Reference to Buddhism in Post: Query

From: mchale <mchale@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu>

To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: REference to Buddhism in post: query

Nguyen Ba Chung mentions that "Prof. Le Manh That's recent

>editions (History of Vietnamese Buddhism Part I, Research on

>Mau Tu, Research on "Prominent Figures of the Zen Garden", etc.)

>have documented quite clearly how deep-rooted this "a thousand

>years of resistance to the north" notion has been, esp. from the

>1st to the 10th century."

What is this book? I have not seen it. More please?

Nguyen Tu Cuong's survey (and demolition) of the vast majority of scholarship on Buddhism produced in Vietnam (and elsewhere) makes me sceptical of it. For one, Cuong has convincingly shown how much of the writing on early Vietnamese Buddhism is a fabrication. See Cuong's book on Medieval Vietnamese Buddhism, published by Hawaii in 1997.

As for the notion of a "thousand years of resistance to the north" -- too often, scholars have assumed that isolated acts of non-compliance and attempts to assert autonomy, and so forth must somehow form part of a master narrative of resistance. If one really wants to persist and speak of a thousand years of resistance, then it only makes sense to speak of a thousand years of Vietnamese collaboration as well.

Shawn McHale

Assistant Professor of History and International Affairs

The George Washington University

e-mail address: mchale@gwu.edu

From: "Liam C. Kelley" <liam@hawaii.edu>

To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: REference to Buddhism in post: query

Nguyen Ba Chung wrote:

"What was going in these 11 centuries in which the sense of identity of the Vietnamese not only could not be stamped out but appeared to have gotten stronger and more defined with time ? Yes, there were of course collaborators, lots of them. But they had all lost out. That's why I believe it's reasonable, isn't it ?, to call it a thousand years of resistance."

Meanwhile, in the Dai Viet Su Ky Toan Thu, Le Van Huu commented on the Trung sisters rebellion by stating something which we can roughly translate as follows:

"While Trung Trac and Tung Nhi were women, once they issued a call, Cuu Chan, Nhat Nam, Hop Pho as well as 65 citadels South of the Passes all responded. They established a kingdom and proclaimed themselves sovereigns as easily as turning over one's hand. From this we can see that we Viet had the power to establish our own enterprise [i.e. kingdom]. How regrettable that from the Trieu to the Ngo, more than 1,000 years, the men just stood with their heads bowed and hands tied. They were servants of the North and yet never felt ashamed [that they were no match for] the two Trung sisters. Oh! This is what I call 'giving up on oneself.'"

I'm not quite sure how to reconcile these two viewpoints.

Liam

From: "Chung Nguyen" <chung.nguyen@umb.edu>

To: "Vietnam Studies Group" <vsg@u.washington.edu>

Subject: Re: REference to Buddhism in post: query

mchale wrote:

> Nguyen Ba Chung mentions that "Prof. Le Manh That's recent

> editions (History of Vietnamese Buddhism Part I, Research on

> Mau Tu, Research on "Prominent Figures of the Zen Garden", etc.)

> have documented quite clearly how deep-rooted this "a thousand

> years of resistance to the north" notion has been, esp. from the

> 1st to the 10th century."

> What is this book? I have not seen it. More please?

Let me address this question last.

I. Nguyen Tu Cuong's survey (and demolition) of the vast majority of scholarship on Buddhism produced in Vietnam (and elsewhere) makes me skeptical of it. For one, Cuong has convincingly shown how much of the writing on early Vietnamese Buddhism is a fabrication. See Cuong's book on Medieval Vietnamese Buddhism, published by Hawaii in 1997.

I always mean to get hold of NTC's book and read it but unfortunately I still haven't. I therefore will refrain from making any comment on it until I have. I, however, can make a general comment on the "demolition" of "the vast majority of scholarship on Buddhism produced in Vietnam."

Let me just make three points:

1- Due to war, weather, royal printing policy, Chinese attempts at assimilation, etc., the actual extant texts of Vietnamese Buddhism is probably less than 10% (some would say that it's even less than 5%). One should not rely singly only on the extant texts to draw inferences on the whole edifice of Vietnamese Buddhism.

2- Because of its very nature, Buddhism did not, and still does not, rely on words to embody wholly its messages. Words are used only as means, as fingers pointing to the moon, provisionally and sometimes playfully. If we do not see words as mere means, but take them seriously as things-in-themselves, put them under a scholastic microscope, and then find all sorts of strange connections - myths, borrowings, make- believes -- we would miss the points altogether. The business of Buddhism is not to create scholars, or train monks to be scholars; the business of Buddhism is to produce human beings with wisdom and compassion, in which the intellect may play a part, but is never the goal. For scholarly methodology to shine on Buddhism, it has to be aware of its own limitation; otherwise its applicability will be limited.

Words, in Buddhist exegesis, belong to the realm of "samvritti" (relative truth). The goal is "paramartha" (ultimate), which always lie beyond words. We can play with words to get to what is beyond words, or we can play with words to stay with words, which may be useful, rigorous in its own ways, like all the scholasticism of the early age, but it will have nothing to do with Buddhism.

The extant texts of Vietnamese Buddhism are like the reflection of a mountain onto a nearby pond. A stone thrown into the pond will break up the mountain-in-the-pond; it can never break up the mountain.

3. After more then twenty centuries, Vietnamese Buddhism has had its many ups and downs, from the heady years of beginning where monks helped to define the early formative culture of the country, to the flowering period under Ly-Tran (11th - 15th century), to the eclipse of royal patronage starting with the Le dynasty until the return to prominence with the Nguyen Lords in Dang Trong and the revival in the 1930's. But in every century there were always prominent monks, those who devoted their whole life to the practice and attained what they trained for. The strong and vibrant streams of Vietnamese Buddhism surface again and again into the open to produce monks of the caliber of Thich Quang Duc, Thich Don Hau, Thich Thanh Tu (1), Thich Nhat Hanh, etc. From the fruits we know the tree; from these fruits we can gauge the degree of profundity of that tradition.

The task of scholarship is, I humbly believe, to bring the understanding closer to reality, to help elucidate that reality, to throw light on the movement, sound and color of the currents that have sailed silently through the age. If what the scholars find appears to contradict the living reality, I believe we have a problem.

II. As for the notion of a "thousand years of resistance to the north" -- too often, scholars have assumed that isolated acts of non-compliance and attempts to assert autonomy, and so forth must somehow form part of a master narrative of resistance. If one really wants to persist and speak of a thousand years of resistance, then it only makes sense to speak of a thousand years of Vietnamese collaboration as well.

I don't quite understand your point. If a superior horde of brutes with superior weapons and superior organization come to a place, put the whole community under its rule. That community has two choices: (a) give up its identity and become one with their master, (b) resist. If they choose (b), they can either succeed or fail. If they fail repeatedly, would you say that's because of the vast number of collaborators ? If so, with the law of arithmetic, the longer they fail, the less chance they can ever succeed, for the number of collaborators would increase exponentially with time. In terms of security, financial rewards, and personal comfort, it makes much better sense to be a collaborator than a resister.

In the case of Vietnam, colonialization began in 111 BCE, and finally ended in 938 CE, that is, about 11 centuries. How can we account for that ? And when it came out, Vietnam exploded into a unified nation which for 4 or 5 centuries took Buddhism as the national faith, a fact that clearly set it completely apart from China (Buddhism might have reached a height here and there in China, but never was China's national faith continuously for 4 or 5 centuries). What was going in these 11 centuries in which the sense of identity of the Vietnamese not only could not be stamped out but appeared to have gotten stronger and more defined with time ?

Yes, there were of course collaborators, lots of them. But they had all lost out. That's why I believe it's reasonable, isn't it ?, to call it a thousand years of resistance.

III. Le Manh That and the New Scholarship on Buddhism

(Post to follow)

(1) Thich Thanh Tu, a monk in his late seventy in Vietnam, single-handedly recreates the Truc Lam school of Buddhism started by king Tran Nhan Tong in the 13th century. He currently heads about 10 different zen temples in Vietnam, one especially for women (the Vien Chieu Temple). Only the Truc Lam Zen Tradition can, he explained to me in a meeting in Da lat in 1997, bring back the supreme self confidence that existed in early Vietnam's history. The Truc Lam temple in Da lat is perhaps the most active place of practice in Vietnam today.