III. Some of the Taoist Influence on Hua-yen

　　It is a well-known fact that since its introduction into China, Buddhism has had a close relationship with Taoism, more specifically with Neo-Taoism. As a result of this there developed the method of “matching the concepts” of Buddhism and Taoism, which was known as ko-i.[21]　By this method of analogy Buddhists adopted many Taoist terms and ideas to explain their concepts. Although this somewhat superficial and arbitrary method of matching was discarded as useless and misleading after the great translator and scholar Kumaarajiiva arrived in 401 C.E., Taoist influence on Buddhism in general was not, and could not be, totally eliminated.

　　As a good example of the influence of Taoism on Buddhism during its early stage in China, one may take the development of the so-called “Six Houses and Seven Schools.”  Even though they were dealing with the Buddhist concept of Emptiness (`suunyataa), most of their vocabularies were based on Neo-Taoist terms. Just as the fundamental problem of the Neo-Taoists was the question of being and non-being, these schools, attuned to this line of thought, called themselves “School of Original Non-being,” “Variant School of Original Non-being,” “School of Non-being of Mind,” and so on.[22]　Consequently they were aptly known as the “Buddho-Taoists.”

　　However, this is not the place to trace such examples of Taoist influence throughout Buddhist history.  For, although the close contact between the Taoist and Buddhist, which had an important impact on the development of Chinese Buddhist thought in general, can be an interesting topic to investigate,[23]　our task here is only to see the concrete and most discernible Taoist influence specifically on the Hua-yen thought in order to clarify a particular case of Sinicization of Buddhism.

A) The Idea of Hsuan

　　The first Taoist element that can easily be pointed to in the Hua-yen system is the idea of hsuan.  For Hua-yen the hsuan or mystery, profundity, deep truth, darkness, subtleness and the like, is the key word used to represent the whole truth of the dharmadhaatu. Chih-yen uses the word hsuan in the title of his magnum opus, Hua-yen ching Sou-hsuan-chi (The Record of Probing the Hsuan of the Avata^msaka-suutra).[24]　This implies that the aim of his probing into the Avata^msaka-suutra was to get into the hsuan mystery.  Fa-tsang’s monumental commentary on the Avata^msaka also has the title T’an-hsuan-chi.  And Ch’eng-kuan also calls his commentary on the Fa-chieh-kuan-men “Fa-chieh-hsuan-ching.”  Above all, the cardinal doctrine in connection with the dharmadhaatu has been throughout these patriarchs of the Hua-yen school, the “ten mysteries” or ten hsuans.

　　As is well-known, the idea of hsuan is found in the first chapter of Lao Tzu’s Tao-te-ching in connection with Tao and its two aspects of being and non-being.　At the end of the chapter it is said:

　　They both may be called the mystery [hsüan];It is the mystery of mysteries,The door of all the wonderful subtleties.[25]

　　The phrase “mystery of mysteries,” sometimes rephrased as the “manifold mystery,” was especially cherished as the central term characterizing the inexpressible Tao.[26]　This phrase was so important that around the fifth century C.E. there existed a school named “manifold mystery” in the Lao-Chuang branch of Taoism.[27]　Moreover, the Neo-Taoist philosophy itself was called the “Learning of Mystery” (hsuan-hsuah) in classical times.[28]

　　This important idea was adopted to designate the Buddhist truth of the Ultimate by many Buddhists, such as Seng-chao (C.E. 384~414), Chih-tsang (549~623), Yuan-hsiao (617~686) and Li T’ung-hsuan (635~730).[29]　In view of these facts, it is unlikely that the Hua-yen philosophers could have escaped such a prevailing influence.

　　The most illuminating example of the relation of Hua-yen to Lao-Chuang philosophy in this respect can be found in Ch’eng-kuan.　At the beginning of his encyclopaedic commentary on the Avata^msaka-suutra, he explains the dharmadhaatu in Taoist terms,“wonderful subtleties”:

　　Going and coming have no limit; moving and stillness are from one source. It contains all the wonderful subtleties and still more, and is beyond words and thoughts and transcends them. Such is nothing but the dharmadhaatu![30]

　　A few passages later he again adopts the Taoist phrase “manifold mystery” or “mystery of mysteries.”  As to the source of these phrases, Ch’eng-kuan admits that they are from Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu, and in his own sub-commentary he quotes the whole of the first chapter of the Tao-te-ching to show the original meaning of the phrases.

　　One very interesting thing to note here is that Ch’eng-kuan, while acknowledging his debt to Taoist philosophy,[31]　still argues that it is only in terminology, not in meaning as such.  He says, “Although we borrow their terms, we do not accept their meanings.”[32]　As an example, he takes the concept of mystery or hsuan-miao.[33]　In Taoism, he argues, it refers to “vacuity and naturalness” while in Hua-yen it means “the one true dharmadhaatu.”

B)  The Idea of “Returning”

　　As a second element of Taoist influence on Hua-yen we can consider the idea of “returning to the source.”　Throughout the Hua-yen writings it is found that the dharmadhaatu or the Ultimate is designated as the “source,” “origin,” “original source,” “true source,” “unique source” and the like.[34]　As the proper relationship to this source, the Hua-yen thinkers suggest “returning.”  Therefore, very frequently we come across terms such as “returning to the dharmadhaatu,”  “returning to the one true dharmadhaatu,” “returning to the origin and returning to the source,” “giving up the derivative and returning to the original,” and so on.[35]　In the case of Fa-tsang, one of his essays is titled “The Insight into the Returning to the Source by Exhausting the False.”[36]　Returning to the source is likewise a spiritual goal and in itself enlightenment for Hua-yen Buddhists.

　　It is of course true that the idea of “source” is traceable even to Indian Buddhism. The reality expressed in such terms as alaayavij~naana or tathagataagarbha, for example, could be understood as the “source” in the sense that from it all phenomenal things come into existence.  But the idea that the myriad things “return” to the source is hardly found in Indian Buddhism, and particularly the fact that the spiritual goal is spoken of in terms of “returning to the source” has no direct counterpart in India.  In Indian Buddhism, the way of enlightenment is primarily purifying or getting rid of discriminative mental fabrications superimposed upon Reality, rather than returning to it.[37]

　　On the other hand, the idea of returning or reversion (fan, huan, kuei, or fu) to the source or root is the most important leitmotiv of  Taoist philosophy, especially in Lao Tzu.[38]　“All things flourish,” it is said in the Tao-te-ching, “but each one returns to its root. This returning to its root means tranquillity.”[39]　It might not be too much, therefore, to say that this line of thinking in Hua-yen is, at least in inspiration, largely Taoist, and further that when Hua-yen was talking about “returning to the source” or to the dharmadhaatu as its spiritual ideal, it was actually speaking of a Buddhist message within an indigenous Taoist pattern of thinking.

C)  T’i -yung or Essence and Function

　　A third, and probably the most fundamental element of Taoist influence on the Hua-yen system can be found in their use of the traditional Taoist dichotomy of t’i (essence) and yung (function). The idea of t’i-yung occurs repeatedly in the writings of the Hua-yen patriarchs, especially those of Fa-tsang and his followers, as one of the basic categories in elaborating their theories.[40]　This dichotomy of t’i and yung, according to W. Liebenthal, is the pattern which is “fundamental in all Chinese thinking.”[41]　Strictly speaking, however, this t’i-yung is originally derived from Taoist philosophy.It was the Neo-Taoist Wang Pi (C.E. 226~249) who used the term in the metaphysical sense for the first time in the history of Chinese thought.[42]　Ever since he interpreted the thirty-eighth chapter of the Tao-te-ching in terms of t’i-yung, this has become the basic principle for explaining the relation between reality and its manifestations. On this point, Wing-tsit Chan aptly says:

　　The concept of substance [t’i] and function [yung] first mentioned here, were to play a very great role in Neo-Taoism, Buddhism, and Neo-Confucianism.... In fact, the Chinese have conceived everything to be in the relationship of substance (the nature of a thing), and function (its various applications).[43]

　　Needless to say, the Hua-yen usage of t’i-yung is not identical with that of Taoists. For examples, whereas for Wang Pi, t’i-yung was used basically to refer to “non-being,”[44]　for Fa-tsang t’i-yung was adopted not only to show the dual aspect of essence and its various functions or manifestations, but primarily to explain the cardinal Hua-yen idea of mutual identification and interpenetration.[45]

　　But regardless of whether the content might be different from the traditional Chinese understanding, the fact is that the “pattern of t’i-yung,” which Liebenthal describes as “dynamic,” became an integral part of the Hua-yen philosophy. This becomes especially evident when it is taken into consideration that the general Buddhist pattern in this respect is the famous triad of t’i-hsiang-yung or essence-characteristic-function. Although this is mentioned from time to time,[46]　the t’i-yung pattern is predominant.  It should, however, be remembered that in Hua-yen philosophy the dynamic aspect of t’i-yung was so intensified that not only the relationship between essence and its manifestations but also those between one manifestation and the other manifestation were equally, if not more, emphasized.

　　D) Li-shih or Noumenon and Phenomenon

　　In addition to the idea of t’i-yung, the question of li-shih should be mentioned in this connection. As was stated previously, li-shih was one of the key terms in the Hua-yen system. The interrelationship of the li and shih aspects of the dharmadhaatu was the whole point of Hua-yen philosophy from the beginning to the end.  Even with a first glance, it is easily discernible that the attempt to grasp the dharmadhaatu in terms of li and shih is an unmistakable reminder of the thought pattern of the Tao-te-ching which tries to see the Tao in terms of the two aspects of non-being (wu) and being (yu).[47]　And if one traces this concept in the history of Chinese thought, one can see even more clearly that it is essentially Taoist in origin and inspiration.

　　As a matter of fact, the concept of li-shih, especially the concept of li, has been one of the most important ideas in Chinese thought in general.[48]　The term li in the sense of principle or noumenon does not occur in the ancient Confucian classics. According to Wing-tsit Chan, li was used in the sense of principle for the first time in the Mo-tzu (c. 4th c. B.C.).[49]　But because the Moist movement soon declined in the fourth century B.C., there was no significant advance in the Moist philosophy. The early development of the concept, therefore, was mostly due to Taoist philosophy.

　　In the Tao-te-ching, the term li itself does not appear, but in the Chuang-tzu it appears thirty-eight times. Here in the Chuang-tzu, for the first time in Chinese history li was connected with the Tao. Moreover, the Principle of Heaven is contrasted with human affairs which is “anticipating the sharp contrast of principle [li] and facts in Chinese Buddhism.”[50]

　　Although there were some developments in Hsun-tzu (c. 313~238 B.C.), a Confucian who is said to have lived immediately after Chuang-tzu, and in some others,[51]　the idea of li as the universal principle was most fully discussed by the Neo-Taoists Wang Pi and Kuo Hsiang (d. 312).  Both of them interpreted the Tao in terms of li, and for them li was “universal principle,”  “necessary principle,” “principle by which things are as they are,” “ultimate principle” etc.[52]　However, while Kuo Hsiang advocated the immanent and plural li, Wang Pi upheld the transcendental, absolute li, and it was through Wang Pi that the development of the concept of li took place in Buddhism during the next several centuries.

　　Such a Taoist understanding of li and shih was introduced into Chinese Buddhist philosophy by Chih-tun (314~366) and developed by Hui-yuan (334~416), Seng-chao (384~414) and Tao-sheng (c. 360~434).[53]　It is apparent, therefore, that the Hua-yen concept of li and shih stems basically from this line of tradition.