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Introduction

Jamie HUBBARD

UMORS OF MAJOR CONTROVERSIESwithin the normally staid world

of Japanese Buddhist studies have been reaching the West for anumber of years, largely centering on the claims of the well-

known scholars Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shir with regard towhat Buddhism is and what it most denitely is not. To wit, the teachingsof Buddha-nature, original enlightenment and the Kyoto school of phi-losophy are not Buddhist; the non-duality taught in the VimalakrtiStrais unacceptable, as well as the ideas oftathator suchness, mostof Chan and Zen Buddhism, and more. What, then, is Buddhism?

Criticism alone is Buddhism. So states Hakamaya, in characteristi-cally confrontational style, in his bookCritical Buddhism. He goes onfrom there to oppose his notion of Critical Buddhism to Topical

Buddhism, a term coined to refer to an aesthetic mysticism unconcernedwith critical differentiation between truth and falsity and not in need ofrational demonstration, a kind of thinking that he feels actually dominatesthe Buddhist tradition. More properly, Hakamaya, Matsumoto, and others

who agree with them feel that the denigration of language and rationalthought implicit in much of the Buddhist doctrinal tradition leads to anerasure of the critical discrimination of truth that is at the heart ofBuddhist realization as well as social justice. Where kyamuni realizedthe true nature of existence, vanquished suffering, and then taught thattruth and the path to its realization for the benet of all, Hakamaya andMatsumoto contend that much of the Buddhist tradition has subse-quently been busy denying the very possibility of talking about truth. But

it is not only the Buddhist tradition that they critiquethe taoof Lao-tzuand Chuang-tzu; the topos of Nishida Kitar; the academic pretense to


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objective and value-free scholarship; and a sloppy, reactionary, postmod-

ern afrmation of everything as equally valid are also singled out as exam-ples of topical philosophy that are completely contrary to the critical spiritof Buddhism yet often conated with it by the weak-minded. Harshlycritical of a great deal in the received traditions of Buddhist thought,Hakamaya and Matsumoto have set out to problematize what is taken forgranted by numerous Buddhists in Japan as well as the West, and therebycombat what they take to be an intellectual disease and to clarify theirnotion of a Buddhism that is fully engaged in the critical appraisal oftruth-claims and their doctrinal representation.

Entirely consonant with the demand for a Buddhism that is engagedin critical thinking is the social criticism of much of Hakamaya andMatsumotos work. Clearly moving from the descriptive to the prescrip-tive, they are not at all reticent about using their notion of Buddhist truthas a yardstick by which to critique the ideological origins of cultural con-structs that masquerade as Buddhism in Japan. Indigenous Japanese ideasand their Buddhist conations have been singled out as contributing tosocial injustice, gender inequality, racism, institutional discrimination,imperialism, political repression, and environmental destruction. In par-ticular the doctrines of original enlightenment (hongaku) and harmony(wa), the Kyoto school of philosophy, and the current fascination withtheories of Japanese uniqueness are attacked as examples of such ideolo-gies of discrimination and social injustice that pose as the highest reachesof Buddhist philosophy.

In the spirit of criticism advocated by Hakamaya and Matsumoto,each of the essays in this book examines their ideas and the ideas that theycriticize. The impetus for this compilation was a panel presented at thenational meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Washington,D.C. in November of 1993 titled Critical Buddhism (Hihan Bukky):Issues and Responses to a New Methodological Movement. The panel,organized by Steven Heine, elicited considerable reaction and interest atthe conference, and so plans were laid to attempt a fuller presentation oftheir ideas and the controversies surrounding their work. Our aim, then,is to introduce (and critique) the ideas of Critical Buddhism in relation tothe targets ofitscritique, and to situate such an approach within currentdiscussions of postmodern academic scholarship, the separation of the dis-

interested scholar and committed religious practitioner, and the place ofsocial activism within the academy.

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In putting the collection together, we have tried to strike a balance

between presenting the work of Hakamaya, Matsumoto, and theircohorts (the vast majority of which has never been translated before) andproviding the sort of lively discussion of their work that it tends to provoke.The selection of what to translate was a formidable task, as their output isprodigious, grows daily, and is relevant to a wide and varied range of topics.

We have therefore chosen not to focus on a single topic and to includearticles beyond the typical textual analysis of Japanese Buddhology, articlesthat demonstrate the terrain that the debate coversdetailed philologicalstudies, social commentary, sectarian debates, cultural criticism, responseand counterresponse to critiques, and essays on contemporary Japaneseintellectual debates, philosophical critique, and scholarly method.

When we ask why such a polemic discourse is signicant outside ofthe sectarian context, the rst reason is simply that studying whatBuddhists think is what Buddhist scholars have always done. Let there beno mistake: although Hakamaya and Matsumoto are arguing as Buddhists,they are rst-rate Buddhologists in the traditional sense as well. Indeed,the numerous books and articles by Hakamaya and Matsumoto onCritical Buddhist themes are only a fraction of their oeuvre, and it is asignicant testament indeed when somebody of Paul Grifthss learningsays that [Hakamaya] has taught me more about Buddhism than anyoneelse. [He is a] man who knows vastly more about almost everythingthan I. Still, given that arguments about the meaning and validity of thedoctrine oftathgata-garbhaand related doctrines are as old as the ideas

themselves, we can also ask if there is anything else in their argumentsthat warrants our attention anew. Although I believe that in a sense thatquestion is best answered within the pages of the ne critiques presentedhere and by the passions that their writings have aroused throughout the

world, there are yet a number of issues that I would point to in anattempt to provide a greater context for their critiques.

THE CONTEXT OF CRITICAL BUDDHISM

Although the issues dealt with in Critical Buddhism are by no means lim-ited in relevancy to the Japanese context, we need rst to consider thepolemic of Critical Buddhism in the context of the oft-cited ethical and

institutional crisis in contemporary Japanese Buddhism. In this sense theneed to respond in a dynamic fashion to religious needs in contemporary

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Japan is witnessed in such disparate phenomena as the phenomenal

growth of new religious movements and the critical spirit of reformmovements such as the Dbkai Und within the Jdo Shinsh. In thissense, then, perhaps the most obvious factor in stimulating the criticallook at Buddhist ideas within the St Zen school was the shock of theso-called Machida Incident that stems from the 1979 World Con-ference on Religion and Peace. Machida Muneo, then president of theBuddhist Federation of Japan and secretary general of the St Zen sect,denied that any form of social discrimination existed in Japan. He subse-quently recanted (in 1984) and the St sect admitted its long history ofperpetuating social discrimination and established numerous committeesto study and rectify the situation. Still, many of those involved began tolook at the issue more deeply, wondering if there was any systemic reason

why such practices could continue unquestioned for so much of St his-tory.1Although to some these sorts of things might seem like a tempest ina Zen teabowl, it was not so then, nor is it now, either within the Stsect or among the outcast groups in Japan. Hence Hakamayas paper,Thoughts on the Ideological Background of Social Discrimination(included in this volume), was written within a committee appointed tostudy the problem, was presented not to an academic conference but atthe Buraku Liberation Center in Osaka, and was subsequently appendedto the ofcial report submitted to the Director of Religious Affairs for theSt sect.

Although the initial storm caused by the Machida Incident has some-

what abated, the Central Division for the Protection and Promotion ofHuman Rights of the St sect has continued to publish and distributenumerous books and other materials on the topic. The bitterness is still

widely felt both within and without the St sect. Other issues examinedby this committee have included the role of Komazawa University facul-ty during the war and the defrocking of the St monk Uchiyama Gud,

who was executed in 1911 for his role in the High Treason Incidentbut posthumously reinstated by the sect in 1993. Hakamaya, in turn, hasresigned his prestigious position in the Komazawa University Faculty ofBuddhism, as well as his clerical position within the St sect.

But the Machida Incident within the St sect is not the only contextfor Critical Buddhism; we must look also to the larger Japanese political

and cultural world as the second important context of this debate. Adecade has passed since many of their papers were rst published

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(19851986), but we need to keep in mind that it was around that time

that Nakasone Yasuhiro was elected prime minister after a landslideLiberal Democratic Party victory at the polls, that Ronald Reagan wasenjoying his second term as president of the United States, and that linesbetween left and right were being drawn in religious and cultural worldsno less than within political camps. The question of ofcial government

visits to Yasukuni Shrine was just as alarming in Japan as was the spectreof the radical Christian right dominating White House policy in theUnited States. In this climate the increasing level of Japanist (Nihon-jinron) rhetoric and the cozy relationship between those who deployedsuch ideas and the government was a source of alarm for many for whoma return to totalitarianism was and is not an unimaginable prospect.

Although in the West we do not hear much about the various debatessurrounding the way that Japanese religion is presented in high schooltextbookswhether the Emperors funeral will be Buddhist or Shinto, or

whether Japan should shoulder more of its defense burdenthese areissues of grave concern for the Japanese and their Asian neighbors.Reference to these social issues of the moment constantly surface in the

writings of Hakamaya and Matsumoto, indicating that the social engage-ment of Critical Buddhism must be seen in part, I think, as akin to thesorts of skirmishes waged in the culture wars throughout the West.

Thirdly, we need to keep in mind that Japanese Buddhist scholarshave always had a somewhat more public voice than their Western, or atleast American, counterparts. Japan, of course, is a Buddhist nation and a

voracious reading public creates a huge demand for information about allaspects of Buddhist culture. Most well-known Buddhist scholars havewritten books for the general public at one time or another, and their arti-cles regularly appear in the numerous weekly magazines and newspapers.

At the same time, most Buddhist scholars have yet another role as head ofa Buddhist temple, a role often ancient and important, giving them sectar-ian, institutional, political, community, and pastoral roles and voices.Hakamaya and Matsumoto are not by any means the rst to have con-founded the distinctions among these roles. Indeed, much of their criti-cism of individual scholars can well be seen as an attempt to force arecognition of the commitments hidden behind supposedly objectivescholarship as well as an attempt to hold scholars accountable for the con-

tent of their public statements, sermons, and popular writings. In a recentconversation they remarked to me that, while the disastrous results of the

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past collusion between Buddhist scholars and the political establishment

may be a matter of historical interest, they believe this call for account-ability to be even more important now, given the Japanese fascination

with the occult and new age religions that emphasize the irrational andmystical experience religions like Aum Shinriky.

CRITICAL BUDDHISM AND THE WESTERN CONTEXT

If the call for a critically engaged Buddhist scholarship is rooted in aJapanese religious, political, and cultural context, it also resonates withtrends in Western academe as well. To begin with, we may mention thepostmodern denial of the static, ahistorical certainties of positivist histori-ography and the related trend towards rejecting purely objective scholar-ship as either possible or desirable. No longer limited to the trendierbranches of anthropology, womens studies, or comparative literature, thedeconstruction of the vested interests of objective scholarship hasbecome part of the natural sciences and even Buddhist studies is nolonger immune.2

Related to this is a tendency in much of todays academic scholarshipto be increasingly activist. That is to say, once one accedes to the notionthat scholars in-scribe even as they de-scribe, the move to normative val-uation seems the next natural step, perhaps even a morally obligatorystep, so that entire elds such as cultural criticism and postcolonial stud-ies seem to be activist almost by nature. In this sense, despite Hakamayas

complaint against what he takes to be the immoral and mushy relativismof postmodernism, his own rejection of the objectivist or positivistapproach and focus on the narrative of history seems not unlike the Westernfocus on the narrative (or metanarrative or master narrative) aspect of aca-demic discourse, just as his call for critical judgment seems not unlike theactivist thrust of so much in todays academic world.

Hence, rather than see Critical Buddhism as an echo of an earliersearch for original Buddhism, it seems to me more accurate to see it asa complete rejection of that approach, an approach that attempted tomake Buddhism a thing of scientic modernity by severing it from its reli-giousthat is, subjective and judgmentalpast. That Critical Buddhismdoes not refer to such a search for the historical Buddha is most obvious in

Matsumotos assertion that the critical attitude must be willing to criticizeeven the teachings of the Buddhaif they contradict the teachings of depen-

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dent origination or no-self. Critical Buddhism denotes a philosophically

critical pursuit of truth, not a historical or textual search for origins.Still, this critical agenda is pursued within a context of Buddhist

truth, and it is as Buddhists that both Hakamaya and Matsumoto arearguing. Although this apologetic or theological stance is perhaps themost controversial aspect of the debates they have engendered, it, too,has strong resonances with currents within Buddhist studies in the West.Following Max Webers call for a scientic study of religion, religiousstudies in the West has labored long to be free of its theological originsand establish itself as a respectable discipline within secular universities.Buddhist studies is no exception, and to date has largely followed itsEuropean origins in the philological study of texts. Yet just as Hakamayaand Matsumoto reject Webers idea of objective and value-free scholar-ship, many Buddhist scholars in the West are arguing more and moreopenly that there should indeed be a place within academic discourse forthe committed Buddhist to argue his or her ideas about Buddhist truthsome would say that many have already been doing just that, albeit with-out acknowledging those commitments.3

To be sure, most Western scholars of Buddhism do not have quitethe same dual role as their Japanese counterparts noted above. Still, agrowing majority nonetheless count themselves as practicing Buddhistsand participate in Western Buddhist communities in various capacities.Donald Lopez, noting the presence of formerly ordained monks withinthe universities, has even gone so far as to suggest that in the absence of

the traditional ordained sangha, the role of the Buddhist monk asteacher is often, ironically, left to the academic.4And Robert Thurman,recalling both the origins of Western universities and the positive role thateducation plays in our lives, has often referred to academics as Protestantmonks. As Peter Gregory argues in his essay in this collection, the dif-ferent situations that engender these different roles within the academyshould give one pause to consider the modes in which knowledge is pro-duced within different cultures. Hakamaya and Matsumotos writingssurely give impetus to just such considerations.

INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTIONS

The book itself is divided into three sections. Part One, The What andWhy of Critical Buddhism, attempts to give both substance and context

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to the notion of Critical Buddhism itself. Paul Swansons essay, Why

They Say Zen Is Not Buddhism, provides a detailed overview of thewritings of Hakamaya, Matsumoto, and others on this subject as well aspresenting some of the reactions that their work has aroused within theacademic and sectarian worlds. He concludes that Critical Buddhisminvolves at least three levels of criticism: Buddhological, sectarian, andsocial. In Critical Buddhism and Returning to the Sources, DanLusthaus takes a broader historical view, considering Critical Buddhisman inevitable response to a variety of historical developments, and seeingit as an extension (or recurrence) of the ancient lineage of debates sur-rounding tathgata-garbha.

An essay by Hakamaya follows on Critical Philosophy versus TopicalPhilosophy, in which he interprets this polarity in terms of the con-frontation in Western philosophy between the critical method of RenDescartes and the rhetorical emphasis of Giambattista Vico, denouncingthe recent Japanese fascination with the latter as an intellectual disease.Noting that the prime danger of this malady is its adopting the voice ofauthority in order to sell its own rhetoric, Hakamaya concludes by ques-tioning his own use of the authoritative voice in his polemics. My owncontribution, Topophobia, attempts to clarify Hakamayas critique oftopical philosophy. I look at this idea in its original use within the

Aristotelian logical canon, within the thought of Giambattista Vico, theeighteenth century champion of topical philosophy whose ideas Haka-maya assails, and in East Asian traditions such as Taoism and the Japanese

philosophy of harmony, which Hakamaya attacks as an ideology of con-formity or compliance.In the next chapter, Scholarship as Criticism, Hakamaya takes up

the question of scholarly objectivity exemplied in Max Webers inuen-tial essay Scholarship as Vocation. In diametrical opposition to

Weberand, as noted above, in much better company with the moreactivist tendencies of the contemporary Western academyHakamayands the notion of the objective scholar to be another example of theauthoritarian approach of topical philosophy in which neutral facts aresupposedly discovered and displayed value-free, while in reality the veryact of their (re)presentation smuggles in subjective opinions. Hakamayaparades a number of such examples before the reader. Echoing postmod-

ern literary and critical trends, he rejects this appeal to an objectivistapproach to the past, in favor, for example, of the narrative of history: It

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makes sense that those who exalt toposalso exalt objective facts, where-

as those who value criticism value language. The latter have no choice butto elaborate language as criticism while the former have merely to discoverthe facts as topos. If this means that even in the classroom the scholarmust abandon the pretense of objectivity and risk being branded a dema-gogue, Hakamaya argues that this is the morally preferable path.

In The Limits of Criticism, Paul Grifths seeks to contextualizeHakamayas notion of criticism in the philosophically more familiar termsof internalist and externalist epistemologies, arguing that the former,close to what Hakamaya is critiquing as topical philosophies, are to berejected for the many problems that they pose. To illustrate his argument,Grifths looks at the debate between Hakamaya and Schmithausen regard-ing the signicance of nature in Buddhism in order to pose furtherquestions about how far criticism can clarify what it means to be Buddhist.

The nal, short essay in this section contains Matsumotos responseat the panel on Critical Buddhism at the AAR in 1993.

Part Two, In Search of True Buddhism, opens with MatsumotosThe Doctrine ofTathgata-garbhaIs Not Buddhist, one of the inau-gural volleys in the Critical Buddhism debate. This paper, originally readat the 1986 meeting of the Japanese Association of Indian and BuddhistStudies, sets out Matsumotos denition ofdhtu-vdaas a form of gen-erative monism that contradicts the teaching ofprattyasamutpdaandno-self and hence is to be rejected as not truly Buddhist. This is followedby Sallie Kings article, The Doctrine of Buddha-Nature Is Impeccably

Buddhist, in which she argues that tathgata-garbhaand Buddha-natureshould be seen as soteriological devices rather than substantival ontolo-gies, and hence are, as her title indicates, impeccably Buddhist. Kingalso nds that there is no inevitable relationship between these doctrinesand social discrimination; rather, they can and in fact have been used to

justify and inspire social engagement.One of the areas in which Matsumoto and Hakamaya pursue their

arguments is the traditional mode of Buddhist scholarship, namely philo-logical exegesis. Yamabe Nobuyoshis contribution and the ensuingexchange with Matsumoto The Idea ofDhtu-vda in Yogacara andTathgata-garbhaTexts, is an example of this method. In this essay

Yamabe argues that the model of generative monism giving rise to dis-

criminatory pluralism that Matsumoto stipulates to be the dening char-acteristic ofdhtu-vdathought cannot, in fact, be found in the Yogacara

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sastras cited by Matsumoto. Although one would do well to read more of

Matsumotos original essays on these matters, his response and the nalrejoinder by Yamabe (A Critical Exchange) well illustrate the complex-ities of the arguments and the sophistication with which they are pursued.Both authors expressed the wish to pursue the debate and clarify theirpositions further, a wish that editorial constraints could not accommodate.

Although Critical Buddhism is most often associated with thepolemic writing of Hakamaya and Matsumoto, they are of course not theonly scholars engaged in critical Buddhist scholarship. The eminent schol-ar of Tibetan Buddhism, Yamaguchi Zuih, is often mentioned by bothHakamaya and Matsumoto as their mentor and inspiration in this regard.His contribution, The Core Elements of Indian Buddhism Introducedinto Tibet, is one of the early inspirations for Hakamaya and Matsumotoand looks at Buddhism in light of the famous bSam yas debate. This isperhaps the best known debate between advocates of a nonconceptualoriginal purity and its sudden apprehension, represented by the Chanmaster Mo-ho-yen, on the one hand, and the Indian tradition of the grad-ual cultivation of the six perfections advocated by Kamalala, on theother. Critiquing the notion that the wisdom of bodhi is equivalent tothe mystical intuition of liberation or satori, Yamaguchi notes thatthe purpose of Buddhism is not liberation (mukta, vimoka) but therealization of wisdom (bodhi) for the practice of great compassion(mahkaru). He thus sides with Kamalala to conclude thatBuddhism is constituted by the practice of perfect giving and that this

consists in the practice of the six perfections.This sort of critique of Chan and Zen subitism is not new, of course,and as scholars in the St Zen tradition and teaching at St Zen uni-

versities, it is natural that both Hakamaya and Matsumoto should be per-sonally involved in clarifying what Zen is all about. Matsumotos 1993book, Critical Studies in Zen Thought, presents a sustained criticism ofmuch of what is held sacred in that tradition, particularly the very notionof dhyana or zen itself. As summed up in the excerpt included here,The Meaning of Zen, Matsumoto claims that if zen (the practice ofdhyana) means the cessation of conceptual thought, then Zen thought isa denial of Buddhism itself. In a similar fashion, in his Dgen andBuddhism(1992) Hakamaya has presented an extensive critique of the

St traditions understanding of their own founder, arguing that Dgenscriticism of the doctrine of original enlightenment is foundational for

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understanding his thought, and that this critique is best evidenced not in

the standard 75-fascicle version of the Shbgenzbut rather in the 12-fascicle version, completed later in his life and intended to supersede theearlier 75-fascicle version. Steven Heine examines this argument in hiscontribution, Critical Buddhism and Dgens Shbgenz: The Debateover the 75-Fascicle and 12-FascicleTexts. Highlighting the way in

which sectarian and scholarly hermeneutics are inevitably intertwined withcontemporary social concerns, Heine also examines the difculty of cate-gorizing a method that makes simultaneous use of historical, philological,philosophical, and ethical approaches while confounding the boundarybetween academic and apologetic discourse.

The nal four chapters in Part Two assess the merits of CriticalBuddhism from a variety of perspectives. Peter Gregorys essay, IsCritical Buddhism Really Critical?, takes the thought of Tsung-mi as acase study in order to ask whether the pursuit of true Buddhism is notin turn positing some sort ofdhtu-vda-like essence of Buddhism, hencemirroring the object of its own criticism. Preferring to see Buddhism as aproduct of a complex set of interdependent and ever-changing condi-tions (prattyasamutpda), he looks at Tsung-mis thought not to deter-mine whether or not it is truly Buddhist but in order to discover thecauses and conditions that brought it into existence. In a manner similarto Sallie Kings argument that Buddha-nature can be understood as a cat-alyst for positive social change, Gregory argues that for Tsung-mi thedoctrine of original enlightenment was tied not to a linguistic transcen-

dentalism but rather to an afrmation of language in response to themore radical critiques of thepraj-pramittradition.As noted above, one of the most interesting aspects of Hakamayas

and Matsumotos critiques is their resonance with so many of todaysintellectual and moral issues beyond the narrow connes of Buddhistscholarship, and it is perhaps for this reason that they have aroused suchstrong reactions among scholars throughout the world. This resonance isadmirably demonstrated in Lin Chen-kuos essay, Metaphysics, Suffering,and Liberation: The Debate between Two Buddhisms, in which he usesthe thought of Heidegger, Adorno, Derrida, and Habermas, as well asthe example of earlier Critical Buddhists in modern China, to elucidatea conict between the programs of modernity and postmodernity and to

suggest a way out of the contradiction between Topical and CriticalBuddhism. In Thoughts on Dhtu-vdaand Recent Trends in Buddhist

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Studies, Takasaki Jikid, perhaps the preeminent scholar of the

tathgata-garbha tradition and a teacher of both Matsumoto andHakamaya, gives a thoughtful overview ofdhtuin the Buddhist traditionand also considers the role of their method in the current state ofBuddhist studies. Sueki Fumihiko of the University of Tokyo is one ofthe scholars who has responded to Hakamaya and Matsumotos criticismsover the years. His essay, A Reexamination of Critical Buddhism, pre-sents a useful review of the many issues involved and his own contribu-tions to the debate, concluding with ruminations on the role of Buddhistscholarship in cultural criticism.

One of the salient features of Hakamaya and Matsumotos criticismsis that they are tied to a social critique. Part Three, Social Criticism,presents four essays that address these issues directly. HakamayasThoughts on the Ideological Background of Social Discrimination,originally delivered at the Buraku Liberation Center in the context of theuproar over the longstanding practice of institutional discrimination with-in the St sect, presents his critique of St preachers who used the doc-trines of original enlightenment and karma in order to justify socialinequities. If the afrmation of causality and karma is perhaps the mainthrust of Critical Buddhism, does this mean that social injustice can ormust be understood as the inevitable outcome of ones evil actions in thepast? Hakamaya concludes that an individuals personal understanding orexperience of karma is not at all the same thing as the authoritarian use ofkarma as an ideology of acquiescence to the thusness of social inequity.

Matsumotos essay on Buddhism and the Kami: Against Japanism pre-sents his critique of modern and contemporary proponents of Japaneseracial uniqueness, including such luminaries as Kawabata Yasunari andUmehara Takeshi, linking their glorication of Japanese culture to themilitarism of the Kokutai no hongi. He also looks at the Yogacara-likethemes of Mishima Yukios nal writings, nding that his attempt tobreak free of his rational world of literary intellectualism into a world ofpure action inevitably led to his death, because pure Japanism is neces-sarily a philosophy of death.

The role of intellectuals in promoting Japanese ethnocentrism andcultural chauvinism has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years,and, as noted above, Hakamaya in particular has identied the doctrine of

original enlightenment (hongaku shis) as providing the ideological back-ground for this ethos. In Tendai HongakuDoctrine and Japans Ethno-

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centric Turn, Ruben Habito draws our attention to a number of

medieval documents. Echoing Tamura Yoshirs ndings of the pervasiveinuence ofhongaku shisand Kuroda Toshios discussion of how thisidea functioned to support medieval power structures, Habito nds thatits absolute afrmation of the phenomenal world led to a reverseCopernican turn that saw Japan not as a land peripheral to India in thehistory of Buddhism but rather as the center of the universe, not mired ina time of degeneracy (mapp) but rather enjoying prosperity and able tolook forward to the continued blessing of the gods and the eternal reignof the descendants of Amaterasu. Matsumotos closing essay on TheLotus Sutraand Japanese Culture continues the discussion of Japanesecultural chauvinism, challenging the idea that the message of the Lotus

Sutrais one of harmonious inclusivism, and arguing that it has to be seenrather as teaching the exclusive path of the Mahayana and thus asopposed to the ideology of harmony so often attributed to the LotusSutra. Matsumoto also looks at the issue of stupa veneration in the con-text of the Lotus, concluding that stupa veneration is simply the worshipof relics of the Buddha which symbolize and project the idea of an eternalatman, which he nds contrary to both Buddhist teachings of causalityand no-self and the message of the Lotus Sutra. As a closing reection onhowdhtu-vdaapproaches to the Lotus Sutrahave inuenced interpre-tations of Japanese culture, he rejects the idea that the uniqueness ofJapanese culture lies in some mystical harmony with nature: TheJapanese people are not perpetually in an ecstatic state induced by staring

at owers and trees. We are not vegetable-like human beings. What makesus distinctively human is the same thing that makes Westerners human:

we can think.

In the preparation of a manuscript of this length and scope, the numberof people who have provided indispensable aid is large. To begin with I

would like to extend my thanks to each of the individual authors, whoseinterest in the topic was great enough to carry them through the processof taking on yet one more commitment in spite of already overcrowdedschedules; I would particularly like to thank Steven Heine for putting

together the original AAR panel and helping me think through the logisticsof the volume in the early planning stages. Paul Swanson, my coeditor,

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arranged for me to spend a month at the Nanzan Institute for Religion

and Culture, where we assembled the collection into its present form. Forthe long hours he added to an already demanding schedule, and especiallyfor his warm friendship, I am deeply grateful. It feels as though nearlytwo decades of discussions and shared paths have come to a certain kindof fruition in this collaboration. I cannot be effusive enough in expressingappreciation to the many colleagues and friends at the Institute who gaveunsparingly of their time and expertise as we worked over innumerabledetails of style, presentation, and technical production. Without the assis-tance of the ofce staff, our work would have been much more difcultthan it was. The editorial assistance of Robert Kisala saved us any numberof working nights, and knowing that Edmund Skrzypczak would gothrough the nal copy with his keen eye and legendary zest for detailallowed me to rest at ease more often than otherwise. More than anybodyelse, though, recognition must be given to the director of the Institute,James Heisig, whose boundless energy, intense pace, unfailing humor,and intellectual gifts are well known to all who have had the good fortuneto work with him. Whether chasing down an obscure Chinese or Latinquote whose source the author forgot; whipping up a new macro thatauto-translates among the fourteen different word processors that indi-

vidual contributors used; creating a new font for the one instance ofKaroh script that came up; enlightening off moments with stimulatingdiscussions of Jung, Tanabe Hajime, or Ivan Illich; or simply regaling you

with his endless supply of tales, he succeeds in creating a communal

atmosphere of intellectual excitement and productivity unlike any that Ihave ever encountered. On top of all this his ability to rework stiltedtranslations and pedantic English into owing prose is a marvel to wit-ness and it is much to be credited for making the ideas herein accessibleand even enjoyable to read.

I would also like to extend my gratitude to the Association for AsianStudies, whose local travel grant allowed me to spend time withHakamaya and Matsumoto during the nal editing stage and to nanciallysurvive a month in Japan. Finally, I would like to extend my gratitude toHakamaya and Matsumoto themselves; it was their probing critiques andbrave stand that inspired us to undertake this task in the rst place.

I rst met Hakamaya in 1981, when he came to the University of

Wisconsin-Madison for a two-year stay. In addition to numerous delight-ful late-night discussions with Hakamaya as well as lakeside picnics with

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his wife and young children, I was privileged to partake in a seminar that

he organized on the Mahynasagraha, together with Paul Swanson,John Keenan, Paul Grifths, and others who were at the time studyingunder the direction of Minoru Kiyota. Although I had to leave to pursuemy dissertation research in Japan after only several months of the seminar,the group continued and eventually published The Realm of Awakening:Chapter Ten of Asangas Mahynasagraha(New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1989); needless to say, given the material and the participants, thediscussions around the seminar table were as lively as they were detailed,and the question of meaning ever resurfaced from the depths of textualdetail. Looking back with the wisdom of hindsight, I now see manythings from that time that seem to have led directly to this collection ofessays, not least of which is my long friendship with coeditor PaulSwanson and so many of the other contributors to the volume.

Beyond this, however, the study of Buddha-nature and tathgata-garbhawas a regular part of the coursework at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in part stimulated by the frequent visits of Takasaki Jikid andothers directly concerned with the topic. Equally important, though, wasKiyotas deep conviction that these topics provided not only an important

window upon the development of Buddhist thought but also spoke to avision of human dignity beyond the limited and ugly expressions ofhuman ignorance that he himself had so often faced. Kiyota thus oftentaught and wrote on the subject, his colleague Geshe Sopa offered lec-tures on the Ratnagotravibhga, numerous dissertations came to be writ-

ten on one or another aspect of the subject, and the topic naturallybecame the organizing theme for Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honorof Minoru Kiyota(Grifths and Keenan, eds.). At the same time, howev-er, Kiyota always encouraged a critical and questioning attitude towardsboth the Buddhist tradition and social institutions, with the result thatthe question of the philosophical, moral, and soteriological meaning ofthe doctrine oftathgata-garbhawas frequently debated. Indeed, onequestion that a student could always safely prepare in advance of thePh.D. examinations was whether or not the doctrine oftathgata-garbharepresented a form of monism. Another frequent topic of discussion fromthat time that I now see in the background of the Critical Buddhismdebate was that of the sinication of Indian Buddhism, and under the

inuence of another Komazawa professor, Hirai Shunei, many studentscame to question Richard Robinsons assessment of Chi-tsangs ideas as

INTRODUCTION

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a mere restatement of Indian Madhyamika thought, preferring to see

them instead as rather thoroughly colored by indigenous ways of think-ingexactly the sort of thinking that Matsumoto and Hakamaya contendis contrary to genuine Buddhism.

Shortly after leaving Madison to pursue my dissertation research atKomazawa University, I met Matsumoto Shir. Upon hearing that I wasfrom Madison, Matsumoto immediately engaged me in discussion aboutthe program there, particularly Diana Pauls work on the rmldeviSutra, as he had just nished writing an article on the ekaynadoctrine ofthat text. Some years later, when I heard him present his paper on TheDoctrine ofTathgata-garbhaIs Not Buddhist at the annual meeting ofthe Japanese Association for Indian and Buddhist Studies in Tokyo, I wasable to see how this early essay already provided a hint of the direction in

which his research was leading. Matsumoto recently remarked to me thathe hopes Western readers will not misunderstand his and Hakamayasemphasis on the intellect to mean that they believe only in the rationaland intellectual, or that they are so naive as to think that all things can beunderstood intellectually. The real impetus for his work stems rather froman optimism that things can get better, for individuals as well as societies.But this optimism is premised on our ability to think critically, expressourselves in language, change our ways, and thereby make progress.

When a signicant trajectory of the Buddhist tradition denies the useful-ness of language and the rational process, and hence the very possibility ofchange or transformation, their optimism rises to the challenge.

Hakamaya once noted that it is only those who believe in languagethat can change their minds. I am not sure if this volume of essays willchange any minds, but today, a full fteen years after these initial encoun-ters, I nd it exciting to be able to share with others some of the intellec-tual stimulation, keen social concern, and warm friendship that I havebeen privileged to experience in the company of these extraordinarythinkers.

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JAMIE HUBBARD

introduction by jamie hubbard - p. vii

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