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New Treatise on the Uniqueness of Consciousness

Xiong Shili; Translated by John Makeham

Summary

This is the first English translation of what many consider to be the most original work of Chinese philosophy produced in the twentieth century; it is also one of the least understood. Xiong’s New Treatise represents the first substantive attempt to respond to the modernist challenge of providing Chinese philosophy with “system,” and he did this in the form of an ontology. The central metaphysical problem Xiong grappled with in New Treatise—and indeed throughout his life—was the relation between the ontological and the phenomenal. Opposed to ontological dualism, he sought to develop an ontological monism that was combined with a phenomenological dualism (experienced through ultimate truth and conventional truth) and encapsulated in his understanding of the ti-yong polarity. Xiong draws from Buddhist and Confucian philosophy to develop a critical inquiry into the relation between the ontological and the phenomenal. This annotated edition examines Xiong Shili’s complex engagement with Buddhist thought and the legacy of Xiong’s thought in New Confucian philosophy. As indicated by the Chinese title, Xin weishi lun 新唯識論is presented as a commentary on, or critical response to, Xuanzang’s 玄奘 (602-664) Cheng weishi lun 誠唯識論 (Demonstration of Nothing but Consciousness), a foundational text in East Asian Buddhist philosophy. Xiong develops a sustained critique of views he attributes to the sixth-century Yogācāra master Dharmapāla, and a synthesis of Yogācāra thought with ideas derived from Madhyamaka Buddhism, various Sinitic traditions of Buddhism, the Book of Change, Laozi, and Zhuangzi and from Chinese Neo-Confucian thinkers.

Publication Information

Foreword by Cai Yuanpei

Foreword by Ma Fu

Introduction

Abstract: This chapter introduces the content of the eight chapters that comprise the New Treatise. In addition to presenting a range of modern evaluations of Xiong as a philosopher, Makeham, the translator, develops a critique of the widespread tendency to portray Xiong narrowly as a Confucian philosopher who also happened to criticize Buddhist philosophy. He argues that Xiong’s sustained engagement with Buddhist philosophy has often been dismissed as a passing phase or inconvenient distraction rather than an essential framework that could be used to tease out the complexity of his thought, and that Xiong’s uncompromising critiques of Yogācāra philosophy, in particular, have provided a convenient pretext for ignoring other key elements of Buddhist philosophy in his constructive philosophy. This introduction also discusses the legacy of Xiong’s thought, in particular those aspects that were developed by New Confucian philosopher Mou Zongsan 牟宗三.

Keywords: Xiong Shili, Xin weishi lun, ontology, Yogācāra, Sinitic Buddhism, New Confucianism, Mou Zongsan

1. Explanation of the Thesis 明宗

Abstract: This chapter presents an overview of the main thesis underpinning New Treatise, the gist of which is expressed in the opening paragraph: “Reality (shiti 實體) is not a perceptual field detached from one’s own mind, nor is it a cognitive object of knowledge.” Reality (or Fundamental Reality [benti 本體]) is an underlying locus that ontologically grounds the phenomenal world yet is not different from the phenomenal world, just as the sea supports the waves yet is not different from the waves. It is the single most important concept in New Treatise and is invoked frequently, albeit under a variety of names. One of Xiong’s main characterizations of Reality is as an uninterrupted holistic process of constant transformation. Both “mind” (心) and “the nature” (性) also equate with this ontological Reality that thoroughly inheres in all phenomena. The mind is characterized simultaneously by transformation (change, activity, movement) and constancy (quiescence; being undisturbed). Xiong explains that Reality can be apprehended or realized only by seeking within, returning to one’s inherent mind, where Reality, the true principle, can be realized. This realization is wisdom (jñāna), a concept that is to be distinguished from discernment (prajñā).

Keywords: Reality (shiti; benti; tattva), mind (xin), the nature (xing), wisdom (jñāna), discernment (prajñā)

2. Weishi 唯識

Abstract: The first of this chapter’s two major sections sets out a series of arguments used by Yogācāra masters to refute attachment to cognitive objects. Xiong identifies two broad categories of views used variously by early non-Buddhist and Hīnayāna thinkers to argue for the existence of external objects: those based on utility—the habits formed as a result of the use of things in everyday living—and those based on various Indian theories about atoms, attributed variously to the ancient Sarvāstivādins, the Sautrāntikas, and the later Sarvāstivādins. The second main section is devoted to refuting attachment to consciousness (referring to the eight consciousnesses). Here Xiong introduces his thesis that consciousness and cognitive objects form an indivisible unity, his revisionist interpretation of the concept of weishi 唯識, and his conviction that Indian Mahāyāna masters and Chinese wise men share common insights into Reality. Collectively, these topics function as a transition between his use of Yogācāra theories to critique the view that there are real external objects, to his critique of Cheng weishi lun 成唯識論 for effectively treating consciousness as having real existence and thus being philosophically just as flawed as the theories proposed to support the thesis that external objects are real.

Keywords: atomism, Cheng weishi lun, realism, Yogācāra, Sarvāstivādins, Sautrāntikas

3. Transformation轉變

Abstract: In this chapter Xiong sets out his account of transformation (轉變; pariṇāma), which he characterizes in terms of contraction (翕) and expansion (闢). Contraction is the basis for nominally talking about material dharmas, and expansion is the basis for nominally talking about mental dharmas. Xiong takes critical aim at the account of transformation presented in Cheng weishi lun 成唯識論, according to which consciousness—the mind—is bifurcated into two modes: consciousness-as-transformer (能變)—the capacity of consciousness to transform into a perceiving part and an image part—and what consciousness becomes, what it transforms into (所變): the perceiving part and the image part. Xiong seeks to develop and defend an ontological account of transformation in which Reality (實體; 本體; tattva) is presented as nothing other than an uninterrupted holistic process of constant transformation that cannot be reduced to subject-object characteristics. Doctrinally, it is consistent with basic Mahāyāna teachings of emptiness (空; śūnyatā) and dependent arising, and its critical edge is closely and explicitly informed by standard Madhyamaka deconstructive ploys. To this are wedded concepts taken from the Book of Change, adapted to characterize the inherent processual qualities of transformation.

Keywords: transformation (zhuanbian; pariṇāma), material and mental dharmas, contraction (xi) and expansion (pi), Cheng weishi lun, Reality (shiti; benti; tattva), Madhyamaka, Book of Change

4. Productive Power (功能)

Abstract: In this chapter Xiong elucidates three main differences between his understanding of productive power (功能; śakti) and Dharmapāla’s (sixth century) understanding. First, whereas for Dharmapāla productive power is synonymous with seeds, for Xiong productive power is a further characterization of Reality (實體; 本體; tattva), albeit like all verbal characterizations it is employed nominally, as a skilful means. Second, whereas for Dharmapāla productive power is individuated, for Xiong it is the totality of all things. Third, according to Xiong, is that Dharmapāla conflated habituated tendencies (習氣) with productive power by treating habituated tendencies as seeds. Xiong then describes three main differences between productive power and habituated tendencies and also presents a much broader discussion of eternalism and nihilism, which, in the chapter’s conclusion, provides a basis for his understanding of the doctrine of the Two Truths and how this doctrine relates to his main philosophical goal: to elucidate Reality.

Keywords: Reality (shiti; benti; tattva), Dharmapāla, productive power (gongneng; śakti), eternalism and nihilism, habituated tendencies, Two Truths

5. Demonstration of Material [Dharmas], A (成色上)

Abstract: This very short chapter returns to the topic of material dharmas—physical phenomena—and aims to provide an explanation for conventional accounts about the material world. At the heart of conventional accounts, we are told, is the view that physical phenomena offer physical resistance. Contrary to the conventional view, because of the nature of constant transformation, phenomena in fact offer no resistance. Resistance is nothing other than the illusory semblance of movement: matter moving through space. As the process of transformation coheres, there is apparent contraction: “Contraction is the illusory construction of countless moving points.” These moving points—analogous to atoms—appear to have material form but do not. The chapter concludes with a note on two Indian views on how the world came about. The Sāṃkhya transformation thesis is faulted for positing a notion of an external god, and the Vaiśeṣika theory of atomic clustering is criticized for its materialist, mechanical view of the universe.

Keywords: material dharmas, transformation, Sāṃkhya, Vaiśeṣika

6. Demonstration of Material [Dharmas], B (成色下)

Abstract: As with chapter 5, this short chapter is devoted to the topic of physical phenomena, including the body. Xiong’s regular refrain throughout this chapter is that despite the appearance of a world constituted of separate, individual phenomena, in fact all things are interconnected and interpenetrating, forming a whole. The first part of the chapter addresses physical phenomena generally. Contrary to the conventional view, phenomena in the natural world do not abide or endure through time. This is because both phenomenal entities and time lack self-nature and so are not real. The natural world is nothing but countless moving points, illusorily manifested as semblances of coalesced matter. These moving points cease as soon as they arise. The second part of the chapter focuses on the body as interpenetrating the whole that is the natural world, and vice versa, before Xiong moves to declare that the body and physical things have always been devoid of reality. Rather, both the body and the natural world are epiphenomena of “constant transformation,” illusorily generated through contraction (翕). The chapter concludes with some brief comments on the central nervous system.

Keywords: material dharmas, self-nature, the body, contraction (xi)

7. Explaining the Mind, A (明心上)

Abstract: This chapter develops an extended, concatenated description of the concept and characteristics of the mind. It also reiterates a theme found throughout New Treatise: movement and stillness. Here Xiong variously describes constant transformation as absolutely still yet moving, and as having a constant nature that cannot be altered yet is incessantly transforming; being activated, it gives rise to myriad beginnings yet itself remains ever still. Similarly, the mind is said both to move and to be quiescent; both to issue forth and to be restrained; both to transform and to be constant; and both to move and to be stationary. Mind and constant transformation are both references to Fundamental Reality. After providing a substantially orthodox Yogācāran summary description of the eight consciousnesses, Xiong returns to his earlier critiques of certain “Mahāyāna masters” for dividing the one mind into eight discrete entities and for positing seeds as causal conditions. The chapter then addresses the topic of mind, thought, and consciousness, concluding with “a general overview of the mind’s key features.” The final section of this chapter takes up the topic of mental associates (心所; caitta), also the main subject of chapter 8.

Keywords: mind, movement and stillness, constant transformation, Fundamental Reality, eight consciousnesses, mental associates (xinsuo; caitta)

8. Explaining the Mind, B (明心下)

Abstract: This chapter is devoted to a detailed exposition of thirty-eight mental associates (心所; caitta). The thirty-eight are based on the fifty-one listed in Cheng weishi lun 成唯識論, but with considerable rearrangement: five omnipresent mental associates, six omnipresent mental associates, six object-specific mental associates, nineteen defiled mental associates, and seven wholesome mental associates. As suggested by the name, “omnipresent mental associates” always occur together with the mind. “Object-specific mental associates” refers to mental associates that take specific cognitive objects as their cognitive objects and so do not always occur together with the mind. “Defiled mental associates” work against and block good mental associates. “Wholesome mental associates” counteract the afflictions of defiled mental associates, driving them into submission and eventually destroying them. The chapter concludes with several summary observations, including: the mind is the nature and it is innate; mental associates, however, are post-natal and based on experience; the nature (性) is the mind in its original, pristine state; realization of our inherent nature requires cultivation, and this cultivation is necessary because the nature is the principle by which humans are able to live.

Keywords: mental associates (xinsuo; caitta), Cheng weishi lun, mind, the nature (性),