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== 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),<ref name="taixu">Taixu (1890–1947) was the leading figure of the early twentieth-century Chinese Buddhist reform movement, an advocate of "Buddhism for Human Life" (人生佛教) and of the institutional and doctrinal modernization of the Sangha.</ref> 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"<ref name="democracy">"Democracy" is transliterated in the original as ''demokelaxi'' (德谟克拉西), a common phonetic loanword of the New Culture Movement period, as in the slogan "Mr. Democracy and Mr. Science" (德先生和赛先生).</ref> 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.<ref name="pathological">The characterization of dialectics as "pathological" (病理性的) appears to be Li Guangliang's own summary gloss on Taixu's position, rather than a further quotation from Taixu.</ref>

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)<ref name="juzan">Juzan (1908–1984) was a prominent monk-scholar and one of the founders of the Buddhist Association of China, closely involved in shaping Buddhist policy in the early People's Republic.</ref> 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)<ref name="duoshi">多识 (Duoshi, also known by his fuller name Duoshi Luosangdanbi Qiongpai) is a Tibetan Gelug scholar affiliated with Northwest Minzu University in Lanzhou. "Living Buddha" (活佛) is a common, literal English rendering of the Chinese term for a recognized reincarnate lama, or tulku, within Tibetan Buddhism.</ref> 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).<ref name="fourschools">This fourfold division — Vaibhāṣika, Sautrāntika, Cittamātra/Yogācāra, and Madhyamaka — is the standard doxographical classification of tenet systems (''grub mtha'' bzhi) in Tibetan Gelug scholasticism, rather than a classification native to Chinese Buddhist scholarship; Duoshi's training is accordingly reflected in the framework he applies here.</ref> The Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika belong to Hinayana<ref name="hinayana">"Hinayana" (小乘, literally "Lesser Vehicle") is the term used in Li Guangliang's source and retained here; it originated as a polemical Mahayana designation for non-Mahayana traditions and is now often replaced in scholarship by "Nikaya Buddhism" or, where specifically applicable, "Theravada."</ref> 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''<ref name="putixinjing">The 菩提心经 (''Bodhicitta Sutra'') cited here could not be independently identified with certainty among canonical or commonly cited Buddhist texts; the citation is reproduced as given in the source article.</ref>) — 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.<ref name="sautrantika">This distinction reflects a well-known point of contrast in Indian Buddhist epistemology between Vaibhāṣika direct realism and the Sautrāntika's representationalist theory of cognitive "aspects" (ākāra).</ref> 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.