Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-04T18:57:44.224Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Zen, Wittgenstein and Neo-orthodox Theology: The Problem of Communicating Truth in Zen Buddhism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Hsueh-Li Cheng
Hsueh-Li Cheng
Affiliation:
University of Hawaii at Hilo
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One of the problems religious men and philosophers often face is how to convey enlightenment or wisdom to others so that sentient beings can be enlightened or awakened from dogmatic views. This problem is also the question of how truth (the Word of God or Buddha's Dharma) is made known to men. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the problem of communicating truth in Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , June 1982 , pp. 133 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 133 note 1 Suzuki, D. T., Zen Buddhism (Garden City, New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1956), p. 103. He also claimed thatGoogle Scholar‘Zen has no philosophy’. See his An Introduction to Zen Buddhism (New York: Grove Press, 1964), p. 39.Google Scholar

page 133 note 2 See Chung-yuan, Chang, Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism (New York: Vintage Books, 1971), pp. 9, 14–16.Google Scholar See also McCarthy, Harold E.., ‘Poetry, Metaphysics and the Spirit of Zen’, Philosophy East and West, 1 (04 1951), 16–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 133 note 3 Canfield, John V.., ‘Wittgenstein and Zen’, Philosophy, L (10. 1975), 383.CrossRefGoogle ScholarFann, K. T. found ‘striking resemblances between Wittgenstein's methods and those of Zen Buddhism’; Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 110.Google Scholar Henry Rosemont, Jr used John L. Austin's distinction between perlocutionary and illocutionary speech acts to characterize Zen language by saying, ‘In the mondō and kōan the Zen master is not performing illocutionary but perlocutionary speech acts’; ‘The meaning is the use: kōan and mondō as linguistic tools of the Zen masters’, Philosophy East and West, XX (04 1970), 117.Google Scholar

page 134 note 1 Merton, Thomas, Mystics and Zen Masters (New York, 1967), p. 16.Google Scholar

page 134 note 2 Dumoulin, Heinrich, A History of Zen Buddhism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1963), p. 290.Google Scholar

page 134 note 3 Dick Garner says, ‘This is a conflict that has caused me a lot of concern, and at present I do not know what to make of it.’ See his ‘Skepticism, Ordinary Language and Zen Buddhism’, Philosophy East and West, XXVII (04 1977), 181.Google Scholar

page 134 note 4 There are many other names, such as ‘New Reformation Theology’, ‘Dialectical Theology’, ‘Neo-Protestantism’, ‘Neo-supernaturalism’, ’Crisis Theology’ and ‘Barthianism’, which have been given to this new theological movement among contemporary Christians. Certain neo-orthodox theologians did not want the term ‘neo-orthodox’.

page 135 note 1 Carnell, Edward John, The Case for Orthodox Theology (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1959), p. 33.Google Scholar

page 135 note 2 Warfield, Benjamin B.., The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1960), p. 218.Google Scholar

page 135 note 3 White, Victor, God the Unknown (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1956), p. 192.Google Scholar

page 136 note 1 Karl Barth, a leading neo-orthodox theologian, regarded his chief task as a theologian to be the analysis of church language. He tried to expound Reformation messages by means of language acceptable to modern men. See Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, 1, 1Google Scholar, The Doctrine of the Word of God (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936), pp.2–3.Google Scholar

page 136 note 2 See Hordern, William, The Case for A New Reformation Theology (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1959), p. 59.Google Scholar

page 136 note 3 Baillie, John, The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought (New York: Columbia University Press, 1956), p. 24.Google Scholar

page 136 note 4 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, 1, 2, pp.529–30.Google Scholar

page 137 note 1 ibid. 1, 1, p. 113.

page 138 note 1 Sūtra Spoken by the Sixth Patriarch on the High Seat of the Treasure of the Law (also called The Sutra of Hui-neng or the Platform Sūtra) (Hong Kong: H. K. Buddhist Distributor Press, 1952), p. 24.Google Scholar

page 138 note 2 Ibid.

page 138 note 3 ibid. p. 25. English translation by Wong Mou-lan with certain revision.

page 138 note 4 Ibid.

page 138 note 5 Abe, Masao, ‘Zen and Buddhism’, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, III, 3 (06 1976), p. 238.Google Scholar

page 138 note 6 The Sūtra of Hui-neng, pp.25–6.Google Scholar

page 138 note 7 Suzuki, D. T., Zen Buddhism, p. 85.Google Scholar

page 139 note 1 See Chang, Garma C. C., The Practice of Zen (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), p. 91.Google Scholar

page 139 note 2 Ibid. pp. 96–7.

page 139 note 3 The Sūtra of Hui-neng, p. 5.Google Scholar

page 139 note 4 Chung-yuan, Chang, Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism, p. 86.Google Scholar

page 139 note 5 Suzuki, D. T., Zen Buddhism, p. 59.Google Scholar

page 140 note 1 Chung-yuan, Chang, op. cit. p. 162.Google Scholar

page 140 note 2 ibid. p. 176.

page 140 note 3 Barth, Karl, Church Dogmatics, 1, 2, p. 590.Google Scholar

page 140 note 4 Suzuki, D. T., Zen Buddhism, p. 61.Google Scholar See also Dumoulin, Heinrich, A History of Zen Buddhism, p. 67.Google Scholar

page 140 note 5 Suzuki, D. T., Essays in Zen Buddhism, first series (New York: Grove Press, 1961), p. 19.Google Scholar

page 140 note 6 The Sūtra of Hui-neng, p. 1.Google Scholar

page 141 note 1 Suzuki, D. T., Essays in Zen Buddhism, p. 247.Google Scholar See also Dumoulin, Heinrich, op. cit. pp. 100–1.Google Scholar

page 141 note 2 The Sūtra of Hui-neng, pp. 40–1.Google Scholar

page 141 note 3 Chang, Garma C. C., op. cit. p. 93.Google Scholar

page 142 note 1 ibid. p. 71.

page 142 note 2 ibid. p. 21.

page 142 note 3 Chung-yuan, Chang, op. cit. p. xi.Google Scholar

page 142 note 4 Ibid.

page 142 note 5 ibid. p. 101.

page 142 note 6 ibid. p. 165.

page 142 note 7 ibid. p. 141. Suzuki, D. T., Essays in Zen Buddhism, first series, p. 264.Google Scholar

page 142 note 8 Chang Chung-yuan, Ibid.

page 143 note 1 ibid. p. 140.

page 143 note 2 ibid. p. 145.

page 143 note 3 Ibid.

page 143 note 4 ibid. p. 176.

page 143 note 5 ibid. p. 140.

page 143 note 6 ibid. p. 272.

page 143 note 7 Ibid.

page 143 note 8 Ibid.

page 143 note 9 Izutsu, Toshihiko, ‘The Philosophical Problem of Articulation in Zen Buddhism’, Revue Internationale de Philosophie, XXVIII (1974), 176.Google Scholar

page 143 note 10 Chung-yuan, Chang, op. cit. p. 100.Google Scholar

page 144 note 1 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigations, translated by Anscombe, G. E. M. (New York: Macmillan, 1968), p. 48.Google Scholar

page 144 note 2 ibid. p. 47.

page 144 note 3 Chung-yuan, Chang, op. cit. p. 92.Google Scholar

page 144 note 4 Blofeld, John, The Zen Teachings of Huang Po (New York: Grove Press, 1958), p. 36.Google Scholar

page 144 note 5 ibid. p. 72.

page 144 note 6 ibid. p. 82.

page 145 note 1 ibid. p. 34.

page 145 note 2 Chung-yuan, Chang, op. cit. p. 46.Google Scholar

page 145 note 3 ibid. p. 45.

page 146 note 1 Dumoulin, Heinrich, op. cit. p. 266.Google Scholar

page 146 note 2 Chang, Garma C. C., The Practice of Zen, pp. 54–6.Google Scholar

page 146 note 3 Suzuki, D. T., An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, p. 58.Google Scholar

page 146 note 4 ibid. p. 59.

page 147 note 1 Suzuki, D. T., Zen Buddhism, p. 66.Google Scholar

page 148 note 1 Chung-yuan, Chang, op. cit. p. 156.Google Scholar

page 148 note 2 ibid. p. 169.

page 148 note 3 The Sūtra of Hui-neng, p. 26.Google Scholar

page 148 note 4 Chung-yen, Chang, op. cit. p. 133.Google Scholar

page 148 note 5 ibid. p. 132.

page 149 note 1 ibid. p. 93–4.

page 149 note 2 ibid. p. 191.

page 149 note 3 For the more detailed discussion of this, see Cheng, Hsueh-li, ‘Zen and San-lun Mādhyamika Thought: Exploring the Theoretical Foundation of Zen Teachings and Practices’, Religious Studies, XV (09 1979), 343–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 149 note 4 Chung-yuan, Chang, op. cit. p. 148.Google Scholar

page 149 note 5 Chang, Garma C. C., op. cit. p. 80.Google Scholar