
• However, even in these two schools, Chinese people have their contribution, such as Sengzhao’s emphasis on spiritual emptiness (nonattachment), and the Chinese Weishi School’s emphasis on the transformation of consciousness into wisdom.
• On the other side, the Middle Path School (Sanlun), contrary to Fung’s putting it together with Daoism, especially Zhuangzi, is in fact using abstract language of negative dialectics, which is different from Zhangzi’s use of metaphors and stories.