The Non-Duality of the “Conditioned” and “Unconditioned”: Hongzhou Chan Buddhism on Reconciling the Morality/Prudence Distinction

Abstract

This paper illustrates how Hongzhou Chan Buddhism provides valuable resources for dealing with issues in contemporary moral philosophy. In particular, when philosophers adopt the Hongzhou Chan Buddhist’s non-dualistic account of reality, we can see how their teachings provide us with important resources needed for resolving philosophical problems that were originally undertaken by philosophers like the American Pragmatists John Dewey and Richard Rorty. When the pragmatists hoped to extirpate traditional metaphysics from moral philosophy, one of their focuses was on providing an alternative to the morality/prudence distinction. As this study illustrates, by overcoming the metaphysical dualism between the “unconditioned” and the “conditioned”, the Hongzhou Chan Buddhist can provide an account of compassion that is unconditionally grounded. Their account of compassion can then be understood as bridging the divide between “morality” and “prudence”.

1. Introduction

This study argues that Hongzhou Chan Buddhism presents a unique way of grounding our moral commitments when compared to different schools of Western moral philosophy. They do this by providing a naturalistic, processual account of nature and reality.1 Such a framework presents us with a viable way to ground moral behavior that is compatible with modern science by providing us with a naturalistic, processual account of what it means to be unconditional.2 In light of the philosophy of American Pragmatists like John Dewey and Richard Rorty, we can also consider the Hongzhou Chan Buddhist’s position to be one that overcomes the traditional distinction between morality and prudence (a distinction that both Dewey and Rorty had hoped to overcome). Although Mahāyāna Buddhism generally espouses an ethics of compassion that is grounded in their non-dualistic account of reality, this study focuses on how Hongzhou Chan Buddhism (specifically Mazu Daoyi, 馬祖道一, 709–88) provides a non-dualistic alternative to the metaphysical dualism between the “unconditioned” and the “conditioned”. For Mazu, the “unconditioned” is what each “conditioned” aspect of existence depends on. The “conditioned” is a function of or co-dependently arises with the “unconditioned” such that we can consider each aspect of existence to be uniquely conditioned by and related to the whole of reality. As such, this account of the “unconditioned” and “conditioned” dualism does not maintain that the two opposites are ontologically and mutually exclusive. Due to their non-dual understanding of the “unconditioned” and “conditioned”, the Hongzhou Chan Buddhists can provide an account of compassion that can be considered unconditionally grounded. Philosophers influenced by the works of Dewey and Rorty and sympathetic to overcoming the traditional distinction between morality and prudence can draw on this non-Western philosophical tradition to help fend off accusations that their position is morally dubious. Likewise, philosophers who are interested in providing an account of morality that focuses on emotions like compassion, love and care (e.g., “Care Ethicists” and different forms of Sentimentalism) can borrow from the Chan Buddhist’s framework to help provide justification for the moral significance of the emotions.3 Contrary to claims that morality cannot appeal to emotions, the Hongzhou Chan Buddhists can provide us with justification for considering compassion to be a moral form of conduct.

In light of the Hongzhou Chan Buddhist’s position, Immanuel Kant’s distinction between morality and prudence should also be considered problematic. Scholars of Buddhist ethics need to be apprehensive of using this distinction when discussing Buddhist ethics.4 The Hongzhou Chan Buddhist’s account of reality undermines the metaphysical assumptions underlying Kant’s distinction between morality and prudence. For Kant, compassion is only a conditioned response to a fleeting instance of encountered suffering. If we assume the Kantian framework where a non-empirical, non-natural source (the noumena) is the only viable ground for unconditionally justifying moral conduct, then we cannot consider compassion to be unconditionally justified. For Kant, only that which exists outside the bounds of experience (and which is assumed to exist for the possibility of morality, i.e., “freedom” and the “moral law”) can ground moral conduct. Prudence is, at most, a form of conduct that is merely conditioned or guided by an indeterminate or contingent “end” and thus does not possess an unconditionally binding character. In modern moral philosophy, the morality/prudence distinction still informs discussions about whether we can consider compassion to be a moral form of conduct. Contrary to Kant, the Hongzhou Chan Buddhists understood compassion to be a response to both particular instances of suffering and the unconditionally present structure of existence. Because of their non-dualistic account of nature, we can consider the Hongzhou Chan Buddhists to be presenting a framework that overcomes the morality/prudence distinction while also providing an account of the moral life that sees compassion as central to it.

2. On the Morality/Prudence Distinction in Western Philosophy

Before moving forward, it will be useful to see what problems modern philosophers are dealing with in order to obtain a better sense of the possible resources comparative philosophers can look for when they engage with non-Western philosophy. If certain non-Western philosophical traditions operated under radically different philosophical assumptions, drawing on them might also help us to illuminate just how provincial and (culturally) provisional certain philosophical views might be in the anglophone world.5 The problem that I engage with here is one that the previous generations of American Pragmatists and Neo-pragmatists have attempted to deal with as well. Although it is not viewed as an actual problem by many anglophone moral philosophers, for pragmatists like John Dewey and Richard Rorty, the tendency by some philosophers to insist that we need to ground our moral judgments with non-natural, metaphysical assumptions is one that we need to extirpate from philosophy.6 One important feature of the problem that Dewey and Rorty are critical of is the distinction between “morality” and “prudence”.7 Rorty describes the traditional distinction in moral philosophy as follows:

This distinction is traditionally drawn by opposing unconditional and categorical obligations to conditional and hypothetical ones. Pragmatists have doubts about the suggestion that anything is unconditional, because they doubt that anything is, or could be, nonrelational. So they need to reinterpret the distinctions between morality and prudence, morality and expediency, and morality and self-interest, in ways which dispense with the notion of unconditionality.

(Rorty 1999, p. 73)

This distinction between “morality” and “prudence” is arguably rooted in a more fundamental metaphysical worldview. One way of describing this metaphysical worldview is to see it as an example of what Alfred North Whitehead called the “bifurcation of nature”, where an important feature of this is the “reality versus mere appearance” distinction in epistemology.8 Kant, for example, calls all that is within the bounds of experience mere phenomena. Reality “in-itself” is not empirically perceivable. It is beyond the bounds of possible experience. It is only through an a priori method or “pure reason” that the human mind can deal with anything from reality “in-itself” or the noumena. In moral philosophy, the “bifurcation of nature” manifests as the “reason” versus “desire” or “morality” versus “self-interested/politically expedience” distinction. As Rorty’s work summarizes, an epistemological framework that “bifurcated nature” informed how Kant understood the morality/prudence distinction.9 Conceived as such, the natural world was understood as comprised of completely determined, causal relationships. One object conditioned another in the chain of causal conditions. With the natural world conceived as such, nature and empirical experience were deemed to be incapable of providing anything in the way of “unconditionally binding” moral principles. Kant’s position thus established a distinction between what can be considered “unconditionally binding” or “unconditioned” and what is merely contingent or “conditioned”. For Kant, morality must be “unconditionally binding” or what he calls “categorical”. When Kant discusses the necessity of the moral law, he claims,

Everyone must grant that a law, if it is to hold morally, that is, as a ground of an obligation, must carry with it absolute necessity [and…] the ground of obligation here must not be sought in the nature of the human being or in the circumstances of the world in which he is placed, but a priori simply in concepts of pure reason.

(Kant 1998, pp. 1–2)

If morality is to be unconditionally justified, it cannot be derived from empirical existence or from human nature. The natural world cannot provide a ground for morality because it is made up of “conditioned things”. For Kant, the morality/prudence distinction becomes a distinction between judgments that are either unconditionally binding or merely conditioned. Prudence or “practical wisdom” does not possess the unconditionally binding character that morality requires. Only conduct that is performed in accord with the (unconditioned) “moral law” and enacted through the (unconditioned) power of the “will” can be considered properly moral.

To be clear, this distinction between morality and prudence (as formulated by Kant) is a modern invention. There are other Western philosophical traditions that do not rigidly divide the “hypothetical” from the unconditionally binding. For Aristotle, in so far as a person possessed a nature with a telos or “final end”, the morality/prudence distinction does not make much sense.10 When philosophers like Dewey and Rorty criticized the non-naturalist philosopher’s insistence on dividing “morality” from “prudence”, they were criticizing the very metaphysical foundations of the more religiously inclined and non-empirical forms of philosophy.11 Such a critique will likewise receive the ire of philosophers who are deeply invested in this particular metaphysical project.12 Another more recent project that attempted to move us beyond the “morality/prudence” distinction was Rorty’s Contingency, Irony, Solidarity. In it, he presents his alternative to the Kantian moral tradition. As he summarizes, any attempt to critique these foundations will be met with certain accusations.

Anyone who says, as I did in Chapter 1, that truth is not “out there” will be suspected of relativism and irrationalism. Anyone who casts doubt on the distinction between morality and prudence, as I did in Chapter 2, will be suspected of immorality. To fend off such suspicions, I need to argue that the distinctions between absolutism and relativism, between rationality and irrationality, and between morality and expediency are obsolete and clumsy tools.

(Rorty 1989, p. 44)

American Pragmatists like Dewey and Rorty are interested in providing an account of nature and human experience that has been labeled as “anti-essentializing” and “anti-foundational”. From their perspective, they put forth their positions precisely because they view certain metaphysical commitments as dubious. As with the Buddhist tradition, the American Pragmatists are interested in providing us with an account of existence that takes seriously the importance of relationships and the social and embedded nature of human knowledge. The Buddhists, like John Dewey, were committed to a holistic and non-dualistic account of reality.13 In the Pragmatist’s view, a “bifurcated” account of reality needs to be abandoned. Recently, scholars have even argued that many foundational ideas in the history of Western metaphysics have contributed far too much to normalizing human suffering.14 In light of modern science, but contrary to the views of many modern, anglophone philosophers, we must also recognize that certain metaphysical views about personhood and human agency are no longer viable. As Mark Johnson describes it, and drawing on the works of Dewey and Owen Flanagan, an account of human “freedom” that claims persons can somehow escape causal relations (i.e., “conditions”) is simply not viable in light of modern mind science.15 This is one reason why Chan Buddhism is appealing in the modern world. Their account of compassion does not depend on non-natural and non-empirical assumptions that are incompatible with human biology and the natural world. Similar to Johnson’s naturalist account of morality and the human mind, the Chan Buddhists are also critical of the moral attitude that clings to “moral principles”.16 In light of modern science, an account of morality that depends on non-naturalist assumptions is simply not viable in the modern world.17 Chan Buddhists do not believe that persons have the capacity to transcend causal conditions. A naturalistic view of humans can accommodate Buddhist philosophy, whereas the Kantian account of freedom (which is explicitly understood as a power that can exercise an “unconditioned causal efficacy” over conditioning relationships) presents a view of human agency that is not viable.18 Although there is much reason to abandon the traditional, metaphysical accounts of personhood, agency, and the “bifurcated” account of nature, there is a stubbornness by anglophone philosophers when it comes to admitting to this. A major reason for why this is the case is that, from their perspective, if we do not hold on to these (non-empirical) assumptions, then they believe that we do not have any real way to justify our moral commitments. As the above Rorty quote highlights, without certain metaphysical and/or epistemological assumptions, some philosophers believe that we would have only “might makes right”, the free reign of desire, and “irrationalism”. In working through an anti-foundational, non-Western philosophical tradition, we may discover that Dewey and Rorty’s project was not as dubious as philosophers would have us believe.

In drawing on Hongzhou Chan Buddhism, it is my hope that solutions to philosophical problems first identified by the American Pragmatists might finally be articulated in a way that illustrates how anti-foundationalism is consistent with a unique way of grounding our moral commitments.19 If we properly understand the implications of a relational account of persons, we are not left with “amorality” or “mere relativism”. As I highlight below, because the Hongzhou Chan Buddhists can provide us with a very different way of thinking about the nature of reality, we are now able to think about what it means to be unconditional in a way radically different from the Kantian framework. In fact, and contrary to Rorty’s claims, we also do not need to necessarily dispense with the “notion of unconditionality”. It is by looking at the Hongzhou Chan understanding of reality as non-dual and, in particular, the non-duality of the “conditioned” and “unconditioned” that we can begin to see how this grounds a unique account of compassion. If there is a unique task that comparative philosophy might be able to accomplish, it is in rethinking the very foundations of morality and providing alternatives to Western moral philosophy. In light of the American Pragmatist’s desire to provide a viable, anti-foundational alternative to the Western moral(ist) philosopher, the account of Hongzhou Chan Buddhism below illustrates how they have the resources we need to overcome the morality/prudence distinction.

3. Hongzhou Chan on the “Absolute” and “Particular”

In Mahāyāna Buddhism, all dharmas or “things” exist as pratītyasamutpāda (Chinese—yuanqi, 緣起) or as “co-dependently arising”. All things are without an underlying essence, and nothing exists as an independent entity. Depending on the Mahāyāna Buddhist text, emptiness (śūnyatā) is described using different terminology. For example, in both the Platform Sutra and the Treatise on the Awakening of Faith, the texts often use the “substance” and “function” distinction (ti, 體 and yong, 用).20 The Hongzhou Chan Buddhists occasionally used the terms Li (理) and shi (事) to describe how each and every “particular” (shi) participates in the “absolute” (Li)”.21 Li (理) is a difficult term to translate into English because it is used differently by the various schools of Chinese Philosophy. One way of translating Li is as “coherence” as it helps to signify the interdependence of all dharmas in the Buddhist context while avoiding problematic metaphysical implications of translating it as “principle” or “pattern”.22 In the Chan Buddhist context, if Li was translated as “universal” or “principle” and shi translated as “particular”, and these terms were understood with their Western meanings and associations, certain claims in Chinese Buddhist metaphysics would make little sense. For the Hongzhou Chan Buddhist, the relationship between Li and shi is described as such by Mazu:

Within the Buddhist gate, if you attain freedom at any time, when establishing dharma-realm, all are dharma-realms; when establishing Thusness, all are Thusness; when establishing the absolute [Li, 理], all dharmas are the absolute [Li]; when establishing the phenomenal [shi, 事], all dharmas are phenomena [shi]. Mentioning one, thousands can be inferred. The absolute [Li] and the phenomenal [shi] are without difference [理事無别]; both are wonderful functions [miaoyong, 妙用]. There is no other principle [Li], and all are because of the revolving of the mind.

(Jia 2007, p. 124)

In Western metaphysics, to claim that the “universal” and “particular” are one and the same or that they are without difference is highly problematic. In the context of ethical theory, it would likewise be problematic to claim that one’s ethical principles were already the particular, concrete situation or that one’s ethical principles were not different from the concrete situations. If this were the case, then the principles that people were guided by would be the situations themselves. However, to understand what is happening in Hongzhou Chan Buddhism, this is precisely what needs to be considered and why using traditional Western metaphysical terms is misleading.23 It is for this reason that in the Chinese Buddhist context, translating Li and shi as noumena and phenomena is also problematic. In the previous passage, Mazu is using the term li (立) or “establish” in a phenomenological sense. Consciousness plays a role in constituting the content brought to the foreground of consciousness. This is one aspect of what Mazu means by “subtle functioning” (miaoyong, 妙用). It is through particular acts of consciousness that we can immediately recognize all things as Li or as empty of an individual/independent self. Li does not refer to a transcendent reality prior to or outside of empirical experience. Recognizing that things are empty of a substantial self involves the cultivation of habits of perception. Huangbo Xiyun (黄檗希运), a later Hongzhou teacher, describes a similar process occurring in consciousness.

Ordinary people mostly take the environment as an obstruction of the heart-mind. [They think] events/phenomena obstruct Li/the “absolute”. [They] constantly desire/intend to flee from the environment/objects in order to calm the mind. [They] obscure events in order to sustain Li/the “absolute”. It turns out that [all of this] is [only] the heart-mind obstructing the environment and Li/the “absolute” obstructing events. Only let the heart-mind empty and the field itself is empty. Only command/order Li to quiet/still then the events will still of themselves (My translation of T48.381c–382a.).24

Huangbo is using Li here in two senses: (1) it signifies the truth of emptiness, and (2) when Li “obstructs” events, this is an ironic usage in the sense that he is referring to the reification of “emptiness” by “ordinary people”25. In ignorance, the mind projects ideas about what emptiness is onto the field of experience. For Huangbo, it is false to believe that perceived phenomena obstruct the capacity to experience emptiness. Buddhist cultivation practices are not directed towards inner life but are instead about maintaining and deepening our attention of the world. The Chan Buddhist is likewise not interested in transcending empirical experience. When “ordinary people” hear of emptiness and nirvāna, they believe that these are realities that transcend or are antithetical to empirical experience. The emptiness of all “things” and the capacity to perceive this (Li) is not different from the particulars of experience (shi). The capacity to perceive the emptiness of all “things” is neither the rejection of all particulars (shi) nor is it to cling to a notion of the “void” (Li). It is, instead, the capacity to see that the “things” (shi) of everyday experience embody emptiness (Li). What Huangbo is specifically critical of is the tendency to conceptually reify the mind and emptiness (that is, to make it a substantial “thing”). When people have these expectations about what the experience of emptiness involves, these habits of thinking obstruct the realization of all situations as embodying emptiness. Persons then falsely believe that underlying “things” or the experience of situations is another “thing” that is called emptiness. Doing so involves perception dwelling on the reflective aspects of experience at the expense of disclosing pre-reflective and qualitative experience.

Li, translated as “absolute” by Jia in the above Mazu passage, signifies a feature that is “omni-present” and “omni-temporal” and, in this sense, loosely signifies “truth”, but this form of “truth” must be qualified. Li and shi are not two antithetical or ontologically distinct realities. In Chan Buddhism, the relationship between Li and shi is similar to that between a “whole” and a “part”. Each “particular” (shi) is constituted by its world. The relationships that situate each dharma or “thing” are internal to the actuality of each dharma. Li or the “absolute” is not a collection or totality of “things” (though it is “omni-present” and does signify a totality in a sense). Li, in the Chinese Buddhist context, refers to the truth of the emptiness of all “things” and signifies the absence of any ontologically determinate boundaries for the “things” that exist. In this sense, Li signifies the way each “particular” (shi) always simultaneously manifests with that which it “is not”, and this is why each “particular” manifests as a novel coalescence of relations. It is not that Li signifies a determinate or single “whole” that constitutes each “particular” (shi). Li denotes how each “particular” (shi) manifests as conditioned by and internally related to its world (the “whole” in relationship to each “particular” is in each situation a different “whole”).26 Li is “omni-present” in the sense that each aspect of existence co-dependently exists alongside the relations that constitute it.

Although it would be wrong to translate Li in the Chan Buddhist context as “pattern” or “principle”, as emptiness signifies the absence of repetition or “form” imposed on change, this does not mean that Li signifies chaos, disorder, or randomness. Li, as the emptiness of all things, signifies novelty and radical particularity at the first or most basic level of reality. This novelty itself continuously reemerges following what can loosely be considered a structure in the sense that each “particular” manifests as a unique focal point or relation that internalizes the rest of existence. This structure can be likened to a mirror in the sense that each dharma embodies a focal point of relationships that is completely determined by the rest of the world (i.e., everything the dharma “is not”). As Mazu claims, “Li and shi are no different/not two”, and if you “mention one, thousands can be inferred”. Whatever Li is, shi is not merely a smaller aspect or subcategory of it. Li is shi in the sense that each “particular” manifests as embodying the “absolute”. Mazu claims we can “mention one shi and infer a thousand more” because each shi (“particular”) is, in fact, internally related to a “thousand” more shi. In other words, this is the teaching of “co-dependent arising”. When a “thing” is posited, whatever it co-dependently arises with manifests. A “particular” (shi) always manifests in the context of its environing relationships. All dharmas of existence participate in the “absolute” in the sense that each shi co-dependently arises with each and every not-shi.

4. Chan Buddhism on the “Buddha-Nature”

In order to understand how the Hongzhou Chan Buddhists can ground their account of compassion unconditionally, we need to analyze how they thought about what it means to be “unconditioned”.27 Building on the previous section, we can consider the “unconditioned” to be what the Chan Buddhists call emptiness or the non-self-existence of all things. The capacity to recognize that reality is characterized by emptiness (i.e., perceive the “truth”) is also what the Mahāyāna Buddhist would call nirvāna (niepan, 涅槃) and liberation (jietuo, 解脱). Mahāyāna Buddhists understood emptiness to denote how each dharma or “thing” is a coalescence of relations and uniquely interrelated to the rest of existence. This does not mean that all forms of Mahāyāna Buddhism agree with each other on what it means for reality to lack independent “substances”. It is natural that different Buddhist traditions refine and change their position based on their own internal critiques and in relation to the debates across traditions. Historically, the early Mahāyāna Buddhists recognized that the terms emptiness and “no-self” worried everyday people, and so they adjusted their teachings in order to accommodate these fears. Instead of teaching that all things are empty of a self-existence, they begin to teach that all sentient beings possess the capacity to realize “thusness” (Sanskrit—tathātā, Chinese—zhenru, 真如) and that they already possessed “Buddha-nature” (Sanskrit—tathāgatagarbha, Chinese—foxing, 佛性). “Thusness” is only a positive name for emptiness. The Buddhist teachings are not about “nothingness” or the complete negation of “being”. Emptiness was specifically the absence of any self-nature and self-causation. What results from this anti-foundationalism is a pluralistic view of all things as novel and unique convergences of changing relationships (because each thing is uniquely related to the world). On the issue of what the Hongzhou Chan Buddhists would consider to be the “unconditioned”—emptiness, “thusness”, and the “Buddha-nature” are all viable candidates. For Mazu,

“No-gate is dharma-gate [法門]” means that if one understands that the original nature is empty [本性空], there is not a single dharma. Nature [性] itself is the gate; as nature is formless, there is also no gate. […] Emptiness is the emptiness of dharma-nature (dharmatā), and the phenomenal is the phenomenal of dharma-nature. Dharma-nature is without form and sign, so it is called emptiness; its functions of knowing and seeing are endless, so it is called the phenomenal. Therefore, the sūtra says, “The phenomenal of the Tathāgata is endless, and so is his wisdom”

(Jia 2007, p. 120).28

For Mazu, whether we call it the “Buddha-nature” or “self-nature” (zixing, 自性), the point is the same as that made above. All “things” are characterized by emptiness. The method or “dharma gate” (famen, 法門) to true understanding is “no-gate” in the sense that the Chan practices aim to disclose how “original nature” (benxing, 本性) is empty29 (kong, 空), and not a “nature”. It is not considered to be a “method” in the sense that clinging to methods or “seeking” obstructs the ability to simply disclose situations as “thusness” (clinging to “forms” obstructs the ability to see how all “forms” are a function of the formless “Buddha-nature”). Clinging to the “objects” individuated in experience obstructs our ability to see the qualitative dimensions of experience underlying reflective thinking (i.e., “thusness”).

The “Buddha-nature” is only a positive way of naming how persons have the potential to learn to perceive all things as being without “self-nature”. As Mazu describes it, the mind that does not cognitively grasp dharmas and “particulars” (shi) returns to fundamental “thusness” and recognizes “Buddha-nature”.

If the mind does not grasp various dharmas, it is as Thusness. […] The Bodhisattva perceives Buddha-nature by visual perception. He understands its nonduality, which is called equal nature. The nature is without differentiation, but its functions are different. In ignorance it functions as consciousness; in awakening it functions as wisdom. To follow the absolute [理] is enlightenment; to follow the [particulars, 事] is ignorance. When ignorant, it is the ignorance of one’s own original mind [本心]; when awakened, it is the awakening of one’s own original nature [本性].

(Jia 2007, p. 125)

Being in accord with reality as “thusness” is to see all dharmas as empty and to realize that the mind already embodies “Buddha-nature”. As it is non-dual, there is not an ontological divide between inner/outer and self/other. Similar claims are described by Huangbo.30 Although it has been given many names and has been described in many different ways, what each of these names denotes is how each aspect of existence is internal to each other. The capacity to realize “thusness” and to perceive situations through “no-self” is identified as Li. When the passage suggests we follow Li, this does not mean that we simply perceive an underlying oneness or unity to all things. What we end up being able to perceive is the uniqueness of each dharma because each is uniquely related to the rest of existence. When Mazu states that people “follow particulars” (shi, 事), this happens when people perceive situations such that they only bring their attention to certain foregrounded aspects of experience at the expense of perceiving the relations that situate these foregrounded aspects. This is only a provisional (and ignorant) way of disclosing situations. This ignorance is phenomenological in the sense that when we “follow particulars”, we do not perceive the relationships that constitute each “particular”. As Mazu describes it, one feature of ignorance is that we “grasp” the various dharmas.

The mind as Thusness is like a clear mirror that reflects images. The mirror symbolizes the mind, and the images symbolize various dharmas. If the mind grasps various dharmas, it gets involved in external causes and conditions, and is therefore subject to birth and death. If the mind does not grasp various dharmas, it is as Thusness.

(Jia 2007, p. 125)

When the mind “grasps” the various dharmas, it no longer discloses the field of experience or the context that produces the various dharmas. When persons are like “thusness”, they disclose the field of experience such that whatever “things” are foregrounded by consciousness, this process does not obscure or “cover over” the indeterminate context of experience (hence they do not “grasp” dharmas). They see all “things” as co-dependent on a context of relations. In doing so, they would disclose situations like a clear mirror that reflects images. They would perceive the environment and the relationships that constitute their own experience, thus realizing that the most fundamental form of consciousness functions like a mirror in the sense that a mirror reflects a world and does not disclose itself. This kind of reversal, where the self is understood as a non-self in the sense that it discloses everything other than itself, is the same non-dual structure of all reality. It is this non-duality that is named Li or the “absolute”.

We can best understand Mazu’s position as one that developed the insights from earlier Mahāyāna teachings by providing solutions to earlier problems in Mahāyāna Buddhism. One key feature underlying the development of Chan Buddhism is a concern with overcoming ontological dualisms as they are features of ignorance. The dualism between the “unconditioned” (Sanskrit—asaṃskṛta, Chinese—wuwei, 無為) and the “conditioned” (Sanskrit—saṃskṛta, Chinese—youwei, 有為), is one of particular importance as it is central to the Chan Buddhist understanding of the relationship between enlightenment and practice.31 When Mahāyāna Buddhists make this transition of seeing nirvāna not as a separate existence but as only a different way of perceiving the world of suffering (samsāra), they must reconcile the dualism between that which is “conditioned” (youwei) and that which is the “unconditioned” (wuwei). In earlier Buddhism, the distinction between the “unconditioned” and the “conditioned” maps on to the distinction between nirvāna (the freedom from conditioned reality) and samsāra (conditioned reality). When the old views about nirvāna are abandoned (i.e., the view that sees nirvāna as the transcendence of suffering), Buddhists must also reconcile the dualism between “conditioned” existence and that which can potentially be considered unconditional or unconditionally present. If nirvāna is not antithetical to conditioned existence, then there must be a new way of thinking about what it might mean to be unconditionally present or unconditionally true.

Mazu overcomes the dualism between that which is “conditioned” and that which could be considered “unconditional” by thinking of the “unconditioned” as the unconditionally present structure of each conditioned existence. Mazu’s formulation can be understood as a synthesis of the earlier Chan Buddhist account of emptiness (described using the ti/yong distinction) with the Indian metaphysical distinction between the “unconditioned” and “conditioned”.32 He describes the “unconditioned” and the “conditioned” with respect to emptiness and liberation, where one is understood as a function of the other.

Responding to things, it manifests itself in [many] shapes, like the reflections of the moon in water. It functions constantly without establishing a root. It does not exhaust [the “conditioned”, 有為], and does not cling to [the “unconditioned”, 無為]. [The “conditioned”] is the function [yong, 用] of [the “unconditioned”], and [the “unconditioned”] is [that which the “conditioned” depends on, yi, 依]. It does not cling to dependence, as [the sūtra] says, “Like the void it is without any dependence”.

(Jia 2007, pp. 124–25)

Each “conditioned thing” is a manifestation of one and the same “truth” just as the metaphor suggests that the moon is reflected in water everywhere yet takes a different form in each of these instantiations. What the “unconditioned” does is manifest everywhere but in a way that it does not “establish a root”, which means that the “unconditioned” is not one and the same “form” or property being instantiated in each dharma. That which is “unconditioned” and that which is “conditioned” (what is “necessarily true” and what is “conditionally true”) do not map on to a bivalent or mutually exclusive dualistic distinction. In thinking of the “conditioned” as a function of the “unconditioned”, what happens is that each conditioned aspect of existence participates in an unconditional structure. In light of the above account of emptiness, we can also consider each “thing” to be participating in the same unconditional (mirror-like) structure in the sense that each thing is both a part of the continuum of existence and uniquely internally related to the rest of existence. This non-dualistic account of the conditioned/unconditioned dualism illustrates how the Hongzhou Chan Buddhists can provide an explanatory justification for their understanding of compassion. Regardless of how conditions emerge, they always participate in the same “unconditional structure”. Like a mirror conditioned by everything it “is not”, the way conditions coalesce as a “particular” (shi) embodies the same omni-present structure of reality (Li).

5. Compassion as Conditioned Responses That Embody the Unconditioned

We now have the pieces in place to make sense of how the Hongzhou Chan Buddhists unconditionally grounded their account of compassion. As mentioned earlier in this study, Rorty suggested that we need to dispense with the “notion of unconditionality”. In light of Hongzhou Chan Buddhism, we could instead adopt an account of unconditionality that does not exclude conditioned existence. In the Hongzhou view, each conditioned “particular” (shi) participates in the same unconditional structure (Li). In other words, each “conditioned thing” (youwei) depends on the conditions that situate it. This means that the “not-shi” or “not that conditioned thing” co-dependently arises with each “particular” (shi). This makes each shi novel in how it emerges from conditions. It also makes each instantiation of Li novel because, as with the above “moon in the water” metaphor, the way that Li is related to each shi is radically unique. It is this “mirror-like” structure (wuwei) that each conditioned “thing” unconditionally embodies. In ignorance, people’s perception of situations is such that they only perceive “things” (shi) but not the way that each “thing” exists as internally related to everything that it is not (Li). If people perceived situations through non-duality, then they would actively perceive how these “particulars” (shi) unconditionally arise co-dependently with their environing conditions.

Although I cannot go into this point in detail, scholars have previously clarified how the Chan Buddhists understood suffering to be a feature of existence in its entirety.33 When sentient beings possess the dispositions where they can actively perceive the “co-dependent arising” of each thing, they would also perceive how the omni-presence of suffering situates each particular instance of suffering. A common feature of many different forms of Mahāyāna Buddhism is the belief that wisdom (the capacity to accurately perceive the co-dependent arising of all things) is identical to compassion (the capacity to spontaneously respond to the particularity of suffering such that this suffering is not only alleviated but that ultimately other persons can also begin to cultivate no-self). As Kasulis summarizes this view, “As part of the Mahāyāna tradition, Zen holds that compassion (Skrt: karunā) is fundamentally equivalent to intuitive wisdom (prajñā)” (Kasulis 1989, p. 97).34 A Hongzhou Chan Bodhisattva would perceive each instance of suffering (shi) as co-dependently arising with the suffering that characterizes the entirety of existence (Li). This is why, for Mazu, we can talk of a Boddhisattva as being able to respond to conditions, yet this capacity to do so involves embodying or realizing the “absolute”. As Mazu states,

The Buddha is the Merciful One and has wisdom. He is good in understanding the conditions, and able to break the net of all sentient beings’ doubts and free them from the bondages of existence and nonexistence. All feelings of the ordinary and the sacred are ended, and all men and dharmas are empty. He turns the incomparable wheel, transcending number and measure. His activities are unobstructed, and he penetrates both the absolute (Li) and the [“particular”] (shi).

(Jia 2007, p. 124)

A Buddha or enlightened person would be able to “understand the conditions” in the sense that they both perceive situations as characterized by suffering, yet they would understand that each instance of suffering is also a unique focal point of conditions. Each instance of suffering, being internal to each other instance of suffering and to the entirety of existence, is thus a unique manifestation of Li. When we can perceive how each instance of suffering is not isolated as each is the product of unique conditioning relationships, we realize that compassion is not a mere act of “kindness” to distinct people undergoing fleeting instances of suffering.35 In seeing each instance of suffering as related to other instances of suffering and not as isolatable events, the reasons for acting with compassion would be understood as deriving from the very structure of interdependence and “no-self”.36 The motivation to act with compassion is not an “objective principle” that transcends the natural world like a mandate from God.37 Compassion involves becoming sensitive to the history and circumstances that produced particular instances of suffering. If compassion is thought to be a response to independent instances of suffering, then it would only be a response to the “particular” (shi). It would then be a mere “conditioned” response to a situation. Compassion involves a transformation of perception such that the root causes of suffering (i.e., the continuously re-emerging patterns of relationships that reproduce the same tendencies and dispositions characterized by egoism, desire and ideologies indebted to a “substance ontology”) are all understood as both systematically reproducing and institutionally reinforcing ignorance and suffering.38 Chan compassion is thus an ongoing task of transforming the conditions that reproduce the same patterns of ignorance and suffering. Chan Buddhists are not interested in merely responding to distinct events (as I highlight below, this account of suffering is naïve, and it is one that Kant would have us believe is all there is to compassion). Instead, they are addressing the underlying causal conditions that give rise to particular instances of suffering.

Hongzhou Chan Buddhism presents us with an account of compassion that is far more nuanced than the Western moralists would have us believe.39 It is worth revisiting Kant’s account of compassion for this reason. For Kant and many Western deontologists, compassion and love cannot be considered moral forms of conduct. This is mostly due to Kant’s characterization of compassion as a mere “inclination” or as being merely conditioned by situations. Kant believes compassion could be considered “beautiful”40, but compassion means nothing in terms of morality. In talking of a person responding with compassion, Kant claims that even if their conduct were (accidentally) in accord with the “moral law”, it possesses “nevertheless no true moral worth but is on the same footing with other inclinations” (Kant 1998, p 11). As was clarified earlier, Kant’s works fit into what we can call the “bifurcation of reality”. Within the Kantian framework, everything within the bounds of experience and, therefore, empirical consists of mere conditioned existence. The natural world, as empirically experienced, consists of distinct objects and the laws of nature that determine their various interactions (nature is strictly determined, and there is no room for “freedom”). It is for this reason that the very possibility of morality requires that we make metaphysical assumptions (which include “freedom” or the capacity to adjust conduct through an “unconditioned” power called “reason”). Without assuming that persons are a noumenal “self” with an unconditioned “freedom”, people would simply be the products of conditioning interactions.

For Kant, the morality/prudence distinction distinguishes judgments that are, on the one hand, “unconditioned” insofar as they are grounded unconditionally through the moral law, which cannot be derived from empirical experience, and on the other hand, merely “conditioned” in the sense that they are merely conditioned reactions to encountered stimuli (again, the natural world is completely determined under this view). Prudence does not possess the unconditionally binding character that morality requires. As summarized by Nelson,

In this sense prudence signifies either (1) the deliberation about means for arbitrarily given ends, or (2) the conditional determination of the inherently indeterminate concept of happiness as an end and the means to achieve it. Because of this hypothetical and conditional character, Kant argued that prudence is not a moral category.

(Nelson 2004, p. 305)

Sense (1) takes prudence as merely a conditioned form of conduct because the “ends” a person might wish to pursue are not necessary for each “rational being”, nor are they necessarily moral or morally relevant “ends”. The “means” and “ends” of prudence are contingent realities subject to chance. As such, they possess a “hypothetical structure” (“if A … then B”, or “if a rational being desires to bring about ‘A’ then do/act in accordance with ‘B’”). Bringing about political change and mere personal desires are, for Kant, examples of prudence and conditioned human conduct. For sense (2), happiness for Kant is a secondary and indeterminate concept. There are many ways to be happy, and there are many (possible) ways to bring about such ends. Happiness is bound up with inclinations (they are heteronomous), bound up with “self-interest”, and as such, cannot be considered moral categories. If morality is to be “unconditionally binding”, the moral law cannot be subject to/derived from empirical reality.41 In the Kantian framework, the Kantian noumena plays the role of the “unconditioned” whilst the phenomena (nature and appearance) are relegated as “conditioned” existence (i.e., the natural world). It is because of this framework that Kant believes that compassion is a mere inclination. It is only a “conditioned” response to a specific encounter with suffering. Furthermore, compassion only manifests when the encounter is taking place (hence, why Kant believes compassion is “unprincipled”).

Contrary to the Kantian view above, the Hongzhou Chan Buddhist draws on empirical experience as a guide to human conduct. As with modern process philosophy, the Hongzhou Chan Buddhist can be understood as putting forth a naturalistic metaphysics that holds that relationships are just as foundational as “things” are, and this processual framework promises to be empirically verifiable.42 In adjusting our habits of perception, the goal would be for sentient beings to perceive the non-duality of the “conditioned” and the “unconditioned” or, put another way, to see how each conditioned “thing” embodies one and the same structure unconditionally. The Hongzhou Chan Buddhist’s compassion is a kind of response that is both “conditioned”, as it functions like a mirror in reflecting those particular conditions, and also “unconditioned” for two reasons: (1) this conduct embodies the same (“unconditioned”) mirror-like structure that each dharma embodies and (2) in reflecting or internalizing situations, it also always internalizes the omni-present suffering of existence (i.e., continuously embodies the realization that the whole of the suffering of existence is internal to one’s own suffering). In perceiving the “conditions” (shi) of a particular instance of suffering, a Chan Bodhisattva would understand how the suffering of the entirety of existence is internal to each instance of suffering. Because all situations are characterized by suffering, there is never a time when people are not constituted by suffering. When a Chan Bodhisattva encounters a particular instance of suffering, this suffering is both a “particular” (shi) and a manifestation of the “absolute” (Li). A Chan Boddhisattva is, therefore, conditioned by the particular (shi) and the continuous realization of the omni-presence of suffering (Li). It is for these reasons that a Chan Buddhist’s compassion can be understood as unconditionally embodying the “unconditioned” structure of existence, which grants them the enlightened capacity to respond to conditions with an accurate perception of how all conditions participate in the “unconditioned”.

In light of Rorty’s worry about moving beyond the distinction between “categorical” and “hypothetical” imperatives, we can suggest that the Chan Buddhist position is putting forth a series of unconditionally binding “hypothetical imperatives” (i.e., “categorically binding hypothetical imperatives”); if persons accurately perceive the reality of suffering, then their sensitivity and affect towards situations is spontaneously adjusted (like a mirror reflecting or making internal that which it “is not”). Such compassion is an inclination (conditioned and “particular”) but an inclination grounded in the unconditional structure of reality. If persons perceive situations through the lens of non-duality, then their conditioned inclinations embody the unconditional, non-dual structure of existence, and they do this in such a way that their conduct is continuously conditioned by the omni-present suffering of existence (suffering, when it is realized as unconditionally present, continuously informs a Bodhisattva’s conditioned responses). Furthermore, the Chan Buddhist is not simply preaching that all sentient beings ought to act with compassion. Compassion is not a “rule” or “principle” for the Chan Buddhist.43

Chan compassion can be thought of as an unconditionally binding “hypothetical structure”, present at all times and places, but persons must first cultivate the dispositions of “no-self” and realize “thusness”. What is unconditional for the Chan Buddhist are “hypothetical imperatives” like this: If a person were to realize the truth of non-duality, then their intentions and inclinations would be transformed such that they act with compassion. If persons cultivate the disposition of no-self, then their sensitivity to situations is adjusted such that they can spontaneously respond to situations with compassion. In recognizing that Li is the unconditioned structure of existence, all conditioned responses to “particular” instances of suffering (shi) are viewed through the lens of seeing this particular instance of suffering as internal to others. This is how the Hongzhou Chan Buddhist can provide an ethics of compassion that is unconditionally grounded. Through their non-dualistic understanding of the “unconditioned” and “conditioned”, we have an alternative to the morality/prudence distinction as understood by Western moral philosophers.

6. Conclusions

The Chan Buddhist’s naturalistic metaphysics reconciles the dualism between that which is “unconditioned” (wuwei) and that which is “conditioned” (youwei). With the realization of “no-self” and the “Buddha-nature”, a Buddhist’s conditioned responses actualize compassion on the deepest of levels and thus produce the inclination to alleviate suffering. Compassion is not merely directed towards “particular” situations. This suffering is instead seen as a product of the network of interrelationships that are characterized by ignorance. As such, the Hongzhou Chan Buddhist position does not nicely fit into established Western traditions of ethical thought. Their way of thinking about the nature of suffering and how best to deal with it presents us with a different account of morality and moral motivation. In light of the works of Western philosophers that have also attempted to be thoroughly anti-foundation and anti-essentializing, we can view the Hongzhou Chan Buddhist position as providing them with potential resources for illustrating how we can (and should) abandon non-natural metaphysical assumptions. The Hongzhou Chan Buddhist’s (processual) metaphysical framework explicitly undermines the Western distinction between morality and “mere prudence”. The Chan Buddhist account of no-self and compassion thus presents philosophers with a novel alternative to established moral theories. It is an account that finally places compassion at the center of moral life. Instead of taking Western moral(ist) philosophers as the standard, we can instead draw from non-Western philosophical traditions and find valuable resources for thinking about morality and human suffering.