What Is Buddhist Enlightenment?

What Is Buddhist Enlightenment? What Is Buddhist Enlightenment? z DALE S. WRIGHT 1 1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2016 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. CIP data is on file at the Library of Congress ISBN 978– 0– 19– 062259– 6 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America Contents Acknowledgments vii Introduction: Why Ask What Enlightenment Is? 1 PART I: Contemporary Images of Enlightenment 1. The Bodhisattva’s Practice of Enlightenment 13 2. The Awakening of Character as an Image of Contemporary Enlightenment 30 3. Secular Buddhism and the Religious Dimension of Enlightenment 45 PART II: The Moral Dimension of Enlightenment 4. Enlightenment and the Experience of Karma 73 5. Enlightenment and the Moral Dimension of Zen Training 92 6. Enlightenment and the Persistence of Human Fallibility 106 7. The Thought of Enlightenment and the Dilemma of Human Achievement 129 vi Contents PART III: Language and the Experience of Enlightenment 8. Language in Zen Enlightenment 145 9. Enlightenment and the Practice of Meditative Reading 171 10. From the Thought of Enlightenment to the Event of Awakening 186 Conclusion: Ten Theses on Contemporary Enlightenment 198 Notes 221 Bibliography 235 Acknowledgments Those who sTudy Buddhist philosophy or engage in any of its practices of introspective mindfulness cannot help but develop an awareness of a paradox at the very center of human life—that our freedom or indepen- dence is correlative with its opposite, our dependence. This is to say that our capacity to stand on our own, independently, is roughly proportional to the guidance and help that we have been given from birth forward. Although these dependencies are so far- reaching in my case that I cannot possibly name them, it seems important to state openly that whatever has been accomplished in this book is deeply dependent on the roles played in my life by many people and many communities. Without their guidance and support, this would not have been possible. I bow in deep appreciation to my parents and ancestors and extend that gratitude to many other members of my family too numerous to name, although in this instance, I cannot help but mention Brendan Wright, Lindsay Wright, and Diana Browning Wright. Gratitude goes to my teach- ers at all levels but especially in later stages: Allan Anderson, G. Ray Jordan, Issa Kahlil, Wang Pachow, Robert Baird, Robert Scharlemann, and Taizan Maezumi. Thanks to many students at Occidental College whose expectation that I teach something worthwhile has helped me to learn something worthwhile, and to everyone at Occidental College with whom I have long shared the pleasures and struggles of a diverse and complex intellectual community. Deep appreciation goes to friends and colleagues with whom ideas are shared and honed, among them Maria Antonaccio, Steven Barrie-Anthony, Stephen Batchelor, Sylvie Baumgartl, David Eckel, Steven Heine, David James, David Jasper, John Kelly, Karen King, David Klemm, Taigen Leighton, Sam Mowe, D. Keith Naylor, and Kristi Upson- Saia. Special appreciation to Malek Moazzam- Doulat with whom I have cultivated ideas in a course titled “What Is Enlightenment?” I extend my gratitude to Cynthia Read and her staff at Oxford University Press as a viii Acknowledgments fortunate recipient of the professional expertise that this publisher has long exhibited at the highest level of excellence. I dedicate this book to the poet in my life, Martha Ronk, upon whom I depend daily for love and liberation. The ideas presented in this book have been under development for much of my life. Several chapters and segments of chapters have appeared in publication in earlier stages of this development and are acknowl- edged here. A preliminary version of chapter 1 was published in Ethics in the World’s Religions, edited by Joseph Runzo and Nancy M. Martin (Oxford: One World Press, 2001). Several of the key points in chapter 4 were published in an essay, “Critical Questions Toward a Naturalized Concept of Karma,” in the Journal of Buddhist Ethics (Vol. 2, 2004). An earlier version of chapter 5, “Satori and the Moral Dimension of Enlightenment,” was published in the Journal of Buddhist Ethics (Vol. 13, 2006). A version of 6 appeared as “Humanizing the Image of a Zen Master: Maezumi Roshi,” in Zen Masters, edited by Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). A version of chapter 8 was published as “Re- thinking Transcendence: The Role of Language in Zen Experience,” in Philosophy East and West (Vol. 42, No. 1, January 1992). A version of chapter 9 was previously published as “Empty Texts/ Sacred Meaning: Reading as Spiritual Practice in Chinese Buddhism,” in Dao: Journal of Comparative Philosophy (Vol. 2, No. 2, Summer 2003). Chapter 10 is an expansion of ideas first published as “The ‘Thought of Enlightenment’ in Fa- tsang’s Hua- yen Buddhism,” in The Eastern Buddhist (Vol. 33, No. 2, 2001). What Is Buddhist Enlightenment? Introduction Why Ask What Enlightenment Is? when european inTellecTuals in the late eighteenth century engaged in high- profile, public debate on the question “What is enlightenment?,”1 Buddhist answers to this question never came up for consideration, and it is safe to say that no participant in these debates would have or could have believed that this “oriental” religion had anything even remotely to do with “enlightenment.” Although knowledge of Buddhism was already accumulating in Europe by that time through the merchants, mission- aries, and soldiers that the various European empires had dispatched to Asia, what they “knew” about Buddhism was that this ascetic, monastic religion was curiously nihilistic in its central goal: nirvāna or “nothing- ness” as it was called in various European languages. “Enlightenment,” by contrast, was— in Immanuel Kant’s influential version— a state of “matu- rity” in individuals and communities that gave them the courage to think for themselves rather than turning the crucial decisions in their lives over to priests and lords. It seemed to them that the teachings of the Buddha were intended to negate and transcend human life whereas the “enlightenment” that modernity cultivated turned away from the ascetic world denial characteristic of traditional religions in preference for a liberating affirma- tion of human life in this world. A little over a half century later, for an interesting set of reasons, Max Müller and other philosophically minded scholars curious about Asia began to use the word “enlightenment” in reference to the ultimate goal of Buddhism. What Buddhists sought and sometimes attained through their practices, these scholars claimed, was enlightenment. The prestige that the word “enlightenment” still carried in Europe initiated a radical 2 i nTroducTion reversal of views about Buddhism. This linguistic and cultural innovation was so successful that, by the end of the twentieth century, very few people in the West could hear the question “What is enlightenment?” without thinking of Buddhism. “Enlightenment” came to signify what Buddhism was all about, and nothing seemed to be about enlightenment as much as Buddhism.2 In spite of that historical development, however, very little discus- sion of the meaning or possibility of enlightenment takes place among contemporary Buddhists, East or West. The question “What is enlightenment?” is carefully avoided, acquiring, in effect, an almost taboo status among Buddhists. There are interesting and often persuasive reasons for this unspoken prohibition on inquiry into the meaning of enlightenment, including the following: • In the early stages of the practice of Buddhism, whatever conception we might have of enlightenment would be misleading, even blatantly false, and in more advanced stages of practice there would be no point in asking the question. • Any answer we might give to the question “What is enlightenment?” would inevitably reify the aim of the spiritual quest, and reification— considering something more substantial and definable than it could ever be—is in Buddhism the quintessential error of an unenlightened life. • Any concept of enlightenment that we might hold as a goal will inevitably presuppose a troublesome temporal dichotomy between our unenlightened present and our hoped- for enlightened future, so the goal is always projected far out ahead of us in time and is, as a consequence, never present in the here and now. • In any case, pondering a distant goal in theory is a waste of current energy— energy that would be much better applied to practice. Instead, quiet the flow of obsessive thinking, put yourself in a mindful state of presence, and let enlightenment take care of itself. Although we could probably extend this list of reasons to avoid the question that guides this book, our aim is to provide persuasive reasons to the contrary. This book aspires to make the case that, if you are a serious practitioner of human life, whether Buddhist or not, the question “What is enlightenment?” (or any equivalent version of the question) is among the most important questions you can possibly ask.

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