Li Guangliang, "Marxist Views on Buddhism and Buddhist Views on Marxism"

Original publication: Li Guangliang (李广良) (2001). 〈马克思主义的佛教观和佛教的马克思主义观——马克思主义与二十世纪中国佛学概观〉 [Marxist Views on Buddhism and Buddhist Views on Marxism: An Overview of Marxism and 20th-Century Chinese Buddhism]. 《佛学研究》 10. (Archived here.)

Abstract: The relationship between Marxism and twentieth-century Chinese Buddhism is an important issue in the history of twentieth-century Chinese culture. This article focuses on the distinct standpoints of different ideological subjects (思想主体), discussing Marxist views on Buddhism and Buddhist views on Marxism, and providing a general overview of the relationship between Marxism and twentieth-century Chinese Buddhism. The article argues that the similarities in theoretical thinking, and the contrasting fundamental pursuits, between Marxism and Buddhism are the reasons for a series of engagements and conflicts between the two.

Keywords: Marxism, Chinese Buddhism, dialectical materialism, idealism

I. Introduction: The Problem

After the introduction of Marxism, the direction and landscape of Chinese thought and culture underwent significant change. With the spread and development of Marxism, all traditional thought and culture inevitably faced the challenge it posed. Owing to the inherent revolutionary and critical character of Marxism, it naturally launched a critique of traditional culture, including Buddhism, thereby causing a profound and lasting transformation in the intellectual and cultural sphere. Scholars have conducted in-depth research on this historical transformation from multiple perspectives, but one aspect seems to have received little attention: the relationship between Marxism and Buddhism. (1) Studying this issue can give us a more comprehensive understanding of the history of scholarship (学术史), the history of thought (思想史), and the history of religion (宗教史) in the twentieth century, and is also very meaningful for the future development of Chinese Buddhism and Chinese Marxism.

Generally speaking, Chinese Marxists in the twentieth century tended to criticize Buddhism. They used dialectical materialism and the materialist conception of history (唯物史观) as their main weapons, focusing on revealing the class nature of Buddhism, its reactionary sociopolitical role, and the idealist nature of Buddhist philosophy, while at the same time affirming, to a certain extent, the dialectical thought present in Buddhist philosophy. The situation was more complicated among monks and lay Buddhists. Buddhist thinkers of the Republican era both affirmed and criticized Marxism, and some even attempted to integrate Marxism with Buddhist thought. After 1949, the Buddhist community generally accepted Marxism's dominant position in social and spiritual life; under this premise, some monks and lay practitioners tended to argue for the compatibility of Buddhist doctrine with Marxism, so as to secure Buddhism's continued existence. This article focuses on the divergent positions of different ideological subjects, providing a holistic account of the relationship between Marxism and twentieth-century Chinese Buddhism, in the hope of offering some useful insight for the development of Chinese thought and culture in the twenty-first century.

II. Marxist Views on Buddhism

The Marxists referred to here actually fall into two categories: on the one hand, leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, such as Qu Qiubai (瞿秋白) and Mao Zedong (毛泽东); on the other, scholars of Buddhism who held Marxist views, such as Hou Wailu (侯外庐), Ren Jiyu (任继愈), Fang Litian (方立天), Fan Wenlan (范文澜), Guo Peng (郭鹏), and Yan Beiming (严北溟).

Among the early leaders of the CCP, Chen Duxiu (陈独秀) and others held a strictly critical attitude toward Buddhism; Chen Duxiu's criticism, however, was not grounded in Marxism. Another CCP leader, Qu Qiubai, was deeply influenced by Buddhism. His path to revolution was related to his immersion in the Buddhist concept of the Bodhisattva path. He said: "The outlook on life of the Bodhisattva path, and the social view of impermanence, gradually guided me toward a bright road." (2) Buddhist otherworldliness (出世主义) and its worldview of impermanence, combined with a negation or critique of the existing political and social order, prompted Qu Qiubai to journey to the "land of Russia" (俄乡) in search of new political and social ideals. Strictly speaking, however, the influence of Buddhism on Qu Qiubai is chiefly evident in his emotional sensibility and attitude toward life; it is difficult to discern traces of Buddhist thought in his philosophical writings proper.

Mao Zedong, a political leader of his generation, was also an important Marxist philosopher. His views on Buddhism encompassed three aspects: the theory of Buddhist culture, the theory of excellent traditions, and the theory of harmony with socialism. (3) Although these three theories reflect some of Mao's particular understanding of Buddhism, they in fact constitute the guiding ideology behind official Buddhist policy down to the present day. The theory of Buddhist culture regarded Buddhism as a historical and cultural heritage and an important part of traditional Chinese culture. The theory of excellent traditions further specified Buddhism's essence and role: Mao advocated "promoting the excellent traditions of Buddhism," meaning that the essence of Buddhism should be distinguished from its dross, so that the essence could serve the Sinicization of Marxist philosophy and the building of socialist culture. The theory of harmony with socialism, finally, aimed at integrating Buddhism into the socialist political and cultural system.

Some of Mao's specific statements are particularly noteworthy — for instance, his claim that Shakyamuni was "a person who came from an oppressed nation," (4) who was "speaking on behalf of the oppressed people in India at that time. In order to relieve the suffering of all beings, he did not become a prince, but became a monk and founded Buddhism." He held that "the Sixth Patriarch's scripture, the Platform Sutra, belongs to the working people," (5) and highly praised the Sixth Patriarch for his cultivation of subjective initiative:

Advocating that everything is empty is a thorough idealism, yet he foregrounded subjective initiative, which was a great leap forward in the history of Chinese philosophy. Huineng (慧能) dared to deny everything. Someone asked him: is it certain that one ascends to heaven after death? He said: not necessarily — if everyone ascends to the Western Paradise, what becomes of the people already there? He lived in the time of Emperor Taizong of Tang (唐太宗), and his teaching flourished under Empress Wu Zetian (武则天); amid the disorder of the late Tang, with the people having nowhere else to turn, his teaching became extremely popular. (6)

And again: "Buddhists and we Communists share common ground in working together to relieve the suffering of oppression borne by all beings — that is, the masses." (7) "If we broaden our view further, the aim is to set China, and the world, in good order — Buddhist teaching already contains this very idea." (8)

The study of Buddhism from a Marxist standpoint was mainly a post-1949 development. The Marxism in question is, of course, the Soviet-derived Marxist philosophy that gradually came to dominate Chinese philosophical circles from the 1930s onward. Scholarship on Chinese Buddhism conducted on this basis is represented by Hou Wailu's General History of Chinese Thought (中国思想通史) and by Ren Jiyu's History of Buddhist Thought in the Han and Tang Dynasties (汉唐佛教思想史论) and History of Chinese Buddhism (中国佛教史). Its principal features are threefold: first, it emphasizes the socio-historical conditions underlying the formation of Buddhism and Buddhist thought, using class analysis to examine the class nature and social function of specific Buddhist ideas; second, on the basis of the dichotomy between materialism and idealism, it exposes the idealist essence of Buddhist philosophy from a materialist standpoint; and third, it affirms, to a certain extent, the dialectical thought present within Buddhist philosophy. The Buddhist scholarship of Hou Wailu and his collaborators reflects their consistent approach to intellectual-historical research generally. In their study of Sengzhao (僧肇), for example, they argued that although Sengzhao revealed the contradictory nature of motion, he did not grasp that this contradiction is itself the dialectic between thought and its object; in exposing the contradiction between motion and the "immutability of things" (物不迁), he glimpsed dialectics, but in then opposing motion so as to affirm the immutability of things, he negated contradiction, using the law of identity of formal logic to deny dialectics — holding, metaphysically, that motion is simply motion and immutability simply immutability, the two being incapable of unification. (9) In their study of the Sanlun, or Three Treatise, school (三论宗), they concluded that Jizang's theory of the two truths (二谛论) moved, in terms of worldview, from relativism to nihilism, and, in terms of methodology, from relativism to simple negation; yet even in this relativist form, it was compelled to affirm all the things it ultimately deemed illusory, thereby blessing the impoverished present world and defending the feudal social structure:

While this "eminent monk," who moved in and out of the palace, roamed the conceptual world of transcendence, his eyes remained fixed on the vulgar worldly interests of the ruling class. This duality was concealed by the view of the "Middle Way," and given a speculative form through extremely convoluted reasoning. (10)

In their study of Yogācāra (唯识宗), they argued that although its proponents spoke of causality in the most extravagant terms, their so-called causality was in essence merely a determination of the subject; they vainly sought to drain the entire content of objectively existing causal relations and reduce them to a causal relation confined to consciousness, one independent of the objective world and incapable of changing freely in step with material development. Once causal relations were raised into the realm of consciousness for examination in this way, their theory of causality came entirely to exclude any reflection of the development of the objective material world, becoming nothing more than an abstract, cumbersome philosophical speculation: (11)

This subjective idealism of the Yogācāra school appears, on the surface, to be merely an abstract, transcendent metaphysics with no bearing on mundane affairs; in essence, however, it is not only absurd but reactionary. (12)

These conclusions are, needless to say, extremely one-sided. But they were simply the inevitable result of the general paradigm of intellectual-historical research prevailing at the time — a paradigm applied no less to the study of Confucianism and Daoism than to that of Buddhist thought.

The scholar most at home in applying this model to Buddhist studies, however, was undoubtedly Ren Jiyu. His Collected Essays on Buddhist Thought of the Han and Tang Dynasties (汉唐佛教思想论集) is the representative work of this research paradigm, and won high praise from Mao Zedong, who called it "phoenix feathers and unicorn horns" (凤毛麟角) — that is, something exceedingly rare. Ren Jiyu's research consistently began by analyzing the class nature of Buddhist thought. In his view, both Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism arose out of the specific social and historical conditions of ancient India:

It is [part of] India's superstructure, serving India's slave-owning class and feudal landlord class. Their theories of Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma (一切有部毗昙学) and the Prajñā school of emptiness (般若空宗) were ideological weapons used to numb the broad masses of the Indian people and eliminate their will to resist. (13)

He also wrote: "The harm of Buddhism in China lies chiefly in the fact that it effectively blurred class boundaries and weakened the will of the oppressed classes to resist." (14) In evaluating Prajñā thought (般若学), he argued that Buddhist Prajñā doctrine, under the guise of "compassion" for all sentient beings, launched an ideological offensive against everyone who sought to face reality squarely; and in evaluating the doctrine of nirvana and Buddha-nature (涅槃佛性学说), he held that the slogan "all sentient beings have Buddha-nature" — a form of passive egalitarianism — functioned as opium for all oppressed classes, its reactionary character far exceeding its literal meaning and carrying real reactionary political effect. Ren Jiyu held that Buddhism is an idealist religious system, deploying idealist theoretical argument in the service of faith; at the same time, he acknowledged Buddhism's logical rigor and its rich dialectical thought, regarding it as a repository of intellectual resources still worth excavating. Buddhism, from its very beginnings, employed the analysis of sensation, concept, and material property to construct its religious idealist system, and its methods of argument were highly refined; yet Buddhist dialectical thought is ultimately incompatible with its idealist system, since idealism must, in the end, undermine dialectics. Buddhism's role in the history of philosophy is therefore that of "a teacher by negative example" (反面教员) — that is, "through the critique of Buddhist idealism, it advanced the deepening of Chinese materialism."

Compared with Hou Wailu and Ren Jiyu, Fan Wenlan held a far more radical attitude toward Buddhism, and may be considered an extreme case of anti-Buddhist sentiment in the modern period. On Buddhism in general, Fan Wenlan held that Buddhism, together with its scriptures and doctrines, was riddled with lies and undeserving of serious treatment. He wrote:

Of all religions, none surpasses Buddhism in the skill and audacity of its lying. (15) Buddhist scriptures are full of lies, and no Buddhist scripture ought ever to be taken seriously — they can only be treated as vain discourse (戏论) and rejected with contempt. Anyone who falls into this great deception may subjectively wish to be a devout, precept-observing Buddhist, but is objectively a great pest, spreading vain discourse and bringing ruin upon the state and calamity upon the people. (16)

Fan Wenlan subjected the various schools of Buddhism to equally thoroughgoing criticism, holding that "the Pure Land school is the easiest path to Buddhahood, but also the school that deceives and harms the most people"; that "the Yogācāra school is even more trivial, a form of vain discourse unworthy of serious treatment"; that "once Buddhism evolved into Tantric Buddhism, it degenerated into witchcraft, bewitching and deceiving the world through occult arts, and Buddhism reached a dead end"; and that the Huayan school, "whether partial or complete, amounts to nothing but empty fancy and empty talk, devoid of practical significance — fundamentally a set of deceptive tricks in loyal service to the ruling class." Fan Wenlan's critique of Buddhism employed the Marxist method of class analysis: Buddhism, he held, was indeed a great scourge for the oppressed classes, because

Buddhism emphasizes karmic retribution, using it to explain class inequality and the immense gulf separating rich and poor, which benefits the ruling class enormously and has thus earned it the protection and patronage of rulers. Compounding this, it is riddled with lies and exaggerations, threatening people with the endless suffering of hell and enticing them with rewards of wealth a thousandfold greater. The oppressed people cannot help but be deceived by it, and those who are especially covetous are all the more liable to be ensnared, deceived unto death and unable to free themselves — becoming devout Buddhists who do not mean to deceive, yet are deceivers in practice. (17)

It is difficult to say to what extent such radical criticism accords with the basic ideas of Marxism, or with the historical reality of Buddhism. Mao Zedong himself once held that "Buddhism speaks for the oppressed." In my own view, there is a Buddhism that represents the interests of the landlord class, and a Buddhism that represents the interests of ordinary people; there is no Buddhism that serves the landlord class alone. Even within the landlord class itself, attitudes toward Buddhism were never uniform. And from the standpoint of Buddhist doctrine, a Buddhism that served only the interests of one particular class would forfeit its very value of "delivering all sentient beings." Tibetan Buddhism is a Buddhism organized from the top down; Huineng's Chan is a popular, or plebeian, Buddhism. Fan Wenlan's disregard for this historical complexity makes his wholesale rejection of Buddhism something of an anomaly in the history of Chinese thought. Lin Zhenguo (林镇国) observes:

Generally speaking, Chinese Marxists' compilation and interpretation of the Buddhist heritage were conducted entirely according to the principles of historical materialism, holding that religion and philosophy are superstructural products reflecting economic and political structures, and that historically — whether in China or India — Buddhist religion and philosophy served the feudal landlord class. This is the Marxist programme of Buddhist critique that has guided, without exception, the writing of histories of Chinese philosophy and Buddhism since 1949.

The Marxist critique of Buddhism is one component of their broader ideological critique. For them, Buddhism's role as a defender of the ruling class in Chinese history lay chiefly in its proposal of an idealist ontology, which "attempts, through speculative means, to demonstrate a so-called ontology lurking behind the objective world, thereby rendering the reality of existence illusory, and even defining it as the externalization of self-consciousness or a reflection of thought." This "ontology" is referred to in Chinese Buddhism as "ultimate truth" (真谛), "mind" (心), "consciousness" (识), "dharma-nature" (法性), and so on. How to realize this ontology, and merge with it, becomes the goal of religious practice in Chinese Buddhism — a practice that is the subject's return to its own origin, or ontology; hence, within the ontology of Buddhist idealism, subject and ontology are held to have originally been one and the same. (18)

After the 1980s, Chinese Marxist attitudes toward Buddhism changed considerably. On the one hand, extreme and simplistic class analysis gradually fell out of favor, and more scholars came to weigh the theoretical strengths and weaknesses of Buddhist philosophy from the perspective of the history of human knowledge; the dualist opposition of materialism and idealism remained in use, but the complexity of history and thought was increasingly acknowledged. On the other hand, some began to draw on certain elements of Buddhism as resources for constructing a Sinicized Marxist philosophy. Take, for example, the eminent Marxist historian of philosophy Feng Qi (冯契). As a historian of philosophy, Feng Qi, in his Logical Development of Ancient Chinese Philosophy (中国古代哲学的逻辑发展), still employed the materialist–idealist framework, arguing, for instance, that the various schools of Sui–Tang Buddhism each subjected different facets of "mind" to close scrutiny in the service of idealism, and that the opposition between the Faxiang school's (法相宗) theory of "consciousness-only" and the Huayan school's theory of "dependent origination of the dharma-realm" (法界缘起) represented a contrast between empiricist and rationalist forms of idealism. As a philosopher, however, Feng Qi's doctrine of "transforming consciousness into wisdom" (转识成智), grounded in Marxist practical materialism yet incorporating elements of traditional Chinese philosophy, constructed a systematic account of wisdom in which the influence of Chan and Yogācāra is unmistakable — demonstrating the value Buddhist thought can hold for the construction of a Sinicized Marxist philosophy. I believe Feng Qi has here raised a topic well worth further study.

III. Buddhist Lay Practitioners and Marxism

In the history of twentieth-century Chinese Buddhism, a number of highly active lay Buddhist practitioners (居士) stand out. These lay Buddhists were believers in Buddhism, yet were also caught up in the turbulent intellectual currents of their era; brought together by circumstance, they tended to focus on comparing and reconciling contemporary thought with Buddhist doctrine. Marxism, as the dominant ideology of twentieth-century China, could not fail to leave its mark on the lives and beliefs of lay Buddhists — especially from the 1930s and 1940s onward, as, with the advance of the Chinese revolution, Marxism's influence extended increasingly to a number of lay Buddhists, for whom reconciling Marxism with Buddhist faith became a matter of pressing concern. A number of lay Buddhists, represented by Wang Xiaoxu (王小徐), You Zhibiao (尤智表), Wen Guangxi (温光熹), Su Yuanlei (苏渊雷), and Chen Mingshu (陈铭枢), generally held that Buddhism and Marxism harbored no fundamental contradiction, and could be reconciled, or even unified.

With regard to the relationship between Buddhist thought and Marxism, lay Buddhists broadly displayed four distinct orientations: first, the view that Marxist thought falls short of Buddhist thought, held by Wang Xiaoxu and Tang Ying (汤瑛), among others; second, the view that Marxism and Buddhism are of equal standing, held by You Zhibiao, Su Yuanlei, and others; third, the integration of Marxist and Buddhist thought into a new Buddhist theoretical system, represented by Wen Guangxi and Chen Mingshu; and fourth, the critical inheritance and development of Buddhism under Marxist guidance. Each is discussed below in turn.

First, Wang Xiaoxu, a lay Buddhist renowned for harmonizing science and Buddhism, took a deep interest both in scientific progress and in the spread of Marxist philosophy. On the one hand, Wang Xiaoxu held that the fundamental question of Buddhism was precisely the most influential scientific method then current in the social sciences — dialectics. The Buddhist worldview, he argued, can be summarized in the half-verse "All conditioned things are impermanent, subject to arising and ceasing" (诸行无常，是生灭法), which accords with the dialectics of Hegel and Marx, and with Plekhanov's dictum that "dialectics is the method of observing phenomena in their occurrence, development, and annihilation." On the other hand, although Hegel and Marx were the forefathers of dialectics, their dialectics remained incomplete; Buddhism, three thousand years earlier, represented a thoroughgoing dialectic. Hegel's dialectics attended not only to change in the object of knowledge, but to change in knowledge itself; Marx transformed Hegel's idealist dialectics into a materialist one, applying it to the study of human beings within the social sciences, and revealing that all political, economic, and legal principles once considered fixed in fact change together with the conditions of human life. Marx's dialectics, however, remained incomplete, because Marx could not carry his own principle through to its conclusion. Marx's dialectic held that "an affirmative understanding of existing things simultaneously contains within it an understanding of their inevitable negation" — a proposition that was, for the bourgeoisie and its apologists, "a source of anguish and terror." Yet Marx could not apply this same principle to the proletariat and to his own ideal society, communist society; indeed, he was prepared to pay the price of prolonged, worldwide conflict to secure the one exception to his own dialectic — communism.

In Wang Xiaoxu's view, only Buddhism represents a fully consistent dialectic. Dialectics holds that there is no abstract truth; yet all philosophers and scientists nonetheless attempt to derive laws from their objects of study, and such laws are inevitably abstract, and so inevitably violate dialectics. This holds not only for philosophy and science in general, but for dialectics itself, which cannot avoid self-contradiction — which is why philosophers and scientists, Marx included, cannot escape the incompleteness of their own dialectics. A fully consistent dialectic can be described in neither language nor concept; this is the Buddhist "non-discriminating wisdom" (无分别智). Though it can be described in neither language nor concept, non-discriminating wisdom is no mere name — it can be attained through the practice of countless dharma-gates (法门), and it alone can grasp reality as it concretely is.

In his "Discussion with a Certain Layman on His Writings on the Materialist Dialectics of the Sixth Patriarch" (与某居士论其所撰六祖唯物辩证法), Tang Ying wrote:

The Dharma encompasses both mundane and supramundane teachings, and materialist dialectics is one of the wholesome dharmas of the mundane world. Its teachings are of use for thought at the level of "phenomenology," but fail to reach the ultimate reaches of "ontology." Otherwise, try discerning the stages beyond the eighth ground (八地) — see if you can. When the five aggregates of clinging are empty, there is neither a mind that realizes nor a dharma that is realized; at such a time, tell me: the law of the unity of contradictions, the law of the transformation of quantity into quality, the law of the negation of the negation, thesis–antithesis–synthesis, and all the rest — where are they to be placed?

In the Anti-Dühring, Engels states:

Dialectics is the science of the general laws, or the laws of development, of nature, human society, and thought… Dialectical thinking grasps things within the flow of motion — occurrence, existence, development, annihilation — rather than in a static state; it observes phenomena within the intricate and far-reaching connections of all beings, rather than treating phenomena as isolated, unrelated, and fixed.

Tang Ying commented on this passage:

Reading this passage, Engels's view of things is no different from the Buddhist view of birth, abiding, change, and annihilation. Is not occurrence "birth"? Is not existence "abiding"? Is not development "change"? Is not annihilation "annihilation"? Engels's talk of "observing phenomena in their connections," of "not treating phenomena as isolated," "not as unrelated to one another," "not as fixed" — this, too, is no different from the Buddhist view that "all phenomena arise from causes and conditions" (诸法因缘生), that "no phenomenon arises in isolation" (法不孤起), that "all phenomena are mutually interpenetrating" (诸法相即), and that "all conditioned things are impermanent" (诸行无常). The difference is that Engels only "grasps things" between the perceiving aspect and the perceived aspect (见分相分), whereas the Buddha goes further, negating this very duality of perceiver and perceived, advancing to seek the self-witnessing aspect (自证分) and the witness of the self-witnessing aspect (证自证分), directly attaining the essence, from which function then arises — establishing virtue, expounding the teaching, delivering all beings widely, or returning by vow to appear in the guise of a philosopher, a scientist, or a Communist Party member, in order to expound the Dharma. The Buddha benefits others through his intrinsic, unassuming virtue, with no need to make his accomplishments known. The attainments of the Buddha and of Engels therefore differ, owing to the difference in what each has realized, in their root and branch, their scope, their manifest and hidden aspects, their reality and semblance — as plainly as the sun and moon set side by side. (19)

Secondly, You Zhibiao, Su Yuanlei, and others held that dialectical materialism and Buddhist dialectics illuminate one another. In his "Dialectics in Buddhism" (佛法中之辩证法), You Zhibiao stated that philosophers who understood only metaphysics and mechanical materialism, without understanding the dialectical materialist conception of history, could not understand Buddhism; only those who understood relativity and dialectics could truly understand it, since Buddhist prajñā (般若) corresponds to relativity in science and to dialectics in philosophy, being the best available method for explaining the vivid, living dynamism of the universe and of human life. To understand dialectics is to understand that every doctrine and ideology is merely an ideology reflected out of a given era and environment, rather than a fixed law:

According to the theory of relativity in modern science, matter possesses no absolute, true, and unchanging substance. Further, according to the most progressive dialectical-materialist conception of history in modern philosophy, every doctrine of thought is merely an ideology reflected out of the economic environment of a given era — where, then, are there any fixed, unchanging doctrines? I therefore say that the Buddha's teaching does not conflict with progressive modern science and philosophy; rather, progressive modern science and philosophy are providing a thoroughgoing commentary upon it. Anyone who truly understands relativity and dialectics will, on reading the Diamond Sutra, deeply appreciate this supreme, profound, and subtle Dharma. (20)

New Democracy, socialism, and the instruments of the state are, accordingly, all instances of what Buddhism calls "remedial teaching adapted to circumstance" (对治悉檀) — not metaphysical theories detached from concrete reality.

In his article "Mahāyāna Buddhism and New Materialism" (大乘佛法与新唯物论), Su Yuanlei undertook a systematic comparison of Marxist philosophy and Buddhism. He held that the Buddha appeared in the world on account of "the one great matter" (一大事因缘), whereas the philosophy of Marx and Engels is a product of historical development; yet in their shared aspiration to save and deliver humanity, their methods of observing change and examining phenomena, and their spirit of sacrifice and struggle, the two share considerable common ground. Equality, freedom, liberation, and happiness, all oriented toward the interests of the masses and pursued through self-criticism; phenomena and principle mutually unobstructed, each dharma reflecting every other — the two, on this view, complement, complete, and encompass one another, both being necessary to the age. Su Yuanlei explained the points of convergence between Buddhism and the philosophy of Marx and Engels from three angles: worldview, social view, and outlook on life.

As to worldview: the philosophy of Marx and Engels rests on two fundamental pillars, dialectics and materialism, which together form dialectical materialism. Methodologically, this philosophy adopted Hegel's dialectics while stripping away its mystical trappings, while its understanding of the world's essence carried Feuerbach's materialism a step further. In brief, dialectics uncovers the laws governing things through their "connections," "processes," "changes," and "contradictory development," thereby overcoming the defects of "isolation," "fragmentation," "fixity," and "monotonous repetition" — no different, on this view, from the Buddhist concepts of dependence upon another (依他), dependent origination (缘起), the four characteristics (四相), and the eight negations (八不). Nothing stands in isolation, nor does any phenomenon arise on its own; ignorance and contradiction, birth-and-death and change, endless dependent origination and contradictory development, all convey the same meaning. Materialism's claims that "the objective world is knowable," that "subjective reflection involves selection," and that "what is verified in practice is truth" arrive, by a different road, at the same destination as the Mahayana view, which does not deny objective existence but regards only subjective attachment as illusory. Su Yuanlei wrote:

Concepts are a reflection of matter, not its source; thought is the highest form taken by the motion of matter. Hence "tortoise hair and rabbit horns" never existed to begin with, and "flowers in a mirror, the moon in water" are, in the end, illusions. Buddhism holds that all phenomena arise from causes and conditions, and are manifestations of consciousness alone; hence development through the "transformation of the basis" (转依) cannot succeed without the unity of subject and object, and the correspondence of knower and known. What conventionally seems to exist does not truly exist; true emptiness is not mere nothingness. This accords precisely with the dialectical development of phenomenon and essence, sensation and reason — with the philosophy of Marx and Engels, which seeks essence out of phenomena and moves from relative to absolute truth, deeply consonant with the Buddhist path from conditioned to unconditioned phenomena, from illusory appearance to the realization of true reality. (22)

As to social view: Marxism takes as its mission the abolition of class division and of the system whereby human beings exploit one another, advocating "service to the masses" and "labor as creation," so as to realize a communist society of "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need." This is no different in spirit from the Buddhist notions of "the equality of all classes," of "regarding all sentient beings as one's only child" (众生一子想), and from the strict monastic discipline expressed in the saying "a day without work is a day without food." Worldly people often fault Buddhists for failing to engage in productive labor, but this is merely a defect of later, degenerate followers; true Buddhism does not impede productive activity — as shown by the example of Chan Master Baizhang (百丈), who would not eat without working, of the Sixth Patriarch Huineng, who pounded rice, and of "Huang the Blacksmith" (黄打铁), who worked at the forge, none of whom was thereby prevented from being a first-rate thinker. Su Yuanlei argued that finding ways to involve monastics in productive labor, and to establish monastic regulations to this effect, so as to leave no grounds for such criticism, was a matter of real urgency.

As to outlook on life: Marxism places great weight on theoretical construction, so as to acquire the weapons of ideological critique — hence the saying, "without revolutionary theory, there is no revolutionary action" — and it further calls for self-examination through work, learning from the masses, strict discipline, obedience to organization, and sacrifice in struggle, all in the hope of building an earthly paradise. This may be likened to the Buddhist spirit of taking compassion and wisdom as the foundation of learning, of vanquishing the heterodox and manifesting the orthodox, of vigorous and fearless advance, together with the practice of remaining close to the masses, never departing from sentient beings, sacrificing oneself to teach the Dharma, and entering prison to deliver others. In Su Yuanlei's view, the nobility of character and the great vow-power of Communists display precisely the spirit of "being first to bear the world's sorrows and last to enjoy its pleasures," and of "if I do not enter hell, who will?" — truly the mark of a Mahayana disposition.

Third, Wen Guangxi and Chen Mingshu attempted to combine Marxism and Buddhism to build a new Buddhist theoretical system. Wen Guangxi set out his "new Buddhism" systematically in essays such as "What to Do" (做什么), "Does a Socialist Society Still Need Buddhism?" (社会主义的社会还要不要佛法), "How to Resolve Our Ideological Problems" (怎样搞通我们的思想问题), and "The General Trend of World Culture and the Future of Buddhism" (世界文化大势与佛学前途). This "new Buddhism" was, in his conception, a socialist Buddhism combined with Marxist philosophy — a Buddhism promoting the spirit of "farming Chan" (农禅精神) in step with social production, and a scientific, popular, national Buddhism in the service of the broad mass of the people. Wen Guangxi held that Buddhism, too, is one of the ideological forms erected upon a socioeconomic base, and that, as society develops, Buddhism must inevitably pass from an old form into this new one; whether the new Buddhism could be established at all depended on its relation to Marxism, which he explained under three headings.

(1) New Buddhism and materialist philosophy. Wen Guangxi held that Buddhism is not only not a Western-style idealism, but in fact possesses the very spirit of modern dialectical materialism. The "mind" (心) and "consciousness" (识) spoken of in Buddhism's doctrines that "the three realms are mind-only" (三界唯心) and "the myriad dharmas are consciousness-only" (万法唯识) are not the mind, will, or concept discussed in Western idealism, but rather a single term encompassing both mind and matter. Western idealism reaches, at most, the sixth consciousness (perhaps as far as the perceiving aspect of the seventh), while materialism corresponds to the first five consciousnesses; in Buddhism, however, "mind" refers to the eighth consciousness, the storehouse consciousness (阿赖耶识), which contains within it all sentient beings and their physical worlds and is the root of the first seven consciousnesses, becoming, once consciousness is transformed into wisdom, the perfect and wondrous mind. Moreover, Buddhism itself acknowledges that "mind is originally unborn, but arises in dependence on circumstance," which is to say that it is, in truth, biased toward neither matter nor mind.

(2) New Buddhism and class struggle. New Buddhism, too, speaks of class, and stands with the majority of the oppressed classes in violent struggle against the minority; yet Buddhism's adoption of a class standpoint is a matter of necessity, a teaching of skillful means suited to circumstance. Buddhism's ultimate ideal remains the abolition of class and the unification of human society.

(3) New Buddhism and society. New Buddhism is a practical Buddhism, one that not only conforms to the ideological system of modern culture but also penetrates the masses and grasps living reality, working "toward the improvement and reform of the lives of the broad masses of the people in society." Buddhism depends upon the masses and serves socialist society:

Buddhism should be placed outside the temple gate and within society, taking the vast, impoverished masses as its object, rather than becoming an object of enjoyment or idle pastime for a leisured class — still less a religious relic of the old order that obstructs historical progress, as diagnosed by dialectical materialism. ("What to Do")

Chen Mingshu, a distinguished general of his generation, was also a scholar of Buddhism with profound and distinctive views. In the early 1950s he successively published "The Basic Essentials of Buddhism, and the Methods of Studying and Practicing It" (佛学底基本要义和研究它的方法与实践它的规律), "My Views on Chan" (我的禅观), "Analyzing the Theoretical System of Buddhist Thought through Materialist Dialectics" (用唯物辩证法来分析佛学理论体系), and "On the Two Absolute Meanings of Buddhist Practice" (论佛家实践底两种绝对意义). Chen Mingshu described himself as "an advocate of studying Buddhist thought using dialectical materialism — the method of the new philosophy." (Chen Mingshu, "Collection on the Bliss of the Dharma" (法喜集), Modern Buddhist Studies (现代佛学), Vol. 1, No. 3.) On the one hand, he argued vigorously against any characterization of Buddhist thought as idealist; on the other, he absorbed the theory of praxis from Marxist philosophy to construct a new, practice-oriented Buddhism, whose essentials were threefold.

(1) Buddhist thought arises from practice: it is a theory explaining how human life progresses from "sensory perception" through "rationality" and on to "awakened awareness." Analyzed through materialist dialectics, the basic theoretical system of Buddhist thought consists of the unity of mind and no-mind, the unity of self and no-self, the unity of mind and self, the unity of the relative and the absolute, the unity of affliction and enlightenment, and — proceeding from the theory of non-substance and the unity of opposites — an ultimate identity.

(2) The greatest and most thoroughgoing expression of Buddhist practice is "Bodhisattva conduct" (菩萨行): complete selflessness in the service of others, regarding the lives of the masses as one's own. It is thus entirely natural to stand on the ground of Bodhisattva conduct and be, at the same time, a Marxist–Leninist fighter; indeed, every Buddhist of right understanding and right view is, unconditionally, one hundred percent a Marxist–Leninist — a claim made strictly from the standpoint of conscious understanding and practice, in conformity with worldly truth.

(3) The Dharma exists within the world; it breaks through worldly appearances, and separated from reality it ceases to be the Dharma. The Dharma is teaching alone, aimed at resolving the problem of birth and death; it does not itself supply detailed theories for transforming the actual world, or for building the social, economic, political, and legal structures needed to resolve the practical problems of human life. Yet the former cannot be separated from the latter — to do so would be to abandon the Dharma — and the Dharma must, moreover, actively and thoroughly adapt itself to the latter. In the modern era, only Marxism has, in practice, supplied the theory and the laws governing this latter domain: "only Marxism-Leninism can thoroughly resolve the question of a genuinely happy and equal life for the whole of humanity." Chen Mingshu also noted that, while Marxism-Leninism carries the authority to transform the world into truth, goodness, and beauty, it ought not to be treated as an exclusive doctrine, since truth is one, universal, unfolding without end, and encompassing of all things.

IV. Buddhist Monks and Marxism

Monastic Buddhist thought was likewise influenced by Marxism. Across the twentieth century as a whole, the response of monks to Marxism may be divided, roughly, into three stages.

The first stage ran from the 1920s to 1949. In this period, monastic thinking about Marxism had not yet come under ideological control, and included both a receptiveness to Marxist influence and a critical response to it — the latter somewhat more prominent. The representative figure here is Master Taixu (太虚), who, in the 1920s, responded — in step with the international Buddhist socialist movement (23) and with the spread of socialist thought and Marxism within China — to the impact these currents were having on Buddhist studies. Taixu's sharp intellect led him to engage directly with socialism and Marxism: his 1920 essay "Tang-Dynasty Chan and Social Currents" (唐代禅宗与社会思潮) already reflects Marxist influence. In it, Taixu used "the anti-religious spirit of scholarship," "the anti-metaphysical spirit of empirical inquiry," and "the spirit of creative transformation against inherited convention" to relate Chan Buddhism to intellectual currents, and "the spirit of nihilism," "the spirit of Bolshevism," and "the spirit of democracy" to relate it to social currents. By the "spirit of Bolshevism," he meant "Marx's collectivism at the level of the nation and society, with particular emphasis on the sanctity of labor" — a spirit he saw embodied in the monastic code (清规) established for the Chan community by Chan Master Baizhang Huaihai (百丈怀海).

Taixu's critique of Marxism encompassed both dialectical materialism and historical materialism. Regarding dialectical materialism, Taixu held that it shared certain affinities with the Dharma. Materialism holds matter to be objective reality and consciousness to be a product of the material brain, denying the existence of any consciousness independent of matter:

Although this runs counter to Yogācāra doctrine, it need not conflict with the Buddhist teaching on the arising and ceasing of causes and conditions, or with the doctrine of the emptiness of dependent origination (缘生性空), since it does not take ultimate particles or atoms as the basis of the material, but treats only the changing realities of the present as material. (24)

Among the three laws of dialectics, the law of the unity of opposites, in Taixu's reading, resembles in meaning the Buddhist idea that all things, arising from manifold conditions, lack any real self-nature; the law of the transformation of quantity and quality likewise accords with the Buddhist account of cause (因) and condition (缘). Taixu wrote: "The transformation from quality to quantity means that, once the cause is fixed, conditions follow from it; the transformation from quantity to quality means that, once conditions grow strong, the cause itself changes." (25) Taixu judged that "of the Western philosophies, this dialectical worldview is the one best suited to explaining the changing realities of the present," (26) but held that "in playing out its contradictory, antagonistic character within an evolving world, dialectics ends by advocating struggle," (27) and is, in this sense, merely pathological.

By comparison, Taixu directed considerably more criticism at historical materialism. He held that historical materialism, by explaining social history solely through economic causes, "fails to grasp the full particulars of things," since, according to the Dharma, all things arise from manifold causes and conditions, and social change cannot be determined by economic factors alone. Although Marx introduced dialectics into social theory, he nonetheless divided society into opposing classes on a purely material-economic basis, seeking, through the struggle of the proletariat against the capitalists, to arrive at a classless society without private property; both his starting point and his terminus, on this view, were undialectical. Only by analyzing human life and society according to the Buddhist principles that all conditioned phenomena are impermanent (诸行无常) and all phenomena are without self (诸法无我), Taixu held, could the manifold contradictions and problems of social life be genuinely resolved.

Besides Taixu, others within Buddhist circles sought to absorb Marxism by uncovering socialist ideas already latent within the Dharma. Jichen (寄尘) of the Lingdong Buddhist Academy (岭东佛学院) argued that the Buddha founded his teaching in opposition to the unequal system of caste, and in order to establish a harmonious monastic community; that the Buddha taught compassion as an antidote to cruelty, right view as an antidote to heterodoxy, fearlessness as a corrective to undue accommodation, and the equitable sharing of material benefit as a means of regulating the economy, while insisting that the Sangha take harmony and concord as its guiding principle — and that all of this amounts to the Buddha's own socialism. The socialism that Marx later advocated, on this view, was thus no invention of Marx's own, having long existed already within the Dharma.

The second stage was the 1950s. In this period, Buddhists likewise threw themselves into the movement to study Marxism-Leninism, and study classes for monks and nuns were convened in many localities. The third issue of Modern Buddhist Studies (现代佛学), volume 1, carried "A Summary of the Study Class for Monks and Nuns of the Beijing Buddhist Study Association" and "A Study Plan of the Changsha Buddhist Study Association." The Beijing Buddhist Study Association set out three objectives: first, to study Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought; second, to put into practice the active Buddhist spirit of "selfless service to the world," cultivating an outlook centered on labor and service to the people; and third, to eliminate feudal, superstitious thought, secure a bright future for Buddhism, assist in social progress, and bring about a paradise on earth (人间乐土). This plainly reflects the guiding ideology of the Buddhist Association of China at the time. Master Juzan (巨赞法师) wrote, in "On Better Carrying Forward Our Excellent Cultural Traditions":

I hope that Buddhists, and adherents of other religions, will strive to study science and Marxism-Leninism, so as to unearth the valuable materials preserved within religion, resolve the problems thereby uncovered, and contribute them to all humanity — making religion, too, a force propelling the progress of human culture. I likewise hope that Marxists will respect such efforts, and will lend their support and assistance where necessary; only in this way can the problem of religion truly be resolved. (28)

He further called on the fourfold assembly of disciples (四众弟子) to study Mao Zedong's "On Practice" in earnest, treating it as a treasured guide to the ideological struggles of the past, and as a "sword of wisdom" (慧剑) with which to vanquish demons. Drawing on the theory of praxis within dialectical materialism, he analyzed the idealism of Buddhism and advocated the unity of theory and practice. Juzan's position combined, on the one hand, an accommodation to the political pressures of the day, made in defense of Buddhism's continued survival, and, on the other, a genuine attempt to adapt to new developments in social life. As left-leaning currents intensified, however, the historical process of accommodation between Buddhism and Marxism eventually came to a halt.

The third stage began after the 1980s. In this period, Buddhism and Buddhist studies gradually recovered their vitality, while Marxism's influence upon Buddhist scholarship grew steadily weaker; few within Buddhist circles now responded to Marxism at all. So far as the present author is aware, the sole notable exception is Living Buddha Duoshi (多识活佛) of Lanzhou, who held that "Buddhist philosophy is not entirely idealist." He firmly rejected the propositions that "religion is an idealist worldview that inverts the world"; that "philosophical idealism is likewise an inverted worldview, holding spirit to be primary and matter secondary, and is in this respect consistent with the idealist worldview of religion"; and that "philosophical idealism expresses its views in the form of an abstract theoretical system, whereas ordinary religious belief expresses its ideas in the irrational, emotional form of blind faith in supernatural power."

Duoshi held that Buddhist philosophy divides into four principal schools: the Vaibhāṣika (分别派), the Sautrāntika (经论派), the Yogācāra (唯识派), and the Madhyamaka (中观派). The Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika belong to Hinayana philosophy, the Yogācāra and Madhyamaka to Mahayana philosophy. Applying the principal criterion distinguishing materialism from idealism — namely, which of matter and spirit is primary — within Buddhist philosophy, the worldview of the Yogācāra school alone counts as subjective idealism; the epistemology and worldview of the remaining schools all belong to materialism, with Madhyamaka in particular belonging to dialectical materialism. Every school but the Yogācāra affirms, without exception, that "consciousness arises from its object; without an object, there is no consciousness" (as stated in the Bodhicitta Sutra) — meaning that subjective consciousness is produced by objective things, and that, absent objective things, there can be no subjective cognition. […] Both the Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika hold that subjective cognition is a reflection of objective things — cognition being like a "mirror" reflecting the objective world, whence the Buddha's "great mirror wisdom" (圆镜智) derives — though the two schools differ as to the mode of this reflection: the Vaibhāṣika holds that consciousness contacts its objective referent directly, while the Sautrāntika holds that the immediate object of cognition is instead the mental image formed through the five sense-consciousnesses. Buddhist philosophy as a whole holds that cognition requires three conditions to arise: first, an external condition, namely the object of cognition; second, a prior moment of consciousness (since consciousness forms an uninterrupted stream, and cognition cannot arise without a preceding moment of consciousness to sustain it); and third, a governing sense faculty, such as the eye-consciousness governing visible form, or the ear-consciousness governing sound. The dictum "without an object, consciousness does not arise" thus makes two points: first, that the source of subjective consciousness lies in objective things; and second, that the existence of consciousness is manifested in its reflection of objective things, such that, absent this reflection, the existence of consciousness cannot be confirmed.

V. Conclusion

Whether to criticize Buddhism from a Marxist standpoint, or to defend Buddhism from within its own standpoint while selectively absorbing certain aspects of Marxism, are two faces of the relationship between Marxism and Buddhism. In my own view, Marxism and Buddhism are not without genuine points of resemblance: Marx's statement that "the essence of man is the ensemble of social relations" already contains, in effect, the anti-substantialist thought of the Buddhist concept of dependent origination and emptiness (缘生性空). The dialectical thinking of Marxist philosophy likewise bears real affinities with the dialectical thinking of Buddhist philosophy. One major achievement of twentieth-century Chinese Buddhist studies was precisely the uncovering of this dialectical spirit within Buddhist thought — an achievement owed, in the main, to Marxist influence. The cultivation of the spirit of Buddhist praxis, too, may be said to bear the mark of Marxist influence. This is a point deserving particular attention in the study of the relationship between Marxism and Buddhism.

At the same time, Marxism and Buddhism differ fundamentally in their essential orientation: the former is a secular philosophy, economics, sociology, and historiography, aimed at establishing a rational social order within the world, while the latter aims, self-evidently, at religious liberation beyond the world. The Marxist critique of Buddhism, though it bears the ideological imprint of a particular era, nonetheless has its own rational basis when considered against the actual unfolding of Buddhism through history. I believe that the role played by Marxism in Buddhism's present-day movement toward a greater emphasis on social practice and toward rationalization is a role that cannot be dismissed.

Notes

[These are Li Guangliang's own endnotes, keyed to the numerals used in the text above.]

1. He Jianming (何建明) (1998). 〈略论近代中国佛教对东西方哲学的"回应"〉 [A Brief Discussion of Modern Chinese Buddhism's "Response" to Eastern and Western Philosophy]. History of Chinese Philosophy (中国哲学史) 1998.3.
2. Collected Works of Qu Qiubai (瞿秋白文集), Vol. 1, pp. 22–23.
3. Xu Sunming (徐荪铭) (1998). A Century of Buddhist Connections (世纪佛缘). China Social Sciences Press (中国社会科学出版社), p. 3.
4. Mao Zedong's speech at the Beidaihe Conference, 1958; cited in Mao Zedong and Buddhism (毛泽东与佛教), p. 95.
5. Chen Jin (陈晋) (1993). 〈毛泽东与中国的佛道教〉 [Mao Zedong and Chinese Buddhism and Daoism]. Outlook Weekly (瞭望周刊), 1993, nos. 8–9.
6. Speech at the enlarged Beidaihe Conference of the Politburo of the CCP Central Committee, August 21, 1958; in Mao Zedong and Buddhism (毛泽东与佛教), p. 112.
7. Mao Zedong's conversation with the Dalai Lama, March 8, 1955; in Mao Zedong and Buddhism (毛泽东与佛教), p. 98.
8. Chen Jin (陈晋), 〈毛泽东与中国的佛道教〉 [Mao Zedong and Chinese Buddhism and Daoism]; in Mao Zedong and Buddhism (毛泽东与佛教), p. 94.
9. A General History of Chinese Thought (中国思想通史), Vol. 3, pp. 450–451.
10. Ibid., p. 172.
11. A General History of Chinese Thought (中国思想通史), Vol. 3, pp. 219–220.
12. Ibid., p. 228.
13. Ren Jiyu (任继愈) (1973). 〈汉唐时期佛教哲学思想在中国的传播和发展〉 [The Dissemination and Development of Buddhist Philosophical Thought in China during the Han and Tang Periods]. In: Collected Essays on Buddhist Thought of the Han and Tang Periods (汉唐佛教思想论集), p. 8. People's Publishing House (人民出版社).
14. Ren Jiyu (任继愈) (1973). 〈南朝晋宋间佛教"般若"、"涅槃"学说的政治作用〉 [The Political Role of the Buddhist Doctrines of "Prajñā" and "Nirvāṇa" during the Jin and Song Dynasties of the Southern Dynasties Period]. In: Collected Essays on Buddhist Thought of the Han and Tang Periods (汉唐佛教思想论集), p. 24. People's Publishing House (人民出版社).
15. Fan Wenlan (范文澜). A Concise General History of China (中国通史简编), rev. ed., Vol. 3, part 2, p. 555.
16. Ibid.
17. Fan Wenlan (范文澜). A Concise General History of China (中国通史简编), rev. ed., Vol. 3, part 2, p. 555.
18. Lin Zhenguo (林镇国). 〈佛教哲学可以是一种批判哲学吗？——现代东亚"批判佛教"思潮的思想史省察〉 [Can Buddhist Philosophy Be a Critical Philosophy? A Reflection on the Intellectual History of the "Critical Buddhism" Trend in Modern East Asia].
19. Juexun (觉讯) [Enlightenment News], Vol. 4, No. 3 (March 1, 1950).
20. You Zhibiao (尤智表) (1949). 〈谈般若〉 [On Prajñā]. Juexun (觉讯) 3.10 (October 1, 1949).
21. Su Yuanlei (苏渊雷) (1949). 〈大乘佛法与马恩哲学〉 [Mahayana Buddhism and the Philosophy of Marx and Engels]. Juexun (觉讯) 3.11 (November 1, 1949).
22. Ibid.
23. He Jianming (何建明) (1998). The Modern Adaptation of Buddhist Concepts (佛法观念的近代调适), p. 338. Guangdong People's Publishing House (广东人民出版社).
24. Modern Chinese Academic Classics: The Taixu Volume (中国现代学术经典·太虚卷), p. 403. Hebei Education Press (河北教育出版社), 1996.
25. Ibid., p. 405.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid., p. 407.
28. Modern Buddhist Studies (现代佛学) 1957.4.

Translator's Notes

This article is one of the few academic sources on Buddhist Marxism in mid-twentieth century China. We offer this translation here, because this text is important, and needs to be accessible to researchers. We have tried contacting the publisher of the original Chinese text, as well as the article's author (through his last recorded academic employer), but have received no replies. If any individual or organization owning the copyrights to the original Chinese texts of this article objects to our publication of this English translation, please refer to our copyright and takedown policy here.