Buddhist I Ching (eBook)

Translator'sIntroduction

Thisbook is a reading of the classic IChing bythe noted Chinese Buddhist Chih-hsu Ou-i (1599–,1655), an outstandingauthor of the late Ming dynasty whose work influenced the development of modernBuddhism in China. Ou-i uses the IChing toelucidate issues in social, psychological, and spiritual development.

TheIChing isthe most ancient Chinese book of wisdom, widely considered a basic guide forconscious living. While it has been extensively expounded by the traditionalsociologists and psychologists of the Confucian and Taoist schools, the writtenrecords of Chinese Buddhism are nearly silent on the IChing. Ofcourse, several key phrases and signs were adopted into the commentaries of theCh'an (Zen), Hua-yen, and other Buddhist schools, but no extensive explanationof the IChing seemsto have been written by a Buddhist until Chih-hsu Ou-i composed the presentwork in the seventeenth century.

WhenBuddhism came into China, it picked up certain key phrases from the Chineseclassics to put forth its message in the local idiom. Among the classicsBuddhists drew from was, naturally, the IChing. Eleventh-centuryCh'an Buddhists used well-known lines referring to effective adaptation, anaxial Buddhist theme. Taoist reading of the IChing isespecially marked in the Ch'an-like Treatiseon the Avatamsaka Stra bythe lay adept Li T'unghsuan. The celebrated 'Five Ranks' device ofthe ninth-century Ts'ao Tung (Soto) school of Ch'an was in some textsillustrated by trigrams and hexagrams from the IChing, andthis association was much elaborated by the Soto Zen monks of the seventeenthand eighteenth centuries.

Iam not aware, however, of any text, before or since this one by Ou-i, thattreats the IChing ina systematic way from the point of view of Buddhist teaching and practice.Ch'an masters of the classic era seldom did systematic explanations of anytext, but in the postclassical periods of Ch'an in China and other East Asiannations, there were people who combined scholarship with meditation and usedtheir experience to elucidate not only Buddhist texts of all schools, but alsoclassics of Confucianism and Taoism.

Thissort of activity always seems to be heightened in pitch during times ofdegradation in the general tone of the civilization's consciousness, perhapscoinciding with relaxation or with crisis. Generally, the later teachers wrotemuch more than the earlier teachers. We usually have only hints of the colossalinner and outer learning of the ancients, of the learning of the laterteachers, who also had more to study, we have evidence of intellectual effortsthat would be staggering by standards common today. In the case of Ou-i, aswith other great Buddhists who took up scholarship, this was done as a part ofreligious practice, linking personal efforts with needs of the contemporarysociety.

TheMing dynasty was one such time of stress in China. The dynasty had started inthe fourteenth century as a revolt against the Mongolian Yuan dynasty and endedin total overthrow by the Manchu Ch'ing dynasty in the mid-seventeenth century.During that time there were many civil wars, including numerous revolts led byBuddhist societies. There seem to have been very few creative, progressiveleaders in the secular world, and intellectual growth was threatened by theimposition of institutionalized orthodoxy.

Thoughthe upstart founder of the Ming dynasty had himself been a Buddhist monk, as hegained support among established sectors of Society, he began to withdraw fromhis associations with the Buddhist...