[Buddha-l] Buddhism and blasphemy

[curt]

According to tradition the first two zen "patriarchs" were both killed 
because they were thought to be teaching what amounted to "Buddhist 
blasphemy". Bodhidharma was poisoned (in fact, the tradition is that he 
was poisoned repeatedly, but protected himself magically each time until 
he was certain that he had completed his mission). Bodhidharma's killing 
was murder by private individuals acting privately - but Huiko (Huike) 
was officially executed. There was some pretext for doing so, but the 
actual cause was that he was luring students away from studying the 
Sutras, like good Buddhists, and encouraging them to devote themselves, 
instead, to the practice of meditation.

As far as I know there is little, if any, historical evidence for either 
of these stories. Whether they are true or not (in fact, even more so if 
they are not true) they reveal a great deal about how Zen "sees itself".

But the most famous "iconoclastic story" from the Zen tradition, in my 
opinion, is the one about how Tahui gathered together all the copies of 
the Blue Cliff Record that he could find and burned them (the Blue Cliff 
Record had, in fact, been compiled by this teacher Yuanwu). Now, one way 
of looking at it is that Tahui was the iconoclast for burning the books 
- but the other way of looking at it is that from within the Zen 
tradition Yuanwu's act of compiling the book in the first place can be 
seen as the truly iconoclastic act. The usual understanding, however, is 
that Yuanwu wasn't trying to be iconoclastic - but was rather reacting 
to a perceived decline in the quality of Zen practice and teaching. He 
wanted to preserve in writing the actions of those great giants of Zen's 
Golden Age - because, he thought, they just weren't making 'em like that 
anymore. And Tahui's actions are seen as admirable, but perhaps a bit 
extreme. In his commentaries on the Sandokai, Shunryu Suzuki Roshi 
describes Rinzai as "younger brother Zen" and Soto as "older brother 
Zen". Although they are both solidly within the Lin Chi lineage, Yuanwu 
seems to have acted as the older brother and Tahui as the younger.

- Curt

Jørn Borup wrote:

> Dear colleagues,
> I am sure you Americans are used to the situation from different parts 
> of the world, but is it strange a quite worrying to be a Dane seeing 
> one's flag and embassies being burnt and listening to death and bomb 
> threats - because of some rather innocent news paper illustrations of 
> Muhammed. This is not the forum to discuss the ethics or politics of 
> such actions or reactions. It does, however, make you wonder about the 
> differences of religions, and personally I am quite happy to study and 
> teach Buddhism. I know, however, also of some instances of Buddhists 
> being hurt by illustrations or actions, calling for respect for their 
> religion. Reactions and demonstrations against Buddha Bar, t-shirts 
> with Buddha motives, commercials and movies (e.g. Buddha in Hollywood) 
> using Buddha in apparently un-ethical ways have been part of modern 
> Buddhist responses to what has been called blasphemy. Now, do any of 
> you know about articles describing historical of modern situations of 
> "Buddhism and blasphemy"? My personal favorites from the Buddhist 
> world on such matters are the Zen iconoclastic stories and especially 
> Ito Jakuchu's painting of "vegetable nirvana" with the dying Buddha 
> replaced by a radish (daikon). How wonderful!
>  
> Regards,
> Jorn Borup
> Denmark
>
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