Zhang Binglin

Zhang's interest and studies in Buddhism only became serious during the three years he spent in prison for "publishing anti-Manchu propaganda and insulting the Qing emperor as a 'buffoon' in 1903".[5] During this time, he read the Yogacara-bhumi, the basic texts of Weishi "Consciousness Only" school, and the foundational work of Chinese Buddhist logic (the Nyayapravesa). These texts were given to him by members of the Chinese Society of Education (Zhongguo jiaoyuhui).[6] He later claimed that "it was only through reciting and meditating on these sutras that he was able to get through his difficult jail experience".[7] His experiences with Buddhist philosophical texts gave him a framework to reassess the significance of his pain and suffering and view it in a different light.[8] In 1906, after he was released from prison, Zhang went to Japan to edit The People's Journal (Minbao) and developed a new philosophical framework that critiqued the dominant intellectual trend of modernization theory.

He emerged from jail as devout Yogacarin. His attitude towards religion—namely Buddhism—changed after his time spent in prison. This is made apparent in "Zhang Taiyan's Notes on Reading Buddhist Texts", in which he is concerned with the concepts of "freedom, constraints, sadness, and happiness".[9] After 1906, Buddhist terms became more prevalent in his writing, especially in his interpretation of Zhuangzi's "Discourse on Making Things Equal".

Zhang was further exposed to Yogacara Buddhism during his time in Japan (1906–1910), when he was actively involved in nationalist, anti-Manchu politics. During his time there, he edited the Tokyo-based The People's Journal (Minbao), where he first expressed a "Buddhist voice".[10] While he was in Japan, he joined Tong Meng Hui, a party that was primarily made up of anti-Manchu exiles (including Sun Yat-sen) seeking the cultural and political regeneration of China.

His 1907 text The Five Negations denounced how European economies "exhaust their own enterprises" and "extinguish the fertility of the land."[11]^: 300

Upon his return to China, Zhang worked on the commission "convened by the new Nationalist government's Ministry of Education in 1913 to establish a national language and helped develop the Chinese phonetic symbol system still used today in Taiwan, among other places."[12]

The terminology used by Zhang is not common in earlier Chinese philosophical discussions of symbol, language, and the sacred—before the 20th century, Chinese philosophical texts were in classical Chinese (wenyanwen), which uses monosyllabic style. The vernacular (baihua) began to be more commonly used after the May 4th Movement in 1919. Compound words like yuyen were rarely used in pre-20th-century Chinese writings. Zhang was exposed to these linguistic approaches during his time in Japan following his imprisonment.[12]

In a time when most Chinese intellectuals favored modernization ideologies and endorsed history as a progressive movement, Zhang Taiyan (Binglin) drew on Buddhism and Daoism to express his critiques. Social and intellectual life during the Qing Dynasty was primarily influenced by "widely circulating discourses of modern philosophy and the concrete forces of the global capitalist system of nation-states".[7] Following a string of defeats in the late 19th century, Chinese intellectuals began to focus on how China could be improved in order to compete in the global capitalist system. This marked a clear departure from previous Chinese thought, which had primarily focused on the teachings of traditional classical Chinese texts. This was thought to effectively prepare bureaucrats for their positions in the imperial government. However, a national crisis—the loss of several armed conflicts—spurred Chinese philosophers towards modernization thinking. Zhang was particularly revolutionary, as he "mobilized Buddhism for politics"[13] and combined elements of Yogacara thought with concepts he had developed himself in his pre-revolutionary years.

Zhang understood the conditions of possibility (Kant) in Buddhist terms, “namely as the karmic fluctuations of the seeds in alaya consciousness (the storehouse consciousness)”.[7] Zhang saw history as an “unconscious process of drives”[7] and drew on Yogacara Buddhism. The storehouse consciousness, which is defined as the highest level of consciousness, contains seeds that initiate historical process. He believed that "karmic experiences develop from unseen roots, which stem from seeds. As we act in these experiences, we unconsciously plant new karmic seeds and so a cycle of the interplay between past, present and future continues".[7] In his essay On Separating the Universal and Particular in Evolution, Zhang utilizes this framework to explain Hegel's philosophy of history. What Hegel describes as "a triumphant march of spirit" is actually "a degenerative disaster created by karmic seeds"[7] according to Zhang.

Yogacara (or Weishi) primarily focuses on cognitive processes that could be used to overcome ignorance that prevented one from escaping the karmic rounds of birth and death. Practicers/proponents of Yogacara stress attention to the issues of cognition, consciousness, perception, and epistemology. Yogacara Buddhism is based on the following concepts: three self-natures, storehouse consciousness, overturning the basis, and the theory of eight consciousnesses.[14]

Zhang viewed the teachings and principles of Yogacara as "a sophisticated knowledge system which could serve as an authoritative alternative to the knowledge systems being introduced from the West."[15]

Yogacara focuses on meditative practice, epistemology and logic. This strain of Buddhism ceased to be popular in China by the time period of the Yuan dynasty (1206–1368). Yogacara principles and writings were reintroduced to China during the 19th century from Japan, where they had been flourishing for centuries. This revival was primarily led by Liang Qichao, Yang Wenhui, Tan Sitong, Zhang Taiyan and many other prominent intellectuals of the late Qing period.

Yogacara was popular with the intellectuals of this period because it was characterized by structured and organized thoughts and concepts. Zhang found Weishi easy to understand “because it was essentially concerned with mingxiang (definitions of terms), matters in which he had been well grounded due to his rigorous training in the evidential learning techniques associated with Han Learning approaches to Classical Studies (jingxue).”[16]

Zhang wrote:

There is good reason for my singular respect for faxiang (an alternate name for Weishi). Modern scholarship [in China] has gradually followed the path of 'seeking verification in actual events.' Of course the detailed analysis carried out by Han Learning scholars was far superior to that which scholars in the Ming were able to achieve. With the beginnings of science [introduced in China in the late-nineteenth century] scholars applied themselves with even greater precision. It is for this reason that faxiang learning was inappropriate to the situation in China during the Ming but most appropriate in modern times. This was brought about by the trends that have informed the development of scholarship.[17]

Zhang wanted to promote Yogacara Buddhism as a philosophy, not a religion. Buddhism was thought to be a form of scientific philosophy superior to religion, science and philosophy. Zhang based his philosophical vision on the doctrine of three natures. He believed that the third nature—the nature of existence being perfectly accomplished—was suitable to serve as the foundation for Chinese philosophy and religion. Zhang was not the only one who believed this—the late Qing discussion of religion became a philosophical project designed to modernize China so it could compete "as a nation-state in an increasingly rationalized and reified world."[18] He used this belief to critique Western philosophers Kant, Hegel and Plato, who he felt only represented the first and second doctrines of Yogacara.

Zhang felt that yinming, or the knowledge of reasons, enabled people to recover the true meaning of Mohist and Confucian tests in ways that Western philosophy could not. Zhang's decision to frame his comparative inquiry in terms of yinming demonstrates his belief in yinming as a more effective 'art of reasoning' than either the 'Mohist Canons' or European logic. In his essay Discussion on the Equalization of Things, Zhang uses Yogacara Buddhist concepts to make sense of Zhuangzi, an ancient Daoist philosopher. He claims that Zhuangzi's notion of equality entails making distinctions without the use of concepts:

'Equalizing things’ (qiwuzhe) refers to absolute equality (pingdeng). If we look at its meaning carefully, it does not simply refer to seeing sentient beings as equal...One must speak form (xiang, laksana) without words, write of form without concepts (ming) and think form without mind. It is ultimate equality. This accords with the 'equalization of things.'[19]

Zhang tried to render equality without contradiction between the particular and the universal. Zhang believed that conceptual framework is generated through our karmic actions. When compared to his contemporary Liu Shipei's attempt to extract logic from the masters of the Zhou dynasty, Zhang's writings and thoughts display a higher level of theoretical sophistication as he had a firmer grasp of the purposes and limitations of European logic as well as knowledge of yinming principles and thinking. This enabled him to draw more convincing parallels between the notions he gleaned from his plethora of sources.[20]