Zen Existentialism
Zen-Existentialism : The Spiritual Decline of the West (Chang Lit-sen). Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2010. Previously published by Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing, Co., 1969.
“Modern man is as a sheep without a shepherd, caught in the throes of anxiety and despair… Zen and existentialism are but a sort of philosophy of meaninglessness and voidness, of nihility and frustration; they are absolutely devoid of any positive prospect or future.” Once a believer in Eastern religions, the author and Chinese scholar Lit-sen Chang turned from his old faith and embraced Christianity. He writes this work post conversion to persuade Westerners in particular to reject the folly of Eastern religions in favor of the Christian gospel.
In the introduction, Chang lays out the dire stakes of the current Western philosophical state of mind. He points out that the all of the West is in a state of high anxiety and tension that periodically erupts into violence. Citing Dutch theologian Abraham Kuyper, Chang suggests that the problem began with the French Revolution and has grown and worsened ever since. He identifies Western philosophers’ movement away from Christianity and towards the ideas and practices of Zen-Buddhism both in their use of drugs and in their affirmation that suffering is the true state of the world. Chang traces the root of all cultural crises to the rejection of the true God, just as the problems of the Middle East lie in their choosing Islam rather than Christianity. Writing in the 1960s, he saw a parallel situation in the West’s current fascination with Zen-Buddhism.
Part 1 - Fantasy of the East: The Spirit of Zen
Chapter 1 - The History and Nature of Zen
Zen came into existence in India and developed further in China and Japan, where it divided into the northern and southern sects. It finally reached the West as a uniquely Asian philosophy. After reviewing Zen’s origins, Chang discusses the etymological history of the word “Zen,” which has its roots in Sanskrit, later influenced by Chinese before reaching its final, Japanese pronunciation.
It is purposefully difficult to understand the exact definition of Zen. Chang offers five possible categories for Zen: Is it philosophy, religion, Buddhism, Taoism, or atheism? He rejects the first three and defers the question between the last two possibilities for later chapters. Finally, he identifies Zen’s specifically destructive and rebellious attitude towards language, reason, and authority.
Chapter 2 - Teachings and Practice of Zen
Zen rejects the power of the word, so it has no doctrinal teachings. It depends entirely on the example of masters. Early Zen had competing schools: the gradual school and the abrupt or instantaneous school, which disagreed about the process of enlightenment. The gradual school has now ceased to exist, so enlightenment is understood without contest as abrupt and unpredictable.
Chang describes the pathway to enlightenment as starting in the mind before moving on to the rejection of duality and ego, until it reaches the reality of unconsciousness. He also refers to unconsciousness as emptiness or voidness. This makes Zen discipline a means of breaking all forms of bondage, because attachment hinders the mind. Once the disciple arrives at unconsciousness or voidness, the final state of Zen is nothing—neither delusion nor enlightenment. All problems are solved because they no longer exist.
Later in the chapter, Chang quotes several masters on what the practice of enlightenment involves. The goal is to transcend a sense of differentiation in the universe by disciplining your mind; it is often misinterpreted as involving mostly meditation. Properly understood, enlightenment is “exertion without interruption,” which requires keeping the mind completely focused on the question of enlightenment no matter what the body is engaged in doing. One method for this involves “cones,” which were developed in the Sung dynasty. Cones are thought exercises designed to break down the logical thinking of students who meditate on them. The student contemplates impossible demands or questions until he can ascend past logic in his mind. Examples include: “talk without tongue,” “play a stringless lute,” “clap with one hand.” This process is supposed to strengthen the will while concentrating the mind, so that the student can accept the unlimited spontaneity of life.
The experience of Zen is paradoxical because, from the outside, it appears to be focused on ordinary life. Disciples engage in basic, menial tasks, answering their most fundamental needs without restrictions: e.g. sleep when sleepy, eat when hungry, and nothing else takes precedence. From the internal perspective, Zen disciples must endure mental, emotional, and physical abuse from their masters, however. One man had his leg broken in order to receive insight into the life principle. The masters sometimes puzzle disciples by using jargon or poking fun, or giving a slap, blow, or kick instead of an answer.
At the end of the chapter, Chang reveals his thesis for the rest of the book: Although most people view Zen sympathetically, the behavior of the masters is evidence of the underlying insanity in this worldview.
Part 2 - Crisis in the West: The Impact of Zen
Chapter 1 - Crisis in Culture
In Part 2, Chang presents the reasons that the West fell victim to the seduction of Eastern religion and philosophy. He observes how modern Western culture has drifted away from centering on God. The resulting secular culture has an emptiness that people are seeking to fill. Eastern philosophy provides one method of filling that void. It also happens to be more palatable to existentialists and psychologists who no longer want to use the Bible as an authority over culture. After a series of devastating wars, the West is disintegrating from the inside and losing confidence in itself.
Chapter 2 - Crisis in Philosophy
In Chapter Two, Chang reviews the intellectual history of the West, laying out the influential Western philosophers who were hostile to Christianity. He begins with Plato, then skips forward to Descartes as emblematic of the period when Western philosophers put too little emphasis on the inter-relationship between theology and philosophy. Western thinkers drifted away from theology under the influence of David Hume, Immanuel Kant, Charles Darwin, August Comte, and John Dewey. Instead, they embraced a naturalism that was essentially atheistic in its conception of reality. Since those philosophies have proven themselves insufficient to resolve the problems that now plague the West, Eastern religions started to infiltrate the schools of thinking. Chang specifically identifies Nietzsche and Kierkegaard as opening the door to Eastern philosophy through existentialism.
Chapter 3 - Crisis in Religion
In Chapter Three, Chang addresses the fact that the growing influence of Eastern philosophy in the West is not the result of any invasive effort from Eastern culture, but rather almost entirely the result of the West’s negating so much of its own identity that it has left behind a vacuum. The more people became dissatisfied with Christianity, the more Eastern religions appealed to them--especially for people like historian Arnold Toynbee, who wanted the religions of India and Buddhism to influence Christian theology. In fact, there was a fad among Western scholars to associate Jesus and Buddhism and find evidence that the latter had influenced the former.
Chang particularly accuses the tendency of syncretism in modern Christianity for facilitating this cultural corruption. He lists several modern scholars who were at the forefront of arguing that all religions are the same, including Paul Tillich, Earnest Benz, and Floyd H. Ross. The end result of this hostility towards orthodox Christianity and enchantment with Eastern religion is that the church’s cultural influence has been significantly weakened in the West. Most of the modern philosophers now identify religion as the cause of the West’s problems instead of the solution.
Chapter 4 - Crisis in Theology
Chang discusses how twentieth-century theologians have pushed towards a pantheistic theology that claims God can be found within man, which is more compatible with Zen philosophy than with Christianity. The “God-is-dead movement” also supports this shift, along with those who want to deny the divinity of Jesus but keep him as a teacher, bringing him down to the level of Buddha and Confucius. Chang calls these movements “Christian atheism.” He quotes Martin Luther, “When Germany buries its last minister, then it will be burying herself,” building on this idea to declare, “Now the radical theologians are endeavoring to kill and bury God so as to liberate and exalt man, but they are tragically unaware that they are burying themselves.”
Part 3 - The Twins of Zen Existentialism: East and West Meet (Doom of Autosoterism)
Chapter 1 - A Trend in Modern Thought
Chang considers how the Western philosophy of existentialism and the Eastern philosophy of Zen support and enhance each other’s cultural power. Considering the concerns of Western philosophers, both Zen-Buddhism and existentialism have the same type of solution created by the vacuum of rejecting Christianity: Both are self-focused and promise freedom, and both began with a state of anguish, despair, and a reduction of all existence to pure suffering.
Chang argues that Zen is a more radical and more concentrated form of existentialism, however. He notes that the famous German existentialist Heidegger confided to one of his friends that he found in a book of Zen philosophy everything that he was trying to express through his own writing. As the older philosophy, Zen-Buddhism is more developed than existentialism; it has already passed through the growth pains that existentialism experienced in the 1960s, when Chang was writing.
Chapter 2 - The Futility of Pseudo-Religion
Chang pauses to consider whether he has been unfair to Zen. He discusses what this philosophy claims to offer people and why that might be appealing, but then goes on to outline all its failures and weaknesses, especially in comparison to Trinitarian Christianity. Chang points out that Zen offers freedom and knowledge, but, since it is a freedom without God, it ends as a false promise.
Chapter 3 - A Movement to Eternal Destruction
In Chapter Three, Chang outlines all the destructive impulses and directions to which both existentialism and Zen inevitably lead humanity. He shows how every great existentialist eventually ended in a philosophy of self-destruction, including Sartre, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche. Their thinking tries to place man as the greatest power in the universe, but it also rejects all reason and order in the universe, which only leads to decadence or depression. Chang lays out how all of these anti-Christian philosophies have brought Western man to the state of ultimate despair, where he tries to save himself--but the only one who can save him is Jesus Christ.
Conclusion
In his conclusion, Chang acknowledges that men have been seeking answers about life and God from the beginning of time. Both existentialism and Zen are trying to find new answers when they perceive the old ones to be unsatisfactory. Their main weakness is failing to recognize that truth stays the same throughout all time. Chang illustrates this point with the following story:
A theologian M. Le Peaux confided to de Talleyrand-Perigord his disappointment in the ill success which he had met in his attempt to bring into vogue a new Gospel, which he regarded as an improvement on Christianity, and then asked Talleyrand’s advice as to what he should do. Talleyrand replied that it was difficult indeed to found a new religion, but he said, ‘Still, there is one plan which you might at least try. I should recommend that you be crucified and rise again on the third day.’
Chang concludes that secular philosophies cannot improve the Gospel in any shape or form, and they should refrain from making the attempt. The ultimate failure of Zen-Buddhism is the rejection of sin, and the belief in auto-soterism (saving oneself). Chang urges readers to turn instead to the light of the Gospel for hope and redemption.
In the epilogue and Appendix Three, Chang argues that hippies are making the same mistake as Zen masters: destroying their bodies and minds in pursuit of a goal that will not give them what they want. They should instead find true freedom in Christ. In Appendix One, he gives his personal testimony. Appendix Two contains an essay by the president of Wheaton College, which recounts the terrible effects of drugs on the mind. In Appendix Four, Carl Henry offers a prediction for the trajectory of modern theology: Christians will eventually return to orthodoxy, because the new heterodox theologians have made themselves obsolete with their own radical ideas.
Lit-sen Chang paints a thorough picture of Zen’s pervasive influence in both the East and West. It is admirable how extremely well-read the author is in all the Western philosophers. He quotes an impressive range of thinkers in supporting his arguments. The work is of particular interest because Chang approaches the development of Western philosophy from an unusual angle by examining how philosophy in the East has influenced, encouraged, and responded to that development. We might say that post-modernism is the logical culmination of Zen, since it, too, denies the existence of truth and seeks, instead, some form of personal experience to validate life. The book can be a difficult read due to apparent redundancies in the arguments and organization. Nonetheless, the breadth of Chang’s scholarship and the strength of his Christian witness make it more than worth the reader’s while.
For more on the incisive cultural and theological analysis of Lit-sen Chang, see, Wise Man from the Lit: Lit-sen Chang. Critique of Indigenous Theology. Critique of Humanism. Edited by G. Wright Doyle; translated by G. Wright Doyle and Samuel Ling. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, Studies in Chinese Christianity.