Confucius and the Rectification of Names

In the Analects (13.3), Confucius (Kongzi, 551-479 BCE) is asked what would be the first thing he would do to administer government. He replies "What is necessary is to rectify names." He explains that if names are not correct, then our language will not be in accord with the truth of things. If our language is not in accord with the truth of things, then human affairs will not be conducted successfully. If human affairs are not conducted successfully, then music and ritual propriety will not flourish. If music and ritual propriety do not flourish, then punishments will not be properly awarded. If punishments are not properly awarded, then society will fall into disorder.¹
      According to Confucius, the junzi (gentleman or superior man) rectifies the names that are applied to various kinds of conduct. If names are rectified, then we will know when our conduct is right or wrong. If incorrect names are applied to various kinds of moral conduct, then we may confuse wrong with right or right with wrong.
      If names are rectified, then we will know when someone who has been named a ruler or minister is truly acting as a ruler or minister. We will also know when a father is truly acting as a father, and when a son is truly acting as a son. Confucius explains that "There is government when the prince is prince, and the minister is minister; when the father is father, and the son is son" (12.11). He says that to govern means to rectify [language and moral conduct] (12.17).
      The words of a gentleman are consistent with his actions. He is cautious with his words, and he is earnest in his conduct (4.24). He acts before he speaks, and he speaks according to his actions (2.13).
      Confucius also says that a minister must rectify himself and make his own conduct correct before he can rectify others (13.13).
      False or misleading speech may be socially advantageous or politically expedient in a fallen or corrupt society (6.14). But when names do not correspond to reality, a vessel without corners is called a cornered vessel (6.23), and a man of notoriety is mistaken for a man of distinction (12.20).
      Confucius's theory of the "rectification of names" (zhengming) may be described as a descriptivist theory of names, insofar as he uses the names "ruler," "minister," "father," "son," etc. as descriptions of the (ideal) subjects to whom he refers. These names convey normative assumptions about who can rightly be called a ruler, minister, father, son, etc., and how they should behave if they are to appropriately receive those designations.
      In this sense, a name is like a job description. If someone is called a ruler, then he should fulfill the duties of that job description. At the same time, the name should fit the job description. The name "ruler" should signify what is actually expected of a ruler.
      Thus, the rectification of names means that when a minister is called a minister, he should deserve to be called by that name. When a minister is no longer acting like one, he should no longer be called by that name. Being called a minister entails living up to the moral standards expected of a minister, and when a minister isn’t living up to those standards, he should no longer be called by that name. The same holds true for fathers and sons. Names should be appropriate to the persons or things to which they refer. Thus, the rectification of names may require both a rectification of naming practices and a rectification of the persons or things named.²
      The rectification of names may be based on a number of assumptions. The use of names to refer to persons or things presupposes that those persons or things actually exist (or may actually exist). Otherwise, those names will be empty and won't refer to anything. The use of names as descriptions of persons or things also presupposes that the descriptions implied by those names are not indefinite or ambiguous, and that there are some definite sets of characteristics that belong to those persons or things. It also presupposes that the names used have some stable meaning, and that they are not being used arbitrarily to refer to persons or things to which they shouldn't refer. It also presupposes some shared understanding of the meaning of those names, and a shared adherence to (explicitly or implicitly) specified rules of naming (governing name usage and application). It also presupposes that the subjects or objects named can actually be named.
      Some questions that may arise regarding the use of names as descriptions include: what about the use of non-descriptional names? What if the meaning of a name is context-sensitive, and it varies according to the historical, social, or cultural context? How fixed or changeable are names? What if the name of something is not in accord with the nature or description of that thing?
      The rectification of names also presupposes that there are indeed right and wrong names for things, names that indicate whether those things are good or bad, right or wrong, virtuous or non-virtuous, etc.
      Mozi (c.470 BCE-c.391 BCE) has a somewhat different view of rectification, insofar as he is mainly concerned with rectification of moral character rather than rectification of names. According to Mozi, people of higher social standing should be exemplars of righteousness, and they should be able to rectify people of lower social standing. Thus, the common people should be rectified by the officers, who should be rectified by the generals and great officers, who should be rectified by the dukes and feudal lords, who should be rectified by the ruler (the Son of Heaven), who is rectified by Heaven (26.3). The will of Heaven is for everyone to be benevolent and righteous, and rectification may therefore be transmitted from the top down in the feudal hierarchy.
      Xunzi (c.310 BCE-c.238 BCE) explains that correct naming of things may enable us to gain a better understanding of those things. Correct naming may also enable us to better understand the relations between things. Misunderstanding of things may lead to incorrect naming of those things. Disorders of judgment may also lead us to give incorrect names to things.
      According to Xunzi, we should not recklessly apply names to things. There is an ethics or right and wrong way of naming things. The gentleman is he who uses names that are sufficient to indicate the things to which he is referring. Thus, the names he uses clearly signify his thoughts and intentions.
      Language consists of more than names, so a theory of names is not in itself a complete theory of language. Language may be used not only to name things, but also to report things, to explain things, to speculate about things, to ask questions, to make requests, to make demands, and to perform other acts of communication.
      Some dictionary definitions of the word "name" include:

"1. a word or a combination of words by which a person, place, idea, etc. is known or designated. 2. mere designation, as distinguished from fact: He was a ruler in name only. 3. something that a person is said to be, esp. by way of insult or reproach: to call a person names. 4. reputation of any kind: to protect someone's good name. 5. a distinguished reputation: to make a name for oneself. 6. a widely known or famous person: She's a name in show business. 7. a symbol of divinity. 8. a body of persons grouped under one name, as a family or race. 9. by name, a. by one's own name: to address someone by name. b. not personally; by repute: I know him only by name. 10. in the name of, a. with appeal to: In the name of mercy, stop that screaming! b. by the authority of: Open, in the name of the law! c. on behalf of. d. under the name of: money deposited in the name of a son."³

      A name or term may have an extension or denotation insofar as it defines the class of persons or things that it denotes (or to which it applies). It may have an intension or connotation insofar as it defines the set of attributes that are shared by all the persons or things that it connotes (or implies), and that are shared by only those persons or things.
      Another way of saying this is that a name's extension or denotation is the class of persons or things to which it can be correctly applied. Its intension or connotation is the set of attributes or qualities that it implies or calls to mind.
      There may be personal names (first, middle, and last names, nicknames, aliases, titles, etc.), as well as place names. There may also be conventions for naming persons, places, and things.
      Plato's Cratylus examines the question of whether names may be assigned correctly or incorrectly to things. The Cratylus is a dialogue between Socrates (an Athenian philosopher), Cratylus (a young scholar), and Hermogenes (the son of a wealthy aristocrat). It is mainly concerned with the truth and correctness of names.
      In the dialogue, Hermogenes tells Socrates that Cratylus has said that names are natural and not conventional, but Hermogenes then asks Cratylus whether his name would be Hermogenes if that was what people called him.
      Hermogenes questions whether there is any correctness in names by saying that if Cratylus were given a new name, then that name would be as correct as his old one. No name is therefore given to anyone or anything by nature. All names are merely a matter of convention.
      Socrates replies that names may be parts of propositions and therefore have some truth value. If propositions may be true or false, then names may also be true or false.
      Hermogenes answers, however, that different names may be used for the same thing, so the truth of a name may be relative to the context in which it is used.
      Socrates replies, however, that names are not arbitrarily assigned to things. Rather, they are assigned as a means of distinguishing between the natures of those things. The most proper names for things may therefore be the most natural names for those things. Cratylus may therefore be correct in saying that all things by nature have proper names.
      Socrates also says that different names may be assigned to the same thing if they share the same meaning. All names are intended to indicate the natures of the things they represent.
      Cratylus answers that one name is therefore not better than any other, and that if a name is incorrectly assigned to something, then it is not actually the name of that thing. There are no incorrect names for things.
      Socrates says, however, that if names are imitations or likenesses of things, then there may be correct or incorrect ways of assigning them. If names are correctly assigned to things, then they will indicate the natures of those things.
      J.S. Mill (1881) distinguishes between individual names (names that can be truly affirmed, in the same sense, of only one thing) and general names (names that can be truly affirmed, in the same sense, of each of indefinitely many things). Thus, "John" is an individual name, while "man" is a general name.⁴ 

      General names differ from collective names, according to Mill, because a general name can be predicated of each individual in a multitude, but a collective name can be predicated only of a multitude as a whole. While "the 76th regiment" is a collective name but not a general one, "a regiment" is both a collective and general name.⁵ 

      Names may also be concrete (if they stand for things) or abstract (if they stand for attributes of things). Thus, "man" is concrete, while "humanity" is abstract.
      Mill says that names may also be connotative or non-connotative. A name is connotative if it denotes a subject and implies an attribute. It is non-connotative if it denotes a subject or attribute without implying anything about its attributes. All concrete general names, like "man" and "woman," are connotative, but proper names like "John" and "Mary" are non-connotative, because they don't indicate or imply anything about the attributes of the individuals who bear them. Thus, proper names can be assigned to individuals without saying anything about them. Whenever names have any meaning, their meaning therefore resides not in what they denote, but in what they connote.⁶ 

      Names may also be positive or negative (e.g. "good" and "not-good"), and relative or non-relative (e.g. "father" and "son" are relative names, as are "ruler" and "subject," but absolute names are non-relative).⁷ 

      Bertrand Russell (1919) distinguishes between the use of names as names (having meaning in their own right) and the use of names as descriptions (of the things to which they refer). He says that in practice names are frequently used as abbreviated descriptions. The sentence, "Scott is the author of Waverley" is an example of the difference between a name and a definite description. "Scott" is a proper name, while "the author of Waverley" is a definite description. Descriptions may be definite or indefinite. "The man" is a definite description, while "a man" is an indefinite description. If the name "Scott" is taken to mean "the author of Waverley," then this may be an example of a name being taken as a definite description.
      John Searle (1950), on the other hand, says that proper names differ from definite descriptions by not specifying any characteristics of the objects to which they refer. The proper name "Scott" refers to the same person as does "the author of Waverley," but it doesn't specify any of his characteristics. The use of his name may presuppose a set of uniquely identifying characteristics belonging to him, but it doesn't indicate which ones are presupposed. Thus, the usefulness of names is partly due to the fact that they allow us to refer to things without having to come to agreement on what exactly are their defining characteristics, so names actually function not as descriptions, but as "pegs on which to hang descriptions."⁸
      Saul Kripke (1972) distinguishes between names and descriptions by saying that names are rigid designators (they refer to the same objects in all possible worlds), while descriptions are nonrigid designators (they do not necessarily refer to the same objects in all possible worlds). At the same time, he distinguishes between using a description to give a name its meaning and using a description to determine a name's reference.⁹ He rejects the descriptivist theory of names both as a theory of meaning and a theory of reference.

      If a name were a description, then it would not necessarily designate the same object in all possible worlds, says Kripke, since other objects could have the associated description in other possible worlds. If, for example, the name "Aristotle" is taken as an abbreviated description for "the greatest man who studied under Plato," then in another possible world some other man could be "the greatest man who studied under Plato." Moreover, in another possible world, Aristotle could never have studied under Plato at all.¹⁰

      Kripke offers a causal theory of reference for names as an alternative to the descriptivist theory. After an object is initially "baptized" with a name, that name may be passed from link to link in a chain of communication. Thus, the reference of the name may be established by a sort of causal chain from person to person. Each user of the name is linked to the next user by the chain of communication.

FOOTNOTES

¹Confucius: Confucian Analects, The Great Learning & The Doctrine of the Mean, translated by James Legge (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), pp. 263-264.

²Bryan Van Norden, "Confucius on Language: How NOT to Rectify Names," online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3EdDp1YoZc&t=137s

³The Random House College Dictionary (New York: Random House, 1980), p. 884.

⁴John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1881), p. 32.

⁵Ibid., pp. 32-33.

⁶Ibid., pp. 34-37.

⁷Ibid., pp. 41-42.

⁸John R. Searle, "Proper Names," in Mind, 67 (1958), p. 172.

⁹Saul Kripke, Naming and Necessity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 5.

¹⁰Ibid., p. 56.

OTHER RESOURCES

Bertrand Russell, "Descriptions," in Meaning and Reference, edited by A.W. Moore (Cambridge: Oxford University Press, 1993)., pp. 46-55.

Mozi, The Mozi: A Complete Translation, translated by Ian Johnston (Hong Kong: The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2010).

Plato, "Cratylus," in The Dialogues of Plato, Volume III, translated by Benjamin Jowett (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1875).

Xunzi, Xunzi: The Complete Text, translated by Eric L. Hutton (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014).

Abraham J. Heschel's Concept of Divine Pathos

Abraham Joshua Heschel (1907-1972) was a Polish-American rabbi, theologian, and philosopher who was born in Warsaw, Poland. He was a descendent of rabbis on both sides of his family. After receiving a traditional yeshiva education, he was ordained a rabbi before earning a doctoral degree at the University of Berlin in 1933. He had a second rabbinic ordination at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums in Berlin in 1934. He taught at the Hochschule until 1937, when he was appointed as head of the central organization for Jewish adult education in Germany and the Jüdische Lehrhaus (Jewish House of Learning) in Frankfurt, but he was deported by the Nazis to Poland in 1938. He left Warsaw for London in 1940, and he arrived in the United States later that year. His mother and three of his four sisters were victims of the Holocaust. He taught for five years at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, and he then became Professor of Jewish Ethics and Mysticism at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America in New York City, where he taught from 1945 until his death in 1972. 

      Heschel participated in the American civil rights movement, and he was a friend of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., with whom he marched in the third Selma to Montgomery March in 1965. He also participated in the peace movement against the war in Vietnam. He was an advocate of interfaith dialogue, and he played an important role as an official observer at the Second Vatican Council, urging the Catholic Church to promote mutual understanding and respect between Catholics and Jews and to condemn antisemitism. He was also an outspoken advocate for the rights of Jews in the Soviet Union.

      Heschel's many writings included Man is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion (1951), The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man (1951), Man's Quest for God: Studies in Prayer and Symbolism (1954), God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism (1955), The Prophets (1962), and Who is Man? (1965).

      In The Prophets (1962), Heschel discusses such biblical prophets as Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk. He says that they are more than messengers from God. They are also witnesses to the divine pathos. The divine pathos is that God is concerned about us and thus is affected by what we do or fail to do.

      For Heschel, God is not an impersonal, impassive, or indifferent being. God may be distressed or wounded by the misdeeds and thanklessness of those whom he has redeemed.¹ God can express his love, anger, disappointment, forgiveness, or mercy in response to our failings and transgressions. Thus, the divine pathos is both a disclosure of his concern and a concealment of his power.²  

       Heschel believes in a God of love, compassion, mercy, and justice. The role of the prophet is therefore to communicate to us God's expectations, laws, and commandments, to warn us against disobedience to God's will, to call us to repentance, and to give voice to God's approval, concern, anger, disappointment, and forgiveness. The role of the prophet is also to plead for us to God, acknowledging our transgressions, expressing our repentance, and asking for God's forgiveness. The role of the prophet is also to call us to righteousness and justice.

      Heschel also believes in a God who can feel both joy and anguish, both happiness and sadness, both anger and forgiveness. The God of pathos is a God who shares not only in our joys and delights, but also in our sorrows and disappointments, as well as in our suffering and vulnerability. The God of pathos is a God who can feel what we feel. He is a God who has emotions and who is emotionally engaged with us.

      The God of the philosophers is completely indifferent, says Heschel, but the God of the prophets is completely concerned. The fundamental experience of the prophet is therefore "a fellowship with the feelings of God, [and] a sympathy with the divine pathos."³ 

      The prophet is not only a witness to the divine pathos, he is also a poet, preacher, statesman, social critic, and moralist.⁴ He is a person who stands before God (Jeremiah 15:19) and who is sent to us by God. As a messenger, he delivers God's word to us, but as a witness he gives us testimony that the word is divine.⁵

      The testimony of the prophet is not always heard or appreciated by us. It's a recurring complaint by the prophets that those who have eyes do not see, and that those who have ears do not hear (Jeremiah 5:21, Ezekiel 12:2, Isaiah 43:8).⁶ However, God can open our minds and hearts. The word of God never ends, and no word is God's last word.⁷

      Heschel says that God is slow to anger, and that he has patience with us. ("The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love," says Psalm 103:8.) God's anger is subject to his own will, and it has an instrumental function, insofar as its purpose is to reveal to us that he is displeased by our offenses, and that he calls us to repent. As the prophet Micah says,

"Who is a God like thee, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger for ever because he delights in steadfast love...Thou wilt show faithfulness to Jacob and steadfast love to Abraham, as thou hast sworn to our fathers from the days of old." (Micah 7:18-20).

      Heschel also says that in God

"There is no dichotomy of pathos and ethos, of motive and norm. They do not exist side by side, opposing each other; they involve and presuppose each other. It is because God is the source of justice that his pathos is ethical; and it is because God is absolutely personal...that this ethos is full of pathos. Pathos, then, is not an attitude taken arbitrarily. Its inner law is the moral law; ethos is inherent in pathos."⁸

      The divine pathos is an attitude expressing God's concern, rather than an essential attribute of his being.⁹ It is an expression of God's will and a manifestation of his freedom. It is therefore both a paradox and a mystery.¹⁰ While it manifests God's freedom, it also calls into question his self-sufficiency. If God were absolutely self-sufficient, then he would have no need for us or for the world. Because he is concerned about us, however, he is unwilling to stand aloof from us. He cares about us, and the role of the prophet is therefore to articulate and proclaim this divine pathos.¹¹

      The divine pathos also calls into question the ontological presupposition that God is immobile and immutable. If God were immobile and immutable, then he wouldn't be affected by our conduct, and he wouldn't be susceptible to pathos, because he would be wholly absolute in his being.

      Heschel defends himself from the charge of anthropomorphism (ascription of human attributes to God) or anthropopathism (ascription of human emotions to God) by saying that attributing absolute concern and unconditional love to God isn't attributing human characteristics to God, but rather attributing to God characteristics that are more divine than human.

      Moreover, he says that "the notion of God as a perfect Being is not of biblical origin."¹² To say that God has no emotions, because emotions are affective states that are displayed by humans, is to try to anesthetize him. The anesthetization of God would reduce him to a mystery whose will is unknown to us, and who has nothing to say to us.¹³ But God does indeed care about us, and thus the prophets had to use anthropomorphic language in order to convey a reality that transcends the limits of language.

       It should be noted that the terms logos, ethos, and pathos may be used to refer to three different rhetorical strategies or modes of persuasion, as described by Aristotle. While logos is an appeal to reason, ethos is an appeal to the speaker's authority, and pathos is an appeal to the emotions.

      Heschel notes that in modern usage, the words "pathos" and "pathetic" also convey the idea of something sorrowful or pitiable, so the sense in which he uses the word "pathos" differs from its most common meaning in modern usage.
      The nature and meaning of the divine pathos may be a mystery, but the prophet Amos says,

"Surely, the Lord God does nothing, without revealing his secret to his servants, the prophets. The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?" (Amos 3:7-8).

      And the prophet Micah says,

"But as for me, I will look to the Lord, I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me. Rejoice not over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I have sinned against him, until he pleads my cause and executes judgment for me. He will bring me forth to the light; I shall behold his righteousness" (Micah 7:7-9).

      Is the God of pathos then a tragic God? If we, through our transgressions, fail to show God that we are grateful for all that he has given us, then is God's unconditional love for us both tragic and sublime? A suffering God is also a tragic God. His pathos may arise from his tragic suffering.

      But if we can be redeemed, then perhaps the human situation and the situation in which God calls us to return to him are not ultimately tragic. Perhaps our recognition of his concern for us and our faith in him are his ultimate triumph. Perhaps our redemption from our misdeeds and our partnership with God in our struggle for peace and justice are his ultimate victory.

FOOTNOTES 

¹Abraham J. Heschel, The Prophets (New York: HarperCollins, 1962), p. 39.

² Ibid., p. 299.

³Ibid., p. 31.

⁴Ibid., p. xxii.

⁵Ibid., p. 27.

⁶Ibid., p. 241.

⁷Ibid., p. 247.

⁸Ibid., pp. 290-291.

⁹Ibid., p. 297.

¹⁰Ibid., p. 299.

¹¹Abraham J. Heschel, Man is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion (New York: Farrar, Straus & Young, 1951), p. 244.

¹²Heschel, The Prophets, p. 352.

¹³Ibid., p. 354.

The Śūraṅgama Sūtra

The Śūraṅgama Sūtra ("Heroic March" or "Heroic Progress" sutra) is a Mahayana Buddhist sutra that Śramaṇa Paramiti (Dharma Master Paramiti) brought back from India to China, where he translated it into Chinese at Chih Chih Monastery in Guangzhou in 705 CE. The original Sanskrit text is not extant. Since the 8th century CE, many commentaries on it have been written, including those of Chan Master Han Shan (Hānshān Déqīng, 1546-1623) and more recently the  Venerable Masters Xuyun (1840-1959), Yuanying (1878-1953), and Hsuan Hua (1918-1995). 

      Most of the Śūraṅgama (Shurangama) Sutra consists of a dialogue between Buddha and his disciple Ananda before an assembly of bhikkhus (monks), arhats, and bodhisattvas. The Buddha's teachings in the sutra include discourses on the illusory nature of phenomena, the unreality of the self, the sources of misconceptions about the nature of reality, and the path to enlightenment.

      The Buddha explains that all phenomena are manifestations of mind, and that they have no inherent existence. They do not exist inherently because they are not self-caused or self-existent. All phenomena depend on causes and conditions of existence, and they are therefore empty of self-existence. They appear to exist inherently, but their appearance is illusory. The way they appear to us is not the way they are in true reality. 

      Emptiness (sūnyatā) is the true nature of all things. Emptiness (voidness) is also a door to liberation. It is the realization of the illusory nature of all existence, and the realization that all things are empty of inherent existence and self-nature.

      All phenomena (things, dharmas) arise from conditions and cease because of conditions. Thus, they are devoid of self-nature, and they lack any real, permanent, or essential attributes that would distinguish them from other phenomena. They do not exist on their own, and they are all interdependent.

      All phenomena are actually like flowers in the sky, illusory appearances that we misperceive because of our ignorance,

      The three meditative studies (or expedient practices) that lead all Buddhas in the ten directions¹ to enlightenment are śamatha (the meditative study of all as void or immaterial), samāpatti (the meditative study of all as unreal), and dhyāna (the meditative study of the mean between delusion and enlightenment). This threefold study aims to remove ignorance, and its most suitable point of departure is the One Mind (which is the source of both delusion and enlightenment).² 

      Meditation (dhyāna) is also one of the six pāramitās (perfections). The six pāramitās are generosity (dāna), moral conduct (sīla), patience (kṣānti), perseverance (viriya), meditation (dhyāna), and wisdom (prajñā). 

      The six perfections are practiced in order to cross over from the shore of mortality (saṃsāra, the karmic cycle, the cycle of birth and death) to the other shore (nirvāṇa, the cessation of saṃsāra).³ Nirvāṇa (the cessation of desire or craving) is also the extinction of the three poisons or unwholesome roots: rāga (greed or sensuality), dvesha (hatred or aversion), and avidya (ignorance or delusion).⁴ 

      When we cling to the illusory body and mind made up of the five aggregates, we fail to know the One Mind or True Mind. The five aggregates are form (rūpa), sensations or feelings (vedanā), perceptions (saṃjñā), mental formations (sanskaras), and consciousness (vijñāna).

      The five aggregates form the illusory self or ego, and they include everything that we experience in the mental and physical world. Each of them may be an object of clinging, and each may also be a source of falsehood and delusion. While clinging to them causes suffering, dissolving them leads to enlightenment.

      Clinging or attachment to the illusory self or ego may be coarse (when it arises from discrimination related to the sixth and seventh consciousnesses) or subtle (when it arises from the store of previous experiences that give rise to the illusory perception of an ego).⁵ 

      The eight consciousnesses are the six sense consciousnesses (the visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and mental consciousnesses), the deluded consciousness (kliṣṭamanovijñāna), and the storehouse consciousness (ālāyavijñāna), which is the basis of the other seven.

      Wrong views, such as belief in the reality of the self or ego, belief in permanence and annihilation, and denial of the law of causality are causes of suffering (dukkha). The four mistakes or misapprehensions are mistaking impermanence for permanence, mistaking suffering for happiness, mistaking something having no identity for something having an identity, and mistaking something impure for something pure.

      The two inversions are (1) the wrong use of a clinging mind, which people mistake for their own nature, and (2) attachment to causal conditions, which screen the basically bright essence of consciousness. The non-rising of these inversions is the Tathāgata's (The Enlightened One's) true state of samādhi (meditative absorption or concentration).⁶ 

      Delusion can be caused by mistaking birth and death, arising and ceasing, beginning and ending for reality. Thus, delusion leads to transmigration through illusory realms of existence. When the discriminating mind is mistaken for self-nature, the true mind of enlightenment is screened and obscured by delusion.⁷

      The Eternal Mind or One Mind is beyond birth and death, and it is the common source of all Buddhas and all living beings.⁸ It transcends all dualities and all discriminations regarding the appearances of things. Thus, the subject and the object, the self and the nonself, "is" and "is not," being and nonbeing, existence and non-existence, thisness and thatness are all unreal and illusory.

      The Buddha ties six knots in a flowered cloth, symbolizing the obstructions that can block the path to enlightenment, and he explains that both tying and untying the knots (delusion and liberation) come from the same cause, the mind.⁹ The six knots represent the six sense organs (sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell, and mind) that can be sources of illusion. The six entrances of illusions into the mind are the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the intellect. If we disengage the sense organs and disentangle the knots that obstruct our path to enlightenment, then we realize that all phenomena are void.¹⁰ 

      Bodhisattvas (enlightened beings) remain in harmony with all beings in the ten directions. They work for the welfare of all living beings, and before their own liberation, they set their mind on freeing others. Their own enlightenment and their enlightenment of others are therefore free from contradiction. Their preaching is free from all clinging (upādāna), and their teaching reveals the non-duality of all Dharma doors.¹¹

      Of the ten highest stages of bodhisattva attainment, the last stage is that in which the bodhisattva provides sheltering clouds of compassion for all those who are suffering and are seeking nirvāṇa. This is the stage of Dharma clouds (Dharmamegha).¹²

      The Buddha always responds to the needs of others, like the tide that never fails to rise and fall.¹³ Thus, he rescues others from suffering, ensuring their liberation and attainment of enlighenment.

FOOTNOTES

¹The ten directions are north, south, east, west, northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest, up (above), and down (below).

²The Śūraṅgama Sūtra, with commentary (abridged) by Chan Master Han Shan, translated by Upāsaka Lu K'uan Yu (Charles Luk) (London: Rider & Company, 1966), pp. 3, 116.

³Ibid., p. 242.

⁴ Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr., The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2014).

⁵The Śūraṅgama Sūtra, translated by Upāsaka Lu K'uan Yu, pp. xviii-xix.

⁶Ibid., pp. 13-14.

⁷Ibid., p. 14.

⁸Ibid., p. 19.

⁹Ibid., p. 117.

¹⁰Ibid., p. 121.

¹¹ Ibid., pp. 168-169.

¹²Ibid., p. 172.

¹³Ibid., pp. 146-147.