CONFUCIUS AND INDIAN MAHAYANA, WHO TIES THE SHOES OF ZEN?

Benjamin A.F. Jumper

Mahayana comes to the scene with a basic foundation that everything headed was really only given a new title, but still, is the moon, to whom including mind, human nature, and Buddhahood are empty; empty as they point. With this Confucian backing and the introduction of the dependent impermanence, empty as Silence. The Mahayana thread is empty Mahayana we Þnd that Zen masters of China had yet another tool where the emptiness becomes woven into Zen, but as we will see Con- to build the raft. They incorporated the new and foreign insight with fucian thought plays into the scene in a much stronger way than most their own language and approach to create Zen Buddhahood. consider. When considering technique, we Þnd the art of meditation and an In Zen, Òrealizing the mind to see into nature,Ó and Òseeing into element brought from India, with the Mahayana tradition. Though in nature to attain Buddhahood are two of the best known Zen statementsÓ Confucianism we Þnd one must exhaustingly examine thyself, this not (Cheng, Z/C Phil of Mind, p.1). While these are the keys of the door- necessarily the same format that is found in Indian meditation, yet the less Zen, they too are the key teachings of Confucius. Confucius points focus is close. The act of sitting and vaporizing the thoughts of the mind that to see into oneÕs own mind is to see into nature, to see into nature in silence is different than Confucian education. This new method of is to see into oneÕs own mind, and in doing this one sees the essence education, meditation, was an opening to new grounds for the Chinese of sagehood or Buddhahood. When examining the message brought mind. Over the years they have transformed the Mahayana form of sit- to China by Bodhidharma, the 1st patriarch of Zen, we Þnd two lines ting meditation, the core concept brought from India, to the martial arts that are an obvious assimilation of Confucius thought. This assimilation Þeld. This transformation mirrors the similar philosophical alteration could have taken place to adjust the wild metaphysical mind of India to spoken of earlier, where the Chinese mind is adapted upon the incoming Þt into the more practical mind of China. The Bodhidharma poem is as Indian mind. follows: Within Zen we Þnd that the disciples get a hard time from their masters. IÕm not certain if Mahayana meditation can receive any credit for this or not, but I know that in Confucian education to receive a hard time is to open new grounds. For the more you suffer the higher you can get on the other side. The interaction between disciples and masters dur- Now where this poem is Confucius and not Mahayana language is ing transmission of the message also holds a likeness to Confucianism. simple and is made clearer through NagarjunaÕs words. In Mahayana In Zen we Þnd a mind-to-mind transmission, where in Confucianism we see the core of emptiness and from this core stems NagarjunaÕs poem we see a heart-to-heart communication, hence the interaction between of no self-nature and no other-nature: master and disciple is very similar to Confucianism. While Mahayana can be accredited with bringing meditation and emptiness to China, Confucian thought sits stronger in Zen. For Confu- Here within Mahayana we see that there is no nature, no self-na- cian thought is found in the key teachings of Zen: direct pointing at mind ture, or other-nature due to the causal dependency. Therefore, Òa Bud- to see into nature, hence attaining Buddhahood, this has ConfuciusÕs dhist should not have the idea of nature, self-nature, or other-natureÓ smile all over it. Also in the teaching techniques and approaches of (Cheng, Z/C Phil of Mind, p.7). Zen we Þnd Confucius again. Confucianism was well understood and Consequently, for BodhidharmaÕs last two lines to be discussing founded when Buddhism arrived to China, and was in return used to the manner and method of seeing mind, to see own nature, to see nature communicate the new message and make a practical use from this mes- of things, to see own nature, to see own mind, must have come from an sage. This old and new message was for all, for as Confucius says, ÒAll outside inßuence. The inßuence most easily selected and most under- contain Ôsagehood.ÕÓ stood by the majority of the minds in China would have been that of Confucius. I donÕt feel that such a selection was based solely because EDITORÕS NOTE: This is an exploratory essay about semantics and the language rang more true, but also for the practicality of applica- cognitive processes that was written for Philosophy 435, Philosophy of tion. This was a method (see own mind, see nature, see own nature, to Zen. see sage/Buddhahood) that the people of China could understand, ap- ply, and were already doing. Now the direction of which the focus was 101 Work Cited

Hsueh-li Cheng, ÒZen and Confucian Philosophy of Mind,Ó November 2003, 1-18.

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