Sangyop Lee

This chapter surveys the philosophical dimensions of the Chinese Buddhist discourse on the doctrine of universal buddha-nature (foxing 佛性; Skt. *buddhadhatu). It first offers an overview of the historical development of the discourse by examining the arguments of such exegetes as Daosheng 道生 (355–434), 僧宗 (438–496), Baoliang 寶亮 (444–509), and Emperor Wu of Liang 梁武帝 (464–549), as well as schools like Dilun 地論, Shelun 攝論, Sanlun 三論, and Tiantai 天台. The second section of the chapter focuses on one of the culminations of the discourse realized in the Huayan 華嚴-Chan 禪 thinker Zongmi’s 宗密 (780–841) systematic and exhaustive critique of earlier theories and practices concerning buddha-nature. Through these discussions, the chapter will show how the discourse on buddha-nature gave rise to original theses concerning the relationship between awakening and delusion, and between the transcendent and the phenomenal.

This paper is the first in-depth study of Shi Sengwei’s 釋僧衛 (fl. late fourth and early fifth centuries) “Shizhu jing hanzhu xu” 十住經含注序. By situating Sengwei’s text in the proper intellectual-historical context and proposing crucial emendations in its surviving recensions, I analyze its ontological and psychological claims that advance a unique metaphysical theory that explains the emergence of sense objects and individual minds as the result of the interaction between “one reality” (yifa 一法) and “one mind” (yixin 一心). I then identify philosophical and phraseological influences of Huiyuan’s 慧遠 (334–416) theory of the imperishability of the soul (shen bumie 神 不滅) on Sengwei’s thought, and furthermore argue that Sengwei’s “one mind” was the source of the theory of the “one mind” in the Dasheng qi xin lun 大乘起信論.

Abstract:In the writings of the Chinese Madhyamaka master Jizang (549–623 c.e.), we often read arguments that deduce universal affirmation from universal negation. In previous scholarship, this seemingly paradoxical reasoning was often explained by ascribing to Jizang a type of transcendental realism—the view that reality transcends our ordinary language, logic, and reason—and reading it as his unique way of capturing such a transcendental nature of reality. More recently, an attempt at formalizing this transcendental realist interpretation of Jizang was made by Yasuo Deguchi, who suggests that Jizang could have been tinkering with a type of dialethism. This article challenges the transcendental realist interpretation of Jizang by studying strong anti-realist tendencies found across his writings, and proposes a way to understand his deduction of universal affirmation from universal negation within the boundaries of ordinary reasoning and coherently with his anti-realist philosophy by introducing the modalities of "categorical truth" and "conditional truth."