Translator's Introduction
This book is a reading of the classic
I Ching by the noted Chinese Buddhist
Chih-hsu Ou-i (1599-1655), an outstanding author of the late Ming dynasty
whose work influenced the development of modern Buddhism in
China. Ou-i uses the
I Ching to elucidate issues in social, psychological, and
spiritual development.
The
IChing is the most ancient Chinese book of wisdom, widely considered
a basic guide for conscious living. While it has been extensively expounded
by the traditional sociologists and psychologists of the Confucian
and Taoist schools, the written records of Chinese Buddhism are nearly silent
on the I Ching. Of course, several key phrases and signs were adopted
into the commentaries of the Ch'an (Zen), Hua-yen, and other Buddhist
schools, but no extensive explanation of the
I Ching seems to have been
written by a Buddhist until Chih-hsu Ou-i composed the present work in
the seventeenth century.
When Buddhism came into China, it picked up certain key phrases from
the Chinese classics to put forth its message in the local idiom. Among the
classics Buddhists drew from was, naturally, the
I Ching. Eleventh-century
Ch'an Buddhists used well-known lines referring to effective adaptation, an
axial Buddhist theme. Taoist reading of the
I Ching is especially marked in
the Ch'an-like Treatise on the Avatamsaka Sutra by the lay adept Li T'unghsuan.
The celebrated "Five Ranks" device of the ninth-century Ts'ao Tung
(Sett)) school of Ch'an was in some texts illustrated by trigrams and hexagrams
from the I Ching, and this association was much elaborated by the
Soto Zen monks of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
1 am not aware, however, of any text, before or since this one by Ou-i, that
treats the
I Ching in a systematic way from the point of view of Buddhist
teaching and practice. Ch'an masters of the classic era seldom did systematic
explanations of any text, but in the postclassical periods of Ch'an in China
and other East Asian nations, there were people who combined scholarship
with meditation and used their experience to elucidate not only Buddhist
texts of all schools, but also classics of Confucianism and Taoism.
This sort of activity always seems to be heightened in pitch during times
of degradation in the general tone of the civilization's consciousness, perhapsviii TRANSLATOR '
S INTRODUCTION Translator's Introduction ix
coinciding with relaxation or with crisis. Generally, the later teachers wrote
much more than the earlier teachers. We usually have only hints of the colossal
inner and outer learning of the ancients; of the learning of the later
teachers, who also had more to study, we have evidence of intellectual effort
that would be staggering by standards common today. In the case of Ou-i, as
with other great Buddhists who took up scholarship, this was done as a part
of religious practice, linking personal efforts with needs of the contemporary
society.
The Ming dynasty was one such time of stress in China. The dynasty had
started in the fourteenth century as a revolt against the Mongolian Yuan
dynasty and ended in 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 by Buddhist societies. There seem to have been
very few creative, progressive leaders in the secular world, and intellectual
growth was threatened by the imposition of institutionalized orthodoxy.
Though the upstart founder of the Ming dynasty had himself been a Buddhist
monk, as he gained support among established sectors of society, he
began to withdraw from his associations with the Buddhist order, particularly
the yao-seng, or charismatic monks, who had considerable influence on
a popular level and often brandished revolutionary visions. Attempts to control
the clergy, particularly to control contact between the clergy and the
populace, played an important role in the development of the forms of institutionalized
Buddhism in this transition period between the postclassical
and modern eras of Chinese Buddhism.
The face of religion was changing, it seemed, or different phases of religion
were becoming visible. The Chinese Buddhists accepted Tibetan tantrism,
and the powerful Complete Reality Taoists seemed to take up some of the
ancient ways of Taoist tantrism. When the great T'ang dynasty was flourishing
centuries before the Ming, tantric texts giving formulae for killing unjust
kings were suppressed or changed, but in the Ming dynasty civilian armies
rallied their personal attention and group solidarity around religious ideals,
such as the coming of Maitreya, the future Buddha, as they fought to overthrow
what they perceived as corrupt and oppressive "government."
A similar phenomenon occurred in Japan about this time, with the wellorganized
Pure Land and Sun Lotus Buddhist movements in the midst of the
Warring States period of medieval Japan assuming both temporal and spiritual
functions. In the Near East, the military organization known as the Janissaries
was established, it is said, with the blessing of Sufi Hajji Bektash,
revered as a saint by both Christians and Muslims. In Central Asia, the great
conqueror Tamerlane, who like the Ming Chinese took up after the Jinggisid
Mongols, was at once a relentless warrior and reveler, and a great patron of
arts, sciences, and religions. He is said to have known Nasruddin, the Sufi
counterpart of lkkyu, the medieval Japanese Zen master who had at least
three or four careers, and like Nasruddin knew the local conqueror of his
time, one of the Ashikaga shoguns.
It would seem that one of the concerns of the time, therefore, was the
"deposit" of knowledge that would allow humankind to survive in the future.
Geniuses everywhere from Europe to East Asia seem to have deposited
part of that knowledge right in the infrastructures of conflict (such as the
martial arts), and then moved to balance this by developing culture to a high
pitch. Thus we find great developments in liturgy, music, art, scholarship,
and literature, often carried out by the same person or group. This whole
process itself illustrates u principle of the I Ching, whereby waxing and waning
balance each other.
There seems to be a general consensus among Buddhist writers that institutional
Buddhism was in a severe decline in the Ming dynasty. Ou-i himself,
commenting on the typical forms of degeneration among the various
branches of Buddhist study, cites widespread ignorance, hypocrisy, and
empty imitation as characteristic flaws of contemporary Buddhist clergy.
This situation naturally created problems for those who sincerely tried to
pursue Buddhist studies in a monastic context, but on the other hand it
seems to have further stimulated Buddhist thinkers from a cloistered environment
to reach out into secular life, continuing a trend strongly marked
in the earlier Sung and Yuan dynasties.
The story of Qu-i's own life appears to be one of great struggle and effort,
plagued by the difficulties of finding good teachers and companions in the
Buddhist world. He wrote of himself that he did not have a fixed teacher,
but tried to learn from everyone; eventually he read through the entire Buddhist
canon, like others in similar positions, and attempted to extract the
essence from all of the Buddhist teachings. Though he had no such institutional
affiliation, Ou-i is commonly thought of as an outstanding latter-day
exponent of T'ien-t'ai Buddhism, the great syncretic school of Chinese Buddhism
combining study and exercise.
Ou-i's early exposure to Buddhism was, of course, through his cultural
and family environment. Like most literate Chinese men, however, he devoted
his early studies to Confucianism, in preparation for possible advancement
through the civil service examination system. At the age of twelve he
was already writing anti-Buddhist essays, a Confucian fashion that he seems
later to have regretted very deeply.
A climax to Ou-i's Confucian studies was reached when he was twenty
years old, while he was writing a commentary on the Lun-yu or Analects of
Confucius, one of the basic classics. According to his own account, he became
stuck on the expression "The whole world takes to benevolence" and was
unable to think of anything else for three days and nights. Finally he experienced
a mental opening and suddenly "understood the psychology of
Confucius."x TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Translator's Introduction xi
At that time, the orthodox school of Confucianism was the Ch'eng-chu
school, a relic of the Sung dynasty, and like everyone aiming for a career in
civil service through the official examination system, Ou-i began his studies
in this school. Eventually, however, he came to prefer the new school of
Wang Yang-ming (1472-1528), whose doctrines and methods were strongly
influenced by Buddhism. After his awakening to the psychology of Confucius
and following his interest in Wang Yang-ming's psychological Confucianism,
Ou-i now began to practice Ch'an Buddhist meditation.
Ou-i's early attempts at meditation were not fruitful, and he consequently
began to think that he would have to become a renunciate in order to succeed
in his new spiritual endeavor. He thus became a Buddhist monk in his
early twenties and once again set himself to the practice of meditation, using
the Surangama Sutra as a guide to handling the mental states that may arise
during concentrated meditation.
This time Ou-i obtained dramatic results from meditation. In his autobiographical
notes he records that he felt that his "body, mind, and world all
disappeared." Subsequently, he continues, all the scriptures and kung-an
(Ch'an Buddhist teaching stories) became obvious to him. Nevertheless, he
says, he did not consider this the "enlightenment of sages," and did not tell
anyone about it.
Several years later, at the age of twenty-eight, Ou-i fell seriously ill and in
the midst of his life-and-death crisis found that his early realization was of
no practical use to him. He then added the Buddha-name recitation practice
of the T'ien-t'ai and Pure Land schools to his Ch'an meditation practice. He
had been interested in Buddha-name recitation since his early twenties, and
it was also fashionable in his time to combine silent and incantational
meditation.
Still later, at the age of thirty-one, Ou-i met the distinguished Ch'an master
Po-shan Yuan-lai (1575-1630). Yuan-lai explained to him the various
characteristics of the progressive deterioration of Ch'an practice in their time,
and this prompted Ou-i to give up Ch'an altogether. Now he began to concentrate
intensely on Pure Land practice, restoration of the vinaya ( monastic
orders), and exposition of classic Buddhist scriptures and treatises.
During his thirties, Ou-i took up the practice of mantraydna, the vehicle of
mystic spells. Among the various spells he is known to have recited, the one
to which he devoted the most effort was the spell of Ksitigarbha, the bodhisattva
associated with the salvation of those in hell. This spell is particularly
focused on absolution, and Ou-i notes that he recited it approximately forty
million times over a period of ten years.
It is recorded in Buddhist lore that mantrayanic practice is often associated
with the development of extraordinary linguistic and mnemic skills,
and it may have been this decade of intense spell concentration that enabled
Ou-i to perform the tremendous feats of scholarship that he subsequently
accomplished. Be that as it may, when Ou-i subsequently began to study
esoteric tantric Buddhism in earnest and learned of the strict requirements
of mantraydna (to prevent the strengthening of bad qualities as well as good
ones), he ceased to practice or encourage incantation, save incantation of the
name of the Buddha of Compassion.
Also during his thirties, Ou-i suffered the final failure of his attempt to
revive orthodox vinaya practice in China and at length even renounced his
ordination, regarding it as technically illegitimate. He turned his attention to
the Mahayana vinaya in the Brahmajdla Sutra, and, at the age of thirty-nine,
while lecturing on this sutra, he experienced another great realization. According
to his account, he now saw that all the doctrinal differences among
Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism were due to the fact that these teachings
were nothing more than temporary means.
Finally, at the age of forty-six, under the impact of another serious illness,
Ou-i again reevaluated his Buddhist practice and decided to devote himself
to Pure Land Buddhism. An outstanding characteristic of Pure Land Buddhism
is that it promises salvation through the simple invocation of a Buddhaname,
regardless of other conditions. For Ou-i, intensely aware of both the
temporal and the spiritual malaise of his time, personally burdened with a
sense of guilt for his early repudiation of Buddhism, chronically unhealthy
and often ill, and moreover regretful at having lost opportunities for personal
cultivation because of his scholarly activities, to enter into Pure Land
devotion would seem to be almost a matter of course. Ten years later he
passed away, leaving a rarely matched legacy of Buddhist scholarship.
Considering the fact that Ou-i was in poor health almost all of his life, and
was sometimes very ill for extended periods of time, his enormous literary
output appears all the more incredible. In his teen years, when he began to
write anti-Buddhist essays and Confucian commentaries, he is said to have
composed over two thousand tracts, so his literary talents were apparently
quite considerable even at this early age. He later burned all of these essays,
so we have no idea of the state of mind of the young Ou-i, but his later work
clearly demonstrates a formidable knowledge of Confucianism.
Aside from some miscellaneous works—letters, prayers, essays on Ch'anhe
did not begin his Buddhist writings in earnest until he was nearly forty
years old. By the end of his life—which was short in comparison with many
other noted Buddhist teachers—he had composed over seventy-five works
in some two hundred and fifty volumes.
About fifty of these works still exist, including a comprehensive guide to
the Buddhist canon, useful compendia of major Buddhist systems, commentaries
on Buddhist sutras and sdstras, and interpretations of several native
Chinese classics, including this work on the I Ching.
Chinese Buddhism in the Ming dynasty inherited a twofold tradition:
there were the Chinese schools that had arisen between the fourth andxii TRANSLATOR 'S INTRODUCTION
eighth centuries, and the Tibetan schools that entered under the Yuan dynasty
Mongolian rule during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The
old schools of Chinese Buddhism had more or less amalgamated by the
Ming dynasty, depending on the type of practitioner—there were vinaya
specialists, sutra and sdstra specialists, and Yoga specialists, the latter including
those reputed to have various kinds of ordinary and occult knowledge,
generally working among the people.
The newer Tibetan schools apparently began to influence the Chinese
when Tibet and China were both absorbed into the Mongolian Empire. The
Ming dynasty was a native Chinese breakaway from Mongol rule, which
maintained its own diplomatic relations with other nations, as many as
thirty-three under the famous Yung-lo Emperor Ch'eng-tsu (r. 1403-1424),
who was in contact with the Karmapa, a high incarnate lama of Tibet.
Under the native Chinese Ming dynasty, therefore, the connection between
Tibetan and Chinese schools of Buddhism continued, marked by an
increasing emphasis on ritual, prostration, and incantation practices. While
the general form of Chinese Buddhist practice showed Tibetan influence,
however, the contents of its rituals were taken not from the Indian esoteric
tradition through the Tibetan or even the Chinese esoteric canon, but mainly
from the liturgy of the T'ien-t'ai school, which had been formulated for the
Chinese from Buddhist scriptures centuries before, in the Sui, Tang, and
Sung dynasties, from the late sixth to early eleventh century.
Ou-i was therefore very unusual among native Chinese Buddhists in having
actually read the esoteric canon existing in the Chinese language. Nevertheless,
he finally concluded that the living tradition of Tantra was no longer
available in China (travel was difficult and limited in Ou-i's time, due to civil
and international unrest in many areas) and this led to his decision to abandon
Mantrayana, except for the name of Amitabha Buddha, the Buddha of
Infinite Light, the embodiment of compassion. The practice of reciting this
name had been openly offered in sutras and sdstras since time immemorial,
and because it was associated with pure compassion, it could be considered
the least dangerous of all mantras. This was the mantra, in fact, of the first
native Chinese school, the Pure Land school founded by the great scholar
and visionary Hui-yuan (334-416), originator of the first Lotus Society.
Furthermore, Ou-i found an esoteric plane in the work of the great Sung
dynasty T'ian-t'ai writer Ssu-ming (960-1028), who revived the school
eight generations after the last great master, Chan-jan (711-782). Ou-i
made Ssu-ming '
s work one of his main sources on liturgy and ritual, and he
also commonly used T'ien-t'ai terminology in dealing with other forms of
meditation and other Buddhist practices as well.
This is certainly true of his commentary on the I Ching, translated in the
present volume, and it is therefore useful to note certain recurring key
terms. A general outline can first be glimpsed in Ou-i's own explanation of
the overall structure of the I Ching:
Translator's Introduction xiii
The upper course of the I Ching starts with The Creative and The
Receptive, and ends with Water (Multiple Danger) and Fire. These
are symbols of heaven, earth, sun, and moon. They also represent
the qualities of calm and awareness, concentration and insight.
This course deals with the beginning and end of inherent qualities.
The lower course starts with Sensing and Constancy, and ends
with Settled and Unsettled. These are symbols of sensing and response,
getting through impasses. They are also symbols of potential
and teaching calling on one another, benefiting people in all
times. This deals with the beginning and end of cultivated qualities.
Also, the upper course begins with the inherent qualities of Creativity
and Receptivity, and ends with the cultivated qualities of
Water and Fire. This is the fulfillment of cause and result of one's
own practice.
The lower course begins with the potential and teaching of
Sensing and Constancy, and ends with the endlessness of being
Settled and Unsettled. This is the fulfillment of the subject and object
involved in education and enlightenment of others.
This is the general point of the two parts of the I Ching.
The inherent qualities Ou-i speaks of are the natural qualities of buddhanature,
the complete potential of awareness; cultivated qualities are developments
of the various facets of inherent qualities, bringing them to full maturity
and putting them to appropriate use. Thus inherent qualities and cultivated
qualities are the same in essence but distinct in practice.
In T'ien-t'ai Buddhist terms, this is the unity and distinction of fundamental
enlightenment and initial enlightenment. This is the teaching that all
beings have the buddha-nature, or potential for awakening to reality, but it
usually cannot be fully expressed or used without deliberate cultivation.
A refinement of this idea is the doctrine of successive stages coexisting
with an underlying unity or continuity. Using the T'ien-t'ai model, Ou-i
provisionally distinguishes six stages of initial enlightenment into fundamental
enlightenment.
The first stage might be termed ideal enlightenment, where ideal means
something that is so in principle or in ultimate truth, but not yet in manifest
fact.
The second stage might be called intellectual enlightenment. This is the
stage of intellectual awareness of this ideal or ultimate potential of Buddhahood.
At this stage the intellectual awareness comes through concepts,
through reading, hearing, and thinking.
The third stage is that of contemplative practice, an intensification and purification
of the thinking process, also including transcendence of thought
itself. As is well known, there are countless methods of contemplative practice
in Buddhism, and according to Buddhist teaching principles there is a
great deal of individual difference in what methods are effective when and
for whom. In this reading of the I Ching, Ou-i is concerned not so muchxiv TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION Translator's Introduction xv
with specific techniques as with their generic types and their place in the
overall pattern of the practitioner's life.
The fourth stage can be called the stage of conformity or resemblance and
represents a development of contemplative practices to a point where they
become, as it were, second nature. It is traditionally defined as the stage
where the six senses are purified. This stage might be called the clearing of
the channels for the next stages.
The fifth stage is that of partial realization, when the purification of the
senses accomplished in the preceding stage allows the buddha-nature, the
enlightenment potential, to begin penetrating the veil of illusion and reveal
new perspectives and possibilities.
The sixth stage is that of ultimate realization, representing the full expression
of the inherent essence of conscious being, with all of its faculties being
continually developed and tuned to an infinite and ever expanding reality.
Two of the most important terms Ou-i uses in the context of Buddhist
interpretation are concentration and insight. As practices, these properly belong
to the third of the sixth stages mentioned above, but according to T'ient'ai
theory, they are also natural qualities of consciousness that can be restored
and maintained by cultivation. Furthermore, a proper understanding
of concentration and insight is also considered important, to assist in the allimportant
balancing of these two fundamental aspects of Buddhist use of
mind.
Concentration and insight may be thought of in association with calmness
and contemplation. The concentration and calmness empower the contemplation
and insight, while the contemplation and insight make the concentration
and calmness meaningful. Thus it is said that both concentration
and insight may be right, wrong, or unstable; and a critical element in that
question is measure and proportion. This seems to be the primary function
of the I Ching as presented by Ou-i for evaluating Buddhist practice.
Concentration and insight are not, of course, simply items of "Buddhist
practice." Whatever people may do, the degree and quality of concentration
and insight they bring to bear in their thoughts and acts directly affect the
results. Put simply, concentration without insight leads to persistent blundering,
while insight without concentration leads to lack of will. And when
insight is partial or biased, and concentration shades off into obsession and
fanaticism, the results are correspondingly distorted. So it seems only natural
that Ou-i would find the basic I Ching desirables of centeredness, balance,
and correctness to be in perfect accord with the Middle Way teaching of
T'ien-t'ai Buddhism.
Finally, in speaking of realms of experience from a T'ien-t'ai Buddhist
point of view, Ou-i uses the concept of four lands. These four lands always
interpenetrate one another in some way, but they are not necessarily visible
or accessible to one another at all times.
The first, "lowest" land is that land of common presence, the world of
ordinary experience, where both the enlightened and the unenlightened
live together. Next is the land of expedient liberation, the realm of release
from worldly cares. Though taken by some as a life-long refuge, it is more
widely visited as an expedient curative, to enable people to work more efficiently
in the world of common presence.
The land of expedient liberation is only hearsay for most in the land of
common presence, but elements from the land of common presence are also
present to greater and lesser degrees in the land of expedient liberation.
Beyond the land of expedient release is the land of true reward, the purified
vision and knowledge of the enlightened in any world. In Buddhist terms, this
is the revelation of the matrix, or mine, of awareness of being as is.
According to one way of looking at Buddhism, the land of expedient liberation
is the ultimate goal of the so-called Hinayana, or Small Vehicle practice,
while the land of true reward is the proximate goal of the so-called Mahayana,
or Great Vehicle practice.
Scripture suggests that those in the land of expedient release may or may
not hear of the land of true reward, and if they hear of it, they may or may
not believe in it or seek it. On the other hand, the land of expedient release is
seen as a sort of border territory by those in the land of true reward, a purifying
but beguiling region inwardly passed through on the way to the socalled
land of treasure, the realm of full awareness.
Finally, originally and always, there is said to be a land of eternal silent
light, perhaps the essence of consciousness itself, always peaceful, always
aware, forever quietly penetrating all the worlds in the other three lands.
Glimpses of this are said to appear in all realms, and while beings are thought
to enter into it completely only after death, it is paradoxically by cultivating
contact with this subtle plane that, it is believed, beings can transcend death
in some way.
The theme of progress through stages of enlightenment and realms of experience
to final remergence with eternal silent light may be taken to represent
a kind of life cycle from a certain point of view. Again using the concepts
of inherent and cultivated qualities, this cycle begins and ends in
inherent qualities, through the medium of cultivated qualities. In the first
half of Ou-i's commentary on the I Ching, he gives sociopolitical, Buddhist,
and meditational readings, according to the situation; in the second half,
dealing with themes of cultivated qualities and public education, he generally
uses structural concepts of native I Ching tradition to explain human
development through interaction.
As is well known, the I Ching is based on sixty-four hexagrams, or six-line
signs, each one representing a specific configuration of relationships. These
designs have been used for thousands of years to analyze all sorts of situations
and project the results of particular attitudes and behaviors in response
to given conditions.
The fundamental terms of relationship in the I Ching system, yin andxvi TRANSLATOR 'S INTRODUCTION Translator's Introduction xvii
yang, are so familiar that they may well be considered naturalized English
words. In my earlier translation, The Taoist I Ching (Boston: Shambhala,
1986), I presented a summary of yin and yang associations. There is such a
basic kinship between Taoism and Buddhism, plus a close historical relationship
over nearly two millennia, that there is considerable confluence
even of terminology, much more of meaning underlying terminology.
In The Buddhist 1 Ching, yin and yang commonly stand for concentration
and insight, thought-stopping and thought-cultivating exercises, but they can
also mean weakness and strength, ignorance and knowledge, inaction and
action, and similar qualities that interact in opposition and complementarity.
The relations among and between the yin and yang elements of a situational
process may be perceived variously by readers. They may be indicated
by the proximity of one line to another, the position of one line in the whole
hexagram, or the correspondence between two lines in the same relative
position in their respective trigrams.
Proximity usually means relations with immediate neighbors. Position
may be described in reference to the whole hexagram or to the two trigrams
that make it up. The first and fourth positions, which correspond to the bottom
of the bottom trigram and the bottom of the top trigram, are generally
referred to as positions of weakness, lowliness, and beginnings. The third
and top lines, corresponding to the top of the bottom trigram and the top of
the top trigram, are often referred to as positions of strength, excess, and
culmination. The second and fifth lines have special significance as positions
of balance, being in the center of their trigrams; of these, the fifth, in the
upper trigram, has the "position of honor," the leadership.
Correspondence refers to the relation of corresponding lines: the first with
the fourth, the second with the fifth, the third with the top. Of special importance
is the relation between the second and fifth. With but one exception, it is
considered best for correspondents to be complementary opposites.
Correspondence is not, moreover, on an equal basis. Thinking in terms of
an organization or a society, the upper and lower trigrams in a hexagram
represent the upper and lower echelons. Nevertheless, position is always
relative, so the second position can represent the highest administrative
rank, subordinate only to the leader in the fifth place.
Different patterns of analysis from among the many available may be invoked
by different readers at the same time, or by the same reader at different
times; and this is one of the reasons for the richness of the secondary
and tertiary literature on the I Ching.
Such is the importance of the reader in the I Ching consultation, and the
choice of specific procedures and analytic designs, that this influence carries
all the way back to the original text. The core text of the 1 Ching is so old, the
language so archaic, that it admits of often widely divergent readings. At
times a character may even be read not merely in multiple meanings, but as
one character or another, each with its own meanings.
This difference naturally affects any translation, and the present text is no
exception. Not only is the text and commentary different from my earlier
Taoist I Ching, but the translation of certain portions of the common text are
also necessarily different. Ou-i's text includes the early Confucian commentaries,
here labeled "Overall Judgment" and "Image." The Confucian appendices
are also included in Ou-i's text, along with his commentary, but I have
omitted them from this already lengthy volume, as they present a separate
study.
Since the publication of The Taoist I Ching, numbers of people have conveyed
to me news of the usefulness of that reading. Thanks in that case are
due to Liu I-ming, the reader, and his teachers. Here I express the hope that
The Buddhist I Ching, by another extraordinary reader, will also be of use to
other readers.
In the future I plan to complete this series with a simplified translation of
the reading of Ch'eng I, the eleventh-century Neo-Confucian who helped to
revive social studies in his time by incorporating elements of Buddhism and
Taoism and using their educational methods in studying history. Put simply,
this reading is on the Tao of organization and applies to groups, whether
they be companies or countries.
The final volume will be a manual on the diagrammatic explanations of
the I Ching, which seems to have appeared in public among the Taoists in
the Sung dynasty (960-1276). Said to have been secretly transmitted since
the time of the Magicians of the Han dynasty, in the time of the Roman Caesars,
it presents a number of I Ching reading systems that can be used for a
number of purposes. It is my hope that these readings and diagrams will
enhance the use and enjoyment of all the translations and adaptations of the
I Ching available in English today, as all of them bring something more from
this inexhaustible classic of ancient China.
불교와 유교, 주역으로 통通하다!
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주역선해 연구
- 불교사상과 유교사상의 융합 -
청화 저 | 신국판 양장 | 506쪽 | 값 25,000원 2011.05.10.
유교경전의 최고봉이라 할 수 있는 주역을 명말 고승인 우익지욱이 고도의 불교사상으로 새롭게 재해석한 유불융합의 금자탑, 이에 대한 국내 최초의 본격적인 연구서!
1.
명말 4대고승의 한 사람인 우익지욱藕益智旭에 의해 저술된 주역선해는 중국불교사에 있어 유교의 대표 경전인 주역을 불교적 관점에서 해석한 최초이자 유일한 책이다. 지욱은 이 책에서 불교의 모든 교의와 사상을 종합적으로 응용하여 역리易理를 불교적 관점에서 논리적으로 해석하는 특징을 보여주고 있다. 또한 주역을 단순히 불교적 관점에서 재해석했다는 단편적 의미를 벗어나, 주역의 불교적 해석을 통해 오랫동안 이념상으로 대립해 왔던 유교와 불교의 상호 이해와 융합을 모색했다는 점에서 보다 큰 가치를 지닌다.
지욱은 당시의 유생들이 불교를 비방하고 서로 대립하게 된 시대적 상황을 극복하고자 유교와 불교의 사상에 대한 해박한 지식을 바탕으로 유교의 경전을 불교적 관점에서 재해석함으로써 유교와 불교가 지향하고 있는 진리와 가치가 결코 둘이 아님을 설파하고, 나아가 불교와 유교 상호간의 대립과 갈등을 해소하고 이해와 융합을 모색하고자 하였던 것이다.
주역선해에 관한 최초의 본격적 연구서인 이 책은 유불의 회통과 융화를 목적으로 저술된 주역선해가 불교와 유교를 어떠한 사상적 관점에서 재해석하고 있으며, 그러한 불교사상과 유교사상을 근간으로 하여 불교의 교의와 유교의 역리가 어떻게 하나로 회통되며 융합되고 있는가를 방대한 자료를 바탕으로 정밀하게 비교․분석하고 있다.
2.
주역선해 연구는 다음과 같은 구성과 특징을 지니고 있다.
먼저 구성을 보면, 이 책은 모두 6장으로 이루어져 있다. 제1장 ‘서언’에서는 ‘연구의 목적과 의미’, 그리고 ‘연구의 방법과 범위’ 등에 대해서 언급하였으며, 제2장 ‘주역이란 무엇인가?’에서는 독자들이 본 연구서에 들어가기 전에 기본적으로 이해해야 할 주역에 대한 전반적인 개념과 내용들을 소개하고 있다. 제3장 ‘우익지욱선사와 주역선해’에서는 지욱의 생애, 대표적 저술과 선해에 대한 구조와 내용, 그리고 기존의 연구현황에 대해서 논술하였다. 이 책의 주요 연구내용이라 할 수 있는 제4장에서는 선해에 내재된 불교의 모든 종파적 사상을 ①‘부파․대승 및 초기 선사상’, ②정토사상, ③선사상, ④유식사상, ⑤계율사상, ⑥화엄사상, ⑦‘천태사상’으로 나누어 각 사상의 기본교의와 그것이 주역해석에 어떻게 적용되는가를 분석하고 정리하였는데, 그 중에서도 지욱의 불교사상적 모태를 이루고 있는 천태사상에 대한 논술에 중점을 두었다. 역시 본 연구의 본론 부분에 해당하는 제5장에서는 선해에 있어 또 다른 사상적 기반을 이루고 있는 유교사상을 종합적으로 연구․분석하여 ①일반적 유학사상, ②정주의 이학사상 수용, ③육왕의 심학사상 수용, ④「역전」의 역리 수용, ⑤‘역학가의 역설易說 수용’에 이르기까지 모두 5절에 걸쳐서 그 내용을 고찰하였다. 마지막으로 제6장 ‘결어’에서는 제4장과 제5장에서 논술한 불교사상과 유교사상을 바탕으로 해석된 주역의 역리가 불교의 교의와 어떻게 상호 융합하고 회통되고 있는가를 종합하고, 나아가 선해가 불교 내외적인 측면에서 어떠한 사상적 성취와 영향을 끼치게 되었는가를 요약하여 기술하는 것으로써 본 연구의 전체 내용을 정리하였다.
불교와 유교를 비롯한 중국사상사에 있어 주역선해가 지니는 의의와 가치는 아무리 강조해도 지나치지 않다!
3.
30여 년간 승려로서 수행과 포교에 매진해오면서, 한편으로 대학원에서 ‘천문역경학’을 전공한
필자는 우익지욱선사의 주역선해를 종합적으로 연구함으로써 이 책이 역학사易學史에 있어 다음과 같이 크게 세 가지 측면에서 그 사상적 성취와 영향을 끼쳤다고 평가하고 있다.
첫 번째, 역리易理와 불교의 회통이다.
지욱의 주역선해가 성취해 낸 이 같은 역리와 불교의 회통의 내용 중에서 가장 중요한 부분은 크게 두 가지 측면에서 요약할 수 있다. 하나는 역리와 불법이 동등한 하나의 우주의 근원적 진리임을 호증互證하였다는 사실이고, 다음은 역易과 진여불성眞如佛性이 결과적으로 하나의 상통한 진리임을 천명해냈다는 사실이다.
두 번째, 불교와 유교의 내적․외적 융합이다.
지욱은 주역선해에서 다음과 같이 유교와 불교를 상호 회통시키고 있다. 즉 먼저 내적으로 불교 내 각 종파사상을 융합하고, 외적으로 다양한 유학사상을 융합하며, 최종적으로는 서로 상이하고 차별적인 유교사상과 불교사상을 원만하게 융합하여 회통시키고 있는 것이다.
세 번째, 종교와 철학의 사상적 융합이다.
지욱이 주역선해에서 성취해낸 종교와 철학 방면의 사상적 융합은 크게 두 가지 내용으로 정리할 수 있다. 그 하나는 역학과 불교에 있어 무극, 태극, 역리, 음양, 도, 진여, 불성, 성수性修, 정혜, 지관, 등과 같은 다양한 철학적 개념들을 상호 연관된 철학적 개념으로 융합하여 하나의 동일한 철학적 개념으로 융통시키고 있다는 사실이다. 둘째는 역학에 있어 음양, 동죙靜, 강유剛柔, 길흉 등과 같은 상대적 역의 개념을 설명함에 있어서 불교의 정혜균등定慧均等, 실권병중實權並重, 성수불이性修不二, 지관쌍수止觀雙修 등의 핵심사상과 상호 대비시켜 역시 그 뜻을 하나로 융합․통일시키고 있다는 사실이다.
이와 같이 주역선해는 중국불교사와 역학사에 있어 이러한 세 가지 측면에서의 사상적 성취를 이루었고, 그 영향은 결코 도외시할 수 없는 역사적 사실임이 분명하다. 이는 곧 유불의 조화론이라는 측면에서뿐만 아니라, 역학사나 중국불교사에 있어서도 지욱이 성취한 가치 있는 업적이라고 평가할 수 있다.
이와 같이 이 책은 주역을 불교적으로 해석한 주역선해를, 불교와 주역의 양자 모두에 정통한 필자가 다년간 방대한 자료와 안목을 토대로 심도 있게 탐구한 국내 최초의 연구서이다. 따라서 이 책은 불교사상 전반에 관심 있는 독자들뿐만 아니라, 역학에 관심 있는 독자들, 나아가 동양사상의 진수를 맛보고자 하는 모든 이들에게 새로운 안목을 열어줄 것이다.
●청화靑和(길봉준)
1982년 불국사에서 천호당千湖堂 월서月棲 대종사를 은사로 득도하였다. 불국사 강원에서 수학하였으며, 중앙승가대학 불교학과를 졸업하였다. 동국대학교 교육대학원에서 석사학위를 취득, 동방대학원대학교에서 천문역경학天文易經學을 전공하여 박사학위를 취득하였다.
중앙승가대학 총학생회 회장, 한국대학생불교연합 지도법사로 활동하였고, 대한불교조계종 강남 봉은사의 재무, 포교실장, 중앙승가대학의 교육국장, 기획국장, 보육교사교육원 원장, 기획실장 등의 소임을 역임하였다. 또한 15년 동안 종교교화위원으로 재소자 교화에 몸담았고, 이 공로로 1994년 법무부장관상을 수상하였다. 현재 용인 수지에 위치한 ‘행복한 우리 절 보현정사’ 주지소임을 보면서 정법에 의지하여 수행과 포교에 정진하고 있다. 저서에는 근본불교 시리즈로 법구경 술해, 숫타니파아타 술해 등이 있으며, 논문에는 「허응당 보우대사 시문학 고」, 「주역선해에 내재된 화엄·천태사상에 대한 연구」, 「주역선해에 내재된 불교사상과 유교사상 연구」 등이 있다.
책구입처
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