Middle Path’ in Chinese Buddhism and Zen Buddhism

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Among other religions of the world, Buddhism has created own path to develop philosophy of life by withdrawing itself from theistic thoughts. In Buddhism as generally understood, middle path does not mean equivocal and also does not mean remaining confined or neutral but means to penetrate into the fundamental aspect of life with a straightforward and an unbiased attitude and approach. Every problem has a solution but we should look at every problem in an unbiased way and also to look into the problem from various aspects, analyze them, understand the truth, and find out the logical answers. Human being is most important in Buddhism and his thoughts, behavior and the way he relates and deals with his environment has more relevance in Buddhism than in any other religion.

Middle Path is the fundamental principle in Buddhism discovered by Buddha before his enlightenment. It encompasses several definitions like the practice of non-extremism or path of moderation, which is away from the several extremes like self -indulgence and opposing self-mortification. It is also concerned taking a middle path about the things, which exists or do not exist. It is also a condition of Nirvana and an enlightenment where every object having a characteristics and attribute of duality join together in a single entity. It also involves the path of non-existence, or we can call emptiness.

Buddhism originated into various schools of thought, and among them was Mahayana Buddhism. There are two most important branches of Buddhist belief: Mahayana and Theravada. The birth of Mahayana took place in India and subsequently spread to various parts of the world like China, Korea, Japan, Tibet, Central Asia, Vietnam and Taiwan. Followers of Mahayana tradition consider their doctrine as the finding of the truth about the nature and teachings of the Buddha in contrast to the Theravada tradition, which they characterize as Lesser Vehicle, known as Hinayana. As opposed to the several of the relative conservative schools of the earlier Buddhists, Mahayana encompasses within its scope several practices, deals with several of the philosophical issues and a more mythological concept of Buddha.

There are two main Mahayana schools, which originated in India-the one is Madhyamika, meaning middle path and the other is Vijnanavada, means only consciousness, in other words Yogachara. Slowly Mahayana schools of thought spread outside India creating its impact in Sri Lanka, Tibet, other regions in Asia like China, Japan etc. Influence with the other regions of the world, Buddhism saw the appearance of various other schools of thought like Pure Land Buddhism and Zen.

The forerunner of Mahayana was Mahasanghika, and considered to be a liberal branch of the Buddhist community that broke away from conservative Buddhism. Mahasanghika was considered to be one of the 18 schools of Hinayana. They consider Buddha as a supernatural or divine who has incarcerated in the form of human to be born as historical Buddha. Exactly when Mahayana arose is unclear but Indian philosopher Nagarjuna who founded the Madhyamika School promoted the early growth of Mahayana. His influential writings provide some of the most persuasive early formulations of Mahayana but according to some of the historical versions, the Mahayana arose around 2 BC. The Mahayana Buddhism generally considers arhat as inferior to the Bodhisattva, the Mahayana ideal of Buddhist practitioner.

The most popular form of Buddhism spread in China was Mahayana form of Buddhism. There were four major Mahayan schools, which were the part of the spirit and substance of Chinese Buddhism. The First one is Tien-Tai or Lotus school (Fahua) school; the second is Hua-yen, (flowery splendor school); third, the Pure Land School; and fourth, the Chan or Meditation school. This Chan or meditation school is most popularly known as Zen, the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese character for Chan. Among all the four, only Tien-Tai has nothing related to the Indian disposition of the Chinese philosophy, nonetheless all the four had been developed along the Chinese thoughts. It is said that, “Tien-Tai and Hua-yen schools for doctrine and the Pure Land and the Chan schools for practice.” ³ While in Japan, Zen form of the Buddhism philosophical approach was spread.

Earlier historical reports about Zen goes back to time when Dosho, a Japanese monk came into contact of the Indian philosopher Bodhidharma, who was deemed to be the great master of Ch’an, one of the sects of Buddhists dynasty. There is a legend associated with it as it is said that once he sat for complete nine years staring at a cave wall in China. Through his practice, he wanted to seek how through painful experience of meditation, a person can gain enlightenment. When this type of meditative exercise reached Japan, it took the form of Zen. It is also one of the schools of Buddhism, which means sitting in meditation. This word has been derived from the Chinese word Chan.

Zen got incorporated into the life of Japanese people in the early seventh century and began to be practiced and taught in the eighth and ninth centuries. Since it was a foreign language, it was initially difficult to interpret and understood and was not a great success until the reign of early Kamakura period (1185-1333). It was a time period it became very important to concentrate on single path and it was also during this period that Zen got the space into Japanese nobility.

There were two main schools of thought in Zen, and each school of thought explained in its own way to attain enlightenment. The one way was Rinzai and the other was Soto. Rinzai taught its followers that they could attain enlightenment through sudden and uncertain flashes, whereas the Soto School of thought tried to explain that they could attain enlightenment through prolonged sessions of meditation. These two schools of thoughts were the result of the efforts of the two monks who played a very important role for the spread and development of Zen in Japan. One of these monks was Eisai, (1141-1215), who was considered to be the real founder of Japanese Zen. Eisai went to China, where he took the training in Lin-chi (Rinzai) house. After this he came back to Japan again to form and construct the first Rinzai sect (in Japan). He was able to attain the favor of the Shoguns and entered into an alliance with the military, which happened to be the social foundation of Japanese Zen. The other monk was Dogan, who was responsible for setting up the Ts’ao-tung (Soto), one of the schools of Zen in Japan. He was the first one to teach the way of sitting meditation also known as zazen. He was able to create a tremendous influence on the people of Japan and subsequently had large number of followers. Later he shifted to Eastern Japan where he made his base at a temple (Eiheiji), which was built to honor him. Up to the day today, he is regarded as a great thinker and the greatest philosopher both by Buddhists and non-Buddhists.

Though the methods used by the difference schools of Zen vary yet their fundamental concept on the way to the attainment of the Zen remains the same. According to the Zen philosophy, a person should not retrace oneself from life rather immerse fully into it. It says that there is no need to adopt any kind of several philosophical disposition or logics or any concepts to understand the world.

There are three reasons why Zen came into Japan at this particular time. First the characteristic of Zen, which is purely aesthetic, secondly it believed in creative powers of human beings, and this again was quite popular in that era. They lay more emphasis on the transcendence for of all lives and last not the least; Zen got easily mixed up with or merged with some of other schools of thoughts with Shinto worship and belief.

The concept of meditation in Zen owes to the Mahatma Gautama Buddha who achieved enlightenment (nirvana) through the process of meditation. The most important component of the Zen Buddhism is the practice of nondiscriminatory wisdom (Jpn., hannyaharamitsu; Skrt., prajnaparamita), which believes in imparting practical, and experimental knowledge with little of theoretical or intellectual knowledge and it is discriminatory. In Zen, it basically means that it carries no existential meaning for emancipating a human being from his or her predicaments, for it means that any kind of knowledge which is discriminatory is deceptive and one can only attain the nondiscriminatory approach through transformation of the psycho-physiological constitution of oneself.

Here person adopting the Zen approach is taught to train oneself and this concept is known as the self-cultivation in Japanese. This is a method to correct the various aspects of one’s mind by correcting the various aspects of one’s body whereby emphasis is given to more of practical training rather than theoretical.

As far as the explanation of the Zen’s methodology is concerned, it could be consider as anti-philosophy. If we go by the exact meaning of the term philosophy according to the Westernized thoughts, its meaning is establishment of “the kingdom of reason”, but stance of Zen is different. It states that reason does not have capability to understand anything in totality, for e.g. it is not able to understand human beings and their exact relation with the nature.

This is the reason why Zen focuses on the point that there should be dimension in the understanding of physical nature and human nature. For e.g. in the practical sense, human beings must be conscious about their being and seek the enlightenment from the inherent part of the ego-consciousness and should perform meditation as a process of self-cultivation. Once Zen Master Seigen (660-740) expressing the above philosophical disposition said: “Before the practice, mountains are mountains, during the practice, mountains are not mountains, and after the realization, mountains are [truly] mountains [again].” In simple words, in the process of meditation, Zen process takes the person from the standpoint of nature or cosmic entity and after attaining this transformation they return back to their every day life.

School of Mahayana created lot more influence on the social, cultural and political life during Six Dynasties period, particularly T’snag. Tien-Tai taught that there are essential harmonies “between opposites, phenomenon and noumena, transcendence and immanence, so that every color or fragrance is none other than the middle path”. In Taien Tai’s central doctrines, there are three ways to explain: “The true nature of all elements of existence; the perfect harmony of three levels of truth; the three thousand words immanent in an incense of thought.” ⁶ The School of thought believes in the fact that the real truth about existence is that it is empty, and the truth is encompassed in three levels, “The truth of emptiness, Temporary truth and the truth of the mean.” All things are empty which is first truth because all things are depended on the external world for their existence but at the same time they are produced and therefore they are living and have an attribute of existence, even if there is temporary or dependent existence. This is known as the temporary truth because all beings are dependent on the others for existence therefore they can’t show their own individuality. However, truth of the Mean is that both the state of emptiness and temporary existence integrates each other. Mean truth means both the emptiness and relative reality exist with each other. In other words, things either have existence or they don’t exist.

In Zen philosophy, the path of non-extremism, the path of non-dualism, path to Nirvana/enlightenment and the path towards non-existence/emptiness is understood and revealed through the understanding of oneself. In Zen philosophy, there is an idea of self and at other levels they make us understand on the inseparableness of the body and soul, the sanctity of all life. They believe that the over soul or super soul are integral to each other. Since the over soul is the pure most, the human soul also retains his inherent purity. It can steer clear us from all the difficulties, uncertainties, sham and imperfections of the worldly life in the same way as the pure most whole or the almighty can. As man has equal importance to God therefore Self also acquires supremacy of importance. By the path of non-dualism, the Zen philosophy states that there is an irrevocable fusion of atoms or selves as being the cause and impetus for the cosmic creation. Since the Universe is the cosmos of coalescence of atoms, the fraction of the pure-most whole all is well with it. In this way, Zen treats all the animate and inanimate aspects with equanimity. As opposed to the Mahayana, they believe in the religion of the worship of man as it is. They had a vision of mystic where faith in God was not wizend or limited by any dogma. They suggest that man who apprehends God attains non-dualistic outlook of life. The person who has attained enlightenment sees no difference between the matter and the spirit. In other words, the idea of non-duality means making the body and soul supplementary to each to each other. It is this idea that expands to cover the universe and to enable the man to attain enlightenment. The person with this cosmic consciousness and a unified vision transcends the distinction of good and evil.

Through the meditation, man can attain the spiritual pleasure and only a strong body can be abode of the fine soul. Zen philosophy neither preaches a dogmatic faith nor a metaphysical theory rather they indulge themselves by the worldliness of attitude. The body is the means through which one can attain spirituality. The divine mystery can only be understood through senses.

The world appears to us as two things, and for the Zen practitioner, it is paradoxically stated that, “if you face it, it goes away,” because “facing means two face”. Two things means ‘two’ making its appearance felt when we feel the world from absolute sense of reality. This concept comes when we think our self as ‘I’ in other words, as a separate entity and as a separate individual than others. Zen states that this dualistic approach of separateness could be turned to the non-dualistic approach through the process of meditation. Unity is attained between all, between oneself and yourself, between oneself with the super soul that is god, between all the cosmic and non-cosmic entities. Zen explains the process of non-existence or emptiness through their philosophy of ‘no’- No-Thought and No-Image. The practitioner of Zen determines this view by looking at the person every day life and his or her attitude in other words whether he is in a process of everyday standpoint or in meditational standpoint. Within the paradigm of nothingness, there is everything. Zen monks explains the concept of nothingness with the example of mirror when he states that, “the mirror reflects a thing means that it always mirrors regardless of whether it is facing or not facing a thing”.⁹ This example of a mirror is the biggest philosophical disposition and a condition of human life and its relationship with God. If one feels emptiness from all the frailties of the worldly then only man can come closer to God and attain light.

Through out a long history of encounters with indigenous religious cultures, different schools of Buddhism developed a great variety of methods and approaches in response to the specific cultural and geographical needs.¹⁰ But all are born with one concept, the realization of the vision and the enlightenment of the truth and God.

Works Cited

Baroni, Helen Josephine. “The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Zen Buddhism”. The Rosen Publishing Group, 2002.

Coogan, M.D. “The Illustrated Guide to World Religions”. Oxford University Press US, 2003.

Mu, Soeng. “The Diamond Sutra: Transforming the Way We Perceive the World”. Wisdom Publications, 2000.

Nauman, Elmo. “Dictionary of Asian Philosophies”. Routledge, 1979.

Reichelt, Karl Ludvig, “Truth and Tradition in Chinese Buddhism Or a Study of Chinese Mahayana Buddhism”. Kessinger Publishing, 2003.

Smith, Richard, “Buddhism and great prosecution in China in Critical Moments” in Religious History. Edited by Kenneth Keulman, Mercer University Press, 1993).

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Middle Path’ in Chinese Buddhism and Zen Buddhism

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