Venerable Abbot, Stein raises his voice — the clamour in the room abates for an instant — he, Stein, cannot believe what he is hearing! Does he really think that the feelings of the monks of recent times, this inner content, more important than anything else, has remained unharmed? Does he really think that the souls of the ones who live here now are the same as they were in the days of old? His, Stein’s, opinion is radically different. He thinks, says Stein — with clearly unforgivable discourtesy, he leans closer to the abbot — it’s not that these monks of today with their cell phones and their businesses aren’t like the monks from the Sui dynasty. Simply put, their hearts are not the same.
Pinghui doesn’t budge an inch, he doesn’t even adjust his eyeglasses which have slid down his nose a bit.
pinghui. There is an expression, suiyuan, which means something like ‘according to predestination’, ‘according to fate’. During the Sui dynasty, Buddhists lived according to the suiyuan of their time. Today they live according to the suiyuan of our time. The form is different but the essence is unchanged.
So why is it — Stein spreads his hands apart helplessly — that his impressions are so different? Is it because he is European? But, well, Venerable Abbot, he says, lowering his voice this time, everything that occurs in the name of rebuilding the temples, everything that Stein has spoken of so far — the chase after money, even allowing money into the inner world of the monasteries at all, the deluge of tourists and the tourist industry based on that deluge, fully integrated into temple life, all this. .
Pinghui cuts off his monologue.
pinghui. The monks study the same things today, the ding hui and the wuji bajiao. In the modern world, Taoism operates in a similar fashion. We use different words than the Taoists but we are searching for the same thing. That has not changed.
Stein leans back in the easy chair. He has seen the cities, he has walked along the streets, and here is a world which unfortunately he knows all too well. The supermarkets, the mega shopping centres — on the one hand, the fever to buy, and, on the other, the fever to sell, the desire to possess things, the empty rhythms in the temples. Venerable Abbot, he says to him confidentially, as if there were some kind of basis for this confidentiality — he, Stein sees the opposite of what the abbot has just said, that formally everything does proceed in the same way before the altars of the temples, but the inner essence has completely been lost. .
The abbot adjusts his eyeglasses.
pinghui. In the schools, the study of classical culture is accorded an ever-greater role. Here, for example, in the Buddhist schools, we teach the classical Chinese language and the culture of the pre-Qing dynasty. The culture of the Song and Tang dynasties. Here, for example, we teach Lunyu,[124] Yijing,[125] Zhuangzi,[126] Mengzi[127] and Laozi.[128]
Stein says that this is indeed very praiseworthy, but what kind of effect does it have on what goes on in the monastery courtyards? And on the soul of a monk?
pinghui. The goal of classical culture — and within it, Buddhism — is to help people avoid the three evils. These three evils are in a person, and they remain, no matter how much development there is. Only with the help of tradition can we vanquish them.
Venerable Abbot — Stein lowers his voice, and leans towards him across the table as much as he can — he sees that there is a serious obstacle to their discussion. He knows he should get up, he knows it is time to go but he tries one last time, so he says: Yes, he will try one more time, one last time, to say why fate brought him here. . A long time ago, many years ago, he was drawn more and more to everything the historical Buddha could have uttered. This unequalled perspective became ever-more important to him from one year to the next. He would have liked to have studied it, he says to the abbot, almost whispering now, to get closer to it, to turn over the pages of the Tripitaka,[129] but he began to ask people about it and he never got closer to the original thoughts of the Buddha but to the original teachings of Buddhism. And here, he felt was a dramatic tension. As is well known, the Buddha never wrote down his teachings. Despite all the refined, and unparalleled, techniques of oral transmission, what emerged later on were actually translations — into Pali and Sanskrit, respectively, later on into Chinese and Tibetan, then into Korean and finally into Japanese. The question concerns him very deeply — he looks at the abbot with those two sincere eyes — and he asks for help: Where can someone find the right approach to lead him to the Buddha’s original train of thought?
pinghui. It’s true that the Buddha never wrote down his teachings but after his death, at the time of the First Council, his most loyal disciple, Ananda,[130] faithfully quoted the words of the Buddha at the council’s request. The council asked Ananda to say them again, word by word. And then they were noted down, and from that came the Buddhist canon. This cannot be doubted.
In Stein, however, the doubts are huge. As far as he knows, the story about Ananda’s words being written down is of far later vintage than the period immediately following Buddha’s death; and the Buddha’s words were not written down for the first time then, actually not until the first century before the Common Era. And it wasn’t in Magadhi, the language in which these words had sounded from the Buddha’s mouth, but a translation, into Pali and Sanskrit. It is unimaginable that everything that the Buddha said would not have been damaged, perhaps fundamentally! If one thinks of Mahayana Buddhism, Stein explains, innumerable elements differ radically from the material registered in the Tripitaka—which Stein particularly reveres as well.
Pinghui leans back wearily. The words of his visitor have clearly had no effect on him. They have no effect at present, nor will they in the future, Stein realizes, when the abbot begins to speak.
pinghui. Everything that has been put into writing in the canon, from the first words to the last, is as uttered by the Buddha. Both the Hinayana and the Mahayana schools go back to the original statements of the Buddha. It is like that.
Venerable Abbot, Stein points out to him despondently, the most important sutra of the Tiantai school, the Lotus Sutra, was not uttered by the Buddha, this is a Buddhist work from later, centuries later. .
pinghui. Yes, but what it contains, its spirit — that is the original.
It is now patently obvious to everyone in the room that this European has transgressed every last rule of courtesy and is engaging in something everyone knows to be proscribed. He — the European — considers, however, that he should keep on and that he should disagree with what the abbot is saying. The Buddhist literature is very rich, he does not deny this for a moment. But it is completely clear, that these teachings — with the formation as Shakyamuni as a deity, the appearance of other buddhas,[131] the permission of the depiction of the figure of the Buddha, originally forbidden, with the introduction of prayer and so on — are very distant from what the Buddha could have thought and said.
The abbot is now at his most severe.
pinghui. The original teachings of the Buddha are in the Agama Sutra. The four Agama Sutras.[132] And in the Lotus Sutra, the Mahaparinirvana Sutra as well as in the Mahaprajnaparamita Sutra[133]. .
On the desk near the window an old telephone rings. It jingles, then stops for a moment, then rings again, but no one picks it up. Stein doesn’t speak, the abbot doesn’t speak, the interpreter is in the grip of the most profound embarrassment. Then the cell phone begins to ring and, while no one is interested in the telephone on the desk — even though there are four or five people in the office — the secretary wordlessly hands the cell phone to the abbot.