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''Original publication: [[Lin Qiuwu]] (林秋梧) (1929). [[LQ29CSB|〈階級鬥爭與佛教〉]] [Class Struggle and Buddhism]. 《南瀛佛教》 [Nan'ying Buddhism] 7.2: 52–58.''
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'''Class Struggle and Buddhism''' (階級鬥爭與佛教)

By Lin Qiuwu (林秋梧)

The slogan "class struggle" (階級鬥爭) has, since the conclusion of the European War, gradually been propagated among the working class (勞働階級)—not merely in the advanced imperialist nations, but within the Japanese home islands (日本內地) as well—following the development of domestic capitalism (資本主義).<ref name="naichi">"European War" refers to the First World War (1914–1918). The original text also uses the term "Japanese home islands" (日本內地, ''naichi''), the official designation distinguishing Japan proper from its colonial territories (外地, ''gaichi'') such as Taiwan and Korea during the period of Japanese colonial rule.</ref> By now it has, remarkably, become a form of faith (信仰).<ref name="faith">The term translated here as "faith" (信仰) bridges religious conviction and political ideology, a recurring theme throughout Lin Qiuwu's synthesis of Buddhism and Marxism in this essay.</ref> Just as elderly people in the countryside firmly believe that reciting the six characters "Namu Amida Butsu" (南無阿彌陀佛) can dispel their eighty-four thousand afflictions, free them from the cycle of birth and death, and grant them rebirth in the Pure Land,<ref name="nenbutsu">"Eighty-four thousand" (八萬四千) is a conventional Buddhist figure denoting an innumerable quantity, applied here to the afflictions, or ''klesha'', that bind sentient beings to samsara. "Namu Amida Butsu" is the ''nenbutsu'', the core invocational practice of Pure Land Buddhism, premised on salvation through faith in Amitabha Buddha.</ref> ordinary members of the working class now regard the four characters "class struggle" as an army of two hundred and forty thousand heavenly soldiers and generals. They believe that reaching their own peaceable and prosperous heaven is impossible without this magical power to move mountains and overturn seas. Consequently, in places where class divisions are most starkly drawn, this tendency burns with particular intensity, frequently giving rise to the tragedy of bloodshed. All of this is the fruit of an acute disparity between rich and poor, combined with an excessive class consciousness.

Class consciousness (階級意識)—this mysterious, subtle seed<ref name="mysterious">"Mysterious and subtle" (玄妙) is a classical descriptor for profound truths shared by Buddhist and Daoist discourse; Lin repurposes it here to characterize the invisible, seemingly inevitable emergence of Marxist class consciousness.</ref>—will, so long as it exists within a society under the capitalist system (資本主義制度的社會), take root and spread rapidly in any locale, whatever the natural environment or climate.

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On this island of Taiwan (臺灣), where demonic vapors fill the wilderness and monstrous waves billow to the very heavens,<ref name="demonic">This apocalyptic and supernatural imagery, drawn from traditional Chinese literary convention, is here employed to describe the volatile and oppressive political climate of colonial Taiwan under Japanese rule.</ref> although we cannot say when it was sown these past few years, or whether it is truly the same seed, one senses that its sprouts can faintly be discerned. The deepening of the peasant movement (農民運動), the proliferation of strikes (罷工) in various localities, and the development of political movements (政治運動), together with the detentions, surveillance, arrests, prosecutions, and imprisonments meted out by the authorities, constitute the full apparatus of colonial surveillance and punishment. Although these entanglements might be dismissed as "trouble that ordinary people bring upon themselves" (庸人自擾),<ref name="geteng">"Entanglements" translates ''getang'' (葛藤), literally "wisteria and creepers," a Chan Buddhist term for the snares of language, attachment, and worldly illusion. Lin's characterization of these colonial conflicts as mere "trouble that ordinary people bring upon themselves" (庸人自擾) subtly applies a detached Buddhist framing to what is, in fact, intense political strife.</ref> they may equally be read as portents of class struggle, or its earliest form. Consider, too, the May Day (勞働節) song sung by workers of various local organizations:

:How beautiful,
:the world of freedom,
:the morning star!
:I will spill my hot blood and sacrifice myself for it,
:determined to wipe out these unjust systems entirely.
:Remember well this auspicious day, the first of May.

:Banners fly and dance,
:we march the road of justice and light,
:from each according to his ability, to each according to his need,<ref name="gotha">This line is a direct quotation of Karl Marx's celebrated formula from his 1875 ''Critique of the Gotha Programme''.</ref>
:making no distinction between noble and base, rich and poor, bound together by mutual aid.
:May we all strive hard and advance together!

::(Recorded from the May issue of the ''Taiwan Minpao'' (臺灣民報))<ref name="minpao">''Taiwan Minpao'' (臺灣民報) was the leading vernacular newspaper of the Taiwanese anti-colonial and cultural-enlightenment movement during the 1920s and 1930s.</ref>

One can readily imagine, from this alone, the degree to which class consciousness had already developed within Taiwanese society.

What is class (階級)? To answer this question we must still turn to the Marxists (馬克斯主義者) for a more precise definition. According to them, the scientific meaning of class is: "A group of people, or a segment of people, uniformly plundered, ruled, and controlled by another group; the latter constitutes the subject of society, holding the levers of economy and politics, with law as the expression of its will; the former constitutes a mere instrument of social life, occupying a position subject to economic, political, and legal disposal."<ref name="classdef">"Subject of society" (社會的主體) and "instrument of social life" (社會生活的工具) reflect classic Marxist-Leninist framing of the exploiting class as historical agent and the exploited as mere instrument. "Volitional power" (意思力), rendered here simply as "will," is a legal-philosophical term (related to the German ''Wille'') common in Japanese-influenced legal writing of the period. "Bound together," used later in this passage, translates ''jieshu'' (結束) in an archaic, Japanese-influenced sense (from ''kessoku''), meaning "to unite" or "band together," rather than its modern meaning of "to conclude" or "end."</ref> Only something of this kind may properly be called a social class. Put simply, in the scientific sense, "class" designates a group of people sharing common characteristics, and it is economy, politics, and law that produce these common characteristics. To put it differently still: class is a human collective bound together, within the process of production, by common conditions and common labor obligations.<ref name="ekimu">"Labor obligations" translates ''yiwu'' (役務, Japanese ''ekimu''), a legal-economic loanword denoting forced labor, service, or duties rendered within a production system.</ref>

Since class is thus bound together, within the course of production, by relations of interest, there must certainly exist the strong and the weak; that the strong constantly exploit the weak, and the weak are repeatedly subjected to extraction by the strong, follows as a matter of course and is very easy to understand.<ref name="xingcheng">"Course of production" translates ''xingcheng'' (行程), reflecting a usage current in the 1930s (influenced by Japanese ''kōtei'') and distinct from the modern term ''guocheng'' (過程).</ref>

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Moreover, in former societies classes were in fact quite numerous. Ancient Roman society (羅馬社會), for instance, had patricians, knights, plebeians, and slaves; medieval society had feudal lords, vassals, guild masters,<ref name="guild">"Guild" transliterates the loanword ''jierte'' (基爾特).</ref> journeymen, and serfs, and within a single class there existed further gradations of rank. With the collapse of feudal society in the modern era and the rise of capitalist society (資本社會) in its place, however, class antagonism rapidly simplified. In modern society, accordingly, one may broadly distinguish two great classes: the propertied (有產者), who possess the organs of production (生產機關),<ref name="meansprod">"Organs of production" (生產機關) is the terminology employed in early twentieth-century Chinese and Japanese Marxist writing to denote what is now universally rendered in English as "means of production" (生產資料).</ref> and the propertyless (無產者), who do not. These two great opposing camps now scheme and strategize against one another, each resolved to fight, brazenly and without restraint, a life-or-death struggle before either will let the matter rest. This tragic and merciless combat is precisely what is called class struggle.

What is worthy of note here is the particular method of class division that the Marxists propound. This method does not take an individual's income, wealth, or the social distribution of income as its criterion; it relies purely on relations of production (生產關係)<ref name="relprod">"Relations of production" (生產關係) renders the precise Marxist technical term (German ''Produktionsverhältnisse''), emphasizing that class is defined by one's structural relationship to ownership rather than by income or net worth.</ref> as the basis of classification. The class struggle they advocate is therefore, naturally, not a matter of inciting a body of unskilled workers earning thirty yuan a month to fight against a body of skilled workers earning one hundred and twenty yuan a month. Nor, at the same time, do they count as friends and comrades of the proletariat (無產者) the lower-ranking ███, earning forty or fifty yuan a month, nor the ███,<ref name="censor1">The original text is censored at two points in this sentence (indicated by ✕✕ in the source), naming specific low-ranking colonial personnel. The precise redacted terms cannot be confidently reconstructed from the available reproduction of the source; given the surrounding context—situated between low-salaried officials and government-aligned writers—they most plausibly referred to minor colonial administrative, clerical, or police functionaries, but this remains speculative.</ref> nor the so-called government-patronized journalists and literary men (御用記者文士)<ref name="yuyong">"Government-patronized" translates ''yuyong'' (御用), originally denoting imperial use, which by the 1930s had come to signify intellectuals, journalists, or artists serving as mouthpieces of the ruling colonial authority or capitalist state.</ref> whose salaries are far from generous, nor those without any fixed income who are colloquially termed lackeys. Rather, whoever acts to maintain, protect, and foster economic extraction is uniformly regarded as an enemy—that is, as belonging to the capitalist class (資本階級). Toward the old strongholds of the exploiting class, and especially its political organs, they are yet more brazen, wishing without exception to overthrow them all at a single stroke. Hence Marx's further statement: "Every class struggle is a political struggle."<ref name="manifesto1">A direct citation from Chapter 1 of the ''Communist Manifesto'': "Every class struggle is a political struggle."</ref>

Once the concepts of class and class struggle are clear, what remains to be weighed is the question of adoption or rejection—that is, whether the outcome of class struggle is, in the end, feasible. Sun Yat-sen (孫文), in his lectures on the Three Principles of the People (三民主義),<ref name="sunyatsen">Sun Yat-sen's ''Three Principles of the People'' (三民主義) constituted the foundational political ideology of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT). The passage Lin cites derives from Sun's 1924 lectures on the Principle of Livelihood (民生主義), in which he questioned the applicability of orthodox Marxism to economically underdeveloped Asian societies.</ref> once stated: "...In an unequal society, one may of course adopt Marx's method and advocate class struggle in order to level it. But at a time when China's (中國) industry and commerce have not yet developed, Marx's class struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat (無產專政)<ref name="dictprol">"Dictatorship of the proletariat" (無產專政) is the standard Chinese rendering of the Marxist-Leninist concept.</ref> cannot be put to use. We may therefore, today, take Marx's aims as our teacher, but we cannot employ Marx's methods." Viewed in this light, the feasibility of class struggle depends on questions of timing and nation. This conclusion, one supposes, is not without reason; at the same time, however, one must attend closely to the international situation. Do not the dispatches now carried in the newspapers prove that the proletarian masses (無產大眾), the world over, are living within a vortex of class struggle that intensifies day by day? When a person goes mad and insists, "We are not mad!"—he remains, nonetheless, a madman.

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When a great earthquake strikes, the earth splits open and houses collapse. So it is that, in the very moment the earth is shaking, however loudly one protests that an earthquake is an absurdity, the earth will still split, houses will still collapse, and blood will still be spilled. A social condition of this kind is precisely what Buddhism calls the Age of the Dharma's Decline (末法時代).<ref name="mofa">末法時代 denotes the third and final of the three ages of the Dharma in Buddhist eschatology, characterized by spiritual degeneration; Lin draws a deliberate parallel between this cosmic decline and the systemic collapse of capitalism.</ref>

How, then, does Buddhism explain the phenomena described above? Interpreted through doctrine (教理), it amounts to nothing more than a chain of cause and effect. And the cause, in this case, lies in the covetous desire of a small portion of humanity. How does such covetous desire arise in human beings? Because they fail to grasp the truth that Mind, Buddha, and Sentient Beings are without distinction,<ref name="mindbuddha">A foundational Mahayana teaching, most closely associated with the ''Avatamsaka Sutra'' (華嚴經), asserting the absolute non-duality of mind, Buddha-nature, and sentient existence.</ref> and instead mistake the Four Elements for their body and the Five Aggregates for their self.<ref name="fourelements">The Four Elements (四大: earth, water, fire, and wind) and Five Aggregates (五蘊: form, sensation, perception, mental formations, and consciousness) are the constituent categories of physical and psychological existence in Buddhist doctrine, which the unenlightened mistake for a permanent self.</ref> Because they hold to this view of self, they give rise to hatred and attachment on every side, endlessly choosing and rejecting, discriminating between the intimate and the estranged. Later, as relations of production grew ever more complex, there emerged capitalists who, through methods so refined that only scientific analysis can expose them, extract value from the working class. Thereupon those with opposing interests exploit pretexts to practice fraud, form factions for private gain, or draw lines between themselves and discriminate against one another—until, at last, class struggle arises. If this account is correct, it is plain enough, without need of further comment, upon which class the guilt for this struggle must fall. Insatiably covetous exploiters are, to be sure, detestable; yet we ought not, as the saying goes, stop eating for fear of choking,<ref name="bathwater">因噎廢食, literally "to give up eating for fear of choking," a classical idiom equivalent to the English expression "to throw the baby out with the bathwater."</ref> and thereby wish to abolish capital altogether. It will suffice if we take care that the definition of capital is not universally reduced to "an accumulation of plunder."<ref name="proudhon">This phrase adapts, through a Marxist lens, Proudhon's celebrated anarchist formulation that "property is theft."</ref> For society stands to capital exactly as a locomotive stands to coal:<ref name="locomotive">"Locomotive" (機關車, ''kikansha'') and "coal" (石炭, ''sekitan'') are early twentieth-century technical loanwords from Japanese, here forming an industrial metaphor for economic dependency.</ref> just as a locomotive cannot run without coal, a society without capital could never have advanced to the civilization we enjoy today—nor, in the future, could society progress any further without an immense quantity of capital to set it in motion.

There is no denying that the human standard of living (生活程度)<ref name="livingstandard">"Standard of living" translates ''shenghuo chengdu'' (生活程度), standard vocabulary of the period (influenced by Japanese ''seikatsu teido'') before the modern term ''shenghuo shuiping'' (生活水平) became current.</ref> has progressed considerably compared with former times; this is a fact no one can deny. Yet, on the other hand, economists tell us that the gap between rich and poor has never, since the beginning of recorded history, been as acute as it is today. If we take the capitalist class (資本家階級) as the sky and the working class (勞働者階級) as the earth, then although both sky and earth are rising, the earth—representing the workers' livelihood—rises only very slowly, while the sky—representing the capitalists—leaps upward with great vigor,<ref name="yongyue">"Leaps upward with great vigor" translates ''yongyue de shengteng'' (踴躍的升騰); ''yongyue'' is originally a Buddhist term for the joyful leaping described in sutras when an audience hears the Dharma, here repurposed to describe the rapid, aggressive accumulation of capitalist wealth.</ref> so that the gulf between sky and earth grows more severe with each passing year. The more severe the gap between rich and poor becomes, the more distinct human class consciousness becomes; and the more distinct class consciousness becomes, the more intense class struggle becomes. In the end, this can only conclude either in the revolutionary reconstruction of society or in the mutual ruin of both sides;<ref name="mutualruin">This formulation echoes the closing lines of Chapter 1 of the ''Communist Manifesto'' concerning the "common ruin of the contending classes."</ref> it must be one or the other.

If that is so, once class struggle has been eliminated, what precisely is the condition of a classless society? More than two thousand years ago, Confucius (孔子) once stated: "When the Great Way was practiced, the world was shared in common by all. [The people] selected the worthy and the capable, cultivated trust, and fostered harmony; and so people did not treat only their own parents as parents, nor only their own children as children. The aged were given a fitting end, the able-bodied had employment, and the young had proper upbringing; widowers, widows, orphans, the childless, and the disabled and infirm were all provided for; men had their stations, and women had their homes. Goods that lay wasted upon the ground were resented, though not necessarily hoarded for oneself; labor left unexerted was resented, though not necessarily exerted for oneself alone. For this reason, scheming was shut out and did not arise, and theft and robbery did not occur, so that the outer doors were left unbolted. This is called the Great Harmony (大同)."<ref name="datong">This passage is quoted directly from the "Liyun" (禮運, "Evolution of Rites") chapter of the ''Book of Rites'' (禮記), a foundational Confucian classic. "Great Harmony" (大同) is a longstanding East Asian political concept denoting a utopian, egalitarian commonwealth; early twentieth-century Chinese reformist and radical thinkers, most notably Kang Youwei in his ''Book of Great Harmony'' (大同書), repurposed this classical terminology to translate and legitimize Western socialist and communist ideals within an indigenous framework.</ref>

This passage describes precisely the condition of a classless society. The section running from "goods that lay wasted upon the ground were resented" to "the outer doors were left unbolted" points explicitly to a state of production and distribution founded on equal division. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, without the least trace of private intention; the people, each and all, exert themselves fully for the common livelihood. Within such a society, every household is provided for and every person has enough, and theft and robbery naturally do not occur. A world of this kind is what Buddhism calls the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss (極樂淨土). The Amitabha Sutra (阿彌陀經)<ref name="amitabha">The ''Amitabha Sutra'' (阿彌陀經) is a foundational scripture of Pure Land Buddhism describing the Land of Ultimate Bliss (極樂), the paradise of the Buddha Amitabha. By anchoring Marx's dictum on distribution in this canonical description of a realm "free from all suffering," Lin builds toward a radical Buddhist liberation theology, reinterpreting the sutra's paradise not as an otherworldly reward attained after death, but as a real, historical blueprint for an egalitarian, classless society to be built on earth.</ref> states: "...There is a world named Ultimate Bliss. ...The sentient beings of that land know no manifold suffering but receive only every joy; hence it is named Ultimate Bliss."

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The Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss (極樂淨土) is by no means confined to a single location in the West; it may equally exist in the South, the North, or the East, and, moreover, human beings may construct it through their own effort. What we most idealize, then, and what we must necessarily introduce to modern people, is by no means only the Pure Land of the afterlife (來世的淨土)—the sort of thing readily believed in by old village women<ref name="oldwomen">This phrase translates a localized colloquial term (九愖婆) used in Taiwanese Hokkien to describe uneducated, superstitious older women given to folk religious practice.</ref> or old country men—but rather a present-world Pure Land (現世淨土) fully capable of demonstration through scientific theory. Should anyone therefore claim that the Pure Land proclaimed by Buddhism is nothing but an empty concept, or the illusion of a utopia,<ref name="utopia">"Utopia" is transliterated in the original as ''wutuosibang'' (烏托斯邦).</ref> that is his own error, and it cannot in the least diminish the truth of Buddhism. Concerning the state of the Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss, the Amitabha Sutra further states: "In the Land of Ultimate Bliss there are ponds of the seven precious jewels, filled with water of the eight meritorious virtues; the ponds' beds are spread purely with golden sand, and on all four sides the stairs and walkways are wrought of gold, silver, lapis lazuli, and crystal. Above stand towers and pavilions likewise adorned with gold and silver...; within the ponds the lotus flowers are subtle, wondrous, fragrant, and pure. Heavenly music plays without cease..., and there are ever birds of every wondrous hue..., pouring forth harmonious and elegant song."

Viewed in this light, the arrangements of the World of Ultimate Bliss may be said to have reached the very summit of perfection, with nothing left wanting. There, too, are Western-style buildings of reinforced concrete<ref name="reinforced">"Reinforced concrete" transliterates ''tiejin-kangkeli'' (鐵筋康克里), from Japanese ''tekkin konkurīto''; "asphalt," below, transliterates ''yasihuaertuo'' (亞斯華爾托), from Japanese ''asufaruto''—both loanwords through which 1930s Taiwanese intellectuals imported modern industrial technology terms via Japanese.</ref> to shelter in, and great asphalt roads to travel upon. Its transportation is orderly, needless to say, and its sanitary facilities are extremely thorough. The general populace is free not only from any anxiety over food, clothing, and shelter, but also, in its leisure hours, is free to visit bathing places, zoos, concert halls, cinemas, and other places of amusement, there to refresh and enjoy themselves. A world as utterly complete and flawless as this

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is exactly the society that the Marxists anticipate in their ███;<ref name="censor2">The original text is censored at this point (indicated by ✕✕ in the source, preceding 社會, "society"). Given the immediately preceding description of a post-scarcity, classless material abundance, and the essay's sustained equation of Buddhist and Marxist utopias, the redacted term almost certainly reconstructs as "communist" (共產), yielding "communist society" (共產社會). The term "communist" (共產) was routinely excised by Japanese colonial censors under the Peace Preservation Law (治安維持法) then in force in Taiwan.</ref> it amounts, in the end, to nothing more than this.

To bring about, in the end, a world of Great Harmony governed through non-action,<ref name="wuwei">"Governance through non-action" (無為而治) is a classical Daoist concept of effortless rule, here blended with Confucian utopianism (大同) to describe the ultimate, stateless phase of communism.</ref> or a present-world Pure Land, and to enable people to bind themselves to a condition in which only the public good exists and no private self remains, it is certainly necessary, over some span of time, to employ some method to cultivate, reform, or eliminate the old conceptions humanity has carried for millennia. In other words, to move from this present society of class struggle to a society in which class has been abolished, one must still pass through an intermediate society of a transitional era.<ref name="transition">"Intermediate society of a transitional era" (過渡時代的中間社會) precisely renders the Marxist political theory of a transitional stage between capitalism and communism.</ref> The Kingly Way (王道政策) that Confucius, in ancient times, exerted himself so strenuously to advocate—"guide them by virtue, regulate them by ritual, and they will have a sense of shame and moreover reform themselves"<ref name="analects">A direct citation from the ''Analects'' (論語, "Weizheng" 為政), presenting moral self-cultivation as an instrument of social governance.</ref>—and the ███ of workers and peasants presently enforced by Soviet Russia (蘇俄),<ref name="sovietcensor">The original text is censored at this point (indicated by ✕✕), following "workers and peasants" (勞働者農民的). Given the parallel structure with the earlier, explicit reference to Marx's "dictatorship of the proletariat" (無產專政) discussed on the preceding page, the redacted term almost certainly reconstructs as "dictatorship" (專政), yielding "dictatorship of the workers and peasants" (勞働者農民的專政). This term, too, was routinely suppressed by Japanese colonial censors under the anti-communist statutes of the period.</ref> both amount, in short, to nothing other than taking this very point into consideration. If that is so, there is no reason the Buddha (佛陀) should have failed to perceive this essential point. Indeed, not only did he perceive it long ago, but the very method he personally practiced and carried out is, compared with all others, an entirely sound and perfectly reliable safety valve.<ref name="safetyvalve">"Safety valve" (安全瓣) is an early twentieth-century technical metaphor used here to characterize the Buddha's disciplined, non-violent method as a stable mechanism for social and psychological transition, in contrast to state coercion.</ref>

When Buddhism calls upon people to build the present-world Pure Land—that is, during the transitional era described above—it makes no use of external, artificial force,<ref name="tadong">"External, artificial force" translates ''tadong renwei de liliang'' (他動人為的力量); ''tadong'' ("heteronomous," or externally driven) is here contrasted with ''zidong'' ("autonomous," or self-driven), suggesting that Buddhist transformation must originate from within rather than through state coercion.</ref> nor does it rely on the constraint of ritual and penal law to force the masses into a wholesale change of character. It relies solely on steady, moderate steps and an ardent disposition, awakening, within the course of daily life, humanity's original countenance<ref name="originalface">"Original countenance" (本來的面目) is a celebrated Chan Buddhist idiom denoting one's inherent, unblemished Buddha-nature prior to the arising of worldly defilement.</ref> and rousing their latent power—namely, faith. Dai Tianchou (戴天仇) of China<ref name="daijitao">戴天仇 is an alternate name of Dai Jitao (戴季陶, 1891–1949), a prominent ideologue of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Buddhist scholar who sought to synthesize Confucianism, Buddhism, and Sun Yat-sen's Three Principles of the People.</ref> stated: "A life of faith is the greatest function for the progressive unity of the individual and society." And the Director-General, Sun Yat-sen, stated that an ideology is a "faith,"<ref name="sunfaith">Lin refers here to Sun Yat-sen's well-known definition, from the opening of his ''Lectures on the Three Principles of the People'': "What is a principle? It is an idea, a faith, and a power."</ref> which makes abundantly clear that cold, detached reason, unless it is transformed into ardent feeling, never generates power. This is indeed true. We must recognize that only faith can grant eternal life, and only faith can unite the multitude; if a people loses the power of faith, no ideology whatsoever can save it.

What, then, is the ultimate object of Buddhist faith? It is precisely the One Buddha—the "One" not of one, two, three, but of the Absolute Whole. Hence Buddhism states that one Buddha is all Buddhas. The Buddha is the absolute spiritual radiance pervading and active throughout the boundless universe; every phenomenon arrayed across the vastness of sky and earth is, without exception, but a fragment of this radiance. Hence the scriptures state that "all sentient beings without exception possess Buddha-nature,"<ref name="buddhanature">This scriptural formula derives from the ''Nirvana Sutra'' (涅槃經).</ref> and further that "grasses, trees, and lands all attain Buddhahood," and "the sentient and the insentient simultaneously attain the Way."<ref name="grasstrees">These formulations reflect a core Tiantai and Chan doctrine affirming the Buddha-nature of insentient phenomena.</ref> If that is so, humanity too may naturally all be called Buddha; and since humanity is already wholly Buddha, Buddhas must indeed be very numerous—and this multitude of Buddhas is precisely what is meant by "all Buddhas." Because one Buddha is all Buddhas, all Buddhas return, in the end, to the one Buddha. Should humanity come to believe to this depth, it will naturally cease to perceive any distinction of rank, of intimacy and distance, of self and other. The Diamond Sutra (金剛經) states: "This Dharma is entirely equal, admitting no distinction of high or low."<ref name="diamond">A direct citation from the ''Diamond Sutra'' (金剛經), reinforcing the doctrine of absolute equality invoked here.</ref> This is precisely the meaning intended. "This Dharma" is the Buddha-Dharma; there is but one Buddha-Dharma, and therefore the Buddha-Dharma is one

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Dharma. One Dharma is all dharmas, and, in the end, all dharmas are simply one Dharma. Buddhism calls upon people to believe in the one Buddha and uphold the one Dharma, while at the same time following this one Dharma into practice; this is called the One Practice (一行).<ref name="onepractice">一行, "One Practice," is a Chan and Pure Land term denoting unified, single-minded religious practice.</ref> For a single person, one practice is all practices; because one practice is all practices, all practices, in the end, are simply one practice. Should humanity come to believe in the one Buddha, uphold the one Dharma, and carry out the one practice, then the very traces of warfare, private property, and law will naturally vanish from this Saha world.<ref name="onedharma">Lin here extends the Huayan philosophical principle that "one is all, and all is one" (一即一切，一切即一) into a program of radical egalitarianism, linking the realization of "One Practice" to the disappearance of warfare, private property, and law—an explicit merging of Buddhist transcendence of worldly attachment with the Marxist and anarchist goal of the withering-away of the state.</ref> And when that moment arrives, the present-world Pure Land will, of itself, be realized.

What has been related above, in outline, is the ultimate truth realized by the Buddha (佛陀)—a human being, just as we are, possessed of feeling, tears, and blood—who, after six years of ascetic practice, at the age of thirty, on the morning of the eighth day of the twelfth month, beheld the morning star beneath the Bodhi tree and joyfully attained awakening.<ref name="enlightenment">The eighth day of the twelfth month (臘八) is the traditional East Asian date commemorating the Buddha's enlightenment.</ref> This is the doctrine of Buddhism, whose aim is salvation. The so-called eighty-four thousand Dharma gates and the more than fifteen thousand volumes of scripture handed down by later generations are nothing more than pathways devised to lead humanity toward Buddhahood, together with their textual elaboration. It follows that, if we can only grasp the ultimate meaning that one Buddha is all Buddhas, the tangle of class conflict will resolve itself as readily as a knife splits bamboo. As for a concrete illustration, one need only examine the Buddha's own attitude and conduct toward the four castes of India (印度)<ref name="fourcastes">"Four castes" (四階級) refers to the Indian varna system (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra); Lin links this ancient hierarchy directly to modern socioeconomic class, alluding to the historical Buddha's acceptance of members of every caste into the monastic Sangha as an early form of class abolition.</ref> in his own day to see the matter still more clearly.

In sum, Buddhism's attitude toward class struggle has, from beginning to end, been entirely consistent. It stands upon the ground where non-self is precisely the great self,<ref name="nonself">"Non-Self as the Great Self" (無我即大我) draws on Mahayana philosophy to argue that once individual egoism is transcended, one merges into a collective consciousness oriented toward universal liberation.</ref> taking as its aim the protection of the proletarian masses (無產大眾) and the liberation of the exploited class. The method it adopts excludes the violent recourse to arms, swords, and spears, relying solely on the principle of "great resistance through non-resistance"<ref name="satyagraha">"Great resistance through non-resistance" (無抵抗的大抵抗主義) recalls Tolstoyan pacifism and Gandhian ''satyagraha'', both widely discussed in East Asia during the 1930s; Lin frames Buddhist non-violence not as passive surrender, but as a morally superior, active strategy of resistance, set against the violent revolutionary methods advocated by secular communists.</ref> as its axiom. Set beside the violent methods now proclaimed by ideologues of every stripe, the difference may indeed be said to be as vast as that between heaven and the abyss.

(Written on January 31, in Tokyo)<ref name="tokyo">Lin composed this essay while a student at Komazawa University (駒澤大学) in Tokyo, where he studied under the modernist Buddhist scholar Nukariya Kaiten (忽滑谷快天) and was exposed to currents of Japanese engaged Buddhism and left-wing activism.</ref>

== Notes ==
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