(Source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/EG11Ad01.htm)

Editor’s Note: This is a condensed text of the latter 2/3 of Part 2 (entitled “That old time religion”) of the author’s 8-part series of articles under the general title of “THE ABDUCTION OF MODERNITY” The title and subheads of this text are ours.

Modern Asia cannot be fully understood without a thorough awareness of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Western influence, from Christianity to liberalism to Marxism, has only been an ill-fitted costume over an ancient culture deeply rooted in Confucian values, Buddhist enlightenment mercy and Taoist paradox. Feudal culture in China has aspects of what modern political science would label fascist, socialist, democratic and anarchist. As a socio-political system, feudalism is inherently authoritarian and totalitarian. However, since feudal cultural ideals have always been meticulously nurtured by Confucianism to be congruent with the political regime, social control, while pervasive, is seldom consciously felt as oppression by the general public. Or, more accurately, social oppression - both vertical, such as sovereign to subject, and horizontal, such as gender prejudice - is considered natural for lack of an accepted alternative vision. Concepts such as equality, individuality, privacy, personal freedom and democracy are deemed antisocial, and only longed for by the deranged-of-mind, such as radical Taoists. This was true in large measure up to modern times when radical Taoists were transformed into radical political and cultural dissidents.

Buddhist Happiness versus Western Modernity

Buddhism (Fo Jiao) first appeared in China officially in AD 65. Some evidence suggests that it might have been imported to China from India as early as 2 BC. Since its introduction, Buddhism has permeated Chinese society and its economic life, despite periodic suppression by the state. It had affected the customs of all levels of society by the time of the Tang Dynasty some six centuries after its introduction. Buddhist temples, monasteries and shrines had been established in every part of the empire. The services of sengs (Buddhist monks) became indispensable for all social events, performing religious ceremonies for funerals and weddings, blessings for newborns, administering temples for the faithful and attending family shrines for the elite. Sengs functioned as preachers, teachers, scribes, artists and even doctors. Often they would become top advisors to the huangdi (emperor), and many sengs would even become powerful political figures both at court and at the local level.

Buddhist concerns are more ethical than metaphysical, focusing on human suffering, which is considered as inherent in life itself. Suffering can be dispelled only by abandoning desires such as ambition, selfishness, envy and greed. This approach to life is the diametrical opposite of the Western concept of modernity.

Detachment is key. Buddhists take vows against killing, stealing, falsehood, unchasteness and intoxication. They practice self-confession and try to live austere, ascetic lives with the objective of achieving nirvana, a state of blissful detachment that, when attained permanently, known as pari-nirvana, brings an end to the otherwise never-ending cycle of earth-bound rebirths through transmigration of the soul. The Four Exalted Truths of Buddhism have helped devotees deal with the tribulations of life. The Third Exalted Truth, sorrow subsides when desire wanes, has application to modern market economy. A basic Buddhist tenet: the secret of happiness is not getting what you want, but wanting what you get. So much for the concept of the pursuit of happiness in Western modernity. For the Buddhist idea of happiness, if you have to pursue it, you have lost it.

Buddhism Promotes Crumbling of Feudal Hierarchy

The reasons for China's popular embrace of Buddhism are complex and have been subject to constant reassessment. One commonly acknowledged reason is that Buddhism, while of foreign origin, shares commonality with both Taoist and Confucian concepts that are indigenous to Chinese culture. The passive side of Buddhism is Taoism, which practices contemplation and promotes self-awareness. And the active side of Buddhism is Confucianism, which advocates respect for authority and submission to propriety. Furthermore, Buddhism has provided, as it has evolved in China, elaborate, colorful ceremonies welcomed by one aspect of the collective Chinese character, hitherto suppressed through centuries of Confucian social restraint and Taoist self-denial.

Most of all, Buddhism fills a void left by traditional ancient Chinese religious concepts, which are centered rigidly around the trinity: 1) Heaven (Tian) - God. 2) Son of Heaven (Tianzi) - Emperor (sovereign). 3) The Hundred Surnames (Baixing) - People.

Heaven (Tian) is the abstract symbol of all things supernatural and authoritative, much like the manner in which the imperial court is referred to as the authoritative and decision-making body of the secular empire. God, a term that has no exact equivalent in the language of polytheistic Chinese culture, has its closest translation as Tiandi (King in Heaven), who is the highest god. Heaven as a realm is believed to be inhabited by a clan of gods and spirits (shen-gui), with hierarchical ranks, headed by Tiandi, similar to the Greek hierarchical community of gods headed by Zeus.

The secular huangdi (emperor) is the Son of Heaven (Tianzi), and the people, known as the Hundred Surnames (Baixing), are wards of huangdi. The people do not enjoy the privilege of directly communicating with Heaven, the domain of gods headed by Tiandi. The people's duty is to pay homage to the Son of Heaven, who alone possesses the privilege of communicating with and thanksgiving to Heaven. The most solemn ritual in Chinese feudal culture is the fengshan rites. It is a ritual that confers Heaven's abdication of authority on secular affairs in favor of huangdi.

Thus religion in China, before the arrival of Buddhism, had merely been a spiritual subsystem of the secular world. It was a spiritual extension of the rigid hierarchy of the ancient Chinese socio-political realm. Buddhism provided a previously unavailable outlet of direct religious expression for the common people. It introduced participatory religious experience into Chinese society. Whereas, in the context of the rigid Confucian social structure, Taoism (Dao Jia) provides the Chinese people with introverted individual spiritual freedom, Buddhism provides them with extroverted collective spiritual liberation, independent of communal hierarchy. Taoism allows the individual to contemplate privately, freeing him from the mental tyranny of an all-controlling culture, while Buddhism allows the people to worship independently, freeing them from the pervasive control of a rigid secular socio-political hierarchy.

Religion in China has a different meaning than in the West. The term "religion" in the Chinese language is composed of two characters: zong-jiao, literally meaning "ancestral teaching". Until the spread of Buddhism, religious experience for the Chinese people had been limited to reverence toward the spirits of their departed ancestors. Buddhism provided the average devotee with direct access to God without requiring a denial of reverence for ancestral spirits. Until the introduction of Christianity, the Chinese were not required by religion to deny the spirituality of their ancestors. This demand for the rejection of ancestor worship was a key obstacle preventing Christianity from becoming a major religion in China. Incidentally, even in Christian theology, "God" is translated in Chinese as Shangdi, meaning "The King Above". It is a celestial echo of the supreme ruler in the secular political system.

From its beginning, Buddhism took on an anti-establishment posture, which it moderated as it developed in China but never totally abandoned. Traditionally, in the early part of an emperor's reign, as soon as his rule was firmly established, he would perform the elaborate and formal fengshan rites. These Confucian rites of theocratic feudalism involve the paying of tribute by Tianzi (Son of Heaven) as huangdi (emperor), on behalf of his baixing, namely the people, to Tian (Heaven) where the head god Tiandi (King in Heaven) reigns. Through the fengshan rites, the huangdi received tribute and accepted loyalty pledges from his vassal lords on behalf of their many minions and subjects throughout the empire. Anyone besides the huangdi performing religious rites directly to Heaven would be committing forbidden acts tantamount to treasonous usurpation. Buddhism broke the monopolistic hold of the huangdi on religious celebration and opened it to all for the taking. Little wonder Buddhism spread like wildflowers.

By breaking down the hierarchical religious monopoly implied by Confucian fengshan rites, Buddhism in its early history in China unwittingly contributed to the crumbling of the foundation of a feudal hierarchy already in decline. Buddhism's populist theology bolstered the emergence of a secular structure in the form of a centrally managed empire, replacing autonomous local authority. In this new secular structure individuals could participate more freely in social functions, unrestricted by traditional local hierarchy.

The Buddhist notion of nirvana runs parallel to the concept of the Mandate of Heaven (Tianming). Ironically, by claiming that a state of nirvana could be earned through religious devotion by any deserving member of society, it implies that the Mandate of Heaven can also be earned by any deserving hero. Thus Buddhism invited periodic and recurring suppression from paranoid emperors who felt obliged to adopt anti-subversive measures against Buddhism, in order to defend the imperial claim on the Mandate of Heaven from challenges by ambitious members of the aristocracy who were Buddhist devotees.

While Buddhism serves as the fountainhead of the idea of open access for all to spiritual salvation, such universal access is dependent on the grace of detachment as exemplified by Buddha. This idea is akin to the detached central authority in an empire structure with the grace of a distant emperor who is less involved with the details of daily living of his subjects. It is less akin to the archaic hierarchical feudalism of autonomous local lords who control every detail of the lives of his fief. Thus Buddhism facilitated its own growth at the same time that it provided the philosophical justification for the flowering of a distant centralized political order in a complex, multi-dimensional society. The development of such a benign centralized political structure, first budding in imperial China in the 5th century, gathered unstoppable momentum around the 7th century.

The Buddhist concept of universal open access to nirvana had socio-political implications. It helped shift politics from being a contest among competing feudal lords refereed by an arbitrating huangdi to the beginning of an empirewide power struggle based on class interests. Since people were no longer dependent on their feudal lords for achieving the state of nirvana, they no longer felt inseparably bound to their lords in secular life. Gradually, merchants in the service of a particular feudal lord found stronger common interest with other merchants in the service of competing lords than their traditional commitment to clannish feudal loyalty. Before long, the same became true for farmers, scholars, artisans and other tradesmen. And with the tacit encouragement of expanding central power, people began to look to the huangdi as a higher authority to champion universal justice and to protect their separate class interests. They also looked to Buddhism to enhance the moral posture of class solidarity against the Confucian demand for absolute hierarchical loyalty toward their local lords. Thus the spread of Buddhism ushered in an age of strong central imperial authority on top of traditional feudalism with local autonomy. Through the spread of Buddhism, an empirewide standard now overshadowed fragmented local autonomy on basic issues of proper human relationship, justice and social order.

Gunnar Myrdal (1898-1984), Swedish sociologist-economist, in his 1944 definitive study The American Dilemma, for which he received the 1974 Nobel Prize for Economics, having declared the "Negro" problem in the United States to be inextricably entwined with the democratic functioning of American society, went on to produce a 1976 study of Southeast Asia: The Asian Dilemma. In it he identified Buddhist acceptance of suffering as the prime cause for economic underdevelopment in the region. Myrdal's conclusion would appear valid superficially, given the coincidence of an indisputable existence of conditions of poverty in the region at the time of his study and the pervasive influence of Buddhism in Southeast Asian culture, until the question is asked as to why, whereas Buddhism has dominated Southeast Asia for more than a millennium, pervasive poverty in the region only made its appearance after the arrival of Western imperialism in the 19th century.

Marxists and nationalists, many of both professing no love for Buddhism, suggested that Myrdal had been influenced in his convenient conclusion by his eagerness to deflect responsibility for the sorry state of affairs in the region from the legacy of Western imperialism. As theological apologists tried to rationalize social misery with an accommodating theology to capture the appreciation of the secular polity, Myrdal, social scientist, tried to blame indigenous religion for the sins of secular geopolitics.

Henry C K Liu is chairman of the New York-based Liu Investment Group.

(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.)