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Zen's Debt to Confucianism |
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| Author |
Kirkland, Russell
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| Source |
Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies
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| Volume | n.15 Third Series |
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| Date | 2013 |
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| Pages | 52 - 63 |
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| Publisher | Institute of Buddhist Studies |
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| Publisher Url |
http://www.shin-ibs.edu/
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| Location | Berkeley, CA, US [伯克利, 加利福尼亞州, 美國] |
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| Content type | 期刊論文=Journal Article |
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| Language | 英文=English |
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| Note | Russell Kirkland
Professor Emeritus of Religion and Asian Studies, University of Georgia |
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| Abstract | What follows is a paper presented long ago, at the American Academy of Religion, Upper Midwest Region, 1993. Naturally, as I read it today, there are many thoughts that I could add. But on the whole, it seems to present a thought that is still sound and worth considering. I should note that this was not an article composed for a scholarly journal: rather, it was an oral address for an audience of scholars and teachers of religious studies, none of whom were specialists in Chan or Zen studies, or even in Buddhism. This paper was composed with that audience in mind. Were this to have been a scholarly presentation to specialists, it would certainly have been framed quite differently. Also, there are now quite a few good scholarly overviews of Zen’s origins, and new critical essays on how we today (perhaps Westerners especially) should think about Zen’s origins. Among those, a few warrant mention here. Several are studies on which I published book notes in Religious Studies Review: Dale Wright, Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Jeffrey Broughton, The Bodhidharma Anthology: The Earliest Records of Zen (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999). Albert Welter, Monks, Rulers, and Literati: The Political Ascendancy of Chan Buddhism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006). More challenging to read, but rewarding for those with the patience to do so, is Alan Cole, Fathering Your Father: The Zen of Fabrication in Tang Buddhism (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009). And essential for distinguishing common misunderstandings from the facts of Zen’s origins enlightening introduction to the study of Zen’s origins is John McRae, Seeing through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004). The heuristic metaphor of Chan/Zen’s maternal and paternal cultural ancestry was based on a more detailed interpretive analysis of the origins of Pure Land Buddhism in China, presented at the International Association for Shin Buddhist Studies (Berkeley, 1991). A revised version of that analysis was published in this journal: “Pure Land’s Multi-Lineal Ancestry: A New Metaphor for Understanding the Evolution of ‘Living’ Religions,” Pacific World: Journal of the Institute of Buddhist Studies, 3rd series, no. 2 (2000): 177–189. Finally, I will note that the passage cited here from Herbert Fingarette’s book on Confucius should not be construed as indicating that I judge it the best interpretation of what Confucius taught. I make certain to alert students to the fact that Fingarette was a philosophy professor who could not read Chinese, and that he based his views entirely on translations and studies in English by mid-twentieth century scholars (despite its later publication date). It is also clear that Fingarette was quite mistaken in his assertion that some of Confucius’ primary teachings—such as that his society had once followed li (禮, “ritual activity”; morally and socially extended as: “doing what is proper”) but later lost it—was no more than pious fiction. Research on bronze inscription texts has shown that, at least at times, some of the rulers of feudal statelets in the centuries before Confucius did follow a shared set of moral principles, just as our world’s leaders today follow “international laws” and “diplomatic protocols”—at least at times. In sum, what appears here is not what I would have written today, if I were to approach the matter fresh. But I believe that it remains a worthwhile presentation for general audiences, and that it still provokes thought about how religions evolve within distinct historical and cultural settings. |
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| ISSN | 08973644 (E) |
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| Hits | 161 |
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| Created date | 2015.02.11 |
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| Modified date | 2021.02.03 |
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