century, we are not completely sure about the historical credibility of record.
However, Huiyuan 慧遠 (523-592), an early Chinese Yogācāra pioneer, did explicitly argue for True Mind 真識心 as the identity of mind and truth (tathatā):
“There is no tathatā (如理) outside of mind, while there is no mind outside of
tathatā. Since there is no mind outside of tathatā, mind is not different from tathatā. Since there is no tathatā outside of mind, tathatā is not different from
mind.” (T.45.473.a) Here we see that Huiyuan’s concept of True Mind as the identity of mind and truth precedes Fabao’s idea of lixin (Truth-Mind).2. After lay out the hermeneutical framework, especially the introduction of the notion of li, by which the Indian Tathāgatagarbha thought was received in the 4th-5th century China, in the second section I move to the debate between Fabao and Huizao which approximately occurred at the turn of the late 7th century and the early 8th century. Regarding this debate, I mainly focus on Fabao’s Isheng
Foxing Quanshilun 一乘佛性權實論 and Isheng Foxing Jiujinglun 一乘佛性究
竟論 and Huizao’s Nengxien Zhongbian Huirilun 能顯中邊慧日論. Based on the scholarly contributions done by Kuge Noboru 久下陞, Asada Masahiro 淺田正博 and Nemu Kazuchika 根無一力 in 1980s and 1990s, now we have enough sources to reconstruct the scenario of debate. As for the purpose of this paper, I merely focus on Fabao’s theory of Buddha-nature. Fabao analyzes the notion of Buddha-nature into (1) Main Cause 正因, which is the universal Truth-Mind, and (2) Supplementary Cause 緣因, which are deeds done in lifetime. Due to the universality of main cause, i.e., Truth-Mind, all sentient beings are eligible to attain Buddhahood. On the other hand, due to the different deeds as thesupplementary cause, there arises the difference of Vehicles and psycho-physical dispositions. Fabao continues to analyze the two aspects of Truth-Mind: (1)
tathāgatagarbha (Truth) and (2) ālayavijñāna (Mind), which are neither identical
nor different. They are not different because truth functions within mind. They are not identical because truth is transcendent whereas mind is empirical. Fabao quoted from The Awakening of Faith and Nirvāṇa Sūtra to claim that truth is causally effective in the path of Buddhahood. Precisely at this point Huizao and all other orthodox Yogācāra thinkers cannot agree with the idea of causal functionality of truth.3. In the section three, I come to investigate Huizao’s critical response to Fabao’s tathāgatagarbha doctrine. Huizao criticized Fabao for wrongly attributing the main cause for attaining Buddhahood to truth (tathatā). For Huizao, truth cannot be conceived as either cause or effect, because truth is absolute (unconditioned). It is only mind, or more specifically, seeds in ālayavijñāna, that serve as the cause of Buddhahood. Huizao argues that if truth, which is one and universal, is taken to be the cause of all trans-mundane dharmas, then it would not be differentiated from Samkhya’s monistic notion of prakṛti. By the contrast, Huizao insists that truth cannot work without human’s efforts in eliminating the defiled seeds and
cultivating the pure seeds in ālayavijñāna through cognition of truth. Truth can be only taken as the indirect and formal cause of Buddhahood, instead of as the direct and empirical cause.
4. When we come to Neo-Confucianism in the 10th and 11th centuries, we found that the conceptual categories of li (truth) and xin (mind) continued to dominate the philosophical and religious discourses. In the section four, I explain Zhu Xi’s metaphysics of li 理 and qi 氣 as the doctrinal matrix of li and xin. Zhu Xi contends that li as transcendent normativity/truth is absolutely different from qi as empirical force. By the same line of reasoning, li 理 and xin 心 should also be differentiated, because xin (mind) remains within the empirical realm of qi, even though it is regarded as the subtlest form of qi. For Zhu Xi, li must be taken as the object of cognition in order to make li fully manifested. On the contrary, as the subject of cognition xin should never be taken to be the object of cognition.
Precisely due to his li-xin dualism, Zhu Xi criticized the (Chan) Buddhist practice of mind-contemplation for confusing mind as both subject and object. This criticism is found in Zhu Xi’s Guanxinlun 觀心論. For the same reason, Zhu Xi criticized Lu Xianshan as siding with Chan.
5. Unlike Zhu Xi taking metaphysics as the main concern, Lu Xianshan deliberately takes a phenomenological approach to deal with the issue of mind and truth. Lu accuses the metaphysical approach for misleading us to the wrong direction. The true matter for Lu is to find the right way to make the truth (li) of myriad things fully illuminated in experience. As far as one changes from the metaphysical
attitude to the phenomenological attitude, he will soon realize that truth (li) is found right in the intending act of transcendental subjectivity, i.e., “original mind”
(benxin 本心). For Lu, the practice of returning back to the original mind has absolute priority to metaphysical speculation. For Lu must be fully aware of the danger of falling into the endless metaphysical dispute when taking the stance of the Cognitive Theory. This is why Lu insists that practice goes first before any theoretic speculation. Only within the milieu of practice is truth found right in the intending act of mind.
6. In the conclusion, I take an excursion to phenomenology to account for the debates between the cognitive theory and the ontological theory. The insight we obtain from phenomenology is that truth in formal logic should be also evidenced in eidetic intuition. Simply put, truth should not be separated from the experience of truth which is possible only in the activity of mind. I also go further to explore the different conceptions of truth in Husserl and Heidegger with the hope to shed new light on the debates between Fabao and Huizao and between Zhu Xi and Lu Xianshan. I stop my presentation here without making myself trapped again in another controversy.