Transcript Review:

Review
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Buddhism as Indo-European thought system
Four noble truths
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Pessimism and “kindergarten” Buddhism
Philosophical focus on Nirvana (Buddha-nature)
Theory develops with politically natural split
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Mahayana and Theravada
How many can reach Nirvana?
To China
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Mahayana and Hinayana schism necessary
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Importance for China
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Otherwise elitist, egoistic, mentalist and immoral
Neo-Daoism, Dark Learning and Pure conversation
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Vehicles for metaphysical parallels for Nirvana-無
"Grade analysis" of sutras
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Insights into paradoxes of Buddhism
More intellectual, metaphysical for “higher” level
Paradoxes
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Paradox of desire
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Leads to Boddhisattva ideal
With Zen wrinkle—all are Buddha:only lack realization
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Like Confucian all are Sages/Daoist all are natural
Yogacara paradoxes
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Individual achievement meaningless
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Karma and consciousness slices
Paradox of illusion = Buddha nature
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Aren’t the illusions real?
Madyamika Paradoxes
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Contradiction and eventual silence
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Opposites, Both and, neither nor, repeat
Daoist facilitated merging—玄學 dark learning
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Being and non-being  emptiness, Nirvana
Questions:
Explain Peirce’s
theory of belief and
how to fix belief.
All is pure Buddha nature
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How does Madyamika get to Zen result?
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Nothing is real but Buddha Nature
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Ergo Everything that exists is Buddha Nature
The Illusions are Buddha Nature
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I am Buddha Nature
Flip side: illusions are Buddha-mind
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Storehouse consciousness
Everything is Buddha-nature
Chinese Big Schools
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Tian-tai天台and Huayen華嚴for theory
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禪 Chan for practice!
清土 Pure Land for populace
Chan 禪 from Channa (=Dyana = meditation)
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Paradox: rejects meditation
Daoist reversal
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meditation = everyday consciousness = Satori
Logical development of Madyamika
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Everything is Buddha nature
You are already Buddha
Internal Story
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Hui Neng 慧能 and the Platform Sutra 六 祖
壇 經 of the 6th Patriarch
Illiterate woodcutter becomes 6th patriarch
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Chinese Buddhist focus on line of transmission
No words and easy enlightenment
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Southern barbarian(?) hears and enlightened
Goes to temple
Never Allowed to Study
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Pounds rice, carries wood
Poem story: Competition of desert v learned
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No dust to wipe from the mirror
No illusions to dispel
Kyoto Stories
Enlightened before he went to the temple
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Not from gradual study—Shen Xiu
Aftermath
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Leaves monastery to return to Guangdong
mountains!
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Walking Zen
Throws away the robe signifying status
Importance to spread of Zen (Chan)
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Cluster of sects concentrated in Southern China
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Cultural area v Northern Barbarians
Tang idenity
South:North::Sudden:Gradual enlightenment
Background
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Cultural revolution against Buddhism
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Foreign, too intellectualized v practical native
philosophies
Egalitarian tendencies
Southern movement
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Internal reform of Buddhism along Daoist lines
Shift of center of Chinese intellectual culture
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Reassertion of Chinese characteristics and own form
Egalitarian, common sense, practical,
External Story
 Shen
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Hui (7th) the real influence
Vanquished Shen Xiu and Northern 禪
Chan
 Becomes
7th patriarch
 6th may be a fiction(?)
 Sudden
v. gradual enlightenment
Cultivation to some goal v
– Give up the goal!
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Paradox of desire: Zen style!
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Give up desire for Nirvana first
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Daoist view of desire/distinction
Give up distinction of meditation/ordinary
consciousness
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Enlightenment and ordinary practice
Dualism of Nirvana/Samsara
Buddhism (period)
Story of Shen Hui
 Exile
and triumphant return
 Story-telling skills
 Politics and money
 Authorship of the Platform Sutra
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Daoist Wang Wei hypothesis
Great Liberation
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Rush to claim descent from Hui Neng
Wide variety but Feng's 5 common doctrines:
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No (expressible) highest truth
Spiritual cultivation cannot be cultivated
In the last resort nothing is gained
There is nothing much in Buddhist teaching
In carrying water and chopping wood lies the
wonderful dao
Iconoclastic Stories
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Function: like koans?
Burning or spitting on the Buddha
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Just wood (everything is Buddha)
No temples, praying, bowing, shaving, begging,
ritual, chanting
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Chan as Buddhist atheism
Survival in persecutions
Every Moment Zen
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Umbrella to left or right of clogs?
Doctor Story
Zen is care for patients
 A Koan – meaningless
 Absorbed in care for patients and lost
fear of death
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The Strawberry
Values of eating, drinking, sleeping
 Tiger and strawberry
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Teaching Techniques
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Interview time—anti-metaphysical
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Spit, beat, shout, awaken!
Koan—give up
Walking Zen
Never tell too plainly
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Envy of Confucians
Final Jump
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Modern scientific philosophy
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With a social model of language
Social cooperation rather than picturing the
world
 Closer
to Chinese/Nietzsche conception
 Reality in the back door
– Science as a dao
Evolution and Utility
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Some ways of talking dominate, others die out
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Science with the Nietzsche twist
A social way to survive and thrive
Science: a system of "useful" beliefs
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Natural framework—also anti-Plato and antiDescartes
Belief Analysis
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Habits of action
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not internal pictures
Practical (practice) focus
Successful or not: utility and survival
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Different interpretations of “success”
Peirce, Dewey, James