From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Thu Apr 14 2005 - 15:21:49 BST
Scott Roberts had stated March 24th 2005:
>It was common in Northrop's time for
>Western commentators to describe Nagarjuna as nihilistic. Since then,
>though, that has been largely rejected. See C. W. Huntington's introduction
>to "The Emptiness of Emptiness" for more on the various interpretations of
>Nagarjuna. Unfortunately, Pirsig is using Northrop's nihilistic
>interpretation.
Ant McWatt had commented March 31st 2005:
D.T. Suzuki's "An Introduction to Zen Buddhism" (which I quoted in my
previous post concerning this issue) was published in 1934 a few years
before Northrop published his first philosophy book. Moreover, we're not
discussing what certain commentators in the 20th century thought of
Nagarjuna as regards nihilism but rather, whether or not the MOQ is
nihilist. The simple fact is that the MOQ is a development of Zen Buddhism
and both Northrop (in "The Meeting of East and West") and Suzuki (in "An
Introduction to Zen Buddhism") deny - at some length - that Zen Buddhism is
nihilist. If you can't address the particular arguments given by these
philosophers in these texts then I think we have come as far as we can with
this particular debate.
Scott commented on April 1st:
I couldn't find any discussion of Zen in Northrop. Just one mention, in a
quote.
Ant McWatt notes:
Close but no banana, Scott. Good thing I have the same edition of the
Northrop text that you were referring to. You’ve looked at the index, seen
Zen is just entered once on page 359 and then presumed that Zen isn’t
discussed any further. Look again and read the section I referred to you
before…. page 346 to page 355 of Northrop’s “The Meeting of East & West”
where he discusses the Buddhist dialectic of negation. He may not
literally say “Zen” but what he states there (as regards Nagarjuna and
Mahayana Buddhism) is applicable to Zen and the MOQ (because, of course, Zen
is a derivative from Mahayana Buddhism).
Scott observed April 1st:
But Northrop certainly does refer to Nagarjuna's philosophy as nihilist, at
least three times.
Ant McWatt notes:
And, St. Peter denied Christ three times as well. Are we going to take him
literally as well?
Yes, Northrop does refer to the “nihilistic Mahayanistic Buddhism of
Nagarjuna”. However, this doesn’t entail that Northrop assumed that
Nagarjuna presumed that the static patterns of quality aren’t real. For
instance, note the following:
“It is not necessary that the Buddhist, even the followers of Nagarjuna,
deny the reality of the differentiations or the reality of theoretically
known, postulated factors, such as the objects of common sense, or the more
sophisticated and deductively adequate scientific objects of Western
mathematical physics…. The only essential contention of the Buddhist is
that one of the most ultimate factors in terms of which the scientist and
the philosopher must conceive the world to be constituted is the
indeterminate, undifferentiated, aesthetic continuum [i.e. Dynamic Quality].
The differentiations within it are effects of its presence, not the
irreducible atomic qualities [i.e. properties] out of which it is
constructed as a mere aggregate.”
(Northrop, 1946, p.352)
Ant McWatt comments:
Note especially the phrase “ESSENTIAL CONTENTION” in the above.
Scott observed April 1st:
I do not deny that Pirsig thinks that the MOQ is based on Zen, but the
question is, how has Pirsig understood Zen? Zen is not a monolith, and one
can base one's philosophy on it in different ways.
Ant McWatt notes:
Pirsig has understood Zen in the context of its Rinzai tradition – in
particular the possibility of immediate enlightenment through the use of the
koan.
“LILA was originally conceived of as a case-book in philosophy. ‘Does Lila
have Quality?’ is its central question. It was intended to parallel the
ancient Rinzai Zen koans (which literally means “public cases,”) and in
particular, Joshu’s “Mu,” which asks, ‘Does a dog have a Buddha nature?’.”
(Pirsig 2002d)
Also note the following in Section 2.1.1 from my PhD thesis:
=================================
By the seventh century, the Zen tradition itself divided into the Northern
school of Gradual Enlightenment and the Southern school of Sudden
Enlightenment. The Northern school emphasised the traditional practice of
seated meditation (zazen) to reach enlightenment while the Southern school
put an emphasis on a variety of novel techniques such as the koan, shouts,
slaps and even sudden blows with a stick. (Di Santo & Steele, 1990,
pp.122-24) Subsequent to Zen’s founding in Japan during the twelfth
century, it quickly reached maturity; the ‘Gradual Enlightenment’ tradition
being continued by the Japanese Soto school and the ‘Sudden Enlightenment’
tradition being continued by the Japanese Rinzai tradition. It is the
latter tradition with its belief that enlightenment can occur even when
engaged in everyday activities (such as flower arranging or motorcycle
maintenance) that the MOQ develops:
“The Dynamic reality that goes beyond words is the constant focus of Zen
teaching. Because of their habituation to a world of words, philosophers
often do not understand Zen. When philosophers have trouble understanding
the distinction between static and Dynamic Quality it can be because they
are trying to include and subordinate all Quality to thought patterns. The
distinction between static and Dynamic Quality is intended to block this.”
(Pirsig, 1997e)
This distinction is supported by Cooper (1996, p.215) who notes that Zen
enlightenment (and enlightenment found in other mystic philosophies) usually
requires an ‘intuition’ that is beyond the capability of philosophical
articulation. In addition to meditative techniques employed in monasteries,
this is through disciplines such as to ikebana, sword fencing, the Noh play,
haiku poetry, ink brush painting, rock gardening and archery. It’s not the
discipline itself that’s of specific importance but the understanding
achieved when the discipline is properly undertook.
===========================================
Scott then quoted Magliola, p.97:
“As for ‘abrogation of the identity principle,’ an abrogation which is the
first norm of genuine Madhyamika (that is to say, Nagarjunism, or Madhyamika
which has remained faithful to Nagarjuna's original attitude towards
sunyata), the historical linkage between Ch'an/Zen and the origins is more
complex. The nature and history of the ... koan, for example, is subject to
great academic controversy, with some researchers claiming it operates quite
purely in Nagarjuna's mode, viz., a rigorous rationalism whereby logic
cancels itself out -- leaving devoidness to lapse (slide) by, interminably
[aka logic of contradictory identity - Scott]; and others seeing it as
operative in a Yogacaric mode, as an intuitionism, so the monk does *not*
through the assiduous use of reason *deduce* self-contradiction, but rather
*transcends* reason ‘in a flash’.”
Ant McWatt comments:
As David Burton [a UK philosopher interested in Buddhism] kindly pointed out
to me on Monday (after his lecture in Liverpool), there appears no
difference between “a rigorous rationalism whereby logic cancels itself out”
or “intuitionism”. Looking at the quote again, the only difference between
the two that I can see is the speed in which a koan is understood.
Scott then quoted Magliola, p.97:
“When W.T. de Bary speaks of Zen's interest in Indian Hinayana sources and
when Ninian Smart calls Zen ‘Japan's substitute for Lesser Vehicle
Buddhism’, they are indicating a movement in Zen away from what was the
increasing absolutization of sunyata occurring in most of the later Buddhist
schools. But Westerners, through the good offices of Zen's great missionary
to the West, D. T. Suzuki, know only of logocentric (and thus absolutist)
Zen, and indeed there is no question that
logocentric Zen has been for quite some time now Zen's most popular form.”
Ant McWatt notes:
However, with Pirsig’s emphasis on the Rinzai tradition, it appears that the
MOQ tends towards the Yogacaric mode i.e. intuitionism - in as far as it can
be differentiated from “a rigorous rationalism whereby logic cancels itself
out”.
Anyway, Scott continues with Magliola’s quote:
“Or, to avoid needless confusion, let us call it ‘centric Zen’, since its
whole effort is to transcend logos understood as the language of *is* and
*is not* and to achieve the 'undifferentiated center'…. The supreme
self-identity, indeed the only self-identity in the ultimate sense, is
centric Zen's sunyata: ‘Emptiness is not a vacancy -- it holds in it
infinite rays of light and swallows all the multiplicities there are in this
world.’”
Ant McWatt comments:
OK. This seems very much what Northrop is saying in the quote I pasted
above.
Scott continues with Magliola’s quote:
"The differential movement in Zen of course opposes the centric Zen just
instanced..."
Scott finally comments April 1st:
(He goes on to give some stories that exemplify differential Zen, too long
to quote. But in essence, it is about emptying out emptiness, so it does not
become an "undifferentiated center", as DQ is a center in the MOQ.)
Ant McWatt comments:
OK, looks like we’re finally getting somewhere. The latter might well be
the case but this doesn’t indicate that the MOQ is nihilist in the critical
sense regarding the ontological status of static patterns i.e. that objects
of knowledge - as they are perceived - lack inherent existence.
"The Madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness treads the Middle Way between the
nihilistic claim that everything is totally a fabrication and the naïve
realists' contention that one has access to the unfabricated world as it
actually is. Things in themselves are known to us - they are present to us
when we apprehend them - but this knowledge is nevertheless always a
negotiation between the known entity and the knower." (Burton, 2001, p.187)
Scott also commented April 1st:
Yes, Nishida's logic is based on Nagarjuna.
Ant McWatt comments:
I wouldn’t be too sure about that (see below).
Scott continued April 1st:
Nishida will speak of the self as that which exists by negating itself,
while Nagarjuna stuck to showing how saying "self exists" leads to
contradiction, and "self does not
exist" does as well. By the way, I am not all that interested in pinning the
label "nihilist" on the MOQ, given the wide range of usage of that term, and
that it tends to be used pejoratively. Mainly, I am trying to show that the
MOQ has not gone beyond that stage which Nishitani calls the "field of
nihility", the one that treats Emptiness as a center.
Ant McWatt comments:
Ahhh, but has Nishitani himself gone beyond that stage in which Emptiness is
no longer treated as a center? In other words, isn’t he just going round in
circles in an infinite logical regress where everything is denied and then
the denial, in turn, is denied? Though I’m not completely certain, I would
bet my bottom dollar (if I had one) that Nagarjuna wouldn’t want his
philosophy understood in this way. I’ll get round to reading Magliola
eventually but, in the meantime, I’ll stick with the “centric Zen” of
Suzuki and Northrop if that is indeed the real understanding of Zen that
they were putting forward.
Finally, Scott stated April 1st:
“So why keep trying to uphold a philosophy based on an 'ultimate reality'
that one is to discard later?”
Ant McWatt comments:
Who talked about “discarding” ultimate reality? If anything, the use of the
static patterns at 360 degree enlightenment is to discard SOM concepts on
the pragmatic grounds explained in LILA.
Moreover, there can be no further authority that states, “Hang on but I
really know what the nature of the static and the Dynamic consists of” which
Nishitani appears to be doing. There’s no objective viewpoint outside the
“reality box” which can give us the definitive one “real” answer. Hence,
Nagarjuna’s understanding given by the Burton quote above. I therefore
think an intuitive understanding is the best that one can hope for though if
you personally find the work of Nishitani and Huntingdon helpful in
clarifying this understanding then that’s all well and good. However, as
regards the “real” nature of the static and Dynamic, I wouldn’t take what
these writers say too literally. There’s no definite correct viewpoint at
this level that can be stated in words and if Pirsig had started down this
road in LILA, it would have made his explanation of the MOQ too obscure and
confusing.
Best wishes,
Anthony.
"Before one enters the gateless gate, the Dynamic is the only 'ultimate
reality.' But after one passes through the gateless gate and looks back he
sees there never was any gate. Now he sees that the static patterns he was
trying to discard are real enough and has no problem accepting them."
(Pirsig to McWatt, February 18th 2005)
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