Zhi Yi wrote these brief ten lessons in “how to do Zen” in 580 AD. It has been a best seller since then. Still popular in modern Japanese bookshops, the book also goes by the title “Sho Shikan” , Brief lessons in “Stop” “Look” Zen meditation. Written in a modern, readable style, the book is widely used today as a manual for teaching and practicing Zen (Chan) meditation – one can actually practice Zen while sitting, standing, walking, or even lying down. Healing, expelling evil, and openness to understanding other forms of spiritual practice, are included in the brief “Sho Shikan” text.
Zen is for Everyone click here to purchase.
Buddhist Studies in People’s Republic of China 1990-1991
This “cutting edge” selection of contemporary Buddhist Studies in China is a marvelous tool for understanding the intellectual as well as the spiritual rebirth going on inside China today. Originally published as a textbook for upper division and graduate level studies, it soon became popular with the general public, as a means to understand the great legacy of China’s unique contribution to Buddhist spirituality in Asia. “Shen Xiu and Northern Zen (no different from the southern school), “Minority” Chinese Buddhist intellectuals, “Daoist Zhuangzi and the spread of Buddhism,” and “Buddhist Art Imagery,” are among the themes covered by the book’s authors.
Buddhist Studies in People’s Republic of China click here to purchase.
Velvet Bonds: the Chinese Family
This carefully researched and documented study shows how and why the Family has been the very core and sustaining force in China’s 5000+ year-old cultural history. The statistical segment of the book uses the analytical methodology developed at Stanford University, by the noted contemporary scholars Arthur and Margery Wolf, Huang Chieh-san, and the NSF sponsored staff. Velvet Bonds covers a 100 period history of change and growth in 4500 families, with 20,000 family members. 4 distinct patterns appear, which preserve the family institution through peace, war, and the social upheavals of the past century. Urban and agriculture based villages have differing statistical structures. The study then shows case studies of 5 Taiwan, 5 Mainland, and 5 ethnic minority families, including Tibetan, Islamic, the lesser known Muosuo matriarchy, as well as primitive Aini-Hani mountainside terraced irrigation villages. The study concludes with an exhaustive TAT (Thematic Apperception test) analysis of cultural differences between Chinese, Japanese, SE Asian, and American students, who attended University lectures that dealt with the “Velvet Bonds” statistical record. Lower and upper division university courses, graduate seminars, and the general public have purchased and enjoyed the stories and social values, showing the strength of the Chinese Families portrayed in Velvet Bonds.
Velvet Bonds: the Chinese Family click here to purchase.
T’ien T’ai Buddhism and Early Madhyamika
This fascinating study by Professor Yu Kuan Ng is one of the very best and clearest explanations of the famous “Middle Way” school of Mahayana, in East Asian Buddhism. The Middle Way, known as the Madhyamika in Sanskrit, was formulated in India by a monk named Nagarjuna, and developed into a full spiritual practice system by the Chinese monk Zhi Yi (Jr Yi), the founder of T’ain-t’ai Buddhism in China. Zhi YI made the “Middle Way” into a more practical, “emptying” form of meditation in China. The book has helped College students, and the general public, understand this basic spiritual path of Asia.
T’ien T’ai Buddhism and Early Madhyamika click here to purchase.
Inter-religious dialogue
To carry on inter-religious dialogue in Asian and other contexts, we may perhaps be as profoundly and deeply moved by including the writings of “real” spiritual masters, in other than Greco-Roman contexts – e.g., Daoist, Buddhist, and Confucian philosophers of East Asia, for instance, whom early Jesuits felt were as appropriate for China, as Plato and Aristotle were for Rome, are crucial to inter-religious understanding.
We would like to suggest other than pre-Christian Greek thinkers, i.e., the works of Asian teachers, Confucius, Lao-tzu, Zhuang-tzu, and the various Buddhist masters of spiritual cultivation, are relevant to inner cultivation as well as to inter-religious dialogue. Ricci was all for Confucius, but other great Jesuits wanted Daoist and Buddhist philosophers included, as relevant to Christian, as well as other inner cultivation practices.
The “catholic” (.e., universal) mind is the mind open to everything true. In the words of Thomas Aquinas (& Aristotle, Jewish Maimonidies, Islamic Avicenna), “Omne ens est verum” “Every being is true.” It is the very nature of mind as such to recognize the “true” (ie factual existence) of all nature/creation. Augustine was particularly concerned with those philosophers who resonate with the “koan” found in Christianity. “Everything that is true,” is precisely the point for inter-religious dialogue. Daoist Lao-tzu, Zhuangzi, as well as the I-ching follow Ignatius’ and Gregory of Nyssa’s 4 steps to unitive experience. Spring’s 元 primordial purifying/ ploughing, is the purgative way; summer’s heng 亨nourishing with sacred image, is the kataphatic illuminative way; “li” 利 autumn cutting is apopathic emptying way; winter’s zhen 貞 unitive way, is when God/Dao writes on the soul in flaming characters.
Anyone concerned with inter-religious dialogue must, I think, begin with finding what is common to all religions as a point from which to initiate discussion. This common point is, we propose, the “3rd” was of apophatic emptying (kenosis).
In most of Asia, for instance, “religion” does not mean a belief system with a creed, but rather, the rites of passage (the “7 sacraments”) and the annual festivals and customs. 3 forms of teachings, Confucian for human-to-human relations/ethics, Buddhism for compassion, and Daoism for human relationships to Transcendent (*Wuwei) Dao gestated nature, are taken as 3 teachings (not religions) that comprise one culture. The philosophers of these 3 systems were seen by the early Jesuits as teachers, like Plato and Aristotle, providing a fertile field ready for the seeds of faith, compatible with Christian spirituality. It is not necessary for Asians of any religious system to read Plato or Aristotle to be “true” Christians, Confucians, or Muslims, except when taking university level philosophy courses.
The obvious starting point for all inter-religious dialogue is a universal spiritual experience. The via apophatica, a no-judgment, no concept, no image of the Transcendent, is a common starting point for Daoist, Buddhist, Christian, Islamic, and Judaic dialogue. “Noche Oscura”, the Agony in the Garden, “why hast thou forsaken me”, are shared aspects of Transcendent God awareness, from Jesus’ own prayer experience, in Christian teaching.
The famous quote from Augustine, “Our minds were made for Thee O Lord, and will not rest until they rest in thee,” suggests that our minds “rest”/cease in God’s presence. The common point for dialogue here is the “heart fasting, sitting in forgetfulness” of the Chuang-tzu (Zhuangzi, Ch. 4), and the 3rd step “annihilation” of selfish focus of Buddha’s 4 noble truths. Theresa de Avila, Zohar’s Kabala, Attar’s “Conference of the Birds,” further describe a seven stage process through the experience of apophasis.
Modern “western” philosophers tend to see Aristotle’s Metaphysics as portraying a “god” who does not “need” human love or worship. Our dialogue might perhaps suggest that this may be a misreading of Aristotle’s text; the meaning in the Greek version of Meta.12/6-9 is simply that God’s gestation-creation can only be motivated by “love”, not “being alone,” since the transcendent ultimate Act already has “absolutely” all that Absolute Itself needs – to exist, “tw `eivai” is a verb,” as the Zohar, and Sufi Attar assure us.
Another point for dialogue, from human-ethology (and other modern scholar’s view) is the data, which shows that the very brain structure of the atheist and the religious believer are different, ie location in the brain of atheist, vs believer activity are different. The apophatic way would suggest that the cessation of all sense-derived negative judgment in the mind is necessary before the human psyche can evolve to a stage where Divine or Absolute Presence can be recognized, for believer or atheist, a state also known as “wisdom,” or “belly centered” rather than heart (selfish) or judgment-mind focused, in Daoist cultivation.
One of the best sources for dialogue is the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius de Loyola. In the 1st and 2nd week of the Exercises, conceptual imaging is required for spiritual cultivation. In the Via Kataphatica image and word are crucial, ie, special to each religious tradition, and therefore not open to dialogue. In the 3rd an 4th week, the Via Apophatica, ie, the cessation of judgment and desire, leads to union. Thus reason is sublimated in the 3rd and 4th week. Please look at the illustration that Juan de la Cruz puts at the beginning of his work, “not” philosophy, “not” theology, for direct contemplation of Divine Presence. We must read and do the Spiritual Exercises again, for dialogue in this context. Teresa de Avila said explicitly that only those trained in the Sp. Exercises could be adequate spiritual advisors in prayer.
Another point for common discussion is that a “Trinity” aspect of the Absolute is an essential part of all spiritual traditions, ie God/Dao as gestating, mediating and indwelling is basic to all spiritual cultivation experience. The Incarnation is also one of the most easily understood doctrines to ordinary people, not involved in the Neo-platonic and Gnostic heresies of the 4th-10th centuries. Thank God for Francis of Assissi, who saw how easy it was to Love Jesus as a child, or feel the suffering of Mary holding her crucified son. Renaissance art is one of the greatest vehicles for dialogue in Asia. “Art as Sacred Image Encounter,” is the very foundation of the 2nd, and 3rd weeks of the Exercises.
Another point for discussion: Greco-Roman influence on Christianity is enhanced and complimented by the Asian prayer of “total body” experience. Intellect knows, heart loves, belly is for intuitive awareness of presence, “gut” feeling; God is here, right now, creating me, every largest and smallest thing in nature, given to me, — again found in the “Contemplatio ad Amorem” of Inigo de Loyola – a Spanish spiritual context where Kabala, Sufi, and Catholic mysticism flourished in proximity to each other. The whole point of Ignatius’ exercises is that the WHOLE BODY, all the senses are used to pray, not just the intellect.
Could we not say, as well, that faith does not need reason to believe, ie, “blessed are you because you have not seen, and still believe.” Reason diminishes the spiritual experience of immediate “now” awareness of presence. In this sense, what is in the intellect is essentially always in ”past” tense, having passed from the sound emitted by the speaker, or written word seen by the eye, through the senses of the hearer/seer, into the brain and then into intellect judging and storing, ie the “idea” itself is irretrievably in past tense, just as the heart/will is always in future tense (until the willed object is attained and contemplated). Thus wisdom as “now” experience of Divine Presence cannot happen as long as the intellect and will are active. All Christian mystics, including Paul 1st Cor., assure us of this. “The eye cannot see, the ear cannot hear, the mind cannot conceive,… the Divine Image.”
Professor Jim Schall SJ, Georgetown University scholar observes: “Much modern rationalism, under the guise of method, wants to limit reason to what is now called “scientific” reasoning. This step narrows the meaning of reason and excludes large portions of reality that the method cannot touch because it limits itself to the measurable in terms of quantity. If God and the soul are not `quantities,’ this method cannot deal with them.” This is, indeed, very true! Could we not then say that both science and reason in the presence of God, Divine Love, Beauty, are both irrelevant? God as Love, or living presence, felt interiorly, totally renders useless the use of mind or reason; it is equally out of the range of observed measurement that defines science, as well as “Christian” reasoning that judges ill of all others who disagree with one or another interpretation of biblical meaning.
In this sense, modern atheism is a phenomenon especially dominant in European thinkers, tired by centuries of “matter and body hating” neo-platonic clericalism, which condemns all bodily feelings as impure, even when directed towards prayer experience. As Nietzsche predicted, (confirmed by Marx, Feuerbach, and today’s science based agnostics), “if God is dead – Christians (and immoral clergy) have killed Him.”
A phenomenon found universally in inter-religious dialogue includes this physical experience of Divine or Absolute presence. Margeurite de Porete’ was burned at the stake in Paris in 1310 by “dogma” minded Dominicans, because she wrote a book called “A Mirror for Simple Souls” in which she paraphrased John’s epistles on Divine Love as something that all Catholics should physically experience. Ignatius was jailed when he first taught the physically seeing, feeling, sensing, touching the mysteries of Christ’s life in the Exercises. Plato’s seeing of the material body as somehow “evil” or to be separated from the body at death to return to the “spiritual” realm, negates one of the basic Christian doctrines, ie, the body is also going to heaven (found in the late 1st Century “Apostle’s Creed”).
Thus, the physical feeling of “devotion” in the presence of sacred image, followed by “apophasis” or the emptying of all image and desire, and then the experience of “union” as immediate presence, are common phenomena that act as the basis for dialogue with religions that at one time or a other were “at war” with each other. It is the apophatic (no word) rather than the kataphatic (faith prescribed word-image) that must define peace bringing dialogue between the World’s great, and less known religious systems.
Michael Saso. Nov. 27, 2009
Copyright, Mystic, Shaman, Oracle, Priest: 2009
Three Religions, One Culture
When religions are prayer (not belief) oriented, mutual encounter becomes a powerful tool for peace. “3 teachings one culture” define the Chinese view of religion’s role in society: “Confucius for the head, Buddha for the heart, and Dao for the belly.” Confucian ethics, Buddhist compassion, Daoist harmony, make religion a source of peace in China, Japan, Korea, SE Asia, Tibet, and Mongolia. Put in more practical terms, Confucian Ethics govern social relations, Buddhist compassion rules the heart, Daoist wisdom “intuits” others’ needs, from the belly, forming a three-fold practice based cultural unity.
Scripture based religions, on the other hand, are more inclined to be belief, not compassion oriented. They allow only one “faith” per person, making enemies of all other belief systems.
At the mystic or apophatic level, however, Islamic (Sufi), Judaic (Kabala), and Christian mystics, find deep agreement, through mutual prayer encounter. The 4 stages or paths to unitive prayer, (purification, illumination, apophatic emptying, and union) are structurally the same for all religious systems – whether scripture or practice based. So Evelyn Underhill stated in her classic work “Mysticism.”
The Sufi (and Daoist “Pole Star”) seven steps, Kabala and Daoist ten steps (sefirot) and Ignatius of Loyola’s four step “Exercitia Spititualia” are structurally (if not verbally) analogous to each other.
Religion brings peace, not war, when prayer is made the focus of inter-faith encounter.
Lao-Tsu, Buddha, and Confucious
Solar Eclipses and Science in early China
Rahu
Six Taoist and Tantric Buddhist Spirits
By Michael Saso July 23, 2009
Eclipses of the moon, and even more of the sun, have always been studied, recorded, and considered extremely important in China.
Long, long ago, since 2000 + BC in fact, China’s ancient scholars had already begun to record eclipses, comets, and sun-moon phases in Oracle Bones. Farmers as well as rulers relied on their findings, for abundant crops and heaven’s blessing.
Two astronomers, Hsi and Ho. who served under Emperor Chung K’ang ca. 2134 B.C., were executed because they failed to predict an eclipse, that occurred on October 22 of that year. The ancient Chinese Shu Ching, records their beheading.
The famous Cambridge historian Joseph Needham (1900-1995) in Volume 3 of his lifetime work “Science and Civilization in China,” notes that there were 112 sightings of eclipses, in official Chinese Imperial records kept between 28 BC and 1638 AD. This was begun before telescopic observations in the West, (starting with Galileo).
The first great Jesuit missionary-scientist, Matthew Ricci, SJ, brought the works of Copernicus, and Clavius’ “Astrolobe” to China, only to find that the Chinese, as well as Arabic astronomer-scientists, (introduced to China by Kubilai Khan, the first Mongol ruler of Yuan dynasty China, 1281-1365), had built fully equipped celestial observatories in Beijing and in Nanjing.
But the scientific use of these instruments had been neglected, and became outdated. First the Ming dynasty, then the Manchu-Qing emperors, let politics get in the way of science.
Then, lo and behold, the Jesuit scientists –Christian missionaries — came to China, and were welcomed to the Imperial Court — first by Wanli, the last Ming emperor, then by the Manchu Qing emperors, who were amazed at the depth of their scientific learning, as well as morally upright teachings.
Fr. Matteo Ricci, SJ was introduced to the Emperor by the Prime Minister, Xu Guangqi, who was the first great mandarin to become Christian. Xu Guangqi served as Prime Minister for Ming as well as Qing dynasty emperors. He used Ricci’s knowledge of astronomy, and the ability to predict eclipses, as one of the most important reasons for allowing Christians to make converts in China.
Astronomy, map making, and agricultural improvements, as well as their moral virtue, totally in line with Confucius’ teachings, were compelling reasons for the Emperors to accept foreigners and their religion into 17th and 18th century China.
The coming of the Jesuits to farming and merchant areas of China, as well as the Qing dynasty court was filled with heart-and-mind boggling opposition. It was a solar eclipse, on June 21, 1619, that convinced the emperor to allow Christianity into China!
The Board of Rites, at that time, was headed by Xu Guangqi. The Chinese members of the Board, and the Jesuit Father Terrenz were asked to accurately predict the time of the next solar eclipse. Father Terrenz’s calculations were correct! From then until the Jesuits were “suppressed,” in 1762-67, A Jesuit was always appointed to the Astronomy department of the Board of Rites.
The suppression of the Jesuits in China, with the acrimony and “Back biting” of missionaries against each other, convinced succeeding emperors to outlaw further Christian missons in China. It was not until the colonial invasion of China by the west, the Opium Wars, and the “unequal” treaties of the 19th and 20thcenturies, that Christian missionaries were again allowed entrance. But their presence was always seen as colonial “oppression,” part and parcel of western economic and political presence.
All of this changed, however, with the coming of the Economic reforms of The People’s Republic of China, after 1980. The perception of Christianity in modern China is not only good, but downright welcoming – part and parcel of modern China’s basic cultural and social value system. The original vision of the Jesuits, who saw China as culturally and philosophically “ready” for the Christian message, was realized when the Church in China became totally Chinese, no longer ruled or dominated by the “nature and matter are evil” mentality that dominates European culture. Confucius and Laozi have at last “eclipsed” neo-Platonic European thought, in the subconscious mind of modern China.
__________
Some notes on the meaning of “Eclipse” in ancient China.
“Eclipse” “r-shi” 日食 literally means “eating the sun,” or “the sun is being eaten” in colloquial Chinese. An ancient Chinese myth says that a dragon, who dwells on the path of the moon and son, will eat or devour the sun, and more frequently the moon at certain intervals.
An eclipse of the moon is not as dangerous or significant as an eclipse of the sun, both in Asian an Caucasian cultures. This is partially because the solar eclipse is much more rare, and difficult to predict, until modern times.
The two places where the moon’s path and the sun’s course meet and cross each month are called “nodes.” When the moon is going north, it is called the Dragon’s Head (Caput Draconis), and going back to the south it is called the Dragon’s Tail (Cauda Draconis). In India they are called Rahu (dragon’s head) and Ketuno head, tail only). In China and Indian, eclipses are caused by this Dragon, who tries to devour the Sun and Moon.
There are many variations of the myth in India, telling how Lord Vishnu cut off the head of the dragon, naming the head “Rahu” and the tail “Ketu.” Rahu takes vengeance, by eating the sun or the moon, whenever the ever-changing position of the lunar “nodes” allow him close enough to do so. But his banquet is very fleeting, lasting only 5 or 6 minutes, before the sun or moon move away, out of reach. Ketu empties out what Rahu ate, bringing blessing and restoring nature, and our inner self, to union with “Dao.”
This myth comes into China through stories contained in the Buddhist scriptures. For the Daoist tradition, the two “hidden” stars are kept secret. Scholars and ordinary people are not supposed to know about them or see them. They are residents of the area around the “Big Dipper” (Ursa Major) in the northern skies. Daoist priests and nuns chant prayers to turn their anger into blessing.
Predicting the time of an eclipse (obscuration of the sun’s light) is very important throughout south and east Asia. Pregnant women are warned to stay indoors, and businesses to close down, during the time that the sun’s light is obscured. Dogs must not bark, nor birds sing, during the brief few minutes of a solar eclipse.
See Dwight Ennis, http://www.astrologyclub.org/articles/nodes/nodes.htm for an excellent scientific explanation of eclipses, and how they happen.
Read George Dunne’s “Generation of Giants” (Notre Dame Press), for more about the early Jesuits and their work in China.
Read Jonathan D. Spence’s wonderful book “The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci” for a stirring account of the Ricci’s amazing work in China.
The Chinese classics, the “Shu Jing”, “Spring-Autumn Annals,” and especially the “Yijing” (I-ching) Book of Changes show a highly developed cosmology, and (in the case of the Yijing) a computer like math formula for understanding nature’s changes.
Photo 1. Rahu, the spirit who eats the sun and moon during eclipses
Photo 2. The six spirits who control Rahu in the Daoist/Tantric Buddhist systems
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