The Buddhist Teaching of Totality (Garma C.C. Chang)
Disappointing and Parochial
[My 3-star Amazon review (NDA) of “The Buddhist Teaching of Totality: The Philosophy of Hwa Yen Buddhism†by Garma C.C. Chang.]
I was already very familiar with Professor Garma C.C. Chang’s writings when I came across this book in a Buddhist bookstore several years ago. I had long before read his three previous books—“The Practice of Zen,†“The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa,â€and “The Teachings of Tibetan Yogaâ€â€”and all three were excellent. In fact, it is hard for me to put into words how much I appreciate Dr. Chang’s presentation of the Mahamudra in “The Teachings of Tibetan Yoga.†It is, by far, the best rendition of the Mahamudra that I have encountered. The late guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho) must have felt the same way, because he used it as the basis for his elaboration on the Mahamudra in his book “Only One Sky.â€
Dr. Chang was not just a Buddhist scholar. He grew up in China and spent years in Chinese and Tibetan monasteries. So even before he came to America and become a professor of Buddhism, he was already a seasoned spiritual practitioner and expert on the theory and practice of Zen and Tibetan Yoga.
So it was with great anticipation that I began into “The Buddhist Teaching of Totality: The Philosophy of Hwa Yen Buddhism.†And when I read Dr. Chang very first sentences in the Preface -- “During my thirty-five years of association with Buddhism, I have always asked the question: “Of all the Buddhist Schools—Hinayana, Mahayana, and Tantra alike—which holds the highest teaching of Buddhism†The answer is now a clear-cut one: it is the Hwa Yen School of China [established roughly in the Seventh and Eighth centuries]â€â€”I could not put the book down until I had analyzed and considered Dr. Chang’s argument for the superiority of Hwa Yen Buddhism.
To make a long story short, Dr. Chang’s argument failed to convince me that the Hwa Yen School holds the highest teaching of Buddhism. I read the scriptural excerpts in the book, and though I found the Hwa Yen Dharma enchanting and profound (and certainly worth a read by Buddhists), I do not consider it on the same level as Dzogchen, which Dr. Chang egregiously fails to mention in this text.
As I read the book, I realized that Dr. Chang and I do not see eye to eye on a number of Dharma points, which largely explains why we don’t concur on the status of Hwa Yen. First off, Dr. Chang believes that Sunyata (Voidness or Empiness) is the core of Buddhism, and I flatly disagree. To my mind, Awareness (or Mind) is the core-- in fact, the word “Buddha†means awakened Mind, Bodhicitta-- and in my opinion the principle of Sunyata is utterly superfluous. Dr. Chang extols the wonders of Sunyata, but is terribly guilty of the reification of Zero, assigning ontological status to a non-existent, a derivative concept that no religion other than Buddhism apotheosizes. Dr. Chang is a huge fan of the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, which famously declares: “Form is not different from Emptiness, and Emptiness is not different than Form. Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form.†Well, if Emptiness is Form, then why even bother with the concept of Emptiness? Why not base your Dharma and sadhana on form? Call me a Buddhist heretic, but I think the Prajnaparamita Sutras and Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka are both philosophic nonsense, and the only way I can rationalize their teachings is by considering them merely as provisional “rafts†to help Bodhisattvas cross to the Other Shore.
Dr. Chang argues throughout this book that Hwa Yen Buddhism is the highest Dharma because it is totalistic, integrating Mind, emptiness, and non-obstruction. But it is not totalistic because it doesn’t account for Energy (Spirit, the Sambhogakaya). In fact, Dr. Chang, inexcusably, never broaches the subject of Energy, never mentions the role of the Sambhogakaya in the en-Light-enment project. I say a simple dialectic--Presence (or direct Mind-full-ness) as thesis; Absence (or self-emptiness) as antithesis; and Energy (or Light-energy, or Spirit-power) as synthesis provides a more totalistic , or integral, form of Buddhism than Hwa Yen.
Finally, Dr. Chang, in line with many Buddhist scholars, takes potshots at Hinduism, which he mistakenly considers inferior to Buddhism. Dr. Chang writes: Now the Buddhist stand on the intuitive feeling of Being or thatness is diametrically opposed to that of the Upanishads and Aquinas. Instead of glorifying the “beingness†and augmenting its significance to theological or soteriological levels, Buddhists believes that this intuitive grasping of being, or actuality, is an expression of men’s deep clinging and attachment. It is the very root of all sufferings and delusions in samsara!â€
Unfortunately, Dr. Chang doesn’t know what he’s talking about. First off there is no clinging in Being, because Being, by definition, is the end of becoming (samsara), of grasping after successive states. In fact, if Dr. Chang could think a little deeper, he’d realize that Buddhist Nirvana is the same thing as Hindu Being. Moreover, the“feeling of Being†is the spontaneous Bliss (Ananda) that an en-Light-ened sage experiences, and involves no grasping whatsoever. It is in fact, the very same Bliss that a Buddha spontaneously enjoys via the Sambhogakaya (the Blessing, or Blissing) Body.
In sum, this book reveals how limited and parochial of a thinker Dr. Chang is. I never would have guessed it from his first three books. But none of those books involved his own philosophizing, just translations and presentations of others’ teachings and experiences. Although I’m disappointed in the breadth and depth of Dr. Chang’s intellect, I give his book three stars because of the unique subject matter considered.
[My 3-star Amazon review (NDA) of “The Buddhist Teaching of Totality: The Philosophy of Hwa Yen Buddhism†by Garma C.C. Chang.]
I was already very familiar with Professor Garma C.C. Chang’s writings when I came across this book in a Buddhist bookstore several years ago. I had long before read his three previous books—“The Practice of Zen,†“The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa,â€and “The Teachings of Tibetan Yogaâ€â€”and all three were excellent. In fact, it is hard for me to put into words how much I appreciate Dr. Chang’s presentation of the Mahamudra in “The Teachings of Tibetan Yoga.†It is, by far, the best rendition of the Mahamudra that I have encountered. The late guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho) must have felt the same way, because he used it as the basis for his elaboration on the Mahamudra in his book “Only One Sky.â€
Dr. Chang was not just a Buddhist scholar. He grew up in China and spent years in Chinese and Tibetan monasteries. So even before he came to America and become a professor of Buddhism, he was already a seasoned spiritual practitioner and expert on the theory and practice of Zen and Tibetan Yoga.
So it was with great anticipation that I began into “The Buddhist Teaching of Totality: The Philosophy of Hwa Yen Buddhism.†And when I read Dr. Chang very first sentences in the Preface -- “During my thirty-five years of association with Buddhism, I have always asked the question: “Of all the Buddhist Schools—Hinayana, Mahayana, and Tantra alike—which holds the highest teaching of Buddhism†The answer is now a clear-cut one: it is the Hwa Yen School of China [established roughly in the Seventh and Eighth centuries]â€â€”I could not put the book down until I had analyzed and considered Dr. Chang’s argument for the superiority of Hwa Yen Buddhism.
To make a long story short, Dr. Chang’s argument failed to convince me that the Hwa Yen School holds the highest teaching of Buddhism. I read the scriptural excerpts in the book, and though I found the Hwa Yen Dharma enchanting and profound (and certainly worth a read by Buddhists), I do not consider it on the same level as Dzogchen, which Dr. Chang egregiously fails to mention in this text.
As I read the book, I realized that Dr. Chang and I do not see eye to eye on a number of Dharma points, which largely explains why we don’t concur on the status of Hwa Yen. First off, Dr. Chang believes that Sunyata (Voidness or Empiness) is the core of Buddhism, and I flatly disagree. To my mind, Awareness (or Mind) is the core-- in fact, the word “Buddha†means awakened Mind, Bodhicitta-- and in my opinion the principle of Sunyata is utterly superfluous. Dr. Chang extols the wonders of Sunyata, but is terribly guilty of the reification of Zero, assigning ontological status to a non-existent, a derivative concept that no religion other than Buddhism apotheosizes. Dr. Chang is a huge fan of the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, which famously declares: “Form is not different from Emptiness, and Emptiness is not different than Form. Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form.†Well, if Emptiness is Form, then why even bother with the concept of Emptiness? Why not base your Dharma and sadhana on form? Call me a Buddhist heretic, but I think the Prajnaparamita Sutras and Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka are both philosophic nonsense, and the only way I can rationalize their teachings is by considering them merely as provisional “rafts†to help Bodhisattvas cross to the Other Shore.
Dr. Chang argues throughout this book that Hwa Yen Buddhism is the highest Dharma because it is totalistic, integrating Mind, emptiness, and non-obstruction. But it is not totalistic because it doesn’t account for Energy (Spirit, the Sambhogakaya). In fact, Dr. Chang, inexcusably, never broaches the subject of Energy, never mentions the role of the Sambhogakaya in the en-Light-enment project. I say a simple dialectic--Presence (or direct Mind-full-ness) as thesis; Absence (or self-emptiness) as antithesis; and Energy (or Light-energy, or Spirit-power) as synthesis provides a more totalistic , or integral, form of Buddhism than Hwa Yen.
Finally, Dr. Chang, in line with many Buddhist scholars, takes potshots at Hinduism, which he mistakenly considers inferior to Buddhism. Dr. Chang writes: Now the Buddhist stand on the intuitive feeling of Being or thatness is diametrically opposed to that of the Upanishads and Aquinas. Instead of glorifying the “beingness†and augmenting its significance to theological or soteriological levels, Buddhists believes that this intuitive grasping of being, or actuality, is an expression of men’s deep clinging and attachment. It is the very root of all sufferings and delusions in samsara!â€
Unfortunately, Dr. Chang doesn’t know what he’s talking about. First off there is no clinging in Being, because Being, by definition, is the end of becoming (samsara), of grasping after successive states. In fact, if Dr. Chang could think a little deeper, he’d realize that Buddhist Nirvana is the same thing as Hindu Being. Moreover, the“feeling of Being†is the spontaneous Bliss (Ananda) that an en-Light-ened sage experiences, and involves no grasping whatsoever. It is in fact, the very same Bliss that a Buddha spontaneously enjoys via the Sambhogakaya (the Blessing, or Blissing) Body.
In sum, this book reveals how limited and parochial of a thinker Dr. Chang is. I never would have guessed it from his first three books. But none of those books involved his own philosophizing, just translations and presentations of others’ teachings and experiences. Although I’m disappointed in the breadth and depth of Dr. Chang’s intellect, I give his book three stars because of the unique subject matter considered.
