David Hinton’s 2020 book “China Root”

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FiveSkandhas
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David Hinton’s 2020 book “China Root”

Post by FiveSkandhas »

Some of you may or may not be familiar with the 2020 book China Root by David Hinton. I myself was not until the other day, when I picked it up simply because it was in the bargain bin and looked vaguely interesting.

I’m finding that it explains Ch’an Buddhism in a rather strident “Taoist-centric” manner that might ruffle a few feathers.

I don’t think it can be argued that Taoism and Ch’an did not share a long and complex history of rubbing shoulders in medieval China, and thus interacted in a way that involved at least some degree of influence or “cross pollination.” To what degree and from which direction(s) is a matter of scholarly debate.

Hinton makes no bones about staking out a very staunch if not radical position that puts Taoism firmly at the head of the table. His basic thesis, repeated (hammered?) over and over without (to my mind) much compromise or nuance, can be summed up for me in the following quotes from pages 6-7:

“When Buddhism arrived in China…it was fundamentally reinterpreted and reshaped by Taoist thought.”

“…Buddhism is so transformed by Taoist thought that, aside from a few institutional trappings, it is scarcely recognizable as Buddhism at all.”

“In the end, Buddhism is only a scrim on the surface…”

“Ch’an was less Buddhism than a rebellion against Buddhism.”

To Hinton, then, Chinese Buddhism itself is essentially a branch of Taoism (with a few “institutional trappings), and the radical anti-textual nature of Ch’an is portrayed as a “rebellion” of weary Taoist-at-Heart, nominally “Buddhist” monks shrugging off the chains of the Dharma to return to the purity of Taoism.

He then runs through an insultingly simplified and reductionist dismissal of Japanese Buddhism. The remaining chapters I have yet to read seem to be him using various Ch’an concepts to repeat and elaborate on this stance.

As you can no doubt tell, I’m a bit peeved at this perspective.

Here are a few of my main issues:

1. He seems to conflate “Chinese Buddhism” as a whole with Ch’an. Pure land, Tien-Tai, Esoteric Chinese Buddhism: how are they “Taoism with trappings”?

2. Taoism is treated as as monolithic concept, rather than a patchwork of various religious movements, sects, alchemical and magical collections of lore, ancient Zhou and Shang cosmology, etc…which is what I believe it still was when Buddhism entered the country. It might be more accurate to say that Taoism coalesced in the face of Buddhist entry!

3. The treatment of Japan is shoddy in the extreme. He seems to view the whole of Japanese culture as a kind of simplified digest of the more complex Chinese cultural milieu, citing things like “the brevity of Haiku” as a supposed knockoff of the naturally more sophisticated Chinese poetry, and then extending the analogy to religion without bothering to offer a scrap of evidence. Is he aware of the nuances of Nara-era analytic Buddhist debate? The ritual and linguistic detail of Japanese Shingon? The doctrinal heights of Tendai Original Enlightenment theory? The fact that Masters Honen, Shinran, and Ippen took Pure Land thought to dizzying summits undreamed of in China? The radical innovations of in Zen of Masters Dogen, Hakuin, Bankei, et al?

I plan to write all of this on a letter to Hinton when I finish his tome. To his credit, I will say he is a good writer in terms of stylistic flow. There, I’ve thrown him a bone, which is more than he seems to have bothered to toss to Chinese Buddhism from his alleged Taoist banquet table.

:twisted:
"One should cultivate contemplation in one’s foibles. The foibles are like fish, and contemplation is like fishing hooks. If there are no fish, then the fishing hooks have no use. The bigger the fish is, the better the result we will get. As long as the fishing hooks keep at it, all foibles will eventually be contained and controlled at will." -Zhiyi

"Just be kind." -Atisha
Meido
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Re: David Hinton’s 2020 book “China Root”

Post by Meido »

This from Huifeng some years ago sums up, i think, some relevant points. Especially regarding authors who can translate Chinese but lack other background, and the errors they make:

https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.p ... 0c#p183358
Last edited by Meido on Sun Jul 17, 2022 6:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Genjo Conan
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Re: David Hinton’s 2020 book “China Root”

Post by Genjo Conan »

I confess that I haven't read it. But Hinton is a poet and translator, not a practitioner or a historian; my understanding is that his argument is largely philological. On that basis, I would be wary: Hinton published a translation of the Wumenguan a few years ago that...I didn't like. Hinton's translation differs mightily from every other English translation of the text that I'm aware of. When your translations are an outlier and you're making essentially a linguistic argument, I'm skeptical from the start.
Malcolm
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Re: David Hinton’s 2020 book “China Root”

Post by Malcolm »

Genjo Conan wrote: Sun Jul 17, 2022 6:05 pm I confess that I haven't read it. But Hinton is a poet and translator, not a practitioner or a historian; my understanding is that his argument is largely philological. On that basis, I would be wary: Hinton published a translation of the Wumenguan a few years ago that...I didn't like. Hinton's translation differs mightily from every other English translation of the text that I'm aware of. When your translations are an outlier and you're making essentially a linguistic argument, I'm skeptical from the start.
Poets....ugggggh.
tingdzin
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Re: David Hinton’s 2020 book “China Root”

Post by tingdzin »

There has always been an argument between those who emphasize the strong Indian roots of Buddhism in China, and those who prefer to pay more attention to the brilliant Chinese take on them, including "Taoist" contributions. No denying it was a two-way street ,and no denying a lot of perspectives out there are unbalanced.

Hinton's first quote is debateable, second and third are nonsense.

By the way, Buddhism when it first came to China was also pretty much a patchwork of various ingredients.
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