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Eastern Philosophy — Deck 02

The Way that can be told is not the eternal Way.

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The Way that can be told is not the eternal Way. Key sections include: Eastern Philosophy; Three Rivers; Confucius — 孔子; Daoism — 道家; The Buddha — बुद्ध; Vedanta & the Upanishads; Buddhist Philosophy; Zen — 禪; The Garden; Key Works.

Key sections

  • 01Eastern Philosophy
  • 02Three Rivers
  • 03Confucius — 孔子
  • 04Daoism — 道家
  • 05The Buddha — बुद्ध
  • 06Vedanta & the Upanishads
  • 07Buddhist Philosophy
  • 08Zen — 禪
  • 09The Garden
  • 10Key Works
  • 11An argument: Nagarjuna against essence
  • 12Why It Still Matters
  • 13Go Deeper
  • 14Colophon

Topics covered

philosophyeastern

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Slide outline
  1. 01Eastern Philosophy
  2. 02Three Rivers
  3. 03Confucius — 孔子
  4. 04Daoism — 道家
  5. 05The Buddha — बुद्ध
  6. 06Vedanta & the Upanishads
  7. 07Buddhist Philosophy
  8. 08Zen — 禪
  9. 09The Garden
  10. 10Key Works
  11. 11An argument: Nagarjuna against essence
  12. 12Why It Still Matters
  13. 13Go Deeper
  14. 14Colophon
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Slide 01

Eastern Philosophy

  • 01 / 14
  • DECK 02 · 東洋哲学
  • EAST · DECK 02
  • The Way that can be told is not the eternal Way.
  • 老子 · Laozi · Daodejing 1
Slide 02

Three Rivers

  • 02 / 14
  • "Eastern philosophy" is a Western convenience for at least three great traditions: the Vedic-Hindu river of India, the Confucian-Daoist river of China, and the Buddhist current that runs from northern India eastward into Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. They meet, mix, separate. They are not one thing.
  • This deck samples five strands. It cannot be exhaustive. The bibliographies it points to can.
  • 中国 · China
  • Confucius & Laozi
  • Two contemporaries (legendarily) of the sixth century BCE. One taught ritual and humane order; the other taught the Way that does nothing and yet leaves nothing undone.
  • भारत · India
  • Vedanta & the Buddha
  • The Upanishads asked who the self is and answered: Brahman. The Buddha, c. 500 BCE, denied any such self and offered the eightfold path out of suffering.
  • 日本 · Japan
  • Zen
  • Chan Buddhism crossed the East China Sea and became Zen — the school of sudden awakening, sitting meditation (zazen), and the koan that defeats the ordinary mind.
  • across
  • Common moves
  • A suspicion of conceptual elaboration. A practice (meditation, ritual) at the centre of philosophy, not the periphery. Liberation, not just understanding, as the goal.
Slide 03

Confucius — 孔子

  • 03 / 14
  • 551 — 479 BCE · Lu, China
  • When you know a thing, hold that you know it; when you do not know a thing, allow that you do not know it — this is knowledge.
  • Analects 2.17
  • Kong Qiu, called by his students Master Kong (Kongfuzi, latinised by the Jesuits as Confucius), was an itinerant teacher and minor official in the small state of Lu during the Spring and Autumn period — an age of declining Zhou authority and rising warfare. His teachings, recorded by disciples in the Analects (Lunyu) over the following centuries, are not a system but a portrait of the noble person (junzi) at home in the ritual of the world.
  • Five virtues
  • 仁 ren — humaneness, the disposition that takes the other's good as one's own.
  • 義 yi — righteousness, doing what is appropriate.
  • 禮 li — ritual propriety, the form by which good will becomes communal life.
  • 智 zhi — practical wisdom.
  • 信 xin — trustworthiness in word and deed.
  • The rectification of names — Analects 13.3
  • Asked what he would do first if given a state to govern, the Master said: "Surely, rectify the names." If a ruler is not a ruler, if a son is not a son — the words come loose from the things, and government founders. Language and ethics are inseparable.
Slide 04

Daoism — 道家

  • 04 / 14
  • Laozi · Zhuangzi · 6th — 4th c. BCE (legendary)
  • Where Confucius prescribed ritual and effort, Daoism counselled spontaneity and non-coercive action — wu-wei (無為), often translated as "non-action" but better as effortless responsiveness, like water finding its course. The two foundational texts are the slim, gnomic Daodejing attributed to Laozi (the Old Master), and the wild, parabolic Zhuangzi.
  • The Daodejing — opening lines
  • 道可道，非常道。
  • 名可名，非常名。
  • The Way that can be told is not the eternal Way. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.
  • The Dao is not an object; the moment you name it, you have lost it. The book proceeds for eighty-one short chapters in this register.
  • Zhuangzi · the butterfly
  • "Once Zhuang Zhou dreamt he was a butterfly... Suddenly he awoke. Now he does not know whether he is Zhou who dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he is Zhou." (Zhuangzi 2)
  • Taijitu — the diagram of supreme polarity
  • Yin and yang — receptive and active, dark and light, valley and mountain. Each contains a seed of the other; one becomes the other. The diagram is from the Song dynasty, but the idea is older than writing.
Slide 05

The Buddha — बुद्ध

  • 05 / 14
  • Siddhartha Gautama · c. 563 — c. 483 BCE
  • All conditioned things are impermanent. When one sees this with wisdom, one turns away from suffering.
  • Dhammapada 277
  • The Four Noble Truths — first sermon at Sarnath
  • Dukkha · There is suffering. Birth, ageing, illness, death; union with the disliked, separation from the loved; not getting what one wants. Existence is unsatisfactory.
  • Samudaya · There is a cause. Craving (tanha) — for sense pleasure, for becoming, for non-becoming — is the origin of suffering.
  • Nirodha · There is a cessation. The complete fading away and ceasing of that craving — this is nirvana.
  • Magga · There is a path. The Noble Eightfold Path leads there.
  • The Eightfold Path — the wheel of dharma
  • Each is described as samma — right, complete, integral. The path is taught not as theory but as a method to be tried.
Slide 06

Vedanta & the Upanishads

  • 06 / 14
  • vedānta · "the end of the Vedas" · c. 800 — 200 BCE for the principal Upanishads
  • The Vedas are the oldest layer of Indian sacred literature. The Upanishads are their philosophical conclusion — anonymous texts that turn the ritual gaze inward and ask what underlies the self and the world. The answer of the Chandogya and the Brihadaranyaka, given in dialogue between fathers and sons, sages and kings, is one of the great theses of philosophy: tat tvam asi — that thou art. The deepest self (atman) is identical with the ultimate reality (Brahman).
  • Centuries later, Shankara (c. 700 CE) systematised this into Advaita Vedanta — non-dualism. Plurality is appearance (maya); the one Brahman is real. Ramanuja (c. 1100) replied with qualified non-dualism: the world and selves are real, but as the body of God.
  • The cardinal sentences (mahavakyas)
  • तत् त्वम् असि · tat tvam asi · "That thou art." (Chandogya 6.8.7)
  • अहं ब्रह्मास्मि · aham brahmasmi · "I am Brahman." (Brihadaranyaka 1.4.10)
  • प्रज्ञानं ब्रह्म · prajnanam brahma · "Consciousness is Brahman." (Aitareya 3.3)
  • अयम् आत्मा ब्रह्म · ayam atma brahma · "This self is Brahman." (Mandukya 2)
  • The Bhagavad Gita
  • Within the Mahabharata, on the eve of battle, the warrior Arjuna refuses to fight against his kin. Krishna, his charioteer, replies for eighteen chapters. The Gita synthesises three paths — karma (action), bhakti (devotion), jnana (knowledge) — and is the most read of Hindu texts.
  • "You have a right to action alone, never to its fruits." (Gita 2.47)
Slide 07

Buddhist Philosophy

  • 07 / 14
  • Theravada
  • The way of the elders
  • Closest to early Buddhism; the Pali Canon (Tipitaka) is its scripture. Predominant in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos. Emphasises the arhat ideal — individual liberation through monastic practice.
  • Mahayana
  • The great vehicle
  • Emerging around the first century CE in northern India. Adds the Bodhisattva ideal: vow to liberate all beings before final nirvana. Sutras include Prajnaparamita ("Perfection of Wisdom"), the Lotus Sutra, the Heart Sutra.
  • Vajrayana
  • The diamond vehicle
  • Tantric Buddhism, fully developed in Tibet by the eighth century. Uses mantra, mudra, and visualisation as skilful means. The lineage of the Dalai Lamas belongs to its Gelugpa school.
  • Two Mahayana doctrines
  • Śūnyatā · emptiness
  • Nagarjuna (c. 150 CE) argued in his Mulamadhyamakakarika that nothing has intrinsic existence (svabhava). All phenomena arise dependently; their "emptiness" is not nihilism but freedom from reification. The most famous chapter — XXIV — argues that emptiness and dependent origination are the same view, expressed twice.
  • Two truths
  • Conventional truth (samvrti) and ultimate truth (paramartha). At the conventional level, persons and tables exist; at the ultimate level, neither has independent essence. The two are not in conflict — they are two angles on one world.
Slide 08

Zen — 禪

  • 08 / 14
  • Bodhidharma · Huineng · Dogen · 6th c. — 13th c.
  • A special transmission outside the scriptures · not founded on words and letters · pointing directly to the human mind · seeing one's nature and becoming a Buddha.
  • attributed to Bodhidharma — the four-line summary
  • Chan (Sanskrit: dhyana, meditation) developed in China from the sixth century, and crossed to Japan in the twelfth as Zen. Its two great Japanese schools are Rinzai (koan-based) and Soto (centred on shikantaza, "just sitting"). The thirteenth-century Soto founder Dogen wrote the Shobogenzo — the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye — one of the densest and most beautiful texts in Buddhism.
  • From the Mumonkan · Gateless Gate · Case 1
  • A monk asked Zhaozhou: "Does a dog have Buddha-nature?" Zhaozhou said: "Mu." (無 · "No" / "without")
  • The koan is not a riddle to be solved by ordinary thought. It is given as a focus for sitting until the conceptual structure exhausts itself.
  • Aesthetic offspring
  • Zen shaped Japanese culture far beyond the temple: the dry rock garden (karesansui), the tea ceremony (chanoyu), ink painting (sumi-e), the pause and asymmetry of haiku. The aesthetic principles — wabi (rustic beauty), sabi (the patina of age), yugen (mysterious depth) — are philosophical claims about how presence shows up.
Slide 09

The Garden

  • 09 / 14
  • Ryōan-ji's fifteen rocks, set in raked white gravel, are arranged so that from any angle one rock is hidden. The whole cannot be seen at once. It is not a metaphor for anything — it is, exactly, a place where this fact is offered.
Slide 10

Key Works

  • 10 / 14
  • TraditionTextDateNote
  • ConfucianAnalects (Lunyu)compiled c. 400 BCEsayings of Confucius
  • ConfucianMenciusc. 300 BCEhuman nature is good
  • ConfucianXunzic. 250 BCEhuman nature requires shaping
  • DaoistDaodejingc. 400 BCEattrib. Laozi
  • DaoistZhuangzic. 300 BCE"inner chapters" by Zhuang Zhou
  • VedicBrihadaranyaka Upanishadc. 700 BCEoldest principal Upanishad
  • VedicBhagavad Gitac. 200 BCEwithin the Mahabharata
  • BuddhistDhammapadac. 250 BCEPali verse anthology
  • BuddhistMulamadhyamakakarikac. 150 CENagarjuna · "emptiness"
  • BuddhistHeart Sutrac. 350 CEMahayana — "form is emptiness"
  • VedantaBrahma Sutras (with Shankara)c. 700 CEAdvaita systematised
  • ZenShobogenzo1231 — 1253Dogen
  • ZenMumonkan (Gateless Gate)1228Wumen Huikai · 48 koans
Slide 11

An argument: Nagarjuna against essence

  • 11 / 14
  • Madhyamaka logic, simplified to the bone. Nagarjuna argues that nothing has svabhava (own-being) — and uses argument to do it.
  • If anything had own-being, it would exist independently of all other things.
  • Independent existence means not arising from causes and conditions.
  • Yet everything we observe arises from causes and conditions (dependent origination).
  • So nothing observed has own-being.
  • An "unobserved real" with own-being would have no relation to anything we can speak of.
  • Therefore the very category of own-being is empty.
  • To say all things are empty is itself a conventional truth, not an essence.
  • Hence emptiness is not nihilism: things still arise dependently, function, suffer, love.
  • The conclusion is meant to land as practice rather than as creed: the loosening of grasping that the Buddha taught.
Slide 12

Why It Still Matters

  • 12 / 14
  • For two centuries, Western philosophy has been quietly absorbing Asian ideas: Schopenhauer reading the Upanishads, Heidegger reading Daoist texts in conversation with Japanese students, Wittgenstein writing in a register that often sounds like Zen, the analytic philosophers who from the 1980s began to treat Madhyamaka as a serious metaphysical interlocutor.
  • Buddhist meditation is now a global secular practice; mindfulness-based clinical interventions have decades of evidence behind them. Daoist images of leadership and ecology shape contemporary writing on systems and on power.
  • The hard work, ongoing, is to read these traditions on their own terms — neither as exotic decoration for a Western argument nor as identical to Western views in funny clothes. The Indian traditions wrote logic as carefully as the Greeks; the Chinese pursued metaphysics as searchingly as any German idealist; Japan's Buddhist philosophers asked questions about time, self, and being that Heidegger would have recognised, and would have gained from.
  • Comparative philosophy is the long task of treating the world's traditions as one conversation rather than several.
Slide 13

Go Deeper

  • 13 / 14
  • Crash Course Philosophy ran an accessible introduction to several of these traditions. The episode embedded below treats the Buddha; the playlist contains Confucianism, Daoism, and more.
  • Watch · Crash Course Philosophy · Eastern thought
  • Further reading
  • Karl Jaspers · The Great Philosophers (Vol. I includes Confucius, Laozi, the Buddha)
  • Wm. Theodore de Bary · Sources of Chinese Tradition
  • Patrick Olivelle · The Early Upanishads (translation)
  • Jay Garfield · The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (Nagarjuna)
  • D. T. Suzuki & Shunryu Suzuki · the two great Suzukis on Zen
Slide 14

Colophon

  • 14 / 14
  • Before enlightenment: chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.
  • Zen saying
  • Deck 02 of Philosophy · Vol. VI · The Deck Catalog
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