Washing the Dust from my Mirror: The Deconstruction of Buddhism—A Response to Bronwyn Finnigan

Abstract

I thank Professors Finnigan and Garfield (Jay) and the editors of Philosophy East and West for inviting me to join in this discussion of Chinese Buddhism. I have not taken many opportunities in my career to write about Zen Buddhism and Daoism, although I have been fascinated by their connection. I remember quite clearly a discussion I had with Jay some years back in which I broached the idea that Daoism had contrib uted important dialectical steps leading to the formulation of Zen, which I join the Chinese tradition in regarding as the highest version of the Buddhist insight. Jay ar gued to me at that time that the necessary insights were actually all available in Nagarjuna. I am accordingly pleased to see him exploring the idea of the contribu tions that features of Chinese thought might have made to this development in Bud dhism, although I don't assume that he needs to repudiate Nagarjuna's depth of insight or the claim that it contains all that is strictly necessary for the Zen account of insight or enlightenment. Accordingly in my discussion here, I will focus on how I see features of Chinese Daoist thought facilitating, if not providing necessary and sufficient conditions for, these insights. The account I will give targets neither Buddhist epistemology nor the state of mind of one who achieves the insight. Nor, strictly speaking, is my account focused on Buddhist ethics, which in my view would be the deontology of the Eight fold Path. However, along with Professor Finnigan, I will take the Four Noble Truths as the beginning point. Chinese schools tend to treat this as kindergarten Buddhism. I would agree that the other three noble truths raise issues in meta-ethics and the quasi-ethical issue of the meaning of life (is it meaningless suffering from which the only goal is escape?). The problem of Buddhism from China's point of view was how to reconcile the deeply pessimistic, nihilistic, and decadent (apologies to Nietzsche) tone of Buddhism with the upbeat, humorous, joyful exuberance of Chinese Daoism. Despite their different settings, my narrative will still pass through and deal with Finnigan's worry that some alleged tension in wu-wei is not resolved in Chinese thought and thus cannot resolve the deeper problem in Buddhism. I was invited