A Recurrent Theme in Chinese Thought

·期刊原文
The Sudden/Gradual Polarity: A Recurrent Theme in Chinese Thought

PETER N. GREGORY
JOURNAL OF CHINESE PHILOSOPHY
Vol.9 1982
PP. 471-486
COPYRIGHT @ 1982 BY DIALOGUE PUBLISHING COMPANY, HONOLULU,
HAWAII, U.S.A.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.

P.471

During the weekend of May 22-24, 1981, the Institute for
Transcultural Studies sponsored a conference on "The
Sudden/Gradual Polarity: A Recurrent Theme in Chinese
Thought." Funding for the conference was provided by a grant
from the American Council of Learned Societies. The purpose
of the conference was to explore the various historical and
philosophical issues constellated around the sudden/gradual
polarity in an effort to recast its significance in as broad
an intellectual context as possible. It focused, however, on
the manifestations of this polarity within Chinese Buddhism.
While the controversy surrounding the sudden/gradual
polarity was not without precedent in other Buddhist
traditions, it assumed its greatest significance in the
Chinese Buddhist tradition, where its articulation displayed
a number of characteristically Chinese features linking it to
non-Buddhist modes of thought. The fact that this polarity
assumed particular importance in the Chinese Buddhist
tradition suggests that it resonated with, or gave form to, a
similar pre-existent polarity within Chinese thought. One of
the main objectives of the conference, therefore, was to
explore how this polarity formed part of a larger discourse
in Chinese intellectual history.
The conference thus sought to take an approach different
from those of previous discussions of the significance of the
sudden/gradual controversy in Chinese Buddhism. Instead of
trying to locate the source of the debate within the Indian
Buddhist heritage, the conference attempted to provide a new
perspective on the process of Buddhism's accommodation with
some of the dominant themes in Chinese intellectual history,
as well as Buddhism's effect upon that tradition. While
exploring the fundamental religious and moral issues behind
the sudden/gradual controversy as it was conducted within the
Chinese Buddhist tradition, the conference also investigated
how it could be reformulated as a paradigm by which to
elucidate some of the

P.472

tensions inherent in other traditions of moral and spiritual
cultivation.
In order to achieve as broad an interdisciplinary
approach as possible, the conference assembled thirteen
scholars from a variety of fields, including Indian Buddhism,
Chinese Buddhism, Religious Studies, Chinese Intellectual
History, Neo-Confucian Studies, Chinese Literature, and
Chinese Art History. Following is a brief summary of the
twelve papers presented at the conference.

1. Luis Gomez, University of Michigan, "Purifying Gold: The
Metaphor of Effort and Intuition in Buddhist Thought."

This paper provided a comprehensive historical and
philosophical overview of the sudden/gradual controversy in
Buddhism. As a working hypothesis, the paper began by
characterizing the fundamental philosophical rift at stake in
the controversy as lying between (1) the understanding of
enlightenment as a sudden leap into a state or realm of
experience that is integral, ineffable, and innate and (2)
the understanding of enlightenment as a gradual process of
accumulation (or reduction), as being describable, as having
degrees, and as being susceptible to progressive cultivation.
As a corollary to this, the first position considers the
state of bondage as the result of an error of perception (or
conception), thus comparing enlightenment to the experience
of opening the eyes, while the second position considers the
state of bondage as the result of attachment (or karmic
conditioning), thus comparing enlightenment to the process of
overcoming a bad habit. Whereas the first position represents
the situation seen from the perspective of enlightenment, the
second position represents the point of view of those seeking
enlightenment. Thus, in the context of Indian Buddhism, the
philosophical framework for the sudden/gradual controversy
lay in the doctrine of the two truths.
The first main section of the paper analyzed the two most
famous historical instances of the sudden/gradual
controversy. The first began in China in the fourth decade of
the eighteenth century with Shen-hui's attack on the
"gradualistic" teachings of the Northern Line of Ch'an,
against which he promoted the "sudden teaching" of the
Southern Line. The second took place in Tibet during the last
decade of the eighth century in the debate between the
Chinese subitist Mo-ho-yen and the Indian gradualist
Kamalasila. An examination of the content of these debates
reveals that the putative

P.473

issue-the sudden/gradual controversy-included a whole complex
of issues which can be grouped into various sets of
polarities (e.g., insight vs. concentration, activity vs.
rest, developed vs. innate Buddhahood, the obligatory nature
of moral practices vs. their natural unfolding, etc.). When
the positions of the various figures in the debates are
compared, they line up differently in regard to the various
doctrinal issues involved, the subitist in one context
holding some of the doctrinal positions of the gradualist in
another context. The sudden/gradual controversy thus does not
divide along any single polarity. Nor does there seem to be
any way to predict the specific doctrinal positions of a
proponent of one side or the other in the debates.
Nevertheless, there is considerable overlap in the way
clusters of positions group together in the actual debates.
Sudden and gradual therefore do not form a simple and static
polarity,but represent more,two opposing modes of thought
which can best be translated into the basic, and very
general, dichotomy of intuition and effort.
The second section of the paper explored two of the
polarities at issue in the controversy -those of insight vs.
concentration and activity vs. restexamining the former from
a strictly Buddhist perspective and the latter from a
comparative perspective. The issue of insight vs.
concentration illustrates how the sudden and gradual
positions intertwine. Kamalasila's position on the necessary
cooperation of insight and concentration, for example, is
essentially the same as that advocated by Shen-hui.
Kamalasila's misinterpretation of Mo-ho-yen's position
suggests that he was probably responding more to issues
relevant to his own polemical context than to the actual
position of his opponent. The second polarity discussed in
this section -that of activity vs. rest- raises the question
of quietism, in terms of which the controversy has often been
discussed. Despite the frequent use of this term, it is not
clear to which side in the debate it should be applied. While
the issues raised by the Buddhist debates may call to mind
the controversy over quietism in the Christian tradition, an
examination of the particular historical and theological
contexts in which the debates were conducted in each
religious tradition shows that they were so different as to
render the use of the term "quietism" meaningless when
referring to Buddhism.
The third and final section of the paper pointed out the
danger inherent in assuming that a metaphor common to
different religious traditions

P.474

indicates some kind of relation in the deep structure of
those religions. The mirror, for example, serves as one of
the most frequent metaphors for sudden enlightenment in
Buddhism (although it is also used to illustrate the opposite
position as well). The same metaphor is found in the
Christian tradition in the thought of Gregory of Nyssa, where
it has several points in common with some of the doctrinal
positions usually associated with the subitist position of
Southern Ch'an. Nevertheless, when taken within the total
context of his thought, the metaphor of the mirror turns out
to be based on an entirely different complex of theological
assumptions and expresses a gradualistic vision of the soul's
progress. We must thus be cautious in comparing religious
metaphors cross-culturally and can only do so meaningfully by
remaining sensitive to the particular doctrinal and
historical context in which they are articulated.

2. John McRae, Yale University, "On Shen-hui's Early
Teaching Career."

This paper discussed the historical background and doctrinal
milieu of Shen-hui's early teaching career. Shen-hui was to
gain fame for his attack on the Northern Line of Ch'an for
its allegedly "gradualistic" teachings and his concomitant
championing of the teaching of "sudden enlightenment," which,
in a series of public sermons given in 830, 831, and 832, he
claimed represented the authentic Ch'an transmission handed
down to his teacher, Hui-neng. The paper argued that despite
the image of Shen-hui as a vehement anti-Northern polemicist,
his early teachings were developed within the general
doctrinal framework of Northern Ch'an. The paper went on to
examine three Tun-huang texts associated with the Northern
School which demonstrate the close affinity between, if not
the mutual influence of, Shen-hui's early teachings and those
of Northern Ch'an. The paper concluded with a discussion of
two metaphors -those of the sun underlain by clouds and the
mirror- which can be taken as defining the conceptual
matrices of early Ch'an.

3. Robert Zeuschner, University of Southern
California,"Sudden and Gradual in the Division Between
the Northern and Southern Lines of Ch'an."

P. 475

This paper began by analyzing the Southern Ch'an charge,
first made by Shen-hui, that the Northern teachings were
"gradualistic" and did not even admit the possibility of
sudden enlightenment. It then went on to examine some
relevant passages in the Northern Ch'an texts to ascertain
the validity of Shen-hui's allegations. While Northern Ch'an
literature never explicitly advocates a step-by-step form of
practice gradually leading to enlightenment, it does,
nevertheless, lend itself to such an interpretation. A
further examination of Northern Ch'an writings, however,
reveals that the Northern Line did not -as the author claims
Shen-hui to have charged- reject the possibility of sudden
enlightenment. The Kuan-hsin lun for example, clearly states
that 'enlightenment takes place in a moment." The paper
suggested that, whereas the Southern position can be
characterized as "sudden enlightenment followed by gradual
cultivation," the Nothern position can be characterized as
"gradual cultivation followed by sudden enlightenment." The
paper then argued that part of the confusion that has usually
attended discussions of the sudden/gradual controversy as it
pertains to the split between these two lines of Ch'an has to
do with the fact that key terms such as "enlightenment" were
actually being used in different ways in each tradition. In
order to clarify the debate, the paper proposed a fourfold
scheme of the various stages of practice and enlightenment:
(1) a prepatory stage involving progressive proficiency in
moral and meditative practices, (2) an initial and
transforming experience of insight, (3) a process of further
cultivation wherein one's life is gradually brought into
accord with one's insight, and (4) the ultimate perfection of
Buddhahood which leaves no room for further improvement or
attainment. When the Northern and Southern positions are
analyzed in terms of this scheme, the Northern position will
be seen to place great emphasis on the first stage, virtually
none on the second, and some on the third; the Southern
position, by constrast, minimizes the importance of the first
stage, places greatest emphasis on the second, and gives only
some consideration to the third. Both lines tacitly take the
fourth and final stage for granted.

4. Jeffrey Broughton, California State University, Long
Beach, "The Tibetan Ston-mun: Contant Examination and
Sudden Seeings."

P.476

This paper discussed, and included a translation of a major
portion of, the late Northern Ch'an text Tun-wu chen-tsung
yao-chueh ("Determining the Essentials of the True Teaching
of Sudden Enlightenment"), which exists in a number of
partial Chinese Tun-huang manuscripts as well as one complete
Tibetan translation. This text is of particular interest in
that it reveals the fusion of Northern and Southern motifs
that seems to have been characteristic of late Northern Ch'an
writings. The text also seems to have circulated widely among
the proponents of sudden enlightenment (stonmun) in Tibet in
the later part of the eighth century, and is thus of further
interest in revealing the general doctrinal background out of
which Mo-ho-yen, the principal spokesman for the subitist
position in the Tibetan debates-emerged. The text focuses
upon "examining the mind" (k'an-hsin), a major theme running
through Northern Ch'an meditation texts. The text lacks the
polemical tone of the statements attributed to Mo-ho-yen in
the records of the Tibetan debates and seems to have been
written for followers within the tradition. A comparison of
this text to the position of Mo-hoyen as it was defined in
the course of the debates suggests that the polemical context
of the debates might have forced Mo-ho-yen into taking a more
radical position than that generally found in the teaching
tradition in which he stood.

5. Peter Gregory, Stanford University "Sudden Enlightenment
Followed by Gradual Cultivation: Tsung-mi's Analysis of
Mind."

This paper examined the meaning of sudden enlightenment as it
was understood by Kuei-feng Tsung-mi (780-841), traditionally
reckoned as the fifth patriarch in the Ho-tse lineage of
Southern Ch'an founded by Shen-hui. It began with a
discussion of Tsung-mi's analysis of the various meanings of
"sudden" and "gradual" as they were used in his day by
Buddhists in different traditions. Tsung-mi first
differentiates between the use of these terms as they apply
to classifications of the Buddha's teachings and descriptions
of the course of Buddhist practice. In regard to the latter,
he goes on to enumerate five different ways in which the
terms are used in reference to practice and enlightenment:
(1) gradual cultivation followed by sudden enlightenment (a
position which he identifies as that of Northern Ch'an), (2)
sudden

P. 477

cultivation followed by gradual enlightenment, (3) gradual
cultivation and gradual enlightenment, (4) sudden
enlightenment followed by gradual cultivation, and (5) sudden
enlightenment and sudden cultivation. The remainder of the
paper was devoted to the discussion of the fourth position,
that of sudden enlightenment followed by gradual cultivation,
which Tsung-mi attributed to Shen-hui. Tsung-mi held that
although the experience of enlightenment entailed a sudden
insight into one's true nature, it was still only the first
stage in a ten-staged process culminating in the complete
realization of Buddhahood. Tsung-mi thus contended that
sudden enlightenment did not obviate the necessity of a
gradual process of further spiritual cultivation; rather, it
formed the indispensible ground upon which authentic Buddhist
practice had to be carried out. The paper went on to examine
Tsung-mi's analysis of Mind, which derives from the Awakening
of Faith, as providing the rationale for his theory of sudden
enlightenment followed by gradual cultivation, underlining
the importance of the tathagatagarbha doctrine in furnishing
an explanation of the ontological basis for enlightenment.

6. Neal Donner, Institute for Transcultural Studies,"The
Perfect and the Sudden: Tien-t'ai Light on the Platform
Sutra. "

This paper consisted of three major parts. The first
discussed Chih-i's understanding of the terms "sudden" and
"gradual" in the context of his thought on teaching and
practice. Chih-i's thought is highly complex and dynamic--he
uses various classificatory rubrics in different discussions
of the Buddha's teaching, for example- and defies the kind of
procrustean formulation into which later interpreters
attempted to make it fit (such as Chan-jan's "Five Periods
and Eight Teachings"). In terms of the rubric that Chih-i
uses in his Fu-hua hsuan-i ("The Profound Meaning of the
Lotus Sutra "), his primary work on doctrine, "sudden" refers
to the Avatamsaka, because in that sutra the Buddha directly
expounded the context of his enlightenment without making any
concessions to the limited capacity of his audience to
understand. "Gradual" refers to all other sutras expounded by
the Buddha, who, conscious of his disciples' limitations,
used a variety of expedients to communicate his message. In
terms of meditation, "sudden" (or "sudden-perfect" as it is
more often referred to in this context) designates that type
of

P.478

practice outlined in the Mo-ho chih-kuan ("Great Calming and
Contemplation"), Chih-i's magnumopus on Buddhist practice, in
which ultimate reality is taken as the object of meditation
from the very beginning. "Gradual" designates that type of
practice in which ultimate reality is approached through a
series of proximate meditational objects.
The second part of this paper discussed the attitude
toward meditation found in the Platform Sutra, making the
controversial argument that its teaching of sudden
enlightenment, and its concomitant repudiation of the
necessity of meditation practice, should be seen as
reflecting its proselytizing effort to make enlightenment
accessible to the mass of lay Buddhists. The third part of
the paper discussed a number of striking similarities between
the practices, ideas, and terms found in the Platform Sutra
and those found in Chih-i's opera, suggesting the likelihood
of T'ien-t'ai influence, if not directly upon the sutra
itself, then at least upon the formative tradition out of
which it developed.

7. Robert Gimello: University of Arizona,'The Sudden and
the Gradual in Early Hua-yen: A Study in the Emergence
of a T'ang Religious Discourse."

The paper presented at the conference was only the
prolegomena to a more extensive study that would discuss the
establishment in early Hua-yen thought of the p'an-chiao
distinction between "the sudden teaching" and "the gradual
teaching," and treat the relation between it and other early
Hua-yen notions regarding the duration of the course to
enlightenment, against the background, and as an example, of
the dominant styles of religious and secular discourse taking
shape in the early T'ang. This effort would not only involve
tracing the sudden/gradual distinction and its attendent
doctrines back into the early history of Chinese Buddhism,
but would also involve tracing the "lateral" or synchronic
connections between these explicitly religious concepts and
certain ideas or modes of discourse seen in contemporary
literature, non-Buddhist thought, and political culture. The
actual conference paper set forth a series of philosophical
reflections which sought to develop a theoretical framework
for applying structuralist methods of analysis to such a
discussion. The paper went on to discuss the earliest
manifestation of the sudden/gradual controversy in China,
docu-

P.479

mented in Hsieh Ling-yun's Pien-tsung lun, as revealing the
particularly Chinese Problematik out of which the terms were
to come into general currency in the Chinese Buddhist world.
It then discussed the emergence of the sudden/gradual
distinction in the various doctrinal classification schemes
employed by Chih-yen, the figure responsible for the
systematic formulation of early Hua-yen doctrine.

8. Miriam Levering, Oberlin College, "The Sudden/Gradual
Polarity as Reflected in Sung Intellectual Discourse: The
Case of Ta-hui Tsung- kao (1089-1163)."

This paper discussed the critical role that doubt played in
the writings of the Sung dynasty Ch'an Master Ta-hui, and the
innovative revaluation that he gave to it in his practical
methods of Ch'an instruction. In the recorded sayings of
earlier Ch'an figures such as Lin-chi, doubt was seen
primarily as an obstacle to the realization of one's own
inherently enlightened nature. Ta-hui also regarded doubt as
a hindrance to enlightenment, casting it as the very
expression of the unenlightened mind. Enlightenment
accordingly consists in the elimination of the basis of
doubt. Ta-hui's originality lay in his use of doubt as a
means to the realization of enlightenment by emphasizing the
importance of hua-t'ou as a device for focusing all of one's
doubts into one Great Doubt. The more intense one's doubt,
the deeper one's eventual enlightenment. The paper went on to
venture that Ta-hui's emphasis on the role of doubt as a
vehicle for precipitating an experience of enlightenment
might be depicted as a subitist move to counter some of the
more "gradualistic" forms of Ch'an practice--such as "silent
illumination Ch'an"- prevalent in his day. As the title
suggests, the paper presented at the conference was but a
preliminary draft of a larger project discussing Ta-hui's
thought in the context of Sung intellectual discourse.

9. Rodney Taylor, University of Colorado, Boulder,
"Sudden/Gradual: A Persistent Paradigm Within
Neo-Confucian Self-Cultivation."

This paper examined the role of quiet-sitting (ching-tso)
within the regimen of Neo-Confucian self-cultivation.
Buddhist terminology has often been used to characterize the
different attitudes toward self-cultivation in the Ch'eng-Chu

P.480

and Lu-Wang traditions: while the former's emphasis on effort
can be likened to gradual cultivation, the latter's emphasis
on intuition can be likened to sudden enlightenment.
Moreover, since the practice of quiet-sitting is frequently
cited as a prime example of Buddhist influence on
Neo-Confucianism, a discussion of the different attitudes
toward this practice within the Neo-Confucian tradition
naturally gives rise to questions of the nature and degree of
Buddhist influence on Neo-Confucianism. The paper explored
such questions by examining the development of the practice
of quiet-sitting. It began with a discussion of the two Sung
dynasty figures primarily responsible for its incorporation
into Neo-Confucianism, Lo Tsung-yen and Li T'ung. It went on
to discuss Wang Yang-ming's reaction against the practice in
his effort to redefine the investigation of things (ko-wu).
The paper then discussed the two Tung-lin scholars Ku
Hsien-ch'eng and Kao P'an-lung who, in response to the
excesses of some of Wang Yang-ming's more radical followers,
reinstituted the practice as a major component of
Neo-Confucian self-cultivation. As Kao P'an-lung's writings
on quiet-sitting furnish one of the most extensive and
articulate discussions of the practice available, they are
discussed in more detail. In conclusion, the paper took up
some of the questions raised at the beginning, discussing the
relative applicability of a number of theoretical models for
characterizing the influence of Buddhism on Neo-Confucianism
(historical interrelationship, eclecticism, syncretism, and
synthesis).

10. James Cahill, University of California, Berkeley,"Tung
Ch'i-ch'ang's 'Southern and Northern Schools' in the
History and Theory of Painting: A Reconsideraion."

Tung Ch'i-ch'ang's theory of the Southern and Northern
Schools of painters was one of the most influential
formulations in traditional Chinese art criticism. The paper
discussed it in relation to the sudden/gradual
polarity,arguing that the sectarian division of Ch'an into a
southern and northern lineage furnished Tung with an
analogical, rather than a substantive,model for classifying
painters into broad, stylistic groupings. Tung identified the
painters of colored landscapes with the Northern School and
painters of ink monochrome using graded washes with the
Southern School. Tung's scheme generally followed earlier
formulations in contrasting Sung dynasty profes-

P.481

sionals working in detailed, decorative, academic styles with
Yuan dynasty amateurs working in free, spontaneous styles.
However, since its adoption of "Southern" and "Northern" as
categories for classifying painters was not bound by any
rigid, objectifiable criteria (such as Sung vs. Yuan or
professional vs. amateur) , but was based on a wholly
subjective evaluation of style, it avoided the kind of
objections that could inevitably be raised against earlier
schemes whose classification of painters was always somewhat
arbitrary and forced. Since rational reasons could not be
used to justify stylistic preferences, an appeal to lineage,
or to orthodoxy, provided Tung with the only available form
of justification for his theory. Tung's formulation, then,
did not imply a Ch'an aesthetic, or that there was a Ch'an
content to landscape painting. Rather,it functioned in much
the same way as Yen Yu's use of the Ch'an analogy in his
theory of poetry. Ultimately, the intellectual context for
understanding Tung's theory has more to do with NeoConfucian
ideas than with Ch'an.

11. Richard Lynn, University of British Columbia,"The Sudden
and the Gradual as Concepts in Chinese Poetry Criticism:
An Examination of the Ch'an-Poetry Analogy."

This paper examined the use of the Ch'an-poetry analogy first
given definitive expression in the Sung dynasty by Yen Y ?
in his Tsang-lang shih-hua. The paper argued that the use of
terms such as "sudden" and "gradual" as critical categories
in Chinese poetics is best understood analogically- that is,
the student of poetry somehow acquires poetic genius "just
like" the student of Ch'an achieves enlightenment. The paper
explored the nature of this analogy, traced its origins, and
followed its various ramifications in Sung and post-Sung
critical texts. It showed that some critics were as much
influenced by Neo-Confucian interests in self-cultivation as
by elements borrowed from Ch'an. In some cases it is possible
to discern a three-way analogy between Ch'an,
Neo-Confucianism, and poetry. The situation became more
complicated in mid-Ming times with the emergence of Wang
Yang-ming's School of Mind and its committment to
individualistic forms of the search for selfrealization, for,
from then on, theorists of poetry often allied themselves
with either a "gradualist" approach to genius analogous to
Ch'eng-Chu orthodox methods of self-realization or a "sudden"
approach analogous to the

P.482

heterodox (and even iconoclastic) methods advocated by Wang
Yang-ming and his later school.

12. Francis Cook, University of California,
Riverside,"Sudden Enlightenment in Dogen's Zen."

This paper confuted the common misconception that Dogen's
form of Zen teaching is gradualistic. It argued,instead, that
Dogen, faithful to the Chinese Ch'an tradition to which he
was heir, maintained that the experience of enlightenment was
sudden. His teaching concerning the nature and attainment of
enlightenment is based on his understanding of Buddha-nature
and is given its most explicit formulation in the principle
of the oneness of practice and enlightenment (shusho itto).
While Dogen's position had its antecedents in the Platform
Sutra and other Chinese sources, it also exhibited features
that are novel and unique. His understanding of enlightenment
thus derived from his own religious experience as well as the
Zen tradition in which he stood. Moreover, one of the primary
issues in the various historical manifestations of the
sudden/gradual controversy had to do with the necessity of
moral and intellectual preparation for the attainment of
enlightenment. Dogen's teachings that practice and
enlightenment are identical and that moral cultivation is the
organic unfolding of practice-enlightenment can therefore be
seen as representing both a continuation and radicalization
of continental ideas of sudden enlightenment.
In his closing remarks Professor Wei-ming Tu currently at
Harvard University discussed a number of the issues raised at
the conference. Among these, he pointed out that the
discussion of the sudden/gradual polarity raises the problem
of how enlightenment should be understood by scholars of the
various Chinese religious traditions. As useful and necessary
as historical and cultural analyses are to such an
understanding, the problem cannot be explained away by
reducing it to a parochial concern of a particular culture at
a particular point in history. He argued that, unless an
attempt is made to understand the larger, and far more
difficult, problem of the meaning of enlightenment as a
religious experience, it will be impossible to understand the
religious issues at stake in the sudden/gradual controversy.
Professor Tu suggested that scholars need to take the truth
claims of the religious traditions seriously and should adopt
what anthropologists call an "emic"

P.483

approach. Nevertheless, while scholars should be empathetic
towards these traditions, they should, at the same time, also
approach them with critical self-awareness.

* * * * *

The papers presented at the conference, and the discussion
that they precipitated, revealed the complexity of the
sudden/gradual Problematik. As it was manifested in Buddhism,
the sudden/gradual rubric was seen to contain a host of
epistemological, ontological, and ethical issues, such as the
nature of delusion (is it fundamentally an error in
perception or is it rooted in the whole personality
structure?), the nature of enlightenment (Does it admit of
degrees or is it indivisible? Can it be approached through a
series of progressive approximations or is it given
all-at-once in its entirety?), the nature of ethical and
religious action (Is it something that must be consciously
cultivated as a necessary precondition for enlightenment or
is it rather the spontaneous and natural outflowing of the
experience of enlightenment itself and therefore something to
which no special attention need be directed at all?), the
nature of religious language (Is ultimate reality ineffable
or can
something meaningful in fact be said about it?).
A particularly interesting and significant conclusion
reached by the conference -and demonstrated most notably by
Luis Gomez' paper- was that, in the specific historical
instances of the sudden/gradual controversy, there was no
necessary or even predictable way in which the positions
taken by the actual participants could be correlated with the
complex of issues contained within the sudden/gradual rubric.
In fact, it was seen that the subitist on one occasion might
very well hold a number of doctrinal positions maintained by
the gradualist on another. The complexity of the doctrinal
issues involved suggested that "sudden" and "gradual" did not
represent clearly defined doctrinal positions so much as they
did a general stance towards religious cultivation that could
best be characterized in terms of the relative emphasis given
to effort and intuition.
Despite the vague sense of the polarity, several attempts
were made to define it more precisely. It was generally
agreed that, within the Buddhist context, the basic
philosophical framework for the sudden/gradual polarity was
provided by the doctrine of the two truths. Accordingly, the
subitist

P.484

position could be generally characterized as one in which
enlightenment was regarded from the absolute perspective of
the goal, i.e., as talking about the issue from the point of
view of ultimate truth, whereas the gradualist position could
be generally characterized as one in which enlightenment was
regarded from the relative perspective of the means by which
the goal was attained, i.e., as talking about the issue from
the point of view of conventional truth. As a corollary to
this characterization, the subitist position would tend to
emphasize apophasis; the gradualist, kataphasis.
Another very suggestive attempt was made by Robert
Gimello, who defined the issue in the following terms: "Is
ultimate reality so distant from and yet so continuous with
the mundane that one can have only a mediated and step by
step access to it? Or is it so proximate, and yet so
autonomous and so utterly unlike our illusions or
expectations of it, that one can reach it only all-at-once
and only without any mediation whatsoever?" While this was
one of the more interesting and viable definitions of the
polarity put forth at the conference, it also served to
underline the complexity of the issue. That is, the subitist
position is often identified with a radical assertion of
nondualism. Yet, if we define the two positions in terms of
continuity and discontinuity, then, on an empirical level at
least, the subitist position is seen to presuppose a
fundamental dualism, as any sudden leap into enlightenment
can only be possible if there is a radical cleavage between
the unenlightened and enlightened states.
The conference also did much to clarify the discussion of
sudden and gradual enlightenment by analyzing how the terms
were used in different contexts. A point that was made in
several of the papers was that the terms "sudden" and
"gradual" contained a wide spectrum of meanings and were, in
fact, used in quite different ways. This meant that the
various participants in the debates were often employing the
same terms to argue about different things. Within the
context of Chinese Buddhism, the terms had a specific range
of meanings as they were used by the scholastic tradition to
classify types of doctrines taught in different Buddhist
texts. They also had another, although partially overlapping,
range of meanings as they were used by the Ch'an schools to
characterize different approaches to Buddhist practice. To
make matters even more confusing, the term "enlightenment"
was also used to cover a variety of different meanings. It
could refer to the fundamental ontological ground that made
religious practice possible, an initial

P.485

experience of insight, or the culmination of religious
practice. Thus, in the debates whether enlightenment was
sudden or gradual, the participants were often talking at
cross purposes.
Although it was not addressed explicitly, the general
working assumption around which the conference was organized
proved to have provided a fruitful approach to what has often
been treated as a purely Buddhological problem. The papers
and discussion gave support to the idea that the importance
of the sudden/gradual controversy in Chinese Buddhism could
be understood, in part, by seeing it as elaborating a tension
already present in Chinese thought (such as that between what
Richard Mather, in an article on the Chinese intellectual
world in the third century, has characterized as naturalness
and conformity). Because this tension was given one of its
most articulate expressions in the Buddhist debates of the
eighth century, we are justified in using the Buddhist terms
"sudden" and "gradual" to characterize this polarity without
thereby implying that it was a specifically Buddhist
paradigm, or that its use in later non-Buddhist contexts
necessarily reflected a Buddhist influence. In fact, it seems
to have been due to their very vagueness and generality that
the terms could be adopted by Yen Yu and Tung Ch'i-ch'ang as
categories in their theories of Chinese poetry and painting,
as Richard Lynn and James Cahill ably demonstrated, without
necessarily suggesting any explicitly Buddhist content.
When considered in terms of the very broad polarity of
intuition vs. effort, the sudden/gradual rubric has a wide
applicability which can be seen as operating at different
levels of generality throughout the course of Chinese
intellectual history. On the most general level, the polarity
can be seen as reflected in the tension between the early
Confucian and Taoist traditions. Moreover, within the
Confucian tradition itself, it can be seen as reflected in
the different points of emphasis between Mencius and
Hsun-tzu, or between the Ch'eng-Chu and Lu-wang schools of
Neo-Confucianism. Even within the latter, it can further be
seen as operative in the different interpretation of Wang
Yang-ming's Four Sentence Teaching given by his disciples
Ch'ien Te-hung and Wang Chi.

P.486

* * * * * *

As was originally intended, papers presented at the
conference are being revised for publication in a volume to
be edited by Robert Gimello and Peter Gregory, the conference
directors. This volume will constitute the second in a series
on East Asian Buddhism to be published jointly by the
Institute for Transcultural Studies and the University Press
of Hawaii. The first volume in the series, Studies in Ch'an
and Hua-yen Buddhism, also edited by Gimello and Gregory,
grew out of a conference held at the Institute for
Transcultural Studies in May, 1980 and is scheduled for
publication in the autumn, 1982. Another volume, dealing with
the significance of the Japanese Zen Master Dogen and to be
edited by William LaFleur of the University of California at
Los Angeles, is being planned as the third in the series.