01_(1-10) Sculpting Words in Ice How Buddhist and Christian.pmd SCULPTING WORDS IN ICE: HOW BUDDHIST AND CHRISTIAN STYLISTIQUES EN-ACT MUNDANE FAILURE AND ULTIMATE HOPE* Robert Magliola National Taiwan University, (retired) º·¤Ñ́ ÂèÍ Ë¹Ñ§Ê×ͤÓÊ͹·Ñ駢ͧ¾Ø·¸ÈÒʹÒáÅФÃÔʵìÈÒÊ¹Ò ÁÑก¨Ð·ÓกÒÃÃ×éÍ- ÊÃéÒ§ÊÔ觷Õè �à»ç¹à¾Õ§� âÅกÕÂÇÔÊÑ à¾×èͼÙéÈÖกÉÒ¨Ðä é́ÊÒÁÒö¾Ñ²¹Òµ¹àͧãËéºÃÃÅض֧ ¤ÇÒÁÊØ¢·Õèá·é̈ ÃÔ§ä é́ ˹ѧÊ×Í·Õè·Ã§¤Ø³¤èÒàËÅèÒ¹ÕéºÒ§àÅèÁ¨ÐÊ͹ é́ÇÂÇÔ̧ ÕกÒÃẺÃ×éÍ- ÊÃéÒ§â´Âãªéà·¤¹Ô¤·Ò§ÇÃóกÃÃÁà»ç¹á¹Ç·Ò§ ¢¹ºµèÒ§ æ ¢Í§Ë¹Ñ§Ê×ÍàËÅèÒ¹Õé ¨ÐáÊ´§ãËéàËç¹ÅÑกɳлÃÒก¯áºº«×èÍ æ áÅФÇÒÁËÁÒ·Õè«è͹ÍÂÙèÀÒÂãµé¢¹ºµèÒ§ æ àËÅèÒ¹Ñ鹨ÐáÊ´§ãËéàËç¹ÇèÒ¤ÇÒÁàª×èÍÁÑè¹ (㹤ÓÊ͹¢Í§¾Ãоط¸à é̈ÒÊÓËÃѺªÒǾط¸ áÅÐ㹤ÓÊÑ­­Ò¢Í§¾ÃФÃÔʵìÊÓËÃѺªÒǤÃÔʵì) ̈ ÐàกỐ ¢Öé¹ä é́ÍÂèÒ§äà 㹺·กÇÕ·Õè ÂÔè§ãË­èàÃ×èͧ �á·è¹ºÙªÒ� (¢Í§ ¨ÍÃì̈ àÎÍÃìàºÔÃìµ 1593-1633) ÅÑกɳлÃÒก¯áºº ͧ¤ìÃÇÁ¢Í§ �á·è¹ºÙªÒ� ¹Ñé¹ä é́ὧÊÑ­­Ò³¢Í§กÒÃáµกÊÅÒ·Õèá·é̈ ÃÔ§¢Í§ÁѹäÇé́ éÇ áÅÐÊÑ­­Ò³àËÅèÒ¹ÕéªÕéä»·Õè¤ÇÒÁËÁÒ·Õè«è͹ÍÂÙè «Öè§à»ç¹¤ÇÒÁËÇѧ¢Í§¤ÃÔʵª¹ ¨Òก¼Å§Ò¹ÍѹÂÔè§ãË­è Shobo-genzo ¢Í§ Dogen Zenji (1200-1253) à·¤¹Ô¤µèÒ§ æ ·Õè à»ç¹áººá¼¹ä é́¢ÂÕé¢ÂÓͧ¤ìÃÇÁàªÔ§¢¹ºáÅÐÍѵÅÑกɳì·ÕèµÒµÑÇ à¾×èÍáÊ´§ãËéàË繶֧ �¸ÃÃÁªÒµÔ·Õèá·é̈ ÃÔ§� ¢Í§¤ÇÒÁà»ç¹¨ÃÔ§ ÊÓËÃѺ·èÒ¹ Dogen áÅéÇ ¤ÇÒÁà»ç¹¨ÃÔ§¤×Í �กÒÃà»ÅÕè¹á»Å§ÍÂèÒ§µèÍà¹×èͧ� Abstract Both Buddhist and Christian teaching-texts often deconstruct the “merely” mundane so that the learner can advance towards beatitude. A pre- cious few of these texts teach by miming such a deconstruction via subtle -- - - - Prajna Vihara, Volume 12, Number 2 July-December 2011, 1-10 2000 by Assumption University Pressc - -~ literary techniques: the textual surfaces or conventions act-out the role of naï ve appearance, and the subtexts that subvert them act-out how confident trust (in the Buddha’s Teachings, for the Buddhists; in Christ’s Divine Prom- ises, for the Christians) can find fulfillment. In the great poem “The Altar” (by George Herbert, 1593-1633), the holistic appearance of the altar bears hid- den signals of its own real brokenness, and these signals point to the sub-text that is the Christian’s hope. In the great Shobo-genzo of Dogen Zenji (1200- 1253), formal techniques scramble conventional holisms and fixed identities in order to act-out the “true nature” of reality-reality, for Dogen, is at once “con- tinuous flux” (and “absolute density”). Both Buddhism and Christianity affirm “hope” in the sense of confi- dent trust: Buddhists trust in the reliability of the Dharma (Teaching) and Chris- tians trust in Christ and the Divine Promises. Through most of their histories, both religions have stressed the impermanence of the merely-mundane world, and encouraged detachment therefrom. In short, the Buddhists and the Chris- tians, for most of their history, have set their sights more or less squarely on the supra-mundane. The conventional world is continuously melting, like ice. The ongoing “now” of our sculpting, the intention and action constituting our “now”, are what liberate or obstruct us (this is not to gainsay, of course, that Bud- dhists and Christians attune their “now-moments” according to very different scales). During the last decades of the 20th century, the public spiritualities of the so-called “technologically-advanced” nations underwent a very percep- tible shift. Mahayana Buddhists, for example, tended, more and more, to in- terpret the Buddha-nature, etc., in such wise as to celebrate the plenitude of worldly life; and Christians tended more and more to interpret the “reign of grace”, etc., so as to celebrate the fruits of a consumerist society. Now, in the first years of the 21st century, years shaken by new wars and imminent economic collapse, the timbre of spirituality in these same coun- tries is changing again, and__it is to be hoped__changing back to the ultimacies that public religious discourse never should have thus marginalized. A key teaching of Buddhism, after all, is that one must deconstruct the merely mun- dane in order to access ultimate truth__be that truth the nibbana of the Theravadist or the wisdom/compassion of the Mahayanist. And a key teach- - - - - - 2 Prajna Vihara- - ~ ing of Christianity, after all, is that one must take up the cross, forsake the world of “flesh” (sensualism, etc.) and deny all selfishness, in order to gain supernatural life. Moreover, I am very convinced that even in “prosperous” times, every human being__at least in private life__is sooner or later brought up short by some devastating heartbreak, some radical impasse. At this moment of personal aporia, religious ultimacy turns out to be the only hope-ful solu- tion. For academics in the pertaining specialties, the themes of Buddhist anicca/anitya (“impermanence”, “transience”) and Christian memento mori and sic transit are long over-saturated. Instead, I treat here a much less studied topic, namely, stylistic language-uses whereby Buddhist and Christian texts have traditionally acted-out (in the sense of performed or “en-acted”) the impermanence of that-which-appears. Most interesting are those texts that deconstruct themselves__simultaneously laying bare their impermanence and exposing enough of their ultimacy so that hope, so that confident trust, can shine. My own published work for many years has involved the intersec- tion of French post-structuralist thought, especially Derridean thought, and traditional religious thought (be it Buddhist or Christian).1 The postmodern recognition that texts are bodies and that the textual body performs by way of its more formal components, is very serviceable for my argument in this pa- per: Buddhism and Christianity both have several textual traditions which in- scribe bodies that somehow are in-the-process-of-melting, indeed, that inge- niously self-deconstruct.2 Given the constraints of time/space, I limit myself to two examples: the well-known poem “The Altar” by the great English poet-ecclesiastic George Herbert (1593-1633), and passages from the Shobo-genzo, the master-work of the great Dogen Zenji (1200-1253), founder of Soto Zen. Examining the format of Herbert’s poem in the original edition, I point out the disguised subtext, the “holes” which puncture the surface-text and lead to the revelation hidden in the non-intact body. In passages from the Shobo-genzo, I indicate formal techniques that cut-up and scramble the intact body in order to open up truth. [Please forgive that, though competent in several languages, I am unable to read Dogen’s original Japanese: I make confident assertions about the Shobo-genzo only because I reference, herein, very respected secondary sources.] - - - - --- - - - Robert Magliola 3 George Herbert’s poem “The Altar” is what is called in the British tradition a “shaped-poem”__that is, the poem’s formatting is carefully designed to resemble its subject-matter. In a very visual way, the altar as a tangible “body” is placed on display in front of us. The very first edition of The Temple, the posthumous collection of Herbert’s poetry in which his “The Altar” ap- pears, formats the poem specifically as Herbert had intended. (It is ironic that subsequent editions frequently ignored the original formatting by “regularizing” the spaces between words, and centering the title.) The poem is shaped like an altar, with flat altar stone resting upon a table-cap supported by a narrower column and the latter’s wide two-leveled base, as herewith: The Altar. A broken ALTAR, Lord, thy servant reares, Made of a heart, and cemented with teares: Whose parts are as thy hand did frame; No workmans tool hath touch’d the same. A HEART alone Is such a stone, As nothing but Thy pow’r doth cut. Wherefore each part Of my hard heart Meets in this frame, To praise thy Name; That, if I chance to hold my peace, These stones to praise thee may not cease, O let thy blessed SACRIFICE be mine, And sanctifie this ALTAR to be thine.3 Here my connection to the early-phase Derrida can come into play, because Derridean thought maintains that the holistic “surface” or “face” of a “body” functions to conceal the real cause of the body. Deconstruction un- covers this hidden cause, and the “trail” to it is marked by some defect, some faille (“fault”) that the (apparently) intact surface disguises or “cosmeticizes” so the body appears “whole”. In short, bodies__no matter what the kind--are not really wholes: they are broken, and the disguised break in the surface 4 Prajna Vihara- - ~ marks the trail. What is more (less), the real cause of the body is itself some- how “there” but “not there”, what Derrida calls a trace, “trace”. (Isn’t “there/ not-there” also like ice at the very moment/point of sculpting?) The shape of Herbert’s original poem achieves its intact altar-like form by a ruse__sometimes the spaces between words are necessarily irregular,-- many are too wide, and some of even these are irregularly wider than others. The spatial irregularities (the failles, here) are right before our eyes, yawning like holes or gaps in the text, but most readers don’t note them (or, noting them, take them for granted). The conventional altar-shape is the disguise: it is designed to make the altar-body “appear” intact. Herbert, of course, has carefully contrived his poetic text so the discerning eye can detect the clues and uncover mere appearances. The poem identifies the “broken ALTAR” [fully capitalized thus in the text] with the speaker’s “heart”, which is “ce- mented with teares” [note the spelling of “teares” generates two homographs__“teares” (eye-droplets), “teares” (rips, ruptures)]. The altar of the heart is “cut” (by God, circumcision of the heart) so it can properly “praise” His Name. The last couplet identifies Christ’s “SACRIFICE” [the slaying of the Lamb of God] and the heart-altar of the speaker. The gaps in the text are the cuts, wounds, in the speaker’s heart-altar leading to the sacrificed Christ whose salvific cuts and wounds are the cause,--the real cause whereby the Christian body-system works. And the Christ in and on the “altar” is there/not there, that is, revealed in the Eucharistic act but concealed by the appearances of bread and wine. Finally, upon a re-reading of the poem, one realizes that even the de-centering, at the top, of the poem’s title, “The Altar.”,__as in the text’s original printed form-signals Herbert’s agenda. “Centering” is a charac- teristic of holism, as is “symmetry”, a traditional virtue of the “perfect appear- ance” of a body. This poem’s is, instead, from the very outset, skewed. Dogen Zenji’s Shobo-genzo4 (The True Dharma-Eye Treasury) brings to Japanese Buddhism a version of Zen emphasizing the radical equiva- lency of all things: Reality is an emptiness that is absolutely dense and empty at the same time. For Dogen, detachment does not mean a turning away from “objects” but rather, a passing through the “Great Death” so that the very distinctions between subject and object, self and other, spirit and body, are “cast off”. His famous shikantaza or “single-minded sitting” involves not the “bracketing-off” of experiential chunks of life: instead, “single-minded sitting” is the full engagement of “body-mind” (konshin). What “melt away” are the - - - - Robert Magliola 5 false constructions of merely mundane knowing. In terms of language, what is relevant is that Dogen navigates textual bodies as an equivalent of how he navigates all things. All things are in continuous flux so he momentarily alights where the ad hoc interests of enlightenment are best served.5 Likewise, the textual body (of Buddhist convention, the canon, the tradition), rightly under- stood, is in continuous flux, so the Shobo-genzo text incorporates and then scrambles these conventions, re-assembling semantic and formal units ac- cording to what may best serve the needs of the disciple(s) at the time. In- deed, Dogen often insists on the reliability of these situational teachings, and the very wording “True Dharma-Eye Treasury” proclaims them utterly worthy of confident trust. What Dogen aims to show is that any single dharma (understood to mean a “particularity” transcending “all forms of dualism”6) is a “total exer- tion” that is at once every other dharma and also unique. Kim maintains that what distinguishes Dogen’s teaching from the “mutual identity and mutual pen- etration” of the Huayan school is that Dogen’s is far more dynamic, so a dharma is said to leap out of itself, leap into itself, crash and smash into other dharmas, etc.7 The Wisdom-eye sees everything continually melting and re- constituting in a kaleidoscopic play. Dogen’s version of “the ongoing now” is perhaps best explained in the Shobo-genzo’s treatment of “Existence Being” (uji): “Because continuity is a characteristic of time, time past and present cannot pile up”. And because time cannot pile up, everything is “coming and going” and everything is “eternal now”.8 One of Dogen’s favorite deconstructive devices is the dismantling of a canonical “fixed phrase” by scrambling, repeatedly, its traditional word-order, and thus its semantic emphases. A good example is his re-orderings of the famous phrase soku-shin-ze-butsu, “Mind Itself [or “Mind here/now”] Is Bud- dha” (in Vol. I, Chapter 6, of the Shobo-genzo9). Chodo Cross, the transla- tor, in his introduction to Chapter 6, explains: “Mind here and now is Buddha” must be understood not from the standpoint of the intellect but from the standard of prac- tice. In other words, the principle does not mean belief in some- thing spiritual called “mind” but it affirms the time “now” and the place “here” as reality itself. This time and place must also be absolute and right, and so we call this the “truth” or “Buddha”.10 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 6 Prajna Vihara- - ~ The four words “Mind Itself Is Buddha” can be arranged in twenty four combinations, from which Dogen selects five: “Mind Itself Is Buddha” emphasizes “Buddha”, the particularity of Buddha-Awareness. “Itself Mind Buddha Is” emphasizes Itself, the particular- ity of hereness/nowness. “Itself Buddha Is Mind” emphasizes mental particularity. “Mind Itself Buddha Is” emphasizes existential particu- larity. “Is Buddha Itself Mind” emphasizes that each particular- ity is at once in all the others.11 Among Dogen’s many deconstructive devices, the other one I shall treat here is the subtextual subversion of traditional surface meaning. Hee-jin Kim supplies us with three good examples,12 kuge (“sky flowers”),13 mitsugo (“secret talk”),14 and nyo (“likeness/thusness”).15 Ku means “sky” and ge means “flowers”, so kuge in traditional usage is taken to represent “[mere] flowers in the sky”, that is, illusory experiences. However, ku can also mean “emptiness” (or “space”, as in the rendering of Nishijima/Cross), and it is this positive meaning of ku that Dogen raises to the surface. In Dogen’s deconstructive reading, every particularity__whether said to be “real” or “illu- sory”-- is a unique “flower of emptiness”, a Reality. Mitsu means “secret, hidden” and “go” means “talk”, so the phrase mitsugo is traditionally taken to mean mystical communication, a kind of “talk” that is intuitive, like “two things touching” without the use of intellect or the senses. Dogen reconfigures these meanings so as to eliminate all hiatus what- soever “between self and other, between thought and reality, between the symbol and the symbolized”.16 Nyo is ordinarily taken to represent similarity, but Dogen explains “‘Being like’ does not express resemblance; being like is concrete existence”.17 When D ō gen writes Nyo nyo, he is declaring that likeness is really thusness (see Fn. 6 of Nishijima/Cross, Vol. III, Chapter 42, p. 9). Again, Dogen is teaching the absolute density of each particularity, so each particularity is ab- solutely unique and absolutely the same as all other particularities. Keeping in mind that lines at the point of crossing do not share com- - - - -- - - Robert Magliola 7 mon ground (since lines have no width), we can celebrate how the texts of Herbert and Dogen intersect. For Herbert’s, Resurrection is hatched18 in dy- ing: in moment-to-moment “dissolution” of selfishness, and final “dissolution of the body” as we know it. For Dogen’s, the Realization of “True Nature” is hatched in dying: in dying to the essentialist ego and to its fabrications--phan- tasms of “fixed views” and essentialist “self and other”. “What is hope? What can we hope for? Is there any hope for hope at all? These are the questions we struggle with to- day. For Dogen’s part, he quietly calls for authentic prac- tice.”19 --Hee-Jin Kim “... for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of him who subjected it in hope.” --The New Testament, Romans 8:20 “Turn [your] afflictions into Buddhist Bodhi, just as ice melts into water.” --Master Hsuan Hua, City of 10,000 Buddhas, Talmage, California - - - 8 Prajna Vihara- - ~ Endnotes *This paper was given as an oral presentation at the bi-annual Conference of the European Network of Buddhist-Christian Studies, Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, U.K., July 1, 2011. The Conference’s theme in 2011 was “Hope: A Form of Delusion? Buddhist and Christian Perspectives”. 1For example, Derrida on the Mend (Purdue UP, 1984; 1986; 2000); On Deconstructing Life-Worlds: Buddhism, Christianity, Culture (Scholars P. of American Academy of Religion, 1997; Oxford UP, 2000), pp. 133-202; “Differential Theology and Womankind: On Isaiah 66:13”, in P. Berry and A. Wernick, eds., Shadow of Spirit: Postmodernism and Religion (Routledge, 1992), pp. 211-225; “Two Models of Trinity__French Post__Structuralist versus the Historical-Critical: Argued in the Form of a Dialogue”, in O. Blanchette et al., eds., Philosophical Challenges and Opportunities of Globalization, Cultural Heritage and Contemporary Change: Series 1, Vol. 19.2 (Wash- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - -- Robert Magliola 9 ington, D.C.: Council for Research in Values and Philosophy[CRVP], 2001), pp. 401-425; “After-word” [my book-chapter at end, commenting on the collected papers], in Jin Y. Park, ed., Buddhisms and Deconstructions (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006), pp. 235-270; “Hongzhou Chan Buddhism, and Derrida Late and Early: Justice, Ethics, and Karma”, in Youru Wang, ed., Deconstruction and the Ethical in Asian Thought (Routledge, 2007), pp. 175-191; and many articles in journals, both in the West and, in Chinese translation, in Asia. 2Jacques Derrida’s thought-motifs are widely known, but his stylistique, how he manipulates language-use (especially in his native French) so his texts deconstruct themselves, is largely ignored though he insisted__given the assumptions of deconstruction itself--on its primary importance. For a long description of his stylistique, with many examples and their intriguing if fortuitous (or inevitable?) intersections with Buddhist themes, especially “impermanence”, see my “Derridean Gaming and Buddhist Utpada /Bha?ga (Rising/Falling): How a Philosophical Style Can Devoid Substantive Field”, in the online International Journal for Field-Being, Vol. 1, part 2, article 1 (Au- gust 2001); accessible online at the International Institute for Field-Being website: http:/ /www.iifb.org/site > journal > Vol. 1, No. 1 (2001) > Part II > V1P2-No1 Magliola 1179608191360. 3The original version of “The Altar”, as it appears in the 1633 edition of The Temple. See it online at http://www.ccel/org/h/herbert/temple/Altar.html, via the Chris- tian Classics Ethereal Library. 4The English version of the Shobo-genzo used here is: Master Dogen’s ‘Shobo- genzo’, Gudo Wafu Nishijima and Chodo Cross, trans., Vols. I-IV (Windbell Pubs., 1996- 1999): citations are to the on-line digitalized text of the same, http://www.numatacenter. com (BDK English Tripitaka Series reprint edition), accessed via https://www. bdkamerica.org. 5Dogen’s Buddhist Way is here very much like the “non-abiding” (wu-chu) of the great Chinese scholar Chi-tsang/Jizang ( 549-643 C.E.); see R. Magliola, “Nagarjuna and Chi-Tsang on the Value of ‘This World’”, Journal of Chinese Philosophy (U. of Hawaii; Blackwell, U.K.), Vol. 31, No. 4 (Dec. 2004), pp. 505-516. 6See Hee-Jin Kim, “‘The Reason of Words and Letters’: Dogen and Koan Language”, in William R. LaFleur, ed., Dogen Studies (Honolulu: U. of Hawaii P., 1985), p.59. 7Ibid. 8From Dogen’s Shobo-genzo, Vol. I, Chapter 11, “Existence Time” (Uji). Here I am using the online translation at http://www.thezensite.com/ZenTeachings/ Dogen_Teachings/Uji.htm. Compare Master Dogen’s ‘Shobo-genzo’, Nishijima and Cross, Vol. I, Chapter 11. 9Shobo-genzo, BDK English Tripitaka Series rpt. ed., Vol. I-dBET PDF version (2009), Chapter 6, pp. 65-73. 10Chapter 6, p. 65. 11See Chapter 6, p. 68, and associated editorial Endnotes 14, 16, 19, 22-27, p. 72. 12In Kim, “‘The Reason of Words and Letters’”, pp. 66, 67. 13In the Chapter of the same name, Shobo-genzo, BDK English Tripitaka Series, Vol. III, Chapter 43, “Kuge”, pp. 13-28. 14In the Chapter of the same name, Shobo-genzo, BDK English Tripitaka Se- ries, Vol. III, Chapter 51, “Mitsugo”, pp. 129-137. 15In the Chapter entitled Tsuki (“Moon”), Shobo-genzo, BDK English Tripitaka Series, Vol. III, Chapter 42, pp. 3-11. 16See Kim, “‘The Reason of Words and Letters’”, p. 66. 17Shobo-genzo, BDK English Tripitaka Series, Vol. III, Chapter 42, p. 4. 18In this context, the primary lexical meaning of “to hatch” is of course “to produce from an egg”, that is__taken figuratively__”to produce new life” (the egg is a symbol of fertility and progeny in Chinese and Japanese culture, for example, and of “resurrection” in Christianity). We should keep in mind, however, that one of the opera- tive subtexts here is the meaning of “to hatch” as “to crisscross with lines” (from F. hacher, “to chop up”, “to cross-hatch”). Hache and hacher are two of the often used words in Derrida’s off/Talmudic word-play, since in French they can imply both duress and erasure. Derrida’s “to mark with the X”, to put “under erasure” (sous rature), re- minds his readers that the word or idea at hand is “marked” by the difference between what it declares and what it cannot say. For us at the end of this paper the crisscross can remind us that in both Buddhism and Christianity, not words but only experience can truly know real liberation. 19See website: http://www.worldtrade.com/religion/buddhism/buddogenR.htm. 20From the website: http://www.cttbusa.org/founder2/teaching_west.htm. - - - - - - - - - - - - 10 Prajna Vihara- - ~