What is Buddhism? According to Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shiro, the answer lies in neither Ch’an nor Zen; in neither the Kyoto school of philosophy nor the non-duality taught in the Vimalakirti Sutra. Hakamaya contends that “criticism alone is Buddhism.”
This volume introduces and analyzes the ideas of “critical Buddhism” in relation to the targets of its critique and situates those ideas in the context of current discussions of postmodern academic scholarship, the separation of the disinterested scholar and committed religious practitioner, and the place of social activism within the academy.
Essays critical of the received traditions of Buddhist thought—many never before translated—are presented and then countered by the work of respected scholars, both Japanese and Western, who take contrary positions. (Source: University of Hawai'i Press)
Hubbard, Jamie, and Paul L. Swanson, eds. Pruning the Bodhi Tree: The Storm Over Critical Buddhism. Nanzan Library of Asian Religion and Culture. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997.
Introduction by Jamie HUBBARDvii
List of Contributorsxxiii
Source Creditsxxvii
Bibliographic and Linguistic Conventionsxxixi
PART ONE
The What and Why of Critical Buddhism
Why They Say Zen Is Not Buddhism: Recent Japanese Critiques of Buddha-Nature3
Paul L. Swanson
Critical Buddhism and Returning to the Sources30
Dan LUSTHAUS
Critical Philosophy versus Topical Philosophy56
HAKAMAYA Noriaki
Topophobia81
Jamie HUBBARD
Scholarship as Criticism113
HAKAMAYA Noriaki
The Limits of Criticism145
Paul J. GRIFFITHS
Comments on Critical Buddhism161
MATSUMOTO Shirō
PART TWO
In Search of True Buddhism
The Doctrine of Tathāgata-garbha Is Not Buddhist165
MATSUMOTO Shirō
The Doctrine of Buddha-Nature Is Impeccably Buddhist174
Sallie B. KING
The Idea of Dhātu-vāda in Yogacara and Tathāgata-garbha Texts193
YAMABE Nobuyoshi
A Critical Exchange on the Idea of Dhātu-vāda205
MATSUMOTO Shirō & YAMABE Nobuyoshi
The Core Elements of Indian Buddhism Introduced into Tibet: A Contrast with Japanese Buddhism220
YAMAGUCHI Zuihō
The Meaning of "Zen"242
MATSUMOTO Shirō
Critical Buddhism and Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō: The Debate over the 75-Fascicle and 12-Fascicle Texts251
Steven HEINE
Is Critical Buddhism Really Critical?286
Peter N. GREGORY
Metaphysics, Suffering, and Liberation: The Debate between Two Buddhisms298
LIN Chen-kuo
Thoughts on Dhātu-vāda and Recent Trends in Buddhist Studies314
TAKASAKI Jikidō
A Reexamination of Critical Buddhism321
SUEKI Fumihiko
PART THREE
Social Criticism
Thoughts on the Ideological Background of Social Discrimination339
HAKAMAYA Noriaki
Buddhism and the Kami: Against Japanism356
MATSUMOTO Shirō
Tendai Hongaku Doctrine and Japan’s Ethnocentric Turn374
