Contradictions in D!

gen
Koji Tanaka*
Department of Philosophy University of Auckland k.tanaka@auckland.ac.nz The draft of 27 February 2012 Please don't quote or distribute

Abstract
In their article The Way of the Dialetheist: Contradictions in Buddhism, Deguchi, Garfield and Priest argue that some (though not all) of the contradictions that appear in Buddhist texts should be accepted. An examination of their argument depends on what sort(s) of negation is (are) used in the texts. In order to see apparently contradictory statements as affirmations of true contradictions, we must assume that not' (or its variance) is used as a contradiction forming operator. In this paper, I examine the conception of negation(s) that is (are) salient in the writings of D!gen and argue that he would not agree that his sentences are to be considered, and accepted, as contradictory.

1.

Contradictions in Buddhism

There are a number of texts in the Buddhist traditions that contain apparently contradictory statements. In their article The Way of the Dialetheist: Contradictions in Buddhism, Deguchi, Garfield and Priest (DGP) argue that some (though not all) of the contradictions that appear in Buddhist texts should be accepted. Armed with modern developments in paraconsistent logics, 1 they argue that one need not draw the conclusion that these contradictions signify irrationalism. They contend that Buddhist thinkers themselves seem to have developed machinery (such as the doctrine of the two truths) that, if employed to its limit, entails contradictions.2 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* I would like to thank Yasuo Deguchi, Jay Garfield and Graham Priest for their rigorous comments on the version of this paper I presented in the workshop held at Kyoto University. I would also like to thank Yasuo Deguchi for organising the workshop. Many thanks also go to Teramae J!in at K!daiji in Kyoto for our long conversation on this very issue which we had a couple of days after the workshop but also for all conversations we have had over the last few years. His agreement with my reading of D!gen certainly boosted my confidence. "!For an introduction to paraconsistent logics, see, for example, Priest (2002) and Priest and Tanaka (2009).! #!See also Garfield and Priest (2003).!

It seems, however, that it is one thing for us as contemporary commentators to think through the implications of Buddhist discourses and another for the Buddhist thinkers themselves to endorse these same conclusions as what they originally meant. Do or would (historical or canonical) Buddhist thinkers, themselves, accept contradictions as true? Answers to this question depend on what sort(s) of negation is (are) used in historical or canonical texts. In order to see apparently contradictory statements as affirmations of true contradictions by the Buddhist thinkers themselves we must assume that not (or its variance) is used as a contradiction forming operator. But does this assumption hold any water? Answering this question is a complex issue. We need to examine each apparent contradictory statement to see whether or not not is being used as a contradiction forming operator. In this paper, I shall focus on D!gen to whom DGP refer in making their case. Instead of analysing each occurrence of not in D!gens writings, I will examine the conception of negation(s) that is (are) salient in his writings. D!gen doesnt present any semantic reflection on his own writings. The account of negation(s) that I present is (are) a result of rational reconstruction. Nonetheless, I will weave together the conceptual machineries that D!gen provides and present a coherent account of negation(s) that, I contend, would be acceptable to him based on what he wrote. I do not deny that there maybe some accidental contradictions contained in his writings. Yet, I shall argue that it is not clear that D!gen would systematically think of his sentences as contradictory.3

2.

Sh!ji

Before analysing the negation(s) that D!gen invokes, I shall consider the contradictions that DGP claim to have been affirmed by D!gen. There is one passage in particular that requires a careful analysis. I shall demonstrate, however, that the apparently contradictory nature of the other passages considered by DGP is the result of the translation of D!gens thought on which DGP rely for their analysis. In support for their claim that D!gen takes some contradictions seriously, DGP quote two passages from D!gens Sh!b!genz!, one from the Sh!ji fascicle and another from the Genj!k!an fascicle. Those passages appear in different contexts in D!gens writings and thus need to be examined separately. In this section, I consider the passage from Sh!ji where DGP claim that D!gen asserts, and is committed to the truth of, a contradiction. Just understand that birth-and-death is itself nirvana. There is nothing such as birth and death to be avoided. There is nothing such as nirvana to be sought. Only when you realise this are you free from birth and death. (Quoted in Deguchi, Garfield and Priest (2008) p. 396) The last sentence implies that there is birth and death. But that contradicts the second sentence, which denies their existence. Thus, so DGP claim, D!gen asserts seriously that there is and is not birth and death. If this were what D!gen asserts, he would indeed have been committed to a contradiction. Given that the notion of birth-and-death is integral to D!gens philosophy, one might think that this contradiction is important for D!gen. However, the translation DGP use !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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reverses my earlier view on the issue. For my previous view, see Tanaka (2000).

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to establish their position on D!gen is problematic. As I understand the passage, it can be translated as follows: Only when you regard [literally, have in mind] birth-and-death just as nirv"#a and you do not avoid it as birth-and-death and you dont seek it as nirv"#a, are you free from birth-and-death. (Supp Vol, p. 77) 4 Translated in this way, D!gen doesnt affirm nor deny the existence of birth and death. Instead, he tells us what should be in our mind () in order to be free from birth and death. D!gen tells us not to avoid birth-and-death, where this is understood in our mind as nirv"#a, as well as not to seek it as nirv"#a. Rather than affirming and denying the existence of birth and death, he instructs us not to be in a certain cognitive (or intentional) state. There is no mention of the existence nor non-existence of birth-and-death. Thus, he doesnt assert any contradiction in this passage. Now, translating D!gens writings is notoriously difficult. His writings are sometimes ambiguous because of the poetic nature of his writings and sometimes difficult to understand because of his frequent engagement in wordplay. However, this passage is relatively clear in its sentence construction and its meaning. While one may challenge my translation, I think that, given the relative clearness of this passage, the burden is on DGP to refute it and show that D!gen does, in fact, assert a contradiction in this passage.

3.

Genj!k!an

As another example of contradictions that D!gen allegedly affirm, DGP quote a passage from Genj!k!an. This passage appears in a specific context (as we will see below) and thus must be treated separately from the passage from Sh!ji. DGP quote the two opening sentences of Genj!k!an: As all things are Buddha-dharma, there is delusion and realisation, practice, birth and death, and there are buddhas and sentient beings. As the myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realisation, no Buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death.5 This passage does lead us to think that D!gen is committed to a contradiction. Unfortunately, this translation is problematic for DGPs purpose. In this translation, the first clause of each sentence is given as a reason for the second clause. This leads us to think that D!gen is saying: Because A, B. Because C, B. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
version of D!gens texts (and a contemporary Japanese translation by Ishii Ky!ji) I consulted is D!gen (1996-98). Page numbers refer to this edition.! &!DGP cite Sh!ji as the source. That must be a typographical error.
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If this were the case, he would be asserting B (on the basis of A) and B (on the basis of C) and, hence, asserting a contradiction. At least two comments can be made about this passage. One concerns translation and the other concerns the structure of D!gens philosophy as expressed in his writings. Regarding translation, I believe that what D!gen actually says is something quite different from what DGP take him to say. D!gen doesnt offer the first clause of each sentence as a reason for the second clause. Instead, what he says is: When (jisetsu ) A, B. When (jisetsu ) C, B. The notion of time is important to D!gen, not only in the context of this passage but also more generally, as he explains in the Uji fascicle. If we simply think of these sentences as conditional statements, however, it seems that he is saying (if we permit ourselves to use modern logical notation to express the thought): A $ B and C $ B. These two conditional statements are not contradictory. If this is right, then D!gen doesnt assert the contradiction that there is delusion and realisation, practice, birth and death and there is no delusion, no realisation, no Buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death. One might think that if he asserts A $ B and C $ B, then, given that they entail A and C on a standard account of conditionals, D!gen might be thought as asserting A (all things are not Buddha-dharma) and C (the myriad things are not without an abiding self). But A and C seem to contradict his overall philosophy as well as Buddhist philosophy, in general, since D!gen arguably accepts that all things are Buddha-dharma and that the myriad things are without an abiding self. One might use the apparent fact of D!gens holding contradictory commitments as evidence for the fact that he is committed to contradictions.6 In order to examine these alleged contradictory commitments we must analyse the negation(s) that D!gen invokes in his writing. I will first consider C (the myriad things are not without an abiding self) followed by A (all things are not Buddha-dharma) as how to understand the negation involved in the first has an impact on how to understand the negation involved in the second. According to the translation DGP rely on, D!gen asserts that the myriad things are without an abiding self. If this were indeed what D!gen says, then, following the reasoning above, he would be accepting C (the myriad things are not without an abiding self) which contradicts the claim that the myriad things are without an abiding self which D!gen arguably accepts. Again, however, this translation is problematic. I believe that what he actually says is When I (ware ) am present together with myriad things, 7 (Vol. 1, p. 16)

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! '!Thanks go to Graham Priest for making this suggestion.

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sounds a bit awkward; however, this is a, more or less, a literal translation.

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So he is not concerned with the lack of abiding self of myriad things. What he is concerned with is the presence of I, my self, who is experiencing the myriad things. D!gen is instructing us not to let the self be part of our experience of myriad things. The absence of my self in experiencing myriad things doesnt contract anything that D!gen does accept. In fact, that is consistent with the no-self doctrine that D!gen and most Buddhists accept. Focusing on the problematic nature of the presence of the self helps us understand the rest of the passage from Genj!k!an that DGP quote. According to DGP, given the standard analysis of conditional statements, he must be asserting that all things are not Buddha-dharma while his overall position seems to be that all things are Buddha-dharma. In order to address this issue, we need to consider the context in which this passage appears. In particular, it is crucial to recognise that the two sentences that DGP quote constitute the first two sentences of a triplet. Instead of two truths, D!gen often invoke three stages of awakening as the structure of his writings. We need to understand the nature of negation or negations as part of this structure. In the Zazengi fascicle, D!gen presents a set of instructions for doing zazen (sitting meditation). Towards the end of Zazengi, he invokes three stages of awakening: Sit diligently and then thinking (shiry! ) becomes not-thinking (fushiry! ). What is thinking that becomes not-thinking, this is non-thinking (hishiry! ). This is the art of zazen.8 (Vol. 1, p. 283) The idea of there being three kinds of thinking runs throughout D!gens writings, although he does not thematise them explicitly. In order to understand what he considers the problematic nature of thinking and not-thinking and how it is overcome by non-thinking, we need to weave together some remarks that are scattered around in his writings. In the end of the Sansuiky! fascicle, D!gen writes: An ancient Buddha said, Mountains mountain, water waters. These words dont say that mountains () are mountains, they say that mountains () mountain. This being the case, we should study () mountains (). When we investigate ( ) mountains in this way, mountains mountain.9 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
)! I

note that the passage I translate here is, in fact, ambiguous. I have followed the contemporary Japanese translation by Ishii. The passage that I have translated as thinking becomes not-thinking (and thinking that becomes not-thinking) could be translated as thinking of not-thinking (See Bielefdt (1990)), thinking about not-thinking (See Kasulis (1981)) or thinking not-thinking (See Tanahashi (1985)). In these translations, not-thinking is the object of thinking. According to Brook Ziporyn, not-thinking is clearly the object of thinking in the Chinese phrase that D!gen makes use of. However, it is not clear to me that thats what D!gen is suggesting. I acknowledge that I am taking a stance on translating this passage in this way. *!This passage is very difficult to translate. D!gen seems to be playing with some Japanese words. In fact, it is not clear that a literal translation which expresses the intended meaning is possible. I acknowledge that I have a translation which is heavily interpreted based on my understanding of the passage.!

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 (Vol. 2, p. 329) The difference between saying that mountains mountain and that mountains are mountains is that the second expresses more than the first. In coming to be in contact with a mountain, we may grasp it and identify it as mountain and attribute a property of being a mountain to it. In such a case, it is because of our cognitive act that mountains are mountains in our thought. In saying Mountains mountain, however, we dont express our cognitive act. It is an expression about mountains and not about our cognitive identification. D!gen seems to be urging that we throw away the thinking that makes us the basis of the truth of the utterance. In hearing Mountains mountain, we may think that it is an expression of our grasping of a thing, identifying it as mountain and attributing a property to it. But that is a mistake. Why this is a mistake is a question that can be answered only after a thorough investigation of the entire corpus of D!gen. I think the crux of the problem, however, is to do with the subject-object duality that is often emphasised in Yog"c"ra tradition. That is, in thinking, there is a distance between the grasper, the self, and the grasped, e.g., a mountain, in ones thought. The problem in there being such distance is that the grasper, the self, is part of the content of thinking, since, otherwise, the mountain couldnt be grasped as separate from us. It is the self represented and thus experienced in thinking that D!gen criticises, for example, in Genj!k!an and Uji. The point seems to be that our ordinary thinking (shiry!) is problematic. The expression that mountains are mountains is problematic because it is in subject-predicate form. D!gen thinks that such an expression expresses the fact that we identify a mountain as m and put it together with the predicate M in order to come to think that Mm. Similarly, thinking that mountains are not mountains, Mm (or not-thinking (fushiry!) that mountains are mountains), is problematic, since it is an expression of our act of identifying something as m but not attributing M to it. So it is not really that mountains are mountains or that mountains are not mountains. Rather mountains mountain. In order to make it more precise, consider a first-order model for the language M = !D, I" where D is a set of things such as mountains and water and I is a function that assigns a name or a predicate to a thing (a member of D) or a property (a sequence of some members of D) respectively. (I assume, for the sake of simplicity, that our language consists only of one-place predicates.) For each d ! D which is identified as a mountain, I(d) = m where m is the name mountain.10 Then, each such d is subsumed under the predicate is mountain M: I(M) = {d1, d2, } where d1, d2, ! D. Thinking that mountains are mountains can then be represented as

M # Mm.
This says, essentially, that it is true that mountains are mountains. Thinking that mountains are not mountains, or not-thinking that mountains are mountains, can be represented as

M # Mm.
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is an unorthodox way of defining the function I. Nonetheless, I believe that this unorthodox definition captures D!gens thought.

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If we assume that M # Mm iff M $ Mm, then one contradicts the other. So Mountains are mountains and Mountains are not mountains can be shown to be contradictory. In other words, the negation invoked in the second stage of awakening, fu ( ), is a contradiction forming operator. However, this negation is not carried through to the third stage of awakening. Instead of fu, it is hi () that is operative in the third stage. This is a different kind of negation. In order to see this, observe that the language of first-order logic used above to explicate D!gens thought on thinking (shiry!) and not-thinking (fushiry!) is designed to express highly complex cognitive activities. D!gen appears to think that, in the third stage of awakening, some (and not all) of these cognitions should be cast off (totsuraku ). For D!gen, these predicative expressions, whether positive or negative, are problematic. They express our act of identifying a thing as m and putting or not putting it together with the predicate M in order to come to think that Mm or that Mm. In non-thinking (hishiry!), however, the self (ware ) (not a person (hito ) with which D!gen isnt really concerned) is to be cast off. 11 The self is not represented in non-thinking and so does not get into the act. Non-thinking is not an act that grasps a thing and identifies it as mountain, for example, and attributes a property to it. The self who performs such an act is not represented in non-thinking. Analysed in this way, the negation involved in non-thinking, hi (), negates the presence of the self (and hence the distance between the grasper and the grasped) in ones thought. The self is not represented in non-thinking whose point is the casting off of the mechanism that is operative in thinking and not-thinking. Hi () is a negation of this kind.12 This means that, in the third stage of awakening, it is not just the self but also the whole mechanism that necessitates the presence of the self that need to be cast off. Given that it is this mechanism that assigns truth values to expressions such as Mountains are mountains and Mountains are not mountains, D!gens point is that we shouldnt be caught in the activity of evaluating the truth values of such expressions. It is any attempt to engage in such activity that D!gen urges us to cast off.

4.

Mountains Are Just Mountains

In order to be more specific about my disagreement with DGP, let us consider the alternative analysis of the three stages of awakening that Garfield and Priest attribute to D!gen (and N"g"rjuna) in their article Mountains Are Just Mountains. The notion of emptiness occurs, they claim, in the stages of awakening as depicted in, for example, the ox-herding pictures. In the first seven pictures, the process of the taming of an ox is depicted, representing the taming of the mind. The eighth picture is blank, representing the realisation of emptiness. The last two pictures go back to the beginning, but a beginning informed now with the realisation of emptiness (pp. 74-76). Garfield and Priest liken the ox-herding pictures to the aphorism that occurs frequently in Chan/Zen literature:

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Zazenshin, Paragraph 3 (Vol. 1, p. 287). a discussion of D!gen focusing on the importance of forgetting the self, see Davis (2011).!

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Before I studied Zen, mountains were mountains, and water was water. After studying Zen for some time, mountains were no longer mountains, and water was no longer water. But now, after studying Zen longer, mountains are just mountains, and water is just water. (Quoted in Garfield and Priest (2009) p. 71.) According to Garfield and Priest, there are three stages in the process of understanding mountains and water. The first stage is the understanding that mountains are mountains and water is water. The second stage is the understanding that mountains are not mountains and water is not water. But, the last stage is, again, the understanding that mountains are just mountains and water is just water. Hence, the understanding that mountains are mountains is likened to the first seven ox-herding pictures; the understanding that mountains are not mountains is likened to the eighth, blank picture, representing the realisation of emptiness; and the understanding that mountains are (again) just mountains is likened to the last two pictures representing the beginning with the realisation of emptiness. Garfield and Priest present a formal semantics for the negation involved in the three stages of awakening. They take the negation to be expressed by (mu).13 They assimilate mu to emptiness as understood by N"g"rjuna (and his M"dhyamika followers). They take cues from the catu"ko#i deployed by N"g"juna, for example, in the M$lamadhyamakak%rik% (MMK) and consider four truth values: t (true only), f (false only), b (both true and false) and n (either true nor false). They represent the catu"ko#i by the following lattice: t b f n

An evaluation of the language, %, is a function mapping each sentence of the language to one of these values. So, for each sentence, A, %(A) = t, %(A) = f, %(A) = b or %(A) = f. %(A ! B) (conjunction) is the meet of %(A) and %(B) (the greatest value less than or equal to both) and %(A " B) (disjunction) is the join of %(A) and %(B) (the least value greater than or equal to both). %(A) (negation) is the flop on the b-n axis. It can be characterised by the following truth table:

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is, in fact, a difficulty of talking about mu in the context of Japanese Buddhism. The word mu () has an ordinary usage in Japanese and doesnt necessarily mean emptiness in the way that M"dhyamikas would understand it. When Takuan S!h! talked about mushin (), he gave the term a connotation that is different from the M"dhyamikas. It is, perhaps, for this reason that Japanese Buddhists and Kyoto School philosophers generally use k$ (, literally meaning sky) to mean emptiness.!
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%(A) t f b n

%(A) f t b n

Garfield and Priest use the above lattice to explain the semantics underlying the ox-herding pictures. In the first stage, each sentence is assigned one of the four values. At this stage, there are four possible truth values that can be assigned to mountains are mountains. For the second stage, in addition to four values, Garfield and Priest introduce the fifth value: e. This is the value that they use to represent mu. The fifth value, e, is an isolated point in the sense that it is incompatible with the other four values. It is also a sink. So if %(A) = e, then %(A ! B) = %(A " B) = %(A) = e. In order to deal with the value e, Garfield and Priest introduce a function that operates on the values on the lattice. It takes any value to e (i.e., is a mu-operator). So, for any value, V, (V) = e. The sentence Mountains are mountains now takes the value e, indicating that it is no longer the case that mountains are mountains. This second stage can be represented by the following lattice:14

t b " $ e ' f & n

The third stage splits into two. In the first instance, by taking into account the fact that operates on every value including e, (e) = e. This can be represented as: t "

%
b $ e ' f & n

However, since e itself is nullified (or mu-ified), there is nothing inside to be mapped onto. So the arrows representing fades out, giving rise to the following lattice:

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"%!Note

that, as Garfield and Priest acknowledge, this is, strictly speaking, no longer a lattice since it is a partial ordering.!

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t b e f n

Now, the original values return as they were in the beginning. They are no longer taken into e by the mu-function, , even though the value e remains on the lattice. This represents the returning to the beginning with the realisation of mu. Garfield and Priest apply their analysis of the three stages of awakening to D!gen (and N"g"rjuna) in the following way: So, all things have a single nature, and that is emptiness, and that is no nature at all. And that is why each thing can manifest exactly the conventional nature that it has. All of this might seem at first glance to be hopelessly incoherent. We grant its inconsistency: N"g"rjuna and D!gen are indeed committed to the identity of distinct truths and to the assertion that the essence of all things is their essencelessness. They are also committed to the claim that the objects of awakening and ignorance are both distinct and identical. The fifth value, e, with its paradoxical status, is a way of representing this. N"g"rjuna and D!gen agree that ultimate reality escapes the standard four possibilities, and so acknowledge a fifth; and the fifth is self-dismantling. It is both crucial and idle. (p. 81)15 The semantic analysis of mu provided by Garfield and Priest is ingenious. It is also valuable for our understanding of the three stages of awakening that are often salient in East Asian Buddhism. However, Garfield and Priest have derived semantic resources from N"g"rjuna (and Madhyamaka in general) and presented a M"dhyamika study of the notion of mu as found in the Chan tradition. From a M"dhyamika perspective, the Chan/Zen tradition may appear to follow N"g"rjuna: the Chan/Zen notion of mu may appear as the M"dhyamika notion of emptiness.16 Yet, it is not clear that the Chan/Zen tradition itself understands the negation(s) involved in the three stages of awakening in terms of the M"dhyamika notion of emptiness. Whether or not the Chan/Zen tradition has historically adopted Madhyamaka, it seems that the understanding of negation involved in the three stages of awakening in terms of mu doesnt properly capture what D!gen says in his texts. We need to negate something as part of our training; yet what is negated is not the essence or inherent existence of mountains and water. As I have shown above, D!gen instructs us to negate the presence of the self. His concern is not with the emptiness of mountains and water. What he is concerned with is the problematic nature of the presence of the self which may be represented in ones experience of mountains and water. Even though D!gen presumably would have had some influence of !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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is, in fact, problematic to attribute the claim that all things have a single nature (italic added) to D!gen given that he would reject such an expression. See for example, Loy (1999). "'!See Garfield and Priest (2009) p. 81, where they claim that the Chan/Zen tradition is merely following N"g"rjuna closely. Earlier in their article, however, they make a much more nuanced claim: it is illuminating to read N"g"rjuna through the lens of Zen insight. (p. 74) !

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Madhyamaka thought on certain issues, in this respect, it is Yog"c"ra thought that is predominant in D!gens writings and not Madhyamaka thought.

5.

Was D!gen a Dialetheist?

Does D!gen assert contradictions systematically as DGP seem to suggest? The answer seems to be no. According to the analysis of Garfield and Priest, contradictions are represented in the last stage in terms of the presence of the truth value b (both true and false). Reclaiming this truth value in the third stage of awakening allows D!gen to affirm in the end that mountains are mountains and that mountains are not mountains. It is certainly the case that, for D!gen, mountains and water escape the standard possibilities: simple truth and falsity of mountains are mountains. But to think of this escape in terms of assignment of another value is to be caught in thinking again. The contradictory truth value b must also be cast off in the third stage of awakening for D!gen. For D!gen, it is also problematic to say that the essence of all things is their essencelessness. This is not because he would find the very notion of essence problematic (though he does that too) but because he would find the attribution of essencelesness to all things to be problematic. Assigning the fifth value is just as problematic as assigning standard truth values even if the fifth value is said to be self-dismantling. Hi () may negate the presence of oneself but it also casts off the entire mechanism of assigning truth values. That is, the difference between thinking (shiry!) and not-thinking (fushiry!) on the one hand and non-thinking (hishiry!) on the other cannot be understood in terms of the absence and the presence of mu; it has to be understood in terms of the presence of the mechanism of assigning truth values and the absence of such a mechanism. D!gen would find the very presence of a lattice representing the semantics of the last stage of awakening to be problematic. It is not just that there is a difficulty of translating D!gens writings as containing contradictions; it would seem that, properly understood, there is no mechanism that he appeals to which would allow him to affirm contradictions. For D!gen, any such mechanism needs to be dismantled. It is undeniable that there is an air of contradiction in Buddhist texts. Of all Buddhist traditions, the Chan/Zen tradition would, perhaps, most evidently confirm the existence of contradictions. I dont argue that no Chan/Zen Buddhist would accept contradictions. Given that their writings are filled with paradoxical statements, they might as well be committed to contradictions. The story contained in the ox-herding pictures may well imply a contradiction. Yet, I have demonstrated that D!gen would not be so committed. For D!gen, contradictions are to be cast off together with the very mechanism which allows such contradictions to arise. D!gen was not a dialetheist.

References
Bielefeldt, Carl (1990) D!gens Manual of Zen Meditation, Berkeley: University of California Press. Davis, Bret W. The Philosophy of Zen Master D!gen Egoless Perspectivism, The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy, J. Garfield and W. Edelglass (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 348-360.

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Deguchi, Yasuo, Jay L. Garfield and Graham Priest (2008) The Way of the Dialetheist: Contradictions in Buddhism, Philosophy East & West, Vol. 58, pp. 395-402. D!gen (1996-98) Sh!b!genz! (4 volumes and supplementary volume), Ishii Ky!ji (trans.), Tokyo: Kawade Shob! Shinsha. Garfield, Jay L. and Graham Priest (2009) Mountains Are Just Mountains, Pointing at the Moon: Buddhism, Logic, Analytic Philosophy, M. DAmato, J. Garfield and T. Tillemans (eds.), Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kasulis, T.P. (1981) Zen Action/Zen Person, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Loy, David R. (1999) Language Against Its Own Mystifications: Deconstruction in N"g"rjuna and D!gen, Philosophy East & West, Vol. 49, pp. 245-260. Priest, Graham (2002) Paraconsistent Logic, Handbook of Philosophical Logic (Second Edition), D. Gabbay and F. Huenthner (eds.), Dordrecht :Kluwer Academic Publishers, Vol. 6, pp. 287-393. Priest, Graham and Koji Tanaka (2009) Paraconsistent Logic, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2009 Edition), E. Zalta (ed.), Stanford University. Tanahashi, Kazuaki (trans.) (1985) Moon in a Dewdrop, New York: North Point Press. Tanaka, Koji (2000) A Labyrinth of Trees and the Sound of Silence, PhD Thesis, University of Queensland.

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