國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
CHAPTER 3: SKEPTIC AND ZENNIST TERMINOLOGY 3.1. A Comparison of Key Terms
In this section I will give a brief overview of closely corresponding terms in the Skeptic’s and the Zennist’s lexicon. The doctrines of ataraxia and non-dwelling will be handled separately in the next section.
“Doubt” (Chinese: yi 疑, Greek: aporia)
And at first glance one might assume that Zennists and Skeptics couldn’t be further apart on the question of “doubt”. After all doubt is a problem for Zennists generally speaking as it is seen as something to be overcome. Huineng in fact constantly speaks of “destroying doubt” (po yi 破疑)127 and repeatedly encourages his listeners to ask questions so that they may be relieved of their doubts.128 But as surprising as it may sound, there in fact seems to be no disagreement here since for Huineng being without doubt is not the same as having grounds for making dogmatic affirmations. In fact, doubt seems only bad for Huineng because it represents and actual attachment to
“truth,” which means that one is bothered by doubt simply because one intensely seeks wants a firm truth to hold on to. Thus, when the Zennist “breaks doubt,” she does not come away convinced of any eternal truths as a result. She is rather in a state of mind that that doesn’t fear that any viewpoints opposed to hers might be true. The Skeptics intentionally “doubt” (aporein) statements of the Dogmatic philosophers, and by doing so create aporia, which essentially mean “puzzlement” or “distress,” or,
127 PS 35-37, 42, 49.
128 PS 34, 37.
‧
more literally, “no way out” as this is generally how the person in doubt typically feels after examining both sides of a philosophical debate.129 The Skeptical mode of inquiry is thus referred to as “aporetic” or “dubitive.”130 And although aporia is perhaps closer in literal meaning to the Chinese word huo (惑, “bewildered,”
“perplexed”), Huineng only uses this term in the sense of “delude” or “mislead.”131 Thus, “yi (疑)” seems to compare best with aporia in the given context. In any case, the Skeptic seeks to invoke aporia into the minds of his audience in order that they might break dogmatic attachment to their views. Thus, aporia for Sextus is only a stepping stone to suspension of judgment; it is not the final destination.132 Huineng’s audience, conversely, comes to him typically already in a state of doubt, thus he need not go out of his way to invoke it. However, the Zen master can and does invoke doubt through kōans (to invoke “great doubt” as it is in fact called) and paradoxical statements or through otherwise irrelevant and nonsensical utterances to cause students to loosen attachment to their views. As the Japanese Zen master Hakuin Ekaku (隠慧鶴, 1685/6–176/89 CE) famously taught,
“To all intents and purposes, the study of Zen makes as its essential the resolution of the ball of doubt. That is why it is said: At the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening. If you doubt fully you will awaken fully…If those who study are able to make great doubt appear before them, a hundred out of a hundred and a thousand out of a thousand will without fail attain awakening.”133
129 PH I, 7.
130 PH I, 7.
131 PS 46, 迷自惑, “self-deluded,” PS 49, 惑我宗旨 “distort my teaching.”
132 PH III, 80-81.
133 Philip Yampolsky, The Zen Master Hakuin: Selected Writings. (New York: University of Columbia Press, 1971), 144.
‧
Thus, according to Hakuin, “awakening” only follows after being thoroughly in doubt, just in the case of the Skeptic whom ataraxia does not visit until she has suspended judgment due to her inability to determine truth from falsity after examining the arguments for some theory. The difference, however, is that the Zennist seeks to resolve doubt whereas the Skeptic actively seeks to maintain it. But as we just pointed out, the Zennist’s “resolution” of doubt is not concomitant with the gaining of certain knowledge as it would be for the Skeptic. The Zennist’s “resolution” (i.e., awakening), as Hakuin goes on to explain, “cannot be handed down. It cannot be explained. It is just like knowing for yourself by drinking it whether the water is hot or cold.”134 Thus, the Zennist does not walk away with knowledge of an indubitable proposition concerning the nature of mind or matter but rather with a new type of awareness. The Skeptic likewise remains in the state of aphasia in which he neither affirms nor denies any non-evident proposition, and it too can be seen as a new type of awareness (a non-dogmatic one to be sure!). And Hakuin himself according to one famous anecdote constantly asked the question “Is that so?”135 in an attempt it seems prevent his mind from dwelling on any view just as in the case of the Skeptics who never ceases “to raise questions about arguments” since if they ceased to do so they could only expect through their rashness to “miss out on the ataraxia that appears to them and that they….think follows a suspension of judgment about everything.”136 I am therefore persuaded to the conclusion that what the Skeptic calls calm suspension of judgment is precisely what the Zennist calls not dwelling on judgments (which we’ll say more on in the next section).
134 Yampolsky, The Zen Master Hakuin, 145.
135 Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki, comps. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings ( Boston: Tuttle, 1998), 22.
136 PH I, 204-205. “Suspend judgment on everything” should I think be taken to mean “everything
‘non-evident’” as Sextus makes clear in other passages (See PH I, 13-15).
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
“Sense Impression” (Chinese: chen 塵, Greek: phantasiai)
Sense Impressions are raw sense data, which include sight, smell, hearing, touch (feeling), and taste (Buddhism would also includes consciousness as a type of sense).
Traditionally, Buddhism disparagingly refers to these sensations as the “dusts”
because of their tendency to ensnare the individual through either attachment or rejection. The Skeptic, on the other hand, does not assign them any value, but assents to phantasia because they are forced upon her.137 In modern terminology, the Skeptic’s statements about phantasia are incorrigible. That is, the Skeptic cannot question the fact that she has a certain feeling; she can be only wrong about how to properly label it. Thus, for example, the Skeptic doesn’t doubt that honey tastes sweet, but simply does not go so far as to assert that it is sweet in itself.138 The Zennist on the other hand, desires to be free of attachment to the “six dusts” (liu chen 六塵 ), and is not concerned with the metaphysical status of what they are alleged to
“signify.” Huineng says, “The pure self nature causes the six bandits to exit through the six gates, and while in the midst of the six dusts, neither separate from nor be stained by them, but come and go freely; this is prajñā-samādhi.”139 Thus, for Huineng, tranquility does not come from suspending judgment on the underlying nature of the sense impressions, but rather by not clinging to or placing oneself in opposition to them, which seems to be in essence precisely what the Skeptic does when she follows appearances undogmatically.
137 PH I, 13.
138 PH I, 20.
139 PS 31, 常淨自性，使六賊從六門走出，於六塵中不離不染，來去自由，即是般若三昧。
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
“Ultimate Reality” (Chinese: zhen ru 真如, Greek: hypokeimenon)
Zen teaches that ultimate reality can be experienced, and the term used to designate it is “Suchness” (Skrt: tathātā, dharmatā). In fact, the term seems to blur the distinction between ultimate reality and a fully engaged experience of one’s reality. For the Skeptic, on the other hand, the hypokeimenon is precisely the thing that no one has proved as of yet to have knowledge of. It is the “non-evident” object of inquiry. Thus, an object of the Skeptic’s inquiry may appear to have certain properties depending on, for example, how, where, when, or by whom it is observed. But on how the must be in itself beyond the appearance the Skeptic suspends judgment. The Zennist, however, rarely, if ever, conceives of Suchness as a primal substance minus all accidental properties. It is for them the same reality that we experience everyday, but minus the grasping or rejecting which has always interfered with our ability to perceive the present reality in the clearest and most unbiased way. And this state itself is equivalent to what Huineng calls seeing the self-nature. In my opinion the Skeptic’s state of non-assertion (aphasia) where nothing concerning things non-evident is affirmed or denied seems to parallel quite closely the Zennist’s state of non-grasping awareness of her reality. The Skeptic does not affirm or deny anything dogmatically in his tranquil condition just as the Zennist observes phenomenon without psychological attachment or rejection. The only difference seems to be then that for the Zennist, such an experience could itself be described as experiencing ultimate reality!
“View” (Belief) (Chinese: jian 見, Greek: dogma/doxa)
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Views are a very important concern for both Skeptics and Zennists. For the Skeptic, dogma (belief) or doxia (opinion) is problematic when it becomes dogma-tized.
Dogmatism, does not however, for the Skeptic means not so much connote inflexibility as it does “rashness” (propeteia). Sextus defines “dogma” as “assent to something “non-evident,’” and when he says that the Skeptic reports his pathos
“without belief,” he means dogmatic belief concerning that which lies beyond appearances.140 For example, if the Skeptic’s senses tell her that something is in motion, she does not deny that something appears to be in motion. The Skeptic rather questions the dogmatic assertion that motion really exists apart from what appears to be the case since such a state of affairs is necessarily “non-evident.” For the Zennist, it is attachment to views that causes one misery and the Zennist likewise does not cling to nor reject views. However, Zen make the distinction between “Correct”
(zheng 正) and “Erroneous” (xie 邪) views (which are perhaps more correctly rendered as “corrective” and “misleading” views).141 Erroneous views are any views that lead to vexations and Correct views are any views that serve to break vexations.
However, in the highest stage of awareness, there is, according to Huineng, no reliance on Right views either:
Erroneous views are of the mundane world.
Correct views transcend the world.
When both Erroneous and Correct views are destroyed,
140 PH I, 16.
141 Buddhist scholar Alan Fox suggests this translation. See his article on Jizang (吉蔵) in Great Thinkers of the Eastern World, Ian P. McGreal, ed., (New York: Harper-Collins, 1995), 84-88
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
The Bodhi-nature is made manifest.142
The arguments used by the Skeptics also behave in just this way. The Skeptic opposes view against view and lives without dogmatic beliefs.143 Thus, neither the Skeptic nor the Zennist strongly relies on philosophical views for the maintenance of daily life as philosophy has been unable to demonstrate that any one way of living is more right or wrong than any other.144 In fact, Sextus states quite directly that “the Skeptic does not conduct his life according to philosophical theory (so far as regards this he is inactive), but as regards the non-philosophical regulation of life he is capable of desiring some things and avoiding others.”145 Thus, the Skeptic proceeds in accordance with appearances undogmatically as the Zennist continues to mindfully observe without attachment to or the rejection of any views.
“Appearance” (Chinese: xiang 相, Greek: phainomenon)
The Chinese technical term for “appearance” is “相,” also often translated as “mark.”
For the Zen Buddhist, what matters of course is that one does not cling to any appearance, though for the most part Buddhists reared in the prajñāpāramitā tradition, all appearances are empty, that is, they have no self-nature, which essentially means they cannot rationally be proven to self-exist. Huineng does not quite concur with this definition of emptiness in regards to phenomenon as he counters in one place the notion that all things, words in particular, are empty (as such a claim would be
142 PS 36, 邪見在世間，正見出世間。邪正悉打卻，菩提性宛然。
143 PH I, 23.
144 PH I, 164.
145 M XI, 165.
‧
self-refuting)146 and in another place his Yogācārainfluence would lead one to suspect that he held an idealistic understanding of phenomena.147 But then again even that interpretation would have to be upset by yet other realist-sounding passages.148 Thus, for Huineng, there is no attachment to phenomenon regardless of how its ontological status is interpreted. On the other hand, for the Skeptic (Sextus in fact often uses phainomenon interchangeably with phantasia) the overriding concern is whether a particular phainomenon can be legitimately called a “sign” for something
“deeper” than the appearance itself,149 and the Skeptic’s modes are designed to show that it is problematic to assert whether it is or is not. Thus, the Skeptic suspends judgment on the actual nature of appearances and speaks in a conventional manner whilst the Zennist speaks about marks in various ways which she most expedient in the immediate context of her teaching or practice.150
“Disturbance” (Vexation) on (Chinese: fan nao 煩惱 / luan 亂, Greek: tarkatos)
The Skeptics are in total agreement with Zennists on the desire to end peace-robbing vexations. The Greek term ataraxia is the negation of taraktos, which literally means
“disturbances.” Thus the Skeptic seeks to be free of disturbances brought on by his inability to reconcile the anomalies involved in the search for truth. The Skeptic, therefore, suspends judgment on the nature of things non-evident and enjoys peace of
146 PS 46, 自性上說空，正語言本性不空。 “If you say the self-nature is empty, then the nature of that statement is not empty.”
147 Example: PS 20, 世人性本自淨，萬法在自性。“The nature of mankind is itself pure; all things exist in the self-nature.”
148 Example: PS 46, 外境無情對有五：天與地對，日與月對，暗與明對，陰與陽對，水與火對。
“The dichotomies of non-sentient external objects are five in number: Heaven and Earth, sun and moon, darkness and light, yin and yang, and water and fire.”
149 PH II, 104.
150 PS 36, 若欲化愚人，事須有方便。 “If you wish to transform the deluded, skillful means are necessary.”
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
mind from the equipollence derived from opposing arguments one against the other (instead of her former practice of attaching to one and suppressing the other). I would in fact say that the typical type of vexation experienced by Skeptic is argument arises due to dogmatic clinging to one side of an argument while being disturbed by the presence of equally convincing opposing arguments. Thus, when one acknowledges the equality of the two sides, one ceases to struggle over which side to affirm or deny.
One affirms neither side while keeping an open mind and proceeding undogmatically with one’s everyday affairs. Huineng’s style of Zen, similarly, seeks to end vexations by ceasing to struggle against the undesired half of the dichotomy. Thus, we find him saying, “Vexations are enlightenment!”151 as perhaps it just so happens that rejecting the thought of having vexations may in fact cause more of them to arise. Therefore, when a dualistic thought is experienced, the Zennist simply acknowledges that
“vexations” exist only in relation to “enlightenment” meaning that there is thus no reason to reject the vexation presently being experienced. And when the mind does not resist any thoughts all thoughts are able to flow freely. In other words, seeing the interdependence between “vexations” and “enlightenment” is what in fact what I think Huineng would precisely call “enlightenment!”
151 PS 26, 即煩惱是菩提。PS 40, 煩惱即是菩提。
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
3.2. Ataraxia and Wuzhu (無住)
We briefly introduced the concept of ataraxia in Chapter 1 and in this chapter we shall give it a fuller treatment. Ataraxia is, according to Sextus Empiricus, is the primary goal of Skepticism:
We always say that as regards belief the Skeptic's goal is ataraxia, and that as regards things that are unavoidable it is having moderate pathè.”152
Ataraxia is that “untroubled and tranquil condition of the soul.”153 But Sextus doesn’t settle for all-or-nothing conception of tranquility. He allows some space for things
“unavoidable,” by which Sextus means things like sickness, hunger, thirst, and so forth. But by suspending judgment on the issue of whether, for example, sickness is bad by nature, the Skeptic only has to deal with the sickness itself, and is not troubled by opinions about it. But before ataraxia is realized, one has to first to learn to weigh arguments pro and con, and in doing so one develops the Skeptical attitude:
“The Skeptic Way is a disposition to oppose phenomena and noumena to one another in any way whatever, with the result that, owing to the equipollence among the things and statements thus opposed, we are brought first to epoché and then to ataraxia.154
But what sets the Skeptic in motion is the fact of being disquieted by the confusing
152 PH I, 25-26.
153 PH I, 10.
154 PH I, 7-9.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
claims made by philosophers:
Certain talented people, upset by anomaly in “the facts” and at a loss as to which of these “facts” deserve assent, endeavored to discover what is true in them and what is false, expecting that by settling this they would achieve ataraxia.155
This “being at a loss” is the aporia mentioned in the previous section. And after thus being unable to resolve them, the Skeptics “suspended judgment. But then, by chance as it were, when they were suspending judgment the ataraxia followed, as a shadow follows the body.”156 Thus, the path of the Skeptic to ataraxia can be seen as proceeding as follows:
Taraktos (disquietude concerning the facts of reality) -> Skepsis (investigation) -> Aphoria (puzzlement) -> Isostheneia (equipollence) -> Epoché (suspension of judgment) -> Ataraxia (tranquility) -> Non-dogmatic living according to the
“four-fold regimen.”
But “how” or “why” is it that ataraxia follows epoche? After all, it seems equally possible that the person could experience anxiety, and not peace, after not being able resolve the anomalies. In fact, Annas and Barnes gives the example of a doctor who tells a patient that there are equally weighty reasons to believe that the person both has and does not have a disease. They contend that the doctor is a “quack” since he has said not worry (due to the equipollence of the judgments) while still leaving the
155 PH I, 12. Mates uses quotation marks in his translation. The word translated as “fact” here is pragmasin, which in this context means “object of judgment.”
156 PH I, 29.
‧
patient in a state of uncertainty.157 But I think an easy reply is that the Skeptic will not rashly determine that it is truly “bad” not to know the full status of one’s health condition. Thus, by suspending judgment on whether one needs a precise answer in order achieve piece, one is no longer worried about not receiving a precise answer.
The analogy furthermore assumes that uncertainty can be relieved with empirical evidence, but of course even if the doctor appeared sure that the patient didn’t have a disease, it in way implies that one should cease to worry (the disease may simply not
The analogy furthermore assumes that uncertainty can be relieved with empirical evidence, but of course even if the doctor appeared sure that the patient didn’t have a disease, it in way implies that one should cease to worry (the disease may simply not