Buddhism and
Chinese Religion: Comments on your papers, 11th March, 2011
First, something that didn't appear
in
anyone's paper: extracts from Mou Tzu's "Disposition of Error".
I
mentioned in class that there was no time to read it then, but
that it
was a useful source for the paper. Nobody used it! I'm
the person who grades your papers. When I give you something to
read,
and tell you that it will be useful for the paper, you should
pay close
attention. When we read something in class, I'm trying to show
you how
to extract useful information from a primary text, hoping that
you will
then apply this skill yourself without my help. You had a great
opportunity with the "Disposition of Error"; many points that
people
did make could have been supported by evidence from this source.
Understanding and
Similarity:
This paper was all about understanding the process by
which
religions change and spread. Here is one theory:
Buddhism
was
bound to be practiced sooner or later in China because of its
similarity with one of the established religions, Taoism.
"Bound to be" is
an example of a strong claim. It suggests inevitability. "It
is bound
to rain today" is strong; "It will probably rain today" a
little less
strong, "It might rain today" is weak. You have to think
carefully
about when to make strong claims and when to make weak
claims. In this
case, the claim is too strong. Rugby is a game that is
similar to
American Football. Is it inevitable that people will play
Rugby in the
USA? No. American Football is firmly established, what
reason do people
have to turn to a new game? Usually, we change not to adopt
something
that is the same, but something that is better. Hinduism is
similar in
some ways to Catholicism. That does not make it inevitable
that
Hinduism will spread in Panama. Of course, there is a
growing Hindu
community here in Panama, but to explain this, we need to
look at more
than a similarity between Hinduism and Catholicism. We need
to consider
historical facts, like the presence of the Panama Canal, and
the reason
that this attracted many people from India who brought their
religion
with them. Of course, Buddhist missionaries in China took
advantage of
the similarity. It was useful
to their missionary activity, but the similarity alone is
not
sufficient to explain the spread of Buddhism.
In this instance, the fact that the claim is too strong is
not just a
problem with this sentence. It means that a partial
explanation is
presented as though it were the whole story.
A large part of the grade for understanding involves
consideration of
causal processes. Beware the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc.
That's
a Latin phrase meaning "after this therefore because of
this". The
point is that it is a fallacy to suppose that if B happens
after A then
B was caused by A. Suppose that every morning, when I'm
drinking my
coffee, my dog wakes up and starts to bark. Just because the
sequence
is always coffee/dog barking it doesn't follow that the
coffee is
making the dog bark.
Now, here's an example from a paper:
There are also Confucian elements in Zen Buddhism, like
the communal
nature of monastery life and the transmission of
realization from
master to disciple.
Yes,
these are
similarities between Buddhism and Confucianism. But
calling these
Confucian elements in Zen Buddhism implies that they
became part of Zen
Buddhism as a result of Confucian influence - after
this, therefore
because of this. The problem is, these were features of
Buddhism before
it came to China: from the beginnings, Buddhism was a
monastic faith.
The early Buddhist stories that we looked at are full of
stories in
which the Buddha passes on realization to his disciples.
When you are
thinking about how Buddhism changed in China, you have
to keep track of
which elements of Chinese Buddhism date back to
Buddhism's origins in
India.
Also, take care to get your facts right. One paper
contained the
following statement:
The
metaphysical concept of the 'tao' and the Buddhism's
enlightenment and
nirvana share several concepts: both are known as the
ultimate peace
for people, but one that cannot be described. The
similarities between
both give some light to the theory that Lao Tzu was
actually a teacher
to Siddhartha Gotama. And Lao Tzu was a follower of
Confucius, the
founder of Confucianism, whose ideas of deep
meditation and the
importance of one ancestors are highly marked in
Buddhism today. [Confucianism
vs.
Taoism]
I've included a
link to the source that was used. It isn't a very
good source - it
seems to be an essay written by a college student;
not a bad effort,
but you should be looking for peer-reviewed sources,
not this kind of
material. But if you do use this as a source, read
it carefully.
Nowhere does it say that Lao Tzu was a student of
Confucius. There is a
legend about the two of them meeting, but in the
legend, it is
Confucius who shows deference to the wisdom of Lao
Tzu, since Lao Tzu
was the older of the two. As I also explained in
class, many scholars
doubt that Lao Tzu really existed, in which case he
could not have been
disciple or teacher to either Confucius or the
Buddha, both of whom
were real historical individuals. You might disagree
with the theory
that Lao Tzu was not a real person, but you
shouldn't simply ignore it.
That gives the impression that you are not paying
attention in class.
But let me leave this misunderstanding aside. Let us
suppose that Lao
Tzu was a real person, and that he was a student of
Confucius. Even if
this were true, the evidence cited above does not
support the theory
that Lao Tzu taught the Buddha.
What is the evidence? First, the similarity of the
Tao and Nirvana. As
the writer points out, one similarity is that both
the Tao and Nirvana
are considered to be indefinable. But that, in turn,
makes it hard to
establish that there is any similarity. If they are
indescribable, how
can we be sure that they share 'several concepts'?
We know that they
are both indescribable, and that they are both
proposed as the goal of
human existence. Is that sufficient to show that one
was derived from
the other? No. Many people do not feel satisfied
with their life, and
aspire for something better, different, but hard to
describe. This is
such a common feeling that it is not surprising that
two religious
leaders, from different cultures, should have
proposed, independently,
different names for the indescribable goal of human
longing. To give
another example, violence is, unfortunately, a
pervasive feature of
human societies. Lots of different cultures have
some image of a
war-god - a god who embodies the impulse to
violence, and is pictured
as the Ultimate Warrior. Just because two religions
both contain a
war-god, it does not follow that one religion copied
the idea directly
from the other - that is a possibility, but we would
need a lot more
evidence (for example, if they both gave the War-God
the same name, or
both thought that he has three horns, a red
mustache, and likes to eat
cheese).
The second piece of evidence is that deep meditation
and worship of
ancestors are Confucian ideas that are important in
Buddhism today. But
we do not find in The
Analects
any great importance attached to the form of
meditation that is typical
of Buddhism - sitting in silent meditation trying to
empty your mind.
Confucius believed more in filling the mind, not
emptying it. As for
veneration of the ancestors, that has become a
feature of Chinese
Buddhism, but this is because, over time, Buddhism
adapted to Chinese
culture.
So earlier, I argued that the existence of Zen
monasteries does not
constitute Confucian influence on Buddhism, because
Buddhists had
monasteries before they came to China. Now I am
arguing that
ancestor-veneration is not evidence for the Buddha
himself having
studied with a disciple of Confucius, because
ancestor-veneration was
not part of Buddhism in its earliest phase. Think
about the chronology.
The most important point I note is that there is a
general tendency to
jump to conclusions based on an observation that two
things are
similar. I can see why this happens. Very often in
class, I ask "What
does this remind you of?" "What is this similar to?"
It is important to
be able to spot similarities. But the fact that two
things are similar
cannot be used to prove anything you want to prove.
It does not prove
that one caused the other, or that one would
inevitably spread to the
area where the other was.
Look back over some of the primary sources. In the
Bodhidharma
Anthology, we see not merely that there are some
similarities between
Bodhidharma's thought and that of Daoism, he
actually quotes directly
from Daoist sources. That is evidence of influence.
In the same way,
the 'Disposition of Error' provides direct evidence
that Buddhists
sometimes quoted Confucian scriptures. It tells us
which scriptures
they quoted, and why. This is not just a vague
similarity.
So, by all means, look for and pay attention to
similarities. But
spotting a similarity is only the first stage - it
should lead to more
questions, and your questions should be ever more
precise.
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