The Two Monisms: A Parfitian Critique of the Traditional Interpretation of the Platform Sutra

Abstract

The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch is a pivotal text in Chinese Buddhist philosophy, traditionally interpreted as establishing the orthodoxy of the Southern "Sudden" school of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, while relegating the Northern "Gradual" school to a ‘provisional teaching’. This paper argues that such a hierarchy rests on two philosophical errors: a Methodological Monism (the claim that propositional insight alone constitutes enlightenment) and a Metaphysical Monism (the reification of an undifferentiated unity which negates the parts of a psychological stream). By applying Parfit’s reductionist metaphysics of the self, I argue that the monistic soteriological stance of the traditional interpretation fails to account for the causal reality of the "Series-Person." Furthermore, I argue that the Northern school’s ‘Gradual’ cultivation approach is not a lower teaching, but necessary for converting the propositional truth of No-Self into the dispositional skill of enlightened living. Thus, the path to enlightenment requires a methodological pluralism: the sudden destruction of the "Further Fact" followed by a gradual rehabilitation of the causal stream.