Wilson’s Hypertrophic Theory and Dôgen’s Reformation: Transmutations of Buddhist Knowledge
E. O. Wilson, in his text On Human Nature, tries to establish a link between civilization and its origins in early Pleistocene hunter-gatherer societies (Wilson 95). This process of linkage, a term he designates as “hypertrophy,” may shed light on the motivations, origins, and reasoning behind Dôgen Kigen’s 13th century Buddhist reformation of Japan, when understood in a socio-biological extent. What can be seen with Dôgen’s manifestation of Buddhism is not just a simple process of religious evolution, but a unique and swollen elaboration starting from the base element of Buddhist thought. Hypertrophy, according to Wilson, is “the extreme growth of pre-existing structures” (Wilson 89). He goes on to explore such cultural hypertrophic outgrowths as gender roles and child care, naming religion in particular as a “gross transmutation” (Wilson 95). However, he reserves a special pedestal on which to place “the gathering and sharing of knowledge,” clearly implying that knowledge is actualized in science and technology, but not in religion (Wilson 96).
His personal value system attached to his judgment of religion may in fact be inexorably linked to the Judeo-Christian religious environment in which he was raised. His designation of Buddhism as a reformist religion that attempted to outlaw the killing of animals (Wilson 95), coupled with his equation of Buddhism with Jainism, shows a rather incomplete and foggy understanding. True, Buddhism had a reformist message, but the only rules that even the earliest forms of Buddhism had for the human diet were limited to Buddhist monks and nuns, not the laity. For the majority of Buddhists (the laypeople) the only straightforward prohibitions were against killing, stealing, lying, intoxication, and adultery (Stryk 232). However, it is beyond the scope of this paper to evaluate Wilson’s shortcomings as a Westerner steeped in the view that all religions are theistic or revelatory, or that it is against Buddhist “law” to eat meat. What can be shown instead is a gradual hypertrophy (in this sense “social,” which for Wilson becomes “socio-biological” by default) of Buddhist thought, from its distant Indian origins to Dôgen’s reformative transmission of it to Japan. Not only did Buddhist theory and practice preserve and underlying continuity, but, in keeping with Wilson’s model, the roots of the construct changed in many unforeseen ways.
Rejecting all existing forms of Buddhism in Japan as inauthentic, Dôgen attempted to introduce and establish what he believed to be authentic Buddhism, based on his own realization that he attained in Sung China under the guidance of Zen master Ju-ching (1163-1228) (Abe 17). This represents the latter end of the hypertrophy of Buddhism, a long series of innovations and changes that even Dôgen himself added to, often daring to reinterpret the words of former patriarchs, and even the sutras themselves (Abe 18). This process earns the name “hypertrophic,” because it is an unforeseen outgrowth, a series of transmutations beginning with the original Buddhist teachings, then splitting into the somewhat fossilized Theravadan school and the further elaborations of the Mahayana school, which after its entrance into China grew in theoretical directions unforeseen by the Buddha himself. This was not mere evolution, but a specific instance of a social practice that mutated and became more elaborate over time, based on an original continuity, but destined to become almost unrecognizable.
The hypertrophy itself was initiated from the base (being the teachings of the Buddha) beginning at about 270 BC; at the infamous Third Council, the first formal split in Buddhism occurred forming the Theravada and Mahayana schools (Humphreys 48). This fractioning multiplied as Theravada isolated itself, and the sponsor of the council, King Asoka, sent Mahayana missionaries into neighboring countries (Humphreys 66). As Mahayana teachings proved more applicable in China, whose Taoist scholars were receptive to its teachings, Theravada by 100 AD had in place a certain self-imposed isolation into the countries in which it settled (Humphreys 50). The main line of the hypertrophy that Dôgen later inherited and manifested, being according to Wilson “a mutation based on preexisting structures,” went through immense transmutations after its entrance into China.
As important Indian Mahayana texts were introduced and translated, and as Chinese Buddhist scholars finally developed their own systems, differences of focus appeared and sects came into being (De Bary, Chan, and Watson 291). Wilson’s powerful images of an elephant tusk coming from mere teeth and antlers stemming from cranial bones (Wilson 89) suit well the gradual emergence in China of four schools that eventually formed the spirit and substance of Chinese Buddhism: Tientai, Huayen, Chan, and Pure Land (De Bary, Chan, and Wilson 292). These were all swollen, unforeseen outgrowths from the original teachings, and so fit Wilson’s description of hypertrophy. Chan, the particular school of Dôgen’s inspiration, itself went through hypertrophic changes, until by the ninth century, there were seven separate sects of this particular outgrowth (De Bary, Chan, and Wilson 349). One such sect, the Caodong school, was the only form of Chinese Buddhism Dôgen was exposed to during his two-year stay in China (Bielefeldt 25).
After a long ride across the centuries, the form of Buddhist practice advocated by Dôgen and inspired by the fusion of Buddhist and traditional Chinese thought established itself in Japan as the Sôtô sect in Japan (Abe 1). Yet this highly formalized, ritualistic structure based on a hierarchy of teachers and disciples centered itself on Japanese translations of ancient Chinese dialogues and treatises, not on the original teachings of the Buddha as recorded in the Pali Canon (Humphreys 70). However, the claim made by Dôgen was that his practice reflected esoteric Buddhist truths not found in any scripture; instead, this essence, the root of Buddhist hypertrophy, was something beyond words, a mind-to-mind transmission called inko, or “mind-seal” (Bielefeldt 20). Thus, his claim that he was preserving the root of something all other Buddhists had somehow missed, while claiming to be the marrow of the proverbial Buddhist cranial bone, had by then mutated and grown into a quite complex and self-defining set of antlers. How the transcendental nature of Indian Buddhist thought manifested itself 1,800 years after its origins into a Japanese monk on a pilgrimage to China is a crystal-clear example of Wilson’s hypertrophic theory as applicable to aspects of human culture. As Sakyamuni himself would perhaps have to squint to recognize his own presence in a Japanese Sôtô zendo, Dôgen himself would fail to recognize many of his original ideas in the modern incarnations of the Sôtô school itself (Jaffe 33).
Still, as Wilson’s antler is still comprised of bone, this unique form of Buddhism to this day still reflects the original teachings of the Buddha, especially in the meditative posture of the full-lotus and the principles of Buddhist meditation. Although the cranial matter cannot foresee its eventual transmutation into a full set of antlers, perhaps the “antlers” of human culture that form over the centuries from the basic roots of their origins can learn from retrospection on their tumultuous ride into the present. In this way, though Wilson’s hypertrophy remains as perhaps an inevitable occurrence, the tusk and antler can still remain in tune and in harmony with their humble origins. In the example shown of Dôgen’s Zen, one aspect of the Eightfold Path of Buddhism in particular, that of Right Meditation, mutated into an elaborate and ritualized outgrowth through which his sect defined itself. The outgrowth of “silent illumination,” or “shikantaza,” from the original meditative techniques codified by primitive Buddhism, became not only the identity of Dôgen’s Buddhism, but its distinguishing mark as something of an offshoot or deviation (antler) from the basic, original teachings (cranial matter).
Works Cited
Abe, Masao. A Study of Dôgen: His Philosophy and Religion. Ed. Steven Heine. Albany: State U of New York P, 1992.
Bielefeldt, Carl. “Recarving the Dragon: History and Dogma in the Study of Dôgen.” Dôgen Studies. LaFleur, William R., ed.
Studies in East Asian Buddhism, no. 2. Honolulu: U of Hawaii P, 1985. 21-53.
De Bary, Chan, and Watson, comps. Sources of Chinese Tradition: Volume One. New York: Columbia U P, 1960.
Humphreys, Christmas. Buddhism: An Introduction and Guide. New York: Viking Penguin Inc., 1951.
Jaffe, Richard. “Meiji Religious Policy, Sôtô Zen, and the Clerical Marriage Problem.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies. 25.1 (1998): 1-41.
Stryk, Lucien, ed. World of the Buddha: A Reader-From the Three Baskets to Modern Zen. New York: Doubleday, 1968.
Wilson, Edward O. On Human Nature. Cambridge: Harvard U P, 1978.
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