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Chang Chung-yuan (1907-1988)

[張錘元 Zhang Zhongyuan]

Portrait photo of Dr. Chang Chung-yuan by Howard Lee Kilby

Chung-yuan Chang was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Well-known as a leading scholar
on Daoist history and philosophy, he was awarded the University of Hawaii’s Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Teaching in 1977.
His Ph.D. thesis at Columbia University, New York, 1942: A study of the relative merits of the vertical and horizontal lines in reading Chinese print, Archives of psychology, no. 276. 64 p.

Books

PDF: Creativity and Taoism : a study of Chinese philosophy, art & poetry by Chang Chung-yuan.
New York : Julian Press, 1963. 241 p.

PDF: Tao, a new way of thinking : a translation of the Tao te ching, with an introduction and commentaries by Chang Chung-yuan.
New York : Harper & Row, 1975. xxx, 223 p.

HTML: The Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu

PDF: Original teachings of Chʻan Buddhism
Selected from The transmission of the lamp. Translated, with introductions, by Chang Chung-yuan.
New York, Pantheon Books, 1969. xvi, 333 p.

Contents
Foreword VII

PART I
INTRODUCTION Metaphysical and Logical Approaches in Early Ch'an Teachings 3
NIU-T'OU FA-YUNG No-mind Is Not Different from Mind 17
YUNG-CHIA HSÜAN-CHIO Dialectic as a Self-conscious Movement 27

PART II
INTRODUCTION Interfusion of Universality and Particularity 41
TUNG-SHAN LIANG-CHIEH (JPG) "He Is the Same as Me, Yet I Am Not He!" 58
TS'AO-SHAN PEN-CHI (JPG) "Purity Is in the Impure" 71

PART III
INTRODUCTION Liberation from Subjectivity and Objectivity 85
HUANG-PO HSI-YÜN To Roar Like a Tiger 102
MU-CHOU TAO-TSUNG "Before a Donkey and After a Horse" 107
LIN-CHI I-HSÜAN "Here I Will Bury You Alive" 116

PART IV
INTRODUCTION Illogical and Unconventional Approaches to Ch'an 129
KIANGSI TAO-I "The Mind Is the Buddha" 148
NAN-CH'ÜAN P'U-YÜAN "To Be a Buffalo Down the Hill" 153
CHAO-CHOU TS'UNG-SHEN "You See the Logs, But Not the Chao-chou Bridge" 164
P'ANG YÜN Inner Harmony in Daily Activity 174

PART V
INTRODUCTION Inner Experience Illustrated in Three-Way Interplay 185
KUEI-SHAN LING-YU Great Action and Great Potentiality 200
YANG-SHAN HUI-CHI "An Excellent Swordsman" 209
HSIANG-YEN CHIH-HSIEN Enlightened by One Stroke 219

PART VI
INTRODUCTION The Six Phenomena and the Void 229
FA-YEN WEN-I "One Got It, the Other Missed" 238
YUNG-MING YEN-SHOU "From the Womb of a Cow an Elephant Is Born" 250

PART VII
INTRODUCTION "The Swiftness and Steepness" - a Forceful Means to Enlightenment 259
HSÜEH-FENG I-TS'UN "Not To Blind Any Man's Eye" 275
YÜN-MEN WEN-YEN "The Mountain Is Steep; the Clouds Are Low" 283
TUNG-SHAN SHOU-CH'U "Living Words and Dead Words" 296

Final Remarks 302
A CHART OF THE EMINENT CH'AN MASTERS (594-990)
Selected from The Transmission of the Lamp 305
Bibliography 313
Index 321

Articles

Tao as Inner Experience. Zeitschrift für Religions- und Geistesgeschichte 10 (1):15-23. (1958)

PDF: “The Meaning of Tao”. From Proceedings of the Xllth International Congress of Philosophy 10 (1960): 33-40.

"The Essential Source of Identity" in Wang Lung-ch'i's Philosophy. Philosophy East and West 23 (1/2):31-47. (1973)

On Stephen C. Pepper's "on the Uses of Symbolism in Sculpture and Painting". Philosophy East and West 19 (3):279-283. (1969)

Commentary on J. Glenn Gray's "Splendor of the Simple". Philosophy East and West 20 (3):241-246. (1970)
http://enlight.lib.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/ew004905.htm

Nirvana is Nameless. (A Translation of an Early Chinese Buddhistic Treatise), Journal of Chinese Philosophy 1 (3 ‐ 4):247-274. (1974)
http://enlight.lib.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-JOCP/jc26946.htm

PDF: The Nature of Man as Tao
In: George F. Mclean (ed.): Studies in Metaphysics. Volume I. Person And Nature (Washington: University Press of America & The International Society for Metaphysics, 1988), p. 139–147.

Taoist Philosophy and Heidegger's Poetic Thinking
http://www.unipune.ac.in/snc/cssh/ipq/english/IPQ/1-5%20volumes/04-3/4-3-7.pdf

PDF: The philosophy of taoism according to Chuang Tzu
Philosophy East and West, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Oct., 1977), pp. 409-422

PDF: Ts'ao-tung Ch'an and Its Metaphysical Background, with Translations of the Dialogues of the Founders
by Chang Chung-yuan
Tsinghua Journal of Chinese Studies, Vol. 5. n.1, 1965.01.01, pp. 33–65
https://web.archive.org/web/20161231143046/https://nthur.lib.nthu.edu.tw/retrieve/73383/JA01_1965_p33.pdf

Handwritten text & translation from The Doctrine of the Mean by Dr. Chang Chung-yuan.
Thank to Rev. Howard Lee Kilby for sharing this document with us.

Ch'an Buddhism: Logical and Illogical
By CHUNG-YUAN CHANG [a]

Philosophy East and West, V. 17 (1967) pp. 37-49.
Copyright 1967 by University of Hawaii Press, Hawaii, USA

p.37

THIS PAPER PRESENTS two diametrically opposed approaches to Ch'an Buddhism. One of these approaches was originally put forward by Yung-chia Hsuan-chueh [b] (665-713), the other by Kiangsi Tao-i [c] (709-788). The former turned to logical analysis, in the Middle Way, [d] or Maadhyamika, tradition in his search for ultimate reality, while the latter abandoned logic and adopted instead a non-rational, or illogical approach to reveal man's primordial intuition. Born as he was in the seventh century, Yung-chia became deeply involved in the dialectic concept of the double truth as maintained by the San-lun School, [e] [1] and the doctrine of the three-fold truth identified as one, [f] held by the T'ien-t'ai School. [g] [2] In his logical analysis Yung-chia formulated an intricately fine network of thought, which demonstrated how far logic, in its extremity, could go. On the other hand, Kiangsi Tao-i, more popularly known as Ma-tsu, was the founder of all the most unconventional practices of Ch'an which were used to break through the rigid network of logic and thereby uncover one's creative intuition. A comparison of these two methods will demonstrate why the Ch'an Buddhists after the eighth century discarded logical manipulation, along with metaphysical speculation, and 'adopted instead a seemingly nonsensical, non-rational means of reaching the source of man's creative potential.

2 . The T'ien-t'ai School, or Tendai in Japanese, was founded by Chih-i, who attempted to establish an eclectic school of Chinese Buddhism. He classified the entire teaching of the Buddha according to periods, methods, and the specific nature of the teaching. T'ien-t'ai philosophy embraces many aspects of Buddhist thought, but its main contribution is the Threefold Truth Identified as One.

p.38

I

Yung-chia's teaching is directed toward the achievement of praj~naa [h] (intuition, wisdom). He says: "If you ask me what school of philosophy I adhere to, I would say that it is the teaching of the Great Praj~naa." [3] Praj~naa refers to ultimate reality, of which nothing may be predicated. The realization of this ultimate reality, however, may be suggested in Yung-chia's own words: "What clear seeing! Yet there is nothing to see. Neither a man nor a Buddha." [4] One may wonder, as later Ch'an Masters did, what it was that he saw so clearly, since there was nothing to see. The answer here is that the primordial intuition is described as self-realization, or the highest inner consciousness, conscious of itself. Ontologically, ultimate reality is `suunyataa [i] , the Absolute Void. But praj~naa and `suunyataa cannot be considered apart from one another. Praj~naa is, in fact, `suunyataa, and `suunyataa is praj~naa.

Since the highest inner consciousness is the Absolute Void, it is reached through the negation of things, of man, even of Buddha. Yung-chia's approach to Ch'an fundamentally follows the doctrine of manifold negation implicit in this method. The idea of incessant denial as contained in the eight-fold negation [j] of the San-lun School serves as a basic principle of his teachings. In the San-lun School, however, there is also another path to `suunyataa. This consists of freedom from the "four alternatives." [k] These four alternatives are: (1) being, (2) non-being, (3) both being and non-being, and (4) neither being nor non-being. The first two are the primary alternatives; the second two, as is apparent, are derived from them.

In his Collected Works [l] [5] Yung-chia explains the importance of freedom from the four alternatives. He says: "When mind is either being or non-being, it falls into the trap of affirmation. When mind P neither being nor non-being, it falls into the trap of negation." Either affirmation, or negation, then, is a "trap" from which one must free oneself in order to reach `suunyataa.

Based upon the dialectic of the Middle Way, Chi-tsang [m] (549-623), the great philosopher of the San-lun School, had developed an even more refined approach, called the double truth on three levels. [n] The double truth consists of a common truth and a higher truth. On the first level, when the common truth is denied, it becomes a higher truth. Chi-tsang said that common people see things as really existent and know nothing about their non-

7 . Collected Works of Yung-chia, p. 393.

8 . Ibid.

9 . According to Fu Tsu Tung Chi, or General Records of Buddhas and Patriarchs; Taisho Shinshu Daizokyo, No. 2035, chuan 7 (Tokyo: Taisho issaikyo kankoki, 1924-32), p. 187, T'ien-kung Hui-wei was the seventh Patriarch of the T'ien-t'ai School.

10 . According to the same source, chuan 7, p. 188, Tso-ch'i Fa-lang was the Eighth Patriarch of the T'ien-t'ai School.

p.40

the most essential contributions of T'ien-t'ai to Buddhist philosophy is the theory of the threefold truth identified as one. The threefold truth embodies the real, the unreal, and the middle. The real refers to the Void, which nullifies all differentiated elements. The unreal refers to the common truth, through which all differentiated elements are established. The middle does not denote a position between the two -- rather, it transcends both the real and the unreal and simultaneously embraces both.

The T'ien-t'ai School, as we have seen, set forth the threefold truth identified as one, and then taught a threefold contemplation [r] through which to achieve this understanding. From the threefold contemplation one gains three kinds of "eyes": the wisdom-eye, [s] the dharma-eye, [t] and the Buddha-eye. [u] Yung-chia comments on this: "All the thousands of manifestations vary from one another, and to that which sees these differentiations the name of dharma-eye is given. Silence never varies, and that which sees this is called the wisdom-eye. When one is free from both non-differentiated reality, and differentiated materiality, one has attained the vision of the Buddha-eye. Therefore the three truths are identified as one. Thus the ultimate reality of things is absolutely pure." [11] This clearly identifies Yung-chia's application of T'ien-t'ai metaphysical structure to his search for the ultimate reality of Ch'an.

Yung-chia adapted T'ien-t'ai philosophy to his own teachings, but he was by no means limited to these principles. To be sure, he accepted what T'ien-t'ai called the "perfect mutual solution among the three aspects of truth -- the real, the unreal, and the middle." This is commonly stated in the formula: "Three are one; one is three." [v] Yung-chia, however, goes on to negate this concept. He says:

When one searches out the ultimate in all its subtlety, it is neither three nor one. Thus, the three which is not three is called three; and the one which is not one is called one. When three is derived from one, it is not the real three, so how can it be called three? When one is derived from three, it is not the real one, so how can it be called one? When one is not one, it is not necessarily three, nor is the three that is not three necessarily one. However, you cannot 'deny the existence of one, even though one cannot exist without three; nor can three be denied even though three cannot exist without one. The one that does not exist is originally not three. The three that does not exist is originally not one. Both one and three are originally non-existent, and even this nothingness is non-existent. The non-existence of nothingness is the primal nothingness, and so it is the ultimate in all its subtlety. [12]

12 . Ibid., p.392.

p.41

Yung-chia's purpose here is to negate in every possible way the established relationship between the three and the one, and ultimately their very existence. Here it must be understood that he is not in any way criticizing the T'ien-t'ai doctrine but is actually carrying it to its logical extreme. If he were simply to accept it without at once denying it, this would be one-sided. His acceptance and simultaneous denial of this principle is the real Maadhyamika approach, leading to what the T'ien-t'ai School called ch^en-k'ung miao-yu, [w] or "real void and subtle reality."

According to Yung-chia, when we say that something is real it is not a relative reality. When we say that it is void, it is not a relative void. What is real is void, what is void is real. This identification of the void and the real is achieved by the absolute mind, which is free of all dichotomy. It is the emergence of constant consciousness which is conscious of itself. And yet it is not different from the ordinary mind. Ch'an Master Ta-ning Tao-kuan [x] of the eleventh century has this to say: "No-thought is the source. No-abiding is the ground. Subtle reality is the action. The real void is the substance. Therefore we may say that everywhere on the earth the real void abides. All things in the universe are activities of the subtle reality."

Ta-ning Tao-kuan further explains: "Who is capable of embracing this? The four seasons follow each other in succession. The sun and the moon shine constantly. Truth suffers no fundamental alteration, and the Too is not confined to a single place. Therefore free yourself to yield to whatever happens to you. Rise and fall with it. Here you may be simultaneously a common man and a sage." [13]

When the real void is the substance, and the subtle reality is in action, one pursues ordinary daily activities -- and at the same time transcends them. One thus embraces both freedom and wisdom. Yung-chia says: "When wisdom emerges, freedom is achieved. Yet in this freedom there is nothing from which to be free. When this freedom is achieved wisdom is produced. Yet in this production of wisdom nothing is produced." [14] Here we see a true synthesis of T'ien-t'ai and Ch'an in Yung-chia's teachings.

In point of fact, the teachings of Hui-ssu [y] (514-577) and Chih-i [z] (531-597), the founders of the T'ien-t'ai School, are recorded in The Transmission of the Lamp [aa] chuan 27. The Lamp is the prime sourcebook of Ch'an, and the fact that Hui-ssu and Chih-i's teachings are recorded there side by side with other Ch'an masters shows how close the early philosophy of

II

While Yung-chia Hsuan-chueh (655-713) followed a logical process adopted from the San-lun and T'ien-t'ai Schools, Kiangsi Tao-i, or Ma-tsu (709-788), initiated an approach to self-knowledge quite different from the dialectic process. Ma-tsu's teachings aimed at revealing the ultimate reality itself through direct intuition, in an instantaneous act of self-realization that dispersed all confusion. Ma-tsu set forth the doctrine of p'ing ch'ang hsin, [ag] or "ordinary mind." This is a doctrine which seeks revelation through every-day thoughts and commonplace activities. Here we have it in Ma-tsu's words:

Ordinary mind does not function with intentional action but is free from right and wrong, taking in and giving up, permanence and impermanence, sainthood and commonness.

All our daily activities -- walking, standing, sitting, lying down -- all response to situations as they arise, our dealings with things as they come and go -- all this is Tao. [16]

Ordinary mind, then, is pure self-consciousness, or pure intuition, free from any dichotomy, negation, or affirmation. It is not merely a concept derived from a logical process, but it is activity itself. Praj~naa cannot be considered as an abstract idea, or anything static, but is dynamic and concrete. It is that most fundamental ground from which all mental activities are coordinately manifested. Its invisible power of unification and coordination vivifies the unlimited and unbiased potentialities of creativity in man and in the universe. The ordinary mind, therefore, is not at all ordinary. It represents the attainment of the unattainable, which is far beyond the grasp of the dialectic of negation and affirmation. Yet it is at the same time no more than the thing as it is -- "suchness." The thing as it is is its ultimate reality. Any idea about the thing is not the thing itself. In order to come to this realization, no gradual transition of the mind, no conceptual means, are of use. All we can

16 . Chuan-teng Lu, or Records of the Transmission of the Lamp, chuan 28, Ch'ang-chou, T'ien-ning Szu, 1919, p. 96a.

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do is leap over the immense chasm that lies before us. This existential leap requires no deliberate efforts, and no elaborate process of logic. All it needs is to be immediately free from any attachment, directly and spontaneously.

When the lay disciple P'ang-yun [ah] first came to seek the truth from Ma-tsu he asked the Master: "Who is he who does not associate with ten thousand things?" The Master replied: "I will not tell you until you are able to swallow all the water in the West River in one gulp." Why, we ask in turn, does the Master not answer his disciple straightforwardly instead of presenting him with further perplexities? We may put it as follows: When the ever-in-creasing mental strain of the questioner reaches its peak it culminates in his enlightenment. The Japanese term for this is satori. The help that the Master renders to his disciples is not in the form of logical, or rational, analysis. It comes rather in the form of the most illogical and paradoxical puzzles, known as kung-an.· [ai] Perhaps another example of the kung-an will help us to understand this type of seemingly illogical instruction.

Once a monk asked Ma-tsu: "Beyond the four alternatives and hundred-fold negation, will you please tell me directly the meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the West?" Ma-tsu replied: "I am very tired today and cannot tell you. Go and ask Chih-ts'ang." [aj] The monk went to Chih-ts'ang as he had been directed, and asked: "What is the meaning of Bodhidharma coming from the West?" Chih-ts'ang answered: "I have a headache today and cannot tell you. Why don't you go to Huai-hai [ak] and ask him?" The monk went to Huai-hai and asked his question and Huai-hai replied that he knew nothing about it, that he couldn't answer the question. The monk then returned to the Master, Ma-tsu, and reported the whole affair, whereupon the Master remarked: "Ts'ang's hair is white and Hai's is black." [17]

What does Ma-tsu's answer have to do with Bodhidharma coming from the West? Or why does the Master not answer him in the first place instead of sending him on a wild goose chase? Or, after the poor monk finally returned, why does not the Master release the disciple's mental tension by giving him some more logically satisfying answer? The four alternatives and the hundredfold negation refer to traditional means of reaching `suunyataa. But the monk asked for instruction beyond these dialectics. Ma-tsu attempts to free him by sending him away with no immediate answer to increase his perplexity. Finally, when the monk returns he confounds him with a completely irrelevant statement. Ma-tsu knows that `suunyataa can only be reached through the monk's own self-consciousness emerging from a state of extreme per-

When nothing remains to give up
One has indeed reached the Source.
When there is no void abiding
Then does one abide within the ground of the void.
Beyond non-action and action
One flows with creation
And puts the Absolute in action.
As for the hundred doctrines,
There is nothing to be gained in them;
But one's embrace of the ten thousand things
Is utterly inexhaustible.

You ask me to explain the reason for failure or success.
The fisherman's song goes deep into the river.

My daily activity is nothing other than harmony with myself;
When each thing I do is without taking or rejecting,
There is no contradiction anywhere.
For whom is the honor of red and purple robes?
The summit of the inner being is never touched by the dust of the world.
Supernatural power and wonderful functioning are found
In the carrying of water and chopping of Wood. [21]