Shifting Shape, Shaping Text Shifting Shape, Shaping Text Philosophy and Folklore in the Fox Kòan Steven Heine University of Hawai‘i Press HONOLULU © 1999 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 040302010099 54321 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Heine, Steven 1950– Shifting shape, shaping text : philosophy and folklore in the Fox kòan / Steven Heine. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–8248–2150–5 (alk. paper). — ISBN 0–8248–2197–1 (paper : alk. paper) 1. Koan. 2. Hui-hai, 720–814. 3. Zen meditations. 4. Zen Buddhism—Folklore. 5. Karma. I. Title. BQ9289.5.H44 1999 294.3Ј927—dc21 99–24368 CIP University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. Designed by Northeastern Graphic Services, Inc. Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group Contents Preface vii Abbreviations xi Part One: Shape-Shifting 1. Putting the Fox Back in the Fox Kòan 3 2. The Kòan’s Multivalent Discursive Structure 41 Part Two: Text-Shaping 3. Philosophical Paradigm of Paradoxicality 67 4. Deep Faith in Causality 105 5. Folklore Morphology and the Issue of Repentance 131 6. Unconcluding Methodological Reflections 177 Appendix I: Translations of Fox Kòan Commentaries 201 Appendix II: Translation of “Pai-chang’s Monastic Rules” 217 Notes 223 List of Sino-Japanese Terms 261 Bibliography 000 Index 000 v Preface It takes a fox to know a fox. —Ts’ung-jung lu, case 24 This book draws on my fascination with the complex vari- eties and multiple meanings of the shape-shifting wild fox—a symbol of liminality in East Asian folklore—in order to analyze the theory and practice of Ch’an/Zen Buddhism in its formative period in China and Ja- pan. The book develops a wide range of implications about early Zen by examining a specific example of the kòan tradition known as “Pai-chang (J. Hyakujò) and the wild fox” or “Pai-chang’s wild fox kòan,” which is in- cluded as the second case in the Wu-men kuan and numerous other col- lections. While most interpretations comment on the philosophy of causality, my aim is to show how the fox kòan deals with the doctrine of karma in terms of a generally overlooked folklore narrative of fox-spirit possession and exorcism borrowed from Buddhist morality tale litera- ture (often labeled setsuwa bungaku). The kòan thus serves as a lens for examining the intersection in Zen of philosophical discussions on cause-and-effect and popular religious approaches to karmic retribution and release. The relation between these interlocking discursive perspec- tives is discussed in light of the image of Master Pai-chang as a strict dis- ciplinarian who advocates an ethic of “no work, no food”—an ethic reflected in his monastic rules text, the Ch’an-men kuei-shih (J. Zenmon vii viii • Preface kishiki), which also stresses the need to banish rogue or miscreant mem- bers of the saºgha. Thus the book deals with the relation between a triad of issues: a philo- sophical debate about the paradoxical identity of causality and its antithe- sis noncausality; a folkloric expression of retribution and repentance conveyed by the kòan’s exorcism narrative; and Pai-chang’s monastic rules and recorded sayings texts. The book demonstrates that Pai-chang’s rules and records articulate a sense of monastic order and moral stability that combats the criticism of Buddhism as an antinomian, antisocial, “wild fox” religious lifestyle in a way that dovetails with the ritual elimina- tion of an intruding vulpine spirit that is performed in the kòan record. Chapter 1 introduces the text and context of the fox kòan and evaluates Zen’s ambiguous (or duplicitous) attitude about supernatural beliefs and diverse uses of the rhetoric of the wild fox—either as a criticism of rogue monks who violate rules or as praise of morally superior patriarchs who transcend the need for regulations. This chapter analyzes various kinds of syncretism incorporating indigenous fox-cult worship that encompasses the poles of the fox portrayed as positive/protective and as negative/de- structive—even while Zen rhetoric cloaks itself in an aura of iconoclastic repudiation of animism. Chapter 2 explores the methodological issue of examining the connection between philosophy and folklore while at- tempting to overcome the conventional two-tiered model of great and lit- tle traditions. The underlying theme in the examination of ambivalent approaches to the fundamentally bivalent vulpine imagery in Part One is that fox transfiguration represents the crossing of boundaries and the possibility of conquering illusion during times of transition and transfor- mation—especially in moral crises when conventional reality is chal- lenged, undermined, or otherwise called into question. Throughout the book there are citations of literary and artistic expressions of fox folklore in relation to Zen thought. In Part Two, Chapter 3 focuses on philosophical interpretations of the doctrine of causality and explores the debate between a literal reading of the kòan, which emphasizes a strict adherence to the law of karma, and the mainstream paradoxical reading, which embraces an identity of causality and noncausality. Chapter 4 deals extensively with the contra- dictory interpretations of the fox kòan presented in two fascicles of Dògen’s Shòbògenzò and related writings. It also considers the contro- versy in contemporary scholarship, particularly Critical Buddhism, about whether it is possible to appropriate Dògen’s apparent change of Preface • ix heart—expressed in an exclusive emphasis on the literal reading of the kòan in his later period—to illumine socioethical problems in Bud- dhism’s interaction with modern society. Chapter 5, citing examples of fox folklore from a variety of setsuwa sources, shows that one must un- derstand how folklore motifs provide a literary and conceptual under- pinning of the fox kòan’s approach to the experience of repentance if one is to interpret the philosophical level of the case. Chapter 6 returns to the hermeneutic issue of overcoming the two-tiered model. In this chapter I assess recent attempts by leading scholars to deal with the role of popular religions in the Zen tradition and then propose an alternative model based on a theory of intertextuality—that is, the interconnected- ness of diverse textual materials. The appendixes contain two sets of translations. Appendix I presents the standard Wu-men kuan edition and an alternative early edition of the fox kòan from the T’ien-sheng kuang-teng lu, including a detailed com- parison of the two versions, as well as the edition of the kòan in the Ts’ung-jung lu kòan collection and two verses contained in Dògen’s Eihei kòroku juko collection. Appendix II presents a translation of Pai-chang’s rules, the Ch’an-men kuei-shih, which was first included as an appendix to the biography of Pai-chang in the Ching-te ch’uan-teng lu (“transmis- sion of the lamp” text) of 1004. Additional translations of prose and po- etic commentaries on the kòan appear throughout the book. Acknowledgments The major source of funding for the research for this book was a fellow- ship awarded by the National Endowment of the Humanities (1996–1997). Other funding sources include Florida International Uni- versity DSRT funding (1997–1998), the Northeast Asia Council of the Association for Asian Studies (1996), the American Academy of Religion (1996), the Pennsylvania State University Liberal Arts Research and Graduate Studies Office (1994 and 1996) as well as the Institute for Arts and Humanistic Studies (1995), the Indiana University East Asian Studies Program (1995), and the University of Chicago East Asian Studies Program (1996). Some of the material first appeared in “Putting the ‘Fox’ Back in the ‘Wild Fox Kòan’: The Intersection of Philosophical and Popular Reli- gious Elements in the Ch’an/Zen Kòan Tradition,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 56(2) (1996):257–317. Additional material was incorpo- x • Preface rated from the following two articles: “Sòtò Zen and the Inari Cult: Symbiotic and Exorcistic Trends in Buddhist–Folk Religious Amalgam- ations,” Pacific World 10 (1994):71–95; and “Critical Buddhism (Hihan Bukkyò) and the Debate Concerning the 12-Fascicle and 75-Fascicle Shòbògenzò Texts,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 21(1) (1994):37–72. Various versions of the paper on the fox kòan were pre- sented at the Harvard University Buddhist Studies Forum (1994), the American Academy of Religion’s annual national meeting (1994) and Mid-Atlantic annual regional meeting (1996), the Fuse Lecture Series of the University of Tokyo Department of Indian and Buddhist Philosophy (1996), the Princeton University East Asian Studies Department (1997), and the Miami-Dade CC Honors Program (1998). I thank Yoshizu Yoshihide and Ishii Shûdò of Komazawa University and Sueki Fumihiko of Tokyo University for helpful advice and suggestions that guided my re- search in Zen theories and practices. Thanks also to Patricia Crosby and the staff of University of Hawai‘i Press for their support. Special thanks also to David Olson, Soho Machida, Dale Wright, Bernard Faure, Jackie Stone, and Karen Smyers, among other foxy friends. Figures 11 and 12 showing inscribed stones from Pai-chang’s temple in Kiangsi province in China—including what is said to be the original “wild fox rock” where the discovery of the vulpine corpse and funeral took place according to the kòan narrative—are presented courtesy of Ishii Shûdò. Thanks also to Stephen Addiss for permission to reprint two pho- tos (Figures 2 and 14) from his collection and to the Idemitsu Museum of Art for Figure 1. Notes on Transliteration This book uses the term “Zen” to refer to both Ch’an Buddhism in China and Zen Buddhism in Japan (except in quotations from scholars who do otherwise).