File spoon-archives/french-feminism.archive/french-feminism_2001/french-feminism.0112, message 17


Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2001 09:39:55 -0500 (EST)
From: amy vondrak <amvondra-AT-mailbox.syr.edu>
Subject: Re: East and West


although i am interested in these periodic posts on various Asian
religions, i'm always a little confused by the non-sequtorial nature of
their appearance.  care to give some relevance or context?

amy vondrak


On Sun, 9 Dec 2001, Mike Reynolds wrote:

> In questioning the authenticity of interpretations of
> the Lao-tzu, the Buddho-Taoist debates, which went on
> for at least three centuries before Ch'eng Hsuan-ying
> wrote about it, Chu Hsi reveals the situational
> context of the times:
> 
> 'Even though the taoists have the Lao-tzu and the
> Chuang-tzu, they don't understand that they should
> read them thoroughly, and as a result, they found that
> these two books had been stolen and used by Buddhists,
> whereas the Taoists themselves were copying from
> Buddhist scriptures and teachings. This is like a boy
> from a rich family who went to pick up broken jugs and
> pots left by those who had made away with the
> invaluable treasures in the house.'
> 
> There are ties between the central meaning of
> emptiness and what Ch'eng Hsuan-ying saw in the
> Chuang-tzu that made Chaung-tzu a master of emptying.
> In spite of the differences Ch'eng Hsuan-ying marked
> out between him and Kuo Hsiang, interdependency, that
> is, the second causal relation established on the
> basis of spatial difference, is the common ground of
> thought, shared both by Chuang-tzu and Buddhism, and
> has generated these two different concepts.
> 
> In other words, sameness and emptiness are basically
> two different effects of interdependent thinking, come
> from two different cultural sources. Since the Hua-hu
> ching version was one of the major disputes between
> medievalTaoism and Buddhism, Ch'eng Hsuan-ying's
> adaption is an unequivocal indication that to him,
> despite all the Buddhist terms he used in the
> commentary, Taoism should predate Buddhism.
> 
> ....The Tetralemma as a necessary step, or better, a
> metaphor for the step leading toward the 'double
> mystery' is here basically replaced by a different
> expression of the process toward the 'double mystery'
> -- a geometrical reasoning with two sides and the
> middle, which, like the Tetralemma, has been
> recognized too as a borrowing from Buddhism,
> particularly from Madhyamika Buddhism.
> 
> No doubt the 'double mystery' had helped him refocus
> these ideas in the Chuang-tzu and it is this
> refocusing that we call a rediscovery of the
> Chuang-tzu.'
> 
> ....'This is to give up the middle. Not only giving up
> the middle two sides, but also forgetting the middle
> and the one is to give up again and again, and to
> hsuan(used as a verb)...To remove this idea he has to
> understand that the middle is not outside of the two
> sides, and thus is 'not to go out.' If there are no
> sides to go out, where can the middle come?'
> [Shiyi Yu, Asian Thought and Culture: Reading the
> Chuang-tzu in the T'ang Dynasty, Peter Lang(2000),
> p.123]
> 
> The recluse Shen Yueh:
> 
> 'Those who castigate Emptiness while searching for
> Being
> All point out what is difficult, supposing it easy;
> Not proceeding from themselves to seek contentment,
> But blaming externals, thereby arousing the greater   
> attachment.
> This is where even men of old went wrong,
> But where today I mean to circumvent.
> 
> It is only the Perfected that deny themsleves,
> For whom 'tis sure both self and other are forgot.
> From middling wise on down to fools
> The rest all take attaining their true selves to be  
> their world.'
> 
> As Mather points out, the political aspects of
> self-cultivation dictated that a line of demarcation
> could be drawn between what Shen Yueh calls 'reclusion
> of the worthy' (hsien-jen chih yin ___ ___ ___ ___)
> and merely being free of responsiblilty:
> 
> ''What I mean by the word 'reclusion'(yin) is that not
> only are one's traces (chi ___, i.e., overt acts)
> outwardly invisible, but one's (inner) principle(tao
> ___) also is inscrutable. 
> 
> When one's body is hidden (shen-yin ___ ___) one is
> called a recluse (yin-che ___ ___), but when one's
> principle is hidden (tao-yin ___ ___) one is said to
> be a worthy (hsien-jen ___ ___)....For the present in
> writing this section on 'Recluses and the Carefree' I
> have tentatively given space (only) to (worthy)
> recluses (hsien-yin). As for the rest who find repose
> for their minds beyond the world, they may be carefree
> (i), but they are not recluses.'
> 
> When he speaks of 'principle being hidden (tao-yin), I
> take this to mean that the recluse is refusing to put
> that principle at the disposal of any ruler who would
> not put it in practice.'
> [Mather, Shen Yueh's Poems of Reclusion: From
> Withdrawal to Living in the Suburbs, Chinese
> Literature, Essays, Articles, Reviews, V.5:53]
> 
> As Robinet shows, however, some taoists choise rather
> to live in the city, and thus be involved with all of
> its political implications.
> 
> This silent kingdom, now my home, a seamless crystal 
> sphere,
> Preserves tha ancient harmony -- an unsplit 
> chromosphere.
> The nucleus of the cosmic egg -- the vital vermeil 
> core,
> Distills the purple exudate that feeds me evermore.
> This quintessential theriac which also heats the sun,
> Will cure me of mortality: my final goal is won.
> (Wu Yun, Pu tsu tzu[Pacing the Void]Canto X]
> 
> Wu Yun, famous among his contemporaries for his poetry
> and theoretical writings such as the Discourse on the
> Feasiblity of Studying Spirit Immortality(Shenxian
> kexue lun ___ ___ ___ ___ ___), died in 778. That very
> same year, someone apparently found it necessary to
> start breaking down Wu Yun's fame. On a wall of a
> Buddhist temple on Hupui Hill in Souzhou, two poems
> believed to have been written by a ghost, mysteriously
> appeared in 778. The second poem starts with the line:
> 'Spirit immortality cannot be studied.'
> [De Meyer, Linked Verse and Linked Faiths, p.182-3]
> 
> 
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