From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Tue Apr 19 2005 - 04:15:42 BST
Ant,
[Much skipped]
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:
I see a difference, as of course does Magliola. So did the Zen Master Robert
Aitken:
(The Morning Star"", p. 188 referring to a talk by Hee-Jin Kim on Dogen):
"Dogen Zenji says, 'Discriminating *is* words and phrases, and words and
phrases *liberate* discriminating thought.' Dr. Kim goes on to say, 'In
other words, the koan language presents the workings of the Buddha Nature.'
"A koan is simply a matter to be made clear, as my betters remind me. The
Tao is not a matter of deliberate frustration and release [as D.T. Suzuki
describes it]. It is a matter of becoming intimate with, say, Mu. Mu
presents the workings of Buddha Nature. It is not a device to force you
into a corner.""
Following Nishida, I refer to this "workings of Buddha Nature" as the logic
of contradictory identiy. It is not a transcendence of reason, but a
different way of reasoning.
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".
Scott:
The differentiating is in the "interminable" and "lapse (slide)" of
Magliola's quote. I should note that Magliola spends a great deal of time
discussing what this means in early parts of the book, an explication of
Derridean *differance* and how Nagarjuna's thought is comparable, so without
that background, the difference he is making may not be as clear.
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:
This is why I said in my last post that I am not all that concerned with
tagging the MOQ as "nihilist" (and why I skipped so much at the start).
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.
Scott:
Nagarjuna wanted his philosophy understood as a "skillful means". And yes,
that does mean "just going round in circles" in a sense -- see Magliola's
"interminable lapse (slide)" again. One cannot say the self exists, one
cannot say it does not exist, one cannot say it exists and does not exist,
one cannot say it neither exists nor doesn't exist. That last horn says one
cannot stop the question either. That is the difference between centric Zen
and differential Zen. The point is that centric Zen/the MOQ *does* try to
stop the question, by seeking transcendence to something called DQ, and by
doing so has not emptied out emptiness.
And I agree that you need to stick with "centric Zen", or the foundation of
the MOQ will disappear. Of course, that is an a priori choice, so the claim
for empiricism also goes -- as I said before.
- Scott R
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