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The Karma of Words

In “Visions of Awakening Space and Time,” Taigen Dan Leighton quotes from William R. LaFleur’s “The Karma of Words: Buddhism and the Literary Arts in Medieval Japan.” For example:

In The Karma of Words, William LaFleur discusses the sophisticated nature of the Lotus Sutra as literature and its impact on medieval Japanese poetics: “The surprising feature of [the parables] in the Lotus is that they are simultaneously the vehicle and the tenor of that vehicle. In a very important sense, the parables of the Lotus are about the role and status of parabolic speech itself. They are what I would call self-reflexive allegory; that is, their trajectory of discourse behaves like a boomerang. Much like the Dharma described in a crucial section of the hōben chapter, they are characterized by ‘the absolute identity [or equality] of their beginning and end.’ ”

Dōgen and the Lotus Sutra, p27

And, as is my want, after reading this I sent away for a copy of LaFleur’s book, which was published by University of California Press in 1986.

This book is not about the Lotus Sutra but, instead, about Medieval Japan, the period in which Nichiren lived.

LaFleur explains in his Preface to the book:

karma-of-words-bookcover

The origin of this study lies in the simultaneous frustration and fascination I felt nearly two decades ago when for the first time I saw a performance of nō drama in Japan. I was greatly moved by what I saw, but I was also greatly perplexed by the presence in this form of drama of energies, assumptions, and aesthetic values that seemed very different from those present in the classical theaters of ancient Greece and Renaissance Europe. Here was a form of drama that had evidently been shaped by a set of religious and philosophical assumptions—but these were neither those of Aristotle nor those of European Christianity. My curiosity about this led me to search for relevant books and to question people who I thought might provide information.

I soon discovered a certain consensus; it was that, although the components in nō are many and complex, it is probably Japanese Buddhism which did most to shape the world of nō. Beyond this, however, my frustration continued, since the available materials in Western languages provided information about Buddhist elements in this form of drama but stopped short of a real reconstruction of the way the Japanese in the medieval period of their history saw their world and envisioned their destinies in and through Buddhist terms and concepts. Footnotes gave definitions of things like arhats, asuras, and Amida, but these things collectively never added up to a satisfying account of the intellectual and religious assumptions of the Buddhist poets, dramatists, and writers of prose in medieval Japan.

This book is first an attempt to provide what I could not find then and was subsequently forced to pursue in the original texts and in modern scholarly studies in Japanese.

Of course, I’m less interested in nō, which I’ve never seen performed, than I am in understanding how Buddhism shaped Japan’s world view.

As a self-styled “modern Buddhist,” I was particularly taken by this observation by LaFleur:

Buddhism gained ascendency in medieval Japan largely because it successfully put forward a coherent explanation of the world and of human experience; it was the single most satisfying and comprehensive explanation available to the Japanese people at the time. This is to deny neither that Buddhism was espoused by persons who had great social and political power nor that it provided justifications for their power and prestige. Moreover, this is not to disembody it or overlook the impressive technological and artistic side of the Buddhism that came to Japan from China and Korea—its magnificent architecture, paintings, icons, vestments, illuminated scrolls, and choreographed ritual. It is merely to call attention to the cognitive dimension and to observe that Buddhism provided not only salvation but also explanation. That is, as a religion in a medieval context, it was considerably more comprehensive, than religion in modern settings. In many ways, Buddhism performed in medieval Japan much of the role now customarily assigned to science. It did so by giving to the epoch a basic map of reality, one that provided cognitive satisfaction not only to learned monks in monasteries but also to unlettered peasants in the countryside.

The Karma of Words, p26-27

Perhaps it is time for Buddhists to take back the role taken by modern science and reassert Buddhism’s “basic map of reality” – the law of cause and effect and all of its ramifications.

Over the next four days I’ll publish quotes from “The Karma of Words.”

words

Kū Kū and Ke

The establishment of the doctrine of the void is fraught with hazards. Chief among these is the danger of reifying or hypostatizing the void itself. Tamura Yoshirō[ (1921-1989) a well-regarded scholar of Japanese Buddhism] notes: “It will not do to think of having gone from the provisional to the emptiness of things as if one had somehow now reached some entity called ‘the void.’ ” For this reason, it was sometimes maintained in the Mahayana that “emptiness itself is emptied” (“kū kū”). Thus, to regard phenomena as empty is itself an activity that needs to be relativized and seen as dependent. In [Chih-i’s] Mo-ho chih-kuan this is accomplished by a reaffirmation of the reality of provisional phenomena (ke). This was the second stage of the santai. Chih-i called it “jukū-nyūke, leaving the empty and entering into the provisional.” The term is diametrically opposite to juke-nyūkū but the intention is not to establish two mutually negating propositions; rather, it is to hold that both propositions describe reality and both are necessary in order to describe reality accurately.

The recognition of the perfectly balanced codependence of the void (kū) and the provisional (ke) was Tendai’s third stage, that of the middle (chū). The middle is not a position midway between the other two but the holding of both in a state of dynamic and equalized tension. Each way of looking at things is valid but only because the other is also true; each side gives existence and function to the other. The classic Mahayana account of the bodhisattva figure makes the same point in more narrative, less philosophical, language. According to it, the bodhisattva recognizes the phenomenal world as empty, without abiding entities, and therefore worthy of being forsaken for nirvana; nevertheless, in order to rescue others, he returns to the world of samsara. Moreover, since “enlightenment is nowhere other than in the worldly passions” (“bonnō soku bodai”), even for the bodhisattva himself there is no other world in which to be, or to be saved.

The Karma of Words, p92-93
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Affirming the Complete Reality of the Impermanent World

Much like the dharmas described in a crucial section of the hōben chapter, they are characterized by “the absolute identity [or equality] of their beginning and end.”

Recognizing this makes it possible to see the sutra as much more sophisticated and philosophical than we had been led to think; we can also see why it had such profound implications for subsequent literary and aesthetic expression. By being self-reflexive, the sutra twists the reader’s attention into unexpected areas, areas that seem calculated to help him jettison his ordinary expectations about reading and interpretation. The parables (chapters three to seven) of the Lotus are presented as if they are going to illustrate what is meant by upāya (hōben) (chapter two); but it is equally true that the chapter on hōben explains, and is a means for understanding, the parabolic narratives. Thus, the illustration is in no way subordinate to what it illustrates. Unlike the Platonic allegory in the medieval Christian West—”a shadow of something else more real or more significant” —the narratives of the Lotus are not a means to an end beyond themselves. Their concrete mode of expression is not “chaff” to be dispensed with in order to attain a more abstract, rational, or spiritual truth. The Lotus is unequivocal on this point: “One may seek in every one of the ten directions but will find no mode [hōben] other than the Buddha’s.” This accounts for what may seem to be an inordinate amount of praise directed by the sutra toward itself. It also implies that within the sutra there is an unmistakable philosophical move opposite to that in Plato’s Republic, a move to affirm the complete reality of the world of concrete phenomena in spite of the fact that they are impermanent.

The Karma of Words, p87
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Bodhisattva Actions Empty and Pure

The following discussion by Kajiyama Yūichi [Professor of Buddhist Studies at Kyoto University, 1925-2004] concerns the element of play (asobi) in the Prajn͂āpāramitā (Hannya) literature and the Avataṃsaka-sūtra (Kegon-kyō). He makes an important point about the conception of the bodhisattva as working within the realm of suffering so that he might help all sentient beings (shujō) to find release.

A bodhisattva is not one who pursues the perfection of wisdom while all the time thinking of his activity as painful austerities. He will never be able to do anything good for sentient beings while having the idea that he is an ascetic; on the contrary, it is only when he begins to enjoy what he is doing that he will be successful. The reason for this is that, because there is to be no self whatsoever, even that of the bodhisattva is emptiness.

Kajiyama then refers to what is often called the “Jūji-kyō,” a chapter of the Kegon Sutra in which ten of the most important bhūmi, or “stages in the development of a bodhisattva,” are described. He summarizes what the sutra says concerning the highest stages:

Then all the bodhisattva’s activities are performed freely, not with the notion that some kind of effort must be expended (muku yūgyō). This means that his actions are not things he intends in order to realize his own definite goals; they are, therefore, not conditioned by such intention. This implies that salvation is by easy practice, something equivalent to “play” (asobi, or yuge jintsū). Even compassion is not thought of as compassion but becomes, so to speak, unconcerned compassion, because in it there is no attachment to goals. This is why the actions of the bodhisattva are empty and pure.

The Karma of Words, p54-55
words, Nihon

The Certainty of Karmic Retribution

This notion of karma in the Nihon ryōi-ki was closely related to the various modes of salvation that proliferated throughout the medieval period in Japan. The concept of karma and that of the rokudō system provided an answer to one kind of question but also posed, or, at least, exacerbated, an old problem. Like most explanatory systems, the Buddhist one satisfied on one level and disturbed on another. My discussion of the Nihon ryōi-ki up to this point has focused on the way its basic paradigm provided a cognitive explanation of the world’s workings and a way of classifying various kinds of beings both seen and unseen. But it is necessary to recognize that there was also something deeply disquieting about the notion of karma.

As presented in the Nihon ryōi-ki, there is an inexorability in the way karma works: rewards and punishments are exactly equivalent to their corresponding good or bad deeds. Scholars have noted that the work is not necessarily pessimistic, however; Kyōkai is fairly sanguine both about the possibility of evading dire effects and about achieving upward mobility along the six courses. For him it is simply a matter of recognizing the way the system works. Such knowledge, he holds, will change behavior and produce good results. It is, he claims, a matter of “pulling the ears of people over many generations, offering them a hand of encouragement, and showing them how to cleanse the evil from their feet.” Although there are references to Buddhas and bodhisattvas in the work, these do not cancel the karmic results of earlier actions; they are not savior figures in that sense. The author of the Nihon ryōi-ki holds that knowledge of the system will so change behavior that people will move voluntarily and effectively up the ladder of transmigration.

Some of his contemporaries and people of later times were, however, much less sanguine. A satisfying answer to questions concerning the basic functioning of the cosmos did not remove the fears of individuals about their personal destinies. Natural fears vis-a-vis death’s uncertainties were now exacerbated by deep anxiety about the danger of transmigration downward in the taxonomy and a fall into hell. There is abundant evidence that people in all strata of society, fully convinced of the workings of karma, were anxious—perhaps, especially during periods of warfare, when many found themselves killing their fellows in battle.

Unless they were to be in a state of continuing despair, the people of Japan needed to have some relief from the conception of karma and transmigration as exact, inexorable, and unmitigated. They required what has been called rokudō-bakku, or “escape from suffering in the six courses.” In the medieval period, theories of salvation proliferated. Though it would be impossible to survey them all here, each in its own way contributed to the possibility of optimism and hope.

The Karma of Words, p48-49