History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought 9819956854, 9789819956852

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Tianxiang Ma

History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought

History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought

Tianxiang Ma

History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought

Tianxiang Ma Department of Philosophy Wuhan University Wuhan, China Translated by John Alexander Jorgensen Melbourne, Australia

ISBN 978-981-99-5685-2 ISBN 978-981-99-5686-9 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9 Jointly published with Higher Education Press Limited Company The print edition is not for sale in China (Mainland). Customers from China (Mainland) please order the print book from: Higher Education Press Limited Company. ISBN of the Co-Publisher’s edition: 978-730-70-5298-7 Supported by Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences (本书获中华社会科学基金资助) (Granted no. 15WZX006) Translation from the Chinese Simplified language edition: “中国禅宗思想发展史” by Tianxiang Ma, © Wuhan University Press 2007. Published by Wuhan University Press. All Rights Reserved. © Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publishers, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publishers nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publishers remain neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Foreword I

For some years, every time there is mention of Chan, there are sure to be stories told imbued with the hues of supernatural tales such as the Buddha picking up a flower and K¯as´yapa smiling slightly; of Bodhidharma crossing the Yangtze on a single rush, facing a wall, and returning west with only one sandal; and of Huike cutting off his arm; and of the conferral of the robe onto Huineng at night, and the transmission from mind to mind, and so on. Although these have eminent literary, artistic and aesthetic values, from the perspective of history these are totally fictional and did not happen. History values verification, it does not ask for extraordinary deeds. If one does not use the base of historical reality for the development of thought, then although that thought can delight the mind and gratify the sight, and make people accept it as perfection, it is still only myth and literature, and is not the history of the development of thought. In reality, the origins of Chan thought are not the marvels related by Chan monks of later periods. Everyone is clear on that. Possibly there is no great objection to saying that philosophical Daoism influenced the formation of Chan thought. Yet, if one says that Chan thought is doing as one pleases freely and easily, and that Chinese intellectuals familiar with philosophical Daoism borrowed the name of Buddhism and reordered Daoist thought, in particular that of Zhuangzi, in order to give it a popularized exposition, or speaking directly, that Chan thought is a popularized Daoist philosophy, then, in general, the overwhelming majority of people could not agree. However, that was what happened. The introduction of Buddhism brought fresh air to the stagnant scholarly atmosphere engendered by the study of the classics in the Han dynasty; the translation of the Buddhist scriptures functioned to make waves, especially in the rampant Xuanxue (Dark Learning) thought; and following this philosophical Daoism flourished again in the scholarly world. By the Wei and Jin dynasties, a Daoistic tendency (xuanfeng) exploded. Famous monks and famous scholars used philosophical Daoism to exalt each other, which originally began due to the acceptance of Indian yoga and dhy¯ana, and the Pali jh¯ana, and they borrowed the idea of Zhuangzi and applied this to the word “chan,” in the end bestowing a rich content on it. They took “ding” (to be firm, v

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steady) to be an evident quality of the method of Indian dhy¯ana, and at one stroke it filled the sphere of Chinese Chan learning1 with philosophical Daoist principles and a speculative disposition. Without the slightest doubt, the emergence of the word “chan” was not as a transcription of a concept in Indian Buddhism, nor as a translation of a meaning. Rather, using the pretext of “chan” being present in the translations, they consciously appropriated the words of Zhuangzi, giving the word “chan” the implication of a mystery hard to know, a thought that is profound and of deep understanding, and it continued on as a creative translation. It was exactly this creative and expanded translation, and Daoist thought that enabled an uninterrupted and increasing familiarity. First, An Shigao, then, Kang Senghui, and later Daoan and other eminent monks through the ages gave the character “chan” a philosophical Daoist style of interpretation. Then Daosheng, Sengzhao, Huijiao and other monk thinkers formed another new thought, giving it a basis in Daoist philosophical theory, which molded a number of primal modes of thinking such as “this very intrinsic reality is formless, this very reality is precisely function, calm emptiness and empty numinosity, the Buddha-nature intrinsically exists, suddenly enlightened to become buddha” and so forth. Later, through Niutou Farong and others, there was a further advance in theory, promoting a transformation in respect of the aspect of the mind-nature. This was also done by Huineng, which in the end led to the formation of the Platform Sutra as a representative and systematic Chan thought. Its foundation was the standpoint of Zhuangzi and Laozi’s naturalism, with seeing nature and becoming Buddha as its core tenet. It took the external transcendence of reverting to nature and changed it into an inward pursuit that rather sought back in the mind, and used the speculative form of the fish trap, the hoof prints, fish and rabbit, in which one forgets the object once one has gotten the meaning (Tr. all references to stories in Zhuangzi), and the negative thinking which appears as distinctly apart from characteristics, is apart from thought, and is apart from words, to really stress the divergent paths of “chan” and “ding.” This is not the Indian entry into sam¯adhi (ding) or method of entry into calm. It was vastly different from Bodhidharma’s “facing the wall and contemplating the mind,” and of course, it is not also the same as the learning of the La˙nka School2 masters after Bodhidharma. Chan is: Purely Sinified, and also is a popularized philosophical Daoist philosophy. Its beginnings were not with Bodhidharma, and its transmission also was not via the single lineage of “direct pointing and transmission from mind to mind” of Bodhidharma to Hongren. The formation of Chan thought is premised on creative translation, an incessant and extensive adoption of the thought of Zhuangzi and Laozi, and by forming a foundation on Daosheng and Sengzhao, it culminated in the systematized and popularized insight of a philosopher in the Platform Sutra.

1

Tr. Chanxue, the study of Chan or the learning of Chan. In parallel with Fojiao (the teachings of Buddhism, Buddhism in general) and Foxue, the scholarship and learning of Buddhism. 2 Tr. a group or lineage of masters of the sixth and seventh centuries, vaguely affiliated with Bodhidharma and his heirs, who studied and venerated the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra.

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Understanding it like this, the transmission lineage through six generations was really a distortion or was a product of later Chan monks establishing themselves by riding on the coattails of more brilliant people and magnifying their own myth. To clarify this point, it is useful to understand the universal significance of Chan thought and its contributions to society and culture, particularly to understand the reasons why Chan thought for the most part was easily and constantly in rapport with traditional culture. In the more than a millennium since the idea of Chan entered China, when translations began, through to the formation of Chan thought onwards, the “chan” of the Indian chan (meditation) method was never completely abandoned, and it co-existed with the “chan” of Chan thought, and at times they were confused. One may also say that the reason why these two “chan” were not divided was because these two different types of “chan” had not been seen as different from the time when Bodhidharma founded the school until the theory of the transmission of the six generations of transmission of the mind was established. Therefore, it is necessary to explain here that what is being discussed is only the “chan” of Chan thought. This is so that there can be no further confusion between the two. However, what then is Chan? How did this popularized philosophy of Daoism form and come into being? This book will work, through a method of the combination of history and logic, to provide an objective and complete exposition of these questions. From an objective perspective, no single theory is sufficient to deal with the living environment. Buddhists also view human life as a process of suffering. However, they recognize that the cause of suffering lies not in the external environment, but in the production out of the ignorance of human beings themselves of the dualistic opposing concepts of others and self, right and wrong, high and low, victory and defeat, many and one, good and evil, life and death, and attachments to self and attachments to dharmas, or the grasping for self and dharmas. If one grasps the above-described concepts, then one’s desires will be insatiable, one will desire to excel over others, unite with one’s own faction and fight those who differ, and in minor cases, there are the squabbles of the wife and the mother-in-law, and in major cases, the corpses of the people killed will fill the plains, and so on. Therefore, Buddhists stress that the pursuit of the best living environments for humanity is not through the exertion directed externally, but by the making of effort directed internally, lying solely in the work related to the activities of thinking. In reality, the so-called “chan” of the typically Sinified Chan School refers to the following: A kind of mood (sphere of mental activity). A kind of sphere of mental activity that uses effort to shake off the bonds of thought, transcend oppositions, contain oppositions, and to roam freely.

Since it is a kind of mental sphere, it is also difficult to describe. Therefore, Chan followers often regard language and letters as being the basis for obstacles to the Way and stress that the meaning lies beyond words, that mind is transmitted to mind, and that it is creative thinking that does its utmost to include heaven and earth. Therefore, the idea of Chan is even more vague and unfathomable.

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However, people still need to use language and letters to communicate, and to give and receive the experience and mental results of Chan. Nevertheless, this is a kind of dependence on intuition and not on logic, a reliance on the sphere of enlightenment that is illogical and complacent, and so it is not difficult to understand that there are individual differences according to the results experienced and that there are different expressions in language of high and low, hard and easy, detailed and brief according to the person speaking. “Chan” is a transcription of the Sanskrit word dhy¯ana and originally had no connection with its Chinese meaning. Later its content was changed and incessantly enriched, and it gradually came to be a linguistic sign and philosophic category bearing a specific meaning. This idea is not seen in the earliest text translated into Chinese, the S¯utra in Forty-two Chapters (Sishier zhang jing), but the so-called “practice of the Way” (xingdao) of each chapter in this text seems to be an old translation of “chan” (dhy¯ana). In late Han, An Shigao transmitted the method of meditation (chan) to north China, and the Anban shouyi jing that he translated frequently talks of the work of “chan,” and this was honored by students of Buddhism from the Han to the Wei period. And so anban, the counting of breathes, resembled the inhaling and exhaling of the magicians ( fangshi) (Xiang Xu of the end of the Han, always sat on a bench, which over a long time became the posture of kneeling on one’s feet). Also, the method of “protecting the one” of the Taiping jing also could be a method of meditation (chan). One can see that the meaning of “chan” in this period really had the sense of a method of divine thought and entering fixity (ding/sam¯adhi), and was not the insightful contemplation that manifests prajñ¯a (wisdom). The legend of Bodhidharma’s facing a wall is properly the manifestation of the efficacy of “ding” (sam¯adhi). The earliest systematic explanation of “chan” is at the end of the section on “the practice of meditation” (xichan) in fascicle 11 of Huijiao’s Lives of Eminent Monks (Gaoseng zhuan), which says, Chan is a word for marveling (miao) at (comprehending thoroughly) the myriad things. Therefore, it can be that there is no dharma that is not conditioned [by it], and no cognitive object that is not examined. Thus, the conditioning of dharmas and the examination of the cognitive objects are only clarified by calm. It is like a deep pond in which the waves have stopped, and one can clearly see down to the fish and stones. Once the water of the mind is clarified, then the illumination that is formed hides nothing.

Huijiao’s understanding of “chan” is “a marveling at the myriad things,” which means because one has been able to clearly see and understand all sense-objects, one can then produce all things, and the reason it can do this is simply that the mind is “calm.” In other words, the “chan” that Huijiao spoke of is a pathway to cognize intrinsic reality, and also is the cause of the production of the myriad things, and is the intrinsic reality itself that is examined via all the sentient-objects. Also, the pathways of intrinsic reality and the comprehension of intrinsic reality are equally realized via “calm.” He also took the example of the relationship of a deep pond and the stones and fish in it to explain that if the mind is clarified then it could form an illumination of everything, and at the same time as he explained the functions of

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the intrinsic reality, he also stressed the important form of the “chan” of “ding”. In summary, Huijiao’s “chan” is, Calm and radiant, and being radiant marvels at (comprehend) the myriad things.

In fact, Buddhism originally was a negation of intrinsic reality and its idea of emptiness is not the non-existence taught by the philosophical Daoists. It was an expression of the production of dharmas by causation and a negation of an essence (zixing). Huijiao’s basic idea of “there is no dharma that is not conditioned” is evidently an idea of “chan” that had already been influenced by philosophical Daoism as well as by the speculative thought about the fundamental and derivative (benmo) of Dark Learning thinkers. Nevertheless, his emphasis on “calm” was nothing more than in the sense of the sam¯adhi (ding) that penetrates insight of the meditators of his day. We can also see in this paragraph that this relates to a footnote to chapter twenty-five of Laozi (“Calm and formless, it stands alone and does not change; it courses around untiringly and can be the mother of all under heaven”). It is easy to see that, at that time, and before, Chan’s learning had been influenced by philosophical Daoist thought as seen through the lens of Dark Learning. India took sam¯adhi to be a chan that centered on the mind, but this chan had already begun to tend towards meaning a mental sphere of insight, which had transformed it into a Chinese chan. Although “the Buddha-patriarch picked up a flower and K¯as´yapa smiled subtly” is a preposterous story, it was a forced interpretation of history that was transformed by Chan into a basis for the lineage transmission of later Chan followers; it reflects that Chan was a transformation from a method into a mental sphere, that a concrete idea had evolved into a philosophical category, and the meditative counting had developed into an ideological and logical relationship with Chinese Chan learning. Niutou Farong (594–657), a student of Daoxin (580–651), used “Emptiness is the basis of the Way” to stress that “no-mind accords with the Way,” which was clearly a thorough rebuilding of “chan” even further via the theories of Laozi and Zhuangzi. What stands out in this are “no-mind” and “no-form/characteristic,” which are Way-like categories that transcend the mind and things. The differences between Huineng (trad.d. 613) and Shenxiu (d. 706) lie exactly in how they took a Niutou Chan that had taken on features from Dark Learning and introduced it into their own systems of thought, and then formed specific Chan philosophical categories and a Chinese Chan learning system that was not the same as, and was independent of, the Indian method of chan/meditation. In the Platform Sutra Huineng says, Not giving rise to thoughts in respect of any sense-objects is sitting; seeing the intrinsic nature and not being confused is Chan. Externally being free from characteristics is Chan. Internally not being confused is ding/ sam¯adhi.

Here he is saying that the three ideas of sitting, chan, and ding have not only newly defined the traditional “sitting in chan/meditation” and “chanding/sam¯adhi,” but have also further divided chan and ding into different ideas. In this way, the separation of chan and ding established firmly a creative category of “chan.”

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Foreword I Externally not giving rise to thoughts about any sense-objects is sitting. Internally not being confused is called ding. Being externally free from characteristics and internally seeing the nature is Chan.

Sitting is not the usual understanding of sitting; it is not giving rise to thoughts, and not giving rise to thoughts is not being confused. Therefore, sitting is also ding. Sitting and ding certainly are related to chan, but chan is no-thought about thought; it not only needs ding, but it also needs transcendence of ding, and through that one sees the intrinsic nature of no-characteristics. In the separation of chan and ding, chan is not again the fruitless sitting of the magicians’ inhaling and exhaling or Bodhidharma’s facing a wall, but is rather the obtaining of the intrinsic mind, a transcendent sphere of mind that is free of all characteristics. Simply speaking, the core ideas and objectives of Chinese Chan thought that was created by Huineng and revealed by the Platform Sutra were “free from characteristics,” “no-thought,” and “seeing the nature.” These evidently form a lineage of transmission via philosophical Daoist naturalism, the idea of “equalizing things,” Sengzhao and Daosheng’s intrinsic reality having no characteristics, this reality is function, not existing and not non-existing, the Buddha-nature intrinsically exists, through to Niutou’s “No-mind accords with the Way” and so on. “Free from characteristics” is “to be free from characteristics in characteristics, freedom from emptiness in emptiness,” “leaving and entering while free of two sides,” which requires that all dualistic antitheses be negated in thinking. The thirtysix antitheses mentioned in the Platform Sutra are intended to explain seeing the nature, all antitheses of internal and external such as external sense-objects, language, and characteristics of dharmas being the results of “attachment to emptiness” and “attachments to characteristics.” The truth of Chan lies in the negation of these sorts of antitheses, the transcendence of these antitheses, and not being attached to the sphere of the absolute transcendence of both sides. Its essential quality is negation! “No thought” is “not thinking in thought,” “not abiding thought by thought,” and “continuity thought by thought.” Looking at this, there are a number of contradictions, which really is Huineng’s form of thinking. “No-thought” is definitely not “removing all forms of thought,” but is the recognition that one’s intrinsic nature is pure of itself, and therefore there are thoughts that accord with the conditions, “that do not dwell on any dharmas,” and are “not defiled by any sense-object,” which is not to dwell on any characteristic. This is why he says “continuity thought by thought.” This really is “returning to obtain one’s intrinsic mind,” in which the intrinsic mind transcends all antitheses. The format of this in respect of one’s own mind is the affirmation of the intrinsic nature, which is called “according to conditions.” However, in content, it is still in the form of the denial of the thinking of dualistic antithesis. The negation that transcends antithesis and the affirmation that accords with the intrinsic mind are the two pillars that mutually support the two bases that constructed the Chan School system of thought. For the later development of Chan thought, whether the mainstream of course, or the divergent paths, whether the adherence to what one was taught, or the newly created theories, in all cases they developed following the way of thinking of “free from characteristics” and “no-thought.”

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The basis for the mainstream of Chan thought was still the idea of “leaving and entering while free of the two sides,” that used the intrinsic mind to understand the natural world. In society and human life, it fully brought into play the transcendent spirit of the critical significance that it possessed, and it strove to use this inclusive phenomenal world and limitless cognition; and simultaneously on the foundation of “one’s own nature is intrinsic awakening,” it used the speculative form of “in accord with conditions” to merge Confucianism and Daoism, and to advance the unity of the three teachings and the union of Chan and reality, which was a trend of engagement with the world. Even though this spirit of negation developed into abusing the patriarchs and reviling the buddhas, even to the extremes of having no country and no humanity, its spirit of engagement with the world resulted in the “own mind is the Pure Land” that married Chan to “the Pure Land of the human world,” but Chan did not change the basis of its form of untrammeled thought and its transcendent disposition, and also it had a positive function in respect of the development of human thought, philosophical reform and improvement, and social improvement and everyday ethics. Yet that is not to deny these extraordinary forms of thinking, “free from characteristics” and ”no-thought,” could very easily lead to differing interpretations of their meaning and the use of them by opportunists. From Huineng onwards, especially among the disciples of the five houses and seven lineages of Chan,3 Chan overemphasized “being free from characteristics in characteristics” as a form of thinking that transcends antitheses and the ineffability of the sphere that one needs to arrive at, and it overemphasized the functions of marvelous enlightenment, and consequently, the non-reliance on letters and the technique (gongfu) of great effort in which the Way eliminates language, whereupon there was a proliferation of recorded sayings, and gongan (cases of precedents) appeared one after another, and there was talk of the raising of eyebrows and blinking of eyes, and the barbed opportunities of the staff-blow and the shout. This circuitous talk of Chan became even more circuitous and remote, and the more circuitous it became the more people could not understand it. In summary, the originally easy and plain Chan thought was made to diverge into the side road of mysticism. The “no-thought” and “according with conditions” that had originally been erected on the transcendental spirit had been converted into the absolute affirmation of “all that is manifest is perfection,” taking away the negation and criticism of reality and surreptitiously making it into unconditional compliance and eulogy. Through this, the governments that treated the peasants as straw dogs used Chan to make fools of the common people, and the opportunistic later, inferior followers of Chan also boasted of skillful means or deliberately used promotional gimmicks to seek undeserved publicity. This thus changed Chan, with later Chan people undoubtedly creating misunderstandings.

3

The five houses are those of the Weiyang, Linji, Caodong, Yunmen, and Fayan lineages. These, plus the split of the Linji lineage into the Yangqi and Huanglong branches, are called the seven lineages.

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In fact, a pupil of Huineng in a later generation, Zongmi (780–841) had already begun to complicate Chan, and through this, he pushed Chan onto the path of mystification. In his Chanyuan zhuquanji duxu (General Preface to the Collection Describing the Sources of Chan) he explained Chan as follows: [Chan] is a joint term for ding/sam¯adhi and insight…. The root source is the principle of Chan, and matching it by forgetting thought is Chan practice…. At present, there are those who simply view the true nature to be Chan, which is to not discern its teachings of principle and practice…. However, there is also no separate reality of Chan apart from the true nature…. This true nature is not only the source of the Chan gateway, it is also the source of all dharmas. Therefore, it is called dharma-nature. It is also the source of the delusions and enlightenment of sentient beings. Therefore, it is called the store consciousness and tath¯agatagarbha (store of the Thus Come One). It is also the source of the myriad virtues of the buddhas. Therefore, it is called Buddha-nature. It is also the source of the myriad practices of the bodhisattvas. Therefore, it is called the mind-ground.

Zongmi traced the understanding of Chan in terms of principle (theory) and practice back to Bodhidharma. Therefore, he also shows a tendency to confuse the “chan” of chanding (sam¯adhi and dhy¯ana) with the “chan” of Chan School thought and he also made Bodhidharma the founding ancestor of the school. He thought that only seeing the true nature to be Chan was an incomplete understanding. Yet he also stressed that the true nature is not only the source of the Chan gateway, but that it was also the source of the delusion and enlightenment of sentient beings and the source of the myriad merits of the buddhas and the myriad practices of the bodhisattvas. He also said that since true nature is the natural intrinsic nature (dharma-nature), it is also the intrinsic reality of human nature (the store consciousness), and the intrinsic reality of the virtues of the Way (Buddha-nature) and the intrinsic reality of behavior (the mind-ground). What he called “true nature” is evidently what Huineng called the pristine self-nature. He also made a detailed explanation of its position in terms of ontology, epistemology, methodology, and morality, but it was still fundamentally at one with what he was taught. Yet he complicated Chan and definitely functioned to promote the convergence of the lineages, but he also pioneered the mystification of Chan. He also said, “The myriad practices do not go beyond the six p¯aramit¯as,4 the Chan (meditation) gateway is simply one of the six, being the fifth. How can one view the true nature to be a practice of chan?” Here he also divides chan/ meditation into five sorts; non-Buddhist, common person, Lesser Vehicle, Greater Vehicle (Mahayana), and Tath¯agata pristine chan, thinking that the first four are the four chan/dhy¯ana and eight ding/sam¯adhi, including among them the three s´amatha (zhi) and three vipa´syan¯a (guan)5 of the Tiantai School, which even though they are perfectly marvelous, are equally not the Supreme Vehicle. Only the Tath¯agata pristine chan transmitted by Bodhidharma is the Supreme Vehicle chan, which is also “transmitted from a person to one person,” and “a thousand lamplights with a thousand illuminations” (Tr. there is enlightenment at every transmission). Zongmi’s 4

Tr. The six perfections convey one to the other shore of nirvana. The six are donation, moral conduct, patience or forbearance, energetic practice or perseverance, dhy¯ana or meditation, and prajñ¯a or wisdom. 5 Tr. zhi literally is to stop, to calm the mind and guan is to contemplate and analyze.

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explanation thus was a grandmotherly kindness, yet it had lost the features of simple clarity and direct search for the source that had marked Chan when it was founded, and it opened up a bad precedent for later people when speaking of Chan. It really was a misdirection relating to Chan thought. Following this there were the Chan teachings of the three mysteries and three essentials, the four selections, four guests and hosts, four illuminations and functions, three shouts, three laments, three smiles, seven items that accompany the body, ten wisdoms that are identical with the truth, thirteen sentences, and eighteen questions of Linji Chan; the five ranks of lord and subject, the five ranks of biased and proper, the five ranks of merit and honor, the five ranks of king and prince, the three contaminating defilements, the three regulatory essentials, the three kinds of rush flower, and the three gates of release of the Caodong Lineage; the arising and cause of the circle diagram and the diagram of the ninety-six kinds of circle of the Weiyang Lineage; the three sentences and eight essentials of the Yunmen Lineage; and the four opportunities and six forms of Fayan… as well as severing the finger and cutting the cat in half, the comparison with a donkey and metaphor of a dog, and also there were the rich poetry and obscene language, and the lust and feminine charm that was used for huatou (point of the story) investigation. It can truly be called playing new tricks again and again. The best of them were still able to arrive at the transcendental sphere, where nothing is present and nothing is not present, through these forms of winning by surprise, cut-logic thinking, and illogicality. The lesser people only remained in the empty and profound forms of the barbed gongan (case), fighting over the strange and competing in skill, playing at the unfathomable, deceiving themselves and others as their duties, and some spoke of playing in sam¯adhi, creating tricks that deluded themselves and others. In another respect, oversimplifying, all one had to do was say “The everyday mind is the Way,” “Every day is a good day,” “The yellow [thing] is paper, the black is letters,” “Ever so green the emerald bamboo, it is entirely the Dharma-body; ever so lush the yellow flowers, there is nothing that is not prajñ¯a,” through to “carting water and toting firewood,” “eat and sleep,” which is “putting it down is right.” Even though this thought in which “all that is manifested is perfection” developed out of the Chan ideas of “no-thought” and “accord with conditions,” its original intention was to point out the sublimation in the process of cognition and the erection of the return to the original face of “[that which is] manifested [is] perfection” on the transcendental foundation of the negation of negation. The “thirty years of looking on mountains as mountains and seeing water as water” is talking of two sorts of “manifested perfection” that are not the same constitutionally. Nevertheless, later Chan monks took this one extraordinary process of rationalized speculation and transformed it into a pure sensation that tallied with actuality as the absolute, and absolutely affirmed the actuality of “all that is manifested is perfection.” In this way, Chan, which possessed a strong critical consciousness, was changed into a hypocrite who just accorded with the world by displaying no independence. From the Song dynasty onwards, Chan had already become a tendency like ducks taking to water, and the meaning of Chan was further profusely elaborated in different theories. A dried turd is OK, eating, shitting, sleeping, carrying water and splitting

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firewood is all right; the ordinary as the secret is OK, being concise and perspicacious, and striking and shouting together are all right. Even though their aim was to cut out the usual logical thinking, fully exhibit the latent enlightened nature, and by the forms of negation reach the transcendence of reality, freedom, and the realm of doing everything while doing nothing, still this kind of method of not falling into verbal explanation and teaching wisdom, for rational people, and especially for modern people, is more like looking at flowers in a fog, something unfathomable. In this connection, hymns on old cases, old cases raised for comment, alternative answers, and evaluations arose in a race to speak of Chan in a round-about way, and kanhua Chan6 monopolized refinement in literature, while mozhao (silent illumination) Chan7 inclined towards the Indian method of meditation (chanding) and was a return to Bodhidharma’s methods of wall-contemplation (biguan) and calming the mind. The idea of “all that is manifested is perfection” not only made Chan monks ordinarily deal with kings and lords, taking the transcendent method of Chan and changing it into dependent imitation, at worst becoming a worldly method of “putting in order the techniques of present people” (words of Fozhao),8 it also made some eminent monks of great virtue drift into dissolution and disregard. The former added to the ambiguity and confusion about Chan, and the latter caused Chan to lose its essential qualities. In even more extreme cases, later inferior adherents of the Chan School went so far as to choose the wrong path (to buy a full jewelry box but return the contents), confusing the world simply by not understanding its marvelous forms; some being like blind men touching an elephant,9 not being able to analyze Chan anything like it is. No wonder that there are people who say that Chan wins fame by cheating the world, is arrant nonsense. The intense consciousness of participation in modern Buddhism has gradually rationalized and secularized the idea of Chan. Suzuki Daisetsu, titled the “Channist of the world,” inventively and directly said that this ineffable Chan is one’s own perfect mind, and that the limitless mind is the radius of a circle, which is the absolute affirmation of transcending dualistic antithesis. The modern monk-scholar Yinshun thought that Chan is ineffable, but yet is spoken of, and that it is a union of skillful means and the ultimate, a unification of form and content. With respect to saying that “Chan is an aestheticization of life,” this effectively gives an aesthetic value to it by seeing it from a broad perspective. As Chan Studies went to the West, English speakers translated chan as “meditation,” which is unlike the direct borrowing of and introduction of the word “Buddha” into the English system of vocabulary. The reason for this was that chan was not “dhy¯ana,” but was a product of China. And so “meditation” only reflected the form 6

Tr. a technique of intensely examining the point of a story or keywords in a gongan. This was created by Dahui Zonggao (1089-1163). 7 Tr. a technique of silent sitting and calming the mind used by the Caodong lineage that was attacked by Zonggao. 8 Tr. Fozhao Deguang (1121-1203), a disciple of Zonggao. 9 Tr. from famous metaphor in Buddhism of blind men feeling parts of an elephant; those touching its ears saying it like a large fan, those touching its legs thinking of pillars, and so on.

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of “ding,” and the meaning of chan that was deep and profound made them also transliterate chan as “Zen” or “Ch’an,” which then helped in understanding the essence of the “chan” of Chan School thought. The interpretation with the most modern meaning is generally that of Hu Shi. He said that Chan is “inexpressible,” “values self-attainment,” and he went further by taking a Chan School story to explain that Chan is the “acute insight” of “to conceive of a means in no-means.” This theory has a lot of logic, but it has strong and weak points and can be criticized and praised, and even though it was a wake-up call, it was still inevitably an arbitrary hypothesis. What then is Chan? The Chan School has a story that says that when the youth Sudhana was ordered by Mañju´sri to go out of the town to gather medicinal herbs, he realized that all of the environment is medicinal, so he plucked a stalk of wild grass and brought it back. Mañju´sri said, “As this grass can give life to people, it can also kill people.” The antinomian phenomenon embodied in this story is exactly a premise of the theories held by Chan masters about Chan. The existence of Nature in particular is an advancement of civilization, and in all cases, it shows that there is a duality, so that if one grasps one side one will lose its intrinsic truth; it is not creating harm to others, but is bringing suffering upon oneself. The sermon in the Platform Sutra on the thirty-six antitheses in which “leaving and entering are apart from the two sides” is an exposition of the Buddhist theories of “in principle transcending the tetralemma,10 and in essence cutting off a hundred negations,” and is further a transcendence of the duality of things. Of course, this has benefited from the dialectical thought of correct and reverse, misfortune and fortune, gain and loss, completion and destruction, and the greatest harm is inaction, all is enacted by inaction, ideas that were received from Laozi. Therefore, only when one transcends the forms of dualistic thinking will one be able to uproot individual suffering and social harm. First of all, from a fundamental viewpoint, Chan is a philosophical category that transcends dualistic antitheses, and is a form of thinking that does not fall into classes or is attached to the idea of two sides; it is a transcendent realm apart from characteristics and language. The thinking of ordinary people does not shake off the frameworks of the dualistic antitheses of thought such as existence and non-existence, right and wrong, true and false, non-eternal and eternal, one and many, small and large, life and death and so on. However, the world, especially human knowledge and the world of feelings, is varied and is not something that can be completely described via dualistic forms of thinking. For this reason, dualistic forms of thinking may be limited to occasional views or then to distortions of the original features of things. The unknowability of existence and the antimony brought about by Kant’s a priori reason speaks of exactly this idea. According to Buddhism, the suffering felt by people is sourced in human ignorance, and ignorance is precisely another name for dualistic thinking. Therefore, 10

Tr. the tetralemma or catus.kot.i are four propositions: is A, is not-A, is A and not-A, and is not-A and is not not-A; or exists, does not-exist, both exists and does not-exist, and does not-exist and does not not-exist.

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the sermons from the “eight negations” of early Buddhism, the Middle-Way view of India’s N¯ag¯arjuna, right through to the “entering and leaving apart from the two sides” of Chan are aimed exactly at this phenomenon. They recognize that the essence of things can also be called the truth, which does not reside in any one side of dualism, and can only be sought in transcendent, non-dualistic situations. The fundamental spirit of “principle transcends the tetralemma, carry out the elimination of the hundred negations” is what Chan says is “to be apart from characteristics while in characteristics, be apart from thoughts (nian) while in thoughts.” This is not existence, not non-existence, neither existence nor non-existence, and neither nonexistence nor not non-existence, which fully expresses Chan’s spirit of negation and transcendence. This seems not to be close to forms of reasoned thinking and clearly violates the rules of non-contradiction and excluded the middle of formal logic. Nevertheless, the universal laws of factual proof and formal logic have limitations and it cannot be agreed that this is a universal truth, but Chan thought to the contrary holds that this way of looking has a rational value. In the 1920s, the Polish scholar Jan Lukasiewicz issued a trivalent propositional calculus (of true, false, indeterminate) which he used to replace the classical bivalent logic, thinking that besides the dualistic propositions of true and false, there should also be a logical system of possible propositions. Later, he also obtained evidence from quantum mechanics and also developed a multi-valent logic that asserted that various possibilities beyond the propositions of true and false also exist and that the possibility may be true or may be false, or may not be true or may not be false. The laws of the excluded middle and of non-contradiction in this formal logic are not proven. Intuitionistic logic in particular was opposed to any form of formal logic, and not only recognized that the formula of the law of the excluded middle, AV-A (A or not A), is mistaken, but also recognized that it only applied to “limited sets.” For example, if A is not R(n), but not A is R(n), and n is a natural number, this is spoken of with respect to non-recursive predicates, and the law of the excluded middle is clearly not existent. This, and the forms of thinking of “being apart from characteristics” and “transcending the tetralemma” of Chan, are very similar. However, “being apart from characteristics” of Chan is a denial of both poles, while mathematical logic has its foundation in the affirmation of both poles, and that affirmation also has yet another form of existence. Even though this is so, it is also an existence beyond the dualistic antithesis, which presents fresh proof of the realm of transcendence sought by Chan. Suzuki Daisetsu again and again explained that Chan is a “negation of antitheses,” but Hu Shi considered this to be a kind of madness, yet he also had to acknowledge that “Madness is Method” and was not without meaning (Hu Shi, Zhongguo Chanxue zhi fazhan [Development of Zen Buddhism in China]). And yet, what Chan was seeking was a realm of transcendent emptiness, and what Suzuki was talking of was an affirmation of transcending dualism. In fact, the empty realm is a negation of negation, is a limitless transcendence; the affirmation is an affirmation by negation and is a limited transcendence, its force necessarily showing an attachment to an expression on another level. Thus, one can also see the gap between Suzuki’s Zen and Chinese Chan. Also, Professor Tang Yongtong expressed it well when he cited Spinoza’s words, “to call anything finite is a denial in part.” Chan’s essence lies in

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negation. It not only negates existence, but it also negates non-existence, and it also negates both existence and non-existence, and neither existence nor non-existence, and through this it advances to a complete spiritualization, or as some scholars say, a transcendent realm of aesthetics. Chan not only requires being apart from characteristics, for to be apart from characteristics needs to “be apart from words,” because language and text have a close relationship with logic and reason, and likewise possess limitations. That is to say, the function of language and text is limited, and therefore there is the saying, “If you speak about a thing you are not on target.” Therefore, Chan especially indicates that the Way is in marvelous enlightenment and is unrelated to the text. However, although language and text are not the required path to the Chan realm of personal realization, they are still the chief method of instruction, and can even be said to be the only means. Although the functions of language and text are limited, there is no other way than to abandon them. Therefore, Chan also needed to use text in order to express himself. Speaking precisely, it should be, “Do not fall into verbal description,” which is not to be attached to the biased nature of language and letters. Therefore, they say, do not base oneself on letters. Not that there is no need for letters, but one needs to shrug off the limitations of language and text, ceaselessly expanding its functions, making it precisely express the transcendence of opposition while not falling into the forms of thinking that there are two sides, thereby making students and audiences follow the same mental pathway to reach non-residing, no thought, and no characteristics, which is not to be attached to mental states of the ideas of reality (essence) and characteristics (tixiang). Naturally, although the realm of Chan lies in transcendence, still it is definitely not unrelated to real life. Buddhists have a saying that when matters of the world are realized it is just as if they are not realized, and that the dharmas beyond the world are indefinite (non-existent) dharmas, and if matters are just like this, how can people bear it? In the Honglou meng (Dream of the Red Chamber), Lady Xiaoxiang and Baoyu could not love each other, were unable to hate each other, were unwilling to abandon each other, as feelings of human beings, in particular, cannot be analyzed by the method of dualistic antitheses. One can see that existence itself also is certainly not a world of dualistic antitheses, but people also are very biased towards the antithetical forms of thinking, and so they fall into the warfare between profit and loss, gain and loss, glory and disgrace, success and failure, love and hate through to birth and death, and they cannot extricate themselves from it, confusing their own actuality with the unending pursuit of an external falsity. Thus, some lose their self, some forfeit their self. Chan’s negation and transcendence not only teach people to cross beyond antithesis and recognize their original self, but even more importantly guide people to recognize the relativity and ambiguity of things, and so do not again give excessive importance to external things. It is only through this that one can see through profit and loss, see through glory and disgrace, see through life and death, and then one can achieve the forgetting of the self, non-thought, and courageously advance in practice. “The everyday mind is the Way” and “all that is manifested is perfect” are premised on the transcendence of dualistic antithesis. Unlike “being apart from characteristics,”

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they stress self-negation in the process of cognition. “After thirty years I see that mountains are mountains, and see waters as waters,” highlights that this is really the transcendence of the cognition of phenomena and the transcendence of the self, and is not a return to the beginning of the elimination of the holy and the abandoning of wisdom. Lastly, it also needs to be explained that Chan cannot be duplicated. It should be thought of as being the same as Heine’s mechanical man crying out loud to his creator, “give me a soul,” which not only explains the failings of the spirit of contemporary civilization, but also manifests the non-reproducibility of the spirit. Chan creates a world of thought, and that exists in every person’s mind, and also one must depend on one’s own realization, and this is what Chan says is the meaning of “to return to the original mind.” In short, Chan’s confrontation with the external realms and lack of attachment to external realms is due to the inception of the mind while not protecting one’s own mind. It calms the mind without deliberate action (wuwei) and allows it to be self-so, and allowing it to be self-so does not grasp any part, and not grasping any part it is sure to transcend antithesis, and transcending antithesis it includes the unlimited. That is: calm the mind without [deliberate] action the extent of the mind is vast

according with conditions it is allowed to operate

it roams in freedom

it does not grasp oppositions

transcends dualistic antithesis

Chan is this form of thinking and the mental sphere achieved by that sort of thinking. Speaking in terms of thinking, it is experiential; speaking in terms of the mental sphere, it is philosophical and aesthetic. People want fish, and also want bear’s paw (Tr. from Mencius); and modern humans who also want life and want meaning, in particular need such a mental state and mental attitude to face all the tensions and antitheses created by industrial civilization, electronic civilization, and the information civilization. Seeing through profit and loss, being composed and contented, with a little opposition, with much tolerance, removing some greed and adding some sincerity, will have some benefits for, and no harm for, our existence and space. This is due to one’s own mind being a pure land that builds a human pure land. One should also explain that after Chan thought was formed that it very rapidly emerged into a period of extravagant prosperity, and the school developed with the force of a blazing conflagration, yet it also nurtured the seeds of its own decline. In

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general, the Platform Sutra brought the development of Chan thought to its zenith, and later generations of Chan monks merely renewed it with variations in methods of practice. In addition, the ineffability of Chan itself made them place conditions on the non-reliance on letters, with the aspect of the Way eliminating language stirring up tricks, resulting in the inability to obtain the fish and forget the trap or get the rabbit and forget the snare, and be attached to the trap or the snare and lose the fish or the rabbit (Tr. images from Zhuangzi). The thinking of negation was diverted into mystical public cases (gongan), being apart from characteristics, and no thought (wunian), and further reverted to Indian-style dhy¯ana (ding) and the silent deadwood, dumb-sheep sitting. The crystallization of the thinking of negation such as seeing nature and becoming Buddha, according to the conditions and allowing it to operate, completely fell into the naturalism of “all that is manifested is perfection,” and a negation of all turned into an affirmation of all, and the transcendental spirit and critical consciousness of Chan was almost entirely wiped away in certain areas, at worst changing into a tool for making fools of stupid men and women and into a slave of feudalism. In addition, the Chan school expanded immensely, spreading rapidly, and the caliber of Chan monks went from bad to worse, many among them creating their own illiteracy, not knowing how to read, so how could they discuss the teachings of the sutras? Chan’s decline in essence had already formed a tendency that it could not reverse. And yet the formation of a kind of thought requires the assurance given by a set cultural form, but the development and contributions of thought do not lie in the stability of an original form, but lie in its structuring of the entire social culture and in the remolding of the human spirit. Therefore, despite the degeneration and sparsity of the school membership, Chan thought still relies on the strong power of infiltration, and in different stages of history it transformed each level of society and realized its own values. In particular, from Song times onwards, Chan thought continuously influenced the course of the development of Chinese thought and rich traditional thinking, remolded the philosophy of human life of the Chinese people and molded the aesthetic concepts of the intellectual class. The development of Chan thought gradually went from the Chan monasteries of the mountains and forests and entered society and the world of scholarly thought. Besides this, as previous people have described in detail, the early period of the development of Chan thought, including the lineage divisions of the Five Dynasties period, there is no need for me to repeat this, but only give an outline of the main points, introducing the results of the research of previous authors, and to make clear the differing viewpoints, placing the emphasis of this book on the period after the formation of Chan thought, in particular on the changes and developments from the Song to the present. The second and third chapters of the first section are entirely produced with the aim of simplifying complex matters described in the research results of my predecessors such as Hu Shi, Tang Yongtong, Hou Wailu, Ren Jiyu, and Yinshun. The day I finished writing, I especially felt a deep esteem for my predecessors and I extend a sincere thanks to them. Any errors in understanding are all my responsibility.

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Based on the afore-mentioned knowledge, I will provide an examination of the development of Chan thought that is naturally not limited to the monasteries of the Chan school, but also places it into the greater cultural context of society. Therefore, in the Song period, I will not only describe the changes in Chan school thought and the sudden rise of kanhua, silent illumination, hymns on ancient cases, evaluations of cases, and lettered Chan, but also examine in detail the infiltration of it into orthodox neo-Confucianism (Lixue), politics, and poetics. In the transformations of the Yuan and Ming periods, the important development was the influence of Chan thought on Quanzhen Daoism, the rampant spread of chanting-the-name-of-the-Buddha Chan (nianfo Chan) and the rapid emergence of the delight in Chan and the escapist Chan of the gentry and (Wang) Yangming-Chan. In the Qing period, the everyday intercourse with princes and nobles, the impulsive struggle between sectarian factions, and also the intervention of Emperor Yongzheng in monastic disputes, caused Chan thought to be completely brought into secular society. Its participatory spirit made it advance even further into social life, enabling it to renew itself, and its concepts of the school rules grew, causing the Chan school to decline even further. But the criticism of the Chan school and Chan thought by evidential scholars of the Qianlong and Jiaqing eras (1736–1820), and the transformations in and utilization of Chan thought by Chan monks and the New Text classicists and modern scholars also caused Chan thought to displace Buddhist studies, and it faced society and the future with a new look. The development of modern Chan thought in the main is via the research by the scholarly world into its history and the evidence of its vicissitudes, which means that these researches have propelled Chan thought into modern transformations. The historical evidence is that Chan thought, an important component of Chinese traditional culture, has produced an extremely great influence in the scholarly field of Chinese thought and in the social life of different periods, and it has left a mark in cultural psychology, especially having a social effect that cannot be ignored. Even though Chan thought has produced and is producing major changes since the 20th century, how much can we say that its participatory spirit and its tendency to be made purely scholarly has completely shaken off its ancient simplicity of oil lamps and Buddhist books? Yet its form of thinking by negation, its concentration on carefully examining nature, society and human life; its intense self-consciousness and its sublimation of intrinsic reality (benti), as well as its realm of transcendence of unification with intrinsic reality, and its aesthetic concepts and lifestyle-attitude of according with conditions and allowing things to operate, not only existing in China, but also in the Asia-Pacific Region, has caused the West and Japan that have developed a high degree of contemporary civilization to also pay increasing attention to it. Consequently, it has had a tendency to spread. The contemporary meaning of Chan thought and its development within contemporary society goes without saying. And yet in a pluralistic coexistence, and in the framework of a comprehensively developed contemporary culture, for Chan thought to seek a second efflorescence, it will not be easily obtainable. The speed of its development and the extent of its influence will not only hinge on scholarship and society’s compulsive transformation of it, but simultaneously, to a certain degree, also be influenced by the standing and

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conduct of its monks. If monks are unable to renew themselves and take responsibility for the historical mission of propagating Chan thought, themselves originally not focusing on the Chan thought that is proper to the Chan School, then necessarily in the continuous infiltration beyond itself, they will appear to have abandoned Daoist philosophy and to only venerate the Chan School, making people keep Chan thought fresh in mind but banish the Chan School from their minds. Beijing, China

Xueqin Li

Foreword II

Although the Chan School has a special place in Buddhist history and has exercised considerable influence on the development of Chinese thought and culture, there have not been many publications studying Chan from the perspective of domestic (Chinese) scholarship for some years. People have been delighted by the very recent publication of a number of books on this topic hot off the press, and each of these has advantages. This book, “History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought” by Prof. Ma Tianxiang of Hunan Normal University has originality and a special clarity in its viewpoint and structure, making it a major contribution to research on Chan history. Professor Ma Tianxiang studied in the 1980s at Xibei (North Western) University and took his doctorate there under the guidance of the university president, Zhang Qizhi. Zhang Qizhi and I assisted Hou Wailu forty years ago in the compilation of the General History of Chinese Thought. I wrote the part on Chan’s history in volume four of that book. This was the first opportunity for me to be involved with research on the Chan School. The work of that time made me realize that one cannot ignore the Chan School in the investigation of the history and culture of China from the middle ages onward and that the principles of Chan are profound and its literature vast, and that it cannot be understood by those of shallow appreciation. Unfortunately, due to changes in my duties after that time I had very little contact with the Chan School again. Now, having read Professor Ma Tianxiang’s new book, I can see that he has made some pioneering achievements, and I cannot help bringing up a number of memories and trains of thought. Before writing this book, Prof. Ma Tianxiang had already devoted a number of years to research on Buddhist culture. His doctoral dissertation, “Late Qing Buddhism and Modern Social Thought” was published in 1992 by Taiwan’s Wenjin Publishing Company. It was in two volumes and close to 600 pages, and laid a deep foundation for his research on these topics. “The History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought” is of a considerable size, and as I see it, there are a number of special points worth noting: First of all, as with Late Qing Buddhism and Modern Social Thought, The History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought examines the rise and fall of the Chan xxiii

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School by putting it in the context of social history. The approach to intellectual history from the standpoint of social history was already promoted by the General History of Chinese Thought, but these two books are not the same in purely using the methodology of analysis via the domain of ideas. In this book, Professor Ma Tianxiang not only views the popularity of the Chan School as a form of social thought, he also enters deeply into a description of how that thought also came to influence society. As he says, it broadly penetrated and infiltrated every stratum of society and all cultural spheres. This book particularly emphasizes the Chinese sources of Chan thought, and this point is extraordinarily significant. Although it is said that the origins of the Chan School began with Bodhidharma, the main themes of Chan thought as it was transmitted from Sui and Tang times onward, in reality, were produced in China and were molded in China. Previous people discussed how the Chan School influenced neo-Confucianism (Lixue) and Wang Yangming Confucianism (Xinxue), and they used this to accuse it of being a “label” of the Confucians. In reality, it is possible that the Chan School and neo-Confucianism came out of a common ideological source, and that the Chan School definitely influenced neo-Confucianism and Wang Yangming Confucianism, and they in turn also influenced the Chan School. The relationship between Chan and neo-Confucianism is a major question of the intellectual and cultural history of the Song and Yuan and later periods. When past scholars investigated the history of Chan, they placed special emphasis on the foundation period from Bodhidharma through to Huineng and Shenhui. Due to the emergence of fairly numerous valuable materials among the scrolls discovered at Dunhuang that relate to this period, the eyes of scholars have all been drawn to them, while in fact the advances and glories of Chan lie in the later periods. The independent focus of The History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought lies in the fact that the main sections are devoted to a discussion of the Chan thought of the Song, Yuan, Ming, Qing and following periods, which is a creative interpretation. This book demonstrates that intellectually the Chan School had its source in philosophical (Lao-Zhuang) Daoism, which should attract scholarly attention. In the history of Chinese thought there certainly were people who tried to create a unity of the three teachings from out of the situation of the coexistence of the three teachings of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. From the Song and Ming onward, there were not a few features shared by Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. This definitely was a product of the mutual influence and merging of the three teachings and was possibly due to the three teachings having shared intellectual sources. The source relationships between philosophical Daoism and Chan are greatly instructive for this research question.

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In Late Qing Buddhism and Modern Social Thought, Prof. Ma Tianxiang discusses the spread and influence of Chan in modern and contemporary China. The influence of Chan is extraordinarily far-reaching. In recent years it has spread from beyond Asia into the West, where there are also people who transmit Chan and who also compile records of the transmission of the lamplight. The word Chan (Zen) has already found its way into dictionaries of everyday English usage. Because of this, to be a contemporary person, one needs to understand Chan and to know the course of the development of Chan thought and its sources. All those interested in this should read this book. Beijing, China October 1996

Xueqin Li

Contents

Part I

The Formation and Branching of Chan Thought

1

An Investigation of Chan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3

2

The Foundations and Formation of Chan Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

17

3

The Branching of Chan Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

37

Part II

The Synthesis and Infiltration of Song-period Chan Thought

4

An Outline of the Song-Dynasty Chan School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5

The Tolerant Cooperation and Interpenetration of Chan Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 1: Yanshou’s Convergence of Chan, Pure Land, and Doctrine . . . . . Part 2: Qisong’s Chan Thought that Unified Confucianism and Buddhism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

49 57 61 72

6

From Shanzhao to Chongxian’s Songgu Baize (Hundred Old Cases with Hymns) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 Part 1: Shanzhao and the Beginnings of Hymns on Old Cases (songgu) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89 Part 2: Chongxian’s Hymns on Old Cases and Their Successes and Failures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 Part 3: Keqin’s Biyan lu (Blue Cliff Record) and the Deluge of Lettered Chan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Part 4: Huihong and Lettered Chan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

7

The Branch Roads in the Development of Chan Thought: Kanhua Chan and Silent Illumination Chan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 1: Zonggao and Kanhua Chan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 2: Zhengjue and Silent Illumination Chan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 3: Criticisms of Kanhua Chan and Silent Illumination Chan . . . . . .

125 127 136 142

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8

9

Contents

Researches on Chan History and Chan Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 1: Zanning’s Chan History and Chan Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 2: Puji and the Wudeng Huiyuan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Appendix: The Disputes over the Change of Affiliation to the Legitimate Lineage of Yunmen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Attractive Force of Chan Learning and Its Outwards Diffusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 1: The Chan Learning of the Gentry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 2: The Chan Learning of the Lixue Neo-Confucians A . . . . . . . . . . . Part 3: The Chan Learning of the Lixue Scholars B . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 4: Poetry, Poetics, and Chan Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

149 150 163 168 177 179 189 200 205

Part III The Changes in Yuan and Ming Chan Thought 10 The Vicissitudes of Chan Learning in the Early Yuan . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 1: Wansong Xingxiu and the Evaluations (Pingchang) of the Yuan Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 2: The Chan of the Early Yuan Gentry and the Sanjiao pingxin lun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 3: The Dispute Between the Chan-Influenced Quanzhen and the Chan Way A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 4: The Dispute Between the Chan-Influenced Quanzhen and the Chan Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

229

11 The Origins and Spread of Nianfo Chan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 1: Mingben’s This Mind is Buddha Nianfo Chan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 2: Weize’s Outward Chan and Inward Pure Land of the Imperishable Soul . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 3: Fanqi and His Pure Land Faith . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 4: Zhuhong and His Theory of Rebirth in the Pure Land by the Joint Practice of Chan and Pure Land . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

265 268

12 The Lettered Chan that Blends the Three Religions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 1: Zhenke’s Lettered Prajñ¯a that Blends the Various Schools . . . . . Part 2: Deqing and His Mengyu Quanji (Complete Works of Dream Travels) that Survey the Three Essentials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 3: Yuanlai’s Canchan Jingyu (Warning Words on Investigating Chan) and Yuanxian’s Yiyan (Dream Words) that is the Chan that Saves Confucianism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

309 311

229 236 247 258

278 283 291

331

351

13 Wang Yangming Chan and the Escapist Chan of the Gentry . . . . . . . 369 Part 1: The Chan Learning of the Early-Ming Grand Confucians and the Vanguard of Yangming-Chan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372 Part 2: The Great Vehicle of Confucianism: Yangming-Chan . . . . . . . . . 384

Contents

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Part 3: The Descendants of Yangming-Chan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 396 Part 4: The Delight in Chan of the End of the Ming Confucians and the Gentry Escape into Chan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408 14 Lineage Disputes and the Books on Chan Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 1: Fazang’s Wuzong yuan (On the Origins of the Five Lineages) and Yuanwu’s Three Treatises of Biwang (Exorcising Falsity) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 2: Luo Qinshun’s Du Foshu bian (Judgements on Reading Buddhist Books) and Qu Ruji’s Zhiyue lu (Records of Pointing at the Moon) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 3: Monk Biographies and Lamplight Records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Part IV The Turn Toward the Human World of Qing-dynasty Chan Thought 15 The Early Qing Monk Disputes and Yongzheng’s Protection of the Dharma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 1: The Linji Chan Masters of the Early Qing (A) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 2: The Linji Chan Masters of the Early Qing (B) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 3: The Caodong Chan Masters of the Early Qing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 4: Yongzheng’s Chan Learning and His Jianmo bianyi lu . . . . . . . . 16 The Qing Confucians’ Sublation and Reformation of Chan Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 1: Early Qing Practical Learning and Dai Zhen’s Criticism of Chan Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 2: The Early Qing Confucians and Peng Shaosheng’s Praise of Chan Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Part 3: The New Text Classicists’ Use of Their Own Ideas to Promote or Dismiss Chan Learning and Their Use of Chan Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

463 466 482 489 499 517 519 534

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17 The Participatory Spirit of the Chan Monks of the End of the Qing and the Early Republican Period . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577 Part 1: The Four Great Venerable Elders of the End of the Qing, and Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 577 Part 2: Jing’an’s Chan Poetry on Protecting the Teachings and Loving the Country and Taixu’s Buddhist Reform Movement . . . . . 587 Part V

A Comparison of Research into the Chan School in Recent Times: A Contemporary Explanation of Chan

18 A Comparison of the Genesis of the Research into the Chan School by Hu Shi, Suzuki Daisetsu, and Yinshun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615 19 A Comparison of the Core Concepts of the Chan Learning of Hu Shi, Suzuki Daisetsu, and Yinshun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625

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20 A Comparison of the Research Methodology of the Chan Learning of Hu Shi, Suzuki Daisetsu, and Yinshun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 635 21 A Comparison of Concrete Problems in the Research on the History of the Chan School of Hu Shi, Suzuki Daisetsu, and Yinshun . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653 Postscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667 Conventions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 669 Further Readings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 673

Part I

The Formation and Branching of Chan Thought

When one discusses Chan, inevitably there will be mention of the stories of “holding up a flower and a subtle smile,” “ten years facing a wall,” “and handing over a robe at night” that are used to make their theories divine. The stories of “crossing the Yangzi on a single rush,” “returning west with only one sandal,” and “Huike cutting off his arm” were further used to firmly establish Bodhidharma as the first patriarch of the Chan School. Then there were the six generations of singular transmission, and the Chan School lineage of sealing the mind with the mind, and beyond that an extension to produce the twenty-eight patriarchs of India. It seems as if Chan ´ akyamuni held up a flower in the Gr.dhrak¯ut.a truly came from the one moment that S¯ Assembly and secretly conferred the teaching on K¯as´yapa, which was passed down through the generations and was then transmitted by Bodhidharma to China, after which it passed through five generations and reached the great expansion under Huineng. In reality, this clearly is a far-fetched story. The so-called “single line of transmission and direct pointing,” and “the one flower with five petals (generations)” further add a mystical hue to this genealogy. This is used to explain the transmission of Chan thought, which was bound to make confusion worse and make it threadbare, so that it became very hard to grasp the complexities of the phenomena of the cultural infiltration of Chan thought. In fact, despite the differing interpretations by academia of the evolution and formation of Chan thought, the Platform Sutra is regarded as being the foundational scripture of the Chan School, for it formed the fountainhead of Chan thought or more exactly, the theoretical foundation. On this, there are no major disagreements. Therefore, there is no doubt that the Platform Sutra should be the standard for research on Chan thought, and not for something else. Because of this, we can say that “the Platform Sutra symbolizes the formation of Chan thought.” Of course, this is not the same as saying that the formation of Chan thought was achieved at a single bound. It was just the opposite. The emergence of the thought of the Platform Sutra has a historical source, and furthermore, an extensive cultural background, but this source and background is definitely not in the Buddhism brought by Bodhidharma from India. The Chan spoken of by the Platform Sutra, or what is said to be the Chan spoken of by the Chinese Chan School, is not only different from

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Part I: The Formation and Branching of Chan Thought

the “chan” used in Han to Wei dynasty translations, but is also definitely at odds with the content with the chan (dhy¯ana) transmitted from India and the chan of the “wall contemplation” that “instructed with the chan numbers [of breaths]” and “merging the mind in quiescence” of Bodhidharma. Because of this, we can say, “The Chan of the Chan School is a creative thinking that Chinese monks and scholars realized with the aid of creative translation. The foundations they erected this on were Chinese Daoist philosophy and not Indian Buddhism and Brahmanism. They borrowed the body of Buddhism and gave it a soul of Daoist philosophy.” Chan is not only a form of belief, but is also a dialectical thinking built on the basis of recognition of the reality of one’s own mind.

Chapter 1

An Investigation of Chan

It is universally recognized that chan is a translation of the Sanskrit dhy¯ana that was in the Buddhism introduced into China. Chan is read shàn, and chán is a later pronunciation. Its meaning is to sacrifice to Heaven, and to hand on through the generations. Dhy¯ana should be read d¯an n¯a; its meaning is quiet consideration. Of course, in terms of pronunciation, and in respect of the meaning of the character, in both cases there was no correspondence between chan and dhy¯ana. That is also to say that the choice of chan was not for transliteration of sound, and was also not for a translation of meaning. Translation itself brings with it creativity. It is exactly because of this that the character chan frequently changed; its pronunciation was changed to chán from shan, and its original meaning of quiet consideration changed into a content that was increasingly enriched, a completely new philosophical category, or it is said to be a new cultural concept. Later people broadly accepted that it was the Chan of the Chan School, and its original meaning to the contrary was forgotten by most people. It has as yet to be investigated as to why it underwent such a great change. It has been cited over and over again, so it is difficult to know its original appearance, and until now it has really been an unresolved question in the history of translation. What should be strongly pointed out is: why was it that the translators at that time selected the character shàn that had a different sound and also a meaning that was remote from it to translate the Sanskrit dhy¯ana? Did the chán of the Chinese Chan School and the Indian dhy¯ana have a relationship of succession? Also, how was its meaning transformed so that it became Chan thought? If research on Chan thought does not clarify these questions, then it will be hard to deeply penetrate and achieve the best results. The history of the so-called dream of a ‘true man’ by Emperor Ming in the Yongping era (58–75, reign era of Emperor Ming), which prompted him to send a mission to seek the Dharma, the coming east of the Buddha-dharma, and the initial transmission of Buddhism tells us that as early as the Han dynasty period that Buddhism was already mixed with the arts of religious Daoism (Huanglao), and that this Buddhism began to be spread in China. As Buddhism was being introduced, © Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_1

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the translations of Buddhist scriptures dealing with quiet consideration, that is the scriptures of dhy¯ana, began to infiltrate the world of Han dynasty thought, at the latest in the time of An Shigao during the reign of Emperor Huan (r. 146–168) of the Han. That is to say that the very start of chan was the translation of dhy¯ana and that it was definitely not in the Song and Wei period when Bodhidharma “first arrived at Nanyue on the borders of the Song” and “crossed north to Wei.” Rather it was four hundred years earlier in the second year of Emperor Huan of the Han (148) when An Shigao had already introduced dhy¯ana into China. If we put aside talk of the inheritability of thought, and if we insist on saying that Bodhidharma was the first patriarch of the Chan School, that is not as good as saying that An Shigao was the founding father for the descendants of the Chan School. In evidence for this, Huijiao of the Liang period wrote, “[Shigao] was broadly learned in the sutra pit.aka, and was especially versed in Abhidharma studies, recited the chan sutras, which briefly describes his talents.” Moreover, not long after he had arrived in China, “he was versed in the Chinese language, and thereupon he translated many sutras, changing the Sanskrit into Chinese, producing the Anban shouyi and the Yinchiru jing, and twelve gateways of the Greater and Lesser [vehicles] and one hundred and sixty items.” How is this not saying that the recitation of chan and its translation were introduced by An Shigao? Of course, it seems that as with the case of Bodhidharma, the chan transmitted by An Shigao was not the Chan of the Chan School, and neither of them should be made the founders of Chan thought. The chan that they transmitted was a method of calming thought and quietude that came from India. This was a method that monks of the Han and Wei periods and various kinds of people thereafter used to enter sam¯adhi (ding). This is what some people have called “the chan of xichan [practicing chan],”1 and does not belong to the category of the dialectical thinking and the concepts rich in content that arose later in the system of Chan thought. Tracing it back to its beginnings, the meaning of dhy¯ana is very ancient. In the Upanis.ads of ancient India, there is also a similar idea called yoga. This word is a mixture of Indic text and Germanic text, which has the meaning of yoke or harness, and in English it is an ox-collar (yoke), and by extension has the sense of connections, unification, or frankly to control. In old Chinese texts and in Buddhism it was translated as “correspondence” (xiangying), as the Yuqie yankou shishi yaoji (Essential Collection on the Yoga Feeding of Hungry Ghosts) says, “The three deeds (karma) correspond, and therefore it is called yoga.” Yet in ancient India, it particularly indicated a method of practice, and the so-called yoking or harnessing in fact was a method to subdue the galloping and hard-working desires. According to the investigations by Professor Tang Yongtong, there were originally two methods of yoga; ascetic practice and controlling the mind. Controlling the mind is dhy¯ana (chanding/ meditation). This is called the yoga of the arts of meditation, which existed before Buddhism was founded and was already practiced widely in the ancient Indian sub´ akyamuni became a monk, he had studied with a yoga master, continent. Before the S¯ 1 Su Yuanlei divided chan into the chan of xichan and the chan of the Chan School. See his Chanfeng, xuefeng, wenfeng (Chan style, Scholarly style, Literary style).

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first trained in ascetic practices and later he practiced meditation. Precisely because it was so, after Buddhism arose, Buddhism assimilated yoga, and faith, vigor, thinking, sam¯adhi, and prajñ¯a, which are all seen as taking the path of Yoga. The first fascicle of the four-fascicle Yoga S¯utra2 describes the nature and aims of meditation. Later Buddhists straightforwardly introduced yoga into the Buddha-dharma, and named it “dhy¯ana.” From this we can see that the basic meanings of dhy¯ana and yoga, “to control” (as in driving horses), were close. It was about “controlling the mind,” and even though it stresses that it is the pursuit of a true wisdom, what stands out is that it is also a skill to realize the internal mental cultivation of “sam¯adhi (ding).” Hu Shi pointed out that, “Generally speaking, the chan of India…is entirely the entry into ding,” and “The emphasis of Indian chan was on ding.”3 One can say that this is a precise and pointed summary of Indian chan, that is dhy¯ana. In order to explain this point, Hu Shi also raised the story of the great minister who lifted the bowl in the Xiuxing daodi jing (Yogac¯arabh¯umi) translated by Zhu Fahu (Dharmaraks.a). Here it is requoted as follows: In the past, there was a king who selected all the enlightened and wise men of the country to be assistant ministers. At the time, the king set up temporary and expedient means of limitless insight and selected one person of extensive and penetrating intelligence, whose ambitions were broad and refined, who was awesome but not violent, and of a virtuous reputation. The king wished to test him and so he accused this man of a serious crime, instructing the serving officers to fill a bowl with oil and have him lift it up and bring it from the northern gate to the southern gate, and then to a park called Lewd Dalliance twenty leagues (li) from the city gates. If he spilt a single drop of oil that he was carrying, then he would be decapitated and no questions were allowed. At that time, the ministers accepted the king’s strict instructions, filled the bowl with oil and gave it to that person, who lifted it up with both hands and with great distress thought to himself, “This oil fills the vessel and there are many people in the city. Cows, horses, and onlookers travelling on the roads will fill the streets….I will not be even able to go seven paces holding this vessel of oil, so how could I do it over a number of leagues?”. This man was very troubled and he felt apprehensive. That man thought to himself, “I am certain to die, of that there is no doubt. If I can lift this bowl so that no oil drops and reach that park, then I will live.” Then he made a focused plan, “If I see the rights and wrongs of things and do not shift from this, only mindful of the oil in the bowl, and my attention is not on anything else, I will pass this test.” Then that person calmly walked in slow paces. At the time the ministers, soldiers and onlookers were in the numberless hundreds and thousands, and they followed and looked at him, rising up like clouds and surrounding him like mountains…..The crowds all said that this person’s clothes, body, and behavior are sure to be the cause of his death. This information then reached his family, his parents and relatives all hearing it and they all came rushing to where their son was, crying and lamenting. This man focused his mind, not looking at his parents, siblings, wife and children, or other relatives. His mind was on the bowl of oil, being mindful of nothing else.

2

Tr. a non-Buddhist text written by Patañjali. Hu Shi, Zhongguo Chanxue zhi fazhan (original English text, Development of Zen Buddhism in China) in Hu Shi shuo Chan, Dongfang chubanshe, 1993, pp. 173, 175.

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1 An Investigation of Chan At that time, the entire population of the country had gathered, the onlookers jostling and shouting, shaking the ground and racing after him, stomping back and forth across the ground, treading all over each other, not allowing any space between. That man’s mind was proper and he did not see the crowds. The onlookers also said that there was a woman coming who was upright and pretty, with the demeanor of a bright face, without rival in the country, like a moon that is full and shines out alone among the stars, with a complexion like a lotus blossom, who is walking on the royal road….This man’s mind was solely on lifting the bowl and his attention was unmoved and he did not even look at her. The onlookers all said, “I would rather see this woman’s face today and end my life without regret than to live for a long time and not observe her.” At the time, this man heard these words but as he was solely concentrated on lifting the bowl he did not listen to the words. Then at the time there was a massive, drunk elephant that had run amok and was on the royal road….It was walking backwards and forwards, not taking notice of anything. Human blood smeared its body and it wandered alone without restraint, advancing and retreating at will, just as the king of a country looks from afar like a mountain. It trumpeted violently, sounding like thunder. It raised its trunk and was angry and wrathful….The afraid onlookers were made to scatter, breaking up the military formations and the crowds fled….the people all running to avoid it. Moreover, the handler of the killer elephant had no control over it, and as it became further enraged, it trampled to death things like elephants and horses, cows and sheep, pigs and calves. It pulverized carts and carriages, scattering them in pieces. Some people who saw it were so afraid that they dared not move. There were some who became resentful and bawled with tears flowing, and some were confused and did not feel anything, and some no longer wore clothes, trailing them behind them as they ran, and were even more confused and did not know east from west. Some raced away like wind-blown clouds, not knowing where they were going…. The man lifting the bowl did not notice that the elephant was coming, nor was he aware of the distance. Why was this? [It was because] he had concentrated his mind out of fear of death and had no regard for anything else. Because at that time the onlookers were jostling to run away, running east and west, the city had caught fire and burnt down the palaces, the many treasured residences, and the pavilions and high terraces that were revealed marvels and were imposing in their turn were caught up in it. It was like a great mountain; everyone could see it. The smoke was everywhere and the fire continued to burn everything completely… When the city was on fire, all the wasps came out, swarming people and stinging them with poison. The onlookers pained, were alarmed and raced away. The faces of men and women, young and old, turned hateful, and they lost their heads and took off their clothing, and precious ornaments were dropped; and being suffocated with smoke their eyes swelled with tears, and seeing the light of the fire in the distance their minds were filled with dread, and they did not know what had occurred, shouting out back and forwards to each other. Fathers and sons, brothers, wives and children, and slaves also instructed each other, “Avoid the fire! Keep away from the water! Do not fall into the muddy pits!” At the time, the officials and soldiers all came to extinguish the fire. This man solely concentrated single-mindedly on lifting the bowl and did not spill a drop, and was not aware of when the fire started and when it was extinguished. Why was this? It was because he held his mind to a sole objective and had no other thoughts…. At the time that man lifted [the bowl] full, and reached the park and had not spilt a drop. The ministers, soldiers, and officials all returned to the royal palace, and fully told the king of all the additional difficulties the man had faced and that he had focused his mind on lifting the bowl and had not shifted from that, and had reached the park without losing a single drop.

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The king heard these words, exclaiming, “This man faced the extremes of difficulty and is a hero among men….Even though he faced many difficulties, his mind was not shifted. Such people can handle anything….” This king was delighted, and made the man a great minister…. Those who cultivate the practice of the Way [should] control their mind like this. Even though various troubles and lust, anger, and idiocies come to confuse the sense organs, protect the mind and do not follow them, concentrating the will being number one.

This allegorical story in the Xiuxing daodi jing just explains the basic idea of dhy¯ana—control of the mind, concentration of the will, which is also the idea of “ding.” After Buddhism was introduced into China, dhy¯ana, that had the sense of “ding” and quiet consideration, was translated as “chan,” which may be said to have never lost its basic meaning. In the monastic world and in Chinese translations of Buddhist scriptures, chan is used together with ding, and it specially indicates this form of deepening the quietude of the mind, controlling the mind and concentrating the will. In particular, during the process of translating the Buddha-dharma, the understanding of chan mostly followed the original idea of Indian dhy¯ana, including that of Bodhidharma who was titled the first patriarch of the Chan School. The earliest record of Bodhidharma should be the Luoyang qielan ji (Records of the Monasteries of Luoyang) by Yang Xuanzhi,4 who appears in the entries on Yongning Monastery and Xiufan Monastery in fascicle one: At the time there was a Bodhidharma, a s´raman.a (monk) of the Western Regions….He came from the wild frontier and traveled into the central lands….He said that he was one hundred and fifty years of age and had traversed many countries, having been everywhere….He intoned namas, and joined his palms together for days on end. There was a Vajra [statue of a protecting deity] at Xiufan Monastery into which [portico] the pigeons would not enter and the birds and sparrows would not roost. Bodhidharma said, “They get its true characteristics.”

Yang Xuanzhi and Bodhidharma can be considered contemporaries, and the Luoyang qielan ji was written not long after Bodhidharma had visited the monasteries of Luoyang, so its records should be most trustworthy. However, there is no mention in it of “transmitting the mind” and also no traces of him founding a teaching. Bodhidharma’s words, “[the reason] the pigeons will not enter and the birds and sparrows will not roost [is because] they get its true characteristics,” are spoken from the aspect of calm and quietude. His saying “Namas” and putting his palms together for consecutive days evidently means he piously followed certain Buddhist rituals. Following on from Yang Xuanzhi, the materials on Bodhidharma recorded by Daoxuan (596–667) of Tang in his Xu gaoseng zhuan (Continued Lives of Eminent Monks) are rather more detailed. At that time, the Chan School had yet to be formed and there was the potential for the fabrication of Chan School history. It should be said that this material is relatively reliable. Daoxuan placed Bodhidharma in the “Practice of chan section” 5 (if the supplements are added, it would be section 8), 4

Tr. translated by Yi-t’ung Wang, A Record of Buddhist Monasteries in Lo-yang, Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1984. This text was written ca. 547.

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where it can be seen that he had not yet placed him in an important position in the practice of chan. Several stories in it are worthy of note: Bodhidharma was a South Indian of the Brahmin caste….He resolved to uphold Mah¯ay¯ana, and he subdued his mind in quietude, being versed in the subtle and in enumeration, and his study of ding elevated this….Wherever he went he instructed by means of chan enumeration [meditative counting].5 At the time the whole country was zealously propagating lecturing and teaching [scholasticism], and when they heard his method of ding for the first time, many slandered him. Thus calming the mind is called wall-contemplation….So the entrances to the Way are by many paths, but essentially there are only two kinds, namely principle and practice. Rely on the teaching to awaken to the core tenet [doctrine], deeply believe that live beings share an identical true nature, which is hidden by adventitious contaminants. Therefore, one should discard the fake and return to the truth [by] stabilizing oneself in wall-contemplation, [in which] there is no self or other, and ordinary people and saints are equal….to be quiet and inactive (wuwei) is called entrance via principle.

Following this is the entry via practice, which is constituted of four practices. Here Daoxuan has clearly highlighted Bodhidharma’s paths of entry into the Way by “study of ding,” “chan enumeration,” “wall-contemplation,” and “calming the mind.” One can see that his method of chan is still the Indian study of ding that is quiet and calm inaction. Daoxuan’s talk of “relying on the teaching to awaken to the core tenet,” sentient beings sharing an identical true nature, “discarding the fake and returning to the true,” “no self or other,” and “ordinary people and saints are equal” resemble the language of Chan thought and in reality are also a common characteristic of Buddhism, and as well are the results of the influence of Chinese philosophical Daoism on Bodhidharma or Daoxuan. Moreover, this should not be viewed as being the inception of Chan thought. At the end of the “Practice of chan” section, Daoxuan also made the evaluation that. Bodhidharma spiritually converted and followed the tenets, explaining to and guiding [the people] of the Jiang-Luo [region]. His Mah¯ay¯ana wall-contemplation was a most effective achievement….[Seng]chou favored the four kinds of mindfulness that have clear definitions and can be reverenced; Bodhidharma’s method is the tenet of emptiness, a profound teaching that is profound and abstruse. That which can be reverenced is easy to understand; that which is profound and abstruse is difficult to comprehend in its principles and practices.

This passage as usual points out that the effectiveness of Bodhidharma’s “wallcontemplation” was the most excellent of all the forms of meditation, but at the same time it also informs people that the practitioners of meditation from the Six Dynasties onwards did not stop with Bodhidharma, and that there was also Sengchou (480–560) who taught a “clearly defined” chan method that “can be reverenced” and “is easy to understand,” as opposed to the “tenet of emptiness” and “profound teaching” of Bodhidharma’s “wall contemplation.” These are very instructive words. From this we know that Bodhidharma took “settling the mind” and “calming the mind” to be the core chan enumeration or wall-contemplation, which in fact is Some records have “teaching” ( jiao, 教), which is probably a scribal error due to the similarity with “enumeration” 數.

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still of the category of Yoga’s control of the mind and concentration of the will, which resembles the dhy¯ana method of meditation. Professor Tang Yongtong went so far as to point out that “Bodhidharma’s ‘four practices’ were not a teaching of the respective meditative contemplations (changuan) of the Greater or Lesser Vehicles, but its tone resembles the non-Buddhist Brahmanism, and it is also like theories in the Upanis.ads. It is very difficult to judge which Indian school Bodhidharma’s teachings were sourced from.”6 As further proof, Bodhidharma’s chan is very like the method of “ding” (dhy¯ana) in the Upanis.ads and is distant from Chan thought. Therefore, one can say that “Bodhidharma and the Chinese Chan School have no direct relationship. The chan method of Bodhidharma’s wall-contemplation, entry by principle, and four practices also are not the source for the development of Chan thought.” There is not the slightest question that before Bodhidharma came to China that meditation techniques had circulated in the Han and Wei-Jin periods. Huijiao recorded twenty practitioners of meditation from that period. From the Latter Han to the Wei-Jin period, there were also numerous translations of Buddhist scriptures on meditation available. One can thus recognize that already in the four or five centuries before Bodhidharma came to China, along with the introduction of Buddhism, that dhy¯ana had been translated as chan, had been introduced to China and had started to become popular. Even though the word “chanding” does not appear in the earliest translation, the Sishierzhang jing (Scripture in Forty-two Chapters) mentions “chant the sutra” and “practice the Way” and so on, which seems to be an old translation of chan.7 At present, nobody has been nominated as the first person to use “chan” as a translation and it will be very difficult to say clearly who it was because not all of the early translations have come down to us. However, the scholarly world acknowledges that the Anban shouyi jing and Yinchiru jing translated by An Shigao were in vogue among Han and Wei practitioners of meditation. That is to say, the Indian methods of meditation had already started to be popular in central China in the second century C.E. Anban shouyi is a combination of Sanskrit and Chinese, which means counting breathes; the emphasis of the Yinchiru jing was to introduce Abhidharma learning.8 Huijiao also said that Shigao “was broadly learned in the sutra pit.aka, and was especially versed in Abhidharma studies, recited the chan sutras, which briefly describes his talents.” He also transmitted meditation techniques to Senghui and Layman Chen Hui among others. The scriptures he translated “explained but were not flowery, were substantial and not wild.”9 These references all explain that An Shigao was a 6

Hu Shi, “Lun Chanzongshi de gangling” (On the Guidelines of the History of the Chan School), in Hu Shi shuo Chan, Dongfang chubanshe, 1993, p. 12. 7 Tang Yongtong, Han Wei liang-Jin Nanbeichao Fojiao shi (History of the Buddhism of the Han, Wei, two Jin dynasties, and the Northern and Southern dynasties), Chap. 5, Zhonghua shuju, 1983, p. 67. 8 The Sanskrit “Abhidharma” means examination of dharmas or incomparable dharma, and Professor Ren Jiyu says that what the Chan tradition calls meditative enumeration learning or s´amatha-vipa´syana (zhiguan) chan/meditation puts emphasis on the actions of sitting in meditation, while abhidharma puts emphasis on doctrinal theory. 9 Gaoseng zhuan, fascicle 1.

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comparatively early translator of meditation texts and a follower of meditation. Yet regrettably, in his translations, while he mentions meditation methods, there being characters such as meditation sutras (chanjing) et cetera, still it is difficult to find a primary interpretation of the word “chan.” Therefore, we can only follow his ideas, examine the thread of his thought in translating with the word “chan,” and find out in his related works the basis for the evolution in its content. As said previously, the Chinese word “chan” has no relationship whatsoever with yoga and dhy¯ana that at their core are about “ding” and control. Therefore, to translate dhy¯ana with “chan” is clearly a kind of creative deduction. In terms of its basic meaning, of course it is yoga and is dhy¯ana, and what it enters into is the highest state, a transcendental state in which the mind, intellect, and sensation in their entirety are halted. The times when the texts on meditation techniques were being translated coincided exactly with when the Chinese gentry worshipped Zhuangzi and Laozi (Daoist philosophy), talked freely of deep profundity, and dreamt of divine immortals. Therefore, they constantly compared the words of the Daoist philosophers to Buddhist theories. In fact, anban, which is the counting of exhalations and inhalations, and its application to breathing, resembled the arts of expulsion and intake of the breath by Chinese magicians. At that time, Confucians (scholars) loved to read Laozi and Zhuangzi, and adopted postures like sitting in meditation, with the history books saying, “He sat rigid for a long time, rigidly restraining his knees, ankles, feet and toes into a posture/imprint 印.”10 (There is really much to be gained by comparing this with Bodhidharma’s wall-contemplation, the shadow left of facing the wall probably moving one to imagination). According to this analysis, if dhy¯ana was translated by the “sitting and forgetting” (zuowang) of Zhuangzi, there is no doubt that it was extraordinarily appropriate. Let’s try to compare them. Zhuangzi says, I smash up my limbs and my body, drive out perception and intellect, cast off form, do away with understanding, and make myself identical with the Great Thoroughfare. This is what I mean by sitting down and forgetting everything.11

That is to say, not only do you need to forget things, but also you need to forget the self, and once one has done so then you are the same as the Great Way. This completely tallies with the aims of settling (ding) the mind and concentrating the will. Let’s look again at the translation in the Anban shouyi jing. In the practice of the Way one needs to halt mentation….in which there are three things [to be done]. One is to halt the pain and itches of the body, the second is to halt the sounds of the voice, and the third is to halt the thoughts of the mind. For mental investigation to be halted, one needs to control lust so one does not act on it, one needs to control anger and rage so as not to be angry, one needs to control stupidity so that one does not act on it, and one needs to control greed so that one does not seek. Not questioning any of the myriad things is investigation and halting. The eye does not look at color, the ear does not listen to sound, the nose does not perceive smells, the mouth does not 10

“Biography of Xiang Xu,” Hou Han shu. Zhuangzi, “Great and Venerable Teacher” chapter. Translation, Burton Watson, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, New York: Columbia University Press, 1968, p. 90.

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taste tastes, the body does not crave the sleek and smooth, the mind does not desire thoughts; this is external inaction (wuwei). Counting breaths, accompanying [anugama, them], halting and investigating, returning to purity; these are internal inaction.

OK! By translating in this way, not only did he not confuse the subjective idea of the author, but he was clearly in agreement with Zhuangzi’s “sitting and forgetting.” In fact, it is certain that there were people who understood dhy¯ana as “sitting and forgetting,” for example like the later Daoan (312–385) who said in his Xu Anban jingzhu (Preface to a Commentary on the Anban Sutra) that, “Anban depends on the counting of breaths to form the keeping [of the mind], and the four dhy¯anas lodge in the bones/body to form settling (ding),” “one destroys it and destroys it again to reach inaction (wuwei/nirvana),” and “one forgets it and further forgets it to reach [the state of] no desire.” Yet the translators did not select “sitting and forgetting,” and instead selected a completely unrelated word, “chan.” One can see that this selection is of an implied meaning. One should acknowledge that the gentry of the Han and Wei period were influenced by Daoist philosophical thought, and that An Shigao, who was “was versed in the Chinese language” and “translated many sutras, changing the Sanskrit into Chinese,” must have unavoidably been influenced by Daoist philosophical thought. Moreover, he not only valued methods of meditation, he also valued the study of abhidharma, and he really had an intention to smelt together the Buddha-dharma and methods of sam¯adhi (ding) in one crucible, but the two characters for “sitting and forgetting” (zuowang) still could not encapsulate his thought in its entirety, and so he had to search for a new idea that could contain his vague thinking. So he selected the word “chan” out of the “Imputed Words” chapter of Zhuangzi and also used his thinking to liberate it from the narrow sense of “ding” (dhy¯ana). Zhuangzi said, The ten thousand things all come from the same seed, and with their different forms they give place to one another (xiangshan). Beginning and end are part of a single ring and no one can comprehend its principle. This is called Heaven the Equalizer, which is the same as the Heavenly Equality.12

Clearly the character “chan” was extracted from this. This character is made up of 示 and 単, and is pronounced shàn. The pronunciation of 単 is close to that of dhy¯ana and one can say that it is a transliteration of sound (in fact, in ancient times the consonant of shàn was read ding [that is, d], and therefore it was also read dan). 示 comes from 二 (two) and from 爪 (nail, claw), and note that the Shuowen jiezi (an early dictionary) says of it, “Heaven hands down signs that reveal fortune and misfortune, and therefore this is a revelation 示 to humans. It comes from two. The three things handed down are sun, moon, and stars. Examining the patterns of heavens in order to investigate the changes of the times, they reveal divine matters.” That is to say, 示 has the sense of divine revelation. Looked at it in this way, it has the sense of an inexpressible effect such as “remove desire and preserve purity,” “fortunate separation from birth and death,” and “mind solely concentrated” that are received from the settled/dhy¯ana mind. One can see that although “chan” was not a transliteration of dhy¯ana, yet it 12

Translation from Watson, Chuang Tzu, pp. 304–305.

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also contained a sound, meaning, and morphological translation, the body of which character reveals the meaning with functions in these three aspects, which entirely tallies with the method of the morphology of the character. Thus, one can say this is a creative and absolutely marvellous translation. According to this passage from Zhuangzi, “chan” has the meaning of to replace one another, that is, “revolving forward and shifting onwards and further superseding each other.”13 But the author uses these “Imputed Words” to interpret this work, and chan doubtlessly has the meaning of “to replace.” What is also important is that this passage talks of the source of things and changes, and although they transform and replace each other, their origin is as if one. Also, their condition of chan replacement is equal and their beginning and end is like a ring. Therefore, the extended meaning of “chan” not only is a substitute for dhy¯ana and sets up the form of “ding,” but it also includes a rich and mystical content of intrinsic truth, equality, endless change, and revolving around and beginning again. In fact, An Shigao gave it a sense of the transcendence of consciousness by saying “it interrupts [the cycle of] birth and death and one gains divine powers.” Later, various translators and commentators also followed this line of thought that had been developed earlier. An Shigao’s disciple Kang Senghui wrote a preface to the Anban shouyi jing that says, Those who attain the practice of anban will be enlightened in mind and what they see by raising their eyes will be without gloom and will not be blocked….There will be nothing distant that is not seen, no sound that is not heard, and being as if indistinct, survival and extinction will be self-determined. They will greatly fill all directions, subtly threading through hair pores, regulating heaven and earth, residing in long life, with the virtue of a brave spirit, destroying the heavenly armies, moving the three thousand [worlds], shifting through the realms with the eight inconceivable [powers], not something even Brahma can fathom.

What he is talking about is the result of ding—the enlightened mind. If the mind is enlightened it can investigate everything, can do anything, can regulate heaven and earth, live for a long time, and move through the universe, and that human life within one mind is an unfathomable realm that is somehow mysterious and is definitely not something that can be contained in a simple ding and calm consideration. By the Eastern Jin (317–420), Xie Fu also wrote a preface that emphasized that “insight” maintained the “mind,” highlighting the position of insight. This also goes beyond the original meaning of dhy¯ana and must be the use of a creative replacement vocabulary. He said, Correct awakening [of the Buddha] is compassionate, revealing the path of insight, preventing the source of the ultimate misfortune from infiltrating [into one], and blocking the symptoms of anger and desire. Shut off colour and sound from sight and hearing, stop contaminated thoughts by chan quiet, and ride the calm and moor it at auspicious omens, and enter the auspicious signs of the heaven of form. And so the correct ambition extended to bless China and in the past the practice of submersion was let loose, and the cause of good fortune was firmly grasped and day by day [chan was] scattered and the poisoned sense organs repeatedly arose and sins 13

Commentary of Cheng Liying.

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ensued. Therefore, these [practitioners] were reborn throughout the five destinations,14 and for millions of eons it was difficult for them to be extracted from them, being trapped in a net, a troubling and deep dungeon. This was due to being without insight and delighting in ding, and it was not only monks who were made to be so.

He explicitly points out that only having ding will not do; one needs to rely on insight to guide ding. If not, then you will transmigrate through the five destinations, and it will be difficult to be extracted from them over millions of eons. This is clearly a denial of mere “ding.” He took the original Indian dhy¯ana that valued calm, being settled (ding) and that was a method of control so that it became a state of the complete halting of the mind, intellect, and sensation, and relegated it to a secondary level, and thereby highlighted that insight was a decisive function in the actualization of the transcendental realm and in the process it gave rise to that realm. The content of “chan” was incessantly expanded. According to the investigations by Hu Shi, the Xiuxing daodi jing translated by Zhu Fahu (Dharmaraks.a) in the Western Jin period (265–316) was written by Sa˙ngharaks.a, and the Xiuxing fangbian chan jing, popularly called the Damo duoluo chan jing that was translated on Mt. Lü by Buddhabhadra in the Eastern Jin period, was a joint work by Dharmatr¯ata (Damo duoluo) and Buddhasena, and that these two books were called “Yog¯ac¯arabh¯umi,” and both could be translated as “The Treatise of the Yog¯ac¯ara Masters on the Stages.” “Because of this we can know that the chan method of this period (indicating the meditation method as translated in the two Jin periods) carried on from the Upanis.ads of ancient times, in the middle period was related to the non-Buddhist Vai´seis.ika and the Yoga Sect, and lastly was connected with the stage-treatises of the Yog¯ac¯ara masters of the Nothing-but Consciousness School.”15 That is to say, the chan method of the translations of the two Jin dynasties period was still the yoga and dhy¯ana that is related to the Indian Upanis.ads, “being generally identical in content” with the Yog¯ac¯arabh¯umi s´a¯ stra by the brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu that was later translated by Xuanzang. Thus, Hu Shi judged that while on one hand the Indian Yog¯ac¯ara that was introduced into China “was increasingly simplified as it changed” and developed into the Chinese Chan School, on the other hand it developed into the complex Nothing-but Consciousness philosophy. Hu Shi’s conclusion can also be called a “bold hypothesis.” Yet there is one point that can be affirmed; namely that the chan method that was introduced in the period of translation was still operating within the framework of yogic thinking and does not have much of a relationship with the “chan” of the Chan School. However, the creative translation by the Chinese—the selection and use of the character “chan,”— later presented the possibility of a creative thinking that would further distance the meaning of “chan” from Indian Yoga and dhy¯ana and brought it closer and closer to

14

Hells, hungry ghosts, beasts, humans, gods. Hu Shi, “Chanxue gushi kao” (Research into the Ancient History of Chan Learning), in Hu Shi shuo Chan, Dongfang chubanshe, 1993, pp. 98–99.

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Chinese Chan thought. In his preface to the Damoduoluo chan jing, Huiyuan (334– 416) pointed out that the chan methods of Dharmatr¯ata and Buddhasena were not the same, and likewise they also mixed it up with Chinese Daoist thought. He said, Dharmatr¯ata gathered the groups [of teachings] and compiled them into the same Way, revealing one r¯upa to be [as numerous as] the sands of the Ganges. This was an investigation, making clear that arising was not birth and that cessation was not the end, and that that which has yet to commence emerges from suchness. Therefore, he said, “R¯upa is not apart from suchness and suchness is not apart from r¯upa; r¯upa is suchness and suchness is r¯upa.” Buddhasena thought that the currents drawn from the pristine source definitely moistened [one], and therefore commenced from two Ways, and so he revealed the gate of ambrosia and explained the four meanings in order to counter delusion, revealing the path of return in order to lead the meeting, discriminating the skandha and the dh¯atu, with the Way to be correct investigation, and only after that have one trace back to the beginning to go against the end, and marvellously seek the ultimate….

Hu Shi pointed out that “Using this as a standard through which to look at the Chan jing of Mt. Lü, we can see that the ‘two Ways’ and ‘four meanings’ of Buddhasena envelop it all, and that there are very few elements of Dharmatr¯ata.”16 This fact is easy to understand, because what is said to be Dharmatr¯ata’s thought is in reality Huiyuan’s creative explanation that also follows on the path of using Zhuangzi to understand chan, and is nothing more than raising Dharmatr¯ata’s banner. This idea of birth and cessation not ending, of coming and going limitlessly clearly means “with their different forms they give place to one another (xiangshan). Beginning and end are part of a single ring and no one can comprehend its principle.” His talk of “that which has yet to commence” has also the sense of “that which has yet to commence has a commencement” of the chapter “Equalizing Things” of Zhuangzi. As for “suchness,” even though it is a concept in Buddhist translations, yet its meaning completely matches with that of the “seeds” of Zhuangzi’s “the ten thousand things all come from the same seed.” Huiyuan also advanced the theories of “chan wisdom” and “illuminating quietude,” which is clearly the same as Xie Fu’s line of thought that used insight to maintain mentation (the mind), and that if not for insight there would be no way to block anger and desire. Chan in this way was given a new implication, whether it was in the mind/mentation, or no mind/mentation, or in not knowing and not perceiving. In the Liang dynasty (502–577), Huijiao wrote the Gaoseng zhuan (Lives of Eminent Monks, ca. 530), section four of which, on the practitioners of meditation, records twenty meditators, but Bodhidharma is not among them. So we know that when Huijiao was writing this book that Bodhidharma still had not begun to teach in China, or at the very least, Huijiao had yet to hear of him. However, Huijiao’s understanding of chan had already gone far beyond the practice methods of yoga and dhy¯ana, and was thickly imbued with the added taste of philosophical Daoism, and was already filled with the ideas of the “chan” of the Chan School. Huijiao discussed it as follows: Chan means to marvel at all things and act on that. Therefore, it enables one to be without a dharma that does not take an object, or be without a sense-object (vis.aya) that is not 16

Hu Shi, “Chanxue gushi kao,” in Hu Shi shuo Chan, Dongfang chubanshe, 1993, p. 103.

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examined. However, the taking of dharmas as objects and examining of sense-objects can only be clarified by quietude. It is just like if a deep pond has stilled the waves, then one can see the fish and rocks [in it], [so too] once the water of the mind is clarified, then it comes to illuminate without anything being hidden. Laozi [26] says, “Heaviness is the root of lightness; calm is the lord of haste.” Therefore, lightness must take heaviness as its basis and haste must take calm as its foundation.

The one character “marvel” fully expresses how Huijiao has made the character chan take on a Daoist philosophical influence. As Huijiao sees it, chan is the intrinsic reality that produces all things and is also a cognition that is greater than the subjective consciousness of the world, and therefore he says it is a concept whose quality is unfathomable and is a divine marvel that gives expression to all matters and all things. This very closely approaches the chan of Chan School thought, and undoubtedly is like the practice methods of yoga and the methods of calming and settling (ding) in appearance and yet is different in spirit. Even though following this he explains the characteristics of that purification and calming, he also gives it an interpretation in terms of the Daoist philosophy of inaction (wuwei), still displaying the special features of this creative thinking. Huijiao’s use of Daoist philosophy to explain chan was also made before the time of Bodhidharma, so how could the Chan influenced by Daoist philosophy of the Chan School be the foundation for Bodhidharma’s principle and practice “that seems to be like the non-Buddhist Brahmanism or like what is preached in the Upanis.ads”? To see Bodhidharma as the first patriarch of the Chan School is undoubtedly to mistake one thing for another, or at least to say that it is a misappropriation of a collective achievement and attributing it to one person. Summarizing the above, there are a number of points worth noting: 1. The character “chan” was made into a translation term several centuries before Bodhidharma came to China, and was taken from the “Imputed Words” chapter of Zhuangzi. 2. The character “chan” was not a transcription of dhy¯ana, nor was it a translation of the meaning, but is a creative work that combined form and pronunciation, extending and transforming the meaning. In terms of the meaning, in the early period it mainly indicated the methods of the settling of the mind, control of the will/mentation, and the elimination of views of Indian Yoga and dhy¯ana, but it had already consciously borrowed from Zhuangzi, and in reality this also created a blurring of the meaning, providing an indefinite character “chan,”17 which unceasingly gave it a content of Daoist philosophical thought. 3. Because of this, before Bodhidharma the character chan already had a content with two aspects: one resembled the Indian Yoga and dhy¯ana that took ding to be its core method of cultivation, and some people called it chanding and some people called it the chan method, and some called it the chan of practicing meditation (xichan); the other is that which had already been influenced by Daoist philosophy, in particular the philosophical category influenced by Zhuangzi, on 17

At some time the pronunciation shifted from shàn to chán, but this is hard to examine in detail. Probably this was related to the transcription of the Pali word Jh¯ana, but with the dropping of the final vowel.

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which basis Chan thought developed. The chan that is a method of cultivation always existed simultaneously for the next two thousand years of Chan School history alongside the Chan of the philosophical category. These divergent meanings coexisted, and research on Chan thought should specially take care to differentiate them. 4. Bodhidharma was not the pioneer in translating chan. His thought was also similar to non-Buddhist Brahmanism, and his teachings of wall-contemplation and study of principle and practice also approximated the practice methods of Indian Yoga and calming one’s thinking. In it of course there was the Daoist naturalistic view of human life, and also there was no creative thinking with respect of chan that went beyond that of earlier people. The so-called “La˙nka” School in reality also laid stress on ascetic practice and the assertion that the “fourfascicle La˙nk¯avat¯ara is the mind-essential” was the false creation of later people. Therefore, Bodhidharma does not have a direct relationship with Chan thought; and the transmission from mind to mind, and the theory of the first patriarch of the Chan School are really just empty poetic talk.18

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With regard to Bodhidharma and the Lanka School, see Hu Shi, “Lengqie shiziji xu” (Preface to the Lengqie shizi ji) and “Lengqie zong kao” (Study of the La˙nka School), in Hu Shi shuo Chan, Dongfang chubanshe, 1993, pp. 19, 201.

Chapter 2

The Foundations and Formation of Chan Thought

After the Han dynasty had passed through the reigns of emperors Wen and Jing, it entered the time of Emperor Wu (141-87 BCE) and a heroic age arose in response. Scholarship was renewed in order to adapt to the needs of a grand unification and to display the great capabilities of Emperor Wu. Confucianism alone was honored and the adherents of the hundred schools of philosophy were removed from office, forcing the study of Daoism that had earlier been venerated into hiding. After this, the study of the Confucian classics went into decline and the vogue for Dark Learning arose, and Daoist religion rose in response. Buddhism took advantage of the vacancy to enter and the expelled study of Daoism then borrowed Buddhism to be a body for the two religions and returned to the spirit of Daoist philosophy. The time when Buddhism was introduced, the Buddhist scriptures were translated, and the meditation methods were spread was exactly when Daoist philosophy reorganized as a rival and its mysterious style erupted. Therefore, it took vocabulary from Zhuangzi that was rich in meaning for the on-going creative translation of Buddhism, using the vast and self-indulgent learning of the Daoist philosophers to give explanations and coherence to Buddhist doctrines and also to make it logical. Some say that the borrowing of the character chan was creative, for not only did it offer an expansion of the content of chan and the possibility for development, it also provided an avenue for learning from the experience of others (Daoism). Responding to the tendency of famous scholars of the Wei-Jin period to use the Daoist philosophers to interpret the Book of Changes (Yijing), famous monks of the Six Dynasties in particular received the Daoist philosophers into Buddhism, thereby giving chan studies a Daoistic connotation and providing a method of thinking and a theoretical basis for the formation of Chan thought. However, one must see that early in the translation and explanation of chan, despite the tendency to give it a Daoist philosophical flavor, that its chief focus was still on the ascetic methods of entering sam¯adhi, controlling the mind, and wall contemplation. The exercise of creativity was only a momentary flash and the true foundation of Chan thought was not with the arrival in China of Bodhidharma in the last years of the fifth century, but was with the Buddhists Daosheng and Sengzhao who were © Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_2

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pupils of the famous Buddhist translator Kum¯araj¯ıva (350–409). They were active in the fourth century. Daosheng (355–434), together with Sengzhao, was one of the four saints, eight talents, and ten philosophers in Kum¯araj¯ıva’s school. Daosheng’s scholarship was fulfilled in the three studies, that of the Prajñ¯a (sutra), Abhidharma, and Nirvana (sutra), and he was praised as “the saint of the Nirvana (Sutra).” At Huqiu in Suzhou there is a terrace where Mr. Sheng preached. This was the scene of the beautiful legend of “the obstinate stones nodding when Mr. Sheng preached.” Disregarding the legendary and referring only to scholarship, Daosheng and Wang Bi (226–249) have many points of resemblance. Wang Bi used Laozi to interpret the Book of Changes, concentrated on “one,” forgot words and images, and profusely proclaimed the theory of gaining the meaning and forgetting the image. Daosheng used Zhuangzi to interpret Buddhism, penetratingly awakening to that which is beyond words, forgetting the trap and taking the fish, making a great contribution not only to Wei-Jin period scholarship but also to the later Sinfied Chan thought. Huilin (572–640) recorded Daosheng’s words as follows: Images (phenomena) are what principle (pattern) avails itself of, so if one grasps for the image one will be confused about the principle. Teachings are what follow on from conversion (hua), so if you are bound by the teachings you deceive the conversion. Thereby one solicits the name and demands the reality, but one is confused by the unreal and preposterous. One seeks for the mind to respond to events, obscuring the standard words.1

This paragraph of Daosheng mentions image and principle, teaching and conversion, as well as name and reality, and the dialectical relationship of mind and phenomena. This is evidently on the same track as the distinction between word and meaning, name and reality, verbal teaching and the self-so (ziran) of Dark Learning. However, Daosheng attributed this to the mind, thereby expressing his difference with Dark Learning. Even if that is so, the phrase on obscuring has been borrowed from Zhuangzi.2 In the Gaoseng zhuan (Lives of Eminent Monks), Huijiao (497– 554) especially shows the influence of Zhuangzi’s thought on Daosheng, as well as his acceptance of this and the theory of the Buddha-nature he developed from it. Huijiao pointed out that, [Dao]sheng had long thought to himself, and he was thoroughly enlightened to the ineffable (beyond words), and then he sighed, exclaiming, “As images are used to fully understand the meaning, once one has gained the meaning then the image [is to be] forgotten; words are used to describe the principle, so once one has accessed the principle the words [are to be] ended. Ever since the scriptures flowed east [into China from India], the translators faced severe difficulties and mostly stuck to the literal text and so it was rare to see the full meaning. If you forget the trap and grasp the fish, then one can speak of the Way for the first time.” Then he collated and inspected the true [Buddhist] and the lay [texts], researching and thinking about cause and effect, and so then he said that the good do not experience recompense and that one is suddenly [or all at once] enlightened and become Buddha. He 1

Huilin, “Zhu Daosheng Fashi leiwen” in Guang hongming ji (Expanded Collection on Propagating and Illuminating [Buddhism]). 2 The “All Under Heaven” chapter of Zhuangzi has, “Veiled and obscure, he is one who has never been completely comprehended.” Watson, Chuang Tzu, p. 174.

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also wrote the “Treatise on the Two Truths,” “Treatise on the Buddha-nature Will Exist,” “Treatise of the Dharma-body Having No Body,” “Treatise on the Buddha Has No Pure Land,” and “Treatise on There are Certain to Be Conditions.” He covered all the previous theories and wondrously he had deep teachings. Many of those who kept to the literal text hated him and were jealous. Calls to settle this [dispute] consequently arose in profusion.

These ideas were a borrowing of Zhuangzi’s metaphors of the trap, the hoofprint and the fish, and the rabbit3 to explain the purpose of “obtain the meaning and forget the word.” It was also used to highlight the meaning beyond the words and the principle beyond the image. In this way, the direct pointing at one’s own mind, the immediate revelation of the basic nature from one’s own mind, means that the “non-reliance on letters” of Chan had already been declared. It is just as Professor Tang Yongtong pointed out, “The characteristic of reality is without a characteristic, so therefore it transcends images. The Buddha-nature always already exists, so it directly points at the true nature of sentient beings.”4 Professor Tang’s interpretation was that Daosheng’s borrowing from Zhuangzi to speak of Chan really was paving the way for the foundations of Chan thought and really had a catalytic function. Professor Tang also properly said, The entirety of Daosheng’s learning basically has two components. One is that prajñ¯a means the elimination of characteristics, and two is that nirvana means the nature of the mind. Both are stressed in the chan teaching of Bodhidharma….Accordingly, Daosheng and Chan people were in agreement, and that was not only in respect of the idea of sudden enlightenment.5

The elimination of characteristics is the real characteristic that has no characteristics, it transcends images; the meaning of the mind-nature is the true nature of sentient beings that is directly pointed to. This theory and that of the Platform Sutra of separation from characteristics in characteristics and separation from thought-moments in thought-moments clearly coincide in their way of thinking. In other words, the Chinese Chan transcendental spirit of separation from characteristics and separation from thought-moments was undoubtedly inherited from Daosheng’s overall theories of “prajñ¯a’s elimination of characteristics” and “nirvana is the Buddha-nature,” and it goes without saying that Daosheng had a foundational function. Professor Tang’s sentence, “Daosheng and Chan people were in agreement, and that was not only in respect of the idea of sudden enlightenment,” directly hits the mark concerning the nature of the relationship between Daosheng’s ideas and Chan thought. Of course, the greatest direct contributions made by Daosheng to Chan thought were still his theory of sudden enlightenment, the theory of the Buddha-nature always already existing, and the thesis that all icchantika (meaning not having faith, cutting off the wholesome roots; Hu Shi has translated it as people who do not believe in Buddhism, which rather coincides with the reality) can become buddha and that the Buddha has no Pure Land. And all of these are built on the foundations of the theory that prajñ¯a eliminates characteristics and nirvana is the Buddha-nature, which are moreover related to each other. 3

“External Things” chapter of Zhuangzi, see Watson, Chuang Tzu, p. 302. Tang Yongtong, Han Wei LiangJin Nanbei chao Fojiao shi, Zhonghua shuju, 1983, p. 452. 5 Note in small print at Tang, 1983, Chap. 5, the end of p. 452. 4

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In reality, the distinction of sudden and gradual enlightenment also has a very early origin. The “Preface to the Wuliangyi Sutra” written by Liu Cha of the Southern Qi (479–502) points out that the words of Daoan (312–385) and Daolin coincide with the idea of sudden enlightenment. Sections eight to thirteen of the Niepan wuming lun (On Nirvana Having No Name) written by Sengzhao (374–414) all discuss sudden and gradual. However, the person who truly advocated sudden enlightenment and influenced later generations was Daosheng. The Song shu (History of the Liu Song) chapter 97 says, “Famous monks of the Song period include Daosheng….When he was young, he was bright and at the age of fifteen he could lecture on the classics. When he grew up, he had an unusual understanding and he established the idea of sudden enlightenment, and people at that time pushed him to concede [that he was wrong].” Even though Daosheng wrote a text on sudden enlightenment, people still could not understand it, but out of the evaluations of other people and quotes in texts, they were also able to grasp the spirit of it. There is a preface to the Niepan jijie (Collected Interpretations of the Nirvana Sutra) by Daosheng that says, The true principle is self-so and enlightenment also tallies with it. If it is true, there is no differentiation, so how could enlightenment allow [differentiation]? (Therefore, enlightenment must be sudden/all at once). The unchanging reality (ti) is transparent and always illuminates, but due to confusion one ignores it, and so its activity is not yet in me (Therefore, enlightenment is tied to self-enlightenment).

Huida’s Sengzhao shu (Commentary on the Zhaolun)6 also writes of the theme of Daosheng’s sudden enlightenment: The radiant principle is indivisible and the word enlightenment is the ultimate illumination. Because enlightenment is non-dual, it tallies with the non-dual principle….Understanding by seeing is called enlightenment, understanding by hearing is called faith.

Both of these passages have parts that cause people some difficulty in understanding, but their ideas really are ways of explaining the elimination of characteristics and that nirvana is Buddha-nature from another angle. In their view, the truth is formed naturally and is not divided into stages of development; people’s enlightened understanding is in themselves, and also enlightenment is enlightenment to a principle that is not divided into stages. Therefore, “enlightenment to principle is a correspondence without any gaps,”7 which stresses that the truth is a natural revelation. It further explains that enlightenment does not fall into stages and is not divided into sections. The sense of sudden enlightenment is for it to be achieved immediately. From this we can see that that the understanding of sudden enlightenment by later people was not entirely accurate. Sudden enlightenment not only indicated the rapidity, but also stressed that principle is a whole, so if one is enlightened, then one is sure to grasp it as a whole, and therefore it is not divided or gradual. Chan’s “apart from characteristics” and “apart from thought” are expressions of this kind of sudden enlightenment. That enlightenment and principle tally without any gaps is truly the 6 7

Tr. Huida wrote during the Chen dynasty, 557–589. Tang, 1983, p. 471.

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original idea of sudden enlightenment. Daosheng wrote in his Fahua zhu (Interlinear Commentary on the Lotus Sutra): Once one has seen principle, what use is there in talking about it? It is just as with traps and snares used to catch fish and rabbits. Once the fish or rabbit has been caught, what use are the traps and snares?

This also quotes from Zhuangzi to explain the meaning of sudden enlightenment. Simply put, sudden enlightenment transcends words and images, cuts off usual logical thought, and directly and holistically grasps an indivisible principle. The logic of Chan’s sudden enlightenment is clearly based on Daosheng and also uses the distinction of word and meaning of Zhuangzi and Laozi as its source. The meaning of Daosheng’s sudden enlightenment was sufficient to set an example for posterity. The Gaoseng zhuan wrote: “The first emperor of [Liu] Song (Emperor Wu, r. 420–422) had given an account of the meaning of Daosheng’s sudden enlightenment. The monk Sengbi initiated a major criticism. The emperor said, ‘If one can resurrect the departed, why are you humiliated by the lords?’” After this, Baolin “followed the example of the ideas of Daosheng” and Baolin’s disciple Fabao also promoted the idea of sudden enlightenment. Daosheng’s disciple, Daoyu was also invited into the palace by the first emperor of the Song, and he “explained sudden enlightenment. When he had finished, debaters participated and came to criticize [his ideas]. Daoyu had thought deeply and had investigated the mysteries, and also had a basis for his fundamental principles. He took the opportunity to demoralize [his opponents] and when he advanced, he mowed them down. The emperor soothed him and was very happy.”8 One can see that the theory of sudden enlightenment, naturally at that time, and also in later times, had ample influence. Since the meaning of sudden enlightenment was based on an indivisible principle, it also meant that it came from the Buddha-nature that intrinsically exists. Daosheng said, The embodiment of the Dharma profoundly concurs with the natural (self-so), and all buddhas are likewise, for the reason that the Dharma is the Buddha.9

It also says that the principle of nature is the buddha of the intrinsic nature; and that the principle that nature reveals is the intrinsic nature of the Dharma revealed by nature; and that enlightenment to principle is also enlightenment to the intrinsically existing nature. Thus, the theory of the return to the basis and the idea of seeing the nature and becoming buddha are established by themselves. Daosheng’s intrinsically existing Buddha-nature “means nirvana is the nature of the mind.” This really is the logic behind the Platform Sutra’s “own nature is pristine,” “return to gain the intrinsic (original) mind,” and “recognize the mind and see the nature, and naturally one perfects the Buddhist path.” This molded a comparatively complete model. Daosheng’s statement that “all icchantikas (non-believers) can become buddha,”10 8

Gaoseng zhuan, Daoyu biography. Quote from Niepan jijie 54. 10 Huijiao, Gaoseng zhuan. 9

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in reality argued that all sentient beings have a Buddha-nature and can by themselves perfect the Buddha path, and that therefore the Buddha does not need cultivation, the Way does not need study, and there is also meaning of sudden enlightenment. This also became the thought of later Chan that everybody can become buddha. Although his Fo wu jingtu lun (On Buddha Not Having a Pure Land) has been lost, still Daosheng’s Fashen wu jingtu lun (On the Dharma-body Not Having a Pure Land) “clarified that the Dharma-body has no Pure Land.”11 Both the Weimo zhu (Interlinear Commentary on the Vimalak¯ırti-nirde´sa) and Fahua jingshu (Commentary on the Lotus Sutra) explain this idea. This theory is a refutation of Huiyuan’s ideas about the Pure Land. Viewed fundamentally, it was also written to establish the theory that one’s own mind is the Pure Land. This follows along the same path as Chan’s “if the mind is pure, the land is pure.” Professor Tang Yongtong interpreted Daosheng’s theory as follows: “The Buddha basically has no land, but he borrows phenomena to communicate the mystery, and he calls it the Pure Land. It was all to make people aim for the good; it does not mean it is real.”12 This points out the proper meaning of Daosheng’s theory. Sengzhao, who appeared together with Daosheng in Kum¯araj¯ıva’s school, has definitely been recognized as the foremost theoretician in Chinese Buddhist history to understand emptiness. Yet his contribution to Chan thought has been ignored by later people. A thousand years after Sengzhao, the Qing emperor Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735) recognized this and sighed, saying that the monks of Chan all see Sengzhao’s learning as that of the Lesser Vehicle, “thinking that he was a person of a period before the time of Bodhidharma, when China had yet to hear that there was a separate transmission outside of the teachings.” But when the emperor came to read the works of Sengzhao, he knew that Sengzhao’s learning was the Chan thought of “it is correct to not establish letters.”13 The consciousness by Yongzheng of the beginning of Chan thought and of Sengzhao’s theory of reality (ti) is function (yong), and his grasping of the concept of the transcendence of existence and nonexistence, should be said to have been extraordinarily accurate. Also, it is just these transcendental concepts that take Chan to be the logic of the mind-nature of “the myriad dharmas are entirely one’s own nature” and “departing and entering is apart from either side” that laid the foundations of rational analysis. Sengzhao (384–414), surnamed Zhang, was of a poor family when young and he later worked as a copyist. He aspired to and loved the mysterious and subtle, and he always took Zhuangzi and Laozi to be his guides to thinking. He was also versed in the Buddhist canon. When he reached adulthood, his reputation spread through north-west China. Later, he followed Kum¯araj¯ıva and became an important disciple in Kum¯araj¯ıva’s school. He was praised as a giant of the Dharma. His works include Bore wuzhi lun (On Prajñ¯a Having No Knowing), Buzhenkong lun (On Non-true 11

What the Shengman baoku by Jizang calls Fashen wu jingtu lun is the Fo wu jingtu lun. Tang Yongtong, Han Wei Nanbeichao Fojiao shi, Zhonghua whuju, 1983, p. 461. 13 Yongzheng, “Yuxuan yulu xu, Sengzhaobian xu” (Preface to the Imperially Selected Records of Sayings; Preface to the Works of Sengzhao), in Zhongguo Chanzong daquan (Complete Works of Chinese Chan), Changchun chubanshe, 1991, p. 743. 12

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Emptiness), Wu buqian lun (On Things Do Not Shift) and so on. Combined and preserved they were called the Zhaolun. This collection explained that Sengzhao’s forms of speculation were reality is function, movement is calm, and that there is a transcendence of existence and non-existence. Of course, Buddhists in the early period of its transmission, like the scholars of Dark Learning that was in vogue at that time, spoke of emptiness (non-existence) and spoke of existence, “being partial [to one] and yet not identical [with that existence or non-existence].” Sengzhao adopted a spirit of total negation and berated the three schools of “Original non-existence,” “Identity with matter,” and “the mind is nonexistent,” emphasizing that the intrinsic reality (benti) is without characteristics, transcends all distinctions, and definitely cannot be biased towards existence, but also cannot be biased towards non-existence. Therefore, he spoke of it as being the “non-true emptiness” of “neither existence nor non-existence.” He said, If you want to say it exists, that existence is not truly born. If you want to say it is nonexistent, then phenomena and images take shape. Phenomena and form are not non-existent; therefore, I say not non-existence, and as it is not true and not real existence, I say it is non-existence.

It is evident that his concept of this reality is function was made to counter the splitting of emptiness from existence, and placing them into the antithetical condition of dualistic thinking. From Sengzhao’s viewpoint, the existence of phenomenal things is not a real existence because it is not truly born (it is born of a combination), but it is also not a nothingness because ultimately it has a form that can be seen and touched, and therefore to grasp it as existence or to grasp it as non-existence equally violates the “Way.” This informs people that the intrinsic reality has no characteristics and transcends existence and non-existence. The later Chan School just followed this logic and established the non-antithetical concepts of “departing and entering is apart from both sides,” “apart from characteristics while in characteristics,” and “apart from emptiness while in emptiness.”14 The “principle transcends the tetralemma, reality eliminates the hundred negations,” and “if you speak of something you miss the mark” of Chan likewise is present in Sengzhao’s theory of neither existent nor non-existent, reality is function, for Chan developed its ideas on the basis of this thinking of negation. Professor Tang Yongtong quoted Spinoza to prove that this thinking of negation is a universal of existence: “To call anything finite is a denial in part.” He compared this with Kum¯araj¯ıva’s “things do not have fixed characteristics, their nature being empty.”15 From an even wider cultural perspective, the multivalent logic of negative thinking really is Chan thinking, which provides proof of its universality. Sengzhao’s idea that movement is calm, movement and calm being one suchness, was likewise made to explain that the characteristics of reality are without characteristics, and it engraved the divine in between existence and non-existence, movement and calm, and established a theory of the transcendence of dualistic antithesis. Again, 14 15

Platform Sutra. Tang, 1983, p. 327 note.

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these ideas are based on Zhuangzi and later developed into Chan learning, and that the essence of Chan thought is just this can be known from these two or three examples. Based on this, Professor Tang Yongtong evaluated it as follows: [Sengzhao] implied in his words that the natural (ziran) was mostly adapted from Dark Learning writings on Laozi and Zhuangzi, and due to this, the Zhaolun still belonged in the lineage of Dark Learning. In summary, the important logic of the Zhaolun is the equality of right and wrong, the oneness of movement and calm, which mostly came from an awakening due to reading the Zhuangzi. Simply, Sengzhao’s distinctive feature lay in adopting the theories of Zhuangzi; he alone possessing an implicit understanding (an enlightened mind), which purely operated in his ontology….This formed a number of terms in Chinese philosophy….Sengzhao’s “understanding emptiness is primary” and the treatises he wrote that spoke about the questions of existence and non-existence and reality and function were the high point of this. Those who appeared after him found it difficult to follow him.16

As a consequence of Sengzhao’s adoption of Zhuangzi and his sole possession of an enlightened mind, he established an ontology of the transcendence of existence and non-existence, and of movement and calm, which formed the highest level of analytical philosophy. One can clearly and easily see his contribution to the Chan style of thinking such as “the nature includes the myriad dharmas,” “do not think of good, do not think of evil,” of not being attached to emptiness and not being attached to characteristics. Yet the meditation method of Mah¯ay¯ana wall-contemplation transmitted by Bodhidharma stressed that it “externally halts the cognitive objects, internally it has the mind lack anxiety, for the mind is like a wall.” This completely removes all views and through a mind that is not attached to anything, tallies with the principle of true reality. This in fact further approaches the Indian methods of meditation, which were the entry into sam¯adhi (ding) described previously, was a method of calming the mind, and was far from Chan thought. The essential meanings of the La˙nk¯avatar¯a S¯utra that they venerated definitely stated that the characteristic of reality is no characteristic. They pursued a realm that transcended time and space, but still that was based on the severe practice of austerity and used the elimination of feelings and the elimination of sensation as a method. Moreover, from a chronological viewpoint, they were also influenced by a previous Zhuangzi-style interpretation of Chan thought; and from the seventh century, there was also a tendency towards the style of lecturing and writing commentaries. Daoxuan also criticized them for “reciting words that are hard to understand and the determined pursuit of benefits [to others] was rare.”17 Thus, the La˙nka School used wall-contemplation, silent sitting, and austerity to be their methods of meditation. Their use of the analysis of names and characteristics was a distinctive feature. Some used settling the mind (dingxin) as a path to enter the Way, or regarded the scholarship of the sutra masters as noble. This had very little in common with the insight of the sages of the Chan School. Bodhidharma was made the founder of the school, but there really are elements that were far-fetched in arguing that he originated Chan thought. 16 17

Tang, 1983, p. 240. Daoxuan, Xu gaoseng zhuan, 21, end.

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However, between the pair of Daosheng and Sengzhao through to Huineng, Niutou Farong, who had been greatly influenced by philosophical Daoism, appears to the contrary to have been the transitional link in the development of Chan thought. Farong (594–657), surnamed Wei, entered Fengyao Monastery on Maoshan in Jurong at the age of nineteen. There he was tonsured by Dharma master Daming.18 Farong intensively studied Sanlun with him, along with the Avatam . saka, Mah¯aprajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a, Daji (Mah¯avaipulyamah¯asannip¯ata), Vimalak¯ırtinirde´sa and Lotus sutras. Around the seventh year of the Wude era (624), because the government required the disbanding of part of the assembly of monks, in order to protect Buddhism and preserve the benefits for the five thousand monks of Jiangdong (lower reaches of the Yangzi River basin), Farong went to the capital to present a petition on their behalf. At that time, he shifted his residence to Foku Monastery on Mt. Niutou. In the third year of the Yonghui era (652), he received a request from the regional governor to lecture on the Mah¯aprajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a S¯utra at Jianchu Monastery, where he had an audience in excess of a thousand people. It is evident that Maoshan was the site where Farong accepted the Buddha-dharma. Since he went from Maoshan to Niutou, it means he came out of the Sanlun School on Maoshan and not from the La˙nka lineage of Bodhidharma. According to investigations by Yinshun, Daoxuan (596–667) and Farong were contemporaries, and yet in Daoxuan’s Xu gaoseng zhuan (Continued Lives of Eminent Monks) there is no mention of Daoxin conferring the Dharma on Farong. The earliest account that describes Daoxin crossing the Yangzi River and going to Mt. Niutou and there enlightening Farong was written a century after Farong’s death. This account appears in the “Runzhou Haolin-si gu Jingshan Dashi beiming” (Stele Inscription for the Late Master Jingshan of Haolin Monastery in Runzhou) by Li Hua (d. 774). Then another century or more later, according to a related transmission by Liu Yuxi (772–842), there is the theory that “then he [Daoxin] went east and ultimately met the Great Master [Farong].”19 From comparison with Daoxuan’s record, the master-pupil relationship of Farong and Daoxin was clearly speculation by later people and is even a false interpolation. The Mt. Niutou region was a center of Dark Learning and Farong also learnt the Sanlun doctrines of Maoshan. Therefore, “he was not satisfied with what he had learnt of scholastic studies and so he sought self-realization of the chan (meditation) mind.”20 Consequently, he was able to talk of Chan studies via Daoist philosophy and so he was a transitional figure in the formation of Chan thought. Farong’s meditation (chan-guan) was clearly in opposition to the Dongshan Famen meditation of Daoxin who was a member of the so-called Bodhidharma lineage. The calming of the mind and wall-contemplation of Bodhidharma and the “essential skillful means of calming the mind and entering the Way” of Daoxin both

18

Daming is Jiong; they are not two people. Daming was a great master of Sanlun (Madhyamika) who was an heir to Falang. 19 Liu Yuxi, “Niutoushan Diyizu Rong Dashi xintaji,” (Record of the New Stupa for the First Patriarch of Mt. Niutou, Great Master Rong). 20 Yinshun, Zhongguo Chanzongshi, Chap. 3, Shanghai chubanshe, 1992, p. 106.

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adopted the celebrated ding and calming the mind. Farong adopted a distinctive method. In his opening statement of his theme in his Jueguan lun21 he wrote: Question: What is called mind? How does one calm the mind? Answer: You should not posit a mind, nor should one forcibly calm it; that can be considered calming!

Not positing one naturally posits it, not calming one naturally calms it, there is no particular need to forcibly calm the mind. This is without a doubt “the method of the Way being self-so (natural)” of philosophical Daoism, an extension of the principle of non-action (wuwei), and is also the “by nature [the mind] itself is pristine” of Chan, which was an inspiration for and a refinement of the idea of no-thought following conditions, which naturally runs counter to the method of calming the mind maintained by the Bodhidharma lineage. Through an analysis of the extant material, the basis of Farong’s thought can be summarized as the two aspects; “emptiness is the basis of the Way” and “no-mind tallies with the Way.” The former takes empty non-existence to be the basis of the Way, but it still carried a deep coloration of Dark Learning; the latter takes no-mind and no-thought to tally with the Way, and has employed the naturalism of Daoist philosophy and it also highlights the function of the mind’s intrinsic reality. The transformation from the basis in emptiness as a basis of the Way into the basis of the mind can really be seen as the transformation process that led from the Dark Learning stream of thought to the formation of Chan thought. According to the investigations by Yinshun, the works that represent Farong’s thought are the Jueguan lun and the Xinming (Inscription on the Mind). There are however, dissimilarities in the circulated texts. From them one can extract the grounds for the transformation of Dark Learning into Chan learning. Yinshun pointed out a quote from the Jueguan lun in Yanshou’s Zongjing lu, which says: Question: “What is the reality (ti)?” Answer, “Mind is the reality.” Question, “What is the core theme (zong)?” Answer, “Mind is the core theme.” Question, “What is the basis (ben)?” Answer, “Mind is the basis.”

Another edition cited by Yanshou writes, Empty space is the reality of dharma ( fati), myriad phenomena are the function of the dharmas.

However, another edition says, “Empty space is the basis of the Way, myriad phenomena are the function of the dharmas.” These sentences are not the same, and Yinshun does not consider these to be different works, emphasizing that “these are simply different editions formed by changes during their transmission over a long period of time.”22 From his analysis of the thought of Farong, Yinshun’s conclusion is very reasonable. That is to say that the change from the “basis of the Way” into 21

Tr. many Japanese scholars think the Jueguan lun was compiled in the eighth century. It has been translated as Contemplation Extinguished, but there are other possibilities. 22 Yinshun, Zhongguo Chanzongshi, Chap. 3, p. 94.

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“the basis of the one Dharma” and then to “the basis of the one mind” reflects the circumstances of the gradual evolution of the principles of Chan’s mind-nature from Daoist philosophy and Dark Learning. And, “the lack of characteristics is the basis, non-abiding is the basis, and no-thought is the core theme” in the Platform Sutra in reality has been accepted and developed from Farong’s mind-reality, mind-theme, and mind-basis. Farong’s Xinming collection describes the self-awareness of the intrinsic nature, self-purity, and therefore the naturalist thought that complies with no-thought and non-abiding, such as, The mind-nature does not arise, so why do you need to know and see it? Do not do anything, the radiance and calm will appear of themselves. If one wishes to obtain purity of mind, no-mind functions effectively. If one discriminates between ordinary and saintly, frustrations will proliferate. It is not clean, it is not polluted, it is not shallow and it is not deep. From its origin it was not old, and at present it is not the now. ….. From its origin it did exist, from its origin it is the now. Bodhi intrinsically exists, there is no need to preserve it. Frustrations are intrinsically non-existent, there is no need to remove them. Since non-awareness is due to awareness, this awareness is without awareness, …. All is conditioned, intrinsically nothing is created. Know the mind is not the mind, there is no illness and no medicine. …. Basically, there is nothing that can be grasped, so why now try to discard it? …. Where there is no mind there is no sense-object, and where there is a sense-object there is no mind. It does not enter or depart, it is not silent or noisy. Proper awareness has no awareness, true emptiness is not empty. There is no place to calm the mind, and calming the mind has no place.

In this it naturally and inescapably is related to the questions of intrinsic reality, words and meaning, as for example in, “The myriad images are truly permanent, phenomena are of one characteristic,” and “radiance and calm are self-so, one cannot speak about them.” All in all, this shows the influence of the ideas of inaction, the traps or snare and fish or rabbit idea of Daoist philosophy, and it shares similarities with the form of thinking of Chan’s transcendental spirit and leaving things up to following conditions. The Chan School is truly to be located in the previously described creative translation that used Zhuangzi and Laozi to interpret Chan’s cultural inheritance, and in its cultural environment it used the insight of Chinese-style philosophers, with which it replaced the ding (sam¯adhi) of Indian yoga. Not being completely the same as Indian Buddhism, Chan amply drew upon Zhuangzi and Laozi and matched this

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to the implementation of a popularizing reform that was Chinese Chan thought. That reform happened along with the publication of the Platform Sutra, which started to be distributed throughout all the society. Even though at the beginning of the Chan School, with the true originators of Chan thought, there were non-identical sermons by the Dongshan (Famen), Huineng, and Shenhui, as the Platform Sutra is regarded as being the fundamental scripture of Chan, there is no objection to taking it as a representative work of Chan thought. Huineng cannot be ignored as having made an epoch-making contribution to the history of Chan thought. Even though the beautiful legend of Huineng getting the meaning of the g¯ath¯a (verse) at Hongren’s kitchen on Dongshan and his subsequent leadership of the lineage has greatly simplified the formation and circulation of this thought, Huineng was still a struggling pioneer in the south of China, where he spread his easy teachings. They certainly spread very rapidly and reached all levels of society, and so formed an important constituent of Chinese culture. The reasoning of “directly point at the human mind, see the nature, and become buddha,” had already become a favorite Chinese phrase. Chan thought completely relied on the fascination of its theoretical thinking and did not need government support, having comprehensively won over society. The fundamentals of Chan thought can be summed up in the words, “see the nature and become buddha.” This principle is simple and clear, it is easy to understand and remember, and is appreciated by the elite and vulgar alike. Ordinary people did not maintain a respectful distance from it because of its refinement and profundity, and the scholars and officials also did not regard it as beneath their notice because of its popularity and simplicity. The cause for this lies in the fact that it was close to the common teachings of everyday life and also because it was profound in its meaning, and these senses blended together in a profound speculation that had been changed by philosophical Daoism. How does one see the nature and become buddha? This argument was also erected on the foundations of a Daoist naturalism, which holds that “the nature is intrinsically pristine.” The nature is intrinsically pristine means that the nature by itself is radiant awareness and therefore awakening is not to be sought externally; one only needs to seek back into one’s self, recognize one’s own nature, and return to attain the intrinsic mind, which then is awakening. In other words, one only needs to recognize one’s own self. The theory of to see the nature and become buddha has then been established. The Platform Sutra virtually everywhere emphasizes the bases for the establishment of this fundamental theme, for example: One’s own self is the pure mind. The Buddha-nature has no north or south….what differentiation is there in the Buddhanature? If one does not recognize one’s intrinsic mind, the study of the Dharma will be of no benefit. If one recognizes the mind and sees the nature, one is enlightened to the great meaning. The nature of humans is intrinsically pure….One’s own nature is intrinsically pure. From its origin one’s own nature is pristine.

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The nature of people in the world is intrinsically pristine, and all the dharmas are in one’s own nature. All the dharmas are seen within one’s own nature. All dharmas are of the nature of freedom, which is called the pristine dharma-body. Prajñ¯a is ever present, it is not apart from one’s own nature. Therefore, know that all the myriad dharmas are within oneself. The buddhas of the three ages and the twelve-part scriptures are also intrinsically fully present in the nature of humans. Buddha is a creation of one’s own nature; do not seek it outside oneself. One’s own nature is seen by the mind; do not be attached to the characteristics of external dharmas.

All of the above and more informs people that their own nature is originally pristine. The words of Huineng’s g¯ath¯a, “Bodhi intrinsically has no tree, the bright mirror is not a stand [i.e. is not a mirror]; the Buddha-nature is always pristine, so where is there any dust?”23 concentrates on the expression that is still “one’s own nature is pristine.” Since one’s own nature is pristine, one’s own nature is intrinsic awareness and naturally there will be no need to strenuously seek for it outside of oneself; one only needs to look back at one’s own mind and seek back in oneself, and one will return to obtain the intrinsic mind and one will be able “at that time to open up to [enlightenment],” and “suddenly manifest the basic nature of suchness.” This is what is meant by “immediately being able to see the nature, to directly realize and become buddha,” and “recognize the mind and see the nature, and by oneself perfect the Buddha Way.” These theories of return to the origin (the intrinsic) that are based on naturalism are the first distinguishing feature of Chan thought. Second, based on the afore-mentioned idea of the return to the origin of “see the nature and become buddha,” the Platform Sutra provided a daring innovation in basic Buddhist theory. It took an external buddha and converted it into a buddha within the mind, and took an externally-oriented awakening that makes an all-out effort at transcendence of the external world and changed it into an internally-oriented retro-seeking into the mind that is an immanent transcendence. Essentially, this was a revolution that advanced the Buddhist culture transmitted from India via traditional Chinese theories of the mind-nature. The greatest embodiments of this characteristic are “one’s own mind is the three refuges”24 and “only the mind is the Pure Land.” Buddhism originally had the teaching of the three refuges of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, which was originally used as a norm to control and be a principle for Buddhists. The Platform Sutra broke this established rule and it advanced the idea that “the Buddha is awareness; Dharma is the correct; and Sangha is purity.” It used the formless three categories of awareness, correctness, and purity in the theory of the mind-nature to replace the three existents of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha that have form. Because of this, the Platform Sutra is no longer taking refuge in the 23

Another g¯ath¯a that has been transmitted is largely the same, but with some minor differences, saying, “The bright mirror is intrinsically pristine.” It still has the sense that one’s own nature is clear awareness.”. 24 The Platform Sutra also says, “The three refuges are without characteristics.”.

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Buddha, taking refuge in the Dharma, or taking refuge in the Sangha’s regulations, but is taking refuge in awareness, taking refuge in correctness, and taking refuge in purity, which is a demand for an inherent morality. Essentially, this is taking refuge in one’s own originally awakened, unadulterated, correct, and pristine mind. The external Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha are all entirely washed away, there being only one mind that can be taken refuge in and that can be venerated. Through this, the principles of Buddhism had already been fundamentally changed without leaving any traces. In another aspect, due to the formation of a society to chant the name of the buddha by Huiyuan (334–416) on Mt. Lu in the hope of rebirth in the western paradise of the Pure Land, this formed into the teachings of the Pure Land that had the intention of reaching the Pure Land that is on the other shore. It also advocated the verbal chanting of the name of the buddha Amit¯abha and also stressed entering into sam¯adhi (ding) and the calming of the mind. Although Daosheng presented the theory of “Buddha has no Pure Land” as a correction, still the externally existent and tangible Pure Land was welcomed by male and female believers. Huineng, based on the natural principle of “the nature is intrinsically pristine,” was also influenced by Daosheng’s theory of “Buddha has no Pure Land” and so used “mind-only Pure Land” to replace the western paradise Pure Land. This was also a daring revolution in the teachings that were an empty illusion and the placing of hope in being reborn on that other shore. The Platform Sutra specially points out that “at all times, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, always practice the straightforward mind,” “the straightforward mind is the site of the Way,” and “the straightforward mind is the Pure Land.” When Huineng preached for people he went one step further in his explanation: Deluded people chant the name of the Buddha to be born there, [but] the enlightened have purified their own mind. For this reason the Buddha said, “In accordance with the purification of the mind, the Pure Land is purified.”…The mind simply is entirely pure, the western direction {Pure Land} is not far off. If the mind arises then it is not a pure [mind],25 so chanting the name of the Buddha to be reborn is difficult to achieve.

The Pure Land is not in the west, it is one’s own mind, and one’s own mind being pristine is the attainment of the Pure Land. If one’s own mind is not pure, of course, how can one chant the name of the Buddha for that is also useless? Just as with “one’s own mind is the three refuges,” the theory of “the mind-only Pure Land” is also a crystallization of the real immanent transcendental revolution in Chan thought. Third, from the perspective of original Buddhism, which repeatedly spoke of cause and effect in the sense of “causation” (yuansheng, conditional production), this is what is meant by “I say that the dharmas produced by causation (prat¯ıtya-samutp¯ada) are empty.” Because of this, they denied the existence of an ontological existence. However, Chan thought was clearly influenced by Daoist ontology, and was especially influenced by the “equality of all things” of Zhuangzi and via the intense subjective consciousness it advanced. This evolved into an absolute own mind and 25

These words are redundant.

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the intrinsic reality of one’s own nature. Through this, the Buddhism that maintained there is no intrinsic reality (entity) at once was changed to become the Chan thought of the mind-nature as the intrinsic reality. “From a self-consciousness to an independent subject, from an independent subject to an absolute entity; this was the usual speculative structure of Sui and Tang Buddhism. Passing through the introspection of self-consciousness that realizes an intrinsic reality…this single intrinsic reality is the ‘mind-source’ of self-consciousness. This path was already opened up in the early Chan School.”26 This paragraph is most pertinent in its explanation of the structure of the speculation of Chan thought. If the early Chan School points to the Daoist philosophical influence of Sengzhao and others or speaks of a Buddhist scholarship that was influenced by Dark Learning, this ontological trait can be immediately and easily seen in understanding Chan thought. Without the slightest doubt, the establishment of the concept of an intrinsic reality in Chan thought was a continuation of Sengzhao’s idea of an intrinsic reality without characteristics that transcended existence and non-existence, which was based on the foundations of a thinking of negation in which ti (reality) is function. This naturally made it difficult to avoid direct acceptance of the influence of the relativism of Zhuangzi’s equality of right and wrong, equality of birth and death, equality of things and self, and equality of this and that. Since this intrinsic reality is also singular, it is consequently also without an opposite; that the intrinsic reality has no characteristics is also a transcendence of the anithesis of the dualism of existence and non-existence, and so this should be “apart from characteristics.” Being without opposition and being apart from characteristics is a thinking of the negation of all dualistic antitheses that transcends existence and non-existence et cetera, and it is also the essential spirit of Chan thought. The Platform Sutra records that Huineng returned to Lingnan (modern Guangdong and Guangxi provinces), and when he transmitted the Dharma to the local officials, monks, and lay people, he spoke about this sam¯adhi being insight. He then required that they be “divorced from the four characteristics,” namely the four characteristics of being apart from existence, apart from non-existence, apart from neither existence nor non-existence, and also being apart from both existence and non-existence. After this, he went further and took these two theories, the lack of opposites and of being apart from characteristics, and made them concrete in a sermon on thirty-six opposing pairs, namely: Heaven and earth; sun and moon; light and dark; yin and yang; water and fire; conditioned and unconditioned; form and formless; with characteristics and without characteristics; tainted and untainted; matter and emptiness; movement and calm; clean and polluted; ordinary and saintly; monk and layperson; old and young; large and small; long and short; high and low; false and correct; idiotic and insightful; stupid and wise; confused and focused; following the precepts and not doing so; straight and bent; substantive and empty; steep and flat; frustration and bodhi; compassion and harm; delight and anger; giving and stinginess;

26

Hou Wailu, Zhongguo sixiang tongshi (A General History of Chinese Thought), volume 4, Renmin chubanshe, 1980, p. 162.

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2 The Foundations and Formation of Chan Thought advance and retreat; rising and ceasing; permanent and impermanent (changeable); dharmabody and physical body; body of transformation (nirm¯an.ak¯aya) and body of recompense (sambhogak¯aya), reality (ti) and function; nature and characteristic, sentient and insentient.27

Although here there are a few pairs that cannot be strictly speaking considered opposites, and moreover the listing of these cannot exhaust the various kinds of phenomena contained in the world, still Huineng’s intention was to state through these paired dharmas that “the understanding shared in all the sutras, that departing and entering are apart from the two sides….departing the external is being apart from characteristics while in characteristics, and is being apart from emptiness while in emptiness,” “without abiding in them while in all dharmas,” and “not being tainted by them while in all sense-realms.” Summing this up in a sentence, it is not to be attached to either side, a way of thinking that transcends the existence of opposite pairs. Or it can be said to be, “being apart from characteristics while in characteristics” or “not thinking while in thought.” Huineng’s Platform Sutra teaching on the thirty-six pairs, and departing and entering which is apart from both sides, is the removal of both or the denial of both, and in essence is a thinking via negation. He strove to pass through this means of thinking in order to reveal that there are contradictions or antinomies in respect of phenomenal things or in logical concepts, and thereby actualize the transcendental spirit that leaps over all dualistic antitheses, and due to this intrinsic reality strengthen an out-and-out self-consciousness. In this way, one will sublimate the intrinsic reality via self-consciousness, and again strengthen the self of Chan thought with the help of the intrinsic reality, with its concrete form of expression being this departing and entering apart from both sides, which is the thinking via negation that removes both sides and is the transcendental spirit of the transcendence of dualistic antitheses. One must recognize that this kind of transcendental spirit via negation does not agree with the habits of normal thinking. The Chan School, of course, simplified Zhuangzi’s boundless and unrestrained, profound and marvelous thought with its depth and secret meanings, as well as Sengzhao’s treatise about the profound principle that is difficult to comprehend. Chan also popularized them, yet their essence was not altered, but these ideas were difficult to accept via normal logical habits of thinking. Therefore, Chan monks after this time poured the old wine into new bottles and so barbed comments proliferated, and conceptions of there is no right or wrong overturned the barriers of dualistic thinking, allowing people to accept this kind of surrealistic thinking via negation. Because of this, the Chan School bloomed from one flower with five petals (one lineage with five branches), and Chan thought began to branch and spread. It was definitely not that the content of the thought in these five branches was different. The Chan School developed through this, and because of this, Chan thought also entered into separate paths. Fourth, the idea of seeing the nature apart from characteristics and the divided paths of meditation (chanding) clearly split the Chan of the Chan School thought from the chan of the methods of entering into sam¯adhi. Huineng said, 27

Because these are not the same in the various editions, here I have quoted thirty-eight pairs.

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Not giving rise to thoughts about all sense-objects that are external is sitting, seeing the original nature and not being confused is chan. Externally being apart from characteristics is called chan, internally not being confused is called sam¯adhi (ding).

As mentioned earlier, from the time Buddhism entered China, the creative translation of chan had already made a chan that influenced the development of Indian thought via the content of philosophical Daoism. It distinguished the mind of sam¯adhi (dingxin) from the chan method of governing the will (mentation). However, before the Platform Sutra, these two were always confused and spoken of as being one. Because of this, in the Platform Sutra, Huineng spoke very clearly about differentiating them. This also liberated Chan thought from the forms of sam¯adhi (ding) and the originally ambiguous and unclear concepts were provided with a clear-cut basis for separation. Please look at the following: Internal

External

Chan

See nature

Apart from characteristics

Ding

Not confused

Sitting

Thoughts do not arise

To be apart from characteristics externally and to see the nature internally is Chan. That is to say, by relying on the thinking of negation on being apart from characteristics, one can arrive at the aim of seeing the nature, which in fact is selfconsciousness and is a denial of the various kinds of antithesis in the objective world. One thereby reaches a unification with intrinsic reality. Sam¯adhi is not being confused internally; sitting is not giving rise to thoughts about the external. Sam¯adhi and sitting form a method that is differentiated from Chan, which also clearly says that these are differentiated from the Chan of Chan thought. This can be seen entirely at a glance. Being apart from characteristics is a path that has to be followed, and seeing the nature is the final aim. Therefore, the techniques of sam¯adhi and of sitting can be used or not. Acknowledging this, Huineng took an especially critical attitude towards chanding (meditation), whether it was purely sitting or sam¯adhi, or the sitting in meditation (zuochan) that is usually spoken about. He said, “I only say sit and do not move,” but that “is still a causation that is a hindrance to the Way.” “There are people who teach people to sit, look at the mind and look at purity, not moving and not arising….Since there are several hundreds of people who teach the Way like this, be aware that these are major errors.” Because of this, he advocated that Chan was in all walking, standing, sitting, and reclining, and was not in the dumb-sheep and dead-wood style of sitting. Technique is technique with an aim, and the aim is everything. Based on the same sort of cause, the Chan School rejected all pure regulations and discipline as wrong, as unreasonable. Daosheng had already displayed the first hints of this. (Fascicle seven of the Gaoseng zhuan says, “Emperor Taizu instituted a meeting and the emperor personally accompanied the assembly [of monks] and went to the site of the feast.

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After providing food to the monks for some time, the assembly all began to worry that it was too late in the day [for monks under the regulations were not permitted to eat after noon]. The emperor said, ‘The commencement [of eating] can be at noon.’ Daosheng said, ‘The bright sun is beautiful in the heavens, and when heaven [also indicates the emperor] says it is to commence at noon, how can it not be noon?’ So he took his bowl and ate. Thereupon all the assembly followed suit.”). In sum, “seeing the nature and becoming buddha” is the core theme of Chan thought. The doctrine that the nature is intrinsically pristine, in which one seeks back in one’s own mind-nature, and the form of thinking via negation that transcends dualistic opposition, as well as the separation from chanding, being apart from characteristics, and seeing the nature, are the principles of Chan and are the core content of Chan School thought. The theory of sudden enlightenment is nothing more than another form of expression of thinking via negation, and therefore the question of sudden versus gradual was basically not something of concern. It was only a later person, Shenhui, who made it a struggle between the Northern and Southern lineages. Therefore, there is no need to describe it in any detail. To sum up, Chan thought developed a core theme that was focused on “see the nature and become buddha,” and the four core themes described above can be reduced to two aspects: One is the naturalism of relying on a nature that is intrinsically pure and which amply gave free rein to the idea of according with conditions of “simply practice the straightforward mind,” that is, “Ever so green the emerald bamboo, which is completely the dharma-body; thick and bushy the yellow flowers (chrysanthemums), there are none that are not prajñ¯a,”28 “everything sensed is the Way,” and “putting it down is it” and so on. The second is the thinking via negation, which expanded its spirit of transcendence. This is being apart from characteristics, apart from thoughts, apart from words, “principle transcends the tetralemma, reality (ti) eliminates all negations,” and “to speak about something is to be off target” and so on. In reality, these two points are both based on the idea that intrinsic reality has no antitheses and has no characteristics. The according with conditions of naturalism is a result of the negation of the phenomenal realm, is not an affirmation of the phenomenal realm, and is also the idea of “after thirty years I see mountains as mountains and see water as water.” Yet, with the later development of Chan thought, but still with the aid of naturalism, it changed the negation of all into an affirmation of all, and that changed Chan thought into a slave of despotism, and by giving play to desires, it led to a tendency to excuse laissez-faire; the thought of negation also had an expression that developed into an orientation towards mystification. This will be spoken of later. It is necessary to explain that the chan that had been through the process of translation, under the transformation wrought by the thought of Zhuangzi and Laozi, firstly committed the mind to abstraction and with self-consciousness pursued the absolute intrinsic reality that dwelt within the dualistic antitheses of the phenomenal 28

A set phrase of Niutou, sourced in Sanlun.

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realm, and used intrinsic reality to strengthen self-consciousness, actualizing the unification of this reality (ti) with intrinsic reality (this is what is called becoming buddha or awakening); and secondly, unlike mainstream Buddhism, rejected the methods of austerity and severe practice, and the discipline of the pure regulations, which take the buddhas and patriarchs to be objects of worship, and which were methods of assiduous self-encouragement to cultivate one’s self to enter the Way, and which adopted the discipline of the pure regulations as standards for behavior. One then should say that Chan thought is the insight of philosophers influenced by Zhuangzi and Laozi and was not the way to conduct oneself of the Buddhists!

Chapter 3

The Branching of Chan Thought

After passing through several centuries of successive infiltration and selection, around the start of the eighth century, Chan thought eventually took form through the efforts of Huineng and his pupils. The lone scripture that was a creation of Chan thought, the Platform Sutra, began to be distributed in society. Nevertheless, the range of distribution of Huineng’s thought was still chiefly limited to the south of China and it was not until twenty-one years after his death, when the so-called core themes of the Southern Lineage were propagated by his disciple Shenhui in Dayun Monastery in Huatai, Henan Province, that Chan thought started to be distributed throughout the whole country. Shenhui regarded himself as the legitimate disciple of Huineng, as having the status of being in the orthodox genealogy of the Chan lineage. He publicly attacked the meditation methods (chanfa) of Shenxiu that were popular at that time in the region of the two capitals (Chang’an and Luoyang) and he claimed that he had settled the core themes and lineage for students of the Way in the empire and that he had distinguished the right from the wrong. He fabricated a genealogy of the transmission of the Dharma of the Chan School and he venerated Huineng as the sixth patriarch. This is what Hu Shi called “the Southern Lineage attack on the North.1 It was exactly Shenhui’s “Southern Lineage attack on the North” that led to the so-called division of the Southern and Northern lineages. In reality, even though Huineng and Shenxiu cannot be said to have had absolutely no relationship, in the end they were vehicles travelling on two different roads and they could also originally have existed in peace with each other. It was only the development of Chan thought and the power of its widespread infiltration into culture that determined its necessary expansion overall into society. At that time, Shenxiu was extremely famous in north China, and he called himself a member of the legitimate lineage of the La˙nka School of Bodhidharma. Moreover, Zhang Yue (667–730)2 wrote a stele inscription for him and Shenxiu was commonly recognized by the public. Therefore, Shenhui used the content of “[Shenxiu’s] lineage from his teacher was that of a branch lineage and his teachings 1 2

Hu Shi, Hu Shi shuo Chan (Hu Shi Talks of Chan), Dongfang chubanshe, 1993. Tr. Zhang Yue was an eminent statesman and chief minister in the latter part of his life.

© Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_3

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were gradualist” to mount an all-out public challenge to the lineage of Shenxiu. This was not a clash of thought and method, but was essentially a struggle for favor, a struggle for honor, and a struggle for a base that was contested by factions. The names, “Southern Lineage” and “Northern Lineage,” arose from this, and thereafter Chan monks always erroneously transmitted this and ended up making later people believe this was true. It should be said that Shenhui confused Chan thought with the chan method of Bodhidharma’s lineage and he also initiated the trend of currying favor with the powerful, thereby falsely creating historical precedents, so that later Chan monks road on their coattails and competed by knowingly following bad examples, changing absurd Chan School lineage claims into a Chan School history. This also intertwined the method of meditation (chanding) with Chan thought so that they were hard to disentangle. However, Shenhui still made a huge contribution to the spread of Chan thought. The so-called split of the Chan School into north and south was really not a true division in Chan thought because they originally did not have the same source and were also not associated. Even though a famous Chan School monk of Shenhui’s Heze school, Zongmi, must have received influence from Shenhui (684–758), and in places his explanations of Chan were confused and unclear, yet his Yuanjue dashu chao (Extracts from the Great Commentary on the Sutra of Perfect Awakening) divided Chan into seven houses and his Chanyuan zhuquanji duxu (General Preface to the Collection Describing the Sources of Chan) divided Chan into ten “rooms,” but both these texts have no traces of the divided paths of North and South. Even though he advances the theory that Great Master Heze (Shenhui) was the seventh patriarch, this is not necessarily reliable.3 He also divided Chan thought into three themes,4 and since he revealed the distinctive features of Chan thought, this also indicates that Chan thought had already started to divide. From the Dali to Yuanhe reign eras (766–820), under the influence of the commotion in Chan thought created by Shenhui, Chan thought swept like a grass-fire across the entire country. Chan monks appeared in succession and created a movement that road on the coattails of this controversy, struggling to make themselves the heirs of Caoqi Huineng. The ranks of the Chan School expanded and Chan thought began to truly branch. In the first years of the Baoli era (825), an academician of the Academy of Scholarly Worthies, Jia Su (d. 835), wrote a stele inscription for Lingtan (709–816), the Chan Master Dapei of Hualin Monastery, which stated that “Caoqi (Huineng) has passed away and his Dharma-heirs Shenhui and (Nanyue) Huairang (677–744) split to form two lineages.” We can see that before the Chan School branched into five houses out of a single lineage that it had already branched into the Heze and Nanyue lines. According to fascicle sixty-two of the Tangwen cui (Essentials of Tang Prose), 3

Hu Shi, Hu Shi shuo Chan, 1993. Zongmi, Chanyuan zhuquanji duxu, divided Chan thought into the themes of, 1. Stopping the false [thoughts] and cultivating [nothing-but the] mind, 2. Eliminating and non-reliance [on anything], 3. Directly showing the mind-nature. Tr. see Jeffrey Lyle Broughton, Zongmi on Chan, Columbia University Press, New York, 2009, p. 120.

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Huairang was originally a monk of the Vinaya School. However, he considered himself to be a recipient of the correct transmission from Caoqi (or it was imposed on him by his pupils) and it is difficult to avoid the suspicion that he was climbing the social ladder. But what is important to note is that this explains that the early Chan School had no factional views and that the wide-ranging infiltration by Chan thought can be well imagined from this. The branching in Chan thought meant there was also a natural tendency for an evolution in scholarship. Later, Mazu Daoyi (706–786) became one of Huairang’s pupils. He was originally from Sichuan, was tonsured in Zizhong, and was a pupil of Reverend (heshang) Kim, Musang (684–762) of the Zhixian line. Because he was at Nanyue with Huairang, he had a master-pupil relationship with Huairang, and so consequently Daoyi was said to have been in the second generation of the transmission from Huineng. Baizhang Huaihai (749–814) was a pupil of Daoyi. Huaihai devoted himself to the institution of the organization and regulation of Chan cloisters, and in order to “work for the assembly,” he stressed the principle of “if you do not work for a day you do not eat for a day.” He provided the Chan School with a kind of organizational structure and economic security. The systematization of the Chan School organization was also linked to a kind of organizational form for Chan thought and the setting up of branches in Chan thought may or may not have been due to this. Qingyuan Xingsi (d. 740) was also a pupil of Huineng. Xingsi had a pupil called Shitou Xiqian (700–790). Shitou Xiqian was converted in Hunan and he wrote the Cao’an ge (Songs of a Grass Hermitage) and the Cantongqi (Investigate Agreement). The latter was created out of the enlightenment Shitou experienced when reading Sengzhao’s writings, and it clearly imitated Wei Boyang (a Daoist philosopher and alchemist of the second century C.E. who wrote a book of the same title) who used Confucian theory to explain Daoism, while Shitou used Daoism to interpret Chan. In the line of Nanyue, the core theme of Mazu Daoyi was “all categories [of things] are the Way, freeing the mind is the cultivation [of practice].” He thought that “the created and the conditioned are all the Buddha-nature; craving, anger, and frustration are the Buddha-nature; the raising of eyebrows and movement of eyeballs, laughing, yawning, speaking and sighing, or shaking and so forth are all activities of a buddha.” Because of this assertion, “he did not eliminate [anything] and did not cultivate [anything]; he let things operate freely, which he called liberation. [He said that] there was no dharma to restrain one and no buddha to be created,” and he only taught people “to halt karma (action) and nourish the spirit” and “halt the spirit and nourish the Way.” This agrees with the “nature is intrinsically pristine” of the Platform Sutra and is also an elaboration of “the straightforward mind is the Way” of naturalism. Later, the Chan School advocated the teaching of not relying on language or letters, and it habitually tried to be unconventional and extraordinary, and its reliance on these fantastic and eccentric actions to demonstrate the Chan mechanism and “Buddha-nature” are all an extension of Daoyi’s teachings. In the line of Qingyuan, Shitou Xiqian’s teachings were essentially as follows: The reality of the mind is numinous, is translucent and perfect, is a single source that has many outflows, and that all images are manifested in the mind. He developed Chan thought from the aspect of the intrinsic reality also having no characteristics,

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that this reality (ti) is function. He understood Chan via the idea of transcendence. He asserted, “Do not talk of the spiritual progress (virya) of the Chan School, but discern the views of the Buddha, which is that this very mind is buddha. Mind, buddha, and sentient beings, bodhi and frustrations, all have different names but are one in reality (ti).” This specially displayed his spirit of transcendence. Therefore, he also emphasized that “not cultivating is cultivation” and “not being enlightened is enlightenment.” It can be seen that this method of practice that conforms with the natural was likewise based on the thinking via negation that transcends dualistic antithesis. By the mid-ninth century, the Qingyuan line in the south produced Deshan Xuanjian (780–865). He proclaimed that with the exception of teaching people to be ordinary people who ate, slept, and defecated, that he had no other Dharma (teaching). ´ akyamuni, what is Bodhidharma? They are both old smelly barbarHe said, what is S¯ ians, and the twelve-divisions of the sutras are also nothing more than some sheets of used toilet paper. Since he had developed the ideas of letting things operate in accordance with the conditions and the naturalism of not cultivating being cultivation, he also took an extreme attitude developed from the Chan thinking via negation. In the north, after several generations from Daoyi, the transmission reached Linji Yixuan (d. 867). He emphasized that there one recognize that there is a great radiance in a single thought of the mind, that the mind is a pristine light, a light without discrimination, a light without differentiation, and therefore that each person is not different from the buddhas and the patriarchs. He also highlighted that the nature is intrinsically pristine and that by seeing the nature everybody can become buddha. Consequently, he taught people “to not be deluded by others, and whatever one encounters internally or externally, kill it; if one meets the Buddha kill the Buddha; if one meets a patriarch kill the patriarch; if one meets an arhat kill the arhat…and only then will one be released.” His scolding of the patriarchs and abuse of the Buddha lies just in his emphasis of the unification of self-consciousness with intrinsic reality. He was equally famed, along with Deshan Xuanjian, for using the staff to strike students and shouting. Later people in the Chan School did not know the reason for using the staff and shouting, but sipped on their saliva, which can only be said to have been blind and foolish imitation. The Nanyue and Qingyuan branches were not new developments in Chan thought. They just made a major issue of the methods of being apart from characteristics and of being apart from words, which were tricks to manipulate the train of thought that complies with the natural. Because of this, one can say that the Nanyue and Qingyuan branches were not differentiations of thought, but were artificial sectarian establishments. The split of the lineages into five houses was largely like this. However, the establishment of these branches and factions really expanded the influence of the Chan School and Chan thought began its total infiltration due to the expansion of the Chan School. The public only knew of the existence of Chan and nothing else. In the late Tang and Five Dynasties period, the two lines of Nanyue and Qingyuan continued to split and they formed five lineages, which are the so-called five petals of one flower. In the third generation from Shitou Xiqian there was Dongshan Liangjie (807–869), who then transmitted the Dharma to Caoshan Benji (840–901), which

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formed the Caodong lineage. Also, among Xiqian’s heirs there was Tianhuang Daowu (748–807), and after Daowu there was another split into the Yunmen and Fayan lineages.5 Daoyi of the Nanyue line, during the reigns of emperors Suzong and Daizong (756–780), lived in Hongzhou, and therefore there is the label Hongzhou lineage. By the end of the Tang dynasty, Yixuan set up his own Linji lineage. After Huaihai, there were the master-pupil combination of Lingyou (771–853) and Huiji (814–890), and they became the basis for the Weiyang lineage. In fact, the theory of the five petals on one flower of the Chan School is not accurate, for it ignored the most direct relationship of Huineng with the Platform Sutra and the Heze lineage of Shenhui who made the greatest contribution to this. Looking at this, the theory of five petals in one flower also includes the sectarian views of the descendants of the two lines of Qingyuan and Nanyue. The branching of Chan thought should be as the diagram below shows: Huineng ↓ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------↓

↓

Nanyue Huairang ↓

↓

Heze Shenhui

Qingyuan Xingsi

↓

Mazu Daoyi

↓

Guifeng Zongmi

Shitou Xiqian

↓

↓

--------------------------↓

↓

Weiyang

Linji

--------------------------------------↓ Fayan

↓ Yunmen

↓ Caodong

The explanation of scriptures is a major feature of the Chinese cultural tradition. If we talk of the Confucians of later generations explaining the thought of Confucius, they ceaselessly told stories of what they had developed. Heze and those five houses, with the exception of the entire inheritance, simply raised some questions about how to get a meaning from and understanding of the thought of Huineng’s Platform Sutra. In other words, their thought was invariably the same; it was just that they each made developments through their mode of receiving it. As with the afore-mentioned staff of Deshan and shout of Linji, there was also, The “three lives” and “ninety-seven circle diagrams” of the Weiyang Lineage. The circle diagrams took the form of a circle to be the reality and they drew various symbols in them in order to express the ineffable, and formed a silent language for outsiders who could not 5 By the Song a dispute broke out over Daowu’s affiliation, which meant he came from Nanyue. There is also a theory that there were two monks called Daowu, and this theory persisted through to the early Qing dynasty.

42

3 The Branching of Chan Thought understand, and thereupon masters and disciples retorted with challenging questions and they mutually produced incisive remarks. The Linji Lineage has “the four selections,” “the four [relations of] guest and host,” and “the four functions of illumination.” They also used the three profundities and the three essentials to deal with students, to unglue one [from emotions] and remove the bonds [of attachments]. The Caodong Lineage have “the five ranks of lord and subject” and “sam¯adhi of the jewel mirror” as an expression of the body of principle via things and characteristics, and they judge the depth of the cultivation of realization through them. The three sentences of Yunmen and the six characteristics of Fayan et cetera.

In summary, the five lineages of Chan after the split can all be traced doctrinally back to Caoqi’s Platform Sutra. Or it may be that the thinking via negation actualized its transcendental spirit of recognizing the mind and seeing the nature; or it may have been that the straightforward mind is the Way and the confusion with the natural, and the freeing of the mind is the cultivation of practice.6 In both these aspects, they also poured old wine into new bottles and contended to display their skill, and they took an originally simple and direct Chan thought and changed it into a kind of madness, and changed it into the gongan [case, Jap. k¯oan] Chan of all kinds of shapes and expressions, of the fantastic and eccentric. The gongan Chan often plays tricks in speaking of not relying on words, with the desire to defeat one’s opponent with a surprise move; and even though their aim lay in cutting off the procedures of logical thought, ungluing oneself from emotions and removing the bonds of attachments in order to inspire the straightforward mind and self-enlightenment of students, it was still a form of madness, a method of the bizarre, and from the viewpoint of the vast majority of normal people the effect of the profound and even more profound that they sought was really an enigma, which immediately and utterly bewildered the only one or two people who could still appreciate Chan thought. The tendency towards the mystification of Chan thought in fact began with the gongan of the five house schools! Later generations of Chan monks gathered one or two gongan, winked, and therefore created a mystery, which distanced it far from Chan thought. Of the above-described branching into five houses, the Weiyang flourished for a time in the Five Dynasties period, but after several generations it disappeared. The Caodong Lineage, in the fourth generation from the time of Benji also disappeared from the scene, but later due to the line of Daoying (d. 902), Caodong was able to continue. The Fayan Lineage continued until the early Song dynasty and flourished greatly in the person of Yanshou (904–975), but Fayan was discontinued after this. In the Song dynasty, only the Linji and Yunmen lineages flourished. In the early eleventh century, Linji branched into the two factions of Huanglong and Yangji, but the overall trend in the development of Chan thought after the split was synthesis. The style of compromise and synthesis permeated the Northern and Southern Song dynasties, and it was displaced by the mutual influence of Confucianism and Chan, bringing out the best in each of the distinctive trends. The circumstances of the 6

Hu Shi said that these methods just appear to be madness, and he quoted the English, “madness is method.”.

3 The Branching of Chan Thought

43

branching in the Chan School followed the rise of lettered Chan (wenzi Chan) and this concluded with a cultural current that integrated Confucianism and Chan.

Part II

The Synthesis and Infiltration of Song-period Chan Thought

The development of Chinese Buddhism by the end of the Tang and the Five Dynasties could be characterized as almost ending, no matter whether in the various aspects of forms of organization, content of thought, the translation of scriptures and so on. The remaining matters were elaborated into the extremities of doctrine that impregnated each level of society and infiltrated into and reached the final goal of cultural transmission. As the Chan School that was founded by Chinese was in particular like this, it should be said that the specially distinctive feature of Buddhism from Song times onwards was the development of the Chan School. In his Lectures on the Philosophy of History, Hegel told a number of very incisive stories and Engels praised him as the foremost person who tried to develop evidential history in a kind of internal logic. But speaking from the standpoint of his real intention, the elder Hegel was not thinking of the ultimate truth because he recognized that any philosophy will have a contradiction of system and method, or more exactly, any system of an ultimate and absolute philosophy is not compatible with the dialectical method. In other words, the aim of philosophy just lies in the use of thought and concepts in order to grasp the truth, which is not equal to the truth, for anything that can be titled a systematic philosophy will have an incompatibility of a tendency toward stasis or ossification and the developments of the course of history. By the Sui and the Tang, Chinese Buddhism, which had passed through a major transformation, actualized a transformative revolution from a transcendence of the external into an inherent transcendence and this revealed the talents of the completely Sinified Chan School, in which one flower had five petals, and each of which contended with each other to show their charms. The discipline of the pure regulations of the Buddhists and the logical forms of lay life both remained on the other shore of history and the development of clear, coherent, concise, direct and clear methods had almost come to an end, and thereupon the thought itself forced itself to run along paths that were antithetical to those methods. Liang Qichao borrowed the Buddhist theory of rising, abiding, changing, and ceasing to explain the logical relationships in the development of thought. He thought that Tang civilization at its height had already developed to the extent it was overcooked “and the abilities of scholars in the end could not but be useless,” and then it developed in the direction

46

Part II: The Synthesis and Infiltration of Song-period Chan Thought

of being “narrow but deep,” the result of which was the multiplication of factional divisions “and those who hoped to attach themselves to the fading light increased in numbers daily” “and followed set routines” were particularly satisfied. On the other hand, Chan was merged with other thoughts, or it absorbed other thoughts to form a fresh nutrient and thereby sought new developments, “producing a new school of thought that married Confucianism and Buddhism.” “Therefore, Daoxue (neo-Confucianism) and the Chan School can be said to be the representatives of the entirety of Song, Yuan, and Ming thought.”1 This paragraph from Liang’s work can be said to be a concrete application of Hegel’s idea and very much reflects the distinguishing quality of the Song-dynasty Chan School. In his lectures on “The Distinguishing Features of Sui and Tang Buddhism” that were given at South-Western Associated University, Tang Yongtong made a similar analysis. He cited a Chinese proverb, “At the height of prosperity, there is certain to be a decline,” pointing clearly to “the moment that the epoch-making pinnacle of Sui and Tang Buddhism was at its high-water mark, was also the moment of its fall…. The prosperity of Sui and Tang Buddhism was caused by its very high degree of compatibility with that period, and yet it was that very compatibility that made it liable to split later.” That is to say, the Buddhism that had passed through the period of prosperity of the Sui and Tang, in the Five Dynasties and after began to decline. Later, he also evaluated Buddhism overall after this time as follows. He said, “After the Sui and Tang, with its external support lost, it declined internally, and even though it was encouraged and rewarded in the early Song, venerated in the Yuan period, still its spirit was a denial of the past and Buddhism barely preserved its outer form.2 ” Speaking of the rules of the development of thought, “the height of prosperity means it is certain to decline” and “being together for a long time means there is sure to be a split.” These coincide with the developments and transformations of the Chan School in the Tang and Song periods. Looking at the switch to a decline in Buddhism from the Song onwards, this is a comparatively unreal argument. Yet there are some scholars who hold a different viewpoint. They think that these main cultural and religious actors were replaced by the newly-risen intelligentsia due to the collapse of the aristocracy in the Song. Unlike the great achievement of the assembling of the six courts (the northern and southern dynasties) by the Tang dynasty, Song dynasty Buddhism was oriented toward the future. Even though the stimulus of the importation of texts had already been exhausted and successive persecutions of Buddhism added to the chaos, which also led to scriptures being almost entirely lost, instead the Chan School—a Sinified Buddhism, flourished. Therefore, this is not to be called a decline, but is to be labeled a turning point.3 1

Liang Qichao, Zhongguo jin sanbainian xueshu shi (History of Chinese Scholarship of the Last Three Centuries), Jiangsu Guangling guji keyinshe, 1990, p. 2. 2 Tang Yongtong, “Wudai Song Yuan Ming Fojiao shilüe,” in Dui Tang Fojiao shigao (Draft History of Sui and Tang Buddhism), Zhonghua shuju, 1982, p. 294. 3 Kamata Shigeo, Jianming Zhongguo Fojiao shi (A Concise History of Chinese Buddhism), translated from Japanese, Shanghai yiwen chubanshe, 1986, p. 253.

Part II: The Synthesis and Infiltration of Song-period Chan Thought

47

In fact, as Buddhism in the Tang had developed to perfection and fundamentally speaking, the importation and translation of Buddhist texts were already complete and the essential meanings in them had been fully understood by the great masters of the various schools, the Chan School, in particular, had already advanced the principle of the radiant mind that sees the nature and the return to the origin and reversion to the truth to their utmost. Therefore, the students who later received this, with the exception of the work of ordering and editing texts, only collected minor details, and therefore they played with ruses and trickery. Gong Zizhen (1792–1841, a New Text Confucian scholar) criticized the later inferior adherents of the Chan School for being more outrageous the more Chan prospered, and Tang Yongtong said that “its spirit was a denial of the past” and he precisely grasped the trend of the Chan School. Yet looking from another direction, due to the prosperity of the Buddhism of the previous age and the efforts of incalculable numbers of eminent monks, the place of Buddhism in Chinese culture was already firm and unchanging, and it not only infiltrated into the sediments of Chinese culture but also soaked into the psychology of various strata of society. In particular, by the Song dynasty, the intelligentsia had adopted both Confucianism and Buddhism, spoke freely of the arcane and profound, and established monasteries on the famous mountains or in cities, and the numbers of monks and nuns increased; even villages of ten houses were sure to have ten sets of offerings of incense; the entire canon was printed, which partially enabled Buddhism to spread even more widely….all of these cannot be explained by the word “decline.” Therefore, it is better to call it “disabled and askew” than to say “decline,” and better to name it “infiltration” instead of calling it a “turning point.”4 To be defective is to be incomplete and something askew is not correct. To use these words to explain the Buddhism of the Song period onwards, in particular, for the ample developments in its thought and the universal acceptance by intellectuals and their appreciation of the Chan School is especially appropriate. What is meant by “incomplete” is that it developed in the direction of being narrow but deep; what is meant by being incorrect is that it headed toward indirection. Due to the search for “the intrinsic awakening of the mind-nature” and “this mind is Buddha,” the “narrow but deep” research totally ignored the objects of cognition and desired that one’s own mind “contain heaven and earth.” This research definitely was not lacking in contributions to illogical thought. Nevertheless, at its extremes, it rather ran toward a mysticism that is marvelous, profound, and difficult to fathom. When it ran toward indirection it excessively stressed the enlightenment of the reality of one’s own mind and denied all regular logical thinking in the functions of the processes of cognition, employing the “cutting off of all currents” of the language and actions. These are difficult to understand by ordinary people. Although there are some contributions to the history of knowledge in this, later, inferior adherents of Chan just picked up one or two gongan, selling these stones as jade, and they fled into bizarre and eccentric paths. Then the genres of the verses on old cases and their evaluations, the writing of 4

Ma Tianxiang, Wanqing Foxue yu jindai shehui sichao (Late Qing Buddhism and Modern Social Thought), vol. 1, chapter 1, section 2, Taiwan wenjin chubanshe, 1992, and Henan Daxue chubanshe, 2005.

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Part II: The Synthesis and Infiltration of Song-period Chan Thought

scholarly books and the collected sayings proliferated; and the huatou (point of the story, a keyword or phrase in a gongan) of silent illumination Chan and the barbed comments, striking with a staff and shouting, and gongan appeared one after the other. One may thus say that it was only by the Song dynasty that the riotous color of Chan, heard of as a distant uproar, bore a mystical coloring to our eyes and that consequently there was a Chinese Chan School of people telling different stories. In terms of thought, although narrow but deep research made no great contributions to theory, it still helped precipitate an ever-broader penetration of concepts that had been formed in early Chan into the depths of the mentality of the whole society. Confucians irregularly adopted Chan thought, building up an extensive and profound system of Lixue (Zhu Xi neo-Confucianism), and they further integrated the buddhas and the saint (Confucius) via the exact details of the mind-nature into a model of an ideal personality. They also borrowed the Chan contemplation (changuan) to mold their aesthetic tastes and drove a new transformation in Chinese thought. The Chan masters also made the Nature and Characteristics schools5 compatible and harmonious, and via this whole they merged Confucianism and Buddhism, unified Chan and Doctrine, created the joint cultivation of Chan and Pure Land, and brought together the Nature and Characteristics schools, all of which were part of a general tendency toward cultural convergence. The situation of the unification of the three religions (Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism) of Chinese culture only existed after the Song; only then can one speak of the true formation of this unification. Speaking in terms of form, this indirection created a transformation from a letterless Chan into a lettered (literary) Chan and a change from concise and direct philosophical theory into a mystical belief, and a replacement of the resolution of the serious question of the mind-nature with the absurd, rootless, enjoyment of playful talk. Being the proper cause of this, Chan literature to the contrary, in the transformation of the non-reliance on letters, bloomed magnificently and Chan monks fully utilized the forms of letters, poems, songs, rhyming prose, and lectures in attempts to express the Chan experience. This vastly expanded Chan literature. This was a style of Chinese literature that created many masterpieces of Chinese culture.

5

Tr.the “schools” of Nature and Characteristics refer to two themes detected by Chinese Buddhists in Mah¯ay¯ana doctrine, namely the theories that posited the existence of a Buddha-nature or tath¯agatagarbha and the theories of Faxiang, founded by Xuanzang’s followers, that analyzed the characteristics of dharmas.

Chapter 4

An Outline of the Song-Dynasty Chan School

If one accepts the typical Chinese Buddhist story that the Chan School was a revolution by Chinese traditional culture with respect of Indian Buddhism, in reality the foundation of the Chan School and the formation of Chan thought lies in the time of Huineng, which used the Platform Sutra as a symbol. From before this time, the stories of Bodhidharma crossing the Yangzi on a rush and facing a wall for ten years through to the transmission of a kas.aya (monk’s robe) at night by Hongren to the sixth-generation patriarch, Huineng, were simply forms of expression in the history of thought in the sectarian search for roots. Even though the story of Huike cutting off his arm that was transmitted by Chan monks as a salutary tale is not like the pure fabrication of the story of Bodhidharma facing the wall, nevertheless, the far-fetched interpretation of “the cutting off of Huike’s arm by bandits” as “Huike cutting off of his own arm while standing in the snow” was a story that stealthily substituted the real story with a spurious story. This was nothing more than catering to a demand in the development of sectarian thought. Yet it should be acknowledged that the development and formation of the Chan School was not water without a source, a tree without a root. Nevertheless, it should be said that the Chan School was not a continuation of the Indian chan (dhy¯ana), and yet in the course of the translation of Buddhist learning, chan was uninterruptedly influenced by traditional Chinese culture, especially the chan that was created and transformed by philosophical Daoist thought. Comparatively speaking, the Chan of Huineng and the five houses and seven lineages of the divided transmission of the lamplight of the Dharma had already changed the chan that had been transmitted earlier in the Han and Wei period. This is nothing more than saying that they had been merely acquainted with each other. Clearly, here there was a process of the shift from a genuine story into a spurious one. Zongmi emphasized that looking at it as a whole, there was nothing in Buddhism that was not due to chan as it formed a method of practice, and so chan is a general rule of Buddhism. Even though Zongmi was unable to clearly differentiate the Chan of the Chan School from the chan that was a method of practice performed by Buddhists, still one can view the transformation process here as the shift away from a pure chan. He said, © Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_4

49

50

4 An Outline of the Song-Dynasty Chan School Therefore, students of the three vehicles who seek for the holy Way must practice chan….Chan has various depths and there are differences of degree….Practitioners who delight in improvement and dislike regression are practicing a non-Buddhist chan. If one correctly believes in cause and effect, but still practices delight and dislike, one is practicing ordinary-person chan. If one is enlightened to the fact that the self is empty and are inclined to the principle of the truth, one is practicing Lesser Vehicle chan. If one is enlightened to the fact that both self and dharmas are empty and reveals the truth, one is practicing Greater Vehicle chan. If one is suddenly enlightened to one’s own mind…that this mind is buddha…one is practicing the Supreme Vehicle chan, which is also called Tath¯agata pristine chan.1

In later times, Tath¯agata chan was replaced by Patriarchal Teacher chan. In taking dhy¯ana to form the foundations of his interpretation as sam¯adhi and prajñ¯a, Zongmi also took this shift of meaning to be the Chan of the realm of thought. One can see that the connotation of chan had already shed the idea of the Indian pursuit of the calming of thought. The later three forms of chan emphasize the realm of thought. The evolution in the meaning of chan pushed the Chan School onto the stage of history, saying that the emergence of the Chan School gave chan a totally new concept that was rich in dialectical thinking. In reality, in saying that it was a sort of mental sphere, the deeper its thought became the more accurate and comprehensive and lofty it became, and the more easily it produced ambiguity. Each branch needed to flaunt the capabilities of its method. The so-called divisions into North and South, into the two approaches of sudden and gradual, and into the five houses and seven lineages, were just different pathways to enter the Way. It may be said that the actualizations here of a method of the realm of thinking were not the same. Some were severe, some were moderate, some were plain and simple, some were lofty; the tendencies of the Chan lineages all differed accordingly. Certainly, the establishment of factions also occurred due to the influences of personalities and definitely did not reflect their strength or weakness in theory. A person of the Song asserted, “And so how is its prosperity and decay due to the strength and weakness of its Dharma? It is surely due to the inheritance in later ages by those people who got it and by people who did not get it!” This analysis of the cause of the rise and fall of various houses of the Chan School in the Song dynasty can be regarded as being on the mark in a single comment. Because of this, the factions of the Chan School in reality also had no evident significance from the viewpoint of the history of thought. Ignoring the transformation in thought for the moment, one can say that Songdynasty Buddhism after the “extreme decline of the Buddha-dharma” due to the persecution of Buddhism by Emperor Shizong of the Zhou (955) continued the revival and development of the Buddhism that had arisen at the height of the Tang dynasty. In the imperial court, there was imperial and princely support,2 and the gentry venerated Buddhism; in literary circles there were also famous scholars who wrote poems and 1

Zongmi, Chanyuan zhuquanji duxu. Fozu tongji (Comprehensive History of the Buddhist Patriarchs), fascicle 43, “The emperor (Taizu)…wrote out the Diamond Sutra and always read it himself.” Xu zijitongjian changpian (Continued Mirror for the Aid of Government, Long Version), fascicle 23, “He venerated Buddhism.” The Shengjia xu (Preface to the Teaching of the Saint) written by Emperor Zhenzong

2

4 An Outline of the Song-Dynasty Chan School

51

replied to Buddhist monks; the common people bowed down to and worshipped the Buddha, and there were also scholars who were outwardly Confucian but inwardly Buddhist and who conversed fluently about the learning of the commandments of the nature and heavenly Way…and Buddhism burnt fiercely throughout the Song and the Chan School contended in showing off its charms, producing a riot of color. There were the following nine aspects of its concrete expression: 1. The engraving and printing of the Buddhist canon. 2. The sending of official delegations of students to travel and study in the Western Regions.3 3. Imperially-decreed construction of monasteries and the grant of imperiallysanctioned monastery signboards, and the imperial assignment of monks to be abbots of monasteries, of which those of the Chan School were the most numerous. 4. The translation of sutras and compilation of Buddhist histories. The Song-dynasty translation site “was most meticulous and the protocol was also very solemn.”4 The Song gaoseng zhuan (Biographies of Eminent Monks Compiled in the Song Dynasty) and the Chanlin sengbao zhuan (Biographies of the Monks of the Chan Monasteries) and like Buddhist histories were published. 5. Ordination certificates and a flood of the sale of ordination certificates in the system. (In the Song period, the value of the monk certificates in each circuit was over 100,000 up to several hundred thousand cash at the maximum.) Of course, in Song-dynasty thought there was a flourishing of Lixue (neoConfucianism) and Chan, and the concrete expression of that for the Chan School was: 6. The vogue for Chan literature such as lamplight histories, recorded sayings, evaluations, and rhythmic (appreciations of old cases, probing the core of the problem). 7. The development of the five houses of the Chan School into seven lineages, of which the Linji and Yunmen flourished the most.5 shows support for the translation of sutras, and Emperor Renzong “loved Buddhism” and “was also widely learned in Chan” and so on. 3 Annals of Emperor Taizu in the Song shi (History of the Song), “The monk Xingqin and 157 people each received 30,000 cash to travel to the Western Regions.” In his “Wudai Song Yuan Ming Fojiao shilüe,” Tang Yongtong wrote of the increasing occurrences of seeking for the Dharma and the transmission of the teaching, with over 500 people going west to seek the Dharma between 960 and 1053. 4 Tang Yongtong, “Wudai Song Yuan Ming Fojiao shilüe” in Sui Tang Fojiao shigao, Zhonghua shuju, 1988, p. 299. 5 Shimen wenzi Chan (The Lettered Chan of Shimen) 23, “Preface to the Sengbao zhuan says, “From the Jiayou reign until the start of the Zhenghe reign, the descendants of the Yunmen and Linji lineages were the most prominent in all directions.” Sun Jue (1028–1090)’s preface to Xuansha bei guanglu (Complete Extensive Record of Xuansha [Shi]bei) wrote, “Recent ages say Chan is the most prosperous, and Yunmen and Linji alone transmit it.” Emperor Huizong of the Song wrote in his preface for the Xu denglu (Continued Record of the Transmission of the Lamplight) that “The two lineages of Yunmen and Linji alone flourish in the empire.”.

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4 An Outline of the Song-Dynasty Chan School

8. The establishment and opposition of kanhua (examine the huatou) Chan and silent-illumination Chan. 9. The flood of lettered Chan and the establishment of its theory. The above nine points show how the Chan Buddhism of the Song dynasty flourished. In terms of the sources of and development of the ‘sects,’ there was the division into the five houses of the Chan School in the late Tang and the Five Dynasties, and among the pupils of Shishuang Chuyuan (986–1039) in the sixth generation of the Linji Lineage, there was a branching into the sub-lineages of Yangji Fanghui (992– 1049) and Huanglong Huinan (1102–1069), and then on the basis of one flower with five petals, it advanced to form the splits and spread of the seven lineages. This genealogy overall was as in the following diagram (the Song-dynasty genealogies are below the horizontal line): Nanyue

Qingyuan

Baizhang Huaihai

Shitou Xiqian

__________________________

________________________________

↓

↓

↓

Weiyang

Linji

↓

Tianhuang Daowu

↓

↓

Danxia Tianran

Yaoshan Weiyan

↓

↓

Deshan Xuanjian

Dongshan

Liangjie ↓

_________________ ↓

Xuefeng Yicun

↓

Caoshan Benji

Yunju

Daoying _______________________________↓__________________↓___________________↓_________________↓_ Shitou Chuyuan

⁞

↓

⁞

________________________ Yangji Fanghui

⁞

Huanglong Huinan

↓

↓

__________________ ↓

↓

↓

Fojian

Foyan

Foguo

↓

⁞

Yunmen Weiyan

⁞ ↓

↓

Tiantai Deshao

Juefan Huihong

-------------------⁞

⁞ -------------

Qingling Wenyi Xuedou

Baofeng Kewen

⁞

↓ -------------------

↓

⁞

⁞

⁞

⁞

Danxia Zuchun

Chongxian ⁞

⁞

↓

⁞

⁞

Hongzhi Fori Qisong

⁞

Zhengyue ↓ Qingshan

Yongming Yanshou

Wansong (Silent Zonggao

Illumination (kanhua Chan)

Chan)

Of these, the Weiyang House did not last more than four or five generations and it disappeared after the Southern Tang dynasty. Although the Fayan House declined

4 An Outline of the Song-Dynasty Chan School

53

after three generations, Tiantai Deshao (891–972) independently supported it and had a pupil, Yongming Yanshou, who championed the unification of Chan and Pure Land, which caused the line of Fayan to be famed in the Song. Also, the Koryˇo king admired Yanshou’s scholarly virtues, and sent thirty-six monk-students to receive his Dharma, which enabled the Fayan House to spread to Koryˇo, while in China it declined and came to an end earlier than in Korea. The Yunmen House, which had emerged from the pupils of Xuefeng (822–908) along with Fayan, in its later stages was not as prosperous as the Linji and Caodong houses, and when the Song capital was shifted to the South (1127) and the Yuan (Mongol) troops invaded North China, the house consequently waned, and by the Yuan dynasty this Dharma-line also cannot be detected. However, in Song times it was only it and Linji that flourished in China, the real reason for which was that it was transmitted by able people. At first there was Xuedou (980–1052), the reviver of the Yunmen House, and he was followed by Tianyi Yihuai, Zongbai Huilin, and others. In the same group with Xuedou there were Yanping Zirong, and his Dharma-heir Yuantong Ju’ne, who was good friends with Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072, bureaucrat and historian) who valued him, and therefore he had the palace attendant (eunuch) Li Yunning donate his private residence in the capital, Bian (Kaifeng) to be a Chan monastery.6 This was Shifang Jingyin Monastery and this was the real reason why the Yunmen House went to the capital. Later, there was also the publication of the Xinjin wenji (Collected Prose of Xinjin) by Mingjiao (Fori) Qisong (1007–1072), which was included in the Buddhist canon on imperial order. Therefore, the Yunmen House was able to prosper greatly for a time during the Song dynasty. Looking at their thought, it is also hard to see the special features of Yunmen. In particular, Qisong rather evidently advocated the merging of the three religions, which tolerated the special features of the various lineages, and it headed along the path of synthesis. The genealogy of the Yunmen House in the Song dynasty was roughly as follows: Yunmen Wenyan _______________________ ⁞

⁞

Zhimen Guangzuo

Deshan Yuanmi

(3rd generation)

(3rd generation)

__________________ Xuedou Chongxian

⁞

Yanqing Zirong

(4th generation)

↓ Yuantong Ju’ne th

(5 generation)

6

⁞ ⁞ Fori Qisong (9 transmissions)

Ouyang Xiu received an order from Emperor Renzong to appoint Ju’ne as its abbot, but Ju’ne declined on the excuse of illness, and so Ouyang appointed Dajue Huailian instead.

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4 An Outline of the Song-Dynasty Chan School

Although the Caodong House did not flourish as much as the Yunmen and Linji in the Song, still the line of Yunju Daoying (d. 902) stopped the flow of Caodong from drying up, and by the Yuan, its last generations rather flourished in North China. The sixth generation from Daoying reached Furong Daokai (1043–1118), who in the third year of the Chongning era (1104) was ordered by the court to live in Shifang Monastery in the capital. He was also granted a purple robe. Daokai sent a memorial to the court firmly declining, saying that he had always vowed not to accept benefits and fame, and although he was repeatedly instructed to do so, he did not obey. Emperor Huizong (r. 1101–1125) was angered and imprisoned him. There was an officer who knew of his loyalty and who told Daokai, “If one has an illness one can escape punishment. Are you not old with an illness?” The officer wanted him released. However, Daokai replied, “I have never lied in my life, so why would I feign illness in order to seek good fortune? On ordinary days I am ill, but now I truly have no illness.” As a result, he was forcibly laicized and he drifted to Zizhou. The next year (the second year of Daguan, 1108), he obtained a pardon and he built a hermitage at Furong Lake. His Dharma-disciple was Danxia Zichun (1064–1117), and following him there were Qingliao and Zhengjue, all of whom were famous masters of the Song-dynasty Chan School. In the third year of the Jianyan reign (1129), Zhengjue was abbot of Tiantong Monastery and he advocated sitting in meditation. He was famed for his silent illumination Chan. His genealogy was as follows: Dongshan Liangjie ↓ Yunju Daoying ⁞ (six transmissions) Furong Daokai ↓ Danxia Zichun _____________________ Changlu Qingliao

Tiantong Zhengjue

↓ (9 transmissions) Wansong Xingxiu

The Linji House prospered the most out of the five houses of the Song-dynasty Chan School. In the sixth generation it reached Shanzhao (947–1024) and in the seventh generation there was Chuyuan, and in the eighth generation there was a split

4 An Outline of the Song-Dynasty Chan School

55

into the two sub-lineages of Yangji and Huanglong, which continued. Huanglong Huinan was famed in northern China and among his pupils there were Baofeng Kewen (1025–1102) and Qingliang Huihong (1071–1128) who systematized the exposition of the theory of lettered Chan was also one of his pupils. The Yangji branch spread like wildfire and in the third generation it reached Wuzu Fayin (d. 1104). Among Fayin’s pupils were Sanfo and Foguo Keqin (1063–1135), who wrote the Biyan lu (Blue Cliff Record), and Dahui Zonggao, who promoted kan huatou (examining the point of the story), was Keqin’s disciple and heir. In later generations, the Linji line was mostly transmitted by the Yangji branch. On this basis, we can see that most of the Buddhism of later times belonged to the Chan School and that the Chan School in turn was monopolized by the Yangji branch, and that the style of Yangji can be seen as one of many styles. The genealogy of this branch is as follows: Yangji Fanghui ↓ Baiyun Shouduan ↓ Wuzu Fayin _________________________________ Fojian Huiqin

Foguo Keqin

Foqing Qingyuan

↓ _________________________ Jingshan Zonggao __________________ Beijian

Lingyin

Huqiu Shaolong ____________________ Poan

Songyuan

The dissemination of the above five houses and seven lineages of Chan in the Song period reflected the development and appearance of a new grandeur of the Chan School following on from the Five Dynasties. Nevertheless, of course the Yunmen, and also the Yangji and Huanglong branches from the Linji, provided no new breakthroughs in thought whatsoever, not going beyond the level of understanding seen in the Platform Sutra. They merely inherited the aftermath of the Chan style of the Five Dynasties period and strove to create or perfect new methods of practice in order to actualize the transcendental spirit of Chan. Being like this, there were lettered Chan, silent illumination Chan, and also the kanhua Chan that arose in competition with them. In fact, these were merely differences in method. And yet the pervasive Chan style drew in the Confucians to practice Chan. It not only made Chan students

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follow the pathways of syntheses with Confucianism and Daoism, but it also led to the competitive issuing of Chan histories and the proliferation of recorded sayings that made Chan culture bloom gloriously in the Song period, and it really pushed lettered Chan to an unprecedent height.

Chapter 5

The Tolerant Cooperation and Interpenetration of Chan Thought

The formation and development of any thought has its own rules, which often begins with degeneration in the actual world and the formation of a free government system. This is due to the preservation of an identical form of a unified and decided nationality along with the acceptance of a given principle of the collapse of the old governing state and the rise of a new state that preserved this identity. One can say, based on this principle, that it is a zeitgeist that is indivisible from that age. Yet, once this thought has surpassed the hopes and personal interests of individuals, and has surpassed the pursuit of the natural pattern of the individual’s security of life, then it becomes free and transitions to a reflection on and an understanding of the zeitgeist, and begins to think of and construct those universal and eternal values. Because of this, it can also be said that it does not accept the freedom and absolutes of the conditions of that age. After a thought has passed through a period of disruption, it cleans up the sediments of its history on the ruins of old concepts and begins a new period of construction, and it also concentrates on the inwardly-orientated concepts and the continuously borne abstract concepts, and uses a grey paint to draw up a grey blueprint. At that time, it then simply begins to lose its youthful and vigorous dynamism and lifeforce. Liang Qichao has already used the Buddhist idea that is summed up in the rule of the cycle of rise, abiding, change, and cessation and applied it to the development of thought. This was not without reason. After the Chinese Chan School flourished in the Tang dynasty, along with the developments in the thought itself and the change of dynasties, the Chan School of the Song also had to change greatly. The immanent transcendence of the mind-nature that it valued was developed with an even greater inward orientation, forming various schools of introspection. At the same time, in particular one cannot ignore the historical shifts in relation to the influence of the Chan School of formulations geared to the times. They needed to obtain a basis for survival in the actual world and they sought to develop rapidly via a spirit of negation that was original, straightforward, and frank, and it changed at once into an attitude of “according with conditions” in which “all that is manifested is perfection.” This was profound thinking that transcended actuality that gathered into meditations on the principles of life. On the one hand they wanted to open up an orientation towards © Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_5

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the narrow but deep, and on the other hand they also wanted to infiltrate every level of society. The former led to kanhua Chan, silent illumination Chan, dead-wood Chan, and wild-fox Chan and such multifarious forms of Chan contemplation (changuan) scrambling to arise. The latter promoted the convergence of the Chan School and Pure Land, and with Tiantai and other types of Buddhism and their sects, which also further integrated them with native Chinese traditional thought, Confucianism and Daoism. In summary, the developmental path of the Song-dynasty Chan School is that the further it went the deeper it became, and the further it went the broader it became. Hu Shi told many stories in his research on the history of the Chan School, which not infrequently invited criticisms by scholars, yet he tried to reveal its essence of being iconoclastic, which secularized Chan and which truly reflected the orientations of the important developments of Chan in the Song and after, and reflected its participatory spirit that is consistent with traditional thought. Hu Shi quoted the words of Zhu Xi, the great synthesizer of Southern Song Lixue (neo-Confucianism): Now one should also be like a monk on pilgrimage, meeting with worthy gentlemen of the empire, examining the conditions in all directions, surveying the formations of the mountains and rivers, contemplating the rise and fall [of dynasties] past and present, the governments and rebellions, and the evidence of the benefits and faults, and with that reasoning one can then see all around. “To be a gentleman and yet worry about where one lives is insufficient for being a gentleman.”1

This paragraph is found in fascicle 117 of the Zhuzi yulei, “On Instructing Pupils, 5”. Hu Shi proceeds to make a popular interpretation of “pilgrimage”: only one staff, only a bowl, and only a pair of straw sandals, begging on the side of the roads and knocking on the gates of monasteries to consult the master. On the day of the resultant experience one will see its expanse; on the day of understanding it will be even deeper, and then on a certain day, accidentally, one will be suddenly enlightened fully, and “the bottom will have fallen out of the bucket,” and all will be as clear as the palm of one’s hand. This is the scene that is appreciated in the poem by Zhu Xi: Last night on the river bank, a spring flush rose, A vast warship became as light as a feather. Energy was wasted up to now in trying to move it, Today it moves freely in the current.2

What is meant by “pilgrimage” here is practice, which is consultation. Hu Shi called it “the most important link in the teaching method” of Chan. Whether it was “a dried shit-scraper” or “three catties of hemp,” Hu Shi emphasized the “everyday mind” and made it into “everyday things,” and like the reading of the many books touted 1

Tr. in Li Jingde, Zhuzi yulei (Topically Arranged Conversation of Master Zhu), 8 vols., Beijing; Zhonghua shuju, 1986, vol. 7, fascicle 117,p. 2830. Translated directly from the Chinese, for Hu’s English translation, see “Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism in China: Its History and Method,” pp. 22–23. He translates “pilgrimage” as “travelling on foot” and he seems to have skipped over the embedded quote. 2 Tr. see Hu Shi’s translation in “Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism in China: Its History and Method,” p. 23.

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by the Confucians and their travels over long distances in order to learn extensively, this was the social practice of a good teacher. Hu Shi said, “That was Chinese Ch’an of the end of the eleventh century.”3 It should be said that Zhu Xi’s words were not the same as Chan and Hu Shi’s explanation overly simplified Chan. They also did not completely approve of Chan, but if we use the words of Zhu Xi and Hu Shi to interpret eleventh-century Chan learning, at least they explain the historical realities of the tolerance and co-operation with traditional culture, and the interpenetration of the Song-dynasty Chan School with the other schools of Buddhism. According to a theory of cultural anthropology, of course this is the convergence theory of the critical school and also the theory of the cultural compulsion of the sudden emergence of a new force on the scene,4 which is not the same as cultural contact, for both sides are able to give rise to and increase beneficial phenomena, and also infiltrate, mutually complement, and converge from both sides. Only then can they attain a new development. After Buddhism was introduced into China, first of all it turned the Huang Lao (religious Daoism) that flooded the court and countryside at that time to its benefit, seeking to obtain a foothold in its new cultural environment, and so there was the sprouting and dissemination of a Buddho-Daoist Buddhism. After that it combined with the Dark Learning (neo-Daoism) that had suddenly arisen like a whirlwind, and the resultant Buddhism propelled the rapid development of Buddhism in China. If not for the history of the combinations with Huang Lao Daoism, and Buddhism and Daoism, there could not have been the independent developments of Sui-Tang Buddhism and the rich atmosphere of the one flower and five petals of the Chan School. Despite this, Sui-Tang Buddhism, in particular the completely Sinicized Chan School, still maintained a relationship likewise with Confucian thought and with the philosophical Daoism and popular Daoism that were neither close nor distant, even to the extent that they had the same essence but different applications. Confronting a new cultural form that had stormed in from outside, Chinese intellectuals similarly took note of the possibility and necessity of their harmonious blending in a thorough understanding. In the Liang to Sui period, a time that was full of Daoistic tendencies, Yan Zhitui (531–595) presented the idea of “the two teachings of the internal and external [Buddhism and Confucianism] are inherently one reality,”5 wishing to unify the three religions into one principle. In the early Tang, Buddhism flooded in everywhere, and in the reign of Empress Wu (r. 690–705), Buddhism had a tendency towards mainly having a single, set object of veneration, which intensified the contradictions between the land-owning class and the monks. “This contradiction called forth a despicable 3

Hu Shi, “Zhongguo di Chan: tade lishi he fangfa” (Chinese translation from Hu’s English “Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism in China: Its History and Method”), in Hu Shi shuo Chan, Dongfang chubanshe 1993, p. 269. English, p. 24. 4 This is a sort of synthetic critical academic theory that came after continuous evolution theory, diffusion theory, and critical theory, which thinks that social history is full of cultural compulsions and that these cultural compulsions represent psychological forms of the will of the masses, and for that reason social science will always lack objectivity. 5 Yanshi jiaxun (Family Injunctions of the Yan Clan), “Guixin 16.”.

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economic battleground of the unworldly eminent monks and the worldly aristocracy.”6 Therefore, the gentry class, with Han Yu (768–824) as its representative, tried hard to refute the falsities of Buddhism and its conflicts with tradition, but Buddhist thought still contaminated various levels of society, which included the intelligentsia. Of equal fame with Han Yu as an anti-Buddhist was his comrade in the Way, Li Ao (ca. 772-ca. 841), whose scholarship often derived from the gate of emptiness (Buddhism): “I came to ask about the Way and nothing else, the clouds being in the blue sky and the water being in the bottle.”7 His connection with the scholarship of the Chan School is evident in his writings. Liu Zongyuan (773–819) stressed, “The Buddha truly has that which cannot be rejected, for he often agrees with the Yijing (Book of Changes) and the Lunyu (Analects of Confucius)…and is not a different Way from that of Confucius” and “What I adopt from it [Buddhism] is what agrees with the Yijing and the Lunyu.”8 He frankly said that this was thought that unified Confucianism and Buddhism.9 On one hand, the Chan Buddhists immersed themselves in the Chinese tradition, while on the other hand it is not difficult to understand why the gentry and the intellectuals chose Chan, bragging that they were transmitting their teaching from mind to mind, not relying on letters. It is also not hard to understand why they also took the Chinese Chan School, which had traits of profound secrets and the arcane, and which in principle eliminated all negations, to tolerantly co-operate and interpenetrate with Confucianism and Daoism, and also with the other schools of Buddhism. In particular, they used the theories of the mind-nature with marvelous enlightenment at its core and the forms of intuitive thinking, to further remedy the inadequacies of Confucian thought that occupied the position of government; its meaning was beyond appearances and lay in the empty numinosity of divine resonance that is beyond words, and it also pandered to the gentry in their celebrations of good times and their leisurely and carefree moods of pretensions to cultural refinement, and to the feelings of frustration the gentry had when they did not have opportunities in the scramble for official posts. Naturally, the use of Chan by the scholar class further enhanced the infiltration by Chan. In this way, the Chan School of the Song dynasty availed itself of the power and favoritism of the court above while it depended on the amusements of the intelligentsia below, and so it spread though all levels of society. The formation of the Chinese Chan School should be said to have been a long historical process, and even though it was not like the legends say it was, it still produced stories of the Buddha as a patriarch picking up a flower (and K¯as´yapa subtly smiling), as well as Huike standing in the snow and cutting off his arm, through to Hongren secretly giving the robe and bowl (symbolic of patriarchal succession) to Huineng. Yet the Indian meditation study that was introduced from the Six Dynasties period, with its spread by Daosheng, Sengzhao, Sengchou, and some of the masters 6

Hou Wailu, Zhongguo sixiang tonshi, vol. 4, Renmin chubanshe, 1980, p. 327. Li Ao, “Zeng Chanseng zishan Weiyan shi” (Poem Gifted to the Chan Monk of this Mountain, Weiyan). 8 Liu Zongyuan, “Song Ruhai dizi Haochu xu” (Preface Sent to the Disciple of Ruhai, Haochu). 9 Liu Zongyuan, “Song Wenchang xu” (Preface Sent to Wenchang). 7

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of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra, was repeatedly changed into the learning of the sutra masters and the insight of the philosophers. With Huineng’s abandonment of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara and adoption of the Diamond (sutra), and his distant inheritance of Daosheng’s theory of “sudden enlightenment,” Chan next opened up the teachings of “apart from characteristics and apart from thoughts” and “seeing the nature and becoming buddha.” Thus, the Chinese Chan School developed in the context of the Sino-Indian cultural exchange and the two-way cross-fertilization. From Huineng onwards, not only did Chan thought differ in its course from that of the other schools, but also Chan began to transcend the divided lamplight transmission of the patriarchs since they needed to curry favor with those in power and so also needed to set up their own factions. First of all, Shenhui used the divisions of sudden versus gradual and collateral versus main lineage to create the division into the paths of North and South. It then proceeded to the “one flower with five petals” and the five houses and seven lineages. Song-dynasty Chan can be said to have flourished brilliantly. Nevertheless, ultimately the Chan School was developed on the basis of Buddhism and because of this, of course it fundamentally shared doctrinal theory and also the conduct of practice with other schools, and while they then proceeded along different paths, ultimately there were people who noticed their mutual relations and the fact that they complemented each other. Matters in the world that have been combined for a long time are certain to split, and are sure to combine after they have been split for a long time. The development of thought in particular is like this. The unification of Chan, Doctrine, and Pure Land into an integration of the theories of the Nature and the Characteristics,10 were the most prominent features of Song-dynasty Chan. After this, the historical mission of the perfection of Chinese culture was completed. In this process, the person who made the greatest contribution was Yongming Yanshou.

Part 1: Yanshou’s Convergence of Chan, Pure Land, and Doctrine Yanshou (904–975) was a famous monk of the Fayan House in the late Tang, Five Dynasties, and early Song period. His lay surname was Wang and according to the Rentian baojian (Precious Mirror of Men and Gods), his father had been appointed as a pioneer by the king of Wu-Yue. When Yanshou was young he devoted himself to Buddhism. There is a story that when he chanted the Lotus Sutra that this “influenced a flock of sheep to kneel and listen.” Although he later held a post as a regional official,11 after he was thirty, he “abandoned his wife and children, took the tonsure,

10

Tr. this refers to the theories of faxing and faxiang that Chengguan divided all Mah¯ay¯ana Buddhism into. 11 Song gaoseng zhuan, “in the past he had been an official in the Liangzhe [region] supervising the supply of military necessities.” Both Huihong in the Chanlin sengbao zhuan and Nianchang of the Yuan dynasty in his Fozu lidai tongzai (Comprehensive Records of the Generations of Buddhist

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wore died clothes, took the precepts [of a monk],”12 and venerated Cuiyan as his teacher. The Song gaoseng zhuan says that when Yanshou practiced meditation on Tianzhu Peak that small birds the size of quails nested in the folds of his clothes and that subsequently he “obtained a confirmation of what he had realized from Chan Master Deshao,” who made him a disciple who could transmit the Dharma, and he secretly received the profound teachings. Later he moved to Mt. Xuedou and “besides instructing people, he sat and intoned [scriptures] and meditated silently in front of a waterfall.” Students flocked to him because of this and he became famous. In the first year of the Jianlong era (960), the king of Wu-Yue, Qian Jiao, requested that he reside in Lingyin xin Monastery. The next year he shifted to live at Yongming, where he stayed for fifteen years. He wrote a g¯ath¯a, “If you wish to know the teachings of Yongming,/ There is the water of a lake in front of the gate,/ Which when the sun shines on it produces a light,/ And when the wind comes the waves rise up.” He used this to teach his students and he ordained 1,700 people. In the seventh year of the Kaibao era (974), he entered (Mt.) Tiantai and gave the precepts to an assembly of over ten thousand people. In the same year, he was ordered by the emperor of the Song to build Liuhe Stupa (Stupa of Six Harmonies). He died in this monastery in the eighth year of the Kaibao era (975). During his lifetime, Yanshou recited the Lotus Sutra over 13,000 times and he had a distinctive tolerance, with a tendency to harmonize thought. He emphasized that the mind is the reality (ti), that the myriad dharmas are nothing but mind, and that the mind incorporated phenomena and principle. He used the mind to unite Chan, Doctrine, and Pure Land, and the learning of the Nature and Characteristics (themes in Buddhist thought) to prepare a systematic principle for the major tendency in Buddhism of the Song and later to unify Chan and Doctrine, to jointly practice Chan and Pure land, and to merge the schools of Nature and Characteristics. He was very productive, writing many books, and his Zongjing lu (Record of the Mirror of the Core Themes) and Wanshan tonggui ji (Meaning of the Myriad Good Deeds) were famous in his day. Huihong wrote a “On the Topic of the Zongjing lu,” which outlined Yanshou’s scholarly attitude and also highlighted his inclusive and all-embracing Chan thought. He swiftly moved in and out of the sixty texts of the vaipulya (vast) sutras and he merged and made coherent the three hundred texts of the saints and wise men of this and other regions. He understood Tiantai and Huayan, and he conversed deeply on Nothing-but Consciousness (Weishi), and generally he judged the debates of these three schools and brought them back to one source. Patriarchs, hereafter Tongzai) say, “When he was twenty-eight, he was the garrison commander of Huating.” The Rentian baojian says, “when he was young, he was a student of Confucianism.”. 12 Song gaoseng zhuan, which says he died aged seventy-two and was a monk for thirty-seven years, implies he became a monk at thirty-five (sui). The Tongzai says he was a monk for forty-two years, which means he was tonsured at thirty. Another theory holds that because he was an officer of a storehouse and there was a deficit in the accounts in the tens of thousands of cash, he was sentenced to death. However, he was pardoned by the king of Wu-Yue on the condition he became a monk. The Tongzai says that King Wenwu “then concurred with his ambition and released him to become a monk.” Presumably this was the case.

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His scholarly path of bringing the afore-mentioned sixty texts, three hundred philosophers, and Tiantai, Huayan, and Weishi back to a single source can indeed deserve to be described as, “If there was an outburst of doubts and criticisms, he probed the depths of profundity and he cut away the cataracts clouding over the eyes, sweeping away the biases and perversions.” It is no wonder that after the Koryˇo king finished reading Yanshou’s books, he instantly “sent an emissary bearing a letter that related his respects [indicating that he was] a pupil,” and “thirty-six people of that country personally received his imprimatur,” causing the Fayan House to be transmitted overseas to the east. Also, after Emperor Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735) of the Qing dynasty venerated Yanshou as “the greatest teacher past and present” after the sixth patriarch (Huineng), he said that Yanshou’s “core tenets were like the sun and moon moving through the heavens and the rivers crossing the land, being very eminent and very bright, very broad and very great, transcending the old virtuosos through the ages.” Yongzheng even said that Bodhidharma’s mind-transmission “did not rely on a single letter and yet his jade (precious) canon [of works] left nothing out,” and of Yanshou’s Xinfu (Rhapsody on the Mind) he wrote, “[Even though] it is elaborated in ten thousand words, one cannot find a single letter. Therefore, it is said, ‘He borrowed words and sentences to help reveal the true mind.’” This can also be said to be an approval in principle of Yanshou’s contribution to the lettered Chan of Song times and later, and naturally one can also see that Huihong’s high praises of Yanshou really lay in his being a kindred spirit. As said previously, up until the Song, the Chan School had developed in the direction of being narrow but deep and had paraded its trick of not relying on letters. The words of Huihong; “developing mad insight and maintaining an idiotic Chan, of being confused about the skillful means as contradicting the core tenets” and the later “abuses by the Chan students of the empire are extreme, using as their work being full of food, sleeping soundly, and playing at conversations without any basis”; reflect just this kind of reality. In their teachings, each of the lineages also revealed a tendency to rise to the heights of prosperity and then decline. Yanshou pointed out that. The teachings of the Buddha Tath¯agata of one age, from the past to the present, have been split into lineages and many assemblies. If we were to sum them up into a generalization, there should be no more than three schools. One is the school of Characteristics; the second is the school of Emptiness; and the third is the school of the Nature. The school of Characteristics mostly speaks of affirmation; the school of Emptiness mostly speaks of negation; and the school of the Nature only discusses direct pointing….As at present they do not discuss seeing the nature, they do not recognize the correct core theme, and they mostly grasp for affirmation and negation, confusedly competing. None of them realize the secret meaning of the Buddha and patriarchs, simply believing in verbal descriptions….They grasp this skillful means and recognize it to be their objective, but do not believe in the expression of the teaching of direct pointing….They just trust to superficial emotions and do not delve into the secret tenets, are confused about the skillful means of emptiness, so how could they recognize the devotion to the truth?13

13

Yanshou, Wanshan tongguiji, fascicle 1.

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The important point of this paragraph is that its criticism of the then current state of the Chan School, that it was undoubtedly a biased Chan School, possessed a considerable desire of making something crude into a masterpiece. Nevertheless, he divided the Tath¯agata’s one teaching of a lifetime into three, and within that teaching, those who spoke of affirmation relied on the nature to speak of characteristics, and those who spoke of negation to refute the characteristics did so in order to reveal the nature. Even though these were not the same as the “reveal and realize the direct pointing” of the Nature school, they still could not grasp the skillful means of Chan and just gave themselves over to superficial and easily-understood thought. The tenets under the rubric of Doctrine, of course, both the school of Emptiness and also the school of Characteristics, should have been tolerant and co-operative so that they would follow the path of myriad good deeds that bring one back to identity. Therefore, Yanshou specially emphasized that in order “to indicate the principle of Chan, the patriarchs transmitted the correct lineage of silent accord and the Buddha elaborated on the gateway of doctrine and established the great tenets in these descriptions.”14 He proceeded to further point out that “sutras are the Buddha’s words, Chan is the Buddha’s intention, and the mind and the voice of the buddhas definitely do not contradict each other.”15 In this way, he also revealed everything about the ideas linking Chan and Doctrine, Nature and Characteristics. Yanshou assembled the three doctrinal schools of Weishi, Huayan, and Tiantai, “dividing them up, broadly reading them, and asking questions of each of them.”16 Only after did he discuss the commonalities of the saints and wise men of China and India, “judging the debates of the three themes” in respect of their “single source” in the school of the mind. Not only did this reflect his enthusiasm for doing his utmost to turn this tide of craziness and creative culture, but it also expressed his integrated practice that proceeded on the basis of his inheritance of Buddhist culture. When later Chan monks chose the doctrines of Huayan and Tiantai and other teachings to rectify the abuses of the playful conversation of Chan, they actualized this through an internal integration of Buddhism. As Yanshou saw it, all of the world is contained in “principle” and “phenomena” within “practice,” and therefore he said, “If one wants all practices to arise equally, ultimately the one mind relies on phenomenon and principle. Phenomena and principle have no obstructions [between them] and the Way is them.” Here the concepts of phenomena, principle, practice, and the Way that he presents, are what are called the dharmas in Buddhism. Since “the myriad dharmas are nothing but mind” is a basic principle of all of Buddhism and also was a topic marked out by Yanshou, he concluded via the dialectical thinking that is always illuminated by the Middle Way in which principle and phenomena assist each other and the two truths constantly 14

“Yongming Zhijue Chanshi zhuan” (Biography of Chan Master Zhijue of Yongming,” in fascicle 9, Chanlin sengbao zhuan. 15 “Yongming Zhijue Chanshi zhuan” (Biography of Chan Master Zhijue of Yongming,” in fascicle 9, Chanlin sengbao zhuan. 16 Yanshou, Zongjing lu, fascicle 1; originally these were the words of Zongmi that were quoted by Yanshou, and so we can see Yanshou’s inheritance of Zongmi’s thought.

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exist, that “one mind possesses all practices,” in which the one mind is the combination of phenomena and principle. Even though his exposition lacked a strict logical relationship between these elements, still in highlighting the fundamental position of “the mind” he spoke with certainty He said, “The mind is the myriad dharmas, meaning that not only does one contemplate the buddha in one thought-moment, which is due to one’s own mind; the myriad practices of the bodhisattvas, and the reality (ti) and function of the buddha-result are also not apart from the mind,” and “thus all are due to one’s own mind” and therefore “the myriad dharmas are all the mind,” “the myriad dharmas are the mind,” and “the myriad practices are due to this mind.”! This is exactly because that this is a classical adoption of a tendency to psychologize everything in the world, and therefore he specially cited a passage from the Prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a S¯utra to further highlight the position and function of the mind: One should take good dharmas to support one’s own mind; one should take the water of the Dharma to moisten one’s own mind; one should purify one’s own mind with respect to cognitive realms; one should use spiritual effort to firm one’s own mind; one should use wisdom to enlighten one’s own mind; one should use the freedom of the Buddha to open up one’s own mind; one should use the equality of the Buddha to enlarge one’s own mind; one should use the ten powers of the Buddha to illuminate and examine one’s own mind.17

One can know from this that mind is the intrinsic reality of Yanshou’s philosophy and that it is also an actualization of his transcendental pursuit of an ultimate concern. In his concepts, all buddha-dharmas are not apart from the mind, so much so that all ordinary and divine phenomena and principles, good and evil actions, equally revert to the mind. For Yanshou, it is exactly the mind as intrinsic reality that governs phenomena and principle, governs good and evil, governs ordinary and saintly, and naturally the main point is still the combination of the Buddhist thought of Chan and Doctrine, Chan and Pure Land, the Characteristics and Nature (schools), and exoteric and esoteric. The Zongjing lu that “raised the one mind as the core theme and illuminated the myriad dharmas like a mirror,” “first established the correct theme,” “next perfected faith,” “described the questions and answers,” and finally “formed a perfect faith.” It likewise used the mind to connect up the various schools of Buddhism.18 He pointed out that. The intention of the patriarch is based on the core theme, the texts of Doctrine refute attachment. As with the sudden teaching of the Chan School…the reality and function are both quiescent. As with the perfect tenet of Huayan…principle and practice are both laid out….Mañju´sri used principle to sanctify practice, and yet the meaning of differentiation was not lacking. Samantabhadra used practice to dignify principle, and yet the fundamental gateway was not abolished. The fundamental and the derivative are at one, the ordinary and saintly share the same source….Possessing the eye of wisdom and not establishing birth and death, operating the mind of compassion and not being mired in nirvana…this is the use of the skillful means of prajñ¯a, which also assist each other; true emptiness is a marvelous existence and is always jointly forming a support. 17

The above quotes are all found in Yanshou’s Wanshan tongguiji fascicle 1. Yanshou’s preface to the Zongjing lu. Some people think that the Zongjing lu promoted the principle of the unity of Chan and Doctrine, and that the Wanshan tonggui ji also propagated the unification of Chan and Pure Land. In reality this is not the case. 18

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The “eye of wisdom,” “mind of compassion,” and “fundamental gateway” spoken of here are the above-mentioned “own mind” or “intrinsic mind.” This paragraph not only points out that the sudden teaching of the Chan School and the perfect tenet of Huayan share a sense that they are of the same reality (ti) in the one mind of the “fundamental gateway,” but also emphasizes that the “use of principle to sanctify practice” by Mañju´sri who is in charge of “wisdom,” and the “use of practice to dignify principle” by Samantabhadra who is in charge of “principle” are used to explain the various factions of Buddhism. Of course, there are the Doctrine, Pure Land, Characteristics, Nature, exoteric and esoteric forms of Buddhism, which are all sealed by the own mind of the Chan School; and the differentiations of skillful means and prajñ¯a, true emptiness and marvelous existence, sudden and perfect, and reality and function; all of which help form each other, and these different paths have the same destination. Therefore, he also emphasized that “The Lotus makes the three vehicles into one vehicle, and the myriad good [deeds] all lead to bodhi. The Mah¯aprajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a [maintains] that all is non-dual and that the mass of practices all revert to all kinds of wisdom.”19 Therefore, the Chan School that transcends the split in the lamplight transmission of the patriarchs took this theory of the mindnature and merged and linked it with all of Buddhism and even with non-Buddhist theories. One should see that Yanshou showed that the Buddhism that originally tended to psychologize epistemology was a tendency to psychologize the whole world. Also, this inclination to psychologize pioneered the scholarly tendency to merge the three religions from the Song and onwards. The modern scholar, Wang Tao says that in general the essential tenets of the three religions lay in clarifying the mind and seeing the nature, which reveals that it was a major trend in the development of Chinese thought from the Song onwards. If one says that Zongmi was using Huayan thought to guide the firm establishment of the theory of the unity of Chan and Doctrine, then Yanshou clearly broadened the internal part of Buddhism into a total path. He not only used the principle and phenomena of Huayan as a basis, which is the one mind concept, but he also incorporated Tiantai’s theories of a “nature that contains the characteristics of the real” and a “trichiliocosm in a moment of thought,” and the ideas of the transformation of the basis of the eighth consciousness and the myriad dharmas are nothing but consciousness of the Weishi School, to establish the mind-only contemplation that has as its theme the one mind. He proceeded to use “contemplate the mind” and “return to the mind” to complete his thought of the unity of the perfect faith of Chan, Doctrine, Pure Land, Nature and Characteristics, and exoteric and esoteric Buddhism. In the opening chapter in his Wanshan tonggui ji, Yanshou cites the Tiantai theories of “the nature contains the characteristics of the real” and “the trichiliocosm in a moment of thought”: “The mass of good deeds return to, and are all sourced in, the characteristics of the real…this is just a concurrence with one suchness that itself contains the mass of virtues.” This then is the Huayan contemplation of the dharmarealm as “principle and phenomena without obstacles,” which points out that “all 19

Yanshou, Wanshan tonggui ji.

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principle and phenomena have the mind as their basis.”20 Moreover, he everywhere quotes the Avatamsaka ˙ S¯utra (Huayan jing) as a guide to explain the idea of the unity of the patriarchs (Chan) and Buddha (Doctrine). He also specially pointed out that “all material cognitive objects are what are obtained by the direct perception of the close image part of the eighth consciousness, which really has no external dharmas,” and “sense-data are what are perceived by the consciousness, are changed and produced by the internal consciousness.” He used this to explain the ground of the Nothing-but Consciousness School on which he established his theme of one mind. Naturally, he also highlighted the Tiantai School’s theory of the contemplation of the mind (guanxin): “If one wishes to know the marvelous principle, it only resides in this contemplation of the mind.”21 “If one refers to the contemplation of the mind, whatever one sees is it,” and he borrowed the contemplation of the mind to prove nothing-but mind and subsequently to link the various schools, which is what he meant by “use the contemplation of nothing-but mind to pervade the myriad dharmas. Having realized nothing-but mind, one will realize that the mind is Buddha.”22 This also is Yanshou’s theory of “reversion to the mind”—“The thousand paths of different theories in the end revert to one dharma, and the myriad dharmas only return to two minds,”23 and “therefore know that all returns to the mind, the myriad dharmas being due to the self.”24 Simply speaking, the three-mind theory of “nothing-but mind,” “contemplating mind,” and “mind of reversion” is the theoretical basis for Yanshou’s integration of Chan, Doctrine, and Pure Land. In his works, Yanshou very often cites the sutras and treatises of Huayan and Tiantai, the main point being the elaboration of the idea of the unity of Chan and Doctrine, which is what he meant by “the patriarchs set up descriptions and the Buddha handed down the traces of the doctrine to simply refute the grasping of the seeming as real, which does not refute the dharma-gateway of dependent co-arising (prat¯ıtyasamutp¯ada).”25 Here I will not elaborate on this. However, his joint practice of Chan and Pure Land, the merging of the Nature and Characteristics schools, and the unity of the exoteric and esoteric also were specialist expositions. In order to explain the principle of the merging of the Nature and Characteristics schools, Yanshou clearly followed the theory of Zongmi that divided the one Buddhist theory into three,26 and in his Zongjing lu and Wanshan tonggui ji he not only divided the one Buddha-dharma into three, but when he also analyzed the “differences”

20

Yanshou, Wanshan tonggui ji, last fascicle. Yanshou, Weixin jue (Secrets of Nothing-but Mind). 22 Weixin jue. 23 Wanshan tonggui ji, fascicle 1. 24 Ibid. 25 Yanshou, Wanshan tonggui ji, last fascicle. 26 Zongmi, Yuanren lun (Enquiry into the Origin of Humanity), divided Mah¯ ay¯ana into the three doctrines of dharma-characteristics, refutation of characteristics, and revelation of the nature: Yanshou called these three the schools of existence, emptiness, and nature. 21

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between them, he stressed that they revealed each other and perfectly merged with each other. He said, As the school of Characteristics mostly speaks of affirmation, the school of Emptiness mostly speaks of negation, and the school of Nature only discusses direct pointing, this is the same as Caoqi [Huineng]’s seeing the nature and becoming buddha. As at present, they do not discuss seeing the nature, do not recognize the correct theme, and mostly grasp affirmation and negation, confusedly competing; none of them realize the secret intention of the Buddha and patriarchs, but follow words and descriptions. If in doctrine they speak of affirmation, then they speak of the characteristics by relying on the nature, and if they speak of negation, they are refuting characteristics to reveal the nature. Only the single gateway of the Nature school clearly realizes direct pointing and does not speak of affirmation or negation.27

Here Yanshou evidently reduces the various schools in Doctrine to speaking of affirmation or speaking of negation, and also to the speaking of existence and speaking of non-existence by the two schools of Characteristics and Emptiness. He clearly points out that the Chan School is the school of Nature that “clearly realizes by direct pointing.” In his Zongjing lu, with the exception of “the ten differences of the school of Emptiness and the school of Nature broadly discriminated,” he stressed the clarification of the basic idea of the merging of the schools of Nature and Characteristics. He pointed out that. The various kinds of gateways of nature and characteristics lie in the perfect comprehension of great awakening….If one does not know that the two gateways of nature and characteristics are the reality and function of one’s own mind…it is like the nature is remote (depth) and the characteristics are the surface, that the characteristics are the attained (developed) and the nature is the source. One should know that reality and function form each other, that nature and characteristics reveal each other.28

He also pointed out that “if one refers to the gateway of perfection that has no obstacles, the nature and characteristics are harmoniously combined, and if one raises a single mote of dust it gathers within it the [entire] dharma-realm.”29 One can see that Yanshou took the nature to view the inside and the characteristics to view the outside, and that the school of Characteristics “speaks of characteristics by relying on the nature,” that the school of the Nature “[means] the nature is remote and the characteristics are the surface,” and that “the characteristics are a function of the nature and the nature is the reality of the characteristics.”30 He explained the perfect merging without hindrances and the mutual revelation of nature and characteristics via the relationship of reality and function. His ideas are not the same as those of Zongmi in that Yanshou undoubtedly viewed the Chan School to be supreme. He thought that although the school of Emptiness that “refuted characteristics to reveal the nature” had places where it had things in common with the Chan School, it and the school of Nature “in which the provisional and the real have differences, and what is hidden and what is expressed are totally different, and [where] one cannot 27

Yanshou, Wanshan tonggui ji, fascicle 1. Yanshou, “First Preface” to the Zongjing lu. 29 Yanshou, Wanshan tonggui ji. 30 Yanshou, Wanshan tonggui ji. 28

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use words of negative expression to eliminate and refute grasping in order to affirm direct indication and establish the teaching that reveals the core theme,”31 and his merging of the Nature and Characteristics schools and dispelling of the theories of the school of Emptiness, lay entirely within the ineffable. A notable feature of Yanshou’s Chan was the use of Chan to speak of Pure Land and the joint practice of Chan and Pure Land. This was the basis for the constant veneration of Yanshou as the sixth patriarch of the Pure Land in Buddhist history. Although in fact the dharma-gateway of the Pure Land began with Huiyuan (334– 416), Huiyuan’s confirmation as the founding ancestor was made after the advent of the Chan School. It was not until the early Song that Siming Zongxiao (1151–1214) made Huiyuan the first ancestor of Pure Land, and only then was the system of inheritance of the school of the Pure Land formed. The Tiantai monk of Southern Song, Zhipan (thirteenth century) later gave Yanshou a position in the Pure Land lineage. Nevertheless, following Huiyuan, famous Buddhist scholars all equally propagated Pure Land. The great master of Tiantai, Zhiyi (538–597) and the founder of the Sanlun School, Jizang (549–623), and others, all wrote works on the dharma-gateway of the Pure Land. Especially after Yanshou, the lineage masters of the Tiantai, Chan, and Vinaya schools often practiced Pure Land, in particular monks of the Chan School. Examples of the latter are Tianyi Yihuai (993–1064) of the Yunmen House and his pupil Huilin Zongben (1020–1099), who wrote Quan Jingtu shuo (Thesis Encouraging the Practice of the Pure Land), and Changlu Qingliao (1089–1151), a monk of the Caodong House, whose Jingtu ji (Collection of the Pure Land) was published. After Yanshou, the style of Huiyuan’s formation of a society to chant the name of a buddha surged, and following the commencement of Shengchang’s (959–1020) Society of Easy Practice, there were Zhili’s (960–1028) Association to Chant the Name of the Buddha and Donation and Precepts, and Lingzhao’s (d.1090) Pure Karma Society, which had over twenty locations. From this we can also see the social atmosphere of the joint practice of Chan and Pure Land in the Song period was indivisible from Yanshou’s unification of Chan and Pure Land thought. The main tenet of the Pure Land School was the inner cause that is the practice of nianfo (calling on name of, or recollecting, the buddha) and the external condition of the powers of the vow of Amit¯abha, and when the internal and external correspond, one can be reborn in paradise. Accompanying the Tang-dynasty revolution in Buddhism, the buddha outside of the mind was changed to the buddha inside the mind and the transcendence of the external was converted into an immanent transcendence, and the Pure Land School formed the theory of a Pure Land of one’s own mind out of the Pure Land of rebirth. The main point of Yanshou’s principle of the joint practice of Chan and Pure Land was the use of the mental Pure Land to speak of Chan. Firstly, he pointed out that, The dharma-gates of the buddhas are not one sided, as all have self-power and other-power [forms of liberation], their own characteristics and joint characteristics….The perception of

31

Yanshou, Zongjing lu.

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5 The Tolerant Cooperation and Interpenetration of Chan Thought cognitive objects by the mind [means] that the cognitive object is the mind….If the selfpower is fully provided, then one does not need the conditions; if the self-power is yet to be possible, one should depend on the strength of the other.32

He not only informed people about the dialectical relationship of their self-power and other power, and explained the necessity for nianfo to avail itself of the external power of Amit¯abha, he also pointed out the prerequisites for the cultivation of the practice of the Pure Land method. He simultaneously explained that the mind is cognitive objects, cognitive objects are the mind, and that the own-mind Pure Land is the ultimate ideal sought by practitioners. That is to say, the dharma-gates (methods) of the buddhas will rely on the one mind, and because of this, Chan and Pure Land have in common the dependence on one’s own mind. Continuing, Yanshou also contrasted the contemplation practice with the principles of the Pure Land to further explain that, Sound is the seat of all meanings and words are all the gateway of release, and if everything devolves to sound, sound becomes the dharma-realm….Therefore, know that all sounds (voices) are included in matter without exception and that the ten [dharma] realms are fully present, and the principles of the truths are perfected.33

In Yanshou’s view, the sound of nianfo or the spoken word not only contain all existence, he also inexplicably quotes the following, “All dharmas are contained within each single dharma,” to explain that sound is the principle of the dharmarealm. Therefore, his conclusion is that “if one chants one sound innumerable sins are eliminated, and if one chants ten times one’s body will reside in the Pure Land,” and “if one chants ‘Hail to the Buddha,’ one will have fully completed the BuddhaWay,” and “chanting the name of the buddha one is certain to achieve sam¯adhi,” and “if nianfo is cast into the confused mind, the confused mind cannot but be buddha.” Here he naturally has no means of logically providing an inference proving that the relationship between nianfo and becoming buddha are the same, which clearly demonstrates that the faith of Buddhists and reason are not in harmony, and its “daily lessons of 108 tasks…in the day and evening he went to another peak to practice the Way of nianfo, and onlookers heard the sound of the heavenly music of a conch shell.”34 Still what is clear is Yanshou’s pious Pure Land belief. And yet, this is not the same as saying that Yanshou’s joint practice of Chan and Pure Land is placing the Pure Land above Chan, for even though he said, “If they have Chan but no Pure Land, eight or nine [people] out of ten will mistake the path….If there is no Chan and no Pure Land, all practices and all people will depart….If one has Chan and has Pure Land, one will be just like a tiger with a horn (enlightened, exceptional) and be a teacher of people in this current world and will be a buddha or patriarch in a future life.”35 The Pure Land spoken of here points out that what is important is that the mind’s intrinsic reality of “taking up the one mind as the core 32

Yanshou, Wanshan tonggui ji, fascicle 1. Ibid. 34 Zhipan, Fozu tongji (Unified Annals of the Buddhist Patriarchs), fascicle 26. 35 Yanshou, Nianfo siliaojian (The Four Alternatives in Nianfo). 33

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theme” is totally in accord with “the own-mind Pure Land,” which in the Chan School is called the mind of intrinsic awakening to intrinsic purity. It is exactly because of this that he also emphasized that, The single method of meditation (chanding) is the basis of the four discriminations and six supernatural powers which are the cause of the elimination of the ordinary and the pursuit of the holy, and the control of mindfulness (chanting, nian) for a short period of time is therefore called the superior good.

Ultimately, Chan is the best of the best and it is only due to one “not taking up selfpower” that one must rely on nianfo and seek other power, like “when sleepiness is again a hindrance, then one must encourage nianfo and the recitation of sutras,” which is nothing more than a skillful means. He also specially pointed out that “if one wants to attain the Pure Land, just purify one’s mind. Once the mind is pure, the Buddha-land is pure.” This amply explains his pursuit of the own-mind Pure Land and simultaneously speaks fairly clearly of the relationship of Chan and Pure Land. To “secretly uphold the sacred incantation (dh¯aran.¯ı)” that can also “protect the correct and defend against the false, conquer the demons (temptations) and expel them,” also explains the reason for the unity of the exoteric and esoteric, and further advanced proves that nianfo still has the aim of the fundamental tenets of the Chan School. Here I will not detail his ideas on the unity of the exoteric and the esoteric. The words below can summarize Yanshou’s thought overall. Some use nianfo to prove sam¯adhi, some develop the gateway of insight from sitting in meditation, some concentrate on intoning the sutras to see the dharma-body, some just practice the Way to enter the holy realm. But if one takes the Way to be the intention, in the end one will not adopt the one gateway of sam¯adhi (ding), and will only depend on the sincerity of a sole ambition, which is non-belief in false theories.

Whether it is Pure Land, or Chan, or Doctrine, or “cultivation within principle,” or “cultivation within phenomena,” they all have “attaining the Way” as their aim, and therefore this aim is not restricted to one school for all rely on one mind, which is what is meant by “everything that is seen is the mind.”36 These words still draw on the many currents of the fundamental tenets of nothing-but mind, contemplating mind, and reversion to the mind, and synthesize the theories of the various thinkers. The influences of Yanshou on the direction of the developments in later Buddhist thought were on the unity of Chan and Doctrine, the merging of the schools of Nature and Characteristics, and the joint practice of Chan and Pure Land, and they evidently had the function of unlocking the key. As for Yanshou’s theory of “the buddhas do not eliminate the evil of the nature” and “icchantikas37 do not eliminate the good of the nature,” these are ideas undoubtedly adopted from the Tiantai School’s ideas of “the insentient have a [Buddha] nature” and “the nature possesses good and evil.” He stressed that “the good are the teachers of evil people and the evil are the assistants of good people,” and “if they remove 36 37

With the exception of quotes with footnotes, all are from fascicle 1 of Wanshan tonggui ji. Tr. icchantikas are incorrigible beings who have cut off all desires for enlightenment.

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conditions and follow their nature, even though they are different they are the same.”38 As Yanshou sees it, good and evil are all arguments presented in a relative sense. The aim of speaking of good and evil still resides in proving that the mind includes phenomena and principle, and that the mind controls the functions of the mind as intrinsic reality of the various schools. Because of this he can also say that this and the “do not think of good, do not think of evil” of the Chan School fundamentally do not conflict. Besides this, Yanshou also mentioned that “the previous founders of Confucianism and Daoism were all bodhisattvas who showed inferior [people] the exposition of conversion and jointly praised the vehicle of the Buddha,” and “Confucius and Laozi set up teachings, modelled themselves on Heaven to govern the functions (activities), and they did not dare contradict Heaven. The buddhas set up teachings and the gods (heavens) accepted and practiced it, and did not dare contradict the Buddha.”39 His idea was that Confucians and Daoists modelled themselves on Heaven, and that Heaven (the gods) also venerated Buddha, so Buddhism is superior to Confucianism and Daoism, and is even superior to Heaven. Because of this, the principles of Buddhism contain everything and can “encourage subjects to be loyal, encourage children to be filial, encourage the country to co-operate, and encourage families to be harmonious,” in short, to curb evil and commend the good, and consciously and unconsciously he tended towards merging the three religions. However, it is to be said that Qisong’s influence was even greater.

Part 2: Qisong’s Chan Thought that Unified Confucianism and Buddhism Qisong (1007–1072), lay surname Li, personal name Zhongling, self-appellation Qianzi, was a native of Xinjin in Tengzhou (Teng County, Guangxi Province). At the age of seven sui, his mother of the Zhong clan took him to become a monk. He was tonsured at thirteen, and at fourteen he took the full precepts. At nineteen, he travelled, going down the Yangzi and Xiang rivers, and he went through Mt. Heng and Mt. Lu. He worshipped Guanyin, daily reciting the names of Guanyin ten thousand times before he went to sleep. It is alleged that from then on that he was able to understand the worldly scriptures and essays without studying them.40 In fact, he may have been born into an intellectual and official-producing family, and that after he became a monk, “he extensively investigated all of the classics, commentaries, and miscellaneous books,” and in the Mingdao reign of Emperor Renzong (1032–1034), he borrowed and read the library of the family of Ouyang Fang of Yuzhang, “reading

38

Yanshou, Wanshan tonggui ji, fascicles 2 and 3. Ibid. 40 See Chen Shouming, Xinjin Mingjiao Dashi xingye ji (Records of the Deeds of Great Master Mingjiao of Xinjin) and Huihong, Mingjiao Song Chanshi (Chan Master Mingjiao [Qi]song). 39

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them in Fengsheng Cloister.”41 This was the source for his Confucian thought. The Chan Master Dongshan Xiaocong (d.u.), from whom he obtained the Dharma, was in the fourteenth generation from Qingyuan, and was a famed monk of the Yunmen House. In the Qingli reign era (1041–1048), Qisong travelled to the Wu region, where he enjoyed the scenery and he wrote books while living in Yongan Monastery in Lingyin. At that time, the scholar-gentry in the south-east admired the old-text (guwen) style of Han Yu and they also discussed the rejection of Buddhism, so Qisong “accordingly correlated the five precepts and ten good deeds of Buddhism with the five constants of Confucianism when he wrote his Yuanjiao pian (Essay Investigating the Origins of the Teachings),”42 which demonstrated the consistency of the Ways of Confucianism and Buddhism to counter the anti-Buddhist theories. Moreover, because the lineages of the Chan School were unclear, he wrote the Zhengzong ji (Records of the Correct Lineage) and Dingzu tu (Diagram Fixing the Patriarchs) et cetera, which he brought to the capital, and through the intermediary of the governor of Kaifeng Superior Prefecture, Wang Su, he presented them to Emperor Renzong. Huizhong’s “Jiayou Preface” says, “The emperor read to Lü Yin that the Way is not named and that the Dharma is not a body, and he sighed in admiration of its truth and honored [Qisong] with the name Great Master Mingjiao (Elucidator of the Teaching) and granted his writings entry into the Canon.” Later, his works were handed by the Grand Councilor Han Qi (1008–1075) to Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072), who at that time was an exemplar of the empire. After Ouyang read them, he sighed, “How could I not think that there was such a gentleman as this among the monks?” and he “spoke with him for the whole day and was subsequently greatly delighted. Due to this, Qisong was famed throughout the country.”43 “From the Grand Councilor on down in the court, all granted him interviews and respected him.” The court had him live in Minxian Monastery, but he did not accept and returned to Wu where he lived for several years on Mt. Fori. In his old age he returned to Yongan Monastery in Lingyin. He died in the fifth year of the Xining reign (1072). After Xuedu Chongxian, Qisong was a famed Yunmen Lineage Chan monk of the Song period, but unlike Chongxian, “he was skilled at using the writings of the six [Confucian] classics to write books that elaborated on his Dharma in order to correct the scholars of the two teachings (Buddhism and Confucianism).” Furthermore, in order to broaden the influence of his ideas, as a Chan monk he sought to develop them even further, always associating with the families of the influential and made friends with descendants of aristocratic families, and “he did not avoid the current fashion of sneering laughter and through his books he sought to communicate with chief ministers and the gentry.”44 One can see that Qisong’s idea of the unity of Confucianism and Buddhism was already a tendency in the development of thought, and 41

Nianchang (1282–1341), Mingjiao Qisong Chanshi. Ibid. 43 Huihong, Shimen wenzi Chan (The Lettered Chan of Shimen), fascicle 23. 44 Qisong, “Song Xinyang Yao Jiabu xu” (Description Sent to Director of the Bureau of Equipment Yao of Xinyang), in Xinjin wenji (Collected Prose of Xinjin). 42

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because it tallied with the ideological requirements of the Zhao-clan Song dynasty, it benefited from the support of the nobility and descendants of aristocratic families. The circumstances of the universal infiltration by the Song-dynasty Chan School can be glimpsed through this. Qisong wrote over a hundred fascicles, over 600,000 words, and those published were records of the correct lineage of the transmission of the Dharma, a genealogy of the Chan School, which was diagrammed and discussed in three texts, and the Xinjin wenji. In the latter, in the collection called the Fujiao pian (Essay Assisting the Teaching), he elaborated on the unity of Confucian and Buddhist thought. When the Song monk Huaiwu began to compile the Xinjin wenji from the Daguan reign era (1107–1110), he found that “the old edition of the Fujiao pian had already been printed repeatedly.”45 This tells us that this text was widely circulated in its day. Not only does the Ming Northern Tripitaka include the Xinjin wenji, the compilers also chose to reproduce the Fujiao pian, and the Southern Tripitaka and the Qing Tripitaka then chose to only reproduce the Fujiao pian. We can thus also see the importance given to the Fujiao pian in later ages, which reflects the tendency to unite the three religions from the Song dynasty onwards and the considerable relationship this tendency had with Qisong. We should see that the early Song-dynasty Chan School, in particular, the Yunmen House, flourished, and that there were the Chan schools of Qisong and others and there were knowledgeable scholars who in a timely way achieved the harmonization of Confucianism and Buddhism for their own advancement and reformation. And yet this kind of self-enrichment and harmonization actually was a result of the compulsive catalyzation between the social changes of the time and the participation of the gentry. After the Song had established their state, foreign aggression was unceasing and internal rebellions broke out one after the other, and therefore the economy was in financial straits and many important ministers in the court advocated repressing Buddhism and Daoism in order to improve these embarrassing circumstances. Li Gou (1009–1059) even proposed that “if Buddhist and Daoist clergy exist there is ten times the damage,”46 and he advocated the abolition of Buddhism. Qisong, right in the midst of the clamor to remove Buddhism, marked out the theory of protecting the country via the unity of Buddhism and Confucianism. The participation of the gentry, and of course, their support, and also opposition, equally resulted in Buddhism, in particular the Chan School, widely infiltrating society. Professor Chen Yuan has pointed out that “the prosperity of the Yunmen House of Northern Song was led by Huailian and Qisong…and there were also gentry who mixed with them, thereby specially contributing to their prosperity.” He also said, “I think, how could it only be the praise by the gentry of it (Chan) that enabled its glorification, for the gentry’s slander of it also led to its glorification, especially as it is harmful if people ignored it and did not talk about it?” How could it be like this? He also quoted Chao Yidao’s (Chao Yuezhi, 1059–1129) Jingyu ji to explain it: “I was amazed that Mr. Han [Yu] and Mr. Ouyang [Xiu] worked to exclude Buddhism and yet most of their pupils 45 46

Huaiwu, “Preface to Xinjin wenji,” fascicle 19. Li Gou, Fuguoce diwu (Scheme to Enrich the Country Number 15).

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were leading lights of Buddhism, such as Chengguan and Qisong, and even though they themselves were able to transmit [their ideas] to a later age, the fact that gentry now delight in praising its Way was really due to their power being greater than that of Han and Ouyang.”47 Professor Chen Yuan attributed the glorification of Songdynasty Chan to the praise and blame by the gentry, which can be regarded as a justifiable assertion. It was properly because the gentry inclined to Chan and the confluence of Chan and Confucian learning. The Xinjin wenji was completed on the basis of the Jiayou ji by Huaiwu when Qisong was alive, and he completed it by adding compilations such as Fei Han (Against Han Yu). The start of the book has the “Xinjin Mingjiao Dashi xingye ji” (Record of the Deeds of Great Master Mingjiao of Xinjin) written by the presented scholar of the Qingli era (1041–1048), the Minister and Vice-Director of the State Farms Bureau, Chen Shunyu (d.1076). The complete book is twenty fascicles in all, the first three of which are the most famous Fujiao pian. In fascicle 9 of this book, Qisong has a text, “Shang Zhao Neihan shu” (Letter to Palace Writer [Academician] Zhao), in which he briefly explained his aim of writing the Fujiao pian: I appreciated that the Confucians of the present empire do not know that the Buddha was a great saint and that the virtues of his Way would greatly benefit the living beings of the empire, and that the Dharma he taught would be a great assistance in the instructions by the state. Now the empire one-sidedly competes to write deriding it. Because I had observed and worried that these slanders not only stopped people from being good, they also harmed their own public virtue, and so I wrote a work called the Fujiao pian to illustrate the Way of the Buddha, hoping to inform and encourage the gentlemen (rulers) of the world.

That is to say, he observed that Confucians of his day did not know the benefits of Buddhism and that Buddhism functioned to assist the country just as Confucianism does. Ultimately, since deriding Buddhism would harm the derider and harm others, he used this text to enlighten people to the common principles of Buddhism and Confucianism. This is also what Huaiwu wrote in his preface: “His aim was to jointly understand Confucianism and Buddhism in order to entice the gentry to reflect on their intrinsic conscious mind, investigate the principle, and see the nature.” The Fujiao pian is organized into five sections that were written at different times. The Yuanjiao pian (Essay Investigating the Origins of the Teachings) emphasizes the discussion of the five precepts and ten good deeds of the Buddhists being of “a different name but the same essence” as the five ethical constants of the Confucians. The Quanshu (Letters of Encouragement) encourage and instruct students not to reject Buddhism, “being an indication to warn the world”; the Guang yuanjiao (Expanded Origin of the Teachings) made the point that “only the mind is called the Way and the elucidation of the Way is called the teaching,” and it further explained that Buddhism, Confucianism, and the Chinese philosophers were “one in mind” but “their traces are different,” “all wanting people to be good,” which is due to the reality of the mind, and he explained that the aspect of good deeds implied the necessity for each of the schools to co-exist with the others for a long period. This is a similar idea 47

Chen Yuan, Zhongguo Fojiaoshiji gailun (Outline of the History Texts of Chinese Buddhism), Zhongguo shuju, 1988, p. 115.

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to that held by Yanshou, great minds thinking alike. The Xiaolun (On Filial Piety) took the Confucian idea of filial piety to develop the ideas of Buddhism, which is a classic case of Buddhism drawing close to traditional Chinese culture, or is saying that it is creating a system by making a strained interpretation of the principles of the tradition. There was no lack of theorists, who through the ages from the time Buddhism was introduced to China, taught Confucianism as an entry point into Buddhism or used Buddhist ideas to make far-fetched comparisons with Confucianism, but we can say that Qisong was the pioneer of the common practice of the systematic and total harmonization with Confucian doctrine that really introduced the argumentation of Buddhist doctrine as far as possible into Confucian ethics. He said, Confucianism and Buddhism are the teachings of saints. Although what they produced was not the same, yet they both revert to governing. For Confucians, the greatness of the saint was in action (the conditioned); for Buddhists, the greatness of the saint was in inaction (the unconditioned). Action is for governing the world, inaction is for governing the mind.

He explained the unity of Confucianism and Buddhism via the two aspects of governing the world and governing the mind, and in reality, governing the mind is also the governing of the world; and that Buddhism and Confucianism have no further principle that is not shared. What later generations called the three essentials of learning and the Buddhist learning of administering the country that governs the world by governing the mind of recent ages should be said to have inherited ideas from this viewpoint of Qisong. He explained that. My delight in Confucianism is in combining it with my Way. What Confucians call humaneness, righteousness, etiquette, wisdom, and trust are what we Buddhists call compassion, donation, reverence, lack of self-pride, insight, no false words or profane talk. Although these names are not the same, the reason why they were established was due to sincere practice, so how can they differ in improving the world and teaching people?48

His idea was that Confucianism and Buddhism were also good for the world and teaching people, with the divergent paths coming to the same result. Yet the reason he says that he delighted in Confucianism was because Confucians have a Way that coincides with the Way of the Buddhists, even if that was not their original intention. In fact, it was not that he adopted those aspects of the Confucians that coincided with Buddhist principles, but rather as far as possible he used the theories of the Confucians to reform the principles of Buddhism, or perhaps one may say that he made Buddhist thought conform in some way to the norms of the Confucians. This is in fact was Buddhism, ever since it had entered into China, searching after a consistent means for this foreign culture to survive and develop. This was nothing more than Qisong in the Song period attaching Buddhism to the tradition a little more tightly, for this hair had already been completely attached to the skin of the tradition. In his “Shang Huangdi shu” (Letter to the Emperor), he flattered the emperor to the utmost of his ability, writing, “The harm and benefits of Buddhism are restricted or extended due to your majesty’s holy wisdom” and “the teachings of Buddhism and 48

Qisong, “Jizi jie” in Xinjin wenji fascicle 8.

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Daoism can help in praising the great [work of state] civilization.” One can say that he profoundly obtained the aim of, “if one does not rely on the ruler of the country, matters of the Dharma will be difficult to institute,” virtually cleaning away any sort of transcendental spirit from the Buddha-dharma. Specifically, Qisong’s idea of the unification of Confucianism and Buddhism likewise concentrated on showing the two aspects of principle and practice, and he spoke of himself, saying that “although I am not a wise man, I can also say that as a monk and as a person that my ideals are in the Yuanjiao and my practices are in the Xiaolun.”49 Naturally, this is not only the regulation of oneself, but is also an advocacy of the conduct of social norms. First, we shall talk of practice. Just like Yanshou, Qisong viewed ‘good’ as being the norm of the fundamental practice of the various lineages and teachings, which means “the saints are not the same in their teachings, but they are the same in respect of being good.”50 At the same time, he further stressed the goodness of the five precepts and ten good deeds of the Buddhists, and that the goodness of the Confucians, such as “the humaneness of not killing, the righteousness of not stealing, the etiquette of not committing licentious acts, the wisdom of not being drunk, the trust of not lying, and the sincerity of not speaking profanely,” could equally be “perfect the person and glorify ones parents.” All of these can be called filial piety. There is filial piety due to being good and “filial piety emerging from being good.” In this, Qisong is truly making being good the starting point. With respect of that question over which Buddhism received the most reproach from Confucians, that Buddhism was contrary to the Way of filial piety because of the Buddhist behavior of shaving off one’s hair to become a monk (to leave home), Qisong justified Buddhism as not contradicting the Chinese tradition. He said, “The [people of the] empire regard Confucianism as being filial and regard Buddhism as being unfilial….This is seeing Confucianism and is not seeing Buddhism. Buddhism takes filial piety to its utmost and Confucians [only] maintain it, the Buddhists broaden it; the Confucians make it human, the Buddhists make it divine, for they make filial piety the utmost and greatest.” As he saw it, Buddhism was definitely not unfilial, and people were not seeing the filial piety of Buddhism. In saying that the filial piety of Buddhism was broader and divine, and that the filial piety of the Confucians was restricted to people, the reason he said that the filial piety of the Buddhists was “at its utmost and greatest” had its original cause in “the goodness of Buddhism being the greatest good” and “the Way of Buddhism makes the Way the most profound.” The real reason it is like this is because the greater good of Buddhism broadened filial piety in which Buddhists “regard the parents of other people just like one’s own parents and protect the lives of other beings just like one’s own life. Therefore, if this is being good, one will be concerned for insects, and if this is being filial, the demons and spirits will all encourage it. If one avails oneself of this filial piety to conduct oneself in society…and avails oneself of the good to depart the world, then one will be greatly compassionate with the world and encourage 49 50

Qisong, “Yu Shimen Yue Chanshi” (For Chan Master Yue of Shimen) in Xinjin wenji fascicle 1. Qisong, Yuanjiao.

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[these practices] in the world.” That is to say, Buddhism not only advocates being filial to one’s own parents, it also treats the parents of others as one’s own parents, and protects the life of beings as if protecting one’s own life. In reality, this is the Buddhist universal love of sentient beings; the idea of universally liberating sentient beings. The early Ming-dynasty monk Daoyan (1335–1418) was granted the name Guangxiao (Broad Filial Piety) probably with this in mind. In this sense, Qisong’s theory of filial piety was not a new creation; it already existed in the Six Dynasties period and Liu Xie (sixth century) pointed out that “the filial piety of the Buddhists incorporates the over-arching and far-reaching. Its principle is due to the mind and it has no connections to it being public.” Yet Qisong not only regarded the filial piety of Buddhism as being the broadest filial piety and the utmost filial piety, he also accepted the obligation for being filial in the world and for encouraging its practice. He even stressed that the grace of parents in giving birth to and raising one was the origin of one taking form as a living being, and therefore he advocated “the filial piety of physical nurturing,” which is “reducing one’s expenses on robes and the begging bowl [life as a monk] in order to nurture one’s parents.” This further advanced the earlier “filial piety” of the Buddhists, forging ahead towards secularization. Qisong’s discussion of filial piety not only differentiated it by extent, but also divided it into visible and invisible. In his Yuanxiao zhang disan (Essay Number Three on the Origins of Filial Piety) there is an ingenuous and convincing account: Invisibility is the principle of filial piety; visibility is the practice of filial piety. The principle is the reason why filial piety emerges; practice is the means by which filial piety is formed. If one cultivates its form but does not cultivate it within, one’s service to one’s parents is not in earnest and one’s kindness to people is not sincere. If one cultivates it within and also cultivates its form, how could only serving one’s parents and being kind to other people not likewise shake heaven and earth and influence the demons and spirits?

Merely having the practice of filial piety is not putting it into practice; if one lacks the principle of filial piety firmly within one, that filial piety will not be generous or long-lasting and one will not be truly genuine in dealing with people. Because of this, “it is necessary for filial piety to first be sincere in one’s nature and only then does one put it into practice,” which is also the idea of principle giving rise to practice and using sincerity to firm up filial piety. Therefore, he said, “For this reason, the filial piety of the saints valued sincerity. Do not the Confucians say, ‘The gentleman values sincerity’?” Explaining filial piety from the angle of sincerity makes it easier to gain the approval of the social mentality of the traditional culture that they shared. Don’t you see the couplet of the city of ghosts in the underworld that says, “Of all the good deeds, filial piety is the foremost. Talk of mind and do not talk of deeds; in talking of serving the empire there are no filial children”? This couplet highlights exactly the invisible principle that Qisong spoke of and what Confucians, in particular Song Confucians, called sincerity. This again relates to principle, which is also what he meant by “my ideals are in the Yuanjiao,” in other words, the theoretical foundation. Looking from the present, Qisong’s “my ideals are in the Yuanjiao” not only regards the Yuanjiao as an aspiration, it also uses the Yuanjiao as a guide to the harmonization of Confucian and Buddhist thought, in which he strove to weave together the theories of Confucianism and Buddhism. Because of this, his “ideal”

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resided not only in the Yuanjiao, but also was embodied in his later theoretical works, including the Quanshu, Guang yuanjiao, Lunyuan (Investigation of the Analects), and the Zhongyong jie (Explanation of the Zhongyong) et cetera. This is a synthesis of the Buddhist and Confucian “principle.” The reason that he spoke in this way was simply because when he was saying these words, the Yuanjiao and Xiaolun had already been published. Qisong pointed out in his initial statement of his main purpose in the Yuanjiao: “The myriad things have nature and feelings, past and present there is birth and death (samsara)….Death is definitely due to birth, and birth is originally due to feelings (emotions), and feelings are definitely due to the nature. That which makes the myriad things drift along in birth and death are the feelings that bind them.” Simply speaking, birth and death is life, and that which has life has a nature, and to have a nature is to have feelings. Considering Confucianism and Buddhism through categories of nature, life, and feeling, one can see that Qisong racked his brains to connect Confucianism and Buddhism. In his time, Confucian thought had already accepted the challenges of Buddhist and Daoist thought, and had consciously and unconsciously incorporated Buddhism and Daoism. It had turned away from the Tangdynasty commentaries on the lectures towards inquiry into the speculative studies of nature-mandate/life (xingming, mandated or inherent nature) and the Heavenly Way (neo-Confucianism). Qisong undoubtedly noticed the transformation in the distinctive characteristics of Confucian thought and thus, starting with nature-mandate/life, he connected Confucianism and Buddhism, and evidently was able to achieve twice the result with half the effort. And yet he also specially marked out the category “feeling (emotion),” thinking that feelings, which arose from the nature, were good and bad, and so he presented the method of “removing feelings,” and he pointed out that all saints (naturally including the previous masters and great virtuosos of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism, which was a fundamental concept of his integration of these religions) deduced from their life time to show where they came from; and they pointed to after their death to teach what was to be cultivated. This he summarized by saying that “The Way is to be used to lead the world and the removal of feeling is to be fabricated in the right here and now, so one must avail oneself of it for the future.” That is to say, based on the inevitability of life and death, people originally have good and bad “feelings,” and that all founders of religions equally support this teaching method of “removing feelings,” which is to curb evil and promote the good. Therefore, he says that Buddhism and Confucianism in a fundamental sense are to be regarded as being interlinked. In this sense, “Shennong (mythical emperor who founded agriculture) thought that although all the medicinal plants were different, they were alike in curing diseases; Houji (mythical director of husbandry under mythical Emperor Yao) indicated that although all valleys are different, they are the same in feeding people; the teachings of the saints were not the same, but they were the same in doing good.” He proceeded to point out that the five precepts and ten good deeds of the Buddhists are linked to the five constants of Confucianism. “In using their traces (deeds) to discuss them, they were never the same; using principle to discuss them, they were never different.” Traces indicate what is called dharma and concrete expression, and

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principle is the logical relationship of the ming (life/mandate), xing (nature), and feelings described above. The main point of the Yuanjiao in reality lies in proving the consistency of Buddhism and Confucianism via the various aspects of reality such as barbarian and Chinese, clothing and food, cause and effect, and marriage relationships. This is the use of phenomena to prove the principle, and so is not purely a work of obvious facts. Firstly, he says from a contrary position that “Buddhism was a saint of the west; his Dharma was suitable for barbarians and not for Chinese.” He proceeds to refute this, saying, Saint is a title for one who has a great Way….How can you have the Way of a saint whose aim cannot be reached? If one thinks it is the case that the person has emerged among the barbarians, it is like Shun (a mythical sage emperor of China), who was an eastern barbarian, and King Wen (a king admired by Confucius), who was a western barbarian. Yet their Way was received and handed down and practiced in China, so how can one regard people as barbarians and therefore reject their Way?

Buddhism and Confucianism were equally Ways established by previous saints and of course their Ways were used by the whole country and both were standard theories. The distinction between barbarian and Chinese itself not only rejects Buddhism but also rejects the earliest saints of the Confucians, like Shun and King Wen. Qisong reduces the Chinese domain down to the ages of the Yin and Shang dynasties, and uses this period to explain that so long as they were saints, we need not reject their Way simply because they were barbarians. The natural conclusion is that this makes the Buddhism of the west or the sagely Way of the Confucians as being equally suitable for Chinese. Moreover, “What the Buddha preached is not barbarous.” In general, this idea was based on the legend of the conversion of the barbarians in which Laozi went west beyond the border gate (and thereby inspired Buddhism). One can see that the theory of a flow to the west from a Chinese source already was given an historical origin. Secondly, Qisong, to counter criticisms of Buddhism that it did not “clothe and feed people” and so it could not “govern the world” or “bring good fortune to rulers and parents,” justified Buddhism by saying that in antiquity (before Buddhism arrived), not only the artisans and farmers of the empire, but also others “I have yet to hear had insufficient food,” yet when King Ping of the Zhou instituted the well-field system of agriculture and in the Qin period the system of the kings was abolished, it resulted in the people “being poverty-stricken and exhausted,” and “the empire being increasingly chaotic,” and yet at that time Buddhism and Daoism were not yet current in China. Therefore, he argued, the problems of consumption largely had no connection with Buddhist thought. His conclusion was: “People live between heaven and earth, and their food provisions are always only a part of what is needed, and Confucius’ worries about the world were excessive, and the livelihood of the people was too frugal.” Here, Qisong takes the problems of food and clothing to explain that these become unknowable a priori prescriptions, and he reproaches the Confucians for excessively worrying about matters of the empire (the state) and ignoring the

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existence of the people. He considered the problems of food and clothing to be an unconvincing defense. Thirdly, Qisong thought that the theory of retribution had already been spoken of clearly by the Confucians in words like “the verification of happiness and the verification of blame,” “fortune for good, misfortune for licentiousness,” and the saying that the donation of the Buddhists “has the intention of freeing people to covet and be mean, empties out their good mind.” “The resultant good of the mind is exactly the verification of happiness,” and that if one plants a melon then one gets a melon, and good has the reward of good. These are principles held in common by Buddhism and Confucianism, which are self-evident and do not need to be spoken about. Finally, in regard to the major issue of ethics, he also explained the “Great[er] Way of the Buddha” to counter the criticisms by the Confucians of the Buddhists, the most frequent charges being questions of the body such as cutting off one’s hair and marriage. This explanation was really the previously described “broad[er] filial piety.” Qisong indeed could speak with irrefutable eloquence, taking the examples of Wu Taibo (of the Zhou dynasty who loyally did not contest the throne and went to civilize southern barbarians) and whom “the sage (Confucius) regarded as virtuous” and of Bo Yi and Shu Qi (who declined the throne out of loyalty and eventually died of hunger) and did not marry, “the sage regarding them as worthy men,” as a basis for a counter-attack against the criticisms by Confucians. He used the persons of saints and worthies venerated by Confucians to explain the “Greater Way”: “Even though they themselves did not marry, they still used their virtue to help their parents, and although their bodies were externally harmed, yet they used their Way to save their parents.” Taibo had a tattooed body and cut off his hair; the brothers Bo Yi and Shu Qi never married, and yet Confucians regarded them as being worthy and virtuous people, so why did they require that “the only fault is with us [Buddhists]”?51 At the end of the Yuanjiao, Qisong clearly points out that “the present is even further from the time of the Buddha and the teaching is also coming to its end period….In a great forest there are surely trees that are unusable, in a large field there are sure to be sprouts that will not bear fruit, and one may correct this, but one cannot use [individual] people [as a justification for] abolishing the Way.” His idea was to say that even though the Buddha-dharma is coming to its end period, and in the same way as with the mundane law that there is a tendency towards a steady deterioration, but one can support this Way and have no need to abolish it. This amply demonstrates his feelings of anxiety about protecting Buddhism. “Confucianism is the saints governing the world; Buddhism is the saints governing the departure from the world.” One cannot be biased towards either of these and nor should one abolish them! “To lack one teaching is to harm the energy of the good Way of the empire, and if one harms one good Way, then the evil of the empire will increase greatly.”52 The combination of Buddhism and Confucianism and their employment lies entirely in their being spoken about. 51 52

Qisong, Yuanjiao. Qisong, Guang yuanjiao.

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By means of what is described above, Qisong further explained that in its words about the nature, Buddhism is particularly interlinked with the Yijing and Zhongyong, which is what is meant by “saints are the same by nature.” However, the Confucians also take “the same” as being a reason for “not using Buddhism to act,” which is even more unreasonable. He said, “Where water mostly obtains its sameness, it is in deep rivers and seas; where earth mostly obtains its sameness, it piles up into mountains and peaks; where great people most obtain their sameness, they extend the virtues of the Way.”53 These words not only explain that the more Ways of the saints there are the better, and the more that they are transmitted the better, but also they clearly reveal their theoretical basis in “the nature” that links Confucianism and Buddhism. In order to harmonize Confucianism and Buddhism, Qisong also wrote the Guang yuanjiao, Tanjing zan (Praise of the Platform Sutra), his five interpretations of the Zhongyong, the Lunyuan, and Fei Han et cetera, and he directly quoted the Zhongyong. “The heavenly mandate (ming) is called the nature and the straightforward nature (shuaixing) is called the Way, and the cultivation of the Way is called the teaching.”54 This was following the same path as the Lixue (Zhu Xi neo-Confucians) who conversed greatly on the study of xingming and the Heavenly Way. Yet there was a slight difference with Song Confucianism. For example, Qisong did not mention being endowed with the Way to form the nature, but Qisong relied on the original tenet of the Chan School of enlightening the mind to see the nature, which is not investigating the principle to see the nature, but is the correct indication of this mind, which is to say that the correct mind is the correct xingming (nature-life or mandated nature). In his Guang yuanjiao he wrote, “The mind must be at the utmost, and when it is at the utmost it is certain to change….Change is the movement in its mechanism; the utmost is the basis of the marvelous….Therefore, the myriad things emerge due to change; the myriad things arise when it is at its utmost, and its repetition is due to the utmost. The changes of the myriad things are seen in feelings and the utmost of the world exists in the nature. One can discern the transformations of the myriad things through the feelings and one can contemplate the great marvel of the world through the nature.” Here he not only informs people that the mind is the basis of the marvelous, but also it is the movement of the mechanism. If it moves, there is change; if it changes, then there is feeling (sensation). If it is at its utmost, it is marvelous, and if it is marvelous, it is the nature. In other words, nature, feelings, phenomena, and principle are all sourced in the one mind and therefore he said, “The mind is the greatest and the utmost.” In this way, he established that mind is the function of the intrinsic reality. In his Tanjing zan he also called this one mind the “marvelous mind” and he stressed this one “marvelous mind,” “the original perfection,” and “the innate enlightenment,” which is not perfected until it was created and is not dependent on verification to be enlightened to, and only required “direct pointing at this mind,” which could “correct the xingming.” “If one removes the clouds and fog one will all-at-once see the great clarity [of the sky], and if one climbs up Mt. Tai one will 53 54

Qisong, Yuanjiao. Qisong, Fei Han.

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see the vast expanse.” These and the concepts of the Platform Sutra, “by oneself know one’s intrinsic mind” and “the mind is simply entirely pure,” are completely in agreement. Nevertheless, the explanation of the mind as intrinsic reality is still far from being an adequate theory of Chan. Therefore, he also said, There were saints in the past called Buddha, Confucius, and the hundred philosophers, but the mind is one.

Qisong also exercised control over Buddhism and Confucianism from the angle of the mind as intrinsic reality. Besides this, looking from the viewpoint of logical relationship, “the utmost of the world exists in the nature,” which is to say that the nature arises from the mind and therefore he also said, “the nature is what is naturally attained by living people” and “the nature values silence.”55 From this we can see that for Qisong in this regard, although the concepts of the mind and the nature are different, the intrinsic reality is one by nature, which is also completely the same as the theories of “the nature contains the myriad dharmas” and “the myriad dharmas are entirely the nature” of the Platform Sutra. He recognized that the nature and ming are not the same, and that ming is not self-attained, and yet it is “what is obtained by living people from Heaven.” Therefore, he said, “the nature is internal, while the ming is external.”56 Naturally this is not the same as the Song Confucian idea of “the heavenly mandate that is called the nature,” yet he stressed, “take the nature to be the teaching.”57 But he did take feelings to still be the same or similar to the argument made by the Song Confucians for “the straightforward nature to be called the Way, and the cultivation of the Way to be called the teachings,” they being especially the same as the concepts of “preserving the principles of Heaven and removing human desires.” Because he saw that feelings are “the beginning of existence,” and if one has feelings then one has appetites, and there is good and bad. Therefore, one cannot make feelings the teaching; and as the nature “is the utmost of non-existence” and “the reason why it is calm is clarity…is true, is suchness, is the utmost, is without falsity, is clean, is pure, and if one approaches it one is a worthy, and if one is distanced from them one will be a saintly divine and one will be a great saint.”58 Even though what Qisong maintains are still Chan concepts, yet his way of thinking and his use of language and way of writing has already been completely Confucianized. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that Qisong was not completely detached from the standpoint of Buddhism. When he was combining Confucianism and Buddhism, throughout he placed Buddhist principle in Confucian thought. He stressed that Confucians governed the world and that Buddhists governed the mind; really, Buddhists govern what is fundamental and the Confucians govern the derivative; Buddhists govern the supramundane and really also govern the world. In the text of Fei Han, Qisong criticized Han Yu for “vainly upholding the proximate phenomena 55

Qisong, Lunyuan. Ibid. 57 Qisong, Guang yuanjiao. 58 Ibid. 56

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of human relationships and not seeing the far-reaching principles of human life,” and “Han darkens the internal and follows after the external,” which undoubtedly is saying that Confucians only know the proximate phenomena of human relationships and do not examine the basis of human life. This conclusion is due to Qisong basing himself decisively on the standpoint of Buddhism. It is exactly because it was like this that his biased views and individuality that was disposed to love winning are amply expressed. The Dongpo zhilin (Forest of Ideas of Su Dongpo) says that Qisong was “always angry and I never saw him smiling,” and the Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao (Essentials of the Overall Titles of the Complete Books of the Four Storehouse Libraries), fascicle 152, says that “he repeatedly argued strenuously, working to introduce Buddhism into Mohism. He used the principles of Confucianism to discuss it and firmly and one-sidedly rebutted them, which was using his Dharma to discuss it. Also, his angry and stupid thoughts were too grave and they did not release him from bonds or empty out the various kinds of characteristics of the self.” Qisong’s Chan learning was Confucianized, secularized, politicized, and in a certain sense really ran counter to the no-thought (wunian) and the spirit of non-abiding of Chan. Qisong likewise based his theory of the merging of the Buddhist Way on the abovedescribed original principles of the saints establishing the Way and he made very little specialist mention of it, and so here I shall not introduce it again. Afterwards, by the Yuan and the Ming, people such as Liu Mi (d.u.), Deqing (1546–1623), and Zhixu (1599–1655) clearly delineated the ordinary mind of the three teachings in order to study the three essentials and the three teachings, and through this mind to set up the slogans and systematic discussions of the equal merging of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, and even further to make Chinese scholarship interpenetrate and converge. Besides this, it needs to be explained that Chan learning in the broad sense is Buddhism and that its Confucianization and secularization in the Song period was not only due to the gentry touring the Buddhist monasteries and having relations with eminent monks, but also it needs to be said that the Chan monks were also used by the political authorities. Therefore, not only did Qisong associate with the scholarly class and get involved with court families, seeking to communicate with emperors and prime ministers, there were also Huilin Zongben (1020–1099), who was appointed as the first patriarch of Xiangguo Monastery by Emperor Shenzong, and the Yunmen lineage Chan monk Huailian (1009–1090) who was as famous as Qisong and who in the Huangyu reign (1049–1054) of Emperor Renzong was imperially summoned to an audience in the Huacheng Palace and granted the title of Chan Master Dajue, and Emperor Yingzong also wrote an edict for him to “be abbot as he wished.” As well there was the Linji monk Chuanren Jicheng who received the devotion of Emperor Huizong of the Song during the Xuanhe reign era (in 1124), and was imperially titled “Chan Master Foci.” He also exchanged calligraphy and paintings with Zhao Gou (1107–1187) before the latter took the throne. Last, in the Chunxi era (1174–1190), Deguang (1121–1203), a pupil of Zonggao, frequently entered the capital and talked about Chan with Emperor Xiaozong and was granted the title “Chan Master Fozhao,” and his recorded sayings were incorporated into

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the Canon. There was also Shifan (1178–1249) of the time of Emperor Lizong who was titled “Fojian,” and he both communicated with the emperor and was a monk whose reputation moved high-ranking officials. The association and contact between Song-period Chan monks and the bureaucrats and gentry were countless; such as the relationships between Guanghui Huailian and Yang Yi (973–1020), Foyin Liaoyuan (1032–1098) and Yuquan with Su Dongpo (1036–1101), and Meitang and Sixin with Huang Tingjian (1050–1110), and Jiangshan with Wang Anshi (1021–1086), and Zhaojie, Congyue, Zonggao, and Huihong with Zhang Shangying (d. 1121) et cetera. The widespread infiltration of the Chan School in the Song period pioneered the overall merging with Confucian thought, which really relied on the extensive friendly relationships of Chan monks with lay society that was not without political significance.

Chapter 6

From Shanzhao to Chongxian’s Songgu Baize (Hundred Old Cases with Hymns)

It should be acknowledged that the non-reliance on letters that created a style of the Chan School in fact dated from after the time of Huineng. Each of the five branches and seven lineages of Chan in particular showed their capabilities through nonreliance on letters. They even fabricated the story that the Buddha picked up a flower and K¯as´yapa subtly smiled in order to explain the transmission from mind to mind as a form of the conferral of the Dharma, which also only arose from the four words “not rely on letters” of the Platform Sutra. In reality, the establishment of the Chan School, viewed doctrinally, inherited the spirit of negation of the Buddhists to resolve the antithesis between emptiness and existence, and developed it to its utmost. On the other hand, famous scholars spoke about profundity, and the impregnation by Daoist philosophical thought comprehensively absorbed the intrinsic reality of the Daoists, and the idea that language is a loss of the intrinsic reality (“The Way that can be spoken of is not the usual Way,” Laozi) all thoroughly transformed Chan into an absolute transcendent spiritual intrinsic reality that exists beyond human understanding. Because of this, the Platform Sutra listed the so-called thirty-six pairings such as the antitheses of external cognitive objects and insentience, language and dharma-characteristics, and antithesis of self-nature and the arising of functions et cetera, the domains of mutual opposition and reliance, stressed that this “understanding that comprehends all sutras, and exiting and entering that is apart from both sides,” “and being apart from characteristics in characteristics,” and if not, “attachment to emptiness is only the growth of ignorance, and the attachment to characteristics is only the growth of false views.” That is to say, Chan is not only beyond knowing and understanding, but also transcends the various kinds of opposition, being neither this nor that. The existing language and letters cannot get rid of knowledge and understanding, and also cannot express that sort of transcendental concept. Therefore, one needs “to not use letters.” Because of this, even though the five petals of the one flower of Chan had nothing to contribute to thought, it equally created many writings about the methods to enter the Way and via “non-reliance on letters” poured old wine into new bottles. They stressed that Chan was not intellectual understanding, and intellectual understanding is confusion, and they advanced the idea that “if one speaks of © Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_6

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a thing one will not be on target” and “if one tries to discuss it, one is off the mark; and if one moves thoughts, then one violates [the truth],” which needs one to lead students to use their own mind to thoroughly apprehend that transcendence of the truth of those kinds of antitheses. Linji Yixuan even rebuked those lecturing on the sutras and giving sermons as “taking the dung pit, putting it into one’s mouth, and spewing it out to other people.” This serves to show that the functions of language and letters is the basis of hindrances to the Way, and that this idea had become a consensus among Chan masters. Because of this, on the pathway through to Chan, they struggled to cast aside language and letters, so much so that they adopted forms that ordinary people found difficult to understand; and they engaged together by striking with a staff and shouting, raising their fists and winking their eyes, pointing to the east and saying it is the west, and even using enigmatic language and double meanings. In this respect, each of the five houses and seven lineages of Chan can be said to possess clever moves. Nevertheless, a method ultimately is not the objective, it is only a means of actualizing the objective, and that actualization was the transcendental spirit of being apart from characteristics while in characteristics, not thinking while in thought, and not abiding in the thought-moment by thought-moment, which actually is the refutation and removal of all the hindrances of attachments that the Buddhists constantly talk about, and putting them down is the ordinary mind. In fact, Chan is definitely not something that can be completely expressed in language and letters, but still it needed to borrow words and letters to reveal itself. Even though the holding up of a flower by the Buddha was wordless, still that was a special language (the language of movement) in a special environment. Therefore, the Platform Sutra also says, “since words do not use letters, people should not speak, since speaking (language) is letters,” and “these two characters [wenzi] are also letters.” Were not the Chan masters who always used this to mean, “if one talks about a thing, one will not hit the mark,” putting these stories on the tips of their tongues and writing them down on paper? Naturally, they guided students to adopt various methods, whether it was not speaking, enigmatic language, metaphorical language. All of these can be said to be a special language in a special environment. Moreover, the afore-mentioned unspoken words, enigmatic language, and metaphorical language is surely able to guide students to self-attained wisdom, and yet it also caused confusion and lack of understanding by students who rushed along mistaken paths of malpractice. From the start of the Song dynasty onwards, as the “lamplight records” of the Chan School were printed, so too did the investigation of the gongan (public cases) become popular in the public (teaching) monasteries. When the Chan monks of the Song period reflected on this, they evidently no longer rigidly adhered to the set view of “letters being the basis for obstacles to the Way,” but used language and letters to build beyond the Chan institution and to stress “that the Great Dharma is not bound by language, and yet it borrows words to express itself,” which explains that language and letters have an intimate relationship with Chan. In this manner, lettered Chan not only in reality, but also in theory, equally obtained a place at the table. One can say that the rise of lettered Chan developed in sync with the publication of the lamplight records. The

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beginnings of lettered Chan must be said to have been with the hundred hymns of old cases by Fenyang Shanzhao.

Part 1: Shanzhao and the Beginnings of Hymns on Old Cases (songgu) Hymns on old cases took up old cases and discovered their meaning via rhyming words. Popularly speaking, they are the Chan master using a gongan as an example and using verse and rhyming language to explain and evaluate it. It is the conduct of a verbal and written explanation of the evasive language of the gongan. This really is the origin of the lettered Chan of the Song period. The pioneer of this was Fenyang Shanzhao. Shanzhao (945–1022) was a native of Taiyuan in Shanxi Province. His lay surname was Yu. When he was young, he was talented and insightful, and he did not need instruction from a teacher to master letters. When he was fourteen (sui), he travelled through the regions, consulting seventy-one elderly monks in various districts and eventually he obtained the Dharma from Shoushan Shengnian (926–993), and became a sixth-generation member of the Linji lineage. In the fourth year of the Chunhua reign of Emperor Taizong (993), after Shengnian had passed away, over a thousand people, monastic and lay, sent Qisong to invite Shanzhao to dwell in Taizi Chan Cloister of Taiping Monastery in Fenzhou. He never left there, preaching tirelessly for nearly thirty years, and therefore he was called Fenyang. The Guzunsu yulu (Recorded Sayings of Former Venerable Masters) records that the governor of Longde Superior Prefecture and Commandant-escort (consort of imperial princess), Li Zunxu (988–1038) and Shanzhao were old acquaintances, and Li requested that Shanzhao be made abbot of Chengtian Monastery. “The messengers returned three times, but he did not go.” Therefore, he was punished. The messenger again come and said, “I must require you to accompany me; if not you will die.” Shanzhao consequently agreed and ordered the provision of food and clothing, and he told the assembly of monks, “I am departing. Who can follow me?” One after another, two monks desired to accompany him, but Shanzhao suspected that they would only travel fifty to seventy li (approximately twenty-five to thirty-five kilometers) per day and then they would stop. Later, there was also a monk who said, “Wherever you go, Reverend, I will go.” Shanzhao agreed and then told the messenger, “I will go first.” Thereupon he sat down and passed away, and that monk also died. This record is different from that of Li Zunxu’s Guang deng lu (Extensive Record of the Lamplight Transmission), and Xicai’s Xu chuandeng lu (Continued Record of the Transmission of the Lamplight). It seems to be ruining the effect by adding the superfluous. Many hagiographies are like this in order to deify a certain monk, but one can also see Fenyang’s personal charisma in this story.

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Shanzhao’s thought does not make much of a contribution and he stressed that “all sentient beings have their source in the Buddha-nature. It is for example like a bright moon in the sky, but it is simply due to the blockage by floating clouds that it is not clearly visible.”1 These words completely duplicate what was said in the Platform Sutra. He said in regard to method that “whether it is spoken of a thousand times or ten thousand times, that is not the equal of seeing it clearly for oneself. At that moment, one transcends the ordinary and enters the saintly, and one will not be deluded and misled by the crowd of [tempting] demons. This is called having dealt with the great matter [of enlightenment].”2 Here he highlights that the Way of “empty space has no impediments, so coming and going is at will,” which must be a “personal realization” and “self-attained,” all of which is also a cliché of Chan. Only these hymns on old cases were an innovation and contribution to Chan learning. Shanzhao had three resolutions, three sentences, but what he particularly viewed as important were the three profundities and three essentials of Linji. However, he fully conveyed his own ideas about them. He said that the three profundities and three essentials are difficult to differentiate, but that it is easy to be familiar with the way of obtaining and forgetting the words. One sentence clearly shows that the myriad images are the fresh chrysanthemum blooms on the ninth day of the Double Ninth Festival.3 As Shanzhao saw it, the so-called three profundities and three sentences were forms of thinking and expression that were hard to grasp, that the key to them was in obtaining the meaning, that the path of obtaining the meaning still relied on language and letters, and merely required “that one forgot the words when one had obtained the meaning,” and only then would one be able to comprehend fully and obtain the profound tenets. Here he really stressed that the grasping and expression of the profound principle in words and letters meant that language and letters had a function in “obtaining the meaning.” This also means that lettered Chan theoretically offered a reference to draw on. The so-called Way that is innately without words, means that one borrows words to be able to show the meaning and then forget the words. This should be said to not only be lettered Chan, but it also should be said of all Chan masters, and should even be said that these are fundamental rules that all students of Dark Learning adhere to. In reality, the creation of hymns on old cases by Shanzhao was nothing more than his holding of different views in respect of the light or dark of previous gongan. He said, I beg to substitute the gongan of people of the past that were not completely good; I beg to replace those whose words are not up to standard.

Those that were not completely good he mended; those that used language unsuited to the meaning he amended. The hymns on old cases also were based on an understanding that developed the verbal and lettered exposition. 1

Xuzangjing collection 1 number 2, volume 23, book 2, p. 137. Quote and content in Guzunsu yulu, fascicle 10. 3 Ibid. 2

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Shanzhao’s hymns on old cases chose a hundred cases from among the gongan of virtuosos of the past, and he discriminated them in verse, providing explanations of their implications via the forms of g¯ath¯a and hymns. Even though he again was unable to speak of them succinctly and lucidly, yet definitely there is no reason for a suspicion that he was playing with mysteries. However, these hymns are still pursuing the principles of Chan of “not speaking too clearly.” In this way, it was also easy to make students take the hint and not end up being in the dark and taking the wrong path. After the hymns on the old cases, Shanzhao separately wrote an “overall hymn” that explained the principles and objectives of the material he selected. A hymn said, The hundred cases of previous worthies have been recorded and transmitted in the world. [Whether] they are hard to know or easy to understand, Fenyang’s hymn will make them clear. Empty flowers will form empty fruit, and they are neither fore nor after. I universally informed enlightened gentlemen (monks) that the [hymns] illuminate the primal profundity.

The standard for the selection of gongan was not based on sect, nor on former or later, or difficult or easy, but was based on whether or not they could enlighten sentient beings and be made into models, and therefore these empty flowers form into empty fruit, which is the actualization of the aim of “similarly showing the primal profundity.” Here he clearly tells people that all the gongan on which he wrote hymns, no matter whether they are hard or easy, all can be made abundantly clear. What they disclose is that on the path from Dark Learning to Chan that it was transformed into a secular life, and that Buddhist argumentation was further spread through society. Chan learning from the Song onwards incorporated the entirety of the Buddhist learning that penetrated universally into each level of society and this must be said to have had a close relationship with the kind of lettered Chan that is hymns on old cases. Here a few examples are given to explain the content and the meanings of hymns on old cases: First, the second patriarch asked Bodhidharma, “Please calm my mind.” Bodhidharma said, “Bring your mind and I will calm it for you.” The second patriarch said, “I cannot find the mind.” Bodhidharma said, “I have calmed your mind.” (Hymn) For nine years [Bodhidharma] faced a wall waiting for an opportunity. [Huike] stood in snow up to his waist and did not raise his eyebrows [in anticipation]. Respectfully he hoped for the Dharma to calm the mind-ground, Unable to find the mind for the first time he had no doubts.

This passage is a gongan that was originally in some lamplight records and was evidently an elaboration on the biography of a monk. What Huike (the second patriarch) called mind really indicated one’s own intrinsic nature, which is also the Buddha-nature. To search for the mind outside is really climbing a tree to catch a fish (barking up the wrong tree), or is saying that one is riding a donkey while looking for a donkey, which is also means one has lost the intrinsic nature. Therefore, Bodhidharma allowed Huike to bring forth his mind, adopting the method of attack by innuendo (beating around the bush) and enlightenment through guidance, leading Huike to seek inwardly for his own intrinsic nature. Huike could not find

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his mind and was greatly enlightened at Bodhidharma’s words. This gongan uses mind as a metaphor for the nature, and leads one from the external to the internal, with the aim of inspiring enlightenment to the nature. Although Shanzhao’s hymn was not explained as clearly as we have done here, it also definitely did not play with mysteries nor was it an understanding secured by a trick. Being as fluent and enlightening as speech, reading it naturally makes people tacitly understand it and does not lead to any cause for suspicion. Again, the sixth patriarch asked Reverend Huairang, “Where have you come from?” “I have come from Reverend Laoan’s place on Mt. Song.” The patriarch said, “What is it that has come like this?” “I cannot say that it is anything.” The patriarch said, “Do you need to cultivate realization or not?” “The cultivation of realization is not non-existent; it cannot be contaminated.” The patriarch said, “It is only this not being contaminated that is the thoughts maintained by the buddhas. Keep it well.” (Hymn). Because the master asked about where he came from, He replied that [he came from] Mt. Song with no intention of returning. As the cultivation of realization is invariably contaminated, When the clouds part and one sees the sun, then the mind is opened up.

The quote here is the story of Huineng’s transmission of the Dharma to Huairang and it seems that as an everyday conversation that it still implies that it contains a barbed comment and therefore Huairang could not reply. After spending eight years, Huairang was enlightened to the Chan ideas of transcending the language and letters and transcending the existence of host and guest (object and subject), and he spoke a sentence famed in the Chan School, “If you say it is a thing you do not hit the mark.” Continuing, when he replied to the question on cultivating realization or not, what he likewise adopted was the negative thinking of “departing and entering apart from both sides” and he explained the necessity of the causal relationship between the cultivation of realization and the eradication of contaminants. (The Wudeng huiyuan [The Convergence of the Five Lamplight Transmissions in the Source]’s “cultivation of realization is not non-existent” is probably a mistaken quote.) This hymn by Shanzhao definitely does not take pains to exaggerate, yet he does ignore several of these barbed comments that are incomprehensible for people and directly enquires into the essence of the problem. He stressed that there is no need to cultivate realization and that one only needs to maintain the purity of one’s own nature and not let it be polluted. This hymn line of “When the clouds part and one sees the sun, then the mind is opened up,” in reality is a commentary on and an elucidation of the following lines from the Platform Sutra: “One’s nature is always pristine, the sun and moon are always bright, but are only covered over by the clouds, and above [the clouds] it is bright and below it is dark, and one cannot see the sun, moon, and stars. Suddenly there is a gentle breeze that completely blows away the enveloping clouds and fog and the myriad images of phenomena all appear at one time,” which is evidently at odds with the idea of the original gongan. Again, Shanzhao wrote a hymn on the famous gongan of “one-finger Chan.” There is no dragon [his teacher Tianlong]’s one finger that enlightened Juzhi. At that moment there was nothing private (selfish) and things are not equal.

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The ten thousand mutual relations and thousands of differentiations, how can they be spoken of separately? Directly teach past and present and do not needle them (use a strict method).

This hymn almost directly speaks about the deep idea of this gongan of Juzhi’s finger being cut off. The piercing awl (“needling’) has used the Nirvana Sutra story of “a sesame seed tossed [from afar hitting] a needle point is as hard as meeting with a Buddha,” which is an image speaking of an extreme degree of difficulty. Shanzhao’s idea was that Juzhi was enlightened by the one-finger Chan of Tianlong to the fact that the myriad dharmas revert to one, that one only needs the transcendence of differentiation and antithesis, in which self and things are both forgotten, one is all, there is no present and no past, which means there is no place for difficulty or ease of realization. Naturally, this gongan was even more important in that it crossed the boundaries of the general rules of behavior displayed in cutting off Juzhi’s finger, and in that cruel action it needed people to cut off their mental pathways and in so doing to be enlightened to the sense that the myriad dharmas revert to emptiness, which can be said to be Shanzhao’s unbalanced and superficial understanding.4

Part 2: Chongxian’s Hymns on Old Cases and Their Successes and Failures The aim of Shanzhao’s hymns on old cases was evidently to explain these gongan that are in the form of enigmatic language, a language and letters that are between light and dark, an explanation that is simple to understand and clear at a glance, and which shows the profound sense of the case via the recitation and chanting of verse. For investigators (practitioners) of Chan this doubtless can be “confusing the finger for the moon.” Nevertheless, once Shanzhao’s style of hymns on old cases was opened up, besides the celebration of peace and prosperity of the Song-dynasty scholars that upheld a negative influence of an ostentatious and easy, graceful lifestyle, the Chan monks also pursued the newly popular skill in the investigation of gongan. As a consequence, it became a game, and through the entire period of the Song, the style of the hymns on old cases filled the Chan monasteries. Also, in language and letters they devoted themselves to writing in an ornate style, making the simple and plain style weaker than the ornate and verbose form. Chongxian’s Songgu baize (Hundred Old Cases with Hymns) tended towards this magnificence, elegance, and the implicit, to secure an avenue to victory. In addition, the appreciation by literary scholars added fuel to the flames, and in this way lettered Chan pushed on to a new stage. Chongxian (980–1052), lay surname Li, personal name Yinzhi, was a native of Suining in Sichuan. At the age of twenty-two, he went to Puan Cloister in Yizhou and was tonsured by Venerable Xian. After he received the full precepts, he left Shu 4

The above hymns are all in Fenyang Shanzhao Chanshi yulu.

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(Sichuan) and drifted through the Jing-Chu region (central Yangzi area). Later he wandered north and visited Zhimen Guangzuo and completely obtained his Way. Thus, he became a famous monk of the Yunmen lineage. Chongxian had a deep friendship with Zeng Hui (952–1033), the Chief Minister of the Court of Imperial Entertainments and Fiscal Commissioner of the Liangzhe (Circuit). Zeng wrote a recommendation that Chongxian go to Lingyin Monastery, the place of Chan Master Shan. Afterwards, Zeng Hui left to be the commissioner of Zhexi and he went to visit Chongxian in Lingyin Monastery, but nobody in the monastery knew of him. Zeng Hui sought among over a thousand monks, and when he had almost finished his search, he finally found Chongxian. Zeng Hui asked, “Where did my letter get to?” Chongxian took it out from his sleeve and said, “The public service is diligent, but this pilgrim (I) did not watch out for the post.” Chan Master Shan was amazed at this and he allowed Chongxian go and live at Cuifeng (Peak) in Suzhou to teach the Dharma. Following this, Zeng Hui was the governor of Siming and he asked Chongxian to live at Xuedou Zisheng Monastery in Mingzhou. The Fozu lidai tongzai (Comprehensive Record of the Generations of Buddhist Patriarchs) says that Chongxian “shifted to Xuedou in Ming[zhou]. His lineage style greatly influenced the empire and his extraordinary talent attracted Chan monks who fight to gather round him. He was titled the restorer of Yunmen. Therefore, he had the sobriquet Xuedou.” The Commandant Li Zunxu memorialized to have Chongxian granted the purple robe and the Director of the Chancellery Jia Changchao (998–1065) memorialized to have him granted the title of Great Master Mingjue. Chongxian was specially versed in poetry and prose, and therefore the scholar class loved to associate with him. In the Song, Shanqing’s Zuting shiyuan (Garden of Matters of the Courtyard of the Patriarchs) took up some eight works by Chongxian, including the Xuedou songgu (Xuedou’s Hymns on Old Cases) and Puquan lu (Record of Puquan), and shows the allusions Chongxian cited. This tells us that Chongxian’s works were in circulation and of his contributions to lettered Chan. In his late years, Chongxian wrote a g¯ath¯a on the Way Daily Diminished in order to inform Chan students of that time about the defects of abandoning the search for the source. The g¯ath¯a is, Two thirds of my lifetime have already passed, If the single spot from the luminous platform (the mind) is not wiped away, Living beings will depart daily little by little. Called, they do not turn their heads, what can be done?

A day before he passed away, an attendant begged for a testimonial g¯ath¯a. Chongxian said, “On usual days there are only many troubling words.” Such a Chan master who used language and letters to secure a victory seems to have been aware that he had spoken a little too much, and also that there were few monks who have left such stirring and famous words about life and death. Chongxian was evidently influenced by Shanzhao, and by selecting a hundred cases from the Jingde chuandeng lu and like texts and using g¯ath¯as and hymns to

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appraise them, his aim was to draw people into the realm of Chan and to promote the profound teachings of Chan. It is just as he said, “Naturally there is always a light appearing before one and each [case] is a wall soaring thousands of fathoms…and if one can cut off the flow of birth and death, one will together occupy the positions of the Buddhist patriarchs and marvelously and perfectly be transcendentally enlightened.”5 In other words, he was also changing Chan gongan that seek the actualization of transcendence into a sort of convenience for understanding, making them more readable, and also combining the wit of the great monks with a non-discriminating skillful- means approach. Here, since one needs a tacit understanding of the gongan, one also needs to have the skill of pure language and lettered expression. It is exactly because of these two characteristic aspects possessed by Xuedou’s hymns on old cases that allowed them to be appreciated by the gentry and literati, and to be developed, and also allowed them to display a dazzlingly brilliant aspect. Likewise, because of this point, the hymns were also permitted to tend towards extravagance, ornateness, and expansiveness, which instead made the meaning of Chan vague and unfathomable. These positives and negatives are understandable. When later people played with the entangling vines (language) of Chongxian’s hymns on old cases, and it was these words that were used to confirm the meaning6 being mired in sentences, they were misled about the source.7 This cannot be said to have been Chongxian’s responsibility. It is for example like the story of Xinwen quoted by the Chanlin baoxun (Precious Instructions of the Chan Monasteries): In the Tianxi era, because of Xuedou’s discerning and extensive talent, the exquisite sense was transformed into play and he sought a new refined art. Continuing on from Fenyang, he made hymns on old cases, winning over students who took this seriously, and due to this the school style changed completely.

It is evident that Xinwen was not only blaming Chongxian for contravening the “utmost simplicity and utmost essentials” of the Way of the separate transmission outside of the doctrinal teachings, for playing with words, for extravagant outward show, but also for having destroyed the future of the Chan style. These criticisms of Chongxian are unjust. In fact, the praise of Chongxian did not stop with the aspect of language and letters. The famous historian of the Song dynasty, Lu Xiaqing (1018–1070), who despite being an outsider to Chan, in his “Mingzhou Xuedoushan Zishengsi Diliuzu Mingjue Dashi taming” (Stele Inscription of the Great Master Mingjue, the Sixth Patriarch of Zisheng Monastery of Mt. Xuedou in Mingzhou) still evaluated highly the writings and virtuous conduct of Chongxian. He wrote, “I obtained and read his books over more than twenty years, and even though I admired his eminent conduct, being bound by rank and income, I had no way to be on close terms with him.” Naturally, these kinds of stele inscriptions are often full of exaggerated praise and should not be regarded as authoritative. However, their judgements of Xuedou’s 5

Xu zangjing Sect. 1, collection 2, case 9, volume 5, p. 447. Tr. a set Chan phrase, implies an error created by adhering to the literal wording. 7 Tr. the source is the mind. This is a set phrase from Mingjue yulu. 6

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hymns on old cases allows us to see something of the likes and dislikes held by people of his day. In his Biyan lu (Blue Cliff Record), Yuanwu Keqin wrote: Xuedou’s hymns on a hundred gongan: if one case [is taken up], then burning incense is picked up [for veneration] and therefore they circulated greatly in the world. He further comprehended the prose and saw through the gongan and roused himself so that he could be versed in them, and then he put pen to paper.

Guanyou Wudang said, Xuedou Chongxian’s Songgu baize is a description of the essentials for students of the Way in the teaching monasteries. In it, he took examples from the sutras and s´a¯ stras or from the literature and histories of the Confucians in order to clarify what was meant. If he was not an enlightened lineage master who stirred up analysis at times for later students, then there would be no way of knowing him.8

In the early Yuan dynasty, the famous Chan monk of the Caodong lineage, Wansong Xingxiu (1166–1246) also venerated Chongxian as a leading master of Chan. He wrote, Our school has Xuedou and Tiantong, just as in the Confucian school they had [Zi]you and [Zi]xia. The hymns on old cases of these two masters were just like Li [Bai] and Du [Fu] in the world of poetry. The world regarded Xuedou as having the talent of an academician of the Hanlin (Literary Academy), who gathered our flowers and did not collect our fruit.9

From the above-described review one can see the following characteristics of Xuedou’s hymns on old cases: 1. The ornate wording overflowed on all sides, an extravagant outward show 2. They adopted examples from the sutras and s´a¯ stras, simple words with deep meanings 3. The discernment of the gongan and descriptions of the essentials for learning the Way. We shall take up some examples to prove this. Firstly, we will take Juzhi’s one-finger Chan as an example. Chongxian’s hymn was: In response, he raised [his finger out of] his deep love, old Juzhi. Who else could there be to empty out the universe? Having cast out a floating log into the blue sea, The billows at night brought it to meet and accept a blind tortoise.

In comparison with the previously-cited hymn by Shaozhao, Chongxian’s style was a pole apart and it is hard to see an equally clear evaluation of a gongan. In fact, Chongxian’s idea was that the universe is entirely empty, utterly reverting to one, the rise and fall of the people of the past, and the deep love of Juzhi led to him tossing a 8 9

Biyan lu, “Later Preface by Guanyou Wudang.”. Wansong Xingxiu, “Ji Zhanran Jushi shu” (Letter to Layman Zhanran).

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floating log into the ocean of birth and death, and he taught people with one finger, enabling sentient beings to cross to the other shore (of nirvana). The last two lines are quotes of a story from the Lotus Sutra of “like a one-eyed turtle that encountered a hole in a floating log that prevented it from being drowned” that are used as an allusion. In particular, he added to the literary flavor of the hymn and naturally this was unlike Shanzhao’s hymn in being easy to approach. Next, look at the case of “Every day is a good day.” Removing one, he picks up seven: above and below in in the four directions there is no equal. Walking slowly, he trampled down the sound of flowing water; looking indulgently, he described the traces of flying birds. The grass is lush, the mist is dense; The Empty-born (Subhuti) is on the edge of a cliff, flowers [falling] in disarray. ´ unyat¯a (goddess of space), Warned, sorrowful is S¯ Do not move, for if you move, there will be thirty blows of the staff.

“Every day is a good day” is a famous line of Yunmen Wenyan (864–949). His idea was to say that one only needs to eradicate attachments and regard the usual mind as being the Way, which is the Chan ultimate pursuit. However, of course, the very first, and also the fifteen are all good days10 At first sight, this gongan is incomprehensible, but in fact it is also very simple and strong. And yet Xuedou’s hymn has already gone beyond the gongan itself, and in making a detour to speak of Chan he went too far, the first sentence just allowing people to fall into utter bewilderment. His basic idea is to say that the fifteen days previous and the fifteen days after are all mixed up; above one does not see the buddhas and below one does not see sentient beings; internally there is no seeing, hearing, and perception, and externally there are no mountains, rivers or great earth; and if all is all, speaking of s´u¯ nyat¯a (the view of emptiness) means that there is no differentiation. The traces of the flying birds and the flying flowers raining down from the sky means that prajñ¯a (wisdom) comes uninvited. This is exactly as another hymn on this case says, The rain has passed, the clouds contracted, dawn half broken, The many peaks like a painting, are emerald, rocky crags. Subh¯uti cannot sit among the cliffs, Provoking the heavenly flowers to move the earth.

The above-quoted hymn quotes a sutra as an authority and is full of lasting appeal, but it evidently is too involved and abstruse. Chan Master Wumen Huikai (1183– 1260) wrote a hymn on similar content that said, “Spring has all the flowers, autumn has the moon; Summer has a cooling breeze, winter has snow./ If there are no idle matters or things to worry about; this is a season that people love.”11 Comparing these, the positives and negatives of Chongxian’s hymn also lie completely in what was not said, Finally, let us look at another case. 10 11

Tr. This refers to the first part of the case, “I am not asking you about the fifteen days previous.”. Huikai, Wumen guan (Gateless Barrier) 19, “The usual is the Way.”.

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6 From Shanzhao to Chongxian’s Songgu Baize (Hundred Old Cases … Unfairly interrogated, the old [blunted] awl [Zhaozhou], How many people know the weight of a seven-kilogram shirt? Just now I tossed it into West Lake, On whom could I unload this pure breeze?

This is a hymn on Chan Master Zhaozhou’s gongan of a “shirt weighing seven kilograms.” What he spoke of was all dharmas reverting to one, and he used the principle of all the dharmas of a lifetime to reply to the problem of “where does the two return to?” Xuedou also quoted Shanzhao’s eighteen questions on access to explain that these questions arose out of bias. He proceeded to extend this by saying “tossed it into West Lake,” the meaning being that even one is not needed, and that seven (many or ten-thousand) are also not needed; one needs to smash the hindrances to knowing and remove the differentiations of one and ten thousand, allowing each person to personally see and understand. We can see from this that Chongxian not only simply spoke about gongan with gongan, but he also made some elaborations on them.

Part 3: Keqin’s Biyan lu (Blue Cliff Record) and the Deluge of Lettered Chan As mentioned previously, the spread of Chan thought, the hymns on old cases, and the lamplight records appeared at about the same time. The lamplight records and hymns on old cases caused a wholesale change in the Chan style. Not only did Chan masters require a personal realization of the Chan realm, they also required talk of Chan, hymns on old cases, which changed the letter-less Chan of mindto-mind transmission (naturally also not unlettered) of early Chan into the lettered Chan transmitted orally. According to the records, in Song-dynasty Chan there were the afore-mentioned Chongxian, as well as Tiantong Zhengjue (1091–1157), Touzi Yiqing (1032–1083), and Danxia Zichun (1064–1117) who all wrote hymns on old cases. “And the real succession was influenced by Fenyang [Shanzhao].”12 In reality, as with Huikai’s Wumen guan (Gateless Barrier), “who took the gongan of past people and made them into stepping stones to lead students in accordance with their abilities,”13 he completed it with the nian (topic of the gongan) and the hymn, and it undoubtedly was the most influential work of hymns on old cases. These hymns “sometimes directly explain matters, sometimes quote similar [examples] to compare teachings, or excite confusion to initiate enlightenment, taking the mind-source to be the basis, forming sounds to become passages…,”14 taking Chan explanations of the atmosphere of the gongan to make a splendid view. This change of Chan language 12

Pantan, Qiongjue Laoren songgu zhizhu xu (Preface to the Direct Interlinear Commentary on the Hymns on Old Cases by Elder Qiongjue). 13 Preface by Huikai to his Wumen guan. 14 Ibid.

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into poetry, verse, and the ostentatious custom of forming sounds into passages was undoubtedly influenced by the lopsided search for versified harmony and a flowery and ornate style of writing against the political background that presented a false picture of peace and prosperity with literary drinking parties, of “singers and dancing girls for one’s whole life.” Thereupon, Chan and literature formed an indissoluble bond, and monks and scholar-gentry catered to each other’s needs in a singing and dancing celebration of peace and prosperity in a graceful and restrained beauty of an elegant retirement. Nevertheless, the placement of gongan into the forms of hymns on old cases instigated some avenues of initiation into Chan, and even though this made the profound ideas of Chan monks forge even further into the scholarly class and towards popularization, yet it was ultimately insufficiently popular and it was hard to avoid “harmony hiding a loneliness.” This was just as Keqin said in fascicle one of the Biyan lu: “Generally, hymns on old cases are a roundabout way of speaking of Chan and the general rule for raising the topic of the old case was only in order to reach a judgement on the basis of the investigation….Even if you are iron-eyed and have bronze pupils (are cold and clinical in your views), you still cannot grope for it.” Therefore, it was necessary to have a form that made it easier to spread. Only then could it infiltrate the ideas of the Chan School into all areas of society. In fact, following the flourishing of the urban economy, the cultural requirements of the townspeople class also increased daily and the urban culture of the Song dynasty also emerged in accord with the times. According to the Dongjing menghua lu (Dreams of Splendor of the Eastern Capital), Bianjing, the capital of Northern Song had innumerable mass entertainment venues called “tiled shops,” the larger of which had over fifty theatres and could contain several thousand people. In these mass entertainment venues, the majority of those involved were artists who depended on story-telling, telling historical romances, or lectured on the classics. This kind of story-telling art is typical of mass culture. In it, “they spoke of loyal ministers unjustly accused, and resolute, they may shed a tear….the young bride pining and sending away a handsome lover, stories of the sadness of young women.” “They fabricated tales of exploits, making humble people strive; they spoke of them being unfaithful in love, and made Chinese traitors ashamed.”15 Knowledgeable Chan scholars developed hymns on old cases even further to form a combination of story, evaluation, hymn, and song that was similar to the folk “story-telling” format – an appraisal (pingchang) that led people to Chan. The Biyan lu, praised as “the number one text of the school,” was the primary work of appraisals and was also its representative work. Keqin (1063–1135), lay surname Luo, personal name Wuzhu, was a native of Chongning in Shu (Sichuan). His family were Confucians, and he was bright when young. He happened to wander to Miaoji Monastery where he read Buddhist books three times and was disappointed as if he had obtained on old possession, but then he was determined to shake off the dust of the world and become a monk. At eighteen, he became a monk and he became versed in the explanations from his Dharma teacher, Wenzhao. He also studied sutras and s´a¯ stras such as the Lengyan jing, and later 15

Cuiweng tanlu (Notes of an Old Tippler) by Luo Ye, thirteenth century.

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he joined the Chan School, following on from which he went east from Sichuan and joined the assembly under Wuzu Fayan (d.1104). At the start of the Chongning era (1102–1106), he returned to Sichuan to be abbot of Zhaojue Monastery. In the Zhenghe era (1111–1118), he again travelled south and visited the Grand Councilor Zhang Shangying (d. 1121) in Jingnan, where they “conversed enthusiastically about the essential themes of Huayan.” Zhang praised him: “Yuanwu fully comprehended the teaching of this school like this. Therefore, he delighted those who understood him and sincerely served him, for if he did not speak of and comprehend the [Huayan] themes, how could he do this?”16 Therefore, he was famed as “the Guan Zhong of monks.”17 At the end of the Zhenghe era, Keqin received a direction to shift to Mt. Jiang in Jinling. At this time, Keqin was already the most famous monk in the teaching monasteries. In the Xuanhe era (1119–1125), he was again imperially ordered to live in Tianning Monastery in the capital. Emperor Huizong granted him the title “Yuanwu.” Later, because relations between Song and the Jin state soured, he returned to Sichuan and as before stayed in Zhaojue Monastery. He died in the fifth year of the Shaoxing era. He was one of the famous three “Fo” or two “Qin” in the school of Wuzu Fayan, and was a famous monk of the Yangji branch of the Linji lineage. It was rumored that when Keqin was an attendant at Fayan’s Taiping Monastery, one day a commissioner named Chen, who had resigned his post and was returning to Sichuan, visited Fayan to ask about the Way. Fayan said, “Judicial Commissioner, when you were young did you read the verse on freshly blooming flowers? There are two lines in it that are extremely close [to the Way]; ‘Repeatedly calling out to Xiaoyu [her maid] when there was nothing the matter, Just wanting her lover to recognize her voice.’” The commissioner was puzzled. Keqin listened attentively and reflected on it, and suddenly was greatly enlightened. He saw a chicken fly over a railing, beating its wings and calling out, and he said to himself, “Isn’t this the voice?” Then he presented his g¯ath¯a: A golden duck (duck-shaped censer) disperses incense, the embroidered brocade of the perfume pouch, The songs and flutes (singing and music) in the [monastery] grove, supported, he returned drunk. A young man on a matter of romance, [She] just allows the handsome man to alone know [the voice] himself.

Fayan, greatly delighted, said, “My lineage has you, from now on I can sleep soundly.”18 Due to this, he and Fojian Huiqin (1059–1117) and Foyan Qingyuan (i.e. Huikai) were the three legs of a tripod supporting the lineage of Fayan and they were called the three eminent persons. What Keqin was evidently awakened to in the poem on the freshly blooming flowers was the sound of a voice seeking a mate, and the crying out and beating of 16

Xiaoying, Luohu yelu (Records from the Wilds of Luo Lake). Guan Zhong was a statesman, d. BCE 645. 18 Fozu lidai tongzai, fascicle 30. 17

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the wings of the flying chicken were nothing more than “a young man on a matter of romance, [She] just allows the handsome man to alone know [the voice] himself.” For the time being, we will not discuss the involvement that this verse had with Chan, but will simply compare this with Huihong’s lines, “Yet to agree to write on red leaves, In the end hoping Elder Cuiwei [will do so].” The gorgeousness and beauty of Keqin’s poem outdid that of Huihong. Nevertheless, Huihong ended up with the name “wastrel reverend,” but Keqin still had a reputation for enlightening people. People judged them with a bias that suggests they knew little about them. From this alone we can see that Keqin’s composition, the Biyan lu, had a rich grounding in letters and accomplishments in verse. This is also a result of the suffusion of a graceful and beautiful literary style of the Song dynasty. We can see from these disconnected materials that Keqin’s Chan learning also headed along a syncretic route, but the main directions of his efforts were the use of his own ideas to explain gongan and the use of letters to explain the non-reliance on letters. Therefore, these are all embodied in his appraisals in the Biyan lu. As mentioned previously, the Biyan lu was written by Keqin for a reason. Roughly in the Zhenghe period (1111–1118), in response to Zhang Shangying’s request, Keqin, while in Zhaojue Monastery in Chengdu, then in Lingquan Monastery on Mt. Jia in Lizhou, and lastly in Daolin Monastery in Xiangxi, lectured three times on Chongxian’s hymns on a hundred old cases. His pupils took down the content of what he had said in Lingquan Monastery and organized it into a book. They took the verses on the signboard of the monastery that said, “The monkey holds a child and returns into the green mountain barrier,/ The bird holds a flower and drops it in front of the blue cliffs” as an inspiration, using it to name the book “Blue Cliff (Biyan).” Whether or not the words in the sentence “The bird held a flower and dropped it” evoked a memory of the circumstances of the time of his enlightenment and that these circumstances coincided with the blue cliff, cannot be known. The Biyan lu is an appraisal of hymns on a hundred old cases of Chongxian and therefore it includes the identical hundred gongan as used by Chongxian. The book is in ten fascicles and each fascicle has ten cases. Before each case there are usually introductions (chuishi, twenty cases lack an introduction), which are the outlines that bring up the theme of the gongan, the letters being simple and refined, clearly showing the main opportunity and major function of the school. Next it cites the gongan, and in between there are “capping phrases” (zhuoyu) (interlinear notes) that Chongxian added and new comments by Keqin. Third, there are the appraisals, which really are an important part of the entire content. In this, Keqin was writing in particular for “students who are confused and who request the benefits (of teaching)… I pick out and choose the source, and analyze the fundamental principle,” which is an examination of the language and actions against the historical background of the gongan, together with his own judgements based on the teachings of the sutras, thereby giving full play to the inner meanings. Fourth are Chongxian’s hymns, and within the hymns are Keqin’s capping phrases, and there are always barbed comments contained in the directions. Lastly, there are also the appraisals, which delve into the abstruse and search for the subtleties of Chongxian’s hymn text. In summary, it is an analytical evaluation via the historical facts and his own ideas about Chongxian’s hymn text

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and the author’s comprehension of the teachings of the sutras through the gongan of the Chan School. The latter occupies the absolutely greater part of the whole text, and therefore it should be said that the Biyan lu is Keqin’s work in which he used these topics to proffer his own ideas. Taken as a whole, the appraisals of the hundred cases are Keqin’s extensive quotes, extraction of the essentials, and at times brief explanations, as if he was counting his family’s treasures, all made on the foundations of the gongan and Chongxian’s hymn text. At times the barbed comments are finally revealed, making people think deeply, and he concentrated on expressing his Chan thought. The Japanese scholar Nukariya Kaiten in his Ch¯ugoku Zengaku shis¯o shi (History of Chinese Chan Thought; not original title)19 evaluated Keqin’s Chan learning as “transcending the lineages and going beyond the bounds, his thought blooming brilliantly. He mixed them to merge completely the limitless Dharma approaches. His raising of the essentials of the vehicles vivified the opportunities with ease, like an old general discussing soldiers.”20 Nukariya has pointed out Keqin’s style of Chan learning, and also explains the characteristics of the time of such a complete synthesis. After Prince Kang took the throne as Gaozong in 1127, he asked Keqin about the Dharma. Keqin said, Your majesty uses the mind of filial piety to govern the empire, the Dharma of India uses the one mind to unify all differences, and even though the true and the vulgar are different, from the start with one mind there is no differentiation.21

The Confucian filial piety and the Buddhist Dharma are linked by the one mind. This was the most notable and effective form of the merging of Confucianism and Buddhism from Song times onwards. These works of Keqin can also show his true ideas. Nevertheless, the most outstanding contribution of the Biyan lu was still its use of letters to speak of Chan, pushing lettered Chan to a new high-water mark. He spoke of it in this way: Haven’t you seen the words of a person of the past? “The Way intrinsically has no words, but it is due to words that the Way is revealed, so to see the Way is to forget the words.” (case 12).

This should be called a cliché of Chan and in speaking of the Biyan lu, Keqin was also unable to hold this cliché up any longer and make it a great banner to protect the Dharma. Although the Way is without words, it still needs words, so whether or not one sees the Way and forgets the words, or maybe cannot see the Way, in any case, what is left behind here is words. That is to say, no matter what one says, the letters that carry the weight of making the Way are absolutely indispensable. In his evaluation, he constantly said, “A single word and a single sentence do not disturb the practices” (case 20), “The words of people of the past were not established in vain” (case 27), 19

Tr. original title Zengaku shis¯oshi. Zhu Qianzhi’s translation, Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1994, p. 512. 21 Nianchang, Fozu lidai tongzai, fascicle 30, “Biography of Keqin.”. 20

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and “The totality of all language is in one sentence” (case 92), which superficially seem to be about the limitations of language, but from a fundamental viewpoint are also explanations of the necessity of words and letters. In his “Instructions to Chan person Shu,” Keqin wrote the following, “The teachings of the sutras are like a finger pointing at the moon; the words and sentences of the patriarchal teachers are tile shards for knocking on doors.”22 Here he takes words and the doctrinal teachings and compares them to a finger pointing at the moon, and he also takes his own words and sentences to be “tile shards used to knock on doors” in order to enter the room and become a master. He further wrote in this way. Let’s look at a final case. (Case 100). Quote: A monk asked Baling, “What is the hair-blown (absolutely sharp) sword?” (It cuts, peril). Baling said, “Each coral branch holds up the moon.” (Its light engulfs all images, the four seas and nine continents.) Baling did not move his shield and spear, and yet how many people of the four seas and five lakes [China] have had their tongues fall to the ground [in punishment for incorrectly teaching the Dharma]? Yunmen taught people in this way and he [Baling] was a legitimate heir of Yunmen. Also, each had a strategy. Therefore [Xuedou] said, “I loved the mechanisms of Shaoyang (Yunmen) in Xinding. For his whole life he removed the visual and mental obstacles for people.” This story is exactly like this. In one sentence there are naturally three sentences; a sentence that encases and covers heaven and earth, a sentence that cuts away the mass of streams, and a sentence that accords with the waves and follows billows. He could reply very wondrously. Mr. Yuanlu of Foushan said, “For a person who has not discerned it, investigating the sentence is not as good as investigating the intent; for a person who has discerned it, investigating the intent is not as good as investigating the sentence.” There were three venerable elders of Yunmen’s assembly who replied saying, “Realized (completed).” It was only Baling who could answer going beyond the word “realized (completed),” which means he got the sentence. Now say, are the words “realized” and “each branch of coral holds up the moon” the same or different? Previously [Xuedou] said [in case 27] that “the three sentences should be differentiated, one arrow flies through space.” If you wish to understand this story (gongan), you must eliminate tainted feelings and conceptions, and when you are completely purified look at his words of “each branch of coral holds up the moon.” If you also make logical [interpretations of it], you will have even more views and will be unable to grasp it. These words are from a poem by Chanyue [Guanxiu] on “Thinking of a Friend” that says, It was as thick as the iron on the surrounding iron-wall mountains, It was as thin as the gossamer silk on the body of the immortal Shuangcheng [attendant on the mythical Queen Mother of the West]. If the phoenix chicks (brocade) of the looms of Shu move, they will stumble and limp. Each branch of coral holds up the moon. Wang Kai [uncle of Emperor Wu of Jin] hid something hard to dig up in his home; Yan Hui [Confucius’ favorite disciple], a starving man, worried about the snow in the sky. The old cypress straightened the brush and lightning did not break it. The snow-clothed stone girl encircled with peach [colored] jade rings [of immortality], Wearing jade [at her waist] entered the dragon (royal) palace, walking slowly. The embroidered curtains and silver mats, what different sizes! 22

Tr. the metaphor of the tile shard that is thrown away after being used for knocking loudly on the door was for words or means that could be discarded after enlightenment.

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This is not knowing the crimson pearl of the black dragon, but knowing is not knowing. In Baling’s sentence, he answered a question about the blown-hair sword with a sentence, and by doing so he blew a hair onto the sharp sword blade to test it, and that hair was cut by itself and so a sharp sword is called “blown hair.” Baling only went to what was asked about and replied with this story, and [the questioner’s] head fell off without him knowing it. The hymn is, If you want to flatten (suppress) inequality (As tiny as an ant, the great person should be like this), The great adept appears to be clumsy [Laozi 45] (Unmoving in voice and form, he hides himself but he shows his shadow). Whether it is in the finger or the palm (Look, this is [not] it). Leaning against the sky, [the sword] glints in the snow (Cutting, if you stare at it you will go blind). Even the great smith cannot sharpen it (What more use is there in refining it? Even Gan Jiang [a legendary smith] cannot come forth). Even that good artisan could not finish polishing it (Nobody can do it. Even if Gan Jiang came forth, he would retreat three thousand [miles]). So special! (Ha, what is special? There is something praiseworthy). Each branch of coral holds up the moon (In the third watch, the moon descends shining on a cold pond. Now say, where does it go? Even if the empire is at peace, after being drunk, disheveled, he really saddens people).

“If you want to flatten inequality, the great adept appears as if he is clumsy.” In the past, there was a wandering bravo who saw injustice while on the road and the use of force to maltreat the weak. With a flying sword he took the head of the strong. Therefore, the lineage master [Baling] had a precious sword in his eyebrows and hung a metal mallet in his sleeves in order to eliminate matters of injustice. “The great adept appears as if he is clumsy”: Baling’s answer was to flatten the matters of injustice, but as his words were excessive, he damaged his artfulness, and instead it seems as if he had become clumsy. Why? Because he did not wield [the sword] from front on, but from the side, and he surreptitiously took people’s heads off at a stroke and the people were not aware of it. “Whether it is in the finger or in the palm, Leaning against the sky, [the sword] glints in the snow.” If one understands, it is like a long sword leaning against the sky with an imposing divine awe. A person of old [Panshan Baoji] said, “The mind-moon is solitary and round, its light swallowing up all images (phenomena). If the light does not shine on cognitive objects, then the objects likewise do not exist. If the light and objects are both forgotten, what then is this thing?” This precious sword may appear on one’s finger and suddenly appear in one’s palm. In past days the librarian Qing spoke of this. He raised his hand and said, “Do you see?” It does not need to be in the hand or finger. Xuedou availed himself of a path to pass through in order to teach you to see the meaning of that person of old. Now say, everywhere must be the blown-hair sword. Therefore, it is said [in case 7], “At the third level [of the embankment dam of Longmen], fish change into dragons, but idiots still bail out the dam water at night.” The Zuting shiyuan quotes the Xiaozi zhuan [Biographies of Filial Sons] as saying, “The wife of the king of Chu

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took advantage of the cool in summer, embraced an iron pillar and became pregnant. Later she gave birth to a lump of iron. The king ordered Gan Jiang to forge it into a sword. After three years he had completed a pair of swords, a male and a female. Gan Jiang secretly retained the male and presented the female sword to the king of Chu. The king hid it in a box and he always heard a sad crying. The king asked his ministers about it. They said, ‘There are male and female swords, and so the crying is that of pining for the male.’ The king was very angry and rounded up Gan Jiang and killed him. Gan Jiang knew [beforehand] about this response, and so he took the sword and concealed it in a pillar of his house. He entrusted it to his wife Moye, saying, ‘The sun rises at the door to the north and there is a pine tree to the south of the mountain that grows among the stones. The sword is there.’ His wife later gave birth to a son named Meijianchi. When he was fifteen, he asked his mother, ‘Where is my father?’ His mother then told him what had happened. He thought for a while, split open the pillar and got the sword. He wanted to avenge his father day and night. The king of Chu also enlisted people to find this man, proclaiming, ‘He who gets Meijianchi will be richly rewarded,’ so Meijianchi fled. Suddenly a stranger said, ‘Aren’t you Meijianchi?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ The stranger said, ‘I am a person of Zengshan. I can avenge your father for you.’ Meijianchi said, ‘My father was innocent and was unjustly poisoned. Now, what do you think should be done?’ The stranger said, ‘I need your head and the sword,’ so Meijianchi gave him the sword and his head. The stranger took them and presented them to the king of Chu, who was very happy. The stranger said, ‘I want to boil the head in oil and cook it.’ So the king tossed the head into a cauldron and the stranger said to the king, ‘The head is not boiled soft.’ The king approached to look and the stranger from behind used the sword to cut off the king’s head so that it fell into the cauldron, and then the two heads bit each other, and when the stranger sought them out, they had both boiled soft.” (The Sichuan version does not have the passage on the king of Chu.) Xuedou said, “This sword can lean on the sky and glint in the snow.” It is usually said, “The light of the long sword leaning on heaven can glint in the snow, and even with this little bit of function, it cannot be sharpened even by a great smith and even a good artisan [cannot] finish polishing it.” The good artisan is Gan Jiang, as the allusion made clear. After Xuedou finished the hymn, he clearly announced, “So special, it is still nothing special.” There is also something good. It is not the same as the usual sword, so now say what is special about it? Each branch of coral holds up the moon. This can be regarded as unprecedented, residing alone in the middle of the encircling world, with nothing to compare with it. Finally, which people have lost their heads? I have another small g¯ath¯a: A boat filled with ten thousand bushels, I trust you to tow it away, But for the sake of a single grain the urn swallowed a snake. He raised a hundred old gongan, How much sand have I thrown into the eyes of people at that time?

The gongan quoted here has twenty characters, the hymn has thirty-nine characters, but the entire text continues on for over a thousand four-hundred characters. This entry is not the longest, and from this alone we can see Keqin’s grandmotherly kindness,

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for without providing the words and letters he just feared that the meaning of the core theme would be unclear and so make it hard for students to access its innermost subtleties. As for the content of his evaluations, they are in rhymed verse or the usual plain language of narrators, or slang and dialect; he has quoted Buddhist theories and also mentioned Daoist philosophy, and also the Zuting shiyuan and Wuyue Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals of Wu-Yue); and barbed comments in Chan language, directly-pointing metaphors; all are only used to explain Baling’s “Each branch of coral holds up the moon,” with such a light that swallows up the myriad images, and the implications that encase and cover heaven and earth. The Elder Sanjiao wrote a preface for the Biyan lu that said, “The ancients said it does not reside in letters, but is not apart from letters….From the time of the lifting up of the flower and the subtle smile [of K¯as´yapa] to after the overturning of the flag pole in front of the gate [by Buddha], there was involvement with words and sentences. If not for letters, there would be nothing to transmit, and this also could not be abandoned.” “The mind of ´ Yuanwu is the mind of the Sakyamuni who preaches the sutras; the mind of Dahui ´ is the mind of Sakyamuni who denies he had spoken.” Superficially, it would seem that his story and the intentions of Keqin were the same, and yet in the language and verses it appears that Keqin’s drawing on the aid of letters to evaluate the gongan was an inevitable skillful means, and therefore there is the distinction between the mind that preached the sutras and the mind that denied having preached. This was Keqin’s defense. In fact, Keqin fundamentally realized that letters and language assisted in the spread of the Way. Elder Sanjiao used the shield of taking advantage from both sides, and to the contrary made Keqin’s idea of lettered Chan become bleak. From that time to the present, there has much censure of lettered Chan works like the Biyan lu. As the Chan masters say, they complain that this playing with words is a travesty of the teaching of the patriarchs; the scholarly world also often thinks that the Chan style of the Song dynasty used letters to speak of Chan and lost the early Chan School style of concision and clarity, but with the arrival of this custom, it made the Chan style run counter to Chan. This kind of criticism cannot be said to be unreasonable, but seen from the angle of the development of thought, the shift from the so-called non-dependence on letters to the advocacy and practice of lettered Chan was the only road for the development of Chan learning. The decay in Chan learning originated not with the rise of lettered Chan, but from its exact opposite, the use of non-reliance on letters as an excuse, taking “leaving it up to the nature” as a pretext, and therefore making barbed comments, deceiving people to win over the world; to do what they wanted, they cultivated their crazy cunning. When Ma Duanlin of the Yuan period wrote in his Wenxian tongkao (Comprehensive Examination of Prose Literature) about the Chan School, he said, “At the start they said to directly point at people’s minds and not to rely on letters, and now the four lamplight [histories] total one hundred and twenty fascicles and their several million words are really not apart from letters.” What Ma correctly explained was that the Chan School had gone from the early period in which it gave importance to practice, to the Song period when it catered to society, broadly a process in the development of the propagation of its thought. In other words, beginning with the printing of the lamplight records and continuing through to the hymns on old cases, and then

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onto the appraisals, these were all established in response for the need for the Chan School to develop. Ma indicated that the building of Chan learning had begun from the monasteries aligning themselves with society and Chan then merging itself with the entire powerful current of the greater civilization. In the Northern and Southern Song periods, the lamplight records flourished mightily and the hymns on old cases were like a conflagration. These included the Songgu baize of Hongzhi Zhengjue, who advocated silent illumination Chan. This work became famous. We can see from this that they were not entirely the same in their methods for the construction of individual practice and a theoretical system, the guidance of students, and the propagation of thought. Using a methodological analysis that combines history and logic, the rationality of lettered Chan also entirely lay in not speaking. Following on after the Biyan lu, there were also Wansong Xingxiu’s Congrong anlu (Record of the Hermitage of Ease) that evaluated Tiantong’s hymns on old cases, and Xingxiu’s disciple Conglun evaluated the hymns on old cases by Touzi Yiqing and Danxia Zichun in his Konggu ji (Collection of the Empty Valley) and Xutang ji (Collection of the Empty Hall), which fully reflected the ever-increasing power of the use of letters to speak of Chan. Exactly because it was like this, the Chan style of the Song dynasty filled the whole of society, from the court above down to the slums. In particular, the literati-scholars talked about Chan and spoke g¯ath¯as, and the neo-Confucians adopted Chan into Confucianism, which not only promoted the development of lettered Chan, but also further changed Chan thought into material for street gossip over a cup of tea or after a meal, and also into a way of thinking and systematic materials for the neoConfucianism constructed by thinkers. If it is said that the joining together of famous monks and famous scholars in the Wei-Jin period to talk of emptiness and existence made Buddhism more like Dark Learning, then the interchanges between Chan monks and literati of the Song period that discussed Chan and spoke g¯ath¯as, and talked of principle and discussed of the Way, also promoted the versification of Chan philosophy. Naturally, Song poetry and even neo-Confucianism also shared a clear tendency towards being influenced by Chan. The Xiqing shihua (Remarks on Poetry of Xiqing) by Cai Tao says, “The creation of poetry and making of literary allusions requires them being like Chan language, [such as] salt being in water. When one drinks the water, one knows the taste of the salt.” Huihong borrowed the words of Luzhi (Huang Tingjian, 1045–1105, famous poet and calligrapher) to evaluate Su Shi (1037–1101)’s line, “Looking horizontally it becomes a range, and at an angle it becomes a peak,” saying, “This elder spoke freely and persuasively about prajñ¯a; in the end he had no excess words.”23 Han Ju (d. 1135) also wrote, “When people in the past wrote poems, they often used dialect; when present-day people write poems, they also use Chan language,”24 which focuses on reflecting on the infiltration of Chan learning into the scholar class of the Song dynasty. One can see, of course,

23

Huihong, Lengzhai yehua (Night Talks from the Freezing Studio), fascicle 7. Han Ju, Lingyang Xiansheng shi Zhong yu: Yuxie (Words from the House of Master Lingyang: Jade Chips), 6. 24

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that the Song Confucians “were devoted to Buddhism”25 and also that Chan monks used literature to explain the Way, all of which shows the convergence of letters and Chan, which is the versification of Chan, or it speaks of the versification of Buddhist philosophy. The famous philosopher Ernst Cassirer wrote, “The versification of philosophy and the philosophizing of poetry – that is the highest objective of all romanticist thinkers.”26 The path of Song-period Chan learning from lamplight records and gongan to hymns, to appraisals of lettered Chan, is properly the path that is itself the consummation of Buddhist philosophy and the actualization of itself via versification. Based on this, Chan thought specially revealed its meaningfulness, which then further enabled it to spread widely. At that time, it was not only the scholar class who quoted Chan for poetry and accepted Chan into Confucianism, but Daoism was also changed by Chan, and Zhang Boduan (987–1082), titled the Immortal Ziyang, in his Wuzhen pian shiyu (Supplements to the Compilation of Wuzhen) records nearly twenty hymns and songs of the Chan School. Their method of guiding students was no different from the Chan methods of guidance, and one can also see the power of lettered Chan in the grand occasions of the various realms in which it was fashionable and needed to be practiced. However, the true theorization and systematization of lettered Chan still resided in Juefan Huihong of the Huanglong branch of the school.

Part 4: Huihong and Lettered Chan It was long thought that the Chinese Chan School was the letter-less Chan that is characterized by non-dependence on letters, the Way that eliminates language, and by the experience of enlightenment and examination to transmit from mind to mind, but ultimately it still drew on the assistance of language and letters to express what it calls the meaning that is the mental realm beyond words. Because of this, research on the history of Chan learning overall has fluctuated between lettered and unlettered Chan. Huihong used lettered Chan to boost each of these, discussing the Chan dependence on letters to show its truth. The former speaks of celebration of the wordless, and yet there is no way of discarding letters. The latter makes letters a condition and yet they still elevate the Chan sphere. This kind of contradiction causes historians to frequently ignore Huihong, but this contradiction likewise is a cause for demonstrating the special position of Huihong in the history of Chan thought. In fact, “Chan marvels at the myriad things with words, and therefore there can be no dharma that it does not take as an object, no cognitive object that it does not examine.”27 Chan, and text and words are in the relationship of the moon and finger, of the shore 25

Words of Suku quanshu zhongmu tiyao. Cassirer, An Essay on Man, 1962, English edition, p. 156; translated by Gan Yang, Renlun, Shanghai yiwen chubanshe, 1977, p. 198. Tr. translation made from the Chinese. 27 Gaoseng zhuan, fascicle 11, comments. 26

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and the boat, and the discussion of Chan in particular cannot be separated from texts and words for a moment. Not only did Song-dynasty monks change letter-less Chan into lettered Chan, they also had Chan masters expound theories to support transmission lineages. The lamplight records and monk biographies were produced in competition one after the other, and so words and deeds were both included, and the Chanlin sengbao zhuan used the methods of the literati. In theory, it systematically explained that Chan and words complemented each other, which is the reality and the rationality of lettered Chan. The author was Huihong. Not only did he mold various opinions to form his text, but he also combined text and principle to make poetry, and it is a collection of theory, history, prose and poetry in the person of a single famous Chan monk. Even though Zuxiu (ca. 1160 s) of the Southern Song criticized the Chanlin sengbao zhuan for being “careless about the facts” and for “excessively embroidering on things,” still he gave Huihong the highest evaluation. He said, “Juefan (Huihong) was devoted to Buddhism from a young age and when he matured, he read thoroughly many books, and one can see his mastery of the sutras and s´a¯ stras. His light aided the teaching monasteries. Unwearied, he did not stop writing and his words filled the empire. And when he fell into difficulties, he wore the great Confucian robes. He lived nine lives and nearing on twenty years later, he was again tonsured, but not a verse of his betrayed the Buddha or changed his plans. This was because he was a worthy man.”28 Zuxiu was from the same hometown as Huihong, and also the criticisms he made of the acclaim of Huihong must be said to have not been exaggerated praises. From this we can glimpse elements of Huihong as a scholar and a man. Huihong (1070–1128) was also called Dehong,29 personal name Juefan, selfappellation Venerable Jiyin, lay surname Yu. He was a native of Gaoan in Jiangxi.30 Huihong and Huang Shangu (Huang Tingjian, 1050–1110) were good friends and he also learnt from descendants of the Ouyang family of his hometown.31 Therefore, although he became a monk, was not his reputation for talent excessive as a result of his ancestry and connections? He was in the thirteenth generation from Nanyue, a Chan monk of the Huanglong branch of the Linji lineage. In his Sengbao zhengxu zhuan (Corrected Continuation of the Biographies of the Monkhood), Zuxiu wrote, “At the age of fourteen, his parents both died prematurely and so he relied on Chan Master Sanfeng Gou.32 He was a child-novice. At nineteen, he took the examinations

28

Chen Yuan, Zhongguo Fojiao shiji gailun (Outline of the Historical Works of Chinese Buddhism), Zhonghua shuju, 1988, p. 134. 29 Autobiography by Jiyin (Huihong’s Dharma name), says he was aged 53 in 1123; from this we can estimate that he was born in 1070; other theories are untenable. 30 There are various theories, such as Xinchang in Junzhou (Zhejiang Province), and Yifeng; and it is said that his father’s surname was Peng or Yu. Junzhou was a prefecture established by the Tang, and it was changed by Emperor Lizong (Zhou Yun) of the Song to Ruizhou, which formerly governed Gaoan County in Jiangxi. Jiyin’s autobiography says he was a native of Xinchang in Junzhou, so we follow this amended theory. 31 Tr. the town was famous for producing the statesman Ouyang Xiu and others. 32 Jiyin’s autobiography has Jing.

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on the sutras in the eastern capital and he borrowed his former registration at Tianwang Monastery of ‘Huihong’ as his name, and he became a great monk. He received instruction in the Weishi lun (Treatise on Nothing-but Consciousness) from Vinaya Master Xuanbi, attaining its secrets. He was broadly read in the histories and had an unusual talent. His poetry was heard by the gentlemen of the capital. After a long time, he returned south. Under Guizong Zhenqing (Kewen, 1025–1102) he practiced the mind-Dharma, and so he shifted to Letan.” In his Yuzhao xinzhi (New Gazetteer of Yuzhao), Wang Mingqing (fl. 1163–1224) simply said, “Huihong was a native of Gaoan in Junzhou and had been a minor functionary of the county. Huang Shangu loved his intellect and taught him to read books and be a Buddhist, and afterwards he was promoted to become a famous monk of the country.” Huihong experienced frustrations for his whole life and had a life rich in romantic hues. At the age of fourteen, he entrusted himself to Chan Master Jing of Sanfeng and became a child-novice. At the age of nineteen he became a monk in the eastern capital, where he became a pupil of Vinaya Master Xuanbi and assumed the name Huihong. Four years later, he returned south to Guizong Monastery on Mt. Lu and he followed his teacher Chan Master Zhenqing Kewen of the Huanglong branch. He followed his master and shifted to Shimen in Hongzhou, and went travelling with him for seven years. He had seen the scenery all through the Wu and Xiang regions. After Zhenjing passed away, he responded to Zhu Shiying’s request to live in Beichan Monastery in Linchuan, where he stayed for two years. Following this, he went to Jinling, moving the scholar Wu Kaizheng to invite him to enter Qingliang Monastery, where his misfortunes began. A monk of Qingliang Monastery falsely accused him of holding a forged ordination certificate “and he was implicated by association with previous violations of monastic law and other such embarrassing matters.” The emperor ordered that he be thrown into prison for a year. Later he received the assistance of Grand Councilor Zhang Shangying “and he again obtained his certification [as a monk].” At that time, Huihong was a famous scholar and his reputation echoed through the capital. He was very good friends with Zhang Shangying and Commissioner Guo Tianxin (fl. 1110 s). In the first year of the Zhenghe reign (1111), because Zhang Shangying had “exchanged words backwards and forwards” with him and had “interrogated him in Kaifeng Superior Prefecture,”33 Huihong was exiled over the ocean in Qiongzhou and Yazhou. In the third year of Zhenghe (1113), he was released and he crossed the sea back north to Junzhou, where he stayed in Hetang Monastery. Afterwards, he changed his name to Dehong. He travelled backwards and forwards between Jiufeng and Dongshan for four years. Because he wanted to set up an official residence as Yunyan Monastery, he was again falsely denounced by a partisan of Zhang Huaisu (fl. 1107–1110), and although the officials all knew this was mistake of Zhang Shangying for Huaisu, still, because of this “trumped-up” charge, he was again imprisoned for over a hundred days in Nanchang. After he was pardoned for a second time, he regained his monk status, and so he went to Nantai Monastery in Hunan. By this time, he was already fifty-three. Remembering past events, of being twice falsely accused 33

Songshi (History of the Song) 351.

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and imprisoned, once being banished to a remote place, he therefore lamented, “I experienced many difficulties due to being involved in the world, all my thoughts turned to cold ashes (were disappointments).” Consequently, he depended on the four practices of Bodhidharma to write four g¯ath¯as on the practices of not seeking, following conditions, requiting hatred [with good], and according with the Dharma. In the g¯ath¯a he wrote: The body depends on beauty to be liked, But now it is already ruined. Placing it on the roads of the world, I am naturally aware of the obstacles. When the conditions have ended, act; Nothing can be of concern. Since karma has fully matured, For that reason I accept it with grace. Once the experience is ended and has returned to non-existence, Why be ashamed that it exists? Once one is apart from subtle and minor thoughts, One can be said to see the nature.

Apart from this, Huihong wrote “Three Poems Occasionally Written on the Wall of Jiyin Hall.”34 In the poem there are the lines, “Jiyin is very idle, covering over his elegant style (dissipation). Filled with tears that fall to his chest, he recovers from idleness. Advantage and disadvantage, right and wrong, all are discarded. Birth and death comprehended, this condition of faith is ended.” “The maigre feast ended, unfolding my mat [to meditate], my very own lesson. In my last years, sleeping and eating, what more could I seek?” “Though the traces [karmic actions] have ceased, I still dislike the body that binds me. In this life, I have always been at odds with the world.” “Sleep is the practice of ease of the Lotus (Sutra), Clearing away entirely fifty-two years of wrongs.” Of course, this g¯ath¯a is a poem. It expresses his laments made late in life at his fate of suffering many difficulties and also his persistence with the tortuous mental realm of Chan’s cultural creativity. He also quotes a treatise by Sun Simiao (early Tang Daoist), who said that due to a nasty illness he was led to the Way of Immortality. The real cause was due to “cutting away the bonds of defilements. I thought of the style of highlighting the positive (yang), and for that reason I grasped for good fortune out of misfortune.” Huihong said, “My (Jiyin) misfortune was an unusual misfortune. Due to misfortune, I was able to completely glimpse the intention of the buddhas and patriarchs.”35 Even though this unintentionally reveals that he was not without cant and the psychology of self-consolation, it also reflects his spirit of a persistent search for the principles of Buddhism. During his lifetime Huihong wrote many works: the Gaoseng zhuan (Lives of Eminent Monks) in twelve fascicles, Zhizheng zhuan (Transmission of Wise Realization) in ten fascicles, Zhilin (Forest of Determination) in ten fascicles, and Lengzhai yehua in ten fascicles. The Chanlin sengbao zhuan, Shimen wenzi Chan, Linjian lu (Records within the Forest-Monasteries), and Linji yaozhi (Essential Teachings of Linji) are his representative works. Besides these, there are Tianchu jinluan (The 34

Shimen wenzi Chan (The Lettered Chan of Shimen), fascicle 12. The above quotes, with the exception of note clarifications, are all quoted from “Jiyin zuxu” (Self Preface by Jiyin) in Shimen wenzi Chan, fascicle 24.

35

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Heavenly Kitchen Prohibits Meat-cuts), Fahua helun (Combined Treatise on the Lotus Sutra), Lengyan cundingyi (Significance of the Ultimate Veneration of the Lengyan Sutra), Yuanjue jiezheng yi (Significance of All Realizations of the Yuanjue Sutra), Jin’gang fayuan lun (Treatise on the Dharma Source of the Diamond Sutra), and Qixinlun jieyi (Explanation of the Meanings of the Awakening of Faith), et cetera. However, Huihong’s nature was straightforward and frank, and he often made light of the point being made. Therefore, his works had a mixed reception and those who research Chan School history often put his works aside and do not mention them. In fact, as Huihong was a Chan monk who combined literature and theory, and was also a historian of the Chan School who had exceptional insights, of course all his works have original ideas that attract attention in regard to Chan learning and Chan history. His poetry is fresh and meaningful, introducing Chan into poetry and using poetry to speak of principle. His prose artfully schemed, developing a unique new style, and all the stories of monks he recorded were fresh and natural; he wrote fluently, in particular in relation to the summary and enunciation of the principles of lettered Chan and in respect of Chan School history, especially in the history of Chan thought, all of which occupied an extremely important position. In words there are no words, the marvelous is of the utmost profundity Looking from a whole of Buddhism perspective, all recognize that the real characteristics of Suchness can only be understood tacitly, one can only use the whole mind to realize it, and therefore it cannot be described verbally. It is the Chan School especially that further emphasizes that “the meaning cannot be described; the Way cannot be cultivated.” Because of this, Chan transformed the surreal of non-reliance on letters and the Way eliminates language into transmission from mind to mind. Naturally it is also the existence of the transcendence of the functions of language and letters. The stories of the Buddha-patriarch picking up a flower and K¯as´yapa’s subtle smile, the sole transmission of the mind-seal, the revelation of the path of confusion, the non-reliance on letters and direct pointing at the mind of people, simply existed to establish this historical source of the Chan School. Therefore, the consistent view that a Chan School takes language and letters to be a hindrance to the Way is reasonable. And yet, excluding the legends of the Buddha-patriarch holding up a flower and K¯as´yapa subtly smiling, as well as the transmission from mind to mind, when ultimately did the Chan School begin to emphasize its disjunction from language and letters? Although we cannot say that it was due to the chaotic accounts that compounded the falsehoods of transmission, ultimately this theory does not coincide with reality. At Huangmei, Huineng also asked “a person who could write” to write his g¯ath¯a on the western wall to “show his own intrinsic mind.” Although there are phrases in the Platform Sutra such as “not depend on letters” and “one must not speak,” this sutra was initially the spoken word and later it became letters. Moreover, Qisong’s edition and Zongbao’s edition of the Platform Sutra wrote, “Even though the Way does not depend on letters, these two words ‘not depend’ are themselves letters,” and it seems this explained in reverse that one cannot objectively ignore language and letters. By the Five Dynasties, the widespread infiltration of Chan into all levels of society, and especially so in the Song dynasty, meant that the interaction

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between Chan monks and literati-scholars went much further than the interchanges between the famous monks and famous scholars of Wei-Jin times; they responded to poems with poems, conversed of Chan and spoke g¯ath¯as, and the popularity of monks and laity making friends through writing flourished. In fact, Dharma-talks of most of the great masters of Caoqi’s school were handed down and the recorded sayings (yulu) of Chan in the later period appeared one after another. Thus, the Way refrains from language and non-dependence on letters were not only impracticable in reality, but were also always difficult to justify in theory, and because of this, this assertion was in urgent need of a new theoretical direction. In order to reconcile the contradiction between Chan and letters, it was imperative for lettered Chan to sublimate practice into theory. Huihong may be said to have been the Chan scholar who legitimized and rationalized lettered Chan. It should be noted that the original idea of the Chan masters’ non-reliance on letters was not to require the abandonment of all written and verbal teachings, but to emphasize not falling into verbal description and to not be attached to words on paper, and to directly discern the real characteristics of the intrinsic mind, which is also the intent behind getting the meaning and forgetting the words. Because of this, knowledgeable and experienced Chan scholars, and eminent Chan monks, always used the metaphor of the finger pointing at the moon for the relationship of literature and Chan. They often made veiled criticisms of the sole application of the indirect approach of letter-less Chan. For example, the Qiansong biji xu (Preface to the Jottings of Qiansong) was not devoted to writing, but put priority on explanation: ´ For forty years the elder Sakyamuni spoke of benefitting beings, and like a divine dragon appeared high in the sky. Those who could see well saw his body, and those who could not see well spoke of letters on paper. Therefore, it says that the text of the Thus Come One (Tath¯agata) was not text, and his words were not words. Shanqing’s Zuting shiyuan explains it even more clearly: “Non-dependence on letters [means] that many lose the meaning. Those who often say discarding letters and sitting in silence is Chan are really the dumb sheep of our school….In particular, they do not know that the Way is like a thoroughfare, so how can you be bound to every corner? Therefore, it is these very letters, the letters that are unattainable. Letters being so, the other dharmas are likewise.” Not only did he criticize the fundamentally mistaken tendency of regarding letters to be obstacles to the Way, he went even further and explained this is like using the finger to see the moon, taking the boat to cross the river, since one cannot take the finger or the boat to be the object of cognition or the aim one wishes to reach, which would be to take the finger for the moon or the boat for the other shore, it is also inappropriate to ignore the finger and gaze at the moon or discard the boat and cross the river. In the use of letters to obtain the characteristics of reality, letters were never without effectiveness. The above-mentioned stories strive to explain the relationship of text and Chan theoretically and practically, and are also a basis in thought for the convergence in mood of Song-period Chan learning and the scholar class. Naturally, one really may say that the pioneers of lettered Chan in Chan learning practice were Fenyang Shanzhao and Xuedou Chongxian. The former was the first to create “hymns on old cases” and afterwards Xuedou took the style of hymns on old

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cases and pushed them to a high water-mark, using the g¯ath¯a-hymn form to “speak of Chan in a round-about way,” publicly treading the path of using letters to discover the meaning of Chan. Later, he further produced the “introduction” (overall principles), the “capping words” (interlinear comments) to the hymns, and then went even further by introducing the appraisals. Then the style of Chan underwent a wholesale change, from being unable to speak verbally to the pursuit of ornamentation with letters, treading the path of lettered Chan. Nevertheless, it was Huihong who truly rationalized and systematized this practice. Huihong thought that. The marvel of the mind cannot be transmitted by language, but it can be seen via language. Language is also the condition of the mind and is the sign of the Way. If the sign is examined, the mind will tally with [the Way]. Therefore, students always use language in order to obtain an indication of the depth of the Way.36

These words mean that although language cannot completely transmit the marvelous Way that is the mind, still it is a kind of tool, a kind of pathway, a kind of expedient means, that can help one contemplate the marvel of the mind. Having seen through this, one can grasp the real characteristics of the mind and therefore language can be said to be an external symptom of an innate spirit and an external symptom of the depth of understanding by students. Based on the above-mentioned language that is cognition of the “condition of the mind,” “a marker of the Way,” and “an indication of the Way,” Huihong, like the majority of Chan monks took the thorough apprehension of the Dharma-gate of the mind-lineage to be the objective, but he, unlike the majority of Chan monks of his day, did not recognize language and letters to be the basis of obstacles to the Way and looked on them as techniques to realize the objective and as a way to reach the sphere of Chan. Therefore, he emphasized again and again that “the Great Dharma is not bound by language, and yet it borrows words to elucidate it.” “The words of the broad explanation [by the Buddha] greatly eliminate the Chan practitioner’s attachment to Dharma.”37 The former speaks of showing the true, the latter highlights the removal of falsity. The showing of the true and the removal of falsity serves to show that language in Chan learning was not an “obstacle to the Way” and that it is definitely not insignificant. Because of this, he also most impolitely criticized unlettered Chan practitioners who habitually went for indirection as “working at strange and bizarre matters, bragging of their fame and pursuing the worldly, not looking at the principle….Fame is for following the Way, but in fact they are following after fame. Confused and useless, all this school of Chan masters are criminals.”38 He criticized them, saying, “A person of old honestly gave free reign to the true and when interrogated, replied according to his wishes with a piece of wood and

36

“Ti Rang Heshang zhuan” (Inscription of the Biography of Reverend Rang), Shimen wenzi Chan, fascicle 25. 37 Shimen wenzi Chan, fascicle 25. 38 Ibid.

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hardened bricks, and really had no artful marvel.”39 This sentence exactly points out the so-called non-dependence on letters and in reality that the person was saying whatever came to mind without proper consideration, making it easy to talk nonsense. Huihong’s idea was that one needs “the mutual participation of the hidden and the evident, the use of words to reveal the wordless, and so in the words there is the destination of the wordless, which is the utmost profundity of the marvelous.”40 Popularly speaking, first of all, it means one cannot split language and letters from the reality of the mind, and one needs to use “words” to clearly express “the wordless”; in another aspect, these physical and evident language and letters are definitely not “really without an artful marvel” and are not “answers according to one’s wishes,” but are the beautiful texts and marvelous enlightenment of a thorough apprehension of profound teachings. One can see how Chan and letters could be merged into a unity, which was also the aim Huihong pledged to pursue. His work, the Chanlin sengbao zhuan, was copied out by Chan practitioners and read out aloud, and the meaning was if inexhaustible, so they asked Huihong to write dedications. There are many reflections of this pursuit in this book. The “Ti Fojian Sengbao zhuan” (Dedication to the Sengbao zhuan of Fojian)41 says, A Chan practitioner is to be versed in the Way, the body and the world both forgotten, never following the service of brush and ink. Therefore, the monastic histories of the Tang and Song all come forth from the hands of lecture masters. Daoxuan was versed in vinaya and his prose and verse were undeveloped, and [when] he wrote the biographies of Chan [monks] it was like a family marriage checkup; Canning was broadly learned and yet his thinking was confused…he collected all the stele inscriptions to form a biography, and therefore his book is not of a unity, which I greatly regret.

He regretted that Chan monks were not versed in brush and ink (writing), and because of that the monastic histories of the Tang and Song were written by lecturers on doctrine, or because literature was not their forte, the biographies were like family marriage checkups, or because their knowledge and views were shallow and narrow, they were lacking in the general principles. Therefore, he molded letters into Chan history and Chan and Dharma into a unity, which then demanded immediate attention. Huihong’s Shimen wenzi Chan, Chanlin sengbao zhuan and Linjian lu et cetera not only laid the theoretical foundations of lettered Chan, but he personally also served in a dual capacity; as a Chan person he served brush and ink, and by using the methods of writers he made works of Chan. Therefore, they could be chanted loud and clear, and there was an impression that they were a winding path leading to profundity. However, his works also bore blame for being “rotten beauty,” “exaggeration,” and “suppositions,” as well as for phrase-mongering. His “what is the cause of the total 39

Ibid., “Ti Duanji Chanshi yulu” (Dedication for the Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Duanji). Tr. the meaning of this seems to refer to a story in the Yuanwu Foguo Chanshi yulu (T47.783c28-29), where Shitou is asked, “What is Chan?” and he replied, “A hardened brick.” “What is the Way?” “A piece of wood.”. 40 Ibid., “Ti Yunju Hongjue Chanshi yulu” (Dedication for the Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Hongjue of Yunju). 41 Ibid.

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spring emaciation, solely of a mind to return, he did not reach home,” and his being seen as a “wastrel reverend,”42 were vulgar feelings and improper language that damaged his dignity. To the contrary, this also did no harm to the regard for his fresh words that expressed his own ultimate concerns. His “Zeng ni Ai Shangren” (Presented to the Nun, Eminence Ai), has the verse, “Yet to agree to write on red flowers,/ In the end hoping old Cuiwei [will do so],43 /I now am tired of the travel,/ And toss away my staff, dreaming of a smoke [filled] door.” This in particular drew much criticism, including from Chen Yuan, who censured it for “violating the precept against improper (sexual) language and for also a tendency to false language.”44 One can see that Chen did not fully understand the marvelous truth of Huihong’s lettered Chan. In fact, he did not pursue being unmoved by emotion or the elimination of love, but he drew upon the assistance of the functions of letters and language to embody his real feelings about the transcendental pursuit of his own mind. This is what is meant by “He did not wear a scarf around his head,/He could drape it with a ragged black robe./ Ashamed that he lacked the loquacity of Guanqi,/He dared face the ability of Moshan.”45 This says that this really was the transcendence of ordinary and saintly, and was deeply concerned with the spirit of the free and liberated mind. Even though it has “something that is desired when seen,”46 it is also not lacking in profound meaning. The Ming-period monk Daguan (Zhenke, 1543–1603) in the Wanli era (1573–1619) wrote a preface for Huihong’s Shimen wenzi Chan, saying, “When the first patriarch came east, he provided medicine in response to the illness, directly pointing at the minds of people and not depending on letters. Those who followed him received the empty and accepted echoes (adopted illusions), did not know the medicine, and consequently all heightened their walls and built letters beyond Chan. Through this they divided up territories and set up domains, dissected and analyzed empty space, and the students of Chan did not devote themselves to enlightening the mind.” Until Venerable Jiyin (Huihong) of the Song, “all the contending flowers in a blaze of color were on the three inches [of the tongue] beneath a bamboo tube,” but then he took the “essential meanings” and “realization of the mind” to be able to grasp the “water that does not leak out (what worldly wisdom cannot comprehend).”47 Lastly, he also said, “Several thousand years after this single flower was picked up by Gautama [Buddha], it was thrown onto a dung heap. Jiyin once more picked it up and 42

Nenggaizhai manlu (Desultory Records of Nenggai Studio) 11, the words of the daughter of Wang Anshi. 43 Tr. Cuiwei was the name of a palace that was later made into a monastery where Wuxue, a disciple of Danxia Tianran lived. To write a poem or letter on red leaves meant to convey feelings via things, especially when there were similarities in or shared feelings but there was social difference, but the conclusion was the formation of excellent relations. 44 Chen Yuan, Zhongguo Fojiao shiji gailun, Zhonghua shuju, 1988, p. 139. 45 Tr. Guanqi Zhixian (d. 895) went to Moshan, where the nun Liaoran was abbess, and he was defeated by her in a verbal joust, serving as gardener there for three years. 46 Chen Yuan, 1988, p. 140. Tr. from a story about a person showing his desire to eat some roasted meat when he saw it. 47 Tr. translation tentative, but the implication was that Chan language was a riot of color on people’s tongues and in their throats, but the meanings were unclear and did not convey the truths of Chan.

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tried to spread it in the present, it being a faint shadow to tantalize people, its faint aroma wafting to the nose.” The idea here is to stress that Chan and letters have a relationship like spring has with flowers, which is “like the interchange of the blows and shouts of Deshan and Linji, which never denied letters. Qingliang (Huayan) and Tiantai commented on sutras and wrote treatises, which never denied Chan.” This is saying that as Chan resided in intangible language and letters, it also was in such tangible language and letters, and that Huihong’s lettered Chan also possessed “a faint shadow to tantalize people, and a faint aroma wafting to the nose,” a fascination that captured people’s souls. These words of Daguan can be said to have deeply attained the sam¯adhi of Huihong’s lettered Chan. Three mysteries in one sentence, words that comprehend the Great Way In fact, a kind of thought, or a kind of spirit, and further, a kind of culture, which is not injected into language and letters is unable to spread. The Chan that emphasized “transmission from mind to mind” in reality still needed to rely on the functions of language and letters, which is a form of expression of the “mind” via “transmission.” Because of this, the resolution of the relationship of Chan and letters, mind and language, in terms of the desire to strive for a greater development of the Chan School, was not only a problem of a real demand, but was always also a problem for the Chan style symbolized by the non-dependence on letters that also urgently demanded a solution. Via the three sentences, three mysteries, and three essentials promoted by Linji Yixuan, which were further advanced by Fenyang Shanzhao’s interpretation of the three mysteries and three essentials, there is no doubt that Huihong elaborated on the relationship of Chan and letters and language. Huihong really was using letters and language to repeatedly explain the relationship on the basis of the three mysteries and three essentials, and use lettered Chan to establish and promote it to secular society. Yixuan preached the three mysteries and three essentials to guide students and to give expression to these mysteries and essentials. These really were the core theme or the principles, gist, and focal points, which depended on the expression through the form of the “three sentences.” He said, “If the first sentence is understood, one may be a teacher of the patriarchs and buddhas.” By seizing the second sentence one is a teacher of humans and gods, but if one understands the third sentence, then “one cannot save oneself.” The so-called three sentences, even though they are profound (mysterious) and even more profound, ultimately are still language. “The three essentials are the seal lifted, the vermilion impression is sharp; it does not allow for hesitation, host and guest being distinct.” “How could Marvelous Understanding (Mañju´sr¯ı) permit Wuzhu’s question? How could expedient means contradict the ability that cut across the streams [of false thoughts]?” and “Just look at the puppets performing on the stage; the pulling and pushing comes from the person behind.” He continued to stress that “In general, in proclaiming the lineage vehicle (Chan), each single sentence must contain the gates of the three mysteries, and each gate of the mystery must contain the three essentials; there is the provisional and there is the real; there is illumination and there is function.” What the three sentences, three mysteries, and three essentials of Linji indicated in a concrete sense were explained

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in various forms by later people. The rights and wrongs of these explanations might as well be put aside, but its spirit was nothing more than just requiring language that was insipid and plain, or unfathomable, to express the profound tenets pursued by the Chan masters. Or like an adamantine precious sword, it cuts across the river flow (cut out the regular processes of thinking), or like a crouching lion it opened the ears of the deaf and the eyes of the blind; provisional and real, illumination and function, enlightened and inspired the deluded. Fenyang Shanzhao clearly inherited the theories of the three mysteries and three essentials of Yixuan, and highlighted and explained that “the three mysteries and three essentials are hard to understand, but obtaining the meaning and forgetting the words is a Way easy to be familiar with. One sentence clearly illuminates the myriad images, the chrysanthemum flowers of the Double Ninth Festival are fresh.” That is to say that what Yixuan’s mysteries and essentials indicate is not like the separations and analysis by later Chan masters, their focal points were still to be enlightened to the Way “that gets the meaning and forgets the words.” Nevertheless, the abstruse Way ultimately is still embraced in profound words and it is only when these are words of penetrating comprehension that include the myriad images can one suddenly see in a clear light and renew the Way. Huihong truly drew on the assistance of Yixuan and Shanzhao’s talk of the mysteries and essentials, and opened up a smooth road towards lettered Chan. In his Chanlin sengbao zhuan, Linjian lu, Shimen wenzi Chan, and in particular, the Linji zongzhi, he amply wields the implications of the three mysteries and three essentials, clarifies the words and meanings, and the insides and outsides of the relationships of text and Chan, highlighting the requisite functions of language and letters in the process of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature. What is out of the usual48 is that Huihong highly praised “Chan Master Fenyang Wude as being the only one who was able to marvelously penetrate their tenets,” and at the same time he also pointed out that not only did the Linji lineage delight in discussing the three mysteries, but also Shitou’s Cantong qi “contained this tenet,” and that afterwards “Fayan wrote a commentarial explanation of it and the students of the empire venerated them.” That is to say, due to its creation by Yixuan and Shanzhao’s promotion and extension of it as the theory of the three mysteries and three essentials, it was not only the one house of Linji that used verbal descriptions to convey the intentions of the Buddha, but also the followers of Shitou who were incorporated into the Fayan lineage generally practiced this. However, in order to express the reality and the acceptability of lettered Chan, he did not take Fenyang’s “something difficult to understand” as a criterion and focused instead onto “the one sentence includes the myriad images” and “getting the meaning and forgetting the words,” and so divided the three mysteries into the mystery in the reality, the mystery in the sentence, and the mystery in the meaning. He also said in his Linji zongzhi that “Linji only said that there are three mysteries in a sentence 48

Chan followers often reproach Fenyang, saying that his theories are of no benefit to the Way. Qing dynasty Chan masters went so far as to divide them into three mysteries and nine essentials and of the difficultly of understanding them when explaining their logic.

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and three essentials in one mystery, that there is mystery and the essential and that is all. At first, I never saw it as being a mystery in the sentence, a mystery in the meaning, and a mystery in the reality.” In order to highlight this fundamental spirit of lettered Chan, he said, “mystery comprehends the Great Way and does not depend on the usual (everyday) views.” Huihong only took the ambiguous phrase, “there is mystery and there is the essential” and transformed it into the three elements of sentence, meaning, and reality. He especially drew on the assistance of the words “basic and derivative must revert to the core theme, and the venerated and humble use these words” from Shitou’s Cantong qi in order to emphasize the functions of the mystery in the sentence. Based on this, he criticized Fayan’s “’do not divide them into three dharmas’ for the one taste is made into an interpretation of the mystery in the reality, which loses Shitou’s meaning.” In reality, as he saw it, it is only when one has comprehended the words of the mystery can one grasp the meaning of the mystery and the reality of the mystery, and speaking in this sense, the mystery in the sentence is the mystery in the reality, which is what he said about what Li Houzhu (Li Yu, 937–978, last ruler of Southern Tang) had said, “If one is enlightened to the mystery in the sentence, that is the mystery in the reality.” Otherwise, the tenet of being divorced from language and letters and yet pursuing profundity would also be an insight that is unattainable. Therefore, his conclusion was that it is necessary that the guide temporarily uses language to develop his function of wisdom. At the same time, he also used this idea to interpret Shanzhao’s thought, using “words to eliminate words, using principle to distinguish principle,” regarding this as flowing into Suchness, which is the meaning of “one sentence clearly shows the myriad images.” He regarded “functioning in response to the opportunity (ability)” and “not being mired in images and traces” as being “no words in words,” which is “the chrysanthemum flowers of the Double Ninth Festival are fresh.” Nevertheless, in the text of the same book, Huihong reproached Jianfu Chenggu (d. 1045) for “using words to eliminate words, using principle to chase after principle, and regarding that as pre-enlightenment and not post-enlightenment….He has yet to have a sentence that goes beyond the ordinary; it is death at a sentence.” Here one can see that Huihong is unfamiliar with the attributes for presenting an argument. In fact, from an overall perspective, his criticism of Chenggu for “mistakenly recognizing that Xuansha’s three sentences are three essentials” and for omitting the three essentials, in reality is also saying that he despised the language and letters that are the functions of the mystery in the sentence, and his reproach of Chenggu for “violation of Baling’s three sayings and for his non-recognition of his vivifying sentence,”49 was a direct approval of language as being the necessary road to experience the Way. He also further criticized Chenggu by saying, “The Master of the Stupa [Cheng]gu loved to talk of showing this Way,50 but when he discussed the three mysteries as being able to be transmitted in words, he even discussed the three essentials as being unable

49 50

Chanlin sengbao zhuan, fascicle 12. This indicates the Way of getting the meaning and forgetting the words.

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to lack words.” We can see from this that the mysteries and essentials also needed language to convey the information.51 In the Linji zongzhi, Huihong recorded an interesting episode about himself. He was wandering through Linchuan with Zhu Shiying, when the Elder Shanglan said to Shiying, “Juefan (Huihong) is famed for making poetry, so in Chan has the teacher mistakenly laughed at the student?” Shiying allowed him to produce an example in explanation. Again, one day at mealtime, Shanglan drew on the table with his hand, saying, “A sutra-roller must be inscribed with a character [to identify its place in a collection]. What does this mean?” Huihong then drew a circle with a stroke across it and answered, “This is the meaning.” Then “Shanglan was stunned.” Huihong also pointed out Fenyang’s “G¯ath¯a on a Calf” that said, “Again this is glossing the meaning of my character.” One can see the Chan mechanism of no words in words, and that there are words in no words, and that Huihong was very adept at play. ´ akyamuni moved his tongue,” and “even though he “Vimalak¯ırti shut his mouth, S¯ presented a character, he did not reveal a spot of ink,” which really was a realm of “neither silence nor speech” that Huihong’s lettered Chan wanted to pursue.52 Of course, the way to interpret this is that Huihong from start to finish was making letters the main form for the expression of Chan. He even saw that the use of the form of mysterious words for the expression of Chan at times could also descend into the old ruts of glossing the meanings of characters, which was not a rare occurrence. Fuse the many theories and mold them to form a history Chan used letters to show itself and Chan history especially needed letters for its transmission. Huihong not only was a Chan master who systematized and theorized lettered Chan, he was also a historian of the Chan School who had exceptional critical insights. His poems, prose, dedications, and records all carried out his profession of criticism in the narrations of events. The Chanlin sengbao zhuan is a masterpiece of Chan School history. There are two kinds of works among the many Buddhist texts that have the Chan School as their object: the first were the lamplight records, detailed recordings of the words of Chan masters, with a genealogical compilation forming the framework; the second are biographies, including all together ten categories that use the lives of monks and their deeds to form a text. The Chanlin sengbao zhuan is not a lamplight record, and yet it also records deeds, but it is also not the same as other monk biographies for it only details the lives of Chan members. There are dedications and there are encomia in it, which thoroughly and vividly display his spirit of historical criticism. This book relies on Daguan Tanying (989–1060)’s Wujia zongbai (Lineages of the Five Houses), “totally collecting forgotten compilations and individual records, packaging the [lives of] the past Chan monks of the various regions to form the account,”53 to create this book. It began with Caoshan and Yunmen, and recorded 51

With the exception of note clarifications, these quotes are all from the Linjian lu. “Praises of the Portrait of Chan Master Fenyang Shanzhao,” in Shimen wenzi Chan. 53 Chanlin sengbao zhuan yin (Introduction). 52

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the lives of eighty-one Chan monks from late Tang to the Zhenghe reign (1111– 1118) of Northern Song, and in reality it is a work supplementing the “meditators section” of Zanning’s Song gaoseng zhuan. But it is not the same as Zanning’s work. Zanning esteemed substance, gathering together stele inscriptions and stupa inscriptions to form biographies. Huihong’s text esteemed literary qualities, fusing many theories to make a book. The former recorded great details; Huihong recorded words even more copiously. Among the Chan School history texts, the Chanlin sengbao zhuan is a unique style of work. Fascicle 25 of Shimen wenzi Chan has a text, “Ti xiusengshi” (Dedication on the Compilation of a History of the Monks), which amply demonstrates the unusual orientation and the true motives of Huihong’s historical research. It says, I left imprisonment by the Ministry of Justice and in the next year lived in a hut beneath [Mt.] Jiufeng, and there were three or four bhiks.us who came and followed me….saying that histories of monks from Huijiao, Daoxuan, and Zanning onwards all have a narrow perspective, and that those books are greatly different from the initial Shiji (Historical Records), [the histories of] the two Han [dynasties], the Northern and Southern courts, and the Tang accounts, for their texts are confused and very vexing, [like] a marriage between families in which there is a struggle to litigate and investigate. In the past, Luzhi (Huang Tingjian) hated this….[saying] “You received the imperial grace and avoided death, and again, being an old associate of mine, you can slightly add, subtract, and supplement them to make a unified text, and by imitating the historical biographies, set them up with praises, causing students to approach the biographies and bring forth words of praise and see the marvels of the past. Would this not be good?” I happily agreed to this. Then I made the categories, made the language more literary, and shortened fourteen fascicles into twelve fascicles in order to present them to him.

Here Huihong borrowed the words of several younger friends of great ambition to show his dissatisfaction with the literary style of previous histories of monks. Chen Yuan evaluated this as follows. “Each period has its own literary style, so if we were to take the literature of the Song people and apply it to the Six Dynasties, this would be just like adorning people of the past with the clothes of today. How is this not extremely ludicrous?.…This not the case only in the writing of the biographies of monks of recent times, for one can use the modern literary style as much as possible to implement this. The Sengbao zhuan was an attempt to achieve this.” He also said, “Gathering together many texts of the same kind and tailoring them to make an account is a physical function,” and “fusing many theories and molding them to form a text is a chemical function. Which of these is superior is truly difficult to say, but in Huihong’s case he advocated the latter theory.”54 Chen Yuan clearly approved the success of Huihong’s attempt to create biographies of monks. Chen’s explanation in terms of the physical and chemical is evidently a full approval and praise of the Chanlin sengbao zhuan. No matter whether it is criticism or praise, overall one can say that when Huihong was writing his history of Chan, he not only emphasized the use of language and letters to seek out the marvelous tenets of the Chan masters, but he also advocated attaching equal importance to recording events and to ornate

54

Chen Yuan, op. cit., p. 135.

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wording, and the necessity of having an originality in historical knowledge. Professor Chen’s praise was based exactly on this. Huihong’s compilation of the Chanlin sengbao zhuan was erected on the foundations of the Chan School divisions of the lamplight transmissions and wrote equally on the five houses, and therefore it could reflect the general picture of the Song-dynasty Chan School. He said, When the Way of Caoqi (Huineng) arrived at Nanyue Shitou and Jiangxi Mazu, it split into two lineages. Yunmen, Caodong, and Fayan are all sourced in Shitou; Linji and Weiyang are sourced in Mazu. The teaching monasteries of the empire all call them the lineages of the Five Houses. In the Jiayou period, Chan Master Daguan Tanying wrote briefly of the Five Houses…but he only recorded the words and sentences of their enlightenment interchanges ( jiyuan) and that was all. Now the Way of hearing words uses events to view [history], and since it has recorded the language, one should also record the actions and events. By extensively selecting individual biographies and forgotten compilations, by comparing them with the discussions of them by elderly Chan monks, one can supplement it. Again, from the Jiayou to the start of the Zhenghe period, the heirs of the Yunmen and Linji lineages eminently headed and illuminated the regions….This book was completed in Nantai [Monastery] in Xiangxi.55

This passage is really an additional comment about the Chanlin sengbao zhuan. Besides the period of the formation of the book, the place, and the circumstances of its writing, at the same time it clearly distinguishes the origins and developments of the Chan School, describes the guiding thought and methods behind its writing, and also encapsulates the conditions of the spread of the Chan School in the Song period. It likewise takes Shitou and Mazu to be the start of the lineage division and describes the outstanding illumination of the five lamplights transmissions from then on. This is really formed on the basis of Tanying’s brief accounts of the Five Houses by “extensively selecting individual biographies and forgotten compilations, by comparing them with the discussions of them by elderly Chan monks and supplementing them.” However, he stressed that his book was not only “a record of the words and sentences of the enlightenment exchanges,” but also “a record of actions and events.” No wonder a later person said, “Juefan’s Sengbao zhuan and Dachuan’s [Wudeng] huiyuan are both guidebooks for the monasteries.”56 Looking at what is recorded in the book, the Chan style of teaching in the Song period definitely used Dharma talks ( fayu) often to enlighten students, just as Huihong said: “The words of the broad exposition greatly eliminate the Chan monks’ attachment to doctrine.”57 Since this is a corroboration of his own lettered Chan, it also contrasted the necessary tendency of Song-dynasty Chan style to move away from non-reliance on letters and the Way that eliminates language with the tendency to move towards lettered Chan. By speaking of the eminent heading and illuminating of the regions by Yunmen and Linji, he doubtlessly demonstrated the wide spread of these two lineages at this 55

“Sengbao zhuan xu” (Preface to the Sengbao zhuan,” in Shimen wenzi Chan, fascicle 23. Qing dynasty, Wang Daliang, Nansong Yuan Ming sengbao zhuan xu (Preface to the Biographies of Monks of the Southern Song, Yuan, and Ming). 57 “Ti Baizhang Chang Chanshi suobian Dazhi guanglu” (Dedication for the Extensive Records of Dazhi compiled by Chan Master Chang of Baizhang), in Shimen wenzi Chan, fascicle 25. 56

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time. His Shimen wenzi Chan dedication to the Chanlin sengbao zhuan 3 recalls that “When I first travelled in Wu and Yue, I read Zanning’s Song gaoseng zhuan and I was amazed that it did not write a biography of Yunmen. An elderly person said, ‘I heard an elderly master in Wu say himself that he had esteemed and saw Zanning, who [said] that Yunmen was not a lecturer on doctrine, and therefore I cut him out’…. I lamented that Yunmen was not given a biography….I intended to write one from the start.” In fact, how many lecturers on doctrine are there in the over six hundred people with biographies in the Song gaoseng zhuan? If not for Zanning’s perfunctory performance of his duty, this elder of Wu would have shielded him against this deviation from his intentions. Huihong regretted this, and therefore the Chanlin sengbao zhuan especially contained biographies of fifteen Yunmen monks, which just ranks in numerical terms beneath the seventeen biographies of Linji monks. Hence, this serves to reflect the especially preferable treatment given to the Yunmen lineage by Huihong in response to the failure of earlier historians to take notice of them, and naturally, is proof that Yunmen Chan rose in a rush in early Song, which was further analyzed by Huihong, who wrote as follows about this situation: “The two lineages of Yunmen and Linji especially prospered in the empire, and in the Hu and Xiang [districts] there were mostly heirs of Yunmen. All took the core tenets to be their own personal domain and they slandered each other.”58 He revealed the features of the spread of Yunmen, but he also unconsciously demonstrated the extreme popularity of Yunmen for a time. However, it weakened in only a few generations, which was largely a result of them “taking the core theme as their own domain, slandering each other.” This objectively grasped the situation and referred to the internal cause for the tendency to decline within the Fayan and Weiyang lineages. Undoubtedly, the lettered Chan led by Huihong and others, and his unique, new style of Chan history drew a major response from the monasteries, but the appraisals were not the same, there being a mixed reception. In particular, there were many complaints about his evaluations of the works of historians. He suffered such criticism as that by Ye Mengde in his Bishu luhua (Recorded Stories of Avoiding the Heat), Chen Shan’s Menshi xinhua (New Stories of Plucking Out Lice [Indifference]), and Yu Wenbao’s Chuijian wailu (External Record of Blowing on a Sword) et cetera. Hu Zi’s Yuying conghua (Collected Stories of Fishermen and Hermits) and Wu Zeng’s Nenggaizhai manlu (Desultory Jottings of Nenggai Studio) also denounced his multiple errors in particular. Zuxiu of Southern Song also said that he was “careless about the facts” and Huilin in his Conglin gonglun (Public Discourses of the Teaching Monasteries) also attacked his “biographies for their frequent exaggeration” and his “praises for their many assumptions.” One can also see that the content of these criticisms was not the same. Chen Yuan raised these matters with some laments. He said, “If the person writing the history is not trustworthy, the believable will also be bound up with the unbelievable, so how can this not contradict the original intentions of writing the history?”59 He brought up an example; 58

“Xinghua Xian Chanshi zhuan” (Biography of Chan master Xian of Xinghua), in Chanlin sengbao zhuan fascicle 18. 59 Op. cit., p. 133.

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Huihong’s Lengzhai yehua denounced Li Yong (680–747) for regarding Senqie (d. 710) to be “a person of a certain [unknown] country,” which was “taking a dream for reality.” Zanning also compiled this statement by Li Yong into his history of the monks, and thus his interpretation according to Huihong “was also a dream spoken of in a dream.” Thus, “since he [Huihong] revealed his own ignorance, he also revealed his own scant education.”60 This explains why Chen evaluated Huihong’s histories as being regrettable. However, speaking overall, of course Huihong did not abandon the mysterious principle with respect to the proof and practice of lettered Chan, and also with respect to the compilation and criticism of Chan School history. He specially gave priority to ornate wording, essays on history, and historical evaluation, forming a style of his own, not only in theoretically investigating and resolving the question of the relationship of Chan and language and letters, but also in blazing a new trail in Chan learning and the history of the Chan School. In addition, the persons he wrote biographies of were mostly monks of the Song period, and compared to other biographies of monks, there are almost no preposterous records. The lack of trustworthiness his critics complained of does not appear to be the case at all. These were no more than slanders due to his attempt to be unconventional and due to demands for perfection. It is for example like Hu Zi’s criticism of him for “desiring to bestride the literary stage, often being mistaken about the facts. When it came to writing encomia, he also mixed them up with verse, so how can this be the meaning of the indication of praise and blame that is the method of historians?”61 In fact, in his pursuit of the literary, he definitely was not inaccurate, and in using verse to write praises, he also was not necessarily doing so as to display the historical practice of praise and blame. Hu Zi’s criticism was rather being overly stuck in old ways despite the changed circumstances.

60 61

Op. cit., p. 134. Hu Zi, Yuying conghua houji 37.

Chapter 7

The Branch Roads in the Development of Chan Thought: Kanhua Chan and Silent Illumination Chan

The development of the Chan School in the Southern and Northern Song can be said to have undergone an unparalleled prosperity. The spread of its thought really relied on the rise to prominence of lettered Chan. Nevertheless, it created a kind of individual realm of enlightenment and it emphasized the transcendental nature of “entering and exiting apart from both sides” and used “the everyday is the Way,” “to put it down is it,” and “all that is manifested is perfect” to be the best form of life and the spirit of a thorough affirmation of reality, and one cannot use an unequivocal and unified language to define it. After it had passed beyond this, Chan thought increasingly migrated from negation to affirmation, from the abstruse to the everyday, from transcendence to participation (the whole of Buddhism likewise), which gave lettered Chan an ample space to marshal its development. This was likely also to have been a cause for lettered Chan possessing an important value in the history of the development of thought. It was just because it was like this that lettered Chan was a road through to the realm of Chan. It was a method to enter the Way and cultivate realization, and naturally it also differed according to the person. Then the one flower opened into five petals, and then the Chan Dharma flourished greatly. Sometimes it revealed in the words of opportune discernment ( jibian), sometimes performed the functions of meditation (chanding). The excellent words and admirable conduct of virtuosos of the past were used by Song monks in the form of gongan to provide liberation or investigation. If one says that lettered Chan is a story of the correct path of the development of thought, then the categories of “kanhua” and “silent illumination” are the dead ends in the development. As the chart below shows: Words and deeds of the—gongan—lamplight records—hymns on old cases—appraisals virtuosos of old

↓ Kanhua Chan. Silent illumination Chan

© Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_7

and research on letters

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One should say, of course, that such a Chan method incorporates the two aspects of the guidance of students and the individual cultivation of realization. Even though lettered Chan also inspired individuals to cultivate realization, it even more narrated an understanding of Chan. Therefore, it was then able to initiate a massive function for the development of thought. And even though its method of Chan guided students, it still needed to lead the individual to cultivate realization, and therefore at the most it could only be a function of the individual acceptance of the delight in Chan. Even though different views emerged one after the other about the superiority or inferiority of kanhua versus silent illumination, in fact, in terms of the significance of the individual cultivation of realization, they are hard to compare. As Zonggao criticized silent illumination Chan as a perverse Chan of “cold ashes and dead wood,” and that it “eliminates the life and insight of the Buddha,” the Zuting shiyuan censured “those who regard silent sitting as being Chan as being the dumb sheep of our school.” Recent people have also criticized kanhua Chan as being an overcorrection of lettered Chan,1 as “gathering one or two cases of causation in order to solve the great matter [of enlightenment] …. they obtain only a fragment of the idea and yet it is an escape into the Chan Way in its entirety, being just like a group of blind people feeling an elephant do not get its true shape.”2 These criticisms should all be said to have a certain reason. In his Zhongguo Chanzong di Chan (The Chan of the Chinese Chan School), Shengyan (1931–2009) says that when these two forms of Chan are compared, he thinks that the method of practice has relaxed and tense gateways. He recommends the use of a relaxed numinous silent illumination for mentally overworked people, and he recommends the use of kanhua Chan that is a forceful pressure for the mentally unstable and those whose life is indolent. Thus, of course the use of any sort of method “is entirely a lively instigation.” If this is opportunistic trickery, and “every day they make a show of the gongan and play with huatou (the point of the story or gongan), vainly indulging in sharp talk, not having a technique (gongfu) for the true cultivation of real realization,” then “the more people spoke of gongan, the fewer people experienced the taste of Chan.” In fact, the later inferior followers of the Chan School, as Shenyan said, were numerous. Therefore, seen from the viewpoint of the history of thought, the kanhua Chan (looking at the point of the story) and silent illumination Chan that were produced by the Song-period Chan School, not only lead easily to the abuse of Chan, but also was a quietism, a mysticism, and a willfulness that hindered the development of Chan learning and divided it into culs-de-sac. The people representing these two practices were Zonggao and Zhengjue respectively. Their own words were Zonggao’s Zhengfa yanzang (The Eye Store/Appreciation of the Correct Dharma), in which his capping phrases and appraisals were not far apart; and Zhengjue also wrote a Songgu (Hymns on Old Cases) that circulated in public along with Xuedou’s Songgu, and these were appraised by Wansong Xingxiu (1166–1246). They could hardly avoid lettered Chan, 1

Lu Cheng, “Nanbei Chanxue di liuxing” (The Circulation of Northern and Southern Chan Learning) in Zhongguo Foxue yuanliu luejiang (Brief Lectures on the Origins and Developments of Chinese Buddhist Learning), Zhonghua shuju, 1979, p. 260. 2 Nukariya Kaiten, Zhongguo Chanxue sixiang shi, Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1994, p. 604.

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but one cannot also say that they did not contribute to the history of thought. These should be distinguished.

Part 1: Zonggao and Kanhua Chan Zonggao (1089–1163) was a child of the Xi family of Ningguo in Anhui. At twelve, he entered the village school. One day he was playing with a companion at the window and he threw an inkstone and mistakenly hit the teacher. The teacher was compensated and Zonggao abandoned study. He also said, “The gentry read worldly books, so what about the world-transcending Dharma?” Then he joined Huiyun Cloister on Dongshan and was tonsured by Huiqi. He received the full precepts of a monk when he was seventeen. He read the recorded sayings of the masters extensively and had doubts about the branches of the Five Houses, saying, “At the very beginning, there was only Bodhidharma, so how is it that there are so many schools?” Then he requested the benefits of instruction from Mingjiao Shaocheng of Xuanzhou and he investigated the stories of the hymns on old cases of Chongxian. He was able to thoroughly understand the subtle teachings of previous virtuosos. Shaocheng sighed that he was a person who had come twice. Next, he travelled to the school of Reverend Wei of Dongshan (a Dharma heir of Furong Daokai, 1043–1118) and he thoroughly examined the core tenets of Caodong. Because he was asked to burn his forearm with incense to receive the mind-seal, Zonggao said, “Chan has a transmission, so what about the Dharma that the Buddha-patriarch realized by himself and was enlightened to by himself?” Therefore, he was not approved and so he left. In the third year of the Daguan era (1109), he joined the school of Shentang Wenzhun (1061–1115), a Dharma heir of Zhenjing Kewen of the Huanglong branch in Baofeng Monastery of Mt. Letan in Jiangxi. There he formed a relationship with Huihong, like that of a nephew with an uncle (Huihong was a Dharma brother of Kewen). After Wenzhun passed away, Zonggao compiled his recorded sayings, “visiting Huihong Juefan in order to discuss the order of the compilation,” and he asked Huihong to write a dedication for it. Zonggao also sought the writing of a stele inscription for Wenzhun from Zhang Shangying. As soon as they saw each other, they were in accord, and they stayed together talking for a day and a night. Zhang wrote a dedication for the place Zonggao was resident at, calling it “Miaoxi,” and therefore Zonggao also called himself Miaoxi. Because he admired the reputation of Keqin, Zonggao also obtained Zhang Shangying’s assistance, and in the seventh year of the Xuanhe era (1125) he happened to be imperially ordered to live in Tianning Monastery in the capital and he gained entry into Keqin’s school. Zonggao investigated gongan with Keqin, responding to the questions without any hesitation. Then Keqin gave Zonggao the Linji zhengzong ji (Record of the Correct Lineage of Linji) that he had written, and put him in charge of record keeping. Hence, Zonggao’s reputation for knowledge of the Way was known all over and his fame spread through the capital. The Assistant Director of the Right,

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Lu Shuntu (Lu Haowen, 1064–1131) memorialized the throne. Zonggao was imperially granted a purple robe and was titled Fori. The gentry fought to associate with him. Keqin returned to Sichuan and Zonggao also went into hiding, making himself a hermitage to live in. In the second year of the Jingkang era (1127), there was an invasion by the Jurchen, and the capital, Bian fell. The Jurchen Jin (dynasty) wanted to seize ten monks and Zonggao was in their number, but fortunately he escaped and went to Huqiu in Wumen where he spent the summer. It happened that Keqin had been imperially ordered to live in Yunju and he promoted Zonggao to be the senior monk and to preach sermons to the assembly. Keqin once said that following Wuzu Fayan there were three Fo. Following Fojian and Foyan, “I had already a revelation [of faults] come forth,” and it was only here [with Zonggao, Fori] that “there were not these two kinds of illnesses.” Zonggao therefore advocated “striking a flint, there is a spark, and lightning happens in a flash, but the karmic consciousness is so boundless it has no end date.” Keqin deeply considered this to be so and after he returned to Sichuan he said to Assistant Director of the Right Zhang Jun (1097–1164), “Senior monk Zonggao has truly obtained the marrow of the Dharma and if he does not come forth, then there will be no support for the Linji lineage.” Zhang Jun informed the court and in the seventh year of the Shaoxing era (1137), as a consequence, the Nengren Chan Cloister of Jingshan in Lin’an invited Zonggao. The assembly was numerous, the most numerous of the time. They erected a thousand-monk pavilion in the cloister and they gathered together over 1,700 followers. These actions were called the restoration of Linji. At the time, the Councilor of the Right, Tang Situi; the Participant in Governmental Affairs, Li Bing; the Vice Director of the Ministry of Rites, Zhang Jiucheng; the Palace Writer Wang Zao; and the Supervising Secretary, Feng Ji, and other gentry came in a flood. Zonggao then enlightened them in accord with their abilities. In the tenth year of Shaoxing (1140), because he had spoken with Zhang Jiucheng about a “divine arm cross bow,” he incurred the envy of Qin Gui,3 In the next year, because Qin regarded Zonggao as having formed a political faction with Zhang Jiucheng, Qin destroyed Zonggao’s robes and monk certificate, and exiled him to Hengzhou. The “Biography of Zhang Jiucheng” in the Song shi (History of the Song) said, “Zonggao of Jingshan spoke well of the principles of Chan and numerous people followed and travelled with him. When Jiucheng came there, Qin Gui suspected they were discussing him and he ordered the Remonstrator Zhan Dafang to discuss this with Zonggao for vilifying the court government, and he banished him to live in Nan’an Commandery.” It looks as if this was a “trumped-up” case of injustice. In the tenth month of the twenty-sixth year (1156), Zonggao was ordered to shift to Meiyang (Jiaxing in Guangdong Province), but before long he obtained a pardon and he was released to return. In the same year, there was a court directive ordering 3

Tr. Qin Gui (1090–1155) advocated an appeasement policy towards the Jurchen and Zhang was critical, writing a sarcastic verse about these giant crossbows established for defense, suggesting that the bow (and the advocate of the policy) “stinks mightily of a bellows.” That is, this policy and diplomacy was all hot air.

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him to live in Guangli Chan Monastery on Mt. Ayuwang in Mingzhou, and in the twenty-eighth year he was again ordered to live on Jingshan. In the first year of the Longxing era (1163), Emperor Xiaozong took the throne and granted Zonggao the title of Chan Master Dahui, and so Zonggao greatly spread the core teachings of Keqin. In the eighth month of the same year, he often showed signs of a minor illness, and he wrote in a letter, “Life is such, death is such. Whether there is a [death] g¯ath¯a or not, what is the trouble?”4 He threw down his brush and resignedly passed away. He was posthumously called Pujue. Because Zonggao’s Chan was negatively influenced by of the atmosphere of the times, it really could not shake off the influence of the lettered Chan of hymns on old cases and appraisals. Although we can say that the kanhua Chan that he recommended was a correction of lettered Chan, in reality it also was nothing more than a form of compromise between silent illumination and lettered Chan. Zonggao lived in a time when the country was in ruins and he also had exchanges with loyal and righteous gentry, and therefore in his thought there also appears a hue of loyal and righteous patriotism. He said, “Although I study Buddhism, still I love the ruler and worry about the country equally with the loyal and righteous gentry. However, my strength was incapable of doing anything, and so the years passed!” He also proposed that “The mind of bodhi is the mind of loyalty and righteousness. The names are different but the reality is the same.” From this, one can see the characteristics of the mix of Confucianism and Buddhism of the age and the adaptability of Chan to reality. For records of Zonggao’s words and deeds, the essential works are the Dahui Pujue Chanshi yulu (Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Dahui Pujue) compiled by his disciple Yunwen, the Dahui Pujue Chanshi zongmen wuku (Arsenal of the School of Chan Master Dahui Pujue) by Daoqian, and the Dahui Pujue Chanshi nianpu (Chronology of the Life of Chan Master Dahui Pujue) by Zuyong. One can see some aspects of Zonggao’s Chan thought in his own words. He said, At present, brothers, if you consult [or investigate the Chan of] Foguo, it will not allow you to see Foyan. If you see [the Chan of] Fayan, it will not allow you to consult Foguo. It is for example like blind people feeling an elephant, how can you know the intentions of these two elders? In particular, if one does not know Foyan, then you have the regulated Foguo, and [if one knows] Foguo, then you have the unregulated Foyan. If you do not want to be a blind person, then come to see Foguo. If you only see the Nirvana Hall of Foyan, you will be able to save yourself, you cannot do it for other people.5

The Foyan mentioned in this passage is Foyan Qingyuan (1067–1120) who appeared together with Foguo Keqin of the Fayan school. Qingyuan advocated having nothing to do in the mind, to be entirely without (erroneous) thoughts, “[with] Chan, why not sit; [with] sitting, why not Chan?”6 which is esteeming the sitting in meditation. Therefore, Zonggao said that he is “the regulated Foguo,” and so Zonggao picked up the lineage vehicle of Keqin who transcended the lineage, transcended the rules, used letters to evaluate gongan, and saw him as being “the unregulated Foyan.” This 4

Ruxing, Ming gaoseng zhuan (Lives of Eminent Monks Compiled in the Ming). Dahui Pujue Chanshi zongmen wuku. 6 Qingyuan, Zuochan ge (G¯ ath¯a on Sitting in Meditation). 5

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explains that Zonggao’s method of Chan migrated between the regulated and the unregulated, between self-salvation and the salvation of others, which made meditation (chanding) a method to have people enter the Way and a theory to enhance that. One can see that Zonggao’s Chan method and the path of Keqin largely coincided, and that these were very different from that of Foyan. It is no wonder that Foyan criticized kanhua Chan as “emptily debating the words and gongan of people of the past and distinguishing and testing with difficult questions.”7 He even said, “Many followers of the school of Keqin and Zonggao fell into the trap of striking a flintstone for a spark and a lightning flash,8 and not discriminating this from pure Chan, which is why there is some sort of abuse.”9 These criticisms can be said to represent the opinion of the “wordless party,” and yet they provide a background for Zonggao’s Chan learning that was really a path of compromise and synthesis. His kanhua Chan clearly carried traces of a combination of “not speaking” and “speaking.” In his early years, Zonggao had already studied the techniques of “speaking Chan” in the school of Shentang Wenzhun, being able at picking up old cases for comment (niangu), hymns on old cases, informal sermons, and universal sermons. In Keqin’s school he had responded to the voice of the master without hesitation. One can see from the above passage that he not only approved of Keqin’s style of Chan, but that he also seemingly disparaged it and yet praised it. As in his Dharma talks, he not only gathered the sayings and deeds of virtuosos of the past, he also likewise added similar hymns and evaluating capping phrases, which was not much different from Keqin’s Biyan lu. For example, when he quoted Wenyan and Wenyi’s stories of an orange, he added a capping phrase: “Knowing it is an orange, he was ready to shave his head and wash his feet. Even though it was like this, many people misunderstood him.”10 Even though he spoke simply, but with barbed comments, ultimately he was still using letters to speak of Chan, and his interpretation “to shave his head and wash his feet,” when compared with Wenyi’s “encircled, there is a leftover,” and Wenyan’s “as far apart as heaven and earth,” one can almost say that these are “direct words.” However, seen from the perspective of Chan, despite the style of teaching in which the letters speak of Chan being much talked about, this is still attachment to form and attachment to words, and so is a perverse Chan that has lost the Great Way. As a consequence, it was criticized by Chan masters, but the silent illumination Chan was viewed by Zonggao to be the same as a “perverse Chan” that led people into cold ashes and dead wood, and cut off the life of the insight of the Buddha. Therefore, he needed to blaze another path of Chan that led to the shore of awakening, which was the premise of the kanhua Chan thought that he initiated. The Ming-dynasty monk Yuancheng (1561–1626) has this kind of passage in his “Chongke Zhengfa yanzang xu” (Preface to the Reprint of the Zhengfa yanzang), Who could have known the capacity of people to hide the inferior? The Dharma has long produced abuses, or has accepted the vain and accepted echoes (accepted the unreal), and used 7

Xuzangjing, collection 1, compilation 2, case 23, vol. 3, p. 259. Tr. a momentary but passing flash of inspiration about the meaning of a gongan for example. 9 Nukariya Kaiten, op. cit., p. 600. 10 Zhengfa yanzang. 8

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blind flailing and blind beating [with a staff], falsely calling this comprehension of the core themes; or maintaining the clumsy and embracing stupidity, taking the single taste and not speaking of it, viewing this as being one’s original endowment (potential for enlightenment); being as if uncertain, but calling oneself enlightened, or flapping one’s lips and flapping the tongue, taking this to be appropriate their whole lives. There are one hundred and twenty houses of such idiotic Chan that deceive themselves and deceive others, drowning in crazy perversity.

Here he criticizes three kinds of the one hundred and twenty types of crazy and perverse “idiotic Chan,” but he does not mention lettered Chan, so one can see that Yuancheng also stressed the aspect of Zonggao’s contribution to the development of thought. Generally, this reflects the reason why Zonggao adopted the compromise thought of kanhua Chan. As for his attitude towards the Biyan lu, not only did he burn this book, he also destroyed the woodblocks. It was not because he had some sort of fundamental clash over thought and method with his master, Keqin; it was just that he “worried that later people would not be clear about the fundamentals, and solely venerate language, seeking oral shortcuts.” Here there is also no sense of denial of the Biyan lu. Xiling (1247–1322) of the Yuan period evaluated these words as follows: “Whether making this book or burning this book, the intentions are the same.” This definitely belongs to words of fulsome praise, and some say that this is a “turning phrase” about Zonggao’s radical conduct. However, this theory ultimately grasps Zonggao’s and Keqin’s attitude towards the idea of using letters to speak of Chan to be generally in agreement. Xiling further said, “Chan Master Dahui’s sermons as abbot were given due to students who became his pupils, and so his comments were very different. If one doubted them and then examined them, the evil barbs would damage oneself.” Interrogated repeatedly, a person came and said, “There really has been no enlightenment since the Biyan collection was recorded,”11 and therefore Xiling then raised the topic of Zonggao destroying the woodblocks. Xiling’s story must be said to be reliable. Seen in combination with his burning of those parts of the first draft of Huihong’s history, the Chanlin sengbao zhuan, that included nineteen people for whom in the end Zonggao refused to sanction,12 this was another example of Zonggao being excessively conceited and loving to pull a shocking stunt. It is probable that a person who asked him about the Dharma by quoting the Biyan lu did so to embarrass him, and through this to damage his self-esteem, which may have been an immediate cause for him burning the book. Nevertheless, the Biyan lu did not disappear due to Zonggao’s shocking action, as people of the time, even if they were not enlightened to the principles of Chan, could also use the words of the Biyan lu in response to such a great master as Zonggao. This shows the extent of the influence of the Biyan lu and the depth of its infiltration, which was the immensity of the contribution of lettered Chan to the spread of Chan thought. Naturally, speaking of Zonggao, who thought of himself highly, there is an even deeper layer of significance in his putting the Biyan lu to the torch, which was that it 11

Xiling, Biyan lu. Ming, Shuzhong Wuyun, Shan’an zalu (Miscellaneous Records of a Mountain Hermitage). Tr. Z148.334a. The first draft of the Chanlin sengbao zhuan included a hundred biographies, but after Zonggao’s action it contained eighty-one biographies, though a few more were added later.

12

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gave prominence to the position of the kanhua Chan that he promoted. To this end, whenever he opened his mouth, he was certain to rebuke the elder Chan masters from all over, especially using all of his effort to remove silent illumination Chan in order to assist his advocacy of kanhua Chan. He said, Now in all directions there is a class of silent illumination perverse Chan, which I see forms an obstacle of laboring defilements for the gentry. Their hearts are not tranquil as it teaches them to [have minds of] cold ashes and dead wood, to be [like] a piece of blank white silk, to be a censer in an old shrine, and to be cold and frozen, and it uses these to make people take a rest. Can you say that they do not take a rest? Who knows that if that child of a monkey (the mind) is not dead, how can one take a rest?…This style in previous years flourished mightily in Fujian Circuit. When I (Miaoxi) entered into the Min district at the start of the Shaoxing era and stayed in a hermitage, I used my powers to remove it, regarding it as cutting off the life of insight of the Buddha.13

We know from this that when Zonggao first entered Min, he began to remove silent illumination Chan and he also used caustic language, and his attitude to the Biyan lu was poles apart from this. He also said, Now there is a kind of shaven-headed non-Buddhist…who teaches people to be obsessively attentive and to forget thoughts and silently illuminate. Reflecting back and forth and concentrating back and forth, they become increasingly deluded and depressed, and there is no expectation of realization.14 In recent years, there are many paths of Chan…some regard being without words or without speech, sitting in the demon’s cave beneath the black mountains [of ignorance] to be information from before one was born of one’s parents of beyond the time of the King of the Awe-Inspiring Voice [of remote antiquity], and they also regard being silent and constant illumination to be Chan….I always said to Chan monks that if worldly techniques and arts have no enlightenment in them, one should not esteem them as marvelous; rather, one [should] desire to escape birth and death, but they also use the words to speak of calm and so one needs to bring this to an end. It is just like solely rushing east to grab something that is to the west…. In doctrine, this is called being a person who slanders the great prajñ¯a and cuts off the life of the insight of the Buddha.

As Zonggao saw it, not only are the various kinds of Chan method that circulated at that time, especially the methods of no words and no speech, forgetting feelings and silent illumination, that wants enlightenment to the Chan opportunity, that wants to escape birth and death, climbing a tree to catch a fish (barking up the wrong tree), but are also simply cutting off the life of the insight of the Buddha. In order to explain this point, Zonggao used Zhuangzi to explain Buddhism, quoting the “Zeyang” chapter in which Zhuangzi attributed a dialogue to Little Understanding and Great Imperial Accord. “If your talk is worthwhile, then you can talk all day and that will totally pertain to the Way. If your talk is not worthwhile, then you can talk all day and it will totally pertain to things. Neither words nor silence are worthwhile for expressing the ultimate of the Way. Neither talking nor being silent is the ultimate in debate.”15 Even though Zhuangzi’s passage was 13

Dahui Pujue Chanshi pushuo (Universal Sermon of Chan Master Dahui Pujue). Dahui Pujue Chanshi yulu, fascicle 25. 15 Adapted from Watson, p. 293. 14

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aimed at both words and silence, Zonggao still used philosophical Daoism to speak of Chan, the main point being “to refute your silence.” (We can further see from this that the Chan School was founded on the basis of the union of Zhuangzi and Buddhism, continuously strengthening and improving it, and naturally it shows the syncretic features of Song-dynasty Chan.) Zonggao was just refuting and denouncing silent illumination, and promoting kanhua Chan to a prominent position through his action of “alarming the world” by burning the Biyan lu. Kanhua Chan came into vogue because of Zonggao, and Zonggao became famous because of kanhua Chan, but kanhua Chan was not invented by Zonggao. One can say that it was developed as a product of the gongan. Namely, at the end of the Tang period there was a style of kanhua and by the Five Dynasties period, the Chan style spread everywhere and the observation of the point of the story (kanhuatou) started to be spread in that atmosphere. Yunmen Wenyan was not without an indignant criticism of this style, saying, “They raise the stories of past people, remembering and keeping in mind that consciousness, and falsely imagine and estimate, saying that ‘I understand the Buddha-dharma.’”16 Wenyan recognized that they did not know the true marrow (essence) of the Chan teaching, and that being in the entangling vines of the language that is involved with the point of the story (huatou), and being overwhelmed, they regard themselves as having comprehended the Buddha-dharma, which in reality was a form of malpractice that was produced in the flourishing of the Chan School. One can see that observing the point of the story had already been censured by Chan people in the Five Dynasties period. In fact, although kanhua was due to gongan, it was not the same as gongan. Gongan was usually understood directly from the text and therefore it could have various kinds of interpretation in letters, such as hymns on old cases, the picking up of old cases (niangu), substitute replies, appraisals and so on. Observing the point of the story is taking a certain number of words from the gongan and proceeding to investigate them in a form of introspection. Its benefit was that it could stimulate the creative thinking of people; its faults were that it could lead to wild flights of fancy, which is what Wenyan meant by saying, “falsely imagining and estimating.” It is no wonder then that the Ming-dynasty Caodong lineage monk Yuanxian (1578–1657) in his works criticized kanhua saying, “Later people taught observe the huatou with all calculations and explorations; wouldn’t they be too numerous?”.17 Naturally, Zonggao was unable to accept this point. He needed to take some points of the story out of the gongan and use them to destroy the perceptions and feelings about it, block deliberation and discrimination, and clear away intellectual understanding. The huatou then is completely without any sort of meaning, “the mind has nowhere to go, and suddenly it as if one is awakening from a dream, or a lotus flower appearing, or like the clouds parting and one see the sun,”18 which is to achieve a sort of empty, numinous, and transcendent realm. As he said,

16

Xuzangjing, compilation 2, fifty-third chapter, book 2, p. 171. Yuanxian, Yiyan (Dream Words). 18 Dahui Pujue Chanshi shu (Letters of Chan Master Dahui Pujue). 17

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Just take the falsely imagining and deranged mind, and the deliberating mind, and the mind that loves life and hates death, and the mind that enjoys calm and dislikes clamor, and all at once put them down, and just where one has put it down, observe the point of the story. A monk asked Zhaozhou, “Does a dog have a Buddha-nature or not?” Zhaozhou said, “It does not (wu).” This single character (wu) is a weapon to destroy bad knowing and bad perception. One must not make the understanding that [the nature] exists or does not, one must not make the understanding that it is a principle, one must not deliberate or ponder with the faculty of consciousness, and one must not be fixated on raising eyebrows and blinking eyes. One must not make a livelihood on the path of words, one must not abandon it into a shell with nothing to do, one must not accept the [understanding of] what is raised, and one must not search for realization in the letters. Simply, in all the hours of a day, within the four postures of decorum (all activities), at all times pay attention (investigate) and at all times be aware [of what was raised].19

This is Zonggao’s explanation of the guiding principles of his kanhua Chan. Here he stresses that one should totally put down the mind of false imagination, discrimination, birth and death, intellectual understanding, and of like and dislike. In reality, it is a requirement that one eliminate differentiation, clearing away intellectual understanding, and making it so there is nothing in mind. Afterwards, one takes up the huatou to investigate it, and since one must not understand it as being existent and non-existent, and one must not understand it in terms of reason, and one must not use logic to make deductions, one must not follow form to conjecture; one must not seek for [understanding] from the words. In short, this says one cannot use the methods of reason and logic to ascertain its meaning. Thus, “feelings and consciousness are not active, just like the earth and wood images of people, and when one feels as if in stupor, and there is no clue that can be grasped, then that is good news.”20 Simply speaking, first of all one needs to block deliberation and make it so that there is no mind, no thoughts, and then use non-reasoning and non-logical forms of thinking to fully investigate a meaningless huatou, and at the time when one reaches the inability to do anything, then one is able to use this empty and numinous mind to experience and transcend all realms. Here the key is no-mind, the blockage of discrimination and deliberation, and then one advances so that it is not existent, not non-existent, neither not existent nor not non-existent, neither existent nor not non-existent. This is in complete agreement with the fundamental tenets of the Chan School, namely being apart from characteristics, apart from cognitive objects, transcendence of the tetralemma, and elimination of negation and all negation. Therefore, Xiling said that Zonggao and Keqin “had the same intentions.” It was nothing more than Zonggao using huatou to make introductory remarks, and even though one cannot say it was not a kind of method, it could still be a rather better mode for indicating Chan than the forceful modes of demonstrating Chan such as bulging eyes staring at one, being beaten up with fists and feet, even blades cutting off fingers. However, it definitely was not the very best of modes, for one can even say that opportunists used it to gain advantage by trickery and imposters played to the gallery, drawing the Chan School into mistaken modes. 19 20

Dahui Pujue Chanshi shu, “Da Fu Shumi (Jijia)” (Reply to Military Affairs Commissioner Fu). Dahui Pujue Chanshi shu.

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However, Zonggao, in criticizing the Chan that used forceful instructions, who sometimes used the mode of practicing Chan by not answering questions, distinctly pointed out that these people “may regard all language as being uninvolved with matters.”21 He was explaining that he did not deny that there was a close and indivisible relationship of language and letters with the Chan Way. One needed to put down the “five minds” and the “eight must nots” (seen in the above quoted passage), for are not the strings of matching long sentences that rush onwards also language and letters? One can see that innumerable theories are definitely not the equal to seeing clearly by oneself. Nevertheless, innumerable words are also able to inspire and lead people to see clearly for themselves. Speaking concretely, Zonggao observed only six or seven huatou.22 In summary, his requirement for the search was the need for enlightenment, the need for doubt, the need to investigate the live (vivifying) sentence and not to investigate the dead sentence. As for enlightenment, one can still rely on language and letters to explain how one “greatly doubts and is greatly enlightened,” and explain what is the dead sentence and what is the vivifying sentence. Please look at the following: To see the moon, stop looking at the finger; to return home, stop asking the way….It is like the monk who asked Zhaozhou, “Does a dog have a Buddha-nature or not?” Zhaozhou said, “It does not.” Only pay attention (investigate) and be aware of what is raised; whether it comes from the left that is not it; if it comes from the right that is not it. Also, one must not take the mind to wait for enlightenment, one must not accept [the understanding of] what is raised; one must not make calculations as to whether it has or has not, and one must also not consider whether it is the has not of true non-existence, nor must one sit inside that shell of having nothing to do, nor must one understand it as being the state of the spark from striking a flint-stone and a lightning flash. Even if one has a mind without functions, when the mind is without function, do not fear falling into emptiness, for here is still a good place. Suddenly an old mouse enters into an ox horn (a trap, a dead-end dilemma), and if one sees that then the errors are eliminated.

And no matter what really is the meaning of this huatou, it still is just this one character wu (does not have/does not exist), and Zonggao also could hardly avoid writing numerous words on the subject. Even though he said that Zhaozhou’s story was not it (correct) from the right and not it from the left, yet it ultimately was still a sort of “paying attention” (prompt) and a “raising of awareness.” He said it cannot be like this or like that; both were to teach people not to take the character wu (has not, non-existent) to be a dead sentence and not to take it to be any kind of form, content, or method for investigation, and that in “all kinds of doubt” one is to return to vast space. It is just to cast off perplexity and achieve a transcendental realm that cannot be indicated by language or by silence. In fact, the achievement of this realm is via the attention and raising to awareness that is dependent on language. At the least this says that Zonggao’s idea was like this. 21

Dahui Puji Chanshi yulu, fascicle 24. There is the cypress tree in front of the courtyard, three catties of hemp, dried shit-stick, does a dog have a Buddha-nature or not, and so on.

22

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In summary, Zonggao’s kanhua Chan contributed nothing new to thought. In terms of method, its struggle to display its artfulness lay solely in fantasizing about a phrase or a character, and one cannot really say that it was a kind of positive force and proper course in the development of the Chan School. His attacks on silent illumination everywhere were also only a demand due to sectarian rivalry and were not a dispute over right or wrong, superiority or inferiority. Besides this, it is worth taking up the example of the nun Wuzhu, who, before she became a nun, was friends with Zonggao and the senior monk Daoyan (1094–1164). Under Zonggao’s direction, she put the words “Buddha and Dharma see each other” on the bed curtain. Wuzhu lay naked on the bed and Daoyan asked, “What place (basis of enlightenment) is this here?” Wuzhu said, “The buddhas of the three ages and the six generations of patriarchal teachers all came out of here.” Daoyan said, “Do you allow me to enter or not?” The text is in fascicle 3 of the Wujia zhengzong zan (Praises of the Correct Lineage of the Five Houses). In fact, whether this is true or not cannot be verified, but it certainly reflects a tendency in the development of the Chan School—under the influence of the style of extravagance of the Song-period gentry who visited prostitutes and went whoring in the entertainment districts, and exchanged verses with each other—in which a number of famous monks used Chan language full of licentious innuendo, changing the original model of “departing and entering that is apart from both sides” and absolute negation into a Chan of “all that appears is perfect,” a Chan of thorough affirmation. The development of Chan thought in the Song period had already started on another stage.

Part 2: Zhengjue and Silent Illumination Chan If one investigates the origin of Chan, one should say that the basic form was calm and ding (sam¯adhi). One enters calm on the basis of ding (concentration) and so there is insight (prajñ¯a) due to ding. These were the original concepts of early Chan. It was due to what Bodhidharma called “externally halting the conditions, internally the mind has no panting,” and “the mind is like a standing wall.” He sat facing a wall for nine years so that the shadow of his body was fully engraved onto the stone wall. Therefore, whichever faction of the Chan School it was, of course, it was usually said that they all advocated the need to sit in meditation (zuochan). There are a few sermons in the Platform Sutra about sitting in meditation. However, after Huineng presented the sermon on “being apart from characteristics is chan,” “externally it is chan and internally it is ding,”23 not only did the content of chan develop changes in constitution, but also the form of sitting in meditation as a method of cultivating realization had virtually been abandoned. The majority of Chan members followed the principles of Xuanjue (665–713)’s “walking is also chan, sitting is also chan, speech and silence, movement and calm, the body peaceful,” which saw silence, sitting, and calm to be the Way of Chan, something that can exist and may not exist. 23

Platform Sutra.

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Zonggao strenuously denied silent illumination Chan and even when it is traced back to its source, Bodhidharma’s chan-contemplation (changuan) was merely viewed as having been a gateway of the skillful means of entering the Way and was not the Way itself. Thus, “it was regarded as a fault to maintain the skillful means and not abandon them,” which reflects the fact that the Chan School from Song times and later reflected the tendency in thought to no longer cling to this form of sitting in meditation. Nevertheless, at exactly the same time as Zonggao and others strenuously attacked sitting in meditation, Zhengjue independently raised the banner of silent illumination Chan. Zhengjue (1091–1157) was of the Li clan of Xizhou in Shanxi Province. When he was young, he was versed in the five Confucian classics, and at eleven years of age he served Benzong of Jingming Monastery in the same district and was ordained. At fourteen, he went to Ciyun Monastery in Jinzhou (Zhengding Superior Prefecture in Zhili) and took the full precepts from the monk Zhiqiong. At eighteen, he travelled around to consult and learn. He crossed the Yellow River into Luoyang and visited Longmen. He went on to Xiangshan Monastery in Ruzhou and visited Kumu Facheng (1071–1128). Facheng was a Dharma-heir of the famous Caodonglineage monk Furong Daokai. Then he heard that the Way of Danxia Zichun was flourishing, and at the age of twenty-three he went to Dengzhou and became a pupil of Zichun. Zichun was also a direct disciple of Daokai. In the second year of the Xuanhe era (1120), he followed Zichun to Mt. Dahong in Suizhou, where he was put in charge of record keeping (i.e. was the secretary of the monastery), and in the next year he rose to the office of the senior monk in the assembly. In the fourth year of the Xuanhe era (1122), Qingliao of Mt. Changlu of Zhenzhou (in the district of Yangzhou Superior Prefecture) heard of Zhengjue’s reputation and wrote to invite him, also ordering that he be made the senior monk. In the sixth year of the Xuanhe era (1124), Puzhao Chan Monastery in Sizhou (in Anhui Province) had a position reserved for him. When Emperor Huizong travelled south, he invited Zhengjue to an audience and because of this, the assembly of Puzhao Monastery flourished. From the first year of the Jianyan era (1127), he was in sequence abbot of Taiping xingguo Chan Cloister in Shuzhou, Anhui, and then of Yuantong chongsheng Chan Cloister on Mt. Lu in Jiangzhou (Jiujiang). In the next year, he resigned from his post and travelled to Yunju, meeting Keqin, who vigorously invited Zhengjue to be abbot on Mt. Changlu. According to tradition, while Zhengjue was abbot at Changlu, a bandit (enemy soldier) led troops into the monastery and the monk assembly were all frightened, but Zhengjue calmly sat up in the hall waiting for the bandits to arrive. He charmed them with excellent words, causing the bandits to give gold and grain to the monastic assembly. In the autumn of the third year of Jianyan (1129), Zhengjue crossed over from Jiantang to Mingzhou and he sailed the ocean in order to go and worship Guanyin on Mt. Putuo (on an island). On the way, he passed through Jingde Monastery in Tiantong. This monastery had a vacancy and they wanted to ask Zhengjue to be abbot. Zhengjue heard of this and wanted to avoid it, but he was surrounded by its assembly and throughout the evening he could not move, and he had no alternative but to accept the invitation, and so he took up the post at Tiantong. Before long, the

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Jurchen Jin troops came south and the monasteries all declined to accept travelling monks, but Zhengjue did not reject them. He recognized that he was fortunate that in those days that the monastery was still his possession, so why not share it with the assembly. While waiting for the Jin troops to come, Zhengjue climbed to the top of a stupa. The invaders gazed at it as if it was divinely protected, so the troops were checked and they retreated. Although this story is mixed with a romantic hue, one can still see Zhengjue’s courage, insight, and heroism. Zhengjue lived in Tiantong for approximately thirty years during which time he responded to an imperial directive to live in Lingyin for several months. When Zhengjue first came, the number of monks at the monastery numbered less than two hundred, but afterwards, students attended from all over, and the monk assembly exceeded a thousand in number, “and the monastery buildings totaled several thousand bays ( jian), all of them new,” and between the two mountains in which the monastery was located they blocked off the sea and flooded into the fields. The annual income was three times it had been before and the needs of all the assembly were provided for. In that thirty years, Zhengjue put great effort into promoting teaching the silent illumination of the merging of principle and phenomena, the mutuality of the biased and correct, the identity of light and dark (enlightenment and ignorance), and the empty numinosity of quietude and illumination, which teaching formed a third leg of the trinity of the three branches of the Chan methods together with lettered Chan and kanhua Chan. In fact, this was not purely due to the power of attraction possessed by the method of silent illumination Chan, and to a great extent the prosperity of Tiantong was due to Zhengjue’s ability to manage and administer it. Zonggao said that he “raised Caodong when it had fallen down, needled [as in acupuncture] the vital organs [of Caodong] when it was certain to die,” and again raised the Caodong lineage that had already declined and come to an end in the Song, but he did not say that silent illumination probably also had this sense. On the eighteenth of the tenth month of the seventeenth year of the Shaoxing era (1157), Zhengjue sat upright and wrote a letter entrusting his funerary arrangements to Zonggao. Then he threw down his brush and passed away. He was posthumously titled Chan Master Hongzhi. The sayings and deeds of his lifetime were collected and recorded in Hongzhi Zhengjue Chanshi guanglu (Extensive Records of Chan Master Hongzhi Zhengjue). As the name silent illumination implies, this is silent sitting and contemplative illumination. This practice likewise is in order to actualize the Chan tenets of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature, clearly perceiving the source and advancing to the transcendent realm. Therefore, it likewise is only a sort of chan (meditation) method, or it can be said to be a method and not an aim. Speaking of it in terms of the development of thought, it cannot have any notable contribution. When the chan (meditation) method was first transmitted to China, the original idea was that it was a method for controlling the mental state and bringing it into ding (sam¯adhi), which stressed sitting properly and keeping quiet and calm. By the time of Huijiao (497–554) of the Liang, people already viewed chan as being a sort of spiritual realm that was achieved by union with Daoist philosophical thought, and naturally it also had the sense of a clear examination of the basis of the Way. Huijiao

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said, “Chan is a word for the marvelous understanding of all things … it takes the dharma as an object and it examines cognitive objects, and only when these are quietened is there enlightenment.”24 That is to say, chan is a pathway to recognize the intrinsic reality and is also the intrinsic reality itself, but it required the reaching of this point, and it could also draw on the assistance of sitting to maintain quietude. Here, even though it had endowed chan with a new thought content, it still could not be divorced from calm and sitting. Therefore, all of the meditation masters who practiced the meditation method (chanfa) regarded sitting in meditation (zuochan) to be a non-dual Dharma-gateway (teaching). After the Chan School had formed, chan had already been regarded as entirely a method of thinking, and being treated as a realm of thinking there therefore could be many kinds of pathways to enter the Way, and because of this there could not be a set form of sitting. Huineng advanced this by promoting the idea that “externally being apart from characteristics is chan, internally not being confused is ding (concentration),”25 which only required reaching being apart from characteristics and being apart from thoughts for it to be chanding. That is to say, one can be enlightened to the Chan sphere while walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, in the midst of the daily activities of life, anytime and anywhere, in some form, which is the so-called “carrying water and chopping wood, all of this is Chan.” Huineng’s pupils even regarded sitting in meditation to be a technique that is an obstacle to the Way. Huairang pointed out to Mazu that it was “[like] polishing a brick to make a mirror.” He said this in order to shed light on the reasoning of “how can you become a Buddha by sitting in meditation?”, which is a denial of sitting in meditation. After the Chan School rose, sitting in meditation clearly was relegated into a position of being not essential. Nevertheless, sitting was ultimately a style of the Chan patriarchs. The lineage of Shenxiu held firmly to “If you want to attain an understanding of the Way, you must sit in meditation and practice ding (sam¯adhi),” and through sitting in meditation one contemplates the mind and contemplates purity. In Huineng’s school, the Caodong lineage monk, Shishuang Qingxu (807–888) was famous for regarding those who sat for a long time and did not lie down to be “the assembly of dead wood.” The decline of the Caodong lineage in the Song period was doubtlessly related to the thought that it advocated, the mutuality of the biased and proper, and the characteristic itself is the truth, but the comparative importance it gave to sitting, which was of no help to the form of the development of its thought, was most likely to have been an important cause leading to its decline. Seen formally, Zhengjue’s silent illumination Chan still advocated silent sitting, and therefore there were people who said that he revived the Caodong lineage, when really one should say that he revived the meditation method of the early period of its transmission. It is completely beyond question that Zhengjue, in promoting silent illumination Chan, had been influenced by the lineage style of quiet illumination and empty numinosity of the Caodong lineage. His two teachers in succession, of course Facheng, but also Zichun, were equally monks who gave importance to sitting in meditation. 24 25

Huijiao, Gaoseng zhuan, section on the practice of meditation. Platform Sutra.

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The former was known as “dead-wood Facheng” and the latter taught monks to “sit frostily in the hall of dead wood.”26 Nevertheless, Zhengjue did not advocate anything like the dead-wood sitting that they spoke about; the main point he emphasized was the introspective contemplative illumination and the perfect fusion within the contemplative illumination. It was truly in order to differentiate the calm sitting and dead-wood sitting of earlier times that he purposely called it “silent illumination.” His Mozhao ming (Inscription on Silent Illumination) generally explains the relationship of sitting and contemplation with the inclusion of substance and function, principle and phenomena, emptiness and existence, light and dark, the empty eon and present time, equality and differentiation, absolute and relative et cetera. The essentials are as follows: Ever so silent, forgetting words; Ever so clearly it appears before one. Numinously it illuminates alone; In the illumination, it returns to the marvel. The marvel is preserved in the place of silence; The ambition of effort is in illumination. The correct and biased revolves around; Light and dark depend on each other. This dependence has no subject or object; At what time are they mutual? Mutual at whatever time; Killing and vivifying are in me. Silence is only the extreme (limit) of words; Illumination is only the universal response. If in illumination one loses silence; Then one will be intimidated. If in silence one loses illumination; Then it entirely becomes an excessive dharma (method). The principle of silent illumination is perfect; The lotus blooms and one wakes from the dream.

Proper and biased, mutuality, are all the language of the Caodong lineage, the meaning indicating principle and phenomena, substance and function perfectly merged with no hindrances. These passages just say that silence is to realize illumination, and illumination also cannot be divorced from silence. Silence and illumination are united, principle and phenomena are perfectly merged, and like this also a lotus blooms and one wakes from a dream. All rivers course for the ocean, one clearly discerns the mind-source, and one achieves “killing and vivifying are in oneself,” and transcends all realms. Here he almost wants to say, “Only if there is quiescence, is there enlightenment.” If it is like this then this is similar to the chan of the Qi and Liang periods. Nukariya Kaiten said, “Zhengjue’s silent illumination Chan is the secret of Bodhidharma,” his reason being that “silence” is Bodhidharma’s “mind like a standing wall” and “illumination” is Huike’s “clear and constant knowing.”27 Nukariya is evidently saying that Zhengjue’s silent illumination Chan traces back to Bodhidharma, and that Zhengjue understood the core theme and got the meaning, and through this we can see the differentiation and connection he made between the chan as a method and the Chan of Chan thought. Objectively speaking, viewed from its content, what Zhengjue called “illumination” was not a new creation. Not only did Huijao already define it as “taking dharmas 26 27

Danxia Zichun Chanshi yulu. Nukariya, op. cit., 1994, p. 608.

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as objects and examining the cognitive objects” and a “word for the marvelous understanding all things,” and Huike said it is “clearly and constantly knowing,” but also from the time the Chan School was first founded, Huineng had stressed that “buddha is the creation of the self-nature; do not seek it outside of oneself,” and advocated “the use of wisdom to contemplate and illuminate” and “see the nature and become buddha.”28 Later, not only did the Caodong lineage teach empty numinosity and quiet illumination, but also Deshan of the Qingyuan branch also guided students by saying that “If in the mind there is nothing to do, then it is empty and numinous, quiet and marvelous.”29 Numinous and marvelous are illumination; from this one can say that introspective illumination is the most notable feature of and gateway to enter the Way of the Chan School. Zhengjue’s silent illumination clearly followed after the style and features of the early period of the transmission of the meditation method, still highlighting the forms of silent sitting. Comparing them with the development of the Chan thought of his period, it was evidently a kind of retreat, a kind of retreat that was of no assistance to the development of the thought of the society. Naturally, what the so-called retreat points to is the form of silence and not to the content of the illumination. In fact, Zhengjue was definitely not silent in the way that the usual anti-language and letters dumb sheep were. At the same time as he stressed that “In the study of Buddhism and the discernment of the marvel of the lineage house (Chan), be sure to cleanse the mind and conceal the spirit, silently frolic and look inwards,” he also gave importance to “thoroughly seeing the source of the Dharma.” That is to say, silent sitting was undoubtedly important, but as with language and letters and investigating the huatou, it was only the finger and not the moon. Naturally, this sort of “finger” (indicator) did not reside in the guidance, but sought to part the clouds blocking the moon from view or push them down. Therefore, he said, In words it is marvelous; in silence it is also marvelous. When speaking, always be silent; when silent, always speak, and then one can transcend the four empty [heavens] and leave the three worlds. When silent, not a single character or even a dot is missing; speaking clearly, not a single word or sentence is anything exceptional.30

Speech is stopped, not speaking is stopped. When one is speaking, one resides in reliance on the finger to see the moon; therefore, one can say it is not speaking. And when not speaking, one still can follow the finger and see the moon; therefore, one can say it is always speaking. And when silent, one is also not divorced from language and the contemplative illumination in particular needs the assistance of pre-existing language. Isn’t the Hongzhi Chanshi guanglu also language and letters that express Zhengjue’s mode of silent illumination? If not, then silent illumination Chan can only become the expression of a single Chan master, and we also have no means of discussing its positives and negatives. 28

Platform Sutra. Keqin, Jijie lu (Record of Striking a Beat). 30 Hongzhi Chanshi guanglu. 29

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Besides this, it is worth raising the idea that Zhengjue’s silent illumination is also compatible with Zhuangzi’s thought. His “sitting and forgetting right and wrong, silently seeing the detachment [from characteristics] and the subtle [function],” “empty and vast in its embrace, the equal of vast space, dividing up the methods, equivalent to all phenomena,” “equalizing things and dreaming of a butterfly, enjoying the nature and looking at fish,” “all the array of phenomena are the same in their transformations,” “the two modes [yin and yang] cover and carry, identical in the Way,” and “appearing and disappearing, unfolding and folding up, all is within me” et cetera, everywhere there are traces of the concepts of Zhuangzi such as words like “jade green, trampling over the lotus leaves in the rain; the white egret thrusts through the mist of the bamboo forest,” “in the realm of dreaming of a butterfly, at ease there is something of interest, the dew cicada’s heart is pure and without any dust (contamination),” and so on. Many of these words are taken from Zhuangzi, and everywhere his words are permeated with the sentiment and hues of Zhuangzi romanticism. These are also habituation by the Song-dynasty Chan monks to the style of the graceful and gorgeous life of enjoying leisurely drinking and singing softly of the scholarly world, and expresses the idea of playing to the gallery with claptrap.

Part 3: Criticisms of Kanhua Chan and Silent Illumination Chan From the time Buddhism entered China and had been propagated for several hundred years, it had adjusted and reformed, and had assimilated by merging with Confucianism and Daoism. In particular, on the basis of Zhuangzi’s thought, Huineng’s improvements and consummation of the Chan thought system of “look back at one’s own mind, see the nature, and become buddha,” “calm the mind in inaction and allow it to operate in accord with conditions,” were a revolution that actualized the Buddhist move from an external to an internal orientation, and really founded a typical Sinification of Buddhism, that is the Chan School. That is to say, Chan thought had a long period of continuity and process of development. By the time of Huineng’s heirs, that is, in the late Tang and the Five Dynasties, this one thought had already formed into a system, its theory had already developed to a high point, and its essential meaning had almost been completely elaborated. What remained were the conventional commentaries on this theoretical system, its propagation, and occasionally there may have been a breakthrough in some aspect. The mainstream of Chan thought from the Song and after was mostly like this. Firstly, with the scholarly theory of the mind-nature as its base, it actualized the Dark Learning thought that transcended oppositions. Secondly, coming out of daily functions, it amply elaborated on the everyday mind in which all that appears is perfect and putting it down is it. Philosophical negation and the affirmation of reality ran in parallel without conflict, which provided an ample

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theoretical basis for the later secularization of Buddhism, its participatory spirit, the joint cultivation of Chan and Pure Land, and the convergence of the three religions. And yet, the development of thought is not entirely linear, and the already perfected Chan thought either pushed its infiltration into society to a high level or it adopted thorough negation. There was another path besides this, which was in the preservation of its fundamental thought and under the conditions of not changing this, it poured old wine into new bottles, into its methods, manipulating the strange and trying to be artful. The Song-dynasty Chan School definitely flourished, but the majority still followed this path. They respected the gongan as scripture, chewing them over, just as an old mouse gets stuck in an ox-horn (stuck in an inescapable dilemma). Some wrote hymns on gongan, or picked them up as cases, or made substitute replies, or made appraisals of them. Naturally there was also sitting, investigation of the huatou, but there was also those who deliberately mystified them, who raked up the old techniques of the gongan and repeatedly performed them, people who seemed to be going the longer way round, making gongan more profound and so making people less clear about them, so that the taste of Chan became even stronger. These various methods of striving to be novel to attract attention, of digging up the house to get a mouse, not only drew the Chan School into branch roads but also lost the Chan School’s true spirit of being enlightened to the mind and seeing the nature, of self-awakening and awakening others. This forced Chan practitioners into dead ends. At the same time as Shanzhao, Keqin, Huihong and others spoke indirectly of Chan, it was able to regain consciousness of language and letters and make them into indispensable tools for such so-called ineffable Chan, thereby promoting lettered Chan and making a comparatively major contribution to the development of Chan thought. And yet in reality, kanhua Chan and silent illumination Chan hindered the development of Chan, or it may be said that they made the Chan School slide into branch paths. Zonggao still retained his critical spirit about this, saying, In recent times, the sermons of false teachers, who are as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, damaged the Buddha-dharma. They each set up a school style, and each preach strangely and peculiarly, consequently instituting rules for bringing these [schools] together, but suspecting they are incorrect, they are later confused. They are innumerable.31

This passage completely exposes the nature of the splendid decoration of the Songdynasty Chan School—which is just that complicated situation buried under the silt. He also said, The chief of these perverse views is regarding the combination of seeing, hearing, feeling and knowing as oneself, and regarding the directly perceived sense-realms as the Dharmagateway (teaching) of the mind-ground. The lesser of them play with the karmic consciousness and recognize the population of their school, pumping both of the bellows of the winnow (being verbose), talking of mysteries and speaking of marvels. The most extreme of them even go mad and do not rein in the number of letters, speak nonsense, and point to the east while directing to the west. The worst of the worst use silent illumination and no words, being ever so empty and so quiet, and when they come into the demon cave (stupor), they seek ultimate ease. The other sorts of perverse views may be knowable but not through words. 31

Dahui Pujue Chanshi yulu 14.

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As Zonggao saw it, the Chan methods of his time had mostly lost the basic tenets of the Chan School, namely enlightening the mind and seeing the nature, to the extent that they regarded intellectual understanding as correct understanding; those not quite there relied on their faction, played with the karmic consciousness, talked of mysteries and spoke of marvels, talking nonsense; and the furthest from the Way were also those the Chan masters were least able to tolerate, who were the advocates of empty, quiet, silent illumination. Here we can see Zonggao’s attitude of complete rejection of silent illumination, but it definitely reveals the incorrect style of the Chan group. He always denounced them. Again, for example, he said, Chan Master Yuantong Xiu visited Xuexia and said, “There are three kinds of monks at Xuexia. The top-class monks sit in meditation in the hall, the mediocre class grind ink and dip their brushes in it to write poetry, and the lowest class surround the stove and talk and eat.” In the dingwei year (1127) I was in Huqiu and I personally saw these three classes of monk, and unconsciously I could not help laughing for I knew that my predecessor’s words were not false.32

In Huqiu, Zonggao personally saw some monks deliberately mystifying the teaching, pretentiously posing as cultured people, or seeking to make a living and not seeking the Way, and “he unconsciously could not help laughing.” This story had already caustically lost him the tolerant bearing of a Buddhist master. Zonggao said that although there were such monks in Huqiu, he was really aiming at the abuses that had developed in the whole of the Chan School at that time. On this point, his criticism should be said to have something propelling it with regard to the development of thought. However, his regard for kanhua Chan as being the highest vehicle of the Chan method was sectarian. If he had been able to extend his criticism to the observation of the huatou that he espoused, this kind of criticism could also be said to have been worth mentioning. In fact, the observation of the huatou that Zonggao advocated solely resided in the words and sentences of the gongan, even to the extent of devoting effort to each single, individual letter. Since one does not investigate its meaning, nor investigate its background, it was just used to draw people into “a swoon where one had not a clue to cling to,” being in a state “just like the images of people of earth and wood,” and due to this one again (supposedly) advances to the sphere of Chan. It really is a method of doing things that is even more preposterous than silent illumination Chan. The latter uses sitting to enter into tranquility; the observation of the huatou requires students of the Way to deliberate on a single letter or single phrase as some meaningless thing, and thereby repress all knowledge and views, which is to block off thinking, and yet advance into the sphere of awakening. For the moment, we will not speak of investigation, but we must aim at the concrete content, but a thing without any sort of content also has no way to be investigated. If this investigation can be carried out, why isn’t it like directly advancing into a state of swooning but still requiring one to ruin the effect by adding something superfluous? From this we can see that silent illumination Chan also is real, and the observation of the huatou is a method set up to try and find a stratagem, with the intention of playing to the gallery. Therefore, 32

Dahui Pujue Chanshi zongmen wuku.

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a modern person criticized huatou Chan. “This is his technique (gongfu), which is very much like the current art of hypnosis. If that was all there was to Bodhidharma’s teaching, then it would be so shallow as to be not worth talking about. If you want to rely on Zonggao’s technique in order to enlighten people to the marvelous truth of human life, it is definitely not hopeful.”33 These words undoubtedly treat Zonggao from a silent illumination standpoint and are unavoidably biased, but the content of the criticism hit the target of the faults of observing the huatou. It is evident that no matter whether silent illumination or kanhua, they should be all right as a method of individual cultivation of realization and may reap the expected result, but there is no way to gauge that personal experience and it is difficult to judge whether it is correct or not, and yet it also makes people rely on the explanations via language and letters. The story of Juzhi (Tang dynasty monk) cutting off a finger explains exactly that since these sorts of meditation methods were able to reap the success of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature, it can also be an example of the person seizing a chance to cheat people and cheat the public. One cannot say that there was no relationship between the decadence of Buddhism in later periods and the cunning seizing of chances to deliberately mystify, the concentration on the huatou, and the playing of tricks in Chan sitting by the later, inferior followers of the Chan School. According to tradition, Wang Anshi (1021–1086; a controversial political reformer) visited Chan Master Jiangshan Yuan (Liaoyuan, 1032–1098?), who evaluated people past and present for him. Jiangshan said, “Your manner of speaking oppresses people. I am afraid that your writings are forced in their search [for perfection] and that your motives are incorrect, so why not sit in meditation and embody the great affair [of nirvana]?” Wang followed this. One day he said to Jiangshan, “Sitting in meditation really does not harm people. For a number of years, I tried to work on writing Hujia shiba pai (Eighteen Cadences for the Barbarian Flute), but I was unable to complete it. In a night’s sitting [after meditating], it was completed.” Jiangshan laughed out loud.34 This story is very humorous and Jiangshan’s laughter was even more humorous. Jiangshan said that Wang Anshi’s writings were labored and that his motives were incorrect, and that he needed to sit in order to correct this. While Wang Anshi’s sitting was sitting, still he not only did not have an “experience of the great affair,” but he also “completed in a night of sitting” the Hujia shiba pai that he had long been working on but had not finished. What sort of correction was he talking about? Jiangshan only had laughter to give him. This explains that the results of each form and each kind of meditation method is hard to test and verify, and since one can experience the Great Way, one can also apply its real functions and naturally one can use it to fool other people. Even though the sitting in meditation that has a definite aim is like this, it is still like blind men feeling an elephant (and making different conclusions about what it is) and like a deluded person mistaking

33 34

Nukariya Kaiten, op. cit., p. 605. Dahui Pujue Chanshi zongmen wulu.

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his head for the reflection (in a mirror).35 Does not the kanhua Chan also easily serve as the observer’s capability to deceive himself and deceive others? Examined carefully, the Chan School that began from Huineng and publicly labelled itself as not reliant on letters, which doubtless had its original cause in “the Way is not in words” at one level, on the other hand in fact was also hindered by components that it may fundamentally have had no wish to directly confront, and so were somewhat unclearly enunciated and unclearly spoken. Under the entry, “Liuzi Huineng Dajian Chanshi” (The Sixth Patriarch, Chan Master Huineng Dajian) in fascicle 1 of the Wudeng huiyuan there is such a story. The nun Wujinzang read the Nirvana Sutra out loud, and hearing it, Huineng then explained its meaning. The nun held up a fascicle and asked what character was on it, and Huineng said, “I do not know characters, but please ask me about the meaning.” The nun said, “If you do not know characters, how can you understand the meaning?” Huineng said, “The marvelous principle of the buddhas is unrelated to letters.” Then the nun Wujinzang told the village, “Huineng is a person who has the Way; it is best to ask to venerate him.” The Platform Sutra does not contain this record, which is a strained interpretation made by his disciples. Here, Huineng’s interpretation doubtlessly had its theoretical basis, but such an exaggeration is nothing but over-compensating for the deficiency of Huineng who was regarded as having been illiterate. Not knowing letters also had the principle of people who did not know letters. As they saw it, it seems as if illiteracy is not a weak point, but is a positive. Such artful speech and ingratiating manners really were insufficient to be proof. In reality, Huineng’s preaching did not place “non-reliance on letters” in an extraordinarily important position, but his disciples, especially some Chan monks of the Song period, specially made a fuss over “non-reliance on letters” and were rather too stuck in the old ways in the face of changing circumstances, and so confused the reflection for their head. Just because it was so, a Chan monk showed his followers a g¯ath¯a that said, “Black, black, black; Way, Way, Way; bright, bright, bright; get, get, get,” and even drew something like ==, something that was inexplicable, that deluded people and the public, using this as a sign of a special experience of being deep and remote. The Chan of non-reliance on letters was more or less like this. It is no wonder that Su Dongpo (Su Shi, 1036– 1101) also said, “The eminent are out for fame, the inferior are out for profit, the aftermath and the remainders and the later inferior followers reach everywhere, and so the Buddha-dharma is in decline.”36 Also, the author of the Zuting shiyuan, Mu’an Shanqing of the Song period, explained it well: “Many [who maintain] non-reliance on letters lose the meaning,” “All the dharma (teachings) are confused, why is it that letters alone are not to be relied on?” “Why wait until after the means by which one sees the nature and becomes buddha are removed?” Even though letters are not Chan, the implications are that Chan must depend on letters and language to express itself 35 These words come from the Lengyan jing, “like Yajñadatta who confused the reflection with his head.” Yajñadatta is a person in a Buddhist story who was happy when he saw his head in a mirror with eyebrows and eyes, but when he looked at himself, he was angry when he could not see the eyebrows and eyes on his own head. What was in the mirror was a false image. The idea is that one recognizes the false to be true and loses the meaning of what is basically true. 36 “Written After Reading the La˙ nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra,” Dongpo qianji (First Collection of Dongpo).

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and be made evident, and to be exchanged and spread. If not, then at the most Chan can only be regarded as one’s own family treasure, and it is doomed to perish along with it. Therefore, it is said, one sees the moon due to the finger, which is the function of letters. Moreover, one depends on language and letters to enlighten the mind and see the nature, and letters also are approaches to the moon via the finger. Grasping the letters is also not far from the transcendent mental realm. Here what is important is the function of language and letters to augment the rich implications, which are not to be discarded and unused. The spread of the Song-period Chan School among the intellectuals would have been almost impossible without language and words.

Chapter 8

Researches on Chan History and Chan Learning

Any kind of thought will have the content of the two aspects of scholarly theory and history in its formation and development. Buddhism is likewise, even the Chan School that advocated non-reliance on letters cannot be an exception. Monks undoubtedly were lacking in the concept of history, but in Qi and Liang times (479–556), there were monk biographies in circulation. Even though the biographies of monks cannot avoid talking about scholarly theory, in the end they can only be viewed as histories of the teaching. By the Song, in sequence there were Huijiao’s Gaoseng zhuan, Daoxuan’s Xu gaoseng zhuan of the Tang, and Zanning’s Song gaoseng zhuan circulating in the teaching monasteries and among the scholars. With the five petals emerging from the one flower of the Chan School and the multiplication of lamplight records such as the Jingde chuandeng lu and Tiansheng guangdeng lu (Extensive Lamplight Records Compiled in the Tiansheng Era), by using the form of the monk biography, Chan School history rose onto the stage of historiography. The so-called non-reliance on letters of the Chan School, in just these five lamplight histories, totaled one hundred and fifty fascicles and tens of millions of words, so can this be called not being divorced from letters? In another aspect, Chinese monks in particular were adept at speculation and were particularly developed in scholarly theory; but in their histories of Buddhism, they were still deficient in systematic and summary works of theory. Of course, the Chan School had the Platform Sutra that firmly established its theoretical system, and there were later Chan School fragmentary and disconnected explanations and practices, but being influenced by the ideas of non-reliance on letters and the Way eliminates language, Chan in particular was deficient in works on this aspect and the description of Chan learning was only found scattered in the recorded sayings of Chan masters. The deficiency in concepts of history, despite having a large volume of historical records, is a feature of Chinese Buddhism in general and of Song-dynasty Chan School, in which the development of scholarly theory was rarely seen in regards to the investigation into scholarly theory. Whether it was history or theory, or whether it was rich or it was poor, the study of the history of Song-period Chan School and Chan learning could not in any way ignore the works of Zanning and Puji.

© Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_8

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Part 1: Zanning’s Chan History and Chan Learning Zanning was a monk of the Vinaya School, but his outstanding contributions were not in Vinaya, but in the fields of history and Chan learning. His Song gaoseng zhuan (Biographies of Eminent Monks Compiled in the Song dynasty) was especially famous. The famous early Song poet, Wang Yucheng (954–1001), gave it the highest evaluation: Buddhists call Buddhist books the internal scriptures and call Confucian books external learning. Many are able poets, but few are able prose writers. The person who was able in all four of these was only the Great Master [Zanning].1

One can see that Zanning was definitely not like an ordinary monk, being excellent at both internal (Buddhist) and external (Confucian) learning, poetry, and prose, and he made a unique contribution to Chan learning. The “Section on the Practice of Meditation” of the Song gaoseng zhuan is the most wonderful part of his monk biographies. Zanning (919–1001), lay surname Gao, had ancestors from Bohai, and at the end of the Sui period they moved to live in Deqing County of Wuxing (part of Zhejiang Province). He was born in the fifth year of the Zhenming era of the Later Tang dynasty.2 He became a monk in the Tiancheng era of the Later Tang (between 926 and 930) and went to Xiangfu Monastery in Hangzhou, where he studied Nanshan Vinaya and wrote on Vinaya, having the laudatory title of “the tiger of Vinaya.” The ruling Qian clan of the state of Wu-Yue made him the Monk Controller of the Two Zhe (Districts), and granted him the sobriquet of “Mingyi Zongwen.” In the third year of the Taiping xingguo era (978), the Qian surrendered to the Song, and Zanning followed Qian Shu (929–988) to the Song court. Emperor Taizong of the Song had frequently heard of Zanning’s reputation and summoned him to meet him in the Zifu Hall (a court chapel). He extended the time of the audience to the entire day and granted him a purple square gown of an academician, and changed his sobriquet to Huitong. He imperially ordained him to live in Tianshou Monastery on the left street (Central Buddhist Registry of the Left Avenue). In the seventh year of the Taiping xingguo era (982), he was commanded to compile the Da Song gaoseng zhuan. Zanning returned to Zhejiang to compile it and he finished it in the first year of the Duangong era (988). It was thirty fascicles in total. Like the previous example of Daoxuan’s Xu gaoseng zhuan, at the end of each person’s biography there would sometimes be a discussion of the life, sometimes elucidating the core tenets that person taught. This was called a xi (conclusion). There may be questions and answers, which were called a tong (communication). The “Section on the Practice of Meditation” was the best part of the book. Within a

1

“Tonghui Dashi ji xu” (Preface to the Collected Works of Great Master Tonghui,” in Wang Yucheng, Xiaoxu ji (Collection of Xiaoxu), 20. 2 Wang Yucheng says he was born in the sixteenth year of Tianyou of the Tang, which is tied to Tang-dynasty reign eras.

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few days of its being presented, Emperor Taizong had commented in a response and “ordered the record of the monks be officially incorporated into the Tripitaka.”3 Not long after, Zanning was called back to the capital and imperially ordered to write the Sanjiao shengxian shiji (Deeds of the Saints and Worthies of the Three Religions). He was appointed the chief monk lecturer on the sutras of the Left Avenue and put in charge of the religious affairs of the Western Capital. In the first year of the Xianping era (998), he was imperially ordered to fill the post of Monk Registrar of the Right Avenue. In the fourth year of Xianping he died at the advanced age of eighty-three. Zanning wrote many books, and besides the biographies of monks, there was also the Da Song sengshi lue (Summary History of the Monkhood Compiled in the Great Song) in three fascicles. In total there were the Neidian ji (Collection on Buddhist Scriptures) in 152 fascicles and Waixue ji (Collection of Non-Buddhist Studies) in 49 fascicles and so on. However, Zanning was but one monk and previously he had depended on the Qian clan of Wu-Yue, and later he was in the keep of the Zhao-clan Song dynasty, being imperially ordered to compile a history of the monkhood. His was a classic case of the officially-employed literatus. Therefore, his biography of the monks was bound to be deficient in respect of the style of eminence of the Liang and Tang lives of eminent monks, at times ignoring the term “eminent monk” as defined by Huijiao. It was hard for his biographies to avoid following social trends and harmonizing with government policies. He adopted the attitude of a monk submitting to a ruler, pleasing the public, and the bad practice of hypocrisy. Ouyang Xiu (1007–1072, Confucian official and historian) made a criticism of Zanning. The Guitian lu (Notes on Returning to the Farm) says, When Emperor Taizu visited Xiangguo Monastery, he came before a Buddhist statue and burned incense. He asked whether he should bow or not. The Monk Registrar Zanning memorialized, “You need not bow.” When asked the reason, he said, “The Buddha of the present does not bow to the Buddha of the past.” Zanning was very knowledgeable of books and was eloquent. Although his words were like those of an actor, they accorded with the intentions of the emperor and therefore [the emperor] smiled subtly and nodded to him, and consequently this was regarded as standard practice.

In saying that Zanning was very knowledgeable of books and that his words were like those of an actor, in this narrative, the attitude of Zanning in fawning on the ruler is presented in a lifelike way, just as if occurred in front of the reader. Combining this description with the “Biography of Feng Dao” in the Wudai shi (History of the Five Dynasties) by Ouyang Xiu, one can further see his disparagement of Zanning. Yelu Deguang asked [Feng] Dao [881-954], “How can one save the common people of the empire?” Dao took on the voice of an actor and replied, “At this time, the Buddha cannot save them, only the emperor can save them.”

The words of Zanning and Feng Dao sound exactly the same, and Ouyang Xiu explicitly showed his distaste for Zanning’s obsequiousness. In his Liuyi shihua 3

See after “Jin gaoseng zhuan biao” (Memorial on the Submission of the Lives of Eminent Monks).

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(Liuyi’s Talks on Poetry), he quoted an anecdote from the then Song dynasty, which is full of empty praise and real blame. He wrote, At the start of this dynasty, the monk of Wu, Zanning, was the Monk Registrar. An Hongjian [d.u.] was walking in the street when he encountered Zanning accompanied by several monks. Hongjian pointed at this and sneered, “Zheng Duguan [Zheng Gu] did not love having followers, but they always formed a column [behind him].” Zanning responded to these words by saying, “Those whom the First Emperor of the Qin did not bury [alive] often formed crowds.” At the time, all appreciated his nimble reply.

The reason for An talking about Zheng Duguan was that as a poet of the end of the Tang, Zheng Gu (passed presented scholar examinations ca. 866) wrote a poem that said, “I love monks, but I do not love purple-robed monks (those that have imperial favor).” Zanning’s reply was undoubtedly a fine reply and in it one can see his quick wit and brilliance, but one can also observe that people of his day, including Ouyang Xiu, privately did not care for him at all. Zanning’s submission to the times and his idea of ingratiating himself with the lords and high officials can often be seen in his writings. Even though this was in order to “promote the religion” and “guide senior officials,” and “have audiences with rulers and princes,” ultimately it was not in accord with Buddhism’s spirit of transcendence. Yet Zanning’s Song gaoseng zhuan, along with Huijiao’s Gaoseng zhuan and Daoxuan’s Xu gaoseng zhuan were ultimately all works on Buddhist history circulating in public. Their contributions to the history of the Chan School and Chan thought in particular cannot be erased. In fact, in the early period of the transmission of Buddhism to China, there were the lessons of “if one does not rely on the ruler of the country, the Dharma will be hard to establish,” and so the idea of “eminence in conduct” also had its limitations and conditions. Zanning thus could calculate that this was a trifling defect and not a major error. There are lines in his “Memorial Submitting the Lives of Eminent Monks to the Throne” such as, “assist your majesty with the mind that must grasp the [teachings of] lost worthies and help your majesty with the beauty that is to be fully cultivated in the abandoned rules,” and “I respect the sagely ruler as the lord of literary texts, and ignore the ministers who do not remember the history of ministers,” and so on, which amply show that he tried to please the ruling class. However, he still “sought afar for the evidence of events and broadly gathered stele texts,” and “recorded reality, somewhat imitating Chen Shou [233–297, an important historian],” “or he referred to eulogies and inscriptions, or he verified from treatises and records, or questioned the emissaries of the court, or the elders of previous generations,” so that the “practitioners of the Way do not fall into decline.”4 One can see that he solicited the facts and wrote history to spread the Buddhist Way sincerely. However, he still recorded the lives of such monks truthfully. In fascicle 7 of the book, there is such a record: Hengchao was surnamed Feng and was a native of Fanyang….He stayed in Wudi for over twenty years….His moral integrity was eminent, he acted leisurely, and all monks and laypeople who saw him were timid….The former and later prefectural governors came and went as envoys. They honored him in admiration of his style, cultivating fame and insisting 4

“Preface to the Da Song gaoseng zhuan.”

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on stimulation. Those who worshipped him repeatedly were stopped [from doing so], and he commanded the boy novices to depart because he was in lectures, and he rarely received and met them. At first some resented this, but in the end they yielded to his eminence….At the time, the commandery governor, Li Jun [Li Gong’en] always valued his eminent style and wanted to fire off a report to the throne to grant Hengchao a purple robe. Hengchao heard of this with surprise, and so he used his brush to write a poem that said, “In vain I wore a brown robe till I was old;/ Having drunk till I was full, I could not perfect the Way./ I pledged to transmit the sutras and s´a¯ stras till I die,/ And not to be tainted by a life of profit and fame….On another day [when I die], I will follow Fan Li [Fan Li, fifth century BCE, who planned the conquest of a rival state, then retired];/ With one oar stroke, the five lakes are cleansed.” Li Jun then ordered a person to recommend [Hengzhao for] his diligence, hoping to make a connection with him, but Hengchao was firm and did not budge, and he said, “If you do this again, I will go beyond the [border] fortresses of Lu and Long!” The commandery leader heard this and desisted. Again, the minister of state, the Prince of Ying, Feng Dao heard of his reputation….Previously he had sent him a letter, the preface of which had the sense of devotion. Hengchao said, “I am an idle person who early on abandoned his parents, with the contrary ambition of practicing [Buddhism], originally expecting that Maitreya would know my name, but I did not think that [my reputation] would drift into the ears of a chief minister. What benefit would [your patronage] be for me?” The students were attentive and aware, and had no alternative but to answer the letter, stating that how could people who had become monks entrust their thoughts to empty fame and threadbare profit? The Prince of Ying was even more serious and memorialized what he had heard to [Emperor Gao]zu of the [Posterior] Han, and consequently, Hengchao was awarded a purple robe, and due to this he was dazed and not happy. In the mid spring of the second year of the Qianyou era (949), in the third month, he had a slight illness. After several days, he passed away in his home cloister.5

Hengchao was undoubtedly an eminent monk who encouraged integrity, resided in seclusion, with eminent conduct and avoiding the world (really indicating fame and fortune). Zannning described this truthfully, without any appearance of shame. From this we can know that Zanning was not solely devoted to trying to please the public nor was opposed to eminent conduct. The reason this was so was because he really was very diligent. At the end of his “Biography of Zongmi” there is the following, “the conclusion says”: When some censured Zongmi for inappropriately being in contact with high officials and aristocrats, and for frequently having audiences with rulers and princes, I replied, “The teaching of the Dharma is at the mercy of kings and ministers, and if one is not in contact with princes and ministers, then can one give rise to and demonstrate the teaching of the lineage or not?”….In the thinking of present people, if one is close to kings and ministers, then one must criticize them. Since they do not understand the idea of being close to kings and ministers, even if this concurs with fame and fortune, then one is to blame for refusing the ruler, or if one is close and personal only for the sake of the lineage teaching, how is that not great? I am not exempt from a trifling resentment, but those who resent him are also envious of him. If one realizes such a sense, then it will make no difference [whether one is close to kings or not].6

5

“Han Dizhou Kaiyuan-si Hengchao zhuan” (Biography of Hengchao of Kaiyuan Monastery in Dizhou, of the Han Dynasty,” Song gaoseng zhuan fascicle 7, T49.749a-c. 6 “Tang Qingfeng Caotang-si Zongmi zhuan, xi” (Conclusion to Biography of Zongmi of Caotang Monastery in Qingzhou of the Tang Dynasty.”

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Zanning’s idea is to say that the teaching of the Dharma is under the control of royal power and that if one wants to make Buddhism prosper one has to get the support of the ruling king. Furthermore, since connections with officialdom, “if they concur with fame and fortune,” but they are also “getting close and personal for the sake of the lineage teaching,” such an intercourse with rulers and lords “will make no difference” (or, damned if you, damned if you don’t). This completely agrees with the opinion that “if you do not rely on the ruler of the country, the Dharma will be hard to establish,” and so Zanning really does not have too much to be blamed for. He also said, “It was only after the period from the Han dynasty until the court of Emperor Suzong of the Tang that one begins to see [monks] calling themselves ‘your subject.’ From then on this was followed without change. It is often the case that when the virtue of the monks is threadbare, then [Buddhism] declines daily, and once it has gone there is no recovery. Also, as the Dharma is at the mercy of the king of the country, it is truly difficult to change this. If the king deems this to be, the pattern is set and cannot be altered.” This is seeking the causes of decline within Buddhism, explaining that Buddhism declines of itself.7 This creates the situation in which “the Dharma is at the mercy of the king of the country, and it is truly hard to change this,” and therefore monks calling themselves “subjects” should also be no cause for criticism. In fact, what Zanning said tallies with reality. Even more important is that this also reflects the style of that Song-dynasty Buddhism inherited from the Tang, not only in catering to society, but also in catering to the court, which already revealed a tendency to secularization. Zanning’s biographies of monks is also divided into ten classifications, with primary biographies of 531 people,8 and subordinate mentions of 125 people. Nine out of ten of these are Tang-period monks, the remainder are monks of the Song, and therefore his biographies can remedy the deficiencies in the Tang shu (Account of the Tang) and the Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror to Assist Government). The “Section on the Practice of Meditation” was the best of the whole book and it takes up six fascicles. In it, there are 103 primary biographies and subsidiary mentions of twenty-nine people. The other sections occasionally also have records of Chan monks, such as the “Section on the Interpreters of the Meaning” (yijie), which has the biographies of Zongmi and Zhiyuan, both Chan monks of the Heze lineage. The “Section on Miracle Workers” has entries on Xiyun (d. ca. 850) and Yixuan; the “Section on the Doers of Good Deeds” (yifu) has the biography of Yanshou. The Chan monks are divided into famous monks who were pupils of Nanyue; monks of the Linji and Fayan lineages. The “Section on the Practice of Meditation” begins from the fifth patriarch, Hongren (602–675) and goes through to Tiantai Deshao of the Song, fully recording the members of the Dongshan Famen, including each of the lines of Shenxiu, Huiming (d. 780), and Fachi (635–702), and almost all the important monks of the Five Houses from Caoqi on. Only Yunmen Wenyan, probably because material was not fully gathered, could not be entered into the biographies. Tancui 7

“Tang Changzhou Xingning-si Yixuan zhuan xi” (Conclusion to the Biography of Yixuan of Xingning Monastery, Changzhou, of the Tang). 8 In comparison, Zanning’s preface speaks of two less people.

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was a disciple of Farong, belonging to the Niutou lineage and not to the Dongshan Famen. From this we can say that the “Section on the Practice of Meditation” of the Song gaoseng zhuan really was the earliest work on Chan School history, and also contained biographies of early Chan School individuals. For the study of the formation of the Chan School, it put out and presented rich historical materials. Because of this, without it, in the study of the Chan learning and history of the Chan School of the Tang and the Five Dynasties, it would be difficult to trace the genealogies and trace them back to their sources. One may well imagine that it was truly as the praises by Wang Yucheng said; that Zanning was able in “all four” of Buddhism, Confucianism, poetry, and prose, was broadly learned and talented in literature. The Song gaoseng zhuan that he wrote was really modelled on the works of Sima Qian (author of the model history, the Shi ji) and Chen Shou (233–297, historian), “recording events and recording words,” “making sections to create biographies,”9 and followed the monk biographies and histories of the monks of “the authors of previous ages,” the earlier examples of Huijiao and Daoxuan, “polishing and making them roughly the same as the sutras and treatises, and collating [his biographies] with the [secular] histories.” Obviously, he took the traditional historiographical methods as a standard for his compilation, and in Song times there were people who said that Zanning “had written a Fei Shitong (Anti-An Understanding of History; a work on what constitutes good history) in six sections and this was highly appreciated by Wang Yucheng.”10 This explains that Zanning was not only a practicing and active historian, he also was a historian who wrote on theory, and not only did he have the writing skill of an historian, he also had the appreciative eye of an historian. The content of his book was mostly taken directly from stele inscriptions and evidence was also taken from treatises and records, or he recorded biographies from listening to extensively informed envoys and elders. The majority of what he recorded were facts or based on what he had heard, and without a doubt it is an evidentiary work. Of his works, the “Section on the Practice of Meditation” likewise offered full and accurate data on the Chan School for later people. Of course, the later Jingde chuandeng lu that mainly recorded many words (of monks), or preached principles, or proclaimed gongan, cannot be compared to the Song gaoseng zhuan with regard to collecting historical materials, and also with regard to the investigative comparisons of facts. In other words, the value of the historical materials about the Chan School that are in Zanning’s Song gaoseng zhuan go far beyond the Chan School specialist work, the Jingde chuandeng lu. The first of the biographies of fascicle 8 of the Song gaoseng zhuan mentions Hongren’s birthplace (place of registration), saying, “His family lived in Xunyang, south of the Huai River; some say he was a native of Huangmei.” The Wudeng huiyuan just says that he was “a native of Huangmei in Qizhou.” Xunyang and Huangmei are separated by the Yangzi River, which explains Zanning’s historiographical method of caution in his selection of material, real records, and keeping an open mind. In comparison, the Wudeng huiyuan takes some things for granted. Following this, when talking of 9

Zanning, “Memorial Presenting the Lives of Eminent Monks to the Throne.”. Zanning, “Preface to the Song gaoseng zhuan.”.

10

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Hongren becoming a monk, even though the Song gaoseng zhuan has, “When his mother was first pregnant, the light of the shifting moon shone on the courtyard and room, and through the evening it was like daytime. At his birth, it was also as bright as it was earlier, and a strange perfume followed his person.” This sort of miraculous, magic legend was seen frequently in the “monk biographies” of previous ages and at the very end of this passage it says that Daoxin saw him and asked his name, “and he replied to the question very fluently,” and Daoxin said, “If I give you the current of the Dharma, after twenty years, you are sure to greatly conduct Buddhist affairs,” and Daoxin sent a person to accompany him back to his home, informing his parents about becoming a monk. These records are also comparatively easy to understand and approach reality. The Wudeng huiyuan is not like this; it exaggerated enormously the strange events of Hongren’s lifetime, saying that his father was originally a planter of pine trees on Mt. Potou and that he asked of the Way from Daoxin. Daoxin said, “When you are older, if you can come again, I will wait for you.” Afterwards, it says that his father went to the water’s edge where he encountered a girl washing clothes. He spoke two sentences to her and then the girl returned home and fell pregnant. Later she gave birth to a boy, which was thought to be inauspicious and so it was thrown into an empty bay. As a result, the baby also “went against the current and rose to the surface, and the breath of the body was fresh and bright.” Later, Hongren followed his mother and begged for food, and so he got to meet Daoxin and entered into his school. Obviously, the sort of description in this “lamplight record” was purely designed to deify a certain monk and fabricate a groundless story. Taking the biography of Huineng as an example is sufficient to show the truth and falsehood of these two texts. One, both follow Shenhui’s theory that “the former patriarch was a native of Fanyang” who later went to Xinzhou in Nanhai. Nevertheless, the Song gaoseng zhuan says, “His [father] was banished to [live] among the peasants of Xinzhou,” while the “lamplight record” says that “His [father] was demoted as an official to Xinzhou in Nanhai.” Looking only at the words “banished” and “demoted as an official,” they are clearly not the same. The phrasing of the “lamplight record” is not without exaggerated praise. Two, in the story of talking with the nun Wujinzang about the Nirvana Sutra, the Wudeng huiyuan has a vivid description: “I do not know the character, but please ask me about the meaning,” and, “If you do not even know the character [on the fascicle], how can you understand the meaning?” Finally, there is the famous last sentence spoken by Huineng in this dialogue: “The marvelous principle of the buddhas is unrelated to letters,” which fully expresses the notion that Huineng already had the idea of “non-reliance on letters” even before he had embarked on the Way. But Zanning’s Song gaoseng zhuan just says that the nun was amazed that he did not know the letter and that Huineng said, “The theory of the buddhas is that if you grasp for letters that is not the meaning of the Buddha,” which also says one cannot understand the meaning of the Buddha from the literal meaning and not that there is no need for letters. This theory and “One speaks of emptiness via one’s own nature, which is the fundamental nature” that is in the Platform Sutra is the same as the idea of not stressing “non-reliance on letters.”

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Three, the Wudeng huiyuan writes that Huineng obtained the instructions of the nun Wujinzang and “the residents fought to come and pay homage to him,” and that he resided in Baolin Monastery and then the “four assemblies [of monks, nuns, and male and female lay persons] flocked around him, suddenly forming a monastery.” This really was promoting the idea that Huineng had not studied and yet achieved miraculous things. The Song gaoseng zhuan says, “He was urged to cultivate the Way in the old Baolin Monastery and he said to himself, ‘My basic vow is to find a teacher, so how is to crave living in a monastery and to grasp for the Way different from returning to my former home?’ The next day he left.” Clearly this is comparatively more realistic. Besides the two events described above, with the exception of the Caoqi yuanben version of the Platform Sutra that describes the events with Wujinzang till after he obtained the Dharma at Huangmei, neither are seen in the various versions of the Platform Sutra. As for the “four assemblies flocked around him, suddenly forming a monastery,” that is even more fictitious. Four, Huineng was introduced by Chan Master Zhiyuan and joined Hongren at Huangmei. The Wudeng huiyuan has the theory of “the mind seal transmitted by Bodhidharma from the Western Regions,” which clearly belongs to a later fabrication by Chan people. The Song gaoseng zhuan only has Zhiyuan saying, “I do not know, I do not know it at all,” and encouraging him to join Hongren, which is more reasonable. The Wudeng huiyuan barely mentions Huineng’s time at Huangmei, using only thirteen characters; “At first sight, Great Master Hongren silently recognized him and later gave him the robe and the Dharma.” In comparison, the Song gaoseng zhuan says, “Master Hongren saw Huineng’s vital appearance and did not praise him,” right through to “the words of the g¯ath¯a [of Shenxiu and Huineng] on the wall, [showed that] their views and understanding were divided, the exposure of their experience was not the same and the depths were thus distinguished.” This latter narrated in comparative detail the difficult process of seeking the Dharma by Huineng at Huangmei, during which he embraced a stone so that he was heavy enough to pound the grain with a pestle, which agrees exactly with the account in the Platform Sutra. The Wudeng huiyuan probably entertained the concept of “to be a teacher is taboo” and deliberately avoided talking about him, which shows that the text of the Wudeng huiyuan is very choppy and stiff. Five, the Wudeng huiyuan describes in detail the story of the wind and the flag (in which Huineng said it is the mind that is moving, not the wind or the flag), and the Song gaoseng zhuan just says, “At his words discussing the wind and the flag, Yinzong fell silent and submitted mentally.” One can see the discrepancy here between the recording of words and the recording of events.

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Six, in relation to the imperial summons of Huineng to court, the Song gaoseng zhuan only says, “Empress Wu and Emperor Xiaohe11 both sent an imperiallysigned letter….He continued to send the eunuch Xie Jian to go and summons him, but (Huineng) declined due to illness and did not set off” and so on. The Wudeng huiyuan also greatly reported on the mysterious tenets of the Chan School and used the record of the words of the Jingde chuandeng lu as its main feature. Furthermore, the words and sentences and their implications made by Huineng that they record are not completely the same. For example, where Xie Jian asked, “If you want to understand the Way, must you sit in meditation and cultivate concentration (ding)? If you try to obtain release not via chanding (meditation), this will not happen. What Dharma is it that you preach?” Huineng replied, The Way is enlightened to through the mind, how can it be in sitting? A sutra says, “Whether you see the Thus Come One, whether you sit or lie down, this is practicing the perverse Way.” Why? There is nothing that it comes from, and nowhere for it to go, and if there is no arising and no cessation, that is the Thus Come One’s pristine Chan. The dharmas are empty and calm are it (the pure Chan). This is the Thus Come One’s pristine sitting. Ultimately there is no realization, so even more how can it be in sitting?

The key to this story is only in the four characters, “The Way is not in sitting (dao bu zai zuo).” In fact, Huineng really did not, as is usually taken to be the case, oppose sitting in meditation; he is only stressing that “The single-practice sam¯adhi, in all times, walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, the constant practice of the direct mind is it.”12 Later, Chan masters often opposed sitting in meditation, regarding this opposition as Huineng’s own Dharma, which really was a mistaken understanding. Like the story of Huairang inspiring Mazu Daoyi by telling him that sitting in meditation is like polishing a brick to make a mirror, they endeavored to prove that one could not become buddha by sitting in meditation, and with this theory they, instead of carrying on with Huineng’s thought, preached to the contrary, something they developed out of the lamplight records. Following on, in the Wudeng huiyuan there is also a series of debates about the contrasts of light and dark that have as their main point the exposition of “kle´sas (frustrations) are bodhi (enlightenment),” “the real nature is not decreased by being in the ordinary and stupid, or increased by being in the saintly and wise,” and “intrinsically of itself has no rising, and now also it has no ceasing, which is not the same as the ideas of rising and ceasing of the non-Buddhists who take cessation to be the halting of arising, of using arising to demonstrate cessation,” and instead approaches the transcendental thought of the Platform Sutra, “leaving and entering apart from both sides.” Following this there are also close to two thousand characters of a sermon to the assembly, concentrating on the expression of “this mind is Buddha,” “directly forming the Pure Land,” “this mind is originally pure, there being nothing to grasp 11

The Wudeng huiyuan says that the summons was sent down in the first year of Shenlong (705) of Emperor Zhongzong, and they sent the Palace Attendant Xie Jian to invite him. According to Yinshun’s investigation, the summons was made in the last years of Empress Wu Zetian’s time and again in the first year of Emperor Zhongzong sent Xie to invite him once more. 12 Platform Sutra.

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or discard,” and “do not dwell on characteristics anywhere,” which is the thought content of the Platform Sutra. Nevertheless, the most representative “putting it down is it” and “everything that appears is perfect” that are concepts of according with conditions, which are in the g¯ath¯a of reply to Wolun in the Wudeng huiyuan, do not exist in the Platform Sutra. Besides this, there are also some words of Huineng before he departed the world: “Those who have the Way get it, those who do not have the mind comprehend it,” and some predictions that appear to be prophesies. The above-described Dharma talk by Huineng in the Song gaoseng zhuan is a summary and is not discussed, but it highlights and records that Shenhui considered himself to be a disciple like “Yanzi (Yan Hui) who was [the favorite] among the pupils of Confucius,” and that Shenhui erected a portrait hall for Huineng at Heze Monastery in Luoyang. Shenhui prefaced its genealogy, saying, “Besides the patriarchs who followed on after the Thus Come One in the Western Regions, China also had a total of six patriarchs, and I fully diagram and draw their images,” and “Again, as Huineng’s body stayed upright and was not in disarray, it was as if he had entered chanding (meditative concentration) and later they added lacquer and cloth [to his body].” One can see from this that the story of Huineng really began with Shenhui. The “true body” (mummy) of Huineng was preserved and handed down to later generations, which is a true record. The three books (Song gaoseng zhuan, Platform Sutra, and Wudeng huiyuan) all contain the legend that a Silla monk directed a person from Ruzhou to steal the head of the mummy, and so it should be real. Naturally, before Huineng passed away, he said, “Five or six years after my decease, there will be a person who will come to take my head” (words of Wudeng huiyuan), and “After my decease, there will be a good-intentioned male who will be sure to take my head” (words of Song gaoseng zhuan), which are the theories of deification made by these two books. The afore-mentioned six items are sufficient to show that the Song gaoseng zhuan was a work that discussed practical matters and that the Wudeng huiyuan was talk of ideology. Next, Zanning was not a Chan School monk and therefore he was not constrained by Chan School sectarian ideas, and he also did not regard the evidence of the debates between the various sects as taboo subjects, and therefore one can further glimpse the true tracks of the developments and changes of the Chan School in the Song gaoseng zhuan. The Wudeng huiyuan really took Huineng as its core and regarded the lineage from Caoqi (Huineng) to be the principal axis for the writing of the biographies. The establishment of the fifth patriarch and the sixth patriarch was distinctly portrayed with the sectarian concepts of a “southern lineage” and “sudden teaching.” From the sixth patriarch on, there were the two lines of Nanyue and Qingyuan, and the five lineages of Weiyang, Fayan, Linji, Caodong, and Yunmen. Zanning did not divide Chan into north or south, sudden and gradual, and he also did not divide it into five houses and seven lineages, even to the extent of including the line of Niutou and giving it equal billing. This really was a reaction against Shenhui’s provocation of a dispute between southern subitism and northern gradualism. Zanning wrote of the

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plusses and minuses of the Chan School and the fights between Chan groups with a historian’s pen, with impartiality and without concealing anything. As is well known, the Huichang persecution of Buddhism caused a decline of all the Buddhist factions, especially from the Song times onwards, and only the Chan School flourished. The Chan groups consistently traced themselves back to Bodhidharma and each bragged of promoting Huineng’s southern lineage tenets of “enlightening the mind and seeing the nature,” and regarded themselves to be legitimate lines from Bodhidharma and the Dongshan Famen. Zanning said, After Bodhidharma died, the subtle words ended; after the fifth patriarch died, the great meaning was violated. Shenxiu used wiping away [dust] in order to enlighten the mind and Huineng proclaimed the Way with all the negations. Then, when it flowed on to convert the northern region, they venerated the diligence of cultivating practice, and due to this [Chan] was divided into the southern conviction, which gave rise to the theory of the sudden gateway (access to enlightenment). Due to this, Heze (Shenhui) operated in central China and used the southern gateway to set himself apart from the complexities of the cultivation of practice.13

Here, not only did he trace back the cultural background to the lineage division in the Chan School and the history of theoretical bases and opposition of north versus south, he also smashed the Chan School myth of a secret conferral of the mind-seal from Bodhidharma and its transmission from mind to mind. As he saw it, the dividing line between north and south in the Chan School undoubtedly was the theoretical difference between Shenxiu’s “wiping away” (of dust from the mirrormind) and Huineng’s “all negations,” but it was mainly due also to the sectarian opposition provoked by Shenhui and it was he who created and flaunted the theory of the “sudden gateway” and denounced Shenxiu’s gradual cultivation. These words from the present viewpoint comparatively concur with historical reality. Zanning also said, At the start of the Xianheng era (670-674), Hongren ordered two or three meditation students to state their purpose. Shenxiu first produced a g¯ath¯a and Huineng harmonized [in a poetic rhyme] with it. Then he gave the eye (appreciation) of the Dharma to Huineng, who received the robe and returned to Shaoyang. Shenxiu transmitted the Dharma in Jingmen (Jingzhou) and Luoxia (Luoyang), and the lineages of north and south started from this.14 Previously, everyone in between the two capitals (Chang’an and Luoyang) all venerated Shenxiu, and if one does not alarm them, the fish and sturgeon will attach themselves to the dragon in the pond. By seeing that Shenhui had clarified the mind and the style of the sixth patriarch, they washed away the Way of gradual cultivation. The division of the two lineages of north and south began from this, making the school of Puji (Shenxiu’s chief disciple) flourish and later collapse.15

The above-described idea is here made even clearer. It is only in Zanning’s view that the split between north and south was fundamentally based on sudden and gradual (enlightenment), and later generations continuously followed this without change. 13

“Tang Jingzhou Dangyangshan Dumen-si Shenxiu zhuan” (Biography of Shenxiu of Dumen Monastery on Mt. Dangyang in Jingzhou of the Tang), Song gaoseng zhuan. 14 Biography of Hongren, Song gaoseng zhuan. 15 Biography of Shenxiu, Song gaoseng zhuan.

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Thus, one can see that Zanning had great influence in this regard. Nevertheless, this theory was not completely correct, so that it was an erroneous message that was incorrectly relayed until the present day. Besides this, there was the question of Tianhuang Daowu’s study under a master. What Zanning based himself on accorded with the account in a stele text that says, “At the start of the Jianzhong era (780–783), [Daowu] visited Great Master Ma in Zhongling. In the autumn of the second year, he had an audience with Eminent Master Shitou,” and “He went from Jingshan to the Heng Marchmount where he in all met three wise masters. When he arrived there, he went into seclusion and practiced governance [over his mind],16 and he was like the man of Ying wielding his hatchet.17 These all emptied his mind, and he perfectly agreed with them.”18 Although this story differs from the stele inscription by Qiu Xuansu (fl. 800-820 s), the audience with Mazu and Shitou are different in their sequence. Even though later the majority followed the theory of Daowu being a member of Shitou’s school, Zanning intended to not subscribe to this theory or to that theory. What he stressed was that “he (Daowu) perfectly agreed with them.” The later dispute over the affiliation with Yunmen really was not Zanning’s original intention (see later chapter). Zanning’s Chan learning is revealed, concentrated in a sixteen-character interlinear note in the “Section on the Practice of Meditation” in the “Preface to the Song gaoseng xhuan” that says, Cultivating till one reaches no-thought (wunian), good and evil are both eliminated. Eliminate this elimination and constantly dwell in ease.

He advocated the no-thought that transcends opposition and the form of the negation of negation that achieves the state of according with conditions. This undoubtedly reveals two aspects of the thought-content of the Chan School; transcendence and the accordance with conditions; and reflects the direction of the development of Chan thought. At the end of the “Section on the Practice of Meditation” Zanning amply displayed his understanding of Chan thought. First of all, Zanning traces the history of the formation of the Chan School. Even though he did not recognize that there is a direct ideological transmission between Bodhidharma and the Chan School, he also regarded Bodhidharma as the initiator of Chan learning. He said, “The Sanskrit word channa (dhy¯ana) in Chan is mindful cultivation (nianxiu).” It is mindful and yet no-thought (no mindfulness), cultivation and yet non-cultivation, and so he denied that the early period changuan (meditative contemplation) is really the Chan learning of the later period. Here he clearly mixes this in with his (Zanning) own ideas. He continued to say, “The Dharma was preached in the Han court and its reputation for ultimate realization was not yet prominent. When its teachings operated on Mt. Lu [under Huiyuan], these were the first shoots of channa.” He stressed that Huiyuan (334–416) “secretly transmitted the method of 16

Tr. from the story of Zaofu, an excellent charioteer of ancient times. Tr. from the story of Carpenter Shi in the “Xu Wugui” in Zhuangzi, see Watson, p. 269, meaning he was unable to communicate his skill. 18 Biography of Tianhuang Daowu, Song gaoseng zhuan. 17

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sitting,” and that Kang Senghui (arrived in China in 247) also had some connection with this. With Huiwen (sixth century, regarded as the first patriarch of Tiantai) and Huisi (515–577, second patriarch of Tiantai) who transmitted the marvel of the three contemplations (of all as empty, as provisional, and as the middle), and Tiantai Zhiyi (538–597) “who drew on them and extended them,” chan (meditation) learning could expand and develop. In his investigation of the beginnings of Chan learning and its spread, Zanning placed it in the cultural background of the entirety of Buddhism, and without a doubt he had keen insight, yet he was unable to notice the influences of philosophical Daoist thought and the Dark Learning of that time on it, which really is incredible. Zanning thought that the first spread and arising of this meditation practice in China occurred after Buddhism had been introduced, and that people “were drowned by name and characteristics (doctrinal details) and recognized the finger and forgot the moon, got the fish but held onto the trap….They did not believe that they themselves are buddha,” which was the reason for these errors, and so Chan proposed “directly pointing at the mind of people, seeing the nature and becoming buddha, not relying on letters.” Even though this speaks of that time being like the line of, “Even though White Snow is a song, the children of Sichuan [Ba, who were famed for their singing] were out of tune [with it],” and in the end, it was very difficult in the midst of economic hardship and military destruction to transmit this Chan understanding to Huike, and for him to transmit it to Sengcan, and for him to transmit it to Daoxin and then onto Hongren and Farong. Following Hongren, there were Shenxiu and Huineng. After Huineng, his faction achieved great numbers. In just saying that, Zanning also participated in the great chorus of the faking of history by the Chan School. Even though he alone mentioned Farong, he still overlooked the influence and transformation philosophical Daoism had on the Chan School. One may say that even Homer nods. Naturally, he specifically mentioned the theory of “non-attachment to letters and not being apart from letters,” and “it is not being without letters” and “non-reliance on letters, which is to oppose the provisional and unite with the Way.” This also tallies with the original features and the tendencies in the development of the Chan School. Zanning likewise recognized that Chan has theory and practice, “and that if practice is not abolished, the theory becomes clearer, and that only after the Dharma has no bias and the effort is made to save all can one begin to call it Chan!” When it came to what constituted theory and practice, he had no different interpretation, proceeding then to say, “Chan, like the Dark Learning people, often castigated those who lectured, viewing them as people who counted their treasures, who in the end are houses that are always plagued by a poverty [of ideas],” which also emphasizes the functions of language and letters in expressing Chan. Therefore, he spoke the famous saying of the Chan School, “Sutras are the words of the Buddha. Chan is the idea of the Buddha. The minds and voices of the buddhas definitely do not contradict each other.” The agreement of sutras, Chan, ideas, words, and voices are undoubtedly a thorough negation of the teaching of non-reliance on letters. Besides this, he also recognized that “seeing the nature and becoming buddha, suddenly enlightened to one’s own mind,” and “intrinsically self-sufficient, this mind

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is buddha” is the “highest vehicle of Chan.” In the end, he shows the combination of the tendency of Chan thought with the contemporary currents of the day, and he also shows that this preaching of the highest-vehicle Chan was clearly influenced by Huineng’s school, or one may say by the idea of the classifications of the Chan School by Zongmi of Shenhui’s school,19 which divided Chan into non-Buddhist, ordinary person, Lesser Vehicle, Mah¯ay¯ana, and highest-vehicle Chan. From the above account, we know that Zanning’s exposition of Chan learning was not a new, original idea, and also that he did not have a deeper view. It was just “not being apart from letters” and “opposition to the provisional and agreement with the Way,” and in this sense, it tallies with the laws and directions of the development of thought. To be fair, the exposition and argumentation of this section of close to a thousand characters (words) is still not the equal of those sixteen characters in the preface in their profundity of understanding Chan. Exactly as has been said, we know that Zanning was praised for his biographies of monks and that he was also criticized for his biographies of monks.

Part 2: Puji and the Wudeng Huiyuan The so-called five lamplight histories are: the Jingde chuandeng lu that was written by the Fayan lineage monk Daoyuan in the Jingde reign era (1004–1007) of Emperor Zhenzong; the Tiansheng guangdeng lu that was written by Li Zunxu (988–1038), the Commandant-escort (imperial son-in-law) and member of the Linji lineage school, completed in the seventh year of the Tiansheng reign of Emperor Renzong (1209); the Jianzhong jingguo Xudeng lu compiled by the Yunmen monk Weibo in the first year of the Jianzhong jingguo era of Emperor Huizong (1101); the Liandeng huiyao (Essentials of the Linked Lamps) compiled by the Linji lineage monk Wuming in the tenth year of the Chunxi era of Emperor Xiaozong (1183); and the Jiatai pudeng lu written by the Yunmen monk Zhengshou in the Jiatai reign era (1201–1204) of Emperor Ningzong. With the exception of the Tiansheng guangdeng lu by a member of the gentry, the remaining four lamplight records were written by Chan monks. The five lamplight records in fact were treatises of the Chan School written by Chan monks. We should say that the earliest Chan School historical work was the Baolin zhuan (Biographies from the Baolin Monastery) by the Tang-period monk Zhiju, but its letters were vulgar, its words were not refined, its order was confused, and it makes errors and mistakes, and so was not regarded seriously. Therefore, by the Song onwards, first there was the Jingde chuandeng lu that was written by the Fayan lineage monk Daoyuan, and after that the other four lamplight histories appeared in succession, sometimes summarizing and sometimes augmenting or combining several lamplight records. Therefore, most of them overlap. From the Chunyou era (1241–1252) of the Southern Song period, which was fifty years after the Jiatai 19

Zongmi, Chanyuan zhuquan duxu.

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pudeng lu was published, the monk Puji (1179–1253) of Lingyin Monastery gathered the monks of that monastery, including the senior monk Huiming among them, merged, developed, and compiled these earlier texts to form the Wudeng huiyuan. He merged the 150 fascicles of the previous lamplight records into twenty fascicles, and he reduced the content by half. The arrangement divided the description into the two lines of Qingyuan and Nanyue, but beneath that there was the further division of fascicles recording the five lineages and seven lineages. One can see that the Wudeng huiyuan in comparison with the other five lamplight records was comprehensive and succinct, and it was also convenient to consult. A recent person has evaluated it, saying, “Comparing it to Confucian books, the five lamplight records are like the histories of the [Liu] Song, Qi, Liang, and Qi, and the Wudeng huiyuan is like the works of Li Yanshou [of the seventh century, who wrote the Nan shi (History of the Southern Dynasties)].” “From when the histories of the northern and southern dynasties [by Li Yanshou] were in circulation, the eight histories [of the southern and northern dynasties] were deemed incomplete, and due to the publication of the Wudeng huiyuan, the five lamplight records were rarely circulated.”20 But its value as historical material was not as good as the Jingde chuandeng lu. As mentioned previously, the Wudeng huiyuan collected the works of the five lamplight records of Chan School monks, which were constrained by their sectarian ideas and they could hardly avoid even more coloration by excessive praise. Moreover, Chan monks usually were lacking in the concept of history and their records were weighted towards words (reported speech), and therefore when they are compared with the monk biographies by Zanning, their historical value is bound to be inferior in contrast. But the Wudeng huiyuan’s records are comparatively detailed and the subjects of the biographies are mostly Song-dynasty monks, many with direct or indirect connections with the author. Speaking from this point of view, in comparison with the principles of the collection of historical materials that looked to old and distant collections, its reliability was much greater. Therefore, for research into Chan School history, in particular the history of the Chan School of the Song period, the Wudeng huiyuan is an indispensable historical source. Puji (1179–1253) was a child of the Zhang clan of Fenghua in Siming. His personal name was Daquan. Together with Wuming, who wrote the Liandeng huiyuan, he came from the Yangqi branch of Linji. He was a third-generation successor of Zonggao and a disciple of Jingshan Ruyan (1151–1225). None of the various biographies of monks record his deeds. The occasion of his enlightenment is found in the Guyai Heshang manlu (Desultory Notes of Reverend Guyai) by Yuanwu of the Southern Song. There was also a Daquan yulu (Recorded Sayings of Daquan) extant. His deeds are seen in the “Account of Conduct” by Daguan and fascicle 35 of Juding’s (d. 1404) Xu chuandeng lu (Continued Lamplight Transmission Record) of the Ming dynasty. He died in the first year of the Baoyou era (1253), the year the Wudeng huiyan was engraved for publication. The Wudeng huiyuan was printed by woodblock in the first year of the Baoyou era and it was reprinted in the twenty-fourth year of the Zhizheng era (1364) of the 20

Chen Yuan, op. cit., p. 100.

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Yuan dynasty. It is the latter that is in circulation, which is the reprint by the monk Yehai Qinggong. This book is that transmitted by Puji, of that there is no doubt. But because a preface by Wang Yong to the first printed edition said, “Now the chief monk Huiming assembled the five lamplight records to form a collection, which is called the Wudeng huiyuan,” and because there was a post-face by Layman Shen Jingming, a donor of the money for the woodblock printing, that said, “He just went to Lingyin Chan Monastery in Jingde and ordered the Chan people to compile this book,” in the twenty-eighth year of the Guangxu era (1902), a Mr. Liu of Guichi proposed that the Baoyou edition was compiled by Huiming and that Puji only wrote the preface. In 1930, when the Baoyu edition was reproduced in Changsha, Liuyang Liu Shanze also had this idea and he criticized those who supported Puji’s authorship as “being casual about it, not examining it, which is to be negligent.”21 Nevertheless, at the start of the first fascicle of the Zhizheng edition of the Yuan dynasty that was in circulation, it has Shi Tingjun’s (1299–1368) preface that says, “This book was [written on the orders of] Mr. Daquan Puji of Lingyin [Monastery] in the Song period because the five lamplight records are vast books and students were rarely able to go through them thoroughly, so he gathered students to write the Wudeng huiyuan.” Later, there were scholars who verified this by investigation, something that Chen Yuan detailed, and they all regard this as undoubtedly a work by Puji and they regard Huiming “as known only as a minor teacher of that time”22 who participated in this activity. This theory seems to have insufficient proof. When Tingjun wrote his preface, it was already a century after the Baoyou imprint, and he thought there was no corroborating evidence that Puji collected it. This was probably due to a lack of material on Puji’s life, which led to a fruitless argument. We had best follow the old theory and leave this question open. Even though Puji belonged to the same line from the school of Zonggao as Wuming, his selection of historical materials did not continue to use the mistakes of the Liandeng huiyuan. Under the entry in fascicle 19 for Chan Master Dadian Baotong (732–824), the Liandeng huiyuan inserts the affair of Han Yu (768–824, an arch-Confucian) asking about the Dharma. Fascicle 5 of the Wudeng huiyuan keeps this. Fascicle 20 of the Liandeng huiyuan made Han Yu a Dharma-heir of Dadian, and has four sentences of their dialogue. These are clearly fabrications and therefore the Wudeng huiyuan deleted them. As described previously, the Yunmen House flourished greatly for a time in the Northern Song and meddlers instigated a dispute over Yunmen’s affiliation, wanting to affiliate Yunmen with the Nanyue line. Therefore, they created a stele for Tianwang and made Tianwang an heir of Mazu. Even though Puji was a Chan monk of the Yangqi branch of the Linji lineage that was in a line from Nanyue, he did not directly adopt this theory, but he added a small interlinear note to the end of the entry for “Chan Master Tianhuang Daowu” in fascicle 7 that explained, “He did not come from the [school] of Longtan Xin, but from Tianwang Daowu. He is not the Tianwang Daowu who was a follower of Shitou.” This was supporting the theory that Yunmen 21 22

Liu Shanze, “Post-face.”. Chen Yuan, op. cit., p. 105.

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was a member of the Nanyue line. One can see that Puji’s sectarian ideas were still comparatively clear, but he did not enter this into the main text, so we can also see his caution in writing history. No wonder that later people defended him by saying that this note was interpolated into the Yuan dynasty Zhizheng edition (in fact, the note exists in the Baoyou edition),23 and he merely added this digression on the question of Yunmen’s affiliation. The Wudeng huiyuan records events from before the fourth year of the Jiatai era (1204) of the Southern Song, namely virtually all of the Chan School persons and the Chan opportunities for enlightenment that they implemented before 1204. It not only includes the five houses and seven lineages of the two lines of Qingyuan and Nanyue, but also has other branches from Hongren’s school, and through this it traces the lineage back to Bodhidharma, then to the twenty-seven patriarchs of India and beyond Ka´syapa to the seven buddhas. The essentials of this are in the exposition. The Wudeng huiyuan’s concept of the source of Chan learning and genealogy, and its main records, are of the various branches from Huineng onwards. The emphasis of the entire text is on revealing the Dharma talks and enlightenment devices that the various Chan School masters used to guide students. Some are spoken, some are not spoken. There are direct speaking, contrary speaking, solemn speaking, humorous speaking, vulgar speaking, elegant speaking, clear speaking, and hidden speaking. There is also the raising of eyebrows and the blinking of eyes, the raising of fists and lifting of fingers, standing whisks upright and picking up mallets, the overturning of benches and bowing, the holding of a fork and the pulling of bows, sighing, laughing, striking with a staff, shouting, glaring angrily and striking with fists and so on, which really means it can be said to be a lair of the Chan School gongan. It concentrates on reflecting on a number of famous Chan masters of the five houses and seven lineages who had already lost the concision and clarity in teaching of the time of Huineng, as well as the style of solemn and plain thought, and they fell into the set patterns of the gongan Chan and the great play with devices related to the ineffability of Chan, thereby leading the Chan School into narrow and biased directions of development and onto the path of mysticism. The Wudeng huiyuan bears an absolutely major responsibility for the later decay of the Chan School. But one cannot ignore the Wudeng huiyuan for the study of the history of the Chan School and the branching and changes of Chan thought. The Chan institution has universally acclaimed gongan. The Wudeng huiyuan records them all, such as the gongan of Buddha picking up a flower and Ka´syapa subtly smiling, the one flower unfolding into five petals, Niaoke’s blowing on a gossamer catkin, Xuanjue staying one night, polishing a brick to make a mirror, nomind is the Way, Baizhang held a whisk upright, Nanquan cut a cat in two, Shigong drew the bow, Panshan examined meat, Guizong cut a snake in half, Juzhi cut off a finger, Jiashan wielded a sword, Danxia burnt a Buddha statue, Bimo lifted a fork, Yaoshan hit a drum, Zhilin’s wooden sword, Zifu’s pole, Yunmen’s three sentences, Huanglong’s three barriers, Bajiao’s staff, Xiangyan struck a bamboo with a pebble, 23

Qing dynasty, Famen chugui (Removal of Traitors from the Dharma-gate of Chan), by Baiyin Jingfu, 1667.

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Xuefeng rolled a ball, Longtan blew out a candle, Zhaozhou’s four gates, a hemp jacket of seven catties, everything that appears is perfect, not wearing an inch of thread, Linji’s shout, Deshan’s blows with a staff, the blown-hair sword, three catties of hemp, and others such as the flag moving or the wind moving, if one speaks about a thing one does not hit the mark, the everyday mind is the Way, the cypress in front of the courtyard, a sesame seed contains Mt. Sumeru, ever so green the emerald bamboo all of which is the Dharma-body, and what Hu Shi called Mr. Pang’s razor, “I just hope to empty all that exists, and take care not to fill emptiness,” and so on; everywhere it gives expression to the Chan styles of various masters. Naturally, all these gongan stories were copied out from the five lamplight records. It has no new creations of its own, and in its thought there was no way to escape the influence of the five lamplight records, so there is no need to discuss this in detail. However, there are three points that require explanation: One, the Wudeng huiyuan took material from the five lamplight records, abridging them, putting them into a correct order and organization, and improving some of the language. From a formal viewpoint it is superior to the five lamplight records, but to place it on par with the Shiji (Records of the Historian) and the Han shu (Account of the Han), (two of the model standard secular histories), is to say something like “Reverend Daquan’s collection of the Wudeng huiyuan has a merit not less than that of Sima Qian and Ban Gu [authors of the Shiji and Han shu respectively],” which is rather overstated. It’s thought and value as an historical source equally cannot be greater than that of the five lamplight records. Two, the Wudeng huiyuan’s simplification by removing the superfluous in the five lamplight records not only deleted needless duplications, it also removed considerable original source material. As the entry on students under Deshan Yuanmi in fascicle 15 of the Wudeng huiyuan only selects Wenshu Yingzhen, but the Jingde chuandeng lu has two people and the Tiansheng guangdeng lu has a further fourteen people (since Baling and Yuezhou Pu are one person, it really adds thirteen people), it therefore lacks Deshan Rou, Dingzhou Kuan, in all four people and their essential sayings. Besides this, the several fascicles at the end of the Jingde chuandeng lu, Xu chuandeng lu, Liaodeng huiyuan, and Jiatai pudeng lu all record the Chan raising of old topics (niangu), hymns on old cases, g¯ath¯a praises, poems, inscriptions and other texts. The Wudeng huiyuan removes them all. Because of this, the Wudeng huiyuan is not the equal of the five lamplight records in regard to the extent of the historical source material. Three, although the Wudeng huiyuan is a collection from the five lamplight records, it still is not a complete word-for-word copy of the five lamplight records, and as previously mentioned, the common-sense mistake of Wuming regarding Han Yu as a Dharma-heir of Dadian was removed. This is one example. Besides, under the entry on Bodhidharma in the final fascicle, there is a general survey that specialized in redressing the errors of the Jingde chuandeng lu. He says, The Jingde chuandeng lu says that Emperor Xiaoming of the Wei admired the miraculous deeds of the patriarch (Bodhidharma) and three times he respectfully summoned him, but the patriarch in the end did not descend from Shaolin. Then the patriarch passed away, and [the envoy] Song Yun on his return journey from the Western Regions encountered the patriarch

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in the Pamir Mountains. Emperor Xiaozhuang ordered that his grave be opened. According to the Nan shi, the eighth year of the Putong era is the first year of the Datong era (535). In the fourth month, guichou [in the cyclical calendar] of this year, Xiaoming died and in the tenth month the patriarch went to [the state of] Liang. Before the patriarch reached [the state of] Wei, Xiaoming had already departed this world. Before his son had ascended the throne, he was wiped away by Erzhu Rong, who put Emperor Xiaozhuang on the throne, and due to this the state of Wei was in great confusion. After three years, Xiaozhuang died, and again in five years, Wei was divided into Eastern and Western Wei. So then, when our patriarch was in Shaolin, it was exactly at the time of these rebellions and when Song Yun returned, Xioazhuang had already departed this world, probably for five or six years, and the country had been divided for a long time. How could Xiaozhuang have opened the grave?

Puji’s idea is that as Emperor Xiaoming died in the eighth year of the Putong era, which is the first year of the Datong era (the Nan shi here uses the Liang dynasty reign era, 529) in the fourth month and Bodhidharma arrived in Liang in the tenth month of that year, so a dead person had no way of “three times summoning him.” This is the first point. Here Puji’s record has errors, for in his biography he says that Bodhidharma “arrived in Luoyang” on the twenty-third day of the eleventh month of the third year of the Xiaochang era (527) of Emperor Ming, and although the sequence is not in agreement at all, the textual criticism by Puji is comparatively correct. The second point says that Bodhidharma departed the world in the second year of the Datong era, that is, 536, and Xiaozhuang died in 531, and Song Yun returned from the Western Regions three years after Bodhidharma’s death, namely in 539, at that time Northern Wei had already been divided for a number of years, so the theory that Xiaozhuang opened the tomb is also groundless. Finally, based the Tang shi (History of the Tang), he said, At the end of the Later Wei, the monk Bodhidharma sailed across the sea, then he died. In that year, the Wei envoy Song Yun, on his return journey, saw him in the Pamirs and his followers opened his tomb, and there was only one sandal there. This is a true record.

That is to say, Puji thought that the three summons by Xiaoming mentioned by the Jingde chuandeng lu and that Xiaozhuang opened the tomb were all nonsense, and that Song Yun’s followers opening Bodhidharma’s tomb is a true record. From this we can see that Puji possessed the skills of textual criticism and the historian’s solicitation of facts, but unfortunately this is only one example in the whole book. The minor note under the entry on Tianhuang Daowu is something that is definitely worth investigation, but it rather reflects his sectarian ideas, and yet this does not have too much meaning.

Appendix: The Disputes over the Change of Affiliation to the Legitimate Lineage of Yunmen From when Huineng appeared, typically the Chinese Chan School was even more outstanding within Buddhism. At Dayun Monastery in Huatai, Heze Shenhui convened an unrestricted mass assembly and publicly announced that he would

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“determine the core tenets for the students of the Way in the empire and I will discriminate the right and wrong [of the lineages] for the students of the empire.”24 This initiated the dispute over sudden and gradual (enlightenment) and the use of status as a legitimate lineage pupil of Huineng to label one in a genealogical lineage of the Southern Lineage. Afterwards, the Hongzhou (Chan of Mazu) arose and made Huineng → Huairang → Mazu Daoyi the orthodox lineage. Then the Chan School attracted large numbers, “like wind blowing down grass,” and it was also accompanied by a flood of disputes over lineage. At that time, Zongmi pointed out that “Huineng of the South and Shenxiu of the North disliked each other [just like] water and fire. Heze and Hongzhou had a gap [between them like that between] the shen and shang [stars that never appear in the sky at the same time].”25 This exactly reflects the lineage disputes of a period of prosperity for the Chan School. If one says that in the opposition of North and South there were also differences in the Dharma-gateways of sudden and gradual, but being like the stars that never occur together, this means that the Heze and Hongzhou branches, which both emerged from Huineng’s school, were really established purely to be orthodox lineages. By the Song, Daguan Tanying and Juefan Huihong of the Linji lineage advanced the theory that there were two people called Daowu, who originally were affiliated with the Yunmen and Fayan lineages that emerged from Shitou’s school, and they changed these two people into being members of the Hongzhou lineage. This incident of the change of the Yunmen affiliation, particularly reflects the “division of the lamplight [transmission] and its propagation” after the rise of the Chan School and the concept of an orthodox lineage in which students of Chan depended on factions. To be fair, the division of the lamplight transmission beyond the patriarchs and the branching out of the orthodox lineage were advanced at almost exactly the same time as the Chan School rose. “One flower will open into five petals, forming a fruit naturally.”26 Puji thus traced this lineage division back to a prediction by Bodhidharma of the division of the Chan School into five houses before the sixth or seventh century. It was universally recognized that after Huineng, the Nanyue (Hongzhou) and Qingyuan (Shitou) lines appeared, and from Hongzhou there emerged the Weiyang and Linji houses, and following Shitou there emerged the Caodong, Yunmen, and Fayan houses. Lineages undoubtedly existed, but at the time of Mazu and Shitou, those who came to study with them arrived in an endless stream. They held very many disagreements with the lineage of the Platform Sutra of Heze Shenhui. It is just that the inheritance and transmission of the Dharma-lineage of teachers and pupils means that it was hard to avoid each of them maintaining different theories. In 952, the Zutang ji had already acknowledged that Yunmen and Fayan both came from out of Shitou’s school, and because of this, in the Song period when the Linji and the Yunmen houses alone prospered, we should say that Hongzhou and Shitou each made contributions. At the end of the Northern Song, 24

Shenhui, Nanzong ding shifei lun (On the Determination of the Right and Wrong of the Southern Lineage). 25 Zongmi, Chanyuan zhuquanji duxu. 26 Puji, Wudeng huiyuan, fascicle 1.

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meddlers took the theory of the two Daowu and placed Yunmen under the Nanyue line, really wanting to quieten the dispute between the Linji and Yunmen houses. In the Linjian lu, Huihong had said, “Now they erroneously think the Yunmen and Linji houses are in competition, which is laughable.” Here we can see his intention to oppose the change in affiliation. However, facts and hopes conflict, and this attempt was not only unable to quell the dispute, but it also engineered doubt and provoked yet another dispute that increased right through to the early Qing period. Ultimately, did Yunmen and Weiyang came out from Shitou or from Hongzhou, and did they belong to the Qingyuan and Nanyue lines? The divergent opinions really arose about Tianhuang Daowu’s succession. The Song gaoseng zhuan says, Shi Daowu was surnamed Zhang and was a native of Dongyang in Wuzhou….When he was born he was divinely talented, and when he grew up he was sincere and honest. At the age of fourteen he wanted to become a monk, but his beloved parents would not permit this. Then he lessened his normal meals to a minimum….His father could not stop this and so allowed him [to become a monk]. Then he went to a great virtuoso in Mingzhou and was tonsured there. When he was twenty-five, he took the full precepts from a great virtuoso of Zhulin Monastery in Hangzhou….He joined Master Guoyi Yang of Jingshan, and as soon as he had bowed his head to the master’s feet he privately received the essentials of the core teaching….He eliminated his doubts and obstacles, was fearless and free, and directly saw the Buddha-nature….He had doubts that he was violating the Way, and therefore he again visited [various masters]….At the start of the Jianzhong era, he had an audience with Great Master Ma of Zhongling. In the autumn of the second year, he had an audience with Senior Master Shitou. Alas, he went from Jingshan to the Heng Marchmount, where he in all met three wise masters. When he arrived there, he went into seclusion to practice the governance [of his mind] and he was like the man of Ying wielding his hatchet. These all emptied his mind, and he perfectly agreed with them.

We know from this that at the age of fourteen, Daowu wanted to become a monk, that he was tonsured at Mingzhou, and at twenty-five, he received the full precepts at Zhulin Monastery in Hangzhou, and that later he joined Chan Master Guoyi of Jingshan and he directly saw the Buddha-nature. Because he disliked his own ignorance, he continued on to consult Daoyi and Great Master Shitou Xiqian, and again gained verification at Guoyi’s place and received the Buddha-dharma there. We can see that Daowu really obtained the Dharma from Guoyi and then proceeded to serve Mazu and Shitou. Guoyi was a monk of the Niutou lineage and Niutou’s Chan method of “empty space is the basis of the Way” was not far from the core tenets of “seeing the nature and becoming buddha” of Qingyuan and Nanyue. Therefore, he could “perfectly match with them.” Realistically, Daowu of course could not draw a line between any of the schools. The “Shitou Xiqian zhuan” (Biography of Shitou Xiqian) in the Song gaoseng zhuan, quoting the stele written by Liu Ke (fl. 820 s-830 s), says that among his pupils there was definitely a Daowu and says nothing more than that in the end he served a master who was part of the Qingyuan line. What the Jingde chuandeng lu says is slightly different to the Song gaoseng zhuan account. It says that he first had an audience with Jingshan, received the mind-Dharma, and went to Zhongling where he had an audience with Mazu, who reconfirmed his previous understanding. Finally, “he then had an audience with Great Master Shitou [Xi]qian….He was suddenly enlightened by this, and with the words of the two previous wise masters he had

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a mind that got it, and he completely transcended his traces [of karmic activity].” This further stressed that Daowu was suddenly enlightened to the mind-Dharma by Shitou, and naturally that he also belonged only in the school of Qingyuan. But it also highlights that Mazu and Shitou both directly influenced his thought. One can see that the “meddlers” of the end of the Northern Song did have some basis for making Daowu a later heir of the Nanyue line. This means that Huihong and Daquan mistakenly quoted the text by Qiu Xuansu, which really has the feeling that they were attending to one matter while losing sight of another. Even before Qiu Xuansu, there is the “Tang gu Hongzhou Kaiyuan-si Shimen Daoyi Chanshi taming” (Stele Inscription for the Late Chan Master Shimen Daoyi of Kaiyuan Monastery of Hongzhou, in the Tang) by Quan Deyu (759–818), in fascicle 50 of the Quan Tangwen (Complete Prose Works of the Tang), in which there is a Daowu listed among Mazu’s eleven disciples. This inscription was written no more than a few years after Mazu Daoyi died.27 In the Yuanhe era (806–821), Gui Deng (753–820) wrote the “Nanyue Huairang Chanshi bei” (Stele Inscription for Chan Master Huairang of Nanyue), which also lists a Daowu among the secondgeneration disciples of Huairang. Slightly later than Mazu, Guifeng Zongmi wrote a Zhonghua Chanmen shizi chengxi tu (Diagram of the Succession from Master to Disciple of the Chinese Chan School), in which Mazu has six disciples. At the head of the list there is a “Jiangling Wu,” together with a note that “he also was endowed [with the Dharma] by Jingshan,” which also indicates Tianhuang Daowu. These writings and records are not distant from Mazu’s time and the sources of the material should be comparatively reliable. By the end of the Northern Song, Daguan Tanying, a Linji-lineage monk of the Nanyue school compiled the Wujia zongpai (The Lineage Factions of the Five Houses) and the Huanglong-lineage monk Huihong wrote the Linjian lu, both of which quote the “Tianwang Daowu Chanshi bei” (Stele Inscription for Chan Master Tianwang Daowu) by the Military Commissioner of the Jingnan Region, Qiu Xuansu, that emphasized and explained that to the east and to the west of the city of Jingnan, at the same time, there were two Daowu, and they are concretely discriminated as below: West of Jingnan City, Tianwang Monastery

East of Jingnan City, Tianhuang Monastery

Tianwang Daowu, surname Cui

Tianhuang Daowu, surnamed Zhang

Master

Mazu Daoyi

Shitou Xiqian

Dharma-heir

Longtan Chongxin

Huizhi, Wenben et cetera

Became a monk

At 15 in Changsha Monastery

At 14, in Mingzhou

Received the precepts At 23, on Songshan

At 25, in Zhulin Monastery, Hangzhou (continued)

27

Mazu died in 788, Quan’s text was written in 791.

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(continued) West of Jingnan City, Tianwang Monastery

East of Jingnan City, Tianhuang Monastery

First consultation

At 30 consulted Shitou, repeatedly First consulted Guoyi, next had an bathed in his directions, but had yet audience with Mazu to take the opportunity

Enlightenment

At 34, joined Mazu and was greatly Later consulted Shitou and was enlightened at his words greatly enlightened

The stele inscription also says that Daowu, the National Teacher (Huizhong) and the attendant Yingzhen also had an audience with Mazu. Mazu said, “Recognize that your own mind is originally buddha, it does not pertain to gradual stages, it does not need cultivating and maintaining, its reality (ti) itself is suchness, and all merits are complete [in it].” At these words, Daowu was greatly enlightened. At the same time, he followed Mazu’s directions and returned to Jingmen (Jingnan) and thatched himself a hut. Here it emphasizes that Daowu first asked Shitou about the Dharma, but that he had yet to take the opportunity for enlightenment, and in the end he turned to Mazu and was enlightened to the mind-Dharma. The sequence of the acceptance of a teacher is directly opposite of that described in the Song gaoseng zhuan. Because of this, their conclusion was that Daowu was a Dharma-heir of Mazu and that the two lineages of Yunmen and Fayan were illegitimately produced from his pupil Longtan Chongxin. When it comes to the Daowu in the school of Shitou, that is, Tianhuang Daowu, even though this Daowu had several disciples, his line ended in only one generation, and therefore he had no connection with Yunmen and Fayan. According to this theory, this has changed the lineage afiliations of Yunmen and Fayan, and the tradition is that the Qingyuan line produced the Caodong, Yunmen, and Fayan houses; and that Nanyue’s school produced the Linji and Weiyang houses; and that this was changed to maintaining that the school of Nanyue produced the four houses of Linji, Weiyang, Yunmen, and Fayan, and that the school of Qingyuan only produced the Caodong house. This is as in the diagram below: Nanyue

Qingyuan

Mazu

Shitou

↓

↓

_________________________---------------↓ Linji Yi

↓

__________________________

↓

↓

Weiyang You

Dao

wu

Yangshan Ji

↓

↓

Yunmen Yan

↓ Dongshan Ji Caoshan Ji Fayan Yi

Afterwards, in the Chunxi era (1174–1189) of Southern Song, Puji’s collection, the Wudeng huiyuan, also based Daowu’s biography on the theory that he came from the

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Shitou school. What he said is, “First he had an audience with Guoyi and received his mind-Dharma. He diligently followed him for five years. Later, he consulted Mazu, who reconfirmed his previous understanding and there was no difference in the Dharma he preached. He stayed reliant on him for two summers. Then he had an audience with Shitou and questioned him….” However, after the first printed edition of the Wudeng huiyuan, the Baoyou imprint, the Yuan dynasty Zhizheng reprint, kun (section), has the note: All say that the two lineages of Yunmen and Fayan came from Qingyuan’s Shitou, and even though the descendants of these two lineages themselves say that they came from Shitou of the Qingyuan [line], they do not know that this error has been in existence for a long time.

The following story is the same as that told by Huihong and Daguan, and it may have quoted from the Linjian lu, which explains that Puji (if these words are Puji’s own note) was objective and had an impartial attitude in the adoption of historical source material. We can also see the change of Yunmen’s affiliation at that time had already become an unresolved question. It is usually thought that the stele of Qiu Xuansu was a forgery and that therefore the story of two Daowu was due to mistaking Tianhuang for Tianwang and so was a baseless story, but none could deny that he had Mazu and Shitou as teachers, and that it was merely their sequence that was not agreed upon. Therefore, it is said that even if there were not two Daowu, there was no reason whatsoever for affiliating Yunmen with either the line of Qingyuan or of Nanyue. Essentially, the dispute over Tianwang or Tianhuang really did not reside in doctrinal theory but in the issue of the orthodox lineage. The Shishi yinian lu (Records of Doubtful Dates in Buddhism) says, “Its significance does not reside in Tianwang, but in the change of affiliation of Yunmen.” This is very much to the point. It is worth noting that the change of affiliation of Yunmen did not involve Yunmen faction monks; “The descendants of the two houses themselves said that they came forth from Qingyuan’s Shitou,” which exactly explained this point, and the majority of this is a record of harmonization and clear agreement by great officials such as Attendant-in-ordinary Gui Deng, the Military Commissioner Qiu Xuansu, the Minister of the Ministry of Rites Quan Deyu, and Zhang Shangying, and Zongmi, Zanning and Puji, who had no connections with Yunmen. It was especially Linjilineage monks of the Nanyue school, like Daguan and Huihong, and the quotes and annotations of the Wudeng huiyuan in the Song dynasty Baoyou and Yuan dynasty Zhizheng editors, who used the two Daowu theory to instigate the dispute over the affiliation of Yunmen. This really was out of the usual. Realistically speaking, this is very simple. Daowu originally asked about the Dharma from Mazu and Shitou, and it is equally possible to see him as belonging to the lines of Nanyue and Qingyuan. At that time, there was as yet no divisions into five houses, and it was due to each of the recorder’s own ideas that determined which lineage he was affiliated with, so different theories naturally were unavoidable. Afterwards, the Song gaoseng zhuan and the Wudeng huiyuan both placed the record of Daowu under the Qingyuan line, which was a decision based on the historical sources, and we cannot even see an idea of them being biased towards Qingyuan.

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But, at the end of the Northern Song, the Yunmen and Linji lineages shone brilliantly all over, alone flourishing in the empire, and those called “Chan” were mostly heirs of these two lineages. According to the records of the Song gaoseng zhuan and the Wudeng huiyuan, the Yunmen and Linji lineages were in vogue in the empire, and so then the Qingyuan and Nanyue lines operated together and even struggled with each other. This was something that Linji-lineage monks descending from the Hongzhou school did not like to admit. In addition, there was Daowu’s affiliation. The question originally was like blind people feeling to determine what an elephant is like; each held to their own bias. The two Daowu, Tianhuang and Tianwang, only served Mazu and Shitou in different sequences, and the theories of the Song gaoseng zhuan and the Wudeng huiyuan are without any fundamental differences. Therefore, Daguan and Huihong determined that Daowu was a monk of the Nanyue line, with the aim being no more than to include the Yunmen lineage that was prospering along with the Linji lineage into their own faction, in order to strengthen the vitality of Nanyue and to quell the contest between the Linji and Yunmen houses. Huihong wrote in his Linjian lu, “Now they erroneously take the Yunmen and Linji to be in competition, which is laughable.” This serves to show an inkling of their motivation. Nevertheless, events and hopes clash, and the change of Yunmen’s affiliation did not quell the contest between Linji and Yunmen, but to the contrary planted another large seed for the dispute over the orthodox lineage. At the end of the Ming dynasty, Feiyin Tongrong (1593–1661) wrote the Wudeng yantong (The Strict Lineage of the Five Lamplight Transmissions), repeating the theories that Yunmen and Fayan belong to the Nanyue line, and he used the words “yantong” (strict lineage) to exclude Caodong, setting off the so-called great discord of the two lineages of jiayi.28 Looking at this, the dispute over the affiliation of Yunmen was really as an eminent monk of the Ming period, Ouyi Zhixu said, “It was nothing more than the play of little children.” Later a discussion of this said, “The error of Tianwang really began with Zhang Shangying….His view of Yunmen and Linji was just like that of the Yuanyou and Xining,29 also wishing to divide the school and houses.”30 We can say that this was pasting a plaster on the source of infection that was the change of Yunmen’s affiliation. The Nanlei wenan (Literary References from Nanlei) evaluates this in detail: The Buddhists of the past set up their own houses; the present-day Buddhists rely on these houses. The setting up of one’s own house is like one’s descendants not depending on the labors of their ancestors and bare-handed they can raise a home. Those who rely on the houses are like servants divining the winds (trends) and examining the weather (atmosphere), being certain to measure their master’s mood [literally hot and cold]….Therefore, the rights and wrongs of the two houses do not need to be argued over.31 28

Jiayi indicates the eleventh year and twelfth year of the Shunzhi era, the cyclical dates for which were jiawu and yiwei respectively, 1654–1655. 29 Tr. Yuanyou and Xining are reign periods, when there were disputes over the policies of Wang Anshi. 30 Requoted from Chen Yuan, Qingchu sengzheng ji (Record of the Monks’ Disputes of the Early Qing), Zhonghua shuju, 1962, p. 10. 31 Huang Zongxi, Nanlei wenan 4. Tr. Nanlei is the name of a village and one of Huang’s styles.

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This passage even more clearly speaks of the significance of the Yunmen change of affiliation. One is being obsequious to the powerful, of being reliant, and using houses to strengthen their own actions; two is the criticism of the Buddhist bad habit of dependence; and three is that it is not worth arguing over who is right and who is wrong. Also, it uses stories of Yunmen monks to make a conclusion that: “On a pitchblack night, Longtan Chongxin took a burning torch and gave it to Deshan, and when Deshan stretched out his hand to take it, Chongxin blew it out with one breath and then Deshan was greatly enlightened….Having received it, it is not Chan!”. As even receiving it is still not correct, what value is there in depending on it? The argument over the orthodox lineage and Yunmen’s change of affiliation really was contrary to the spirit of Yunmen.

Chapter 9

The Attractive Force of Chan Learning and Its Outwards Diffusion

Professor Tang Yongtong has said, “The expansion of the Buddha-dharma over China in short had two causes; one doctrine (teaching) and two theory. In the Buddhadharma, doctrine and theory use each other and one cannot be partial to either. But in China, some were partial to doctrine, some were partial to theory. Speaking of doctrine, that is the great matter of birth and death, of which devout belief is the uppermost….The most blinded by theory were those who in the Six Dynasties period were versed in Dark Learning.” One can see that Buddhism in its Chinese paths of development can be separated into the two directions of being partial to doctrine and being partial to theory, and in the development of scholarly theory there was an interest during the Six Dynasties period in Laozi and Zhuangzi, and these arose along with a mysterious style. In fact, the important development in scholarly theory occurred among the literati scholars. Its expression was in the famous monks who conversed about mysteries and the famous scholars who struck a balance between the words of Confucius and Buddha. The famous monks and famous scholars converged in their ideas, and Buddhist theory and Dark Learning brought out the best in each other. The union of the monks and scholars as early as the Wei-Jin period was already a remarkable feature of society. Professor Tang also said that the union of Chinese civilization and Buddhist learning was in the direction of theoretical development, which was expressed in two aspects; “one is the unification of mystery and theory, and one is the expression in letters (literature),” with eminent monks “conversing on the mysteries all themselves unrivalled, and their writing style being exquisite, this also was sufficient to correspond [to their theory].” Monks “who investigated Laozi and Zhuangzi took great advantage of their literary fame” and the themes of their writings were clear and beautiful. Really, they used their literary gifts to bring honor. Tang also critiqued this practice as, “The aptitude for pure conversation (qingtan) has its basis in name and theory, and its spread was mainly due to the subtle elegance of the language, and the beauty and sumptuousness of the writing.”1 1

Tang Yongtong, Han Wei Liang Jin Nanbei chao Fojiaoshi, vol. 2, Zhonghua shuju, 1983, pp. 300– 302.

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Obviously, from the time Buddhism was first introduced, not only did it influence people’s beliefs and thinking, but it also had adopted the literary style of scholars that had early on tended towards the implicit, clear and beautiful, or towards the stylish and sumptuous. It had already cut its ties with the Buddhist prohibition on flowery language and beautiful words, and the Chan idea that the Way is divorced from language. The reason Buddhism was able to rapidly develop against the background of an impregnable Chinese traditional culture really was its reliance on its broadscale infiltration into the Chinese scholar class. The important point was that it imbibed philosophical Daoist thought to form the Chinese Chan School, and so its theories were marvelous and its thinking was esoteric, its literature was also elegant, its practices were also simple, and of course, in any of these aspects it was able to satisfy the demands of the scholar class of the Song period. The intercourse between Chan monks and the scholars, and the matching of Chan learning with poetic theory, was nothing more than an extension into the Song period of the path of the union of famous monks and scholars and the union of Buddhist theory and Dark Learning of the Wei and Jin period. There is such a record in the Dahui Pujue Chanshi zongmen wuku: Wang Anshi asked Zhang Wending (Fangping, 1007–1091) why there were no successors after Confucius and Mencius. Zhang replied, “There were people who exceeded Confucius and Mencius.” He raised as examples only the great masters of the Chan School, like Mazu, Xuefeng, Danxia, Yunmen and so on. Wang Anshi did not understand, so then Zhang explained, “The Confucians were indifferent, tidying up things endlessly, and they all devoted themselves to Buddhism.” This is an explanation that seemingly accords with the reality of the social phenomena that were creations of later times in which the Song people accepted Buddhism into Confucianism and drew Chan into poetry. In reality this was not so. The truth of this passage will not be discussed for the moment, but really there were also people who praised the Song Confucians as “natural and unrestrained of mind, like a light breeze and clear moon after rain.”2 Confucian thought in the Song dynasty used Lixue (neo-Confucian learning of principle) to cater for society and formed a theory of government for the latter period of feudal society, which is not indifference but taking an interest, and was not tidying things up endlessly, but was being on the ascendant. The theory of indifference was only the work of a complacent Chan monk in the category of Zonggao using the topic to put over his own ideas. In fact, seen from the point of view of Buddhism, it continuously selected from Confucian and Daoist thought and formed a distinctive Chinese Buddhism, and while possessing its own surface tensions, it also exerted a subtle influence on the Chinese tradition. Speaking from the side of the Confucian scholars, the coincidence with the mysterious principles of the Buddhists, the expression in letters, and the deep, serene, and profound style of the Chan monasteries, also remolded the philosophy of human life, enriched their rational thinking, and impregnated their aesthetic concepts. The famous scholars of the Wei and Jin, and the poets and philosophers of the High Tang already seem to have flocked after Buddhism in the way that Song-dynasty scholars 2

Words of Huang Tingjian (1050–1110), a famous poet.

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did. Yet they did not subscribe to Buddhism, but they were like the regenerated phoenix that flew high from amid the burning flowers. As is well known, the Songperiod scholar class were sometimes inclined to pedantry and sometimes degenerated into decadence. These two extremes can both be identified as having been received from Chan theory and Chan interests. Therefore, Song-dynasty Chan learning would fully and completely infiltrate into the various spheres of government, philosophy, poetry, song, and aesthetics. Its concrete expression was the Chan learning of the gentry, the Chan learning of neo-Confucianism, and the Chan learning of poetics.

Part 1: The Chan Learning of the Gentry The schools of Buddhism declined due to the Huichang persecution of Buddhism and the Chan School took enlightening the mind and seeing the nature to be its core theme. Chan was coherent and simple, and even though Chan remained the same in its popularity, these schools could not but be influenced by it. By the Zhao Song dynasty, they were all like a withered tree coming to life in the spring and the Chan School especially showed the appearance of prosperity. This undoubtedly was determined by the values of the Chan School itself that were appropriate for the social psychology of the times. Naturally, this cannot be separated from the munificence and support of the emperors of the Song house and the adulation and promotion by the gentry. From the foundation of the Song court onwards, with the exception of Emperor Huizong who directed the farce of a “Daoicization” of Buddhism, all the emperors bowed down and worshipped Buddhism, and courteously received Chan monks very grandly. The emperors made innumerable grants of purple robes and titles while the recipients were alive, and posthumous titles after death. History is full of incidents of the court establishment of monasteries and the setting up of maigre feasts, worshipping the buddhas and listening to the sutras, and invitations to court. When Emperor Taizu was on the throne for a few months, he lifted the order of the Xiande era (960) to destroy the Dharma, and in the third year of the Kaibao era (970) he ordered Chengdu Superior Prefecture to make a pitaka (canon) of Buddhist sutras each in golden and silver lettering, and in the next year he ordered Gao Pin and Zhang Congxin to go to Yizhou (Chengdu) to engrave the woodblocks of the Tripitaka. He also personally wrote out the Diamond Sutra and he always read it out loud himself. Emperor Taizong “also venerated Buddhism” and ordered Zanning to write the Da Song gaoseng zhuan and so on. He ordered that a sutra-translation cloister be constructed in Taiping xingguo Monastery and he personally composed the Da Song xinyi sanzang shengjiao xu (Preface to the Holy Teachings of the Newly-Translated Tripitaka of the Great Song). The later emperors often accepted the tried methods of their ancestors, rewarding and promoting Buddhism, and they also loved making fun by using barbed comments with Chan monks. For example, Emperor Renzong supported Li Zunxu’s writing of the Tiansheng guangdeng lu and he wrote a preface for it. Ma Yongqing (in office 1111–1117) of the Southern Song praised this as, “His

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Way and virtue were like those of the emperors and kings of ancient times, and his Chan learning is also independently eminent and abstruse.”3 When the Song house fled south from the Jin invasion, because the country was greatly militarized, Emperor Gaozong saw an elderly monk who was worried about the times and thought about the country, and so he further respected and believed in Buddhism. Then, when he first changed the reign era title, he summoned Foguo Keqin (1063–1135) to visit and engage in dialogue. Keqin replied, “Your majesty uses humaneness and filial piety to govern the empire, and you lead the common people of the country and awe by your luster….This is the mind transmitted by the buddhas and patriarchs” et cetera. Gaozong was delighted and awarded him the title Yuanwu. Emperor Xiaozong was simply devoted to Buddhism and Huiyuan and Deguang (1121–1203) of Lingyin Monastery, and Baoyin of Xuedou Monastery received the greatest patronage. His intercourse with Chan monks was especially close, and in sequence he summoned Ruona of Tianzhu Monastery, Huiyuan of Lingyin Monastery, Deguang of Baoen Monastery, and Baoyin of Xuedou Monastery, and he received them in the palace’s Neiguan Hall or Xuande Pavilion. Some lectured on the sutras and explained the theory, some spoke of the similarities and differences of the three religions, and after these events he separately granted them the titles Huiguang, Fohai, and Fozhao (Baoyin did not receive a title). He also personally wrote the Yuandao lun (On the Origin of the Way) and Yuanjue jingzhu (Interlinear Notes on the Sutra of Perfect Awakening). In the third year of the Qiandao era (1167), Emperor Xiaozong visited Shang Tianzhu Monastery, questioned Ruona about whether an emperor bowed before a Dashi (bodhisattva) or not. Ruona said, “If one does not bow, then each one praises themselves; if one bows, then one venerates each other.”4 At that, the emperor was pleased and he bowed. One knows from the above that Xiaozong’s connections with Buddhism were far greater than those of his ancestors and it also reflects the increased development without retreat of the Chan School of the Song period under the support of emperors and kings. The inclusion of the lamplight records into the Tripitaka especially caused Chan monks to make huge advances. If the emperor above has something he praises, the people below are sure to be serious about it. If the emperor and kings are pious, the gentry will likewise blindly follow suit. So then the linkage of officialdom and the teaching monasteries, and the famous gentlemen consulting Chan, and the style of Chan in the prefectures or commanderies, intensified. A general survey of the 310 years of the Song dynasty reveals that there were numerous nobles, scions of aristocratic families, eminent officials, and famous bureaucrats who had affairs with Chan. It goes without saying that there were people like Fan Zhongyan (899–1052), Wen Yanbo (1006–1097), Fu Bi (d. 1085), Wang Anshi, Su Shi (1036–1101), Su Zhe (1039–1112), and Chen Shimeng, and also Li Zunxu and Yang Yi and so on. Others were like the two sons of Li Zunxu, Li Duanyuan and Li Duanyi, and the Grand Guardian and Secretariat Director Wang Shu, Military Commissioner Gao Shize, Chamberlain for Ceremonials Yang Jie, the Attendant Censor Zhao Bian (994–1070), the Minister Xu Shi, the Minister 3 4

Ma Yongqing, Lan zhenzi (Lazy True Son), fascicle 2. There is also a similar dialogue between Feng Dao and Zanning, which states it tactfully.

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of the Ministry of Revenue Wu Juhou, and Vice-Director of a Ministry Xu Fu. There were also the Supervising Secretary Feng Ji, the Notary of the Administrative Assistant to the Zhendong Army Zhang Jiucheng (1092–1159), the Minister of War Li Bing, the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel Li Guang, the Vice-Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices and Expositor-in-waiting Lu Benzhong (1084– 1145), the Attendant Admonisher Han Ju (1080–1135), and Zhang Jun, Li Gang, and others, too many to list. In the Song dynasty, a great many of the gentry migrated between Confucianism and Buddhism, jointly practiced Buddhism and Daoism, and all respected the practice of meditation. Naturally, there were also Song Confucians who emulated Han Yu’s style of the rejection of Buddhism, but they likewise had exchanges with Chan monks and often sighed in appreciation at their conduct. For example, Ouyang Xiu praised Foushan (Fayuan, 991–1067): “What he attained and what he arrived at was a clear enlightenment to the mind-ground.” The gentry and the disciples of Confucian schools indulged in the thought of and the enjoyment of meditation (Chan), and this was undoubtedly because of the frequent concurrence of Chan with the psychology of the Confucian scholars, but even more important still was their desire to rely on Chan theory to extend the Confucian teachings, and they further followed a road of a cultural synthesis. Emperor Taizong had said, “The teachings of Buddhism have benefits for government.”5 “I have favored the teaching of the Dharma, using it to enrich families and the country.”6 Chan disciples also blindly followed suit, afraid that they would be left behind, and the so-called “saints of the three religions set up their teachings only in order to rectify the tricks of present people.”7 These words undoubtedly expressed the feature of the age, the unification of the three religions, and yet this really contradicted the transcendental spirit of Chan. Naturally, the highlighted expression of the Chan learning of the gentry of the Song period was the use of the Buddha-dharma as thought to be a secular method for the unification of the three religions. “Before the Lian (Zhou Dunyi, 1016–1073) and Luo (Chen brothers’ neoConfucian school) prospered, Confucians followed the bequeathed style of Tangdynasty Confucianism and generally devoted themselves to Buddhism.”8 These words may be considered accurate with respect to the atmosphere among the gentry of the early Song. In the early Song, emperors Taizu and Taizong courteously received Buddhism and the gentry also were naturally inclined towards the trends of the times and made friends with Chan monks beyond the secular world. Chao Hui, a presented scholar of the fifth year of the Taiping xingguo era (980), in the reign of Emperor Zhenzong became Minister of Works and was employed in the time of Emperor Renzong as the Grand Mentor of the Heir Apparent. The Song shi (History of the Song) praised him as “being versed in the Buddhist and Daoist books, using the scriptures to transmit and teach, making them into the theory of one house.” His 5

Xu Zizhi tongjian changpian (Continued and Extended Comprehensive Mirror to Assist Government), fascicle 23. 6 Song huiyao jigao (Draft Compilation of the Essentials of the Song [Administration]), tongshi 1. 7 Guzunsu yulu, fascicle 48. 8 Siku quanshu zongmu tiyao.

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Fazang suiyin lu (Record of the Smashing of the Metal of the Dharma Store) was “a merging of the Chan principles [with other teachings]. According to the records, it also belonged in the category of the recorded sayings of the [Chan] lineage school.”9 He advocated the blending of the teachings of the three religions; Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism; and filled in the deficiencies in the Dharma-gateways of the teachings of the scriptures. He represents the embryo of the thought that links the three religions within the Chan learning of the early Song gentry. Yu Jing (1000– 1064), who became an official in the second year of the Tiansheng era (1024), was sent three times as an envoy to the Liao court, was demoted twice, and was a regional official for a long period, was later appointed by Emperor Renzong to be the Minister of Works, was such a politician. Not only did he have connections with Chan monks, he also exchanged verse with them, and using forms of thinking of the Chan School, he strove to reach the realm of forgetting self and things. For example, “Having jointly reached the condition of forgetting words, I stopped talking of the Buddha and mind.”10 “All the worries of the floating life daily trouble one./ Together we visit the Chan residence, our ears and eyes alert./ Having sought victory over oneself, penetrating beyond the mists and fogs,/ Talking of emptiness is sure to make the demons [of temptation] listen.”11 These verses fully reflect his introduction of Chan into poetry and the appeal of posing as a person of refined culture. He said of the title of the poem, “Great Master Huizhao”: “He had aimed for Southern Lineage enlightenment and was versed in non-Buddhist learning. Scholars transmitted the lineage Dharma, and the monks, lord of the country, and poetry were allied.” This reflects the joint cultivation by Chan monks of Buddhism and non-Buddhist teachings, and also reflects the existence of the custom of winning a victory via the principles of profundity, letters, calligraphy, and poetry, and naturally this reveals Yu Jing’s tendency in thought towards such joint interests of the three religions. As for what Yu Jing said, this use of Chan for poetry is nothing more than a trifling literary skill. His concern for the Chan School was chiefly in what he advanced as a policy of “seeking identity and preserving the different, allowing both for joint benefit.” This is exactly the Song-dynasty demand for civilization, which also tallied with the direction of the development of Chan thought. Huang Tingjian, style Shangu Daoren, was a presented scholar of the Zhiping reign (1064–1067) of Emperor Yingzong. He held the official posts of Professor of the Directorate of Education and Examining Editor for the Shenzong shilu (Veritable Records of Emperor Shenzong). He was an example of a good scholar being made an official and his poetry was famed throughout the empire. In the Yuanyou era (1086– 1094), he was staying at Mt. Huanglong, where he consulted Zuxin (1025–1100) about a shortcut entry into the Way. Zuxin asked, “This is just like what Confucius said, ‘My disciples, do you think I conceal anything? I conceal nothing.’12 How would you, Grand Historian, reason it?” Then the aroma of an osmanthus blossom drifted 9

Ibid. Yu Jing shixuan (Selected Poems of Yu Jing), Lijiang chubanshe, 1993, p. 62. 11 Ibid., p. 73. 12 Tr. Lunyu VII.23. 10

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in, and he said, “I have no secrets from you.” Huang was consequently enlightened that Confucianism and Buddhism were not two different teachings, and together with Zuxin’s chief disciple, Sixin, they had a pure platonic relationship. Later he was demoted to Qianzhou (Guizhou), where he abstained from alcohol and sex, and he read the Buddhist canon for three years. He always said, “Profit and decline, praise and blame, compliments and ridicule, suffering and delight; these are the eight winds, and in the midst of the four deportments (all activities) they are never apart from one, and even though one is distant from the great wisdom of the saints, is there anybody who stands beyond these eight winds? If one is not a student of the Way, one will not know this.” He was using the disciples of the Confucian school to penetrate through all the Chan barriers, and through this he began to reveal the harmonization of Confucian and Buddhist thought. He wrote a Linji zongzhi lun (On the Tenets of the Linji Lineage), explaining the reasoning of reaching the same goal by different paths. It says, Some satirize Huitang (Zuxin) for improperly blending Confucian books with Buddhist words. The master said, “If you do not see the nature, the secret words of the patriarchs and buddhas will all become non-Buddhist books; and if one sees the nature, the teachings of the demons and wild-fox Chan [pseudo-Chan] will all become secret words.” Ha! The master was thoroughly versed in Buddhism and non-Buddhism, and he inspired people in accordance with the ability [of the person], making each person return to enlightenment in accordance with what he had practiced. Our Buddhism and Confucianism are identical keys [to unlock enlightenment].13

As Huitang saw it, the formal differences between Buddhism and Confucianism were unimportant; what is important is “seeing the nature.” Huang recognized this as inspiring in accordance with one’s ability and that the joint return to enlightenment were not two things or separate things in Confucianism and Buddhism with respect to the one great matter of opening up enlightenment. One can see from this that Chan thought’s response to capability, its adaptability, and some would say its ability to develop, exactly met the demands of the time and the psychology of the traditional culture. If not, if the gentry had held on to the barriers between barbarian and Chinese and only reverenced the theories of Confucius and Mencius, this would have made it impossible to pave the way for the influence of Buddhism, in particular the Chan School. Of the top officials and nobility who resided on high in the imperial court, the one who probably had the closest relationship with Chan monks was Zhang Shangying (d. 1121). Because of his night thoughts about a Wufo lun (On There Is No Buddha), he came to write the Hufa lun (On the Defense of the Dharma), which was a process that was charged with dramatic changes. And yet, his position and influence were sufficient to make Chan monks flock after him. Naturally, due to the demands of “secretly assisting the royal civilization” and personal psychology, he not only in his status as a high official had an audience with Donglin Changcong (1025–1091) and consulted Doushuai Congyue (1044–1091), he also requested the Elder of Wushan, that is, Yunyan (d.u.), rise to the pulpit and preach. He also took Layman Wujin as 13

Cited in Nukariya Kaiten, p. 491.

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his name. He talked about Chan and asked about the Dharma from famous monks such as Keqin, Huihong, and Zonggao, and he exchanged poems and g¯ath¯a with them. He expressed himself in a refined style of freedom and ease that transcended the worldly, which propelled the tendency of a cultural synthesis to unite the three religions and develop Chan thought. According to tradition, one day Zhang travelled to a monk residence and there saw a sutra collection decorated neatly and beautifully, and he lightly said, “Are our saint Confucius’ books not the equal of those of the barbarians?” Then he returned and sat in the study, and he softly chanted this until midnight. His wife asked him about this and Zhang said he was writing the Wufo lun. His wife said, “Since there is no Buddha, why discuss him?” Then he stopped writing. Later he read the Vimalak¯ırtinirde´sa S¯utra at a fellow student’s place and he sighed in deep admiration. His wife again said to him, “Having thoroughly read this sutra, could you write a Wufo lun afterwards?” Zhang was shocked and was awakened, and then he devoted himself to Buddhism. He took notice of the Way of Chan and he wrote the Hufa lun and the Songgu (Hymns on Old Cases) that circulated in the world. In reality, what Zhang Shangying called “protection of the Dharma” had no new ideas in theory and its main theme was to refute the anti-Buddhist theories of Han Yu, Ouyang Xiu, and Cheng Hao (1032–1085, a.k.a. Cheng Mingdao) and some others in society. For example, Ouyang Xiu said that Buddhism “is applied well but lacks verification, it being something unreal” and “is a major disaster for China.” Ouyang circulated words denigrating Buddhism, such as “they eat but do not farm” and “Emperor Wu of Liang served Buddhism and lost his country [as a consequence].” Zhang Shangying recognized the great compassion of Buddhism, its great happiness and great renunciation, its lack of difference between self and other, and that therefore one should “intone the words of the Buddha and practice the deeds of the Buddha,” and that if one slanders the Buddha-dharma, then that is the greatest of all grave sins and is a sin “that cannot be repented.” This text, with the exception of quoting the Chinese Chan style of farming Chan, of the real practice of the universal requirement for labor14 of “if one does not work for a day, one does not eat for a day,” which reveals the inevitability of the tendency for Buddhism to converge with traditional culture, was deficient in genuine knowledge and profound insight into the Buddhadharma. It also has a very little actual basis for proving the necessity for protecting the Dharma. Frankly speaking, this work became famous because its author was a Grand Councilor of the time. This really was a case of a text being dependent on the reputation of the person. It is no wonder that Song Lian (1310–1381) of the early Ming dynasty criticized it saying, If the ridge-pole of a roof is firm, the wind and rain will be unable to shake it; if one maintains one’s health, illness will not be able to mistreat you. Shouldn’t the gentlemen of the black robes (monks) themselves return to their basis? I observed and was alarmed at them chanting the Buddha’s words while practicing non-Buddhist practices, which is they themselves destroying the Dharma. If one does not observe the vinaya (rules) and chases after external objects, that is destroying the Dharma oneself. Those who increase their ignorance, 14

A collective responsibility, meaning to engage in productive communal labor by the monk assembly.

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and are angry and hate endlessly, that is them destroying the Dharma themselves. A tradition says, “A family is sure to destroy itself,” and after they have destroyed it, then who is at fault?15

Song Lian wrote this in response to a request by Chan Master Huanweng of Kaiyuan Monastery to write a dedication for a reprint of this text, and these words appear therein. His idea was clearly at odds with that of Zhang. Song thought that the Dharma was not being protected; it really was being self-destroyed. The monks are not practicing the Buddha-dharma, not observing the precepts and rules of conduct, are endlessly craving, which leads to “self-destruction” and “destruction” of Chan. Song’s words may be said to sum up in a nutshell the developmental tendency of Chan teaching from Song onwards. In contrast, Zhang Shangying’s discussion of the protection of the Dharma partook of a bias towards emotion. However, his text discussed in detail the differences and similarities of the three religions, and in a zig-zag fashion expresses the purpose of the cultural synthesis. He said, I say that it is an illness of sentient beings to lose the truth and be confused about enlightenment. It is the medicine of the words of the three religions to chase away the delusion. Confucians use these words in order to become a junzi (ruling gentleman), which is to cure a disease of the skin; the Daoist books use it to daily decrease [the illness] and decrease it and decrease it again, which is to cure a disease of the blood circulation; the Buddhists directly point to the base roots and do not retain the branches and the leaves, which is to cure a disease of the marrow.

Evidently, he saw Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism as equally being medicines to cure the illnesses of delusions about the enlightenment of human beings, which was nothing more than the Confucians curing the surface, the Daoists curing the internal, and it was only the Buddhists who were best at curing the basis of the illness. The three religions; Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism; are united in their direction, having the same intention, and it is just that they are not the same in degree of calm and depth. Song also stressed that Confucianism and Buddhism are not the same in respect of words about the nature versus seeing the nature, laboring the mind versus calming the mind, craving versus release, clamor versus purity, revering activity versus forgetting thoughts, contending for power versus according with conditions, action versus non-action, discrimination versus equality, likes and dislikes versus perfect union, looking for importance versus being mindful of insignificance, of seeking fame versus seeking the Way, of disturbance versus contemplative illumination, of being erudite versus simplicity, and so forth. Although there are more similarities between Daoism and Buddhism, this was “a substitution of name and not a substitution of the reality,” and yet there is “difference in depth.” Here, even though it makes clear Zhang Shangying’s tendency in thought to promote Buddhism and downgrade Confucianism, still it is obvious that he aimed at harmonizing the three religions. In his comparison of Buddhism and Confucianism, the part dealing with the contrast in literary expression to the contrary has more value. Chen Guan (1057–1124), appointed Exhorter on the Right and Remonstrator on the Left in the time of Emperor Huizong, had the style of Layman Huayan, loved 15

Song Lian, Chongke Hufa lun tici (Words of Dedication for the Reprint of the Hufa lun).

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to read the Huayan jing (Avatamsaka ˙ S¯utra) and the Diamond Sutra, and he wrote Sanqian youmen song (Three Thousand Hymns of the Gateway [to Chan]). He not only emphasized that “the essentials of the Buddha-dharma do not reside in letters, yet they cannot be divorced from letters,” but he also thought that “it does not reside in a lot of reading, only the one fascicle of the Diamond Sutra is sufficient.” He also pointed out that the essentials of this sutra lay in the nine characters “a nou duo luo san miao san pu ti” (anuttarasamyak sambodhi). ˙ In Sanskrit these nine characters are “in Chinese only the one character awakening ( jue), which is the character sincere (cheng) in the Zhongyong (a Confucian classic).”16 Simply speaking, the essentials of the Buddha-dharma are in the Diamond Sutra and the essentials of the Diamond Sutra are in only nine characters, and the meaning of the nine characters is only awakening, and the “sincerity” of the Zhongyong is equal to the “awakening” of the Diamond Sutra. In Chen Guan’s view, the “sincerity” of the Confucians fully incorporated the essential meaning of the Buddha-dharma. Using Confucianism to explain Buddhism, his train of thought was thus generally the same as that of the Lixue neo-Confucians. Li Gang (1085–1140) was appointed Vice-Minister of War in the time of Emperor Qinzong and continued on to be appointed Assistant Director of the Department of State Affairs. He was a leader of the pro-war party in the confrontation between the Jin and the Song, and Emperor Gaozong appointed him Vice-Director of the Department of State Affairs and the Vice-Minister of the Secretariat-Chancellery. He regarded his duty to be the recovery of the territories lost to the Jin. He was versed in the Yijing (Book of Changes) and the Huayan jing. He wrote a letter regarding the similarities and differences between these two texts, and devoted himself to debating the common principles of Confucianism and Buddhism. His letter said, The Yijing establishes images in order to penetrate the meaning; the Huayan jing relies on phenomena to express the Dharma. Basically there are not two principles, the mundane and supra-mundane expressing the Way of non-duality….The eight trigrams [of theYijing] draw out and extend this, and their images reach the inexhaustible, which is the mutual inclusion of the dharma-realm (dharmadh¯atu) of the Huayan jing….The age (shi) of the Yijing is the world of the Huayan jing. The Yijing has components (cai), which are the Dharmagateways of the Huayan jing….When yin is at its height, the yang arises, and the Way of the junzi (gentleman) grows and a buddha appears in the world. When yang is at its height, yin arises, and the Way of the junzi is extinguished and the buddha passes away. Hard and soft promote each other, and the changes of the arising and cessation of the world depend on each other….Can we say, based on this, that the dharma-realm of the Huayan jing and the trigrams of qian and kun have two principles?....In respect of the reason for occupying the world and the reason for departing the world, Confucian and Buddhist methods are at one. What doubt is there about this? The marvelous functioning of miraculous powers resides in the carting of water and the toting of firewood; sitting one sheds it, standing one loses it; it is in the wearing of clothes and eating of food; the supreme, marvelous Way is in the everyday mind.17

Li’s letter is very long and there is no need to quote it word for word, but his fusion of the Yijing and the Huayan jing explains the reasons why Confucianism and 16 17

Nukariya Kaiten, op. cit., p. 511. Xuzangjing, collection1, compilation 2 B, 22nd set, volume 5, pp. 450–451.

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Buddhism are in agreement fundamentally with respect of the question of the origin of the universal great Dharma or the world. Later, Li also used the Chan School idea of “everyday mind is the Way” to affirm that there is no fundamental conflict between remaining in the world and transcending the world. His argument clearly is more elevated than those of Zhang Shangying and other people. Zhang Jiucheng (1092–1159), who made the link between neo-Confucian Lixue (school of Zhu Xi) and Xinxue (neo-Confucian School of the Mind), merged Confucianism and Buddhism into a melded thought, and this was reasonably representative of the gentry. Zhang’s personal name was Zishao, his style was Hengpu. He served Yang Shi (1053–1135, a neo-Confucian) as his teacher and admired Yang Danian (Yang Yi, 974–1020) as having the air of a famous Confucian. He wanted to research the exquisite marvel of Chan learning and he had an audience with the Chan monk Chuming, asking him about the essentials of entering the Way. He entered government service in the second year of the Shaoxing era (1132), was appointed Notary of the Administrative Assistant (in a prefecture), was shifted to Editorial Director and Vice-Minister of Justice, and was appointed Vice-Minister of the Court of the Imperial Clan and Vice-Minister of Justice. In the seventh year of the Shaoxing era (1137), he had an audience with Zonggao on Jingshan. He asked him about the tenets of gewu (Confucian theory on investigating things). Zonggao said, “You only know about investigating things and do not know that there are things that investigate [i.e. the investigator].” After Jiucheng heard this he suddenly understood the subtle tenet. Zonggao also taught Jiucheng to make superficial changes of appearance and so use Confucianism to talk of Chan. Therefore, Huang Zongxi (1610–1695) said, “All of Zhang’s works are externally Confucian and inwardly Buddhist,”18 which serves to show that Jiucheng gave much thought to linking Confucianism and Buddhism. Zhang wrote Hengpu xinzhuan (Mental Transmission of Hengpu) and Hengpu rixin (Daily Renewal of Hengpu) et cetera, in both of which one can see the traces of his synthesis of Confucianism and Buddhism. Someone asked, “What about that which is obtained from the six [Confucian] classics and the human mind?” He said, “The books of the six classics were burnt [by the First Emperor of Qin] and there was nothing left, but they appeared in the human mind and so were always present. If so, the classics are not words on paper, but the principles in the human mind. If it were not the case, then how can you say that Han Yu, Dong Zhongshu, Liu Xiang and their followers [all famous Confucians] were able to transmit these books?”

The examples he gives in proof do not seem to be correct, but his idea was to say that the principles in the mind do not depend on letters to be transmitted and that they are transmitted mentally. This was clearly obtained from the Chan School idea of “the Way intrinsically is wordless,” which is Zonggao’s Lixue thought of “make superficial changes [literally, change one’s head and exchange one’s face, to present something in a disguised form] and use Confucianism to talk of Chan.” From this we can see that the sudden appearance of the Learning of the Mind (Xinxue neoConfucianism) of Lu Xiangshan (1139–1193) and Wang Yangming (1472–1528) 18

Song Yuan xuean (Guide to the neo-Confucian Scholarship of the Song and Yuan Dynasties), fascicle 40 “Guide to Hengpu’s Learning,” note by Zongxi, Zhonghua shuju, 1986, p. 1317.

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was really dependent on the mediation of the Chan theory of “this very mind is buddha.” He also said, Humaneness is awakening, awakening is humaneness. Awakening arises due to the mind, and it is due to awakening that there is humaneness. To shed the body (ti) is humaneness, to be without awareness is to be without mind, and if there is mind, awakening will arise. Once they are discriminated, and if the discrimination is matured, then they will be merged and changed.19

This was awakening used to explain humaneness and is clearly in agreement with Chen Guan’s line of thought that used sincerity to explain awakening. But Zhang Jiucheng went further in his intention to link Confucianism and Buddhism, and so this is a theoretical starting point for the Song Confucians and later thinkers to synthesize the three religions. In his Hengpu rixin he also often used the marvelous words, “do not again recognize yourself as Chan.” The Way is not empty nothingness; it functions daily and that is all. If one takes empty nothingness to be the Way, that is sufficient to lose the country. If one takes daily functions to be the Way, then these are the meritorious achievements of [the mythical sage emperors] Yao and Shun, and the three dynasties [of antiquity; Xia, Shang, and Zhou].

If one says here that one cannot see the traces of Chan thinking, then the sentences below truly can be said to be an antelope hanging by its horns (up in a tree at night),20 there being no tracks for it to be discovered (by tracker dogs). Artfulness is not the equal of being clumsy, light is not the equal of the dark, movement is not the equal of calm, advancing is not the equal of retreat.

These sixteen characters are born of Laozi and are obtained from the Chan stepping back and keeping quiet. Zhang used Confucianism to speak of Chan and he does not reveal the landscape of Chan, and he surely achieved a merged and clear realm. The Song dynasty fusion of the three religions was a Chan learning of the gentry, and one can say that they drew an overall conclusion from the Yuandao lun (On the Origin of the Way) by Emperor Ziaozong, Zhao Fen. First of all, he pointed out that Han Yu’s Yuandao (Origin of the Way) says that Buddhism and Daoism were confused and the three religions were mistaken for each other, “If one considers the intentions of the sage (Confucius), then it will become clear.” He continued to point out, Not killing is humaneness; no sexual impropriety is ritual (etiquette); not stealing is righteousness; not drinking alcohol is wisdom; not speaking falsely is trust. If this is so, how much far away is [Buddhism] from Confucius? Now as for the traces of Laozi’s book, what it treasures are called compassion, thrift, and not daring to be the first of the empire. The Confucians say to be temperate, kind, courteous, restrained, and magnanimous, and say only humaneness is great. How is what Laozi called compassion not the greatest of humaneness? How is what he says about not daring to be the 19 20

Zhang Jiucheng, Hengpu xinzhuan, and Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 40, p. 1308. Tr. a Chan metaphor for non-dependence on letters, on the traceless-ness of Chan.

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first of the empire not the greatest of magnanimity?....Of the later inferior adherents of the three religions, the ignorant grasp for it and think that they are different. Now the Buddhists and Daoists eliminate thoughts and are inactive, and cultivate the mind and body and that is all! The Confucian teaching is for governing the empire, but the times in which it is put into operation are not the same….Someone said, “If it is like this, how can this confusion be removed?” I said, “It is proper to use Buddhism to cultivate the mind, use Daoism [Laozi] to govern the body, and use Confucianism to govern the world.”

This emperor, who was content to retain control over only a part of China (ceding part to the Jin), compared the five Buddhist precepts to the five Confucian constants and so on. On some points the comparison was definitely inappropriate. This can be said to have been the customary tactic in response to political demands.21 However, these comparisons correctly represented the Chan learning of the Song-period gentry who used all possible means to use Chan to consolidate their civilization, and represented the tendency in thought of unifying the three religions that especially used the theory that each religion’s duty was to govern the mind, govern the body, and govern the world respectively, which claim was mostly made by later Chan followers and in the praises of scholars, in order to extend their own theories of the synthesis of the three religions.

Part 2: The Chan Learning of the Lixue Neo-Confucians A In the Sui and Tang periods, Buddhism burst out of the flames just like a phoenix and catered for society in a new guise. In the Song, Chan thought that had already been almost completely developed, advancing independently, each branch displaying its capabilities. Chan had completely infiltrated into every level of society, in which emperors and princes, and high officials talked of Chan, and the style of the synthesized three religions filled the court and the provinces. The famous worthies and important Confucians also were not content to lag behind, and Confucian scholars investigated Chan, were inwardly Chan and outwardly Confucian, something that commenced in the early Song. They used the Confucian arts and the Chan Way to be the main points, some talking of accepting Chan into Confucianism and giving Confucian scholarship a new breath of life, and constructing a broad and profound Lixue, something that was followed up by later generations. Strictly speaking, the Lixue scholars were mostly gentry, but the Chan learning of the Lixue scholars was not the same as the Chan learning of the gentry, for they did not directly have in mind governmental civilization and highlighting the unity of the three religions. Rather, the Lixue scholars regarded Chan learning as a way of thinking and ideological source material to be brought into the Confucian tradition. 21

In the Republican period, the warlord Wu Peifu, who called himself “the scholar master” (Xiucai fuzi), also wrote an old interpretation of the Three Peoples’ Principles; the three relationships are the three peoples’ principles: the ruler-subject relationship is the peoples’ rights, the father-son relationship is the volk, and the husband-wife relationship is the peoples’ production. Thus, it can be called the mental power of the comprehension of emperors and warlords past and present.

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In other words, the gentry Chan learning was political and the Lixue Chan learning was scholarly, or possibly metaphysical. The contemporary scholar Cao Juren said when speaking about Lixue that the Confucian interest originally was only in society and human life, and after that it imbibed the view of the universe of the thinkers of yin-yang and the five elements. By the Wei and Jin periods, Confucianism also imbibed the naturalism of the Daoist philosophers. “In the ideological disputes, Buddhism was the toughest rival that the Confucians clashed with. In this, they used studies of the Yijing as a weapon, wielding the law-treasure ( fabao) of the Daoist religion for a life-and-death struggle with the Dharma ( fa) of the Buddhists, which was the ‘new’ [element] of the Song and Ming Lixue neo-Confucians. From the beginning, the Confucians all used the ancient as a pretext to change the system and made use of the corpses of other people to return to their own soul. Their success lay in this, and their failures also lay exactly in this.”22 Combine this with the words of the great Confucian Yan Yuan (1635–1704) of the Qing dynasty: “Glossing commentaries, pure talk, Chan School, hypocrisy; any one of these is sufficient to delude the world and wrong the people, and the Song people had all of these.”23 These two people mostly detested Lixue and their phrasing is unavoidably harsh, but they also fully reveal the Song-period nature of the merging of Confucianism and Daoism, and the use of the “corpse” of Chan to return to the “soul” of Confucianism. In fact, Lixue scholars migrated to Chan, accepted Buddhism into Confucianism, and had already publicly acknowledged that fact, and even if they had many criticisms of Chan and expressed a tendency towards the elimination of Buddhism, still the majority of them had close connections with Chan monks and investigated Chan thought in great detail. Their thought was deeply influenced by Chan learning, of course ontologically, but also in their discussion of the Heavenly Way of the nature and mandate (xingming) and methods of entering the Way. As is well known, Lixue was very profound and broad, its content covering the origin of heaven and earth and all things, right through to the Way of human ethics in everyday use. It was a scholarly thought that concentrated on explaining “nature and the Heavenly Way.” The highest category in Lixue is principle (li), which is so great there is nothing beyond it, and so small there is nothing within it. Externally, it is the intrinsic reality (benti) of the transformed and born things of the universe; internally, it is also the intrinsic reality of the virtue (daode) of the mind that controls the nature and emotions. Exactly because this is so, it and the Chan thought that solely spoke of “this mind is buddha,” were fundamentally interlinked. Therefore, even though the categories of the ultimate of non-existence (wuji), the great ultimate, principle, material energy (qi), and heart-mind that Lixue spoke of were not the same as the transcendental realm sought by the Chan School, still they were interlinked with the statements by the Chan School about mind, nature, empty space, and the two aspects,

22

Cao Juren, Zhongguo xueshu sixiangshi suibi (Essays on the History of Chinese Scholarly Thought), Sanlian shudian, 1986, p. 228. 23 Yan Yuan, Yu Qian Xiaocheng shu (Letter to Qian Xiaocheng).

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true suchness and birth-and-death that give birth to all dharmas. The Lixue discussions of mind were accurate and comprehensive, subtle and abstruse, differentiated in the finest detail. These were really obtained from the learning of the mind-nature of the Chan School and its “return to attain the original mind” and “the self-nature is pristine.” In discussing technique (effort), they bluntly spoke of sincerity, reverence, quiet, right through to gradual cultivation and sudden enlightenment. One can thus say that if the Song Confucians had not assimilated ideological material from Chan, they would not have been able to rigorously speak of the theories of mind and (human) nature, and the history of Chinese thought would not have been able to have the stage of Lixue. Even if they criticized the Chan School for regarding function to be the nature and criticized the Buddhist tendency to transcendence of the world, and they were dissatisfied with the sudden enlightenment of the Chan School and its path of entry to the Way that was biased towards emptiness, still they were continuously contaminated by Buddhism and they used the Chan thought of according with ability to speak of principle and speak of the nature. Lu Xiangshan’s advocacy of Xinxue that venerated the nature of merit (dexing) further approached the Chan Dharma. It seems that Zonggao, who was such a colossus of Chan, who not only taught Confucian scholars and famous ministers to “make superficial changes [to present something in a disguised form] and use Confucianism to talk of Chan,” and who himself, via his Chan-influenced Confucian theory echoed Lixue from a distance, took the “heavenly mandate that is called the nature” to be the pristine Dharma-body (dharmak¯aya) and the “straightforward nature that is called the Way” to be the perfected Response-body (of a buddha, sambhogakaya) and “the cultivation of the Way that is called the teaching” to be the billions of transformation bodies (nirman.ak¯aya). He pushed the tendency of Confucianism and Buddhism to converge to a higher level. Lixue, externally Confucian and internally Buddhist, enriched and deepened the Confucian cultural connotations. Chan monks further based themselves on the (Confucian) classics to speak of Chan and strengthened the Chinese features of the Chan School, speeding up the pace of the unification of the three religions. The Song-period Lixue and Chan learning thus rescued each other and benefited each other. They brought out the best in each other. It is difficult to quote something related to the Chan learning of Lixue and be able to make a specialist description of it. Here I will only list some representative examples in order to show one or two features of their thought. Zhou Dunyi (1017–1073), personal name Maoshu, appellation Yuangong, as a scholar was called Master Lianxi. The Lianxi xuean (Guide to the Scholarship of Lianxi) has a note on the hundred philosophers that says, “After Confucius and Mencius, the Han-dynasty Confucians only studied the transmitted classics and the subtle words on the nature and the Way had long been cut off….If one is to discuss the deep and profound meaning of the mind-nature, initially it was [Zhou] Yuangong who broke through this darkness.” One can see that the founder of Lixue was Zhou. His writing, the Ailian shuo (On Loving the Lotus), was widely circulated. “That [lotus] comes forth from the filthy mud and is not tainted thereby; it is washed by clear ripples and is not bewitching.” This became a famous sentence that was frequently on people’s lips. He little realized that the lotus was a flower of Buddhism, and the

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resolve of this text really was to adopt the Buddhist theories on purity and pollution. One can also see an element of the Buddhist influence on Zhou Dunyi. According to tradition, Zhou consulted Huitang Zuxin, asking him about the tenet of a separate teaching outside of the (doctrinal) teachings. Zuxin explained it by saying, “It only is a preparation to exterminate your own house,” and he used the sentence of Confucius, “If I hear the Way in the morning, I may die in the evening” and so on to inspire his thinking.24 It can be said that this was a skillful preacher of Chan guiding by using the words of the scriptures of the (Confucian) sages and worthies. Afterwards, Zhou also saw Foyin Liaoyuan and asked, “The heavenly mandate is called the nature, the straightforward nature is called the Way, so why does Chan call no-mind the Way?” Foyin said, “Filling the eyes, the green mountain, just allow oneself to look.” At that, Zhou had a realization and he ordered that Foyin be made the Master of the Green Pine Association in memory of the formation of the Lotus Society by Huiyuan on Mt. Lu.25 In this we can see his ideological tendency that had the intent of synthesizing the principle of Chan with the theories of the Confucians. He also said, “In the marvelous mind I really was inspired by Huanglong [Zuxin] and was discovered by Foyin. And so I changed the principle to widen this, since if it was not for Donglin [Changzong] who opened up the screen [that concealed the mind] and dusted it off, there would have been no way to express my inner [thoughts] clearly.”26 He was influenced deeply by Chan learning, even in only these few words. It is no wonder a person said, “Mr. Zhou was advanced in the techniques of Chan learning.”27 When Zhou spoke of principle (li), it already contained a deep ontological hue. He highlighted the noumenal (benti) function of “sincerity,” stressing that “sincerity is the basis of a sage. Great indeed are qian and kun [first two trigrams of the Yijing] that provide the beginning of all things and are the source of sincerity.”28 He not only viewed “sincerity” to be the intrinsic reality (benti) of the Way of virtue (ethics), he also took it to constitute the source of all things. No wonder that a thinker said, “The Tongshu (Book of Explanation) is summed up with the word ‘sincerity’”29 and “Mr. Zhou’s scholarship has sincerity as its basis.”30 Clearly, even though his way of thinking that regarded “sincerity” as the basis was not completely the same as the Chan School’s regarding the mind as the basis of the universe and the basis of nature, yet he was inspired by Zuxin’s “prepare [to extinguish] your own house” and perfected this thinking on sincerity under the influence of the Chan School ontology 24

Guiyuan zhizhi ji (Direct Pointing Back to the Source Collection) by Zongben, fascicle 2, for Huanglong Huinan. This is seen in Jushi fendeng lu (Record of the Laypersons’ Divisions of the Lamplight Transmissions), last fascicle. 25 Fofa jintang pian (Essay on the Walls and Moats [Defenses] of the Buddha-Dharma), fascicle 12; Huiyuan (334–416) founded a White Lotus Society on Mt. Lu for mindfulness of the Buddha. 26 Jushi fendeng lu, last fascicle. 27 Guiyuan zhizhi ji, last fascicle. 28 Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 11, “Tongshu” [Zhou’s Book of Explanation]. 29 Ibid., note on the hundred philosophers. 30 Ibid., fascicle 12.

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of the mind-nature. Liu Jishan (of the late Ming) also said that Zhou’s essay, the Tongshu, “took the principles of the Zhongyong (Doctrine of the Mean) and turned them into a new guidebook….Every sentence talks about the Way of Heaven and each sentence points to the family property of the sage (Confucius) in person,”31 which speaks of Zhou using the pristine own-mind of Chan to skillfully speak of the Heavenly Way of the Confucians, a verification of human ethics. In the discussion of “sincerity” Zhou emphasized that. Sincerity is inaction, the stirrings of good and evil; virtue and love are called humaneness.32

Here he also views sincerity as inaction and approaching the intrinsic reality (benti) of the universe and he regards love as being humaneness and mentions good and evil, and so this further shows that the Buddhist theory of the mind-nature left traces in Zhou’s thought. Here Zhou also recognized that if there are the insipience (stirrings) of movement, there will be the division of good and evil, and that therefore the junzi (ideal Confucian gentleman) was cautious about movement (activity). He said, “Being quiescent and unmoving is sincerity.”33 This means that sincerity is calm and calm (tranquility) is “the unmoving calm as contrasted to calm” and the calm of “complying with principle is calm,”34 and therefore he also said, “To be without desire is calm,”35 and one can see that this theory of “the primacy of calm” likewise came from the Chan School’s methods of cultivation of “being apart from characteristics,” “no-thought,” and “enlighten the mind and see the nature,” and is similar to the connotations of silent illumination. In summary, Zhou Dunyi’s contribution to Lixue of the fundamental concepts and fundamental categories, namely sincerity and calm, both absorbed the way of thinking and theories of the mind-nature of Chan, and was molded by them. To be fair, of all the branches of Lixue, the Guanxue (Guan Learning, school of Zhang Zai) was the least influenced by Chan learning. Nevertheless, Zhang Hengqu (Zhang Zai, 1020–1077)’s famous words, “I establish the mind for heaven and earth, I establish the mandate for living beings and people, and for the past sages I continue the interrupted learning, and for all the world I open up great peace,” which is close to the four great universal vows made in the Platform Sutra.36 His works, the Dongming (Eastern Inscription) and Ximing (Western Inscription) can mutually enlighten the core themes of the Dharma talks of Qisong (this will not be entered into in any more detail). Zhang Zai’s “the nature of heaven and earth” really is what the 31

Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 19, words of Mr. Liu. Ibid, Tongshu. 33 Ibid. 34 Zhou Dunyi, Taiji tushuo (Diagrammatic Theory of the Great Ultimate). 35 Ibid. 36 Platform Sutra: “I vowed to liberate all sentient beings without bounds, and this is not Huineng (me) liberating myself with the self-liberation of my own nature; the vow to eliminate the frustrations without bounds, which is one’s own mind removing falsity; the vow to learn the Dharma-gateways without bounds, which is to learn to the utmost correct Dharma; and the vow to perfect the peerless Buddha-Way. I will always humble the mind in practice and respect everything.”. 32

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Chan School calls “the intrinsic nature of true suchness,” and his “psychophysical nature,” which largely corresponds to the “erroneous thoughts [that like] floating clouds cover over” that are spoken of in the Platform Sutra, and his “own-nature” that is “unable to enlighten” (bunengming) is the “ignorance” (wuming) spoken of in the Buddha-dharma. In sum, Guan Learning cannot be completely delinked from the Chan School. The foundation figures of Lixue, the Cheng brothers and Zhang Zai, were not the same. On one hand, they disparaged and rejected Buddhism, thinking that “If the empire is entirely Buddhist, the empire in the end will have no people and be of no benefit to principle,”37 and for “The reason that their words are close to principle and are also not compatible with Yang and Mo [two ancient philosophers and their schools], [Buddhism is] very much more harmful than Yang and Mo.” Therefore, they wanted scholars to “definitely distance themselves from such enticing voices and beautiful forms,” for if not, then they would “rapidly enter into their midst.”38 For these reasons, they took “elevating this culture of ours [Confucianism] to be their personal duty, which was to distinguish heresies, avoid evil theories, and make the Way of the sage (Confucius) blaze and re-illuminate the world.”39 In this we can see their affirmation of the power of Buddhist thought to infiltrate. On the other hand, they also came and went with Buddhist elders and greatly praised the thought of the school, and they also imbibed it to a great extent and were linked to Buddhist doctrines. Cheng Yi said, “The Buddha spoke only of there being an elevated and marvelous condition, and Zhuangzi spoke of material energy and images, which is generally shallow and evident.” He also thought that one cannot say that “the learning of the Buddhists is ignorant, and also, at its best, elevated and deep.”40 However, of course, they commended and also disparaged it. It is a fact that they were on close terms with and deeply understood Buddhist thought. In their devotion to study and their cultivation, they adopted the methods of calm sitting, the use of respect, and devotion to knowledge, which clearly were created out of the inspiration from the Buddhist three learnings of precepts, ding (sam¯adhi), and insight. Also, Gao Jingmian (1562–1626) said it well; “Master Mingdao [Cheng Hao, 1032–1085] saw through Chan books and recognized the abuses and the truths of Chan.” These words were said in relation to the contradictory actions of repressing and elevating the Buddhadharma, and one can see that it grasps the situation most accurately. However, it must be said that their “distinguishing of heresies and avoidance of evil theories” were a dislike of being outwardly Confucian and inwardly Buddhist. The stories of “there are no prostitutes in my mind” and “at the Cheng gate standing in the snow” show the rich flavor of Chan that was in them. Chan thought was not only used by them to construct their own system of thought, the conduct of Chan monks in the world also were made models for their own conduct.

37

Er Cheng yishu (The Bequeathed Writings of the Two Cheng Brothers), fascicle 2A. Zhu Xi, Jinsi lu (Records of Recollecting Things at Hand). 39 Cheng Yi’s “Dedication by Wen Yanbo for the Gravestone of Mr. Cheng Mingdao.”. 40 Er Cheng yishu, facsimile 17, 9. 38

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The Cheng brothers went to a party where there were singing girls to accompany their drinking. The always strict and pedantic younger brother, Cheng Yichuan (Cheng Yi, 1033–1107) indignantly left the party. The elder, Cheng Mingdao talked and laughed merrily, enjoying himself and eating delicacies. The next day, Yichuan saw Mingdao in their study and upbraided him for his loss of dignity. The elder Cheng then said, “Yesterday at the venue there were prostitutes, but there were no prostitutes in my mind. Today there are no prostitutes in the study, but there are prostitutes in your mind.” Having said these words, the younger Cheng regretfully admitted he was not the equal of his elder brother. What Cheng Hao did was entirely a reappearance of the Chan thought of “the unmovable mind” and “putting it down is it” in the life of Lixue scholars. Fascicle 15, “Yichuan xuean” (Guide to Yichuan’s scholarship) of the Song Yuan xuean records that Cheng Yi “received students with a strict firmness and he calmly sat with his eyes closed. You Dingfu [Cu] and Yangshan stood attending him, not daring to leave. After a long while, Cheng looked around and said, ‘The day is late! We will go to our residence.’ Both of them retreated, but outside the gate snow was over a foot deep.”41 This is the famous story of standing in the snow at the gate of the Cheng residence. The story itself has its embryo in the Chan legend of “[Huike] standing in the snow and cutting off his arm.” Cheng Yi’s calm sitting undoubtedly is the technique of sam¯adhi and prajñ¯a of the Chan School, even though not a few Song-period Chan monks had already rejected that kind of dumb-sheep dead-wood sitting technique of meditation. So much so was he influenced that when Yin Yanming asked Cheng Yi, “What is the Way?” he simply replied, “Where one walks is.” This is not unlike a Chan gongan.42 The words of the Cheng brothers resemble Chan, their actions were like Chan, and the key to this lies in their accomplishments being formed from a long period of contact between them and Chan learning. Cheng Hao “began [his study] with the various thinkers and dealt with Daoists and Buddhists for nearly ten years, and he returned to seek in the six Confucian classics. Only after that did he get it.”43 Cheng Yi likewise “studied the Way for nearly fifty years” and every time he “saw a person sitting calmly, he would say that he was good at study.”44 When he was exiled to Fuzhou (in Sichuan), he crossed the Yangzi River. When the boat reached mid-stream, the boat was about to turn over. All the people in the boat cried out and only Cheng Yi adjusted the front of his gown and calmly sat as normal. When they got to the bank, an old man asked him how he alone was without fear. Yi answered, “My mind kept to sincerity and reverence!” The old man said, “The mind keeping to sincerity and reverence is definitely good, but it is not the equal of no-mind.” Yi wanted to talk with him, but the old man departed straightaway and did not look

41

“Yichuan xuean” A, Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 15. Ibid., fascicle 16B. A monk asked Zhaozhou, “What is the Way (road)?” Zhaozhou replied, “That beyond the wall.” He also said, “The highway (Great Way) that goes to Chang’an is it.”. 43 Ibid., fascicle 13, “Mingdao xuean.”. 44 Er Cheng yishu, fascicle 37. 42

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back.45 The old man recognized that sincerity and reverence were not as good as no-mind. It seems as if Cheng Yi was convinced by these words full of the Chan mechanism and so he wanted to be taught by the old man. We can see from this that even though Cheng Yi was not like Cheng Hao who “did not stop reading Buddhist and Daoist books,” he frequently used Buddhist language in speaking of principle and he also often praised Buddhists. Cheng Yi said, “Now, in reading sutras, monks need to benefit from the principles in the sutra. When Confucians read books, they only read them leisurely [without purpose], which is entirely useless.”46 He also affirmed that “The first duty of students is definitely their mental determination…if they are harmed by confusion, they should sit in meditation (chan) and enter sam¯adhi (ding).”47 Here, if we avail ourselves of Ye Shuixin (Ye Shi, 1150–1223)’s Xixue ji (Record of Learning) that critiques Cheng Hao and Zhang Zai, to the contrary, it clearly reveals that the Cheng brothers really incorporated the nature of all Lixue scholars who were compatible with Chan learning. Ye wrote, Note that Cheng replied to Zhang Zai’s discussion about the nature of ding (sam¯adhi) by saying, “Movement is also ding, and calm also is ding….Forgetting both the internal and the external, and having nothing to do is ding. If one is ding (fixed, concentrated), that is clarity (ming, enlightenment)….All these are the words of Buddhists and Daoists The Chengs and Zhang attacked the Daoists and Buddhists most profoundly, but when they exhaustively used their [Daoist and Buddhist] learning, they did not announce it….When they had yet to be dominated (zuo) by the faults of the Buddhists and Daoists, they differentiated [themselves from] Buddhism and Daoism in order to clarify the Way of the sage.”48

That they exhaustively used the learning of the Buddhists and Daoists and yet did not know that they were doing so, means that one can say that this was a function of the imperceptible influence of Chan thought. In fact, they may not have been unaware of this, and later Zonggao taught Zhang Jiucheng to “make superficial changes of appearance,” which probably was said just in order to pander to the great Confucians, a mental attitude of wanting to speak but being ashamed of doing so. Nevertheless, if one borrows Chan thought “to clarify the Way of the sage,” then this was the Lixue scholars heading along the same path. Many of the pupils of the Cheng brothers pursued Buddhist studies, including Yang Shi, who was praised by Cheng Yi for not degenerating into the midst of the barbarians (Buddhism?), and Xie Liangzuo (1050–1103), who also entered into Chan. One must say that this means that the theories of the Confucians in the Song period were clearly baptized by the reception of Chan thought. First of all, the Cheng brothers used Buddhist principles to talk of the Yijing (Book of Changes). Of the five classics and even the thirteen classics of the Confucians, the richest in philosophy was the Changes. The famous scholars of the Wei and Jin period used the Changes to talk of the mysteries, which was for this reason. The Song 45

“Yichuan xuean” 8, Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 16. Ibid. 47 Ibid., fascicle 15A. 48 “Mingdao xuean” B, Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 14. 46

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Confucians were no exception. They wanted to deepen Confucian thought and to create a universal philosophical system. They also made a great fuss over the Changes, so therefore the early Song thinkers used the Changes to expound their theories and this became a common practice. But they were not again like the famous scholars of the Wei and Jin, who only used philosophical Daoism to talk about the Changes, and rather most absorbed the argumentation of the Buddhists. The study of the Changes by the Cheng brothers is representative of the use of Buddhism to talk about the Changes, Cheng Hao explained that “All things have their opposites; one yang to one ying; one good to one bad. If yang grows then ying declines; if good increase then evil decreases.” “The principle of all things in heaven and earth is not alone, for it must have an opposite.”49 This clearly is identical to the thirty-six anitheses spoken of in the Platform Sutra. He also said, “The essentials of the mind are in the chest cavity.”50 This is shared in common with the spirit of “at this time one suddenly can return to the basic mind,”51 where Huineng is speaking of the pristine own mind. The reference note on the hundred philosophers by Cheng Hao explains this further: The chest cavity indicates the body….I responded to him, saying, “The essential of the chest cavity is in the mind principle.” Present-day people mostly use their ears and eyes, but never use their mind. If one thinks that the body is in the mind, then the hair, skin, and circulatory channels are all an empty radiance. The Buddhists are people who think that they have obtained the mind and that the great earth lacks an inch of ground. Where does it allow for entering and exiting?52

This interpretation uses the thought of the elder Cheng to strip off everything until it is stark naked, which totally agrees with the words of the Chan School, “Therefore know that all the myriad dharmas are entirely within one’s own body; what is it that does not derive from one’s own mind that suddenly manifests the innate nature of true suchness?”.53 When Cheng Hao spoke of the Changes, he specially stressed the function of the “unmoving mind.” He said, “Quietly so and not moving, influencing it consequently passes through (communicates)” means that the Heavenly principle is fully present….Because it is unmoving, therefore [the Changes] says quietly so; only not moving, if it influences then it influences [itself], it is not from the outside.54

Cheng Hao quoted a sentence from the “Appended Judgements” (Xici) section of the Changes. The original text is, “Quietly so and not moving, because it influences it consequently passes through all under heaven.” Here he has cut out the last four 49

“Mingdao xuean” A, Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 13. Ibid. 51 Platform Sutra. 52 “Mingdao xuean” A, Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 13. 53 Platform Sutra. 54 Ibid. 50

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characters and so the meaning has been changed. His aim was to explain that it is due to the presence of the Heavenly principle, or that it was like the pristine self-nature spoken of by Chan and the intrinsic nature of true suchness, that being quietly so and unmoving is the sudden seeing of the whole thing. This is a function of the internal mind and is not an external function. This is clearly the meaning of the Chan School’s “the mind is vast in extent,” “knowing one’s own family treasure,” or it speaks of the sense of “introspection and internal illumination.” This very minor modification is no longer the Changes of Daoist philosophy, nor is it entirely the Changes of the Confucians, but it is the Changes that entirely gives out the taste of Chan. In the Southern Song period, Zonggao, whose fame spread through the capital and the provinces, used these eight characters to guide the elderly Confucian Jiao Shou and as a result he was rejected by this professor who was intimately familiar with the analysis of ancient texts. Jiao said, “Reverend, you cannot punctuate and read texts [correctly].” In reality, this punctuation and reading of the text was not Zonggao’s invention, nor was it initiated by Cheng Hao, there being a precedent made in Zhou Dunyi’s Tongshu. Later, instead there was a person who used to talk about the Changes, and it was nobody other than Cheng Hao. Cheng Yi’s Yichuan yizhuan (The Changes Commentary by Yichuan) is a classic of Lixue. In Cheng’s own words, “The sage wrote the Changes in order to be a standard for the Way of heaven and earth,” and his researches on the Changes were made in order “to know the reason for the dark (hidden) and the light (revealed).”55 Within principle it is hidden, and forming images it is revealed, which demands that one clearly perceives the phenomena and nature (constitution) of things. Cheng Yi had the following interpretation: The subtlest is principle. The most evident are images. The reality and function are of the same source, the revealed and the subtle having no difference.

After reading this, a disciple said that the words “seem to greatly expose the mechanisms of Heaven.” Cheng Yi sighed in admiration, “Of recent scholars, who has equaled this? I already have no alternative but to say this to you.”56 The “Heavenly mechanism” here is really a borrowing from Buddhist vocabulary and ideological material. The Chan School stated that “the nature that includes all dharmas is great, all the dharmas are entirely the self-nature,” and “sam¯adhi and prajñ¯a are one in reality (ti) and non-dual. The sam¯adhi is the reality of prajñ¯a, and the prajñ¯a is the function of sam¯adhi. When it is the time of prajñ¯a, sam¯adhi is in prajñ¯a and when it is the time of sam¯adhi, prajñ¯a is in sam¯adhi.”57 This is to say that this is its meaning. Baizhang Huaihai’s words, “Reality (ti) revealed, the truth is permanent” and “intrinsically it is perfected of itself,”58 have the sense that phenomenal appearance and the nature (constitution) mutually create the external and internal, are one and not two, which further approaches this theory. However, Cheng was probably directly and 55

Cheng Yi, Yishu.Xice (Appended Judgements, Lectures on the Changes). Er Cheng waishu (Extra Texts of the Two Cheng Brothers), fascicle 12. 57 Platform Sutra. 58 Wudeng huiyuan, fascicle 3. 56

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indiscriminately taking this from the Huayan School’s “Reality and function have no location, perfectly fused and impossible to fathom,” and “Going and returning without end, movement and calm are of one source.” Next, Cheng Yi interpreted the Changes in order to prove the absolute existence of “principle,” and he similarly borrowed a construction of Buddhist doctrine, and even if it was Huayan and not Chan, it still completely agrees with Chan thought. He said, (The view of principle and phenomena of Huayan) is for example like the categories of mirrors and lamps, in that they include all images (phenomena) and nothing is exhausted. What of this principle? I say it is just this that the Buddhists want to entirely conceal (deny). To sum it up in a word, it is nothing more than saying all principles revert to one principle. It was again asked, “I do not know the means by which you refute this?” I said, “One also cannot say that they (the Buddhists) are not right.”59

In Cheng Yi’s view, the order from which the whole universe is constructed, constitutionally is this one “principle,” and no matter which way one says it, it is “all principles revert to the one principle”; the Buddhists tend to being prolix, but you cannot say that they are incorrect. From this one can see that the core content of Cheng’s theory has come from the Buddhists and later Lixue scholars followed the paths of thought that he had pioneered. The chief disciples of the Cheng school such as You Cu and Yang Shi used Chan to prove Confucianism their whole lives, but neither of them surpassed Xie Liangzuo in this. Xie had a theory that differentiated Confucianism and Chan: The Buddhist discussion of the nature is like the Confucian discussion of mind; the Buddhist discussion of mind is like the Confucian discussion of intention (thinking). The principle that obeys Heaven is the nature, it does not allow any private (selfish) intentions. As soon as there is intention, then one cannot be at one with Heaven.60

The meaning of what Xie said was that the Confucians stated that the nature is principle, and that the nature and the mind of the Buddhists are equally below this (principle, are physical), and correspond to the mind and thinking of the Confucians. Therefore, the Buddhists only retain the selfish thinking about escaping life-anddeath, which likewise tends to promote the Confucians and disparage the Buddhists. However, everywhere he used Chan to prove Confucianism, and it is no wonder that Zhu Xi said that Xie “clearly and distinctly is Chan,” and pointed out that “When present-day people talk of the Way, they love to speak from an elevated and marvelous position and then enter into Chan, and that was the case from Shangcai (Xie) onwards,” and also, “At one turn Shangcai’s theories are those of Zhang Zishao (Zai), and with another turn Zishao’s theories become those of Lu Zijing (Xiangshan).”61 From this we can see that Xie Liangzuo absorbed and incorporated Chan learning, and that one cannot ignore this function in the process of the transition from Lixue to Xinxue. 59

Er Cheng yishu, fascicle 28. “Shangcai xuean,” (Guide to the Learning of Xie Liangzuo), Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 24. 61 Ibid. 60

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Part 3: The Chan Learning of the Lixue Scholars B Even if Zhu Xi (1130–1200) was not in the least courteous in his criticism of Xie Liangzuo as being “clearly and distinctly Chan,” and Zhu said that the chief disciples of the Cheng school all entered into Chan learning, he himself could not shake off the influence of the thought that accepted Chan into Confucianism that came from Zhou and the Chengs. As the grand synthesizer of Lixue, whose theory was extensive in scope and brilliant in conception, Zhu in particular was unable to resist the infiltration of Chan thought. Zhu Xi himself had said, “In former times I also wanted to study everything; Chan, Daoism, literature, the Chuci (Songs of Chu), the Shijing (the Book of Poetry), military arts; all kinds of things I wanted to study.” It was only later that he suddenly realized he was unable “to get all so much” in a lifetime, so then he dedicated himself to the Confucians. Huang Baijia (1643–1709) also said that he “read most widely, from the classics, historical works and beyond, the ordinary thinkers, the Buddhists, Daoists, astronomy, and geography (geomancy); he dabbled in them all and explained them thoroughly.”62 One can see that early in his life he had been trained in aspects of Chan learning. The Jushi fendeng lu recorded that Zhu sent a letter to Kaishan Daojian (a disciple of Zonggao) asking about Zonggao’s huatou (point of the story) and that he had had a realization at Daojian’s words, and so he wrote a poem that says: Being upright, alone I have nothing to do; I just perused Buddhist books. I temporarily halted the pull of involvement with sense data; Detached, I resided with the Way. I closed my door in the gloom of the bamboo grove, But the cries of animals and the sound of the mountain rain remained. I realized this Dharma of inaction, Mind and body were both tranquilly thus.

The Fofa jintang pian also said that when Daojian died, Zhu wrote in his funeral oration about the process of his study of Chan under the enlightenment brought about by Daojian. When he made a reply, he said, “The reason why the present-day gentry are drawn to Chan masters in later years” was their praise of the Chan School “as being as elevated as you…therefore they surrender to it.” He also said, “For his entire life, Wang Jiefu (Wang Anshi) studied much reasoning [on principle], and when he approached [death] he donated his residence to be a monastery” and “The Buddhist books speak of the categories of the six sense-faculties, six consciousnesses, four elements, twelve-stage conditional arising, which are all extremely refined and marvelous. Therefore, my predecessors said that Confucius and Mencius could not

62

“Huian xuean” (Guide to the Learning of Zhu Xi) A, Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 48.

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equal this,”63 and so on, which further show that he had great admiration for Chan and that he had absorbed Chan learning. In his recorded sayings, when asked what is the use of effort in study, he replied, “Just learn calm sitting.”64 It is no wonder that the Qing-dynasty figure, Yan Yuan criticized him, saying, “Zhu Xi taught people to calmly sit for half a day and to read books for half a day, which is no different to being half a day with a [Buddhist] Reverend and half a day with Han Confucianism,” which serves to show the depth of the contamination of Zhu by Chan learning. Nevertheless, Zhu merely feared that other people would look upon him as being Chan, and therefore he everywhere spoke of his differences with Buddhism. First, he said “that the errors of the Buddhists come out from with their satisfaction with their own selfishness”65 and “they do not see the Heavenly principle and solely recognize that this mind is the controller, and therefore they cannot escape being washed along by their own selfish [interests].”66 These words seem to follow on from the words of Xie Liangzuo. Zhu’s idea was to emphasize that the intrinsic mind of the Buddhists still does not know of the Heavenly principle, and therefore the Buddhists only act to escape birth-and-death, and that “the mind,” “summed up in a word, is birth (life) and that is all. The great virtue (power) of heaven and earth is called birth (life),”67 and therefore the Buddhists solely speak of “mind” as the great virtue that enables escape from heaven and earth, which is entirely different from the ultimate concern of Lixue. But Zhu also said, “The one mind of people is basically light” and “The reason why humans stand between heaven and earth, and are the intelligence of all things is simply the mind.”68 These words and Chan thought have no difference whatsoever. Two, he said, “The Buddhists themselves say that they recognize the mind and see the nature, but what is the reason they cannot carry it out?” His reply was, “It is not that the Buddhists do not see the nature, and when it comes to its (the mind’s) function they say that there is nothing that it cannot do. They therefore abandon the ruler and turn their backs on their fathers, and as for there is nothing that it does not achieve, the function is unrelated to it being due to this nature.” This is what is called, “What the Chan followers call Chan does not correspond at all to what they do.” Here Zhu thought that the key lay in the Chan division of the nature from function. This also was said by Zhu from the standpoint of the ethical concepts of the Confucians. Three, he said that “The Buddhists only want emptiness; the sage only wanted the actual.” In summary, he rebuked them, saying, “The failings of the Buddhists are selfbenefit; they study because they abhor birth and death, so the chief basis [for their 63

Zhuzi yulei (Categorized Sayings of Zhu Xi), fascicle 126, and Zhuzi yulu (Recorded Sayings of Zhu Xi). 64 “Huian xuean” A, Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 48. 65 Zhuzi yulei, fascicle 126, “On the Buddhists.”. 66 Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 48. 67 Ibid. 68 Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 49.

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thought] is already wrong; two is their elimination of human relationships, and three is their direct seeking of the discernment of that above (the metaphysical) and nonengagement in studying that below (the physical), which is partial and inappropriate.”69 These cannot be said to be incorrect, but they just explain that what Zhu Xi valued were the three cardinal guides and five constant virtues. However, one cannot say that he did not admire the principles of Chan. In fact, the influence of Chan thought on Zhu Xi was deeper than that on other people. Again, Yan Yuan stated it well: (Zhu Xi) spoke of Chan having a special flavor…He confused Confucianism with Buddhism and also accepted Buddhism into Confucianism. He played with the mind in the empty calm of Chan more than Lu Xiangshan did.70 Zhu Xi himself consulted irregularly with the Buddhists; it was not only Lu [Xiangshan] and Wang [Yangming who did so].71

Zhu Xi’s relationship with Chan was just like this. When Yan Yuan evaluated Zhu Xi’s words, saying “There is only an iota of difference between Buddhism and Confucianism,”72 he said, The Buddhists are the Song Confucians who spoke of emptiness; the Song Confucians are the Buddhists who talked of principle; there cannot be an inch separating them.73

Yan Yuan broadened his criticism of Zhu Xi to an evaluation of the Song Confucians, and even if he took the standpoint of the Practical Achievements Faction74 to attack the Song Confucians, his phrasing was rather too vehement, but he revealed the relationship of Song Confucianism with Chan, and that his words had a basis and his discussion of it was logical. Lu Jiuyuan, personal name Zijing, and sobriquet Xiangshan. At the age of thirteen he was reading an old book and he came across the two words yu zhou (universe) and the explainer said, “The four directions, above and below are yu (eaves), going to the past and coming to the present is called zhou (time).” Then Lu had a great realization, saying, “The universe is an internal matter, is my internal matter, and my internal matter is the universe’s internal matter.” He also said that the east sea, west sea, southern sea, and northern sea each produced a sage. “Their mind is the same and the principle is the same.”75 Then the line, “taught people to discover that the intrinsic mind is the start of matters (phenomena), and this mind is the ruler, and so after [this realization] one can respond to the changes of the myriad things of 69

Zhuzi yulei, fascicle 126. Zhuzi yulei ping (Evaluation of Zhuzi’s yulei). 71 Xizhai jiyu (Extra Records from the Xi Studio). 72 Zhuzi wenji (Collection of Zhu Xi’s Prose), fascicle 81. 73 Zhuzi yulei, fascicle 126. 74 Tr. this is a faction of neo-Confucianism known as the Yongjia Faction; in its full form associated with Ye Shi, who advocated attacking the Jin, of not subordinating profit to righteousness, and denying the orthodox lineage claimed by most neo-Confucians. 75 “Xiangshan xuean,” Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 58. 70

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heaven and earth”76 formed a great branch from Lixue. Lu was the founder of this branch, Xinxue. In the preface record to the “Xiangshan xuean” by Quan Zuwang (1705–1755), he wrote, “The learning of Xiangshan was first established by his greatness….His heavenly endowment was eminent, the words he uttered alarmed people, or he was lost in bias and did not know it personally, which are his shortcomings. In the Cheng school from Xie Shangcai (Liangzuo) onwards…all were an advance party for Lu, and with Xiangshan [these ideas] were synthesized, and his themes transmitted broadly. Or due to his bias, this [difference] became even greater….Ultimately they defamed Xiangshan as a non-Confucian.” As previously mentioned, Lixue was changed from the ideas of Xie Liangzuo of the Cheng school into those of Zhang Jiucheng, and with a second change it became the ideas of Lu Zijing (Jiuyuan). Quan Zuwang recognized that Lu’s learning was received from Xie Liangzuo and that he “was close to [Xie] Shangcai,” and therefore, somebody defamed Lu Xiangshan as being a non-Confucian, really indicating that he was a follower of Buddhism or Chan. Zhu Xi simply said that Xinxue is “entirely Chan learning.” In fact, the Song Confucians from Zhou Dunyi on used the Chan School’s comprehension of the marvelous mind to speak of sincerity and calm, and all, from the Cheng brothers through to Xie Liangzuo, used Chan to speak of principle, and speaking from this point of view, the Confucians actually had a tendency to “tidy up things endlessly” and so showed an accelerated rate of development. The increasing influence of Chan on Lu’s learning is not surprising. The basis on which Lu’s learning was built was the theory that this mind is the same and that this principle is the same, and he imitated Li Ao (ca.772-ca. 841)’s work, the Fuxing shu (Account on the Recovery of the Nature),77 which explains that the formation of his thought began with the influence of Li Ao’s idea of “using the principle of Buddhism to discuss the mind.” The Fuxing shu is a work in which Li Ao investigated Yaoshan (a Chan monk, Weiyan, 751–834) and the scholarship of Zhou Dunyi and the Cheng brothers inherited Li Ao’s use of the theory of the Buddha-nature in order to reinforce the remaining threads of the Confucian theory of the mind-nature. The main points of Song Confucian learning had their first inklings already in Li Ao and Lu’s theory of grasping the recovery of the nature. This explains exactly the continuing process of the influence of Chan learning on Confucian thought from the Tang through to the Song. Lu’s understanding of yuzhou (the universe) was based on the foundations of the idea of “mind is principle.” “The mind is principle” and the Chan School’s “the pristine original mind” and “the mind is buddha” were clearly twin brothers. Zhu Xi and Xie Liangzuo both opposed the Chan talk of the mind and principle, and the mixing up of mind and nature. Xie also pointed out that the mind spoken of by the Buddhists was the nature discussed by the Confucians and Xie used this to explain the Chan tendency to quietude and self-benefit. Lu did exactly the opposite 76

Ibid. His book says, “The east has a sage and he did not go beyond this; the west has a sage, who also did not go beyond this.”.

77

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and simply said, “mind is principle.” One may say that on the question of the “mind” that Lu’s learning is a return to Chan learning. He and his older brother, Lu Jinling, had a poem titled, “Infants Love What Their Elders Admire and What the Ancient Sages Transmitted Was Only This Mind.” It says, “The ruined tombs rise and decay, the ancestral shrine is admired;/ This person over the ages did not polish the mind.” They used this verse to explain that the four directions, above and below, going back to the past and coming to the present, “are only a mind.” This mind then is not something only the sages and worthies had, and “principle” also is not something independent of and beyond the mind, and so “all people have this mind and the minds all possess this principle, for the mind is principle.”78 In this way, Lu used mind to remold the image of principle and this also further approached the Buddhist theory of “all people have the Buddha-nature” and the Chan “this mind is buddha.” Lu stressed that the method should be “an easy technique,” which is the Chan School’s “direct entry at a single stroke [of the blade]” and “enlighten the mind and see the nature.” He said, In general, weighing it up and understanding it in detail, it is like fish playing in the rivers and lakes, which having plenty [of water] have no obstacle.79 Since there is something known about the basis, one can briefly exclude the wind and blow on the fire, setting it (the fire) up in accordance with the times, but do not take away the stove to make the kitchen.80

He also said, “The ancients taught people nothing more than to preserve the mind, nurture the mind, and seek to put down the mind.”81 “Be sure to return to yourself, change your errors, and shift to the good.”82 These words are saying that you need to look back at your own mind, directly be enlightened to your original mind, and thoroughly see your own mind. Besides this, he, like the Chan School, emphasized no thinking and no thoughts (wunian). He said, No thinking and no acting, be quietly unmoving and feel and consequently comprehend the reasons of heaven and earth.83 Students cannot use their minds too tightly; the deep mountains have a jewel and those without thoughts (mind) of the jewel will get it.84

Lu Jiuyuan’s so-called Xinxue shows signs everywhere of Chan learning and a recent person evaluated Zhu Xi’s scholarship as being like the Chan of Shenxiu, the

78

“To Minister Li,” in Xiangshan quanji (Complete Works of Xiangshan), fascicle 11. Song Yuan xuean, fascicle 58. 80 “Recorded Sayings,” in Xiangshan quanji, fascicle 35. 81 “To Shu Ximei,” in op.cit., fascicle 5. 82 “Recorded Sayings,” in op.cit. fasc. 34. 83 Xiangshan quanji, fascicle 35. 84 Ibid., fascicle 34. 79

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leader of Northern Chan, and Lu’s learning as being like Huineng’s Chan of sudden enlightenment to the mind-source,85 which has considerable reason. Summing up, the Song Confucians, in the cultural background that was inundated by Chan learning, whether borrowing Chan to talk of Confucianism or changing their external appearance to push something new, in fact were borrowing Chan thought, vocabulary, and ways of thinking to enrich the Confucians’ argumentation, and they erected an extensive and brilliant system of Lixue. The Chan School also, through such an infiltration and feedback created new directions for development and new prospects. One may say that the Song-period culture of Lixue and Chan learning brought out the best in each other. In later generations, a few scholars not only understood this point, but deplored resentfully that the Confucians had accepted Chan into Confucianism. An example was Yan Yuan, who said that Lixue “led the brilliant and prominent scholars of the empire to all be caught up in its nets and used the Chan delight to please their minds, and used the pompous writings and calligraphy to make their hands nimble.”86 His conclusion was, “Clearly examining the root of the decay of the Confucian Way, it lay with the Chan School.”87 Here Yan unconsciously revealed the fact of the convergence of Lixue and Chan learning, but in particular he did not realize that the Confucians adopted Chan thought to enrich their own thought and utilized the strength of the Chan School’s broad infiltration into society in seeking to achieve a new development, and that the newness of Songdynasty Confucian studies was also new in this respect, and so we should say that the root of the renewal of the Confucian Way lay in the Chan School.

Part 4: Poetry, Poetics, and Chan Learning As said previously, Song Confucians were often strict and firm, so much so that they tended to be pedantic, but Song-dynasty poets were defiant of convention and also were richly imbued with romanticism. Strictly speaking, the Buddhists took fancy words to be one of the five things prohibited. This precept forbad lewd language, including all pretty words that contain categories such as beautiful people and fragrant herbs (that is, praises of loyal and wise scholars), and yet the Chan School viewed letters as the basis for hindrances to the Way and that it is also useless to speak and write poetry. Speaking theoretically, the writing of poetry by monks was of course a matter of being divorced from the sutras and betraying the Way. Nevertheless, from the Tang onwards, in fact, monks who became famous in the field of poetry appeared one after another and Song-period Chan monks also came and went to the palace, had everyday exchanges with the nobility, or wandered from place to place forming inseparable connections with literati and men of letters. Their g¯ath¯as

85

Nukariya Kaiten, 1994, p. 654. Shugu houji (Later Collection of Shugu), fascicle 4. 87 Sishu zhengwu (Correcting the Errors of the Four Confucian Books), fascicle 2. 86

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are also like poetry in form. Thus, with one change, a Chan monk became a poetmonk; some drew Chan into poetry, some used poetry to talk of Chan, not only tapping out a rhythm and intoning verses in their words and phrases, but they also used slang or love poems to throw the reality of enlightenment into relief. Examples include Huihong, Keqin, and Zongggao. Canliao zi (Daoqian, d. 1106?) evaluated a line of Du Fu’s poem, “The Wu Gorges of the Chu River, half cloud and half rain.” Su Shi asked, “Do Chan monks also enjoy fancy words?” He said, “It is for example like a person who is not a gourmet seeing [delicious] river clams; how could he avoid having a bite?”88 This symbolic metaphor explains that Chan and poetry possess a special inherent link and a strong power of convergence. Chan pursues a mental sphere that transcends various kinds of opposition and so it advocates the use of the mind to directly experience that realm. Poetry requires the use of emotion to depict that elevated mental sphere. On this fundamental point, poetry and Chan happen to share the same view. The five houses and seven lineages that derived from Huineng specially emphasized even more the ineffability of that transcendent Chan realm, and because of this they paid attention in particular to connotations, concise language and actions, and often used mystical and abstruse metaphors, intimations, and with the undercurrent of an evocative consciousness propelled creative thinking and mental associations. This is a feature of this kind of symbolic thinking and it coincided perfectly with the aesthetic mental activities of direct perception, shifts of feeling, appreciation, and distance used by the poets. Therefore, in the Song period, when Chan monks were especially active, poets had ample conditions to use Chan to enrich their poetic creativity and theories of poetry. In this way, we can say that the development of Chan thought in the Song dynasty, with the exception of following their main lines of advancement, at the same time importantly also infiltrated two aspects of Song life: One, the strict and rigid Lixue scholars accepted Chan into Confucianism and changed its appearance deceptively to make it into Lixue; Two, the romantic poets drew Chan into poetry, used poetry to talk of Chan, which bred a new style of Song poetry. A person has said that Tang poetry was dominated by emotion, making rhyme superior, and Song poetry venerated the principle, making the idea superior. This theory is not without reason. But to venerate principle surely brings discussion and is sure to choose the language of mysterious speculation, and so the charm of the poetry would be certainly weakened. This was very unsuited to the Song literary style that sought a graceful but unrestrained ostentation. Since they wanted a deep analysis and sharp penetration of principle, they also needed to borrow the connotation of poetry and to borrow its freedom and naturalness. Thus, it was inevitable that they borrowed from the Chan School that had created a technique for the ultimate concern that prayed for the transcendence of all antitheses and that solely resided in the mind of the pristine and the free and natural. They said, “When the ancients wrote poetry, they often used dialect; when present-day people write poetry, they also use Chan language. This is the dislike of the [worldly] contaminants of the past and a desire 88

Dongpo shihua (Dongpo’s Stories on Poetry).

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for the new and lovely.”89 Also, “The study of poetry is exactly like the study of investigating Chan”90 became a set phrase, stressing that poetry “needs to be like the language of Chan” and “be without the atmosphere of vegetables and bamboo shoots [a monkish smell].”91 The meaning of this lay in the unrestrained and unbridled realm of “leaping beyond the set patterns of Shaoling”92 and “casually picking up and then be detached.”93 Xiaoying (1116-?, disciple of Zonggao) of the Southern Song wrote the Yunwo jitan (Collected Stories of Yunwo Hermitage), which records many anecdotes on Chan monks and poetry. In it there is one story that talks of the Shaoxing years (1131–1162) of Southern Song, when a Confucian scholar who had never practiced Chan came to Fengyue ting, a pavilion on Jiaoshan. He was moved to write a poem that said, The breeze comes and the tops of the trees are distinct but find it hard to stand upright. The moon arrives in the heart of the waves, is faint and about to be submerged. Understanding that the pines in the wind are beyond the primal things, I first realize that the heart of the river is my heart-mind.

Although this seven-word line quatrain ( jueju) cannot be praised as being of the highest vehicle, it has clearly been influenced by the Xinxue idea of “the mind is principle” and also depicts the appeal of the pines in the wind and the moon in the waves. But he only knows that the mind of the river is his own mind. He has not attained the mood in which the pines in the breeze and the moons in the waves and so on, the vast Nature, are unified with one. Therefore, after reading this poem, Chan Master Yuean Shanguo (1079–1152) said, “The poem as a poem is good, it is just that it has no appreciative eye.” Then he changed two characters to form the last couplet. His version read, Understanding that the pines in the wind are not beyond things, I first realize that the moon in the river is my mind.

To be fair, with this single alteration, the mood has become much more elevated and profound. The key lies in the change from “primal” to “are not,” and this, the human side, can appreciate the mood between the lines in which humans and Nature, the individual and the totality, are united. And this mood is forged out of the Buddhist ideas of “Mind, buddha, and sentient beings; these three have no differences,” and the Chan idea of “All dharmas are totally in one’s body” and “This mind is buddha.” It was this that Reverend Yuean Shanguo called an “appreciative eye.” Xiaoying also spoke of it metaphorically: “One may embellish and substitute like this, but how is that not the dragon king getting a drop of water and being able to give rise to clouds and mist?”. 89

Han Ju, Lingyang shi Zhong yu (Words from within the House of Lingyang). Wuke, Zanghai shihua (Stories of Poetry of Zanghai). 91 Cai Tao, Xiqing shihua (Stories of Poetry of Xiqing). 92 Tr. Du Fu (712–770), one of the greatest and most influential Chinese poets. 93 Cai Tao, op. cit. 90

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This record can explain well the Song poetry use of the Chan “appreciative eye” and the thorough comprehension of feelings and scenes, and thereby the ability to deeply analyze and sharply penetrate it, and have a style that is cultured and restrained, free and natural. From this one can also see that Song-period poets in their contact with Chan used the Chan principle of the hidden profundity and the worldly principle of bright and clear freedom from vulgarity; and borrowed the Chan method of being like an antelope hanging by its horns (and leaving no traces) to form a poetic method full of wit and humor, thereby forming a meaning that is beyond the words that is Song poetry. Also, these poets shared a tight relationship with worldly matters, and they formed a principle of poetry, a poetic interest, classifications of poetry, and methods of poetry being detailed and yet simple and honest. Su Dongpo’s playful sam¯adhi can be said to be a model for the combination of Chan and poetry. One day, Su Shi (Dongpo) saw the monk Foyin in a monastery. Su Shi playfully said, “May I briefly borrow your reverend’s four elements (body) to be a bench?” Foyin said, “I have a question. If you can answer it, then please sit; if you cannot say, then you forfeit the jade belt hanging around your waist.” Su happily agreed. Foyin then said, “The four elements are basically empty, the five skandhas do not exist. Where do you (Palace Writer) want to sit?” Su was unable to answer and untied his jade belt and Foyin then gave him his patched monk robe in return. This is a story of the exchange of a robe for a jade belt that became very widespread. The truth of this anecdote cannot be ascertained, nor need it be. Nevertheless, Su Shi wrote three poetic g¯ath¯a and Foyin thanked him with two g¯ath¯a. One can clearly see in them the theoretical appeal of the partnership of Chan and poetry. Su Shi’s first g¯ath¯a said, A hundred thousand lamps create one lamplight, In total there are as many kings of the marvelous Dharma as sands of the Ganges. For this reason, I do not dare begrudge Borrowing your four elements to make a meditation bench.

Here Su Shi makes an allusion to the mirror and the lamp, which serves to show his mastery of merging Chan learning with poetry. His intention was to explain that the mundane images are like the lamplight reflected in a mirror. They merge together and incorporate each other inexhaustibly. This expresses the unity of the world of one including the ten thousand (all), and the ten thousand reverting to one. It also highlights their natural and limitlessly continuous inexhaustibility. Originally these playful words were turned into a poetic g¯ath¯a overflowing with Chan meaning, and in it the Chan principle and Chan interest gave people much to mull over. Probably, in the seventh year of the Yuanfeng era (1084), when Su Shi changed his position from the Deputy Military Training Commissioner of Huangzhou to governor of Ruzhou, he specially climbed Mt. Lu and exchanged a g¯ath¯a with Donglin Changzong, and he left two seven-word line quatrains that were very popular. The first says, The sound of the creek is the broad, long tongue [of the Buddha]. How are the mountain hues not the pristine body?

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As night comes, eighty-four thousand g¯ath¯as, On another day [when I die], how shall I present them to people?

The broad, long tongue is one of the thirty-two marks of a buddha, it being said that the Buddha’s tongue could cover his face and reach up to his hairline. The Da zhidu lun (Treatise on the Greater Prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a) explains that “the mark of the tongue is thus; these words must be real.” The verse on the hues of the mountain evidently were based on and are a development of the Dharma talk of “Ever so green the emerald bamboo, all are the Dharma body; Ever so luxuriant the yellow flowers, all are prajñ¯a.” This is entirely the theory of the insentient possessing the (Buddha) nature of the late-period Chan School and really was a poeticization of Chan thought. If one says that this poem is merely a use of Chan to understand the world and remains at a purely theoretical and speculative stage, the “Ti Xilin bi” (Dedication on a Wall of the Western Forest) would be entirely a fusion of Chan principle with individual experience, and thereby drew forth a philosophical principle that has universal significance. It says, Looking horizontally, it becomes a range, and at an angle it becomes a peak; Near and far, high and low, each [view] is not the same. I do not recognize the true face of Mt. Lu, I only link myself to being in this mountain.

The reason why this poem could be on everyone’s lips was really because it adopted as its method of poetic composition the Chan method of the antelope hanging by its horns (leaving no traces) and was untouched in the least by the trite atmosphere that speaks of principles. Moreover, it also did not carry the atmosphere of vegetables and bamboo shoots (monkish smell) of engraved words and chiseled verses (artificial and contrived language), but it took a person with universal feelings to achieve it. Furthermore, it was not a social phenomenon that just anybody could express. The philosophy of human life abides totally in this ordinary and even more ordinary natural phenomenon, which explains the limitations of human perception, its relativity, in particular revealing one’s self in the process of cognition, or it speaks of the uncertainty and blindness in Nature and society. The first poem initially draws on the sutras for evidence and directly writes about the Chan principle; the later poem is the antelope hanging by its horns with no traces to be found. It accesses the emotions via the scene, the key being drawn out in the last line, in order to stress the perplexed self-nature people possess that prevents them from recognizing the true characteristics of things and thereby changes Chan principle into the popular poetic principle that is closely tied to daily human relationships. Therefore, compared to the Chan principles, it was further able to seep into people’s thoughts and it spread rapidly. Huihong quoted Huang Luzhi (Huang Tingjian)’s evaluation of this poem, saying, “This elder has entered into prajñ¯a, trying all means of persuasion, and realized it

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with no excess of words.”94 From this we can see that Su Shi’s training in Chan learning was deep and he merged Chan and poetry into a marvelous unity. It needs to be explained that because Su Shi did not agree with Wang Anshi on government policy, Su was frequently exiled, and his temperament as a poet often completely coincided with the mental sphere of Chan. Therefore, he, unlike Wang Anshi and other gentry, put Chan into use, and also, unlike the superficial changes made to get one’s position across of the Lixue scholars, who used Chan to talk of Confucianism, Su branded the depths of thought with the Chan School’s “apart from characteristics,” “no thought,” and “according with conditions,” and expressed Chan’s transcendental spirit even more. Because he was like this, he was then, in the midst of a checkered official career of constant ups and downs, able to preserve a persistent seeking for the ideals of human life. He was a free and natural person who never abandoned himself to despair, which of course is the playful sam¯adhi (of his poetry), which were also works of complaint. He once playfully titled a verse, “My mind is like wood already turned to ashes, my body is like an unfastened boat. I ask about your achievements of your lifetime; Huangzhou, Huizhou, and Qiongzhou.” Mind like dead ashes was just said for other people to hear. Even though the complaint in it is explicit in his statement, his free-and-easy manner is also evident in the expression. Admittedly, he had to resign himself to this being free and easy, and one can also see that the Chan idea imbued it deeply. Nevertheless, even though Huang Tingjian, who was made one of “the four scholars of the Su School” and loved to quote allusions from Buddhist sutras and yulu (recorded sayings) in his poetry, still concentrated on putting effort into form, ensuring that he forgot to produce the new and strange. Huang emphasized that poetry “takes vitality (qi) to be primal,” with the result that his poems also lacked that transcendental mood. Huang’s poetry was unusual and severe in style, purely creating unconventional verses and difficult rhymes, using unfamiliar language, just like the later inferior followers of the Chan School who teased with barbed comments. The achievements of these second-raters were naturally not the equal of their teachers and school, and they “ended up being inferior to the earlier people.” Cai Tao (d. ca. 1126 + ) said, “The poems of Shangu [Huang] are marvelous and shook off the beaten paths; his words strive for a ghostly spirit, without a touch of vulgarity. What is regrettable is that he sought the lofty, exactly like the Chan that followed after Caodong, esteeming and evaluating that which is in the cavern of the mysterious.”95 These words most distinctly grasp that Huang’s poetry one-sidedly pursued artistic artfulness and took the same narrow and oblique path as the mysticism of the Chan that followed Caodong. It was just because of the infiltration by Chan thought that the poetry made by Song people specially emphasized the capacity to embody a mood of universal values and also needed to possess a deep meaning. As Su Shi clearly pointed out in a discussion of poetry, “In the production of a new meaning within the rules [of poetry], one 94

Huihong, Lengzhai yehua. Tr. “no excess in words” can mean no excessive verbiage, but here probably the idea that there is nothing left in the mind that is unspoken or ineffable, that that one does not have an attachment to words or their meanings. 95 Xiqing shihua.

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conveys the marvelous principle beyond the bold and unconstrained.”96 Su also used poetry to express this theory: If you wish to make a poem speak of the marvel, Be without a dislike of emptiness or calm. Because of calm one realizes the crowds of movement, Because of emptiness one enters into myriad sense-realms.97

This would require poets to be in a state of no-thinking and no thoughts, and reach “the convergence of sense-realms and meaning.” Only when there is “convergence of sense-realm and meaning” can one have a meaningful and lasting impression. Wei Tai (fl. late eleventh century)’s Linhan yinju shihua (Talks on Poetry While Living in Seclusion at Linhan) criticized Ouyang Xiu’s poetry: “In general, for something to be poetry, one should ladle it out and yet the water source is not exhausted, and the more one chews the greater the taste. When it comes to poetry like that by Yongshu [Ouyang], the power of his talent was agile and heroic, and the verses also are clear and healthy, but regrettably it has little lasting impression.” Wang Anshi said he did not agree, and he raised as an example the line, “The traveler raised his head, the flying birds startled,” saying that it “has taste.” But Wei Tai then said, “However, when I came to think about it, I do not see the beauty of this verse and also in the end I cannot ascertain Wang’s meaning.” Really, the sentence on the flying birds does not display any beauty, and it actually lacks the inexhaustible ladling that Wei Tai spoke of, a mood and appeal with a lingering aftertaste. “For the moment, he uses an excellent poem to while away a long night, and each time it comes to a beautiful place one participates in Chan.”98 An excellent poem can while away a still night and the participation in Chan then is where the poem is absolutely marvelous and beautiful, and the Chan realm and poetic realm are like this. Cai Tao also stressed that, “In the writing of poetry and making [literary] allusions one needs to [make it] like Chan language; when salt is put into water, one knows the taste of salt when one drinks the water.”99 The taste of salt is what Wei Tai meant by an aftertaste (lasting impression), which is the requirement to rely on Chan language and Chan interests to sublimate the principle of the poem into a new mental sphere (mood). This is really like Wang Anshi and similar great gentry, who, in being influenced by the Chan meaning, also wrote beautiful verses that understand and get the meaning: Flying up above the peaks, a thousand-foot pagoda. I have heard the chickens cry, and see the sun rise. I am not awed by the floating clouds blocking my view; I just climb physically up to the highest story. 96

“Written Following a Painting by Wu Daozi,” in Su Shi, Su Dongpo ji, first collection, fascicle 23. 97 Op. cit., “Poem Sent to Liaocan.”. 98 “Following on After Su Shi Wrote a Poem to Li Zhiyi.” 99 Xiqing shihua.

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The beauty of this poem is that the beauty is in “the words about the functions (verbs) and not in the words about their names,”100 taking one’s own kind of embodiment of heaven and earth,101 a heroism as boundless as the ocean and sky that is thoroughly blended into a commanding position on high, looking through a pure, vast scene of floating clouds. If one says that the writing of poems by Su Shi is the “realization of no excess in words (no attachment to words and their meanings),” which is the story of “entering into prajñ¯a,” but then Wu Ke (presented scholar 1109) in his discussion of poetry said, “Whenever one intentionally creates, one will not realize the language.” This means that the poetry will be just like the barbed comments of Chan. Not only did Wu Ke emphasize the establishment of a meaning, he also thought it important to highlight that the marvelous is in the meaning that is beyond the words, which is unspoken. This is a manifestation of the Dark Learning way of thinking of “getting the meaning and forgetting the words” in poetics and is also a concrete application of the contemporary Chan view of the realm of “the Way lies in not speaking” in poetic creation. He cited a poem as evidence: The North Hills [a cemetery area] are not planted fields. It is only planted with pines and cypresses. Where pines and cypresses have yet to grow, They wait there for the guests of the city and court. Also, the song, the “Poor Girl” says, Reflecting [her face in the] water, she was about to comb her hair, But the ripples are moving and will not settle. She does not dare be annoyed at the spring breeze, She herself being without a mirror on a stand. The style of these two poems is elevated, and they also contain an inexhaustible meaning that is seen beyond the words.102

Poetry values mood (mental sphere) and scene, and the Song poetry that is influenced by Chan also must value the mood. Even though the eminent disciple of the Cheng School (of neo-Confucianism), Yang Shi, used Chan to explain principle, still, in the domain of writing poetry, he likewise could emphasize “getting the meaning.” He said, “Learning poetry does not lie in the language and the letters; one should imagine its atmosphere and taste, and if so, the poem will get the meaning.” He also simply used Chan words, saying, It is as layman Pang said, “Divine powers and marvelous functions are the carrying of water and toting of firewood.” These are the words of one who has got it himself and are the greatest realization of principle.

100

Huihong, Lengzhai shihua. Tr. a Chan phrase, in one sense meaning that true suchness or the Buddha-nature is everywhere and includes or is all things. 102 Wu Ke, Zanghai shihua. 101

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He also said, “The ultimate of poetry is hard to speak of finally. Generally, it requires that people embody it in understanding; it does not lie in pursuing the meaning of the text.”103 What he calls “embody in understanding” and “getting it himself” not only teaches people that in learning poetry one must first use the mindground to comprehend the deep meaning of conveyance over distance. In fact, this was guiding students with the “mind-seal” of Chan to get the intention of the text. The method of cultivation that Chan highlighted was enlightenment and the Song poetry that was influenced by Chan also stressed that writing poetry required being enlightened. Only because one has enlightenment can one understand the ineffable mood of poetry and Chan. One can see that the method of “enlightenment” is directly related to the core theme of “establishing the meaning (intention).” Also, Wu Ke spoke directly, Generally, the composition of poetry is like investigating Chan; one must love the gateway of enlightenment. When young I studied with Rong Tianhe and once I did not understand his poem that said, “I am very grateful to the chattering sparrows./ When the time came they broke the solitary calm.” One day I was sitting in a bamboo pavilion, when unexpectedly a flock of sparrows flew down crying, and I was suddenly enlightened to those words. From then on, when I looked at a poem I always comprehended it.104

It is definitely as Wu Ke said; this learning of poetry and investigation of Chan by Chan monks is not without similarity. He also wrote three poems titled “Poems on Learning Poetry.” The first line of each poem is “Learning poetry is exactly like learning to participate in Chan.” Following this in the first poem he has “Simply wait to you fully realize and get it by yourself,/ And casually pick it out and then be detached.” The second poem has “Leap beyond the set patterns of Shaoling [Du Fu],/ And with a heroic determination one basically soars skyward.” The third is “The grass on the banks of a pond in spring, this one phrase,/ Alarms heaven and moves the earth, being transmitted until today.” What he is speaking about is entirely the single path of poetry and Chan, which is formed by enlightenment. One can thus say that “enlightenment” was a pathway into the Way of poetry after the Chan School had arisen, especially in the Song dynasty when Chan had been particularly widespread. This theory flourished after Wu Ke. Fan Wen (d.u.) said, Those who know literary composition should have the gateway of enlightenment like Chan. The Dharma-gateways have hundreds of thousands of differences, but essentially one enters enlightenment due to one turning (pivot) word.…One simply must first be enlightened to one place and then one can fully comprehend the other marvelous places.105

Fan Xiwen (thirteenth century) advanced this even further: The level of literary composition has a depth dependent on what [the author] has been enlightened to….If you have a single taste of marvelous enlightenment, then one directly and frankly creates.106 103

Guishan xiansheng yulu (Recorded Sayings of Mr. Guishan). Wu Ke, Zanghai shihua. 105 Fan Wen, Qianxi shiyan (Appreciation of Poetry by Qianxi). 106 Fan Xiwen, Duichuang yehua (Night Talks Facing the Bed). 104

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The writing of poetry not only lies in enlightenment, but also it is not the same in accord with the extent of enlightenment, and its level is also differentiated accordingly. Lin Yimin (d.u.) simply said, Learning poetry is like learning Chan, and minor enlightenment necessitates a minor attainment. An immortal requires the accumulation of skill. [But] Chan has the sudden teaching.107

Lu Benzhong also emphasized that, The principle of entrance by enlightenment lies exactly between diligence and indolence of effort.108

In addition, Jiang Kui (1155–1221) also said, “To be excellent one needs selfenlightenment.”109 Following this, a poet of the Jiangxi School of Poetry, Yang Wanli (1124–1206), in talking about when one is creating poetry, also had the feeling of “suddenly having an enlightenment.” Zeng Jili (Southern Song) spoke of a single sentence bearing the quality of a conclusion: In discussing poetry Houshan [Chen Shidao, 1053-1101, who taught Yang] spoke of shaking off [the influence of Huang Tingjian]. When Donghu [Xu Fu, 1075-1141] discussed poetry, he spoke of hitting the mark; when Donglai (Lu Benzhong) discussed poetry, he spoke of a vivifying method; when Zicang (Han Ju) discussed poetry, he spoke of full understanding. Even though their entry points are not the same, still they really are all one key point (turning point), and one needs to know if one is not enlightened that one cannot enter.110

According to this theory, “enlightenment” links each of these theories of poetry and also blended harmoniously in the creation of the verse by different writers. It must be said that Chan learning deeply impregnated Song poetry and poetics. Based on such facts, Yan Yu wrote the Canglang shihua (Canglang’s Talks on Poetry), which promoted poetry as “marvelous enlightenment,” “the enlightenment of the natural color (the genuine),” and “thorough enlightenment.” If one is like this, then one “is not involved with the path of theory and will not fall into language and description,” “[like] an antelope hanging by its horns [leaving no traces of the effort of composition] to be found.” Song-dynasty scholars used Chan as a metaphor for poetry and later people imitated them, but did not improve on the theories of Yan Yu. We have said that in early Song that the Yunmen lineage flourished greatly for a time. There was a person who, when he evaluated their thought, said, “It captures and releases, rolls out and rolls up, changing freely. Released into the rivers and seas, where the fish and dragons are able to swim freely, it cuts off heaven and earth, and there are no paths for demons to run along.” From this we can appreciate the rich atmosphere of the Yunmen School. And this rich atmosphere likewise is formally expressed in the use of poetry by Yunmen monks. Thus, Deshan Yuanmi (Five Dynasties to early Song) interpreted the three sentences of Yunmen: 107

Huang Shaogu ji ba (Epilogue of the Collection of Huang Shaogu). Tongmeng shixun (Instructions on Poetry to Enlighten Youths). 109 Baishi Daoren shishuo (The Poetics of Person of the Way Baishi). 110 Tingzhai shihua (Stories on Poetry of Tingzhai). 108

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One: Heaven and earth, and myriad phenomena, hell and heaven, all things appear as real; at every point it is not injured. This is the sentence on containing and covering heaven and earth. Two: Piling up mountains and amassing peaks, each single one is entirely a mote of dust, and when one also tries to discuss the mysterious marvel, the ice melts and breaks each other up. This is the sentence on cutting off the mass of currents. Three: The discriminatory voice (eloquence) profits the heavens, high and low, nothing is said; it is also like medicine suitable for the illness; the diagnosis is made at the time. This is the sentence that follows after the billows and follows the waves.

The above describes Deshan Yuanmi’s use of language to express the meaning beyond words, and even though it is a bit rustic, still this meaning is very clear. That is to say, it transcends all existence, which is the mind of intrinsic reality, so great there is nothing external to it, encompassing heaven and earth; and it guides students and reveals the Chan mechanism, and it can be analyzed, and the teaching is provided in accord with their aptitudes, inducing but not initiating (that enlightenment), thereby reaching where “the eye faculty is finely discerning and is not involved in any senseobjects,” which is transcendent and yet also perceives a universal and peerless realm. Thus, the union of Chan and poetry, and the poetization of philosophical theory, also embroidered on the limitless connotations of Yunmen thought, and naturally, it also added to the aesthetic feeling of pure speculation. This was not only the skill of the Yunmen monks, it was also a habitual form for the expression of thought by the various houses of Chan and even all of Buddhism, but it was only Chan that used it to further show its great proficiency in this. Chan used poetry in order to demonstrate something, and the Song poets then used Chan to speak of poetry. In his Shilun shihua (Talks on Poetry of Stone Ford), Ye Mengde (1077–1148) further used the three sentences to discuss poetry: The Chan School says that Yunmen has three sayings: the first is the sentence about following after billows and following after the waves, which means that one responds to the opportunity in accordance with things; the second is the sentence on cutting off the mass of currents, which means to go beyond words and is not what emotion and cognition reaches; the third is the sentence on containing and covering heaven and earth, which means they are void and all tally together, and there is no space in which they are detected.

Ye in fact is saying that poetry is: one, is talking of change; two, is talking of the mood; and three, is speaking of the universal principle that is expressed by poetry or Chan. He later quoted Du Fu, “Wild rice drifting on the waves is submerged in the darkness of the clouds,/ The cold dew on the lotus seedpod, makes it droop under the rosy color,” to be the sentence on containing and covering heaven and earth; “Falling flowers and gossamer, still in the bright sun;/ The crying doves and fledgling swallows, deep in the spring green” is the sentence on following billows and following waves; and “A hundred years in an isolated land, I return to my brushwood door,/ The river depths of the fifth month, the thatched hut” is the sentence on cutting off the mass of currents. He strove to completely merge the principle of poetry and the emotions of poetry, and merged the methods of poetry with Chan principle and into Chan inclinations. Even though there are some dissimilarities, still it serves to

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show the depths to which Song people were infected by the practice of Chan, of course in thought and also in practice, and of course in philosophical theory and also in human life, and of course in teaching, and also in aesthetic appreciation. The other influences barely stand comparison with those of Chan. Without doubt, here the story does not end with poetry. Ultimately, this is a summary of Chan’s influence on Song literati culture.

Part III

The Changes in Yuan and Ming Chan Thought

The famous scholar Song Lian, who lived in the Yuan and Ming dynasties, mentioned the two religions, Buddhism and Daoism, saying, “The teachings of Buddhism and Daoism have operated together in China for a thousand and several hundred years, and their rise and fall was always tied to the likes and dislikes of the rulers of the times…. When the Yuan rose, they venerated the Buddha, and one cannot even speak in the same words as the numbers of imperial teachers when compared to the past.”1 Not only was the Yuan court like this, but also because the first emperor of the Ming dynasty had been a monk when young, and after he took the throne, he greatly venerated Buddhism. Also, because the Prince of Yan, Zhu Di (1360–1424) depended on the Chan monk Daoyan (Yao Guangxiao, 1335–1418)’s power to usurp the throne, he therefore employed him to lead Buddhism. The Yuan and the Ming dynasties both depended on the regard of the ruler of the day, and then with lamas and Chan monks coming and going into the palace, they swayed the national governance, and imperial teachers and national teachers were in fashion in the empire. Because of this, the Chan School flourished and did not decline. Nevertheless, Chan thought from the Five Dynasties period onwards had already been almost fully developed and its spirit already permeated completely all levels of society. Even though the torch was passed from teacher to student, in the Yuan and Ming, Chan found it difficult to make new developments, and the force of its infiltration and synthesis led to variations in Chan thought. The barbed comments and gongan that struggled to be unusual and artful had already been taken to every extreme, but old tunes were difficult to turn into a new musical score. The development of Chan thought, then due to the black-clothed (Buddhist monks), Chinese Confucians, and Yellow Caps (Daoists), and due to the Chan School gearing itself to the needs of Doctrine and Pure land, turned from transcendence toward participation in society. These changes formed the distinct features of the Chan thought of the Yuan and Ming. From the viewpoint of the development of thought, what is meant by change definitely does not point purely to its own evolution of increase and decrease. To a greater extent, it refers to the diffusion of its thought and means it created grafts onto 1

“Treatise on Buddhism and Daoism,” Yuan shi (History of the Yuan).

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the thought. Because of this, one can say that Chan thought had already infiltrated and impregnated Confucian thought in the Song period, and used the form of Lixue to produce change. Undoubtedly, the Yuan and Ming continued on with this, using change in search of development. There were five expressions of this: One: Chan monks as imperial teachers participated in government. The Yuan shi says, “Yuan rose in Shuofang and [its leaders] already venerated Buddhism. It gained the Western Regions, and Shizu (Khublai Khan) regarded these lands as wide, perilous and distant, for the people are violent and love to fight, and so he thought that through these customs [of Buddhism] the people there would be softened. Thus the commanderies and prefectures of the region of Tibet (Tufan) established officials and differentiated their roles, and put them under the control of the imperial teacher…. Then the fame of the imperial teacher, together with the imperial decrees, operated in the western lands.” Initially, the establishment of the system of the imperial teacher clearly emerged out of the needs to control the distant border lands and was adopted as a political policy of control via mollification of the minority peoples who “were violent and loved to fight.” In 1253, when Khublai lead an army into Tibet, the lama monks already influenced the government of the region and therefore, after he took the throne, Khublai first used the lamas to console and rule the Western Regions. Secondly, he made Phags-pa (1235–1280) the imperial teacher to rule the land of Tibet. Later, out of the demands of the whole feudal rule, he ardently venerated not just the lamas, but also the Buddhism of the Chinese territories. He established the Commission for Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs (Xuanzhengyuan) and he founded the Court of the Commissioner of Merit and Virtue to control the monks of the empire and the army and people of Tibet, and other matters. These positions were certainly made by the monks, and also by the recommendations and selections by the imperial teacher. Even though successive emperors took the throne, they needed to receive the precepts from the imperial teacher, and the empresses, imperial concubines, and princesses all prostrated themselves in the worship of these teachers. Even though all the officials stood at court, the imperial teachers had seats specially prepared for them and they sat in the corners of the court. Therefore, the Yuan shi says, “The reason the court worshipped and respectfully trusted them was that they were used for everything.”2 This is sufficient to show that the power of the imperial teacher overwhelmed the court and the provinces, and had already reached the extent of extreme power and arrogance. After Phags-pa, lamas continued to be imperial teachers and Chan monks also attached themselves to their influence to achieve meteoric rises. The Linji lineage monk Yinjian (1202–1257) had been valued by emperors Taizu (Genghis Khan) and Shizu (Khublai). When Khublai had yet to ascend the throne, he asked Yinjian about the Buddha-dharma, and Khublai received the bodhi-mind precepts from him. Emperor Taizong (r. 1229–1241) promoted him with the title of Great Master Who Protects the State of Brilliant Heaven (Guangtian Zhenguo Dashi), and when Emperor Dingzong took the throne (1246), he ordered Yinjian be made Monk Controller. After Emperor Xianzong rose to the throne (1251), he also ordered Yinjian to command the affairs of the monks of the empire. Yinjian’s disciple, Xiyun 2

“Treatise on Buddhism and Daoism,” Yuan shi.

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An lived through the reigns of emperors Shizu, Chengzong, and Wuzong. Wuzong gifted him “the seal of the correct lineage of Linji.” In particular, Liu Bingzhong (d. 1274), who recommended Yinjian, originally was connected to a second-generation disciple of Wansong Xingxiu. Yinjian accordingly obeyed the order to go and see Khublai, and when he was passing through Yunzhong, he heard of Liu’s extensive learning, and thereupon he was invited to see him together with Khublai in the Hidden Mansion3 . Liu then “repeatedly received him as an advisor” and “he discussed the affairs of the empire just like pointing at his palm.” The Hanlin Academician Wang E (1190–1273) evaluated Liu as follows: “He participated in the secret strategies of the command tent and the important policies that settled the gods of the earth and grains (affairs of state).” Khublai further stressed, “Bingzhong served me for over thirty years; he was cautious and meticulous, he did not avoid hardship and danger, and his words hid no secrets. He mastered the arts of yin and yang, and he divined events and knew the future. It was just like tallies coming together and only I (the emperor) knew of this. Other people could not get to hear of it.”4 We can know that at that time Liu played a decisive role in making important policy decisions. In the first year of the Zhiyuan era (1264), he was appointed Grand Master for Splendid Happiness, and he was appointed Grand Guardian and participated in the affairs of the Secretariat. He was imperially ordered to marry the daughter of the Hanlin Reader-in-Waiting Du Mo and was gifted a mansion in the Fengxian Quarter. He was given the guardianship of the Directorate of the Palace Accounts and Supervisor. His younger brother, Liu Bingshu, in the first year of the Zhongtong era (1260), was promoted to be Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites and the Deputy Pacification Commissioner of Xingzhou. Although the Ming dynasty had no definite system of imperial teachers, it was very generous to Chan monks. Emperor Taizu made Zhongle (1318–1391), the dharmaheir of the Linji monk Yuansou Xingduan (1255–1341), found the Central Buddhist Registry, and he was granted the title of Buddhist Patriarch of the Right (the head of the registry). He lived in Tianjie Monastery and controlled the affairs of the monks of the empire. Taizu ordered Zongle to let his hair grow long, intending to appoint him to an important position. When Emperor Chengzu was Prince of Yan, he put Yuansou’s second-generation disciple Daoyan into an important position, and he made him a military advisor. The Prince of Yan secretly schemed with Daoyan to raise an army and march south. Chengzu seized the throne, and after he had ascended the throne, Daoyan was made the Buddhist Patriarch of the Left in the Central Buddhist Registry. In the second year of Yongle (1404), Chengzu ordered Daoyan promoted to Grand Master for Assisting Toward Goodness and Junior Preceptor of the Heir Apparent. He returned him to the laity, with the lay surname Yao, and granted him the name Guangxiao. He then ordered him to supervise the writing of the Taizu shilu (Veritable Records of Emperor Taizu). After Daoyan died, he was posthumously awarded the title of Civilized Minister Who Promoted Sincerity and Assisted the State, and Who Exerted His Strength in Cooperative Planning, and he especially promoted him to 3 4

This is the residence of an emperor before he ascends the throne. “Liu Bingzhong,” Yuan shi.

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Grand Minister for Glorious Happiness, Supreme Pillar of State, Duke of the State of Rong. The two characters “cooperative planning” are sufficient to show his exploits together with Emperor Chengzu. Chengzu also promoted the Tibetan monk Halima (Kar-ma, Chos-dpal bzang-po, ca. 1384–ca. 1432) to the honorific title of Buddha of Great Good and Master of the Western Heaven and Dharma King of the Great Dharma Jewel and Thus Come One Who Proclaims the Teaching and Who Universally Assists the State of Marvelous Wisdom and Complete Awakening of Utmost and Complete Victory and Who is Perfected in All Practices, and he enfeoffed his follower Beiluo, who was made Grand National Teacher. Emperor Renzong also granted him the title of Great National Teacher Zhiguang, and Emperor Yingzong promoted him to the title of Buddha Sun of the Western Heaven. Emperor Wuzong elevated Chan Master Sansi to National Teacher and Dharma King. These rulers had no interest in the Chan Way and only converted the Chan School into a Chan staff as a divine weapon for protection and management of the state. The system of the imperial teacher not only enabled lamas and Chan monks to obtain high positions, but in particular it also caused the transcendental spirit of Chan to be almost entirely lost, and because of this there was a change in the nature of the Chan School. The “Treatise on Buddhism and Daoism” of the Yuan shi details the harms created by the imperial teacher system: “The harms in all districts [are so many that they] cannot be spoken of,” “killing the common people,” “seizure and theft of valuables,” “pursuit and coercion of men and the rape of women,” even to the extent of attacking local officials and beating princes and concubines. Really, their unrestrained violence was unreasonable. Professor Tang Yongtong says that this “really was a cause of the downfall of the Yuan court.”5 In fact, this was one cause for changes in the Chan School and its tendency to decay. Speaking of this aspect, the Chan School from the Yuan onwards was not the same in spirit as before, only preserving a shell of its former self. Two: the veneration of divine powers that fostered superstition. Ever since Buddhism entered China, in order to ensure survival and development in a different culture and country, Buddhism depended on or curried favor with the then popular Huang-Lao (religious Daoism) studies and the arts of Huang-Lao. At first, it maintained the theories of the recompense of the soul and practiced the methods of fasting and prayers at shrines. As a consequence, Buddhism penetrated deeper among the people. By the Wei-Jin period, a turbulent age of misery and happiness that came to have no fixed order, human life was such that in the morning one did not worry about the evening but thought only about having the luck to survive. In Buddhism, the benefits for sentient beings were not to be experienced until the future, so Fotudeng (d. 349) used mystical techniques for it to be experienced in the present world. Thereupon, the people visited monasteries, burned incense, and bowed to Buddha to seek good fortune. It was just as Tang Yongtong said: the spread of Buddhism among the people, besides the theory of recompense in response to actions, had to depend on the arts of supernatural powers in order to progress. This is 5

Tang Yongtong, “Wudai Yuan Ming Fojiao shilue” (Brief History of the Buddhism of the Five Dynasties, Yuan and Ming), in Sui Tang Fojiao shilue, Zhonghua shuju, 1988, p. 395.

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one reason why the Buddha-dharma arose in the late Wei-Jin period. In other words, ever since Buddhism had been brought to China, one reason for its success was that it used its own attractions to fully promote its doctrine and methods. The second reason was that it ingratiated itself with folk customs, depending on mystic techniques to win the trust of the masses. In the Sui and Tang dynasties, the translation of Buddhist scriptures had done all that was necessary, and the doctrines of Buddhism developed greatly. By the Song, Chinese had created the Chan School themselves, and of course, in thought and also in method, excluding the diffusion into the external world, Chan had also developed in a direction that was narrow but deep. And the veneration of Buddhism by the Yuan and Ming emperors and kings originally was not in order to elaborate on thought, but was seen as being a Chan staff that was a divine weapon for protection and support. Emperor Chengzu of the Ming used the respect for the emperor to have the Shenseng zhuan (Biographies of Divine Monks) compiled in nine fascicles. It wrote only of the supernatural arts of the Buddhists, in total 208 people. Then he built Buddhist monasteries, cultivated merit, performed Buddhist services, fasted and offered sacrifices and engaged in Dharma assemblies of repentance to save the deceased and send off the dead. He viewed Buddhism entirely as a divine power to deceive stupid men and women, and used this to pray for the good fortune of the dynasty and to seek the continuity of the imperial throne. The lamas specially propagated the arts of the bedchamber (for longevity) and the methods of double cultivation of the Dharma (an Esoteric Buddhist practice of prayer) and so on, and also catered to the needs of the imperial house of that age. They not only hankered for a future life, but also a full prosperity in this life. Then, all of Buddhism, including this Chan School, under the impetus from the rulers, clearly following the path of development among the people, changed to be a kind of divine power that fostered superstition. Taking the Yuan court as an example, the palace was virtually converted into a Buddhist practice-site (monastery). The sutra-chanting and provision of meals for monks, and even the emperor and empress receiving the precepts, all kinds of Buddhist services, continued without a break. There were over five hundred kinds of services. They consumed resources, “yearly using several tens of millions of ingots.”6 In the fourth year of Yanyou (1317) alone, the cost of the Buddhist services in the inner court chambers was 439,500 catties of wheat flour, 790,000 catties of oil, 21,870 catties of butter, and 27,300 catties of honey. Every year the court donated about ten million in expenses for vast vegetarian feasts, and we do not know by how many times this donation was increased when compared to the earlier Dade reign era (1297–1308).7 The raising and building of monasteries for monks continued for years without interruption. Shizu, that is Khublai, asked the imperial teacher Phags-pa, “What merit is there in building monasteries and building stupas?” Phags-pa replied, “The blessings are boundless.” Thereupon Khublai built Renwang Monastery. We can see that the building of monasteries and stupas was made in pursuit of blessings for the state and Khublai’s descendants. In the same year, Khublai also 6 7

Xu zizhi tongjian, fasc. 202. “Treatise on Buddhism and Daoism,” Yuan shi.

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built Wan’an Monastery, the Buddhist statues and the windows of which were all gilded. Later, Emperor Chengzong built Lintao Monastery and Wanshan Youguo Monastery; Emperor Wuzong built Wutaishan Fo Monastery; Emperor Renzong renovated Yong’an Monastery on Xiangshan; Emperor Yingzong renovated Huayan Monastery of Shangdu, as well as Dayongfu Monastery, and he built Shouanshan Monastery; Emperor Taiding built Shuxiang Monastery and 360 Buddha stupas; Emperor Wenzong built Chengtian Husheng Monastery and he converted his residence as heir-apparent to be Longxiang Jizhuang Monastery and so on, too many to list. Moreover, the emperors rewarded the monasteries abundantly, made limitless donations, and each time, besides giving them silver liang (approx. 50 grams each), also gave them vast lands, at least a hundred qing (a qing is approx. 6.6 hectares, 16.5 acres) and at the most 162,090 qing (Emperor Wenzong, in the first year of Zhishun, 1330, gave this to Dachengtian Husheng Monastery). The Xu zizhi tongjian fasc. 197 records that the building of monasteries of that time was so massive that, “Wherever the people of the empire go, they can see refined monasteries, excellent phalansteries, and [religious] houses,” which can be compared to “the southern courts [of the sixth century] that had 480 monasteries, so many towers and terraces in the mist and rain.”. Not only was it like this, but also monks in the palace specialized in using the arts of divine powers to poison and bewitch the ruler. Like the Tibetan monks Danba and Bilannashili (d. 1332) and others, they came and went in the forbidden palace, secretly maintaining incantations, deliberately mystifying, engaging in some sort of prayers for rain, producing flowers from dragon pools (with waterfalls) and the like. Even more extreme, they used the Buddha-dharma to spread licentiousness in the palace, which they titled the secret-great happiness meditation (mah¯asukhadhy¯ana). In particular, Emperor Shun (r. 1333–1368) took women of good families and presented them to monks, and he himself also selected great ministers and ordered their wives or the beautiful wives of the people to be experts at adultery, and to scheme to enter the palace and undertake what was called joint cultivation (shuangxiu). They committed obscene acts together, men and women went naked, and rulers and ministers spread licentiousness, stopping at nothing, saying of this, “this is nonobstruction between phenomena (shishi wuai).” These were all probably promoted under the name of the Buddha-dharma and meditation. In the palace the constants of engaging in repentance rituals, praying for blessings and prayers for the ancestors, went under a multitude of names, such as congratulatory praises, donations of food, lion-roar ceremonies, imperial lord of the black hell, secret sitting in calm et cetera. In the “Treatise on Buddhism and Daoism” of the Yuan shi alone there are more than thirty such records. Chan monks also hastily followed these examples in the teaching monasteries and among the people, which doubtlessly made Chan acquire a deep hue of superstition. The departure point for the foundations of early Buddhism was the exploration of the truth of human life, and then it sought out the secret profundities of the origins of the universe. The Dharma services of engaging in repentance basically had no relation to these. After Buddhism was brought to China, it was confused with the arts of Daoism, and next, the concurrent adoption of the folk theories linking fortune with good and misfortune with lewdness formed a folk Buddhist theory of rebirth and

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the recompense of cause and effect. They thought that the main process of human life is the elimination of the sins of evil created over innumerable eons, and so to practice the method of repentance is to practice the indispensable duty to eliminate sin and evil. The method of repentance arose in the Jin and the Song, and in the “Discussion on the Section on the Promotion of Blessings” in the Xu gaoseng zhuan, Daoxuan wrote that the earliest repentance ritual was the ritual of Bhai´sajyaguru of the Liu Song period. This was followed by the Jingzhuzijing xingfamen (Pure Pillar Son’s Dharma Gateway by the Prince of Jingling, Xiao Ziliang [470–494]). In the Liang dynasty, there was the Datong fangguang chan (Universal and Broad Repentance), and Emperor Wu of Liang (Xiao Yan, 464–549) also instituted two repentance rituals, the first being popularly called Liang Huang chan (The Liang August Repentance). In the Liang to Chen period, repentance rituals were extremely popular. However, all of these were what Buddhist followers practiced themselves. They used the ritual to extinguish sins and produce insight, and even though the provision of feasts to monks was a faith with the hues of enhancing merit, none had any idea of doing so to pursue money, food, and merchandise for exchange. Nevertheless, as time passed, Buddhism was gradually influenced by worldly customs and the patriarchal clan system, which did not exist originally in Buddhism, and later it was only a method of cultivation to produce insight. This repentance ritual was changed to become a tool to gain profit, like trade, taking the Buddha-dharma of transcendence that was not to be changed into a mundane participatory ritual, and transformed it into the transcendence of death and a send-off of the dead, a superstitious activity that involves the soul. From the Yuan onwards, this practice increased in popularity, and the Chan School also participated in it without regard to the veneration of spirits by the common people. The Dharma Meeting (Mass) of Water and Land by tradition began because Emperor Wu of the Liang gained a revelation from a divine monk in a dream. In the Xining reign era (1068–1078) of the Song, Yang E of Dongchuan wrote about the old rites of Emperor Wu of Liang, compiling the Shuilu yi (Rites of Water and Land) in three fascicles, which came to be in vogue among the public. In the Yuan and the Ming, this tendency burned even brighter. The recorded sayings of the Linji monk and Yuansou Xingduan contain a “Dharma Talk Given on Rising to the Pulpit for a Water and Land [Mass] at the Court.” The Chan monk Yuejiang Zhengyin (fl. 1295– 1340s) of Jinshan Monastery, who had been an abbot of Jinshan, held a Buddhist service for the (Creatures) of Land and Water at Wansheng Youguo Monastery over the period of seven days and nights, and he made a “Universal Sermon for the Dharma Assembly for [Creatures] of Land and Water Established by the Court at Jinshan.” Yuansou’s disciple, Chushi Fanqi (1296–1370), in the first year of the Hongwu era (1368), and in the second year, preached sermons at a great Dharma-assembly established by the court. Later, he again responded to an imperial order to teach on the foundations of the sutras and s´a¯ stras in order to differentiate and examine the theories of the spirits (soul). One of the eminent monks of the end of the Ming dynasty, Yunqi Zhuhong (1535–1615) renovated the ritual of Water and Land and the Yoga (Yuqie) Flaming Mouths (Hungry Ghosts Ritual), taking as his duty the rescuing of beings from the sufferings of the nether world. He wrote the Shuilu xiuzhai yigui (Rules for the Rite of Conducting the Vegetarian Feast for the Creatures of Water

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and Land) in six fascicles. He not only spoke of the ritual of donating food, he also spoke of the application of the divine incantations (dh¯aran.¯ı). He regarded the spirits as being really existent and he demonstrated the existence of the worlds of the gods (devas) and he believed in the traditions about King Yama (the judge of the dead). He regarded the release of living beings to be the basis for the cure of diseases. As even eminent monks had these opinions, the decadence of Chan can be known in general. In his Shishi zhengming (Rectification of Names on the Donation of Food), Zunshi (964–1032) of the Song wrote that the ritual, which at that time was titled (Mass for) Water and Land (Creatures) was for the underworld, the two characters mingdao (underworld) sufficient to reveal that Chan, and naturally, all of Buddhism, had a tendency to change its nature. As for vegetarian feasts for the gods, the Yuan period gave rise to ceremonies praying to the gods. The practice of the ritual of repentance, by adopting the repentance ritual of the Golden Light as a festival of offering to the gods, made it into a major annual Buddhist ritual in the monasteries. Shengwu of the Yuan, in his Luyuan shigui (Regulation of Matters of Vinaya) says that the prayer rituals of each monastery were different; some cultivating the rituals of repentance, some chanting sutra texts, and also some using divine incantations. In the time of Emperor Wen of the Yuan, on the first day of the year, the Dharma Teacher Huiguang led the assembly in the Golden Light Repentance. The regulations of the ritual of this repentance of feasts for the gods were practiced in every monastery. In sum, the change in the Buddha-dharma toward a superstition of supernatural powers, changing the Chan of the monasteries into the path of the spirits in a convergence of Buddhism and religious Daoism, and a convergence of monks and laity, meant that the teaching monasteries also lost their spirit of past times. The Fozu lidai tongzai (Comprehensive Record of the Generations of Buddhist Patriarchs) records that Emperor Shizu said to Miaogao (1219–1293) of Qingshan, “I also know that yours is the Supreme Vehicle Dharma and that people who obtain this Dharma can enter the water and not drown, enter fire and not be burned, and can sit teaching in a cauldron of boiling oil. Do you dare to do so?” Miaogao replied, “This is the sam¯adhi of divine powers; I have no such things in my Dharma.” We know through this that, in the eyes of contemporaries, the Chan School was nothing more than an art of the Way (Daoist technique). Miaogao’s answer definitely has a suspicion of prevarication, just like the story of Falin’s answer to Emperor Taizong of the Tang, but it also reflects the fact that Chan also had people who did not wish to be associated with superstition. Three: the Quanzhen Daoism that was influenced by Chan. Because Chan was already operating among Confucian scholars, Daoism was also influenced by Chan. I have previously mentioned Zhang Boduan (987–1082) as an example. However, the greatest influence on religious Daoism was not Ziyang (Zhang Boduan), but Wang Chongyang (1112–1170) of North China. The Quanzhen Daoism created by Chongyang blazed fiercely by the Yuan dynasty. Wang definitely had a connection with Qiu Chuji (1148–1227) in keeping the enterprise going in different circumstances, but the infiltration of Chan thought for him undoubtedly added fuel to the fire, or it influenced him.

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Quanzhen took the common source of the three religions as its guide and merged Chan and Daoism into one school. They regarded the nature-life (xingming)8 and their joint cultivation (shuangxiu) to be their norm, and they struck a balance between the mind-nature (xin-xing) studies of Confucianism and Buddhism to be quanzhen (the complete truth). They regarded sitting with a sole cultivation of the inner mind to be “true effort” and “true practice.” Of course, in intellectual content and in the methods for achieving the Way, these clearly were results created due to its contact with Chan. Four: the nianfo (mindfulness of the Buddha)-Chan, which is the joint cultivation of Chan and Pure Land. Pure Land is the place of ultimate joy that Buddhists admired, and because it lacked the taints of the five pollutants it was called the Pure Land. In fact, it was made into a kind of environment for a splendid existence. The Pure Land is a place that the various schools of Buddhism all longed for. Therefore, each of the Buddhist schools has a theory about the Pure Land. Pure Land was made into an independent sect to cater to the needs of society and it was only by the time of Zhipan (thirteenth century) that it began to establish its doctrine and the lineage of the six patriarchs of Pure Land was first preached by Zongxiao (1151–1214) of the Southern Song. Because of this, the origin of the existence of an independent Pure Land School is a major problem. In fact, all of the Buddhist schools also practiced Pure Land and Chan was no exception. And yet the meditation method of the Southern Dynasties exercised a major influence on later periods, and beyond meditation, it also influenced mindfulness of the Buddha. The joint practice of Chan and Pure Land was entirely within the bounds of reason. “There is Chan and there is Pure Land, just like a horned tiger (an awesome Chan teacher who corrects errors),” speaks of the necessity of the union of Chan and Pure Land. After the start of the Song, the specialists on Chan, Doctrine, and Vinaya, in particular, stressed the need for the joint propagation of the Pure Land. They regarded the simplicity, ease, and direction that are features of Chan as having even more in common with the Pure Land. Therefore, I will hastily detail the theories of the unity of Chan and Pure Land and their methods etcetera. Yongming Yanshou’s Wanshou tonggui ji (The Common Meaning of Myriad Good Deeds) required of meditation (chanding) that, “If sleep is an obstacle, one should be diligent and encourage nianfo, use 108 [practices of it] as a constant daily task and solely cultivate the pure karma (action) of nianfo.” In his Jingtu lijiao zhi (Treatise on the Establishment of the Teaching of the Pure Land), Zhipan venerated Yanshou as the sixth patriarch of the Lotus Society. After this, the Yunmen monk Yihuai and his disciple Zongben wrote a Quanxiu Jingtu shuo (Theory Encouraging the Practice of the Pure Land). The Caodong monk Qingliao also wrote a Jingtu ji (Collection on the Pure Land) that was in circulation. The joint practice of Chan and Pure Land already flourished.

8

Tr. the term xingming, with its origins in the Yijing, was taken up by the neo-Confucians as human nature and heavenly mandate, but in Quanzhen Daoism ming refers to vital energy in life and xing to spirit. Both need to be cultivated for longevity.

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In the early Yuan, the important master of the Linji lineage, Mingben (1263– 1323), in his late years practiced Pure Land and wrote the Jingtu chan (Pure Land Repentance), and he also wrote a hundred poems on the Pure Land, and he forcefully championed the merging of Chan and Pure Land. His pupil, Weize (d.1354), was outwardly Chan and inwardly Pure Land, and he used the theories of mind-only Pure Land in which participating in Chan and nianfo are the same. He wrote the Jingtu huowen (Questions About the Pure Land) in one fascicle. Chushi Fanqi had advocated the unity of Doctrine and Chan, and he also tended to admire the Pure (Land) karma, and he wrote a Jingtu shi (Poem on the Pure Land) that said, “Although each senseobject (dust) is removed and halted, that is purity. Alone there is the deep power of the vows of Amit¯abha.” Eminent monks of the Ming dynasty all advocated the identity of Chan and Pure Land and regarded the Pure Land to be their destination. Earlier, there was Wuyun (1309–1386), who believed in the Dharma gateway of rebirth in the Pure Land. He was followed by Chushan Shaoqi (1403–1473) who thought of nianfo as a gongan. After Emperor Xianzong, who respectfully believed in the Lama Rishenyiri, the Chan influence collapsed even further and Chan monks like Guyin Jingqin (fl. 1512) and Xiaoyan Debao (1512–1581) and others all trumpeted nianfo Chan. Eminent monks of the late Ming, like Deqing and Zhixu forcefully spoke of nianfo as gongan. Zhuhong constantly practiced nianfo sam¯adhi and wrote the Amituo jing shuchao (Abstract of a Commentary on the Amit¯abha Sutra) in four fascicles, using ideas of Huayan to interpret the concepts of the Pure Land, and he wrote the Wangxing ji (Collection on Rebirth [in the Pure Land]) and the Jingtu fayuan guang (The Extensiveness of the Vows of [Rebirth in] the Pure Land) et cetera, and his pupils included laymen who practiced Pure Land. They were high-ranking officials and eminent people abounded. Therefore, later people honored him as the eighth patriarch of Pure Land. In sum, the School of the Pure Land that was truly established by the Yuan and Ming dynasties was again merged with the Chan School, and the Chan School also greatly promoted the style of nianfo to form a nianfo-Chan. Five: the Yangming Chan that combined Confucianism and Buddhism. In the Song period, the universal infiltration of Chan learning made Confucian thought undergo major changes. Song Confucianism also consciously introduced Chan into Confucianism and often spoke of the Way of Heaven and xingming (nature-mandate). Liu Jiuyuan’s theories of “good knowing” (liangzhi) and that mind is principle further approached Chan learning. To guide students, there was also the Chan theme of not speaking a single word. The Ming Confucians continued the Song learning of xing-li (nature and principle), especially the mind-learning (Xinxue), developing that which the earlier Confucians had not developed. They sometimes borrowed Chan words, sometimes they imitated Chan practices, and this was numerous and all pervasive, and all were differentiated and analyzed; or they said there was nothing in the mind or said there is no principle outside of the mind, the Xinxue good knowing (conscience) and good ability (intuition), the unity of knowing and action, and hidden and evident, all used Chan as their foundation. There are people who say that Wang Yangming’s learning is the Greater Vehicle (Mah¯ay¯ana) of Confucianism, which really is not excessive. In the Song, Chan aided

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and perfected Lixue, and in the Ming, it changed to become Wang Yangming learning, which is the so-called Yangming-Chan. Quanzhen, nianfo, and Yangming-Chan, are discussed below in detail, and so here it will not be described further.

Chapter 10

The Vicissitudes of Chan Learning in the Early Yuan

Part 1: Wansong Xingxiu and the Evaluations (Pingchang) of the Yuan Period The Qing-dynasty monk Shoudeng (Tianqi) indicated that the hymns on old cases (songgu) of the Chan School had succeeded to, and had been influenced by, Fenyang, and after him by the four masters Xuedou, Zhengjue, Touzi, and Danxia. With the exception of Dayin and Juehai (Song dynasty), there were at least several tens of authors who explained the hymns. “Those who were constitutionally rustic were close to the tenets and those who were disorganized were far from the meaning.” It was only Keqin, Xingxiu, Conglun (fl. 1270s) and the four above-named masters who “selected the secrets of the sutras and the tradition, and collected the strengths of the commentators…and assisted the popularity of the four [sets of] hymns, and summarized the subtle words of the five lineages.” The Biyan lu of Keqin has already been described and the Congrong an lu (Record of Congrong Hermitage) of Xingxiu and his disciple Conglun’s Konggu ji (Empty Valley Collection) and Xutang ji (Empty Hall Collection) are also fine examples of the evaluation genre. At the same time one can also see in these texts the process of the transformation in Chan thought from the Song to the Jin and Yuan. Xingxiu, style Wansong, was a child of the Cai family of Henei (Huaiqing-fu, Henan; modern Qinyang County). He became a monk at age fifteen in Xingzhou (Xingtai County)’s Jingtu Monastery. After he received the full precepts of a monk, he travelled to practice and consult. In order he stayed in Tantuo and Qingshou monasteries, and he obtained the Dharma from the Caodong-lineage monk Xueyan Ruman (Huiman, d. 1206) at Daming Monastery in Cizhou (Hebei Cizhen) of Zhengde-fu (Superior Prefecture of Anyang). Taking two years, he obtained his robes and g¯ath¯a (indicating succession) and then he spread the Great Dharma, returning to Jingtu Monastery in Xingzhou, constructed a Wansong Room for his own comfort, and therefore his sobriquet was Elder Wansong. Next, he shifted to Wanshou Monastery in the Central Capital. In the fourth year of the Mingchang reign of Emperor Zhangzong of the Jin (1193), the emperor ordered Wansong to enter the forbidden palace © Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_10

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and deliver a sermon. Hearing the Dharma, the emperor experienced an enlightenment and he granted Wansong a great embroidered silk robe, and he established a Universal Salvation Assembly, and every year set up a vegetarian feast. In the second year of Cheng’an of the Jin (1197), Wansong received an imperial order to live in Qiyin Monastery on Yangshan in Dadu, where he promoted the profound style of Chan. Then he shifted his residence to Baoen Monastery. In the second year of Emperor Taizu of the Yuan (1230), he was ordered to again be abbot of Wanshou Monastery and his Way and teaching flourished for a time. At Baoen Monastery he built Congrong Hermitage to live in. He once instructed the assembly, saying, “The paths travelled by Chan monks are no different to the usual roads. It is only when they approach birth and death, misfortune and fortune, gain and loss, right and wrong, do they view death like birth, and accept humiliation like glory.” This story can reflect the Chan transcendence while not putting into practice the spirit of emptiness. When Yelu Chucai (1190–1244) served the Jin, he lived in Yanjing and consulted Xingxiu in Baoen Monastery. After three years, he obtained the seal of verification of enlightenment. Xingxiu presented him with a monastic robe and named him Congyuan, with the sobriquet of Layman Zhanran. Genghis Khan conquered Yanjing. Chucai followed Genghis Khan’s retinue on a western expedition of conquest. While on the trek, Chucai remembered that Xingxiu in that year had evaluated a hymn on an old case by Zhengjue, and he regarded it a masterpiece. He repeatedly requested Xingxiu to evaluate it and put it in order so as to open it up for later students. In the seven years of his travels, he wrote around nine letters to Xingxiu. With Yelu Chucai’s encouragement, Xingxiu relied on the style of the Biyan lu, and in the eighteenth year of Emperor Taizu (1223) he completed the Congrong an lu. The following year, Chucai, while in the Western Regions, received a draft copy of it. After he had stroked the manuscript, he sighed, “Wansong has come to the Western Regions!” Then he wrote a preface and gave it to Xingxiu’s disciple, Congxiang to have it circulated in the capital. Consequently, the Congrong an lu was published. In the letter Xingxiu sent to Chucai he wrote: In the past, I wrote evaluations, but since the warfare, I abandoned the first draft. Since then I have returned to Baoen [Monastery] in Yanjing, and then I built a small residence with a sign on it saying “Congrong Hermitage.” I intended to complete my former undertaking, and just then I received your encouragement inviting me to complete it. My elderly eyes being dimsighted, I mostly dictated it and my students wrote it down. In it I recorded copious details of enlightenment occasions. Firstly, I cited the waves and billows of the ocean of learning of Tiantong and attached them as expedient means. Secondly, I alerted students to the merits of inspecting them. Thirdly, I showed that I transmitted and did not create, that there are no subjective judgements. When compared to Yuantong’s Juehai lu, each sentence is not disorganized and is complete. When it comes to capping phrases, revealing the [dharma] eye [of appreciation], and amendments, I also did not modestly decline confronting the opportunities.

This passage not only introduces the process of his writing of the evaluations, it also stresses three points: 1. The so-called “citing of the waves and billows of the ocean of learning of Tiantong,” which really promoted the Chan style of Zhengjue. 2. The expedient means to guide students, and 3. The expression of his own family style by following his lineage predecessors. At the same time, he also compared

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his work with the Biyan lu et cetera, with a great deal of conceit and boasting. Nevertheless, even these few points are sufficient to show that he was conservative and not innovative in thought. Xingxiu also evaluated the old cases taken up for comment by Zhengjue, writing the Qingyi lu (Record of Requesting the Benefits [of Instruction]), which students still transmit and learn to this day. Besides these, he also wrote the Zudeng lu (Record of the Patriarchal Lamplight [Transmission]), Shishi xinwen (Fresh News of Buddhism), Mingdao ji (Collection Proclaiming the Way), Bianzong shuo (On Distinguishing the Lineages/Themes), Xinjing fengming (Phoenix Cry on the Heart Sutra), Chanyue faxi ji (Collection on the Delight in the Chan Reading of the Dharma) and four recorded-sayings collections, all of which were in circulation. According to research, Xingxiu died in the bingwu year of Emperor Dingzong of the Yuan (1246). His disciples were Linquan Conglun, Huayan Zhiwen, Xueting Fuyu, and others. Even though Xingxiu said that his Congrong an lu, when compared to the Biyan lu and Juehai lu, had complete instructions for the assembly and “was without any disorganization,” still, of course, it completely followed the established guidelines of the Biyan lu in his format and the content of the evaluations. His instructions to the assembly correspond to the provided instructions (chuishi) of the Biyan lu. Next in the text are the gongan quoted in the hymns on the old cases, and then the interlinear footnotes that are the so-called capping phrases; the third items are the prose evaluations; fourth are the original hymns on the old cases, and there are interpolated interlinear notes between the lines of text; and fifth are the evaluations of the hymns on the old cases. It was just that compared to the previous works in the same category, the Congrong an lu, was a little more complete in its format. What Xingxiu said about his transmitting and not creating on the other hand is a fact, but one also cannot say that he was completely the same as earlier people. Even though he was entirely uncreative in his thought, yet in his evaluations and interlinear footnotes he quoted scriptural sources, making incremental improvements, which likewise expressed the special features of the changes in Chan thought. The first passage of the Congrong an lu on “The World Honored One Ascended to the Seat” has the following evaluation: The two teachings of Confucianism and Daoism have their source in the one vital energy (qi). The streams of Buddhists have their basis in one mind. Guifeng [Zongmi] said, “Primal vital energy is also a creation by the mind, and is all contained in the seen part of the a¯ layavijñ¯ana (store consciousness).” I say, “This is the correct source of Caodong.”

Xingxiu used vital energy and the mind to explain that Buddhism is not the same as Confucianism and Daoism, and he also relied on Zongmi’s theory that vital energy is created by the mind to connect the three religions. Xingxiu regarded this as being the “true style” of the Caodong lineage. It seems as if his veneration of the mind is simply a cliché of Chan and that it does not speak of the correct theme of Caodong. Instead, it is a theory that took as its source vital energy and it seems that he was greatly influenced by Guanxue (the neo-Confucianism of Zhang Cai and the Cheng brothers). He said, “The bloodlines of the patriarchs and buddhas [are like] the thread

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in a loom which is held in the core of the machine, and where the thread revolves is dark and subtle; the silk-floss is spat out from the bowels of the shuttle, and when it is used the silk is tight (connected).” He used the core of the machine, the bowls of the shuttle, the dark and subtle, and tautness of the silk to interpret the mind of the bloodlines of the Chan members and the activities of Chan monks. It is close to the Confucian use of vital energy to speak of the nature; it also resembles the religious Daoist use of vital energy to speak of ming (life). When it came to his interpretation of the World Honored One descending from his seat he said, “shou (it has come to an end).” This is “to be discussed again on another day,” which also is not like the hymns on old cases of the Song period. The evaluation thus speaks of Chan in a round-about way and therefore is a little mystical at least, and at most is a bit popular and easy. Seen overall, the evaluations drew lessons from the form of the Song huaben (vernacular stories) and Xingxiu’s evaluations completely copied the Biyan lu. This means simply that the evaluations resemble the format of the huaben. For example, the interplay of verse and prose, and each passage having a line of poetry as a conclusion is like the format of the huaben. His explanations of the gongan always quoted scriptural sources and he used the topic to put forth his own views, using myths, historical events of the Spring and Autumn period, and also folk tales and miscellaneous abstracts from sutras and records. For example, he cited Great Yu boring through the mountains, Nuwa patching the sky, returning jade intact to the state of Zhao, Pan Yue (fourth century) and Lu Ji (261–303), the Diamond Sutra, the Yijing (Book of Changes), the Analects, Laozi and Zhuangzi and so on. Thus, the attached expedient means appear very much as if they are pretending to be elegant. However, his tendency to use philosophical Daoism to explain gongan is extremely evident. For example, in case 23, Xingxiu used Laozi’s “The gateway of the profound female is the root of heaven and earth,/Dimly visible it seems to continue on as if it exists” (VI) to evaluate the gongan “Luzu faced the wall” and Zhengjue’s hymn, “There is no taste in the insipid.” He used the idea of empty space being limitless to explain the gongan of “Yunmen’s exposed pillar,” and he used the story from Zhuangzi of Butcher Bo cutting up an ox for “the three sentences of Shousan” and so on, which not only reflects the repeated assistance that philosophical Daoism gave to Chan learning continuing uninterrupted over generations, but also allows us to see the features of Xingxiu’s use of Daoism to speak of Chan. And yet, Xingxiu did not think that Daoism is Chan. He said, Present day people see that Tiantong used Zhuangzi, and that then he took Laozi and Zhuangzi to echo the supreme Way. In particular, they do not know that people in the past took advantage of [these] paths to pass by, these temporarily being light and shadow (expedient means). Unexpectedly there is a Way that comes forth. How could Zhuangzi not know where Shousan travelled on pilgrimage? He (Xingxiu) just asked, “The moon fell at the third watch (midnight), threading through the town. Is that in the Outer or Inner Chapters [of Zhuangzi]?”1

1

Congrong an lu, case 76, “Three Sentences of Shousan.”

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Xingxiu’s idea is to say that in using Daoism to speak of Chan, he was only using Laozi and Zhuangzi, and that the thought of philosophical Daoism is definitely not the supreme Way of Chan and that the profound essentials of Chan are not in the inner or outer chapters of Zhuangzi. Nevertheless, he also stresses time and again that “the supreme Way is continuous and tight” and “it is continuous as if it exists.” These explanations and philosophical Daoism both emerge out of one vital energy and only show his sentiment for promoting Buddhism and denigrating Daoism. It needs to be explained that Xingxiu’s Congrong an lu was motivated by “adding expedient means” and “alerting students to the merits of investigation.” Therefore, he directly explained the gongan and evaluations, also being influenced by the mood of the marketplace. At the same time, he always quoted Laozi and Zhuangzi, and therefore he was fully appreciated by the intelligentsia. Carefully noting one section, we can briefly see a glimpse of this. The evaluation after the hymn on “Juzhi’s one finger” gongan says, From remote antiquity it has always been empty. How can the breeze and moon of one morning be only thirty years in which the function is incomplete? The “Great and Venerable Teacher” chapter of Zhuangzi: “Confucius said, ‘He roams beyond the conventions, but I roam within the convention’” is [what is being discussed]. If one lacks the arts of being beyond the conventions, how can one thoroughly see the source of the mundane and supramundane on a finger-tip? An old poem says, “There are no vulgar things before one’s eyes,/ There are many illnesses and also the body is belittled.” Tiantong grasped these bodies, only using one finger. The simple and easy Way is the essential and is not complex. The Vimalak¯ırti (sutra) that has a hair swallow up the great ocean is called the “lesser inconceivable sutra.” The Avatamsaka ˙ (sutra) that has a dust mote contain the dharma-realm is called the “greater inconceivable sutra.” The Lengyan (sutra) says that one can receive the lands of all directions onto a hair-tip and also says that the domain of the Precious King appears on a hair-tip, where he sits on an atom and turns the Great Dharma Wheel. Zhuangzi [says], “Prince Ren made an enormous fishhook with a huge line, baited it with fifty bullocks, settled on [Mount] Kuaiji, and cast with his pole into the eastern ocean. Every morning he fished, and for an entire year he did not get a fish. Eventually a large fish took the bait and dragged the huge hook, plunging with it to the bottom and then stampeded up and became angry, and the white waves were like mountains, the seawater trembled and boiled, the sounds were on a par with those [made by] demons and spirits, fear and awe [spreading out] over a thousand leagues. When Prince Ren landed that fish, he sliced it up and dried it, and from Zhihe [Zhejiang] east, and from Cangwu to the north, all were sated with that fish.” [Above from the Outer Chapter of Zhuangzi].2 That is to say, “If one’s fishing pole is split, replant a bamboo. If one does not consider that the work will succeed, then rest.” Later, he guided and cut off the finger of a boy, and Guotai Nao saw him on another peak [in a final meeting] and Jiashan came and mistakenly entered Taoyuan (Peach Blossom Spring/utopia). Today, after Tiantong’s hymn, again he raised a finger and said, “Look, Reverend Boshan Dayin raised [the example of] a monk asking Touzi, ‘What are the ten bodies of the Controller (Buddha)?’ He got down from the meditation bench and stood, and another monk asked me, ‘He also got down from the meditation bench and stood, so why did he then rely on that model to paint a cat?’ He waited for me to finish deliberating and then I spoke to him, ‘This is to know that finger-tip of Juzhi. If one drinks the water once, then one will choke. What else would you have me do?’ I tossed down my whisk and said, “I allow you to examine [the masters of] all regions.”

2

Tr. see Watson, “External Things,” p. 296.

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The evaluation of this case interchanges verse and prose and reads catchily, and through his words one understands the gongan. It was just like speaking of appraisals of poetry and prose, and it echoes the Song-period huaben in many places. He quotes often; Zhuangzi, Confucius, old poems, Vimalak¯ırti, Avatamsaka, ˙ Chan sayings and sermons. One can say that he has all that is necessary. His quote of the passage from the “External Things” chapter of Zhuangzi speaks of the original meaning in which Prince Ren went with the natural flow and did not care about the fish and yet got a fish, and consequently he kindly donated it all over the place. Other people only know about the excellence of the fish and so could not know the principle of the natural flow. Even though this passage by Xingxiu has the appearance of the frown of Xishi,3 fixing his mind on the fish so that he did not get the fish, that is the logic of his words, “If one does not consider that the work will succeed, then stop.” He used it as an allegory for cutting off the boy’s finger and of “drawing a cat according to a model,” imitating the story of Juzhi raising his finger. He also raised the example of a certain old monk imitating the gongan of Dayin descending from the meditation bench, and went on to explain the need to comprehend the nature of Chan and not copy the form of the gongan. The stress was not on explaining the gongan, but was in refuting what others said, of condemning imitation that produces an unexpected result. Looking at it positively, his idea was to correct the later inferior followers of Chan who made fun with barbed remarks and their abuses of abandoning the fundamental and pursuing the trivial. Negatively speaking, not only does this passage still not shake off the suspicion that he was speaking in a round-about way about Chan, but also it speaks of his devotion to the arts of elegant prose and beautiful verbiage in all contexts, prolifically citing texts but not the essentials, such as the inappropriate story of Confucius roaming beyond the conventional and within the conventional. Really, he has some pretensions to being cultured and a sense that he was playing to the gallery with claptrap. However, one can see from this that the Yuan-Ming style had received the aftermath of the refinements of the Song-dynasty gentry, and that it imitated the major tendency in that period to unify Chan with Daoism, and unify Confucianism with Buddhism. Xingxiu also wrote a Qingyi lu in two fascicles, which was also at the request of Yelu Chucai. In it he evaluated Zhengjue’s Niangu baize (Hundred Examples of Old Cases) (really there are only ninety-nine cases; it is probable that a case was lost during transmission). The collected gongan and hymns on old cases were not entirely the same, and the evaluations of the gongan were also not the same as those in the Congrong an lu. The content of the Qingyi lu is divided into two sections; one section is the gongan in the originally-raised old case and the explanations of the words, which include the newly-added notes by Xingxiu; the other section is Xingxiu’s evaluation. In the evaluation, Xingxiu frequently quoted the lost Wujin denglu (Record of the Endless [Transmission of the] Lamplight), and for research on 3

Tr. a story in “The Turning of Heaven” chapter of Zhuangzi, in which the beauty, Xishi, frowned, and an ugly woman imitated her because she thought that would make her beautiful. She looked so ugly people avoided her (Watson, pp. 160–161). A thoughtless action that has unintended consequences. That is, the boy imitated Juzhi in raising his finger, with the unintended consequence that it was cut off.

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the Wujin denglu this presents very valuable indirect evidence. However, speaking overall, the Qingyi lu and the Congrong an lu have many similarities. The notes by Xuyi written in the thirty-fifth year of the Wanli era of the Ming (1607), say, “The hundred cases of the Qingyi are curios (outmoded) and their wording is a surging source, are unbridled and boundless, opening and closing, unfurling and rolling up, possessing great freedom. Even though it is like this, it is not without him pointing at a deer and regarding it to be a horse (to be mistaken), and proving that a tortoise has become a soft-shelled turtle. How can one be close by and not approve? How can it compare with the mountains and wilds? There is no Chan to participate in, no theory that can be spoken. It does not allow people to give rise to love and hate, to grasp and to relinquish.”4 In fact, the Qingyi lu also is written in an excellent style, but it also lacked innovation in thought. What Xuyi said is also largely pertinent. After Xingxiu, his disciple Linquan Conglun appropriately made an evaluation of each one of the two masters’ hymns on old cases; the Caodong monk Touzi Yiqing and Danxia Zichun’s hymns on a hundred cases; and divided them into the Konggu chuansheng ji (Collection of the Sounds Transmitted in the Empty Valley) and Xutang xiting ji (Collection Learnt and Heard in the Empty Hall), in brief Konggu ji and Xutang ji. They entirely followed the format of the Congrong an lu. The texts are divided into five sections: the instructions to the assembly, the gongan and the original words taken up, the evaluation of the gongan, the original hymn on the old case, and the evaluation of the hymn. In all of these, Conglun added capping phrases, but there are no evaluation notes by Zichun to the gongan in the Xutang ji. Many of the gongan evaluated in these two collections are not found in the Biyan lu and Congrong an lu. Moreover, these collections were not broadly circulated. Therefore, very few people cited them. Their explanations are also not as fluent as those of Keqin and Xingxiu. Therefore, they were not greatly valued by society. Yet they can supplement the Biyan lu and the Congrong an lu where their historical source material is insufficient for research on the history of Chan. In particular, they are indispensable source materials for the gongan of the Chan School. Moreover, both collections often quote from the lost Zudeng lu (Records of the Patriarchal Lamplight [Transmission]) and have content that can rectify the Zudeng lu’s hymns on old cases by Yiqing (Touzi). For example, the evaluation of case 38, “Fenxue and Huanglong” in fascicle 3 of the Konggu ji, points out that the hymn on the old case by Yiqing writes that Huanglong asked Fengxue Yanzhao (896–973), “Shijiao Chuan said, ‘Yunlu handed down a practice; what did it mean?’” In it the “chuitao (handed down a silk sash),” becomes in the Zudeng lu, “chuideng (hand down a vine/clinging words),” which is not detailed in the collection compiled by Yiqing. This also has a definite value for consultation when researching Xingxiu’s writings. At the start of the Konggu ji there is an overall preface written for the two collections by Lu Yingyang (Ming dynasty calligrapher), the Layman Gutang. He said, [Linquan] firmly wanted to transmit his voice in the empty valley (Konggu), and forcefully came to listen and learn in the empty hall (Xutang). He used the speaking of the speechless 4

Xuzang jing, case 117, p. 811b.

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to say what he said, and he caused the hearing of the unheard to hear what he heard. He did not dare link the gaps for Foguo and Wansong, and he did not chase after the world (fame). He approached the neighbors, but did he try to imitate the frown [of Xishi]?

In this, the “speaking of the speechless to say what he said, and hearing the unheard to hear what he heard” are nothing more than Chan stereotypical expressions used to evaluate Linquan Conglun’s two collections and as such have no significance. When it came to speaking of “close neighbors” and “imitating the frown,” these comments are comparatively apt. It should be explained that from the Yuan onwards, when Chan adherents spoke of Chan, they no longer produced new material in the guise of old material, and because of this, they also had no need for hymns on old cases and the raising of old cases for comment. Naturally, the evaluations of the hymns on old cases and cases raised for comment were also muffled and concealed. In the history of Chan thought, there were only the evaluations collected by these four masters.

Part 2: The Chan of the Early Yuan Gentry and the Sanjiao pingxin lun At the start of the Yuan, the gentry still followed the customs of the Song-dynasty literati and many of them had relations with Chan monks; some sought the source of birth and death, and some discussed the principles of the unity of the three religions. They pursued the transcendence of the world, but they could also not forget the world and participation in it, and they pretentiously sought to be cultured and sought the common source of Confucianism and Buddhism. Among them, those who participated as government heavyweights and assisted the rise of the Buddha-dharma went much further than Zhang Shangying. The most famous of them were Xingxiu and his disciples Yelu Chucai and Li Chunfu (1177–1223), and his fourth-generation disciple Liu Bingzhong (1211–1274). The former was a refined Confucian scholar and he regarded Buddhism to be a secular law. The latter resigned from officialdom to follow Chan, and as a Chan monk he participated in the essential mechanisms. In them, the changes in Chan thought also are self-evident. Yelu Chucai (1190–1244), style Jinqing, was born in Yanjing into a Sinicized Khitan gentry family. At the age of three he lost his father and his mother of the Yang clan educated him. When he grew up, he read extensively and he also mastered astronomy, law, and mathematics, and he researched the theories of Buddhism, Daoism, medicine, and divination. Besides this, he devoted himself to the Chan Way, and he consulted Sheng’an Zhicheng. He often quoted the Guzunsu yulu in order to elucidate the holy Way. When he was over twenty, he served Emperor Zhangzong of the Jin as Associate Administrator of Kaizhou and in the second year of Zhenyou (1216), Emperor Xuanzong shifted the capital to Bian (Kaifeng), and the emperor appointed him Vice-Director in Charge of Personnel. Because Chucai sought the Way most sincerely, Zhicheng encouraged him to join Wansong Xingxiu’s school.

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As a result, he formed an unbreakable connection with Caodong monks. Zhicheng said, In the past, you sir occupied important positions and was easily delighted and angered. Also, Confucians often store up firm faith and only search in the recorded sayings for material to talk about. Therefore, I did not fully bring down the hammer [of guidance on them]. Now, I guess that you are thinking of asking me about the matter of your original endowment [potential for enlightenment]. How could I dare disappoint you? Thus, I will not be stingy in my harsh admonition. But I am old and there is Elder Wansong who is knowledgeable of Confucianism and Buddhism, and is fully versed in the core themes and is unimpeded in eloquence. You can see him and so you will realize your great matter [of enlightenment].5

Consequently, Chucai consulted Xingxiu in Baoen Monastery. No matter whether it was in severe cold or sweltering heat, he did not miss a day of consultation and after three years he obtained a seal of verification of enlightenment. He was named Congyuan and styled Layman Zhanran. In the third year of Zhenyou (1217), Genghis Khan occupied Yan (Beijing region). When he heard Chucai’s name he summoned him to an audience. Genghis saw that he was eight feet (one chi, 31.2 mm) tall, had a glorious beard and a booming voice. Delighted, Genghis said to him, “The Liao and Jin have been enemies for generations. I absolve you of [your involvement with them].” Chucai replied, “Your subject’s father and grandfather served them as officials, and since they were their subjects, how could I be an enemy of their rulers?” Genghis valued his words even more and made him an advisor. He always followed Genghis on military expeditions and he provided advice according to the circumstances, working to stop massacres. In the fourteenth year of Taizu’s reign (1220), Chucai followed his retinue on an expedition to the west and he wrote “Two Short-cut Poems Rhyming with Your Reverence on Passing the Tian Mountains” in which he conveyed his feelings about the distance while on an expedition that was ten-thousand leagues from home. Following an expedition over ten-thousand leagues, sand blowing in the wind. North, south, east, and west, all of it is home. Ending up empty and trembling in my heart, Resolute, my mind is a white lotus blossom. Once I entered the gateway of emptiness (Buddhism), my mind was revealed. Floating clouds of fame and profit have all been forgotten. With no mind I face a mirror, who [is it who] recognizes me? The udumbara flower blooms in the midst of flames.6

These two seven-word short-cut poems fully reveal Chucai’s search for the resolute and his empty and lone transcendental spirit while he was in the midst of expeditionary warfare. Although he was travelling to seek an official position, and while his future prospects seemed long-lasting, still he was not working to obtain fame 5

Biography of Yelu Chucai, Yuan shi. Zhanran Jushi ji (Collection of Layman Zhanran). The udumbara tree is said to flower once in three thousand years when a buddha appears.

6

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and profit. He also refashioned the story of a phoenix-like nirvana and introduced it into his poem, and he unconsciously revealed its emergence from the polluting mud without a stain on it, and the tendency for thought to be reborn from the flames.7 Therefore, he specially hankered after the dissemination of the Chan spirit and consequently he could, while on an expeditionary path to the west, write nine letters in seven years, urging Xingxiu to write the Congrong an lu, and he caused it to be printed in the capital. When Taizong, Khublai Khan took the throne, Chucai was serving as Secretariat Director, and there was no major matter of the militarist country that he did not participate in. Some people say that the pacification of the North China plain was all due to the efforts of Chucai, which also are not words of fulsome praise. He kept himself strictly, eating vegetables and roots, his rice unpolished, in particular not thinking of fame or profit. After he passed away, a person attacked him for being in a ministerial position for a long time, “when half the tribute and taxes of the empire went into his house.” The empress ordered an inspection of his warehouse, but there were only lutes, toys, calligraphy, paintings and several thousand fascicles of epigraphical items. Chucai came from a family that had been employed as officials and regarded being Confucians as their profession. They even further emphasized the promotion of Confucian culture, choosing to be Confucian scholars and to be employed as Confucian ministers, using the tradition of cultivating the ideas of personal cultivation, ordering families, and governing the country, in order to peacefully govern the empire. Consequently, Chucai enabled the Yuan to establish a dynasty in North China. Yet he also viewed what he had learnt from the past to be “a piece of gravel,” “and the idea of scholarly honors and official titles is bound up in high pavilions [of central government offices], so seeking the Way of the Patriarchs is even more pressing.” This really reflects his way of thinking that used Confucianism to govern the world, used Chan to cultivate his person and control his mind; and of the mutual benefit of Chan and Confucianism rescuing each other. This attitude represented the demands of the gentry of the last period of feudal society for a physical and mental transcendence. It was also a mental attitude that could not forget the rivers and seas, meaning these gentry could not forget the world. Chucai’s attitude towards monks also shows his distinctive features that were unlike those of the majority of people. When he was on the western expedition, an officer advocated allowing monks of Mount Wutai to follow the army. Chucai thought that “the eminent practitioners of Buddhist must maintain the precepts against killing” and “that those who do not follow the Dharma and regulations are sure to be without the determination to practice. Since they have already violated the tenets of Buddhism, how could they now be loyal to the ruler? Therefore, none of them can follow the army.” Also, a person said that s´ramanas (monks) consume the country’s resources and labor the people. Therefore, he requested that they be removed. Chucai disputed this, saying, “Longevity and premature death, poverty and prosperity are not created by human 7

Tr. all of this points to the udumbara flower with the nirvana of a buddha emerging from the flames. A lotus emerges unstained from the mud, a metaphor for enlightenment midst defilements.

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powers, and even the wise and the brave, the worthy and the saintly cannot shift this by a hair’s breadth. How then could the s´ramanas impoverish our people and ´ consume our country?…Sramanas are also beings between heaven and earth and are likewise nourished by Heaven.” In this way, not only did Chucai protect Buddhism, he allowed it to develop while in the midst of warfare and under the rule of an armored cavalry and an imperial power. At the same time, one can see that Chucai was not a member of that group who regarded Buddhism as harmful to the country and see that he also did not think that Buddhism was a matter of being loyal to the ruler. In his view, Buddhism had absolutely no connection with government; rather, monks “would not pull up live grass to save their own lives,” and so Buddhism could be used to cultivate the person, govern the mind, and assist the Way of the inner sage and the work of the external king. Such views about Buddhism are entirely divorced from reality, or they see Buddhism as a means to tie people up and actualize certain political aims, which is not entirely the same as how Chucai thought of Chan. In the early Yuan, there was another high-ranking official who assisted the rise of the Buddha-dharma. This was the former Caodong-lineage monk, Liu Bingzhong. Liu Bingzhong, style Zhonghui, a native of Xingzhou (Xingtai), was born into a hereditary official family. His first name was Kan. When he was young, his strength of character was outstanding, his bravery was unbridled. He started study at eight years of age, and at seventeen, in order to support his family, he took a position as a clerk of the military commissioner’s office of Xingtai, an office in charge of documents and such like. One day, he threw down his brush on the desk and sighed emotionally, “My family have been gentry-scholars for generations, and now have I not fallen into the oblivion of being a petty scribe? A real man who cannot obtain his ambition in the world must seek matters of transcendence.” Then he quit his position and entered Mount Wuan. The third-generation Dharma-heir of Xingxiu, Xuzhao Hongming of Tianning Monastery, hearing of Liu’s talent, sent a pupil to invite him. Xuzhao tonsured him to be a monk. His Dharma-name was Zicong and he was made the monastery secretary. Later, Bingzhong roamed through Yunzhong (Datong in Shanxi) and he stayed in Nantang Monastery. At that time, Emperor Shizu summoned Haiyun Yinjian (1202– 1257) north for an audience. Yinjian met Khublai in the heir-apparent’s residence and then he entered Khublai’s tent-office. Because Liu was versed in the Yijing and adept at astronomy, geography (geomancy), and calendrical calculations, and discussed matters of the empire as easily as if he was pointing at his own palm, he was therefore often received as an advisor. He sent a letter to Khublai discussing matters, in all over ten-thousand words, with the idea of leading the reverence for the lord and the protection of the people. This gained the deep approval of Khublai. In the second year of Baoyou (1254), he followed the expedition of conquest to Yunnan. In the first year of the Kaiqing era (1259), he righteously followed Khublai in an attack on the Song. Khublai, proclaiming himself emperor, created and established the court rituals and the system of bureaucracy, all of which were drafted by Liu Bingzhong. He specially emphasized that “being careful about heaven and earth is a virtue, and Buddhism regards compassion that saves beings to be the mind,” which are expedient means to rescue and settle the state. Although Liu personally was in

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a key court position, he still kept to a vegetarian diet and did not change out of his monastic garb. His official colleagues used his Dharma-name to call him “Secretary Cong.” Later, Khublai ordered him to return to the laity and restored his surname of Liu, granted him the name Bingzhong, and conferred the title Grand Master for Splendid Happiness on him. Liu participated in the affairs of the Secretariat, yet he still called himself “an ignorant person of the mountains and wildernesses.” To the end of his life he was as casually detached as he was in past days. At that time, he came to control the monastic affairs of the empire, and the Chan institution relied on his liberal patronage. This also is self-evident. He gave himself the sobriquet Detached Person Zangchun, and he wrote a Zangchun sanren ji (Collection of Detached Person Zangchun). It contained short tonal poems (xiaoling), some of which are extant. One can see that one or two of them were influenced by Chan. Of them, “Dried Lotus Leaf” uses the silence, sallowness, and desolation of an autumn scene to provide a background for the past dream realm of a brocade-like prosperity that fully shows the basis of his admiration for the idea of the transcendental spirit of Chan. And his “Tune on the Toad Palace (Moon)” reveals that he strove to transcend space and time, and reveals a psychological feeling of being indifferent to the world. The entire text of the poem is as follows: Hoping for a calm breeze and spring rain that will be like nourishment, the flowers emerging on the southern branches; the ice melting on the northern bank. The luxuriant peaches are like fire; the poplar and willows are like a mist; abundant are the mulberry twigs. First emerging in the valley, yellow orioles play artfully; first carrying mud, swallows seek their nests. On a picnic, he appreciated the eastern suburbs. Du Fu enjoyed the spring, feeling carefree. On a hot day, the ground scorching like flames, his hair undone and his shirt open, with a silk fan lightly waving. The piled-up snow and broken ice; sunk in it are plums and floating melons.8 It is useless to be in a hundred-foot-high tower. Avoiding the heat in a cool pavilion, quietly sweeping, the tree’s shade is thick, green waves on the pond, the floating water of the creek at the bridge. Youjun (Wang Xizhi) looked at the geese, feeling carefree. A leaf of the parasol tree has withered first, the chrysanthemum burst open along the eastern hedge. On the happy festival he climbed high. The sharp wind soughed, the cold wild geese honked; the crickets chirped. The yellow flowers filled his view, and in the withered grass, a single river of red flowers fluttering about. The autumn wails with a whistle. Appreciating the chrysanthemums, Tao Qian was feeling carefree. The north wind and timely snow flutters down; the hot stove in the warm pavilion. The alcohol thick and the [roasted] lamb. Like flying willow catkins, like dancing butterflies, he was carefully cutting goose down. The silvery steps to the towers, terraces, and pavilions, the powdered makeup [of snow] forms on the open fields and wilderness, the winter scene is one of being solitary. [Meng] Haoran trampled through the snow, feeling carefree.

These four short tonal poems each describe one of the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The gorgeous spring day, the green shade on a summer’s day, the red leaves in an autumn wind, and the slice of silver of the powdered makeup of the winter snow all draw out the author’s feelings of being aloof from the world. Of course, it is Du Fu who is enjoying the spring, it is Wang Xizhi who is looking at the geese, it is Tao Qian who is appreciating the chrysanthemum, and Meng Haoran who 8

Tr. Cao Pi wrote of “floating sweet melons in a clean spring, sinking the crimson plums in cold water,” speaking of the eats that give pleasure on a hot summer’s day.

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is treading in the snow.9 However, the idea is equally to throw into sharp relief the author’s mental state of being indifferent to fame and fortune. Although the scenes of the four seasons of spring, summer, autumn, and winter are different, the feeling of being carefree is the same mood in which both things and self are forgotten. It can be seen from this that Liu’s accomplishment in Chan learning was his attitude to human life forged through this accomplishment. In the changeover from the Jin to the Yuan, there was another direct pupil of Xingxiu’s school who was a gentry-official and a Confucian, yet he talked about Chan. This was Li Chunfu. His style was Chun, his sobriquet was Layman Pingshan. In the second year of the Cheng’an reign of Emperor Zhang of the Jin (1197), he was promoted to Presented Scholar of the Meaning of the Classics. Later he was recommended to join the Hanlin Academy and he died while the Assistant Prefect of Jingchao (capital) Superior Prefecture at the age of only forty-seven. Chunfu was intelligent and fond of learning, and he loved poetry and rhapsodies. He liked to read the Spring and Autumn Annals (Qunqiu) and modelled his prose on Zhuangzi. He also liked to talk about warfare and had the conceit that his ability was the equal of the strategies of Zhuge Liang (181–234) and Wang Jing (889–963). In his mid-life his career did not advance and consequently he gave up the ambition for advancement. Chunfu happened to meet Xingxiu and in one conversation they had a meeting of minds. He read through the Buddhist scriptures, writing commentaries on the Lengyan and Diamond sutras, and he wrote a collection of interpretations of Laozi and Zhuangzi. He joined the three religions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism into one. He wrote the Mingdao ji shuo (On the Collection Proclaiming the Way) in 217 chapters. Yelu Chucai wrote a preface for it. The Fozu lidai tongzai describes his Chan thought in full; the important point being his discrimination and analysis of the theories of the Song Confucians who repressed Buddhism in order to show his principle of the unity of the three religions. Chunfu pointed out that Cheng Hao (one of the chief Song Confucian thinkers) had thought that Buddhism only used the fear of birth and death to motivate people, that Buddhism basically came out of self-interest, and just as Zhuangzi was not only about birth and death, students of Buddhism all talked about that topic of birth and death, and therefore it was harmful beyond measure. Chunfu refuted this, saying, The sage (Confucius) ascertained from the beginning to the end, knowing the theory of death and birth, so how could he not discuss birth and death? That Cheng Hao did not discuss birth and death is just like a small boy at night not daring to speak about ghosts…. The harmer of people and the [advocate of] benefiting the self was Yang Zhu [fourth century B.C.E.], and he who [advocated] benefiting the people and harming the self was Mo Di (Mozi). Since the students of the Way benefit themselves, they also benefit other people. What harm is there in that? When it comes to the sage who is without the slightest selfishness, how can he have a mind that is without benefit for other beings? …The Way of the sage sometimes emerges and sometimes stays, is sometimes spoken about and sometimes [remains in] silence. Although their paths are different, they revert to being the same; all their thoughts are united and therefore it is not a contradiction to practice them together.

9

Tr. all of these men named were famous poets.

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This is Chunfu’s judgement based on the selfish mind that Chan, Confucianism, and Daoism are in agreement. In fact, fundamentally speaking, Buddhists are not afraid of birth and death. By defending Buddhism against this false accusation, one can see that Chunfu lacked a deep understanding of Chan learning, and in explaining the agreement of Chan and Confucianism from the point of the selfish mind, it seems that he also lacked persuasiveness. Yet he thought that the different paths of the three religions revert to a unity, something that also reflects the overall tendency in the development of the Chan learning of the Yuan and Ming. Chunfu also criticized Xie Shangcai (Liangzuo, 1050–1103)’s theory that “students of Buddhism want to escape transmigration,” which said Buddhists are “just like a person in a dream talking in a dream, not realizing the perfect awakening and thinking it to be a great void.” Chunfu pointed out that “Buddhist speak of transmigration with love as its basis,” and that this is the same as Confucius’ saying that “a humane person loves people.” He also stressed that “I wish to completely reveal the secrets so that later generations in the empire will all know that there is Chan in the six [Confucian] classics and that our sage (Confucius) is a buddha.” Thus, the six ´ akya are classics and the Buddhist sutras are interchangeable, Confucius and the S¯ one, and Confucianism and Buddhism each are only revealed to subscribers and that is all. When one pursues their tenets to the end, they are not different. He also refuted Yang Shi, saying, “On the inferiority or superiority of Confucianism and Buddhism, it is not only an error by Buddhists not to read Confucian texts, it is also a fault by Confucians not to read Buddhist books. When I read the Shoulengyan jing, I know that Confucianism is inferior to Buddhism; when I read the Agama and such sutras, I know that Buddhism is inferior to Confucianism. When I read the Huayan jing (Avatamsaka ˙ sutra), there is no Buddhism and no Confucianism, no greater and no lesser [vehicles], no high or no low, and so can one be Buddhist or be Confucian, be greater or lesser, survive or vanish freely?” His idea is that one only needs to have a discerning understanding of Confucian and Buddhist thought, and then there will be no inferiority or superiority between Confucianism and Buddhism, and that those who learn Confucianism and practice Chan will naturally be on different paths leading to the same goal, which is harmless. Based on this, he also countered the theories of Zhu Xi, saying, Huian (Zhu Xi) said, “It is definitely a fault that students in recent times do not know the fundamental situation of the real study of the gateway of the sage (Confucianism) and that they are addicted to the theories of Buddhism and Daoism, erroneously thinking that there is another thing outside of heaven and earth, the myriad things, and human relationships, and that the marvel of empty space is unfathomable and its mind is unfixed, and if they by chance see anything [there], they think it is the ultimate. They have always fallen for this.” I say, “Heaven and earth, the myriad things, and the daily functions of human relationships are all physical. Who can speak about the metaphysical? Zhu Xi was old and careless, and by chance he forgot these words and thought they were the theories of Buddhism and Daoism. I am afraid that the Way of Confucius is about to reach rock-bottom. Even so, I must differentiate them. What Buddhists say is that form (r¯upa) is emptiness; and what the Daoists say is that the same is called the profound. How is there another thing? Zhu Xi differentiated them as being two things, which is to fall for this without knowing it.”

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Zhu Xi loved to talk of heaven and earth, the myriad things, and the daily functioning of human relationships, but he viewed these as being physical (phenomenal). According to this, Li said that Zhu was muddled and that he had not clearly separated the physical and metaphysical. Moreover, the talk by the Buddhists of form and emptiness, and the Daoists’ talk of the profound and the same are metaphysical and not some other thing. This is Zhu Xi falling into biased views and not knowing the principles of the three teachings of Confucianism, Daoism, and Chan being on the same path. Summarizing the above, one knows that Chan thought flowed among the gentry and a salient expression of its changes are its advocacy of the synthesis of the three religions. By the time of Emperor Yingzong (1321–1323), the Scholar of the Calm Studio, Liu Mi wrote the Sanjiao pingxin lun (On the Balanced Mind of the Three Religions). One may say that it is an overall conclusion of the changes in Chan thought of the Yuan-period gentry. As the preface says, The rise of the three religions is venerable in origin. They are practiced together in the world, transforming the empire. If we discuss them in terms of their outer forms, they may well be different; and if they are investigated for principle, they may well be the same. They are one and three, three and one; they are unobtainable and yet close and distant. Dharma Teacher Gushan Yuan (Zhiyuan [of Tiantai, fl. 1016]) said, “The three teachings are like [the legs of a] tripod. One of them cannot be missing, which is truly a definite thesis past and present.” Alas! They grasp for the outer forms and are confused about the principle, and they reject each other, converting the Way of inaction (wuwei) of the previous saints into the start of a dispute, which is very lamentable. Recently, the Scholar of the Calm Studio has written a thesis on the one principle, with brief words and details on the principle. This is entirely good and entirely excellent, reaching the source of Confucianism and Daoism, revealing the profundity of Buddhism, discriminating and analyzing the doubts and confusions, choosing between right and wrong, so it should be brought into public discussion.

Saying that it is entirely good and entirely excellent and should be brought into public discussion is really excessive praise for Liu. In reality, the Sanjiao pingxin lun rests on a Buddhist standpoint to link it with Confucianism and Daoism. The complete text in two fascicles progresses layer by layer to comparatively and systematically evaluate the theories of the three religions, their functions, and their historical positions. Then it clearly shows its theory of reaching the same destination by different paths and the marvel of different approaches bringing equal results. In content, the text can be divided into three parts. First, the author expounds the functions of the three teachings of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism in theory, explaining the rationale for their existence. Liu thought that there were Confucian teachings ever since the mythical sage emperor Fu Xi drew the eight trigrams, that there were Daoist teachings ever since Laozi wrote the Daode jing, and that there were Buddhist teachings in China ever since Emperor Ming of the Han dreamt of the golden man (a statue of the Buddha). The three religions equally promoted good and halted evil, and fundamentally speaking they all shared this approach. After that, he quoted the words of Emperor Xiaozong (r. 1163–1189) of the Song, who said, “One uses Buddhism to govern the mind, Daoism to govern the body, and Confucianism to govern the world,” to elevate the significance of the co-existence of the three religions.

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Obviously, as a debater, Liu Mi was lacking a sense of history and was not very clear about Chinese scholarly thought. He confused early religion with Confucianism and it seems he took the many kinds of Daoists to be the same, venerating Laozi to be the prime ancestor of Daoism, thinking philosophical Daoism to be identical to religious Daoism. He regarded “goodness” as the link between the three religions, but not to the extent of saying that there were any original ideas in theory. Which culture, which religion does not encourage good? Nevertheless, these formed the theoretical basis for the later discussions of the three religions being one. However, Liu went further, pointing out that In China, Confucianism used the [three cardinal] guides and [five] constant [virtues] to correct, the human relationships to elucidate, the four attainments of propriety, music, punishments, and government [so that people] are not contrary, and heaven and earth and the myriad things to position and nourish people. These had a great efficaciousness in the empire. Therefore, the Emperor of Qin wanted to remove the Confucians, but in the end the Confucians could not be removed. In China, Daoism made people pure and empty to protect themselves, and to be humble and meek in order to preserve themselves. The practice of one purification of the diverse confusions that are interlocked, and the return to the sphere of the calm silence of inaction, was very much of benefit to the worldly teaching. Therefore, Emperor Wu of Liang wanted to eliminate Daoism, but in the end, Daoism could not be eliminated. In China, Buddhism made people abandon glory and aim for reality, to ignore the false and return to the true, and through powerful practice create the practice of calm, and through personal benefit lead to the benefit of others. The reliance on it to give life to people could not be improved upon. Therefore, the three emperors named Wu wanted to eradicate Buddhism, but in the end, Buddhism could not be eradicated. Li Shiqian of the Sui discussed the three religions, saying that Buddhism is the sun, Daoism is the moon, and Confucianism the five planets. How is it that not one of the three luminaries in the sky can be blocked and yet one of the three religions in the world can be lacking?

This passage reflects Liu’s understanding of the culture of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, and his interpretations of Buddhism have clearly been changed and secularized. Confucianism is properly the guides and constants of human relationships, etiquette, music, punishments, and government, which clearly have benefits for the empire in government. Daoism makes people cleanse and empty themselves to protect themselves, to be humble and meek to preserve themselves, and because it governs the body it is beneficial in controlling the world. Buddhism abandons glory for the real, ignores the false and returns to the true, and consequently it is relied upon to give life to the people. One can thus say that Liu’s summation of Buddhism was still insufficiently accurate and his exposition was insufficiently persuasive. Nevertheless, his use of the metaphors of the sun, moon, and five planets for Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism respectively, shows his ideological tendency to value Buddhism and devalue Confucianism. However, here Liu recognizes that historically some emperors and rulers used political power to try and remove Confucianism, eliminate Daoism, and eradicate Buddhism, but in the end, Confucianism could not be removed, Daoism could not be eliminated, and Buddhism could not be eradicated. He thus explained the inherent logical relationships and the necessities of their cultural development. The likes and dislikes of the rulers, and the choices of politics can influence the survival of the religions, but cannot decide their survival. Also, these cannot stop the trend for the religions to develop.

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Next, Liu points out the original causes of the inferiority and superiority of the three religions lie in the lack of a “balanced mind,” and therefore one should “balance their mind and thought, and trace their merits to the utmost.” As Liu Mi saw it, previously, each person of the three religions was biased mentally. Those who admired Daoism refuted the Buddhists; those devoted to Buddhism opposed the Daoists; and the Confucians who thought they were the orthodox also regarded Buddhism and Daoism as heresies. The three religions affirmed the right and denied the wrong, rose and fell, gained and lost, engaged in heated debates, to the extent that they were at odds in the court and among the people; in reality, all of this was created by ideological preferences. Not only was it like this, they also forged scriptures and theories, wrote books to establish their theories, sparing no effort to slander the other party. In Daoism, there was Wang Fu (early fourth century)’s Huahu jing (Sutra on Converting the Barbarians), in Buddhism there was Falin (early seventh century)’s Poxie lun (Refutation of the ´ akya and Mañju´sr¯ı to be incarnations of Laozi Incorrect). The Huahu jing regarded S¯ and Yin Xi (to whom Laozi gave the Daode jing). The Poxie lun said that Confucius, Yan Hui, including Laozi, were sent to China by the Buddha. They were disciples taught by the Buddha. Liu thought that these theories were all groundless stories “venerating their own and pushing down others,” and “were soaring into space and forgetting reality,” and are historical falsehoods that he tried to correct by the equality of the three religions. He stressed that one cannot use the “selfish mind” and “the mind of love and loathing” in any dealing with the three religions. One should only use “the balanced mind,” which is to fairly and dispassionately analyze their social capabilities. He said, When the students of Confucianism of the age come to the acceptance of cause and effect, they do no more than to bequeath scholarly honors and ranks; when the students of Daoism of the age come to the acceptance of cause and effect, they do no more than lengthen life; when the students of Buddhism of the age come to the acceptance of cause and effect, they can eliminate birth and death, ultimately reach nirvana, universally liberate sentient beings, and all achieve correct awakening…. Where Confucianism is practiced is in China; where Daoism is practiced is in the heavens among humans; where Buddhism is practiced is entirely the empty space that fills the Dharma-realm (is universal).

The Confucians bequeath scholarly honors and rank in the world; Daoists seek to lengthen life and have eternal life; and the Buddhists can eliminate birth and death. They do not all deal equally with causation, and therefore there is inferiority and superiority in their teachings. What Liu called a balanced mind was simply an explanation via the functions that benefit the world and that they of necessity must coexist. With his metaphor of the sun, moon, and planets, or the differences of where it is practiced; China, among humans in the heavens, or in empty-space Dharma-realm; he is clearly reliant on his subjective intention of venerating Buddhism. Therefore, the emphasis of the Sanjiao pingxin lun in reality uses an unbalanced mind to counterattack the various theories that opposed Buddhism. This is the content of the third part. Liu Mi countered Fu Yi (555–639)’s “Shang feisheng Fofa biao” (Memorial to the Throne on the Abolition of Buddhism) and Han Yu’s Yuan Dao (Origin of the Way)

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and “Jian ying Fogu biao” (Memorial Advising Against Welcoming a Bone of the Buddha) which spoke of Buddhism being a “teaching of the barbarians” and “the law of the western barbarians” that was harmful to and of no benefit to China, quoting He Xiang of the Liu Song period and his reply to Emperor Wen of the Song (r. 424–453) that pointed out that the five prohibitions (precepts) and the ten good deeds in the Buddha-dharma could teach people to be honest, prudent, and harmonious, saving on punishments and fines, and making rulers remain at peace. Liu also quoted Lu Xiaqing’s story that “petty people do not fear punishments but they fear hell,” and that the Buddha-dharma entices with Heaven and warns with hell, and so naturally “will be a teaching that will greatly benefit the world.” This theory firmly grasped some social realities. With life being “just like a burning house,” the common people in the mortal world dare to take the risk of narrowly escaping from death, and therefore they do not fear the punishments of the authorities, but they do fear the hells spoken of by Buddhism. Here Liu Mi clearly offered advice to the rulers, attempting to use Buddhism as the bond to bind people, which reflects the inclusion of Chan learning into the tendency to change the entirety of the Buddha-dharma into an administration via etiquette and music. It can also be seen that the stories of heavens and hells had already been blended into Buddhist theory. In other words, concepts of supernatural superstition had already been recognized by Yuan-dynasty gentry as being definitely an important constituent of Buddhist thought. Liu also pointed out that the slander of Buddhism brought the misfortune of hell. As Buddhism was a good way to transform people, not having faith in Buddhism must be bad, and those who are bad plant the causes of boundless sin, and those who accumulate evil will lose their life and fall into hell. This is not only just a rational warning to the human mind, it is also an outright faith in the spirits. The Yuan-period Chan School changed into a supernatural superstition, and one can know a little of it through this. In order to explain that the Buddha-dharma rationalized and cleansed the mindsource, a function that improved human character, and also was a vast concrete example to refute Han Yu’s so-called theory of Buddhism as “being a delusion,” Liu Mi said, Song Jing [653-737] was the foremost firm and upright person of the Tang dynasty and he took as his Buddhist Dharma Teacher Tanyi. Pei, the Duke of Jin [Pei Du, 764-839], linked his person to the security of the empire and he became a disciple and payed his respects to Jingshan Fazhen (Faqin). Bao Dajie was loyal to the state and he faced death unflinchingly, and Yan, the Duke of Lu [Yan Zhenqing, 708-784], with the precepts titled themselves disciples of Huzhou Huiming, and asked about the Way from Jiangxi Yanjun. Those who ignore fame and benefit, make little of literary embellishments, who are purely filial and purely correct, and who, if they are like Tian Lushan, when they love their mother will draw blood to copy out several thousand words of Buddhist sutras. When it comes to Zhang Yue [667-730] writing a preface to the Heart Sutra and Meng Jian [d. 824] concluding a non-worldly connection (friendship) and Du Hongjian [709-769] consulting the Chan of Wuzhu, and Quan Deyu [759-818]’s record of wearing straw cloth, these worthies and sages were all clearly not those who had left the world. How can those who make Buddhism out to result in deluding people also be able to also delude such sages and worthies?

The above-described celebrities had connections with Buddhism and clearly were not deluded, having made rational choices. Liu Mi also compared Han Yu

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and Liu Zongyuan (773–819), and further explained the above viewpoint that the Buddha-dharma functioned to remold human nature. Liu and Han were both famous for literary composition, but Liu was not the same as Han, thinking that “Buddhism truly has nothing to refute; it is often in agreement with the Yijing and the Analects, and is not different to the Way of the Confucians.” Liu Zongyuan also wrote “Zeng Chongxun Fashi xu” (Preface Gifted to Dharma Teacher Chongxun), “Nanyue Daming Lushi bi” (Stele Inscription for Vinaya Teacher Daming of Nanyue), “Liuzu cishi bi” (Stele Inscription Granting a Posthumous Title to the Sixth Patriarch), “Yongzhou Jingtu-yuan ji” (Record of the Pure Land Cloister of Yongzhou), and other such works that propagated Buddhism. Speaking of personal integrity, Han was far from the equal of Liu in his Buddhist studies. Because Han Yu wrote the “Memorial Advising Against Welcoming a Bone of the Buddha” he was demoted to Chaoyang, and his “immersion in lamentation and fear” was changed and he encouraged Emperor Xianzong (r. 805–820) to take the throne, “his intention being to flatter the court, hoping to escape his demotion and exile.” Because Liu Zongyuan had participated in the reformist activities of Wang Shuwen (d. 806), even though he likewise was demoted and exiled, he was still able to be “contented and pleased with himself” and “peacefully managed to be in harmony.” Therefore, Liu Mi recognized that compared to Liu Zongyuan, the anti-Buddhist Han Yu was of a lower grade in character and was not a gentleman ( junzi) and true Confucian. In sum, Liu Mi not only stressed the equality of the three religions and the coexistence of the three religions and even their unity, but also in particular he viewed Buddhism to be important in its capacity to refine the nature of the mind. Chinese Chan, which had as its distinctive feature the elucidation of the mind and seeing the nature, after entering the Yuan, besides assisting government, followed this path of future development. Only the gentry gave weight to the former, and thinkers, possibly broadly speaking who were scholars, concentrated on the theories of mind-nature and that was all. Therefore, the late Qing-dynasty Wang Tao (1828–1897) wrote of the essential tenets of the three religions, and in general he spoke of elucidating the nature and seeing the nature.

Part 3: The Dispute Between the Chan-Influenced Quanzhen and the Chan Way A The Song-period Chan School, of five houses and seven lineages, had scrambled to rise and its doctrines were also almost completely developed. In this comfortable atmosphere, Daoism did not fall behind, especially under the impetus of Emperor Huizong’s promotion of Daoism and suppression of Buddhist thought, which particularly exposed Daoism’s vitality. On one hand, there was the stream of Lin Lingsu (1075–1119). Their absurdities and unbridled behavior brought calamities on the country and deluded the masses. On the other hand, there were those like Chen Tuan (871–989) and Zhang Boduan (987–1082) who gave importance to one’s own

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perfection and devoted themselves to cultural creation, and provided a major transformation in Daoism from the ideological content through to the form of the religion. Founded in the Jurchen Jin, Quanzhen Daoism was valued and flourished as the new Daoism of Hebei during the Yuan. In reality, Quanzhen’s thought was a synthesis of Confucianism and Daoism. Speaking from another angle, it took the joint cultivation of nature and life (xingming) and recognizing the mind and seeing the nature to be the tenets of the complete truth (quanzhen), which was an alienation from Chan thought. Looked at macroscopically, of course the Daoist retirement from the world (being a hermit) and the Buddhist transcendence of the world both can be products of scholars in seclusion presenting a foundation in theory and the forms of peace in individual life. From the Jingkang era (1126–1127), the rulers of the Song dynasty who enjoyed wealth and honor were content to retain sovereignty only over Jiangnan (south China). Previously, the Jin had led military attacks southwards and then the armored cavalry of the Mongols swept across north China and Yandu (Beijing) fell. In the Zhenyou Incident (shift of the capital south to Kaifeng by Jin in 1214 due to Mongol invasions), based on a volk consciousness, intellectuals produced a fashion for recluses who avoided troubles and distanced themselves from the world. Thereupon, Chan and Daoism became the lairs of loyalists of the Great Song into which they absconded. They destroyed the royal crown and they scattered into the mountains and seas, causing the just arisen Quanzhen Daoism to blaze like a raging fire. The respect for it and its popularity at court added to the strength of the raging fire. At this time, Quanzhen could not but be influenced by the Chan thought that permeated everything before it, and it also could not but conflict organizationally and ideologically with Chan. Professor Chen Yuan in his Nan Song chu Hebei Xindaojiao kao (Research on the New Daoism of Hebei in the Early Southern Song) has the following story: When Quanzhen first appeared, it was only a secret assembly for practice that “barely managed to survive in a turbulent world, and did not seek fame and position from the lords.” The public regarded it as neither Confucian nor Buddhist, and everywhere looked upon it as Daoism, and in fact, it was originally called Quanzhen. If it had to be regarded as Daoism, then it was a reformist sect of Daoism.

As the hermits of the early period named it Quanzhen (Complete Truth), one really can obtain the true features of Quanzhen. Professor Chen’s idea was to say that the Quanzhen Sect members were not Confucian scholars nor were they Buddhist followers. When the religion was first founded, it was in order to avoid warfare and distance itself from the world, and this is what is meant by it “barely managing to survive in a turbulent world and they did not seek fame and position from the lords.” Because of this, it did not participate in the world, nor did it transcend the world, but it was detached from the world, or one may say that it also distanced itself from the world. Therefore, the hermits and recluses in the early period called it Quanzhen, which is exactly as they understood it. If one definitely had to say that it was Daoism, it was a reformist sect within Daoism, or as Professor Chen says, it was a new Daoism. The word “new” is new in that it was not Confucianism and was not Buddhism, and yet it was Confucian and also Buddhist! The Quanzhen that rose in a whirlwind

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became even greater than the Buddhists in the midst of the pervasiveness of the Chan style, but it goes entirely without saying that it was influenced by Chan. The Zhao Song, after the Jingkang era (1126–1127), occupied only Jiangnan (south China), and in sequence it fought the Jin and then the Yuan, and even though it replaced Bianzhou with Hangzhou as the capital, it danced and sung in celebration of good times and yet the lavish feasts were hard to repeat as things went from bad to worse, and in the end the Song dynasty died of natural causes. The loyalists of the Great Song, particularly the scholars of Hebei (north China) were depressed and unable to express their ambitions (because they were under non-Chinese rule). Since they could not be at the imperial court and were unable to universally benefit the empire, they could only long for the distant rivers and lakes and solely perfect themselves. Added to this, the mysticism and tedious complexity of Chan at that time started to expose inklings of Chan being at a low ebb. Since these loyalist scholars could not choose the path of the Confucians of governing and pacifying the empire and joining the ranks of officialdom, and they were not willing to deeply investigate the deep profundities of Chan learning and transcend the ordinary and escape the vulgar world, they compromised between these two sides and adopted the middle in order to “distance themselves from the world” and seek their perfection. Not only was this so-called “distancing from the world” solely to perfect themselves in a turbulent world, but even more importantly, it was to create an opportunity and at the appropriate time to save the whole empire. The meaning of “distancing from the world” and “being apart from the world” lay exactly in this. One can see that Quanzhen hid one’s Confucian thought and a was a transformation of Chan School doctrine. It should be pointed out that ever since Daoism appeared in the world, the refined and the disorderly co-existed within it. Although they revered Laozi as the founder, there were considerable contradictions among the students of Daoism. Their theories of eternal or long life and their falsities of exorcist prayers were generally used in their arts of talismanic slips and their mercury-refining crucibles in order to please the public. Chen Tuan appeared in the early Song, and then inheriting the theoretical basis of inner alchemy from the Han and Tang, this Daoist’s theory of deep calm took the art of external alchemy’s sulfur and changed it into a systematic learning of inner alchemy refinement, starting the precursor for the development of the inner alchemy school of Daoism in the Song and the Yuan. His student, Zhang Boduan, and Wang Chongyang (1112–1170) of Guanzhong (central north-west China), inherited all of Chen’s self-cultivation of profound silence and his theories of an inner essence in the refined body, of qi (vital energy), and spirit (shen), and at the same time they also imbibed the Chan theory of recognizing the mind and seeing the nature, and they completely threw off the magical arts of the talismans and incantations, refining out the empty falsities of prayer ceremonies and offerings. This made the development of Daoist culture run onto a new stage, and therefore at that time Ziyang (Zhang Boduan) of the south and Chongyang of the north had high reputations. Yu Ji (1272– 1348) of the Yuan in his Daoyuan xuegu lu (Ancient Records of the Study of the Garden of the Way) said,

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In the past, when the Song [with its capital at] Bian was about to fall, the theories of the Daoist priests became very deceptive and delusional, and there were scholars of exceptional ability who feigned madness and were cynical. They maintained their ambitions, sought to return to the truth, and they called this Quanzhen. The scholars had knowledge of the opportunities in the turmoil and they often followed this (Quanzhen). Their doors were very liberal and those who irregularly appeared among them are too many to be recorded.

From this we can see the historical background and cultural atmosphere of the rise of Quanzhen. In fact, in the Song period when Chan prospered like raging flames on boiling oil, Daoism not only wanted to execute its own reform, but was also bound to genuflect to the culture of the Chan School for the basis of the direction of this reform. Zhang Boduan, who was titled the Ziyang of the south (Ziyang was Zhang’s style), was already influenced by Chan and in his texts there are a great many Chan School songs and hymns. For example, his Wuzhen pian shiyi (Restored Omissions of the Chapters on the Enlightenment to the Truth) contains “Xingdi song” (Hymns on the Ground of the Nature), “Sanjie weixin” (The Three Realms are Only Mind), “Jianwu bianshixin” (What Sees Things is the Mind), “Yuantong” (Perfect Comprehension), “Baoyue” (Precious Moon),” “Renwo you ming qiwu” (Person and Self Also Named Equalized Things), “Du Xuedou Chanshi Zuying ji” (Reading Chan Master Xuedou’s Zuying ji), “Jiedinghui jie” (Interpretations of the Precepts, Sam¯adhi, and Prajñ¯a), “Xinjing song” (Hymn on the Heart Sutra), “Jixin shi Fo song” (Hymn on This Mind is Buddha), “Chanding zhimi ge” (Song on Meditation Indicating Delusion), “Wuxin song” (Hymn on No Mind) et cetera, and these are not the only ones. Their guidance of pupils was also not different to the Chan method of instruction.10 Rising in the Jin, valued and popular in the Yuan, Quanzhen further used the Chan thought that was influenced by philosophical Daoism to enrich itself using Daoist thought to guide their theories of inner alchemy, strongly advocating the joint practice of xing and ming and the complete effort and complete practice. This fully reveals the Chan influence on Daoist (if one can say that Quanzhen is Daoist) thought. Yuan Yishan (Yuan Haowen, 1190–1257, famous writer) had some veiled criticism of Quanzhen, 10

The Qinghua biwen xu (Preface to the Secret Text of the Green Flower) records that when Wang Bangshu was nineteen, he attended on Ziyang as a disciple, and for nine years he did not get the natural (ziran) of the Great Way. Ziyang had him go to a quiet room and think. At night, Ziyang entered and Bangshu welcomed him. Ziyang said, “For two days you have sought it but you did not get its quietness and stillness.” Bangshu was embarrassed and sat till the fifth watch [of the night], and then was greatly enlightened. At dawn he presented a hymn, “The moon shines on the Yangzi, the water and sky even./This fellow, who proclaims him a true immortal?/His voice fills the empty sky and all sound (pipes) are clear.” Ziyang asked, “Who proclaims and who listens?” Bangshu replied, “Do not ask who, do not ask who. One voice is high and one voice is low. Who proclaims, who listens, back and forwards across the great universe the speech does not end. Sir, you have encountered a path of delusion, urgently encountered the precious mirror that rests on the numinous stand (the mind). The mirror is radiant, clean, and calm, all the sense-objects are empty, and the millions of silk threads pass through everywhere. The Big Dipper turns and the stars shift and enter into the sleep sam¯adhi, and waking up, the red sun is right in the middle [of the sky].” At this, Ziyang presented the Jindan tu (Chart of the Golden Mercury—Method of Refining the Spirit). Ziyang enlightened students through guidance and Bangshu valued that he attained it by himself. His hymn also has the sam¯adhi of Chan.

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but he made an interpretation of the Chan-influenced Quanzhen that concentrated on the main points. He said, There is also the Quanzhen teaching that was advocated by Wang Zhongfu, a person of Xianyang, and Tian, Ma, Qiu, and Liu harmonized with him. Originating in the theory of deep calm, it lacked the falsities of the exorcist prayers of Daoist priests. They participated in the practice of meditation, but without the hardships of the austerities of the binding regulations.11

However, Yuan’s way of looking at the Chan-influenced Quanzhen remained at the superficial level of methods and not at the level of ideological content. Later, Xu Yan (1220–1301), in his “Hao Zongshi Daoxing bi” (Stele Inscription of the Daoist Practice of Lineage Teacher Hao), has a comparatively incisive outline of the recognition of the mind and seeing of the nature that was imbibed by the Quanzhen Sect, and of the tendency to change the joint practice of xing and ming to be like Chan. He pointed out, The stream of Daoism had its source in Laozi and Zhuangzi, but later people lost the original tenets and it branched out into magical arts and talismanic slips, into refining (alchemy) and into prayer ceremonies of offerings. The more the branches split the more deluded and distant from [the original] they became. That had long been the case. By the Jin period, the True Lord Chongyang, not relying on teachers and friends, was at once enlightened more than other people, and it was almost as if it was granted by heaven. It began in the Zhongnan [Mountains] and reached up to the Kunlun [Mountains]. He invited people of a similar type, guided them, and refined them, and when he first established the teaching of a school, he called it Quanzhen. The general idea of what they cultivate and maintain is to recognize the mind and see the nature, remove emotion and get rid of desire, to put up with humiliation and endure pollution, and labor themselves and benefit others, which is their core theme.12

Xu Yan was a late Yuan period Hanlin Academician Recipient of Edicts. In this passage, he not only points out the cultural source that produced Quanzhen and its relationship with Daoist philosophical thought, he also further clearly stressed the theory of mind-nature studies that Quanzhen imbibed from the Chan School, and thereby actualized the inherent path of transcendence and certainly also led them to choose benefiting the people and salvation of the world, and the social ideal of complete effort and complete practice. Through this, he recognized that Quanzhen had first attained its true features as Quanzhen. Strictly speaking, Quanzhen thought was very distant from Daoism. They did not pursue long or eternal life and they also did not practice with talismans, incantations, and physical alchemy. Their object was to return to the truth and they adopted the Daoist philosophy of inaction (wuwei) as their basis and the theory of pure calm, and they used the Way of the protection of life to abandon the Way of long life. They replaced the arts of sulfur (alchemy) with benefiting the people and saving the world. Through this, it formed something similar to Daoist philosophy. It also possessed the Confucian endurance of humiliation for the sake of a higher objective and the cultivation of equality and peaceful government, which is the Quanzhen concept of 11 12

Ziyang guanji (Record of Ziyang’s Guan). Ganshui xianyuan lu (Record of the Sources of the Immortals of the Sweet Waters) of 1288.

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“complete effort and complete practice.” What is also highlighted is that from the time when Wang Chongyang founded the teaching, Quanzhen stressed that it used the sacred texts of the Chan School as a resource and it encouraged people to use the Buddhist Heart Sutra (and also the Daode jing and the Xiao jing, [Classic of Filial Piety]) as a stage for entering the Way. It used recognition of the mind and seeing the nature to be a core tenet, and thereby attain the objective of return to the origin and reversion to the truth. Because of this, rather than saying that Quanzhen is Daoism, it is better to say that it has its basis in philosophical Daoism, and with respect of the Chinese Buddhism that was influenced by Daoist philosophy—that is, the Chan School, that it took the same path culturally. Later people “casually viewed it as being Daoism.” It seemed to be the same as the priests of the Daoist phalansteries who made Laozi the founder of their teaching. They did not talk of these absurdities, and there was a good reason for this, as there was not a shred of evidence for these claims. If one definitely needs to say that Quanzhen is Daoism, then the inner alchemy that existed before Quanzhen can be said to have been a Daoism that used principles of the changes (Yijing) to enrich itself, and so Quanzhen was a new Daoism that was reformed by the mind-nature learning of the Chan School. The core thought of Quanzhen is the joint practice of xing and ming,13 and true effort and true practice. The joint practice of xing and ming had been influenced by Chan. The completion of both effort and practice is surely the manifestation of the human character of the Confucian sage-king who assisted the great peace, but their emphasis on the true effort of “the cleansing of the mind and the settling of the will, embracing the origin, guarding the one, preserving the spirit and firming the vital energy,” still had inherent traces of its relationship with Chan. The Quanzhen of the Jin and Yuan period was truly enveloped in Chan thought and was developed out of the infiltration by Chan. The Confucian tradition only spoke of “knowing the mandate (ming),” but this was overshadowed by studies of the nature and the Way of Heaven. The classic case of Sinified Buddhism—the Chan School, specialized in speaking of the nature. On the other hand, it stressed the need to enlighten the mind and see the nature, and further affirmed seeing the nature and becoming buddha, because the human mind intrinsically possesses the nature of awakened enlightenment. Thus, it made the analysis of the nature its fundamental feature. Therefore, in Buddhism, Chan was titled the School of the Nature. The Song Confucians took the study of xing and ming and the Way of Heaven to be their task. In this, they imbibed the essence of the Chan words on the nature and so the Confucians had theories of “thoroughly fathoming principle, fully comprehending the nature, and stopping with ming (the mandate).” In the Jin period, Wang Congyang boasted that he was “completely true,” and not only did he need to use Confucian learning to enrich his theory of deep calm, it is also clear that he needed to use the principle of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature of the Chan School to develop a unique path of returning to the basis and reversion to the truth. 13

Tr. ming pertains to Heaven and xing pertains to humans; vital energy is the ming and the spirit is the xing.

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In his view, it did not stop at “the matter of birth and death being great,” but it was “the matter of the xing and the ming of the world being great,” for nothing in the universe is more important than xing and ming; the truth of life is the practice of the Great Way and the unity of the three of essence, vital energy, and the spirit is “the Way of xing and ming.” Therefore, speaking fundamentally, the joint cultivation of xing and ming is to realize reality or is said to be in common with the Great Way of “the truth of xing and ming.” We can see from this that the ultimate repose of Quanzhen and the Daoism of becoming an immortal with wings flying upwards are completely different, and to the contrary Quanzhen has elements in common with the awakened enlightenment of Chan and the principle of true suchness. What is xing? What is ming? Quanzhen has its own definitions of these. Wang Chongyang explained them as follows; “Xing is the primal spirit, ming is the primal vital energy.”14 It is obvious that the theory of the primal spirit and primal vital energy is what the Chan School called the originally pure and calm mind. Wang also pointed out that “the xing and ming are the vital essence (semen) and the blood,” and the essence and blood are “the foundations of the physical body,” and the “true vital energy” is the “foundation of xing and ming,”15 that is to say, in Quanzhen, vital energy is the highest category held in common with “the true,” and each one of the essence and blood that form the foundation of the physical body are xing and ming respectively, which are the carriers of “the true,” and therefore need to be in common with the realm of “the true,” and so one must cultivate the xing and ming. This is also what Chen Tuan said was the method of refining vital energy, the transformation of the essence and of refining the essence, and the transformation of the vital energy of “the reversal then forms the cinnabar (elixir).” One can see that recognition of the mind and seeing of the nature, and the joint practice of xing and ming really were methods of the refining of the essence, vital energy, and spirit, and were not like the ultimate concern of Chan. According to this explanation, even though Quanzhen made recognition of the mind and seeing the nature to be their core tenet, still this was just a methodological borrowing. The nature spoken of by Quanzhen and Chan were not the same because of this, but the Chan influence on Quanzhen could also form due to this. Wang Chongyang thought that the Song Confucians chiefly advocated principle, Chan chiefly advocated the nature, and Daoism chiefly advocated ming (life). Xiang Mai (d. 1287) of the Yuan period also said that Wang thought that “Chan monks discern the nature but are not enlightened to ming; Confucians talk of ming and do not speak of the nature, and I cultivate both of them. Therefore I called it Quanzhen (complete truth).”16 Regardless of what he said (there is a gap between what Xiang and Wang said, but it is a fact that they were close), the joint cultivation of xing and ming really was a use of the theory of the mind-nature learning of Chan and the ethical concepts of heavenly principle and human desire of Lixue neo-Confucianism, 14

Wang Chongyang, Ershisi jue (Twenty-four Secrets). Chongyang Zhenren jinguan yusuo jue (Secrets of the Jade Fastening [Clenched Teeth] and Golden Barrier of the True Man Quanzhen). 16 Xiang Mai, Bianwei lu (Record Distinguishing Falsities). 15

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which are actualized as the truth of life. Therefore, in his Lijiao shiwu lun (Fifteen Theses to Establish the Teaching), Wang repeatedly explained that essence, vital energy, and spirit were unified with mind, nature, and ming, which is also viewing them from the angle of method. Generally speaking, he demanded that one have; one, “a fixed mind,”—“the mind being like Mount Tai”; two, “no thoughts”—the harmonization of essence, vital energy, and spirit in one body; three, the removal of desires one by one in a refined nature in the midst of confusion. In sum, the fixed mind, no thoughts, and refinement of desire are a method for the cultivation of the mind, nature, and ming, and the refinement of the essence, vital energy, and spirit to thereby actualize the aim of the return to the true. This definitely agrees with Chen Tuan’s thought of “refining the spirit, returning to the void (xu), and returning to the supreme ultimate.”17 Yet Wang’s terminology and even his way of thinking were virtually duplicated from Chan learning. Therefore, it is better to say that Quanzhen was a Chan-influenced philosophical Daoist thought than to say it was Daoism. From this one can also see that the Quanzhen that was a Chan-influenced philosophical Daoist thought and the Chan School that was a Buddhist thought influenced by Dark Learning, necessarily had a deep connection. One of the seven thinkers of Quanzhen, Ma Yu (1123–1183), made the following explanation of their ideas. The Way takes no-mind as its reality and forgetting words to be its function, flexible weakness to be the basis, and pure calm to be its foundation. One restricts drinking and eating, cuts off thoughts and concerns, and sits in calm to regulate the breath, and one peacefully sleeps in order to nourish the vital energy. If the mind does not race, the nature is fixed; if the form is not labored, the essence is complete; and if the spirit is not disturbed, the dan (cinnabar elixir) is formed. Then, after the elimination of the emotions in the void (xu), pacify the spirit in the ultimate, and without leaving the household courtyard, one will obtain the marvelous Way.18

What Ma likewise stressed were no mind, no thought, forgetting words, restricting the emotions, and it was only by being like this that one could reach the nature that is fixed, the essence that is completed, the cinnabar elixir that is formed. Only then can one advance and enter “the void” and “the ultimate” that are the realms of complete truth (quanzhen). In other words, his highest realm also was actualized by the mind-nature learning of Chan and the Daoist (philosophical) learning of pure calm. Naturally, when Quanzhen was initially founded, it met with a tumultuous age, and the seven thinkers of Quanzhen were all commoners who rose from among the ordinary people. Therefore, they took the recognition of the mind and seeing the nature, and the joint cultivation of xing and ming, to be their core tenets, and reverse investigation (introspection) and internal examination to be the virtue of self-control, and thereby associated with scholars, taught the people to form good habits, and expanded their organization. Once its power was like a raging fire, the more they devoted their energy to it the more it blazed, and when it formed a political force that could not be ignored, they then used laboring oneself to benefit others as the 17 18

Huang Zongyan, Tuxue bianhuo (Discriminating the Delusions of the Diagram of Learning). “Ma Danyang daoxing bi” (Stele of the Practice of the Way of Ma Danyang).

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doctrines of complete effort and complete practice, and so to also perfect the world. However, their method of saving the world still could not shake off the vestiges of the immanent transcendence of the Chan School. Of course, in their replies to Emperor Shizong of the Jin, and to Genghis Khan and to Emperor Shizu (Khublai) of the Yuan, who when they condescended to enquire into what was “the supreme Way,” Qiu Chuji (1148–1227) and also Wang Yuyang (Chuyi, 1142–1217) time and again stressed the need to cultivate the body, that Quanzhen was not about eternal or long life, but was about purifying the mind and lessening desire, and giving rise to and reforming by being a good government and not marching into battle and massacres. They said one should live frugally and encourage oneself, serving Heaven and loving the people, maintaining a surplus and safeguarding one’s heritage. In the midst of great disasters and the people being captured and butchered, with nowhere for them to flee to save their lives, they strongly advocated “reduction of desires for satisfaction,” “warning against killing and slaughter,” and saving billions in a country in chaos, which is actually based on the fixed mind and having a basis in no mind. The Qizhen nianpu (Chronological Lives of the Seven Immortals) summarized their thought as “restrictions on desire, protecting the body, the Way of Heaven loves life and hates killing, and venerates the clear calm of inaction.” At first glance, even though this completely resembles Daoist philosophy, minutely analyzing Qiu Chuji’s meeting with Genghis Khan in the Himalayas, his methods of establishing phalansteries and saving people, and promoting reform via good government, it is clear that he still based himself on the transcendental spirit of the Chan School. In 1222, Qiu Chuji, at the advanced age of seventy-five (sui) climbed the Himalayas to where Genghis Khan was. Genghis Khan “set up two canopies to the east of the imperial tent, and when he was present there, he asked about the supreme Way.” Qiu emphasized that “there is only the Way of protecting life, there being no medicine for long life.” According to Yelu Chucai, “he presented an imperiallycommanded compilation of the record,” a private copy of a valued book, which also informs us of the tendency of Chan to influence Quanzhen. That year, on the sixteenth day of the tenth month of that year, Genghis Khan was to the north of the Himalayas, and he sent for the True Man Changchun (Qiu) to ask him about the Way of long life. Qiu Chuji answered, The Way gives birth to Heaven and nourishes the earth; and the sun, moon, stars, and constellations, demons, spirits, people, and things are all born from the Way. People only know that Heaven is great, they do not know the greatness of the Way. For my whole life [after] I left my parents and left home, I studied only this…. Therefore, I do not love what people of the world love; I do not remain where people of the world remain. I eliminated sensual pleasures and made clean calm to be my pleasure. I rejected flavors and took the tasteless to be delicious. If you have attachments, one is not enlightened to the Way and its virtue. If the eye looks at form, the ear listens to sound, the mouth tastes flavor, and the nature pursues emotion, then you will disperse your vital energy…. People take vital energy to be the master, so if one pursues things and activates thoughts, the primal vital energy will be dispersed.

Qiu, like Laozi, took the “Way” to be the great source of heaven and earth, and took vital energy to be the basis of humans, which is very far from the ultimate

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repose of the Chan School. And yet, the method of practice that he described; the destruction of attachments, the limitation of the appetites and desires and the pursuit of things and the activation of thought, and the theory that the pursuit of emotion leads to the dispersal of vital energy; also resembles the no-thought of Chan and its concept of not activating the mind. Because of this, the vital energy that he spoke of, or the primal vital energy, really indicates the original pure and calm mind of the Chan School, and also Wang Chongyang’s ideas of the joint cultivation of xing and ming, knowing the mind and seeing the nature. However, here the methodological meaning is a little stronger. Qiu’s first reply repeatedly stressed this point. The production of people by heaven and earth is valuable, and for that reason, the human body is difficult to obtain…. Once one has obtained the body that is hard to obtain, it is best that one delight in the path of cultivating the true and doing good and cultivating blessings to gradually reach the marvelous Way. Above to the emperor and princes and down to the common people, although the honorable and despised are different, the xing and the ming of each of them is the same…. Your majesty, there is no other method of practice than this, so externally one should cultivate the virtue of yin and internally firm the essential spirit, give relief to the people and protect the masses, and make the empire cherish peace.

This passage’s theory of valuing the body are also the words of Daoists, but this path of cultivating the true, externally doing of good and cultivating blessings, is similar to the folk Buddhism of the theory of cause and effect. Internally it is the joint cultivation of xing and ming, which not only has imbibed the Chan School method of recognizing the mind and seeing the nature, but it also conveys the Buddhist concept of the equality of “the non-duality of mind, Buddha, and sentient beings.” In this first answer, Qiu Chuji did not tire of relating in detail the Way of protecting life by the joint cultivation of xing and ming, while simultaneously touching on the gist of governing the country and protecting the people. And at the very last, he also used the warning of Emperor Shizong (r. 1161–1189) of the Jin who said, “sexual desire trumps chastity,” explaining the direct relationships between the cultivation of the body and the joint cultivation of xing and ming with the eradication of cruelty and the rejection of violence, and that its standpoint still lies in the transcendental spirit of introspection and internal inspection. Genghis Khan said that Qiu Chuji “earnestly instructed on the Way and respectfully listened to orders (ming). These are all things that are hard to practice, and so then he dared not disobey the orders (ming) of the immortals, and he was diligent in its practice.”19 Exactly because he did so, this reduced the savage massacres of the north and south of the Yellow River, and the so-called power of Quanzhen was greater than that of the military forces, which points to just such a fact. The maintaining of the precepts and cultivation of practice, of laboring oneself to benefit people of the Quanzhen Sect clearly is not the same as the Daoists’ residing in a burning house (a troubled world), drinking alcohol and eating meat, marrying and producing children, each keeping the customs of ordinary activities, but is completely based on a Buddhist standard, or it has adopted the system of the teaching monasteries 19

The above quotes are all from Yelu Chucai’s Xuanfeng qinghui lu (Record of the Felicitous Meeting with the Profound Tendency), Tr. a record of the meeting of Qiu and Genghis Khan.

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of Chan. Each one of the five precepts of Quanzhen; one cannot kill, cannot eat meat and drink alcohol, should not say something is correct that one thinks is wrong, not steal, not be licentious; are basically a borrowing of the five precepts of a monk. The form of the transmission of the precepts is also similar to that in Buddhism. It should be pointed out that if any product of a cultural form does not have participation by intellectuals, it will not only be unable to develop extensively and rapidly, it will also find it particularly hard to qualify to take its place in cultured circles and so will also just degenerate into an art of the stupid people. The Song-dynasty Chan monks had close exchanges with scholars. They exchanged poetry with them and there were incessant ideological interchanges. Thus, the Chan School also grew profusely, their writings dramatically increasing. Also, Chan displayed a tendency towards synthesis and multi-directional infiltration. The Quanzhen Sect originally was of the scholarly class and all members were book readers, and because of this, they paid further attention to associating with intellectuals, and in their interchanges with the intellectuals they expected that they would form a firm ideological alliance with them. Qiu Chuji wrote a poem that said, “I deeply accepted many talented scholars of the towns of Guo,/I visited the distant hermits of Pan Creek,”20 which exactly reflected his impatience to form relationships with intellectuals. The doctrines of Quanzhen were similar to those of the Chan School. They possessed the fashion for the reclusion of distancing oneself from the world of tumult and had feelings about saving people from extreme misery, added to which was the positive attitude of association with the scholarly class. This caused the intellectuals to flock to them, and the majority of scholars of north China became eulogizers or hangers-on of Quanzhen, which consequently enabled Quanzhen in the north to rapidly develop and to enter the court. They ended up being valued and prospering for a period. From this one knows that not only were the intellectuals the propagators of various forms of culture, they were also intermediaries between Chan and Quanzhen. The Chan influence on Quanzhen was a necessary trend towards synthesis in the Jin and Yuan intellectual class culture. One can see from this that the development of a certain culture does not lie in the stability of the original form, but more importantly in its contributions to the culture of the whole society. However, Quanzhen’s entry into the court created a fight for benefits with the Chan School. The court debates between Chan and Quanzhen caused the original mutual bringing out of the best in each other to change immediately into infighting that ruined everything.

20

Qiu Chuji, “Da Li Si iucai yaowang Weibei” (Reply to Licentiate Li the Fourth’s Invitation to Weibei).

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Part 4: The Dispute Between the Chan-Influenced Quanzhen and the Chan Way Summarizing what was said above, Quanzhen selected the learning of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature of the Chan School and the concepts of Heavenly principle and human desire of Lixue neo-Confucianism to form their techniques of the joint cultivation of xing and ming, the aim of cultivating the body and saving the world, and the thought of complete effort and complete practice. They rose in the Jin and prospered in the Yuan, and the Chan School also depended on the system of the imperial teachers of the Yuan to increase their imperial favor. Taking a broad view of human history, cultural clashes are entirely behind the scenes. From the Han onwards, the fight between Buddhism and Daoism rose and fell, and when this side rose, that side fell, which caused them to co-exist, and even in the times when they complemented each other, the seeds of conflict existed. Even though it lacked the reality of being Daoism and yet had the name Daoism, in the three-cornered contest between the houses of the Song, Jin, and Yuan, the Quanzhen Sect gradually formed a political power that could not be ignored. Some say it was a religious power, but the rulers of the Yuan dynasty also could not but avail themselves of the influence of its thought and its broad social base,21 and through this the Yuan rulers formed a dynasty on the North China Plain and actualized an interchange with the volk culture. They first venerated Qiu Chuji as the “Teacher of a State of Ten Thousand Chariots,” and then made his disciple Li Zhichang (1193–1256) Daoist Registrar of the Capital and Controller of the Changchun Palace. Li also received an imperial order to instruct descendants of aristocratic Mongolian families as disciples. Li received a Golden Tally and a Precious Mandate, and he visited all the five sacred peaks and four great waterways of China in order to perform sacrifices. The prosperity of Quanzhen meant it had become powerful and arrogant. It also gradually came to have a feeling that it could not tolerate the Chan School that had likewise received veneration and had spread even wider, encroaching on the Quanzhen preserve. It then viewed Chan with hostility, seized and occupied Chan monasteries, and the clashes between them became difficult to avoid. The original cultural complementarity changed into a factional fight and struggle for benefits, and in the form of debates at court it ended with a victory for the Chan School. In fact, in this battle the Chan School revealed its decadent nature. In particular, organizationally, this showed that Chan had entered a dead end of decline. Even though the Quanzhen Sect took laboring oneself to benefit others to be a core tenet, Qiu Chuji lived in Yan(jing) and “caused those who were the slaves of others to be restored to the status of commoners, and brought those close to death back 21

There is a record that speaks of towns of ten houses of Quanzhen, where one had to offer incense out of respect to Quanzhen. Yuan Yishan said that they “border on the south with the Huai [River], to the north into Shuomo (northern borderlands), west to Qin, and east to the sea; their residences are seen in the mountains, forests, and cities, and in their tens and hundreds they form pairs, which aid each other, making them unbreakable.” Eighty percent of the people of He and Shuo subscribed to Quanzhen.

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to life, without doubt this was twenty or thirty thousand people,” yet his “holding of a certificate summoning and seeking for those captured in warfare as slaves, men and women” also emerged out of the benefits for the sect and the demands for the expansion of its organization. Therefore, once matters concerned the benefits for Quanzhen, in particular in reference to its entry into the court, and an incident involved a factional rival, this revealed that the “laboring of oneself to benefit others” was just hot air. While Qiu Chuji was alive, the Quanzhen Sect “forced monks to bow,” even “managing monks and nuns,” “forcibly occupying and encroaching”22 on Buddhist monasteries and property, and his disciples in various prefectures and counties also changed Chan monasteries into Daoist phalansteries, destroyed Buddhist statues and remolded them into Heavenly Venerables (Tianzun). The clashes between Chan and Quanzhen had already reached such a degree that as soon as there was contact there was a detonation. When Li Zhichang became Controller of the Changchun Palace and chief of Daoism in the empire, the factional views worsened, and it progressed into a public challenge. Li wanted to place Quanzhen above the Chan School, even to the extent of totally replacing Buddhism’s position in society. Li Zhichang was a native of Fan County in Henan and was the favorite disciple of Qiu Chuji. In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Taizu (1220), he followed Qiu Chuji westward, arriving at the audience in the Himalayas with Genghis Khan, and later, according to the events recorded in the Changchun Zhenren xiyu ji (Records of the Journey to the West of the True Man Changchun [Qiu]), he was famed for a period. He followed Qiu Chuji as the leader of Quanzhen and he increasingly received favors from Emperor Xianzong, and so his arrogance of willful self-indulgence grew day by day. After he had received the Golden Tally and Precious Mandate, he indulged the Quanzhen followers, and throughout the whole country they bullied and humiliated Chan members. “They beat [monks], dismantled, stole, and occupied [monasteries], smashing apart stone pillars [of Buddhist inscriptions], erasing steles; it is hard to describe in full, but in brief the names of places where this happened numbered over five hundred.”23 At the same time, they also incited Linghu Zhang and Shi Zhijiang (1202-?) to compile and print the Laozi bashiyihua tu (Diagrams of the Eighty-One Transformations of Laozi) and the Laozi huahu jing (Classic of Laozi’s Conversion of the Barbarians) and distribute them to all the close ministers of the court, and they ´ akya strove to use these counterfeit scriptures to disseminate the theory that the S¯ was a disciple of Laozi, and use this to exclude the Chan School. This was an all-out attack launched against the Chan School through history and present reality. The Chan School likewise, in order to benefit itself, inevitably resisted. In the fifth year of Emperor Xianzong (1255), the Shaolin Monastery monk of the Caodong Lineage, Fuyu (1203–1275) and others, sent a letter to the court accusing Quanzhen of slandering the Chan School. Emperor Xianzong (Mongke), ordered Fuyu and others to debate Li Zhichang on questions such as the authenticity of the Huahu jing in the presence of the emperor. Li Zhichang declined and yielded. Then it was ordered that there be an investigation of forged scriptures in the Daozang (Daoist 22 23

Xiang Mai, Bianwei lu. Op. cit.

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Canon) and Mongke commanded the incineration of imprints of the Laozi bashiyihua tu and so on, and he “ordered that thirty-seven monasteries, cloisters, and lands occupied by Quanzhen be given to the Buddhists.” The decree also pointed out that ´ akya and Guanyin” “I instruct those gentlemen to [restore] the previous images of S¯ and “those gentlemen who destroyed Buddhas need to be punished according to the previous rules.” Moreover, “If a Buddhist reverend has destroyed a [statue] of Laozi and molded it into a Buddhist statue he needs to be punished according to the previous rules.”24 From a superficial point of view, Chan and Quanzhen were tied in the contest, and Chan struggled for and obtained an equal position with Quanzhen, but in fact, after Quanzhen emerged out of this course of events, from then on it went into a sudden downturn, and again it also found it hard to deal with the Chan School, in particular to compete with Chan thought. The next year, Fuyu and other Shaolin monks sought a second debate with Quanzhen, and Li Zhichang died of shame and resentment. In the ninth month, Mongke decreed, It is for example like the five fingers that all come forth from the palm. Buddhism is like the palm, the other [religions] are all like fingers. Not examining their origins, they all boasted of their own [teachings]. All are theories of a group of blind people feeling an elephant [to determine what it is like].25

The emperor took up the metaphor of the palm of the hand for Buddhism, which is the basis, with Quanzhen and other sects being the fingers, which means they are derivative. The Quanzhen Sect fell from being valued and prosperous and suffered a drastic decline. In 1258, Mongke again, on the basis of a request from the Shaolin monks, organized a court debate. He made Phags-pa the mediator, and together they amended the Huahu jing. Then, Quanzhen had to abandon their teachings. Mongke then ordered that of the 482 monasteries and properties stolen by Quanzhen, 237 places be returned to Chan and that forty-five texts deemed “forged Daoist scriptures” be incinerated. The Chan School not only gave vent to its grievances, it also took over the political and economic positions that Quanzhen had formerly held sway over. After Khublai took the throne, ideologically he clearly leant towards Chan. Then, with Khublai’s support, Chan monks and lamas joined hands and proceeded to thoroughly settle accounts with the Quanzhen Sect’s ideas of “conversion of the barbarians.” This time, some say that the dispute between Chan and Quanzhen was a fight between Buddhism and Daoism, and that it was definitely not due to Quanzhen not resigning itself to the loss of past glories. Also, the dispute did not just simply arise out of an insatiable demand by Chan, but importantly it was also due to Khublai’s need to clear away obstacles to his overcoming of the Chinese volk barriers between barbarians and Chinese, in concrete terms, the idea that Chinese converted the barbarians. Therefore, this time, it can be seen that even though the destructive attack on Quanzhen was made by Fuyu, the representative Chan monk, in reality Khublai and Phags-pa led the debate in public.

24 25

Op. cit. Xiang Mai, Bianwei lu.

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In the seventeenth year of Zhiyuan (1280), the Superintendent of Daoism, Gan Zhiquan, who had directed setting fire to provisions, was sentenced to decapitation, and the other criminals had their ears and noses cut off or were exiled to the borderlands, and so the Yuan house slightly indicated a warning to Daoism led by Quanzhen through this killing. The next year, Khublai summoned the leaders of Chan and Daoism, among whom was the Quanzhen power-holder, Qi Zhicheng (1219– 1273), the Celestial Master of the Zhengyi Daoists, Zhang Zongyan (1245–1292), and Li Dehe (d. 1284) of Da Daojiao, and the Hanlin Academy received “imperial orders to visit the Changchun Palace to debate what was correct,” the important point being to investigate the authenticity of the Daoist scriptures. Khublai made a show of speaking clearly; “The transmission of the untrue and the carrying forward of the erroneous by Daoist scriptures has not just been for a day. If we suddenly burn them, their followers will inevitably not be convinced. They say that water and fire cannot burn or ruin them, so for the time being we can use these to properly test them. If we wait and do not test them, it will be not too late to burn them.”26 Then he ordered the Deputy Commissioner of Military Affairs Bo Luo (d. 1313) and the Acting Director of Instruction Heli Huosun (d. 1284) and others to direct Zhang Zongyan, Qi Zhicheng and others to each select a talisman they were carrying and put it into the fire to test their own magical arts. The four men all said these are false and fantastic theories, and if the talismans are put into the fire, they are sure to be incinerated, so they did not dare test them. Consequently, they also had to accept that with the exception of the Daode jing, all the Daoist scripture books were forgeries. This in fact was not only denying Quanzhen, but it was also denying the locally produced and nurtured Chinese religion, namely Daoism. In the tenth month of the same year, Emperor Shizu handed down a decree that with the exception of the Daode jing, all the forged scriptures of the Daoist canon and their print blocks be totally incinerated.27 Then he assembled all the officials in Minzhong Monastery, and he had Fuyu’s comrade, Linquan Conglun (fl. 1272–1281), the Elder of Baoen Monastery, preside over a ritual committing these texts to the flames. They completely burned all the forged scriptures of the Daoist canon and miscellaneous books. Fortunately, in the imperial decree there was the provision that “the texts of the philosophers, medicine and pharmacopeia et cetera that exist in woodblock print are not included within this prohibition.”28 Consequently this preserved a large part of the quintessential texts of the Daoist canon. However, this time the dispute between Buddhism and Daoism caused great harm to the vitality of Quanzhen and Daoism, and its forces dramatically fell into petty squabbling and Quanzhen suffered a setback due to this from which it never recovered. This was definitely not a clash over principles, nor was it a clash of cultures, but it was a sectarian fight of narrow factionalism, a fight over power, and essentially belongs to a struggle over political ideas, and superficially was a senseless farce and conclusion. After this farce, Emperor Shizu, Khublai discussed the three religions, saying, 26

Fozu lidai tongzai. Xiang Mai, Bianwei lu. 28 Ibid. 27

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People of the world title Confucius, Laozi, and the Buddha the three saints. These words are wrong. The teachings of Confucius and Laozi are of little use for governing the world, not understanding xing and ming, and they only speak of the present world, so we can only call them worthies. The examples handed down by the Buddha thoroughly understand the basis of [birth and] death, good and evil, and deeply comprehend and profoundly enlighten [people] to the Way of xing and ming, and through all the vicissitudes and changes, the divine saint has no regard to place. This is the true, great saint. From now on, the images and statues of the three religions cannot be on the same level as those of the Buddha.29

Even though his analysis of the three religions was not entirely correct, his idea of venerating the Buddha was explicit in his statement. Nevertheless, seen superficially, he respected Chan’s enlightenment to the Way of the xing and ming of birth and death. Really his intention lay in the principle of protecting the state and helping in the peaceful governing of the world. Therefore, the road for improvement he formed in relation to the “this mind is the buddha” of the Chan School was really like the blind leading the blind. He said, “The sudden teaching is this mind is buddha, which is the realm of the buddhas. If ordinary people do not practice, how will they arrive at this?”30 From this we can see that his reverence for Chan and his repression of Quanzhen, or what some say was reverence for Buddhism and the repression of Daoism, was not a search for the truth, but was based on actual political demands. Quanzhen wanted to use the theory of the conversion of the barbarians to defame the Chan School, and even though Chan was unable to counter-attack, under the intrepid armored cavalry of the Mongols that Quanzhen plan was doomed to be far from being implemented. Naturally, in the Chan School, in the circumstances of its doctrines being exhausted, what the rulers of the Yuan respected were its practical merits. Their veneration of the Chan School was only to politicize it and to reverse its tendency to the mystical. Because of this, the alienation of the Chan School can be said to have been a forced reform made due to political considerations. Exactly because it was so political, the Chan victory was also only superficial. After seven years had passed, in the twenty-fifth year of Zhiyuan (1288), in a clash between Chan and Doctrine ( jiao, the doctrinal schools organized into an order), Emperor Shizu again ordered Tibetan monks, the Chief Command Registrar of the Buddhism in the Jiang-Huai Region, Yangnian Zhenjia (Rin-chen skyabs, a pupil of Phags-pa), to organize a court debate between Chan and Doctrine.31 They gathered Chan and Doctrine monks of Jiangnan to attend court, enter the palace hall, and hold a dialogue with the emperor. The participant on the Chan School side was Jingshan Miaogao (1219–1293) and the representative of Doctrine was Xianlin. In the court debate, Xianlin said that the Chan School’s non-reliance on letters was only in order to cure the southerners’ “clever preaching of lies.” Although this theory was a pure fabrication, it does reflect a tendency among the ruling class of that time (who came from the north and were mostly non-Chinese) towards racial discrimination. Therefore, it received Emperor Shizu’s tacit approval. Miaogao also stuck to the old 29

Xiang Mai, Bianzheng lun. Fozu lidai tongzai fascicle 35. 31 Op. cit., record, “In the spring of 1288, demonic affairs were suddenly created…there was a decree that there be a great assembly of Doctrine and Chan [monks] to debate at court.” 30

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lines of Chan, repeating existing theories, emphasizing the claim that the Buddha preached for forty-nine years and yet never spoke a word, “as the speaking of nonspeaking is the true speech.” He greatly proclaimed the Chan Way of “pure wisdom and marvelous perfection, the intrinsic reality being basically empty quiescence” and “that which can be known by seeing, hearing, and feeling is not that which can be understood by thinking and discriminating.” Evidently, he did not obtain Shizu’s understanding and support. In this debate, Miaogao had an empty victory in a verbal dispute, but that drew forth Emperor Shizu’s dissatisfaction. Then the emperor played the same old trick and used a method of dealing with this that caused Miaogao difficulty. This was the same method Shizu had used with Quanzhen. He said, “I also know that yours is the Dharma of the Supreme Vehicle and that people who have attained the Dharma can enter water and not drown, enter fire and not be burned, can sit teaching in a cauldron of burning oil. Do you dare to do so?” This method dealt with charlatans and may still be accepted as a kind of method. Khublai repeatedly used this to deal with those who did not share his political views, or he used it to resolve factional fights. Being forthright is still being forthright, but still it unavoidably appeared to be senseless. Even though Miaogao was quick thinking, his reply was composed. He said, “This is a sam¯adhi of divine powers and I have nothing like this in my Dharma,” and so he was able to prevaricate. He played a hackneyed tune, strongly preaching the unity of Chan and Doctrine and of Buddha’s mind and Buddha’s word, that all streams return to the ocean and the like. Finally, he also used the Yuan-dynasty government as an example, explaining the thorough realization of the Chan School and the principles of sudden enlightenment, in which he also spoke some words of praise, like, “The empire is unified and all the different barbarians can go wherever they wish.”32 He was thereby able to shut the mouths of the Doctrinal School and extinguish the emperor’s ire, and so he drew with the Doctrinal School in this contest. But in reality, not only after the court debate, the School of Doctrine was placed above Chan and what previously had been “one enters Chan through Doctrine” was changed at once into “one enters Doctrine through Chan.” The members of the Chan School were unable to prosper again like they had before. Also, the thought within the Chan School could also be described as being fossilized. What specially needs to be explained is that from when Quanzhen first appeared, it went through a period of prosperity and respect and then declined. This only took a century. From the Song, the Chan School developed in the direction of being narrow and deep, yet Chan thought infiltrated all over until it became an enemy of Quanzhen and both sides suffered. Quanzhen originally drew on Chan learning to develop, and in the end, because of the expansion of its own power, this led it into a sectarian dispute with the Chan School. Because of this, they both drew on political power in order to overwhelm the other party and the result inevitably crippled the substance of their thought. Therefore, the fights between the Chan and the Quanzhen of the Yuan period, and the fights between Chan and Doctrine, were completely different to the previous disputes over the similarities and differences and the superiority and inferiority of the three religions; they were not the same as the debates over the body and spirit, cause 32

The above quotes are all found in Fozu lidai tongzai, fascicle 22.

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and result, and the barbarians versus Chinese, of the Wei-Jin period; they were not the same as the antitheses of original non-existence versus it is form/matter and the mind does not exist theses and the concepts of Yog¯ac¯ara and Prajñ¯a; and they were also not the same as the divisions within the Chan School over sudden versus gradual enlightenment and teachings, and over the Diamond Sutra versus the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra. In sum, these were not arguments over thought, principles, and method, or the mutual ridicule of north and south in Chan, but were entirely based on factional advantage and disadvantage! Therefore, they were sectarian disputes in which one defended one’s own members and attacked members of the other factions. This kind of striving for favor and competition for profit in an organized confrontation made absolutely no contribution to the development of thought. After this, Quanzhen was unable to recover from this setback and Chan was no longer like it once was in spirit, only preserving its outer shell. This, of course, was related to the veneration by the Yuan court for the Esoteric Buddhist teaching and was extended to merit and respect for divine powers. It was also a natural trend in the evolution of scholarly thought, which says that at the peak of prosperity things begin to decline. The ideological decay necessarily involved a senseless struggle, and this senseless struggle promoted the collapse of Chan and Quanzhen thought. Nevertheless, their ideological decline also was not equal in the weakening of their contribution to thought. Chan thought availed itself of the intellectuals in its broad infiltration of society, just as it remolded the Chinese volk philosophy of human life, enriched the traditional rational thinking, and molded the aesthetic concepts held by the gentry class. From the Yuan and the Ming, the changes in Chan thought occurred not within the Chan School, but followed the direction of total participation in social life. Therefore, particularly from the Qing dynasty onwards, the Buddha-dharma that was included within Chan learning was no longer to be found in the monk robes but had flowed out into the lay elders.

Chapter 11

The Origins and Spread of Nianfo Chan

After Buddhism was introduced into China, the theory of liberation or the words about paths of rebirth, which is the Buddhist truth, gradually developed into two kinds of teaching; self-power and other-power. Self-power is reliance on vigorous practice and maintenance that is based on one’s own power to actualize transcendence; other-power is dependence on the power of the vows of the Buddha to bring one to enlightenment or to lead one into a pure realm. The former are schools like Tiantai and Chan; the latter is the Pure Land of nianfo (mindfulness or chanting of [the name of] a buddha). There are people who say that this is the World Honored One’s universal preaching of the Buddha-vehicle and in that One Vehicle he shows that there are the Dharma of the three vehicles, and again, in the three vehicles, the single gateway of the Pure Land emerges. In fact, essentially, this is only a method. Some say that the paths to enter the Way to actualize the transcendental realm are not the same, and so it is not a difference between schools. Therefore, some scholars think that the Pure Land teaching is not a school of Buddhism but is a method adopted simultaneously by various schools (Professor Tang Yongtong maintains this theory). And yet, Pure Land has three sutras and one s´a¯ stra,1 and there is also a systematic theory of practice, and particularly from the Yuan and Ming onwards, Pure Land possessed a broad social base and numerous believers. In fact, it became an independent school and in fact it was like the case of vinaya, in which each school kept the precepts and practiced the vinaya, but the Vinaya School established its own faction. Even though the gateway of nianfo constituted a method, this explanation was in fact made universally by people and it was accepted as a school, and so it developed rapidly. A story that describes a case of this is found in the Wangsheng xifang jingtu ruiying zhuan (Biographies of [People Receiving] Auspicious Responses and Being Reborn in the Western Pure Land):

1

These are: the Cao Wei translation by Kang Sengkai, the Wuliangshou jing in two fascicles; the Liu Song translation, the Guan wuliangshou jing, and the Yao Qin translation by Kum¯araj¯ıva, the Amituo jing, both in one fascicle; and the composition by Vasubandhu translated by Bodhiruci of the Northern Wei, popularly known as the Wangsheng lun (Treatise on Rebirth).

© Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_11

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The monk Xiongjun was a person of Chengdu who was good at lecturing, but he did not practice the precepts….He returned to the laity, joined the army, and killed and slaughtered people. He fled from the difficulties and again entered the monkhood. In the Dali period, [after his death] he saw King Yama, who judged that he should go to hell. In a loud voice Xiongjun said, “If I enter hell then the buddhas of the three ages will have lied.” Yama said, “The buddhas never lie.” Xiongjun said, “In the last chapter of the Guan [wuliangshou] jing it says that the lowest of beings create the five contrary crimes, but if, when they are about to die, they make ten recitations (nian, of the name of the Buddha) they can attain rebirth [in the Pure Land]. Although I have committed sins, I have not committed the five contrary sins. If one talks of nianfo, I do not know how many times [I have recited the name].” When he had finished speaking, he was reborn into the Western Land.2

Although this description is absurd, it still reflects the power of the Pure Land obtained by nianfo, which is the direct and easy Way of liberation in which one could be a buddha as soon as one repented. This is clearly the cause for the flourishing of Pure Land in the various ages and the concurrent practice of Pure Land by various schools. In the search for the theoretical basis of this, the Chan School says it is by “seeing the nature that one becomes buddha,” the focus being on the expansion of the mental powers of the individual and that one relies on one’s own power and not the power of another. Because of this, Chan fundamentally rejects the Pure Land faith in nianfo. In reality, Huineng, who truly systematized Chan thought, always denied the theory of Western Pure Land. In his reply to the Prefect of Shaozhou, Wei Qu’s question, he clearly pointed out that “deluded people practice nianfo to be born there [in the Pure Land], the enlightened purify their mind,” and “the Buddha is a creation of one’s own nature; do not seek for him outside of oneself. If the self-nature is deluded, the Buddha is sentient beings; if the self-nature is enlightened, sentient beings are the Buddha.”3 As he saw it, nianfo was a technique, and that to have as an aim rebirth in a Pure Land on the other shore that one seeks for outside of oneself is essentially to be still deluded about one’s own nature. He distinguished delusion and enlightenment as the Pure Land and the Chan School respectively, and he fundamentally denied the concept of nianfo and the Pure Land. In the course of the spread and development of Chan thought, this idea that wholly opposed reliance on other-power and mentally chasing after the other shore, was sharpened and it was expressed as an intense critical consciousness. For example, “A person of the east commits a crime and practices nianfo to seek rebirth in the west. A person of the west commits a crime, so in which country does he seek to be reborn by practicing nianfo? The ordinary and stupid do not realize their own nature; they do not recognize the Pure Land within themselves.”4 Here the text not only criticizes seeking birth in the West as being unreal; it also expresses the use of one’s own mind (as Pure Land) to replace the trend in thought that seeks for the illusory paradise world. Nevertheless, in fact leaders of the Chan School who concurrently practiced Pure Land continued for generations without a break, in particular, with the synthesis of 2

By Wenshen and Shaokang, p. 106. Tr. Shaokang, d. 805 was a Pure Land teacher. Liuzu tanjing (Platform Sutra), Dunhuang version. 4 Tanjing (Platform Sutra), in the later Huixin, Qisong, and Zongbao versions. 3

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Chan thought by the Song period, they not only accepted the Confucian Way into Chan, but also publicly emphasized the joint cultivation of Chan and Pure Land. The Fayan Chan master Yanshou had famous words that he gave to the public: “If there is Chan and no Pure Land, nine out of ten people will take the wrong road,” and, “If there is no Chan and there is Pure Land, all the practices and all the people will depart,” and “If there is Chan and there is Pure Land, it will be just like a horned tiger (an awesome Chan teacher) being the teacher of people in the present world who will become buddhas and patriarchs in the future world.” The Chan School, which originally believed in self-power and rejected the methods of the Pure Land, not only viewed nianfo as a necessary path to be followed to achieve the Chan transcendental spirit and even placed Pure Land above Chan. This kind of cultural phenomenon of opposing and even melding them together was clearly due to the vagueness of the concepts of the Pure Land and the creation of the changes in Chan thought. The “see the nature and become buddha” and “if one recognizes the original mind, then one can become buddha” that were taught by the Chan School were admittedly easy and direct, but seeing the mind and recognizing the mind, which some say is “returning to and getting the original mind,” are not so simple as people seem to imagine. Strictly speaking, of course “sudden” and also “gradual” are all processes of thinking that are introspection and self-examination, and these are complex and difficult to grasp. Therefore, the putting of old wine in new bottles by the five houses and seven lineages was not the same as the fundamental tenets of recognizing the mind and seeing the nature, and was an actualization of a different method for reaching an ultimate aim. Therefore, gongan and hymns on old cases, the evaluations, kanhua, silent illumination, and lettered Chan emerged endlessly one after the other. Simply speaking, the great majority of Chan monks of the Song period practiced these forms of Chan and did not deliberately mystify. In reality it was about “original mind” and was not such an easy experience as was imagined. The Ming-dynasty Caodong lineage monk, Yongjue Yuanxian once said, “My Chan is hard to investigate,” but “I only need you to tell me what you do not comprehend” and then you are to “make an effort to study intensively.”5 This says that Chan still has this meaning. One can see that the sole preaching of “directly entering with a single cut” that was praised as a “simplified” Chan is definitely not simple and also is difficult to “directly enter.” Even though the Dharma-gateway of Pure Land nianfo revered “using the power of the mind to influence the power of the Buddha,” it relied on external power to obtain another birth, and yet it made a prerequisite the fundamental of the power of the mind, which necessarily is to influence and provoke the power of the Buddha; in other words, the prerequisite is that the power of the mind leads to rebirth as a necessary result. In this way, the power of the mind is the power of the Buddha, which is rebirth. In reality, its focus is still on one’s own mind and therefore there is the theory of “this mind is buddha.” Compared to the “see the nature and become buddha” of the Chan School, “this mind is buddha” transcends the procedure of introspection and inner illumination of “recognition” and “seeing.” Even though this Chan emphasizes the need to possess three minds – the deep mind, the mind of utmost sincerity, and 5

Yongjue Yuanxian Chanshi guanglu (Extensive Records of Chan Teacher Yongjue Yuanxian).

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the mind that turns to making a vow – still they can be spoken of in reverse order, in which nianfo is the possession of these three minds that evidently is clearer, more coherent and concise, and more direct and without obstacles. This kind of simple and easy practice is placing one’s hope in rebirth. Not only was this enthusiastically welcomed by the believing masses, but also its way of thinking, being a direct idea and an independent practice (not reliant on the monkhood et cetera) also catered to the fashion for the unrestricted and free pretentious search for culture of the intellectual class. The Chan School that simplified things actualized a revolution in Buddhist learning. Drawing support from this revolution, Chan infiltrated the various classes of Chinese society and inevitably saw correctly the actual significance of the existence of the Pure Land faith, and thereby it changed into nianfo Chan. This change, in its stress on the overall thought of the own-mind Pure Land, took nianfo and raised it to the theoretical heights of “the topic of the Chan Lineage is the gongan,”6 which explains that “Chan is the Chan of the Pure Land, and the Pure Land is the Pure Land of Chan.”7 This firmly welded Chan and Pure Land together, which in thought and in method had assumed that there was an opposition of lineages. Therefore, this went from Baizhang “praying for a sick monk and sending off a late monk, all returning to the Pure Land” through to Youtan (Pudu, d. 1330)’s “writing of the Lianzong baojian (Precious Mirror of the Lotus [Pure land] School), receiving a command to print and circulate it in order to revive the Pure Land” and “generations of venerable elders all obeying and carrying out the Pure Land.”8 However, the presentation of the principles of the joint cultivation of Chan and Pure Land by Yanshou only argued that the tendency of Chan is to be synthetic; but this joint cultivation truly emerged as nianfo Chan in the period of the changes of Yuan and Ming Chan thought.

Part 1: Mingben’s This Mind is Buddha Nianfo Chan As mentioned above, the Yuan emperors respected the merits of concrete action and therefore they looked upon the transcendental thought of the Chan School as being worthless. The withering and fall of Chan thought was already symbolized by the sun setting in the west. The expression of this decline was in the trend towards worship of gods and the formation of nianfo that alleviated the momentum towards decline. Active in the reigns of the three emperors Wuzong, Renzong, and Yingzong, the master and disciple, Zhongfeng Mingben of the Zuxian line of the Linji lineage in the south, and Tianru Weize (d. 1354), were representative individuals who merged Chan and Pure Land at that time and they promoted the transformation of transcendental thought towards secularized merit. 6

Words of the Ming-dynasty Chan monk Qingong. Words of the Linji lineage monk of the Yuan, Mingben, which are also found in fascicles 4 and 5 of the Jingtu shengxian lu (Records of the Saints and Worthies of the Pure Land) by Peng Xisu (the brother of Peng Shaosheng, 1740–1796) of the Qing. 8 Zhuhong, Wangsheng ji (Collection of Rebirth). 7

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Mingben (1263–1323), sobriquet Zhongfeng, lay surname Sun, was a person of Qiantang. “As soon as he was out of his swaddling clothes, he only made singing and chanting Buddhist services his child’s play.”9 At the age of nine, he lost his mother and quit study. At fifteen he left home, burned his forearm with incense and bowed to the Buddha, vowed to keep the five precepts, and climbed Mt. Lingdong to practice meditation. At twenty-four, he received the guidance of the s´ramana Mingshan who directed him to consult Gaofeng Yuanmiao (1238–1295) of the Shizi Cloister on Mt. Tianmu as his teacher. Yuanmiao was a Dharma-heir of Zuxian (1136–1211), a third-generation disciple of Shaolong (1077–1136), and therefore he received the Linji-lineage style of the kanhua Chan of Zonggao. One day he was intoning the Diamond and Prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a sutras when he came to the place, “carrying along [the enlightenment] of the Thus Come One (tath¯agata),” he suddenly came to an understanding, and due to this he fully comprehended Buddhist and non-Buddhist texts. In the next year, the twenty-fourth year of the Zhiyuan era (1287), he was tonsured in Shizi Cloister into Yuanmiao’s school and at twenty-five he received the full precepts of a monk. Yuanmiao had written a portrait and praises of himself, which he gave to Mingben, saying, “My features are inconceivable and cannot be seen by the buddhas and patriarchs. I only allow this unworthy child to see half my nose (half a clue).” One can see Yuanmiao’s high evaluation of Mingben and therefore many of Yuanmiao’s pupils sought instruction from Mingben. In the twenty-ninth year of the Zhiyuan reign (1292), Yuanmiao was abbot of Dajue zhengdeng Monastery on Lianhua Peak, Mt. Tianmu. Three years later, the first year of the Yuanzhen era (1295), Yuanmiao passed away, entrusting Dajue Monastery to Mingben, and Mingben recommended the senior-most monk, Zuyong for the position. In the first year of the Dade era (1297), Mingben, with straw sandals and a broken bowl, shouldered the wind and tucked the moon into his sleeves, and travelled in all directions. In sequence, he climbed Mt. Wan and Mt. Lu, and passed through the districts of Jinling and so on. In the second year on Mt. Bian in Luzhou, he made a hermitage and transmitted Chan. In the fourth year of the era (1300), he built Huanzhu Hermitage on Mt. Yandang in Pingjiang (near Suzhou). Students gathered there and the seats were very full. At that time, Zhao Mengfu (1254–1322) was the Supervisor of Confucian Schools of Jiangzhe (province) and he went to Mingben to ask about the essentials of the mind. Mingben spoke to him of the teachings about preventing emotions and returning to the nature. When Mengfu entered the Hanlin Academy, he again asked about the main ideas of the Diamond and Prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a sutras. Mingben wrote a Lueyi (Brief Meanings) in one fascicle as an answer. Therefore, every time Mengfu wrote a letter to Mingben, he invariably called himself a disciple. Mingben had written a Quanxiu jingye ge (G¯ath¯a Encouraging the Pure Land Work) in 108 poems. Zhao praised it as follows: The G¯ath¯as on the Pure Land is a composition by the Reverend of Zhongfeng. There are 108 g¯ath¯as, referring to the 108 beads of a rosary. Pitying the deluded paths of sentient beings, he spoke of the paradise of the Buddha-sphere….His disciple, Zhao Mengfu again proclaims this meaning, writing a g¯ath¯a as follows, “In the world of the great trichiliocosm,/ 9

Mingben, Dongyu xihua (Conversations East and West).

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The sentient beings as numerous as the sands of the Ganges,/ Each single sentient being and each single buddha/ Is each singly only mind and a Pure Land./ ….If a person relies on the instructions of the master,/ In each thought-moment (nian) chant the name (nian) of Amit¯abha,/ Each single chant (nian) will have already returned to no thought (wunian),/ And one will naturally reborn in the Country of Ease.”

From this we can glimpse Mingben’s Pure Land faith. In the tenth year of the Dade era (1306), Mingben accepted Shizi Cloister. In the first year of the Zhida era (1308), Emperor Renzong, who at that time was still in the Eastern palace as the heir-apparent, gifted Mingben the sobriquet “Fahui.” In the second year of that era (1309), he went into seclusion in Yizhen (Yizheng County, Jiangsu), and in the fourth year he lived on a boat in Wujiang. Then he crossed the Yangzi and went north to Shaolin. In the north, monks and lay people “fought to pay homage to him” and he was famed as “the old Buddha of Jiangnan.” In the first year of the Huangqing era of Emperor Renzong (1312), Mingben again built a Huanzhu Hermitage on Mt. Liuan in Luzhou. The Grand Councilor Tuohuan (*Toyan, 1292–1328) presented a letter on visiting him and he went on to request a Dharma talk. Later he also ordered the county officers to bring Mingben into his home and he earnestly requested that he live in Lingyin Chan Monastery, but Mingben firmly declined. In the third year of the Yanyou era (1316), the Commission for Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs received a decree ordering the reorganization of Buddhism and it sent a messenger to invite Mingben, but Mingben heard of this and fled to Zhenjiang. In the ninth month of the fifth year of this era (1318), Emperor Renzong said to an attending minister, “I have heard that the Reverend Zhongfeng of Tianmu has practiced the Way for a long time and I have repeatedly wished to summon him here….It would be best to commend him and bestow favors on him, cite his merits and be amazed at him.” He then granted him the sobriquet of the “Chan Teacher of Buddhist Compassion, Perfect Illumination and Extensive Insight” (Foci yuanzhao guanghui Chanshi), and gifted him a gold-embroidered sa˙ngh¯a.t¯ı (robe) and imperially ordered the Hangzhou Circuit to treat him with courtesy and protect him, and to change Shizi Cloister into Shizi zhengzong Chan Monastery. He ordered the Hanlin scholar Zhao Mengfu to write a stele praising his style of teaching. Then Mingben’s fame and reputation rose rapidly, “and from as far as the Western Regions (Central Asia) to Beiting, the eastern barbarians (Koreans and or Japanese), Nanzhao (Yunnan), [visitors] came one after the other.”10 The first of them was the Koryˇo Commandant-escort (imperial son-in-law) and Dispatched Participant General who sent letters and money, conveying his respects as a disciple. In the sixth year of the Yanyou era (1319), he presented incense and entered the monastery. He consulted Mingben to obtain the essentials of the mind (teaching). Mingben gave him the Dharma-name of Shengguang and the sobriquet Zhenji. He erected a pavilion beneath Shizi crag to record these events. The Yunnan monk, Xuanjian (d.u.) admired Mingben and respectfully requested the mind-Dharma, but on his way back to Yunnan he died of illness. Xuanjian’s disciple painted a portrait of Mingben and took it south,

10

Zhongfeng Heshang xinglu (Records of the Deeds of Reverend Zhongfeng).

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and then Nanzhao11 “consequently changed from Doctrine to Chan” and installed Mingben as “the first patriarch of the Chan School.”12 In the second year of the Zhizhi era of Emperor Yingzong (1322), the Commission for Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs requested Mingben be abbot at Jingshan, but he did not go, and he again built a Huanzhu hermitage on Mt. Zhongjia. In the tenth month, the emperor specially decreed that Mingben be given incense and a gold-embroidered sa˙ngh¯a.t¯ı. The Grand Councilor Tuohuan requested a Dharma talk and the Assistant Administrator (of the Secretariat) Jing Yan also communicated with him by letter asking about the Dharma and was given the sobriquet Layman Shouyi; the Minister of the Ministry of Personnel Zheng Yunyi, when he was Surveillance Commissioner of Zhexi, asked Mingben about the Dharma in Yuhang, and Mingben promoted the learning of being enlightened to the administration of state affairs and the supramundane in his answer. There was also the Commissioner Ba[n]latuoyin, who was given the sobriquet Layman of the Shared Cloister (Tongan) and the Grand Councilor Beg Bukha, who had the sobriquet Layman Fast of Forbearance (Rongzhai), and the Instructor Jiang Jun, sobriquet Layman Yian, and the Attendant Supervisor Feng Zizhen (1253–1348), sobriquet Layman Haisu, and others, all asked for the benefits of Mingben’s teaching. The thriving of his conversion and guidance, and some say his patronage by princes, lords and scions of aristocratic houses, in this way would have been impossible if not for the fact that his Chan Dharma had changed in the direction of concrete action and divine powers. In the sixth month of the third year of the Zhizhi era (1323), he fell ill and on the thirteenth of the eighth month he bequeathed a g¯ath¯a for his Dharma dependents and old friends. The next day he sat calmly and passed away at the age of sixty-one. In the second year of the Zhenghe era (1329), he was posthumously titled Chan Teacher Zhijue, and in the second year of the Yuantong era (1334) of Emperor Shun he was also posthumously titled National Teacher Puying. The Tianmu Zhongfeng Heshang guanglu was approved for entry into the Buddhist canon and to be circulated, and the Xuzang jing (Continued Buddhist Canon) also contains the Tianmu Mingben Chanshi zalu (Miscellaneous Records of Chan Master Mingben of Tianmu). His magnificent reception being like this, it was rare for any Yuan-dynasty Chan monk to match him. Being a Chan monk, Mingben would understandably also have taken as core tenets enlightening the mind and seeing the nature, separation from words and separations from characteristics. He also would have been unable to shake off the separate transmission outside of the teachings (Doctrine) and the custom of speaking indirectly of Chan. Naturally, he also stressed the ideas that the everyday mind is the Way and that all that appears is perfect. However, he made himself a Chan monk in the line from the Linji-lineage monk Zuxian, and he clearly was not a little influenced by the thought of Zonggao, in particular making kanhua his practice. He had also opposed the lettered Chan of “only revere verbal communication, do not seek real enlightenment,” nor did he approve of the style of barbed comments, striking with a staff and shouting of “realize the tenets at the blow of a staff and be enlightened to the core 11 12

Tr. Yunnan under Mongol control from 1252). “Puying Chanshi Daoxing bi” (Stele Inscription of the Deeds of the Way of Chan Teacher Puying).

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tenets at a shout.” He pointed out that Chan is mind, mind is Chan, Chan is a mental Dharma that “cannot be seen, cannot be heard, cannot be perceived, and cannot be known.”13 Therefore, “Chan followers should take enlightening of the mind to be essential.”14 Even though these words are all statements of old tunes, still there were criticisms of the Chan abuses of his period that further reflect his attainments in Chan learning. He said, The abuses by students of the present lie in wanting to rapidly understand Chan. Chan does not have a logic for you to understand. If you say you understand Chan, that is slandering Chan. If you can penetrate each of the [gongan] of three catties of flax, the cypress tree, Mt. Sumeru, the everyday mind is the Way, Yunmen’s [turn around and] look, Zhaozhou’s wu (it does not exist), that is understanding Chan language and is not understanding Chan. If you are not marvelously enlightened, even if you are intellectually enlightened innumerable times and preach the Dharma like a gushing spring, this is all intellectual discrimination and is not Chan speech. You should know that Chan language at first is not hard to understand and all 1,700 gongan are also not difficult to be made understood in a little while. These presentday students of Chan mostly discuss it in words and none of them approve of turning one’s head (looking back) and investigating oneself. Therefore, the men of the past looked upon Chan language as being the slobber of wild foxes, and they properly have the teaching.”15

In this passage, Mingben has a very profound insight. He divided students of Chan into those of marvelous enlightenment and those of intellectual enlightenment, explaining that the intellectual enlightenment to Chan language is easy and that the marvelous enlightenment to the Chan Way is hard. Really, he was pointing out that people of his day were mostly managing Chan, which is to deny Chan. He divided Chan learning into gongan and the investigation of oneself, pointing out that it is easy to comprehend the gongan and difficult to investigate oneself, which is to say that the explanation of the gongan and its understanding are not equal to reaching the transcendental realm of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature. One can see that Mingben emphasized that the marvelous enlightenment of Chan is in the mind and that enlightening the mind is in “investigating oneself”! Nevertheless, the mind of marvelous enlightenment is the original mind, which is the “everyday mind” of “the Chan that does not expect speaking, silence, movement or calm to be Chan.”16 He said, Movement, calm, speaking, and silence, each of these is the highest truth, and apart from this heavenly truth, if one tries to involve thoughts and considerations, this is already not the everyday. The Licentiate (xiucai) Zhang Zhuo [latter half of ninth century] said, “To accord with worldly conditions without a care, nirvana and birth-and-death are both spots before the eyes (illusions),” which is the everyday mind. Layman Pang said, “My daily functions are nothing special,/ I naturally am just in harmony with them,” which is the everyday mind. 13 Mingben, “Instructions to the three lecture masters of Yunnan, Fu, Yuan, and Tong” in Tianmu Zhongfeng Heshang guanglu. 14 “Night Talks in a Mountain Room” in Tianmu Zhongfeng Heshang guanglu. 15 “Instructions to the three lecture masters of Yunnan, Fu, Yuan, and Tong” in Tianmu Zhongfeng Heshang guanglu. 16 “Instructions to Layman Yian,” Tianmu Zhongfeng Heshang guanglu.

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The third patriarch (Sengcan) said, “The supreme Way is not hard,/ It only dislikes making a choice,” which is the everyday mind. Great Master Ma[zu] said, “Seeing form is seeing the mind; if there is no form the mind will not appear,” which is the everyday mind. Also a virtuoso of old said, “The emerald bamboo are true suchness, the yellow flowers are prajñ¯a,” which is the everyday mind….At this moment, not giving rise to a thought about things or encountering cognitive realms, this is the everyday mind. Or it is said, even though one gives rise to thoughts and activates the emotions, one does not dwell on their characteristics; this is the everyday mind. Or it is said, there being no gap between existence and non-existence, hearing and seeing are mixed together; this is the everyday mind.17

This chain that raised ten examples of “the everyday mind” really speaks about form (matter) and mind. Existence and non-existence, cognitive realms and thoughtmoments, thought-moments and characteristics, emerald bamboo and true suchness, yellow flowers and prajñ¯a, daily functions and the supreme Way; in a word, birthand-death and nirvana, this and that, the everyday mind transcends such antitheses. It should be said that Mingben highlighted these kinds of sayings by Chan masters about the everyday mind that in secular society were simply not the everyday mind. The socalled “everyday” is due to the need to return to “the original face of people,” which needs the person to be “a person of the Way of original color (a genuine, practicing Chan monk)”; this “not being everyday” really is due to their need to eliminate grasping and attachment in order to transcend secular life. This also tallies with the Chan School’s transcendental spirit, but Mingben’s emphasis on “the everyday mind” was his intention to guide people to “investigate themselves,” “keenly be mindful (nian) of their own great matter [of enlightenment],” and “to eradicate the erroneous thinking of sentient beings about birth and death,” which is what is meant by “the investigation of Chan has no secrets; it is simply that birth and death are to be cut off.”18 That is to say, Mingben took the “everyday mind” that was essentially a Chan School concern to transcend the secular and changed it into an “everyday mind” that urgently paid close attention to birth and death. The characters “birth and death” are threaded everywhere throughout Mingben’s Chan learning. In his “Instructions to the three lecturers of Yunnan; Fu, Yuan, and Tong” there is a passage that is most representative of his way of thinking that had as its ultimate concern birth and death. He said, Being born into no-birth is to be born, to die in no-death is to die, which is to say there being no birth and no death, how can one be born and die? Since one is deluded to one’s own mind, one falsely sees that there is birth and death. If one should be deluded by erroneous thinking, one will be unable to explode apart a thought-moment (nian) that has as yet to emerge at the surface, and so one will rely on that [other] for an interpretation. If one arbitrarily says there is no birth and death, that is a great lie, and is also called slandering prajñ¯a.

His idea is to say that basically there is no birth and death; it is only due to being confused about one’s own mind that one falsely sees the existence of birth and death. But the thoughts that grasp the deluded and false, contrary to one’s convictions, say there is no birth and death, which also contravenes the Way of Chan. Using the 17 18

Mingben, Donghua xihua xuji (Continued Collection of Conversations East and West). “Instructions to Layman Haiyin,” Tianmu Zhongfeng Heshang guanglu.

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interpretation of the two truths of the genuine and the conventional, no birth and death is the genuine truth, and that there is birth and death is the conventional truth. Mingben’s deep concern with birth and death, ultimately was to oppose people in the secular world using the genuine truth to treat birth and death and thereby he guided people to regard birth and death to be the fundamental great matter and give consideration to investigating it, for “birth and death are impermanent, and wherever one is, they lash and drive one, and they mature over a long time, and naturally they coincide.”19 Not only was the deep concern for birth and death a concrete merit cultivated by Yuan society, coinciding with the idea of worshipping gods and giving importance to divine powers, it also was a prerequisite for the theoretical thinking about the unity of Chan and Pure Land. One cannot deny that Pure Land faith was established on the foundations of peoples’ fears of death. The Chan School only advocated introspection into one’s own mind, transcendence of birth and death, and said that in respect of certain people that this was undoubtedly casting pearls before swine. The Pure Land School told people that there is a paradise in the west, to practice nianfo while alive, and by doing so not only could one purify one’s mind, but also after death one could be reborn into a pure realm. In this way, the simple and easy rebirth is a method of immortality, and it naturally and easily attracted good men and believing women who sought release from that struggle in a sea of suffering and who hoped for an immortality while submerged in a life of sensual pleasure. The Chan School admittedly opposed “one’s own mind as Pure Land” to the paradise Pure Land, and created a theory that resided above the Pure Land, but then that could not resolve the unavoidable conclusion that is death. By this time, Chan monks had already adopted the practice of nianfo to seek expansion into a wider domain. On this basis, Mingben raised the banner of the joint cultivation of Chan and Pure Land and made birth and death the ultimate concern, and pushed nianfo Chan onto the greater stage of society. He especially stressed that, Who knows that the investigation of Chan requires understanding of birth and death, and that nianfo also requires understanding of birth and death? Originally birth and death have no basis, they are produced due to delusion about one’s intrinsic nature. If one clearly sees the intrinsic nature, birth and death are needlessly cleared away and expelled. Once birth and death have been expelled, what then of Chan, and what then of the Pure Land?20

Here Mingben talks of seeing the nature due to the delusion and loss of the intrinsic nature, and understanding birth and death through seeing the nature, and through understanding birth and death seeing that there is no difference between investigating Chan and nianfo. According to this explanation, the Chan School that “sees the nature,” which is “own-mind as Pure Land,” and the Pure Land of “rebirth,” which is the paradise Pure Land, are in total agreement. Logically speaking, he could not entirely take the own-mind Pure Land to be the same as the Pure Land of the other shore, but in fact, he still blended Chan and Pure Land together. He not only wrote “Guan Amituo Fo ge” (G¯ath¯a on the Contemplation of Amit¯abha Buddha) and 19 20

Ibid. Tianmu Zhongfeng Heshang guanglu, fascicle 5.

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“Huai Jingtu shi (Poem on Cherishing the Pure Land), he also especially had a chant for sick people to pray for their health. Amit¯abha Buddha is a true material body, His excellent marks proper, majestic and without compare. The white curl [between the Buddha’s eyebrows sends a light that] turns around the five [Mt.] Sumeru, His dark eyes lucid and clear are the four great oceans. In the light the transformation buddhas are in their innumerable billions, The transformation bodhisattva assemblies are also limitless. The forty-eight vows [of Amit¯abha] liberate sentient beings, And the nine grades [of reborn beings] all climb onto the other shore.

He also had a text on transferring merit to a deceased monk as follows: I humbly hope that your spirit rises into the pure regions and that your karma excuses you from the troubling contaminants, and that the lotus opens into a flower of the highest grade [of rebirth], and that the Buddha predicts that you will be reborn only once again.21 Hail to the paradise world of the west, of the great compassionate and very kind Amit¯abha Buddha.

Mingben entirely followed the Pure Land School in matters of funerary mourning. His rituals of calling on the ten Buddha names such as the Pristine Dharma-body and the ten nian (calling on the names) of Amit¯abha are fully recorded in the Huanzhu qinggui (Pure Regulations of Huanzhu). Naturally, this imitates the nianfo content of Dehui’s Chixiu Baizhang qinggui (Imperially Commissioned Pure Regulations of Baizhang, 1335) and the Song-dynasty Zongze’s Chanyuan qinggui (Pure Regulations for Chan Cloisters). However, Mingben’s Huanzhu qinggui also has prayers for fine weather, for rain, congratulations for the saint (ruler), prayers for the protection of the fields, and rituals praying for the peace of the monastery. His rites for the protection of the Dharma involving attendance of the devas, the spirits of the three realms, the true rulers of the ten directions, the holy emperors and famous kings, loyal ministers and heroes, the dragon kings who bring rain in the five directions, the thunder god and lightning granny of the six directions, the innumerable saints and worthies who give birth to all things, the various local gods of that place, the great king of the walls and moats, the Jade Emperor of the Upper Realm, the True Lord of the Purple Enclosure in the North Pole, the Son of Heaven of the Palaces of the Sun and Moon, the Lords of the Stars of the Southern and Northern Dipper, and even the emissaries of the divinities that control the bathhouse, fire, wells, and the kitchen,22 of course were in accord with secular custom, but they also emerged from one’s original mind, and doubtlessly expressed the polytheistic worship that appeared in the process of the change into nianfo Chan. The transformation of the joint cultivation of Chan and Pure land into nianfo Chan not only took the investigation into birth and death as an intermediary, but also needed to actualize the changeover from “seeing the nature and becoming buddha” to “this mind is buddha.” In his Dongyu xiyu (Conversations East and West), Mingben 21 22

Tianmu Mingben Chanshi zalu. See Mingben, Huanzhu qinggui.

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not only talked a lot about “all dharmas are only one mind, one mind is all the dharmas,” “displaying all things is the teaching (Doctrine), indicating the one mind is Chan,” “the conduct of teaching is not superior to erroneous thoughts and erroneous thoughts have no priority over enlightenment to the nature” and such theories of the mind-nature of Chan, but also at the same time he borrowed the voice of Mazu and repeatedly stated the principle of “this mind is buddha.” He said, “The saying, this mind is buddha, has spread through the country, so how can one only investigate the profundities of the superior scholars and inhouse knowledge till one is like a hawker and housewife-cook, so that whenever one talks of it, one will always say the mind is buddha.” In fact, this is a misinterpretation of Mazu Daoyi’s thought. The Jingde chuandeng lu fascicle 7 has Mazu Daoyi say to the assembly, “Each of you believe your own mind is buddha, this mind is the buddha-mind. Great Teacher Bodhidharma came personally from south India to China and transmitted the Dharma of the one mind of the highest vehicle so that you would be enlightened….If you realize the mind, you may at any time, whether wearing clothes or eating food, greatly nourish your holy fetus.” One can see that Mazu’s idea was not “this mind is buddha,” but was saying that the human mind originally possesses the Buddha-nature, and that if one sees the nature, one can become buddha. This agrees with Huineng’s thought and even the whole of Chan thought. His eminent disciple says clearly in the “Ruhui biography” (in the Jingde chuandeng lu) that “Since the master’s death and departure from the world, what has always harmed his followers has been the incessant intoning and memorizing of this mind is buddha….Consequently, he said to the assembly, ‘The mind is not buddha, cognition is not the Way.’” Nevertheless, Mingben surreptitiously replaced concepts, taking the thought procedure of Chan’s seeing the nature and becoming buddha and removed the process of “seeing the nature,” and changed the illogical judgement of A is B (mind is buddha), stressing, “If the root of faith is in the mind, then enlightenment is not hard,” using faith to link the mind and buddha. Then he substituted the fake for the genuine during the alteration of the thinking; the Chan principle of “seeing the nature and becoming buddha” was at once changed into the Pure Land faith of “this mind is buddha,” and so the spiritual repose of seeking rebirth by practicing nianfo then became the appearance of the Chan School that “was spread throughout the country.” No wonder that stupid men and women seemed to have all talked of “mind” when speaking of the profound conversations of the wisest people about “the nature.” Frankly speaking, of course Mingben in some way substituted concepts, saying it is the east when talking of the west, taking the guidance of lives that is the Chan School’s ultimate concern for an inherent transcendence and replacing it with the peaceful death that is the Pure Land School’s final object of prayer for an external Pure Land. These are ultimately hard to reconcile in theory. In order to further establish the rationality of nianfo Chan, Mingben also availed himself of Yanshou’s work in order to provide historical and logical bases for his nianfo Chan. He answered his own question, saying, Reverend Yongming (Yanshou) also produced the Wanshan tonggui ji and the Zongjing lu. Their theories are not the same. Which work is self-contradictory? I say, mind is the basis of all good deeds (wanshan). The Zongjing lu wraps up all the good [deeds] into one mind.

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This collection (the Wanshan tonnggui ji) distributes the one mind into all the good deeds. This wrapping and unfolding, opening up and closing, has always been in common. Those who are inhibited in their Chan/meditation and not yet enlightened are deficient in all the good [practices]. Therefore, in stating and clarifying this, Yanshou was not being careless.23

Here Mingben used the relationship of mind and practice to explain that Chan and nianfo were each indispensable. Simply speaking, the “practice” Mingben spoke of really indicates the “practice of the Way nianfo” of “realization of sam¯adhi” and “seeing the limitless Buddha” (wuliang fo) taught by Yanshou. Yanshou’s Wanshan tonggui ji was a representative work by a Chan monk that promoted nianfo. Mingben drew on it as rational evidence for nianfo Chan. He also could only speak with a stubborn adherence to his own opinions in a form of making a topic under discussion become a vehicle for his own ideas. In sum, Mingben divided Chan into intellectual enlightenment and marvelous enlightenment, into gongan and self-investigation, and he made birth and death into the deep concern of Chan, replacing seeing the mind and becoming buddha with this mind is buddha, drawing on Yanshou’s work as his basis for this. These are the outstanding features of Mingben’s nianfo Chan. When it came to his defense of kanhua Chan,24 he thought it the best method for getting a reliable foothold. Thus, it is suitable for achieving enlightenment, and even if one’s mind is not enlightened, still one’s mind of faith will not regress or turn away, and in one or two lives all its practitioners will be enlightened. His merging of kanhua Chan and nianfo into a single purpose25 is also entirely concerned with birth and death, and has a direct relationship with the way of thinking that this mind is buddha. According to this, we think that like Baizhang and others, with the premise of not contradicting the transcendental spirit of Chan, Mingben selected the Pure Land faith in order to expand the Chan School under the influence of the aspect of faith. Yanshou’s actions in combining Chan and Pure Land made an effort to give it a logical demonstration; Mingben clearly had already gone beyond the limits of the development of Chan learning and adapted to the demands of society, politics, and popular thought. In the process of spurring Chan thought to change direction, he joined it with the Pure Land idea of nianfo and rebirth, and opened up another form of the Chan School in its latter period, this being a precursor of nianfo Chan.

23

“Night Talks in a Mountain Room,” Tianmu Zhongfeng Heshang guanglu. Mingben had said that the effort of looking at the point of the story (kanhuatou) definitely did not accord with the tenet of the direct pointing and single transmission, but it had never tricked people into the weeds (of intellectual understanding). 25 Mingben, in a letter to Layman Wu, simply put the story of “before my parents were born, that is my original face” into the mind of nianfo, saying that in each thought-moment/chant (nian) one could not discard this and being diligent one could not abandon it. His idea was that the mind thinking of this huatou is the oral chanting (nian) of the names of the Buddha or the contemplation that conceives of the names of the Buddha. Really, we do not know how he unified them. 24

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Part 2: Weize’s Outward Chan and Inward Pure Land of the Imperishable Soul The Pure Land faith has as its ultimate pursuit rebirth in the western land and rebirth must be premised on the idea that the soul does not die. The Chan School’s theory of mind-only Pure Land is a philosophical concept that refutes the idea that the soul really exists. Therefore, Mingben’s promotion of nianfo Chan merely began from the concern with birth and death and he used his theory of “this mind is buddha,” grafting this foreign twig onto another tree, the theory of “seeing the mind and becoming buddha.” Nevertheless, the faith in the Pure Land and the firm faith in rebirth also could not accept the existence of the soul, which proved a difficulty in making his theory valid. And also, from Emperor Yingzong (r. 1321–1323) on, the Yuan house weakened and the belief in the concrete merits of Buddhism became purely the incantation of scriptures and Buddhist services, prayers seeking help, a means for peace and prosperity and honor and glory. In the palace they praised the Buddha, using esoteric precepts and dances of gods and demons to aid their revival. The Buddha-dharma there had entirely fallen into superstition and the pleasures that brought the state to its demise. Mingben’s successor, Tianru Weize, mixed the vulgar view of the immortality of the soul with the Chan School’s mind-only Pure Land theory on the basis of Mingben’s nianfo Chan, taking it from bad to worse and thereby becoming the person who represented being outwardly Chan and inwardly Pure Land. Weize (n.d., active in the reigns of Emperors Renzong, Yingzong and following), sobriquet Tianru, was a native of Luling, lay surname Tan. When he was young, he went to Yaoshan and was tonsured there. Later he travelled to Tianmu where he became a pupil of Zhongfeng Mingben and he energetically investigated the subtleties of Chan. Mingben once said to him, “Laohuan (I) investigated Chan my whole life, but I did not get to be enlightened.” Weize said, “Then the self-confidence in investigating Chan and learning the Way is a misapplication of the mind, and becoming buddha and being a patriarch are misapplications of the mind. From now on, I will put down each of these and create a non-operative wisdom, and be a goodfor-nothing fellow, passing my time eating gruel and eating rice, listening to the wind and the rain while sleeping.”26 Regional officials payed him respect as disciples and frequently requested that he preside over famous monasteries in the Jiang and Zhe regions, but he firmly declined and did not go. He hid himself between Wu and Song, and for twelve years his reputation for practice grew daily. In the second year of the Zhizheng era (1342), his disciples built him a cloister in Suzhou, calling it Shizilin (Forest of Lions) to commemorate the affair of Shizi Crag where Mingben had lived on Mt. Tianmu. He stayed there for thirteen years. At the end of the Yuan, in the fourteenth year of the Zhizheng era of Emperor Shunzong (1354), he was by decree named Foyin Puji Wenhui Dabian Chanshi (Chan Teacher of the Buddha 26

“Instructions to the Assembly,” Tianru Weize Chanshi yulu (Recorded Sayings of Chan Teacher Tianru Weize).

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Mind of Universal Salvation and Great Debater of Literary Insight) and gifted a gold-embroidered Dharma robe. Speaking of his Chan learning, Weize primarily developed Mingben’s “the everyday mind is the Way” as a huatou (point of the story). Yet he took the original transcendental spirit and sublimated the originally genuine (bense) and changed it into an absolute affirmation of everything that appears as being perfect. He had a famous sentence, “The Buddha-dharma originally has no profound marvel; it only needs you people to each know that one’s eyes are horizontally aligned and that the nose is vertical, and then stop [thinking].” He also said, “Whether a monk or a lay person, each person has an endowment [of the Buddha-nature],” and “Originally all is complete, the totality that appears is perfect.” According to this, knowing that the eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical is the Buddha-dharma, and that the entirety of what appears is perfect, is the Way of Chan, which is his so-called “The sacred nature is common everywhere, the compliant and the contrary are all expedient means,” which directly and easily is to the contrary nothing more than this. Nevertheless, this negative consciousness that is constructed on the foundations of the transcendence of antithesis and critical spirit of Chan were both almost entirely lost. Weize admittedly also said things like, “I only crave food that is good to eat; I do not believe it is made of rice.”27 This story seems to lie in the essence that lies behind the everyday. But the main point of the explanation is also in his viewpoint of “the compliant and contrary expedient means.” This thought of Weize of “eyes horizontal and nose vertical” and “the entirety of all that appears is perfect” exactly reflects the decline after Chan learning had developed to its highest point and shows the change in direction that completely catered to society. Naturally, his theory of the immortal soul and Pure Land faith of being outwardly Chan and inwardly Pure Land presented the basis for “the perfection of whatever appears,” which explains that nianfo and Chan are the same, and all is “compliant and contrary expedient means” is a method of a universally present “sacred nature.” Weize was a Chan monk and naturally he also regarded the mind as absolute, the nature as true and permanent. This what he meant by “the nature is the source of the mind, the mind is the source of the dharmas.”28 If one looks on this as a Pure Land concept, it also is only the idea of the mind-only Pure Land. But Weize used “sincerity” to speak of the nature of the mind, and he enlarged it to be mind-only Pure Land. He had a “Theory from Sincerity Hermitage” (Chengan shuo) that speaks solely about the word “sincerity.” It says, Sincerity is the ultimate of faith. If one goes from faith to sincerity, then it will the great basis that is established and the Way can by perfected [thereby]. The ultimate of sincerity is the ultimate truth, is supreme purity, and is the supreme permanence….Then our Buddha, the World-Honored One in reality is sincerity and forms the complete perfect awakening (samyak sambodhi), and the bodhisattvas of the ten directions push this sincerity into the six p¯aramit¯a and all practices. This worldly method (Dharma) is called the cultivation of the

27 28

The above quotes are all found in Weize’s “Instruction to the Assembly.”. “Instructions on the Mind to Deacon Yuanju,” Tianru Weize Chanshi yulu.

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antidote of equality and it also uses the mentation of sincerity to be the great basis. At its best, being sincere about it is to be righteous and to be broadly knowledgeable.29

In the logic of his thinking, the ultimate of faith is sincerity and the ultimate of sincerity is the supreme truth. And these categories naturally take the mind and the nature to be the subject, and because of this, they are also said to be the sincere mind, which is the mind of faith and the true nature. So then, the Chan School’s theory of the originally pure mind-nature, by means of the way of thinking about sincerity is held directly in common with faith. His theory of the World Honored One embodying sincerity and perfecting correct awakening is also the principle of the mind-nature of the Chan School in which one sees the mind and becomes buddha, and the bodhisattvas pushing sincerity into the six p¯aramit¯a and all practices, includes the use of the assistance of other-power and is a faith of nianfo and rebirth. Naturally, Weize has also drawn support from the word “sincerity” to connect these practices with the worldly law, merging Confucianism and Buddhism. However, what is important is that Weize took this one category of sincerity to highlight faith and used this to actualize the conversion of mind-only Pure Land into the Pure Land of the other shore. “Being sincere about it is to be righteous and to be broadly knowledgeable” should incorporate that level of meaning. The promotion of sincerity was to boost the Pure Land faith. He reinterpreted mind-only Pure Land and the theory of one’s original nature being Amit¯abha on this foundation. I have heard the theories of mind-only Pure Land and one’s intrinsic nature being Amit¯abha, and I delighted in them. I read the Pure Land sutras and s´a¯ stras, and what is called the Pure Land is a paradise that is millions and billions of lands distant; what is called Amit¯abha is the teacher in that paradise land. If so, then that and I are suddenly far beyond the mind-only and intrinsic nature.30

After reading the Pure Land sutras and s´a¯ stras, a Chan monk who regarded seeing the nature and becoming buddha as the core tenet, confirmed that the Pure Land is far from being in mind-only and is beyond the intrinsic nature, and is also millions and billions of lands beyond the actual world. He confirms that there is also a separate paradise land, which has a controller of that Pure Land who is the teacher Amit¯abha. From this one knows that Weize had fallen completely into Pure Land faith. And yet he knew that the theory of that other shore was ultimately a total illusion. He also wanted to join it to the principle of the mind-nature of the Chan School, using the mind-nature to link the present life and that of the future, reality and the other shore. Thus, he pointed out that. The investigation of Chan is the direct pointing at the human mind, seeing the nature and becoming buddha. Nianfo is to discern the mind-only Pure Land and see that the intrinsic nature is Amit¯abha. Since it is said that the intrinsic-mind is Amit¯abha and the mind-only is Pure Land; how can they not be the same?31 29

“Chengan shuo,” Tianru Weize Chanshi yulu. Weize, Jingtu huowen (Questions on Pure Land). 31 Tianru Weize Chanshi yulu, fascicle 2. 30

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This is to say, Chan uses the mind-nature to reach the sphere of the Buddha; nianfo uses the mind-nature to enable one to be reborn in the Pure Land, and so the mind-nature, Buddha-nature, Amit¯abha, and Pure Land are really all the same. Deliberating carefully on this passage, it is definitely incomprehensible, but the real meaning is very clear. That is to say, Chan takes seeing the nature to be its pursuit; nianfo takes rebirth to be its object; Chan regards the mind to be the Pure Land; nianfo regards Amit¯abha to be the nature, the mind to be the Pure Land, and the nature to be Amit¯abha, and the mind-only Pure Land is also the paradise Pure Land! There is no logic here; what he needs in his teachings is to spark your “sincerity,” which is faith. Therefore, he directly criticized Chan, saying, “With an empty stomach and an elevated mind, they practice to be crazy and false, and when they see the cultivation of the Pure Land, they laugh at it, saying, ‘They are learning what stupid men and women do.’” He wanted them, with the exception of nianfo, to “donate according to their ability, cultivate assistance with good achievements in order to help them, and even the slightest iota of good will all be directed to the western land.”32 In sum, nianfo, investigating Chan, and donation are all techniques, and to be reborn and to head for the western Pure Land is the aim. Undoubtedly, compared to his teacher Mingben, in his theory and also in the aspect of the practice of faith, Weize changed the Chan School even more thoroughly. Since Pure Land faith regarded the other shore to be really existent, it must take the soul to be immortal, with the hope of being reincarnated and reborn. In fact, the reason for specially drawing greatly on the power that Buddhism had among the people was definitely not due to Chan’s elevated and marvelous and tight principles, but was due to its change into the theories of the immortal soul and endless reincarnation, which gave hope to the common people who feared death or sought release. Weize likewise used this fear to firmly establish this faith. He said, “A wandering soul receives reward according to its deeds. How is this not an empty life and futile death, willingly undergoing reincarnation!” Clearly, he regarded the soul to be the subject of rebirth. He instructed the assembly of friends of the Way of Xizi (Western Assistance), saying, Since there is an age of teaching that has kindly encouraged rebirth, it is unknown how many [people would have been reborn in the Pure Land]. The quotes in the Liufang zhufo guangchang she zan (Praises of the Broad Long Tongue of the Buddhas of the Six Directions) proves the faith in rebirth. As in the Baoji jing (Ratnak¯ut.a S¯utra), there is the certification of ´ ´ akya clan being King Suddhodana (Buddha’s father) and seventy-thousand members of the S¯ born together into the paradise, which indicates the evidence for rebirth. Also, as in the last assembly of the Huayan [ jing], Samantabhadra encouraged Sudhana and the great oceanic assembly of beings to use the King of the Great Vow to lead them to tranquil nourishment (the Pure Land). Even the Guan fosanmei jing (Sutra of the Contemplation of the Buddha’s Sam¯adhi), in which Mañju´sr¯ı describes his past causation, means that one can always be born in the Pure Land [via] the nianfo Dharma-gateway and also that the chief and his attendants (Amit¯abha and the bodhisattvas) help and encourage one, spreading the teaching of rebirth. These are all the assemblies of the perfect school of understanding by faith and people who have climbed up through the stages [of the bodhisattva career] still vow to be reborn in that

32

Ibid.

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country (the Pure Land), so how can those of middle to low capacities not believe in and yearn for this?33

Not only did Weize quote sutras and depend on scriptures to explain that the souls of buddhas and bodhisattvas, and members of royal clans and aristocrats, do not perish, that they were equally born into paradise, he also hoped that the faith in rebirth being verified would induce the great mass of common people of middle to low capacities to all pursue the practice of nianfo. He also indicated that “Once this body has died, a spiritual consciousness may fall into the hells of the mountain of swords, forest of knives, furnaces of coals, boiling cauldrons and lakes, and experience unlimited suffering. Also, some may happen to enter the womb of a donkey, the stomach of a horse, into the path of the starving ghosts, transmigrating through rebirths and experience limitless suffering.”34 He recorded Dharma talks of “real examples” of rebirth after rebirth. The Chan School principle of introspection and internal illumination, enlightening the mind and seeing the nature, completely collapsed into the dream spoken by idiots about reincarnation. In his “Da Zhongwen fushi bingzhong yiwen” (Reply to Doubts Raised During Illness by the Vice-Commissioner Zhongwen), he told Zhongwen35 about the reality of rebirth by talking about illness: Because Chan Teacher Guizong Kexuan was upbraided by the governor of the commandery for not being respectful and using the denial of the Dharma to embarrass him, Kexuan dashed off a letter to the Commandery Defender Guo Gongfu (Guo Xiangzheng, 1035– 1113), saying, “I still have six years of worldly connections (life) that I have not used up. Today there is no way to deal with being repressed and I wish to be reborn in your family, and I hope that you will understand, and then I will pass away.” Gongfu and the master were good friends, and when he got the letter Gongfu was pleasantly surprised. He did not show the letter to his wife. In the middle of the night, his wife dreamt that Kexuan had entered their room and lay down [with her], and she unconsciously exclaimed, “Is this not the Reverend who has come!” Gongfu asked her the reason for this and his wife told him what she had seen. Then he called for a lamp and showed her the letter. Eventually she was pregnant and when the child was born, they called him Old Xuan (Xuanlao). A person enquired about this and he recalled what had occurred. At the age of three, Chan Teacher Baiyun Shouduan [1025–1072] went to test [the child]. Kexuan looked at him and said, “The teacher’s nephew has come.” Shouduan asked, “How many years have I been separated from your reverence?” Kexuan bent his fingers and said, “Four years. What has separated us?” “Bailian Zhuang (White Lotus Manor, the Pure Land).” Suddenly a push-cart passed outside the door. Shouduan said, “What is that sound?” Kexuan adopted the posture of pushing a cart. Shouduan said, “What about after it has passed?” Kexuan said, “Ruts on the flat ground.” After he lived for six years, he passed away without illness.

Weize originally wanted to say that “the shore of birth and death is not located where the date [of death] arrives,” and “at the time of death, whether one is sitting or standing, one should also be free to come or go,” yet he propped up this concept of the immortal soul and the illusory repose of transmigration that was not the transcendent spirit of the Chan School with the idea of “putting it down is correct” that “allows the free operation of according with conditions.” However, at the last he also said, 33

Tianru Weize Chanshi yulu, fascicle 3. Tianru Weize Chanshi yulu, fascicle 2. 35 Tr. probably Song Ke, 1327–1387, famous calligrapher. 34

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“Abandoning your own life and all thoughts, allowing one to become buddha, is also possible; and to fall forever into the evil paths is also possible. All advantages and disadvantages, right and wrong, are given to one without question,” and so on. Thus, one can also perceive traces of the Chan School thinking of “being apart from characteristics in characteristics, and no thought in thought.” And yet he attempted to use eternal life in the future in order to cut off attachments to reality. This only explains the dilution of Chan thought, which fell further into a faith that hankers after rebirth in the Pure Land. This outward Chan and inward Pure Land thought indicates exactly such a combination! From “seeing the nature and becoming buddha” to “this mind is buddha,” ending up with “rebirth in the Pure Land” definitely reflects the decay of Chan thought into Pure Land faith. It needs to be pointed out that this kind of decay of thought and culture deeply reflects people’s loathing and rejection of the real world and their tortuous criticism of it. Because of this, the changes in the Chan School towards the nianfo of Pure Land also expresses the overall trend of Buddhism towards participation in society.

Part 3: Fanqi and His Pure Land Faith In the transformation of the Chan School into Pure Land during the Yuan and Ming, this was not just an isolated case of advocating the joint cultivation of Chan and Pure Land and nianfo. Nevertheless, no one was firmer in the Pure Land faith than Chushi Fanqi. In his admiration for the western land, he gave himself the sobriquet Xizhai (Western Studio). Just before he died, he said to Tan’e,36 “Brother, I am departing.” Tan’e asked, “Where are you going?” “I am going to the west.” “If the west has Buddha, does the east have no Buddha?” Then “he thunderously impressed with a g¯ath¯a and passed away.”37 At one time this story was transmitted with approval. Zhuhong, who was titled the eighth patriarch of Lianzong (Lotus/Pure Land School), evaluated him as follows: “The first-class lineage (Chan) teachers of this dynasty completely respect Chushi. He built a stone room (cave) and called it Xizhai. He wrote the Xizhai Jingtu shi (Poems on the Pure Land from the Western Studio) in one fascicle….Those who call themselves Chan and look with disdain on the Pure Land should think long and deep about this.”38 Because a Chan monk who had

36

Tan’e, personal name Wumeng, style Xi’an. Together with Fanqi, he was a disciple in the school of Yuansou Xingduan, a Linji-lineage monk in the twentieth generation from Nanyue (Huairang). His written style was simple and archaic. He wrote Xinxiu kefen liuxue sengzhuan (A New Compilation of Monk Biographies Classified by the Six Branches of Learning). At the time, gentlemen-scholars praised him as being “the only person at present who is a venerable of the Chan ocean.”. 37 Zhiren, “Chushi Heshang xingzhuang” (Account of Conduct of Reverend Chushi). 38 Zhuhong, Yunqi fahui (Dharma Collection of Yunqi), “Huang Ming ming-seng yilue, Chushi Qi Chanshi” (Chan Teacher Chushi Qi, in Brief Collection of Famous Monks of the August Ming Dynasty).

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devoted himself to the Pure Land was titled a first-class lineage (Chan) teacher is sufficient to show that his Pure Land faith was far from being seen as ordinary. Fanqi (1296–1370), sobriquet Chushi, was a native of Xiangshan in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. His lay surname was Zhu, and because a monk said of him that “his illumination shone (yao) on a corrupted world,” his style was Tanyao. He lost his father at the age of four and his grandmother of the Wang clan raised him, verbally instructing him in the Analects so that he was able to recite it from memory. When asked what words in the text he liked, he responded, “The gentleman ( junzi) makes clear righteousness.” At the age of five, he went to Xizhe (western Zhejiang) and entered Yongzuo Monastery in Tianning, Jiaxing. He took as his teacher Naweng Mogong, and he received instruction in the sutras. Then he went to Chongen Monastery in Huzhou and he entrusted himself to a distant relative, Jinweng Xun. At that time, Zhao Mengfu often came to Chongen Monastery. There he saw Fanqi and valued him, provided him with a monk certificate, and urged him to bow to Naweng and obtain the tonsure. At the age of sixteen, he received the full precepts of a monk at Zhaohui Monastery in Hangzhou. At that time, the virtuosos and elders of the famous monasteries of the Two Zhe region fought to be invited to attend the ceremony. At the age of twenty, he followed Jinweng in leaving the monastery and was ordered to be Jinweng’s attendant, and he was in charge of keeping the keys to the library. One day, reading the Shou lengyan jing, he had a realization, and consequently when he read the Buddhist and non-Buddhist texts, he had no need to receive instruction from his teacher. When he heard that Yuansou Xingduan was abbot of Jingshan, he consulted Xingduan and learnt Chan studies in his school. At twenty-nine, he received an order from Emperor Yingzong that summoned good calligraphers to the court to write out the Buddhist Canon in gold lettering. Fanqi was among those selected for the task. It is said that his residence was in the Wanbao Quarter, close to Chongtian Gate. One evening he rose from sleep and heard the sound of the (curfew) drum in the decorated archway over the gate, and he was suddenly enlightened. He laughed, saying, “The nostril of Jingshan has come into my hands today.”39 He also wrote a g¯ath¯a that said, “Outside the Chongtian Gate the drum goes boom, boom,/ Suddenly punctures empty space as the land collapses./ I pick up a flake of snow from the red-hot stove,/ And yet there is ice in the sixth month on the Yellow River.”40 This actually happened in the first year of the Taiding era (1324). In the same year, Fanqi returned east and again consulted Yuansou at Jingshan. Yuansou saw that he had deeply attained the Chan Dharma and said that “I am happy that you have obtained the secret meaning that came from the West (India),” and “the Great Dharma of Miaoxi (Zonggao) has ended up with you,”41 and so Yuansou appointed him to be the second senior-most monk in the assembly. Most of those who came to consult Yuansou were ordered to debate with Fanqi instead.

39

Song Lian, “Fori Puzhao Huibian Chanshi taming” (Stupa Inscription of the Chan Teacher Fori Puzhao Huibian). 40 Zhiren, “Chushi Heshang xingzhuang.”. 41 Ibid.

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In the Taiding era (1324–1328), the Branch Commission for Tibetan and Buddhist Affairs ordered Fanqi retire to Fuzhen Monastery in Haiyan, and there he succeeded Yuansou and was in the fifth generation from Zonggao. In the Tianli era (1328– 1330), he was abbot of Yongzuo Monastery and he built the Great Jewel Pavilion and a seven-story stupa that was over 240 “feet” high. In the first year of the Zhiyuan era (1335) he shifted to be abbot of Baoen Monastery in Hangzhou. In the fourth year of the Zhizheng era (1338) he transferred to Benjue Monastery in Jiaxing. Three years later, Emperor Shun commended his deeds and works and gifted him the title of “Fori Puzhao Huibian Chanshi” (Chan Teacher of the Universal Illumination of the Buddha-Sun and Insightful Debater). In the seventeenth year of the Zhizheng era (1357), he again retired to Yongzuo Monastery in Tianning and two years later he went into seclusion, building the room he called Xizhai, and he gave himself the sobriquet of Master of Xizhai. At this time, the Yuan dynasty government was already in its sunset years. When the Ming dynasty first set up its state, it wished to use Buddhist services to save the souls of the deceased, thinking of the subjects killed in battle and the population killed by soldiers. Therefore, in the first and second years of the Hongwu era (1368–1369), the court twice ordered Fanqi to preach the Dharma at Jiangshan. “The emperor heard his preaching and was very delighted,” and “personally received his questions” and “decreed he reside in Tianjie Monastery.” The emperor produced white gold from the palace treasury to give him. In the third year of the Hongwu era (1370), Zhu Yuanzhang (the first Ming emperor) devoted himself to the matters of the spirits and the principle of the nether world and the earthly world. He ordered the Board of Rites to question Fanqi, who “instructed them based on the sutras and the s´a¯ stras, distinguishing the core principles of this [topic].” Then he was unable to send a memorial in reply, suddenly showed signs of illness, and on the twenty-third day of the seventh month, he sat cross-legged and wrote a g¯ath¯a: “The true nature is perfect and radiant,/ Basically there is no rising and cessation./ The wooden horse neighs at night,/ The sun rises in the west.”42 He told Tan’e he was going to be reborn in the western Buddha land and then passed away, aged seventy-five. This fully expressed his concern right till the end with the western paradise world. He was called by later people “the number one lineage (Chan) master of the country” of the Ming period, even though his main activities were in the Yuan and not in the Ming. Zhiren, who styled himself a Chan monk and was Fanqi’s Dharma disciple, concluded in his account of conduct, writing that “The master on most days liberated people, or he used letters to conduct Buddhist services. His Liuhui yu (Sayings of Six Assemblies) has been in print for a long time. He also wrote ‘Jingtu shi’ (Poem on the Pure Land), ‘Cishi shangsheng ge’ (G¯ath¯a on Maitreya’s Coming Birth), ‘Beiyu ji’ (Collection on Travelling North), ‘Fengshan ji’ (Collection of Fengshan), and ‘Xizhai ji’ (Collection of the Western Studio). He also wrote ‘He Tiantai sansheng shi’ (Poem Rhyming with the Three Saints of Tiantai), ‘Yongming Shou Chanshi shanju shi’ (Poem on Living in the Mountains of the Chan Teacher Yongming Yanshou), ‘Tao Qian shi’ (Poem on Tao Qian), and ‘Lin Bu shi’ (Poem on Escaping to the 42

Zhiren, “Chushi Heshang xingzhuang.”.

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Forest), in all a number of fascicles that circulate in public.” There is also the Chushi Chanshi yulu (Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Chushi) in twenty fascicles that was compiled by pupils. It is evident that Fanqi was also a poet-monk who could not be divorced from letters, and he was also a Chan monk who was devoted to the Pure Land. Seen from the angle of being a poet-monk, naturally, Fanqi in his other aspect of being free and easy in his understanding Chan, fully mastered the negating and critical consciousness that is the transcendental spirit of the Chan School, but speaking from the angle of his faith, Fanqi undoubtedly also clearly did not tolerate and rebutted stubborn biases and tendencies towards vulgar thought. First of all, he stressed the subtle relationship in which Chan is not separate from language and letters, and in order to show the Chan Dharma of letters he firmly established a kind of logical basis for Chan. He said, “The Dharma is apart from language and letters, [but] returns to letters and language. Even if one vigorously practices the Tripitaka’s teachings, how is it that the equal of directly cutting off the root-source [of delusion]?”43 He also criticized the abuses of Chan of his day, saying, “Not relying on letters is to vainly display one’s temperament, to directly point at the human mind is to worsen views and deepen faults.”44 His idea is that although Chan resides beyond language, it still needs to be recorded in letters to express itself, which is said from the viewpoint of propagating the Chan Dharma. If one wants to discern the Chan realm and actualize the pristine original mind that transcends everything, and one also needs to directly enter enlightenment at a stroke, one does not need a letter and does not use any effort, and directly perceives the mind-source! If not, then one can “make a tour through many writings and not be awakened, and the more one reads the more one is confused.”45 Evidently, he treated lecturing on Chan and being enlightened to Chan as being separate, the aim being to show a kind of logical interpretation via his own Dharma talks and Chan poems. In fact, Fanqi even addressed the Chan fashion of not seeking intellectual understanding and not cultivating scriptural doctrines. He instructed the assembly, “Only looking at the sutras and s´a¯ stras is most inappropriate. There are sutra teachers for sutras and s´a¯ stra teachers for s´a¯ stras, but since you are called a Chan teacher, what are you doing worming your head in a pile of old paper?”.46 43

Fanqi, “Mingzhen song ershiba shou” (Twenty-eight Poems Enlightening to the Truth). Chushi Fanqi Chanshi yulu: Zhu Haiyanzhou Tianning Yongzuo Chansi yulu (Recorded Sayings of Chan Teacher Chushi Fanqi: Recorded Sayings While Living at Yongzuo Chan Monastery of Tianning in Haiyanzhou). 45 Fanqi, “Mingzhen song ershiba shou.”. 46 Fanqi, Zaizhu Haiyanzhou Tianning Yongzuo Chansi yulu (Recorded Sayings of Again Living at Yongzuo Chan Monastery in Tianning, Haiyanzhou). Here he divides monks into sutra teachers, s´a¯ stra teachers, and Chan teachers, and that Chan teachers do not cultivate the sutra doctrines and do not rely on intellectual understanding. Yet for Chan teachers to speak of Chan, they must also draw on language and letters, and therefore they “return to letters and languages.” In fact, these questions are always a difficult problem for Chan and also are a puzzle for people trying to understand Chan. Even though Fanqi with this sort of distinction was not addressing this difficulty, still it was a help in the interpretation of this contradictory phenomenon. 44

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Therefore, the Chan fashion of not seeking intellectual understanding, not cultivating the sutra doctrine, and even of acting crazily, of scolding the patriarchs and abusing the Buddha, sparing no effort to express the everyday mind in the Chan way, is an important feature of Fanqi’s Chan thought. He stressed first of all that “In all directions of heaven and earth of the great land, humans, beasts, grasses…all are in my own room (mind). Therefore, I say, ‘On a patch of vacant land in front of the monastery,/ With clasped hands I politely asked Patriarch Weng,/ How many times have you sold and bought yourself?/ To sympathize with the pines and bamboo, I drew forth the clean breeze.’” It is exactly because of this “that is within your own room,” there is naturally no need to “thoroughly investigate and seek” externally.47 In his view, not only are things of the external realm just like nirvana, the correct Dharma-eye (appreciation), becoming Buddha and being a patriarch, cleansing the mind and stopping thoughts, all knowledge, and all sutra proofs, but also that “These are all worn-out straw sandals at the cross roads.” All of these should absolutely be “cast into the river at Qiantang.”48 One only needs “the everyday mind” to face the great trichiliocosm world. Therefore, when a monk asked, “When does one get to perfect the Buddha Way?” his reply was, “There is no Buddha, there is no Way!” He also pointed out, “Offerings to the hundreds of thousands of buddhas are not the equal of making offerings to a mindless person of the Way (monk).”49 This fully expresses his way of thinking of “Setting free in accord with conditions and allowing the nature to operate to and fro.” Such kinds of passages are found everywhere in his recorded sayings: The mind basically is Buddha; it creates and it also denies. The Way has no use for cultivation and it must not be polluted. If one deliberates on the Buddha-dharma, one will fall alive into hell. A person of the past in their real characteristics put [things] down to be stable. I do not do so, I rise up and go. Giving rise to the mind and activating thoughts is erroneous imagination; cleansing the mind and stopping thoughts is erroneous imagination; becoming buddha and being a patriarch are erroneous imagination; frequently extinguishing erroneous imagination with erroneous imagination; there is no end to it.50 Whether one becomes buddha or does not become buddha, all are idle language.51 The saint is entirely an ordinary person, the ordinary person is entirely a saint.52 Whatever one sees, all is this the Way. Do not choose between refined and coarse, large and small. What is the difference between sentient beings and the Buddha? All are created by one’s own mind.

47

Chushi Fanqi Chanshi yulu: Zaizhu Haiyanzhou Tianning Yongzuo Chansi yulu. Chushi Fanqi Chanshi yulu: Zhu Haiyanzhou Tianning Yongzuo Chansi yulu. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 Chushi Fanqi Chanshi yulu: Zhu Jiaxinglu Benjuesi yulu (Recorded Sayings When Living in Benjue Monastery in Jiaxing Circuit). 52 Chushi Fanqi Chanshi yulu: Zaizhu Haiyanzhou Tianning Yongzuo Chansi yulu. 48

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The Chan teacher does not need much knowledge; he eats when starving and drinks when thirsty, according with the times. It is a great mistake to take the mind to use the mind. One may be compassionate and cultivate the Way while in the Way. Seeking and searching internally and externally are not evident, and in between there is also not an iota, [yet] sentient beings seek another wisdom [outside of that]. How are the buddhas different to idiots?53

This non-requirement for intellectual understanding and the everyday mind that sets free in accord with conditions developed most easily into scolding the patriarchs and abusing the Buddha, and there are always these kinds of very disrespectful words in this and other recorded sayings: The buddhas and bodhisattvas [are] beasts, donkeys, and horses.54 The bodhisattva Guanyin changed into a black lacquered staff.55 It is you, it is I, who scatter soil and scatter sand [to change the valued into the valueless], exiting and entering through the same gate, life and death are enemies.56 The one great canon of teaching is simply a village account of a sold field.57 The three vehicles and twelve-fold teachings are just like a cesspool.58 If you say the word “Buddha,” wash out your mouth for three years.59

All these words are no more than explanations, not only of material dharmas, life and death, et cetera, that normal people distinguish in erroneous imaginations that should not be attached to. Even if they cleanse minds and calm thoughts, the thought of becoming buddha and attaining the Way is still a kind of discrimination and erroneous discrimination. It is only when one is a “mindless person of the Way” who “eats when hungry and drinks when thirsty” that this tallies with the spirit of Chan. From this it can be seen that Fanqi, who was made a Chan monk, still retained features of being a Chan master, but his emphasis on that “everyday mind” in which “putting it down is right” was also formed on the basis of his idea of being in harmony with reality60 and it reflects the change of Chan thought from negation to affirmation, and the overall gradual decline, or the general tendency to secularization. 53

Fanqi, “Mingzhen song ershiba shou.”. Chushi Fanqi Chanshi yulu: Zhu Haiyanzhou Tianning Yongzuo Chansi yulu. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 57 Chushi Fanqi Chanshi yulu: Zaizhu Haiyanzhou Tianning Yongzuo Chansi yulu. 58 In the same book, Zhu Jiaxinglu Benjuesi yulu. 59 Chushi Fanqi Chanshi yulu: Zhu Haiyanzhou Tianning Yongzuo Chansi yulu. 60 These ideas of eating when hungry, drinking when thirsty, all that one sees is the Way, sentient beings are the Buddha, are as if they were drawn out from the nature of negation, which can be used to affirm one’s own mind, and also can be used to affirm the control of reality. Due to this, Fanqi could also use it to collaborate with the Yuan and Ming ruling class. Therefore, each time he was abbot of a monastery, as soon as he first ascended the hall to give a formal sermon, he first produced the court’s certificate of appointment, which was an official document from the Commission for Tibetan and Buddhist Affairs, and he lifted up incense and said, “This piece of incense is actually to pray for the court and the current emperor’s holy long life, long life, long, long life! This piece of incense I offer to the officials of the Commission of Tibetan and Buddhist Affairs, the officials of the Jiaxing Circuit, the officials of Haiyanzhou, so that they all have an increase in good fortune!” Having prayed for the emperor, the Commissioner for Tibetan and Buddhist Affairs and the regional officials of the prefectures and circuits, he also did not forget to pray for their promotion and wealth, 54

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Third, of course the notable feature of Fanqi’s thought was his unshakably firm Pure Land faith. He used this kind of language to set off against the world of the other shore. According to what is said, the Saha (this) world has pits and mounds, rubble and brambles, the earth and stones and mountains are high and low, not flat. The paradise world is flat, the land like one’s palm, the palaces and towers of precious stones are magnificent, the water birds and forests always proclaim the marvelous Dharma.61

The Saha is this shore, the paradise is the other shore, and Fanqi clearly believed firmly without a doubt in the existence of that paradise on the other shore. Even though he also said that the divisions of both realms, the Saha world and paradise, premature death and longevity, suffering and pleasure, clean and dirty, ordinary and saint are six of one and half a dozen of the other, it being useless to “dislike this and be happy with that,”62 it also betrays the Chan master’s negation of negation, the way of thinking that transcends dualistic antithesis, and yet in the final analysis, he is also emphasizing the existence of the western paradise and strenuously seeking rebirth there. In his “Poem on the Pure Land,” he concentrated on expressing his Pure Land faith of rebirth via nianfo. I distantly point to my home in the setting sun, One single return path as straight as a bow-string. In the sky there is a chorus of delightful music. On the water blooms open, flower after lotus flower. The flowering trees, branches and stems form into all kinds of gems. The crowds present take food superior to that of the gods. My teacher has a vow that will carry me there, It is not in vain that I have been ardently expecting it for fifty years. One lotus contains a holy fetus, In one birth of effort a flower blooms. Fitting the body, the garlands appear as one wishes, Filling utensils with curds, it comes after thinking of it. The golden halls have light that swallows the sun and moon. The jade towers have no place for dust to alight. The Dharma king, talks of the genuine truth for the king, And one directly gets in empty space a smile that fills the cheeks. An inch of time, an inch of gold, I encourage you to nianfo, straightaway turn your mind to it. Even though the phoenix pavilions and dragon towers are valuable, It is hard to avoid wrinkled (chicken) skin and white (crane) hair encroaching.

which is sufficient to show that this was colored by his attempts to please them. The later inferior followers of the Chan School tended to degeneration, and the basis on which their thought was transformed was mostly in respect of their misinterpretation of the “everyday mind” in which “all that appears is perfect.”. 61 Chushi Fanqi Chanshi yulu: Zaizhu Haiyanzhou Tianning Yongzuo Chansi yulu. 62 Chushi Fanqi Chanshi yulu: Zaizhu Haiyanzhou Tianning Yongzuo Chansi yulu.

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And within the cauldron the incense smoke at the start [of the funeral] has not yet dispersed. In the sky the Dharma-carriage [to carry the soul] is already approaching from afar. Each dust mote and each land, although pristine, There is only Amit¯abha, his vow very powerful.63

In the poem, Fanqi no longer spoke of “beasts, donkeys, and horses” but of “the holy fetus in the lotus flower,” he no longer spoke of “a cesspool” but of magnificent buildings, he no longer spoke of “birth and death are enemies” but of “Within the cauldron the smoke of incense has yet to disperse, In the sky the Dharma-carriage is approaching from afar,” he no longer spoke of “If you say the word ‘Buddha,’ wash out your mouth for three years” but of “I encourage you to nianfo and straightaway turn one’s mind to it.” The import of the Chan learning of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature and the transcendence of purity and filth, of this and that, was completely inundated by the belief in the Pure Land. Even though this pristine mind could not substitute for the power of the vows of Amit¯abha, the theory of the awakened enlightenment reliant on self-power at once changed into reliance on other-power and the illusory hope of being reborn into a heaven. It is exactly this firm undoubting Pure Land faith that not only made Fanqi, such a major figure of the Chan School, pray for nianfo, but it also changed the inherent transcendence with awakened enlightenment as its core into making rebirth into a purely superstitious activity of prayers for the deceased and sending off the dead. The two Dharma assemblies held at the start of the Ming were both meant to save the ghosts of those who had died in the warfare and Fanqi’s sermons were also meant to rescue the mass of sentient souls from the ocean of the transmigration through birth and death. He “proclaimed the lineage (Chan) vehicle and the meritorious exploits that he gathered were used to redeem the souls of beings of the four kinds of birth in the six paths [of reincarnation], and the innocent who have been unjustly treated will all escape the nether world and will end up being born in the Pure Land and achieve bodhi (enlightenment).”64 It is not surprising that just before Fanqi died that he spoke of “going to the west.” One can say that he had thus made himself into a Chan master, but speaking from the depths of his thought, he had already degenerated completely into a Pure Land believer. One cannot deny that Fanqi also had fairly deep accomplishments in Chan learning, but he gave too much weight to the everyday mind that does not need intellectual understanding, and as a result he really discarded the transcendental spirit of Chan. His scolding of the patriarchs and abuse of the Buddha were nothing more than words that ridiculously imitated crazy Chan. These were no longer weapons for the transcendence of reality, but formed a cooperation with reality and were tools in the service of reality. Although his Pure Land faith was firm, yet it irrationally provided a rational interpretation, and because of this, it could only be a kind of shallow faith. In fact, once his transformation of the Chan School into nianfo had deviated from 63

Jingtu ziliang quanji (Complete Collection of Resources for the Pure Land), fascicle one, Fanqi, “Jingtu shi.”. 64 Chushi Fanqi Chanshi yulu, fascicle 20.

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the theory of mind-only Pure Land, the nature of his thought also began down this slippery slope. This was the change of the Chan School into the original appearance of nianfo Chan, and Fanqi’s Chan view of “setting free in accord with conditions and of going to and fro as one intends” was also submerged by the Pure Land faith so that it was no longer evident. Besides this, Fanqi also esteemed Huayan and advocated the unity of Chan and Doctrine. He repeatedly set up of Huayan jing (Avatamsaka ˙ S¯utra) assemblies in order to promote its teachings, grandly lecturing about “mixing curds, whey, and ghee into one taste; melting down goblets, trays, and hairpins to create one [mass of] gold; unifying yin and yang, cold and heat into one time; and mixing the Yangzi, Yellow, Huai, and Ji rivers into one water. Each seal is all seals, one gate is all gates….Therefore, I say that the Buddha preached all dharmas in order to cure all minds.” He used the idea that the mind perfectly merges the dharmas, which expresses the nature of the thought that blends Chan and Doctrine. When he spoke of “a single moon universally appearing in all waters, and all the moons in the waters are absorbed into one mind,” this was completely Huayan language. Since this was a necessary tendency in the development of thought, after the court debates between Chan and Doctrine, this was an element in the redemption of Chan masters themselves. One should say that the fusion of Chan and Doctrine, compared to the changes giving rise to the Pure Land faith, was a much greater contribution to the development of thought. The persons who created this contribution were not Fanqi, but were a number of Chan masters of later times.

Part 4: Zhuhong and His Theory of Rebirth in the Pure Land by the Joint Practice of Chan and Pure Land Although the Chan monasteries and hermitages from the Yuan to Ming were numerous, their people many, and the circumstances excellent, still Chan thought gradually declined and displayed a change in these conditions, and a few famous Chan teachers “hid their reputation for knowledge, coaxed the rich and powerful to build monasteries and tonsure many people. They dwelt in magnificent buildings and when they called many responded, and when clothed they were in the glossy and new, and when they ate it was sweet and delicious food, and they even accumulated gold and silk and controlled fields and estates. They were rich in people and excellent in their circumstances, and then they rose in the world and that was all they did.”65 And yet, “the Way of the lineage patriarchs was reduced to almost nothing.”66 At that time, Chan learning had fallen into desolation. As the Nan Song Yuan Ming sengbao zhuan (Biographies of the Monk Treasures of the Southern Song, Yuan, and Ming) said, “The branches of Shaoshi (Caodong) had flowed into [making] evaluations, and the Broken Bridge (Linji lineage) line had almost come to 65 66

Debao, Xiaoyan beiji (Collection of North of Xiaoyan). Tanji Hongren, Piwang jiu lüe lun (On Refuting the Erroneous and Rescuing the Inadequate).

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be submerged. Even though the monastery flag poles in the southern regions could be seen one from the other, generally they were all half alive and half expired, and the life of the insight of the Buddha and patriarchs existed almost in name only.” The entire Linji lineage in the Yuan and Ming period was like ice and frost waiting to be dissolved. When Song Lian was evaluating Fanqi, he particularly adopted the view of an onlooker, pointing out the abuses of the later, inferior adherents of the Chan School: “From the recent period, those who transmit [Chan] have lost the truth, sinking in the billows and following along with the waves, declining day by day. The gentlemen who managed the Dharma and had a handle on it further sanctioned this, causing fish-eyes to be confused for pearls. At the moment of raising eyebrows and blinking eyes, they always say they are enlightened….The core essentials of the five houses were abstracted and memorized, saying this is Linji, this is Caodong and Fayan, this is Weiyang and Yunmen, transmitting it unquestioned without a break, setting them up as vivifying opportunities….They took these [houses] and differentiated them verbally, calling it the transmission of gongan.”67 Yuanxian then sang of it almost in a dirge: “From this time on, the more it progressed the more it declined./ The Dharma-gateway is extinguished, one should wait [before taking even] half a step.”68 In such circumstances, the Chan School in particular was impacted on by the Esoteric Buddhism of the lamas and the Pure Land nianfo, and it sharply changed direction and produced changes. There were few Ming-dynasty monks after Fanqi who did not advocate the joint cultivation of the Pure Land and nianfo. After Fanqi, there was Chushan Shaoqi, who regarded nianfo as being a gongan, solely chanted the name of Amit¯abha, and also regarded “this mind is buddha” to be the basis of his thought. He instructed Layman Xiufeng, “Nianfo means one should know that the Buddha is mind….Just sweep clean all the wise views one has accumulated in the everyday, and solely take up the sentence ‘Amit¯abha Buddha,’ place it into one’s embrace, silently embody it fully, and at all times goad oneself with doubt.” At the same time, there was Konggu Jinglong (1392–?), who also championed nianfo. He thought that “The gateway of nianfo is an essential short-cut in cultivating practice….The emptiness and falsity of the world is the root of birth and death, and only the Pure Land can be returned to and nianfo should be relied on. Urgent thoughts and sluggish thoughts are all without impediments….Just take the believing mind to be the basis and all confused thoughts will not follow after it. If one practices it like this, then one invariably will not be enlightened, but after death one will still be born in the Pure Land.” He regarded birth and death to be the concern, did not expect the enlightenment of a Chan master, and also hoped for rebirth in the Pure Land. Dufeng Jishan (aka Benshan, d. 1482) also stated, “Realize that one’s own mind is originally Buddha….Just take the nianfo gongan that I have given you and use your mind to take it up [for consideration], and solely investigate it in order to anticipate

67

Song Lian, “Fori Puzhao Huibian Chanshi yulu xu” (Preface to the Recorded Sayings of Chan Teacher Fori Puzhao Huibian). 68 Yuanxian, Xu yiyan (Continued Dream Talk).

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thorough enlightenment.”69 After Emperor Wuzong (r. 1507–1521), there were also Guyin Jingqin (fl. 1512) and Xiaoyan Debao (fl. 1577)70 who advocated nianfo, verbally chanting Amit¯abha Buddha (Amituo Fo) as a Chan School gongan case. The former wrote a “Nianfo jingce ge” (G¯ath¯a Admonishing One to Practice Nianfo) that said, “The one sentence, Amituo Fo, is a gongan case of the lineage (Chan) school….While walking, standing, sitting and reclining, do not interrupt [chanting] the sentence ‘Amituo Fo.’ One should believe that the cause is profound and that the result is profound, and only make not chanting (nian, being mindful) to be chanting by itself (zinian). If one can chant after chant (niannian) be not empty, definitely take the thought to form it into one piece. One should chant (nian) and recognize the chanter (nianren), and Amit¯abha and I will appear together. Then enter into the sam¯adhi of nianfo and personally witness the inner sanctum of the paradise.” Debao wrote Lianbang shixuan (Selection of Poems on the Lotus Country [Pure Land]), which also advocated, “If one gives one’s entire strength in full sincerity to take up one nian,/ It will be like dreaming that one’s whole body falls into water and mud,” and “Where the red orb [of the sun] sets is my home [the western Pure Land],/ I only fear that at that opportunity I am one chant (nian) short.” He also pointed out that one needed to take the name of Amit¯abha Buddha and make it into a huatou for investigation. “Take up Amit¯abha Buddha in the pure mind that has nothing to rely on and nothing to attach to, sometimes making the sounds of numerous chants (nian), sometimes being silently mindful (nian) in one’s mind….In less than a half year or a year, the huatou itself forms a single piece.”71 This is clearly wanting to merge the simultaneous practice of kanhua and nianfo of Mingben with the nianfo Chan that had been inherited and reform it into a unity. The late Ming-period nianfo Chan burnt especially bright and almost became a sound of mourning for the deceased. The Caodong monk Wuming Huijing (1548–1618) wrote Nianfo fayao (Essentials of the Nianfo Method), which not only spoke of “nian (chanting) the Buddha’s [name] with a pure mind and listening with a pure mind,” but also propagated “the mind is buddha, the buddha is mind.” “On the different road that transcends the patriarchs and transcends the lineage, those who universally encourage nianfo and investigating Chan do not take their parental home (their own school, mind?) to be the enemy.” What he propagated was no different in its inclination to nianfo Chan. His disciple, Wuyi Yuanlai (1575–1630) also wrote Jingtu ge (G¯ath¯a on the Pure Land) in 108 verses, linking the six-character name “Nanwu Amituofo” (Hail to Amit¯abha Buddha) to the 100,000 causations of the western land. A sentence in one of the verses is, “The pure mind is the western land.” He also changed “mind-only Pure Land” into “other-shore Pure Land.” Yuanlai especially emphasized that chanting (nian) a single sentence of Amit¯abha “should be making belief, practice, and the vow into a resource,” and since he wanted to believe “that one’s own mind has the seed 69

Requoted from Nukariya Kaiten, Zhongguo Chanxue sixiang shi, Shanghai guiji chubanshe, 1994, pp. 736, 743. 70 Both were Linji-lineage monks. Jingqin was sanctioned by Tangsong of Wushan in Nanyang; Debao was an heir of Mingben’s descendant Tianqi Benrui. 71 Debao, Xiaoyan bei ji.

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for becoming Buddha,” he also wanted “to believe that there is a Pure Land one can be born into,” that “practice is to chant continuously (niannian) without a break,” and that “the vow gives birth to the Pure Land….We will together be born in the Pure Land and together we will perfect the Buddha Path.”72 In sum, from Chushan Shaoqi to Wuyi Yuanlai, Ming-period Chan monks held both the pure action (deeds that lead to rebirth in the Pure Land) and belief in rebirth, something that continued without a break. Nevertheless, if one is to discuss the external joint cultivation of Chan and Pure Land and the victory of the internal belief in the pure action, then one should nominate the pupil of Deshao as the one who was praised as the eighth patriarch of the Lianzong, namely Yunqi Zhuhong. Zhuhong (1535–1615), lay surname Chen, style Fahui, was a native of Hangzhou. His was a famed clan for generations, and his father, Dejian was a famed scholar whom people called Sir Mingzhai. When young, Zhuhong practiced writing exam compositions (eight-legged essays) and “at seventeen he entered the prefectural school. He was often the top student in the exams. He studied composition and the arts, and he was famed for a time….He participated in playing at lecturing, but he was definitely convinced by Buddhist principles and he rested his mind on the Pure Land.”73 In his neighborhood there was an old woman who daily completed the chant of the Buddha’s name several thousand times. Zhuhong asked her the reason for this. The old woman said, “If in former days I keep the Buddha’s name, then when I am about to die, there will be no illness and I will depart from being a human being at one thrust. Therefore, I know that the merit of nianfo is inconceivable.” Zhuhong then wrote the four characters “great matter [of] birth [and] death” on his desk in order to warn himself. Zhuhong always lamented, “Time passes in a flash, so what of human longevity? After I am thirty, I will be detached and go afar (be reborn in the Pure Land).” In the forty-fifth year of Jiaqing (1566), Zhuhong eventually joined Wumen Dongxing Tianli (Tianli redundant characters?) in Xishan and was tonsured. He begged Vinaya Teacher Wuchen Yu of Zhaoqing Monastery to give him the full precepts of a monk.74 Once he went north to visit Mt. Wutai, where he worshipped Mañju´sr¯ı at night. He entered the capital and consulted Pianrong and Debao. Debao said, “You have come from three thousand leagues away to reveal it to me, what have I to reveal to you?” Zhuhong was enlightened and departed. Passing Dongchang, he wrote a g¯ath¯a that said, “The affairs of twenty years previous are doubtful./ What remarkable thing did I encounter over three thousand leagues away?/ Burning incense and holding a halberd, it is exactly like a dream./ The demons and Buddha fight in vain over right and wrong.” In the fifth year of Longqing (1571), while begging for food, he returned to the Zhe region and he saw the profound calm of the landscape of Yunqi, and so he built a hut and stayed there. Thus, he was called Yunqi. At that time there were many tigers in the surrounding mountains. Yearly they harmed several 72

Yuanlai, Zongjiao daxiang yi, “Jingtu pin dier” (Replies on the Lineage [Chan] and Doctrine, Response 1, “On the Pure Land Chapter, Part 2”). 73 Xin xugaoseng zhuan (New Continued Biographies of Monks), fascicle 43, in Gaoseng zhuan heji, Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991, p. 901. 74 Ibid., p. 901.

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tens of the villagers. It is related that Zhuhong made a compassionate vow, intoned sutras, and donated food, and the problems with the tigers ended. Also, in that year there was a severe drought and the villagers begged him to pray for rain. He replied, “I only know nianfo and have no other [magical] art.” It ended with the villagers firmly requesting him to pray and so he hit the wooden (fish-shaped) drum and went around the fields chanting the name of the Buddha. At that time, it poured with rain. Because of this, the villagers built a monastery on the ruins of a former monastery. It had no gate of respect and no great Buddha hall, only a meditation hall for the monks to stay in and a Dharma hall to hold the sutras, which just kept out the wind and rain. As a result, Chan monks came to join him and his Way of the Dharma became popular, and so the monastery became a major Chan teaching monastery. Because the Way of Chan at that time had fallen into desolation and it was also thought that the one gateway of Pure Land cut through birth and death and universally included beings of the three capacities (low, middling, and high), Zhuhong consequently wrote an Amituo jingchao (Abstract of the Amit¯abha S¯utra) in over 100,000 words to completely support the perfect and sudden teachings of the sutras, to merge phenomena and principle, and point the way back to the one mind. He said of himself, “I generally [practice] Pure Land in the main, but in winter I solely sit in meditation, and the rest of the time I also lecture on and intone [the sutras].”75 This explains that Zhuhong had the status of a Chan monk, but held nianfo to be important and jointly cultivated Chan and Doctrine. In this respect he was in close accord with the cultural tide of synthesis and change. He also wrote Shami yaolüe (Brief Essentials for a Novice Monk), Fanwang jingshu (Commentary on the Brahmajala S¯utra), Jujie bianmeng (Guide for the Ignorant on the Full Precepts), and Changuan cejin (Goad Forward Through the Chan Barrier) et cetera in order to firm up the foundations for students and to create a means for them to enter the Path. In the wuzi year of the Wanli era (1588), an epidemic spread and thousands died daily. At the request of the governor, Zhuhong exorcised it through prayer. He had mobilized the accumulation of resources to build bridges. Deqing said that every time Zhuhong saw the sinking of a pylon, “he chanted the incantation a hundred times and the tides did not come in for several days, and so the bridges were completed.” Deqing wrote a hymn about it, saying, “In the past King Qian [Liao of Wu-Yue] used ten-thousand crossbows to shoot at the tide,/ And the master used the force of the mind to apply to it.”76 Due to these activities, Zhuhong’s associates increased daily and those who came to him as students from all over streamed in. The empress heard of his reputation and sent an emissary to present him with a purple sa˙ngh¯a.t¯ı (robe). Zhuhong wrote a g¯ath¯a that he presented to her, saying, “Those who are honored and glorified and are influential and wealthy,/ Are so due to their planting of good roots in the past./ The cause being excellent, the results must be magnificent./ ….[But] to cultivate blessings and not cultivate insight,/ In the end is not a cause of liberation/….Be mindful that the Buddha (nianfo) is pristine,/ And that the mind’s 75

Zhuhong, Chongxiu Yunqi Chanyuan ji (Record of the Reconstruction of Yunqi Chan Cloister). Deqing, ‘Gu Hang Yunqi Lianchi Dashi taming” (Stupa Inscription for the Late Great Master Lianqi of Yunqi in Hangzhou).

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Pure Land is also pure./ [Birth] in the Terrace of the Lotus [in the Pure Land] is of the highest grade/ And one is reborn in its midst.” He also lectured on the Yuanjue jing in Jingci Monastery and daily the audience reached several tens of thousands. For redemption, he made the Wangong Pond in front of the monastery into a pond for releasing live animals, and he established places in the mountains to release live animals, seeking redemption by releasing flying birds, beasts, and insects. Each year he gave two hundred dan (one dan approximately equals one hectoliter) of millet to feed them. He also fixed a ritual text for the ritual of liberation of the souls of beings of the waters and land and those of the Yoga (rituals of the Yujia School formed in the Ming) of feeding the hungry ghosts with flaming mouths in order to rescue them from the sufferings of the underworld. Not only did he do this, Zhuhong also kept the precepts very strictly and Deqing titled a hymn that celebrated Zhuhong’s “innate nature [as being] plain and real, simple and bland, without any connection to adornment….From the time he had a teaching monastery,/ In over fifty years, he never misused a single coin.”77 Deqing even compared Zhuhong to “a Confucius of the Dharma-gateway” and said that his “talent was sufficient to administer the world, his enlightenment was sufficient to transmit the mind, his teaching was sufficient to tally with the abilities [of the students], his [observation of the] precepts was sufficient to protect the Dharma, his conduct was sufficient to encourage the public, and his [pure] regulations were sufficient to save [monks] from abuses.”78 Although these words of Deqing have a hint of excessive praise, one can see that his learning covered Buddhist and non-Buddhist ideas, and that his personal integrity was based on his faith. The patronage from the court and Zhuhong himself practicing what he preached made the powerful and the rich of the court and the provinces all come to serve him. In their hundreds of thousands, the famous gentlemen of the empire, the great ministers, elders, and laymen from among the various people of good faith, were all naturally inclined to serve him.79 For example, there were the Minister of War Song Yingchang, the Great Steward (Minister of Personnel) Lu Guangzu, the Palace Advisor Zhang Yuanbian, the Chancellor of the Directorate of Education Feng Mengzhen, and Tao Wangling and so on. In the forty-third year of the Wanli era (1615), in the sixth month, Zhuhong entered the city walls to farewell his disciples and old friends. At the start of the seventh month he entered the abbot’s room with an illness, and as his life was about to end, he told his disciples, “When old, really [practice] nianfo,” “Do not destroy my regulations and guidelines,” and he wrote three things he regretted and ten things to be lamented in order to warn his followers. He was aged eighty-one.80 Later generations thought he

77

Deqing, Ibid. Ibid. 79 Guangrun, Yunqi benshi xinglüe (A Brief Account of My Master Yunqi). 80 With the exception of explicit notes, the references are all from the Xin xugaoseng zhuan. 78

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had been a distant heir of the Dharma of Yanshou and made him the eighth patriarch of Lianzong,81 and he also had the title of Great Teacher Lianchi (Lotus Pond). Zhuhong entered Buddhism from Confucianism and his writings were very prolific. Besides those mentioned above, there were also his Zhidao lu (Record of the Direct Way), Shangfang lu (Record of a Mountain Room), Yunqi yigao (Bequeathed Drafts of Yunqi), et cetera. His Zhuchuang suibi (Jottings from a Bamboo Window) in particular was frequently read by the public. His Wangsheng ji (Collection on Rebirths) is a text recording events of influences and responses of the propagators of nianfo and the cultivation of its practice. It is included in the Taish¯o Tripitaka. His disciples collected his works into a collection, the Yunqi fahui (Dharma Collection of Yunqi), which circulated among the public. Summarizing the above, one can see that although Zhuhong went from Confucianism to Chan, because the Chan Way was in the midst of decline, he wanted to use Pure Land to give rise to a mind of faith and to rescue Chan from the trend towards decline. Therefore, even though Zhuhong was of great renown, his contributions to the Chan School were really not in renewal or creativity in theory, but were in using the Pure Land faith and the practice of nianfo for rebirth, and in a reform of the Chan School teachings on the mind-nature. In the last years of the Ming, the decline of the lineage of the Chan School was even more irreparable. Those who were slightly above average imitated the barbed comment language in the gongan and flaunted their so-called ability and wisdom to curry favor with claptrap. Really this was just a proliferation of the abuse of the Chan style of the gongan of previous ages. The inferior people also secured their positions by deceit and cheated men and bullied women, and “There were some who died due to going insane and others abandoned the Way and returned to the laity, and some improperly gathered in the mountain forests and made plundering their job.”82 The Chan School of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature had changed into a tool to fight to show their skill and to win fame by deceiving people. The Chan monasteries that had been aloof, holy, and pure sites were wholly changed into dens of iniquity. Zhuhong was pained greatly by this. He said that people in the past used a single blow and a single shout “that enlightened people, not like people of today who take hitting people to be their job.”83 “The monks of today have little ability and talent so they specialize in exegesis and work at writing like Confucian students, and those who are better thoughtlessly pick up the enlightenment triggers of virtuosos of the past and pursue the sounds and capture the shadows, making those of an enlightened vision laugh. Hearing these words, they transcend the previous arguments against these practices, and after falling into mediocrity, the abuses of the 81

The “Jingtu lijiao zhi” (Treatise on Establishing the Pure Land Teaching) in Fozu tongji lists the eight patriarchs of the Lianzong, but they are usually omitted after Yanshou. Wu Yingbin, “Lianzong Bazu Hangzhou Gu Yunqi-si zhongxing zunsu Lianchi Dashi taming bingxu” (Stele Inscription with Preface for the Late Great Master Lianchi, the Venerable who Restored Yunqi Monastery of Hangzhou, the Eighth Patriarch of the Lotus School) lists Zhuhong as the eighth patriarch. Deqing and Emperor Yongzheng made similar statements. See later. 82 Yuanxian, Xu yiyan. 83 Yunqi yigao, “Dawen” (Answers to Questions).

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end period of the Dharma became extreme.”84 It was exactly these abuses of the end period of the Dharma that he wished to reverse. He said that the Pure Land teaching of “sole-mindedly concentrating on rebirth [in the Pure Land] and crossing over the three realms [of existence]” is an “essential key point of the Dharma,”85 and he gave as a prescription for this Chan abuse, “Be mindful of Buddha (nianfo), be mindful of Buddha, be mindful of Buddha!”. If a person observes the vinaya, the regulations are the Buddha’s control, and they will properly love being mindful of Buddha; if a person looks at the sutras, the sutras are the Buddha’s preaching, and they will properly love being mindful of Buddha; if a person investigates Chan, Chan is the Buddha’s mind, and they will properly love being mindful of Buddha. I universally encourage the people to urgently be mindful of Buddha.86

The sutras, vinaya, and meditation (Chan) undoubtedly can be said to be the tools and the carriers of Buddhism, but to see mindfulness of Buddha as “observing the vinaya,” “looking at the sutras,” and “investigating Chan/meditation,” makes it seem that he had yet to reverse some of these abuses. Nevertheless, his stress on being mindful of Buddha, of promoting Pure Land and repressing Chan, and his thought of even using the Pure Land faith to replace Chan, the Doctrine, and Vinaya was clearly exposed already. As said before, the principles of the Chan School of “seeing the nature and becoming buddha” and “mind-only Pure Land” really do not allow for the Pure Land’s theories of “this mind is buddha” and “Amit¯abha Pure Land.” The two schools of Chan and Pure Land are difficult to reconcile. In his selection of yulu (recorded sayings), Emperor Yongzheng, in his “Preface to the Lianchi Collection” had already noted this. He pointed out that in the Six Dynasties’ period, the northerners lectured on translated sutras and the southerners devotedly practiced Pure Land. “Thereafter there was a direct indication of the mind transmission, which brightly illuminated China. Every time the Lineage Gate (Chan) used the scriptures to search out the interpretation of the text, the Pure Land [School], by being attached to characteristics and bodhi, put this aside and did not discuss it. Being ignorant and unaware, their stories split into two axes.” At the same time, he pointed out that “The eleventh generation of the transmission from Caoqi (Huineng) reached Chan Master Yongming, who was the first to use the Pure Land to educate later students…Great Master Lianchi (Zhuhong) of the Ming, took only this [Pure Land practice] to be the method of his school and he advocated this in Yunqi in Zhejiang (Province).” His intention was to explain that from Yanshou onwards, masters of the Chan School simultaneously used Pure Land teachings to educate their students, and it was Zhuhong in particular who changed Pure Land into being a method of the Chan School. Yongzheng’s analysis generally coincides with the history of the development of nianfo (mindfulness of Buddha) Chan, and it also was accurate in saying that Zhuhong had an ideological 84

Yunqi fahui, “Shouzhu,” vol. 7, “Shanfang zalu xu” (Preface to Miscellaneous Records of a Mountain Room). 85 Zhuhong, Da Jingtu sishibawen xu (Preface to Answers to Forty-eight Questions on the Pure Land). 86 Zhuhong yigao, “Puquan nianfo wangsheng Jingtu.”.

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trend of using Pure Land to change the Chan School. Deqing thought that Zhuhong “used all the practices to elucidate the One Mind and saw the Buddha-nature in the troubling sense-data, and with the exception of Yongming, throughout history he was the only master to do so,” even stating that “the ocean of desire flows perversely, the three poisons [of anger and so on] flare up. Who is it who can suppress the crazed waves and cool the inferno?…Five hundred years later, it was extremely difficult for that person (Zhuhong).”87 Such was his praise, being nothing but an explanation that Zhuhong took the troubling sense-data of the Pure Land to elucidate the features of the mind of the Chan School and show the place he occupied in history. Nevertheless, this story displays a tendency to return to the mind-only Pure Land. If one wished to use the Pure Land to rescue the Chan School from the abuses of its later, inferior followers, one first of all needed to smash the division of Chan and Pure Land into “two axes” and eliminate the impediments that prevented them from co-existing, and to further make them into equivalents, so that they were comprehensively blended. Zhuhong not only did this, but he also often revealed his intention to elevate Pure Land and repress Chan. In order to overcome the “two axes,” Zhuhong directly approached the most basic scripture of the Chan School in the Platform Sutra. He said that the sixth patriarch was illiterate and the Platform Sutra was entirely written down by other people, “and therefore there are many errors in it.” He said that these “errors are worst where they are attached to the Platform Sutra and not to the Pure Land.”88 He did not rely on the Platform Sutra to speak of Chan, but he spoke of the Chan School through his own conceptions of being mindful of Buddha and being reborn (in the Pure Land), which means that it was not the sutra of the sixth patriarch commenting on him but it is him commenting on the sutra of the sixth patriarch. In general, according to Zhuhong, those who base themselves on the Platform Sutra and not on the Pure Land School, are basing themselves on words that were not the words of the sixth patriarch at all, but on errors made by the people who wrote them down. Thus, the Platform Sutra can no longer be used as an authority to deny the theory of the Pure Land; it can only be made into a logical explanation of the joint practice Chan and Pure Land and the unity of Chan and Pure Land. On this basis, he also invented an incident that pointed out that Chan and Pure Land in reality have no dispute over the existence or non-existence of the Buddha. It also expressed his intention of bringing Chan and Pure Land together, and to advance this he drew up a blueprint for a really existing pure realm. Two monks met on a road; one practiced Chan, the other mindfulness of Buddha. The practitioner of Chan said, “Originally there was no Buddha, there is nothing to be mindful of. I do not enjoy hearing the word Buddha.” The practitioner of mindfulness of Buddha said, “There is a Buddha in the west called Amit¯abha. If you remember the Buddha and are mindful of Buddha you will definitely see Buddha.” Each held onto the existence or nonexistence of the Buddha, and the debate did not end. There was a youth who heard this while passing by, and he said, “What both of you have said is entirely [what] Xu the sixth (Joe 87

Deqing, “Gu Hang Yunqi Lianchi Dashi taming” (Stupa Inscription for the Late Great master Lianchi of Lianchi in Hangzhou). 88 Zhuhong, Zhuchuang sanbi, “Liuzu tanjing.”.

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Blow) carrying a plank (common-place bias) [would say].” The two monks scolded him, “You are a layman. How can you know the Buddha-dharma?” The youth said, “I really am a layman, but I will take a layman as an example of one who still knows the Buddha-dharma. I am a theatrical performer and in the play I am sometimes a lord, sometimes a subject; I may be a man or I may be a woman, or be a good person or a bad person, but when one seeks for the so-called lord, subject, man, woman, good person and bad person, if you regard them as existent, they are really non-existent. However, if you regard them as being non-existent, they really do exist. Since to exist is to be non-existent and yet exist, and to be non-existent is to exist and yet be non-existent, both existence and non-existence are not true, and yet I am evidently always present. I know that I am always present, so why argue over it?” The two monks had no reply.89

Using a play as a metaphor for the Buddha is something that is completely irrelevant, and yet his sermon that says “existence and non-existence are not real” and “I am always present” relatively approximates the position of the Chan School. However, his idea is to say that the dispute between Chan and Pure Land over whether or not there is a buddha is meaningless and he undoubtedly wished to use this to harmonize the theories of the two schools. The conclusion that “the two monks had no reply” is clearly a fabrication. By these means he could also directly express the idea of the unity of Chan and Pure Land. He pointed out that a person in the past said that Chan and Pure Land “did not allow for them to be present together.” However, he recognized that. Yet there are also those who practice Chan and Pure Land together, such as the masters Yuanzhao [Zong]ben, Zhenxie [Qing]liao, Yongming [Yan]shou, Huanglong [Wu]xin, and Cishou [Huai]shen. They were all great masters of the Chan School and yet they paid careful attention to the Pure Land. This did not impede their [practice of] Chan. Therefore, know that although the Chan practitioners investigate their own original mind thought-moment by thought-moment, this does not prevent them making vows vowing that when their life comes to an end that they will be reborn in the paradise [that is the Pure Land]. What is the reason for this? Even though practitioners of Chan obtain an enlightenment, they are still unable to dwell forever in the [Pure Land] of calm light. Also, they are unable to experience a future incarnation like an arhat does…[and be like] a person born into the human world who is close to an enlightened teacher, but if born into the lotus flower [of the Pure Land], will they not be close to Amit¯abha? So then, mindfulness of Buddha not only does not hinder the practice of Chan, it also really is beneficial for the practice of Chan.90

Not only does mindfulness of the Buddha not hinder the practice of Chan, it is also beneficial for the practice of Chan and can even elevate one even more than the practice of Chan! Zhuhong’s idea of rebirth in paradise was really built on the internal realm of enlightenment and the external realm of the paradise, with both kinds of domain being partitioned on that basis. He firmly believed that the Pure Land really exists and consequently he stressed the need to be reborn in the land of the lotus (Pure Land) and get close to Amit¯abha. This is evidently not the same in any way as the Chan thinking that seeing the nature is the ultimate concern of a realm of immanent transcendence. However, Zhuhong still divided them into high and low while holding them to be compatible. 89

Zhuhong, Zhuchuang suibi, “Chan Fo xiangzheng” (The Dispute Between Chan and Pure Land). Zhuhong, Zhuchuang erbi, “Nianfo bu ai canchan” (Mindfulness of Buddha Does Not Impede the Practice of Chan).

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At the same time as this, Zhuhong also directly aimed at the Chan School theory of “mind-only Pure Land” to forcibly refute that “the Pure Land cannot be said to be non-existent.” There is the idea that mind-only is the Pure Land and that there is no other paradise Pure Land that is tens of billions of lands away. This theory of mind-only originally came from the words of the sutras and really is not in error, but those who quote them as a basis misunderstand their purport….Some also say, “The Pure Land seen as one approaches one’s end is entirely one’s own mind. Therefore, there is no Pure Land.” Those who do not remember those past and present who were mindful of the Buddha and were reborn, [when] they approach their end, the saints in an assembly come to welcome them with heavenly music and unusual aromas, with banners and flags, towers and pavilions. If it is only one person who alone sees this, one can say that it is one’s own mind, and yet at one time a great mass of people all see it and there are [cases of] those who hear the heavenly music and dimly depart towards the west, and of those who have unusual aromas remaining in the room [of death] for many days without dispersing. The heavenly music does not head for another direction; it heads west, and because that person‘s life has ended, but this aroma is still present, can this be said to be the non-existence of the Pure Land?91

Following this, he also drew on hell as counter evidence. Again, I venture to ask you, is the appearance of the forms of hell at one’s end not the mind? [You] say, “It is the mind.” Does this mind fall into hell? [You] say, “It falls.” Since it has fallen into hell, it is clear that hell exists. Why should the Pure Land alone not exist? When the mind reveals hell, it falls into a really existing hell, so is not the mind that reveals the Pure Land born into a really existing Pure Land?

Zhuhong admitted that the theory of the mind-only Pure Land was sourced from the scriptures of the Chan School, which was unlike the previously mentioned “errors” by recorders, but he also thought that “those who quoted them as a basis” had misinterpreted the meaning of “mind-only Pure Land.” According to his interpretation, the mind has a Pure Land and that there really is a Pure Land, and the mind has hell and there really is a hell. He also takes the sham promises of heavenly music and unusual aromas to reach the conclusion that “the Pure Land cannot be said to be non-existent.” This sort of argument, and even he was aware of it being far-fetched, means that therefore in the end he also had no choice but to say, “How can you say it exists like [Mount] Sumeru and not say it does not exist like a mustard seed?”92 There is a note of “if you believe, then it is miraculous.” The afore-mentioned is said from the aspect of perception. Besides this, Zhuhong also strove to theoretically prove that the mind-only Pure Land is the western paradise of the Pure Land, or to say the mind-only Pure Land contains the idea of a Pure Land on the other shore. In his Amituo jing shuchao (Abstract on the Commentary on the Amit¯abha S¯utra) and Jingtu yibian (Discussion of Doubts About the Pure Land) et cetera, he divides this into two aspects of principle and phenomenon. Simply speaking, what is meant by principle is the enlightened mind that sees the nature, which is the mind-only Pure Land; what is meant by practice is maintaining the name 91

Zhuhong, Zhuchuang erbi, “Jingtu buke yanwu” (The Pure Land Cannot be Said to be Nonexistent). 92 Ibid.

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of and being mindful of the Buddha, which is being reborn in the Pure Land. One who follows this principle resides in “the land of calm light” and one who follows practice is reborn “in the real recompense land of adornment.” He criticized Chan masters who did not practice the Pure Land practice. You enjoy talking about principle and the nature, and abhor speaking of phenomena and characteristics. Both depend on the need to show that “I am of the high class,” fearing that people will say that you do not comprehend principle and nature. Alas! If one truly has a clear enlightenment to principle and the nature, then one will know that there is no principle beyond phenomena and no nature beyond characteristics. Intrinsically they will thoroughly interpenetrate, so what is the need to abandon phenomena in search of principle and to seek the nature apart from characteristics? Moreover, the lands are divided into four sorts, and you think there is only the land of calm light, so how can there also be no other lands like the real recompense land of adornments et cetera?93

Zhuhong is using the Huayan scholarly theory that the nature and characteristics are non-dual and the perfect fusion of phenomena and principle to tortuously demonstrate the principle and nature of Chan, which interpenetrate and fuse with the phenomena and characteristics of mindfulness of Buddha, and so they complement each other. The circumference formed by this argument was large enough, and from this one can specially see Zhuhong really thinking hard about changing Chan into the Pure Land. His aim really lay in explaining Tianmu Zhongfeng’s words, “Chan is the Chan of Pure Land, Pure Land is the Pure Land of Chan” and “These few words are an especially fixed thesis that has never been changed through the generations.”94 Zhuhong also compared the topic of the effectiveness and speed of Chan and Pure Land in respect of enlightenment. He said that there was a Chan person who was conceited about Chan and said to a practitioner of mindfulness of Buddha, “You, by being mindful of Buddha, must wait to be reborn in the Western Land and only then are you enlightened in a future life. We practitioners of Chan gain enlightenment in this life. You should stop being mindful of Buddha and practice Chan.” Zhuhong explained: People are sharp and obtuse in ability; are lazy and diligent in their efforts. These exist in the person, so one cannot approve of this [method] as faster and disapprove of that [method] as slower….In speaking of being slow, people who practice mindfulness of Buddha only begin to open up the lotus blossom (be born in the Pure Land) after long eons [of practice], but practitioners of Chan also have many lives of diligence and hardship and still cannot see the nature [of the mind]. In speaking of being fast, practitioners of Chan can have an immediate realization of enlightenment now and not pass through the innumerable bodies (lives) of protecting the Dharma; the practitioners of mindfulness of Buddha also may [fore]see their lives thoroughly and at the end [of their life] are born into the highest category of rebirth [in the Pure Land]. A person in the past said, “If a person travels far, they expect to take time to arrive; if they do not adopt the path [to improvement], they will need to be of a strong resolve for it is difficult to change.”95

93

Zhuhong, Jingtu yibian. Ibid. 95 Zhuhong, Zhuchuang sanbi, “Chanzong Jingtu chisu,” (On the Speed of the Chan and Pure Land [Enlightenment]). 94

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That is to say, concerning the effectiveness of Chan and Pure Land, both have those who are slow and those who are fast to reach enlightenment. This is determined by the sharpness or obtuseness, diligence or laziness of the person. Therefore, one cannot use the level of difficulty or easiness (of method) to decide between them. In summary, as Zhuhong saw it, the Pure Land exists in reality and there are no impediments between the practice of meditation and being mindful, and so the difficult method and the easy method co-exist. Therefore, if the Chan path is interrupted, the practice of Chan will, after falling into the mediocrity of the last period of the Dharma, be left only with the single gateway of the mindfulness of Buddha as sufficient to “awaken and overturn the gloom and brighten the long night” and pull one from the crazed waves during this reversal. Therefore, Zhuhong specially emphasized that no matter whether one is already enlightened or not yet enlightened, all those who genuinely believe in the Pure Land and decide to be reborn there, including those Chan practitioners who take as their task being enlightened to the mind and see the [Buddha-]nature, are “not prevented from vowing to be reborn [in the Pure Land].”96 He said, Now, being single-mindedly mindful of Buddha [means] all the conditions have been abandoned, which is the perfection (p¯aramit¯a) of donation. Being single-mindedly mindful of Buddha [means] evil has been stopped, which is the perfection of observing the precepts. Being single-mindedly mindful of Buddha [means] the mind is flexible, which is the perfection of forbearance. Being single-mindedly mindful of Buddha [means] one never retreats or falls, which is the perfection of vigorous advancement of practice. Being single-mindedly mindful of Buddha [means] no more conceptions are produced, which is the perfection of meditation. Being single-mindedly mindful of Buddha [means] that a single thought-moment is distinct and clear, which is the perfection of prajñ¯a (wisdom). If one pushes this to the utmost, this is nothing more than being of one mind in which all practices are present.97

In this way, mindfulness of Buddha not only includes Chan, Doctrine, and Vinaya, they also emerge from the single practice of mindfulness of Buddha that possesses all practices. Concretely speaking, the one practice of being mindful of Buddha possesses all Mah¯ay¯ana Buddhist learning, meaning the entire content of the six perfections of donation, observance of the precepts, forbearance, vigorous advancement of practice, meditation, and wisdom. Not only is the Chan School changed into being mindful of Buddha, but also the entirety of Buddhist learning tends to become the one gateway of the Pure Land, which is something that follows as a matter of course. One can see that mindfulness of Buddha-Chan (nianfo Chan) had already reached its pinnacle with Zhuhong, though his original viewpoint is based on a poverty of theory, and moreover, it was an argument that rarely convinced people. However, Zhuhong did not mind taking the trouble to repeatedly explain the matter of the agreement of Chan and Pure Land and the benefits of practicing Pure Land. This shows the depth of Zhuhong’s faith and his diligence in propagating it, as well as his contributions to and efforts in promoting the alienation from the Chan School that 96

Zhuhong, “Da Wengu Guangyu.”. Requoted from Nukariya Kaiten, Zhongguo Chanxue sixiang shi, Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1994, p. 797.

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he had created. The Confucians of the Song and Ming periods evaluated Huihong as being a mediocre monk, and I have no doubt that this was to elevate the after-effects of his style as a way of developing a new course for the future of lettered Chan (wenzi Chan). Hanshan Deqing called Zhuhong the Confucius of Buddhism, so we should say that this commends him for the overall push by the remaining lineages from Caoqi towards changing into a mindfulness of Buddha-Chan and for thereby spreading Buddhist faith more widely in society, making this into the totality of Buddhism. To sum up, Zhuhong’s theory of the joint practice of Chan and Pure Land for rebirth has the following five features: 1. Both have their base in the theory of “this mind is buddha.” He not only thought that “mind-only Pure Land” was “misinterpreted in its teachings” by some Chan monks and consequently provided a new interpretation, but what also stands out is his direct criticism of “those who are attached to the Platform Sutra and who deny the Pure Land.” He regarded as “errors” by the recorders any content in the Platform Sutra that conflicted with the Pure Land faith. He thought that “this mind is buddha” cleared away any obstacles to that faith that appeared in the scriptures. Even though, when compared to the above-described ideas of the transformation of Chan into Pure Land, this theory was likewise lacking in persuasive power, in the end he still used it to further advance into a theoretical exploration. In his Fanwang jing xindi pin pusajie yishu fayin xu (Preface to the Revelations of the Secrets of the Semantic Commentary on the Bodhisattva Precepts of the Mind Ground Chapter of the Fanwang jing), he revealed the clear meaning of the core theme, saying directly that “beings basically are buddha and buddha is basically the mind,” requiring one to seek “for each enlightenment being the Buddha of mind-only.” He further taught people “to directly and suddenly realize that this mind is originally buddha.”98 He preached to people, in particular guiding them according to their circumstances, requiring that students “believe till they get it” and “see thoroughly” the principles of “the mind is buddha,” which was clearly a remolding of the aims of Chan thought. 2. Mindfulness of Buddha is superior to practicing Chan. Although Zhuhong time and again explained that Chan and Pure Land are in agreement and that there is no impediment between them, and that they are not divided into hard and easy practices, and he preached the joint cultivation of Chan and Pure Land, still, due to the resolution reached by his dogmatic faith, in the depths of his thought he also viewed the Pure Land paradise of the other shore to be the most excellent environment for living. Objectively, this denies the Chan School’s idea of seeing the nature or the theory that all of Buddhism is the theory of the mind-nature that regards awakening to be the highest result. He stressed that “each of the six characters that call the name [Nan-wu A-mi-tuo fo] express the secret intention of [Bodhidharma] coming from the west,” that “the one path of mindfulness of 98

Zhuhong, “Da Suzhou Cao Luchuan yiling.”.

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Buddha propounds all the teachings, is so subtle as to be unfathomable, and so extensive as to be without bounds,” and he used it to incorporate Chan, Doctrine, Vinaya, the [Buddha-]nature, all of Buddhist learning, and that it also includes all the practices of the six perfections. He even said, “How can the superiority of being born in the lotus flower (Pure Land) and being close to Amit¯abha be compared to a person being born in this world and being close to an enlightened [Chan] teacher?” These all expressed his promotion of Pure Land and demotion of Chan, and the ideological tendency to make Chan into Pure Land. 3. Mindfulness of Buddha-Chan made keeping the name of Buddha to be the core of the practice. The practice of Pure Land is divided into three kinds of activity; the keeping of the name, visualization, and the real characteristic mindfulness of Buddha; of which keeping the name is the most convenient. The mindfulness of Buddha spoken of by Zhuhong definitely was always that of the keeping of the sixcharacter name. He cautioned people that “regardless of whether one is a monastic or a layperson, keep the name, be single-minded and not be distracted, which is to keep the four-character [Amit¯abha] name. This is the initial entry. In keeping the two characters [namo], do not examine them carelessly.”99 Because of this, he also devoted himself to writing the Pushi chiming nianfo sanmei (Universal Revelation of the Sam¯adhi of Keeping the Name in Mindfulness of Buddha), specially indicating that “the efficacy of keeping the name in mindfulness of Buddha is most essential for being reborn into the Pure Land.” This one sentence alone serves to show the high regard he had for the feature of keeping the name, and of course, also when the Chan School was being converted into mindfulness of Buddha, he sought the inevitable trend to make it simple and easy. 4. The conflict between becoming buddha to liberate beings and rebirth in the Pure Land. In general, Pure Land believers all resolve to pray for a return home after death, concentrating on expressing their abhorrence of the Saha (this) world and their delight in the Pure Land, believing that the soul does not die and possessing the psychology of being reborn through the ages. However, Zhuhong regarded mindfulness of Buddha to likewise be of benefit in the current world, and that what was more important was “becoming buddha and liberating beings,” which also embodied being a Chan monk or the fundamental idea of an eminent monk preaching Buddhism. He said, The Dharma-gateway of mindfulness of Buddha is known by people to be a return home after death, but they do not know of its benefit for life….Speaking of it based on reality, seeking to be reborn in the Pure Land is basically to become buddha and liberate beings, and since it does not aim for pleasure in the afterlife, how then can one calculate that it is of no benefit in this life?100

One can see that Zhuhong’s mindfulness of Buddha is totally a doctrine of merit in which “I want fish and I also want bear’s paw; I also want life and I also want righteousness”.101 Even though he said it was not for pleasure in the afterlife but 99

Zhuhong, “Da Gong Guangqi Jushi” (Reply to Layman Gong Guangqi). Zhuhong, Wangsheng ji. 101 Tr. quote from Mencius. 100

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was to become buddha and liberate beings, the aim of his mindfulness of Buddha was still to be reborn, and what was not to be forgotten in thought-moment after thought-moment was the light and eternity of the Pure Land. His massive proclamation of the practice of mindfulness of Buddha was so that people at the time of their death would experience various auspicious responses such as “light filling the room,” “heavenly flowers falling like rain,” “unusual aromas permeating all over,” “heavenly music coming from the west,” “purple clouds heading west,” and “a host of saints coming to welcome one.” The core of this was to inform people that mindfulness of Buddha meant one could seek pleasure after death, which is what is meant by seduction with heaven. This is clearly also a concrete demonstration of the unbridgeable contradiction between the rationalism of the Chan master and the faith in the Pure Land. 5. Because this was so, Zhuhong likewise believed that the soul does not die, and believed in a world of the gods and in the legends of hell. Because of this, he valued praying for the deceased and sending off the dead, valued the prohibition on killing and valued the release of living beings from captivity. Since this carried a kind of mystical tint, it was also full of pity for sentient beings. He spoke using examples: Lingshu (monk of the Five Dynasties period) became a monk life after life, and Yumen became a king three times, but subsequently they lost their supernatural powers. They became normal men, then became females, and then again they became evil people, becoming worse and worse with each rebirth. Also, Han Qinhu of the Sui dynasty said that “when he was born, he was a Supreme Pillar of State and when he died, he was King Yama (judge of the afterlife).” In fact, these two times, of birth and death, are periods of suffering and are accompanied by punishment and blessings. Accordingly, he said, “One cannot not be born into the Pure Land.”102 One can see that Zhuhong also believed in reincarnation and therefore his commentary on the Fanwang jing advocated observing vinaya, the real practice of the keeping of the incantation, and he spoke of the ritual of donating food, and he also fixed the text of the rite for feeding the ghosts of waters and lands, and the Yuqie [a group of ritual-specialist monks instituted in the Ming dynasty] rite of donations for the blazing mouths (pretas, hungry ghosts) in order to rescue them from the suffering of those in the nether world. All of these things were products of his faith. Summing up all of the above, from the Yuan to the Ming and from Mingben to Zhuhong, the Chan School was gradually transformed into mindfulness of Buddha and completed the process of the conversion into Mindfulness of Buddha-Chan. These masters strove to analyze the principle of “mind-only Pure Land” of the Chan School’s “see the nature and become buddha” as the reality of the western Pure Land of “this mind is buddha,” and thereby convert Chan into Pure Land and pioneer a new path in the development of the Chan School. It should be said that this fully expressed the desolation of Chan. It was also an inevitable trend in the secularization of the religious world. This reflected a worldly turn after Chan thought had developed 102

Zhuhong, Puquan nianfo wangsheng Jingtu wen (Universal Encouragement to be Mindful of Buddha and be Reborn in the Pure Land).

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to a high degree. However, the Chan School’s theory of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature was ultimately replaced by the faith that could not but carry a tint of superstition. After Zhuhong, the gateway of mindfulness of Buddha also displayed a tendency to revert to mind-only Pure Land. The learning of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature was completely absorbed into the traditional theory of the learning of the mind-nature.

Chapter 12

The Lettered Chan that Blends the Three Religions

The Buddha picked up a flower and K¯as´yapa subtly smiled. This had been made an exemplar by Chan monks and was used by them to boast of their separate transmission beyond the teachings and non-dependence on letters. This was really just the desire by Chan to establish its own school and therefore this was a show to put forward their own ideas. Chan was made into a philosophical category and a method of thinking or an aesthetic consciousness. It emphasized introspection and internal illumination. It also used the form of negation to actualize the realm of the transcendence of duality and antithesis, something that really language and letters were unable to grasp exactly, and which really also possessed something that was not the same as its cultural pattern. However, Chan thought not only had a source in Indian culture, but also in particular was a product of the union of Buddhism and traditional Chinese culture. It was exactly because the Chan School took the form of Buddhism in the process of the ceaseless influence of Dark Learning (Xuanxue) that it came to be consummated and formed on the deep soil of Chinese culture. Therefore, it could not cut off relations with the similar Daoist philosophy and with the Way of Confucius and Mencius. Moreover, it could not shake off the Confucian and Daoist thought that nurtured the traditional intelligentsia and have an existence independent of them. Speaking in this sense, Chan thought and the other sects of Buddhism (in particular the Sinified Buddhist sects like Huayan, Tiantai, and Pure Land) had a basis in common with the traditional learning of Confucianism and Daoism. Having no need for language and the transmission from mind to mind is talk that deliberately mystifies. In fact, the non-reliance on letters and the idea of cutting off language of the Chan School was built on the fundamental viewpoint of Laozi’s “The Way that can be spoken is not the permanent Way.” After the formation of Chan thought, it firstly interpenetrated and selected from Confucianism and Daoism, and being enriched by traditional thinking, this also endowed it with an evident connotation of participating in society. Secondly, it claimed it was difficult to use verbal description to explain the transcendent spirit of Chan, but at the same time it also emphasized that language and letters are indispensable tools for Chan enlightenment, which is what is meant by “Chan is not letters; it borrows letters to show the relations between the finger © Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_12

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[pointing at] the moon that brings it from obscurity to visibility,” and “not depending on letters” accepted the challenge that posed to reality. From Shanzhao onwards, the propensity for using letters to explain gongan blew ever more fiercely, so much so that it could even be called lettered Chan. It was especially the case that during the Song dynasty the literati were inclined towards Chan and had poetic exchanges with Chan monks, discussed the principles of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature, and the Chan style in particular underwent a wholesale change. Then Huihong publicly expounded lettered Chan and proved theoretically and practically that Chan and letters were in a necessary relationship, and also that letters had a synchronous development on the path of the synthesis of Chan thought. By the Ming dynasty, the content of the blended three religions incorporated the core themes of a separate transmission beyond the teachings and the form of the so-called transmission from mind to mind that had been completely replaced by lengthy and tedious writings. Strictly speaking, the verses on old cases of Shanzhao and others, and those who explained gongan with letters were not genuine lettered Chan because they still wished to avail themselves of the assistance of certain non-linguistic forms to inspire enlightenment to the nature, and so they did not try to oppose intellectual understanding, did not cultivate the teachings of the sutras, and even if they explained gongan, they also required one to refrain from speaking too plainly, and so adopted the form of a round-about way of talking about Chan. Those who only uphold intellectual understanding and value the sutra teachings can genuinely recognize the functions of language and letters. Even though the traditional culture also takes the nature of the mind to be its core topic, these people likewise still think that language and letters are the gateway through which to enter the Way. Therefore, non-reliance on letters and a separate transmission beyond the teachings were in agreement, but if blended with the three religions then it was necessary to make letters a method of their school. The synthesis of Chan thought and the trend of the changes from the Ming onwards, meant that Chan’s chief form of expression was in the lettered Chan of the blended three religions. Besides, it cannot be denied that the macro-process, the transcendental thought of the Chan School, was surreal, but it still could not fully escape the nature of Buddhism’s tendency to distance itself from hubbub. In the Song dynasty, the Chan School not only influenced the students of Confucianism, the Song Confucians also used Confucian scholarly theories to lead Chan learning into the own nature and to recognize and adopt it as the original source of cultivation, equality, government, and peace. Because of this, the Chan School displayed an even greater vigor. By the Ming, with the appearance of commoner thinkers, especially those like Wang Gen (1483–1540) who led the Taizhou faction of Wang Yangming thought, monks could not withdraw from the stage of mainstream culture that they had originally occupied. Consequently, they also needed to be like Buddhism when it was first introduced into China and depend on and cater to tradition. In order to seek an existence and develop afresh, Chan blended with the three religions, which in particular formed a path that Chan had to choose in its later periods.

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Part 1: Zhenke’s Lettered Prajñ¯a that Blends the Various Schools From the start of the Song, the Chan School began to head on a path towards synthesis, or it advocated a single principle behind Chan and Doctrine, the joint practice of Chan and Pure Land, or it advocated the fusion of the Nature School (the Buddhanature and tath¯agatagarbha themes of Buddhism) and Characteristics School (the Faxiang or Yog¯ac¯ara-based forms of Buddhism) and the joint practice of exoteric and esoteric forms of Buddhism, or it advocated the non-duality of the true and conventional levels of truth, and the unity of the three religions. By the Yuan and the Ming, it produced various changes on this foundation. Nevertheless, even though changed Chan learning changed, like mindfulness of Buddha (nianfo) and Quanzhen Daoism, it still displayed the features of being blended with other forms of learning. For example, as with Zhuhong, even though he took the joint practice of Chan and Pure Land, and the faith in rebirth in the Pure Land to be his core concepts, still he likewise combined them with the three religions and strove to explain the principle of the common source of the three religions, and he stated in reference to the consciousness of engagement with society that Buddhism was unrivalled in covertly assisting royal civilization. He even imitated the Confucian methods of exegesis, taking words literally. He said that the character for Confucian (ru) was made up of xu (to need) and person (ren), and thus ru is the facial expression (rong) in a person of propriety; that the character for immortal (xian) comes from mountain and from person, meaning a person who wanders freely and easily beyond things; and Buddha ( fo) is from not ( fu) a person, and so one cannot use the word “person” to name him, and thus it means the Buddha transcends the four kinds of birth (viviparous, oviparous, water-born, and metamorphic) and transcends the three worlds.1 This is evidently a theory that places the Buddha above the Confucians and immortals (Daoists). Yet he also said that “the three religions are one family,” “principle does not have two truths,” and “even though there are differences in depth, still they all revert to one principle.”2 He was also not without some humor when he titled a diagram of the three religions, which said, “A bearded scholar wrote a volume; a white-haired elder had a piece of cinnabar [for alchemy]; and the blue-eyed barbarian [Bodhidharma] wore a robe over one shoulder. They looked at each other, gathered together, and loved each other,” and “their ideas are born of the same root, the blood generations originally were undivided, but the descendants in later generations gradually differed in their feelings and divided into schools that gave rise to enmity, yet they asked an expert to play with this diagram and record the aspects of the lineage patriarchs of these years.”3 This fully shows the prevailing custom of the period, which was the synthesis of the three religions. Nevertheless, this was initiated by Zhenke, who genuinely used lettered prajñ¯a to blend the three religions. Zhenke should be considered as of fame 1

Zhuhong, Zhenge ji (Collection Correcting Errors), “Fozhe, furen ye” (Buddha is not a Person). Zhuhong, Zhenge ji, “Sanjiao yijia” (The Three Religions are One Family). 3 Zhuhong, Shanfang zalu (Miscellaneous Rooms from a Mountain Room), “Shige” (Poems and Songs). 2

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equal with that of Li Zhi (1527–1602), and he was praised as one of the two great teaching masters of the age. He was the Venerable Zibo. Zhenke (1543–1603), style Daguan, was a native of Wujiang in Jiangsu and was surnamed Shen. In his youth he was employed as a knight-errant and at the age of seventeen he left his parents and was travelling to the distant border. When he arrived at Changmen in Suzhou, he encountered rain and was unable to continue on. There he met the monk Mingjue of Huqiu, and he followed him and became a monk. Remembering the circumstances of the time, Zhenke said, “I was originally a person who killed pigs and slaughtered dogs, only knowing about drinking alcohol and eating meat, and I relied on being drunk to get up my courage. How could I have known the knowledge and views of Buddhism? I did not think that in the rain on Maple Bridge in Wumen that I would accept an invitation to share an umbrella with a travelling monk and that the rain would gradually turn into ambrosia.”4 “Then I discarded my sword and was tonsured, and my former habituation became slightly less firm.”5 At the age of twenty Zhenke received the full precepts of a monk from a lecturemaster. He had gone to Jiaoxing Dongta Monastery where he saw a monk writing out the Huayan jing (Avatamsaka ˙ S¯utra) and he knelt and chanted it for a while, exclaiming, “Shouldn’t Chan people be like this?” Then he went to Jingde Monastery in Wutang where he sealed himself away in isolation for three years, then returned to Wumen, said farewell to his teacher Mingjue, and went on pilgrimage all over to consult excellent teachers. He traveled to Kuangshan and there sought out the refined meanings of Faxiang doctrine. One day, he heard a monk reading out loud Zhang Zhuo’s “Jiandao ge” (G¯ath¯a on Seeing the Way). When the monk came to the lines, “Eliminating erroneous conceptions increases the illness. Heading for true suchness, is that correct or false?” Zhenke felt a great doubt, and wherever he went he was sure to write these two sentences on walls. In the end, he reached a major enlightenment. Later, he went to the capital where he consulted Elder Master Bianrong. Bianrong sanctioned his enlightenment, and so Zhenke lodged in the monk hall there. He also consulted the Dharma masters Xiaoyan and Xianli. After nine years he returned to Huqiu and he again went to Songjiang where he sealed himself away for a hundred days. In the third year of the Wanli era of Emperor Shenzong (1575), Daqian Changsi was installed as abbot in Shaolin Monastery and Zhenke went to consult him. He saw him give a formal sermon that lectured on a gongan in which he regarded taking the mouth and ears to be the mind-seal, and took a handkerchief (rather than a robe) to be the (sign of the) true transmission. Zhenke exclaimed, “Was the intention of the transmission from the west really like this?” Consequently, he did not join this assembly and went back south. When he reached Jiaxing, he saw the Minister of Personnel Lu Guangzu (1529–1597), who had the sobriquet of Layman 4

Zibo zunzhe quanji (Complete Records of the Venerable Zibo), fasc. 14, “Li Shimen Yuanming Chanshi wen.” The welcome to get under the umbrella is seen in Deqing’s “Daguan Dashi taming” (Stupa Inscription for Great master Daguan): in the rain “due to an umbrella I came in contact with him.”. 5 Op. cit., “Cha Fatongsi Bianrong Laoshi wen” (Mourning Text for Elder Master Bianrong of Fatong Monastery).

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of Wutai. They had a total meeting of minds. Mizang Daokai (tonsured 1581), a native of Nanchang, was there. Daokai had abandoned the clothes of a scholar and was tonsured in Nanhai. He came to devote himself to Zhenke after he had heard of Zhenke’s teaching style. Zhenke retained him as his attendant and entrusted him to look after everything. At this time, there was a Lengyan Monastery in the capital of the commandery. In the past it had been where Dharma master Changshui (Zixuan, d. 1038) had written his commentaries on the sutras. Later it had been encroached upon and made into a garden with pavilions. Zhenke lamented this in a poem: “The orb of the bright moon; it is cold beyond the curtain./Deep in the night it shone on a person sitting in meditation.” Zhenke enjoined Daokai to take responsibility for the restoration of the monastery, and Daokai, with the help of the younger brother, Yuntai, of the Minster of Personnel, Lu Guangzu, succeeded in rebuilding the meditation hall with five pillars in length. Zhenke pierced his arm and wrote a couplet on a pillar in blood: “If one does not discern the mind, sitting in meditation will merely add to the karma of suffering./If one protects the Dharma, even if you defame the Buddha one will still benefit from correct practice.” Twenty years later, for the first time the Governor, Huai Tingshi refunded and repaired it. Zhenke was intent on developing the Chan School and he regarded it as the duty of the school to spread the Dharma and benefit beings. Consequently, he had many copies of the Tripitaka made and sent them even to remote and isolated places where people had not been able to hear the Buddhist Dharma or read its texts for the whole of their lives so that they would be able to do so. Therefore, he wanted to print bound books and have them circulated. To this end he solicited funds for printing sutras, and together with the support from the Minister for Personnel, Lu Guangzu, the Rector of the University Feng Mengzhen (1548–1605), and the Chamberlain for Law Enforcement Zeng Tongheng and others, in the seventeenth year of the Wanli era (1589), they began printing the Tripitaka on Mt. Wutai. His disciple, Daokai and then Ruqi took charge of this activity in succession. Four years later, due to the severe cold of ice and snow on Wutai, the project was shifted to Jizhao Hermitage in Jingshan. When Wu Yongguang of Tongcheng first became Director of the Ministry of Rites, he entered Zhenke’s school. They discussed the printing of the sutras. Zhenke said, “You have a major connection with this Dharma.” After Zhenke died, Mr. Wu became the head of the Zhe region. He donated his salary to print several hundred volumes of the Tripitaka. This is the Jingshan Tripitaka, also called the Jiaxing Tripitaka. In the twenty-first year of the Wanli era (1593), Empress Cisheng (d. 1614) ordered the courtier Chen Ru to go and deliver offerings, and also a specially gifted purple robe, to Zhenke. Zhenke declined, saying, “I regret that my poor bones are difficult to cover with purple. Give it to an eminent person, which will increase your blessings.” At that time, Deqing was living in Cishou Monastery and Zhenke specially went to visit him in the parks of the western suburbs. The two men spoke day and night, not closing their eyes. They believed that this was the most gratifying event of their lives. Because of the depression of the Chan School, they wanted to jointly compile a Ming chuandeng lu (Record of the Transmission of the Lamplight of the Ming) and relaunch the Dharma-genealogy of Caoqi (Chan). Zhenke first went to Kuangshan to

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await Deqing’s arrival. In the twenty-third year of the Wanli era (1595), Deqing, due to an offering of the Tripitaka gifted by the empress, built Haiyin Monastery. This incurred the wrath of Emperor Shenzong, who ordered Deqing be imprisoned and then banished to Leizhou in southernmost China. Hearing the news, Zhenke chanted the Lotus Sutra a hundred times for Deqing and wanted to go to the capital to provide assistance. Later he heard that Deqing had been banished to the south, so he waited for him in Jianghu. They met at Luji Hermitage in Xiaguan. Zhenke told Deqing that “Your death will carry the burden of the Great Dharma with you, so if you do not return alive, I will not live a day longer.” Then he enjoined him by saying, “If I die before you, I entrust all later matters to you.” Then they had a long farewell. In the twenty-eighth year of the Wanli era (1600), Wu Baoxiu, the Governor of Nankang, did not obey an order to tax mines and he was indicted and imprisoned. His wife was distraught with grief and hung herself. Zhenke heard of this and said “That events have come to this, when eunuchs kill a good person of high office and his wife, how is that in accord with the Way (morality) of the world?” He took up his staff and entered the gate of the capital and he nursed Wu in many ways. In the end, Wu was pardoned and every time he thought of Zhenke tears flowed. The three events described above caused Zhenke remorse till the end of his life. He said, If Hanshan (Deqing) had not returned, then I would have had the great burden of transcending the world. If the mine tax had not been stopped, then I would have had the great burden of saving the world. If the Chuandeng lu was not continued, then I would have had the great burden of [continuing] the life of insight. If I was relieved of these three burdens, then I would not have again run off to the city of the royal residence.

Zhenke’s words and actions touched very much on the taboos of the day.6 His students all encouraged him to leave the capital and Daokai even wrote a letter in blood asking him to depart in secret. The Layman Tang Yireng (Tang Xianzu, 1550– 1616, famous playwright) repeatedly encouraged Zhenke “to wear his hair long and enter the mountains, which would be the best course of action.” Zhenke replied, “It is easy to have long hair and enter the mountains, but it is difficult to follow social trends….You love me because of my indulgence, but you do not love me for my great virtue….After my tonsure, I cut my hair as if I were cutting off my head. So how could a person with his head cut off fear this jealousy?”7 Deqing also dashed off a letter at Caoqi urging Zhenke to leave the capital. Zhenke answered, “I have abandoned these set of poor bones,”8 and he stayed put. 6

Shen Defu, Wanli yehuo bian (Compilation of the Harvest of the Wild in the Wanli Era), fasc. 27, “Shidao, Zibo huoben” (Buddhism and Daoism: The Misfortunes of Zibo) records the misfortunes brought about by Zhenke’s interactions with the powerful and the aristocrats. There is a discussion of Emperor Shenzong’s public dissatisfaction with Zhenke, “Shang shi danu” (The Emperor Began to be Very Angry): “Zibo was made guilty and he also communicated with the court in secret, and so he could not avoid the death sentence.” One can also see that Zhenke was not purely a follower of Chan. 7 Zibo zunzhe quanji, fascicle 22, “Letter to Tang Rengyi.”. 8 Deqing, “Daguan Daishi taming.”.

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In the thirty-first year of the Wanli reign (1603), unexpectedly the affair of the “sorcery letters” erupted, “which shook the center and beyond, and those jealous of him took advantage of this incident to indict the master. Because of this, the master was eventually killed.”9 Zhenke was chained and imprisoned, and he was tortured fully. He was so indignant that he died in prison.10 He was aged sixty-one. His pupils gathered his writings into an inner and an outer collection in a number of fascicles that circulated in public.11 At present there is the Zibo zunzhe quanji edited and revised by Deqing, which later people supplemented with a separate collection in four fascicles and a one-fascicle appendix. Looking at Zhenke’s life, one can see he had the status of a Chan monk and yet he participated in worldly affairs. What he really regretted were the “three great burdens” of transcending the world, saving the world, and continuing the life of Buddha’s insight. These fully explain his thought, and he acted to completely merge the worldly law into the Chan Way. In his preface to the Zibo Laoren ji Deqing evaluated this as follows: “Now, over two centuries distance from Chushi [Fanqi, 1296–1370], Chan master Daguan appeared in a time when the Chan School had already gone into decline. He kicked it and powerfully shook it up.” “This was like the bloody battles of Li Ling [a famous military commander of the first to second century BCE].” “I am unable to discuss the good and bad of his birth and death, but he was truly a great hero of the end period of the Dharma. However, the master’s endowed nature did not coincide with the situation in the world….Even though he did not sit on the lotus throne, he raised the mallet and whisk [of a Chan master], and so his footprints reached half the empire. No matter whether they were ministers 9 Deqing, “Daguan Dashi taming.” The “Biography of Guo Zhengyu” in the Ming shi (History of the Ming) states that “The affair of the sorcery letters commenced…Then they first arrested the monk Daguan, the doctor Shen Lingyu, and others…Over several days they were shackled all over and everybody in the capital felt they were in danger.” The so-called sorcery letters indicated signed letters by Xiang Yingxiang while he was Chief Supervising Secretary of the Ministry of Personnel and the Guoben youguan xuyou wei hongyi (On the Matter of the Basis of the Country: Continued Worries About the Dangers, a Broad Discussion) written out by the Censor of Sichuan, Chiao Yingjia. These letters discussed palace affairs relating to the fact that Concubine Cheng seized the position of the legal wife, wishing to make her son, Fuwang, the heir-apparent, and that Emperor Shenzong also intended changing his heir-apparent. Because Zhenke was suspected of being involved in this, he was thrown in prison, even though he had no involvement. One can see that he was deeply engaged in politics, and as a result, he incurred jealousy. 10 The Dongguang jifang (yaoshu) debo (Documents of the Arrests and Visits of the Eunuchs Office) records that the Eunuchs Office special agents monitored Zhenke’s whereabouts, and that he was apprehended with a brocade robe at Tanzhi Monastery in Xishan. They interrogated him thoroughly. Daguan replied to Wang Zhizhen’s questions, strenuously arguing that he had no connections with the evil letters. He said, “I have received boundless favors from the emperor, so why would I be involved in this?” He vowed that “If there is a single character of mine in there, I should die ten thousand times,” and he even said, “This is a karmic obstacle created in a previous life.” During the interrogation he referred to the fact that he was very distant from the main ideas put in Shen Lingyu’s letters. The rescuer Deqing also addressed Emperor Shenzong with the word fu and other matters, all of which show that this belongs in the category of the absurd prison of letters. The Ming shi says that this was “death by torture.” The Buddhist literature records this as a suicide. 11 Xin xu gaoseng zhuan (New Continued Lives of Eminent Monks) and Gaoseng zhuan heji (Combined Collection of Lives of Eminent Monks), Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991, pp. 809–810.

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and officials, or laymen, those who gazed on his shadow were mentally devoted to him and those who saw his form and followed him cannot be calculated so many were they.” Qian Qianyi (1582–1664) also praised Zhenke, because for two hundred years the transmission of the lamplight was held in contempt, but now “enduring a birth in Dongwu, his bearing was like that of a king…In fact, he had connections with the fortunes of the country, its prosperity and decline, and with the fortune of the Dharma, its abolition and its rise, and he cannot be falsely compared to the mind of an ordinary person or worldly wisdom.”12 These words are rather too excessive and he cannot be spoken of in the same breath as Fanqi, but this is definitely an appropriate description of his desire to raise the Way of Chan from out of its low ebb and to rescue the Great Dharma from times of peril and difficulty, and his idea of blending transcending the world, engaging in the world, and rescuing the world into a unity, and shouldering all these burdens. Firstly, we can see that although Zhenke was not alone as a Chan master of a generation in leading assemblies and transmitting the Dharma, he also made no formal sermons, Dharma talks, enlightenment opportunities, and instructions to the assembly. However, he and his disciples, whether monk or lay, whether prominent officials or eminent persons, “were so numerous as to be incalculable.” Furthermore, in a period when the Chan School was about to collapse and the transmission of the lamplight was stalled and held in contempt, his wish to compile a Chuandeng lu in order to continue the life of insight of Chan fully expresses his diamond-hard determination, as does his characteristic of thinking the restoration of the Chan School to be his own duty. Deqing said, “[The period of] the correct Dharma could be without Linji and Deshan, but the end period of the Dharma could not be without this elder.”13 This is speaking at this level of meaning. Even though this was the case, Zhenke did not study only one school and solely be the heir of one person. In his “Cha Fatongsi Bianrong Laoshi” (Mourning for Elder Master Bianrong of Fatong Monastery) he discussed his study experience: “I deeply investigated the mind through Chan words and letters and enlightenment opportunities, and I have studied the doctrinal vehicles in full; there are almost none I have not studied. And so I have read the Guanxin song (Hymns on Investigating the Mind) by Tiantai Zhiyi, and for the first time I entered into Doctrine….In the first year of the Wanli era (1573), I traveled north to Yanjing (Beijing) and I visited Dharma master Xian at Zhangjiawan, and I paid my respects to the Dharma Master in Qianfo Monastery. I also visited chief lecturer Bao in Xifang Hermitage, and finally I consulted Elder Bian in Fatong Monastery.” Deqing also said that he “started from the Lengyan [ jing] and ended with Guizong, Yunju, and others.”14 Therefore, Zhenke’s thought was not solely devoted to looking at one school or one theory, and the Chan School into which he put the greatest effort in particular cannot be seen to have been the correct lineage from Huineng, the orthodox genealogy of Caoqi.

12

Qian Qianyi, Zibo zunzhe bieji, preface. Deqing, “Daguan Dashi taming.”. 14 Ibid. 13

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Again, Zhenke regarded his task to be to spread the Dharma, for he wished to broadly propagate the Great Dharma and to plant the diamond seeds (of Buddhism) in all the capitals and large towns, as well as into distant places and isolated regions. Therefore, every time he saw a former monastery, he was determined that it be restored. Besides printing the Tripitaka, he sought to have all the recorded sayings of famous venerables of the past, like the treatises on the sutras written by Jiyin (Huihong), all of which the world had not heard of, printed and circulated among the public.15 Therefore, he also specially valued the functions of letters, that is to say, “All disciples of the Buddha who do not comprehend the prajñ¯a of letters will be unable to investigate and reflect on prajñ¯a, and if one does not comprehend the investigation and reflection on prajñ¯a, one definitely will be unable to understand the true characteristics of prajñ¯a.”16 In this way, he also took the theory of lettered Chan a further step towards secularization. At that time, a fair number of famous scholars had connections with his letters or had served Zhenke as a teacher. They included the presented scholar of the Wanli era, the Chancellor of the National University, Feng Mengzhen; the Corrector in the Hanlin Academy, who wrote the Yinming ruzheng lun jijie (Collected Interpretations of the Entry to Correct Logic), Wang Kentang; the famous playwright Tang Xianzu; and the author of the Zhiyue lu (Record of Pointing at the Moon), which was titled “a work by a Confucian talking about Chan,” who rose in official rank to Deputy Chancellor of the Imperial Stud, Qu Ruji (d. 1619), and so on. Fourthly, Zhenke not only used letters to highlight intellectual understanding, he also blended the worldly law with the Chan Way, directly saying that the gateway of Buddhism is not the gateway of emptiness, that the three religions share the one mind, using this to propel the Chan School’s tendency to engage with the world. The special characteristic of modern Chinese Buddhism, the total engagement with spirit and secularization, should be said to have been built on the foundation of this one idea. However, Zhenke’s important contribution to the development of Chan thought was his exposition of the prajñ¯a of letters and his joining of the three religions with the theories of each of the schools. At that time, Gu Zhonggong (Gu Dashao, b. 1586) wrote an epilogue for Zhenke’s collected works that said, One such as Great Master Daguan was truly a giant in the end period of the Dharma. What was ´ akya (Buddhism) to denigrate Confucius most revered about him was that he did not use S¯ and Laozi, he did not use the Buddhist scriptures to do away with the philosophers and histories. With the Buddha-dharma, he did not use Chan to belittle Doctrine; he did not use the [School of the] Nature to do away with the [School of the] Characteristics; he did not use Huayan to do away with Tiantai…He was not equalled in any way by those who lean on walls (depend on others) and follow a person’s beauty or ugliness. He praised the Shimen wenzi Chan [by Huihong] and Su Dongpo’s Chanxi ji for not removing the voice, for being “the intrinsic reality of the true teaching of this region, for the purity of the transmission of their voice” [quote of Lengyan jing], for he wanted to use the prajñ¯a of letters to create investigation and reflection, to be the true ladder to true characteristics, and not prevent the 15 16

Ibid. Zibi Laoren ji, fascicle 1, “Dharma talk.”.

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elevation of the work of insight but to entice and support [those of] sharp capacities. This also was the elder’s profound and secret intention.17

Mr. Gu’s words accurately point out these two aspects. In order to explain the importance of letters, Zhenke highlighted the remarkable place the sam¯adhi of letters has in the process of actualizing the realm of Chan. The one technique (gongfu) that Zhenke handed down and which was unlike those of other teachers he only discussed generally, just touching on it lightly. In his Dharma talks, in revealing the core themes and elucidating the meaning, as far as possible ´ akya Buddha founded the teaching he would have people understand that when the S¯ that he used texts to establish its foundations, and he used texts to transmit it; and that when Bodhidharma first came to China and Huineng transmitted the Dharma, they likewise used language and letters as tools to control thoughts and as methods of transforming consciousness into wisdom. Thus, Zhenke firmly established lettered ´ akya-muni, Bodhidharma, and Huineng Chan on an historical basis and he regarded S¯ to be his sources. He pointed out that. ´ akya-muni Buddha used texts to establish the teaching and therefore Mañju´sr¯ı used the The S¯ ´ akya-muni and used the power of selection with the Sura˙ ´ ngama sam¯adhi of letters to assist S¯ Assembly in which twenty-five saints advanceed and retreated, solely selecting Guanyin to have the appropriate ability, and he did not have the daring to discuss his own motive. Although Guanshiyin is the assistant of Amit¯abha, he also used the hearing of ideas to cultivate the entrance [to the truth], which is close to the sam¯adhi of letters. Therefore, ´ akya-muni Buddha also retreated [along with] thirty-two trillion bodhisattvas, and put the S¯ forward only Guanyin. How is that not “the intrinsic reality of the true teaching of this region, for the purity is in the transmission of the voice”?18

´ akya-muni used texts to establish his teaching and that His idea is to say that the S¯ Guanyin used the hearing of ideas to cultivate access to the truth, and that hearing ´ akya-muni and Mañju´sr¯ı both ideas is close to the sam¯adhi of letters. Therefore, S¯ selected Guanyin to enter the world and transmit the Dharma, which in the Lengyan jing is called hearing the voice. Thus, the source of letters can be traced back to ´ akya-muni, the basis for which can be found in the sutras. This far-fetched sermon S¯ naturally could not convince people, but it also revealed that the transmission of Buddhism seems to have been like the transmission of culture, which in fact depends on letters. Zhenke’s use of Guanyin to highlight letters was probably not unrelated to his worship of Guanyin.19 Needing to explain the relation of Chan and letters, it was not enough at all to only find an historical basis in Buddhist history because ultimately Chan was seen to be a transmission beyond letters. Therefore, Zhenke wanted to attribute the 17

See Zibo zunzhe bieji fulu. Zibo zunzhe quanji, fascicle 1, “Dharma talk. 19 Zhenke said, “When I was young, it seems that I had a major affinity with Guanshiyin.” He related that around the time of his tonsure that Guanshiyin appeared as a bhiks.u and preached a sermon in the course of his conversion. As a result of this he spoke not without emotion, saying, “As the bodhisattva had me hear ideas about cultivating sam¯adhi to convert me, there is nothing to be ashamed of in Guanyin’s illuminating light.” Likewise, he linked Guanyin with letters. For these words, see his quanji, fascicle 9, p. 339. 18

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advocacy of lettered Chan to Bodhidharma and Huineng. Nevertheless, in order to reach that objective, compared to the previously-raised ideas, there were clearly many difficulties. Zhenke’s tortuous proof was skillfully argued and he did indeed spend much thought on this issue. He firstly pointed out that the theory of Bodhidharma coming from the west and not relying on letters understandably provoked a huge crashing wave in the scholastic world, but the theory of non-reliance on letters in reality was an affirmation that there was a Dharma outside of the mind, which does not concur with the mental Dharma transmitted by Bodhidharma. His intention was to use this as counter-evidence that non-reliance on letters was not Bodhidharma’s true intention. He said, The initial arrival of Bodhidharma was entirely to exclude characteristics and eliminate the mind, not rely on letters, [so that] the trap of scholastic learning be thoroughly turned into emptiness. His idea was in the end to greatly shock those of slight effort [in understanding] and deep strength of faith, and so he accused the patriarchs of being evil monks, with all sorts of schemes to harm one….Now, if the meaning was not thoroughly [understood], but the strength of faith was deep, one must regard the words of the Buddha to be a basis, and once they heard the sound [telling them to] exclude characteristics and eliminate the mind, and with [his words about] the non-reliance on letters piercingly entering their ears, they were frightened and denounced the patriarch (Bodhidharma), which is naturally the logic of this….So in the end the characteristics should be excluded, in the end the mind should be eliminated, and in the end letters ought to be revealed and dismissed. If that is the case, then there is a Dharma outside of the mind! I have heard that those who have attained the mind say, “If a person can know and get the mind, the great earth will be without an inch of ground.” If one observes it to be like this, then, as a result does the mind exist in relation to characteristics, language, and letters or not?20

He does not directly say whether he affirms “non-reliance on letters” or not, but his implication is obvious. He is using “there is no separate Dharma outside of the mind” to explain that mind, characteristics, and letters are all one, and he is using that to tell people that letters and Chan are in an intimate and indivisible relationship. He also took a great deal of trouble to imply that the alarm and denunciation of the patriarch was due to an incomplete understanding Bodhidharma’s essential message and that only those having “the essence of the meaning and themselves gaining benefit from it” can clearly know the deep meaning of the so-called non-reliance on letters, which is that “the idea lies in taking away the thoughts and not in taking away the Dharma.”21 On this foundation, he pointed out that non-reliance on letters was definitely not Bodhidharma’s original intention nor was it a fact. If the first patriarch in the end necessarily revealed and dismissed the mind, characteristics, language, and letters, [saying that] only then could one get the mind, then why did the patriarch never explain a fascicle of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara Sutra and yet secretly gave this sutra to Great Master Huike? Huike gave it to Sengcan, who gave it to Daoxin, and Daoxin gave it to Hongren, who gave it to Dajian (Huineng) of Caoqi, and Huineng further mastered it and deepened it.22 20

Zibo Laoren ji (Collection of Elder Zibo), fascicle 2. Ibid. 22 Ibid. 21

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If there was this story of the transmission through the generations, then Bodhidharma read the La˙nk¯avat¯ara Sutra and had an attainment, which was the transmission of this mental Dharma. This would deny the theory of the separate transmission from mind to mind and also deny the basis for non-reliance on letters. Moreover, Huineng, the orthodox lineage master of the one flower that had five petals (generations), after experiencing the essentials of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara Sutra which “he mastered and deepened,” then pushed Chan learning onto the great stage of Chinese culture. Zhenke proffered his g¯ath¯a, which said, The wisdom of the great perfect mirror by nature is pristine, The wisdom of the nature of equality is the mind without fault, The wisdom of the marvelous inspection is seeing without effort, The wisdom that is the perfection of activity is the same as the perfect mirror. The results and causes of five and eight and six and seven operate, But these are names and words without any reality. If where there are operations one does not retain thoughts, One will profusely reveal the eternal place of the N¯aga (Dragon/Buddha) sam¯adhi.

Following on from this, he explained that “For the Way to be suddenly enlightened to requires the gradual removal of thoughts,” and since Bodhidharma transmitted his Way, he also “secretly conferred the sutra as a tool to cure thoughts” because the La˙nk¯avat¯ara Sutra has as its core theme the formation of the afore-mentioned four kinds of wisdom via the operation of the eight consciousnesses. Therefore, one can undertake the work of curing thought. Here he divided Chan learning into two parts; the Dharma and thoughts, the former requiring sudden enlightenment and therefore needing to cut off the thinking-logic; the latter needed a gradual removal and therefore it relied on the transformation of the consciousness into wisdom that is spoken of in the sutras. That is to say, sudden enlightenment and gradual removal, the establishment of the Dharma and the taking away of thoughts and discrimination requires the enlightened nature that does not rely on letters and a reason that is not separated from language and letters! He also recognized that language and letters “do not depend on propping up to be strong” and that therefore Bodhidharma “forcibly uprooted and removed it.” Zhenke used this to explain why the original lettered Chan did not rely on letters, which can also be said why he took extreme trouble over it. Thus, Zhenke’s conclusion was that “the handle for transforming consciousness into wisdom lies in me and not in Caoqi,” which is to claim that the lettered Chan that uses letters to remove thoughts began with Bodhidharma and not with the Platform Sutra, and that the Platform Sutra was only heir to the tradition of the lettered Chan of Bodhidharma. His aim was no more than to explain that the source of the tradition had flowed on for a long time. What is regrettable is that the above-described transmission was faked by earlier people.

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Lastly, Zhenke also strove to prove the logicality of lettered Chan by using the theory of the eight consciousnesses. He said, Even though there are eight consciousnesses, the one that investigates names and examines meanings, masters meaning and introduces it to the intellect, and on introducing it to the intellect puts it to use is all the sixth consciousness….The so-called operator has its power in the sixth consciousness. Using this consciousness in the three forms of inference together in concert, it therefore contains all mental effects (caitta)….Therefore, the handle of the operating consciousness must be in this consciousness.

The theory of the eight consciousnesses that he describes here is an important basis of the Faxiang (Yog¯acara) School of analysis of names and characteristics, but his train of thought and that of the Buddhist tradition are not the same on this matter. He highlighted and stressed that the sixth consciousness that acts to discern— the manovijñ¯ana, is taken to be “complete control with no omissions,” and that it is the fundamental point for transforming consciousness into wisdom.23 Ignoring discussion of his elaborate proof, simply speaking, Zhenke’s idea was to actualize the realm of Chan by firstly requiring the taking away of thoughts (some say the incessant curing of thought) and that only then by taking away the thought can one transform consciousness into wisdom, and that the root of the transformation into wisdom is determined by the manovijñ¯ana. The capability of the manovijñ¯ana is to discern, which is an intellectual understanding. Because of this, not only does one require “sutras,” that is, letters, to cure thoughts, the curing of thoughts also depends on intellectual understanding by the manovijñ¯ana. The implication is that letters and language are necessary and indispensable. Zhenke was using the theories of Faxiang to prove the necessity of letters for Chan. His theories were firm and not tentative, of course, but his discussion is often far-fetched, yet clearly his thinking firmly established lettered Chan on the basis of logical thinking and historical origins in a secure and unalterable position. Besides this, we can see the features of his synthesis of the Nature and Characteristics Schools. Moreover, his highlighting of the manovijñ¯ana, which in Buddhist theory is the function that is the sixth consciousness, clearly demonstrates his deviation from the tradition and features of the secularization of Chan learning. Examined solely from the viewpoint of historical origins, one cannot explain the universal significance of the existence of lettered Chan. The highlighting of the capabilities of the sixth consciousness only explains the importance of intellectual understanding for Chan. To further explain the rationality and universal significance of lettered Chan, Zhenke drew on the Tiantai School theory of three Buddha-natures in order to show people that letters are held in common with the Buddha-nature. The Tiantai masters relied on the Nirvana and other sutras to establish the idea of the three Buddha-natures as cause: that is, each person basically possesses the Buddha-nature as true suchness—this is the Buddha-nature as cause proper; the recognition of the wisdom of this one Buddha-nature—this is the Buddha-nature as discerning cause; and the stimulus of wisdom that then is also the various conditions for enlightenment and verification of true suchness—this is the Buddha-nature as 23

For all quoted content, see quanji, fascicle 2.

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conditioning cause. The Tiantai theory of the three Buddha-natures in reality is to show people that one relies on certain conditions (such as letters, meditation, mindfulness of Buddha, donation and so forth) to arouse the investigation and illumination by wisdom in the process of reaching that realm of awakening. Strictly speaking, only the Buddha-nature as cause proper can be called the Buddha-nature. Zhenke correctly used this term “Buddha-nature” and divided human wisdom into three sorts; namely, the prajñ¯a of letters, the prajñ¯a of investigation and illumination, and the prajñ¯a of the characteristics of reality, pairing them with the three Buddha-natures. He said, Prajñ¯a is of three types: meaning the prajñ¯a of letters, the prajñ¯a of investigation and illumination, and the prajñ¯a of the characteristics of reality. Furthermore, these three prajñ¯a are called the three Buddha-natures; the Buddha-nature as conditioning cause, the Buddhanature as discerning cause, and the Buddha-nature as cause proper.

Continuing, he explained that in secular society people value hearing the sound. “There is the sound of the voice and then there are letters. After letters exist, there is the Buddha-nature as conditional cause.” When there is a Buddha-nature as conditional cause, one can know the Buddha-nature as cause proper.24 In fact, Zhenke’s idea was that in actual society people communicate via sound, including the latterly-arisen letters, in order to actualize interchange, which is reliant on letters and language for understanding and to grasp a certain kind of cultural spirit, and therefore one needs to recognize the Buddha-nature to actualize this sphere of awakening. Therefore, letters are tools one must rely on or are said to be the path that one must follow. In this way, by dividing up the non-identical Buddha-natures, he could not avoid making some superfluous points, but he only feared that people would be unable to accept this, so he strove to use the language of Buddhism to prove this simple fact. However, instead he made people fall into a fog of utter bewilderment. Yet his conclusion is clear: All disciples of the Buddha who do not comprehend the prajñ¯a of letters cannot obtain the prajñ¯a of investigation and illumination, and those who do not comprehend the prajñ¯a of investigation and illumination surely cannot understand the prajñ¯a of the characteristics of reality….Present-day students of Buddhism in the empire are certain to reject letters and at once leap directly to enter the stage of the Tath¯agata, their ambitions being lofty! I fear that paintings of biscuits cannot sate their hunger.25 In this Sah¯a world, if one does not use the sam¯adhi of letters to arouse the Buddha-dharma, how can the Dharma be practiced?26

24

Zibo Laoren ji, fascicle 1, “Dharma talk.”. Zibo Laoren ji, fascicle 1, “Dharma talk.”. 26 Zibo Laoren ji, fascicle 24, “Yu Wu Jianchuan Shiguang Jushi shu si,” (Fourth Letter Sent to Layman Shiguang, Wu Jianchuan). 25

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Naturally, Zhenke’s discussion has some stubborn adherence to outdated ideas, but his concussion was undoubtedly correct. Even though everybody accepts that Chan is transmitted non-verbally, in fact nobody could deny that the so-called “Chan” that is divorced from letters and language in particular would make it difficult to conceive of Chan thought as a kind of culture that survived and spread. Zhenke’s contribution was in relating letters to Chan and in making that relation actual, or in explaining it through a completely secularized interpretation. His drawing on Tiantai to talk about Chan shows that he did not investigate only one school and one can also see the features of his cultural synthesis that blended the schools. Simply using Faxiang, Tiantai, and other Buddhist theories to firmly establish the position of lettered Chan is still insufficient to demonstrate his form of thinking that blended the religions. Zhenke also used the Xuanxue (Dark Learning) philosophers’ distinction of words and meaning, and the academic theories of the Confucians on knowing and action, and in the broader cultural background, he demonstrated that letters functioned in relation to the development of Chan thought, being a catalyst for its construction. He said, “The sage thought that writing was not as complete as words, and words are not as complete as meanings, and therefore he instituted images (symbols) [as in the Yijing] in order to convey his meaning.” Therefore, expression is the image and image the expression, and so images depend on things to convey meaning. Expression borrows phenomena to demonstrate principle. Therefore, if the meaning is obtained, then there will be no images that are not the meaning, and if the principle is demonstrated, then there will be no phenomena that are not the principle….If the images are forgotten, then the idea has difficulty in surviving on its own, and if the principle is obscured, how can phenomena be without impediments [to understanding]?27

Clearly, he created a new interpretation of words not being as complete as meaning. As he saw it, since images convey meaning and since phenomena demonstrate principle, images are also meanings and phenomena are also principle, and the key is in obtaining the meaning and demonstrating principle! This cannot be said to be without reason, and it is also in agreement with the path of thought taken by Dark Learning thinkers that the fundamental question is “obtaining the meaning.” But in order to highlight image and phenomena, for their reality to be the function of letters and language, Zhenke said that “If the image is forgotten, the meaning is lost.” This is poles apart from the tradition of “obtaining the meaning and forgetting the image.” The highlighted function of letters necessarily stressed intellectual understanding, and Zhenke was just using intellectual understanding that was a gateway through which to enter the Way. Thus, he necessarily venerated knowledge and downplayed practice, and therefore he also refuted the Wang Yangming learning of the times that had a theory of the unity of knowledge and action. He did his best to match this with forms of Confucian thinking. He said, This generation of Confucians always takes the unity of knowing and action to be a marvel. In particular they do not know that Zengzi described Confucius’ meaning and then said, “If one venerates what he knows, then that is eminent enlightenment; if one acts on what he knows, then the brilliance will be great.” Viewing it through this [saying], to first know and 27

Zibo Laoren ji, fascicle 2, “Dharma talk.”.

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act afterwards is enlightenment….However, knowing is the knowing of being enlightened by understanding, a knowing that is the cultivation of action, and a knowing that is a realization of the ultimate. Therefore, if it is knowing that is enlightenment without understanding, the knowing of the cultivation of action will have no basis, and if it is knowing without the cultivation of action, then the knowing of the realization of the ultimate has no Way! Also, the knowing of the realization of the ultimate is enlightenment via understanding, which is the destination of the wisdom of the cultivation of practice.28

The basis for the relationship of knowing and action was a focal point of debates among the Confucians, and later the pupils of Confucius divided into the two factions of learning (xue) and thinking (si). Zhenke likewise noticed this point and so he quoted Zengzi’s idea to deliberate on the principle of the unity of knowledge and action in Wang Yangming thought. He divided knowing into three types, what he called enlightenment through understanding, the cultivation of action, and the realization of the ultimate. He discriminated and titled them the basis, the Way, and the destination. He explained that the knowing of enlightenment by understanding is the cultivation of action, which is the root of the realization of the ultimate. In this he was really saying that the knowing of the cultivation of action and the knowing of the realization of the ultimate is simply action, and that enlightenment by understanding is his prerequisite or precondition, and thereby the preceding function of the realization and intellectual understanding is what is called knowing first and acting later. This was using Confucian scholarly theory to corroborate the rationality of lettered Chan. In summary, in order to explain the rationality of lettered Chan, Zhenke was not satisfied with his confusing selections from the theories of the various thinkers, and for many aspects he provided evidence. Even though this was a little overly elaborate, even having some flavor of a professor buying a donkey (of being verbose and not getting to the point), but still it demonstrates Zhenke’s cultural concepts of drawing from many currents and it fully reflects his need to use this tool of letters, and the contributions and efforts he made to push Chan into a new stage. In order to clearly understand Zhenke’s form of reasoned thinking in respect of lettered Chan, I will take the various categories of his analyses and their connections and simply diagram them as below. In this we can also see each one of the logical forms of his correspondences:

28

Zibo Laoren ji, fascicle 8.

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The distinction of word and meaning of

word→

image→

meaning

the Dark Learning philosophers

↓

↓

↓

Zhenke’s theory of prajñā

letters→investigation → and illumination ↓

Tiantai view of the Buddha-nature

Zhenke’s intellectual understanding

↓

characteristics of reality ↓

conditional→realizational→ cause proper cause

cause

↑

↑

letters→

hearing sound→correct aware

↑

investigation Faxiang’s consciousness only

description of manovijñāna

entry into

meaning

intellect

↑

↑

↑

Confucian principle of knowing and action enlightenment→cultivation of→realization by understanding

action

of ultimate

. Finally, here I again quote Zhenke’s words about the best attainment of meaning in lettered Chan, that is, his theory of spring and flowers, water and waves. Chan is like spring in which letters are the flowers. Spring resides in flowers and the totality of flowers is spring; [when] the flowers reside in spring the entirety of spring is flowers. And so, can one say that Chan and letters are two [things]? Therefore, Deshan and Linji struck and shouted ceaselessly but never denied letters; Qingliang (Huayan) and Tiantai wrote commentaries on sutras and wrote treatises but they never denied Chan.29 It is letters and language that transmit mind, like waves which are water; it is the mind that transmits letters and language, like water which is waves….Letters are waves; Chan is water. This is like seeking Chan while having to be apart from letters; of being thirsty and unable to drink the waves, of looking for water while having to set aside the waves, which is to be very befuddled. How did it come to this?30

Even though the metaphors of spring and flowers, of water and waves are not very apt, it is extraordinarily clear and the meaning has no need of explanation. However, his regarding of both Huayan and Tiantai as Chan is definitely not an oversight or intentionally muddying the waters; in reality, the various schools of Buddhism after the Ming lost their distinguishing qualities on account of their being dissolved into Chan learning. The variations of the Chan School also fully resided in the unspoken. 29

Zhenke, Shimen wenzi Chan xu (Preface to Shimen’s Lettered Chan). Zibo zunzhe quanji, fascicle 14, “Li Shimen Yuanming Chanshi wen” (Text on Paying Respects to Chan master Shimen Yuanming).

30

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Certainly, the association of the thought of the oneness of the three positions of transcending the world, saving the world, and continuing the life of Buddha’s insight, for Zhenke necessarily involves the harmonization of the three religions. However, the tendency of Buddhists to indulge in emptiness and stagnate in calm, the Chan monks’ transcendence of the mundane and distancing themselves from the laity, and Confucian realism really did not coincide. Because of this, Zhenke first of all wanted to purify Buddhism and to deny that it is a gateway of emptiness, and to sweep away the obstacles to harmonizing transcending the world and engaging in the world. He said, Sentient beings are stuck firmly to the habituations that are the root of birth, something that has long been accumulated and become stubborn, so that in the end it is not easy to smash. Therefore, the buddhas and bodhisattvas used the medicine of “emptiness” to cure this stubbornness of the illness of “existence.” The world does not know the mind of the buddhas and bodhisattvas, so when they see the fervent talk of emptiness in the sutras, they think that the Buddha took emptiness to be the Way and proclaimed that its gateway is that of emptiness. They in particular do not know that if the illness of “existence” of sentient beings is healed, then the buddhas and bodhisattvas’ medicine of “emptiness” will also not be given.

In Zhenke’s view, the Buddhist talk of emptiness is a medicine given to sentient beings for their illness. If the illness of “existence” is healed and following that it produces the illness of “emptiness,” the Buddhists then should use a marvelous medicine to cure it. This is what he is saying with “The preaching of the Dharma by the Buddha and bodhisattvas is like a good doctor using medicine and like a good general using soldiers,” “but what about the examination of the ill person and the thoughts of the enemy?” However, worldly people always see the Buddhists talking of emptiness, so they think that Buddhism is the gateway of emptiness and they really do not know the “true mind of the Buddha.” He further pointed out that the words of Huineng, “originally there is not a single thing” were “arbitrarily calculated by people to be in the one mind.” They also lost the original idea of Caoqi, “they all being those whose blades have snapped when the ox was yet to be cut up.”31 He raised the example as an explanation that denies “there is not a single thing,” and accordingly he thus disproves that the Buddha-gateway does not have the nature of being a gateway of emptiness. One should say that Zhenke’s analysis is very insightful because Buddhists fundamentally based themselves on human life and Huineng took “without a thing” to explain the pure mind and the principle of seeing the nature is also not what the vulgar world calls “emptiness,” something that can be interpreted. Here this clearly shows his spirit of engagement with the world and also his creative thinking that harmonized the mundane and supramundane law (Dharma). In the Chinese tradition, of course, cultivation of the body, and also governing the country, or establishing virtue or establishing merit, and establishing theories; all specially emphasized introspection, laying importance on the aspect of the nature of the mind. Zhenke doubtlessly also noted this aspect, and so he regarded the mind 31

All the above are seen in the “Dharma talk” of Zibo zunzhe quanji fascicle 1. Tr., the reference is to Cook Ding in the “Secret of Caring for Life” chapter of Zhuangzi. He means that these people have no understanding of the Way; their means have failed even before they started their analysis.

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as being a common foundation point for Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, which formed his confluence of the various schools and a cultural concept that is the common source of the three religions. He said, I have obtained the mind of Confucius and looked into the six classics, obtained the mind of Boyang (Laozi) and understood his two-part text (the Daode jing), and I have obtained the Buddha’s mind and started to realize my own mind. Although the Buddha has not obtained my mind and cannot give a sermon, and Boyang has not obtained my mind, so how could he compose the two-part text, and if Confucius has not got my mind, then [does that mean] he cannot be the great perfecter [of tradition]? Now say, how does the very last phrase stir things up? From of old the numerous dragons have gone without a head [the great thinkers have been leaderless] and even though the door and the wall are different, fundamentally they are similar.32

In fact, this form of thinking is also that of Chan. The three religions not only used mind to link them in common, but also my mind in particular can comprehend the three religions, the mind containing and covering heaven and earth. Developing out of the mind, although the doors and walls of the three religions are different, their source is what limits them, and in fact they cannot be separated. If so, then this is a platitude that has no new ideas. Yet he also pointed out that. TheYijing (Book of Changes) cautions against having a mind and Laozi also cautioned against having a mind. However, in observing its images and investigating the lines [of the Yijing], one also cannot start without a mind….Therefore, having a mind and not having a mind, only sages can use them well….Since I am not a sage, it is not only my having a mind that is in error, as being mindless has also never been without an error….Those who can distinguish these may read the Yijing and Laozi.33

His meaning is that even though Confucianism and Daoism (in fact, this also includes Buddhism) caution against having a mind, yet they were never mindless. Whether one has a mind or no mind, this is entirely in regard to whether or not one can apprehend them well. In the discussion of the mind like this, one can say that this is a well-apprehended dialectical relationship of the mind and one can also say that this is the sam¯adhi spoken of in the theory of the nature of the mind of Chinese culture. Nevertheless, this mind is not only the mind originally possessed by the human body, it is the “clear, perfect, and alone existing” intrinsic reality (benti) that precedes heaven and earth. He said, The beginning of the body and mind had no body or mind as it was clear, perfect, and existing alone. Fu Xi got it and drew it with hexagrams. Confucius got it and made a commentary on the Yijing. Laozi got it and wrote his two-part text, and our greatly enlightened elder (the Buddha) got it and in the assembly on Mt. Gr.dhrak¯ut.a lifted up a flower [and Mah¯ak¯as´yapa] ¯ subtly smiled….Only Mah¯ak¯as´yapa got it. Due to this, all continued and got it, from Ananda through to Bodhidharma, then Huineng, then Nanyue and Qingyuan. Up to now, there have been thousands of changes and tens of thousands of transformations….The mundane and supramundane law continue to create each other.34 32

Zibo zunzhe bieji, fascicle 1, “Ti sanjiao tu” (Title to the Diagram of the Three Religions). Zibo Laoren ji, fascicle 6, “Dharma talk.”. 34 Zibo zunzhe quanji, fascicle 12, “Shi bishefoufo ji” (G¯ ath¯a on the Vipa´syana Buddha). 33

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One can see that Zhenke evidently was influenced by the ontology of the Daoist philosophers, which he formed into an ontology of the mind. Herein, it goes from the Buddha-patriarch lifting a flower through to Huineng’s obtaining of the Dharma, and then onto Nanyue and Qingyuan, in which one flower had five petals (generations or houses), and the mind was transmitted from mind to mind. It is no longer the pristine, original mind, but is the mind of true suchness that clearly exists alone and is born before heaven and earth exist. Zhenke used the mind of intrinsic reality to link Chan with Confucianism and Daoism, which is evidently also an aspect of the “Daocization.” However, when discussing the relationship of mind, principle, nature, and thought, he also showed a tendency towards Confucianization. He said, Therefore, it is said, “The mind controls the nature and thought.” Regarding this, the mind alone occupies the space between the nature and thought. Therefore, if the mind is enlightened, thoughts can be transformed into principle; if the mind is deluded, the principle changes to become thought. Now, that which precedes the mind is called the nature; if the nature can respond to things then it is called the mind. If it responds to things but is not bound by them it is called principle; if it is bound when it responds to things it is called thought for the first time.35

In summary, he discriminated and contrasted mind, nature, and thoughts. He also pointed out that this mind cannot be found internally or externally, and cannot be fathomed as existent or non-existent, and yet it clearly produced the quality of the intrinsic reality. This separation of the mind from the nature and provision of a different content for it, evidently came from Song-dynasty Chan monks’ criticisms of Confucian thought; it does not match in the least with the train of thought of the blending of mind and nature of the Chan School. In particular, his “mind controls the nature and thought” and his sermons stating that if the mind responds to things without being bound, that is principle and that thoughts are transformed into principle, may be said to be virtually identical to the Song Confucians’ discrimination of heavenly principle and human desires in the way that a shadow follows the body. Of course, this mind of intrinsic reality is also one’s own mind that one has intrinsically. Zhenke takes them both to be the source and the link between the three relgions. On this foundation, he further emphasized that “the Buddha-dharma is the learning of the mind”36 and “opening up and enlightening one’s own mind is Buddhist learning.”37 Here he brings up the topic of Buddhist learning and mind learning (Xinxue), which explains that he has been influenced by the Wang Yangming learning of his day and that he regarded the learning of the mind and nature to be the core of his scholarly thought, which also reflects his own consciousness of taking Buddhism, or concretely speaking, the Chan School, leading it along a scholarly path and not simply taking it as purely faith. This also agrees with the lettered Chan he advocated.

35

Zibo zunzhe quanji, fascicle 1, “Dharma talk.”. Zibo zunzhe quanji, fascicle 13, “Qixia-si Dinghui-tang fanseng yuanqi,” (On the Origin of Feeding Monks in the Dinghui Hall of Qixia Monastery). 37 Ibid. 36

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Zhenke’s concrete discussions of the harmonization of the schools of Buddhism and blending of the three religions are too many to enumerate. For example, he took the five constants of Confucianism and allocated them to buddhas, whom he titled: Hail to the Buddha of humane compassion, Hail to the Buddha of righteous vigor, Hail to the Buddha of ritual restraint, Hail to the Buddha of the wise insight, Hail to the Buddha of the faithful mind.38

Really, one can see that this was a display of great originality. Discussing times of great peril for the Buddha-dharma, Zhenke identified seven major faults of masters and pupils. Of them, the sixth and seventh items may be said to fully reveal the idea of the blending of the three religions. He said, People in the three religions each lack a fixed view, so if they study Confucianism and do not comprehend it, they abandon Confucianism and study Buddhism; if they study Buddhism and do not comprehend it, they abandon Buddhism and study Daoism; and if they study Daoism and do not comprehend it, they wander into perverse gateways….If one still does not comprehend Confucianism, how can you study Buddhism? If one still does not comprehend Buddhism, how can you have the time to learn Daoism?39

This explains the common principle for studying Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism from a critical angle. Even though he venerated Buddhism and disparaged Confucianism and Daoism, he still thought that one was only able to study Buddhism once one had comprehended Confucianism, and one could only study Daoism once one had comprehended Buddhism. Because of this, “If one studies Confucianism, one can get the mind of Confucius; if one studies Buddhism, one can get the mind ´ akya-muni; and if one studies Daoism, one can get the mind of Laozi, and then of S¯ the illness will be cured of itself.” As he saw Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, “they are all names and nothing more,” and it is only the existence of the mind then that is substantial, so “getting the mind” is the one Path of the three religions.40 If Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism have a commonality, then they do not talk of their own enlightenment. Following this, he also took the historical facts of Confucians who combined and shared themes and teachings (with Buddhism) in order to criticize those of his contemporaries who rooted themselves unfirmly between “thoughts/emotions” and “the Way.” In fact, he took concrete examples to affirm the commonality of Confucianism and Buddhism. He said that Pei Xiu (787?-860) of the Tang and Su Shi of the Song “both had enlightenments to the two paths of the teachings of the core themes” and “were so bright as to contest with the Buddhist sun for brilliance.” Chan members responded to Confucian scholars by making “their own style to express this with room left over” and “when it came to the stele inscriptions and sutra prefaces [these Confucians wrote], they seemed to 38

Zibo zunzhe quanji, fascicle 20, “Wuchang ji” (G¯ath¯a on the Five Constants). Zibo Laoren ji, fascicle 3, “Dharma talk.”. 40 Zibo Laoren ji, fascicle 9, “Changsong Rutui xu” (Preface to Changsong Ruitui). 39

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tally exactly with the sutras. Was it not that if they truly did not get the Buddha’s mind, how could they achieve this?” It was like Song Lian (1310–1381) of the Ming dynasty, who “could use language and letters to praise our Way.” Such Confucians “amused themselves with people beyond the bounds (monks), and all were able to transcend thoughts and separate themselves from [false] views, and they could smash apart the constraining nets of the lay world, and place gain and loss, glory and humiliation into the midst of [the category] of flowers in the sky (illusions).” Here he showed the transcendence of thoughts and views, and non-involvement in taboos, since he did not require “use of thought to find the Way,” and he also did not need “to remove thoughts to find the Way.” Even if “one did not participate in Chan and did not look at Doctrine,” still he was “sure that there would be a day when one would be enlightened to the Way.”41 From this one can see that Zhenke not only thought that the three religions are in agreement, but also that he demonstrated through the Chan School’s transcendence of dualistic opposing concepts that this further transcended the idea of the three religions being in agreement. Besides, in his preface to the Changsong rutui (The Vegetable Discharge/Shit from Changsong),42 Zhenke systematically expressed the idea of the three religions being in agreement. He established mind as the basis and used principle to control thought. On the basis of that idea, one sees his way of thinking and his mixing of the principles of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism. In it he quoted Laozi, Zhuangzi, Lunyu (Analects), Mencius, the Platform Sutra, the Weishi [lun], Prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a [sutra], Lengyan jing, the Zhou Yi (Yijing), Zhongyong, and even Yangzi and Mozi often. I shall not elaborate. His mingling of the theories of the schools of Buddhism also will not be quoted any further. Summarizing the above, of course his proofs of lettered Chan and his arguments for the blending of the various thinkers are all brim full with academic bookishness. Even though this is the case, in being fettered by Pure Land faith, he was still unable to completely shake off acting in the style of his day. Zhenke likewise believed that heaven and hell are real and he firmly believed in the vulgar theory of the soul being reborn through the ages. In particular, he believed in the power of the compassionate vow of Guanshiyin, and therefore he also wrote a rite for worshipping the Buddha. In it he said, Hail to the patriarchs, bodhisattvas, and mah¯asattvas of India to the west and of the eastern lands who through the ages transmitted the core doctrines, ranked the teachings, and translated the arcane chapters and sentences. Three calling of the names and three bows. Hail to the venerables from Nanyue Huihai on down. One call of the name and one bow. Hail to the Great Master Zhizhe [Zhi]yi, hail to Great Master Xianshou [Fa]zang, and hail to Great Master Cien [Kui]ji.

41

All the above seen in Zibo Laoren ji, fascicle 3, “Dharma talk.”. Tr. this is named from a residence at Changsong, indicating Zhenke, and “vegetable discharge” refers to the refined and fragrant shit from the white ox of the Himalayas; see Zixuan, Shoulengyan yishu zhujing, T1799.39.916a21-22.

42

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This ritual of worship, which collects together the patriarchs of Tiantai, Huayan, and the two lineages of the Chan School, and its ranking of the teachings of the transmission through the generations from India and the East, and the Esoteric Buddhism, is sufficient to explain why his method of thinking that harmonizes the schools, which is seen everywhere in his works, also reflects the cultural source for the subjective polytheistic beliefs, which regarded Buddhism as their mainstay, that spread widely among the people in Chinese society of recent times.

Part 2: Deqing and His Mengyu Quanji (Complete Works of Dream Travels) that Survey the Three Essentials In the history of Chinese thought, “to study the three essentials” is immediately recognized as being a famous saying about the unity of the three religions, which is the so-called, “If you do not know the Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals) you will be unable to deal with the world; if you are not versed in Laozi and Zhuangzi you cannot forget the world; and if you do not participate in Chan you cannot transcend the world.” These words came out of the mouth of the late Ming-dynasty Chan monk, Deqing. He also specially pointed out that “these three are the perfection of learning about managing the world (state affairs) and transcending the world.” This theory about managing the world and transcending the world was venerated by monks of later periods. For his whole life, Deqing devoted himself to this Way, using the mind-dharma to write commentaries on the scriptures of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, even though “he incurred misfortune due to propagating the Dharma” and “the [imperial] favor exiled him to the south of the ranges (Lingnan, Guangdong and Guangxi).” He also kept writing without stopping, or in his own words, “this was speaking of a dream within a dream.” His disciples gathered his writings together into the Mengyu quanji in 55 fascicles.43 It can also be said to be a model of lettered Chan. Deqing (1546–1623), lay surname Cai, was a native of Quanjiao (part of Anhui Province). At the age of seven (sui), he asked about the principle of birth and death, and at the age of nine he was able to chant the Pumen pin chapter (on Guanyin) of the Lotus Sutra. His mother revered Guanyin and whenever she bowed to Guanyin, he was sure to follow suit. His mother also supervised him very strictly and taught him so that he would be superior in following the principles of service (as an official). She pointed out that Deqing was not talented, “only having the makings of being a resident monk.” Deqing then had the idea of becoming a monk. At the age of twelve, “he practiced the work of an [examination] candidate” in a monastery, and at seventeen he could lecture on the Four Confucian Books (sishu), and his poetry was

43

Those fascicles really included are forty-one and a half fascicles. Besides this, fascicles 41, 42, 43, and the first half of 44 are separate, in a monograph, and so were not incorporated.

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“unexcelled for a youth of the age.”44 At nineteen, he visited Yungu Fahui (1500– 1579) at Qixia Monastery and he read the Zhongfeng guanglu (Extensive Records of Zhongfeng), and he then became determined to participate in Chan. He was tonsured by Yongning. From then on, he “burned and discarded all he had learnt and devoted himself to the investigation of the one matter.”45 He had heard lectures on the Huayan xuantan (Profound Talk on Huayan) from Xilin Wuji and was enlightened to the tenet of the Dharma-realm being totally interfused. Accordingly, he thought highly that Qingliang (Chengguan, 738–839) was for him, and so he styled himself Chengyin. Then he followed Yungu Fahui and joined a meditation season in Tianjie Monastery. In the forty-fifth year of the Jiaqing era (1566), Baoen Monastery was burnt down and Deqing in many ways looked after the assembly, and so the monks of the monastery were able to escape disaster. The whole assembly of the monastery submitted to his administration. In the same year, he met Miaofeng Fudeng. At the age of twenty-six, he travelled afar with a single bowl, reaching the capital and consulting Bianrong and Xiaoyan. He read the Wubuqian lun (On Things not Shifting, by Sengzhao), and he wrote a g¯ath¯a that said, “Life and death, day and night/The water flowers and the flowers wither./Today I knew for the first time,/That my nostrils face downward.” At twenty-eight, he travelled to Mt. Wutai (Five Terraces), and when he reached the North Terrace, he saw Mt Han (Hanshan), and he so loved its enchanting beauty that he took Hanshan as his style. The next year he returned to the capital and he associated with some famous scholars. Since he had followed Miaofeng to visit Shaolin Monastery, he first paid his respects to the first patriarch (Bodhidharma) and then travelled to Yanmen. At the age of thirty, he decided to live at Longmen on the North Terrace. At thirty-one, he met Zhuhong on Mt. Wutai “and stayed for several days, at night talking with him, and they had a complete meeting of minds.”46 He also wrote a g¯ath¯a: “In a flash of a single thought-moment, the crazy mind stopped./Internal and external, the sense-faculties and sense-data are all clearly discerned./Liberating onself, totally refuted [like] great space,/All the array of images consequently rise and cease.” Deqing said that “in that year he was enlightened, and as there was no one to ask for the benefit (the proof of his enlightenment), he displayed the La˙nk¯avat¯ara as the imprimatur of his realization.”47 At thirty-two, he was reminded of the great favor he received from his parents and he made up his mind to draw out his blood, mix it with golden paint, with which he “wrote out a copy of the [massive] Dafangguang Fo Huayan jing (Avatamsaka ˙ Sutra).”48 Emperor Shenzong heard of this and gifted golden paper to help him. Thereupon, Deqing’s fame spread far and entered the imperial household. 44 Deqing’s autobiography, Nianpu shilu (Chronological Veritable Records). Monk biographies, Qian Qianyi’s inscription, and Lu Menglong all say he was twelve when he became a monk via Xilin at Baoen Monastery in Jiangning. Here I have relied on his own account. 45 Deqing, Nianpu shilu. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid.

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In the ninth year of the Wanli era (1581), Deqing was forty-five (sui), and together with Miaofeng, he solicited funds to set up an unrestricted grand assembly meeting on Mt. Wutai. This was just at the time that Emperor Shenzong issued a decree demanding that there be prayers for the imperial heir and the queen mother sent messengers to Wutai to together pray for the heir to the throne. The queen mother ordered repairs be made to the precious stupa containing relics and she had Deqing write out the Huayan jing in gold and placed in the stupa. Deqing also publicly announced, “All the Buddhist services performed by monks are entirely to pray for the benefit of the country and to covertly assist the imperial conversion. Now, praying for the imperial heir to the throne is for the basis of the country.”49 This fully reveals his active participation in government and his spirit of using the Buddha-dharma mixed together with the mundane law to engage with the world. In the third month of the tenth year of Wanli (1582), Deqing lectured on the Huayan xuantan at Mt. Wutai, and over the period of a hundred days the permanently-present audience was close to a thousand people and the gathered monks and lay people from all over were no less than ten thousand people every day. Deqing was not without some complacent bragging: “All of it is at my own direction and the rest are items that are not manageable.”50 The next year, Deqing left Wutai and went east to Laizhou. He read in the Pusa zhuchu pin (Chapter on the Dwellings of the Bodhisattvas) of the Huayan shu (Commentary on the Avatamsaka ˙ S¯utra) that the eastern ocean had a N¯ar¯ayan.a Grotto, and that Qingliang (Chengguan) had interpreted this to mean Laoshan. Therefore, Deqing climbed Laoshan in search of a scenic spot and in the very deepest recesses to the south of the mountain, where the mountain backed onto the sea, he constructed a hut and lived there. This matter was reported to the court and so a messenger was sent to convey an imperial decree, and he was gifted three thousand in gold “in order to build a hermitage residence.” Deqing distributed the three thousand in gold to the orphans and elderly in various districts, and the imperial messenger reported this back to the emperor, who was delighted. In the fourteenth year of Wanli (1586), Emperor Shenzong ordered the distribution of fifteen copies of the Tripitaka, giving them to famous monasteries in the empire. Because of her connections with Deqing, the queen mother had one copy sent to Laoshan and she ordered the imperial concubines to each make donations to repair the monastery, and to give worship, and she ordered that the monastery be called Haiyin Monastery. Deqing also incurred misfortune because of this. At that time, Deqing was flushed with success and had written while in the realm of enlightenment, “that I wrote the Lengyan xianjing (The Hanging Mirror of the Lengyan jing) in one fascicle, finishing before the candle had half burnt away.”51 In the seventeenth year of Wanli (1589), he returned to his home town and his elderly mother was overjoyed at seeing him. Deqing also requested the gift of a copy of the Tripitaka be sent to Baoen Monastery. He returned to the capital and petitioned the queen mother to rebuild his home monastery. The queen mother also responded 49

Ibid. Ibid. 51 Ibid. 50

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by reducing expenditure on food delicacies and saving that for this purpose. In the eighteenth year, Haiyin Monastery was completed. In the twentieth year (1592), Deqing visited Daguan Zhenke on Mt. Shangfan in the capital. “They accompanied each other and he lingered for forty days and nights. They were friends for the rest of their lives.”52 Two years later, having finished preaching at Dacishou Monastery in the capital, he again asked the queen mother to repair Baoen Monastery, but because the Japanese army of Hideyoshi had invaded Chos˘on Korea, he desisted. Because of this, Deqing helped bring about his imprisonment. In 1595, that is, the twenty-third year of the Wanli era, Deqing knew that this was a year that he knew the decrees of Heaven (meaning he was aged fifty). Emperor Shenzong had always disliked the courtiers use of Buddhist affairs to ask for services as being very troublesome. There were also powerful figures who were jealous of the emissaries sent to distribute the Tripitaka. Because of this, difficulties arose for Deqing. Taking advantage of rumors spread by Daoist priests of Laoshan, these figures implicated Deqing in the matters of the inner chambers of the imperial palace. Shenzong was very angry and he issued an order to detain Deqing in prison. In prison, Deqing was severely interrogated and tortured. They wanted to make him entirely confess that the queen mother had donated no less than several tens of thousands of pieces of silver to him. Over a period of eight months, he was repeatedly on the verge of death. Deqing used his utmost strength to resist confessing, saying, “I am ashamed of being a monk for I have nothing with which to repay the country. Now, how could I feel sorry that my death could harm the great filial piety of the emperor? This distortion of my intention and false accusations of my being involved in the net of profit, and the presentation of the emperor’s intention in order to undermine the core virtues of Confucianism are in particular not the thoughts of love I have for my ruler.” Although the emperor’s anger was appeased, Deqing was still charged with privately constructing a monastery (Haiyin Monastery) and was sent into exile in Leizhou. On the way to Leizhou, he met Zhenke, and Zhenke wanted to try and rescue him. He made the statement, “If Hanshan (Deqing) does not return I will have the great burden of transcending the world.” Deqing took a detached attitude in declining this. He said, “The life of one’s ruler and father, and the services of a subject and a son, are not different.”53 Later, while in exile, he said, “Since I have incurred misfortune for propagating the Dharma, I almost died, and was ordered imprisoned, but I received the favor of being pardoned [by not being executed] and was exiled to Leiyang. I placed myself in the ranks [of the army] and I did not dare consider myself to be someone beyond the bounds (a monk). Every time I followed my thoughts, I thought of myself as being a subject in disgrace but still loyal, which is my heavenly mandate (fate).”54 From this one can see that he shook with fear at barely escaping with his life and also see his compeletely secularized feelings.

52

Deqing, Nianpu shilu. Ibid. 54 Hanshan Laoren Mengyu quanji, fascicle 19, “Chunqiu Zuoshi xinfa xu” (Preface to the Mental Dharma of Mr. Zuo’s Spring and Autumn Annals). 53

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In the second month of the spring of the second year (of his punishment), when Deqing reached his place of exile, he was enlisted into the army at Leizhou. In the twenty-sixth year of the Wanli era (1598), the censor, Fan Youxuan was also demoted to Leizhou, and he visited Deqing in Wuyang (Guangzhou). He asked Deqing to write a commentary on the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra, and so he wrote the Lengqie biji (Notes on the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra). The Confucian scholar Zhou Haimen (Zhou Rudeng, 1547–1629) led students to ask the Way from Deqing, and Deqing wrote the Fahua jijie (Essential Teachings of the Lotus Sutra). In his recollection of this period of living in banishment into military exile, he said, I thought of imitating Dahui, who wore a kerchief while preaching the Dharma, and building an abbot’s room in a domed [military] tent, and at times of conducting dream-like illusory Buddhist services with the disciples who came with me. So I took the bell and drum [of the military] to be [Buddhist] chimes, took the [military] flags to be Buddhist banners, took military exercises to be [begging with an] an alms-bowl, took the long lance to be a staff, took the three columns to be my Dharma companions, took marching in the ranks to be the pure regulations, took the shouts to be the sound of the tide (the tidings of Buddhism), took paying homage [to the emperor] to be the ritual of intonation, took the demons to be my retinue, and I clearly took it all to be one great site of practice (a monastery).55

Although Deqing was put into exile and banishment, still he did not forget to propagate the Buddha-dharma, it being just as if he was among the monkhood and had not forgotten the lay life. He regarded being a garrison soldier as being a matter of practicing as a Chan monk and regarded the barracks as a monastery. His “speaking of a dream in a dream” and his writings to establish his theories, from start to finish took the worldly and the supramundane law to be tightly connected together. In the twenty-ninth year of the Wanli era (1601), he witnessed abuses at Caoqi that had been accumulating for over a century, with monks practicing the arts of raising domestic animals, a lay custom that had become commonplace. Those who raised the animals only profited by gaining power over the agricultural fields and yet they did not speak a word about the matter of transcending the world. There were also vagrant scoundrels gathered in the mountains all around the monastery. Thereupon he gained the support of the regional officials and restored Caoqi to being the monastery of the sixth patriarch. Following this, he selected monks to receive the precepts, he set up doctrinal study, and redeemed the monastery properties. He repaired the hall of the patriarchs, founded a meditation hall, and established a regulatory regime. This was the so-called “restoration of Caoqi.” In the thirty-first year (1603), Zhenke was implicated in the affair of the nefarious pamphlet and was imprisoned. Deqing was also suspected of having been involved and the department ordered that he return to Leizhou and his place of banishment. In the thirty-third year (1605), he again came to Caoqi and repaired buildings there. In the thirty-fourth year, he completed his Zhu Daode jing (Interlinear Commentary on the Daode jing), having taken fifteen years. In that autumn, the emperor’s eldest grandson was born and there was an amnesty. Deqing was also included in it. In the forty-second year (1614), the queen mother died and Deqing was ordered to be tonsured. He returned to wearing monk garb 55

Deqing, Mengyu shiji zixu (Own Preface to the Poetry Collection of Dream Wandering).

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and his twenty years of banishment came to an end. In the next year, he completed his Fahua tongyi (Comprehensive Meaning of the Lotus Sutra) and Zuan Qixin lun shu (Compiled Commentary on the Awakening of Faith). After a year, he went to Xunyang (in Jianxi) and climbed [Mt.] Kang and [Mt.] Lu, and he avoided the heat at Jinzhu Terrace. There he wrote a commentary on the Zhaolun. A monk gave him a present of Wuru Peak, which Deqing accepted, and he stayed there. In the forty-seventh year of the Wanli era (1619), he sealed himself away and refused any dealings, devoting himself solely to pure karma. He wrote the Huayan gangyao (Essential Principles of Huayan). In the second year of the Tianqi era (1622), the governor of Shaoyang sent a strong request, and so Deqing returned to Caoqi. The next year he passed away from illness aged seventy-eight (sui). Besides the texts mentioned above, Deqing also wrote Guan Lengqie jing ji (Record of Investigation of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra), Lengqie puyi (Rectification of the Omissions of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra), Fahua tongyi (Comprehensive Meaning of the Lotus Sutra), Qixin lun jijie (Collected Interpretations of the Awakening of Faith), Bashi guiju tongshuo (Collected Explanations of the Precepts of the Eight Consciousnesses), Xingxiang tongshuo (Comprehensive Explanations of the Nature and Characteristics Schools), Baifa mingmen lun lunyi (On the Meanings of the Clear Gateways of the Hundred Dharmas), Yuanjue jing zhijie (Direct Interpretations of the Yuanjue jing), Jin’gang jing jueyi (Resolutions of Doubts About the Diamond Sutra), Bore xinjing zhishuo (Direct Explanations of the Heart Sutra), Guan Lao Zhuang yingxiang lun (Investigation of the Mutual Influences of Laozi and Zhuangzi), Daode jing jie (Interpretation of the Daode jing), Daxue Zhong Yong zhizhi (Direct Guide to the Great Learning and the Zhong Yong), Hanshan xuyan (Introductory Words of Hanshan) and so on. This means that his learning included Buddhist and non-Buddhist theories, which he compared with no qualms, Those Confucian scholars and high officials who regarded him as his teacher (without having studied with him) were those such as Yang Qiyuan (a presented scholar of the fifth year of the Wanli era [1577] who was appointed as a Compiler in the Hanlin Academy and who rose in the bureaucracy to Vice-Minister of Personnel and Academician Reader-in-waiting) and Zhou Rudeng (presented scholar in the same year as Yang, who was Secretary of the Ministry of Works in Nanjing, and who was deeply learned in Wang Yangming learning). Besides them, there was also Wang Boyu, the Assistant to the Minister of War; Wu Guanwu, the Grand Astrologer; Ding Youwu, the Administrative Vice Commissioner; Fan Youxian, the Attendant Censor; Chen Rugang, the Minister of War; Feng Yuancheng, the Provincial Administration Commissioner; Wu Yingbin, the Reader-in-waiting; and Qian Qianyi (1582–1664). During the period when he was in exile in Leizhou, they all exchanged letters with him, and these people ranged from princes, prime ministers, a minister of personnel, a vice-censor-in-chief above, to attendant censors and various officials of the central bureaucracy, down to regional high officials and even over ninety people who were secret agents of the Eunuch Office. In his Nianpu shilu, there is the following kind of record: “I reached Wuyang (Guangzhou) in prison garb and I was unshackled by the great general and the general, and I was entertained with vegetarian food.” Deqing was courteously received like this, which shows that his ideas and theories

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had already permeated and played a part in official circles and political life of the end of the Ming period. Monks of recent times often knowingly followed his bad example. Looking in general at Deqing’s life and scholarship, we evidently cannot view him as being a Chan monk in the traditional sense. From when he was young, he studied as an examination candidate for the bureaucracy and then went from Confucianism to Buddhism and broadly set foot in the ocean of sutra doctrine. For his whole life he made letters his business, “speaking of dream within dream” for fifty-five fascicles. His dependence on letters to talk of the mind and explain the nature still preserved the Chan School’s transcendental spirit of introspection, of eliminating name and characteristics. At the same time, he used the One Mind to comprehend the Nature and Characteristics (schools), to comprehend Chan, doctrine, and the Pure Land, and used the principle of Chan to comprehensively discuss the three essentials, and describe Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism, which clearly expressed a feature of the changes to and secularization of Chan learning. What are most evident are the following three aspects: One, his use of One Mind to link the three learnings. To talk of mind and explain the nature is a method of the Chan School, and Deqing, in emphasizing the mind, can be said to also belong to the successive generations of ancestors of the school. In past explanations of Chan, some said it was a method of calming thought and entering sam¯adhi, some said it was only being calm, which is the intrinsic reality of enlightenment, that Huineng defined Chan as the thinking and mood that is apart from thoughts and apart from characteristics. If so, then the mind-nature of the Chan School that Deqing elaborated on directly explained Chan as being “a different name for mind.” All the phenomena and things of the world are rooted in the One Mind and are also are enlightened in the One Mind.56 The One Mind connects the three learnings (wisdom, meditation, vinaya); One Mind connects the doctrinal vehicles, “its marvel at its utmost is the mind and there is nothing omitted.”57 In this way, he regarded mind as the essential of scholarship, and due to Chan being mind, mind is learning, and at the very end he deduced that the three learnings of Confucius, Laozi, and Buddha are Chan learning, and he elevated the learning of the mind-nature of the Chan School to this level. It is probable that there was no precedent for this. Deqing often pointed out that “Chan is another name for the mind”58 and “in particular, they do not know that Chan is another name for mind” and so on, He described himself in his Guan Lao Zhuang yingxiang lun (Observations on the Influence of Laozi and Zhuangzi), saying, “When I was young I took Confucius as my teacher but I did not know Confucius, I took Laozi to be my teacher but I did not 56

For example, “Mind is the source (zong) of all dharmas” (root); “the Way of the three vehicles,” “the Dharma of the One Mind,” “investigating Chan only requires the emptying out of the mind,” and governing the world and economic production “all follow the correct Dharma,” and “are manifestations of nothing-but mind” (practice); “the mind of sudden enlightenment” and “enlightenment is the attainment of one’s own mind itself” (enlightenment). 57 Mengyu quanji, fascicle 39, “Essentials of Learning.”. 58 Deqing, Chunqiu Zuoshi xinfa xu.

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know Laozi, and I took Buddha as my teacher but I did not know Buddha. I retreated into the deep mountains and great marshes, practiced calm in order to investigate the mind. Due to this I knew that the three realms are nothing-but mind and that all the dharmas are nothing-but consciousness.” It can be seen from these words that Deqing was evidently influenced by Huayan and Faxiang thought, and that he viewed mind as being Chan. However, his idea was also to say that it was only by having the method of the Chan School’s introspection that one would be able to discuss the principle of the three religions. The mind is the basis for his Chan learning and it is also the basis of the three learnings and all dharmas, and the topic of “Chan is the mind” was doubtlessly a change in Chan thought produced by the influence of the Wang Yangming learning of his day. Of course, using this to discuss the three learnings was also a method for bringing out the essentials. The Spring and Autumn Annals, the Laozi and Zhuangzi, and Chan learning formed Deqing’s three essentials of scholarship, but if the three items of the experience of life, forgetting the world, and transcending the world are linked together, then regarding the “One Mind” to be the essential of the essentials is completed. He pointed out that “The essentials of these three are in the One Mind, and the essentials of devoting one’s efforts to the mind is investigating Chan.” Here he finally took the topic of “Chan is mind” to govern the three learnings of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, and even the principle of the world. His logic is that the essentials of the three learnings reside in the One Mind, the essential of the One Mind is the investigation of Chan, the essential of the investigation of Chan is in forgetting the world, the essential of forgetting the world is in the opportune moment, the essential of the opportune moment is in discerning change, the essential of discerning change is in seeing principle, the essential of seeing principle is in firm determination, the essential of firm determination is in knowing one’s place, the essential of knowing one’s place is in having few desires, the essential of having few desires is in knowing oneself, the essential of knowing oneself is in valuing life, the essential of valuing life is in being devoted to the inner, and being devoted to the inner is in being single-minded and “attaining the one is the attainment of the principle of the world.” He reached investigation of Chan from the One Mind, and from investigation of Chan he was involved in Confucianism and Daoism, and various kinds of cultural content (like discerning the changes of the Yijing, the seeing of principle in having few desires of the Song Confucians, and the valuing of life of the Daoists; naturally one cannot divide these up mechanically like this, for it is only meant to explain and so he spoke of it tentatively). In the end he used being single-minded to completely attain the principle of the world, which is what he meant by “The marvel at its utmost is in the mind and there is nothing omitted!”59 What Deqing called the mind was the mind of the original self, and was also the mind of heaven and earth that is clear and exists alone. This is clearly also shared with Wang Yangming learning, but in the end Deqing also wanted to use Chan to bear the weight of this mission. In order to explain the above-described One Mind that links the three religions and jointly possesses the principles of the three learnings and the world, Deqing also 59

Mengyu quanji, fascicle 39, “The Essentials of Learning.”.

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created a great volume of proof. He said, “If one examines it through the three realms being nothing-but mind and all dharmas being nothing-but consciousness, it is not only that the three religions are originally one principle, there is also not a single phenomenon or a single dharma that is not established by this mind.” Therefore, “There is nothing that is not the Buddha-dharma, and the three religions are nothing but the saints, and whether a person or a dharma, they all pertain to the One Mind.” Continuing, he also demonstrated via the social functions of culture that realizing the mind, the three religions, and the three learnings have an intrinsic relationship. He said, The learnings of the three religions all hinder the mind of learners….As Confucius wanted people to not act like tigers, wolves, and wild animals, he therefore taught them humaneness, righteousness, decorum, and wisdom, to make them abandon evil and follow the good, and to become [proper] people through things….Examining this mind of saving the world, how could one not base oneself on the bodhisattva vehicle to speak of the method of governing the world?

Speaking simply, the learning of the three religions all act as “hindrances to the mind.” The Confucians model themselves on previous teachers and begin from the human mind to make them abandon evil and follow the good, which then causes them “to become [proper] people through things,” and if there was no teaching by Confucius that hinders the mind, “people would not be barbarians, and there would virtually be none who are [like] wild animals.” However, “Students do not see the mind of the sage and they think that their Way is like this and that is all, and therefore they grasp the traces (deeds) of the previous kings to have honor and rank, and solidify personal covetousness, and unbridled covetous desires bind one to birth, and by taking humaneness and righteousness to be aids for becoming robbers and bandits, which is the misfortune of beginning to attack and fight.” Thereupon the learning of Laozi emerges to hinder this mind of “covetous desire” and there is the theory of “eliminating the sage and discarding wisdom.” “Therefore, the reason for being a teaching is to divorce oneself from desire and be pure in order to calm and firmly uphold the mind….By making people learn this, one divorces oneself from people to enter into Heaven.” “Zhuangzi gave rise [to a mind] to promote it greatly….The idea was to make one distance oneself from people and enter heaven because it removes the bonds of covetous desire.” According to his theory of “hindering the mind,” the Confucians create the “sage of the human vehicle” so that they can make things (beings) become people; the Daoists create “the sage of the heavenly vehicle” so that they can “be distanced from people and become heaven (gods),” but the Chan School’s teaching of “the One Mind of perfect enlightenment” from the realization of enlightenment of their own minds of the Buddha and patriarchs down to Huineng using the Diamond Sutra as a seal of the mind transcends the “sages of the two vehicles” so that one can depart from the two realms of people and of the gods (heavens), and save the four categories of beings.60 In current language, the focal point of the three religions and three learnings are all to be used to purify the human mind, which is the so-called “enlightening the mind 60

Quotes all from Mengyu quanji, fascicle 45, “Guan Lao Zhuang yingxiang lun: lun jiaosheng.”.

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and seeing the nature.” The commonality of the three learnings and the agreement of the three religions is not said to be self-evident. Deqing wrote prolifically on the mind being the link between the three learnings and three religions, and so there is no need to cite them one by one. Nevertheless, his regarding of the Spring and Autumn Annals of Mr. Zuo (Zuozhuan) to be a mental dharma (method), and his use of the learning of the mind-nature to resolve doubts about the outlines of the Daxue and the meaning of the Daode jing, in particular highlighting his “Chan is mind” and “mind is principle,” was used for his scholarly thought and the academic pathway of blending the three religions. From this one can see in outline the inherent turning point of a cultural synthesis. From start to finish, Deqing emphasized that “the mind is the origin of all dharmas” and therefore that the Spring and Autumn Annals and not the mind-dharma of Mr. Zuo alone, but also as the mind-dharma of Confucius, “is the mind-dharma of all the sages of antiquity who appeared in the world and who governed the world.” He emphasized that reading the Spring and Autumn Annals would not elucidate the mind of Mr. Zuo, and so “the ambition of the sage is hidden.” For this reason, he specially wrote his book, the Zuoshi xinfa (Mind-dharma of Mr. Zuo) in order to show the ambition of the sage. He pointed out that “It is inappropriate to not seek his mind but to seek it in events and words.” There is only “this method (dharma) to enlighten the mind” that is completely sufficient for “the mind to be correct and to cultivate equality and govern impartially.” In this way, he revealed the Spring and Autumn Annals to be a mind-dharma, and to be sure, it is rather dissimilar (not of the same category), but his use of this method to enlighten the mind and then to be a discussion of cultivating equality and governing impartially is completely in agreement with the Confucian line of thought of sincerity, probity, investigation, and devotion. And yet his interpretation of the three cardinal principles of the Daxue evidently was using Chan learning to master the practices of the Song and Ming Lixue (neo-Confucianism). He said, The methods of the Daxue are few and it does not use much knowledge and many views, being only constituted of three matters. First, it requires one to be enlightened to and gain the intrinsic reality of one’s own mind, and therefore says “be enlightened to clear virtue.” Next, it requires one to enlighten each person in the world and gain [the understanding] that they are all the same as myself….Therefore, it says, “be close to the people.” Next, whether it is you yourself or the people, one must not carelessly stop halfway….Therefore, it says, “stop with ultimate good.” If as a result one is able to learn and attain these three matters, one will be a great person.

That is to say, the Daxue does not have any method other than the matter of this enlightenment of the mind. Not only does it require one’s own enlightenment, it also requires one to enlighten the people of the world; not only is it a temporary enlightenment, it requires a thorough enlightenment, and therefore the enlightening of the mind is the enlightenment to clear virtue, which is being close to the people and only stopping once one reaches the ultimate good. He also said, “Clear virtue is my originally existing nature,” “Each person’s own nature is basically a radiant light that is broad and free,” and “If one day one is enlightened that one’s own original nature is ever so light and bright and nothing is lacking, then that is enlightenment to one’s

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own intrinsically existing clear virtue.” This evidently is the idea of “recognizing the original mind by oneself” and “seeing the nature and becoming buddha” of the Platform Sutra. And his so-called ultimate good “is to be enlightened that one’s own nature originally is the true intrinsic reality that originally has no good or evil,” which undoubtedly was made in imitation of the Wang Yangming dialogue between teacher and pupil, the “Tianquan dialogue.”61 In order to highlight the intrinsic reality and function of the mind in this scholarly theory shared by Confucianism and Buddhism, Deqing also drew on the two categories of intention (yi) and knowing (zhi). He said, “The mind is the intrinsic reality, is the master (subject); the intentions are the worries and false conceptions, and they pertain to the guest (object). This is the distinction of the mind and intention. Now, in order for the mind to be correct, one must first cut off entirely all the worries and false conceptions that are rooted in the intentions.” This is the Buddhist path of entering the Way by cutting off the roots of intention. He also said, “Knowing and intention are also the distinctions of true and false. The intentions are false conceptions and knowing belongs to true knowing. True knowing is the clear virtue of the intrinsic reality, but once it is hindered and hidden by false conceptions, it cannot be exposed.” This is still the form of thinking that combines the two truths of Buddhism, the true and the conventional truths, and is the “covering over by the floating clouds of false thoughts so that the self-nature cannot shine forth” of the Platform Sutra. The afore-mentioned distinction of mind and intention, and the distinction of true and false, not only highlighted the intrinsic reality and functions of the mind, it also took knowing to be “the clear virtue of the intrinsic reality,” which takes knowing to be mind, and evidently also places functions of letters and intellectual understanding in the highest and irreplaceable position. Therefore, he said, The character knowing (zhi) is clear virtue and is the intrinsic reality….If the reality is at its utmost, then being good at the sincere intention, the correct mind, and the cultivation of the body are completed.

Taking “knowing” et cetera to be the same as the intrinsic reality of the mind and by analogy to reach clear virtue, and then to link the three cardinal principles and the eight items (sincere intention, correct mind, investigation of things, devotion to knowing, cultivation of the body, the equalization of the family, governing the country, and keeping the world at peace) fully manifests the series of contributions and efforts that Deqing created in theory by the linkage of Confucianism and Buddhism via the mind. Even though he regarded “knowing” to be the intrinsic reality, it was just like the talk about a dream by an idiot that prevents people from gaining an understanding. Nevertheless, when he lectured Shu Bosun about the concepts of growth and diminution, he also expressed an attitude that disparages intellectual understanding, still maintaining the traditional modes of thinking of the Chan School. He said, “In order to learn, increase daily. For the Way, diminish daily; diminish it and diminish even it till one reaches inaction.” Students increase their knowing and views in order to grow further. 61

The first sentence in the Tianquan dialogue is “The intrinsic reality of the mind has no good and has no evil,” see Chuanxi lu (Records of Instruction), last fascicle.

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In particular, they do not know that knowing and views increase the power of the view of self, and if the views of self are overpowering then the temperament (qi) is increasingly arrogant, and if the qi is increasingly arrogant, then the emotions are even more unrestrained, and if the emotions are unrestrained, then desires flare and the nature is obscured, and if the nature is obscured then the Way is further distant. For this reason, to be a person of the Way (a monk), use diminishing to be growth….By extension, if one uses this to govern the world and the state, then the benefit is extensive and the virtue is great. In order to attain honor and fame that is undecaying, it is entirely through the growth of diminishing. Therefore, in the Yijing, when the trigram “diminution” (sun) is above and the trigram “growth” (yi) is below, it is said to be growth, and when decrease is below and growth is above, it is said to be diminution. Even if one does not know what diminution is, and only regard the increase in knowing and views to be learning, then diminishing will be replaced by growth. Also, how then can one totally discern the nature? For this reason, those who aim for the Way will regard diminishing to be valuable.62

This is a case of a relatively splendid annotation, explaining the dialectical relationship of knowing, views, the Way, and growth and diminishing, in simple terms. Here, Deqing not only uses the mode of thinking of the refutation of the view of self to explain the Daoist philosophers’ ideas through the concepts of regarding diminishing to be growth and of linking these with the principles of the analyses of the Yijing thinkers, but he also used them to explain the principles of governing the country and keeping the world at peace. He definitely did not directly speak of the linkage of the mind with Laozi, the Yijing, and the mundane and supramundane law, yet his intellectual understanding of what is diminished is what Laozi called learning, which in reality was a diminishing of what he called arrogant qi, unrestrained emotions, that are also the intention of false conceptions. If so, then this also agreed with his theory of “hindrance to the mind.” The intellectual understanding that is disparaged here did not conflict with the above-highlighted intellectual understanding, and to the contrary, it expressed the feature of the rationalization that is in his dialectical thinking. Besides, where he talked of the clear virtue of “knowing,” when it was hindered and covered over by the false conceptualization of intention, it was compared to “a powerful and treacherous court official who has the emperor in his power and command over the nobles. If now one wants to execute the treacherous and evil, one must be sure to request the discretionary power to use [the emperor’s] sword, for if it is not a genuine mandate then it would be insufficient to defeat those who had overstepped their authority to usurp [the throne].”63 If compared, then it involuntarily reveals that he harbored bitter feelings towards the government of his day and it also reflects his realistic and critical spirit and tendency to engage with the world that are in his scholarly theories. In his Daode jing jiefa ti (Dedication to Explanations of the Daode jing) he explained the commonality and similarities of Laozi and Zhuangzi, Confucius and Mencius, and the Buddhists in the aspects of the core tenets, tendencies, techniques, 62

Mengyu quanji, fascicle 4, “Instructions to Shu Bosun.”. With the exception of where it is clearly noted, all the above quotes are from the “Daxue gangmu jueyi tici” (Dedication to the Resolution of Doubts on the Cardinal Principles of the Daxue) in fascicle 44 of Mengyu quanji.

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reality and functions, and aims. At the very end he stressed that “This is to know that what the sages of the three religions held in common is the mind and what they differed on are the traces (deeds). If one uses the traces to seek the mind, then that is like measuring out the ocean with a gourd as a ladle; if one merges the mind with the traces, then that is like a mustard seed containing space (the sky); if mind and traces are forgotten, then all streams will head toward the same source (ocean) and all the rivers will be of the same taste.” Using this to explain the relationship of the identity and difference of the three religions, he pointed out that although the forms and traces of the religions are not the same, yet their mind-source is one. If one uses the mind to merge the learning of the thinkers, then that is the principle that they all share. When mind and traces are both forgotten, and all the rivers have the same taste, then that is using the Chan form of thinking that is apart from the characteristics and apart from thoughts, which comes to extinguish all antitheses and differentiation, and the three religions naturally also do not have a principle that is not shared. Deqing not only creatively took “knowing” to be the intrinsic reality in order to highlight the logical capacity of intellectual understanding, but he also directly said clearly that letters are a special function that directly point to the basic source that is one’s own mind, and he used “There is no dharma outside of the mind; outside of the dharmas there is no mind” to logically arrive at the conclusion that mind is letters and letters are mind. He said, Everybody knows that this Platform Sutra was produced by Caoqi, but they do not know that Caoqi was produced from everybody’s own-nature; everybody knows that the sutra is made of letters, but they do not know that letters directly point at one’s own mind.

The Platform Sutra is letters. Letters are one’s own mind. There is nothing as direct and straightforward and as thorough-going as Deqing’s sentences discussing the reasonableness of lettered Chan. Therefore, he refuted the theories of “non-reliance on letters” and “a separate transmission outside of the teachings.’ He said, To the end of his days the World-Honored One (the Buddha) directly pointed and Bodhidharma preached for nine years, and moreover, how can there be an inside of the teaching and an outside of the teaching, a single-lineage transmission and a paired transmission? If someone suddenly sees their own mind, then whether they speak of it or do not speak of it, it is all sophistry!64

All theories in the end are the theory that takes “mind” to be the basis. The mind not only links the three learnings, but also the mind is letters and the mind is Chan, which likewise links letters and Chan, and lettered Chan also follows self-evidently. Commenting objectively, Deqing’s theory of the agreement of the three religions is not like that of those Confucian scholars and Chan monks who made mediocre theses, but it has an original and creative principle. Therefore, his theories that used the Spring and Autumn Annals to experience the world, and Laozi and Zhuangzi to forget the world, and investigation of Chan to transcend the world, practically became the well-known saying about the agreement of the three religions from the 64

The above quotes are all from “Preface to the Printing of the Fabao Platform Sutra” in fascicle 20 of Mengyu quanji.

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seventeenth century onwards. Of course, the practice of his entire life was moreover to use the mind-nature theory of the agreement of the three religions to be a guide and consequently, in particular this reveals his contributions to scholarship and the force of his thought. Two: the use of Chan to harmonize the [Buddhist] schools. Since it was as described above, if one gets the mind, one gets the principle of the world and the One Mind that is marvelous at its utmost without anything omitted. So then, the One Mind of Chan is also undoubtedly meant to harmonize the various Buddhist schools of Nature, Characteristics, Doctrine, and Vinaya. Deqing likewise used this “tenet of a single source” as a theory to synthesize the various schools. Deqing thought that “the Buddha first appeared in the world solely in order to teach people to be enlightened to this mind.”65 He always said, “The dharmas of the above and below in the three realms are only the creations of the One Mind.” Thus, the Buddha and patriarchs set up words and established teachings, which subjectively were to realize the enlightened mind and objectively also were created by this One Mind, and therefore Buddhists, no matter whether Mah¯ay¯ana, H¯ınay¯ana, the School of Emptiness, the School of Existence, Nature and Characteristics, and Esoteric and Exoteric, undoubtedly all regarded this to be the original source and also regarded this to be their final destination. Yet the Chan School also were experts in the learning of the mind-nature, that Chan is also mind, and therefore the use of Chan to harmonize the schools naturally formed a tool that Deqing employed to get the mind. He first explained that. The single school of Chan is the transmission of the mind-seal of the Buddha. The La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra says, “Sit calmly in the mountains and forests, and if the upper, medium, and lower [level students] cultivate this, then they will be able to see their own mind and false conceptions will flow away.” This is really the decisive method of practice (gongfu) that the World-Honored One created and taught. It also said, “That mind of mental consciousness is what is manifested by one’s own mind….This is the marvelous tenet of the enlightened mind indicated by the Thus Come One.” It also said, “The saints from the first (the Buddha) transmitted and handed this on, [this being] that the false conceptions have no nature.” This also is the secret mind-seal indicated by the Thus Come One…And Bodhidharma instructed the second patriarch, “If you just externally halt the cognitive objects and internally the mind is without panting [i.e. is at rest], and the mind is like a solid wall, one can enter the Way.” This was Bodhidharma’s first instruction of people in the essential method of investigation. When it was transmitted to Huangmei where he sought to be the heir to the Dharma, the sixth patriarch just said, “Originally there is not a single thing,” and then he got the robe and bowl, which is the tenet of the transmission of the mind-seal….This is to know that from the beginning with the Buddha and patriarchs there was only this teaching of to realize and be enlightened to one’s own mind, and to recognize and attain one’s self, and that is all. Towards the end, there was the theory of the gongan and huatou.66

This passage is to inform people that from the start, the Buddha and the patriarchs established these words and set up the teachings, which came down to Huineng who got the Dharma and transmitted it to people. The enlightened mind, the indicated 65

Mengyu quanji, fascicle 10, “Da Dewang wen” (Reply to Prince De’s Questions).”. Mengyu quanji, fascicle 6, “Shi sanchan qieyao” (Instructions on the Essentials of Investigating Chan).

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mind, and the transmitted mind are all entirely in this One Mind. The Chan monks of later generations who picked up the topics of the gongan and huatou also only wanted to “put down all the sense-objects of false conceptions of the internal mind” and thereby reveal this One Mind. Deqing also pointed out that if one did not elucidate this principle and only sought to find it in the gongan and huatou, “if one conceived of these phrases and is drowned in these confusing words and this disturbing language and make hymns on old cases” and “investigate Chan like this, how will one not blind the eyes of later people in the world?”67 In this way, his analysis and criticism of gongan Chan and kanhua Chan had the aim of emphasizing the principle of “Chan is mind.” Not only is the source of the various lineages and schools in the mind, but also Chan merges and links the Buddhist schools, which is achieved when the conditions are right. When Deqing was in Donglin answering Changgong’s questions about the Dharma, his priority was to emphasize that “In the buddha-lands of all directions, there is only the One Vehicle Dharma,” and “What is referred to as the One Vehicle is the original mind of all sentient beings.”68 His idea was to explain that not only were the Buddhist doctrinal schools divided, but also that generally speaking they were no more than the mind-dharma of the One Vehicle. And this Dharma of the One Vehicle was “exactly the Chan School that Bodhidharma brought from the west and directly indicated as being basically the true mind.” Chan comprehended the schools of the Nature, Characteristics, Doctrine, and Pure Land, which did not require argumentation to be self-evident. One should see that the reason Deqing went from Confucianism to Buddhism and from Doctrine to Chan, and why he wrote the Huayan jing out in his own blood, lectured on the Huayan xuantan (Talks on the Mysteries of Huayan), and wrote the Huayan gangyao (Essentials of the Huayan jing), was that it was the Huayan jing that inspired his faith. Therefore, he first set out the principle of the agreement of Chan and doctrine, and inclined very much towards the Huayan-Chan thought of Zongmi. He pointed out that. Although Chan is a separate transmission outside of the doctrine, it really uses doctrine to be evidence for it, which is to then see the non-dual Way of the Buddha and patriarchs. Its technique (gongfu) of investigation also comes out of the doctrine.69 The One Mind of the Buddha and patriarchs is the agreement of doctrine and Chan….Now the people who investigate Chan encourage the denigration of doctrine, not knowing that doctrine describes the One Mind, which is the basis of Chan….If one does not use doctrine to seal (give an imprimatur to) the mind, in the end one will fall into the non-Buddhist Way of evil demons.70

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Ibid. Mengyu quanji, fascicle 6, “Shi Qiyang Zongyuan-an Guizong Changgong” (Instructions to Guizong Changgong of Zongyuan Hermitage in Qiyang). 69 Mengyu quanji, fascicle 6, “Shi canChan qieyao.”. 70 Mengyu quanji, fascicle 6, “Shi Jingshan-tang Zhuhuan Youhai Chan ren” (Instructions to Chan Person Zhuhuan Youhai of Jingshan Hall). 68

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Chan is based on the One Mind; doctrine describes the One Mind. This is similar to Zongmi’s sermon that Chan is the intention of the Buddha and the sutras are the words of the Buddha. Not only is doctrine inseparable from Chan, but also Chan uses doctrine to provide proof, and as it uses doctrine to seal the mind, Chan cannot be separated from doctrine, so too Chan also decays to become a non-Buddhist meditation (chan). Concretely speaking, Deqing linked Chan with Tiantai and Huayan via the source of the doctrine. He pointed out in his Guan Lao Zhuang yingxiang lun’s “Discussion of the Source of the Doctrine” that even though the Lotus Sutra “purely discusses the characteristics of reality” and the Huayan jing “is well able to comprehend and discern mundane learning,” still all their “verbal teachings flow forth from the marvelously enlightened mind,” and that naturally they also are in agreement with the Chan-mind. Speaking in terms of the technique of investigation, he also said that the mind cultivated in the investigation of Chan is also practiced with reliance on the doctrine, which is what is meant by. Even though the techniques of vigorous cultivation of the five schools of our teaching differ in their methods of practice, still, in their cultivation of the mind, they all use s´amatha-vipa´syana (calming and investigation, zhi-guan) as their bases.71

This Dharma-gateway of s´amatha-vipa´syana in reality is a method of practice that Tiantai members absorbed and formed from the ideas of the Weishi (Vijñ¯anav¯ada) and Huayan schools. This also can be seen to be a technique for the cultivation of the mind and the agreement of participation in Chan and s´amatha-vipa´syana, and of Chan and doctrine equally following the same path. Exactly because this was so, Deqing always guided Chan monks to read the scriptures of the Huayan and Tiantai doctrinal teachers. When the Chan person Henghe Zhi, who was in charge of printing the Tripitaka at Huacheng Monastery (in Jingshan), bowed and requested the benefit the benefit of Deqing’s instruction, Deqing told him, We Buddhists who uphold the Lotus Sutra enter the room (become a pupil) of the Thus Come One, wear the robes of the Thus Come One, and sit on the throne of the Thus Come One. The Thus Come One’s room is the great compassionate mind. The Thus Come One’s robes are the mind of gentle forbearance of insult. The Thus Come One’s throne is all the dharmas being empty. If a Chan person (you) can model themselves on these three [things] of the Thus Come One, one will be called a person who truly upholds the sutras. If one cannot enter these three dharma-gateways, then solely uphold the “Anlexing pin” (Chapter on the Practice of Ease in the Lotus Sutra), and in thought-moment after thought-moment think of it, and mind (thought) after mind vow to enter it, not forgetting it day and night, and if one can do this, then each single character of the over sixty-thousand words [of the Lotus Sutra] are a bright light, which appears at the entrance into the six sense-faculties.72

71

Mengyu quanji, fascicle 45, “Lun gongfu” (On Techniques of Practice). Mengyu quanji, fascicle 8, “Shi Henghe Zhi Chanren chi Fahua jing” (Instructions to the Chan Person Henghe Zhi on Upholding the Lotus Sutra).

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This explains from the content of the sutra that each of the minds of the mind of compassion, mind of forbearance, and the mind of emptiness of the doctrine, is shared with with the marvelous mind of Chan, and that if one cannot get these three dharma-gateways (the three minds), solely uphold this one chapter in the Lotus Sutra. One only needs to rely on the introspection of Chan and mind sealing the mind, and one can also make the characters of the over sixty-thousand words of the sutra emit a brilliance. The agreement of Chan and doctrine fundamentally speaking is in the One Mind. Of course, Deqing also opposed the division of Nature and Characteristics into different paths. He recognized that attachment to the schools of Nature and Characteristics was already “strenuously refuted” by A´svaghos.a in India and that “The biased attachments to doctrine and Chan in this country were united by Guishan (Zongmi) in his Chanyuan zhuquan jidu xu, and the single source of the Nature and Characteritics [schools] was developed in the hundred fascicles of the Zongjing lu by Yongming (Yanshou.”73 Although this theory is an argument for the agreement of the Nature and Characteristics schools, which is attributed to the advocacy by A´svaghos.a, it rather has some sense of attributing his own ideas to somebody else. However, what he indicated is that Chinese Chan thought also accurately reflected this historical trend towards synthesis from the Song period onwards. He also pointed out the historical origins of the division into two paths of the Nature and Characteristics schools: Our Buddha, the World-Honored One, converted sentient beings and the Dharma-gateways that he preached were not only one expedient means, but from start to finish the Dharmaessentials had the two themes of Nature and Characteristics. It was through the [differing] capacities [of beings] that there were the Greater and Lesser [Vehicles], and therefore the teaching had the institution of sudden and gradual. At the very end [of this process], Chan and doctrine were divided into two gateways.74

The establishment of the schools of Nature and Characteristics was only due to expedient means for preaching the Dharma and the division into the two gateways of Chan and doctrine was also like this. They really do not have any substantial distinctions. Via history and his concern with logic, Deqing went further to point out that the coming of Bodhidharma from the west, the obtaining of the Dharma by the sixth patriarch, and the five petals from the one flower and the great prospering of the Chan School lay in “Chan and doctrine not denying each other,” and he pointed out that “the opposition of Nature and Characteristics to each other” was only made by the time of Yanshou “to correct the divergent streams and bring them back to the ocean of the Dharma” in which “the marvel of the One Mind is revealed by the Nature and Characteristics [schools] and by doctrine and Chan.” Therefore, There is not a single thing that is not the Buddha-mind; there is not a single dharma that is not a Buddhist service; there is not a single practice that is not a Buddhist practice…If so, what dharma is it that is not the mind-seal of the patriarchal teachers, and also what is the distinction between Nature and Characteristics, doctrine and Chan? If this is so, the 73

Mengyu quanji, fascicle 19, “Ke Qixin lun zhijie xu” (Preface to the Printing of the Direct Interpretation of the Awakening of Faith). 74 Mengyu quanji, fascicle 20, “Jingtu zhigui xu” (Preface to the Directions to the Pure Land).

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person who destroys the Characteristics [school] does not discern the Dharma-nature, and the refuter of doctrine does not discern the Buddha-mind.75

It is evident that the differentiation of Nature and Characteristics, Chan and doctrine, was sometimes due to the expedients preached, sometimes due to the vicissitudes of history, and sometimes due to the views of the factions, but these differentiations are only in the “traces” and not in the “mind.” Discussed in terms of mind, the Nature and Characteristics schools are the same, and Chan and doctrine are in agreement. Of course, both the destruction of the Characteristics school and the refutation of doctrine result in the person not being enlightened to the “eye-store of the correct Dharma of Chan!”.76 Deqing also directly explained the tenets of the Faxiang School (Characteristics) via the Platform Sutra’s “Hymn on Consciousness and Wisdom.” He said, The eight lines77 fully penetrate the marrow of the mind of the Buddha and patriarchs, and expose the original source of the Nature and Characteristics [schools]….The life of the insight of the Buddha and patriarchs is contained only in these eight characters without anything left over. This is what is called “The three realms are nothing-but mind, all the dharmas are nothing-but consciousness.” Because it is nothing-but mind, the three realms are calm and ultimately without a single thing. Because they are nothing-but consciousness, all the dharmas are unhindered, since all dharmas appear due to changes in nothing-but consciousness….These two factions and five schools all are elaborations of this one phrase, so how can there have been the division between Nature and Characteristics?

He also said, “The hymn by the Great Master, the sixth patriarch, refers to the transformation of the eight consciousnesses into the four wisdoms….When the five and the eighth [consciousnesses] are a unity, then the absolute result is perfected.”78 This was clearly a use of the Platform Sutra to explain Faxiang and also a use of Faxiang to test and verify the Chan School. What he meant by the unity of the five and eighth refers to the first five consciousnesses; the visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and tactile; and the eighth consciousness refers to the representative of the mind of true suchness, the a¯ layavijñ¯ana that evolves with the five consciousness and becomes ways of thinking. Deqing uses them to explain that both the Nature and Characteristics schools pertain to the One Mind and are a reality that is perfectly merged together without any obstacles between them. In the Mengyu quanji there is much use of Chan to speak of doctrine and use of doctrine to speak of Chan, and a mergence of Chan with Faxiang, and the language of the precepts and vinaya. There is thus no need to speak of this any further. As for his advocacy of the joint practice of Chan and Pure Land, from the first he displayed a 75

Mengyu quanji, fascicle 25, “Xihu Jingci-si Zongjing-tang ji” (Record of the Zongjing Hall of Jingci Monastery in Xihu). 76 Ibid. 77 These indicate the text of the hymn, “The great perfect mirror of wisdom by nature is pristine,/ Its wisdom of equality is a mind without illnesses,/Its wisdom of marvelous inspection is views not operating,/The wisdom that it has formed is the same as that of the perfect mirror/….At these words, the four wisdoms are that.”. 78 Mengyu quanji, fascicle 5, “Shi Zhou Yangru” (Instructions to Zhou Yangru).

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tendency towards mind-only Pure Land in a reaction against the altered Mindfulness of Buddha (nianfo) Chan. Three, his return to the theory of the agreement of Chan and Pure Land of mindonly Pure Land. At the end of the Ming dynasty, the fad for mindfulness of Buddha flared up. Deqing also advocated mindfulness of Buddha gongan. When he was exiled in distant Leizhou in a land of wild southern barbarians, he gathered believers together and formed a society, conferring on them the sam¯adhi of mindfulness of Buddha (nianfo). Nevertheless, the Buddha that he was mindful of was the Amit¯abha of one’s own nature and the Pure Land that he expected was the paradise of one’s own mind. Although his Pure Land faith resembled that of the undying soul maintained by Zhuhong and Zhenke, they were still totally incompatible. Deqing thought that Buddhists only taught people to be enlightened to their own mind through to the path of liberating beings. This was the provision of temporary and artful skillful means in accordance with the aptitudes of those beings. However, this one utmost case of “being enlightened to one’s own mind” is “not something that can be achieved in one lifetime.” It is only investigation of Chan “that enables one to be enlightened in one lifetime.” Nevertheless, “There is nothing for it but to now engage with the phenomena and dharmas that appear before one, and also, if one cannot trouble the mind to investigate and discern them, and even if one investigates and one cannot obtain the directions from an excellent teacher, I am afraid one will misuse the mind and instead fall into a perverse Way….Therefore, the Buddha separately instituted an expedient means that is a direct short-cut, the one gateway of seeking rebirth in the Pure Land by mindfulness of Buddha.” That is to say, the Pure Land School is a product of, and is due to, the confusion in worldly affairs. Those who seek the Way have sharp and blunt capacities. Therefore, he regarded mindfulness of Buddha to be an expedient means for beginners. From the aspect of the original cause that produced the Pure Land, he explained that mindfulness of Buddha is only a method of temporary expedience and does not seem to be like that preached by other people who made mindfulness of Buddha superior to investigation of Chan, and rebirth to be better than awakened enlightenment. He also pointed out that “The one path of investigation of Chan by examining the huatou is most essential for enlightening the mind, but in recent ages those who put up their hands for this were few. One is to be of sharp capacity and also to be without the dead mind of people of the past; another is [if one] is without an excellent teacher to [help one] decide and choose [the appropriate path], one will mostly fall into perverse views. For this reason, the joint practice of mindfulness of Buddha and participation in Chan is the most dependable Dharma-gateway (method).”79 Because of this, he advocated that the people of the very best capability jointly cultivate Chan and Pure Land, and for people of the middling and lowest capacities he recommended the purification of the mind with mindfulness of the Buddha. To such people he said, “It is not necessary to seek to be enlightened to the nature of the mind. Devote yourself to the correct practice of mindfulness of Buddha and contemplation of him.” It is only necessary 79

Mengyu quanji, “Dharma talk.”.

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that “one does not forget the Buddha thought-moment after thought-moment,” which is sufficient for “being clearly aware thought-moment after thought-moment.” This is what he meant by, “There is only the short-cut route of practice, which is simply to be mindful of Amit¯abha Buddha” and “Solely seek only the pristine, true mind,”80 and that is all. Speaking of the Chan School, it is evident that it denies the Pure Land on the other shore. The Platform Sutra contains the words, “Deluded people are mindful of Buddha to seek rebirth over there; enlightened people by themselves purify their mind.” The Chan School of the Yuan and Ming periods was changed into mindfulness of Buddha practice and had a tendency to regard rebirth in the Pure Land on the other shore to be the highest result and to be most excellent. Not only did they contravene the Chan School learning of the mind-nature, they also were a world apart from the Buddhist concept of awakening and enlightenment. Deqing’s mindfulness of Buddha was not to seek rebirth, but was to seek the pristine mind. Even though his preaching of “mind-only Pure Land” was not his own creation and was meant to reverse the trend towards mindfulness of Buddha in order to be reborn into a paradise on the other shore, but was rather to return to the principle of the mind-nature of Caoqi and to expose the Pure Land thought of the people of recent times, still it made an historical contribution in inspiring later generations. He said, Now the Buddha whom one is mindful of is the Amit¯abha of the own nature. The Pure Land that is being sought is the paradise of the mind-only. If people can be mindful thoughtmoment after thought-moment and not forget, then in mind (thought) after mind (thought) Amit¯abha appears and one walks pace by pace to the hometown of this paradise. Also, how can one expect that it will be billions of countries distant and that there is a Pure Land that one can return to? Therefore, I say that if the mind is pure the land is pure, and if the mind is dirty then the land is also dirty.81

Deqing is clearly denying that there is a separately existing Pure Land paradise in the west, and his “if the mind is pure then the land is also pure” was meant to prevent people from seeking a Pure Land in an external realm, and instead to depend on their own power to seek and obtain enlightenment. This is entirely a Chan rationalization of the Pure Land. He also wrote Jingtu zhigui xu (Preface to Directions to the Pure Land), which solely lectures on mind-only Pure Land thought. He said, It is best that even though sentient beings of the worlds in all directions have differences of superior and inferior, and pure and dirty, in their dependent (secondary) and proper recompense (the body into which one is reborn and the environment into which one is born), these are all influenced and changed by the One Mind. Therefore, it is said, “If the mind is pure then the land is pure.” The so-called mind-only Pure Land means that the land is not outside of the mind, and that the purity is due to the One Mind. If one is not a person of an enlightened mind, how can one purify that land? If one is a Chan practitioner of the highest capacity, in the end one will not return to the Pure Land. Therefore, in the single gateway of the Pure Land, no matter whether one is enlightened or non-enlightened, or are a person of the highest wisdom and the greatest stupidity, but one cultivates [the Pure Land], one is sure to get it, which is all due to the mind. If so, then the tenet of the mind-only Pure Land will be luminous, appearing [as if it is] black and white! 80

Mengyu quanji, fascicle 10, “Da Dewang wen.”. Mengyu quanji, fascicle 2, “Shi yuposai jie nianfo shi” (Instructions to Upa¯asakas Forming a Society for Mindfulness of the Buddha).

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That is to say, no matter whether one is of the highest or lowest capacity, all can practice mindfulness of Buddha, and one only needs to seek a purity of mind, and only then can one be enlightened. This one theory of mind-only Pure Land in reality was a creative and logical premise for a philosophy of the nature and the mind about the unlimited expansion of the power of the mind that has emerged in recent times. The theory also had a tendency of the thinking presented by the learning of a humanworld Buddhism in which a “Pure Land of this shore” was meant to be a reform of actual society.82 Besides this, Deqing also used the words of the Tiantai thinkers about the One Mind Triple Contemplation to explain mindfulness of Buddha. He pointed out that at the time of contemplation via mindfulness of Buddha, “One needs to put down all of the body and mind, internal and external,” and “If in this way one does not forget [the Buddha] and is not attached [to the Buddha], the One Mind is numinous, which is the contemplation of the Middle Way. However, if these three contemplations do not use assignments, but only raise mindfulness, then the three contemplations in the One Mind are completely present in one thought-moment.” Thus, not only can one see his ideological tendency to merge the Buddhist schools, but also see that Tiantai School principles are important, which further elucidates the mindfulness-of-Buddha concept of the mind-only Pure Land. In summary, Deqing’s Mengyu ji was written as Chan-thought literature, and of course it uses the mind to link the three learnings and uses Chan to harmonize the Buddhist schools, and also it uses these to return to the joint practices of Chan and Pure Land of the mind-only Pure Land. All of it has a clear scholarly value and historical significance, and he also had an effective motive-function for turning toward engagement of Buddhism with the world.

Part 3: Yuanlai’s Canchan Jingyu (Warning Words on Investigating Chan) and Yuanxian’s Yiyan (Dream Words) that is the Chan that Saves Confucianism The line of the master and disciple, Yuanlai and Yuanxian, emerged from the school of Wuming Huijing. They were Caodong-lineage monks. The former vigorously advocated the compatibility and joint practice of Chan, doctrine, and vinaya; and the latter jointly discussed Confucianism and Buddhism to save Confucianism and Chan, taking that as his responsibility. These two attempted to revitalize the teaching of the Caodong Lineage, but from different angles. They were famous lettered school monks in Chan during the Ming to Qing periods. Yuanlai wrote the Canchan jingyu to evaluate the cases handed down by virtuosos of the past and to bring attention to long-standing misconceptions about investigating Chan. The text was praised as a “vitally important new book” in Chan. Yuanxian had two kinds of Yiyan, one written 82

Tr. this refers to ideas about the Pure Land and humanistic Buddhism promoted by monks like Taixu (1889–1947) in Republican China.

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to combine Confucianism and Buddhism, the other to forcibly rescue Confucianism and Chan from their abuses. Although it was not enough to make Confucian scholars approve of it, yet it also attacked the considerable numbers of biases and failings of the two groups that they were conscious of and unaware of. Yuanlai (1575–1630) had another taboo name of Dayi, a style of Wuyi, and sobriquet Boshan. His lay surname was Sha. He was a native of Shucheng in Luzhou, Anhui Province. At the age of sixteen (sui), he travelled to Waguan Monastery in Jinling, where he heard the core tenets of the Lotus Sutra. Next, he visited Mt. Wutai and studied the Tiantai teaching on zhiguan (´samatha-vipa´syan¯a, calming and examination). Around the age of twenty-four, he wrote Xin jing zhinan (Guide to the Heart Sutra) and presented it to Wuming Huijing. By the age of twenty-seven he gained the imprimatur of Huijing and he became the foremost monk in Huijing’s assembly. During this period, he visited Zhuhong three times and Zhuhong presented him with the four characters “Fluent exposition, direct vehicle.” At twenty-eight, Yuanlai became abbot of Nengren Monastery on Boshan in Xinzhou (Jiangxi’s Shangrao). After this, for thirty years he travelled backwards and forwards to the Wu, Yue, Zhang, and Min areas, twice staying at Boshan and once in Dongyan (Monastery) in Min, Yongguan in Gushan and Yangshan, and in Tianjie Monastery in Jinling. When he was resident as abbot for a second time at Boshan, “More and more disciples came, in the north from Yandu, south to Jiaozhi, and those who looked to his style of teaching and came numbered a thousand in a year.”83 Famous scholars and gentlemen also fought to associate with him, “Scholars, gentry, literati, and common people worshipped him and sought the precepts from him, the numbers easily reaching ten-thousand people.”84 His disciple Yuanxian said that “For thirty years he had not a few [students] who faced the opportunities [he provided], but I rarely heard that he conferred the Dharma [succession] on them,” and “When the sun of the m¯ara (demons of temptation) rose….the master alone was able to preach the Way in the dark, gloomy, and blocked up period.”85 We can also see the Chan style of that period went from bad to worse, and Yuanlai made great efforts to turn the tide and to revitalize the school style in the midst of this. Yuanlai died in the third year of the Chongzhen era (1630) at the age of fifty-six. His learning especially valued the functions of sutra doctrine, stressing that “The one great teaching of the Great Tripitaka begins from one’s own pristine eyes,”86 emphasizing the elucidation of the “unity in tenets” of the Chan school and doctrine. What he wrote was compiled by his disciple as Wuyi Yuanlai Chanshi guanglu (Extensive Record of Chan Master Wuyi Yuanlai) in thirty-five fascicles. The “Zongjiao daxiang’ (Replies on Chan and Doctrine) and “Boshan Heshang canchan jingyu” (Warning Words on Investigating Chan of Reverend Boshan) were the parts of this 83

Liu Rigao, Boshan Heshang zhuan (Biography of the Reverend of Boshan). Wu Yingbin, “Zhongxng Xinzhou Boshan Nengren Chan=si Wuyi Dashi taming” (Stupa Inscription for Great Master Wuyi of Nengren Chan Monastery on Boshan in Xinzhou, Zhongxing). 85 Yuanxian, “Boshan Wuyi Dashi yibo taming” (Stupa Inscription of the Robe and Bowl of Great Master Wuyi of Boshan). 86 Yuanlai, “Shi Xuehan Chanren” (Instructions to the Chan person Xuehan). 84

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book that were most respected by later generations. Suzuki Daisetsu, who was titled “The World Zennist,” in his book Lun Chanwu (On Chan Enlightenment),87 had pointed out that the “Warning Words” was “a detailed discussion of the problems of doubt,” and he recorded the entire text, forming a basis for his theory of “Chan enlightenment” thought, and one can also see Boshan’s influence on modern thought from that. Naturally, it seems that like all knowledgeable Chan masters, Yuanlai took to heart the increasingly worn-out practices in Chan. He told people that even though he himself preached for over twenty years, he still did not agree to ascend the hall and give a formal sermon, the chief cause for this being that “In the Dharma-gateway [of Chan] there are many people who are confused and banal, absurd and mediocre, who take ascending the hall to be a plaything.”88 At that time, “The Vehicle of the [Chan] Lineage is deserted, and raising my eyes there is no-one close.” There were few who were famous, “but they all say they uphold the tenets of the unilinear transmission of Great Master Bodhidharma, and their ceaseless striking and shouting fills the world. How is it just the teaching monasteries, when they hire those to stand up in the streets and all falsely say that they have been enlightened [by a master in the monastery]?” The idea he spoke of was that the teaching monasteries only had the name of Chan but lacked the reality of Chan, and that the lineage school (Chan) only preserved the outer shell and nothing more. Nevertheless, they hired people to stand and talk of Chan, and still one could see through this type of thinking of the Chan School. Or he was saying that the mode of enlightenment to the Way had already spread to all of society. Naturally, he could not catch sight of another meaning of the Chan spoken of by those hired to tout Chan; he could only see the circumstances of the confusion and banality of the Dharma-gateway members, and “he became very disappointed.” He indicated that. Because my Chan has been allowed to come to this, I became very disappointed and I regret I was unable to use the spear of wisdom and the sword of insight to sweep away the demonic party in order to repay the grace of the Buddha.89

When it came to how to clear away the demonic party and revitalize the style of the Caodong lineage, Yuanlai’s plan was “the tenet of unifying the Way of the [Chan] lineage and doctrine,” and by giving rise to the great doubt through “warning words” to develop great enlightenment, thereby correcting “the great illnesses in Chan.” The main theme of the entire Zong Jiao daxiang (Answers and Echoes of Lineage and Doctrine) was the union of the [Chan] lineage and doctrine. The “Canwu pin” (Chapter on Investigating in Enlightenment) describes at its start the clear meaning of the lineage (zong) and directly expresses his own views. The lineage is the net of doctrine and doctrine is the mesh of the lineage, and if one raises one net then all the meshes are spread out. If one only knows the principle as meshes and does not recognize that it is a net is not to know the tenet of the unity of the Way of the 87

Tr. I have not identified this book, either in Japanese or English. Wuyi Yuanlai Chanshi guanglu, fascicle 2. 89 Wuyi Yuanlai Chanshi guanglu, fascicle 23. 88

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lineage and doctrine….If one gets the tenet, then each single character and single word is the utmost opportunity. If one does not recognize this tenet and is mired in letters, then the lineage is also the doctrine.

He is explaining the non-duality of the lineage and doctrine via the relationship of a net and its meshes, and in reality this places Chan above all the doctrines. Evidently the metaphor of the net and its meshes can only explain the relationship of Chan and doctrine, but it definitely cannot explain their equality. Continuing, he also said, Doctrine has thousands of variations, but the lineage reverts to agreement; doctrine appears in broad comprehension of textual meanings; the lineage values direct, immediate, genuine investigation. Broad comprehension is not the achievement of a day; genuine investigation is not even in an instant. Not being the achievement of a day is the finding of its outflows; in the interval of not even an instant is the obtaining of the source.

Doctrine is textual meaning; Chan is direct investigation. Doctrine is the finding of the outflow; Chan is getting the source. His comparison of the source and the outflow still means he promotes Chan and denigrates doctrine. “For this reason, one should know that the lineage expands into doctrine,90 which is that they are one and yet two; doctrine reverts into the lineage, which is that they are two and yet one. Its genuine investigation is a real probing short-cut, which is called the primary meaning, and is fully carried in the doctrine; it is not the abolition of doctrine.” Yuanlai also used the image of one and yet two, two and yet one, to preach the Dharma and to strengthen the relationship of the source and outflow of the lineage and doctrine, the net and its meshes, as unified and yet unequal, and to further explain that the Chan School’s meaning of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature, of being “fully carried in doctrine” and the agreement of lineage and doctrine, and their joint heading for the shore of awakening. This is self-evident. Therefore, he concluded: Looking at it through this, doctrine cannot be abolished, for one needs to obtain its guidelines. Once one has obtained its guidelines, doctrine is the finger [pointing], is a raft, is a guide, is an opening, is an assisting condition, so how then can one abolish it?

This conclusion also says that the lineage and doctrine are in a relationship of the moon and the finger pointing at it, the shore and the boat, the ultimate and the condition; and that the doctrine definitely is not equal to Chan, but apart from the finger one cannot see the moon, and apart from the boat one cannot climb onto the other shore, and therefore neither Chan nor doctrine can be one-sidedly abolished. Speaking objectively, Yuanlai’s sermon cannot accurately reflect the relationship of Chan and doctrine, and it carries a clear tinge of promoting Chan and disparaging doctrine. By thinking that there are different factions within Buddhism, their thoughtcontent or ways of thinking were differentiated, each having its own strong and weak points, without separating the so-called net and meshes, source and outflows. However, after Buddhism became a constituent of Chinese culture, the Chan School alone flourished in the empire, and so the Chan School was taken to represent all of Buddhism and it wished to subsume the other doctrinal factions. One cannot 90

Here there is a fault of language. It should be that the lineage is expanded into doctrine. If not, then the meaning of the text will be inverted.

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say that this was not without some reason. Moreover, the claim by Chan monks of the agreement of Chan and doctrine was of benefit by enriching the connotations of Chan culture. Therefore, Yuanlai said that he “did not dare use the lineage to disparage doctrine, nor doctrine to disparage the lineage; those who genuinely have that which is to be disparaged are those demonic persons,” which also expresses their compatibility of thought via the principle of “agreement.” Therefore, he also stressed that even though the lineage and doctrine were on different paths, they came back together (if one follows this theory, the lineage and doctrine are equal, but they are not equal in this sense) but also have “differences in speed [of realization].”91 It was probably due to Yuanlai having heard the Lotus Sutra when he first entered the Way and his practice of the Dharma-gateway of zhi-guan that he spoke of Chan and doctrine being in agreement and him being specially concerned with Tiantai. He said, “The Tiantai School [doctrine] is perfect and sudden, and I revere it above all”; “it is the most revered”; “The Tiantai School solely uses the six consciousnesses, which is exactly like our Chan School’s [idea of] riding the horse of a bandit to chase the bandit,” and “The Tiantai School makes use of function as clearly as the sun and moon.” Of course, he also pointed out that what Tiantai takes as its core is “the perfect and ultimate principle that there is the One Mind. One should seek it (the principle) in the mind and not seek it in doctrine.”92 One can see that his linkage of Chan and doctrine was still made on the basis of the One Mind. At the end of his Boshan Heshang zhuan (Biography of the Reverend of Boshan), Liu Rigao has a summary evaluation: “In the over two hundred years since the Ming arose, the vehicle of the [Chan] lineage has been very empty [of able people]….Chan and Vinaya did not work with each other; the lineage and doctrine did not act together. However, the Reverend’s Dharma-heir, Shouchang transmitted the Vinaya in Ehu, and that mostly together with [Chan].” This explains that Yuanlai not only fused Chan and doctrine, but that he also advocated the joint practice of Chan and Vinaya. His “Jie lu pin” no. 4 (Chapter on Precepts and Vinaya) in Zong Jiao daxiang is specially devoted to the practice of investigating Chan and observing the precepts not being contrary, and the principle of the mutual benefit gained from their joint practice. He said, “The precepts are the bases for eliminating evil and cultivating good. If there are no precepts and vinaya, no good dharmas would be formed.” He saw observing the precepts as the prerequisite for climbing onto the other shore of awakening. He also quoted the words of Su Shi, “The joint practice of Chan and Vinaya does not form obstacles to each other,” and he raised examples to illustrate this point. The Great Master Qingliang (Chengguan) became a monk at the age of nine and at the age of eleven he recited [from] the Tripitaka by memory; at fourteen he was enlightened to the great principle of the Southern Lineage [of Huineng] and it was just as if the ten precepts dignified his person. The sixth patriarch personally received the robe and bowl, and he also rose to the platform to receive the precepts. For this reason, one should deeply believe in the Dharma of the precepts, and [by doing so] one will rapidly transcend the world. The Huayan jing says, “Faith is the origin of the Way and the mother of virtue.” There is no such thing as 91 92

Yuanlai, Zong Jiao daxiang 3. Ibid.

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having faith in the precepts and yet obtaining the meditative sam¯adhi (chanding) and being enlightened to the principle of Buddhism.

This also is explaining from the angle of faith that observing the precepts is a necessary condition for the practice of the Chan dharma (method of meditation) and clearly the observance of the precepts is an important foundation stone for a resolute faith. By seeing that the aim of doctrine lies in the broad comprehension of textual meaning and as something that cannot be abolished, one will be bound also to necessarily approve of the function of letters. Yuanlai divided Chan into two kinds of gateways to enlightenment and thereby approved the introduction of letters into Chan enlightenment. He said that the first gateway is the obtaining of intellectual enlightenment from letters and language; and the second is obtaining penetrating enlightenment from the investigation of oneself. Even though there is the difference of strong and weak between intellectual enlightenment and penetrating enlightenment, still they are in agreement in heading for the same goal. However, later Yuanlai analyzed the Chan illness of getting intellectual understanding from letters and not getting penetrating enlightenment from the standpoints of two kinds of hindrance, two kinds of pride, two kinds of timidity, and two kinds of ideas of contentment. He thought that the reason why one does not get an understanding via letters while not yet getting a penetrating enlightenment is “because principle has a division [in its prescription].”93 Really, it was due to his direct opposition of these two aspects that he used lettered Chan to pioneer a path for forward development. Regarding the above-described agreement, Yuanlai repeatedly indicated clearly the importance of sutra doctrine. When he was talking about the two meanings of the zhi-guan of Tiantai, he especially noted that. Zhi (calming) is the superior cause of chanding (dhy¯ana and sam¯adhi) and guan (discernment) is the basis of wisdom….Through this one knows that if one does not cultivate the method of zhi-guan that nothing will be accomplished….And also know that zhi-guan encompass the doctrine of the entire Tripitaka, and that the doctrine of the Tripitaka does not go beyond the two methods of zhi and guan. If a person thoroughly cultivates zhi-guan, they can be said to have searched the outflows and obtained their source.94

Not only does the Dharma-gateway of the zhi-guan of Tiantai directly discern the pristine and transcendent mind of the Chan School, but also the two methods of zhi and guan appear in the sutras, so therefore “to be thoroughly familiar with the vehicle of doctrine” will also enable one to seek the outflow and obtain the source. In this way, the Chan School that despised sutra doctrine was entirely transformed and became a Chan School that regarded the sutra doctrine “as opening one’s own clear eyes,” which is lettered Chan. Yuanlai repeatedly quoted evidence from canonical sutras like the Lengyan jing’s “The Buddha said that the mind is the core theme (lineage) and that the gateway of non-existence is the Dharma gateway” to explain that “The twelve-part division of the three vehicles [of Buddhism] are all essential underpinnings.” Other 93 94

Ibid. Yuanlai, “Zhiguan pin,” third chapter of Zong Jiao daxiang.

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evidence was the Huayan jing’s sentence that “All sentient beings possess the mark of the virtue of wisdom of the Thus Come One” and “it can be called the development of the nature-source,”95 and the Yuanjue jing’s “Forever eliminate ignorance and so form the Buddha Way,”96 and also sentences from the La˙nk¯avat¯ara and Lotus sutras and so on. These clearly informed people that “The one great Tripitaka doctrine is without a single word or single character that does not provide an opportunity for this matter [of enlightenment],”97 and “I use the doctrine of the one great Tripitaka to open up the clear eyes for the students themselves.”98 Thus he used the sutras to speak of Chan and he relied on Chan to explain doctrine, which means that he wanted to fundamentally reform Chan from opposing intellectual understanding and even reform the bad habits of the later inferior followers of the Chan School who do not read sutras, do not investigate Chan, who shield their eyeballs and shut their eyes, who flap their lips and wag their tongues, “who seen by demons clap their hands and laugh, and met by a person [the Chan man] look askance and are angry,”99 giving Chan a slightly mystical tendency. Even though Yuanlai catered to the needs of the world via the lettered Chan in which Chan and doctrine are in agreement, still he, as a Chan monk, also highlighted personal realization and enlightenment to the nature and the spirit of transcendence. He wrote “Ten G¯ath¯as Instructing on Participation in Chan” (Shi can Chan ji shishou), which likewise expressed such concepts. The eighth of the g¯ath¯as says, “Investigation of Chan has no artfulness or clumsiness,/[Each] single thought-moment values transcendence.” The first presentation of “transcendence” possesses a vocabulary of modern scientific connotations, and it also embodies Chan’s modern consciousness. The important point of his Canchan jingyu lies in his use of the form of letters and language to inspire or guide students in the midst of their moments of doubt and in the realization of enlightenment to directly enter the realm of transcendence. This work divides the initial intention (of practice) into the three parts of making an effort, not giving rise to doubt, and the arising of doubt. He then stressed as an item requiring attention the instruction of people in different circumstances “to make an effort.” His analysis is on target and gets to the heart of the matter, and he expounded it directly and frankly, and it also has the style of the learning of a Chan master. Its content deals with all aspects and often is something that previous Chan monks were unable to enunciate. For example, he said the following: Making an effort, one needs to see through the body and mind of the world as all being temporary conditions. Value lies in giving rise to doubt. One must not ponder the gongan of the people of the past. The most fearful thing is thinking. 95

Wuyi Yuanlai Chanshi guanglu, fascicle 3. Wuyi Yuanlai Chanshi guanglu, fascicle 26, “Shi Xuehan Chanren.”. 97 Wuyi Yuanlai Chanshi guanglu, fascicle 3. 98 Wuyi Yuanlai Chanshi guanglu, fascicle 7. 99 Wuyi Yuanlai Chanshi guanglu, fascicle 7. 96

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12 The Lettered Chan that Blends the Three Religions One must not avoid noise and head for calm.

One must not seek a person who speaks too plainly, for if they speak too plainly, in the end they will be a different person. One must not make an understanding in theory (logically). One must not make an understanding that there is nothing to do. One needs to be tense, needs to be correct, needs to be meticulous, one needs to fix cracks. Solely and simply just raise the originally assigned huatou. If doubt does not arise, one needs to disperse the indifference, and then one needs to enliven it. If one meets the man, then one sings by oneself, dances by oneself, enjoys and delights in oneself. If one gives rise to doubt, one awakens to the [fact that the] body is light and at ease, and that movement around and activity do not hamper it.

At the very end, he also took care to explain, “Be sure not to give rise to selfsatisfied thought and not wish to see (consult) the person. You should know that if you do not agree to see the person (Chan master), and you hold onto your own views, that there is no greater illness than this in Chan.” What he said was very prolific and so I shall not elaborate on each item. Clearly, he mostly required that one seeks out the person, and that one cannot simply do this or do that. Ultimately, how does one make an effort? Yet he mentioned this last very little, which is also a prominent feature of the methods of Chan learning. In it, he valued giving rise to doubt, not speaking too plainly, and fearing thinking. All of these are basic methods of cultivating practice in the Chan School. As for his emphasis on the investigation of the huatou, this reflects the influence that the style of the Caodong School had on him. In the very end part of his work, On Zen Enlightenment, Suzuki Daisetsu quoted this text. He said, He described the method of urging doubt to maturity roughly as follows: One, do not be concerned with worldly matters. Two, do not covet a quiet environment. Three, do not be troubled by trivia. …. Ten, do not imitate mindfulness of Buddha, being mindful of the incantation is the same as being mindful of and chanting a gongan. He also pointed out that students can sink into misguided branch paths such as: One, broadly seeking intellectual understanding and arbitrarily seeking logical connotations in the gongan. …. Four, emptying the mind and sitting in calm, trying to empty the body, mind, and containment environment. …. Ten, to have too high an opinion of oneself, not knowing what is wrong by oneself, not allowing reflection.

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As listed above, speaking overall, they are all due to not giving rise to doubt and therefore it does not work for the spirit of investigating the gongan.100

Truly, the main point of Suzuki Daisetsu’s summary is based on his own knowledge and views, yet this quote is sufficient to explain that Yuanlai’s view of Chan made a comparatively considerable contribution to the construction of modern Chan learning (Zengaku). Besides, it is important to point out that Yuanlai did his utmost to mark out the item that took note of making an effort, and seen superficially together with his stress on intellectual understanding and his valuing of sutra doctrine, this clashes somewhat with his principle that advocated lettered Chan. In reality, he clearly was precisely on the path of practice of contemporary Chan learning. He also used letters and language, which in many ways expresses the idea that one cannot be enlightened via blindness and that there cannot be Chan thought that exists entirely via text, something which is concretely displayed in contemporary society. Yuanxian (1578–1657), style Yongjue, was a native of Jianyan in Fujian. His lay surname was Cai. He was the fourteenth-generation descendant of a major Confucian of the Song period, Cai Yuanding (1135–1198, a pupil of Zhu Xi). When he was a student, Yuanxian liked the learning of Zhou Dunyi, the Cheng brothers, Zhang Zai, and Zhu Xi. At twenty-five, he was studying books in a mountain monastery, where he heard someone chanting the Lotus Sutra. For the first time he knew there was this great matter of enlightenment beyond Confucianism. So he accepted the Lengyan, Lotus, and Yuanjue sutras from people. The next year, he went to Dongyan to consult Wuming Huijing. One night while he was sitting in meditation, he heard a monk raise the topic of Nanquan (Puyuan, 748–834) cutting a cat in half, and he had an inspiration. This made him determined to practice Chan. In the forty-fifth year of the Wanli era (1617), he became a pupil of Huijing and was tonsured. The next year, Huijing passed away, so he went to Boshan and received the full precepts from Yuanlai. He stayed with Yuanlai for three years, always discussing the profound secrets, producing opportunities for enlightenment at random. Yuanxian remembered his time with Yuanlai, always saying, “When I was with the master, we were brothers in the Dharma-gateway, but in reality I received everything from the master (Yuanlai). And so I relied on him for three years and experienced a taste of the Dharma. There was a sense that we were master and disciple.” One can see that he took Huijing and Yuanlai to be his masters, and that he was “a brother in the Dharma-gateway” with Yuanlai, but also “there was a sense that we were master and disciple.” In the second year of Tianqi (1622), Yuanxian returned to Min and for a period of over thirty years in sequence he was abbot of Yongquan Monastery in Gushan, Kaiyuan Monastery in Quanzhou, Zhenji Cloister in Hangzhou, and also Baoshan Hermitage in Jianzhou and so forth. He passed away in the fourteenth year of the Shunzhi era (1657), aged eighty. Yuanxian’s main activity spanned the Ming to Qing transition. The society of that period was confused and the fires of war often flared, 100

Suzuki Daisetsu, Lun Chan wu, Sect. 12, “The essential meaning and capacity of doubt,” in Zhongguo Chanzong Daquan (Great Collection on Chinese Chan), Changchun chubanshe, 1991, p. 1135.

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but he did not stop writing, continuously writing first the Fujian hongshi lu (Record of the Propagation of Buddhism in Fujian), Jingci yaoyu (Essential Sayings of Jingci), Lengyan lüeshu (Brief Commentary on the Lengyan jing), Kaiyuan zhi (Gazetteer of Kaiyuan Monastery), Jin’gang lüeshu (Brief Commentary on the Diamond Sutra), Gushan zhi (Gazetteer of Gushan), Sifen jieben yueyi (Meanings of the Text on the Dharmaguptika Precepts), Lüxue faren (Commencing Study of the Vinaya), Bu denglu (Supplement to the Record of the Transmission of the Lamplight), Ji denglu (Continuation of the Record of the Transmission of the Lamplight), Dongshang guzhe (Ancient Traces of the Caodong School), Xinjing zhizhang (Easy Guide to the Heart Sutra), and such commentaries, treatises, gazetteers, histories, including twenty kinds of Chan records of the lamplight transmission and Dharma talks in over eighty fascicles. His Yiyan (Dream Words, or more strictly, Talking in a Dream) is his masterpiece that harmonizes Confucianism and Buddhism. Yuanxian had borrowed poetry to unburden himself, saying, “This old fellow (I) was born with an overly biased nature,/That did not permit me to follow the flow into the bonds of the world./Being of a stubborn nature, till now it seems I am yet to be transformed,/Stubbornly taking an unyielding character to rescue Confucianism and Chan.” Pan Jintai also said that Yuanxian “Entered Buddhism from Confucianism. ´ akya was a sage who had entered the world, and that Confucius He had said that the S¯ was a sage who had transcended the world. Since he had not transcended the world, he could not enter the world, therefore, after attaining the Way, he managed the world and preached, working hard to rescue Confucianism and Chan from above.”101 From this we can know that Yongxian not only harmonized Confucianism and Buddhism, but he also took rescuing Confucianism and Buddhism to be the core of Chan learning. As early as the Northern Song there was the story of Zhang Fangping (1007–1091) answering Wang Anshi (1021–1086) by saying, “The gateway of Confucianism is bland and shallow, there being no end to putting it into order.” Even if this reply does not completely tally with the facts, it still reflects the fact that orthodox Confucian thought in the midst of the Chan style of cleansing away was also unable to avoid joining hands with Chan learning. The reply also reflects an attitude of a Chan monk, like Zonggao, of being conceited and regarding oneself as being right. Nevertheless, by late Ming times, Chan monks had little knowledge and experience, and especially those monks who had entered Chan from Confucianism, not only could they not again drum up a spirit such as the conceit of someone like Zonggao towards the trivial complications and empty anxieties of Confucianism, but also “They had nothing to do but with folded arms converse about the mind-nature; they looked upon the danger of death as being in the service of the ruler.” This is a sarcastic evaluation of the orthodox gentry of those times, and when it came to the groundless banality of the Chan School, Yuanxian’s words of bitter resentment could not be kept from people’s ears. At that time, Yuan Hongdao (1568–1610) said to people, “The rulers of the Song period were corrupt and the humble people were not corrupt, the rulers of the

101

Pan Jintai, Gushan Yongjue Laoren zhuan (Biography of the Elder Yongjue of Gushan).

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present age and the humble people are mostly corrupt.”102 Yuan used this to explain the critical spirit and the style of those times, and these words were very capable of initiating people’s deep thoughts. Also, in that poem on rescuing Confucianism and Chan, Yuanxian loftily intoned, “Confucians value scholarly fame and titles, having already lost the true,/Chan venerates the ability and differentiation, the nature being hard to perfect./At present, at the point of death, what further use is there,/In just taking this thought to repay the gods and dragons (n¯agas)?” At that time, Confucian students were motivated to obtain scholarly fame and titles, and they competed in the examinations, so how could they speak of the Way of the inner sage and the outer king, and how could the Chan monks in their ceaseless striking and shouting, in their contending to show off their skill in the Chan hall, also talk of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature, and improving it? Therefore, Yuanxian took rescuing Confucianism and Chan to be his task, which involved deepening his Chan learning idea of the agreement of Confucianism and Buddhism. However, his main focus was on the Chan School that was on the verge of collapsing into ruins. He often sighed deeply at the decay of Chan, so much so that he spoke about this harshly and sternly. He said, Before the Tang, monks did not call themselves “your subject” when they saw rulers. By the Tang they called themselves “your subject.” And yet masters [Lao]an and [Shen]xiu were given offerings in the palace and were treated with the decorum due to a teacher and the teachers called the emperor “donor.” They called themselves “poor in the Way.” Most honestly, there was definitely no such thing [as being poor]. They just ascended into the palace hall and were granted a seat, they entered the palace and rose to the [Dharma] throne and other such matters. By recent ages, there wasn’t even this in the least….There was also the [case] of rhyming a poem using the character shu (different) and [the monk] being killed….Since the virtues of monks have declined through the ages, therefore the decorum in treating monks also declined through the ages, and this tendency was unavoidable. From this time on, things went downhill and the Dharma-gateway died out, being only a step away from oblivion.103

Yuanxian attributed the main cause of the daily deterioration in the treatment of monks through the ages to the daily decline in the virtues of the monks. This was very insightful and because of this he sighed emotionally at the worsening situation of the school, expressing his feeling of urgency about rescuing it. His expression of the daily decline in the virtues of monks was manifold, just as a person of the Ming, Yancheng said, “They scold the patriarchs and abuse the Buddha, are debauched and unrestrained; they live like normal people with regard to music and sex, commodities and profiting; yet they indulge in high-sounding but empty talk, clearly deceiving the whole world.”104 Yuanxian also said, Most of the Chan people of recent times were shameless big talkers. They do not keep the vinaya and often pose as being broad-minded; they do not uphold their reputation and moral integrity, often excusing themselves [on the grounds] of perfect fusion. When one morning 102

Yuan Hongdao ji jianjiao (The Proof-read and Annotated Collection of Yuan Hongdao), fascicle 21, “Da Mei Kesheng” (Reply to Mei Kesheng). 103 Yuanxian, Xu Yiyan. 104 Yan Cheng, Ke Zhiyue lu fayuan ji youshu (G¯ ath¯a Describing the Vow to Print the Zhiyue lu).

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they adopt a snobbish attitude, they are like starving ghosts looking at spit [as a meal]. If they contend with each other egotistically, they are like bad dogs guarding a house, so how can they say they are in perfect fusion or broad-minded?105

In fact, the sudden enlightenment theory of the school not only offered some excuses for opportunistic and corrupt people to not investigate Chan and not read sutras, but it also presented a theoretical basis for them to not observe the precepts and vinaya. Among those who were unworthy to be members of the Chan School, “those who had fallen into corruption”106 regarded observing the precepts and vinaya to be wearing brocade robes and eating the finest delicacies, and going against the wishes of the people to be broad-minded; and they sought to attach themselves to the powerful and wealthy, and thought fame and moral integrity to be thoroughly discredited because of the doctrine of perfect fusion. All of these excuses were guided by the transcendental spirit of having broken away from convention, by the ideas of “all that is present is perfect” and “according with conditions.” This was the result of the utmost expansion in a direction that deviated from Chan. Yuanxian naturally could not fail to acknowledge this fact or not see that fundamentally there was an inherent relationship with the transformation of concepts in the development of this thought. Therefore, he judged matters as they were, and he had a deep loathing and bitter rejection of those people as “hungry ghosts looking for spit” and “bad dogs guarding a house.” He pointed out that those kinds of Chan people “spoke in front of flying dragons (spoke before rulers in lofty terms) but acted behind a lame tortoise (acted poorly), and yet they say that our school’s members only value insight and do not value conduct.” This rather had some need to touch on the sense of logical thinking. But in the end he directly evaluated the situation, saying, The single lineage school of Bodhidharma transcends thought and is free from views. Therefore, it is said to be a separate transmission beyond the doctrine….My predecessors admonished politely, encouraged diligence and genuine investigation. These were not erroneous words. Present-day Chan people rather take the words of their ancestors as being incorrect and only spend their days learning hymns on old cases and learning the acute remarks [that led to enlightenment]. If they barely comprehend by learning letters or are barely fluent orally, then their masters confer the fly-whisk [symbol of succession] on them. Master and pupils deceive and cheat each other, so then, where is the tenet of Bodhidharma to rest? It is not just this; I have seen these fellows on whom the whisk has been conferred demented and killing, abandoning the Way and returning to the laity, or working as part of a robber band in the mountains and forests. They were wanton and malicious, and were not spoken of by the lay world, but they are everywhere.107

The decay of the virtues of the monks and the corruption of Chan really appeared to be too unworkable. One should explain that the Yiyan was written in the renshen year of the Chongzhen era (1632) and that twenty years later he wrote the Xu Yiyan. This was when the royal dynasties were being changed over and so he had a panoramic view. What he meant by “Yiyan” was dream words, seeming to contain the sense 105

Yuanxian, Xu Yiyan. Words of Huang Zongxi in Hanyue Zang Chanshi taming (Stupa Inscription for Chan master Hanyue Zang). 107 The above quotes all from Yuanxian’s Xu Yiyan. 106

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of wanting to talk about mourning one’s wife but being unable to do so. The words “wanton and malicious, and were not spoken of by the lay world,” were cynical detestation of the world, but he was probably pointing at something else [Tr. the new dynasty?]. Naturally, Yuanxian’s aim was to also make Chan thought cast off its shackles and run away from its plight to seek a new development. His disciple, Daopei (1615– 1702), said that Yuanxian had “corrected incorrect principles and transmitted the untransmitted marvelous Way.”108 Even though this is the routine bureaucratic language (Buddhist stupa inscriptions and accounts of conduct almost all have these kinds of words of fulsome praise), still this reflected Yuanxian’s contributions to the two directions of the Chan School; as an institution and as Chan thought. In particular, the Yiyan and Xu Yiyan were written in a period of ceaseless warfare, in troubled times of turbulent situations, and Yuanxian, who personally maintained an imposing manner even more than the majority of Confucians did, could not make a complete break from bookish speculation. As a result, his so-called thought of “rescuing Confucianism and Chan” was even more capable of demonstrating the relationship between Chan learning and worldly matters, and compared with the recorded sayings (yulu) that specialized in talking of Chan, further enabled him to demonstrate his true feelings. In the preface to the Xu Yiyan, Yuanxian declared that “I wrote the Yiyan” “due to the questions and distinctions of the Confucians.” Thus this is a work meant to harmonize Confucianism and Buddhism. Really, one should say that is a work that harmonizes the three religions and the Buddhist schools. The opening section of the Yiyan is extraordinarily incisive and one can also say this is an account that evaluates the mystification by the later inferior followers of the Chan School and the thought that “whatever is present is perfect,” which changes negation into an affirmation of everything. The Way is intrinsically marvelous, and yet the profound marvel is not the Way. The Way is intrinsically the everyday, and yet the everyday is not the Way. The Way is intrinsically no mind, and yet the no mind is not the Way. The Way is intrinsically natural, and yet the natural is not the Way.

This is clearly an impressionistic expression and concretely speaking it emerges from his targetting the abuses of Chan by those who thought not keeping the precepts and vinaya is being broad-minded, and not upholding reputation and moral integrity to be perfect fusion. This is not only a concrete explanation of the deepening of Chan thought, but was also an improvement on traditional thinking. He clearly told people that by the pure search for the profound marvel, the everyday, no-mind, and the natural, not only is one able to enlighten the mind and see the nature, but also the change towards everyday life created through this mystification was contrary to the wisdom of awakening and the spirit of transcendence. Seen from this viewpoint, there was no-one who was so plain and easy to understand, so simple and to the point as Yuanxian. 108

Daopei, Gushan xianshi laoheshang baisui qingji shuyu (Enomia of Congratulation for the Abstinence on the Hundredth Year of the Elder Reverend, the Previous Master of Gushan).

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In the above-described programmatic interpretation, one can see that Yuanxian’s tenet of “the harmonization of Confucianism and Buddhism” definitely did not adopt accepted theories and that he was not speaking generally, but he had things to refute and things to benefit from, seeking identity in difference and seeing difference in identity. ´ akyamuni was a sage who Yuanxian harmonized the three religions, saying that S¯ transcended the world and then engaged with the world, while Confucius was a sage who engaged with the world and then transcended the world. He said that ´ akyamuni denied Laozi’s “theme of empty non-existence,” but that his “dwelling S¯ in the basis from non-existence and thereby establishing all dharmas” and “the basis of emptiness is the source for sentient beings” in reality are also Laozi’s meaning of ziran (the natural). They deny each other superficially, but really they have something in common. He still used this method to investigate the differences and similarities of Mencius and Chan. Meng Ke (Mencius) said that [human] nature is good, but many Chan people deny this. Only Donglin Changzong affirmed this, saying that the intrinsic good is not opposed to evil. Is this correct? He said that the intrinsic reality of the nature is basically quiescent and does not fall into names and words that all point and notify, all violating the intrinsic (genuine) form. It was not only Meng Ke who inappropriately designated good; it was Yao and Shun who designated it as the mean; the Daxue designated it as radiance (enlightenment), the Zhongyong designated it as sincerity, and through to the buddhas who designated it as true suchness and perfect awakening. How then can you call it the nature?

In fact, this passage talks of the similarity and difference between Mencius and Chan, but constitutionally he used the concepts of the intrinsic reality of the mind not being good and not being evil propounded by the learning of Wang Yangming, expounding the form of thinking of Chan that transcends dualistic antithesis, which made it difficult for many people to understand. His idea was to say that Mencius, by stating that the nature is good, was falling into the stubborn bias of the antithesis of good versus evil, which is what Chan deeply avoided. “If one tries to speak of a thing then it is not on target (the mean),” and therefore it was not approved of by Chan. And Donglin Changzong, from the aspect of “revealed via skillful means” and “not abolish verbal description,” affirmed Mencius’ principle of the nature is good. Yuanxian thought that if one followed the former proposition, not only does Mencius’ theory of the nature is good fall into the concepts of dualistic antithesis, but also those Confucian words speaking about the nature such as the mean, radiance, and sincerity, even including all the Buddhist words speaking of the nature as true suchness and perfect awakening, cannot be speaking of the nature, for they also all fall into the side of the dualistic antithesis that contrasts good with evil and therefore this cannot form his “intrinsic good.” If one relies on the latter proposition, the words of the Confucians and the Buddhists are according to his “Likewise, why is it not possible that that which is intrinsically without evil be called good?” mean that the Confucian and Buddhist theories of the nature while superficially different in fact are not different. In the Yiyan, Yuanxian often adopted this kind of discussion of alternate wrong and right to repeatedly prove the principle that Confucianism and Buddhism are

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different and yet share ideas in common. For example, he said, “Confucians say that the nature of human beings is basically a heavenly endowment, but most students of Buddhism deny this, not knowing that what Confucians meant by heaven is not heaven.” “The Song Confucians say that the Buddhists embellished their teaching with philosophical Daoism. In this, the Song Confucians were wrong.” “Of the books of this country that talk of the Way, those of the philosophical Daoists are the uppermost, and therefore [the Buddhists] often adopted their literature, but their meanings are very different, so one must examine this.” The former is saying that the Buddhists deny Confucianism because they do not know the original meaning of the Confucians, and therefore regard identity to be difference; the latter points out that the Song Confucians denied Buddhism because they did not know that the phrasing and terms of Zhuangzi and the Buddhists are the same but the meanings are different, and therefore they took what is different to be the same. It is just because there is difference in identity, identity in difference, and simultaneous difference and identity, that there is that held in common, but it is not the same. The passage below is a little more concrete. The religions are divided into three. Those who force them to be the same are wrong; their principle in fact is only one, so those who force them to be different are deluded. Therefore, if we speak of their differences, it is not only that the three religions are not the same, it is also that they are identical and one with Buddhism, but [Buddhism’s] greater and lesser [vehicles] are not the same, which means that they are identical to the greater vehicle (Mah¯ay¯ana), but their expedients really are not the same. Since abilities are manifold, the teaching therefore is not just one. If we speak of identity, then not only are the three religions one, they are also demonic and heretical, but the work of assisting beings and so on all concurs with the correct law (Dharma), and since there is no teaching (religion) outside of principle, therefore the teachings must revert to principle.

The use of “the principle is one and the abilities are different” to explain the identity and difference of the three religions clearly is an influence received from Huayan’s “the moon is reflected in all rivers” and the Song Confucian “the principle is one but it is divided into differences.” The theory of “there is no teaching outside of principle” undoubtedly is a reproduction of the Wang Yangming thought of “there is no principle outside of the mind” and “the mind is principle.” In this way, the harmonization of Confucianism and Buddhism reflects accurately the relationship between different cultures and the potential they had to complement each other and tend towards fusion. Naturally this came from Zhenke, Deqing, and Yuanlai. When he was speaking about the mind-learning of Wang Yangming, Yuanxian said, The two elders, [Wang] Longqi (Wang Ji, 1498-1583) and [Luo] Jinqi (Luo Rufang, 15151588) often used Chan language when lecturing on Wang Yangming’s learning. It was not to have an understanding of Chan, but it was to use Confucianism to interpret Chan. Using Confucianism to interpret Chan, how then can Chan not be Confucianism?…With [Li] Zhuowu (Li Zhi, 1527-1602) saying that the learning of these two elders should be the tenet of a different transmission [Chan?], all those who were monks should not be lacking these books on their desks. How is this different from calling a bell a jar? People in the past borrowed Chan language to benefit Daoxue (orthodox neo-Confucianism), and present-day people on the other hand borrow Confucian language to apply to the lineage vehicle (Chan).

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The words on using Confucianism to interpret Chan gets very much to the heart of Wang Yangming learning. The Song Confucians put Chan into Confucianism and used Chan language to benefit Daoxue; the Ming people used Confucian language to freely express the style of the Chan language. This also tallies with the facts of history. At the same time, it also explains that as time went on, the lineage school (Chan) was deserted and Chan thought also began to migrate from the monks to the laymen and elders, and the transmitters of Chan thought were no longer Chan monks but were the scholars. Yuanxian in his own explication of Chan thought to some extent displayed this phenomenon. However, Yuanxian also had ideas of superiority and inferiority with regard to the three religions. He said, The Song Confucians said that the “Keng Sangzi” chapter109 is entirely Chan and the other chapters [of Zhuangzi] also have Chan language, but from start to finish this chapter is all [Chan]. Alas! How can what these Song Confucians called Chan be recognized as Chan? Now students of Zhuangzi themselves say that they penetrate profundity through to the utmost marvel, and essentially this tenet reverts to nothing more than resting in empty nonexistence and regarding the natural to be the ultimate. Now the Way transcends existence and non-existence, and is apart from the [ontological] tetralemma. So, if we speak of empty non-existence, it is not the Way, but is its [perceptual] environment ( jing)….This is what the students of Zhuangzi think of as being external (non-Daoist) learning. Our Buddhist learning is not like that; it does think there is a mind to grasp, it does not think that there is no mind to be accorded with; its essentials lie only in the perfect enlightenment to the One Mind.

As Yuanxian sees it, since it is Chan that transcends existence and non-existence, and is apart from the tetralemma, the taking of empty non-existence by the students of Zhuangzi to be the ultimate means they have fallen into partiality, and one can only call this the environment and cannot call it the Way. If the Song Confucians to the contrary regarded Zhuangzi to be Chan, then they did not recognize Chan for what it is. The Confucians and Daoists only titled Chan a heterodox learning and yet they sheltered under Chan learning. Besides, Yuanxian also used “idealism’ (nothing-but mind) to explain Confucius’ words, “My Way is linked as one” “as being expedient language,” likewise expressing his idea of elevating and denigrating the three religions. In fact, his was the Chan of “transcending existence and nonexistence, of being apart from the tetralemma.” How could this also not be a kind of environment? Did not Chan masters also approve the use of “expedient language” to preach the Dharma? Not only was Yuanxian’s theory meant to highlight “the One Mind,” it likewise used the One Mind, and naturally it used the Chan mind of absolute transcendence to harmonize the three religions.110 Yuanxian not only harmonized the three religions, but he also harmonized the three schools of Chan, Doctrine, and Vinaya. However, he likewise also retained a sense of their superiority and inferiority. He pointed out that.

109 110

“Keng Sangchu” chapter of Zhuangzi. The above quotes are all from Yiyan.

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The three schools of Chan, Doctrine, and Vinaya were originally of one source, but later generations divided them into three so that the power of wisdom was unable to combine them…. Of the three schools, none is more difficult than Chan. Doctrine is next, and Vinaya is next after that. As for Chan, it transcends thought and is apart from views, vaguely tallying with the expression in language and letters. It is not like being able to understand Doctrine by thinking things over, which is comprehended through lectures and practice. Therefore, only [Chan] is difficult. When it comes to Vinaya, its matters are shallow and immediate, and it is entirely established methods, so even those of limited intelligence can learn and practice it.

Even though Chan, Doctrine, and Vinaya “are like the three legs of a tripod, one cannot be without one of them,” but if one was to look at it in terms of grades, the intent is to extol Chan. This is revealed in his expressions. However, he also recognized that although Vinaya is shallow and immediate, it is often ignored by people, and moreover, “People’s normal thoughts are to enjoy their own convenience and fear restraint,” and “therefore the learning of Vinaya is the easiest but is the hardest to achieve.” These words nevertheless are in accord with the facts and were probably aimed at the later inferior followers of the Chan School who did not keep the precepts and vinaya regulations. In these two sections that are in the Yiyan, “dream does not know dream” and “one seeks to leave dream while in a dream,” Yuanxian also had very sober words about worldly matters. In the propagation of the Dharma in the end ages, there are sure to be many demonic matters. Those who crave advancement are certain to incur humiliation; those who exaggerate are certain to invite denial. Knowing this is the first goad to control and subdue the army of the demons [of temptation]. For example, in the Wanli era, two elders, Daguan and Hanshan were both famed for a time, but since people did not understand their intentions, in the end they suffered misfortune….Only elder Yunqi cautiously examined [the times] and was restrained, not putting one foot wrong. Therefore, he was able to have the benefit of great fame and it was good at the start and good at the end, there being absolutely no demonic affairs. He was truly a good guide for the end period of the Dharma.111

This text was written after the ninth year of Shunzhi (1652) and so it was definitely speaking about monks of the end of the Ming who were imprisoned, but he wrote in the preface to this work that “I witnessed changes in the world and at the time I spouted forth the words I wanted to say, and so I wrote the Xu Yiyan.” Not only does this discuss the matters at hand, his admiration for Zhuhong Yunqi seems to have had the intention of distancing himself from disaster and preserving himself. From this one can see that at the start of the Qing dynasty that Chan learning could not but be distorted by politics. Yuanxian also wrote Sanxuan kao (A Study of the Three Profundities) and Dongshang guche (Precedents of the Caodong School). The former argues that the teaching of the three profundities and the three essentials (sanyao) came from Xuansha and not from Linji. The latter refutes errors to guide future students and to promote the true style of the virtuosos of the past in the Caodong lineage. Both carry clear sectarian 111

Yuanxian, Xu Yiyan.

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ideas. His Wuwei tu shuo (Theory on the Diagram of the Five Positions) imitated Zhou Dunyi’s Taiji tu (Diagram of the Great Ultimate) to preach the principles underlying the five positions in Caodong of the correct and the partial understanding. Tracing their origins, they were all clichés of Chan masters, without much creative meaning, so I will not refer to them again.

Chapter 13

Wang Yangming Chan and the Escapist Chan of the Gentry

After Buddhism was introduced into China, Buddhism and the Chinese tradition sought information from each other, and then this changed to assisting each other. Then Buddhism sought its own independent development. The way monks conducted themselves in society everywhere accorded with the conduct of Confucian scholars. In the Wei-Jin period, monks discussed profundity in order to be refined and the scholars also used Buddhist principles to ornament their elegant tastes. The union of famous monks and famous scholars formed a cultured style of recluses in the Wei-Jin period. In the Zhao Song period, the scholars specially talked Chan and spoke g¯ath¯as to display their feelings about clear and transparent scenes and the principle of human life in an unfathomably profound universe. In the Ming, even though the Chan style declined daily, the Chan School of the one flower with five petals changed into an eclectic and miscellaneous learning, and Chan thought was prevented from spreading because of this, but “it was continued by Wang Yangming Confucianism giving rise to great Confucians, all of whom were intoxicated with Mah¯ay¯ana Buddhism.”1 Ming Confucians and Chan monks “sought information from each other and they matched together.”2 The Chan style pervaded the scholar class in all their doings. They used the principles of Chan to benefit the Learning of the Heart-Mind (Wang Yangming Confucianism). It is no wonder that Liu Zongzhou (1578–1645, an important Confu´ akya, and that is all. With cian) said, “This is looking at them as being Buddhists, as S¯ one change it became the five lineages of Chan, and with a second change it became Wang Yangming Chan.”3 Liu made the Chinese Chan School of one flower and five petals and the Ming Confucians change to be on a par as Wang Yangming Chan. In this he could see the features of Ming dynasty culture and could know the directions 1

Zhixu, Lingfeng zonglun (On the Lineage Themes of Lingfeng [Zhixu]), fascicle 4, “Yue Yangming quanji biyu shu erze” (Two Paired Letters on Reading the Complete Works of Yangming). 2 Wang Yuanhan (1565–1633), Ningcui ji (Collection of Ningcui), “yu Yeyu Heshang shu” (Letter to Reverend Yeyu). 3 Liuzi quanshu (Complete Works of Liu Zongzhou), fascicle 19.

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the transformation of the Chan School took in the Ming period, which was that it secularized the tradition. Lu Xun (1881–1936) also said that the intellectuals of old China personally carried three trinkets: one was the Analects, two was Zhuangzi, and three was the Diamond Sutra. The custom of Chinese scholars accepting Buddhist thought was especially due to the influence of the Diamond Sutra that gave rise to faith in Chan thought. This seems to show a bit of this influence. The flood of Yangming Chan of the Ming period was also a form of expression of the multi-directional development of Chan thought. One should also see that under the influence of Chan thought, Confucian scholars accepted Chan into Confucianism and used Confucianism to interpret Chan, which was the chief motivating force for the later development of the Chinese Chan School. The reason that the Ming-period Chan School lingered on was really due to its propagation by Ming Confucians. Tao Wangling (Tao Zhouwang, 1562–1609) told people, “Present students of Buddhism are all seduced by the two characters liangzhi (good knowing; conscience).”4 The late-modern Buddhist learning was a period when Chan flowed from the monkhood to the laymen and elders and led to the sudden rise of layperson Buddhism. It should be said that there was a considerable relationship between the research and study of Buddhist principles by the late Ming gentry and the common practice of using Confucian thought to promote or reverse Buddhist principle. Li Zhuowu evaluated the scholarship of Wang Ji and Luo Rufang as “tenets of the separate transmission [of Chan],” to the extent of viewing the books of these two elders to be works that Chan monks must read. Li also explained that somehow the development of Chan thought no longer came from the monks in the teaching monasteries but from bookish Confucian scholars. Yuanxian lamented that “People of the past borrowed Chan language to benefit Daoxue, but present people to the contrary borrow Confucian language and apply it to the lineage vehicle (Chan),” which exactly reflects the fact that the Chan institution had already been replaced by Confucians in the position of the leadership of Chan thought. From then on until the start of the twentieth century, over three hundred years of scholarly thought was entirely dominated by Confucians, and even with respect to Buddhist learning, the positions of the monk leadership could only be remembered. Yuanxian yearned for “a dawn sometime in the darkness,”5 which clearly was not in the foreseeable future. The transformation of Chan thought and the shift in the subject of the culture of the Chan School naturally had in the process of the development of the pregnancy a cultural background and social sources. Without the slightest doubt, in the Sui and Tang period, Buddhism passed through a profound revolution in thought, in which the Buddha that was external to the mind changed into being a Buddha inside the mind, and the external transcendence changed into an internal transcendence, forming the classic Sinified Chan School. Chan was made into a constituent part of Chinese culture and it climbed up onto the great stage of world culture. Even though 4

Tao Wangling, Xiean ji (Collection of Xiean) [Xiean was the name of Tao’s studio], fascicle 16, “Xin jun rudu ju jundi shu” (Letter Sent to Your Younger Brother Lamenting You Going to the Capital). 5 Yuanxian, Yiyan.

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it was recast into the Chinese philosophy of human life and enriched traditional rational thought, and influenced the aesthetic concepts of the Chinese people, “In the end it was a kind of thought that developed into maturity in the monasteries and inadvertently it did not cleanly shake off its admiration for individual concern for oneself and transcendence of the world. By the Song period and the rise of neoConfucianism, they again advanced a step further from Chan thought and needed to recognize and adopt the great source for cultivation of the person, the regulation of the family, the governing of the country, and keeping the empire at peace from one’s own mind and self-nature that is within the body.” Indian Buddhism also was thoroughly Sinified. Consequently, of course it was Buddhist thought, but it also was a thoroughly Sinified Buddhism that was the Chan thought “that never again could be the guide that directed human life.” Even though monasteries and monks almost entirely occupied the famous mountains of the empire, Chan monks and Buddhists shuttled backwards and forwards through the beautiful mountains and translucent waters, and passed through the capitals and major towns, but they were also only able to be an auxiliary part of society, or they performed charitable works and gave relief; or they formed historical legacies in the mountain and forest scenery, and depended on the arts of appreciation and the expedient means of sight-seeing; some made a number of eminent monks into “a kind of laboratory and research institute on the philosophy of a special human life.” The transformation of Chan thought was as a result of a compulsive reformation of tradition and was also a result of its adoption of self-perfection. In another aspect, in the Wei-Jin and Nanbei chao (Northern and Southern Dynasties’ Period) when Confucian thought was in decline, the fashion for profundity arose. Not only did it appraise individuals, but also knowledge and scholarship were completely under the control of the newly-arisen aristocratic clans. Monks then took advantage of these weak points of the Confucians and manipulated their authority for the education of the common people. Knowledge and scholarship were thereby enabled to develop rapidly in the teaching monasteries and the regular monasteries. The rise of the Chan School in particular opened up the literacy of the peasantry at the lowest level of society as well as for their juniors, to the extent of accepting various kinds of expedient gateways for knowledge and education. That is to say, the education of the common people was not in the schools but in the monasteries and phalansteries. Nevertheless, from the Song dynasty onward, when neo-Confucianism arose, the (Confucian) scholars from among the common people “gave lectures in all places and academies were founded in great numbers. Confucian thought revived the spirit of the common people and consequently they renewed their control over leadership in the great Way of human life and the monks of the monasteries were forced to retreat into a corner.” Consequently, “not all religions could occupy the important positions in cultural institutions.”6 Using these words to treat the shifts in the dominance of Chan thought and to treat the meaning of Wang Yangming-Chan with respect to the cultural and social development of Chan thought, one can then 6

Qian Mu, Zhongguo wenhuashi daolun (Preamble to a History of Chinese Culture), Shangwu yinshuguan, 1994.

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correctly grasp the true situation of the development of Chan thought in the later period of feudal society. Since the Chan learning of the monasteries could not cleanly shed the tendency towards being only concerned with oneself and transcendence of the world, Chan was no longer able to be the mainstay leading the thought about human life, was unable to possess the arts of appreciative values and be the Shangri-La of reclusion and detachment from world affairs, and be a special research institute on the philosophy of human life. In these troubling worldly matters, the experience of extreme hardships and in the vicissitudes of the scramble for official posts, the people whose families were ruined by the changeover of dynasties in China made the Chan institution a refuge in which they distanced themselves from disaster and preserved themselves. When the Ming were defeated by the Qing, there was particularly an increase in the feeling of humiliation of the Han Chinese people and an upsurge in escaping into Chan in order to preserve their aspirations and integrity. It was truly like the first anomaly listed in the Nanlei wen’an (Literary References from Nanlei): “From recent times, any scholars of aspiration and integrity escaped into Buddhism.” Shao Tingcai (1648–1711) said, “In the years of the Ming dynasty, former ministers and upright gentry often escaped into Buddhism in order to be faithful to their aspirations….There were many adherents of the previous dynasty among the monks. This began from the Ming period.”7 One can see that the escape into Chan by the gentry was a major feature of the Ming-period Chan School, and also that this was a major condition and form of expression of the transformations in Chan thought. However, the Song Confucians went from Confucianism towards Chan, most using its refined appeal to adopt its argumentation and elegant tastes, but the escape into Chan by the Ming Confucians was about concern for themselves and taking refuge due to a detestation of the world and its ways. The depth and profundity of Lixue (neo-Confucianism) and Chan learning, and the spread of Yangming-Chan; the pure tranquility of the Chan delight of the Song-dynasty literati, and the tragedy and heroism of the escape into Chan of the Ming-dynasty gentry, were different points in the expression of and transformation of Chan thought.

Part 1: The Chan Learning of the Early-Ming Grand Confucians and the Vanguard of Yangming-Chan The scholarship of the early Ming really was the acceptance of the descendants and offshoots of Zhu Xi Confucianism. It was called “Ox-hair and silk-worm threads (complex and interwoven), and so there was nothing that was not differentiated and analyzed. Truly, they were able to discover what previous Confucians had not discovered.” The pioneers were Wu Yubi (1390–1469) and Xue Xuan (1388–1464). The pupils of Wu, such as Chen Baisha (1428–1500), alone were deeply in love with 7

Shao Tingcai, Ming yimin: Suozhi zhuan (The Adherents to the Ming Dynasty: Known Biographies).

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the learning of Lu Xiangshan and had reputations for coming out of monasteries. What they preached was increasingly close to Chan and they really were the vanguard of Yangming-Chan. The important minister of the Hongwu reign era, Song Lian, not only used the Confucian scriptures as a tool for ruling the country and keeping the empire at peace, but he also buried himself in Buddhist texts, using the ideas of the Buddhist sutras to make up for the deficiencies in Confucian governance. This was the gist of their reading of the Tripitaka, the practice of Chan contemplation, and their comprehension of the Chan School. Song Lian (1310–1381), style Jinglian. The public called him a person of Qianqi in Jinhua, even though he shifted to Qingmeng in Pujiang. Yet he titled his studio Qianqi and therefore students called him Master Qianqi. Because he put his faith in the Buddhist vehicle, he took as his sobriquet Layman Wuxiang. The Zengji xu chuandeng lu (Supplement to the Continued Records of the Transmission of the Lamplight) regarded him as a Dharma-heir of Qianyan Yuanchang (1284–1357), who was a disciple of Zhongfeng Mingben. Consequently, one can also say that he had some association with the Linji lineage. At first, Song Lian visited the Confucian schools of Wu Lai, Liu Guan, and Huang Qian. In the Zhizheng era (1341–1368) of the Yuan emperor Shundi he was recommended to be a Compiler of the Hanlin Academy, but he declined and did not take the post. He entered into Mt. Longmen where he wrote books for over a decade. When Zhu Yuanzhang (1328–1398, the founder of the Ming) took Wuzhou, he invited Song Lian to question him at Jinling. Song Lian stated the Way of humaneness and righteousness of emperors and kings, and he accepted an important function. In the second year of Hongwu (1368), he was summoned to compile the Yuan shi (History of the Yuan). When he finished, he was appointed an Academician of the Hanlin Academy. Emperor Taizu (Zhu) always said that the teaching of the Buddha covertly praised the principles of kingship, the nondual Way of the empire, and the non-dual mind of the sage, and he treated Buddhism entirely in terms of government and achievement. When summoned to meet the emperor, Song Lian always said that the role of Buddhism was in “enlightening sentient beings who are deluded” and in “covertly praising the principles of kingship,” and he highlighted that the teachings of Confucianism and Buddhism were in unity, “that the teaching of the true vehicle and royal civilization” operate together.”8 Therefore, Song Lian increasingly received commendations from Zhu Yuanzhang. In the sixth year of Hongwu (1373), he was shifted to Academician Expositor-inWaiting and Grand Master Admonisher. In the ninth year of Hongwu (1376), he was promoted to Academician Recipient of Edicts. Zhu Yuanzhang wanted to employ him in running the country, but Song Lian adamantly declined and did not accept. Still the Ming dynasty system of rites and music was largely decided by Song Lian. In the tenth year of Hongwu (1377), he recommended the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra to Zhu Yuanzhang, regarding it as a transmission of the seal of the mind of Bodhidharma. Zhu ordered the monks of the empire to read it. In the same year, Song Lian informed the emperor that being old he was returning to his home town. He lived in Qingmeng. There he read the Tripitaka three times and in his spare time he meditated. In the 8

Song Lian, “Xin ke Lengqie jing xu” (Preface to a New Printing of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra).

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thirteenth year (1380), his grandson Song Shen was arrested for a crime and Song Lian was implicated, barely escaping with his life, and he was exiled to Maozhou. In the next year, he was transferred to Qutang. He died in Kuizhou, aged seventy-one (sui). He wrote Qianqi ji (Collection of Qianqi), Zhiyuan ji (Collection of Zhiyuan), Longmenzi Wuxiang shengyu (Leftover Works of Wuxiang of Longmen), and so on. A great deal of what he wrote was prefaces to sutras. They were later compiled by Zhuhong into the Hufa lu (Records of Protection of the Dharma). He also wrote ´ Shamen taming (Stupa Inscriptions of Sramana), including thirty-nine pieces, and so one can see that he wrote a veritable record of the Buddhism of his day. The writings of Song Lian stressed the discussion of the mind as being the source of all things and the scholarly theory of the nature being perfectly enlightened, which is the mind-nature, with language such as tranquility being tranquil, but movement is also tranquil, including platitudes of Chan such as raising the flower and K¯as´yapa’s subtle smile, appearing clearly as the transcendental consciousness of the Chan School. Therefore, one can say that he simply comprehended the major outlines of Chan learning. For example, he said, “If human life is tranquil, the nature is intrinsically perfectly enlightened,” “The mind of the sage is ruled by equanimity and tranquility, and it is tranquil and yet is not tranquil, and yet it moves and is also tranquil,” “Our Great master Bodhidharma especially came to the eastern land, and he converted sentient beings with the mind-learning transmitted by K¯as´yapa,” and “Therefore, its intrinsic reality is always quiescent, and yet the quiescent is not quiescent, his wisdom always illuminates, and yet the illumination has no illumination; its function is always functioning, and yet the function is without functioning.”9 “The words direct pointing at the human mind, seeing the nature and becoming buddha, said by Bodhidharma, were said to be the orb of the sun of the mind teaching.”10 “The stage (land) of the principle of the limits of reality does not defile a single dust mote (sense data), definitely being in the enlightened mind,” and so on. He likewise also emphasized the important place of letters in Chan learning, which is what he meant by, “In the gateway of all phenomena, one is not apart from a single dharma so one must depend on words to understand, which is a common meaning past and present.”11 In fact, Song Lian’s Chan-learning thought also resembles that of the gentry, further highlighting his duty towards the utility of actual government. Consequently, he was bound to acknowledge the attributes of cultural development and change. He drew on the Three August Rulers and Five Emperors of antiquity to speak of it. The Three August Rulers ruled the empire and were good at using the times. The Five Emperors had the Changes for humaneness and faith, and the three kings further had intelligence and courage. As the style of practice changed with the times, therefore to be a ruler means one must alter one’s commands in accord with the times. 9 Song Lian, “Bore boluomiduo xinjing wenju yin” (Introduction to the Lines of the Prajñ¯ ap¯aramit¯a Heart Sutra). 10 Song Lian, “Song Huiri Shi ru Xiaju Lingshan jiaozi shou jing xu” (A Preface Sent to Master Huiri Who Was Entering the Doctrinal Monastery of Xiaju Lingshan for Acceptance of the Sutras). 11 Song Lian, “Bore boluomiduo xinjing wenju yin.”

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His idea was that in different periods there are different social styles of practice and that therefore scholarship and governance must change to accord with the times, and thus he introduced Buddhism as a supplementary aid in those times, “the governance being insufficient.” Yet seen objectively, his utilitarianism of changing in accord with the times was naturally also a kind of impetus leading to change in the Chan School, in particular the collapse of the Chan institution, at a time when the whole of Buddhism had already begun to rapidly become engaged with the world. Of course, he also raised the topic of, “Those who are superior in it (Chan) radiantly contemplate inwardly, neither being identical nor being apart [from the world?], and they can shed the base and the corrupt and be most elevated and enlightened, transcending the three realms and ascending to marvelous awakening.” This reflects the fact that he was under the influence of Chan thought. Ultimately, he also gave birth to a concept of transcendence, yet he also tended towards using theories such as “causation and rebirth” and “secretly assist the royal rule.” This also is a universal feature of gentry-Chan. Song Lian cannot be said to have been very accomplished in Chan learning, but in respect of the primal cause of the decline of Chan as an institution, one can say that he was clear as an onlooker. He told the followers of Buddhism, A chinaberry (tree) building is robust and cannot be shaken by wind and rain. Those of ample circulation [of blood and air] cannot be attacked by disease….I have noted with surprise the intonation of the Buddha’s words [that say] that those who practice non-Buddhist practices are practicing a method of self-destruction. If one does not keep the standards in the vinaya, that is a method of self-destruction. Those who grow in ignorance, anger, and hatred and do not cease, that is a method of self-destruction. The [Zuo] zhuan says, “A house is sure to destroy itself and later people will destroy it.”12

This is exactly what is meant by I fear the worries of my descendants, not with Zhuan Xu,13 but within the screen walls around a family house. The collapse of the Chan institution was mainly due to the loss of the true spirit of the Chan School by the Chan members, and consequently it resulted in their own self-destruction. This theory struck the vital point of the later inferior followers of the Chan School to a great extent. However, the changes in the Chan School were also natural developments in scholarship and were natural tendencies. Chan thought was just caught up in the midst of this kind of change, perhaps as Song Lian said, “this was a shift in accordance with the times,” wherein it sought to renew and develop, and therefore it was also unable to be treated as being like “self-destruction.” Wu Yubi (1390–1469), style Zifu, sobriquet Kangzhai, was a native of Chongren in Fuzhou (Jiangxi). In the ninth year of the Yongle era (1411), at age nineteen he went to Jinling and pursued his studies with the Grand Academician Yang Pu (1372– 1446), and when he read the Yi Luo yuanyuan lu (Records of the Origins of the Yi and 12

Song Lian, “Chongke Hufa lun tici” (Title Inscribed on a Reprint of the Hufa lun). Tr. the Zuozhuan, autumn of 30th year of Duke Zhuang, says “destroying his own house,” which is not exactly the same, so this coud be translated, “Tradition says…” 13 Tr. in mythical antiquity, the grandson of the Yellow Emperor, with the sense of descendants being entirely good.

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Luo [Confucian] Schools), he made up his mind to follow the Way. Consequently, he abandoned the civil-service examinations and retreated from human affairs, read the Four Books of Confucianism, the five Confucian classics, and the records of the Luo and Min (schools of Confucianism), and he did not step outside for two years. In the first year of the Tianshun era of Emperor Yingzong (1457), the Grand Academician Li Xian (1408–1467) recommended him to the court and the emperor sent a messenger to Chongren to ask Wu to come and work in the capital, ordering him to lecture to the crown prince. The emperor cared for him deeply and Wu stayed in the capital for two months, but due to illness he requested leave to return home. He died in the fifth year of the Chenghua era of Emperor Xianzong (1469), aged seventy-nine. Wu Yubi was an heir to the Lixue scholarship of the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi, and although he did not advocate Chan learning, his thought was unavoidably imbued with Chan He said, Nanxuan (Zhang Shi, a neo-Confucian) read Mencius with great delight, it being transparent and of empty radiance, and as with the atmosphere at daybreak, there was little to hinder his [understanding]. In the green shade and the pure scene, a fragrant breeze slowly arrived and the mountain forests were full of tranquility. Heaven and earth were broad naturally and the sun and moon grew of themselves. What can be experienced within is as Shao zi (Shao Yong) said, “Only when the mind is tranquil can one know the brightness of the sun and only when one’s eyes are clear can one know the blue of the sky.” Cool like autumn water, the taste of it is in poverty; harmonious like the effect after a spring breeze has calmed. In general, one cannot be delighted with conforming; and if thoughts of delight arise, arrogant exaggeration occur due to this; if external resistance cannot be borne, feelings of detestation arise, which is what gives rise to grievance and blame. Each delight and each dislike are moved in its midst. The mind of the sages and worthies is like blocked water; it can conform or it can resist, so treat it according to principle. How can that coming from outside be a sorrow or a joy? Rising from sleep, reading books in the shade of trees or at an east-facing window are all wonderful pursuits. Later, a second matter is contrary, and although it moves in between, if one pursues it it will dissipate and a sense of anger will have yet to form. Following it gradually like this, it is polished clean, which is good.14

The mind-ground is transparent and empty radiance, cool like autumn water, its external environment is harmonious like a spring breeze, the green shade is like a cover, the condition is in conformity but not delighted in, the condition of resistance is not detested, being very much like the naturalist conforming of the Chan master, in whom things and self are both forgotten in a transcendental atmosphere. Xue Xuan (1388–1464), style Dewen, sobriquet Jingxuan, was a native of Hejin in Shanxi. From a young age, whenever books and histories passed his eyes, he could intone them. At the age of twelve, he investigated the primal source of the Lian and Luo branches of neo-Confucianism with Wei Jun of Gaomi in Shandong and Fan Ruzhou of Haining, to the extent he forgot to sleep and eat. As a result, his father 14

Huang Zongxi, Ming ru xuean (Guide to the Learning of the Ming Confucians), fascicle 1, “Chongren xuean,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, pp. 18–21.

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shifted his instruction to Yanling, and Xuan helped the students in Yanling. In the eighteenth year of Yongle (1420), he took first place in the provincial examinations in Henan, and in the next year he became a presented scholar ( jinshi). At the start of the Xuande era (1426–1435), he was appointed Investigating Censor. When he was seconded to supervise the silver mines of Huguang, he recorded in his own hand the Xingli daquan (Compendium of the Philosophy of Nature and Principle) and he did not sleep through the night. Whenever he encountered something he could benefit from, he noted it down. In the first year of the Zhengtong era of Emperor Yingzong (1436), he was sent to be the Education-intendant Inspector of Shandong. There he demonstrated the regulations of the Bailu-dong Academy15 to students, and they called him Master Xue. Because he incurred the enmity of the eunuch Wang Zhen (d. 1449), he was imprisoned and was about to be executed when Wang Zhen learnt of an account of conduct of his life, and so released him and returned him to his home. At the start of the Jingtai era (1450–1456), he was promoted to be the Minister of the Court of Judicial Review in Nanjing. At the time, Suzhou was suffering a major famine and the poor people stole the millet of the rich and powerful. Minister Wang Wen (d. 1457) was implicated in a planned revolt and over two hundred people died.16 Xue Xuan protested in a memorial, forcefully arguing that this was a false accusation, and as a result fewer people were executed. The eunuch Jin Ying said to colleagues in the capital that “In Najing, only Minister Xue is an excellent official.” Emperor Yingzong was restored to the throne and he shifted Xue to be the Vice-Minister of the Right in the Ministry of Rites and concurrently an Academician in the Hanlin Academy. Xue entered the cabinet and participated in critical tasks. Later, due to a confusion in politics caused by Shi Heng (d. 1460),17 there was a period of unethical behavior, and therefore Xue requested that he be allowed to return to his hometown. He stayed in his home for eight years, but many students studied with him. He had said, “Since [the time of] Kaoting (Zhu Xi), this Way of ours has been greatly illuminated and there is no need to write about it, but one should just practice it personally.” He died in the eighth year of Tianshun (1464) at the age of seventy-six. He left a poem saying, “For seventy-six years there was not a single matter,/This mind was initially awakened and my nature was naturally comprehending.” Xue Xuan’s learning took return to the nature as its theme. His book, Dushu lu (A Record of Read Books) is a semantic commentary on the Taiji tu shuo (Diagrammatic Theory of the Great Ultimate), the Ximing (Western Inscription), and Zhengmeng (Correction of the Unenlightened). Huang Zongxi said that this “is mostly repetition and complex expression; it has not been edited to remove [the repetition]. Since it wants one to experience the body and mind, it does not want to be a book.” Therefore, although Xue’s scholarship “was ridicule of not yet seeing the nature,” his learning still resembled Chan learning very much. He taught people, saying, “The mind is like 15

Tr. possibly regulations for the academy created by Zhu Xi. Tr. this was in a coup d’etat in which Emperor Jingdi was killed and Yingzong ruled for a second time. Wang Wen was one of the martyrs killed in the revenge killings after the coup. 17 Tr. he helped restore Yingzong to throne and abused power as a favorite. 16

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a mirror, and if the mind is bright then principle will not cover over its traces.”18 It also shares a marvel of different tunes played with equal skills with the Chan School theory of the pure mind. He also said, The totality of the one supreme ultimate is the single basis of all divergences. Each possesses a single supreme ultimate, which is all the divergences of the single basis.

This is the one is all and all is one response function of Chan. Xue also indicated that There is not a single thing in the mind, it is a boundless vastness.

This is clearly the no-mind of Chan and is a duplication of the theory of no-thought (wunian). At the same time as this, Xue Xuan also entirely opposed the theory of Lixue (neo-Confucianism) that separated human nature from the mind. This became a counter-argument for the thesis of the oneness of the mind and nature of Chan. He said, The world has no thing beyond the nature and yet there is nothing that is not present in the nature. Rulers and subjects, fathers and sons, husbands and wives, old and young, and friends are all things, and yet the principle of human relationships is the nature. Buddhist learning says [that the aim is to be] enlightened to the mind and see the nature, which means that they raised human relationships beyond this, so how in this can one enlighten the mind and see the nature? If one is enlightened to the mind and see the nature, then you are certain to know the things that are beyond the nature of the world, and yet the nature is present everywhere, so be sure not to raise human relationships as being beyond this. If one does so, then one is biased towards emptiness and quietude, and one cannot know the entirety of the intrinsic reality and function of the mind-nature. Examine it.

Even though this passage is partly unintelligible, it is still biased towards the ideas of Chan learning and still overflows with its verbal expression. As he saw it, the principles of human relationships of the Confucian three guiding principles and five constants are what the Chan masters regarded as being the nature, and therefore he thought that human relationships beyond the monkhood were biased towards empty quiescence and really are not in common with the results of the Chan learning of mind-nature. Here this reflects his accomplishments in Chan learning and also reveals his tendency to join Confucianism and Chan. Xue also went further to point out that “The Cheng brothers’ nature is principle, and [this] statement is sufficient to settle the doubts about the discussion of the nature from antiquity.” Thus, he highlighted the functions of the nature and its position, and he sought a basis for the Chan School theory of the mind-nature in Confucian culture. He also stressed, founded on this, that The technique of fully comprehending the mind is entirely in knowing the nature and knowing heaven above. Since the nature is principle and yet is heaven, this is where principle has come from. If people know nature and know heaven, then the principle of the world is all enlightenment and yet nothing of the principle of this mind is unconnected [with it]. If you do not know nature or know heaven, this one principle is not shared, and so the mind then is 18

Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 7, “Wenqing Xue Jing xuan xiansheng Xuan,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, pp. 109–111.

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impeded….Therefore, know that the technique of knowing about fully comprehending the mind lies entirely in knowing the nature and knowing heaven above. Therefore, Master Yangming said, “The mind is principle.”

The nature is principle; this is the learning of the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi. The mind is principle; this is the learning of Yangming. Fully comprehending the mind and knowing the nature is clearly the learning of the Chan School of being enlightened to the mind and seeing the nature. Xue Xuan in this way argued that the relationship between mind, the nature, and principle used the nature to link up the principle of the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi with Yangming’s mind. The rise to prominence of Yangming-Chan really profited from the transformations in the Confucian thought of the early Ming. Besides this, Xue also said, “If there is no desire, then what is enacted will be self-selected, and if one is serious (reverent), then the mean (zhong) will be empty [of content] and without things.”19 No desire and the emptiness of the mean also resemble Chan, and also is a technique of seeing the Confucian maintenance of seriousness and calm sitting to be identical with the no-thought and sitting in meditation of Chan. Xue’s personal practice without doubt also was contaminated by Chan. After Wu and Xue, there were also the pupils of Wu, who expounded the learning of the heart-mind. They often borrowed Chan language and Confucianized it, and they were the forerunners of the learning of Yaojiang (Wang Yangming), and also initiated the hints of Yangming-Chan. The most remarkable of them was Chen Xianzhang. Chen Xianzhang (1428–1500), style Gongfu, sobriquet Shizai. He was a native of Baisha in Xinhui, Guangdong, and therefore the public called him Master Baisha. In the twelfth year of Zhengtong (1434), he took the Guangdong provincial civil-service examination. Over the next year, he took the general examinations for those who had passed the provincial examinations and achieved second place. He entered the Directorate of Education to study. Later, he arrived in Chongren, where he studied under Wu Yubi, spending half a year there. He then returned home and gave up on taking the civil-service examination and built his Chunyang tai (Chunyang Terrace), where he sat in Confucian meditation for several years. In the second year of Chenghua (1466), he again travelled to the National University (the Directorate of Education). Due to rhyming a poem with one written by Yang Shi, “This Day Cannot be Repeated,” he gained a reputation for the line, “Guishan (Yang) is not my equal,” and he was regarded as being the reemergence of a true Confucian. His fame resounded around the capital. Once he returned home, pupils came increasingly. In the eighteenth year of the era (1482), he was summoned to the capital to be an official of the Ministry of Personnel, but he declined due to illness, was granted an honorific post as Editor in the HanlinAcademy, and he returned home. From then on, he was repeatedly recommended, but he did not take the posts, and died in the tenth year of the Hongzhi era, aged seventy-three. He had thirty-one pieces of writing in the Baishazi quanji (Complete Works of Mr. Baisha) and Yulin jixi shu (Book of Light in the Forest). Although Chen Xianzhang studied under Wu Yubi, still what he understood did not come from Kangzhai (Wu). Therefore, the sources of his words were different 19

Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 7, “Dushu lun,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, pp. 112–124.

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from those of Wu. Luo Wenzhuang (Luo Hongxian, 15041564) also said, “This is the marvel obtained by Baisha himself.”20 This is close to the style of Chan teaching. He himself also said, “When I was twenty-seven, I first became determined to study with Mr. Wu….But I was yet to know where to access [the reality of the mind]. Recently I returned to Baisha, shut my door and did not go out, solely seeking the means by which to use my strength….After a long time, I saw the intrinsic reality of this mind, which was dimly revealed.” One knows that what he obtained by himself was the learning of the heart-mind. Chen Xianzhang’s learning regarded emptiness (xu) to be the basis, regarded tranquility to be the doorway, and in fact he regarded mind to be the great source, the main basis. Therefore, there were people who thought his learning was close to that of Chan, which is very reasonable. When Luo Wenzhuang was evaluating his scholarship, he said, The prosperity of recent Daoxue (neo-Confucianism) could not have happened without the strength of Baisha, but the errors in scholarship also probably began wuth Baisha.

What Luo meant by saying that Chen Xianzhang brought Daoxue into long-standing mistaken ideas really indicates Chan’s theory of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature that combined the mind and nature into one as being that error. He was also accusing Chen of stepping into the river of Chan. Huang Zongxi held an opposite opinion about this. He thought that Because Wenzhuang till the end of his life recognized mind and nature to be two [things], he consequently thought that the Master (Chen) was enlightened to the mind but did not see the nature. This was Wenzhuang’s error; it had nothing to do with the Master.21

Even though Huang Zongxi also approved of Xianzhang’s learning from the standpoint of Lixue (orthodox neo-Confucianism), in reality he also approved of the fact that Chen’s academic theories were transformed into the enlightened mind and seeing the nature of the Chan School. In his Lun xueshu (On Studying Books), Baisha said, “There are those who destroy distortions and there are those who ‘set up their own school.’ They are ‘those who flow into Chan learning’.” He countered with a question, Confucius taught people civilized behavior, loyalty, and trust. Later, those who studied Confucianism said, “One is essential.” The one is no desire, and if there is no desire, there is tranquil emptiness and yet one acts directly. Only after that can a sage learn and achieve. Are not “those who set up their own schools” of this category? The Buddha taught people, saying, “calmly sit” and we [Confucians] also say “calmly sit,” and the Buddha said “be alert” and we also say “be alert.” Regulating the breath is close to counting the breath, the power of fixity resembles the Chan sam¯adhi (fixed concentration), so are not those “who flow into Chan learning” not of this category?

Clearly, Chen definitely was not leery of speaking of “setting up one’s own school” and “flowing into Chan learning.” He recognized that since no-desire and tranquil 20 21

Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 5, “Baisha xuean” A, Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 79. Huang, p. 79.

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emptiness could be entered into the Way of the sage kings, that therefore no-desire and tranquil emptiness were also the “one” of “threaded together by the one” that Confucius taught people. This is using Chan and Daoism to interpret Confucianism. Thus, one can also say that he was “setting up his own school.” He also accepted that the calm sitting and alertness that he advocated was like that of Buddhism, and his method of work also resembled Chan’s sam¯adhi and the counting of the breath, and that the so-called “flowing into Chan learning” was really not impossible. It is clear to see that Chen Xianzhang had the intention of absorbing Chan learning and actively guarding his own scholarship. Therefore, it is not hard to understand how what he said was often mixed with Chan language. Whenever Master [Cheng] Yichuan saw a person sitting in calm, he would exclaim at the excellence of that person’s learning. This single word ‘tranquil’ came from the source of Master Lianxi (Zhou Dunyi)’s primacy of tranquility, and later members of Cheng’s school transmitted that from one to the other….Huian (Zhu Xi) feared that people would in error enter into Chan, so he rarely spoke of tranquility, and only spoke of seriousness….However, students should themselves guage what to do. If they are not seduced by Chan, they should mostly pursue tranquility and then they can gain access [to the truth].

In fact, Zhu Xi was afraid that he would be misinterpreted as being Chan and was leery of speaking of tranquility and gave primacy to seriousness. Chen went against this, saying, “If one is not to be seduced by Chan” one mostly needs to use tranquility. Clearly, he did not fear being labelled as being Chan and he also did not fear seduction by Chan. The differentiation between the use of tranquility and giving primacy to seriousness here lies only in this. Therefore, he always said that the essential for learning was to calmly sit. For example, Abandon their complexity, seek my brevity, which lies only in calmly sitting. Those who would learn from me are always taught to calmly sit.22 To learn, one should raise a clue and then there will be something to discuss.23

One can see one or two examples of the depth of Chen’s taste of Chan from this. Naturally, tranquility is a path to enter the Way and finally one also needs the learning that discusses mind and nature, which is the marvel that he obtained by himself. He said, The one mind of the superior gentleman ( junzi) is sufficient to liberate all generations. The mean person’s many delusions are sufficient to destroy family and country. How? It [depends on] whether the mind is preserved or not. If this mind is preserved it is one, and if it is one then it is sincere; if it is not preserved it is deluded, and if it is deluded it is fake….Wherever sincerity is in a person, the person possesses the one mind. What the mind has is the sincerity, and what makes heaven and earth is this sincerity.

If the mind is preserved it is sincere, and if one is sincere it is also the sincerity of heaven and earth, and therefore the one mind of the superior gentleman can form “the greatness of heaven and earth, and the wealth of all things,” so “how is it insufficient to liberate all generations?”24 Here Chen has borrowed the sincerity taught by the 22

Huang, p. 80. Huang, p. 84. 24 Huang, “Baisha xuean” A, “Selected writings,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 90. 23

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Song Confucians to illuminate the one mind of the Ming Confucians. One can also know that Baisha’s learning functioned to take from the past to develop the future during the transformation from the Lixue (neo-Confucianism) of the Song into the Lixue of the Ming. It is no wonder that Huang Zongxi said that the Ming scholars first entered the deep and profound with Baisha. “Delight and anger have yet to emerge and yet they are not empty; all the delusions gather together and yet they do not act. This theory only became great after [Wang] Yangming.”25 These words also revealed the process of the accumulation of the culture of Yangming-Chan. His pupil, Zhan Ruoshui (1466–1560), sobriquet Ganquanzhe, simply used mind to speak of principle. He said, “The mind contains within it that which is beyond heaven and earth and all things, but it threads through the midst of heaven and earth and all things.” This is exactly Yangming’s theory of the “one mind that is principle.” Although Xianzhang’s fellow student, Hu Juren (1434–1484), forcefully spoke of excluding Buddhism, he also found it hard to escape drawing on the principles of Buddhism. He criticized by saying, “The seeing of the Way of the Buddhists is just like the seeing of Lady Li by Emperor Wu of the Han, which was not a true seeing,” and “The mind of the Buddha is also not liberated, it is just that there is no ruler within.” “Confucians inculcate a reason, the Buddhists and Daoists only inculcate a spirit,” and “The Buddhists and Daoists inculcate a body of selfish qi (vital energy).” All such words elevate Confucianism and denigrate Buddhism and Daoism. Yet Hu also more often talked of the mind and spoke of the nature, not shaking off the meaning of Chan. For example, he said, The Chan masters preserve the mind. Even though, along with Mencius, they sought to liberate the mind and its operation is like preserving, but in reality they are not the same. Mencius simply did not dare set free his mind….How is it like the Buddhists who always look after the one mind, which is so brilliant and bright as if there are two things in it? Since they are gathered together to be a ruler, then the intrinsic reality of the mind is clear, and when it encounters phenomena, what it reflects and scrutinizes must be refined. If one keeps to one brilliant and bright mind, then one will only realize one is being disturbed by this mind, and if one internally maintains this so it is matured and one cannot strip [these delusions] away, then none of human relationships and worldly affairs will be controlled. Furthermore, if one regards the Way as being everywhere, and one accords with wherever it is, one only needs to not lose this mind of brilliant radiance, and not being restrained by middling moral integrity and non-middling moral integrity, all will be the Way.26

Hu’s criticism of Chan is that it is outside human relationships, is apart from the affairs of the world, and that there is some distinction between what he called the intrinsic reality of the mind that is clear and the mind of brilliant radiance. But his own theories were not clear. What is the difference between the so-called intrinsic reality of the mind that reflects and scrutinizes and the enlightened mind and seeing of the nature? He borrowed from Chan to reject Chan and to remove it, which was also a path of the Song Confucians who made Confucianism compatible with Chan principles. The theory of the preservation of the mind also prepared an argument for Yangming-Chan. 25 26

Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 5, Juantou yu” (Words at the Start of the Fascicle), p. 98. Huang Zongxi, fascicle 2, pp. 32–34.

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The eminent pupils of Wu’s school, besides Chen Xianzhang and Hu Juren, included Lei Liang. Juren not only attacked Buddhism, he was also most dissatisfied with Xianzhang and Lei Liang for making their teachings compatible with Chan learning. Juren criticized them, saying, “Luzi (Lu Xiangshan) did not fully investigate principle and yet he approved of fully investigating principle; Shizhai (Chen Xianzhang) [said do] not read books, yet he assiduously read books. However, their thorough investigation was merely bringing forth the words of the sages and worthies to protect their own views.” One can see that thoroughly investigating principle and reading books is the use of the six Confucian classics to annotate one’s own ideas, which was also to fall into Chan. This was a feature of Lei Liang’s scholarship and also reflects the scholarly style of a generation of Ming-dynasty thinkers. Lei Liang (1421-1491), style Kezhen, separate sobriquet Yizhai, was a person of Shangrao. When he was young, he was determined to study the sage (Confucius) and he sought for a teacher in all directions, and then studied under Wu Yubi. In the fourth year of the Jingtai era (1453), he took the provincial exams in his home town, and in the eighth year of the Tianshun era (1464) he took second place in the civil-service examinations and he was selected to be the Assistant Instructor [in the Confucian school] in Chengdu. He returned to his home town, shut his door, and wrote books. He wrote a Rilu (Daily Record) in forty fascicles, a Sanli dinge (Revisions of Errors in the Three Books on Decorum) in forty fascicles, a Zhuru fuhui (Appended Assemblage of Confucians) in thirteen sections, and a Chunqiu benyi (Original Meanings of the Spring and Autumn Annals) in twelve sections. Lei Liang regarded learning to be the reining in of the unrestrained mind so that it would reside in seriousness. Huang Zongxi said he “did not simply slavishly follow his teachers.” He also pointed out that, Kezhen saw that the carriers of timber obtained the Dharma, and so he said it is the Way, and this is similar to the carting of water and carrying of firewood [of Chan’s Layman Pang], which indicates that perception and activity are the nature. Therefore, he spoke in this way. The Way definitely is in everything….The carrying of wood and obtaining the Dharma then coincides with rightness and principle; one cannot say it is not the Way.

It is no wonder that Hu Juren said of Lei Liang’s statement about the carting of water and carrying of firewood being the Way that Lei Liang had “fallen into a different teaching.”27 When Wang Shouren (Yangming) was seventeen (sui),28 he studied with Lei Liang and they had a deep meeting of minds. Lei Liang’s learning in reality was the start of Wang’s learning, and was also the start of Yangming-Chan.

27

Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 2, “Jiaoyu Lei Yizhai xiansheng Liang,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 180. 28 Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 10, “Yaojiang xuean,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 180.

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Part 2: The Great Vehicle of Confucianism: Yangming-Chan The changes in Ming-dynasty Chan thought were all the miscellaneous learning by Chan in that age. The entry of Buddhist learning among the Confucian scholars was perfected with Wang Yangming using Bodhidharma’s truth to give rise to the learning of the heart-mind (Xinxue), and therefore it had the title of Great Vehicle (Mah¯ay¯ana) of Confucianism. Huang Zongxi’s evaluation of Wang Yangming is also on target. He said, The master’s learning started to be inundated by rhetoric and it continued on with the books that compiled the readings of Kaoting (Zhu Xi), which in sequence were the investigation of things, the employment of the principle of things, and our mind in the end was divided into two, so there was nowhere to gain access to it. Thereupon he (Wang) engaged with Buddhism and Daoism for a long period. Then for him to reach an equilibrium was difficult, but the moving mind hardens the nature [Mencius, “Gaozi” B, 15.2]…. If one is suddenly enlightened to the tenet of investigating things to reach knowledge, that is the Way of the sageman (Confucius), and our nature is self-sufficient and does not need to be sought externally. His learning in all went through three changes before he obtained his gateway.

After three changes in Wang’s study, in the end he thought that to reach the Way of the sage that one’s own nature is sufficient to do so, and so one does not need to seek externally. In reality, he had returned into the ocean of the mind-nature of Chan learning. After being in Jiangxi, Wang regarded “being silent without needing to sit, the mind not awaiting clarification, not practicing and not worrying” to be the gateway through which to enter the Way. It goes without saying that Wang was fully interested in learning the meaning of Chan. Wang Yangming (1472–1528), personal name Shouren, style Boan, was a native of Yuyao in Zhejiag. He built a room in Yangming-dong (district) to the south-east of Yuecheng, and so his students called him Master Yangming. His father, Hua, reached the post of Minister of the Ministry of Personnel. When he was young, Yangming studied books and always calmly sat and concentrated his thinking. He was deeply determined to study the learning of the sages and worthies. At fifteen, he surveyed areas beyond the frontiers, spending several months doing so before he returned. In the second year of the Hongzhi era (1489) he visited Lei Liang in Guangxin. In the twelfth year (1499), he became a presented scholar and he was appointed Secretary in the Ministry of Justice. Then he was shifted to the Ministry of War. In the first year of the Zhengde era (1506), the eunuchs monopolized power and Liu Qin (ca. 1452–1510, a eunuch) forged a directive that Wang be arrested by the Nanjing supervising secretaries and censors, but Wang sent a counter-memorial to save himself. Liu Qin was angered, imprisoned Wang, had him flogged with forty strokes at court, and demoted him to be the Aide to the Postal Stage of Longchang in Guizhou. Liu Qin sent people to harm Wang while he was on the road, but Wang threw himself into water and barely escaped with his life. Reaching Longchang, he built Longchang Academy to teach the juniors. “Suddenly, in the middle of the night, he was greatly awakened to the tenet of the investigation of things that bring knowledge. Unconsciously he shouted and leapt up. His attendants were all startled [awake]. For the first time he knew the Way of the sage, that our nature is self-sufficient, and that

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to approach it in order to seek principle in phenomena and things is mistaken.”29 As a consequence, he gained the learning of good-knowing (liangzhi). He was thirtyseven at the time. In the fifth year of the Zhengde era (1510), Liu Qin was executed and Wang was made governor of Luling. From this time on he was in the posts of Secretary in the Ministry of Personnel, vice-director of a bureau, director of a bureau, and he rose to the post of Chamberlain in the Court of the Imperial Stud in Nanjing and Minister for the Court of State Ceremonial. Starting at the age of forty-three (sui), “he solely trained students to reach good-knowing.”30 The Minister of the Ministry of War, Wang Qiong (1459–1532) recommended him to be Left Assistant Censor-in-chief, and he toured from Fuzhou south to Ganzhou, and soon then onto Zhangnan, Hengshui, and other counties. In the fourteenth year of the Zhengde era (1519), he was imperially ordered to investigate and deal with a rebellious army in Fujian. When he reached Ji’an, he captured Nanchang. There were three battles in all. He captured King Ning, Chen Hao (1478–1519) in Qiaoshe. Wang was ordered to also be Grand Coordinator of Jiangxi. In the sixteenth year of the Zhengde era (1521), due to his meritorious deeds he was promoted to the Minister of War in Nanjing and was enfeoffed as Earl of Xinjian. This was a reward for military merit in the feudal society of China, and he was also a teacher of the age, very exceptional. In the first year of the Jiaqing era (1522), he buried his father, and in the sixth year of Jiaqing (1527) he was reinstated to his earlier post and made concurrently the Left Censor-in-chief, and he was also summoned to be the governor of the two prefectures of Si and Tian. He also returned to the army to attack the eight camps in Guangxi and cut off Teng Gorge. The next year he fell ill in Nan’an. His pupil Zhou Ji attended on him, asking for his testament. Wang said, “This mind is a brilliant radiance, what more is there to say.” He died immediately, aged fifty-seven (sui).31 When Huang Zongxi evaluated the scholarship of the Ming period, he gave Wang’s learning the highest praise. He said that in Ming scholarship there was no one more perspicacious than Wang in perfecting and being familiar with the theories of previous Confucians. “From [when] Yaojiang (Wang Yangming) pointed out that ‘good knowing is present in everybody, with one inward contemplation one will get it by themselves,’ everybody had a path to become a sage. Therefore, if there was no Yaojiang, then the learning from the past would have been cut off.”32 It is evident that the discovery of Wang’s learning and the thought of Huineng were generally in agreement, which is to say that the inherent awakening of the human mind is obtained by reversing it back to the intrinsic mind. If we adopt this thesis that the lineage of the learning of the past was not cut off, and that its survival was really dependent on its Channization by Wang’s learning, then the position of Yangming-Chan in the history of thought can be said to have played a decisive role. Although these words 29

Yangming jiyao (Essentials of Wang Yangming’s Collected Works), “Nianpu” (Chronology), first fascicle. 30 Ibid. 31 Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 10, “Wencheng Wang Yangming Shouren xiansheng,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, pp. 180–182. 32 Huang, p. 179.

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have some excessive praises, still Wang’s learning and Chan thought were only a hair’s breadth apart, and Confucian scholarship gained increasing glory, which is a fact that cannot be denied. One should say that the learning of Wang Yangming who lived in the Ming period was on one hand an after-effect of the style of the Song Confucians of using Chan to talk about Confucianism, and on the other hand Wang’s learning was an offshoot of the Lu (Xiangshan) learning “that originally came out of Chan learning” and which was an uninterrupted attack on Zhu Xi’s thought. The third aspect was the political demand for “correcting the human mind,” the fourth was the changes towards the secularization of Chan thought. This undoubtedly made the influence from Chan learning to be all the more profound than any other of the earlier theories. According to Wang’s own description, he had devoted himself to the history of Buddhist learning. He said, Also, from when I was young, I was devoted to the two [sages, Confucius and Buddha]. I thought that what I had obtained was that Confucianism was an insufficient learning. After that I lived at ease for three years and I got to see what the Way of the sage-man is. It was simple, easy and vast.33 Due to seeking in Daoism and Buddhism, I happily had an understanding of the mind. The learning of being a sage-man lies in this.34 I also stealthily studied Buddhism and at the very best I venerated it with trust and I concluded that I had been enlightened to the secrets it contains.35 For his whole life Yangming lectured and he venerated Bodhidharma and Huineng with faith, and he just wished to join the three religions into one; he had no other maneuver.36 He took a look at the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch to understand that originally there is no thing, not to think of good, not to think of evil, and see one’s original face in order to directly rise to the supreme vehicle, regarding it to be in conformity with the highest level of good knowing.37

The first sentences are his own recollections, which reveal his agreement with and admiration of the profound meanings of Buddhist learning and its affinity with his personal conduct. The last two sentences are evaluations of him by others and they distinctly show that he lectured for his whole life, teaching people to entirely take Chan learning to be their guide. Consequently they said that he “was familiar and thorough in his manipulation and utilization of Chan learning” and was “also partly Chan.”38 A later student of Wang’s school, Liu Zongzhou (1548–1645), simply said ´ akyamuni on, “with one change it became the five schools of Chan and it that from S¯ changed again to become Yangming-Chan,” and it was only Yangming learning that could be titled the main line of Confucianism as Chan. 33

Wang Shouren, Chuanxi lu A. Wang Yangming quanshu (Complete Works of Wang Yangming), fascicle 57. 35 Wang Wencheng gong quanshu (Complete Writings of Sir Wang Wencheng), fascicle 9, “Jianying foshu” (Remonstration on Welcoming Buddhist Books). 36 Chen Jian (1497–1567), Xuebu tongbian (Comprehensive Discriminations of Learning), continued compilation, B. 37 Wang Wan, Mingdao pian (Compilation on the Ming Way), fascicle 1. 38 Chen Jian, Xuebu tongbian, Continued compilation B. 34

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Naturally, Wang Yangming, who regarded himself as being in the orthodox lineage of Confucianism, did not agree that he was delineating himself as being of a branch of Chan. He himself emphasized that although his single enlightenment at Longchang “had obtained and reached the revelation of heaven,” it also had been “verified from the five [Confucian] classics.” Huang Zongxi went so far as to say that “If it was Chan, then the Master definitely escaped into it, and only after did he become aware that he was wrong and he eliminated it.”39 That this was “verified from the five classics” is undoubtedly a fact, but I am afraid “he became aware that he was wrong and eliminated it” contains some exaggeration. Of course, how can it be said that the theories of “the revelation of heaven” and “escape into Chan” did not also unmask the profound influence Chan learning had on Wang’s scholarly thought? First, mind is the core topic and fundamental category of Wang’s learning, which is an imitation of the absolute intrinsic reality that was firmly established as Chan’s concept of transcendence. Normally it is just said that “mind is principle” is the intrinsic reality of all things in the universe, but that is insufficiently precise. Since it is not the same as the principle of “the nature-mandate is the Way of Heaven” of the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi, it is also not the same as Lu Xiangshan’s theory of “the universe is my mind.” His theory has completely relied on Huineng’s concept of “no oppositions” and viewed mind as not being the innate “good” as contrasted to “evil.” He first pointed out that The utmost good is the intrinsic reality of mind…and yet it is without an iota of the selfishness of human desire.40

This is not just saying that mind is the intrinsic reality, but in emphasizing the reason why the mind is the intrinsic reality, it is saying that it was due to the lack of even an iota of the selfishness of human desire that it is still the pure good. In other words, this mind is ultimate good and is not the good of existence that is opposed to evil, but is entirely a complete transcendence of good and evil, fairness and selfishness, and is the absolute good that is also the principle of heaven and human desire. This then cannot purely and solely explain the intrinsic reality of the mind and is really a sort of intrinsic reality of the nature. Therefore, he further explained that The utmost good is the nature and the nature originally is without an iota of evil. Therefore, it is called the utmost good. It is only the return to its intrinsic being so.41

In this way, Wang also joined the mind of utmost good and the “self-nature of supreme bodhi”42 of the Chan School into one. This self-nature was explained by Huineng as, “The extent of the mind is vast, just like space; it has no boundaries and also has no square or round, large or small…..It is also without above and below, long and short, and also without anger and without happiness, without right or wrong, without good 39

Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 1, “Shishuo Wang Yangming Shouren,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 17. 40 Wang Shouren, Chuanxi lu A. 41 Ibid. 42 Tanjing (Platform Sutra), Chap. 1 “Xing you” and Chap. 2, “Bore.”

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or evil.”43 Clearly, what Wang Yangming called the mind of utmost good, which is the self-nature of “being intrinsically pristine,” is the Chan School’s transcendence that includes all the antitheses that are within good and evil! This one nature of utmost good is what the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi called “principle.” Therefore, he also said, “The mind is principle, and this mind is without the concealment of selfish desire, which is the principle of heaven.” In this way, Wang Yangming used the pristine intrinsic nature of Chan to explain the Confucian theory of the mind-nature. He also continued to speak metaphorically, The reason the sage-man was a sage is just that his mind was pure with respect to the principle of heaven and without the admixture of human desire, just as the reason why refined gold is refined is simply that the level of purity is such that it has no mixture with copper and lead. When people became so pure as this principle of heaven, they are then the sage, and when the gold is so pure, then it is refined.

The mind of the sage-man is the principle of heaven that is not mixed with human desire, which is what the Chan masters called the pristine intrinsic nature! Therefore, at times Wang also directly and clearly said that “The reality of the nature originally is the source of all things,”44 and the fusion of mind and nature into a unity is a feature of the Chan School that leaps off his pages. Also, his comparison of “knowing” to the sun and of “desire” as an example of its removal entirely follows Huineng’s theory of the self-nature, “which is covered over by false thoughts [like] floating clouds [obscuring the sun].” Secondly, the most representative of this one transcendence, that is, the concept of the mind of utmost good that has no oppositions, is the four-sentence teaching of Wang’s school, namely, The reality of the mind is without good and without evil. The activity of intention has good and has evil. The good-knowing knows the good and knows evil. To be good and remove evil is the investigation of things.

What is meant by without good and without evil is being unable to name it good and evil. Some say this is the transcendence of good and evil, using Wang Yangming’s words that this is “utmost good.” Huang Zongxi clearly saw that Wang had traits in common with Chan thought and therefore at the start of his chapter, “Yaojiang xuean,” he wrote, “The present explanation is that the intrinsic reality of the mind that has no good and has no evil is the nature.” When Chan masters were speaking of the nature, they were indicating the intrinsic nature that transcends all antitheses, and when Wang Yangming spoke of utmost good as being the mind, he likewise was also adopting this Chan spirit. Wang went further to explain that mind and nature definitely are absolute existents that transcend the antitheses of duality, but in its generation of function, it is then hard to avoid going too far and not far enough, and it (function) also falls into one 43 44

Ibid. Wang Shouren, Chuanxi lu.

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side of good or evil, which is what is meant by “there is the movement of the idea of being good and evil.” Even though good and evil are produced from the one mind, it is not the mind of intrinsic reality. It is the mobilization of intention and in words ´ akyamuni this is attachment. Therefore, Wang also said, “Non-movement in qi of S¯ (vital energy) [which is intention] is to be without good and without evil, and this is what is meant by utmost good.” Thus, he repeatedly stressed that this (utmost good) lies in grasping the mental realm of antithetical existence that is the actualization of the transcendence of the Chan masters. He said, The utmost good is the intrinsic reality of the mind, [but] if one goes beyond the intrinsic reality even a little, then it is evil. It is not that there is a single good and yet there is also a single evil that comes to oppose it, Therefore, good and evil are only one thing….It is also said that good and evil are both the principle of heaven, which means that the evil intrinsically is not evil, and yet in the intrinsic nature it lies between going too far and not going far enough [i.e transgressing and falling short of our original nature].

The one reality of good and evil is also another kind of explanation of being without good and without evil, which is entirely a technique for the elimination of antithesis used by Chan masters. He also extended the meaning of the Confucian theory of the nature, saying, The intrinsic reality of the nature originally is without good and without evil. In its generation of function it originally can be good and it can be evil….When Mencius spoke of the nature, he spoke of it as directly coming from the source….Xunzi’s theory of the nature being evil is speaking of it coming from degeneration into corruption.

This is entirely the use of Chan to interpret Confucianism. Mencius’ talk about the nature being good was not in opposition to evil. He spoke about it in terms of the intrinsic reality, and it is the “intrinsically good that is not opposed to evil” found in Yuanxian’s Yiyan described above where Yuanxian outlined Mencius’ ideas. But Xunzi’s words on the nature being evil is speaking in terms of the generation of functions. Using Chan’s spirit of transcendence to explain the Confucian theory of the nature clearly is a distinctive character of Yangming-Chan and naturally one can also see in this the universal inclination of the Lixue (neo-Confucians) to venerate Mencius as their founder. Not only was it like this, but Wang Yangming also borrowed the Chan School’s “to be apart from characteristics while in characteristics” and “to be apart from thoughts while in thoughts” in order to eradicate the method of opposition and to elaborate on his scholarly thought. When he explained the relationship between tranquility and being in accordance with principle, he said, “When one is tranquil, thought-moment after thought-moment remove desire and preserve principle; when one moves, then thought-moment after thought-moment remove desire and preserve principle. Do not be concerned about being tranquil or not being tranquil.” After this, he pointed out that That is what is meant by thought; this is the thought of non-thought. Do not mistakenly understand (confuse) them. If you do not do so, as soon as one gives rise to a thought, that is already a desire.

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When thoughts of good are preserved, that is the principle of heaven. If this thought is good, what further good is there to be thought about? If this thought is not evil, what further evil is there to remove? Thought is intrinsically non-thought. Therefore, it is the principle of heaven.

What he said is completely the idea of “being apart from thought while in thought” of the Chan School. The theory of being apart from characteristics is particularly brilliant. The Buddhists are not attached to characteristics and in reality they are not attached to characteristics. We Confucians are attached to characteristics, but in reality we are not attached to characteristics. The Buddhists are afraid of the entanglements of fathers and sons, and so they have escaped from fathers and sons; they are afraid of the entanglements of rulers and subjects, and so they have escaped from rulers and subjects; they are afraid of the entanglements of husbands and wives, and so they have escaped from husbands and wives, for all are attachments to characteristics. We Confucians have fathers and sons and respond to them with humaneness. We have rulers and subjects and respond to them with righteousness. We have husbands and wives and so respond to them with separation. How then have we been attached to the characteristics of fathers and sons, rulers and subjects, and husbands and wives?45

Wang took the three bonds as examples of Confucian human relationships to explain the Confucians being apart from characteristics while within characteristics, and he criticized Buddhists, who even though they say they are free from characteristics in reality have escaped from rulers and subjects, escaped from fathers and sons, and have escaped from husbands and wives, but they are still firmly attached to each kind of characteristic. These words have a great deal of the sense of, “The petty hide away in the mountains; the great hide away at court.” Since he criticized the Buddhists for their tendency to be outside of human relationships and to leave the world, this also reflects that in the end he took Confucian thought to be his core. Therefore, superficially it seems he had the intention of elevating Confucianism and denigrating Chan. However, speaking in terms of method, he approved of the way of thinking of “not being attached to characteristics,” which is “to be apart from characteristics while in characteristics,” which undoubtedly was a bias towards Chan. Feng Youlan had already noticed this point, so let us also use Feng’s words to explain the features of the Chan influence on Wang’s learning. If we follow this line of argument, we can say that compared to the Daoist philosophers and the Buddhists, the neo-Confucians even more consistently held firm to the fundamental concepts of the Daoists and the Buddhists. Compared to the Daoists, they needed the Daoists; compared to the Buddhists, they also needed the Buddhists.46

Looking at the period, Wang Yangming’s mastery of Chan learning should be said to have been far beyond the Chan monks who were devoted to the huatou or sat like dead wood or were like dumb sheep, or who fawned on the rich and powerful, and fought for fame and pursued profit. That Wang’s learning came to be called 45

All the above quotes are from Wang Shouren, Chuanxi lu. Feng Youlan, Zhongguo zhexue jianzhi (A Short History of Chinese Philosophy), Beijing Daxue chubanshe, 1996, p. 272.

46

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Yangming-Chan can be said without qualm to be appropriate. And it is also exactly because his scholarship contained and inculcated the transcendental spirit of being apart from characteristics and apart from thought, that therefore he was able to advance into the realm of thought in which “gain and loss, glory and humiliation can all be transcended,” and “following the bequeathed teachings of the Lian and Luo schools [of neo-Confucianism], he sought the true intentions of Confucius and Yan Yuan, and enjoyed freedom and frolicked with detachment.” Third, Wang’s good (intuitive) knowing is the radiant and intrinsic nature that does not depend on being sought externally. If one says that utmost good is not the mind that is in opposition to evil, that means that Wang Yangming absorbed the Chan School’s concept of transcendence and firmly established it as a core topic. If that is the case, then the theory of good knowing, under the influence of the Chan School’s “nature of itself is intrinsic awakening,” is the implementation of his creative thinking. The Song Confucians summed up their scholarship with the three bonds in eight items and the three bonds are bound together into only one bond, which is to be enlightened to radiant virtue (mingmingde). What was meant by radiant virtue, no matter whether by Song or Ming Confucians, is that they all viewed it as being the “nature” of one’s own intrinsic good enlightenment, which is the intrinsic nature, and this clearly is a result of an imperceptible influence from Chan thought. It is alleged that when Yang Jian (1141–1226) first saw Lu Xiangshan that he used a Chan master’s tone of voice to ask, “What is the intrinsic mind?” Lu also used Chan to guide people in accord with their ability and so he borrowed the case of Yang Shi immediately deciding to sell a fan in answer (to Yang Jian). “Shi heard judgments on the debate over [the sale of] the fan. Those who [judged it] to be right knew it was right; those who [judged it] to be wrong knew it was wrong. This is the intrinsic mind.” Yang Jian was suddenly enlightened.47 The mind that knew it was right or wrong was the intrinsic mind! As Wang Yangming saw it, the single knowing right to be right and knowing wrong to be wrong is the good, enlightened intrinsic nature, which is good knowing. A disciple of Wang’s school one night captured a thief in his home and he then lectured the thief on the principle of good knowing. The thief mocked him by asking, “Where is my good knowing?” He allowed the thief to take off his upper clothes and he also wanted the thief to take off his trousers. The thief hesitated, saying, “This is not good.” Then he shouted loudly at the thief, “This is your good knowing!” This not only explains that good knowing is the brilliant and enlightened intrinsic nature that does not need to be sought externally, but it also can be seen as a Chan style of guiding students used by the Wang Yangming faction. This is a legend that completely tallies with Wang Yangming’s way of thinking that all people have good knowing. He told students, Good knowing is what Mencius said is the mind of right and wrong that all people possess. The mind of right and wrong does not depend on thinking to be known and does not depend

47

Yang Jian, Cihu yishu (Bequeathed Writings of Cihu), fascicle 18.

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on learning to be possible. For this reason, it is called good knowing. It is the nature of the mandate of heaven, it is natural, numinous, enlightened awareness.48

This is to say that “good knowing intrinsically exists”; it is not obtained via acquired thinking and learning. This is what Zhang Zai called “the nature of the mandate of heaven,” yet it also resembles the “numinous and enlightened awareness” that is “intrinsically provided in oneself” and which “is present at all times of non-arising and non-ceasing” preached in the Platform Sutra, which is what Chan masters called “one’s original face.” Therefore, Wang repeatedly stressed that Everybody has this good knowing. The original face is what the school of our sage (Confucius) called good knowing. Good knowing is only one, and wherever it flows out and is accordingly revealed, at that moment it is fully present, and there is no further going and coming; it does not need to be borrowed.

Good knowing intrinsically exists, it does not need to be borrowed, it is exactly the intrinsic awareness of the mind-nature of Chan, it has the sense of not needing to be sought externally, so much so that even the words all replicate those of the Chan School. “Everybody has good knowing” is just “everybody has the Buddha-nature.” Buddha is a creation of the self-nature, so what is the necessity of seeking outside of oneself? Wang’s theory of good knowing likewise guides people to retrospection and introspection, and it proceeds along the pathway of innate transcendence that is the same as that of the Chan School. Therefore, Wang also specially emphasized that no matter whether it was Shun who married without telling his parents (a story told in Mencius) or King Wu who launched a war before burying (his father), both are “seeking for it, the good knowing being a single thought of the mind!” Good knowing intrinsically exists; it does not need to be borrowed. Therefore, everybody can be a Yao or a Shun (sage emperors). This is also the Chan idea that everybody can become buddha. Wang Ken went out sightseeing and when he returned, he saw Yangming and said, “I saw the streets full of people; they are all sages.” Wang Yangming then told him, “The people filling the streets on the contrary viewed you as being a sage.” There was also Dong Mengshi who said, “I saw that [those who] filled the streets are all sages.” Wang Yangming said, “This also is a usual phenomenon.” Because everybody has good knowing, everybody is a sage, so what is unusual? Wang Yangming’s learning really is almost the same as Chan learning. The mind of utmost good and no opposition is what the Chan masters called the intrinsic nature; good knowing also does not need to be sought externally, being the pristine and numinous intrinsic nature, so Wang Yangming united the two categories of the mind and good knowing through the meaning of their intrinsic reality. He said, Knowing is the intrinsic reality of the mind; the mind naturally understands and knows. Seeing one’s father, one naturally knows filial piety; seeing an older brother one knows one is a younger brother; and if one sees a baby falling into a well one knows sympathy. This is good knowing; it does not need to be sought externally. 48

Wang Yangming quanshu, fascicle 26.

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That is to say, good knowing is the intrinsic reality of the mind and it truly seems that utmost good is the same as the intrinsic reality of the mind, and therefore the mind itself is not only the ultimate good, but also is the “knower” (nengzhi). It should be explained that what is meant here by intrinsic reality is not a philosophical category, which is to say that it itself has function, which is what the Chan masters call the original face. Therefore, mind is utmost good and the mind has good knowing. The mind, utmost good, and good knowing are named as being three things and yet in reality are one. He also had a specialist explanation of this: It has been said that the utmost good is the inherent reality of the mind and it is also said that knowing is the inherent reality of the mind. Hence, knowing is only knowing good and knowing evil, and knowing good and knowing evil is exactly that the mind is the condition of utmost good.

The good knowing that knows good and knows evil is the mind of utmost good that does not need to be sought externally. A result of the creative thinking of Wang Yangming—good knowing—also cannot but carry a strong Chan flavor. Fourth are the principles of teaching that use different teachings for those of different capacities. Previously, I raised the Wang school’s education of people that spoke of principle via phenomena, which is the common practice of the Chan masters’ stimulation of enlightenment to the nature. Wang’s provision of the teaching according to the material also is the use of the Chan masters’ grounds for the depths and extent of enlightenment to the nature. Wang Ji (Wang Lonqi, 1498–1583) and Qian Dehong (1496–1574), who were called the Huineng and Shenxiu of the Wang Yangming school once discussed Wang Yangming’s learning. Qian raised the four sentences of the Wang school, and then Wang Ji said, This is probably not yet a complete huatou. If you say that the reality of the mind is without good and without evil, and the intention is without good and without evil, the knowing is also without good and without evil, and things are also without good and without evil! If you say that the intention has good and evil, ultimately the reality of the mind has good and evil present in it.

Dehong said, The reality of the mind is the nature of the mandate of heaven and originally there is no good and evil, yet people in their habituated mind see there is good and evil present in intentional thoughts. Investigation that brings sincerity and correct cultivation is a technique to return to the reality of the nature. If originally there is no good and evil, this goes without saying for the technique also.

The views of these two men were not the same, with Qian keeping to his master’s theories, and Wang clearly supplemented his master’s complete huatou. Wang thought that if the reality of the mind is without good and without evil, this intention, knowing, and things should all be without good and without evil, and if good and evil occur in opposition, the reality of the mind cannot be without opposition to ultimate good. Therefore, he said that the teaching of the four sentences are not a complete huatou. On this basis, Wang’s concept of transcendence that is apart from words and apart

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from characteristics was even more thorough and was even closer to Chan learning. Nevertheless, when these two men asked to correct Wang Yangming through this, their teacher’s explanation still made them sigh and stop reading. The Master said, “Both of your views are truly excellent and mutually supporting, and one cannot each grasp only one side. Here the people I teach are of two sorts. The people of sharp faculties are directly enlightened to and enter the intrinsic source. The intrinsic reality of the human mind originally is [like] a bright jade that is not mired in anything; originally it is something that is yet to emerge. People of sharp faculties are at once enlightened to intrinsic reality, which is the technique, and these people themselves internally and externally equally divulged both of these. The next [type] do not escape from the habituated mind being present, and the intrinsic reality is obscured [for them], and therefore I teach them [so that] their intentional thoughts really fall into good and they remove evil. After the technique has matured and the dregs are entirely removed, the intrinsic reality is also brightened and cleansed. In your (Wang Ji) view, it is my teaching of people with sharp faculties, and Dehong’s view is about my method that was established for those people who come next. If we mutually adopt these as functions, then the middling people, and those of superior and inferior capacities can all be guided into the Way.”

He also especially stressed, “Later, in giving lectures, you should not lose my core tenet,” and he stated that “the teaching of the four sentences” are “to be given as directions in accordance with [the ability of] the person, and by themselves they will eliminate illness and pain.” This is only for people of sharp faculties, who are very few in the world, and most are of middling and low faculties. Therefore, he taught them that “good knowing is a technique that is used for being good and removing evil.” If not, then “all services (deeds) are not practical applications; it will be nothing more than fostering empty calm.” One can see that Wang Yangming lectured that the good knowing of being good and removing evil was preached for people of middling and low capacities, that this kind of discriminatory approach was a method of providing the teaching in accord with the aptitude of the student, and really was also the construction of a practice that taught a provisional expedient means in accordance with the nature of enlightenment, something borrowed from Chan. However, it should be pointed out that Wang Ji’s criticisms of the four-sentence teaching partake of a thoroughly transcendent quality and is further coincident with the Chan School’s concept of no oppositions. Wang Yangming really used Chan thought to renew deliberating on these four sentences, and he made emendments or explanations that conformed with worldly customs. This sort of explanation itself reflected that he was already on a familiar road that he had driven with ease within his school. Once more he expressed this, “Teach people of superior capacity with just a technique that functions in the mind, and teach people of the lowest capacity with a skill that functions in intention.”49 The differentiation of mind and intention is the differentiation of the principle of heaven and human desire, and the differentiation of the nature of the mandate of heaven and the nature of constitutional vital energy (qishi) of the Song Confucians, and is also the Chan differentiation of nature and false thoughts. His union of Chan and Confucianism is ultimately a union of expedient

49

The above quotes are all from Wang Yangming’s Chuanxi lu.

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means. It can also be said to have been a perfect fusion without hindrance, pleasing all sides smoothly. Besides, Wang Yangming’s poetry shows he was very familiar with Chan language and that the poetry is thick with Chan meanings and everywhere one sees his accomplishments in Chan learning. We will record several: When night came, Shide and Hanshan, Loved to together look at the emerald bamboo and yellow flowers. Coming together, they asked me about the method of calming the mind, Can I take your mind and calm it for you?50 I ask you, what matter is the flickering of the sun? In the site of afflictions, I mistakenly used my effort. Do not say that the school of the sage has no oral arcana. The two characters “good knowing” are the common entry point. Every person themselves has a fixed compass point, All the transformations at their source are all in the mind. Removing laughter, from before, there are mistaken views. Branch by branch, leaf by leaf, I sought it externally. When there is no sound and no smell, knowing alone [remains]. This and that, heaven and earth, all have a basis. Having abandoned one’s home, the endless treasury, Begging alms door-to-door, pretending to be poor.51 Starving, I ate rice, finding it hard to sleep. This is the practice of the profound being even more profound. Speaking with people of the world, they are foolish and do not believe. Having followed [the Way] beyond the body, they seek for divine immortals.52 My mind itself is a brilliant moon, From ancient times it was round and was never absent. The mountains, rivers, and great earth embrace its pure radiance. Why must the appreciative mind be the moon of mid-autumn?53

These few poems powerfully reveal the path of principle. Wang uses poetry to speak of Chan and uses Chan themes to speak of mind, intentions, and good knowing, and has adopted the style of the Song-dynasty poems that speak of principle, and rather than his theories being poems, it is better to say they are (Buddhist) g¯ath¯as.

50

Wang Yangming quanshu, fascicle 21, “Untitled.” Wang Yangming quanshu, “Yong liangzhi” (Celebrating Good Knowing). 52 Ibid, “Daren wendao” (In Answer to a Person Asking of the Way). 53 Ibid., “Zhongqiu” (Mid Autumn). 51

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Part 3: The Descendants of Yangming-Chan As described above, if the way of thinking of Wang’s learning that borrowed from Chan and regarded Chan learning as being its root is not thought to have taken Chan learning as its guide, then there will be no way to understand the essence of Yangming’s learning. Eminent disciples of Wang’s school like Wang Ji used Chan to talk of Confucianism, and all became fully-fledged members. Then the majority of latter inferior followers were submerged in the ocean of Chan. Investigating its original causes, I use Wang Yangming’s evaluation of his lecturer friend Xiao Hui’s original talk. Wang wrote, “[Xiao’s] established theories are too elevated and his use of effort was too much of a shortcut. Later he became a teacher, and the shadow and echo were mistakenly confused [for the source], and he could not avoid falling into the Buddhist enlightening of the mind and seeing the nature, and the ability of sam¯adhi and prajñ¯a for sudden enlightenment.”54 He also used similar content to summarize the learning of another of his lecturer friends, Zhan Ganquan (Zhan Ruoshui, 1466–1560). “Ganquan’s learning took as its task seeking to obtain [the truth] from oneself, but the world was unable to know it, and those who knew it also suspected that it was close to Chan.”55 Huang Zongxi was probably influenced by Wang and has a similar viewpoint. He said, “As the disciples of Yangming who were personally taught by him often turned their backs on their teacher’s theories, this was also saying these [teachings] were too elevated.”56 “The Master’s words…originally were not profound and marvelous, but later people forcibly viewed them as profound and marvelous, and therefore they are close to Chan.”57 That is to say, Wang’s disciples strayed into Chan learning, and this was due to the theories they taught being too elevated as they just treated everything from a metaphysical perspective. That is to say, they totally used Chan learning to explain Wang Yangming’s principle of “good knowing,” and the (Confucian) idea of the sage-king also flowed into enlightening the mind and seeing the nature of Chan and into the framework of the thought of prajñ¯a and numinous awareness. Huang Zongxi and Wang Yangming themselves also had the intention of distinguishing Wang’s learning from Chan learning. Huang said that Wang’s disciples “turned their backs on their teacher’s theories,” in particular not realizing that the descendants of Yangming-Chan just inherited their teacher’s tradition, which was nothing more than a development of that tradition. At the start of the eleventh fascicle of the Ming Ru xuean there are the words, “The very first students of Yangming’s teachings, from those who were close to those who were distant, were no more than the gentry of the commanderies and towns. After [his time at] Longchang, disciples from all over began to increasingly come. The [students of] the commanderies and the towns who used their learning to voice [their ideas] were only Xushan (Qian Dehong) and [Wang] Longqi, and besides them there 54

Wang Shouren, Chuanxi lu. Wang Yangming quanshu, fascicle 7. 56 Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 7, “Hedong xuan,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 109. 57 Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 1, “Shishuo, Wang Yangming Shouren” (The Master’s Theories; Wang Yangming Shouren), Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 7. 55

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were only Chuilun and Jishui.” Only Qian Dehong and Wang Ji obtained the chief tenets and truly transmitted Wang’s learning. They also had the reputation of being the Shenxiu and Huineng of their master’s school. Qian Dehong, style Hongfu, sobriquet Xushan, was from the same hometown as Wang Yangming when Yangming was young. When Wang Yangming pacified Hao and returned to Yue, Dehong followed him with students to the same town and was educated in the Wang school. In the next year, he took part in the provincial civilservice examinations. In the eleventh year of the Jiaqing era (1532), he first went to take part in the palace examination. He was appointed Aide in the Directorate of Education and he was then appointed to the Bureau Secretary of the Ministry of Justice. Next, he shifted to be Vice-director of the Bureau, and he was also acting officer-in-charge of Shenxi (province). At the time, due to the case of Guo Xun, the Marquis of Wuding (1475–1542), Dehong thought that Guo’s violation of an imperial order was a crime deserving the death penalty, but this did not agree with the emperor’s opinion, and Qian was exposed and sent to prison. In prison, he lectured continuously on the Yijing to Attendant Censor Yang Hushan and the Commissionerin-chief Yue Bailou. When Guo Xun died, Qian got out of prison, and by Emperor Muzong’s time he was employed as Grand Master for Court Precedence. At the start of the Wanli era, he was promoted one grade. He was in the provinces for thirty years. He lectured in famous regions and remote districts in Jiang, Zhe, Chu, and Guang. At seventy, he wrote the Yixian shu (Encomium on Promoting Leisure) and announced it in all directions. He never travelled to lecture again. He died in the second year of the Wanli era (1574), aged seventy-nine (sui). Wang Yangming’s theory of reaching good knowing emerged in his late years. When he first emerged, he taught students tranquil sitting and clarifying the mind. Nevertheless, “good knowing” had the object of knowing utmost good, which is in the mutual relation of external and internal with “the reality of the mind without good and without evil.” It also is “in [a state] before it has emerged,” and therefore it also takes restraint as its main theme. Qian and Wang Ji, who had served Wang Yangming as a teacher for the longest of all the students, consequently “had learnt and heard his weightiest words,” and so had obtained the essence of Chan learning. Huang Zongxi evaluated these two disciples as follows: Longqi then saw in enlightenment the reality of incessant change, and the Master only actualized the mind by refining it through phenomena and things. Therefore, the Master’s thorough enlightenment was not the equal of that of Longqi, and Longqi’s cultivation and maintenance [of practice] were not the equal of those of the Master. So Longqi finally entered into Chan, but the Master did not abandon the regulations of being a Confucian. Why? Longqi let go of the overhanging cliff [a Chan image of transcendence] and he was able to not be bound by the tenets of the Master’s school. The Master let loose the hawser and let the boat (Longqi) go, and although [Yangming] did not have have the great enlightenment, he also did not have a great loss.

Simply speaking, in general Qian followed Wang Yangming’s technique of “actualizing the mind by refinement,” and so still preserved the air of being a Confucian, but in reality he kept to the teaching of Wang Yangming’s combination of Confucianism and Chan that was Yangming-Chan. However, Qian also had emphasized

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that in learning “good knowing is without good and without evil.” Clearly, this was also a development of Wang Yangming’s “being good and removing evil is good knowing.”58 Likewise, in his concept of “no opposition” he was going close to Chan. He said, Good knowing is that the principle of heaven originally is not dual. Through the numinousity and emptiness of the mind, reflection and examination are spoken of as knowing, and through the patterns of the mind, the ordering and analysis of it is called principle (ordering).

Speaking in this way, good knowing is also the principle of heaven, which is the mind that is numinously empty and that reflects and examines. Naturally, it is also utmost good and not an intrinsic reality that is in opposition to evil. Wang Yangming’s concept of good and evil was also changed to be even more mixed. He also borrowed other people’s words and went on to state that good knowing is the mental reality of “no good and no evil.” The previous master (Wang Yangming) spoke of “the mental reality of no good and no evil.” Shuangjiang [Nie Bao, a disciple of Yangming] then said that “Good knowing intrinsically has no good and evil, it is the reality that is quiescent before [good and evil] emerge, and if one nourishes [that reality] things will be investigated of themselves….” This discussion is excellent.59

Since Shuangjiang had said it is good, the previous master’s words must have had some defect. In only these terms, Qian also was not a member of Wang’s school who definitely observed its teachings. Qian also pointed out, Good knowing is vast, great, elevated, and enlightened; originally it had no false thoughts to be removed; and as soon as there are false thoughts to be removed, it has already lost its reality of being vast, great, elevated, and enlightened. Knowing good and knowing evil is the zenith of knowing, but in not knowing the reality of good knowing, it intrinsically lacks good and evil. To make acting and removing it to be an effort, but to not know the ultimate intrinsic reality and to make an effort without being deliberate (wuwei) is true effort. Correct thoughts are to be without thoughts, and the thoughts of correct thought are the intrinsic reality that is always quiescent.60

The above sentences are simply a direct criticism of Wang Yangming’s theory of “being good and remove evil,” and use the thoughts of no thought and the constant quiescence of the intrinsic reality to explain good knowing. Clearly, compared to Wang Yangming, this is closer to Chan learning. Wang Ji, style Ruzhong, sobriquet Longqi, was a native of Shanyang in Zhejiang. At the age of twenty, he took the provincial civil-service exams. In the second year of the Jiaqing era (1523) he failed the imperial examinations and returned home. He went to receive instruction from Wang Yangming. In the fifth year (1526), together with Dehong, he took the exams and became a presented scholar, but they both 58

Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 11, “Yuanwai Qian Xushan xiansheng Dehong,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 226. 59 Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 11, “Lun xueshu” (On Learning from Books), Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 236. 60 Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 11, “Huiyu,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 230.

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declined to take the palace examinations and returned home. In the eleventh year (1532), he went together with Dehong to take part in the palace examinations. He was appointed Bureau Secretary of the Nanjing Ministry of War, then was promoted to Director of the Bureau and Supervising Secretary. Because he was disliked by a powerful minister, he went into retirement on the pretext of illness. He stayed in retirement for over forty years, lecturing widely through the regions of Wu and Chu, Min and Yue, and Jiang and Zhe. People said Dehong’s learning was like Shenxiu’s gradual cultivation and Longqi’s learning like the sudden enlightenment of Huineng. Wang Ji died in the eleventh year of the Wanli era (1583), aged eighty-six. When Huang Zongxi discussed Wang Ji, his words were very much to the point. He pointed out that although Wang Ji’s learning was close to that of Chan and Laozi, “He unavoidably diverged from the standards for being a Confucian. However, the Master personally received the final mandate from Yangming and his subtle words frequently appeared. After [Lu] Xiangshan, one could not be without Cihu (Yang Jian, Lu’s disciple). And after Wencheng (Yangming) one could not be without Longqi. Because scholarship prospers and decays due to this, Cihu determined the waves of Xiangshan, and the Master dredged the river back to the source, for in the learning of Wencheng he definitely discovered much.”61 That is to say, Longqi’s learning was sourced from Yangming and yet he developed it considerably, but his loss of the Confucian standards was even greater and he was even closer to Chan learning, and so the public often viewed him as being of Chan learning. Even though Qian Dehong acknowledged that Longqi’s learning had “benefited from adopting [ideas from Wang],” he also censured Longqi for “speaking in discussion through twists and turns in all directions, not bringing forth his own ideas….He mostly dwelt in excessive thinking, and if one thinks excessively then the imaginations are sufficient to obscure the Way.”62 From this one can see that Longqi’s learning took as its task the production of one’s own ideas, and Qian’s developments of Wang’s learning also proved to be inferior in contrast to that of Longqi. In speaking of his “excessive thinking,” which is “sufficient to obscure the Way,” it probably also censured his idea of showing off his proficiency in Chan ideas. As described above, Wang Ji clearly recognized that the four-sentence teaching of his master were not words of the ultimate good, which is what he meant by “it is not yet the ultimate huatou.” What Huang Zongxi meant by, “The Master called it a provisional method” was only a euphemism for “differing from one’s teacher.” As Huang saw it, Wang Ji only stressed that the reality of the mind was the utmost good that had no oppositions, and also that it was a thorough transcendence, and that he merely saw mind, thinking, knowing, and things to be the one reality that are entirely without good and without evil, which is all an absolute that transcends dualistic antithesis. Thus, Wang Ji thoroughly made Yangming learning even more like Chan. He and Qian Dehong solely were of this “relationship (of similarity) with the substantial Yangming.” Wang Yangming said that his teaching basically has 61

Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 12, “Langzhong Wang Longqi xiansheng Ji,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 240. 62 Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 11, “Lun xueshu,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 234.

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two kinds; four non-existences and four existences. “Those of superior capabilities are to study the intrinsic reality, which is the learning of sudden enlightenment,”63 which reflected Wang Ji’s views with regard to Wang Yangming’s inspiration. It also reflected an uninterrupted deepening tendency in the scholarship of the Ming period towards Chan thought. According to this, Wang Ji’s thought subscribed to the “four non-existences,” which is the reality of the mind without good and without evil, and the movement of thought without good and evil, the good knowing without good and evil, and the investigation of things without good and without evil. No matter whether it is mind, it is also a thing; no matter whether it is intention, it is also knowing; all these have thoroughly transcended the concepts of opposition, which is that the utmost good is not opposed to evil. However, fundamentally speaking, Wang Ji also discussed this on the basis of good knowing. He said, Knowing is the intrinsic reality of the mind, which means that the mind of right and wrong is possessed by all people. Right and wrong are intrinsically clear and do not need to be borrowed; it (knowing) accords with feelings to respond, it being entirely natural.64

This passage and that of Wang Yangming join the three items of the mind, utmost good, and good knowing into one, with good knowing intrinsically existing. Good knowing is the original face that does need to be sought externally. These theories completely agree item by item. Because of this, one cannot say that Longqi’s learning comes completely from his own ideas. He simply took Wang Yangming’s theory of good knowing a little closer to Chan thought. He also said, Good knowing knows right and knows wrong; its reality is the non-existence of phenomena and its denial. Non-existence is the basis of all that exists. The intrinsic reality of good knowing originally is without movement and without tranquility, it is the original change and movement that flows all around. If good knowing is a single hint of empty radiance (xuming), then it is the opportunity for becoming a sage. Good knowing is originally without a single thing and of itself can respond to the changes in all things.65

In summary, what he means by good knowing is far from that of his teacher, is not something that can be tied to Wang Yangming’s theory. Being without right and without wrong, without movement and without tranquility; these clearly have a Chan tone. The taking of non-existence to be the foundation, and the theories of empty radiance and responding to change have emerged from the Yijing and Laozi. Not surprisingly he said, “Our Confucian learning and that of Chan learning, and that of conventional learning, is somewhere between going too far and not far enough.” “Nurturing awakening and being miserly in function” “are the detachment of the Buddhists.” This is probably what he meant by “going too far.” “Using awakening 63

Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 12, “Langzhong Wang Longqi xiansheng Ji,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 239. 64 Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 12, “Yulu,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 245. 65 Ibid., pp. 246–248.

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but losing the nurture” is “the ill will of the conventional world,”66 which may be the “not far enough.” But they are agreed on the question of “awakening.” Therefore, Wang Ji all along was not blind to his own proximity to Chan. In order to firmly establish his discussion of good knowing being without good and evil, Wang Ji also criticized various kinds of “proposals to blend [them]” with good knowing. He pointed out that, What is meant by good knowing is non-awakening illumination. What is meant by good knowing is being without the formation of views. What is meant by good knowing is a teaching established from what has emerged from oneself. What is meant by good knowing is being originally without desire. What is meant by good knowing is to have a controller and to have a flow on…and that divides good knowing into reality and function. What is meant by learning to value the proper sequence is that in seeking it there is the basic and the derivative, and in obtaining it there is no internal and external, and to reach knowing one distinguishes start and finish.

All of the above descriptions of the different interpretations of good knowing are differentiated and analyzed by Wang Ji item by item. “To keep to empty knowing and yet to value illumination is contrary to its function”; good knowing is “not to learn and yet be able”; “Good knowing originally is without that which has yet to emerge,” “people of the past established teachings, with an original desire to set them up”; the controller and the flow on are the reality and are the function, which is “reality and function are of one source”; what is sought and what is obtained “is a linkage of start and finish, it cannot be obtained and yet they are separate, and if they are separate, then they are branched.” In summary, the good knowing that he spoke of is a single source for reality and function, a linkage between the start and finish, a “learning of good” that is utmost good without opposition. This in total used Chan to interpret Confucianism and used Chan to understand the operation of the “good knowing” thesis, and then established it through refutation. Looking at his method, Wang Ji had three kinds of entry by enlightenment and four kinds of the ending of characteristics. The former follows the same path as Chan enlightenment, the latter concurrently adopted this, Daoism, and Confucianism into the scope of the three religions. The three kinds of entry by enlightenment are “the enlightenment by understanding” that is obtained by the understanding of knowing, “the enlightenment by realization” that relies on verbal description that is obtained out of tranquility, and “the thorough enlightenment” of “forgetting words and forgetting the cognitive realm ( jing), [in which] whatever is encountered is a meeting with the source.” Even though enlightenment is not a patent of the Chan School, nevertheless, the importance of the transcendental cognitive realm actualized by Chan School is so great in 66

Ibid., in the same fascicle there is Wang’s “Zhizhi yibian” (Discussions Leading to Knowledge), at the end of which he says, “Buddhists regard empty radiance to be the nature, and also regard awakening to be the nature….Buddhist learning nurtures awakening and is miserly in function, at times Confucians use awakening but lose that which they have nurtured.”

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extent that one can say that it was the sole short-cut path, and by dividing enlightenment into understanding, realization, and thorough enlightenment, in particular it highlights the Chan non-discrimination of this and that, and simultaneously it uses the letters and language to create a function of a ladder by which to enter the Way. A person asked Luo Rufang, “What about the art of regulating breathing?” Luo answered, “If the mind is in harmony then the qi (air, vital energy) is in harmony, and if the qi is in harmony then the body will be in harmony, and for the breath to be calm use regulation.” Wang Ji thought that “The art of the regulation of breathing is also a provisional method of a teaching that was established. One restrains the essential spirit from tranquillty….Each breath returns to its root, which is called the mother of cinnabar.67 If one only harmonizes the mind, harmonizes the qi, and harmonizes the body, the worldly Confucians always talk of a general promise, having no opportunity to enter enlightenment.” Due to this, Huang Zongxi said, “Jinqi (Luo) entered into Chan, Longqi then combined [Confucianism] with Daoism, and therefore he had a method for the regulation of breathing.” This regulation of breathing is called wind ( feng), is called gasping (chuan), is called qi, is called breathing (xi). The production of sound by breathing through the nose is called the characteristic of wind. When the breathing has no sound and forms a blockage, it is called the characteristic of gasping. Being without sound and without a blockage, and if it is coarse, then that is the characteristic of qi. When the outflow and inflow of the breath is continuous, whether the breath is retained or lost, that is the characteristic of breathing. He said, “If you wish to practice tranquil sitting ( jingzuo), use regulation of breathing to be your entrance,” and “If the breathing is regulated, then the mind is settled.” This can almost be said to be a method of the Daoist religious refinement of internal alchemy. The Buddhist Anban shouyi jing (Sutra on Concentration on Exhalation and Inhalation)68 had already adopted the language of the Daoist priests, and this was also adopted and used by Chan. Wang Ji said, The mechanism of exhalation and inhalation itself prevails over the creation of heaven and earth….The scope of the themes of the three religions we Confucians call swallow breathing [tr. to be at ease, term from Shijing], the Buddhists call reverse breathing, and the Daoists call breathing through one’s heels [tr. “Dazong shi” chapter of Zhuangzi], which is the profound pivot for the opening and closing of creation. If one uses this as evidence of learning and also uses this to protect life, one will realize that this is the most thorough Way.69

Discussing it in these terms, it would not be in error to say that Wang Ji’s learning was not only close to Chan, but he also combined it with theories from the domains of the Yijing and Laozi. This also was a natural tendency in the formation of the Chan School and its syncretic evolution.

67

Tr. A Daoist technical term, referring to “the metal within water, the yang within yin.” Found in Zhang Boduan’s Wuzhen pian. This seems to refer to a theory of internal alchemy, and so cinnabar may refer to the area of the body below the belly-button. 68 Tr. considered a forgery, on breath and concentration. 69 Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 12, “Yulu,” p. 256.

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The “Taizhou xuean”in the Ming Ru xuean evaluates this as follows: “The learning of Master Yangming was in vogue in the empire through Taizhou (Wang Gen) and Longqi. Also, due to Taizhou and Longqi, the transmission of [Wang Yangming’s thought] was lost in Zhe[jiang]. Often, the Taizhou School and Longqi did not fulfil their teacher’s theories and they further revealed the secrets of Gautama (Buddha) and were devoted to him as a teacher, and so they elevated Yangming to be [a member of] Chan….After Taizhou, most of its members bare-handedly fought able opponents. When their transmission reached the faction of Yan Shannong and He Xinyin, it subsequently was unable to restore its fame for being able to link up the teachings….They were without the intellect to correct the scholarship. What is meant by patriarchal-teacher Chan is to use the functions to see the nature.” From this we can know that the two Wangs were the greatest figures of Yangming-Chan. Wang Gen, style Rushi, sobriquet Xinzhai, was a person of Anfeng chang in Taizhou. At the age of seven (sui) he started his education in the town’s private school, but he was unable to complete his schooling because he was poor. He followed his father as a merchant into Shandong and he always tucked the Xiaojing (Classic of Filial Piety), Lunyu, and the Daxue (Great Learning) into his sleeves, and when he met people he would ask them difficult questions and after a time he would thoughtlessly speak in explanation, “Even though one cannot concentrate on efforts to learn, still silently investigate and use the classics to verify one’s enlightenment, and use that enlightenment to explain the classics, and having passed years doing so, people will be unable to spy out its limits.” “Dwelling in practice and silence in words are all present in awakening.” At that time, Wang Yangming was circuit inspector of Jiangxi and Wang Gen was living in Taizhou. A certain Huang Wen’gang heard Wang Gen talking about learning, and thought it was very much like the words of Wang Yangming. Wang Gen was delighted when he heard about this and so he joined the school of Yangming, calling himself a disciple, and he then returned to Yue with Yangming. When Yangming died, Wang Gen opened his own school and he instructed his followers, using “The daily functions of the common people are the Way” to teach his pupils. Huang Zongxi evaluated him as follows: “After Yangming, the use of eloquence promoted Longqi, but some believed him and some did not. Only the master (Wang Gen) was [as close as] the distance between the eyebrows and eyelashes [with Yangming], and those who were awakened were very numerous. He died in the nineteenth year of Jiaqing (1540) aged fifty-eight (sui).”70 Looking at Wang Gen’s conduct, “His words were enlightened, transcendent, and expansive.”71 His words were very much like those of Chan, and when he was at the Chongwen men (Veneration of Literature Gate) in the capital, he swaggered through the treets with his high hat and broad waist-band, lecturing on Wang’s learning, “and the people of the city viewed him as being a strange leader.”72 Even though his lectures took investigation of things (gewu) to be their prime theme, he did not lose sight of 70

Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 32, “Chushi Wang Zinzhai xiansheng Gen,” pp. 709–711. Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, first fascicle, “Shishuo: Wang Longqi Ji’ (The Master’s Theories: Wang Longqi), p. 8. 72 Op. cit., p. 256. 71

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the rules leading to good knowing of Wang Yangming’s learning. Investigation (ge) is “to know that the body is the basis and that the family and state are secondary,” and “therefore, if one wishes to equally govern peacefully, [the key to this] lies in the calming of the body.” “Calming the body is likewise the calming of the mind.”73 Calming the mind is to search back into one’s self, which is the theory of Wang Yangming’s utmost good that is still not a good knowing that is in opposition to evil. Moreover, comparatively, the two words “good knowing” are close to Chan language. He said, Only utmost good is calming the body and calming the body is the major basis for establishing the empire. Calming the body and calming the body are superior. Obtaining a calmed body is only utmost good.

Calming the body ultimately resides in calming the mind and calming the mind is only in the utmost good. If one seeks the calm mind and body, then one must search back into one’s self. A student asked, “Is the liberated mind hard to find?” The master called out to him and he responded. The master said, “Your mind is present here, what more is there to seek?”

This clearly is the method of teaching a student used by the Chan masters. Wang Gen also wrote a poem: The human mind is basically without anything to do, So if you have something to do, the mind will not be delighted. If you have something to do, The majority of things to do will be not be amiss. Who is it that gets to know good knowing? Good knowing originally has no need to know, And now there is only good knowing present, And there is no good knowing that knows that there is anything beyond knowing.74

The first poem in particular displays the free-and-easy attitude of “leaving things up to the conditions” of the Chan School, which is a marvel of different time sung with equal skill as the poem by the sixth patriarch in reply to Wolun.75 The later poem emphasizes that good knowing intrinsically exists and that there is no need to seek externally, for it is attained by oneself by searching back into oneself, and so this is still the hidden meaning of Chan. Wang Gen was born into a lower stratum of society and therefore his attitude towards reading books also resembles that of Huineng to a significant degree. He said, “Only the learning of the sage (Confucius) in the learning of the empire is good 73

Op. cit., p. 256. Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 32, “Xinzhai yulu,” pp. 715, 718. 75 The original poem is, “Huineng has no tricks,/And does not eliminate all thoughts./The thoughts of the cognitive realms arise in numbers,/So what is the benefit of bodhi?” 74

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to know, and if one does not expend any effort, then there will be boundless joy. If one expends some effort, then this is not the learning of the sage and it will not be enjoyed.”76 What he told people was not to not read books, but that the books of the sages and worthies are easy to read and to study, and there is no need to make an effort to enjoy them. If this is not the case, then it is not the learning of the sage. These words are sufficient to impress by appearing to be novel and unique, but they are also the idea of the Chan School about complying with one’s own mind. Wang Gen’s words, “The daily functions of the common people are the Way,” clearly are a result of the infiltration of the Chan School’s form of thinking “that whatever is present is perfect” into Wang’s learning. It is also a transitionary form of the tendency for the transcendental spirit of the Chan School to engage with society. He stressed, “Where the daily functions of the common people are organized, that is where the sage is organized,” the aim being simply to borrow Chan thinking in order to affirm the rationality of mundane activity, yet these daily functions definitely did not fall into the net of the mundane world. This and the later inferior members of the Chan School took the transcendental spirit of negation and changed it into something that was not the same as the affirmation of all of reality. It was just as he said, Those who have a mind that makes light of scholarly honor and being rich and famous tend towards the abuses that extend to being without a father or a ruler; those who have a mind that gives weight to scholarly honor and being rich and famous tend towards the abuse that extends to killing one’s father and one’s ruler.77

Wang Gen definitely did not think it was correct to view scholarly honor and being rich and famous to be like floating clouds, but he also despised being intoxicated by scholarly fame and being rich and famous; all should follow naturally and one should not grasp for any one side. Looking at this, one can also say that compared to Chan masters he must have been made even more like Chan. Wang Gen’s son, Wang Bi (1511–1587), had the sobriquet Dongya. Wang Yangming ordered him to serve Dehong and Wang Ji as his teachers. After Wang Gen departed the world, he succeeded to Wang Gen’s position as lecturer. When he returned by a small boat to his village, the sound of his singing echoed through the forest trees. His words were: The birds cry and the flowers fall; The mountains tower and the rivers flow. Hungry for food and thirsty for drink; The summer vines and winter fur-coats. The ultimate Way has nothing more to accumulate. The birds cry and the flowers wither; Hungry for a meal and pressed for sleep, There is nothing that is not the Way; Dancing for rain midst the atmosphere, The idea of Chan finally appears.78

In Wang Gen’s school there were Xu Yue (d. 1552) and Wang Lian (1502–1581). Xu Yue’s pupil was Zhao Zhenji (1508–1576) whose words were mostly the same 76

Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 32, “Xinzhai yulu,” p. 718. Huang Zongxi, “Xinzhai yulu,” p. 715. 78 Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, “Chushi Wang Dongya xiansheng Bi,” p. 723. 77

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as those of the Chan masters. Furthermore, Zhenji’s disciple Deng Huoqu “heard of Wang Gen’s learning about knowing, but he did not understand it, so he entered Qingcheng where he practiced Chan for ten years.” All of this shows that the Taizhou School cast off the reins of the Confucian ethical code (mingjiao) and made Yangming-Chan merge into and drift along with the prevailing customs of the age. Xu Yue had a disciple, Yan Shannong, whose senior-most pupil was Luo Rufang, whose style was Weide and sobriquet was Jinqi. Luo was of equal fame with Wang Ji, they being known as the two elders Longqi and Jinqi. It was said that “Longqi’s pen was greater than his tongue and Jinqi’s tongue was greater than his pen….Although Luo usually did not recognize the students, but then in a moment, he was able to enlighten their mind-ground and the Way was there before them.” Luo was a native of Nancheng in Jiangxi and was a presented scholar in the thirty-second year of Jiaqing (1553). He was then magistrate of Taihe County, then was promoted to Secretary of a Bureau in the Ministry of Punishments, and he ended up as governor of Ningguofu. In sequence he studied under Yan Jun, with whom he spoke of Lixue (orthodox neo-Confucianism), served Hu Qingxu as a teacher, with whom he discussed refining (alchemy), and he took as a teacher the monk Xuanjue, with whom he spoke of cause and effect, the singular transmission, and the direct pointing at the mind of Chan. In the fifth year of the Wanli era (1577), he lectured students at Guanghui Monastery and many courtiers followed his learning. Later he came and went between Liang-Zhe (two Zhe provinces), Jinling, Min and Guang, further promoting Wang’s learning. He died in the sixteenth year (1588) at the age of seventy-four. Luo Rufang “in his early years searched and investigated all the Buddhist scriptures and profound theses [of Daoism], and monks and Daoist priests were received as he did not refuse guests.” Also, he served the Chan monk Xuanjue as a teacher. He was the best at Chan learning and the best of the pupils of the Taizhou School. “When he was governor of Ningguo, he gathered students and held literary meetings for lectures, and he had the debaters sit cross-legged in the open courtyard, close their eyes and contemplate their mind.”79 People in the past used the Spring and Autumn Annals to decide on imprisonment and Luo used Chan contemplation to control the litigation, and so one can also say that the Chan style was alone present in him. Rufang’s learning “mostly reverted to the mind of a baby.”80 This mind of a baby is the everyday mind of the Chan School, and also has its basis in the pristine selfnature of the Chan School and its theory of the original face, and it also opened up the line of thought for Li Zhi’s “child mind” (dongxin). The “mind of a baby” does not learn and does not ponder; it is formed naturally and is identical with all the things of heaven and earth, penetrating the skeleton, forgetting things and the self. It does not stop life after life and every person possesses it intrinsically. It is the reality of the mind that totally conforms. In reality, this also is what Wang Yangming called good knowing. “So what is called the total conformity is just whatever appears is perfect

79 80

Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 34, “Canzheng Luo Jinqi xiansheng Rufang,” p. 762. Ibid, fasc. 34, “Luo Rufang yulu.”

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of the Buddha-dharma,” and therefore the discussants said that he “truly obtained the essence of patriarchal-teacher Chan.”81 He also quoted the Platform Sutra’s theory on wisdom being like the sun, insight being like the moon, removing delusion and falsity by oneself, and the clear penetration of the internal and external, to talk of the mind of a baby. He said, At the time one is awakened, the deluded mind is awakened; and then when it is deluded, it is also the awakened mind that is deluded. Besides awakening, there is nothing also to be called delusion, and besides delusion, it also is what is called awakening. Therefore, the sun in the sky [behind] the floating clouds and the light of the mirror [behind] the dust; none of these are sufficient as a metaphor for it.

Beyond awakening there is no delusion, beyond delusion there is no awakening; awakening and delusion are totally fused into one reality. This is also like the form of thinking of Chan that transcends antithesis, which is also that of a monk who always preserves the existence of awakening in opposition to delusion. Therefore, Luo did not agree with the metaphor of the sun in the sky behind floating clouds. Yet he recognized that If one must search for a metaphor, nothing is closer than the relation of ice and water. When we are at leisure, we let loose all desires for profit and the sufferings of worry. For example, when water encounters cold, it freezes and coagulates into ice….This mind is open and clear. For example, when ice is in warm air it dissolves and breaks down to become water….Even though ice coagulates, the reality of water is without any difference [between ice and water]. Even though awakening is deluded, yet the reality of the mind is fully present, and then one can see that the theme of good knowing is present past and present, it penetrates the saints and the benighted; it is common to all the things of heaven and earth. These are not two, there being no stopping.82

Luo used the metaphor of water for the mind of a baby and he used the changes of ice and water as a metaphor for the mind of delusion and awakening. Reliant on Chan concepts to judge this, his elimination of opposition and his total mergence clearly resides above the sun and moon behind the floating clouds and the mirror covered by dust. Jinqi’s learning likewise, when compared to that of Chan, was made more like Chan. The metaphor of the ice and water should have formed an irrefutable truth in Chan. Rufang also had no qualms about “obtaining the essence of patriarchal-teacher Chan.” In Rufang’s school there was Zhou Rudeng (1547–1629). When he first saw Rufang, Rufang instructed him using the huge Buddhist encyclopedia, the Fayuan zhulin (Forest of Jewels in the Garden of the Dharma). Rufang practiced Chan and often spoke of Buddhist principles. He used the lamp and its light for things being of the same reality (dongti) as the supreme ultimate (taiji), which also had the charming interest of the ice and water metaphor. Zhou’s school in turn produced Tao Wangling, who wrote to Jiao Hai (presented scholar 1589), saying, “People of the past saw the nature as being empty in order to cultivate the Way; present-day people see the nature as being empty in order to extend their desires, which is lamentable.”83 In 81

Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 34, “Canzheng Luo Jinqi xiansheng Rufang,” p. 763. Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 34, “Luo Rufang yulu,” p. 765. 83 Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 36, “Wenjian Tao Shikui xiansheng Taoling,” p. 870. 82

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it, he quoted the words of Zhanran Yuancheng and Miyun Yuanwu, and he stirred up Wang Yangming learning and the style of Chan flourished even more in Eastern Zhe, and he also caused it to flow into the ranks of pure conversation (qingtan). Consequently, the transmission of Wang Yangming learning came to an end and Yangming-Chan also become just like the spent force of an arrow that had so little power that it could not penetrate even the flimsiest gauze.

Part 4: The Delight in Chan of the End of the Ming Confucians and the Gentry Escape into Chan After Buddhism entered China, due to the perfect penetration by Buddhism into the principles of things, revealing the fate of the universe in all ways, and because it stuck to the status-quo and was pleasing to the eye and the mind, this added fuel to the flames and the literati and Confucian scholars pursued it and promoted it. This is what was meant by they “cast aside Daoist philosophy (Lao), wishing to rely on the monks, and they urgently came to embrace the feet of the Buddha.” It was just via the appreciation by and faith of the gentry class that the Buddha-dharma completely integrated into Chinese traditional culture. Buddhism influenced concepts about human life held by the Chinese people, and its aesthetic concepts and its logical thinking motivated them. The formation and development of Chinese Chan thought should be said to have been a culturally rich result of the creative thinking of the Chinese intelligentsia. The synthesis of Song-dynasty Chan already had political and scholarly causes, and it also had an aesthetic appeal. The literati and scholars talked Chan and spoke g¯ath¯as, and they exchanged poems and letters (with monks). Even if they spoke of principle, this also highlighted their arts and their realm of aesthetics. They always expressed themselves by drinking leisurely and singing softly, inspiring all sorts of connections with refined circles. At the start of the establishment of the court of the Zhu-clan Ming dynasty, on one hand it venerated Lixue (neo-Confucianism) and used the teachings of Confucius to strengthen the feudal autocratic system, and on the other hand it implemented a strict control over reforms of thought and culture, including a compulsory reform of Chan thought. The control of thought and culture had already been experienced in the distant past, and the murder of scholars of the court and provinces because of their writings meant that other scholars could not but keep silent out of fear. In particular, in the period after Emperor Wu (r. 1506– 1521), the government was corrupt, especially in the business of the operation of justice, and “social law and order was daily loosened, customs were daily destroyed, petty people advanced daily, gentlemen retreated daily, morale evaporated daily, the channels of communication were daily shut off, the ranks and equipage were daily disparaged, bribery was practiced daily, and the rites and music were daily abolished. Punishments and fines were daily abused, the property of the people was daily exhausted, and the military and government daily worsened….Dissenting

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words daily flowed forth and loyal words daily became distant.”84 “At one time mean men arose together and the run of disasters were internal and external. The ancestral shrines [symbolic of the country] were almost in ruins.”85 Under these conditions, the talk of Chan by Confucian scholars, who, besides constructing their ideological mansions, hoped that in this corrupt world that they could find an exquisite realm of unlimited vistas in the mental spheres of Chan. Since Chan had this appearance of transcendence, this enabled them to be discrete and play safe, and so they availed themselves of Chan’s light, clear, peaceful, and auspicious beauty, which was expressed in terms of faint shadows and pale moons, much of these being romantic feelings of ecstasy. When the Qing entered to rule the Chinese heartlands, one part of the gentry, being unable to oppose the Qing, went to their deaths to preserve their reputations and integrity, or they did not willingly serve the Qing, living from day to day, and were deemed criminals in the Confucian ethical order. They also could not but escape into the gateways of emptiness (Buddhism) and the refined circles at once changed from rapturous romanticism into a chilly and bleak environment, and the tears of the bored travelers in the capital and of the senior emissaries and bravos filled their lapels with desolation and laments. In addition, Yangming-Chan also was popular in accord with the times and it flowed into pure conversation (qingtan). The delight in Chan and escape into Chan suffused throughout almost all the Chan monasteries of the end of the Ming. It was just as Wang Yuanhan wrote in his “Letter to Reverend Yeyu” in his Nongcui ji: “At that time, the people who studied the Way in the capital were like a forest (numerous)….Of the ministers, there were Huang Shenxuan, Li Zhuowu, Yuan Zhonglang, Tao Butui, Cai Chengshi, and others, their voices seeking each other, their ideas matching, and up to the present one can count it being like this for twenty-three years.” Of them, the most prominent were Li Zhi and Yuan Hongdao. Li Zhi (1527–1602) had the original name of Zaishi, with his sobriquet Zhuowu, and another sobriquet of Hongfu. He was a native of Jinjiang in Quanzhou. Because the Quanzhou-lineage Chan Master Wenling had lived in that place, Li also titled himself Laymen Wenling. At twenty-six (sui) he passed the provincial civil-service examinations and was appointed for over twenty years in such petty posts as Instructor in Hui County, Henan, and secretary of a bureau in the Ministry of Justice in Nanjing. In the fifth year of the Wanli era (1577), he was sent on appointment as Prefect of Yaoan in Yunnan. He was in that post for three years, when “One morning he removed his hair, his cap and robes, and sat in the official hall. The senior officials ordered him to resign.”86 There was a Boyu (Alms-Bowl) Cloister where he listened to sutras and he made a poem on the seasonable rain. “In the mountains there is a dharma-mat,/On leisure days I escape into Chan./…At the vegetarian feast, after the lone chime has sounded,/[I chant] half a g¯ath¯a in front of a lamp./For a thousand years one empty

84

Ming shi (History of the Ming), fascicle 203, “Biography of Li Zhong.” Ming shi, fascicle 307, “Biographies of Sycophants,” introductory discussion. 86 Ming shi, fasc. 221, “Biography of Geng Dingxiang.” 85

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bowl,/Lu Neng (Huineng) himself did not transmit it.”87 One can also see his delight in the Chan enjoyment of free and easy wandering in an enchanting landscape. After this, Li Zhi wrote books and lectured, completely cutting himself off from a public-service career, and in sequence he lived in Huang’an, Hubei, and in Zhifo Cloister in Longtan, Macheng, and he lived in Majia in Tongzhou. In 1602, he was indicted and imprisoned. He committed suicide in prison. Li Zhi’s learning partook of a fresh, anti-traditional quality. He said, “From when I was young, I was stubborn and did not believe in learning, did not believe in Daoist philosophy, did not believe in immortals (Daoism) and Buddhism. Therefore, when I saw a Daoist I disliked him; when I saw a monk I disliked him, and when I saw a master of Daoxue (neo-Confucianism), I particularly disliked him.”88 He probably was exactly like this and this was directly due to the influence of Yangming-Chan, which made him, out of his feelings of resentment at the world, choose Chan learning in order to create an “outstanding man.” At the age of fifty-four (sui), “he entered Mt. Jizu, read the canonical sutras and did not leave,”89 and in his later years while living in Macheng, he again cut his hair and removed his cap, changed his residence into a Chan cloister, and read and discussed books and sutras with monks and lay friends. He used Chan learning to guide and encourage those less advanced, just like a monk who had left home. Qian Qianyi evaluated his style as follows: When Zhuowu (Li Zhi) was governor of Yaoan he was pure and tranquil, and he had a style of drawing forth and educating children. When Butui [indicates Tao Ting] was living as an official, he imitated him. In his latter years, Zhuowu resented the world and was arrogant and self-indulgent.90

He also evaluated his learning as follows: After the Longqing and Wanli eras (1567–1620), his energy faded daily and the Daoxue [followers] called him Elder Zhuo in an exaggerated fashion. He took as his task lecturing on the Chan School and the men of the mountains [monks and recluses] competed to describe him as Lord Mei, and he spoke unreasonably of the secret and noble. With salty marshlands, if one does not separate them out but indiscriminately harvests them, white rushes and yellow cogongrass will be particularly excessive.91

From this we know of Li Zhi’s achievements in Chan learning and his influence on the scholarly world of his time, and one can see the learning style of the society of his time. Yuan Hongdao also evaluated Li Zhi’s Chan-learning thought, saying, “He investigated, seeking the principles of the [Buddhist] vehicle, which culminated in his transcendent enlightenment, removing the skin to see the bones and declining the 87

Jishan fanzhi (Gazetteer of the Grounds of Jishan). Wang Yangming xiansheng Daoxue chao fu Wang Yangming xiansheng nianpu houyu (Afterword to the Selection of Master Wang Yangming’s Daoxue and his Chronology). 89 Yuan Zhongdao, Li Wenling zhuan (Biography of Li Zhi). 90 Qian Qianyi, Chuxue ji (Collection of Initial Learning), 31, “Preface to Langyuan ji.” 91 Siku quanshu, Zajia cunmu 9 (On the Miscellaneous Thinkers, Catalogue 9). Tr. the last metaphor seems to refer to an indiscriminate mixture, making things the same in being of low quality. 88

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path of reason.”92 Clearly, he is saying that Li Zhi deeply understood the principles of Chan learning. Although these are words of excessive praise, yet really it also informs people that the accomplishments of Li Zhi’s Chan learning were definitely not inferior to those of the Chan monks of his age. Probably due to his concept of orthodox Confucianism, Huang Zongxi’s Ming Ru xuean did not include an entry on Li Zhi, but Li Zhi was definitely in an inseparable relationship with the students of the Yaojiang and Taizhou schools. Not only did he read the works of Wang Yangming, but he also had interchanges with the stalwarts of Wang’s school of Chan learning, Longqi and Jinqi, and eventually he also took Xinzhai (Wang Gen)’s son, Wang Bi as his teacher. And after he had read Wang’s books, he said, not without admiration, that “Now I know that the true man who has attained the Way is not dead; he is really the same as the true Buddha and the true immortal. Although I am stubborn, I must have faith in him.”93 In fact, it made him submit, and what he devoted himself to in Chan learning was exactly the “good knowing” of Yangming-Chan. At the time, people said, “Those who now study Buddhism all do so because they have been enticed by the two words ‘good knowing’.”94 Li Zhi was indeed under the spell of the two words “good knowing” of Yangming-Chan, making the “everyday mind is the Way” of the Chan School the foundation of his thought, which he expressed in his famous theory of the child-[like] mind (tongxin). Li quoted the Spring and Autumn Annals, Mencius, and the Western Inscription to talk of the childlike mind. He said, A child is the beginning of a person; the childlike mind is the beginning of the mind. The childlike mind is the true mind. The childlike mind eliminates the false and is purely true, the very first single thought being the intrinsic mind. If one has lost the childlike mind, then one has lost the true mind, and then one has lost the true man.95

That is to say, what he called the childlike mind was Mencius’ mind of a baby, which is the mind at the very start of a human being’s life, which is pure and true, and is the true mind that absolutely does not hold onto falsity. Really it is also Wang Yangming’s “without good and without evil” or as some say, the mind-reality (xinti) of “the utmost good that is not in opposition to evil,” or what is said to be Wang Ji’s “good knowing,” which is the “good knowing” that was a new interpretation of Wang Yangming’s “good knowing.” However, Li Zhi used the idea of “childlike mind” and further highlighted the original face of this one true mind, and because of this it also approximated the “everyday mind” of Chan. The label “childlike mind” was essentially made in opposition to the use of the six Confucian classics as an excuse for cultural dictatorship. Li Zhi pointed out that 92

Yuan Zhongdao, Li Wenling zhuan. Wang Yangming xiansheng Daoxue chao fu Wang Yangming xiansheng nianpu hou. 94 Tao Wangling, Xiean ji, fascicle 16, “Letter Sent to Your Younger Brother on His Entrance into the Capital in a Xinchao [year].” 95 Li Zhi, Tongxin shuo (On the Childlike Mind). 93

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“Even if one does not read books, the childlike mind is basically self-mastery. Even if one reads many books, still, by maintaining this childlike mind and by using it, one will not lose it by doing so. If one does not do so and students to the contrary use the reading of many books to recognize the meanings and principles, this will instead hinder them.” His idea was not that he did not want people to read books, but it was to emphasize that one cannot take advantage of the words of the sage (Confucius) to obstruct the childlike mind. It was not to take the right and wrong of the sage to be right and wrong, but was to take the right and wrong of the inherently existing childlike mind to be right and wrong. This clearly also was a result of the influence of the Chan School thought that the basis for the obstruction of the Way lay in language and letters. At the very end of his text, Li Zhi specially emphasized that, If the six [Confucian] classics, the Lunyu, and Mencius are not the phrases of excessive praise made by the official historians, then they are the words of extreme eulogy made by ministers. Moreover, if this was not the case, then the impractical followers ignorantly remembered their master’s words, [which is to] have a head but no tail, to obtain the latter and leave behind the former. According to what they have seen, they write it down in books. If the latter students do not examine them, they think these words have come out of the mouth of the sage and they decide to look on them as classics. Who knows that the greater half of them are not the words of the sage? Even if they came from the sage, they need to be acted upon. However, one gives medicine in accordance with the disease and the prescription in accordance with the time [of the progression of the disease]. This is said in order to rescue this kind of ignorant pupil and impractical follower! If the medical doctor is unsure about the disease, the prescription will be hard to determine, so how can one hastily regard this to be the ultimate discussion for all generations? So then, the six classics, Lunyu, and Mencius are excuses for the Daoxue [Confucians], are dens of fake people. They absolutely cannot talk about the childlike mind with clear words!96

Li Zhi thought that the textual records titled “classics,” and such books as the Lunyu and Mencius were only the words of praise by official historians and ministers and did not come from the mouths of the sages, and even if they are the words of the sages, they are still nothing more than words said in response to the time and place, and cannot be venerated as being eternal and unchanging truths. Nevertheless, they have been used by writers for official hire and they have taken the form of Daoxue and made into an excuse to hoodwink people. They cannot be raised or discussed together with the childlike mind. Evidently, Li Zhi’s theory of the childlike mind was set up in order to criticize the Daoxue scholars who then occupied positions in government. Objectively, he directed the barbs of his criticism towards those books of Confucius and Mencius that were venerated as the learning of the sages. This amply reflects what Li Zhi, midst the emerging movements of the self-mind, self-nature, and everyday mind of the Chan School, expressed as the spirit that rebelled against the Way and which divorced itself from the sutras and constituted the realm of freedom for thought and culture that he sought for. This became a weapon of social criticism and a real individual liberation for the later scholarly world that would borrow the principles of Buddhism, presenting a model to emulate. In his Sanjiao gui Ru shuo (On the Three Religions Reverting to Confucianism) in particular, he began from the childlike mind 96

Li Zhi, Tongxin shuo.

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to severely castigate the false Daoxue that “is outwardly Daoxue but inwardly was for riches and honor, and [whose followers], clad in Confucian elegance, acted like dogs and swine” and who “used false words to obscure the truth.” He heartlessly satirized such people without talent and learning, do-nothings and know-nothings who “yet desire to achieve the greatest wealth and honor” and who “absolutely cannot not lecture on Daoxue.” Such bitter resentment against the customs of the gentry of his day amply reveals that Chan thought had already started to transform into a socially critical consciousness. He also said, “Those who now wish to genuinely lecture on Daoxue in order to seek out the tenets of Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism so as to transcend the world and to escape from the sufferings of wealth and honor, absolutely must shave off their hair and become a reverend (monk)!” One can see that Li Zhi was truly not directly opposed to Confucius and Mencius, but later people have always viewed him as being a rebel against tradition. Really, that is unjust. In fact, he only opposed those who were pretend Daoxue scholars, who had no talent and no learning, and who solely sought wealth and honor, but when it came to genuine lecturers on Daoxue, who actualized the true spirit of Confucius and Mencius, he not only gave them his full approval, but also did his utmost to respect them. However, he said that the true spirit of Confucius and Mencius was among the bald-pate reverends (monks), which was naturally overstating the case a little. Since this reflected his modulations in respect of false Daoxue and Chan, it has also the humor of his resentment at the world and hatred of the vulgar. If one says that the “childlike mind” is a product of the union of the good knowing of Yangming-Chan and the “everyday mind” and “original face” of Chan, then Li Zhi’s scholarship that thought of “this emptiness is matter (se),” “everybody is buddha,” and the transcendence of the world that is participation in the world in order to liberate the world, was a result of him being fully Buddhicized. However, he had already partaken of the feature of the age, which was to be inclined towards participation in the world. In his Xinjing tigang (Outlines of the Heart Sutra)97 he amply elaborated on the Buddhist concepts of matter and emptiness. He said, Do not think that I am talking of emptiness for that would be an attachment to emptiness. As I speak about matter, it is not different to emptiness. As I speak about emptiness, it is not different to matter. However, I only say they are not different, which is just like there being two things in opposition, and even though they are reunited as one, it is just as if [each] one is preserved [separately]. In fact, the matter that I talk about is just speaking about emptiness, which is the non-existent emptiness of matter. The emptiness that I speak about is just speaking of matter, there being no matter beyond emptiness. Not only is there no matter, there also is no emptiness and this is true emptiness….There is no emptiness to be named, so how can there also be the names and characteristics of rising and ceasing, polluted and pure, increase and decrease?

Here he is completely using the Chan School concept of no opposition that transcends dualistic antithesis to explain the relationship of matter and emptiness. Matter is not different to emptiness, emptiness is not different to matter; matter is emptiness, emptiness is matter. He recognized that there is no other actual and thorough transcendence, but still it is “two things in opposition” or “preserved as one.” When 97

Li Zhi, Fenshu (A Book to Burn), fascicle 3.

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there is only no matter beyond emptiness and no emptiness beyond matter; neither empty nor material, only then can one transcend such antithetical concepts such as rising and ceasing, pollution and purity, and increasing and decreasing. In sum, Li Zhi viewed Buddhism as making a concept of thorough negation, to the extent of viewing the Chan School to be even negating the ultimate mind. He said, “The mind inherently has no existence and yet people of the world mistakenly think it exists; it also has no non-existence and yet students grasp it to be non-existent. Existence and non-existence are divided and the establishment [of them as] subject and object is to be blocked by one’s own ignorance and to be self-deluded. How can you then gain mastery?” The mind is inherently non-existent and it is also not non-existent; this sort of double negation was clearly influenced by the Zhaolun (Treatises by Sengzhao). Superficially it is viewed as having a difference with Chan and with Buddhist doctrine, but essentially it is still the form of thinking of the Chan School about characteristics being apart from characteristics. His theory that said, “Eliminate words and forget sentences,” also has this meaning. And “everybody is buddha” and “transcending the world to participate in the world” is an affirmative form that is expressed out of this concept of negation. Li Zhi once answered Chan Master Danran about vowing to become buddha. He said, The Buddha intrinsically is self-perfected [already buddha], so if you say “become buddha,” then this is already talk that does not comply with reason, so how can you want to vow to become one! To become buddha is to be without a buddha that can become that buddha, these thousands and tens of thousands of buddhas being the same.98

Thus he is saying that originally there was nothing called buddha, so to become buddha is to become this non-existent buddha, and since there is no buddha to become, therefore “everybody is buddha.”99 In fact, Buddhists say from the perspective that “There is no distinction between the three of mind, buddha, and sentient beings” that “everybody can become buddha.” Thus, Li Zhi used the inherent existence of the “childlike mind” to say that “everybody is buddha.” These theories are all built on the foundation of the thought of the existence of a surreal buddha. Concretely speaking, Li Zhi was interpreting the buddha via “live knowing” (shengzhi). He said, The world does not have a single person who is not live knowing….The live knowing is the buddha and those who are not live knowing are not buddha….Since one has become a person, why does one not become buddha and still wait for another day (death) to do so? How can the world have a buddha besides people, and people besides the buddha?

Live knowing is buddha and there is not a single person who is not live knowing, so therefore there is not a single person who is not buddha. Moreover, things also have live knowing; it is just that they do not know themselves, and if one makes them know that, then they are buddha. This is what the Buddhists regard as the insentient having a (Buddha-)nature and sentient beings being buddha. However, he did think 98

Li Zhi, Fenshu, fascicle 4, “Guanyin wen, da Danran shi” (Guanyin asks, answer to Master Danran). 99 Li Zhi, Fenshu, fascicle 1, “Da Geng Sikou” (Answer to Deng Sikou).

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that earth, wood, tiles, and stones “cannot be made to know,”100 and so he limited buddha to sentient living beings, which was very insightful. The lord Buddha appears in the world, distancing himself from hubbub constantly, which was the main reason for him being denounced by the worldly people he encountered. Thus, Li Zhi recognized that only if one appears in the world “can one ´ akya use his appearance in the world liberate the world,” and that not only did the S¯ to save the world, but even Confucius did this. Li said, People say that the Buddha guarded against craving, but I say that the Buddha had great craving. It is only what he craves that is great and therefore he can cut [craving] out with one stroke, he does not crave the pleasure of a longing for the human world. It was not only the ´ akya; Confucius also did so. Confucius’ [craving for] carp101 was something that lasted S¯ for a long time until his death. This was [due] to Confucius never having been involved with a child. Before the carp had died, the mother of the carp had already passed away. This was [due to] Confucius also having never been married to a wife. The three Huan102 recommended him [for official service], but Confucius did not serve, for as they were not the man (a humane ruler) who would employ Confucius, Confucius himself did not wish to be employed. He looked upon wealth and honor as being like floating clouds and he simply travelled with 3,070 [pupils] in all directions….Day and night he splendidly sought to appear in the world and know himself. Although he was said to be at home (be a lay person), in ´ akya reality to the end of his life he had left home [like a monk]. Therefore, I say that the S¯ Buddha was someone who had left home by leaving his home; Confucius left his home while being at home.103

It has been a point of contention ever since Buddhism was introduced into China over whether, when the lord Buddha appeared in the world, he did so for his own benefit or for the benefit of others, to liberate others. The theory that the Buddha appeared in the world really in order to save the world appears throughout history, especially among the theorists of the three religions who lived under the Ming dynasty. They often talked of this principle, and yet none of them talked so thoroughly and incisively about it as Li Zhi! Li Zhi took “the events of the lifetime of Confucius as an example” and regarded Confucius as “one who had left home while at home” and thus he affirmed the Buddhist concept of transcending the world, and since he could attain the approval of the Confucians, he could place the positive meaning of transcending the world into an irrefutable position. It is regrettable that this idea did not attract the attention of people. However, later there was the continuous production of a series of sayings such as “appear in the world to participate in the world” and “to leave home is to be at home” and “there is no home to leave” that matched the concept of transcending the world to participate in the world, which lived up to what Li Zhi had hoped for. Li Zhi also thought that “The classics are verbal teachings,”104 affirming that letters and words should have a place in Chan contemplation. At the same time, he also 100

Li Zhi, Fenshu, fascicle 1, “Da Zhou Xiyan.” Tr. Confucius was famed for fishing for carp. 102 Tr. three strong men in the state of Lu where Confucius was brought up. 103 Li Zhi, Fenshu, fascicle 3, “Shu Huang’an er shangren shouce” (A Record of Letters Sent to Two Eminences of Huang’an). 104 Li Zhi, Fenshu, fascicle 4, “Shu jueyi lun qian” (Before Writing on the Resolution of Doubts). 101

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pointed out that “When one is talking about poetry one is talking about Buddhism,” “To talk about poetry and to speak g¯ath¯as is to transcend and avoid contaminants,” and “If one is truly able at poetry, then by talking of Buddhism how much more so will one’s poetry be refined, so why must one regard talking about poetry to be a fault?” This also showed that Li Zhi not only regarded letters to be Chan, but also that he gave that profound and deep realm of Chan delight that transcends and avoids contaminants the romantic hue of poetry. Unlike Li Zhi, Yuan Hongdao used the tenets of “solely expressing the innately numinous, not being bound by rules and models” of his Gongan Faction to even more frequently give full reign to the unrestrained freedom of the Chan School with the transcendental spirit of according at will with conditions. Therefore, his grasp of Chan thought was such that he “did not obey the statements of the patriarchal teachers but only followed the outflows of his innermost thoughts.”105 Also, he also emphasized that the domains of the arts and aesthetics drew on Chan learning, so he expressed himself with an unbridled lack of discipline, singing of the wind and appreciating the moon, lingering with literature and alcohol. He was deeply immersed in the (Li)sao and the Ya (section of the Shijing) with a feeling of Chan delight. His poem, “Every time he laughed at the Chan of the Confucian students,/Which is topsy-turvy as if crazily drunk./With the exception of Yuan Zhonglang,/The empire is entirely child’s play,”106 vividly and incisively exposed in these lines the delight in Chan of the gentry of his time, in particular, their feelings of their own “self attainments,” “self-pleasure,” and “self-belief” in the ocean of Chan. Yuan Hongdao (1568–1610), style Zhonglang, sobriquets Layman Shitou and Layman Kongkong, was a native of Gongan in Hubei. Together with his elder brother Zongdao and his younger brother Zhongdao, they were collectively called the three Yuan, and he took the lead in championing the theories of inherent numinosity. He was the founder of the Gongan Faction. Because he was influenced by his older brother Zongdao, “At the age of twenty he paid attention to the Chan School.”107 In the nineteenth year of the Wanli era (1591), “I heard that Longhu (the Yellow Emperor) and Old Li (Laozi) deeply understood the tenets beyond the teachings and they had a major agreement when Old Li ran to the western mound [where the Yellow Emperor was buried] to question him.” Consequently, he pursued these studies for three months108 and he was able to enter the innermost recesses of Chan learning. His younger brother Xiaoxiu said that “He had seen Longhu, and for the first time he knew that to always collect statements was [like] holding stubbornly to conventional views….When it came to the vastness [it was] like a goose feather meeting with favorable winds or a huge fish going into the great abyss. One should be a teacher 105

Yuan Hongdao, Xifang helun yuanxu (Original Preface to the Combined Discussions of the Western [Pure] Land). 106 Yuan Hongdao ji jianjiao (Commentary on the Collection of Yuan Hongdao), fascicle 9, “Bie Shikui” (Parting from Shikui). 107 Yuan Hongdao ji jianjiao, fascicle 5, “Cao Lushan.” 108 Gongan xian zhi: Yuan Hongdao zhuan (Biography of Yuan Hongdao in Gazetteer of Gongan County).

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of the mind and not be taught by the mind. One should overturn the ancients and not be overturned by the ancients”109 and so on. He himself said, “When I was young, I based myself on petty and middling [people], and I could not bear the boredom and loneliness. Later I met with a perfect man and he slightly pointed to the great gateway of sam¯adhi (ding), and for the first time I attained mastery as the days passed, and I acted according to the occasion.”110 The so-called perfect man was Li Zhi and the words “act according to the occasion” are adequate to reflect the special features of the Chan learning appropriate to the age adopted by the gentry of the period. In his letter of reply to Tao Shikui (Tao Wangling, 1562–1609), Yuan criticized the abuses of the gentry’s study of Chan, and he pointed out that, The reason these abuses exist began with [Wang] Yangming using Confucianism to inundate Chan and then open-minded people using Chan to inundate Confucianism. Chan followers saw the Confucians as drowning in worldly emotion, regarding them as being unhindered, and so Chan consequently stirred up the Chan of cause and result. Confucians borrowed the views of all being perfectly fused of Chan, regarding them as being what a worthy had yet to give rise to before he emerged [as a worthy], and so the Confucians consequently created fearless Confucianism. Not only did Chan not become Chan, but Confucians also did not become Confucians.111

Who knows that Chan did not become Chan, which exactly explains the changes in Chan thought; that Confucians did not become Confucians, which likewise indicates the flourishing of Yangming-Chan. However, Yuan clearly held a critical attitude towards the Yangming-Chan of “using Confucianism to inundate Chan” and “using Chan to inundate Confucianism” and “the Chan that stirred up cause and result.” He said that Chan had become a “talisman of survival for the gentry.”112 He had a lot of ideas about overturning it all and rebuilding. In fact, he thus also recognized this and put it into practice. He said, “Only the one matter of the Chan School does not dare to often concede. At present, they have only one formidable opponent, Master Li Hongfu (Li Zhi). Their refined monks who have long consulted Chan elders frequently are defeated at my hands.”113 Needless to say, with the exception of Li Zhi, in respect to the cultivation of Chan learning, even the Chan elders were inferior to Yuan. As for his knowledge of Chan, this is stated in a concentrated form in his “Letter to Cao Luchuan”: Chan is sam¯adhi (ding) and also shandai 114 (give place to one another), the meaning of not stopping….What has been called Chan is that the flow [of the mind] does not end, that changes are not constancy, so how can there be a settled (ding) rut. And yet how there be a settled (ding) dharma that can be maintained by those studying Chan? Chan definitely does not need to retreat, but also why must it advance; it definitely must not be quiet, so also why must it be in noise? 109

Yuan Xhongdao, Zhonglang xiansheng xingzhuang (Account of Conduct of Yuan Zhonglang). Gongan xian zhi: Yuan Hongdao zhuan. 111 Yuan Hongdao ji jianjiao, fascicle 22, “Da Tao Shikui.” 112 Ibid. 113 Ibid. 114 Tr. the character shan here is the same as that for Chan. 110

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Now advance and retreat are phenomena, and not advancing and retreating are principle. This advance and retreat are not advance and retreat, [for] phenomena and principle are unimpeded. Advance does not impede retreat, retreat does not impede advance, [for] phenomena do not impede phenomena. This advance is retreat and therefore it is said their unfolding does not impede perfect fusion; advance is advance by itself, retreat is retreat by itself, and therefore perfect fusion does not impede their unfolding.

Just saying that Chan is sam¯adhi and that this is simply the original meaning of Chan is still insufficient to show the transcendental spirit of the Chinese Chan School. Therefore, Yuan also borrowed Zhuangzi’s theory of shandai (giving place to one another)115 and to the Yijing’s idea of propagation not stopping116 to explain that Chan learning in its development flowed and changed, which is Yuan’s “did not obey the statements of the patriarchal teachers but only followed the outflows of his innermost thoughts” that forms the basis of the theory he presented about Chan learning. Nevertheless, he also focused on highlighting the transcendental spirit of non-retreat and non-advance, of non-quiet and non-noise of the Chan School. As he saw it, anithesis is simply “phenomena” and the transcendence of the opposition is “principle,” that phenomena and principle are unimpeded, that advance and retreat are self-so, and that one “can stand on earth and become buddha.” One should say that to interpret Chan as being change was his creation, which is a creation that traces itself back to the source; and he emphasized transcendence, which is a consistent tenet of Chan. In fact, the highlighting of these two items was really for his ideas of free and easy mastery, congenial mind and willfulness, and its changes being in accordance with conditions, and for his practice that presents a basis in metaphysics, which is also the basis for the Chan delight that is attuned to the world. As mentioned previously, in this harsh political environment, the gentry either resented the world and hated the conventions and opposed worldly customs, or they were aloof from the world around them and discreetly kept out of harm’s way. The Chan learning of the gentry, in particular the Chan learning of the gentry of the end of the Ming, mostly used Chan to mold their bodies and minds, fully using its aesthetic concepts. “Delight in Chan was the style of the Ming-period gentry”117 expresses just this kind of social phenomena. Yuan Hongdao also was a representative individual of this Ming-period gentry delight in Chan. He said, Those who now admire Chan are spotless of heart, are punctilious and strict in their observance of the precepts, comprehensively understand doctrine, and are not lacking as persons. I do not accept them at all. I only want men of outstanding talent to undertake this matter….This is the reason why Confucius did not take on hypocrites but took on ardently ambitious yet cautious people.118

Yuan’s Chan learning did not accept the pure of mind, the punctilious in the observance of the precepts, and those who comprehensively understood the principles. He 115

Tr. See Burton Watson, Chuang Tzu, p. 304. Tr. Xici (Appended Judgements), Shisan jing zhushu, 78a. “Propagation (birth and birth) is called change.” 117 Chen Yuan, Ming-ji Qian Dian Fojiao kao (Examination of the Buddhism of Guizhou and Yunnan in the Ming Period), fascicle 3, Zhonghua shuju, 1989, p. 127. 118 Yuan Hongdao ji jianjiao, fascicle 44, “Deshan Chentan.” 116

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only wanted to make “men of outstanding talent” who were of congenial mind and were willful, who received and kept freedom. This simply reflects his borrowing of the Chan learning appeal of being in tune with the world. Therefore, he always and everywhere showed that he wanted to “ruin the iron nets, smash the bronze yokes, and run through the mountain of blades and forests of swords (hell),”119 “cast aside the black guaze (cap of an official) and become a great free man in the world,”120 and “on my head I wear a green bamboo hat, my hand holding up an ox tail, and forever becoming a person who wanders free and easy beyond entanglements.”121 This is exactly what was meant by Nowhere is lacking in the clouded mountains, they only lack a free body.122 One desk, a book and a scroll, a three-life bowl and robes, the troubling contaminants have yet to finish, I put my palms together and vow to be devoted [to Buddhism].123 Ju Shu [Xi Kang, 223–262] in the end seemed arrogant, Tao Qian fully left it up to the truth. It was only because they planned for simplicity that they did not hate being poor. The official residence made merry rarely, the letters from home often reported deaths. What fills the sky is entirely [an ensnaring] net. Where is the leisured person?124

This desire to shake off the fetters and purely leave it up to the artless and natural thought and feeling is found everywhere in Yuan’s poetry. He also especially emphasized, “In accordance with conditions, leave it up to the sun and moon, leave it up to fortune and wear clothing.” These are Linji’s ultimate words125 ; do not understand them superficially. If the thieving mind does not stop, how can one accord with conditions and leave it up to fate?126

In sum, he is taking the transcendental concepts of Chan learning of “being in accord with conditions and leaving it up to fate” to create a philosophy of human life that is attune with the world. Even when he was talking about the fusion of the three religions, he still did not discard this Chan delight in “to attract and then go” and “all that is manifested is perfect.” He said, All people possess the three religions; if one is starving then feast, if one is tired then sleep, if one is hot then get in the breeze, if one is cold put on clothes. This is the conservation of life of the immortals. The petty people go back and forth, and they also bow and yield to each of their senior relatives, are distinct [in their behavior] and not in disorder. This is the

119

Yuan Hongdao ji jianjiao, fascicle 6, “Nie Huanan.” Yuan Hongdao ji jianjiao, “Li Benjian.” 121 Yuan Hongdao ji jianjiao, fascicle 6, “Nie Huanan.” 122 Yuan Hongdao ji jianjiao, fascicle 33, “Zeng Changshi shi lai yue” (A Promise that a Poem Will Come from Zeng Changshi). 123 Yuan Hongdao ji jianjiao, fascicle 3, “He Jiang Jinzhi” (Harmonized with Jiang Jinzhi). 124 Yuan Hongdao ji jianjiao, “Oucheng” (Made by Chance). 125 Tr. the closest words to these are in the Linji yulu, T47.497c13–14; “Just be able to accord with conditions and exhaust one’s past karma; leave it up to fortune/circumstances and wear clothes.” 126 Yuan Hongdao ji jianjiao, “Deshan Chentan.” 120

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teaching of decorum (rites) of the Confucians. To call out and then respond, to attract and then go; this is the non-residing of Chan.127

The former speaks of being in attune with the world, the latter talks of leaving it up to feelings and the theory of all possessing the three religions. The importance of this is that it points out the transcendence of worldly affairs and the aesthetic appeal of self-satisfaction and self-amusement. Of course, Yuan, in a time of synthetic variations in the Chan School, was far from ending his involvement in Buddhist studies and with Chan learning. His work, Xifang helun (Combined Discussions of the Western [Pure] Land), outlined ten gateways “regarding the primal meaning of the inconceivable to be the core teaching and regarding enlightenment as the lead”128 to describe the principles of the joint practice of Chan and Pure Land. People in later periods called it one of the “ten essentials” of Pure Land. Nevertheless, the depth of what he investigated and that which he drew upon and what he brandished accumulated to form his philosophy of human life, but still it was the above-described spirit of Chan. From his metaphor for gongan we can know his accomplishments in Chan learning. He said, There is a metaphor for the extremely marvelous. Living on a boat in Shashi, a monk was shaving his own head in the dark. Another monk saw him in the light of a lamp and shocked, said, “You are shaving your head. Why aren’t you using a lamp?” All the boatmen laughed.129

By shaving his own head while not using a lamp, where his mind went his hand went. This was used as a metaphor for Chan enlightenment, which is the metaphor of the ultimate, and is also a metaphor for the marvelous. Among the gentry groups and Chan monasteries of the end of the Ming, the deep merit of Yuan Hongdao in the leadership group of Chan learning cannot be said to have been due to his own boasting and conceit. Zhixu, who was titled one of the four great monks of the late Ming, also had to recognize Yuan Hongdao’s position in the history of Chan thought.130 Professor Chen Yuan in fascicle 3 of his Ming-ji Qian Dian Fojiao kao, entry on delight in Chan, pointed out that “In the Wanli era and after, the Chan style flourished greatly, all the gentry talked of Chan, and all the monks wanted to be friends with the gentry.” Even though the above-described contributions by Li Zhi and Yuan Hongdao to aspects of Chan thought were permeated with the gentry regard of the core of delight in Chan being sentiments about scenery and a mood of desolation about the chances of one’s own liberation, they also honestly tell people that Ming-dynasty Chan learning: 1. Had already begun to flow from the monkhood into gentry circles, and scholars had already replaced Chan monks in leading the currents of Chan learning, 2. The spirit of negation of the Chan School was used as a weapon of criticism and to confront its permeation into human life, 127

Ibid. Yuan Hongdao, Xifang helun yuanxu. 129 Yuan Hongdao ji jianjiao, fascicle 44, “Deshan Chentan.” 130 Zhixu, in his preface to Yuan’s Xifang helun said, “Incomparable Buddhist laymen were Liang Su of the Tang, Chen Guan of the Song, and Yuan Hongdao of the Ming.” 128

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3. The Chan School was essentially affirmative of the position of the subject of one’s own mind and own nature, and was also used as a weapon of theory for free thought and individual liberation. In sum, the Chan School also began its overall tendency towards secularization. It only needs one or two examples of its gentry to conjure up a picture of the whole. Yang Wancong, style Longyou, was a presented scholar of the forty-sixth year of the Wanli era (1571). He was versed in poetry and painting, and Dong Qichang (1555–1636, famous art theorist) said of his painting that “it has the vigorous strokes of the Song people…and the charm of the Yuan.”131 Yang recorded his investigations into the literary mind, saying, Because my father in his late years worshipped the Buddha, he abandoned [service of] the state when the Qing entered directly. When he arrived halfway up Jinyin Ridge, a monk whose charm floated forth and had a great interest in poetry inquired after him. When he asked him, he knew that this Chan master Wujin was an eminence of an elevated literary mind. They held hands and looked at each other, just as if they were on the stone of three lives.132

When he consulted Great Master Xuetang, Yang used a series of twelve g¯ath¯as of inquiry, the preface for which says, The Great Master (you) gratuitously took Xuetang as his own name. This is snow (xue) on the hall (tang), and this is surely the Great Master pointing up at the moon.133

There are very many excellent verses in the poems and g¯ath¯as exchanged between Yang and Chan monks. Qianshi jilue (Brief Record of Poems from Guizhou) 21 has a verse on visiting Master Foshi and walking with him through eighteen valleys to view the red leaves: Confusingly intertwined, the forest of bamboo in front, The winding creek embraces the slight cold [of early January]. The insects and birds are silent in the mountain hues. The wind strong, the sound of the leaves dry. I gazed at the monastery and longed for Gr.dhrak¯ut.a (Numinous Vulture Peak). I met a monk and we talked of Laocan. I vowed to obey beneath the long-cultivated bamboo, To the end of my days I make use of the clouds to view it.

131

Dong Qichang, famous painter and critic, in title to “Shanshui yi” (Changes in Landscape [Painting].” 132 Tr. This is from the story of Li Yuan and Yuanguan who were good friends. Before Yuanguan died, he promised Li Yuan that they would meet twelve years later at Tianzhu Monastery in Hangzhou. When Li Yuan went to the monastery, he saw an ox-herding child who sang, “One ghost of the past on the rock of three lives…” This became a literary allusion for a previously fixed connection. Yang Wencong, Taidang riji (Diary of Taidang). 133 Sun Yingao (1527–1586), Qianshi jilue 19.

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The feelings of poetry, the scenery of poetry, the appeal of poetry, and the principles of poetry all permeated the meaning of delight in Chan. The literati Chan of the end of the Ming was largely like this. At the end of the Ming, the Donglin party134 used their membership of a group uncontaminated by power to boost each other and used pure discussion as their trait. They claimed to be “concerned about family matters, state matters, world matters, and all sorts of matters.” They were also not opposed to Chan learning. Duanwen Gu Xiancheng (1550–1612, a leader of the Donglin party) outwardly spoke about being without good and without evil, and spared no effort in discriminating and criticizing. He said, “What is meant by without good is not truly without good; it is simply not to be attached to good.” Evidently, he also emphasized the concept of the transcendence of good and evil, which also has a connection with his study of Chan in his early years. He said, “When I was about twenty, I loved to talk of Chan, but after long thought I loathed it greatly and did not speak about it. A long time after that I was ashamed and did not speak of it. Now I am in awe of it and so do not speak of it.” “In awe of it and do not speak of it” means that he held limitless feelings of reverence, of veneration and trepidation towards Chan learning. However, his criticisms of the Chan School were also extremely harsh. He said, ´ akya(muni) it changed for the first time, and as K¯as´yapa When the Buddha-dharma came to S¯ ´ akya had no human relationand those following had human (ethical) relationships, the S¯ ´ akya’s teaching was perfect, Bodhidships. When it came to Bodhidharma it changed again. S¯ harma’s teaching in the main was sudden. When it came to the third stage with the five schools [of Chan], before Huangmei (Hongren) there was still reserve [about explicit teaching], but after him the barbed retorts appeared often and they gave away all that they had (teachings) from their purse, not trying to retain a single coin! This is the reason why Yunmen resigned himself [to doing nothing], and yet he had the words of “killing with a single punch and feeding one to the dogs.”135

One can see that Gu did not have much of an understanding of the history of Buddhism, but his “am in awe of it and do not speak of it” has some logic. Nevertheless, his criticisms of the later inferior followers of the Chan School must be said to have been a common understanding in the scholarly world of that time. Gu’s talks about Chan especially show the breadth of the spread of the Chan fashion. Chan was made into a mental realm of transcendence, and since it could make people obtain the embodiment of the universe and recognize the limitless creative form of thinking and a spiritual power of no fear and no retreat, it could make people take an attitude of the surreal, of roaming in self-content, of self-satisfaction, selfpleasure, and being in a free and natural sense of beauty. In this sense, the delight in Chan of the gentry can be said to be an escape into Chan. Nevertheless, what is usually called “escape into Chan” indicates that the gentry felt they had no choice but to flee into Buddhism as monks because of disappointment in an official career, or resentment over the loss of the country (to the Manchus), or because they were fugitives. The expanses of the mountain wilds enabled them to hide and the Dharma 134 135

Tr. a self-righteous group of Confucians who often defied imperial authority. Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 58, “Donglin xuean,” Zhonghua shuju, 1985, p. 1384.

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that is beyond the world enabled them to escape disaster. Some had escaped into Chan at the end of the Song. After the Ming fell, “many of those gentlemen of integrity fled into Buddhism.”136 “There were many adherents of the previous dynasty among the monks, something that started in the Ming period.”137 Therefore, ministers and upright scholars who used escape into Chan to preserve their integrity abounded. Tang Tai, style Dalai (1593–1673) was a native of Puning in Yunnan. His poetry, calligraphy, and painting were all appreciated by Dong Qichang. “He was selected to be a classicist, but he did not go [to the capital]. He avoided this by travelling through the Wu and Yue districts, looking around at the landscape and committing his mind to empty calm.”138 After he returned to Yunnan, he consulted Yunmen Zhanran and took the monastic name Tonghe (Puhe). He made calligraphy, painting, and poetry his own refuge. It was probably in the first year of the Yongli era (1647) that he received the precepts from Wuzhu and was titled Dandang.139 He made himself a hut on Mt. Jizu, “coming and going between Jizu and Diancang, Shuimu, and Baotai. Wherever he went he sung in appreciation, producing various kinds of delight in Chan.”140 He kept his mouth shut and did not talk about worldly matters. He died in the twelfth year of the Kangxi reign (1673). Qian Bangqi, style Kaishao (d. 1673), was a registered native of Dantu. When the Three Feudatories were named (in the early Qing, with Wu Sangui put in charge of Yunnan, Geng Jimao in charge of Fujian, and Shang Kexi in charge of Guangdong), he went from being in the posts of palace penman (secretary) and capital censor to being posted as provincial governor of Qian (Guizhou). When Sun Kewang rebelled and entered Qian, Qian Bangqi retreated to live in Pu Village in Yuqing. He opened up Liuhe (Willow Lake) beneath Mt. Ta, and called it Tashan Lake. Those in hiding in all directions, hearing of his style of teaching, came to adopt his profundities and learn from his strengths, and to the end of his life he whistled and sang. There were scholars who came from afar to question and study with him. Because Sun Kewang sent an official to force him to come to him, even to the extent of presenting him with a sword with which to kill himself, he cut off his hair and made his former residence in Pu Village into Xiaonian Hermitage and titled himself Reverend Dacuo. When Yongming (Zhu Youlang, the last Ming emperor Yongli) fell (in 1661), he lived on Mt. Jizu and later went to Hengyue where he came to the end of a long life. According to Qian’s own account, on the same day three of his pupils took the tonsure. They were Guxin, Guxue, and Guyu. At that time, Qian spoke a g¯ath¯a that said, With a cross-shoulder carry pole, travelling days and months, The mountains bustle and the oceans stand and ask of the path forward. I let their thunderbolts pass between my eyebrows, 136

Nanlei wen’an, fascicle 10. Shao Tingcai, Ming yimin suozhi zhuan. 138 Xin xugaoseng zhuan (New Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks), fascicle 23, in Gaoseng zhuan heji, Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991, p. 851. 139 See Chen Yuan, Ming-ji Qian Dian Fojiao kao, fascicle 3, Zhonghua shuju, 1989, p. 201. 140 Xin xugaoseng zhuan, fascicle 23, p. 851. 137

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And laugh and talk, and as before the weather will not clear.

Guxin also wrote a g¯ath¯a: The wind disturbs the floating clouds, the sun and moon dimmed. The book student paid his respects [and entered] the gate of emptiness (became a monk). There was no need for the staff blows and shouts, the past causation having been made manifest Generously according with conditions, I am mindful of old favors.

Qian also said that within two days after this, eleven people followed him in becoming monks, “and people at that time fought to become the first to be tonsured and I could not scold or stop them….Because I changed my former residence into Dacuo Hermitage and made my disciples live there, we worshipped and practiced together there.”141 This again shows the popularity of escaping into Chan in that period. Sun Kewang heard that Qian had become a monk and wrote a letter to stop him doing so. Bangqi replied with a poem: Tattered monk robes and a rush cushion accompany my person. Meeting me, who would not inquire after this isolated subject? I also know that official ranks have much glory and prominence, But I just fear that [like] Tian Heng I would kill people with ridicule.142

Qian regarded his own situation to be akin to that of Tian Heng, so he must have known that his becoming a monk was really a choice to preserve his moral integrity. Sun Kewang sent a poem to bring Qian to give up his attachment to Guizhou. On the road, Qian improvised three quatrains that expressed a similar state of mind: As soon as one speaks of seeking for humaneness, one harms humaneness. With one long cry that comes forth from the red dust, The great integrity of extreme loyalty will exist for a thousand autumns, And the fetters and handcuffs originally were [on] an illusory body. Thumbscrews and shackles that bind one are [due to] past causes. All the various torments are the natural bonds [of family relationships]. Empty space and the four elements in the end are certain to be destroyed, Loyalty and filial piety originally are the Dharma body. In former eons there was the immortal of forebearance,143 And hundreds of kinds of polishings and refinements were strange conditions. In the fire of the hot stove a speck of spring snow, And on the Weak Waters and oceans, iron boats float.144 141

Qian Bangqi, Zhufa ji (Record of Tonsure). See Ji Liuqi (1622-?), Ming-ji Nanlue (Brief Account of the South in the Ming Perid), 14. Tr. Tian Heng made himself king of Qi, but when Emperor Gaozu of Han conquered China, Tian, who had fled to an island, was summoned to the court. On the way he committed suicide, and then all his loyal followers did likewise. 143 Tr. Ksa . ¯ ntir.s.i, the Buddha in a previous life who suffered mutilation at the hands of a ruler. 144 Ming-ji Nalue, 14. Tr. The Weak Waters were supposedly not strong enough to bear any vessel. 142

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The great integrity of extreme loyalty, the natural bonds of loyalty and filial piety, to seek humaneness to obtain humaneness; all of these are Confucian views of moral integrity. The past causes of previous eons, the empty space and the four elements, and the Dharma body of illusory dusts, the hot stove and Weak Waters also expressed the Chan mental attitude of thoroughly investigating and refuting honor and disgrace. The escape into Chan of the gentry was just like this. In the first year of the Kangxi era (1662), Wu Yingxiong arrived in Dian (Yunnan) and he met Bangqi while on the road to Guizhou. Qian smiled happily and then angrily abused him. Wu Yingxiong was extremely indignant and detained him, taking him to see Wu Sangui (1612– 1678, a Ming commander who changed allegiance to the Qing). Sangui laughed and said, “It is only his desire to humiliate me and to seek death! We have just fallen for his scheme.”145 Then he released him. Professor Chen Yuan said, “Reverend Dacuo may be said to have been a person who treated life as playing a game.”146 In Chan Master Minshu (Ruxiang, 1603–1672)’s [Ru]xiang yulu 10 there is a letter he sent to Chan Master Dacuo. In it he discusses the meanings of the two characters da and cuo. Even though one cannot say that it definitely was on target concerning the essence of Qian’s thought, still for an analysis of the mental attitudes of those who at the end of the Ming escaped into Chan, one can say that it is vivid and incisive. The Chan Master did not love scholarly honor, official rank, wealth, and rank. He did not accept the bonds of contaminants, which means he was not mistaken (cuo). Since he had removed his hair to become a person lofty beyond the world and made the blue mountains into his companions and the green waters into his neighbors, he sang when he was happy and he drank when he was unhappy. He was truly somebody the Son of Heaven could not get as a minister and the princes and lords could not get as a friend. This was the Chan Master’s special possession of the best visual realm, so what could he be mistaken (cuo) about? So what is to be mistaken is to think that on this one path from the expanse of eons past that was not due to a single thought starting to move that made a Confucian scholar become a person who wrote loans. Now his official post reached [the level of] Vice-Censor-in-Chief when he wrote off the repayment of the debt. If you think of your original face, it was originally a seed of the Numinous Mountain [of Gr.dhrak¯ut.a], so why did you create this atmosphere of wearing an official’s gauze cap? In one morning, you stirred yourself to courage and wore the monastic robes deep in the mountains and remote valleys. This was not mistaken. Now, Chan Master, why do you say you are greatly mistaken (dacuo)? Was it that you were nothing but a cavity of hot blood (ardor) that never cooled, a loyal courage and a righteous bravery that wanted to repay the grace of the Son of Heaven? Were you not old Caizi147 who had yet to have scholarly attainments, who overworked himself limitlessly, in order to repay the kindness of his parents? Now, Chan Master, you use the recompense of non-recompense, and the repayment of non-repayment to become a monk, which is most fortunate, being a person of great loyalty and great filial piety, so how can you say you are mistaken? I ask you, Chan Master, to cast your eye into the primeval past of the King of Awful Voice and look at whatever you obtain from the buddhas of those three ages, and whatever you are enlightened to from the six generations of patriarchal teachers, and then you will not shoulder your return this time from the gate of emptiness, and you will be even further honored among Buddhists.

145

Tingwen lu (Records of Things Heard at Court), a history of Wu Sangui. Chen Yuan, Ming-ji Qian Dian Fojiao kao, Zhonghua shuju, 1989, p. 209. 147 Tr. name of a hermit of the Late Spring and Autumn Period who was poor but happy. 146

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Minshu had a positive attitude towards him becoming a monk. Min thought that Bangqi had called himself Dacuo and was probably hot-blooded and did not cool off, thinking of the grace of his ruler not yet recompensed. However, he was made a seed of the Chan School and returned to his original face, and so this is the recompense of non-recompense and the repayment of non-repayment, and therefore the great master (Dacuo) was not mistaken. In reality, he says that his uncooling ardor and his loyal courage and righteous bravery precisely reflected those who escaped into Chan by using the mood of retreat in order to advance. Bangqi also had a poem: Sixty years ago, I had the body of an old buddha, On a rush mat in a minor sam¯adhi, I was enlightened to previous causes. The stone bridge and short-cut through the pines was the path of that time, Carrying water and toting firewood was a person of past days. I swept the stupa several times, seeking my staff and bowl, I looked through a sutra, but still I brushed away the dust. My original face is still present as before, Not aiming for bodhi and the truth that seals the nature.148

Each line of this poem speaks of Chan and has a thorough examination of past and future, of the previous causes and later results, a mood of the most penetrating enlightenment. Even though the “carrying of water and toting of firewood” and the “original face” in it are Chan terminology, he was versed in using it, and his preservation of the one mind and his true sentiments and genuine feelings do not show the slightest traces of being tainted by speaking of principle, but he unintentionally revealed the gentry’s singing of the moon and wind (sentimental verse), an appeal of a broadminded lifestyle. Chen Qixiang, style Meian, had the sobriquet of Yongming. As an official, he reached the post of the Censor of the Henan Circuit, and he became a monk about the same time as Qian Bangqi. He travelled throughout the mountains of Wu and Chu. He changed his name to Shengfu, with the sobriquet Wujin. In the first year of the Kangxi era (1662), he hid on Mt. Zhangtai in Zunyi, and he called himself the Old Man of Zhangshan, and he did not go beyond his house for near thirty years. When he was starving and cold, he whistled and sang contentedly, with one robe and one bowl, alone beyond the human world. Poshan gave a Dharma talk in which he spoke of Chen becoming a monk: Wealth and respect are what people desire; poverty and being despised are what people hate, ´ akya was wealthy, having an empire, and his honors opened up [a state of] but our Old S¯ ten thousand chariots [to him]. One morning he abandoned this, entered the Himalayas and practiced austerities for six years. Seeing a bright star, he was enlightened to the Way and he became a teacher of humans and gods. How is that not transcending in the world to liberate people from wealth and respect? Now Layman Chen and his wife committed themselves to Mah¯ay¯ana. He requested an old monk (me) to point out the path to transcend the world, and what he obtained from that Way is not mind, is not buddha, is not a thing. Now say, what is 148

Jishan fanzhi 10.

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it? See if you can grasp what it is within a period of a day. Whenever you understand, the information tossed out is on the staff of this old monk.149

One can see that Chen became a monk following Poshan (Haiming, 1597–1666), and also, that together with his wife, he went on the road to Poshan to ask about the Dharma of transcending the world. The Jishan fanzhi records Qixiang seeing azalea flowers at Chuanyi Monastery and writing a poem of his impressions: The azalea flowers bloom, and the cuckoo cries, It is not known by the mind, being to the west of Shu (Sichuan). Emptily I remember the resentful ghost, the lost Emperor Wang,150 How can one expect the face of the traveler to be moved by the Dian (Yunnan) chicken? The waters of the Xiang and Jiang rivers are cold, the traces still present. Immortals of the garden returned, the moon about to go down. Deep in the cloister and the distant banner [over a shop] accepted the strangers who came. The gloss of the flowers is lacking in places, where it fills in the uniformity of the mountain.

Here Chen is not introducing Chan into his poem, but is making allusions to rhapsody poetry ( fu). Chen quoted the story of Emperor Wang to express his feelings of being a loyal person in disgrace. The traces of the waters, the shadow of the moon, and the gloss of the flowers still present are not the leisurely and carefree mood of being “a youth who does not know the taste of melancholy.”151 His longing for his home country and native town led to tears welling up as if he was about to cry. One can see that the Chan School was simply his place of refuge. There was also the Vice-Director in the Ministry of Rites, Wu Ding, “who, due to the incidents of the roving bandits (Manchus), entrusted himself to the monkhood, and passed through viewing the famous scenic sites….He styled himself Dazhuo.”152 The Secretary of the Ministry of Justice and Commissioner Supervising the Education Circuit, Xuan Tingshi, “after the change of dynasty shaved his hair to become a monk.”153 Lei Yuelong, who was appointed Minister of Justice in the Yongli era, “followed the emperor west, but on the road they were separated by the confusion of war, and Yuelong shaved his hair and became a monk.”154 The former minister of the Hongguang period cabinet, Ma Shiying (1591–1646), after the Qing armies had captured Yangzhou and Hangzhou, also “hid in a mountain monastery of Taizhou and become a monk.”155 Cases such as these are uncountable. Wu Ding wrote a poem 149

Poshan quanlu (Complete Records of Poshan), 10, Tr. At the end of the Warring States Period, Du Yu called himself Emperor Wang of Shu. When it is the second month, his soul (the cuckoo) cries out, the cuckoo said to be a transformation of his ghost. The poem is full of puns and allusions. 151 Tr. verse by Xin Qiji (1140–1207), a famed lyricist. 152 Yunnan Ruanzhi (Gazetteer of Ruan, Yunnan), “Meeting a Worthy, It Drew out a Former Ambition.” 153 Ibid, “Upright Conduct.” 154 Li Genyuan (1879–1965) Jingsui tang tiba (Exaltation of Jingsui Hall) 1. 155 Ming shi, “Biography of Ma Shiying.” 150

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that said, “The yellow capped (farmers) spill wine and look over the condolences of the wind,/Sadly talking of a restoration [of the Ming], their ambition yet to be realized.” It largely reflects the thoughts and feelings of those people who escaped into Chan, making concessions in order to gain an advantage. Of course, there was another type of person who escaped into Chan, such as Huang Duanbo, a presented scholar of the first year of the Chongzhen era (1628), who, because he sent a petition to the throne outlining the illegality of the enfeoffment of relatives, requiring that order be restored and discipline strengthened, was censured, and so he shaved his head and became a monk, visiting Huijing and Yuanlai. Later, when Prince Fu was enthroned in Nanjing, he was awarded the post of Secretary of the Bureau of Ceremonies. Nanjing fell in the third year of the Shunzhi era (1646). Huang was captured, would not submit, and died. While in prison he wrote Mingyi lu (Record of Enlightening Barbarians) in order to show his ambitions. Once, when he was in front of the Manchus, he debated Ma Shiying on “not surrendering is [the mark of a] worthy.”156 This escape into Chan can also be seen to be an expedient scheme. If they were not captured, they could still escape into hiding and become a Buddhist monk.

156

When Huang Duanbo was captured, the Prince of Yu asked, “What sort of minister is Shiying?” Duanbo said, “A worthy minister.” “What indicates a traitor and what a worthy?” He said, “One who does not surrender is a worthy.”

Chapter 14

Lineage Disputes and the Books on Chan Learning

The changes in the Chan School in the Yuan and Ming really made no innovations to speak of in the Chan School itself. Nevertheless, its thought endlessly infiltrated various realms of society and it was a driving force that cannot be ignored in respect of the development of culture. The printing of the Southern Tripitaka (Nanzang), the Northern Tripitaka (Beizang), and the Fangce (Rectangular Book) Tripitaka (i.e. the Jingshan Tripitaka or the Jiaxing Tripitaka), in particular were an indication of the proliferation of the distribution of Buddhist texts and the advances in print technology, “and due to the Tripitaka texts in a rectangular form being reduced to half the size of the full text of the Indic teachings, the builders, the carriers, the librarians, and the readers all regarded them as being convenient, and at the time the fashion for requesting copies of the Tripitaka flared up greatly.” Professor Chen Yuan, based on his evidential examination of the Shunzhi shilu (Veritable Records of the Shunzhi Era) wrote, “In the first month of the second year of the Shunzhi era (1645), Beijing had already fallen [to the Manchus] and Nanjing was in imminent danger, and yet requests for the Tripitaka did not stop because of the confusion, so we can imagine the common practice of the time.”1 In addition, at that time Xinxue (Learning of the Mind) neo-Confucianism flourished and the scholarship of evidential research (kaozheng) arose, the Chan fashion ended, but doctrinal studies rose, and the center of Chan learning shifted from the monkhood to the academy. The Chan School and doctrinal students all knew that empty words and meditation, and the non-establishment of words or texts were not enough to spread the influence of Chan learning. Thus, Confucian scholars and Chan masters simultaneously changed enormously and gave weight to the questioning of learning and the contemplation of the mind, and lettered Chan, of course in theory, but also in practice, were taken by people to being a matter of course and were regarded with indifference. Hence the writing of the lamplight records of the Chan School, its Dharma talks, poetry, miscellaneous collections, and discussions of Chan were definitely not inferior to those writings of previous ages. What stood out in particular were the works by 1

Chen Yuan, Ming-ji Qian Dian Fojiao kao, fascicle 2, Zhonghua shuju, 1989, p. 92.

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laymen and scholars on Chan that had already come to prominence, as with Qu Ruji’s Zhiyue lu and Yuan Hongdao’s Xifang helun, all of which were important Chan texts. Fazang’s Wuzong yuan (On the Origins of the Five Lineages) again raised the old topic of Yunmen and to which lineage he belonged, which incited a dispute over lineage that continued for a century. It can also be said to be an unheard-of incident in the history of the Chan School.

Part 1: Fazang’s Wuzong yuan (On the Origins of the Five Lineages) and Yuanwu’s Three Treatises of Biwang (Exorcising Falsity) Even though Fazang is named a Dharma-heir of Yuanwu, he did not really “obtain the Dharma” from him. He only obtained a formal status as a Chan master of the Linji lineage when he was fifty-three (sui), and then he paid his respects to Yuanwu at Guanghui Monastery on Mt. Jinsu. Yuanwu stood and appointed him to the important post of “senior-most monk” (leader of the assembly), and at the same time “wrote out by hand the origins and lineage and gave him a whisk of trust.”2 But Yuanwu also knew that Fazang was ultimately not his puppet and therefore, even though they are named as teacher and pupil, from its very beginning the relationship was like ice and fire. This is probably exactly what Zhixu was criticizing when he wrote of the circumstances of the transmission from master to disciple in these times. “Those who would be masters only craved dependents; those who would be pupils only followed for power and benefits. Hence, they used empty names to create binding links. The real meaning of master and pupil was almost entirely swept away.”3 Fazang (1573–1635), style Hanyue, sobriquet Yumi, which he later changed to Tianshan, had the lay surname Su. He was a native of Wuxi. He was born into an eminent family of intellectuals and as a child he studied Confucianism. At the age of fifteen sui he became a neophyte (tongzi) in Deqing Cloister. He returned home after three years and carried out the capping ritual (as an adult). After that he cut his hair. At the age of twenty-nine sui he received the novice precepts from Zhuhong and he read the Gaofeng yulu (Recorded Sayings of Gaofeng), “dimly as if he was obtaining an old thing.” At the age of thirty-three sui he bought all of the Guzunsu yulu (Recorded Sayings of Former Venerable Masters) and read it. At thirty-seven sui, he received the full precepts at Linggu Monastery in Jinling. At forty sui he “read the Linjizong zhi (Tenets of the Linji Lineage) written by Juefan and was entirely in agreement with it. It was if he was personally facing [Linji] and questioning him.” Therefore, Fazang said of himself that “I obtained the mind from Gaofeng and was sealed in the Dharma by Jiyin (Dehong, Juefan),” proclaiming “that I had my mind sealed by Tianmu, my Dharma sealed by Qingliang, and that my true teacher was 2 3

Wudeng quanshu, fascicle 65, “Hanyue Fazang Chanshi.” Zhixu, Lingfengzong lun, 5.

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Linji.”4 Even though he lacked an inheritance of the orthodox lineage, he himself thought that he was a remote heir of Yuanmiao (Gaofeng), Huihong, and was in the true transmission from Linji. Although Fazang himself thought that he had obtained the true transmission from Linji and that he had had a great influence in the Chan School, still he did not dare rashly give a formal lecture as a new abbot. Even though a number of monasteries requested he make his appearance in the world, he still “did not properly occupy a post and did not rise to the pulpit [as abbot].” He himself explained, “After the [eon] of the Awesome Voice, it was not permitted to have no teacher, and one solemnly carries out this position.” His idea is to say that without an orthodox transmission from master to disciple that one cannot give a sermon as a new abbot. This was evidently a lineage rule of the tradition and the abuse of the concept of transmission that was a result of its infiltration into the Chan School. In fact, Fazang was pressured by the alienated concept of the rule of lineage in the Chan School. At fifty-three sui, he submitted to Yuanwu on Mt. Jinsu, “hesitating, but going to him.” Yuanwu also said that Sir Han[yue] “appeared in the world before me and therefore he came here to submit and became [a member of] the lineage of Linji.”5 In the second year after Yuanwu had obtained the imprimatur, Fazang, due to his status of being a master in the Linji lineage, resided in Sanfeng Qingliang Cloister on Mt. Changshu, and then in eight great monasteries in Suzhou, Hangzhou, Wuxi, and other places, his fame spread throughout the Jiang and Zhe regions. His “alarming words and deep discussions did not avoid state affairs.” In respect of the various kinds of abuses of Chan through barbed repartee, wielding of the staff, and shouts, he said, “and thus to rescue it, even though the lineage tenets are made clear, the arrow scars are like millet-sized goosebumps.” It can be seen from this that Fazang’s words, since they did not avoid speaking of state matters, also did not avoid dislike of the school, and the monks of Yuanwu’s school also “mostly hated his alarms and sowing discord with slander and calumny.”6 From this we can know the embarrassing situation Fazang was in. Just because it was so, not only were Yuanwu and Fazang as individuals incapable of getting along, but also from the Chan perspective they were poles apart. Yuanwu only stressed “direct pointing at the human mind, seeing the nature and becoming buddha,” but Fazang thought that “one should not only bear the burden of Hutuo [River west of Zhengding, where Linji had his monastery], one should receive distant transmissions and currently continue the four houses of Yunmen, Weiyang, Caodong [and Linji], and make the five lineages brilliant again.”7 He also viewed Huihong’s lettered Chan and his Linjizong zhi as important and he strove to merge the five houses lineage-tenets into one line. All such items were equally harmonized with 4

All quotes from Sanfeng Heshang nianpu and yulu (Chronology of Reverend Sanfeng and his Recorded Sayings). 5 The quotes in this paragraph all come from Huang Zongxi’s “Suzhou Sanfeng Hanyue Zang Chanshi taming” (Stele Inscription for Chan Master Sanfeng Zang of Suzhou). 6 Ibid. 7 Sanfeng Heshang yulu, fascicle 14.

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Yuanwu’s thought, and this was really not compatible with his making students occupy themselves playing with various methods of intellectual understanding. It ended in the fifth year of the Tianqi era (1625), when Fazang composed the Wuzong yuan for students, which ushered in the dispute. The Wuzong yuan was first circulated in the second year of the Chongzhen era (1629). In the next year, Fazang gave Yuanwu a copy of the Wuzong yuan. Later, because Yuanwu prepared a criticism, Fazang retorted, and so Yuanwu thought that Fazang “enjoyed strained interpretations” and “was causing harm to the lineagetenets,” and he “was afraid that later students would knowingly follow this bad example.”8 Then, around the seventh and ninth years of the Chongzhen era (1634, 1636), Yuanwu wrote Biwang qishu (Seven Letters Exorcising Falsity) and Biwang sanlu (Three Records on Exorcising Falsity) to refute the views of Fazang. He disparaged Fazang as a non-Buddhist, as a wild demon, and he censured Fazang’s work, the Zhizheng chuanti (Transmission and Raising of Intellectual Realization) that changed the Linji-lineage style into lecturing on doctrine. Before the Three Records was published, Fazang was already dead and his disciple Tanji Hongren (1599–1638) also wrote the Wuzong jiu (Salvation of the Five Lineages) in ten fascicles to support and protect his master’s theories and to counter Yuanwu. Even though Yuanwu recognized that Hongren’s book was “loved by book readers,” not long after that, in the eleventh year of the Chongzhen era (1638), Yuanwu again wrote a Biwang jiu lueshuo (Brief Sermon to Save the Exorcising of Falsity) in ten fascicles to refute the theories of the salvation of the lineages and to provide a comprehensive counter-attack on Fazang and his disciples. The dispute between these two had two themes. One was academic theories of the lineage-tenets; the second was on where Yunmen belonged in the genealogy. Speaking of the former, Yuanwu took “direct pointing at the human mind” and merged it into Chan thought as a whole; Fazang’s intention lay in refuting this kind of desire to erase the theories of the lineage-tenets of the five houses and in stressing that while the one flower had five petals, he also promoted the theory of the circle diagram of the Awesome Sound of Huiji of the Weiyang lineage and stubbornly argued that each one of the opportunities (triggers for enlightenment) of the time before the sixth patriarch were concordant with the rules and regulations of the five lineages. In reality, this is a question of the special and the ordinary, of the individual and the commonality not being the same, which bore the same nature as the dispute between the Xinxue and Lixue branches of neo-Confucianism, reflecting the different streams of Chan thought. Speaking of the latter, Fazang returned to an old case with the intention of expanding the army of the Nanyue division of Chan, which in fact was an expansion of the army of Linji. Who was right and who was wrong really has no significance. Yuanwu covered Chan thought in a single saying, thinking that it was “direct pointing at the human mind.” Although this is a commonplace, in reality it is opposed to intellectual understanding, giving prominence to using the mind to produce marvelous enlightenment. His intention was to erase the individuality of 8

Tiantong Miyun Chanshi nianpu (Chronology of Chan Master Tiantong Miyun).

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the five houses, merging them into the ineffable mental realm of lifting up a flower and smiling subtly. In the circumstances of those times, this really was a return to the Chan of the five lineages following after Huineng, even though what he did was to flaunt the flag of the buddhas and patriarchs (in fact, the five lineages also often used this to boost one another, and he used this “development” as a concept to transcend Huineng). Exactly because it was like this, he likewise forcefully spoke of the tenets of the Linji lineage and he “picked up a bare staff and when questioned he struck [the student],”9 using this to cut out the hindrances of human knowledge, giving students no way to present their understanding or to employ intellectual understanding, and to actualize the so-called “marvelous enlightenment” in the midst of this vastness and their perplexity. Huang Duanbo recorded the scene of how Yuanwu dealt with students: This old fellow openly discussed reality, basing himself only on the fundamental, not permitting ornate wording, not permitting intellectual understanding, immediately eliminating conventions, cutting off the root of life, or he gave them an slap then and there, striking the chest and pinching, or suddenly spitting in their faces, pulling on their arms and spine, regulating their bodies and thrusting a problem (gongan) on them, never giving a method to people.10

Cai Lianbi also praised him: His staff [blows] and shouts were applied in flurries and the students had nowhere to open their mouths, and all of them fled helter-skelter, regarding him as the second coming of Linji.11

He also pulled, spat, and applied staff blows and shouts in a flurry, slapping faces and grabbing chests. It is no wonder that Hongren said he was “crazy” and said he was “uncouth.” Yuanwu retorted by saying, “To strike on suspicion is to be crazy and to abuse is to be uncouth. The master binds one’s hands and ties one’s tongue, not daring to use the material of one’s original endowment to guide people.”12 Clearly he took striking and abuse to be the original endowment (inherent enlightened ability) that a Chan master uses to guide people. If that was not the case, then there was only the binding of hands and tying of tongues and nothing that could be done. It should be said that Yuanwu’s mergence of the five lineages under the conditions of the synthesis of Chan thought conformed to the trends of the times in respect of cultural development, having a definite sense of progress. But his return to the five lineages, in particular methodologically, of being opposed to intellectual understanding and the use of striking and abuse as a ladder to enter the Way, was evidently backward. Fazang’s writing of the Wuzong yuan and Yuanwu’s exorcism of it, using the spirit of rationality to closely examine the Chan learning of the five lineages, cannot be said to have had no logic. In fact, Fazang used the circle diagram of the Awesome Voice to unify the lineage-tenets of the five houses. His genuine aim lay in 9

Yuanwu, Biwang jiu lueshuo, fascicle 10. See Miyun Chanshi yulu xu (Preface to the Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Miyun). 11 Ibid. 12 Biwang jiu lueshuo, fascicle 8. 10

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raising this diagram higher than the authority of the buddhas and patriarchs in order to deny Yuanwu’s opposition to intellectual understanding and to use striking and abuse as the questionable habits of the crazy Chan of an excellent teacher. The main tenets of the Wuzong yuan are: The beginnings of the seven [primordial] buddhas began with the Buddha King of Awesome Voice and it was only after the great creation of a circle diagram that each of the seven buddhas had verbal explanations. Even though their verbal explanations were different, yet the tenets of the g¯ath¯as of the buddhas did not go beyond the circle diagram.13

Fazang substituted legend for history, and viewed from a modern-day perspective, it was evidently ludicrous and irrational. Discussed in terms of its time, it was also no more than the exorcism of demons, drawing on the ideas of Zhong Kui (an imaginary exorcist). Yet Fazang’s use of the circle diagram to speak of Chan had a vivid rational tendency and its outstanding verbal explanation was properly in order to correct and cure the accumulated abuses of the later inferior descendants of the Chan School of his day, and to affirm the foundations of lettered Chan through the principles of the circle diagram. In the development of Chan thought, there is no doubt that it had a sense of progress when compared to Yuanwu’s teaching. Fazang pointed out, From recent years, the excellent teachers of the empire have finally erased the lineage-tenets for true enlightenment, causing scoundrels who have no concerns or constraints to falsely use petty tricks as their customary practice, acting as bullies and having no examinations on the spot. In reality, for a long time they have been fakers and have not reversed from that.14

If one erases the lineage-tenets, then that led some scoundrel monks to customarily use petty tricks. What is meant by the customary practice of petty tricks is not concretely explained here, but elsewhere he revealed abuses of Chan that can provide corroborating evidence. The Dharma of the Way is most pitiable and must be rescued. What is pitiable about it? It is that lettered Chan is drowned in words and that staff blows and shouts are drowned in no words. If there are no words, then the foolish confuse the lineages; and if there are words, they will cite and cull passages. Citing sentences and culling passages is simply to fall into non-Buddhist [ideas], but it is not easy then to fall into the demonic. Foolishly confusing the tradition makes it easy to fall into the demonic and also fall into non-Buddhist [ideas].

Here, even though Fazang listed abuses of Chan such as lettered Chan and the use of staff blows and shouts as being salvable, he still recognized that that lettered Chan was the worst as it dropped one into the realm of the non-Buddhists. However, it did not cause one to fall into the demonic Way. The abuses of staff-blows and shouts however bequeathed endless misfortune, and in contrast to lettered Chan had a distinctly rightist tendency. Fazang further explained: Now the mundane Dharma and supramundane Dharma are hard to fully sum up with the examples of staff blows and shouts. If one only uses blows and shouts, then all words will consequently become superfluous methods. If they are superfluous methods, why value being 13 14

Sanfeng Heshang yulu, fascicle 11. Fazang, Wuzong yuan, appendix, “Hymns on Enlightenment of Linji.”

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involved in Chan activities? If one only gives weight to staff blows and shouts, when the blows and shouts [are made they are] are pristine; when it comes to words one will rely on those previous [words], and [words such as] the principle of the Way and the profound marvel will arise as birth and death, so how can one work anywhere to dry them up? Therefore, use the methods of the three profundities and essentials to make all existing words into no words, intentions into no intention and so on, with sounds (intangible) and characteristics of matter (the tangible) being eliminated.15

Of course, no matter how Fazang tactfully described this, his focus was on refuting the practices of striking and shouting. If one uses Yuanlai’s words to footnote this, we can in particular see the true meaning of what he meant by the practice of “petty tricks.” Yuanlai had said that “In recent times those who falsely call themselves teachers use staff blows and shouts, and when one enters through the door they hit you, and when one enters through the door they abuse you….to instigate part of the conscious mind of students to erroneously give rise to a dialogue, raise a finger, lift up a fist, perform somersaults, and kick with flying feet, very much like manipulating puppets.”16 One can easily see that “the customary practice of petty tricks” indicated the crazy and uncouth style of flurries of staff-blows and shouts of monks like Yuanwu. Fazang regarded the circle diagram of Awesome Voice to be the origin of the five lineages and that it also contained the idea of the unification of the lineages, and on this point, in reality there was no great differentiation from Yuanwu’s position. What they spoke of was the commonality of the Chan School, which reflects the distinctive features of the lineages in the later period of the Chan School. This was nothing more than Fazang’s attempt to control the lineages in principle and Yuanwu’s making the lineages revert to the mind. Essentially there was not a major conflict. At the same time, Fazang also emphasized that “each of the five lineages came out of one dimension,” each having its own verbal explanations and forms of expression. What this is talking about is the specific trait of each of the five lineages of Chan, that is, their individuality, and also it makes the three profundities and three essentials of Linji to be the unchangeable rules for all ages, which go back to the origins of the five lineages. Since this reflects his creation of concepts of history that were rarely possessed by an individual monk, it can be seen to have come from his views about the countercurrents in the tide of cultural synthesis and the moving ideological tendencies, as well as his veneration of only the Linji house. Speaking commonsensically, none of these could infuriate those of the same Linji lineage affiliation, for Yuanwu also had a name as a teacher. Moreover, there was no necessity for severely condemning a corpse with respect of their respective understandings of the essential meanings of the lineage-school, the content of the five lineages that governed dissimilar principles and ideas, and the circle diagram of the Awesome Voice as the source of the five lineages that were dissimilar with respect of the buddha and patriarch raising a flower. Looked at in this way, the so-called dispute over “the source 15 Sanfeng Zang Heshang yulu, “Da Xikong Jushi” (Reply to Layman Xikong). Tr.this interpretation is that provided by Professoe Ma in a personal communication, for which I am grateful as this phrase in Chinese 有意无意等音声色相一ð笮干had bamboozled me. 16 Wuyi Yuanlai Chanshi guanglu (Extensive Record of Chan Master Wuyi Yuanlai), fascicle 7.

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of the lineage” really did not lie with the source but in the outflows (lineages), not in the reality but in the function. What truly enraged Yuanwu was Fazang involving “the origin” with the question of methodology, and his criticism of Yuanwu’s view that blows and shouts are the “fodder of the fundamental endowment.” Therefore, Yuanwu directly denounced Fazang’s “non-recognition of the lineage-tenets of the five houses” and “even though you wrote the Wuzong yuan and Wuzong jiu to establish the five lineages, it is really was the erasure of the five lineages. Even though you hold to the three profundities and three essentials, the four guests and hosts, the four selections, and the promotion of Linji, in reality you are erasing Linji.”17 Because in Yuanwu’s view “the establishment by Linji of a lineage-tenet was only in asking and then being struck,”18 he opposed striking, so how is that not erasing the five schools and erasing Linji! Fazang accused Yuanwu of wanting to erase the lineage-tenets of the five houses ´ akyamuni raising the flower. Yuanwu and of solely transmitting the one matter of S¯ then simply said that the master and disciple, Fazang and Hongren, were erasing the five lineages and erasing Linji. Looking at this, both sides were elevating the five lineages and promoting Linji. Discussing it in these terms, they also should not have produced a clash. This also explains that the focus point of the clash lay in this and not in that, that is, it was in their method, and was not in their superficial talk of the question of “the origin of the lineage.” However, it should be explained of course that Fazang’s emphasis on the lineagetenets of the five houses, and also that Yuanwu’s opposition to the reversion to the Chan of the five lineages, and of course to the circle diagram and also to the direct pointing, means that their grasp of Chan also coincided with Huineng’s transcendental spirit of being apart from characteristics and apart from thoughts. Fazang stressed that “The one method of participating in Chan…ends with being apart from birth and death,” and needing to be apart from birth and death one must necessarily remove “the mind of the two extremes of adoption and rejection.” He said, What is meant by the mind of the two extremes of adoption and rejection? It is the dharmas of all oppositions. Opposition is the contrast of above and below, the contrast of east and west, of large and small, true and false, ordinary and saint, good and bad, the Way and the secular, poor and rich, sleep and sleep,19 existence and non-existence, buddha and sentient beings, departing from life and death and life and death. Just a single thought-moment and a single movement, a single word and single silence means one falls into these two extremes, which are adoption and rejection.20

The above twelve oppositions and the various opposing dharmas of birth and death, rising and sinking, suffering and pleasure, and so on, must be abandoned. This doubtlessly comes from a duplication of the oppositions in the Platform Sutra. He also said, “Chan has nowhere to obtain the three of existence, non-existence, and 17

Biwang jiu lueshuo, fascicle 4. Biwang jiu lueshuo, fascicle 1. 19 There is an error here, these two both being opposed to being awake. 20 Sanfeng Heshang yulu, “Shi Wang Mengsou Jushi” (Instructions for Layman Wang Mengsou). 18

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the in-between; it is the obtaining of the unobtainable,”21 in which one can see his understanding of Chan and also his grasp of its essence. The Wuzong yuan also touches on the question of Yunmen’s affiliation. This is entirely a result of the influence of Huihong’s ideas, so naturally this also has a direct relationship with Fazang’s tendency to promote Linji. Objectively speaking, after Huineng obtained the Dharma from Huangmei (Hongren), a deep revolution in ideological history was realized. After this, five petals (branches) emerged from the one flower, in which sectarian branches proliferated, as would be expected. The Chan genealogy of the so-called Buddha as patriarch raising a flower, Bodhidharma facing a wall, the twenty-eight patriarchs of India and the six patriarchs of the east, really were all far-fetched tales of later-period Chan masters made to magnify their forces. Even though the branch lineages from Huineng have searchable traces, ultimately these also were made by later-generation descendants, and when they additionally received the multifarious influences of political elements, historical conditions, and sectarian views et cetera, they were naturally transformed to become even more complex. However, from when the Zutang ji of the Southern Tang was published, the genealogies of the branches from Qingyuan Xingsi and Nanyue were already clearly separated, and Tianhuang Daowu was placed into the Qingyuan division. He was made into a second-generation descendant from Qingyuan. The genealogies of the five lineages began to reveal their first inklings here. The Jingde chuandeng lu followed this style, but it compiled the biographies into the sequence of the Nanyue and then Qingyuan divisions. With Puji’s compilation, the Wudeng huiyuan, the Dharma-lines of the five lineages had Linji and Weiyang under Nanyue, and under Qingyuan they were divided into the Caodong, Yunmen, and Fayan lineages. Later Chan School writers of Chan histories agreed. Nevertheless, when Huihong wrote the Linjian lu, he said that Longtan Chongxin served Tianhuang Daowu as his teacher and that Daowu was not a pupil of Shitou’s class but was a Dharma-heir of Mazu. So then, the two lineages of Yunmen and Fayan, who came from Daowu, were both placed in the Nanyue division. Huihong also based himself on a stele inscription written by Qiu Xuansu (o.u.), which said that there were two Daowu; Tianhuang and Tianwang, and that Longtan Chongxin was a pupil of Tianwang Daowu. Huihong used this to prove that Yunmen should be affiliated with the Nanyue division. Therefore, Chen Yuan, in his Shishi yinian lu (Records of Doubtful Dates in Buddhist History) said that “His idea did not lie with Tianwang, but with changing the affiliation of Yunmen.” Even though Puji’s Wudeng huiyuan listed Daowu under Qingyuan, still he quoted the Linjian lu in a small note at the end of the fascicle.22 As a consequence, he initiated the dispute over the question of the affiliation of Yunmen. To discuss it fairly, this is an unsettled case that is still pending and yet to be decided. In the Northern Song, only the Linji and 21

Ibid, “Shi Shihuang Jushi” (Instructions to Layman Shihuang). Liangting Jingting (1615–1684)’s Yunqi Liangting Ting Chanshi yulu 13 says that the Huiyuan written by Puji had no separate Tianwang Daowu, but when it was reprinted in the Zhizheng era of the Yuan, it wrongly quoted Linjian (Huihong). In Professor Chen Yuan’s evidential examination, the edition of the Baoyou era of the Song already had this note. I have followed Chen’s theory.

22

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Yunmen lineages flourished in the empire. Thus, to change the affiliation of Yunmen was really to boost Linji. By the Yuan and the Ming, the Caodong and Linji lineages both operated within the country, and the change of Yunmen’s affiliation really was made in order to boost Linji. Its expression was in fact a dispute between Linji and Caodong and basically had nothing to do with Yunmen. Fazang concluded in his Wuzong yuan that The single flower of the sixth patriarch produced two divisions, those of Nanyue Huairang and Qingyuan Xingsi. Huairang produced four leaves (branches), and Baizhang Huaihai was produced from one of them, Mazu Daoyi. Huaihai produced Huangbo Xiyuan, and Xiyun produced Linji Yixuan. This was one branch. Baizhang produced Weishan Lingyou, and Lingyou produced Yangshan Huiji, which was the second branch. From Mazu there was produced Tianwang Daowu, and Daowu produced Longtan Chongxin. Chongxin produced Deshan Xuanjian, Xuanjian produced Xuefeng Yicun, and Yicun produced Yunmen Wenyan. This was the third branch. Xuefeng produced Xuansha Shibei, Shibei produced Dizang Guichen, and Guichen produced Fayan Wenyi. This is the fourth leaf from the Mazu branch. The branch from Qingyuan produced one leaf that went from Shitou Xiqian, who produced Yaoshan Nanyan, Nanyan produced Yunyan Tansheng, and Tansheng produced Dongshan Liangjie, who produced Caoshan Benji. This was the one leaf from the one branch of Qingyuan.

In this way, the genealogy of the Chan School was as Huihong said, with the school of Nanyue having four branches and that of Qingyuan producing only the one line of Caodong. According to the evidential examination by Professor Chen Yuan, “The dispute of those times lay not only in the change of affiliation of Tianhuang, but also in the uncertain Dharma-succession of Wuming Huijing, which means that the origins of Zhanran Yuancheng had no foundation, which greatly damaged the heart of the Caodong lineage.”23 By the Shunzhi era (1654–1655), this also gave rise to the so-called Great Uproar of Jiayi24 in Chan School history. This story will be told later. Superficially, this was a question related to the origin of the lineages, but in fact what was important was the debate over the question of Chan School methodology. It should be seen as a necessary result of the development of Chan thought, which partook of a transition towards or change of direction from a gongan Chan that had the hue of a certain kind of mysticism towards a modern, secularized Chan learning. One can also say it was opposed to the perverse Chan of barbed repartee, staffblows and shouts, that cheated people, which was what Fazang called the customary practice of “petty tricks,” and was a debate that was conducted having the nature of summation. One should know that at first, when the Chan School was founded, that it was originally a new thought that was direct and easy. The so-called non-reliance on letters, the Way that eliminated language, had an aim that lay in cutting off the causes of the limitations of the capacities of letters and language and which created a limited thinking, in order to actualize a transcendental ideational realm. Most of the Chan masters after this time, based on non-reliance on letters, abandoned making 23

Chen Yuan, Qingchu sengzheng ji (Record of the Monk Disputes of the Early Qing), fascicle 1, Zhonghua shuju, 1962, p. 11. 24 These two years were jiawu and yiwei in the sixty-year cycle.

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great efforts in respect of language, and gongan were successively produced, and staff-blows and shouts were made in flurries, and no doubt there was a procedural function of eliminating thinking, but these ultimately were only methodologies that were dependent on testing and verification. Those mediocre and banal people who followed afterwards made wrong choices, just as Yuanwu believed, using striking and abuse as the “fodder for the original endowment” with which the Chan School was to guide people. They ignored the true spirit of Chan, not regarding the transcendent as being the final object of the pursuit. Rather, they used the scattered words and phrases of previous Chan masters so that people could not understand their actions of putting old wine in new bottles, and arbitrarily created barbed repartee and false words as entrances into enlightenment. In fact, this was just picking up someone else’s spit (plagiarism) and was awkward imitation with ludicrous outcomes. Thereupon, this became common practice through long usage, and later generations contrarily thought the more the appearance of being perplexed the more it was Chan, which made the Chan School fall into a path towards mystification. This is what Fazang called “foolishly confusing the tradition, which is to fall into the demonic Way and the non-Buddhist Way.” In the wake of this, with the development of Chan thought and its infiltration into various levels of society, the more people came the more they demanded the recognition of Chan concepts in order to grasp the essence of Chan. Chan thought may have naturally accommodated this social requirement, further displaying its own core to society. Thus, by not drawing support from language and letters, it did not have enough to complete the mission, and lettered Chan, of course theoretically and also practically, was increasingly strengthened and fortified. Yuanxian even copied the Confucian tradition, saying, “Words can hinder the Way, but they can also convey the Way,”25 using “literature can convey the Way” to substitute for the theory of “non-dependence on letters.” In fact, Laozi had already noticed this very interesting cultural phenomenon. Text and words not only could hinder the Way of Chan, but they could also hinder the paths of all schools of thought. Nevertheless, there wasn’t a thinker who seems in later ages because of this to have manipulated the mechanisms of Chan in this way, of using liquidationism26 to deal with human society that relies on the means of cultural survival and linkages, namely letters and language, the reason being because they “can convey the Way,” which is the transmission of information. It is the fundamental means of expounding the lineagetenets. Therefore, the development of Chan thought, especially as it modernized, was also unable to avail itself of that kind of unreason and forms of illogicality, and one could say it could not completely avail itself of these forms. Of course, it required the container and the content. The debate about the abandonment of staff-blows and shouts after all required that there was something to attract people’s attention. Speaking only in this sense, Fazang undoubtedly was pushing Chan thought in a forward development. Professor Chen Yuan said that the dispute between Fazang and Yuanwu “as an academic dispute over lineage-tenets was an improvement.”27 25

Yuanxian, Jideng lu, preface. Tr. in Marxism, the abandonment of the ideological program of the revolutionary party. 27 Chen Yuan, Ming-ji Qian Dian Fojiao kao, fascicle 2, Zhonghua shuju, 1989, p. 48. 26

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This concurs with the real circumstances. The results of this dispute in theory and in method naturally were able to foster strengths and avoid weaknesses, choose the good and advance it, so therefore it was an improvement. However, one should also see that beyond the dispute between these two men there was also a “sectarian lineage dispute” (even though they had the status of teacher and pupil), that also was a “dispute of will power,” which was derivative and inferior. Yuanwu bitterly criticized Fazang for not respecting his teacher, of being without a ruler or a father, of being a disloyal follower, saying that Fazang “took three surnames to be his father,28 being condemned as a stinker for generations and endlessly reviled.”29 This was something that does not agree with Chan transcendence and its creative spirit, and Yuanwu’s use of his position as a teacher to pressure others also lacked the Confucian fashion for being gentle and kindly, so his manner fell into that of an inferior person. This was just what was meant by “being able to cast off the entanglements with factions at court, but being at daggers drawn as before in the Dharma-gate.”

Part 2: Luo Qinshun’s Du Foshu bian (Judgements on Reading Buddhist Books) and Qu Ruji’s Zhiyue lu (Records of Pointing at the Moon) Luo Qinshun (1465–1547) was a presented scholar in the sixth year of Hongzhi (1493). He was given the post of Hanlin Compiler and he reached the official rank of Minister of Personnel in Nanjing. He was the grand Confucian master of his age and he “investigated Chan learning to the greatest extent.”30 His learning began with entry into Chan, he himself saying that “In the past as an official in the capital, I met an old monk and casually asked how one becomes a buddha. He also casually presented Chan words as an answer, saying, ‘Buddha is in the cypress tree in front of the courtyard.’ I thought this must mean what he said and considered it with concentrated thought until dawn, when I pulled on my clothes and got up. Then, all of a sudden, I was enlightened. From this time I refined my comprehension day after day for several decades, and when I was nearly sixty I clearly saw the truth of the mind-nature for the first time.”31 Huang Zongxi then said that he “argued by using the mind-nature to distinguish Confucianism and Buddhism, directly taking the path of the search for the mind and directed it towards Chan.”32 One can see that in Ming-dynasty scholarship it was not only Yangming-Chan that flooded the court 28 Tr. if this is a reference to a character in the novel, Sanguo yanyi (ca. 1494), it means someone who constantly changes their allegiance, is disloyal and unfilial. 29 Yuanwu, Biwang jiu lueshuo, fascicle 9. 30 Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 47, “Zhuru xuean,” 1985, p. 1110. 31 Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 58, “Kunzhi ji” (Record of Painfully Acquired Knowledge), p. 1117. 32 Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, first fascicle, “Shishuo: Luo Zhengan Qinshu,” p. 10.

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and provinces, but also that grand Confucians openly researched deeply into Chan learning. In his Kunzhi ji (Record of Painfully Acquired Knowledge), Luo Qinshun also said, “Many famous ministers of the Tang and Song respected Chan learning. Those who learnt it to the utmost also were fully able to benefit from it….In later ages there were those who were Confucian in name but Chan in reality, and who hid this reality and exaggerated their fame. I do not know what the result will be of going against their [inner] thoughts.” From this passage it can be seen that it was common in the scholarly world to be openly Confucian but Chan in private. It also involuntarily reveals his feelings of despising and disdain for those who craved the fame of Confucianism and acted to conceal the reality of their belief in Chan. Evidently, Luo not only “regarded awakening to be the nature and regarded the mind to be the basis. It is not the tenets of we Confucians of thoroughly fathoming principle and fully comprehending the nature to the utmost of life” and yet “it (Chan) has great effectiveness for the gateway of the saint (Confucianism).”33 However, he did not avoid speaking about the closeness of his scholarship and Chan learning. The Ming Ru xuean fully reproduces his Du Foshu bian,34 in particular to show that Luo was “clear and specific in detail” about Chan learning.35 The so-called judgements on Buddhist books means his differentiation and analysis of Buddhist texts. At the start of the essay, Luo first explains the fundamental scriptures that the Chan School relied on, meaning the Diamond and La˙nk¯avat¯ara sutras. Then he continues to base himself on the studies of the nature and principle of Confucians in order to link the sutras and to show the reason why they are not the same. After that, he again provided words of the Chan masters for comparison, and he judged these with his own ideas. He speaks of Chan throughout the essay, tirelessly speaking, and one can definitely say that he “directly took the path of the search for the mind and directed it towards Chan.” Where he started to write his essay, he first pointed out that “The Diamond Sutra and the Heart Sutra can be said to simplify and fully understand perfect awakening, the meaning of their phrasing being slightly repetitious. There are twelve or thirteen crucial places in the Lotus Sutra. The rest is idle language, and much of it is absurd and crude.” The first two sutras definitely are not scriptures only of the Chan School, but the Chan School really relied on them to present arguments and to actualize their revolution in the history of thought. Following this, Luo discussed Chan learning and one can in particular see that his pronouncements have the intention of commending Chan learning. He proceeded to say that although Bodhidharma did not rely on letters, “later what was said [by Chan masters] was extremely voluminous.” In fact, it is incontestable that this was so, yet his aim was to flaunt the objective basis for the reasonableness of lettered Chan. However, he recognized that the emergence of lettered Chan was an accommodation of the instruction in the Chan Dharma. And, as the opportunities for enlightenment are not the same, there are choices to be made. Luo said, “In general, when first teaching a person to make up their mind [for 33

Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, “Shishuo: Luo Zhengan Qinshun,” p. 10. Huang Zongxi, Ming Ru xuean, fascicle 47, “Zhu ru xuean,” pp. 1126–1138. 35 These are also words for Gao Jingyi (Gao Panlong, 1562–1626). 34

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enlightenment], there is no truth that is not falsity, and therefore it is said, ‘If one sees that the characteristics are non-characteristics, that is to see the Thus Come One.’ After one has accessed enlightenment, there is no falsity that is not true, and therefore it is said that ‘Ignorance and true suchness are not different realms.’” Although these words are unintelligible to some extent,36 his idea is to say that in order to teach the mind to resolve to be enlightened, that even after accessing enlightenment, one still needs to avail oneself of the assistance of language and letters to analyze the complex content of Chan. As soon as the essay proper begins, Luo explains the overall meaning of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara in passages two, three, and four, close to 5,000 words, all of which are his words of differentiation. He points out in summary that “There are four major themes in the La˙nk¯avat¯ara, namely the five dharmas, the three self-natures, the eight consciousnesses, and the two kinds of non-ego. All the Buddha-dharmas are included in them.” Evidently, of all the Buddhist sutras, Luo esteemed the La˙nk¯avat¯ara. In order to conveniently understand his explanation of its content, for now I shall tabulate it as follows: Laṅkāvatāra – major themes -|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------------| 5 dharmas

3 self-natures

|

|

|

|---------------|---------------|----------|-------------|| name characteristics false

correct

suchness

thoughts insight ----------------------------------delusion

|-----------|----------------| false

dependent perfection of

thoughts origination own nature

| | | |

---------------------

|

enlightenment

| |

------------------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------|--------8 consciousnesses

2 non-egos

|

|

|-------------------|----------------|--------|----|-----|--------|-------| store

| ---------------------|-

mano-indriya manas eye ear nose tongue body of person

of dharmas

true consc. (manovijñāna) enlightenment

------------------------------------------------delusion

36

----------------------enlightenment

After accessing enlightenment, there is no falsity that is not true, which clearly shows the pure transcendental realm of post-enlightenment, but his quote, “ignorance and true suchness are not different realms” is about the state before accessing enlightenment. This is probably Luo’s misunderstanding.

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His explanation says that “None of these dharmas go beyond the two paths of delusion and enlightenment,” which is as shown in the above diagram. What Luo calls the consciousness store is the a¯ layavijñ¯ana, and if the consciousnesses transform this, then it is the true consciousness; if this consciousness transforms into those consciousnesses, then it is deluded. He also said that if one grasps the person and the dharmas as permanent entities, then one is deluded. Persons and dharmas also have five skandhas (aggregates) and twelve a¯ yatanas, which are the eighteen dh¯atus.37 The eighteen dh¯atus “combine to be called the person; split they are called the dharmas. If one is aware of this, it is called enlightenment; if one is not aware of this, it is called delusion. Buddha is awareness.” That is to say, the boundless worlds and the great universe of phenomena in combination is called person and in division is called dharma; to be awakened to this is called enlightenment, to not be awakened to this is called delusion. Therefore, “buddha” is “awakening.” He continued to say, Awakening has two meanings; there is initial awakening and there is inherent awakening. Initial awakening is the awakening of accessing enlightenment before one’s eyes, which is so-called correct cognition and is said in respect of the person. Inherent awakening is the awakening that is permanent, enduring, and not moving, it is so-called suchness, and is said in respect to that which is apart from the person. Because initial awakening combines with inherent awakening, it is therefore the Way of becoming buddha.

He not only simply said that buddha is awakening, he also pointed out that it is said that there is initial awakening in respect of the person, and it is said that there is inherent awakening in respect to that which is apart from the person. When inherent awakening and initial awakening exist together, and if they are combined into one, then it is the awakening of buddha. Here, really one has embodied the Chan School’s transcendental spirit of this person being apart from the person and the characteristic being apart apart from characteristics. He also quoted the Diamond Sutra in explanation, of not being attached to knowing, awakening, seeing, and hearing, which is this kind of possession of the awakening that is the transcendental spirit. “The mind does not dwell in dharmas and yet one conducts donation, so one should have nowhere to dwell and yet give rise to the pristine mind.” This line from the Diamond Sutra “is the meaning of this and so it is what the Buddha calls the nature. Is it not also very clear?” Not grasping and being attached to knowing, awakening, seeing, and hearing is not “being without knowing and without awakening,” nor is it “not seeing and not hearing.” It is this kind of dwelling that is not dwelling that is the transcendental spirit of being without thought while in thought. Those who recognize this will become buddha, which is the so-called seeing the nature and becoming buddha. Therefore, Luo says that the Buddhists “clearly regard knowing and awakening to be the nature, but from start to finish they do not know that the nature is principle, and so they want to forcibly combine with our Confucianism to become one Way. If it is like this, how can they be combined?” In fact, Luo distinguished and analyzed the Buddhist ideas “in order to show the reason why they are not the same.” The very important point was to distinguish the 37

Here Luo also has a clear flaw; the eighteen dh¯atus list indicates the six indriyas (faculties), six dusts (sense-objects), added to which are six consciousnesses.

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fact that the Buddhists regard awakening as being the nature and the mind as being the basis, which is not the same as the Confucian thorough fathoming of principle and full comprehension of the nature, so as to reach the mandate/life. He said, In the past, Bodhidharma’s disciple *Prati (Boluoti) said that function is the nature. He had a g¯ath¯a that said, “In the womb it is a body,/ Out in the world it is a person./ In the eye it is called seeing,/ In the ear it is called hearing./ In the nose smell is distinguished,/ In the mouth it speaks and talks./ In the hand it grasps and holds,/ In the foot it moves and runs./ It permeates and appears through these myriad realms,/ And is contained within a single mote of dust./ The knowledgeable know this is the Buddha-nature,/ The ignorant call this the soul.”

Knowing is the Buddha-nature, which is correct cognition, enlightenment. If one calls it a soul, then that is name, characteristics, and false thoughts, which is delusion. Delusion and enlightenment are in all cases speaking of the nature. If one is deluded, one is mistaken about the nature, and if one is enlightened, one just sees the nature. Chan masters regard function to be the nature, which is exactly the one sense that Luo distinguished and analyzed. He also pointed out that “This g¯ath¯a itself is truly real words, but later those who are bullying and cunning will appear, and they will suspect that which is plain and simple, and so people will fabricate a kind of story of ghosts and bogeys, which is just a special feature of the profound and the marvelous. By using the mind of profit to seek it [the nature], how can one not be moved by this?” Really, he was also informing people that Chan thought at its basis was truly easy and that later crazy and crafty fellows regarded themselves as being correct, and that they fabricated a ghost and a bogey, and arbitrarily made barbed repartee, which simply makes people unable to understand this. And those who harbor the mind of profit in order to seek it (the nature) scramble after it (the bogus) like a flock of ducks. This evidently was a criticism of gongan Chan, and also, “The creation of evil spirits and the fabrication of monsters does not end with these fellows; the poisonous among them can often be like this.” These words of Luo should be said to be making a cutting analysis of the abuses of the times. Theoretically speaking, “emptiness” is a prime theme of the Buddhists, who use the mode of negation to actualize its spirit of transcendence of the mundane. Nevertheless, objective existence and the activity of thinking also drops this theory into the state of actual antithesis, not completely convincing people. And then there is the theory of true emptiness and marvelous existence, and the divisions of ultimate truth and the conventional truth, the school of emptiness and the school of existence, that are used in order to resolve the clash between theory and reality and between thinking and phenomena. By regarding talk of emptiness to be a prominent feature and making this kind of spirit of negation to be the negation used by the extremely expansive Chinese Chan School, of course, no matter how thorough the negation and no matter how lofty and far-reaching the transcendence, it is also difficult to shake off this theoretical contradiction, just as with the true suchness of the Buddhists. So what the Chan School calls mind and nature are inherently existent, constant, and unchanging. Therefore, the Chinese Chan School not only relied on the dialectical thinking of the “Way” of the philosophical Daoists, but also adopted the analysis

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of name and characteristic of the Faxiang School to establish the controlling position of the existence of the mind and consciousness. And the theory of the eight consciousnesses in the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra also created a theoretical elaboration for this. Later generations of Chan masters regarded the conferral of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara in four fascicles as a seal of the mind to be public praise and likewise used it in order to explain the absolute existence of the mind and consciousness. Luo emphasized the analysis of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara and its meaning lies exactly in this. He said, The La˙nk¯avat¯ara in four fascicles in its first fascicle says: “Chapter on all the buddhas speaking of the mind, which greatly takes the myriad dharmas to be nothing but consciousness and the consciousness to be nothing but mind, and that the various kinds of differentiation do not go beyond the mind and consciousness.” Therefore, the words on consciousness in the sutra are specially detailed.

Not only are the words on consciousness in the sutra specially detailed, his differentiations of the meanings of the sutra are also specially detailed. Here there is no need to duplicate them. Summing it up, he said, “The external realm-wind blows and the mind-ocean and waves of the consciousnesses are uninterrupted.” The ocean is a metaphor for the eighth consciousness, the waves a metaphor for the six sense consciousnesses, and the six dusts (sense-objects) are the wind of the cognitive realms and the cognitive realms are manifestations from one’s own mind. Transformed, they also blow on the mind-ocean of the eighth consciousness, which transforms to produce the consciousnesses, and that forms a great loop of cognition. As the diagram shows,

ocean mind th

8 consciousness

← waves

← wind/cognitive object

→ 6 consciousnesses ← 6 sense objects

|--------------------------------------------------------↑ As can be seen from this, “The six consciousnesses arise from the six senseobjects” reflects the objective bases for the formation of cognition; “Cognitive realms are what are manifested by one’s own mind” is the theory of the generation of the universe, and this manner of smooth and tactful thinking is really a feature of Buddhist thinking. The Confucian saying that “The Buddhist phrasing is good at subterfuge” is exactly because it is like this. When it came to, “As the wind stirs up waves, if the wind stops then the waves cease. Therefore, it is said that when the manovijñ¯ana ceases that the seven[th] consciousness ceases,” which teaches people to eliminate their grasping of dharmas and further to eliminate their grasping of self. It ends with Buddhists, in particular Chan, transcending things and self, and being in the realm of free roaming. The theory of emptiness is established in this dialectical thinking. Its ultimate conclusion is that mind and sense-objects are merged together, the basic and the derivative are one, and mind and consciousness are one. Luo said, Regard mind-consciousness to be the basis and the six consciousnesses to be the derivative, and accordingly the names for them cannot be changed. And so, to seek their reality, firstly,

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it (reality) is not outside of the mind-consciousness. Besides this, there are the so-called six consciousnesses, and it also does not take its basis to be one and divides the basis into the derivative six [consciousness]. Since all of that which is seen is entirely in the eye…the so-called sensation that consequently comprehends then is this principle. Using this to view it, the basis and the derivative are clearly one thing.

The basis and derivative are one thing, the natural myriad dharmas are nothing but consciousness, and the consciousnesses that are nothing but mind also do not depend on anything to be established, but are established by themselves. The Chan School’s theories such as direct pointing at the inherent mind, seeing the nature and becoming buddha, and concepts of negation such as being apart from thought-moments and being apart from characteristics, the emptiness of all existence, and its transcendental spirit undoubtedly also were different techniques with equal outcomes that brought out the best in each position. It should be pointed out that the above-described proofs of the transformation of the eight consciousnesses and that all dharmas are nothing but consciousness have used the most detailed investigations by the Faxiang (Dharma Characteristics) School. Nevertheless, because Faxiang School thinking did not concur with the cultural psychology of the Chinese people and because the evidence was difficult to read, Faxiang was not practiced for long. Faxiang almost disappeared in about three generations after Xuanzang. It is usually recognized that the Xiangzong luosuo (Tortuous Investigations of the Characteristics School) by Wang Fuzhi (1619–1693) inherited the remaining threads of Faxiang and became a forerunner of the research into Faxiang of modern times. Nevertheless, one can see from this that Luo had already analyzed the eight consciousnesses point by point, and likewise made a contribution to the revival of the Faxiang School, and even though he took the La˙nk¯avat¯ara to be his basis, in reality this reflected the fact of modern society’s thirst for reason in thinking and the hopes for the Faxiang School. But, due to the complexity of the theory of the consciousnesses and the impossibility of verifying or falsifying it, researchers therefore particularly differed in what they said. Professor Li Xueqin has said that nobody can truly understand the theory of Faxiang, speaking of what is probably this meaning. Explaining the meaning of the sutra was not Luo’s aim. In the end he wanted to elaborate on the “reasons why Confucianism and Buddhism are not the same.” He said that Bodhidharma had told Emperor Wu of Liang that “Pure wisdom is marvelous and perfect, and reality is itself empty and quiescent. Only these [preceding] words fully describe the Buddha-nature.” After this, Shenhui said that he had “fully elaborated on Bodhidharma’s tenets of marvelous perfection and empty quiescence.” Then Luo pointed out that I have combined and contemplated them, and there is almost no difference between these [words] and what is meant by the Xici zhuan [section of the Yijing]’s words, “[the world is] quiescent and unmoving, [but moved by] sensation, one therefore consequently comprehends the world.” So who knows where these differ greatly; is it exactly in this [regard]? Now the spirit of the Changes is the mind of people. Chengzi (one of the neo-Confucian Cheng brothers) said, “The mind is one, and if one is to point to its reality (ti) and speak of it, it is being quiescent and unmoving; if one is to point to its function and speak of it, it is to be

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[moved by] sensation and consequently one will comprehend the world.” So we Confucians use quiescence and sensation to talk of the mind, but the Buddhists take quiescence and sensation to be the nature. This is why they are very different. It is mostly due to them (the Buddhists) not knowing that the nature is the most refined principle and taking the so-called spirit and applying it [to the nature]. Therefore, its applicability has no location….in the end it reverts to a dull practice and erroneous actions.

Chan masters loved to quote the words of the Xici, “quiescent and unmoving” to explain the concept of inherent reality shared by Confucianism and Buddhism. Luo instead recognized that these two are clearly contrary. Because these words really are the spirit of the Changes, the Confucians called it the mind and the Buddhists instead called it the nature. The Buddhists did not know that the nature is the heavenly principle and applied “spirit” (shen) to the nature, and therefore they had various kinds of bizarre and freakish behaviors of dull practice and erroneous actions. The Song Confucians had already criticized the Buddhists for taking the mind to be the nature. Even though Luo held to this theory, still he did not follow in the footsteps of earlier people, pointing out that Chan masters made strained interpretations of the principles of the Changes, and it was just this that was the root source for their production of gongan mysticism such as barbed repartee, staff-blows, and shouts. From this we can see that even though Luo’s scholarship started from Chan learning, he still venerated the learning of Xingli (orthodox neo-Confucianism) and that he took a particularly critical attitude towards the corrupt practices of Chan mysticism. Luo had already said with respect to the transcendence of Chan that [When] Gautama [Buddha] preached, he always wanted to be apart from the four tetralemma and for them to be one; neither different nor not different, neither existent nor non-existent, neither permanent nor impermanent.38 However, in the end he was unable to be apart from [the tetralemma]….Looking again and again at the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra…since it is not obvious that one can see that they (the sutra’s doctrines) are refuted, one can only allow that this is deception.

In fact, the Chan School regarded seeing the nature as being the ultimate repose and that this itself is no longer limitless transcendence, for the ideational realm of transcendence can only be limited. Luo’s censure of Chan often lay in this and his recognition that Chan was not the same also often lay in this. Luo’s recognition can be said to have been rather accurate in respect of his grasp of the relationship of the limits and the limitless of Chan, and so he expressed a comparatively modern consciousness. “Eliminating kle´sas (afflictions) greatly increases the disease,/ Heading for true suchness likewise is perverse./ According with worldly conditions is to be without obstacles./ Nirvana and samsara are spots before the eyes (delusions).” This hymn speaks of leaving things up to the accordance with conditions, and even true suchness and nirvana are unsuitable as objects to be grasped and attached to. Striving in the midst of the mind-ground and nature to actualize transcendence, Zonggao said is being “[like] a gourd on water,” and he also highlighted the concept of “all that 38

Here he is not in accord with the original intent, but this did not influence the preaching of his own ideas.

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is manifested is perfect.” When Luo spoke of this he said, “The principles of the Buddhists are just like this.” “All that appears is perfect” means “All that is existent is entirely in accord with principle,” so the negation of all was changed into a total affirmation. The changes of the Yuan and Ming Chan School, in particular with respect to the compliance with worldly government, really developed on this foundation. Based on this, Luo said, “The more it approaches principle, the greater is the confusion about the truth. This only [applies to] the Buddhists.” One can say that he could see through the Chan truth and could recognize the abuses of Chan. Qu Ruji, style Yuanli, was a native of Changshu in Anhui. Because his father, Lord Wenyi’s meritorious service, Qu became an official via preferment, and was governor of Huangzhou and the salt and transport commissioner of Changlu et cetera. He received instruction from Guan Dongming (Guan Zhidao, 1536–1626) and he studied Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings. He specially devoted himself to Chan learning and Chan history. He compiled texts for the Jingshan Tripitaka (also known as the Jiaxing Tripitaka) “to guide the assemblies to faith and to refute heterodox theories.”39 In the twenty-third year of the Wanli era (1595), he compiled the Shuiyue zhai Zhiyue lu (Records of Pointing at the Moon from the Water-Moon Studio) in thirty-two fascicles, for short called Zhiyue lu. This was a famous work by a Confucian talking about Chan. In the twenty-ninth year of the Wanli era, it was printed by Yan Cheng (1547–1625) in Wu Commandery. In the next year, Qu wrote a preface for it that said, In my early childhood I loved to read the Indian (Buddhist) texts, and in particular I loved the words of the lineage-school (Chan) masters. In the summer of the yihai year (1575), I attended on my teacher, Master Guan Dongming in Jutang Monastery in the commandery…The books on the shelves for the most part were words of the lineage-school masters. Whenever I read them, I was like one bottle and one bowl [being like a monk], and I followed the elder monks into the tall forests and deep ravines….Whatever suited my ideas, I wrote out….By the yimo (year, 1595) I had built up a record of thirty-two fascicles. It happened that a friend, Chen Mingqi saw it and mistakenly praised it. Mengqi consequently made two copies….In the xinchou (year, 1601), Yan Cheng asked to print it…When the successive causations came to a conclusion I titled it Shuiyue zhai Zhiyue lu.

This book not only is a history of the Chan School, so therefore it is not called a lamplight record. It also has the intent of transmitting the Way, like using a hand to point out the moon, which makes people follow the finger and look at the moon. Therefore, it was called Zhiyue lu (Records of Pointing at the Moon). It contains a Confucian’s talk of Chan, with the idea of exposing ignorance. The book regards the genealogy of the transmission of the Dharma of the Chan School to be the organizing warp and events of the lives of the Chan masters and Chan laymen, and their barbed repartee and vocabulary, to be the woof. Qu compiled these to form his book. The last two fascicles are devoted to the essentials of Zonggao’s words. The entire book compiles the words and deeds of 650 Chan masters in all, from the seven buddhas of the primordial past through to Dahui Zonggao, and its genealogy and those of the lamplight records have no differences. The book only deletes two secondary headings related to Dharma-heirs. 39

Jushi zhuan (Biographies of Laymen), fascicle 44.

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The Dharma lineage of the Chan School that the Zhiyue lu recorded has nothing that goes beyond the scope of Puji’s Wudeng huiyuan and the Ming-dynasty Juding (d. 1404)’s Xu chuandeng lu. It is only the raised hymns and evaluations by famous Chan School elders appended to the entries on many individuals and the author’s analysis and descriptions that are what Qu called zhi (pointing). For example, Huilong Huinan had eighty-three disciples, but there are only praises of Zhenjing Kewen and Huitang Zuxin by the famous monk of the Yangqi branch of Linji, Fayan. Zonggao followed this and compared the Chan style of these two monks. Attached to the end of the entry on Baofeng Kewen in fascicle 26 of the Zhiyue lu there are the words: Dahui said, “Of the venerable elders following Elder [Hui]nan, Wuzu only approved of the two elders Huitang and Zhenjing, and he did not approve of any others. For people, Wuzu was like a blade in silk floss, and as soon as one grabbed hold of it by the throat (were about to speak) he stabbed once, you were stabbed to death. In this way, Zhenjing stamped on you and stamped you to death, so if he used his hands, he killed you with his hands, and if he used his throat, he killed you with his throat.

Fayan was like a blade concealed in silk floss, which stabbed directly at the vital parts of the body, and Zhenjing provided medicine in response to the illness. These words do not appear in the Wudeng huiyuan and the Xu chuandeng lu. The next is like the three sayings of Doushuai (Congyue, 1044–1091): pluck the grass to look up at the wind, only planning to see the nature, (which asks) where is the present human nature? The second is: only when one can recognize one’s own nature can one shake off birth and death, (which asks) when the light of the eyes fall to the earth (one dies), how can one shake off (life and death)? Three is: when one can shake off birth and death, then one will know where one has departed to, (which asks) where does one depart for? Following this text, the Zhiyue lu records that Zhang Wujin used hymns to answer these three questions. For the first, he said, “In the shaded forest and summer trees, a cuckoo,/ The sun breaks through the floating clouds, the universe pure./ Do not ask Zeng Shen40 about Zeng Xi,/ For at all times a filial son avoids his father’s name [as tabooed].” For the second, he said, “Human ghost-messengers [from the underworld] come to take the tally,/ The flower wreath in the sky just fades./ A nice passing moon is a product of the season,/ Do not teach Elder Yama [judge of the dead] with unimportant knowledge.” For the third, he said, “Rousing the eastern village, the wife of Li Da,/ The west wind across the expansive wilds, tears moisten their clothes./ The emerald gourd and red ginseng on the southern banks of the river,/ Still makes Zhang the Third sit on an overhanging rock to fish.”

Zhang Shangying (Wujin)’s three hymns do not appear in the Wudeng huiyuan. This probably is a frivolous rhyme of the delight in Chan of a literatus and is an expression in Chan ideological history in which like attracts like. Besides this, Qu decided regarding the Dharma-succession of Daowu, that Yunmen was affiliated with Fayan, an issue that had been bubbling along, and Qu’s intervention continued to advance this dispute over lineage. The Zhiyue lu regarded the Dharma-succession in the third generation after Huineng of the Nanyue and 40

Tr. Zeng Shen, a pupil of Confucius, was reported to have been killed. When his mother heard this, she did not believe it.

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Qingyuan division to be undecided. It recorded the existence of both Tianhuang Daowu and Tianwang Daowu, but it did not discuss the issue. Besides these two genealogies, it separately established a “Tian” genealogy that included the people who transmitted the one genealogy of Daowu. It called Longtan Chongxin “Tian one,” Deshan Xuanyan “Tian two,” and Xuefeng Yicun “Tian three” and so on. This can be viewed as the author of the Zhiyue lu unintentionally interfering in the clash over authority in the Dharma-gate (Chan School), with the result that it indirectly reflects the extent of the intensity of the sectarian fight inside the Chan School at that time. It was no wonder that at the very end it was Yongzheng, who had the status of emperor, who intervened to proclaim that this dispute between the monks was concluded. Precisely because the Zhiyue lu had the above-described value as historical source materials, and because it was a discussion written by on outsider literatus, it was widely circulated after it was published. Nie Xian of the Qing Dynasty in the Xu Zhiyue lu fanli (Guide to the Continued Zhiyue lu) introduced this, saying, Previously, the Zhiyue lu, with the first printing by Mr. Yan Tianchi (Cheng) of the Shuiyue zhai, made it a secret book in the Chan monasteries, but it was much circulated in the country. After passing through very many changes, it came about that Chan Master Poshan reprinted it in the Chan Hall of Dongta, and Chan Master Jude, who was abbot of both Tianning and Lingyin [monasteries], and even of Doude Mao Hermitage, also made offerings to it and the purses of Chan monks all carried it. A book in which Confucians talk of Chan had never had greater popularity than this volume.

A work of a Confucian talking of Chan, which Chan monks carried and venerated, it was reprinted time and again. Not only does this explain the extent of the influence of that work, but also more importantly, it indicates that the center of Chan learning had shifted from the monks to the laymen and scholars.

Part 3: Monk Biographies and Lamplight Records Following after the Song gaoseng zhuan, the Ming dynasty had two texts, the Daming gaoseng zhuan (Biographies of Eminent Monks of the Great Ming) by Ruxing (fl. 1600–1617) and the Bu xu gaoseng zhuan (Supplementary Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks) by Minghe (1588–1640). The former was a product compiled gradually by the author whenever he was reading a book, for he “enjoyed recording” the events in the lives of eminent monks. The main part of the materials he used came from “the histories, gazetteers, and literary collections,”41 and so by accident it became a veritable record. At the end of all the categories of eminent monks there are no explanations of the chief themes, and therefore it is difficult to determine his thought and methodology. Fascicle 5 to fascicle 8 is the “section on meditators,” which records 67 Chan monks, with appended mentions of thirty monks, and with the exception of one person of the Northern Song, two people of the Jin, and one person 41

Ruxing, Daming gaoseng zhuan, in Gaosengzhuan heji, Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991, p. 575.

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of the Yuan, they were all Chan monks of the Southern Song. The records usually are relatively brief, and by accident there are details about their texts. For example, in the “Biography of Xiaoying” in fascicle 8, there is a passage that evaluates a story of the Luohu yelu (Unofficial Record from Luohu)42 : The monk Xiaoying, style Zhongwen, surname unknown. He participated in [Chan] monastic assemblies and was suddenly enlightened to the great matter (nirvana), and the four assemblies held him in high regard. Later in life he returned to above Luohu, closed his door and swept [things] clean. He did not have contact with the world. He only used the sayings of encouragement of the venerable elders from all over that he had read and heard of during his life, and the words of friends speaking of discussions of the teachings of the lineage, or he obtained theories related to classical schemes from the remnants of stelae and wormeaten letters, and he gathered and compiled them. He called this the Luohu yelu. Those he recorded were all great masters of the lineage who were famous and worthy gentlemen. The flawlessness of their words and deeds, the potency and swiftness of their opportune barbs, the magnificence of their exchanges, and the breadth of their bearing and quality, can be used to assist the lineage-vehicle and to instruct later students, and also to raise people to the utmost good. For this reason, readers cannot bear for it to leave their hands.

The author of the Bu xu gaoseng zhuan, Minghe, was a monk of the Huayan School, sobriquet Tairu. We know from the preface by Fan Jingwen (1587–1644) that this book took up thirty years of Minghe’s life. “He took great pains to compile an eye store of the correct Dharma for the transmission of the robe.”43 It was only by the time of his death that he completed the first draft. His disciple received his will that asked that he “complete the book that his master had not completed.”44 Later the disciple obtained the help of the owner of the Jiguge (a major private library), the bibliophile Mao Jin (1599–1659), and in the end, it was first printed in the twentieth year of the Kangxi era (1681). According to the preface and the postface, Minghe began it at the age of twenty-two sui, which was probably in the thirty-seventh year of the Wanli era (1609), because he had a feeling that “The lamplight records (biographies) from after Dahui [Zonggao] are few and scattered, and one cannot ascertain them.” Then he “shouldered his sack and carried his satchel and travelled through the mountains. He cleaned ruined stelae on mossy paths, he washed remaining tombstones among pine-clad cliffs, and he collected together very many excellent words and exemplary regulations. He supplemented what former people had not outlined and continued what previous people had not completed.”45 This activity ended before he departed this world when he completed the first draft. This book is in twenty-six fascicles, and “records the over four hundred years from the Zhao Song until the present glorious reign, with all the genuine sons of the Buddha being included in brief. He took as his example the transmission of the jewel of the Sangha by Jiyin (Huihong Juefan) and he added discussions and praises to the genealogies.”46 This book clearly was a supplement to and continuation of the Song gaoseng zhuan. The “meditation section” 42

Tr. written with a preface by Xiaoying in 1155, an heir of Zonggao. Fan Jingwen, Bu xu gaoseng zhuan, in Gaoseng zhuan heji, 1991, p. 603. 44 Postface, Fan Jingwen, Bu xu gaoseng zhuan, in Gaoseng zhuan heji, 1991, p. 771. 45 Ibid. 46 Ibid. 43

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occupies two-fifths of the book, and besides what appears in the Wudeng huiyuan, Chanlin sengbao zhuan, and Fozu lidai tongzai, it records the biographies of not a few Chan monks of the Ming period. For example, Reading the Shoulengyan jing, Chushi Fanqi had an awakening, and he took the g¯ath¯a, “He picked up each single snowflake in the red-hot stove,/ And yet it is the ice of the Yellow River in the sixth month,” with which he obtained the imprimatur of Yuansou Xingduan. He had a large volume of recorded sayings, and his poems and g¯ath¯as circulated in the world. Mengtang Tan’e at first played mentally with doctrine and later he abandoned doctrine for Chan. In his later years he wrote the Liuxue seng zhuan (Biographies of Monks of the Six Branches of Learning), and his practice of the precepts was strict and pure. His writing style was concise and archaic, and gentlemen scholars praised it as “Of the ocean of Chan venerable elders, now it is this one person.” The power of his pen was vigorous in the Way. Those who were in the know said he had obtained this from from Sima Qian [the grand historian].

These two were famous lineage-monks of the end of the Yuan and the early Ming, and were a (Dharma) brother and disciple of Yuansou Xingduan. Jitan Zongle was conversant with the past and present, and was excellent at composition. In the fourth year of the Hongwu era (1371) he lived at Jingshan, when he was summoned to write explanations of the Heart Sutra, the Diamond Sutra, and the Lengyan jing, and he had a Quanshi ji (Record of the Entire Room) circulating in the world. Nanshi Wenxiu practiced both Confucianism and Buddhism, and his lineage (Chan) and teaching (doctrine) were both marvelous. He bore an extraordinary talent and harbored a magnificent air, and he obtained the praise of Emperor Hongwu. He had a Pumen Lingyan Jingshan yulu (Recorded Sayings of Pumen Lingyan in Jingshan) and Fazu zan (Praises of the Buddhas and Patriarchs) that circulated in the world. Wanfeng Shiwei never read a sutra in his life and was contented only with deep enlightenment. The August Emperor Taizu’s imperial writings were gifted to him and his beautiful writings were circulated and the sources of the lineage were not cut off. Dufeng Jishan closed his gates and devoted himself to investigation and he did not set up a bench to lie on, vowing not to lie down, taking enlightenment to be his rule. Yuexin Debao was enlightened when he heard a Dharma master lecture on the Huayan dashu (Great Commentary on the Avatamsaka ˙ S¯utra). Then he joined Guanghui Cloister and became a monk. The Chan monks in the country all rushed to join his assembly and he had a Xiaoyan ji (Collection of Xiaoyan) that was distributed among the public. The Caodong Lineage monk Tianjie Daocheng lived through four courts, headed a [teaching] monastery three times, and gave sermons to assemblies four times. The August [first] Emperor [of the Ming] ordered him to be the Sangha Recorder, and he gifted him a gold-embroidered robe. Wuming Huijing had a sudden realization on reading the Chuandeng [lu] and Zibo Zhenke valued him as being very able. The great elder leaders of the Dharma-gate had exchanges with him, and all praised him. His shadow never left his mountain [monastery] and his reputation reached distant places. Aian Puzhuang preached in response to the abilities [of his audience] as radidly as a thunderbolt. When he criticized the ostentations of the Confucians, he definitely used rhetoric to do so, but being pure and realistic, he did no more than use the meaning as his core theme. Nanzhou Puqia wrote the Jin’gang chujie fulu (Appended Records to the Interlinear Explanations of the Diamond Sutra) et cetera, instituted the Dharma-assemblies of the state at the start of the Ming and all the letters of the ritual forms.

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Jianxin Laifu was expert at poetry and prose. He was dignified and imposing, and his literary style was archaic and elegant. Miyun Rujin resolutely copied and summarized books on Chan School history and compiled the Chanzong zhengmo (Correct Genealogy of the Chan School). When he was old, he advanced the Way with increasing power, and with his bells, robes, and bowl [he solicited funds] to engrave the Zimen jingxun (Warning Instructions for the Monastics).

Fifty or sixty people were recorded like this. Although Minghe had several paragraphs of evaluations in his “meditators section,” they are all insufficient to reflect the author’s concept of Chan learning. At the end of the “Biography of Chan Master Tianqi” in fascicle 11, the author commented, “The sayings and instructions in the Yuanjue ji (Yuanjue Collection) warn sharply and forthrightly not to lose the hammer and anvils (tools) of the original endowment, the hymns on old cases being secondary.” Although this comment deals with Chan views, it seems to have a tendency to disparage hymns on old cases, but Minghe did not speak in detail about this. Only at the end of the “Biography of the two gentlemen, Shouren and Dexiang” in fascicle 25 is there a paragraph of evaluation, which expressed his veneration of lettered Chan: If not for Laozi and Zhuangzi, there would have been no practice of the doctrine in the Six Dynasties. If not for poetry and prose, there would not have been the greatness of Chan in the Song and the Yuan. As we are gradually distanced from the past, the remaining waves and end-currents themselves must come to this [use of lettered Chan]. However, as to the truth or falsity of the Way, and the rights and wrongs of speaking of it, I simply obtained these words and examined them. Up to now, this has largely not been the case, and the people who are dull, stupid, and unlettered pretend that staff-blows and shouts are Chan, and they think pointing to the sutras and asking about words to be taboo, so what time do they have for respecting texts? As soon as those gentlemen who are frivolous and rashly advance and grasp the institution of the school to be the doctrine, enter the [master’s] room [and become disciples], they take up arms. How in their plan can there be a further decline the further away they are with regard to awareness of Zhuangzi and Laozi in the Six Dynasties, and the Song and Yuan? Even though the Way of the Dharma is changed from the past, it is still examinable. Accordingly, I recorded some sayings of these two masters, being moved by the acclaims of their times, which were not like those of the past.

If not for Laozi and Zhuangzi, there would not have been the practice of the Buddhist learning in the Six Dynasties. Without poetry and prose, there would not have been the wherewithal to greatly spread the Chan Dharma in the Song and the Yuan. Up till the present, the first sentence has been the common knowledge of the scholarly world. In respect of the Song, the latter sentence should also be called a fixed argument, but saying if not for poetry Song-dynasty Chan would not have been great is a slight exaggeration. However, Minghe was using this to explain the importance of letters and language for Chan, and he deplored the dull, stupid, and unlettered people for regarding staff-blows and shouts to be Chan and regarding sutra- preaching and letters to be taboo, and thus having no basis for distinguishing true from false, and for speaking of their rights and wrongs. The further Chan went in this direction, the more it declined, and now it was not like in the past when, moved by acclaim of the time, Chan masters revealed this in their verbal expressions. The basis for and means of his disparagement of staff-blows and shouts and opposition

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to the fashion for not seeking intellectual understanding, his joining of the Daoist philosophers with Chan, and his taking of sutra texts, language, and poetry to be the Chan of understanding and the Chan of expression and the Chan of propagation are obvious. The Ming-dynasty lamplight records include Rujin’s Chanzong zhengmo, in total ten fascicles, which was completed in the second year of the Hongzhi era (1489). It can be regarded as being a cut-down version of the Wudeng huiyuan, in that it only recorded the enlightenment episodes and has little related content in the “hymns” that were added in the recorded sayings of the Chanzong songgu lianzhu tongji (Complete Collection of the Linked Gems of Hymns on Old Cases of the Chan School), Yuanwu Keqin’s “evaluations,” and the “added inclusions.” Juding (d. 1404)’s Xu chuandeng lu was completed sometime during the Hongwu era. The intention of this book was to continue Daoyuan’s Jingde chuandeng lu. The author thought that “The lineage-branches of the five houses inspired each other, all coming forth from Dajian (Huineng).” Therefore, “I did not dare split up the lineage-branches of the five houses.” So he “united and joined them in order to return them to being one.”47 The entire book often took material from the Wudeng huiyuan and the Sengbao zhuan and so on, giving chief importance to recording their words and comparatively less to recording events. The book was completed under pressure of business, meaning its content was too brief. Therefore, like the Chanzong zhengmo, its value was less than that of the Wudeng huiyuan. Besides it, there was also the Zengji Xu chuandeng lu (Added Collection to the Xu chuandeng lu) by Nanshi Wenxiu (1345–1418), and Jingzhu (1601–1654)’s Wudeng huiyuan xulue (Continued Summations of the Wudeng huiyuan) et cetera, all being works that continued and supplemented the lamplight records. They have few original views, so they are not worth discussion. Yuanxian’s Jideng lu (Continued Lamplight Record) in six fascicles, compiled a supplement made up of the records of the transmission of the Dharma of forty-one people from after the sixteenth generation of the Caodong Lineage from Qingyuan, and 216 people after the eighteenth generation of the Linji Lineage, and seven people of unknown Dharma succession. The Jiaowai biezhuan (Separate Biographies from Beyond the Doctrine) compiled by Layman Limei, Guo Ningzhi (fl. 1630), is a work of Chan School history researched by someone from outside of the school. The Jushi fendeng lu (Records of the Divisions of the Lamplight by Laypeople) by Zhu Shien (d.u.) are biographies and the essential sayings of laypeople. The entire book records seventy-two people, including Layman Vimalak¯ırti, Fu Dashi, and Layman Pang. At the start of the first fascicle, with the exception of two prefaces and the author’s self-description of the circumstances of his writing of the book, it additionally records Song Lian’s Jiazhu Fujiao pian xu (Preface to the Interlinear Commentary on the Fujiao pian) and the Chongke Hufa lun tici (Dedication for the Reprint of the Hufa lun), and Zonggao’s letter of instruction to the monk Zhenru and Dharma talks by Lianchi (Zhuhong). At the end of the fascicle there are also the biographies and essential words of Zhang

47

Juding, Xu chuandeng lu preface.

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Boduan and others, which somewhat reflects a tendency towards the making Daoists more Chan-like in the eyes of Ming-dynasty people. The Shan’an zalu (Miscellaneous Records of Mountain Hermitages) is a book of information about teaching monasteries by Wuyun (1309–1386). It resembles the Linjian lu, Luohu yelu, Kuyai manlu, and Yunwo jitan et cetera. It records what the author saw and heard when he travelled though the mountain monasteries in past days and the marvelous deeds and maxims of venerable monks and great elders of the past. Later generations evaluated this book very highly, seeing it as one of “the seven books of the Chan School.” This book agrees with the criticisms of the Chan School of the period and the zeitgeist of the development of Chan thought. He said, In recent ages there is a type of shaved-pate non-Buddhist who gathers together the bequeathed words of the buddhas and patriarchs and who lards their writings with fancy phrases to form a book which they call a yulu (record of sayings). Then they convert and monopolize the faithful to have it printed. Since they themselves have realized nothing, and also do not know what has fallen from the tongues of the buddhas and patriarchs, they erroneously regard these as being profound talks. By confusing their own understanding, they make those more knowledgeable read them and sweat with extreme concern.

Wuyun also raised real examples to corroborate this theory of “very ordinary persons” “who falsely print their own recorded sayings” or “who falsely make hymns,” and who are “ultimately dim-sighted and without any enlightenment” about any topic or any thing. Such people are like parrots repeating the words of others or like blind imitators mimicking with ludicrous outcomes, trying to enlighten others while being deluded themselves. Such abuses of Chan should naturally “be dismissed in order to correct them.” Wuyun’s criticisms allow us to see the decadence of the Chan of those times and they also reflect the broad infiltration of Chan learning into each realm of society.

Part IV

The Turn Toward the Human World of Qing-dynasty Chan Thought

As mentioned previously, “Having cast off the entanglements with factions at court, they were at daggers drawn as before in the Dharma-gate.” This truly reflects the escape into Chan by the gentry at the end of the Ming and early Qing, and the disputes in the Chan institution not ending. It was not a peaceful and solemn historical phenomenon. The disputes of Yuanwu with Fazang and Hongren, as described above, are sufficient to show the tendencies of the Chan School, the institution and the lineage Dharma, toward secularization. The pupil of Yuanwu, Feiying Tongrong (1593–1661) in the end attracted people of the same inclination as Fazang, and so he wrote the Wudeng yantong (Strict Lineage of the Five Lamplights), the first twenty fascicles being entirely based on the Wudeng huiyuan, only changing the lineage of Tianhuang Daowu by placing him under the Nanyue division. He also took the details of the Dharma succession at the end of fascicle 6 and placed it after fascicle 16, and he placed Wuming Huijing and Wuyi Yuanlai and others into it. This is what was meant by the strict lineage. Such a strict lineage was just like child’s play, but it greatly undermined respect for Caodong monks because it listed Huijing in the section on those of unknown Dharma succession and also stated that Zhanran Yuancheng had no succession from a master. Then, the second-generation heir of Wuming Huijing, Juelang Daosheng (1592–1659) and Yuancheng’s follower Sanyi Mingyu (1599–1665), put this issue into public discussion in order for people to judge the rights and wrongs of the matter, and to take up arms against the ramparts, condemning the Wudeng yantong in speech and writing, thereby setting off the socalled great uproar over the two schools of the jiayi (years), the eleventh and twelfth years of the Shunzhi era (1654–1655). Ruoan Tongwen (1604–1655) and Tuiweng Hongchu (1605–1672) went backward and forward over and over again to mediate, and onlookers included Huang Zongxi and Ouyi Zhixu. “The two lineages exchanged accusations of being right and wrong, fought bathed in blood in incessant wars and endless distress until now.”1 The dispute continued in a direct line for several decades right up until Yongzheng wrote his Jianmo bianyi lu (Record of Selecting Out the Demonic and Distinguishing the Anomalies) that announced its conclusion. Muyun 1

Liu Xianting (1648-1695), Guangyang zaji (Miscellaneous Records of Guangyang).

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Tongmen (1599–1671) of the same school as Feiyin Tongrong had a miscellaneous poem that sang of these events. It said, “Before the steps, the patient grass faced the spring flowers. What events [made] the eyes of the monkhood open wide (be arrogant)? The fish-shaped wooden bell of the White [Lotus] Society [or Baishe] newly settled on a hegemon, And the flags and drums on the moats as of old continued in battle. Delivering speeches on the road, what awe was there of Jin?2 Making use of the law courts, Wood (mu)3 consequently brought disaster. Heaven (the emperor) settled it after a long time, the wind and waves [of the dispute] stopped. I do not know which of the two tigers was harmed?”4 Muyun disapproved of this sectarian dispute very much. Even if one says that the fight over the Wudeng yantong can be seen to have been a narrow factional fight between the two houses of Linji and Caodong, then their considerable dispute was an internecine feud. Tongrong wrote a Bieji (Separate Collection) in four fascicles, which contained a Jinsu bimiu (Exorcise the Erroneous from the Gold Grain [Buddhism]), which was a counter-attack on Chaozong Tongren (1604–1648), a member of the same class. His denunciation of Tongren was because Tongren had allocated essential sayings of people of the past to the three profundities and three essentials of Linji, which made Tongren a criminal of the Dharma-gate for a hundred thousand generations. So hostile was the denunciation that there was a story about Yuanwu coming to Jinling desirous of taking back the whisk that he had earlier given to Tongren. Tongren also wrote a text of refutation and publicly said that Yuanwu did not know the profundities and essentials, and that Yuanwu’s deeds had not converted others et cetera. Such an internecine feud with relentless infighting was something unprecedented in the Chan School. Tongrong’s Bieji fascicle 15 has an essay, “Shuo Muchen qi Tiantong Lao Heshang” (On Muchen’s Deception of the Elder Reverend of Tiantong). This was an attack on a fellow pupil, Muchen Daomin (1596–1674), after Yuanwu had passed away, for using all his tricks and inside information to become the abbot of Tiantong. According to this essay, Daomin, while Yuanwu was alive, schemed to be abbot of Tiantong, but failed to achieve this and consequently used coarse words and rude language to abuse Yuanwu, and he sent back the whisk that Yuanwu had given him, and so the relations between master and disciple were like fire and water. Tongrong told all of his fellow pupils about Daomin’s treacherous deeds as abbot of Tiantong, such as changing the name-plate and recorded sayings of Yuanwu, and of squandering the permanent assets, rice, and money et cetera of the monastery, and “in the chargesheet against Daomin, it wrote that Yuanwu was a practicing monk and recorded that Daomin was a Dharma (doctrinal/ritual) monk, [and that these deeds] emerged from a traitorous intention by Daomin to harm Yuanwu, and that one could not but make this scathing indictment.” Tongrong also proposed erasing Daomin’s name from the list of Yuanwu’s pupils. This sense of a profound aversion was fully manifest 2

Tr. this word, meaning gold, was also the name of the Manchu dynasty before it was named the Qing. 3 Tr. see below on Muchen. 4 Muyun Men, Nenzhai houji (Latter Collection from Nen Studio) 6.

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on paper. In investigating its essence, the real cause of this was Daomin’s reliance on the authority of the new dynasty and its use to expel Tongrong. Tongrong was extremely indignant and counter-attacked. The Zhangxue yulu (Recorded Sayings of Zhangxue) did its utmost to express sympathy with Tongrong and it accused Daomin of “monopolizing the courtyards of the patriarchs, wanting to erase the two houses of Poshan and Feiyin,” and of “deceiving the Dharma-gateway to an excessive degree.”5 Tongrong also wrote letters to Xu Xinwei and Zhang Rongqing expressing his deep dissatisfaction with Daomin.6 Daomin consequently curried favor with the new court and in the end was derided as “a criminal of the lineage school.” The “Pan kuang jie” (Interpretation of the Judgment of Being Crazy) of fascicle 8 of the Bieji is also a work of internecine feuding. Yulin Tongxiu (1614–1675) was a second-generation disciple of Yuanwu and his work, the Xiaoyun jielun (Precautionary Discussions of Xiaoyun) covertly ridiculed Yuanwu and Tongrong. The Bieji criticized Tongxiu’s recorded sayings as just being parroted words and said that Tongxiu had mixed in nianfo (recitation of the name of the buddha) with the four shouts,7 greatly confusing the tradition. Tongxiu wrote a Pan mo zhibi lun (Discussion on Frank Writings to Judge the Demonic) to refute Tongrong. Tongrong’s Pan kuang jie at its extreme said that Tongxiu was a fabricator who exposed his own faults and did not distinguish good men from bad, and was ignorant of common things. So great was this that they abused each other as eyeless dogs and they denigrated each other as disloyal followers, hating and humiliating each other like enemies. How could they uphold the Buddhist standards that warn against anger, fighting, and denigration? It was also out of the question that they had the transcendental spirit of the Chan School that was apart from characteristics and from conceptual thoughts. Besides, in the Bieji there are also parallel sayings that abuse Zhanran Yuancheng’s pupil Ruibai Mingxue (1584–1641), saying that Mingxue stole and used the staff blows and shouts of Linji, filling its paper with bile. This also was an internecine sectarian dispute. Besides the events described above, in the early Qing there were also disputes over the Wudeng quanshu (Complete Writings of the Five Lamplight [Lineages]), disputes over the stupa inscription of Tiantong, the disputes over the five theses (lun) of Muyun, and the struggle that fought over the new and old forces. All of these reflected a full expression of a tendency toward secularization of the Chan School, which was under the influence of the rules of lineages and the shifts in society. Not only did Chan thought change and lose its own distinctive features, but it also increasingly drew near to secular government and real society, which it expressed as a spirit of engagement with the world. This was nothing more than an expression

5

Zhangxue jinian lu (Record of the Chronology of Zhangxue), thirteenth year of Shunzhi (1656). Feiyin yulu (Recorded Sayings of Feiyin), 11. 7 This indicates the four shouts of Linji. It was just that Tongxiu had said that the one sound “Buddha” was like the jeweled sword of the Diamond King; that one sound “Buddha” was like the lion crouching on the ground; that one sound “Buddha” was the shadow lure of a fishing pole; and the one sound “Buddha” did not create function of the one sound “Buddha.” 6

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of its acceptance of the above-described events and even more of the abuses of the secular world. Looked at from the overall trend of ideological development, of course, this fluctuation was somewhat complicated, but also it had a fixed pattern that can be followed. One is the perfection and development of an originally existing foundation. Another aspect is that of a framework that has already been breached and of ideas that have commonly been honored and have kept being renewed; in other words, there are gains and losses due to changes. Concretely speaking, a principle of systematic thought is that once it is formed that it begins to divide and the divisions advance side by side, becoming narrow but deep in the direction of its development. After a long period, the developments of thought and method have almost finished, or it heads toward extinction, being replaced by new thoughts and forms, or it goes from being divided to being unified, and it gathers its members so as to be even more prosperous, and with its new face once again convinces people. In another aspect, the formation of thought is originally based on reflections about reality, and after it is formed, it becomes gradually distant from society and distant from human life, and it struggles to be “universal” and to grasp the great function of the whole. Then it turns to practice to make the universal and the particular come together in a close union, which is what is called ‘from practice to theory, and then from theory to practice’. The secularization of Chan thought in the Qing period follows these two threads in actualizing its process of synthesis and spirit of participation. It should be said that the development of the Chan School up to the Qing period had already completed its mission of synthesis. As it had itself said, Chan had already lost the various distinctive features of the five petals from the one flower and was without the divisions of the five lineages. The Yuan and the Ming still preserved the remaining genealogies of Linji and Caodong, but these did not live up to their names. In terms of Buddhism as a whole, there was the dual practice of Chan and Pure Land, the merging of Chan and Doctrine, and the compatibility of the theories of the schools of Nature and Characteristics, which included each of their houses under the name of the Chan School. The theories of the eight schools or the thirteen schools were only formed in retrospect, and even if some of them possessed the distinctive features of a Chinese Buddhism—Tiantai, Huayan, and Pure Land, and also the late Qing revival of Faxiang—even though they were hanging like a thread, they were still able to avail themselves of the water of Chan on which to sail their boats. From the perspective of Chinese traditional culture, the original adoption of Daoist philosophical thought and the suddenly arisen Chan School advanced further to permeate the concepts of human life of Confucianism and Daoism and the concepts of aesthetics, and to a major degree received the praise of Chinese intellectuals. Chan and Buddhism as a complete response accumulated in the deep layers of the psychology of the Chinese people and unified Chan Buddhism with Chinese traditional culture. In summary, speaking of the five lineages, there was really only a single genealogy of Caoqi; in terms of Buddhism, it all ended up in the single current of Chan learning. The Chan School had already replaced the great concept of Buddhism and was distributed throughout the society and culture of the Qing period.

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In another aspect, Chan thought created a system of theoretical thinking and likewise devoted itself to a limitless assurance and universal coverage. Its transcendental spirit in particular expressed the characteristics of the surreal and supramundane. But it likewise had to return to the real and had to accept the influence of the dominance of the consciousness of survival and political concepts. Because of this, of course it was its external transcendence of the world and also the introspection of one’s own mind, and the internal transcendence of being apart from characteristics and apart from thoughts, that necessitated that it avail itself of the assistance of certain forms of thinking and of equally actualizing and preserving this close relationship. The negation of negation of Buddhist learning and the Chan masters’ concepts of transcendence, that “all that appears is perfect” and “leaving things up to according with conditions,” really are the theoretical basis of the participatory spirit of the Chan School. In particular, in the social life in China where the government dominated everything, the Chan School, since it could not preserve its absolute transcendence, also from time to time expressed an approval of or criticism of the government. In the society of an agrarian state, one could not be entirely divorced from production, or purely engage in the activities of theoretical thinking. After Buddhism was introduced into China, begging for food and alms, and the broad seeking for donations were already unable to satisfy the demands for survival. In particular, by the Sui and Tang and thereafter, the Chan School gathered followers to give lectures and it rapidly expanded, the recorded sayings proliferated, sutras and s´a¯ stras were printed, and without a fixed economic basis it would have been unable to sustain these developments, so much so that it was difficult to keep afloat. The establishment of the pure regulations of Baizhang was the embodiment of the spirit of Buddhist democracy and also presented a logical basis for Chan participation in economic activity. The system of the universal call for work of, “If one does not work for one day, one will not eat for one day” really used these standardized norms in the real world as the compulsory reform needed for the Chan School to progress. The production by the monastery households, inheritance and forcible appropriation, were bound to influence Chan’s nature of transcendence. In fact, the changes in Chan thought of the Yuan and Ming were expressed in non-identical forms under the influence of the participatory spirit that was a reversion to reality, and also came from the Chan School of the Qing period pioneering a path forward of the Buddhist learning of human life that went from departing the world to entering the world, from transcendence to participation, and from theory to practice. Politics, economics and even participation in all social life were clear features of the Qing-period Chan School. However, it should be noted that the tendency to participate in the world by the Chan School also had a background in world culture. In sixteenth-century Europe, following the development of an industrial civilization, and the sudden emergence of a newly-arisen capitalist class, a Renaissance movement exploded. Progressive thinkers used classical works and applied them to human life, tended toward the affirmation of secular life and used humanism as their banner to fight against Church thought that made God dominant. The Catholic concept of divine power and feudal monarchism experienced severe challenges, which subsequently lead to the Protestant movement led by Martin Luther. This gave full reign to an elaboration of the

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humanistic spirit and participatory spirit of Christianity, which promoted the secularization of religion. Beginning in the twenty-seventh year of the Wanli era (1599), Matteo Ricci came to proselytize in China, and gentry like Li Zhizao, Xu Guangqi, and Yang Tingyun were converted. History is full of such examples. Of course, this Protestantism, and also Catholicism, in their spirit of participation in secular life were bound to also influence the course of the secularization of the Chan School. The criticism of Yuanwu and Tongrong of the Western creed, and the use and rejection by the Kangxi and Yongzheng emperors of the Western missionaries, all show the contact, clashes, and diffusion between Christian culture and Chan thought. By the late Ming, thinkers advocated the combination of the four religions into one, calling Jesus, Confucius, Laozi, and the Buddha the four saints, in particular, explaining that the Protestant movement had possibilities in aiding in activities for spreading the Buddhist Way in China, and presenting ideological lessons and examples for the Buddhist learning on human life. To sum up, the chief expression of Chan thought of the Qing period was in three stages: participation in politics in the early period; the criticism and reforms of the middle period, which is the theoretical preparation; and the sudden rise of the humanlife Buddhist learning of the late period. At the same time, in agreement with the spirit of participation in the world, the center of Chan learning had already completely flowed away from the monks to the laymen and scholars.

Chapter 15

The Early Qing Monk Disputes and Yongzheng’s Protection of the Dharma

By the early Qing, Buddhism could be almost said to have been completely changed into an empire of the Chan School. One cause for this was the popularity of escape into Chan of the loyal people who were out of favor with the Ming court, to the extent that members of the imperial clan shaved their heads and became monks, it being exactly as the Chan master Maoqi Xingsen (1614–1677) said to the Shunzhi Emperor: “For the last thirty years many of the members of aristocratic families and sons of princes, and those selected to be students in the imperial college, became monks.”1 Besides those described above, there were also the famous Jiexian (1610–1672), Dangui (1614–1680), Bada Shanren (1626–1705, a famous painter), and the author of the Wuzong jiu (Salvation of the Five Lineages), Tanji Hongren (1599–1638). Hongren’s original name was Ren’an, and after the dynasty changed, he became a monk. Emperor Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735) knew that the Wuzong jiu came from Hongren’s hand, and he rejected it as being demonic, which was to be expected. The second cause was the support given to the Chan School by the emperors of the early Qing due to their requirements for political control and ideological and cultural needs. Emperor Shunzhi (r. 1644–1661) said, “Even though at first I venerated the Buddhist teachings, I then did not yet know that the lineage-school (Chan) had esteemed elders. The first esteemed elder I knew was Hanpu.”2 He also summoned Hanpu (Xingcong, 1610–1666) to enter the forbidden palace to ask him about the Dharma and he granted him the title “Chan Master Hongjue.” Shunzhi also summoned Yulin Tongxiu and Muchen Daomin many times to the capital and granted them purple robes and titles not just once. The legend of Shunzhi becoming a monk at the very least explains that he had comparatively deep connections with Buddhism. The Emperor Kangxi (r. 1662–1722), who was famed for his political and military achievements, wrote more than a thousand sign-boards for monasteries 1

Tiantong Hongjue Min Chanshi Beiyou ji (Records of the Northern Travels of Chan Master Hongjue Min of Tiantong), fascicle 3. 2 Ibid, fascicle 6.

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and shrines. It is recorded in the Lüyuan conghua: Shanzhishi (Collected Stories of Lüyuan: Excellent Teachers) that when Kangxi was touring Xiangshan that he interviewed the Chan master just as if he was bowing to the Buddha and the official accompanying the imperial carriage, Hua Yixiang (fl. 1659) regarded this as being wrong. Yongzheng in particular made first-rate lineage-masters pose as the chief teachers of humans. The Chan School obtained the support of two kinds of opposed political forces, and naturally it alone was able to prosper in the empire. Nevertheless, even though the one genealogical line of Caoqi in the early Qing had the two lineages of Linji and Caodong surviving in name only, in fact these two lineages were set up by the school itself. These were not the innovations in thought and method of the Tang and Song times. In order to expand their own armies, or simply in order to struggle for their own selfish interests, they engaged in internecine feuds and factional fights, disputing the master-disciple successions, fighting over factional numbers, so much so that they curried favor with the court for monastery resources, fighting over farm rents, and stealing the names of the Dharma-gate in order to benefit themselves. In each of the disputes and debates, there were also one or two gentry who were interspersed therein, who at their leisure provided resources and talked in assistance. In the Nanlei wen’an, in answer to Wang Weimei on the points of contention between the two lineages of Linji and Caodong, Huang Zongxi points out that “Present-day students of Buddhism depend on factions …. Like servants when divining the winds and looking at the weather must measure the temperature of the master …. Therefore, it is not necessary to debate the rights and wrongs of the two houses.” This passage concerning the nature of the rancorous debates that confused the Chan School in the early Qing can be said to have completely revealed this situation. In the midst of this, there are admittedly occasional mentions of theory and method, but these are nothing more than foils. When Yongzheng wrote the Jianmo bianyi lu directed against the master and disciple Fazang and Hongren, he abused these people, burnt their books, destroyed their woodblocks, and he did not hesitate to use his authority as the emperor of the empire. He combatted monks who had already been reduced to ashes, causing this case of a dispute within the Chan School that had continued for a century, involved monks and laypeople, and had stretched across two dynasties, to subside. The one line of the early Qing Chan School Linji lineage came from Xiaoyan Debao (fl. 1577). The genealogy is below:

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Huanyou Zhengzhuan | |-------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------| Miyun Yuanwu

Xueqiao Yuanxin

Tianyin Yuanxiu

______________|_______________________________________ |

|

|

|

________|____________

|

|

|

|

Hanri Fazang Poshan Haiyue Feiyin Tongrong Muchen Daomin Muyun Tongmen Ruoan Yulin |

Daowen Tongxiu Tongshou |

______________________________ |

Songji

|

|

Baisong Xingfeng

Tanji Hongren Jiqi Hongchu Jude Hongshi | Jiexian

All of the Caodong Lineage came from Xiaoshan Zongshu (1500–1567), or it came from the pupils of Zhanran Yuancheng, or were the descendants of Wuming Huijing, as follows: Xiaoshan Zongshu _____________________|_________________________ |

|

Huanxiu Changrun

Yunkong Changzhong

|

|

Cizhou Fangnian | Zhanran Yuancheng

Wuming Huijing |-------------------------------|--------------------------------------| Wuyi Yuanlai

|--------------------------------|------------------|---------------|

Huitai Yuanjing |

Shiyu Mingfang Yuannian Jingzhu Sanyi Mingyu Ruanlai Mingxie Juelang Daosheng | Weizhong Jingfu

Yongjue Yuanxian | Weilin Daopei

| Baiyu Jingsi | Hansong Zhicao

The dispute over the Wudeng yantong, excluding the changes making Yunmen and Fayan part of the Nanyue division, also mentioned Tongrong, only listing the one branch of Huanxiu beneath Xiaoshan and listing Huijing and Yuanlai as being of unknown Dharma-succession. And it wrote that Huitai Yuanjing (1577–1630) and Juelang Daosheng, and Yuanxian and Daopei had no lineage affiliation. This lead various members of the Caodong lineage to show deep abhorrence. Ruoan Tongwen and Jiqi Hongchu (1605–1672) were busy rushing between them to provide mediation. All of this ended in the destruction of the woodblocks of the Wudeng yantong and the disputes and debates then came to a finish. Hongchu said it well:

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“The affiliation of Yunmen and Fayan with Qingyuan did not detract from Nanyue. How did the affiliation with Nanyue harm Qingyuan? We, in fighting over this, in the end created pointless sophistry.” Hongchu treated this dispute from the perspective of the lineage-school (Chan). He recognized that in this way, “If one takes the medicine of attack, then one’s health will suddenly be exhausted and one can only wait for death.”3 Here he is really concerned about the advantages and disadvantages affecting the life and death of the Chan School. Yet if it is seen from the perspective of the development of thought, it was definitely as he said, having no benefit or disadvantage for Chan learning, “in the end becoming pointless sophistry.” The early Qing monk disputes should be interpreted like this.

Part 1: The Linji Chan Masters of the Early Qing (A) The most famous and eminent Chan monks of the early Qing were Yulin Tongxiu and Muchen Daomin. Both were Linji monks and both were recommended because of their intelligence and they both curried favor with the new court. For this reason, they were often praised and slandered. Tongxiu (1614–1675), style Yulin, lay surname Yang, was a native of Jiangying in Jiangsu. At nineteen he followed Yuanxiu and became a monk. At twenty-three sui, he succeeded Yuanxiu as abbot of Baoen Monastery in Huzhou in Zhejiang. In the sixteenth year of Shunzhi (1659), he was ordered to go to the capital and preach in the inner palace. Emperor Shunzhi was delighted and granted him the title Chan Master Dajue. The next year he was again ordered to go to the capital and he was granted the title National Teacher Dajue Puji Nengren, and then he became a name important at court and in the provinces as being influential in the Chan School. He passed away in the fourteenth year of Kangxi (1675), aged sixty-two. He wrote Gongfu shuo (On Study) and Kewen (A Stranger’s Questions) et cetera, which were recorded in the Puji Yulin Guoshi yulu (Recorded Sayings of National Teacher Puji Yulin). The Minister of Personnel and Grand Academician of the Hall for the Preservation of Harmony during the Kangxi reign, Wang Xi (1628–1703), composed the stupa inscription for Tongxiu, saying that although Tongxiu “had encountered a prosperous age, he was indifferent by nature, and had not developed the slightest interest in glory and profit.” He also said that “By nature he was most filial and at twelve sui he lost his father, and after he had obtained the Dharma, he specially built a thatched hut alongside Baoen [Monastery] and had his mother live there, personally presenting her with drink and meals.” His not valuing honor and profit was a concrete expression of the transcendental spirit of Chan, but his installation of his mother to live beside the monastery in the utmost filial piety is a real example of his Confucianized thought and actions. It can be seen how many people he had in his assembly from the

3

Hongchu in a letter to Jiang Bohuang and Tongrong, quoted in Chen Yuan, Qingchu sengzheng ji, p. 13.

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words, “In all he occupied six monastery sites [as abbot], preached to seven assemblies, repeatedly resolved problems, and marvelously possessed excellent skills,” and “Students hearing of his style rushed to join him from afar, and the wings of the hall were almost unable to contain them.” Speaking of his Chan thought, it was as his stele inscription said: “With one gulp of the West River, and directly in front in its totality, his sack [of false thoughts] were removed, and all of his ordinary feelings died …. He directly entered into no views, shining through empty space.”4 Clearly this is advocating direct investigation of real enlightenment and is also an old tune of Chan. For example, he stressed investigation of huatou (point of the story): One should investigate a huatou. If one does not penetrate it for a day, investigate it for a day. If one does not penetrate it for a month, investigate it for a month. If one does not penetrate it for a year, investigate it for a year. If one does not penetrate it in a lifetime, investigate it for a lifetime. If in the present life one does not penetrate it, investigate it for this lifetime. Never retreat from it or lose it, never change it or alter it….In this way, be solely devoted to it, in this way vigorously advance, be like this for a long time, and even if one does not illuminate it, also at present one should make it a method for future study and in future you will be sure to obtain the marrow of the mind of the buddhas and patriarchs. If name and matter are the learning of the Way of birth-and-death, and one gives rise to unorthodox doubts and seeks different help, and gives rise to heterodox views, and gets much involvement in things not one’s business, fear difficulties and hardships, delight in the pleasurable and convenient, and control all the falsities that throng together, these errors do not bear speaking about.

This investigation of a huatou one’s whole life means one can “Realize one’s own broad and vast nature itself, and then one can know that one’s own nature is inherently of itself complete, and inherently of itself does not rise or cease,” and the good also does not gather and yet it gathers by itself, and evil is not eliminated but eliminates itself. In his answer when asked, “Should a gentleman study the Way?” his reply was in the affirmative. On one hand it expresses the transcendental spirit of Chan, and on the other hand it also reveals a tendency in thought towards a close combination with secular life. He said, The words of the world about the Way are not one teaching. You ask me about the Way. How is it not the Way of realizing birth and escaping death, seeing the nature and becoming buddha? This Way cannot be obtained by having a mind (thoughts) and cannot be found without the mind….One cannot forget the body and cannot use it to study the Way. One cannot forget the mind and cannot use it to study the Way. One cannot forget the world and cannot use it to study the Way. Name not forgotten cannot be used to study the Way. Profit not forgotten cannot be used to study the Way. Wife, children, and dependents not forgotten cannot be used to study the Way; home and work not forgotten cannot be used to study the Way. Knowledge and views not forgotten cannot be used to study the Way. Memory and practice not forgotten cannot be used to study the Way. The delight in having something to depend on cannot be used to study the Way, and to crave the easy and be in fear of the difficult cannot be used to study the Way.

In sum, if one wants to see the nature and become buddha, one must have forgotten all glory and humiliation, fame and profit, ease and difficulty, and even wife and 4

Puji Yulin Guoshi yulu, fascicle 1.

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children, work, body, mind, and mundane Way of the tainted world. Thus, “From the Son of Heaven down to the common person, there is not a single person who is unsuitable for this and not one who cannot reach it.” At the same time, he also pointed out that if one wanted to actualize this transcendental spirit, one must possess “three knowledges,” which are: to know there are three ages (time periods), to know and be in awe of the three ages, and know and realize the three ages. Since one needs to forget the world, one must know the world, be in awe of the world, and realize the world. Since one can say that this kind of looking at the forms of thinking of self-contradiction is a distinctive feature of Chan thinking, one can also see that this is Tongxiu’s theory of achieving success one way or another by having Chan learning engage with the world. He particularly stressed matters of cause and effect, influence and response of the three ages of past, present, and future, which is what is meant by “in the present life to be humane and yet natural, to be chaste and yet experienced; these are all related to the causes of previous lives and one cannot resent and complain about this; in the present life to be rich and yet crave, to be long-lived and yet patient; all these are results of influencing the later age, and one cannot take this to be luck.” “What are made into good and evil in this present life, are they not related to the suitability and contrariness of where one will be born later?” Consequently, he warned people, “Firstly, one should know one’s place and compliantly accept; secondly, one should guard against erroneous ideas at the outset.”5 The evolution from the theory of causation into a theory of fate, from “leaving it up to according with conditions” that is a transcendental consciousness degenerated into the attitude towards human life that “one knows one’s place and compliantly accepts.” This evolution truly was a decline of theory during the process of secularization Chan Buddhism, or it may be said, of Buddhism. Exactly because of the contradictions between this concept of Chan learning and the concepts of human life that developed on this basis, it was expressed in the complex ways in which one conducted oneself in society. On one hand, it was being indifferent to glory and profit, and on the other hand it was relying on favoritism by the court and stealing monastery property. It is no wonder that Professor Chen Yuan said, “Yulin was by nature malicious and insidious, and he could bear major humiliation, and he acted forcefully and did not speak much.”6 It should be pointed out that what Wang Xi praised is best not seen as being empty words and that Tongxiu was strict in self-regulation of his everyday behavior. “He did not store up private wealth, which meant he also lightly accepted even the slightest offering …. Even though he received the favor of purple robes, the clothes and articles for his daily use were not as good as those of the average monk.”7 Even if he was blamed most often for currying favor with the new court, he had no choice but to do so. According to the Yulin nianpu (Chronology of Yulin) written by Chaoqi, Tongxiu 5

All the above quotes are from Tongxiu’s Kewen. Chen Yuan, Qingchu sengzheng ji, fascicle 3, “Pingyang yushu lou zheng” (The Dispute Over Putting Letters in a Pavilion of Pingyang), Zhonghua shuju, 1962, p. 75. 7 Wang Xi, Chifeng Dajue Puji Nengren Guoshi taming (Imperially Sanctioned Stupa Inscription for National Teacher Dajue Puji Nengren). 6

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was ordered to attend court before Daomin, but he declined a number of times, and even when messengers presented memorials from the emperor three times he did not agree to go, and so the officials put pressure on him, but he never moved a step, and they tried to take him away under escort. “The emperor granted Chan Master Dajue a gold seal, and even though the master took it back with him, he never displayed it.”8 “After he had attended the summons and had returned to his mountain, he never mentioned the words of the imperial discussions of the Way. When the emperor personally gave him the purple robe and gold seal et cetera, he not only never used them once, even if [a person] was the most personal Dharma-successor, he also never got to see it.”9 Therefore, the salt official Fan Xiang (1608–1675) wrote a hymn about it: Where he is refined and accomplished, he is also not refined and accomplished. Concerning this matter, humans dare to sing in response. He preached the Dharma repeatedly at the Son of Heaven’s command, And having returned to his mountain he did not raise the imperial letter into the pavilion.

Not all of these can be said to be excuses for Tongxiu’s behavior. If one does not see these as stories that are circumspect and astute, in saying that he was indifferent to glory and profit accorded with reality. Following this, Daomin, who responded to the summons to enter the capital, galloped in response to the invitation to the new court, and he had a jealous hatred of the incident of Tongxiu “not raising the imperial letter into the pavilion.” Therefore, he wrote a text that attacked Tongxiu, saying, “Was it really him forgetting glory and declining favors? So while he did not leave the mountain, how did he then return to it? While he did not look up to the emperor, how did he get to have this letter?” Daomin also raised examples of eminent monks through the ages refusing summons to the court at sword-point, cutting off attachments to objects, and sitting cross-legged while they passed away. He criticized Tongxiu for “wanting to advance while retreating, advancing and withdrawing with hesitation. Since he had consumed these favors, and also had bestowed his virtue, he outwardly forgot glory and declined favors, but in reality, he covertly prosecuted the arts of angling for fame and compliments.”10 This story came out of Daomin’s mouth and he evidently reasoned fallaciously. This was talk that deceived himself and deceived others. And yet Daomin fiercely criticized Tongxiu for “broadly linking up with the wealthy and influential,” and relying on the power of his ally Hansong Zhicao (1626– ?). He also blamed Tongxiu for “deceitfully attending on the emperor and princes.”11 One can see that Tongxiu and the imperial family’s new court also maintained a certain distance. Nevertheless, this ultimately was part of a supramundane spirit and was also shame at being obsequious to the powerful and influential. It was also his longing for the former state and his choice to mind his own business in order to avoid 8

Nie Xian, Xu Zhiyue lu, “Biography of Yulin.” Xingfeng, Yulin nianpu. 10 Daomin, Baicheng ji (Collection of One Hundred Cities), 20, “Baokui shuo.” 11 Hansong yulu, 11. 9

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trouble. Whether or not this was the case is unknown. However, there was clearly a huge distinction between the behavior of Tongxiu and Daomin. Speaking of the above-described dispute between Daomin and Tongxiu over the imperial letter not being placed in a pavilion, it is also a story that expressed Tongxiu’s transcendental spirit, but the dispute over the permanent assets of Shanquan Monastery more or less reflected the nature of his reliance on the powerful to steal monastic property. Wang Xi said, “At the request of Shanquan [Monastery], even though the master was reluctant to go, he thought of returning to his elders and to his old forest (monastery), but he did not stay for long.” Clearly this “did not stay for long” was glossing things over. Shanquan Monastery is on Mt. Shanquan, fifty li to the south-west of Yixing. It was built from the former residence of Zhu Yingtai in the Jianyuan era of Qi. In the Song, it was named Guangjiao Chan Cloister, and in the Jiading era (1208– 1225), it was fostered by Chen Zongdao, who donated funds to the monastery, which bought fields as permanent property. After Chen passed away, they erected a wooden ancestral tablet beside the monastery, which was the Chen Memorial Temple. The Ming changed the cloister into Shanquan Monastery. At the start of the Qing, the Caodong monk Ruibai Mingxue’s disciple Baiyu Jingsi was the abbot, and he greatly developed the land. In the tenth year of Kangxi (1671), his disciple Hansong Zhicao succeeded Jingsi as the abbot of Shanquan Monastery. Because there was the Anle Stupa of the tonsure master there in the monastery for Huanyou Zhengzhuan, the teaching-grandfather of Tongxiu, Tongxiu gave it the name of Baohuzu (Protect the Patriarch) Stupa and he occupied Shanquan Monastery as his own possession and he repelled the forces of the Caodong lineage. Hansong Zhicao departed the monastery in the ninth month of the twelfth year of Kangxi (1673). Since Tongxiu had now obtained Shanquan Monastery, he made his follower Baisong Xingfeng the abbot of Shanquan. Xingfeng wanted to convert the Chen Memorial Shrine into the abbot’s quarters, but the Chen clan did not consent and then suddenly burst into the monastery with fists and cudgels. Xingfeng burnt the wooden tablet of the Chen clan. The Chen clan gathered, swore a blood oath, set fire to and destroyed the monastery, and killed over ten members of the monk assembly. Xingfeng knew he could not escape and so self-immolated. Tongxiu sent a letter to the provincial office and wrote a letter to his nephew in the Dharma, Tianzhu Xingzhen (a disciple of Ruoan Tongwen), entrusting him with the protection of Baohu Lean Stupa. The authorities arrested the Chen clan members and jailed them. The clan head, Chen Bang admitted his crime. Also, because of this Tongxiu “did not eat a grain of rice, and he carried his own bowl and robes, travelling and crossing the Yangze to go north till he came to Layman Sun’s house, where he changed his style to Wuzhu …. He came to Ciyun Hermitage in Qingjian Pu (Bay), displayed signs of a minor illness and passed away.”12 According to the investigation by Professor Chen Yuan, having learnt of the murders by the Chen clan, he “enquired after their clansmen of Jingqi and had pain remaining until that time.” Based on a line in Zhaoqi’s Yulin nianpu that “This matter was connected with the rebellion of the three feudatories [Wu Sangui, Geng Jimao, Sheng Kexi],” Chen 12

Xu Zhiyue lu, “Biography of Yulin.”

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Yuan also thought that “Yulin then avoided the rebel armies, fleeing helter-skelter to the north, changed his sobriquet and hid in his house, fearing that [the armies] would bring him to his death.”13 Chen’s theory is comparatively objective, and if it was not the case, then the escape north and the change of sobriquet could not be explained through conflict with the clansmen. One may say that Zhicao keenly felt pain at Tongxiu’s theft of Shanquan Monastery. Therefore, he spared no efforts in his attack on Tongxiu. He used the form of a “universal sermon” to rebuke Tongxiu, and his coarse words and vicious remarks filled his pages. He said, Do not learn from those fellows who bully people by flaunting their powerful connections and the group that wins favor by deceiving the public, who bribe and apply to broadly link up with the powerful and influential, craving delicious food to satisfy their tastes, and who occupy large buildings by pleasing their residents. Stealing other people’s monasteries, they say it is my ancestor’s monastery. Stealing people’s residences, they say it is my ancestor’s residence….In particular, do not think that from the Qi [dynasty] to the present, since the courts have in all changed a number of times and the reigns further changed, that an ancestor is an ancestor to whose ancestor, and that the inheritance is an inheritance from whom? Compared to this [long history], this matter of annexation has yet to be seen by people in the world, so how could they persevere in regarding him as being the same as these bald-pate robe-wearing monks who only act to expel people and occupy [the monastery]? At one time a monk spoke, bringing law cases against those without a gate (monastery). What is even more risible is that this monk made use of the pretext of repairing Lean Stupa as a scheme to gain entry into the monastery. How is this not the greatest wrong of wrongs? But Lean was a person of the Ming period, whose place of birth and residence is clearly known and whose departure from this world is clearly known. He was not a monk of Shanquan. His friend Ji’an allowed him a stupa, which is the reason why it could be placed in Shanquan. How could he [Tongxiu] spare no pains to deceive himself and deceive the world? He conspired to occupy Tianmu [Monastery], but the monks and laymen of Tianmu uncovered the plot. He tried to confiscate Yushan [Monastery]. But Yushan put out a notification about this near and far. He encroached on the boundaries of Longchi [Monastery], but Longchi’s Hufa sent out a letter accusing him of this, and the Reverend Pingyang printed a Congzhou lu (Record About Following the Zhou) in order to charge him [of committing a crime]. Now he also annexed Shanquan and I ascended the hall and sounded the drum in order to attack him, and Daofang left Wanglin, putting out the theory about the annexation of Shanquan in order to denounce [Tongxiu]. All of this happened without prior consultation….This is exactly [the result of claiming] that it is not necessary to keep the precepts and vinaya; that it is not necessary to practice sam¯adhi and prajñ¯a; that it is not necessary to cultivate morality; and that it is not necessary to remove sensual desires. Does it not specially give rise to harm of the large monasteries and harm to the true Dharma-gate over ten-thousand generations! Brothers, if one hesitates [to believe this], listen to another g¯ath¯a: “Wanglin succeeded to the style of the greenwood (outlaws),/ And was used to occupying monasteries and attack to be his own skill./ Tianmu and Yushan were made into villas,/ Shanquan and Dizang [monasteries] were made into temporary palaces./ What do strong words and great meanings mean?/ Saying that only they are loyal is instead disloyalty./ People do not know of their violation of favors and deceit of rulers,/ For the Dharma-gate also has such scheming scoundrels.”14

13 Chen Yuan, Qingchu sengzheng ji, fascicle 3, “Shanquan changzhu zheng” (Dispute Over the Permanent Property of Shanquan), 1962, pp. 83–84. 14 Requoted from Chen Yuan, Qingchu sengzheng ji, fascicle 3, “Hansong yulu,” 11, “Zhime pushuo” (Universal Sermon Pointing Out Delusion), 1962, pp. 81–82.

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Viewed only in terms of the language and letters, this long passage was definitely not a “universal sermon” that talks of Chan, but is a condemnation in speech and writing, to the extent of being a work of swearing in public. Zhicao’s clash with Tongxiu that arose in relation to monastic property used a universal sermon to record all sorts of bad words, and since it had already violated the Buddhist monastic system of the shared property of the Order, this use of a sermon was also a violation of the Buddhist injunction of “harmonious speech with no disputes” and the Chan spirit of transcendence. Yet it can be seen from this that it was a fact that they curried favor with the influential, had delicious food to eat, and that the concepts of glory and profit were held and expanded upon, and that hedonism had already filled the Chan monasteries. Because of this, they did not hesitate to commit themselves to armed force, splatter blood in the halls of the saints, or fight cases in the law courts. One can also see that Tongxiu recovered the patriarch’s courtyard (monastery) on the pretext of protecting his ancestor’s stupa, and drew support from the powerful and influential to occupy monastery properties. Of course, Zhicao was also involved in his own battle to steal monastery property and also drew on Daomin, a member of the same class as Tongxiu, who had the same interests, to attack Tongxiu for stealing monastery properties all over the place, at Tianmu, Yushan, and Longchi, which explains that Shanquan Monastery was no more than one of the monasteries that he had illegally occupied and that in reality Tongxiu was a repeat offender who was steeped in evil and refused to repent. These stories really are a bit exaggerated. In this passage, Wanglin really indicates Yulin Tongxiu, and later people often misinterpreted this as Zhicao avoiding the taboo name of Tongxiu, who at that time was full of arrogance. However, Tongxiu’s abuse was such that this observance of a taboo was entirely unnecessary. In reality, when the character yu 玉 lacks a dot it becomes the character wang 王, and in satirizing his bullying, the sentence “Wanglin succeeded to the style of the greenwood” further explains this point. The dispute over the property of Shanquan definitely arose from Tongxiu’s theft of the monastery’s property, but it cannot also explain the correctness of the Caodong lineage. Even though Hansong Zhicao’s “Zhimei pushuo” (Universal Sermon Pointing out Delusion)’s attack on Tongxiu caused the prestige of this national teacher (Tongxiu) to hit rock bottom, it also exposed the longings for glory and profit of Zhicao and others. At that time, Tongxiu’s fame in the Dharma was widespread. He was extremely powerful and arrogant, and monks like his fellow pupil Daomin, who harbored thoughts of glory and profit, and Zhicao, who was seen as being of a “different category,” harbored thoughts of jealous hatred. They were green with envy of Tongxiu, which is a reasonable surmise. Again, Professor Chen Yuan put it well: “Who is it that regards this as being a dispute over factions? The fight was over individual power!” “We really must not ask who was right and who was wrong.”15 In fact, this dispute precisely reflects the period when the Chan School of the early Qing tended to participate in the world, when it attached itself to the government and the government had an influence on the vicissitudes of the school. Chen Yinke said, 15

Chen Yuan, Qingchu sengzheng ji, fascicle 3, “Shanquan changzhu zheng,” p. 82.

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“The public may regard religion and politics as being different things, since these two cannot be discussed together or be mixed together, but what existing historical reality reveals is that religion and politics ultimately cannot be disconnected.”16 The dispute over Shanquan and even the rights and wrongs of the early Qing Chan School can all corroborate these words. With regard to what they have said, being in power, they definitely could use power to oppress people, and not being in power, how could this not have been a fight to get power? The transcendental nature of Chan’s no-thought and no-dwelling, obtaining the inherent mind, seeing the nature and becoming buddha, here for them have already all been lost. The people of the time greatly lamented the collapse of Chan. A person said that Buddhism equalizes other and self, equates acquisition and loss, and in the world all “belongs to the enjoyable and the admirable, which did not operate in the slightest among [these Chan monks].” Monks “forget their bodies and are embarrassed by its form, repress their nature and overcome their desires.” However, “looking at the present, there is a great difference from what I have heard [about Buddhism].” The Chan School practice of bullying and humiliation, and seizure of property made this person “think of escaping into the homeland of quiescence in the west (Pure Land) to satisfy myself. What I will employ to do this will be to return to calm!”17 This story and “being able to cast off the entanglements with factions at court, but being at daggers drawn as before in the Dharma-gate,” are the marvel of different approaches being rendered with equal skill. There was no difference between the style of the Chan of the early Qing and the mundane style, so how could it not make those who would escape into Chan feel deep resentment at this? Speaking of government, in feudal despotic states, in reality, this actually lay to a great extent with the likes and dislikes of the ruler. To a certain extent, it was not an error to seek the support of the regime. But, to totally rely on the government, to the extent of availing oneself of imperial authority to exclude those who differed with one, meant not only that one could not build or perfect an independent system of thought, but it also meant that it was possible, due to the volatility of the political elements that could be destroyed in a morning, that by being dependent on political power one could likewise perish along with those political elements. Since Tongxiu relied on the external protection of the emperor for his glory, Zhicao could do nothing but curse, “Just watch with cool detachment the crab and see how far it can sidle sideways [observe from sidelines and see how far the wrongdoer can go].”18 In the eighth year of the Qianlong era (1743), three disciples in the second generation from Tongxiu were ordered expelled by Emperor Qianlong (r. 1736–1796) for that reason The emperor directed the expulsion of these three men for “being rotten seeds in the lineage-school within the Buddha-dharma, and for being stubborn people who have become an obstruction to the mundane law.” Thus, the power and prestige of “receiving an order to proceed to the capital” had hit rock bottom. Based on this, 16

Chen Yinke, preface to Chen Yuan, Mingji Qian Dian Fojiao kao, Zhonghua shuzhu, 1989, p. 1. Chen Qinian (Chen Weisong, 1626–1682), Jialing wenji (Collected Writings from Jialing), “Zhimei lu xu” (Preface to Records Pointing at Delusion). 18 Hansong yulu, 5. 17

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Emperor Qianlong also issued a discussion, saying that these people “are nothing more than the tainted forms of vulgar thought, who use the external protection of the emperor for their glory …. One must use the solemnity of the emperor and the chief officials for the promotion of Buddhism. How is this [what Tongxiu and others have done] the Buddha-dharma?”19 These words of Qianlong can expose the weak points of the Chan monks of the early Qing and they also explain that in the development of thought, in particular the development of Chan thought, that it is unnecessary to curry favor, and also that it was unable to curry favor with the government. In discussing the development of thought and culture, in the view of Hongli (Emperor Gaozong, i.e. Qianlong), one should be better than one’s father (i.e., Yongzheng). Daomin (1596–1674), style Muchen, sobriquet Mengyin, lay surname Lin, was a native of Tuyang in Chaozhou, Guangdong Province. When he reached majority, he was moved by reading the Dahui yulu, and he joined and was tonsured by Zhiming of Kaixian Monastery on Lüshan. He returned to the laity once, married and had children, but at twenty-seven sui he again became a monk. He received the full precepts of a monk from Hanshan Deqing, and in the end he returned to Mt. Jinsu to obtain the Dharma from Yuanwu. In the sixteenth year of the Chongzhen era (1643), he succeeded Yuanwu as abbot of Tiantong Monastery. In the sixteenth year of the Shunzhi era (1659), he succeeded Tongxiu and later responded to an order to proceed to the capital and have an audience with the emperor. He preached sermons for Emperor Shizu (the Shunzhi emperor) and Wang Xi. Before he departed, Shizu personally escorted him out of the capital and granted him the title of Chan Master Hongjue, praising him: The Chan monk Daomin transmitted the Linji lineage and he was able to realize the tenet of non-birth. His ability naturally was profound and radiant, which allowed him to pass through the barrier of improvement….Of course, he had already gained mastery, and he could be a leader of the Dharma-gate, which allows him to be titled a venerable of the Chan assembly, and so I use this to enfeoff you as Chan Master Hongjue, and I grant you an imperial seal.20

After this, Daomin took his staff and returned to his mountain puffed up with pride. On his journey back from the capital city to the Wu-Yue region, he encountered “devotees flocking to him,” and he bragged in celebration of this: “Due to the respectful veneration by the emperor,/This has developed your thoughts of admiration [for me]./So you will know the virtue of the gentleman (ruler),/His style (wind) has moved this fellow to admiration.”21 He also told a person of Yue that one needs “to broadly promote thoughts of love and respect, and you should have respect for one’s ruler and father.”22 After this, he wrote his Congzhou lu, Beiyou ji and Baicheng ji (Baicheng Collection), built the Kuihuan Pavilion and the Yushu lou (Tower of Imperial Letters) in order to show signs of his loyalty and devotion to the new monarchs,

19

Chen Yuan, Qingchu sengzheng zhuan, end of fascicle 3, p. 86. Xin xu gaoseng zhuan, fascicle 22, in Gaoseng zhuan heji, p. 489. 21 Daomin, Beiyou ji 5. 22 Ibid, 6. 20

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writing, “I whole-heartedly repaid his grace and repaid his virtue.”23 He died in the thirteenth year of Kangxi (1674), aged seventy-nine sui. Daomin’s Chan learning is not worth mentioning. The sermons he gave in the palace were no more than words like “good and evil are produced from the mind” and “an awesome shout.” He also had the idea of merging the three religions, and at times, although he had words to enlighten the benighted, he also spoke nonsense to hoodwink an ignorant emperor. In the Zou dui jiyuan (Memorial to the Emperor on Opportunities for Enlightenment) the emperor asks, “Also, what about the learning of Confucius and Mencius?” Daomin answered, “The Zhongyong speaks of the nature of the mind, which it attributes to the Mandate of Heaven, which is for the most part the same (daduan tong) as the views of Laozi and Zhuangzi.” These words are purely those of an idiot talking about impractical ideas, and although he could be misleading in front of the emperor, it was difficult to do this perfunctorily with experienced people. In Xu Changzhi (1582–1672)’s record of the above story, Xu wrote the following paragraph: Because the discussions of the assembly had been slightly obstructed, I sent a letter to the elder (Daomin) requesting he change the two characters daduan (for the most part) for buxiang (be unrelated to), so that one can see that Confucius and Mencius are not the same (buxiang tong) as Laozi and Zhuangzi. The elder did not send a letter of reply.24

The discussion of the assembly being slightly obstructed is clearly a frank reference to the theories of Daomin producing doubts and being inappropriate. The letter sent by Xu pointed out Daomin’s errors and also that he, Xu, had wracked his brain to the utmost by not stating it was an error but by saying “change the two characters.” However, Daomin was opposed and did not accept this, which also showed Daomin’s attitude to doing scholarly research. Nevertheless, in the advancement of the secularization of the Chan School, Daomin had considerable creativity, especially in relation to the forging of links with government. On the fifteenth day of the eleventh month of the sixteenth year of Shunzhi (December 1659), at the emperor’s order Daomin preached a sermon: If, when I meet a person of [Si]chuan-Guang[xi] I speak Sichuan-Guangxi talk; when I meet a person of Min-Zhe[jiang] I speak with them in Min-Zhejiang talk; when I meet a person of Jiang[su]-Huai[nan] I speak to them in Jiangsu-Huainan talk; and, if, when I meet with a person of Chang’an I speak to them in Chang’an talk; then you can say that I am a Dharma king and have mastery of the Dharma. Why? [Because] the people living in a vast country value their region, but when the water [from the regions] reaches the great ocean it is completely pure.25

Adapting himself to the actual circumstances, responding to different people differently, following the ups and downs of customs, was also a turn towards the 23

Daomin, Baicheng ji, 20. Xu Changzhi, Wuyi Daoren lu (Record of the Monk Wuyi), last fascicle. Daomin had said, “all for the most part are the same as Zhuangzi and Laozi.” 25 Beiyou ji, fascicle 1. 24

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secular of the Chan School’s way of thinking, in which all that is manifested is perfect and one leaves things to accord with conditions, but if we take his words of valuing living in a vast country at face value, then that was Daomin pandering to the new court and making his arbitrary interpretation of Chan thought. At the time, the monastic and lay worlds looked upon Daomin as being like shit, precisely because he changed his loyalty to serve the new dynasty and used this link to the new power to sing his own praises loudly and conspicuously in those days, often relying on power to pressure people. The Juyi lu (Records of Juyi) by Wang Shizhen records these events as follows: Sir Muchen Min of [Mt.] Jinsu at the end of the Shunzhi era responded to an order to go to the capital where he was granted the title National Teacher Hongjue,26 and when he returned south to the Huai region, he socialized with those who were in power, his arrogant bluster eminent, his followers like clouds, and he was the cause of gossip in the region. Once he arrived in Jinling, a certain pupil offered Zhang Zhe several hundred gold coins, and he came to borrow money in response. In the yisi [year] of Kangxi (1665), I visited Huashan and saw Vinaya Master Lü. The master frowned and said to me, “In his heart and on his face, there are only the five characters ‘Great Reverend and National Teacher.’” Recently, Chan Master Chuyun of Qixia also said, “Wherever present-day eminent monks and famous Chan monks go, they arrogantly show off in order to demand they be seen and listened to. There are officers who took measures to forestall them, as if they were treacherous people.” This meant [Dao]min.

At that time Daomin’s arrogance was boiling over, and compared to the time before he responded to the imperial summons, this arrogance cannot be mentioned in the same breath. Words of dissatisfaction with eminent monks and famous monks were explicit in these statements, and many of the gentry repudiated them. It is normally recognized that the reason Daomin was spurned like this had its original cause in his betrayal of his lord to seek glory and changing allegiance to serve the new court, of being an individual in the same mold as Qian Qianyi. Professor Chen Yuan said, “Before he responded to the order to meet the emperor, he had a deep longing for his former country like the loyal and righteous gentry. His Jianyan (Recommendation of the Strict) has detail, and his Chun kui (Spring Sunflower) has style, which could not overcome the sadness over the original shrine (of the Ming) and thoroughly described the pain of Meishan (a hillock inside the Beijing Imperial City [symbolizing the last Ming emperor]). But in no time was he an envoy galloping off to the new court.”27 In the conquest of the North China plain by the Aisingoro (the Qing, Manchu royal house), the gentry harbored longings for the lost Ming dynasty, and one after another they escaped into Chan. In these circumstances, the criticism of the behavior of Daomin in changing his lord and serving a new one is entirely understandable, and it was not an error to compare him with a person like Qian Qianyi. In other words, “The Haoqi yin xu (Preface to the Laments for Noble Spirits) was written by Qian Qianyi for Qu Jiaxuan.28 Quan Xushan (Zuwang) ridiculed Qian 26

It was Chan Master Hongjue, not National Teacher. People called him National Teacher. Chen Yuan, Qingchu sengzheng ji, fascicle 3, “Pingyang Yushulou zheng,” p. 71. 28 Tr. Qu Jiaxun (Qu Shisi, 1560–1651), whose teacher was Qian Qianyi, was a Ming loyalist and martyr who refused to surrender to the new Qing dynasty, unlike his teacher. 27

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for his complete shamelessness, but then Muchen (Daomin) wrote his Congzhou lu xu (Preface to Record About Following Zhou). Is this also not being completely shameless!”29 This fickle faithlessness in changing allegiance was truly detested and therefore people of the time often satirized him. “The elders of Jiangdong spoke of rises and falls,/The catkin willows in the spring light [lasted] for another ten frosts./ In vain there is a cuckoo sadly gazing at the emperor,/There being no more parrots to remember the Radiant Emperor (Xuanzong of the Tang)./The Tang imperial tomb’s wheat meals sadly are cold food./The Han [sacrificial] meat of the s´raman.a (monk) is [meant] to pray for the emperor above,/Pointing out the bystanders all with flowing tears./The bell for the lecture hall struck, the evening clouds were yellow.”30 They used the metaphor of the parrot for Daomin’s response to the summons. The entirety of the poem is related to one person having two masters, and from start to finish it was judged that he no longer behaved like his former self, and it can be said that such words of criticism had yet to end. There was also a person who playfully wrote two couplets, directly satirizing his person: The letters transmitted the lamplight recorded as northern travels (beiyou), Hoeing up a mountain as if constructing an imperial letters’ tower. From now on he will not lament the new catkin green, At once permitting the Moushan flowers and birds to be sad.31

In fact, this was only a superficial phenomenon, the genuine root cause being Daomin’s dependence on the external protection by the emperor to get his glory and because of his excessive deception of the Dharma-gate. Therefore, this provoked mass rage. Daomin’s Dharma-successor disciple carried a knife to pursue and kill the author of the poem, Dong Xunzi.32 This shows how extreme their bullying was. Zhangxue (Tongzui, 1610–1695) had said to their faces, “To dominate the courtyards of the patriarchs (Chan monasteries) you will need to wipe out the two houses of Feiyin.” He could not but “make a promise to the assemblies,” and then Zhangxue’s anger subsided.33 Not only was Daomin a bully, he also loved a fight. His fights included the dispute with Tongxiu over the abbotship of Tiantong, the dispute over the stupa inscription of Tiantong, the dispute with Hongchu over the signboard of “Miyun (Yuanwu) overwhelmingly propagated,” the dispute over the Xueqiao Stupa of Yunmen, and 29

Chen Yuan, Qingchu sengzheng ji, fascicle 3, “Pingyang Yushulou zheng,” p. 78. In the tenth year of Shunzhi (1653), Daomin collected his colleagues’ verse and prose into a collection called Xinpu lu (Record of New Catkins), taking the idea from Du Fu’s lines, “The slender willows and new catkins, for whom are they green?” This collection was much transmitted and intoned for a while. This poem and others were all ridiculed by the words “new catkin green.” The poem is seen in Loudong shizi shixuan (Selection of Poems of Ten Sons of Loudong), Wang Kui, “Du Shanweng Dashi ‘Xinpu lu’” (On Reading Great Master Shanweng’s ‘Xinpu lu’). 31 Poem by Dong Xunzi, see Xu Yongshang qijiu shi (Continued Old Poems of the Elders of the Yong Area), fascicle 91. 32 Xunzi mozhi (Grave Inscription of Xunzi). 33 Zhangxue jinian lu (Chronological Record of Zhangxue), “Shunzhi shisan nian” (Thirteenth year of Shunzhi). 30

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the dispute over the Imperial Letters Tower of Pingyang. What Daomin wrote were not works to curry favor, but they were texts to expose the faults of people and to attack them. A few examples will be given to glimpse an element of them. The Congzhou lu was a work of currying favor and changing one’s allegiance to a new dynasty. The preface reads: The Lulun (The Lu Version of the Analects) says, “The Zhou [dynasty] ruled for two generations with a refined culture! I follow Zhou.” The ancestors of Confucius were originally people of Yin and yet he did not speak of distinguishing between Yin and Zhou in their times. Why? Since he trod on Zhou ground and consumed the products of Zhou, he did not dare discuss its branch lineages, and since he was outside of the officials and subjects of the Zhou [ruler], he had an ambition to be superior to them. Boyi alone did not agree to follow Zhou and therefore he did not eat the millet of Zhou, and so he starved to death at the foot of Mt. Shouyang. Then Sima Zichang (Sima Qian) wrote a “Biography of Boyi,” but I do not know what it was based on, and he described his writing of songs that wrote of his anger. Now, [King Wu of Zhou] arrayed his army at Muye and the vanguard foot-soldiers were felled by axes, and the lands of the Yin were already incorporated into the Zhou domain. Were not the thorn-ferns of Xishan (west hills) [that Boyi picked] the thorn-ferns of Zhou? Picking the thorn-ferns to eat, even should it drag out [life] for a morning and an evening, how is that different eating the millet of Zhou? For this reason, I know that this poem [in the Biography of Boyi] was not a poem by Boyi. However, King Wu had attacked Zhou (the last ruler of Yin), and even though it was called a military suppression of a rebellion, still he was a nobleman of Yin, yet in a morning he proposed a negotiation but then attacked the Great Shang (Yin) army and eliminated the ancestral shrine [of Yin]. This greatly revives the debate as to the reasons why King Wu was not a sage. In relation to his destruction of the Yin army, it was the same as the loss of the country by the Ming and making King Wu the king was the same as the rise of Shizu [of the Qing]. If so, then Boyi was about ready to assume office in service of the Zhou, so how could he live at Shouyang and be pure and so starve? So then the world definitely has those who oppose becoming venerated ministers and oppose becoming scholars of the state, and they often appeal to [the example of] Shouyang in order to promote themselves, but then they are already ignorant of the meaning of the following or disobedience of Zhou and Qing! There are also those fellows with round skulls and square clothes (monks) who especially imitate this, praying to be broadly famed. Are they not also greatly deluded? Now, if one grandly becomes a monk, one should obey the words of the Buddha as your teacher. Did not the Well-Departed (the Buddha) say, “The three realms are like spots before the eyes (illusions) and the four [categories of] beings are like dream illusions,” thinking the three realms and four categories of beings all appear due to the power of karma, just as there are sense-objects in dreams that become completely non-existent after one wakes up. Therefore, it is said that if a person can recognize the mind, the great earth will not have an inch of ground. To be a follower of the Buddha and not discern that the Dharma-realm is nothing-but mind and yet pursue pure radiance (a well-ordered political system) in a dream is to have already lost the correct eye [of appreciation], so how can one open up a path (teach) humans and gods? The regulations of Buddhism state that bhiks.us (monks) cannot reward rulers with enmity. If one correctly gives rise to this thought, then hatred and harm will search you out and there will be no end to it, so how would the three groups of pure precepts not all be broken at once?

Ultimately, Daomin followed Zhou and did not imitate Boyi picking thorn-ferns on Shouyang, which action would be to avoid the Qing and preserve his integrity. Rather, he joined the new court and congratulated himself on the prospect of gaining a good position. This originally was a complex political question and an ethical question, and it is difficult to take one side and say this is right and that is wrong. Nevertheless,

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Daomin evidently was justifying his behavior using fallacious arguments. He not only distorted the meaning of “following the Zhou” and denying the poem of Boyi, but he also used the Yin as the equivalent of the Ming and the Zhou as the Qing. He also said that Confucius was of a branch lineage of the Shang (the Yin) but became an official and person of the Zhou, and that therefore Boyi also was ready to assume office in the service of the Zhou. How then could he fall into the distress of Shouyang? This position entirely agreed with his seeing some person saying some words about the idea that living in a great country was valued. He even took the Buddhist theory that the four elements are all empty as a basis and his dismissal of the gentry’s longing for the lost country of the Ming as being “a well-ordered political system in a dream.” He viewed joining with the new court as being of “the Dharma-realm of nothing-but mind” and he used the regulations of Buddhism to dissuade people that they should not “reward a ruler with enmity.” This was preposterous in the extreme and can truly be called an absurd piece of writing. His adoption of obeying the system of regulations of the Zhou or saying that this had cultural implications, which were interpreted as him becoming an official and subject who followed the Zhou, in particular revealed his ignorance and his scorn for dealing with the two realms of the monkhood and laity. (This was a distortion of the original meaning and a transmission of the error, similar to his saying that the mind-nature and Mandate of Heaven of the Zhouyong are for the most part the same as Laozi and Zhuangzi.) Xueqiao Yuanxin and Yuanwu equally obtained the Dharma from Huanyou Zhengzhuan, but this person (Daomin) alone did not transmit the Dharma. He only taught Huang Duanbo who died for his country at Jinling and Xu Qirui who died for his country in Zhedong. At the time they were called the Pair Who Were Devoted to Incense. Ding Yangong’s Ming shi zayong (Miscellaneous Odes on Ming Affairs) has a poem in praise of them that says, “Tiantong’s Dharma-heirs fill the human world,/ The attendants of Wanshan are presented to the imperial visage,/And there was only Shiweng (Daomin) who did not transmit the whisk [to a disciple],/And the mental incense of the Pair Who Were Devoted enhanced the rivers and mountains.” However, the Chandeng shipu (Genealogy by Generations of the Chan Lamplight) written by Daomin excised only Yuanxin, in which we can see his gloomy psychology. What his Beiyou ji recorded in particular displayed his opportunistic qualities that adapted to the circumstances. The emperor saw the Chandeng shipu and said, “This book of yours, reverend, is a very good collection, but why doesn’t it record Great Master Xue[qiao] under Reverend Huanyou Zhuan?” The master said, “Originally his name was before that of Qingshan, but because Master Xue himself said that he was in a lineage from Yunmen, when I first corrected it, I removed his name.”34

Nevertheless, Yuanxin Xueqiao early on had an explanation of this: It was just because he had seen the Yunmen yulu in Shanyin, and therefore at that time he burned incense in offering to it. Then a person said that he was a distant heir of Yunmen, but in fact that was an erroneous transmission. Daomin then falsely claimed that Yuanxin “said himself that he was in a lineage from Yunmen,” and he used this to fob 34

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off Emperor Shunzhi, but really this was a painful secret. Later, seeing that Shunzhi respected Yuanxin, he again included him in the Chandeng shipu, saying also that, The present emperor is kind to evil forces and is obviously in the style of the emperors of antiquity, but he was addicted to the Way and he sought out worthies, not asking [me] how humble they were. Hence, ever since the mid-winter of the yihai [year, 1659], the imperial carriage went out in all directions, widely visiting the elder monks of the Chan monasteries….Only with the Elder Xueqiao did he busy himself daily speaking of his lofty style and excellent rhymes, especially thinking of him with much esteem. When I left the palace to return to my mountain, he (Xueqiao) still used Daoying to purchase and seek his support, and so was not the present emperor’s relation to the elder an old connection surviving into the present with a wicked person in Yunmen Monastery in Yuezhou, a famous monastery of the east of the empire? The elder Xueqiao in reality launched his career there, was enlightened there, preached the Dharma there, and returned to the true (died) and was buried there….I have heard that the gentleman-ruler loved being close to him, respected what he venerated, and was entirely treated by him as a subject who was like his son. The fact that he was valued by the ruler was undoubtedly all like this.35

Daomin flattered the “present emperor” to the maximum, since the emperor “especially thought of him with great esteem,” but he also pretended to be serious about wantonly adulating Yuanxin as number one, “using thoughts of the extreme promotion of love and respect, it being said that there should be admiration of the ruler.” In this, he affiliated Yuanxin with Yunmen, which was glossing over his previous theory that had rejected Yuanxin, and he bragged “that he treated him as a subject who was like his son” with the meaning of admiration for the ruler, which especially revealed his servile insinuation into the emperor’s favor. In reality, the additions and deletions in the lamplight records were made in accordance with the will of the author, which was usual. However, the root causes were not the same in each case. Nevertheless, Daomin’s deletion of Yuanxin and then his addition of him was a change from arrogance to humility, all shifting in accordance with the will of the “ruler.” It is no wonder that state scholars and Chan monks despised him as being like shit, viewing him as being “a criminal of the lineage-school.” Daomin not only flattered the ruler, he was also especially able at despising subordinates, and his love of dispute and expertise in abuse was famous. The events of making the signboard that wrote, “Miyun overwhelmingly propagated” being then changed by Hongchu into “room [where it was] personally heard” and his viewing of Hongchu to be a great enemy and using this to attack the other party are the best topics to illustrate this. In this regard, his record of Fanzheng (Opposition to the Correct) and the theory of Duni (Preventing Opposition) were denunciations he used to create the letter “Fu Lingyan Chu zhi Chanshi shu” (Letter of Reply to My Nephew Chan Master Chu of Lingyan). At the time, the former Grand Academician of the Eastern Pavilion and the magistrate of Wujiang County, Xiong Yushan and Qian Qianyi wanted to mediate, but this infuriated Daomin, who angrily accused Yushan, “You are not the magistrate of Wujiang, and I also am not a registered resident of Wujiang.” Then he slapped Yushan on the spot. Yushan did not know whether to 35

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laugh or cry, as this was something unheard of. Therefore, Huang Zongxi presented a poem to Yushan that said, “All of Po[yang], a draft of remonstrance, a branch country account,/Dangerously raising the topic of monks being enemies within the same house./Having cast off the entanglements with factions at court,/They were at daggers drawn as before in the Dharma-gate.” This says that Yushan was humiliated by Daomin. In his return letter, Daomin still made reference to the Shuquan ji (Collection of the Treed Spring): What is most resented is that an originally south-travelling petty hawker only sold the falsehoods of Li the Fourth (a common person)….After any event is finished, there will be many books exaggerating it. This is seen in the Shuquan ji! How are these not your words of the everyday life that seem to be all dressed up to win fame by deceiving the public?….Being able to succeed to the thieving bald-pates (monks), he now takes Gufu on Tiantai as his own residence. So then, on that day, why not look down over the commoners and descend (be born) into the world, convert and lead sentient beings? But you must pass through the path and be in awe while passing Huangyan [in Taizhou, Zhejiang], where, remote, on a distant bypass, is the family, so why return? If you do so then your desire is to deceive the world, but the world is not deceived by you; you desire to win fame and yet you do not win fame. This ultimately cannot be stolen by a single text. Up to now these are the empty actions of a person who is not good. Is that not what to call you? If others rope one in over and over, and you link up with important power holders and scheme [to take] Jingshan and grab Jinsu, with the appearance of seizing gold in broad daylight and with the shyness of a poisonous snake loving its hole, and the great rudeness, excessive rudeness, and increased rudeness of the Demon and Brahma [kings] and the asura (titans) that are the cause of the sufferings of fire, sword, and blood smears, and the evil conditions and conditions of extreme hindrance; these are all taken up in full in your person.

Daomin poured out a string of invective, akin to that of a harridan shouting abuse in the street, and really even worse than that, against Hongchu, whom he called his own nephew (in the Dharma). The Shuquan ji is the recorded sayings of Hongchu in the period from the xinmao and renzhen years of Shunzhi (1651–1652), and among the monks there were many who were murdered and Hongchu was implicated, but due to omissions in the written record, the details are unknown, but clearly he did something. Xu Zhaofa wrote a preface for it, calling Hongchu “the physical-bodied bodhisattva (Huineng) mentioned by Yinzong and the person who transmitted the seal of the Buddha-mind (Bodhidharma) mentioned by Baozhi. The monks and laity in the country unanimously respected him.” The reason why Daomin hurled a string of abuse at Hongchu was probably because he mixed in politics and due to impulsive elements. Huang Zongxi responded to a request from a disciple of Daomin to compile a preface to the Baicheng ji as follows: The writing of this elder of your mountain (monastery) cannot avoid the laying on of decoration. But in producing what accorded with his feelings, since he had no concern for whether people were right or wrong, and was not concerned whether he was right or wrong, he laughed merrily or he cursed angrily, all of this inundating (overpowering) the literary (civilized) mind.

Huang regarded Daomin’s text of street-level abuse to be most improper. In the fifth year of the Yongzheng era (1727), the emperor wrote comments on a memorial to the throne by Li Wei, writing, “The lineage-school of Muchen’s line are criminals,

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so why is it worth valuing their Dharma-genealogy?” The “following of Zhou” that was all the rage for a time in the Shunzhi and Kangxi reigns, which was in the time of Chan Master Hongjue (Daomin), by the first year of the Yongzheng era (1723) had fallen to the fate of being “criminals of the lineage-school.” Is that not lamentable?

Part 2: The Linji Chan Masters of the Early Qing (B) Xu Changzhi was a native of Yanguan (present-day south-west of Haining County in Zhejiang). His Dharma-name was Tongchang, his style was “Jinzhou” (Sincere Zhou), and his separate sobriquet was Wuyi Daoren. He studied Confucianism when young and was appointed a disciple of the Erudite in the university. Because he heard the Lengyan jing he had a realization and turned to faith in Buddhism. He bowed to the famous Linji monk Feiyin Tongrong as his master. He wrote Zuting zhinan (Guide to the Courtyards of the Patriarchs [Chan]), Bore xin jingjie (Explanation of the Heart Sutra), and Fayuan xingshi (Garden of the Dharma that Awakens the World). In the eleventh year of Shunzhi (1654), he compiled and published his Gaoseng zhaiyao (Abstracts of the Eminent Monks) in four fascicles. The Zuting zhinan, also called the Zuting dizhuan zhinan (Guide to the Legitimate Transmission of the Courtyards of the Patriarchs) holds that the Chan School of Feiyin Tongrong, his master, was the only legitimate lineage, which it pushes back to Nanyue and then Caoqi (Huineng), and then to the Buddha as patriarch in a single-transmission genealogy, which is really the single-transmission of the Linji genealogy. As with his teacher, Xu also put Yunmen and Fayan under the Nanyue division, saying that “Zu (Mazu Daoyi) produced Linji, Weiyang, Yunmen, and Fayan.” His source material followed the Wudeng yantong, and he directly participated in the then contemporary dispute between Linji and Caodong schools. As its name implies, the Gaoseng zhaiyao is a simple introduction to what history had called eminent monks, and the essentials of the part covering from the Han to the Yuan dynasty took its material from the Gaoseng zhuans of the Liang, Tang, and Song, and Ruxing’s Daming gaoseng zhuan, and also Huihong’s Chanlin sengbao zhuan, Puji’s Wudeng huiyuan, Zhipan’s Fozu tongji, and the anonymous Ming-period Xu Fozu tongji (Continued Unified Annals of the Buddhist Patriarchs) et cetera. The chief value of this book lies in its recording of the lives of a few monks of the Ming and early Qing. According to what Xu himself said, A biography of an eminent monk is for example like empty space, its reality (ti) not a collection of characteristics, but it is not developed by rejecting the mass of characteristics. How then is a biography (transmission) correct and continuous? Whether it is the Liang or whether it is the Ming [accounts], in total there were four volumes, all of which used ten categories [of monks]. I was surprised at this, saying, there is a basis (teacher) and there are colleagues, so how can you say there are no peers? There are the restraints of models and the restraints of exemplars. How can one say that [an eminent monk] walks alone?

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In Xu’s view, the previous biographies of monks were all categorized into ten classifications as a layout, and since there are peers, one cannot talk of them walking alone. Therefore, he wrote, I stopped with a division into four fascicles, which I have named a zhaiyao (abstract of essentials). The first [division] are those who were eminent at adopting the Way, who ambitiously cut away the discrepant paths, and remarkably distinguished and clearly eliminated the toing and froing. The second are those who were eminent at adopting the Dharma, and even though they spoke in detail, they did not divulge information, and from antiquity to the present they eliminated the gaps. The third are those who were eminent at adopting the qualities, and where they were transformed, they alone had mastery and all their concerns ceased, they obtained the tenets by according with conditions, what more did they seek? Sentient beings create and ride this force, and one stream of numinous light revolves everywhere. The fourth are those eminent at adopting transformations. The sun and moon do not shine down and heaven and earth are not covered over, and in the conflagration at the end of the eon in a period of destruction, they were always calm, and when all phenomena disappeared, they were completely revealed.36

Xu took the four classifications into the Way, Dharma, qualities, and transformation, and he regarded these monks as walking alone and being without peers. In reality, this also has no creativity. In addition, he came from the Chan School and his method of writing resembled that of the lamplight records. The great majority of the records of the Ming and Qing parts were of Linji and Caodong monks and their contents were mostly Chan sayings. Even though the author was a Chan monk, his status still determined this book’s nature of a gentry talking Chan. Wang Han (1610–1672), Dharma-name Jiexian, style Yuanyun, another style Yuanda, and his sobriquet was Huishan, and also Baweng, was a native of Taicang in Jiangsu. His father Mengqiu, sobriquet Layman Anxiu, was sincerely attached to immortals’ Daoism and Buddhism, which he cultivated for forty years, writing the Sanjiao zhenquan (A True Explanation of the Three Religions). Wang Han studied with the Confucian student Zhang Cai (1596–1648) of Taicang, and became a student in the Chongzhen era. Because he was influenced by his father’s study of Buddhism, he held Buddhism in very high regard and therefore with his teacher Zhang Cai “discussed the literary arts past and present, being rated very highly by him, but once he talked of the Buddha-dharma, [Zhang’s] face reddened and he reproached [Han].” Later, “Due to the jiashen incident [1644, when Shunzhi proclaimed himself emperor of a new dynasty], he wept at the separate shrine, burnt his books and became a monk.”37 He joined Fazang’s heir, Jude Hongli (1600–1667), and was tonsured. “In the summer of the gengyin (year, 1650) he entered Mt. Lü and then he became an abbot to the north of the Yangzi.”38 Even though Wang Han lived in seclusion inside the Buddhist Order and deeply longed for the previous country, he proclaimed a denunciation of the Ming subjects who submitted to the Qing, saying: On a spring night, at a banquet in the Pear Garden (theatre), 36

Xu Changzhi, Xu gaoseng zhaiyao (Account of the Gaoseng zhaiyao). Jiexian, Xianguo suilu (Record of Accord with Present Results), fascicle 1. 38 Leidong qijiu zhuan (Biographies of the Elders of Leidong). 37

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Not thinking of the tears at the head of the dark green pond. At midday, looking at a boat race, Who mourns the soul above the Miluo River [where the rejected loyalist Chu Yuan suicided]?

In the sixth year of Kangxi (1667), Hongli died, and Jiexian succeeded as abbot of Lingyin Monastery. He was a famous Linji monk of the early Qing who had abandoned Confucianism and escaped into Chan. His Dizang chanyi (Repentance Ritual of Dizang/Ks.itigarbha), Chanmen duanlian shuo (On the Theory of the Refinement of the Chan School), Shami lüyi bini hecan (Regulations and Vinaya for Joint ´ aman.era), and Xianguo suilu were published. Consultation by Sr¯ The Xianguo suilu was printed in the Kangxi era of the Qing. Even though this is not a work about the Chan School, still it was a work by a person who had escaped into Chan relating stories of the recompense for good and evil from the mid-Ming period to early Qing society. It is definitely worth consulting for understanding the circumstances of the society of the end of the Ming and early Qing. The tigers and wolves (violent people) camped at the steps of the imperial palace still spoke of cause and result. One can also say that this is a work that blazed a new trail. At the start of the book there is a preface by Jieshi Jingshou. The preface writes, The relation of cause and result is just like that of shadow and body. If the body already exists there, the shadow is sure to follow. If one desires to set the shadow upright, one first makes the body erect. If the body is erect, how could the shadow not be upright? If one does not set the body erect and wants the shadow to be upright, it would be for example like boiling water and not taking the water off the fire, so even though one wanted to cool it this would not happen. This is a common teaching of our Dharma-gate and the worldly (Confucian) scriptures also have this [teaching], which they call yinde (hidden virtue) and yangbao (evident reward). How is this not what we call cause and result?….These words are profound. Again, in reading these accounts, [one sees that] they greatly praise the merits of nianfo (mindfulness of Buddha), and so we know that he was a person in the Lotus Society (Pure Land). The whole work just records what he had personally heard about current karma, current influence, and current result that mature into different [births or later times] and is not what is obtained now.

Jiexian’s use of the Buddhist theory of causation to talk of the reward of fortune for good and misfortune for depravity was originally a union between Buddhist thought and Chinese traditional concepts, which had already accumulated in the culture of the Chinese people and was also an ideological basis for the folk Buddhist ethical concepts of promoting good and stopping evil. This preface in particular points clearly at this point. According to what it has written, as is seen in Jingshou’s note, Jiexian promoted nianfo. Nevertheless, the whole text talks about what he had personally seen and heard of “current reward,”39 and yet it was not like his other works in the same category that largely talk of the “later reward” in a future period. These can equally be seen as the joint cultivation of the easy practice of the Pure Land in the turn towards the secular in the Chan School and to be a tendency towards realism. 39

There are three rewards in Buddhism: those of the present, birth, and after. Things done in this life are produced as the reward of [re]birth; things done in this life that are rewarded in another time are the later reward; and things done in this life that are rewarded in this life are current reward. This is a warning by Buddhists and is an ethical concept encouraging good.

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As the preface says, this book “records all that he had personally seen and heard concerning cause and result in the present.”40 It included 108 stories of the recompense for pure good and for evil. Each story has a title and at the end it has, “Baweng says,” recording the source of the story and an expression of his own impressions. Since all that it records is what he personally saw and heard, even though he added color to the plot of the reward, still it recorded the social life of those times and the news that spread like wildfire in that society. It is comparatively real and believable. For example, in fascicle three, “Wujiang lu congquan baoen qiyuan lixue” (A Bound Dog of Wujiang Circuit Repaid Kindness with a Strange Injustice Being Revenged) records an event in Wujiang. The Shen family, who had been officials for generations in Cang Bridge to the south of Wujiang, had a number of account boats. They ordered their servants to visit the villages to demand the rents. Just then an Anhui merchant joined one of the boats and he happened to see a butcher tie up a dog to kill it. The merchant opened his leather trunk and redeemed the dog, unaware that he had revealed his valuables. Servants of the Shen thought of killing him. They bound the merchant and put him into a big hemp sack and sunk it to the bottom of the river. And the boat directly left. The released dog moaned on the river bank, then shrank back several tens of paces and leapt into the middle of the stream and dragged at the bag with its teeth, then rushed up onto the bank. It did so a number of times and the bag was gradually dragged closer to the bank. A passing boatman was alerted and he used a boat-pole to fish around for it, and when he got the hemp bag, he saw there was a person in it. He emptied the bag of the water to release him and the man gradually revived. The two characters “Shen residence” were written on the bag so everybody knew that this belonged to the Shen official house. As a result, due to the merchant leading the dog and carrying the bag and presenting it to the Shen residence, the head [of the residence] ordered the bag stored in a secret room. Not long after, that night the account boats returned. By counting the hemp bags, it was found only one boat was missing a bag. Because they were questioned, the servants said, “It was accidentally blown off by the wind into the water.” The head ordered the gates of the residence be closed and he called the merchant and the dog forth, and together the six scheming servants all kowtowed and verbally admitted their guilt. Then the chief called the officials, who nailed the servants up on a plank gate and burned them alive. Baweng says, “This event happened when I was about twenty, but all the people transmit it differently.”

The Jianwen lu (Record of What I Have Seen and Heard) by Zhixu also has a record with the sense of a dog rewarding kindness. It was truly like Jiexian’s “all the people transmit it differently.” The story originated with a cotton merchant surnamed Duan of Chizhou, who came to Dingjia zhou in Anhui to purchase cotton. One can see that this event had a sensational effect and was not unfounded talk. It was just that the news of a dog saving a person in a strained interpretation was made into a present reward for doing good, and this appears to have been a sensation. Besides this, the “Taicang shuiluji Zhong shengui xianyi” (The Manifestation of Anomalies of Spirits and Ghosts in the Period of the Land and Water Mass of Taicangshui) story of fascicle two that was used to attack the “Yiyou (second year of Shunzhi, 1645) Widespread Massacre and the Flooding in of Vengeful Ghosts” can likewise be seen to have been a true record of those times. It also shows that although

40

Jiexian, Xianguo suilu, fascicle 1, appended note beneath the title.

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the author had hidden himself in Chan monasteries, he still mourned for the ghosts of the Miluo River41 and his feelings for his former country. Chaoyong (fl. 1650–1693), style Luncang, was a Linji monk in the fourth generation from Tiantong. He wrote the Wudeng quanshu (Complete Texts of the Five Lamplight Transmissions) in 136 fascicles, which is the largest of the Chan School lamplight records. It starts from the seven buddhas of antiquity and goes down to the thirty-seventh generation under the Nanyue division, and down to the thirty-seventh generation under the Qingyuan division. “In time it covers close to 3,000 years, and totals 7,000 people.”42 It is over two million words. At the start of the text there is a preface written by the emperor in the thirty-second year of Kangxi (1693), which shows how great its influence was in the early Qing. The Kangxi preface says, Ever since the teaching of the lineage-school appeared, following Caoqi the five branches repeatedly developed and each had its texts. After the Song dynasty Jingde [era], these were collected as the Chuandeng [lu] and other records. This was followed up by also engraving the essentials and collecting them to form a volume, which became the Wudeng huiyuan….Now the monk Chaoyong of Shenggan Monastery was again concerned with the genealogical tree being increasingly confused and what he heard and saw was not identical [with that tree]. He used his extensive searches and broad examinations to strike a compromise between compilations [indicating the Wudeng huiyuan and Wudeng zuanzu (Continued Inheritance of the Five Lamplight Transmissions) by Haikuan of the Qing] which he consulted and revised. He deleted the redundant and confused and added that which had not been provided to form the complete texts. He took care, which can be called diligent. He spoke very often about the letters and documents recording the words of mutual confirmation and verification, with rare examples and involved metaphors. And his pointing at the essential tenets was only wanting to remove delusion in order to return to the nature that is true, not going beyond putting up barriers against perversity and the preservation of sincerity, with the intention of enticing people to be good. It was not only to remedy the teaching of the Chan School and that is all.

Evidently, Kangxi did not take this book to be a pure work of Chan history. He also emphasized that it could remove delusion and could return one to the true nature, could be a barrier against perversity and preserve sincerity, entice people to be good, and also had the intention of assisting royal civilization. Chan thought definitely had an ethical function of advancing virtue and increasing good, but Chaoyong’s core focus was in skillfully seeking the truth of the mind-nature and emphasizing the purifying function of people’s morality via the Chuandeng lu. If so, it can be said that this is a distinct feature of Kangxi’s preface to this book, and it may be said that this is a sign of the turn towards participation in the world by the Chan School of the Qing dynasty. At the same time, modern Buddhism promoted “seeking the Buddha Way above, converting sentient beings below,” and consequently the preface completely agrees with the advocacy of the Buddhist learning of human life.

41

Tr. symbolic of the souls of those loyal to the Ming who lost their lives at the hands of the Qing Manchu. In 1645, the Ming forces at Nanjing collapsed, and there was a massacre by the Manchu forces in Yangzhou, and the Ming emperor was captured. 42 Chaoyong, Wudeng quanshu muxu (Preface to the Contents of the Complete Texts of the Five Lamplight Transmissions).

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In the thirty-first year of Kangxi (1692), the prefaces by Jingming Yuangu of Beijing’s Yuquanshan and Chaokui (Wenguo) of Huayan Mnastery were in the main pointing to the disputes and disorders of the Dharma-gate at that time when they said, The Dharma Way of the present age is heading downwards and evil teachers appear one after another. They indulge in power and profit, and roll up their sleeves for a fight. Oh yes, these really treacherous fellows work together to make Buddhism into a sport. And yet language and letters are the path that in the past was used to raise up and discover the essentials of the lineage, but now they use them to gnaw away at the body of the lion. Those who undertake the mission of insight have no time to look up at their house and to wring their hands, yet what could they do but give rein to pondering it and to commend the forms of the Dharma that came from the past? Our elder brother Xuewen (Chaoyong) was greatly pained at this and made a determined effort, and so he used up his concerns and thoughts to engage in writing and editing, taking pains to do this for thirty years, by which time he had produced a complete draft.

From this, not only can it be known that the Dharma-gate (Buddhist Order) of these times struggled for power and profit, which influenced the development of Chan thought, but also created direct affirmation of lettered Chan and history. As they saw it, language and letters are tools to promote the style of the school, and now language and letters had been changed into maggots that gnaw away at the body of the Chan School. Therefore, Chaoyong determinedly wrote the complete texts so as to spread the Chan style. In fact, the result was truly like this, and also, needless to say, one can just see from this that the bad influence of the disputes among monks in the early Qing also created a headache for Chaokui and like-minded Chan monks and the need for them to roll up their sleeves. However, what the preface authors said was that he “took pains to do this for thirty years.” This was evidently somewhat exaggerated. According to what Chaoyong wrote, from the guihai (year) of Kangxi (1683), when he entered the capital, he extensively verified and broadly selected material, and by the thirty-second year (1693) he presented the Wudeng quanshu to the emperor and he requested the emperor write a preface to it. So the period of time was precisely ten years (guihai was the twenty-second year of Kangxi, 1683, and it took to 1693). In his memorial submitted to the emperor he wrote, “Your subject, a monk, did not tolerate ignorance and I used my ambitions [to rectify this] for ten years.” One knows that the completion of the Wudeng quanshu did not take thirty years, but ten years. In his preface and the memorial to the throne, Chaoyong also wrote: I carefully used the collections bequeathed from the past to the present to seek out the facts and [where] the logic was not appropriate and the words were redundant and false I have deleted them; and where the tenets are non-dual and the key points are profoundly in accord, I have added them. Following that, I examined and corrected the lineage books, and I set forth the main features. I did not use the donation of money to interfere with this, my duty was, I hope, to clarify the branches and threads. I quoted theories to justify [my selections], each of which had a basis and there was nothing in it that I did not investigate exhaustively….Checking through the compilations bequeathed from the beginning and searching through the lineagebranches of the near present, [I have checked that] the words have no distortions or non-truths, the language conforming to the lamplight of the [transmission of the] mind.

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In sum, Chaoyong had searched through old texts, made additions and deletions, and also sought out new lineage masters of recent times to provide supplementary accounts, which he dared to consider to be the Complete Texts of the Five Lamplight Transmissions (Wudeng quanshu). This title was really based on his work. The sayings of Chan masters recorded in the Wudeng quanshu “who had extant records, were all selected separately and I did not follow the old text. If there was no record to compile, then I took them from the Wudeng huiyuan and other books, selecting the essentials and deleting the prolix.” That is to say, the Wudeng quanshu made every effort to avoid duplication of what was in the original lamplight record and in all the recorded sayings that were published and in circulation, and it separately selected the language and sentences of enlightenment opportunities that had not been previously recorded. If there were no recorded sayings transmitted in public, he relied on the content of existing lamplight records, but he proceeded to organize them by “deleting the repetition and selecting the essentials.” On the other hand, the generational order recorded after fascicle 69 for the Chan monks that the author had newly supplemented and entered, included the thirty-fifth, thirty-sixth, and thirtyseventh generations of the Nanyue division, and the thirty-seventh generation of the Qingyuan division. Accordingly, “The branch divisions multiplied and at one time it was difficult to ascertain them in their totality, and so then I recorded whatever I could obtain. However, in following the generational order, I adhered strictly to the order of the Dharma-succession.” This is understandable. The three primary rules of, “the sayings all being separately selected,” “adopting the essentials and deleting the prolix,” and “recording whatever I could obtain,” made this book, when compared to other texts of the same genre that were published before and after it, far more valuable and distant from the vulgarity and extremes of the Wudeng yantong. These other works cannot be mentioned in the same breath. Here I shall not quote each example. Chaoyong was a Linji monk and he placed Yunmen and Fayan under the Nanyue division, and he maintained the theory of the two Daowu. Thus, it was probably difficult to avoid the controversial dispute. Consequently, he also provoked the anger of Caodong monks and the arguments were carried out in writing. Ruibai Mingxue’s second-generation disciple, Zhuoan Zhipu wrote Cuncheng lu (Record of Preserving Sincerity). The first imprint and the second imprint were made to contest these arguments of Chaoyong. The Dianguang lu (Record of Lightning Light) also has five letters to Chaoyong. The second letter censured Chaoyong: Thinking it over on a clear night, can you not be without shame at your writing of this false book of falsities and errors that deceive people and cheat the public? Mr. Yong, Mr. Yong, what were you seeking by saying this? It is no more than confusing the lineages of other people and magnifying one’s own genealogical tree. I am afraid that the n¯agas and devas will not bless you for such thinking and behavior, and the decrees and regulations [of Buddhism] will not accept [this], and in the hall of the lineage mirror there will be nowhere for you to put your feet, and the three mires [of unhappy rebirths] and paths of suffering will have a place for your body!

This flood of words and invective and the impulses that are between the lines were too vigorous. Therefore, the Canwei ji (Collection of [Mt] Canwei, by Wang

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Shizhen, 1634–1711) has a letter in reply to Chan Master Zhuoan, which poured a large dash of cold water over this debate. The letter said: The great printing of the two records of Cuncheng fully informs us about the great pains taken in defending the Way. In regard to the reason why it has not been responded to, it is that [Chan Master] Tianjie [Jue]lang Zhangren [1592-1659] gave Feiyin [Tongrong, 1593-1661] a gongan passage, which he spread in all directions, and until now it has been regarded as a pretext, so it seemed unnecessary to bother with the pen and tongue [to respond]. And Zhang Wujin’s conduct influenced people to make oral statements, so how are these words enough to make them existent or non-existent? Enmity and familiarity are equal, so how can there be fights? Only my master has judged this.

The disputes of the Wudeng quanshu also involved other people of the monkhood and the laity, and its content was also related to the question of the “repeated emergence in the five generations” of the Caodong genealogy (This is the five generations of Tianxia Zichun [1064–1117] and others following Furong Daokai), and as this issue is too complex, I shall not mention it again. For details, see Chen Yuan’s Qingchu sengzheng ji.

Part 3: The Caodong Chan Masters of the Early Qing The power of the Caodong lineage in the early Qing was far from equal to that of the Linji lineage, but the disciples of its members could match those of the Linji lineage. The majority of them were students of Zhanran Yuancheng and the school of Huijing. Weilin Daopei was the rare talent among the students of Yuanxian. His Dharma-lineage was directly continued down to the middle of the nineteenth century. Juelang Daosheng also rather enjoyed a high reputation, and among the gentry group, in particular among the people still loyal to the Great Ming, he was especially praised. The author of the Famen chugui (Removal of the Traitors Within the Dharma-gate of Chan), Jingfu (fl. 1641–1672) in 1667 critically examined the errors and distortions of Chan history, and corrected those falsities and errors. The merits of this should not be overlooked. Daopei (1615–1688), style Weilin, self-sobriquet Lübo and Feijia sou, was a son of the Ding family of Jian’an in Jianning (Jian’ou in Fujian). His ancestors had been Buddhists for generations and when he was fourteen sui he joined Baiyun Monastery to the east of Jian’an commandery. He was tonsured the next year and at eighteen sui he followed Wengu Guangyin (1566–1636) to ask about the Dharma. Guangyin knew that he was a vessel for the Dharma and directed that Daopei consult Yongjue Yuanxian. In the seventh year of Chongzhen (1643), he went to Gushan to consult Yuanxian. Consequently, he became an attendant on Yuanxian and he examined the huatou of the cypress tree (of Zhaozhou). He made a hut on Mt. Baiwen and together with his elderly mother he cultivated the work of purification for five years. In the seventh year of Shunzhi (1650) in the Qing period, he again went up to Gushan where he was appointed deacon (weina). In the fourteenth year (1657), Yuanxian conferred the sa˙ngh¯at¯ı (patch robe) and duster on him, and so he became abbot of

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Gushan. The next year, Yuanxian passed away, and Daopei succeeded to the post and gave the inaugural sermon of a new abbot, and as a lineage-master of Caodong he spread its teaching. He stayed at Gushan continuously for fourteen years, and in the fourteenth year of Kangxi (1671), he relinquished his post to his nephew in the Dharma, Shichao Ning. He left the mountain and travelled, “and wherever his staff went he created a teaching monastery.”43 In the twenty-third year (1684), in response to requests from the monk assembly, he returned to Gushan. The year of his death is unknown. According to the Huanshan lu xu (Preface to the Record of Returning to the Mountain), it should have been after the twenty-seventh year of Kangxi, that is, after 1688. Daopei’s lifetime of writings were very rich and according to his own declarations there were some twenty texts in forty-four fascicles. They included Bingfu lu (Record of Holding the Whisk), Gushan lu (Record of Gushan), Canxiang lu (Record of Receiving Incense), Huanshan lu, Fahui lu (Records of Dharma Meetings), Chanhai shizhen (Ten Treasures from the Ocean of Chan), Jingtu zhijue (Directions on the Pure Land), and Biyu (Written Sayings). His Huayan shulun suanyao (Compilation of the Essentials of the Commentaries and Treatises on the Huayan jing) in 120 fascicles and his other works cannot be equaled by the works of anyone else in Chan of that time. Daopei felt acute pain at the abuses in the Chan School of the early Qing. In his view, the mechanisms used to teach people by the five lineages were not the same, and yet “they all expounded the move (method) of the World Honored One’s lifting up of a flower, directly pointing at the human mind, seeing the nature and becoming buddha, and that is all,” expressing his tendency to use Caoqi (Huineng) to synthesize the five lineages. Nevertheless, the Chan School of that time ignored this “one move.” He criticized this, saying, The times are those of the last period of the Dharma (mofa) and the capacities of people are inferior, and since students are of the mind of inaction (wuwei, nirvana) and birth-and-death (samsara) and there are also few genuine inheritances from a master, they only use the whisk for fame and profit as their concern and fight over individual egos to be their service. They congest the neighborhoods of the common people, forming common practices and customs. A former master said that today’s Linji is incompetent Linji, needlessly denying Caodong, and Caodong is incompetent Caodong, needlessly denying Linji. These words sum it up.44

In fact, the monk disputes of that time were often fastidious about fame and profit. Daopei availed himself of the words of Yuanxian to explain the nature of the self-destruction of the Chan School. It should be said that this showed keen insight. Daopei likewise thought that the disputes over the Dharma-succession that were based on the factions should not be taken up. He pointed out that, as with Boshan Yuanlai, who sought an heir very much, that in fact he had no one to succeed him. Therefore, Yuanlai went without an heir in order to preserve the integrity of the Way. He waited for people to come later, for “How can present people excessively confer succession on each other, and then say that one has got the person [who is your 43 44

Gong Xiyuan, Lübo an gao xu (Preface to the Manuscripts of Lübo Hermitage). Daopei, Yunshan Fahui lu (Record of a Dharma Meeting at Yunshan).

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successor]?” Daopei borrowed Yuanlai’s words to express his concept of succession to the Dharma: “Matters in the lineage-school value agreement with the mind-marrow….If one does not get that person the milk will have water added to it and the taste will become insipid.” Using these words to examine this problem, at that time Boshan denied being without a view and he willingly cut off people of the Buddha’s seed (lineage). My view is likewise. Therefore, for over ten years I wanted to find a genuine person [literally, one and a half] who had a true mind but I could not get him. Also, how could I approve of just following the waves and pursuing the billows [i.e. going with the flow] and use the mission of insight of the Buddha and patriarchs to create a vulgar stream (lineage)? Is this made known?45

Daopei claimed that there is a “genuine inheritance from a master” and that the aim of this lay in an “agreement with the mind-marrow,” and that therefore if one did not get the right person that would be filling the inheritance with unqualified people. Thus, even though the succession would be continued, the Dharma would be greatly damaged and one would be confusing one’s own lineage. Therefore, whether there is an heir or not is unimportant, for there were those like Deqing, Zhenke, Zhuhong, Zhenyuan, and Yuanlai whose inheritance from a master was unconfirmed, and they also had mixed learning and mixed practices, but they were famous Chan masters of the age. Daopei not only had nobody of the Dharma-gate to confer the succession on, he also told the assembly of monks that after his death they were “not to make a separate stupa,” and that “If I die on this mountain it will be enough to follow the normal rules for a deceased monk and send me off by cremation, collect my bones and place them in the relics cavity of the stupa for the assembly. If I die on another mountain, bury me where I have died and do not under any circumstances shift [my body].”46 One can see that he was much opposed to sectarian views and that he was rich in the spirit of reform and in expressing the natural and unrestrained nature of being a practitioner of Chan. Daopei’s Chan learning was inspired by that of Yuanxian. He traced his lineage back to its source in Caoqi, who viewed human nature to be intrinsically awakened. He emphasized the inherent transcendental spirit of developing introspection of one’s own mind, seeing its nature and becoming buddha, which he called “the one move.” He pointed out that “What is called buddha is not the external buddha with characteristics; it is that person’s intrinsically existent nature of numinous awakening.” “Those who now do not believe the Buddha’s words are not believing the Buddha’s words but are not believing their own mind.” At the same time, he also told people that even though “the intrinsically existing nature of numinous awakening” is always present, “if the three types of karmic action [of deed, word, and thought] are pure, then it (the nature) will appear, and if they are impure then [the nature] will be hidden.” Because “Evil has the function of rebelling against the nature, if the Buddha-nature follows it (the evil), the [Buddha-nature] will be hidden, which doctrine says is extinction (nirvana). Good has the merit of conforming with the nature, and therefore if the Buddha-nature follows it, [the Buddha-nature] will be 45 46

Xuzang jing, collection one, section two, fifth volume, p. 499. Daopei, Huanshan lu, fascicle 4; quoted text is as in the previous note.

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present (revealed), which doctrine says is appearance in the world [birth of a buddha]. Therefore, those who study the Way should at all times check on and compare their three karmic actions, not commit any evil, commit to practicing all that is good, and by themselves purify the mind, which is the intention of the buddhas.” The own-mind and own-nature are determined by one’s own actions, and transcending the world has the sense of participation in the world. This is a form of Buddhist dialectical thinking of the interaction of cause and effect. Daopei also said, The thousands of sutras and tens of thousands of treatises broadly refute the two views that body and mind [exist], and once the two views have been refuted, the Buddha-nature of itself will appear. If the view of the body is refuted, then the illusory body is the Dharma-body; if the view of the mind is refuted, then the illusory mind is the numinously radiant self-nature. The so-called real nature of ignorance is the Buddha-nature, the empty body of illusory transformations is the Dharma-body.47

Purely saying “do not commit evil, commit to doing good” is just speaking at the level of behavior, which is insufficient to show the nature of Chan. Theoretically speaking, there is only the eradication of the two views of the body and the mind. Only then can one show the inherent, naturally pristine Buddha-nature, which is to say that there is the eradication of the view that there is a self and only then can one transcend the dualistic forms of thinking, and only then can one attain the realm of enlightenment where one roams freely. That is self-enlightenment and the path that must be followed of introspection of the internal mind. If so, then the real nature of ignorance is the Buddha-nature and the empty body of illusory transformation is the Dharma-body; non-delusion, and lack of enlightenment, and the three of sentient beings, mind, and buddha are undifferentiated. This is the most excellent sphere of Chan. His emphasis on the realm of enlightenment and highlighting the transcendental spirit of Chan clearly cannot be said to be a creation of Chan thought. Nevertheless, in the circumstances of the Dharma-gate of that time being engaged in a battle of words and being at daggers drawn on all sides, his firm protection of Chan’s concept of transcendence is rare and commendable, and Chan thought relied on this protection for it to be able to continue and develop. It was exactly because of his unwavering holding fast to Chan thought that he was able to unceasingly rely on texts to explain sutras, write books to establish theories, and propagate Chan learning to the end of his life. In addition to this, there was his reverence for Zhixu in styling himself a bhiksu (disciple) of Tiantai Zhiyi, and consequently he advocated the unity of Chan and Doctrine. Therefore, he complied with those guidelines and he extensively read the doctrines of the sutras and the commentaries, and printed and circulated the scriptures, which formed an important part of his activities. Daopei also advocated the joint practice of Chan and Pure Land. Yet he clearly denied the existence of a Pure Land on the other shore or an external Amit¯abha Buddha, but he reverted to the idea of a mind-only Pure Land, displaying the zeitgeist of a human-life Buddhist learning. He said, 47

Daopei, Yunshan Fahui lu.

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All the worlds in every direction are the paradise land, so where are the evil periods of the five impurities? All the worlds in every direction are the person themselves, so where is there an Amit¯abha? This land that is billions and billions [of worlds] away to the west is only the single thoughtmoment of a person and the purity of the mind is naturally by itself the purity of the Buddhaland, so where does one not encounter Amit¯abha?48

The western Pure Land is only in a single thought-moment, sentient beings are Amit¯abha, and Amit¯abha is sentient beings. Therefore, Chan is Pure Land and Pure Land is Chan, and if one looks back into one’s own mind, sees the nature and becomes buddha, naturally then one does not need to be on the other shore nor does one need to seek a Pure Land in the future. What one should establish is that one’s own mind is the Pure Land, and what one should build is a Pure Land on this shore. Chan and Pure Land happen to share the same view. Modern human-life Buddhist learning is established on such ideological foundations. Daopei’s thought also was an expression of an aspect of the merging of Confucianism and Buddhism. He said, Calm and reverence are the marvelous truths of Confucianism, which the Song Confucians picked out to instruct people. They gave rein to them to the utmost of their ability, and they (calm and reverence) were regarded as being the most kind [teachings]. This is where the Buddhists enter into the Way, so how could [Buddhism] exclude them. If one is further enlightened to the intrinsic reality of calm and reverence, it is like cutting down a tree to get the roots or to apply moxa to obtain the point [on the body]. These can be tested conveniently. Therefore, it is said that to learn Buddhism, first know Confucianism. How do these words deceive people?….If one deeply produces correct faith in the Buddha-dharma and researches it in detail, and one suddenly comprehends it thoroughly, only then do calm and reverence coincide with the Buddha-dharma. There is not a single sentence or word of the four [Confucian] books and the five classics that is not the primal meaning in the Buddha-dharma.49

Daopei takes calm and sincerity to unite Confucianism and Buddhism, but he thought that the Chan master does not just maintain his personal integrity, but rather is far above the aspect of saving the world. It is easy to see that he was promoting Chan and downgrading Confucianism. An interlocutor criticized this, saying that the great principles of Confucianism are the eight items; investigation (of things), attaining (knowledge), (the mind being) sincere, (thought) being upright, the equalization (of the family), the cultivation (of the body), governing (the country), and pacifying (the world); “but the Buddhists have stolen the first half [of the eight] to perform the techniques of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature, and they throw away the latter half and fall into being people who have no fathers and no rulers.” Daopei, not without ridicule, replied: The Buddhists have been able to steal the first half [of the eight], and they can throw away the latter half, but the Confucians to the contrary do not steal them or throw them away. They do not steal them and therefore profit and desire trouble their minds; their ambitions are 48 49

Daopei, Canxiang lu, last fascicle. Yunshan Fahui lu.

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bound up with officialdom. They do not throw them away and therefore they themselves do not believe that they will be buddha and willingly become icchantika (those beings unable to become buddha) and have no fear about this being so. Therefore, people in the past said that to serve the ruler in order to govern the state is not the equal of spreading the Way in order to save all countries. To serve one’s parents in order to form a family is not the equal of spreading the Way in order to save the three realms.50

It is evident that Daopei recognized that Buddhists stood on a higher plane with respect of saving people and liberating the world. A profound intention of the Buddhists originally was to purify society, beginning from the great basis and great origin in the human mind. Daopei did not disagree with this statement, but he also paid no attention to mutual salvation in a different culture or to the rise and fall of Confucianism and Buddhism. In fact, when did Confucians not govern their minds in seeking to govern the world? In modern times there have been not a few thinkers of Confucian background who have also properly cleansed themselves by correcting their minds, who have purified their morality, raised the quality of the people, and said that they were saving the state from doom and striving for its survival, strengthening the country and enriching its people. Also, according to fascicle sixty-three of the Wudeng quanshu, Daopei “wrote a Dongzong yuanliu bianmiu (Discrimination of Errors Concerning the Origins and Streams of the Caodong Lineage) in three imprints. As the basis for the lineage was Baiyan Jingfu, he arbitrarily changed the Jingde Monastery Longzang (Tripitaka)’s Zudeng datong (Great Lineage of the Lamplight of the Patriarchs) and excised the patriarchs of the correct transmission from the six generations (from Danxia), namely Chunliao, Yujian, and Jingjue. Therefore, he bitterly accused Baiyan of the crime of confusing and flooding the genealogical tree, seeking to correct the origins and streams of Caodong.”51 The details of this are unknown, but it can be seen that Daopei was also unable to completely escape from the influence of the monk disputes of the early Qing. Daosheng (1592–1659), sobriquet Juelang, and separate sobriquet Zhangren, was surnamed Zhang and was a native of Pucheng in Fujian. He became a monk at nineteen sui, and at twenty-five sui he took the full precepts of a monk in the school of Wuming Huijing. Later he pursued his studies with Huijing’s disciple Huitai Zhijing. In the forty-seventh year of Wanli (1619), from the age of twenty-eight sui he propagated the Dharma in the Min, Yue, Wu, and Chu regions for forty years. It was said, “In Jiangnan there was no greater excellent teacher than Juelang …. His fame permeated Chinese and barbarians without distinction.”52 Daosheng’s writings covered “over a hundred types of Buddhist patriarchal, Confucian, Daoist philosopher, Buddhist and non-Buddhist collections.”53 From this 50

Daopei, “Da kenan” (Reply to an Interlocutor’s Criticism), Lübo an gao, fascicle 4. The six generations of the correct transmission were Danxia Chun, Changlü Liao, Tiantong Yu, Xuedu Jian, Tiantong Jing, and Lumen Jue. Really, these are the aforementioned subjects of the dispute of “The Repeated Emergence in the Five Generations.” 52 Juelang Heshang yulu xu (Preface to the Recorded Sayings of Reverend Juelang). 53 Ma Jiazhi (fl. 1634–1643), Chongxian yulu xu (Preface to the Recorded Sayings of Chongxian). 51

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we know that a special feature of his thought was that it was mixed together. He thought that “A true Confucian must not ward off Buddhism, and a true Buddhist must not deny Confucianism,”54 expressing clearly a tendency towards the unification of Confucianism and Buddhism. All the gentry of the Ming and Qing periods appreciated his works very much, and his lay disciples, Li Changgeng and Zhang Zhensheng praised him, saying, The master had already discerned the inner sage and outer king [of Confucianism] and the profundities of the previous buddhas and later patriarchs in regard to the mundane and supramundane Dharma. Therefore, his spirit (mind) emitted profound tenets, brightly clarified the abstruse plans, and he did not specially dot the eyes [of appreciation of the Dharma] and cut out [false thoughts from] the mind, and he just revived the spirits of Confucian teachers and [Chan] lineage masters after death and took their lives.55 A few words of profound tenets [enable one to] grasp an example and so grasp the entirety, there are no particular benefits in Chan, as there are also benefits in Confucianism.56

A basic reason why Daosheng was gradually welcomed by the gentry of the early Qing was this harmonization of Confucianism and Buddhism, and also the Confucianization of this person and this book, which held a commonly felt appeal to the life of the literati. Nevertheless, what was even more important was that after the fall of the Ming, some gentry reversed course and curried favor with the new court; in the Chan institution there were also those like Daomin and Tongxiu who associated with descendants of aristocratic families, came and went in the court, abandoned their resentment about the loss of the country, and when they turned to worming themselves into the favor of the new court, Daosheng was also able to sing sadly of the rise and fall of states, and he harbored profound ethnic attachments for the late Ming. In the fifth year of Shunzhi (1648), as his book discussing the Way had the words “Our Emperor Taizu” (of the Ming) et cetera in it, he was thrown into prison. He wrote a g¯ath¯a in prison that said, Asking me what I am doing living in the emerald hills, Laughing, I do not answer, my mind by itself idle. The peach blossoms and flowing waters, depart without a trace. There is a separate heaven and earth, but it is not human.57

Later, having ascertained the facts, this book was written in the Chongzhen era when he first got to express his desires. But his pledge to be a loyal subject and unfilial son (in that he could not fulfill his duties under another dynasty) of the Ming monarchy can be clearly seen, and one can also calculate that he among the monks was one who had moral integrity. Therefore, he had friends like Qian Qianyi (who showed allegiance to the Qing), but he also had disciples like Fang Yizhi (1611–1671) 54

Liu Zongmo, Juelang Dashi taming bing xu (Stupa Inscription for Great Master Juelang with Preface). 55 Li Changgeng, Yuantong yulu xu (Preface to the Recorded Sayings of Yuantong). 56 Zhang Zhensheng, Tianjie Juelang Sheng Chanshi quanlu xu (Preface to the Complete Records of Chan Master Juelang Sheng of Tianjie Monastery). 57 Tianjie Sheng Chanshi quanlu (Complete Records of Chan Master Juelang Sheng), fascicle 20.

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and Ni Jiaqing (who were both Ming loyalists who became monks) among the crowds of the gentry. He also had the disposition of a Ming loyalist after the dynasty had fallen. Daosheng wrote poems such as “Yi Yin” (on a loyal minister in the Shang), “Guan Zhong” (on a minister in the Qi), “Zhang Liang” (on a minister of the Han founder), and “Zhuge [Liang]” and so on, which specially revealed his thoughts and feelings about loyal subjects and good ministers who accepted orders during periods of peril, and which naturally expressed his intense spirit of engagement with the world. Daosheng wrote works such as Hui zugui (Combination of the Regulations of the Patriarchs) and Zun zhenggui (Correct Regulations of the Venerables), which concentrated on expressing the synthesis of Chan, and all of Buddhist thought, while also reflecting the special features of the development of Chan thought in its later period. He said, The Way of our Buddha and patriarchs through to the five lineages also should have a major summation. Therefore, I wrote the Hui zugui in order to follow after the ideas of the grand summation of Confucius.58

The lifting of the flower by the Buddha-patriarch and the split of the five lineages, after a long division were sure to reunite. Therefore, he took as his task the compilation of these lineages and he also declared that this was made in imitation of the first teacher, Confucius, and his synthesis of the ideas of previous worthies. According to his words, it is known that the Hui zugui is a synthesis of the five houses and seven lineages that came from the two divisions, the Qingyuan and the Nanyue. The Zun zhenggui used the Chan School to synthesize the practice of the theories of all kinds of Buddhist texts and its sects. As the buddhas, bodhisattvas, and the lineage-patriarchs appeared in the world as men, with various kinds of sutras, vinayas, and s´a¯ stra pitakas, and courtyards (monasteries or schools) were set up for Pure Land, zhiguan (´samatha-vipa´syana) and repentance rituals et cetera, the profound subtleties of the innermost recesses of the schools, from beginning to end and from basic to derivative, are folded [here] into the Chan School, to be gathered into a great summation of the Buddha and patriarchs, there being nothing more to ascertain.59

Synthesizing the five lineages and further synthesizing the thought and methods of the various schools of Buddhism was a necessary trend in the development of Chan School culture. It also reflected Daosheng’s mixed learning and mixed practice, and his characteristic of not being restricted to the thought of one school. In order to explain the rationality of this entire synthesis, he also made a far-fetched comparison: Chan has five lineages making up its entirety; the sutras themselves have five teachings as their entirety; vinaya itself has five parts making up its entirety; the s´a¯ stras have five groupings making up their entirety. Our sutras, vinaya, s´a¯ stras, Chan, Pure Land et cetera are grandly unified in Buddhists, exactly as the Shi (Book of Odes), Shu (Book of Documents), Li (Records of Rites), Yi (Book of Changes), and Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals) are grandly unified in Confucians.60 58

Tianjie Juelang Chanshi quanlu, fascicle 19. Tianjie Sheng Chanshi quanlu, fascicle 21. 60 Tianjie Juelang Sheng Chanshi quanlu, fascicle 21. 59

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In order to coordinate the five lineages of Chan, he says that the sutras have five teachings, vinaya has five parts, and then he takes the content of the Tripitaka; the sutras, vinaya, and s´a¯ stra; to be the same as the concepts of Pure Land, the methods of Chan, or the two schools of Chan and Pure Land, and he lists them together and discusses them as an entirety. This is clearly a strained interpretation. Moreover, how do the sutras stop at only five teachings? The vinaya is not in five parts, and when it came to comparing them to the five classics of the Confucians, clearly this is a somewhat far-fetched and defying classification. Probably the true reason for this was that although Daosheng wrote many works, it was still difficult for him to occupy a clear position in Chan School history. Jingfu, sobriquet Weizhong, was a son of the Liu family of Lüling in Jiangxi. He succeeded Shiyu Mingfang (1593–1648) and was the Dharma dependent of Yuanmen Jingzhu (1601–1654). He was a Caodong Chan monk in the thirty-seventh generation from Qingyuan, and the events of his life and his literature are difficult to verify. Only the Zhengyuan lueji (Brief Collection on the Correct Source) says, The master preached for close to thirty years and his every thought was on the errors in [the texts of] the lineage’s teachings. Therefore, he did not shrink from having no scruples [about pointing them out], and he reprinted the Renyan tianmu kao (Investigation of Human Eyes and Divine Eyes) and wrote Zuting datong (Grand Entirety of the Patriarchal Lamplight Transmission), Niangui huiji (Collection of Old Cases Raised), Songgu zhaizhu (Selection of the Pearls of the Hymns on Old Cases), and Ouyan (Occasional Words) et cetera, a number of fascicles being published.

Jingfu’s Famen chugui was like a dazzling star among the monk disputes of the early Qing. The meaning of gui is a villain, and seen only from the phrasing of the title, it is a verbal expression full of the intention to denounce in speech and writing. However, speaking rationally in terms of its content and theories, even though it was difficult to avoid sectarian views, still there was a little of the disposition to stubbornly adhere to his own opinions. Because of this, its value is far beyond that of other works of the same category. At the end of the Famen chugui there is a note of over 1,700 characters by one of Juelang’s pupils, Shichao Daning. Its importance is no less than that of the Famen chugui. This note likewise refers to the question of Daowu and the affiliation of Yunmen, and he specially censured Jiexian (Wang Han, 1610–1672). He wrote, In recent years, the two houses of Linji and Caodong have fortunately been at peace and on good terms, which really is good fortune for the Dharma-gate. I never imagined that now there again would suddenly be a Shuijian who bought the foundations of the residence of the literatus Kong Weiran at the entrance to the imperial road to the south of the city of Jingzhou. There he built a hermitage, where he lived. For no reason, he made a far-fetched interpretation and put the name Tianwang Monastery on the signboard, deceiving the stupid, confusing the truth, and harming the right. Originally there was a Tianwang (Heavenly King) temple of the local land god to the south of Jingzhou city. The residents all kept the implements for the worship of the god and their village registrations there, so their [registrations] all said, “Sanctioned at the Tianwang temple of the local land god south of the city.” Such a Tianwang Monastery was unheard of previously. Those who [claimed that it] existed simply said that the Tianhuang Monastery to the east of the city was titled the chief monastery to the south of Jingzhou. [They claimed that] the reviver [of the monastery] was Chan Master

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Daowu and that this was the site where Longtan [Chong]xin offered biscuits and obtained the Dharma….Shuijian built the hermitage and worshipped the Buddha there, so why did he need to borrow the name of an old ruin [for his hermitage] to first achieve his aim? This name-borrowing also should have [involved] an investigation of the historical records of the commandery as to whether or not it existed among [the names of] monasteries and phalansteries, and if it did not, then one could borrow it. Now the borrowing was a deception without a basis, so how could it not be a fabrication? How could the stupidity of Shuijian come to this! Huishan apparently knew this and did not regard these as true or real words or as sincere, truthful words that were to be taken as credible, so then he raised that matter of the rudeness of Shuijian, and countered, writing of his faults and [how] he glossed over his errors, so how can [Shuijian] have been a knowledgeable person who saw the Way? I hear that Huishan also was a proper person of the Dharma-gate….So now he hastily wrote this text (indicates that Jiexian made a stele inscription of Tianwang Monastery for Shuijian), taking the wrong to be right, pointing at emptiness and saying it exists.

In sum, Daning’s note echoes Jingfu and it reflects the Linji lineage theory of two Daowu. It was only due to Jiexian (i.e. Wang Han, the Huishan in the note) having written the stele inscription that the dispute occurred again. After this event, Jiexian made a letter of response to Jiansou wanting to bring the dispute to an end. The letter said, I have received instructions [in a decree] about the stele text of Tianwang, which was originally not my basic intention. I and the knowledgeable members of the Caodong lineage are generally in complete harmony, so how can I agree to preserve the rising and ceasing mind, harbor the views of person and self, and have this inappropriate mind and action?…I am ashamed of this false action of one time and of having been involved in this dispute, which is hearsay and is really not credible history.61

Such being the case, this was the story of a good deed. The Famen chugui concentrated on the evidence, which was the problem. His evidence was as follows: 1. The enlightenment sayings of Baima Tanzhao (pupil of Nanquan) of the Nanyue division are recorded in the Jingde chuandeng lu and the Wudeng huiyuan, but some Chan School writings of the Ming and Qing confused one person for another and a recorded sayings for Tianwang Daowu was published. “So then following Mazu a Tianwang [Dao]wu was illusorily produced and they took the enlightenment sayings of Tanzhao and recorded them as those of Tianwang [Dao]wu. Thus, from beginning to end they did not omit a single word [from the sayings of Tanzhao] and there was not a difference of a single character.” 2. The Jingde chuandeng lu, Wudeng huiyuan, Zhengzong ji, and Zhiyue lu say that among the Dharma-heirs of Mazu Daoyi, “all are entirely without the so-called Tianwang [Dao]wu” and, “which of those like the Xuefeng guanglu, Lianzhu tongji, Fozu tongji and Xuanyao guangji and such books do not say that Longtan’s branch emerged from the Qingyuan division?”. In fact, there is a small note in the Wudeng huiyuan that says that the Zhiyue lu retains the theories of the two Daowu but does not discuss it, separately listing a 61

Chen Yuan, Qingchu sengzheng ji, fascicle 1, “Huishan Tianwang bei zheng” (Dispute Over the Stele of Tianwang by Huishan,” 1962, pp. 19, 21.

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“Tian” line. In regard to this Wudeng huiyuan note, Daning’s note explains that this note was added to the reprint of the Zhizheng era of the Yuan, but the Baoyu edition of the Song already had this note. In reality, the theory of the two Daowu had a definite relationship with the Wudeng huiyuan, so to only put the blame onto the Linjian lu and the Fozu tongzai is a sectarian view. This should have been given an explanation. 3. It is recorded in Huihong’s Chongjiao Wujia zongbai xu (Preface to the Reedition of the Five House Lineages) that it was said that the story that Zhang Shangying had obtained a copy of the “Tianhuang Daowu bei” (Stele of Tianhuang Daowu) from Tanying and Qiu Xuansu’s “Tianwang Daowu bei” was pure rumor. Because Tanying was an heir of Guyin Cong, who died on New Year’s Eve in the fourth year of the Jiayou era of Emperor Renzong of the Song (1059) and Zhang Shangying died in the eleventh month of the third year of Xuanhe (1121), sixty-three years later (note this calculation should be sixty-two years), Jingfu estimated that if Zhang’s age was seventy, when Tanying died Zhang would have been only seven sui; if Zhang was aged eighty, he still would have been no more than sixteen or seventeen at the time (in fact, Zhang lived to seventy-eight and his year of birth was 1044, and Tanying had departed the world when Zhang was fifteen sui, so the calculations were generally not discrepant). “This is exactly when [Zhang] was studying in school in preparation for the civil-service examinations and was diligent in literary composition and [seeking] scholarly honor and official rank, so he would have had no spare time. How then would he have had spare time for Buddhist learning? Even if he had spare time for Buddhist learning, it would not have been necessary for him to pay attention to the lineage vehicle (Chan). To pay attention to the lineage vehicle, it would not have been necessary for him to discuss matters that pertain to the institution. How do I know this? According to the ‘Biography of Wujin [Zhang Shangyin]’ ‘… At first he was appointed a Recorder, and when he saw the Indian Buddhist texts, he suddenly was angered and wanted to write a “Wufo lun” (On There Being No Buddha), and later he visited the same shelf and obtained the Vimalak¯ırti-nirde´sa S¯utra, read it, and for the first time could have faith in the Buddha-vehicle. At the time he was already over twenty.’” It can be judged from this that the theory of the two Daowu really was false rumor transmitting untruths, which lead to disputes. Jingfu’s theory says that it had a basis, enlightening people through reason, in particular in opposition to Huihong’s refutation, which was very persuasive.

Part 4: Yongzheng’s Chan Learning and His Jianmo bianyi lu In the early Qing, Wang Yangming studies had waned and scholars took a warning from the lessons of the loss of the Ming and championed studies of practical applications for managing the country. Even though the court promoted the Lixue of

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the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi, as the court had faith in Lamaism, they were also involved in giving praise to Chan thought. All the first four emperors of the early Qing; Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, and Qianlong; had close connections with the Chan School. In particular, Emperor Yongzheng (r. 1723–1735), who styled himself Layman Yuanming, posed as a teaching master of humanity, as a lineage teacher of transcendence, and he regarded the court as a Chan hall and regarded princes, nobles, and grand ministers as his friends in the Dharma, and he lectured on the Chan Dharma, wrote books to establish theories, directly participated in the monk disputes and settled which of the lineages of Chan were right or wrong, and he completely connected Chan thought and politics together. Due to the commendation by the emperor, Chan thought dazzled people’s eyes, and because of the emperor’s commendation the Chan School also went from bad to worse. Yongzhen, taboo name Yinzhen, was the fourth son of Kangxi. When young he indulged in books of history and he was well-informed about a great many books, and as he had investigated the sources of Song learning, he was also clear about the tenets of the Chan masters. It is related that when he fought with the fourteen sons and heirs of Kangxi, that Yinzhen obtained the support of the powerful lamas and so he rose to the position of emperor. This explains that he had a survive-or-perish political connection with Buddhists. This was also a distinctive feature of the turn of Buddhism towards engagement in the world. According to what he himself wrote, when Yongzheng was young he loved the Buddhist scriptures and he asked the lama Zhangjia Hutuktu (lCang-skya Khutuktu, 1642–1715) about the Way. At the time, he verified this with the Chan monk Jialing Xingyin (d. 1726). He “truly believed the instructions of Zhangjia, but he did not do so with Xingyin’s false approval, but he was still diligent in his researches.” In the midst of his ceaseless criticism of Xingyin and the Chan institution, he still had a self-realization of Chan learning. Yongzheng regarded Zhangjia as his “kind teacher who enlightened him,” and he stressed that he “was still diligent in his researches [into huatou]” and that he had criticisms of some Chan monks of past and present, and of the Chan style, which explains that he regarded himself as both human ruler and leader of the teaching. A distinctive feature of his thought was that he had the intention of creating his own Chan learning. The Lidai Chanshi houji houxu (Later Preface of a Later Collection of Chan Masters from Through the Ages) reveals comparatively fully the process of the formation of Yongzheng’s own Chan learning thought. The important point he emphasized was that he did not follow hackneyed expressions and that he valued what he himself had understood. This tallies with the fundamental tenets of Chan thought, even if what it concretely indicated was not exactly correct. In his stories about when he recognized the Chan School in his early years, there is a passage that very richly describes its theatrical hues: When I was young, I loved Buddhist scriptures and only longed to perform Buddhist services. I pushed and investigated gongan totally via the path of [intellectual] understanding, my mind belittling the Chan School, thinking that the correct teaching of the Thus Come One should not be like this.

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That is to say, his love of the Buddhist scriptures was an upholding of the performances of the institution, which was the universal feature of the use of Buddhism by generations of emperors of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing. However, Yongzheng was an emperor who was fully capable of independent thought, and so he emphasized the seeking of intellectual understanding of gongan and therefore he despised the way of thinking of “gongan Chan.” This is a distinctive feature of the students’ habit of using logical thinking, which is expressed in the person of this emperor. Later, he “welcomed” Zhangjia Hutuktu “with tea and conversation for over ten years and he obtained his excellently authoritative skillful means and so he knew the ultimate of this matter.” Yet his “own knowledge had yet to reach the ultimate, and Jialing [Xing]yin then vied to gasp in admiration [of the emperor’s knowledge] and so said that [the emperor] had already discerned the primal subtleties and [Xingyin] sweepingly declared his approval [of the emperor’s enlightenment],” but Zhangjia still said that the emperor’s understanding “was like a needle penetrating paper, and even though one says you can see the sky,” this was in fact no more than seeing a hole. Xingyin was licking the emperor’s boots and he had not yet received Yongzheng’s approval (one can also know a little of the common practice of the Chan School at the time). Zhangjia’s words on the other hand “were deeply in agreement with the emperor’s ideas.” From just this, one knows that this emperor academically also had the enlightenment of self-knowledge that he “did not know that he did not know.” Xingyin had encouraged Yongzheng to research and discriminate the core tenets of the five houses, and Yongzheng really did not regard his theory of an “oral transmission” to be correct, and while being critical of Xingyin, he expressed his respect for his own self-attainments, the synthetic thought of the one lineage of the five houses: The oral transmission is received by the ear. How is this the tenet that was the separate transmission of the lifting up of the flower? Why would an imposing bravo agree to pick up another person’s snivel and spittle? Due to this, he put aside the recorded sayings and he did not look at them again for twenty years….The core tenets of the five houses are equally the single taste of Caoqi, being no more than temporary changes and were a further change of face to guide people, but in the end they were all meaningless words.

Yongzheng opposed the oral transmission and aural reception, and he contemptuously spurned picking up other people’s snivel and spittle. Because of this, for twenty years he did not read the Chan School’s recorded sayings. In reality, this was a denial of the core tenets of the five houses. He specially recognized that the core tenets of the five houses were nothing more than superficial changes of different methods for guiding people. In particular, it reflects his ideological tendency to return to the Chan learning of Huineng. In order to explain this point, he had his own interpretation of the five petals of the one flower. He thought that the five petals were definitely not the five lineages, but rather they were the five generations of the transmission “from [Hui]ke to [Hui]neng.” Speaking of the real lineage transmission of the five petals from the one flower, how could the interpretation lack any possibility of being confirmed? And yet Yongzheng’s theory evidently argued for the denial of the “five lineages of Chan.” Therefore, he also emphasized that “What the five lineages show is equally the nature of great, perfect awareness …. I (Yongzheng) was deeply enlightened to

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this basic tenet and I only strove for true reality in order to discern everyday life …. In the ten years since I took the throne I did not see a monk and had no involvement with a single letter of Chan.” This shows that the basic tenet of the Chan School that he believed in definitely did not agree with the “five lineages Chan” in which “before and after are uneven,” and that “matching them is a strained interpretation.” In order to explain the logicality of his own Chan-learning thought, Yongzheng made refutations and propositions. He said, “Now I see that the sages of the past are becoming distant daily, that the style of the school has returned to the earth (is dead and buried), and the store of the appreciation of the correct Dharma hangs perilously (close to death) like a thread. Moreover, I cannot bear that in my reign that I allow it to daily surge into decline, so I have selected the words of previous lineage masters that were vital to people and printed them in the empire for future generations.” It can be seen that Yongzheng’s refutations were in the main directed against the abuses of the later inferior followers of the Chan School, and he promoted the true transmission of Caoqi on this foundation. He bitterly denounced the Chan monks of his period, saying, The followers of the lineage of recent times frequently pick up and adopt the snivel and spittle of other people, and display pap entangling vines (words), stringing them together to gloss over their mistakes, stealing them as their own Dharma talks, flooding the public with the publication of useless books, deluding everybody, male and female. Those whose words really were to enable them to cunningly profit, sounded the bells and struck the sounding planks, raised their whisks and shocking fists…those who bowed in respect created a vivifying path for their rise in the world, those who struck with staffs and shouted formed a black wind that blows things down. Such ideas and practices they proclaim liberate people. How can that not pollute the courtyard of the Buddha and patriarchs with humiliation? The Chan School that is dependent on the external and those fellows whose minds hope for glory and profit must have all sorts of delusions and deceits, and all kinds of disagreements and errors. Some in the [border] vassal residences longed to see [my] countenance, and those who were among the Dharma-companions transmitted and wrote introductions, and so there were those in the style of Guyan and Muchen who concocted and glossed over their faults with false phrases, recording each other’s [words] illicitly, making the non-existent existent, unscrupulously and conceitedly boasting, they published and circulated [their texts], fanning delusion about what is seen and heard. Such people, since they are unacceptable to the Buddha-dharma and also are doing what is appropriately prohibited by state law, on the days on which they are detected, pretend to be creating books on regulations.

It should be said that Yongzheng’s criticism of the Chan style of the period was vehement and pertinent, and his criticism of the eminent persons of the Chan institution, like those such as Daomin, for bullying people through their powerful connections and their behavior of deceiving the public to win fame, also hit the nail on the head. Yet he still wanted to use monarchical power to intervene in monk affairs and he used state law to restrict the recording of “false phrases,” which also reflects his ideological tendency to include the Buddha-dharma within the orbit of mundane law. This likewise agrees with the absolutism in culture and thought of the literary inquisition of those times. He also totally negated a number of Chan School history works of the Ming and Qing. He said,

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I have read the books, the Zhiyue lu, Zhengfa yanzang, Chanzong zhengmo, and Jiaowai biezhuan, but the enlightening words of the virtuosos of old that they selected are all mixed up and not in order. When it came to the Zongtong yisi (Single Thread of the Lineage) compiled by Jialing [Xing]yin, this is particularly absurd. The sayings and sentences of the people of old were solely to liberate people from confusion and errors, [but when] later people compile them in collections, they were solely made to hand these down to the distant future. The genealogy of the Chan School is really precarious, hanging like a single thread.

Not only did he say this, but he also concentrated on criticizing the style of scolding the patriarchs and abusing the patriarchs used by crazy Chan throughout history: As with Deshan Jian, who had no sayings and sentences to be adopted, [who was] of purely crazy views and lack of restraint, these were selected by Xingyin in his Zongtong yisi…who solely recorded phrases of extreme humiliations and abuses of the Buddha and patriarchs like unreliable petty philistines of the marketplace rebuking and berating [each other], which really astounds people so that they do not understand what their thoughts and actions are….as with Nanquan [Pu]yuan’s gongan of herding a water buffalo, which is of the lowest quality…Xingyin put all of his (Nanquan) other sayings and sentences aside and did not record them. What he recorded are two items. The first was this item. Having this ordinary appreciation, what saintly view can remove it? He always dared to show people scolding the Buddha and abusing the patriarchs, and so then he produced a fondness for collection, [just as] sparrow hawks and rats like shit, which is what is meant by this.62

Although scolding the Buddha and abusing the patriarchs is not necessarily the free spirit of transcending the Buddha and patriarchs, still Yongzheng berated the later inferior followers of the Chan School for this custom, but it does not reflect his pious faith in the Buddha and patriarchs, his aim still lying in strengthening his monopoly over thought and culture. Speaking objectively, of course this came out of some aim, and Yongzheng’s admiration for and indulgence of the Chan School, and his contribution to research on Chan thought all went far beyond other emperors through history, and even though it was hard for him to escape from “picking up other people’s snivel and spittle,” his words and deeds always used Chan mechanisms to brag about himself. The second part of his Yuxuan yulu (Imperially Compiled Recorded Sayings), namely the “Heshuo Zheng qinwang Yuanming Jushi yulu” (Recorded Sayings of Layman Yuanming, Prince Zheng of Heshuo), is a record of his talks on Chan before he took the throne. For example, One day the prince (I) said, because these things are inside, therefore they are not outside; because they are outside, therefore they are not inside; because they are not inside or outside, therefore they are inside and outside; because they are inside and outside, therefore they are not inside or outside….This matter must in reality tread on the non-dual mind-ground, and is not what knowledge can understand. Investigate!

This clearly was his practice in respect of transcending the tetralemma and elimination of all negations. Yongzheng also strove to his utmost to grasp the transcendental spirit that does not fall onto either side. Again, for example, 62

Yongzheng, Lidai Chanshi qianji xu (Preface to the First Collection of Chan Masters Through the Ages), in Zhongguo Chanzong daquan, Changchun chubanshe, 1991, pp. 751–755.

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Late one night I returned to my bedroom and I called an attendant to light the lamp. The attendant lifted up the lamp and entered the room, and the prince (I) took the lamp and blew it out, saying, “Come light it.” The attendant again lit the lamp and as soon as he arrived the prince again blew it out, saying, “Come light it.” The attendant said, “Prince, you are drunk.” The prince shouted, “Hurry up and light it!” The attendant urgently lit the lamp, entered the room and set it up. The prince said, “Look carefully beneath the lamp, am I drunk or are you drunk?”

After drinking alcohol, Yongzheng returned to his bedroom and then greatly revealed a Chan opportunity to the attendant. If it was not a story about him being drunk, it would be him casting pearls before swine, and would it not also appear to be laughable? And yet Yongzheng was pretending he was serious and wrote it into his recorded sayings, so it can be seen that he was picking up the snivel and spittle of Chan monks, and that he therefore played with mysteries to pose as a cultured person. After Yongzheng took the throne, he was not like he said he was, so for ten years he did not talk a word of Chan, and also, while he was running the government, he always used the Chan Dharma to talk of the mundane law with his princes, nobles, and grand ministers, and in his imperial comments on reports he often revealed his unfathomably elevated and deep Way of Chan. In the second year of his reign (1724), the Great General Who Pacifies the Distant, Nian Gengyao (1665–1726) sent a letter to the throne, and after reading it this emperor and lineage master greatly expressed his Chan. His note on the text says, In the capital there was a person of the Way (monk) surnamed Liu, who was long famed. It was said that he was several hundred years old, his age incapable of being investigated. Previously, Prince Yi saw him. This person deceitfully told people [about] their previous lives. He said that Prince Yi was a Daoist priest in a previous life. I (Yongzheng) laughed greatly, saying, “This is your destiny from a former life. It should be like this. And yet, why have you made efforts to discuss it with the reverend?” The prince was unable to reply. I said that there is no such true buddha, true immortal, or true sage. However, all of you come to benefit sentient beings and tend the field of good fortune, so where in the characteristics of matter do you place your feet? If there are any deficiencies in your ability, you can become a reverend and that Daoist priest, and each of you will stand in the courtyard. Only then is it permissible. We all laughed once. I leisurely wrote it out so you can have a laugh.63

Yongzheng not only posed as a reverend, but he also titled himself a leader of Buddhism and he also wrote a poem, “Ziyi” (Self Doubt) that said, “A leisured guest lowered his robe within the territory,/ Not [wearing] a patched robe among humanity as an unorthodox monk.” This also is comparing himself to an emperor-reverend who did not wear monk clothes. The story that he gave to Nian Gengyao, seen superficially has no connection to the text of the memorial, but in fact he was using the subject under discussion to convey his own ideas, wanting to use the Way of Chan to assist in the Way of government, with the aim of the so-called true buddha, true immortal, and true sage all “benefiting sentient beings and tending the fields of good fortune,” which exactly reflected such promising Chan-learning concepts. He also said that deficiencies in such abilities enabled one to become a reverend and that Daoist priest, 63

Wenxian congbian (Collected Compilations of Documents), collection 6, “Nian Gengyao zouzhe” (Memorials of Nian Gengyao).

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which equally expresses the tendency of Chan thought at that time of engaging with the world. As the emperor talked of Chan and spoke g¯ath¯a, and posed as a transcendent lineage-master who would save the world and liberate people, would the grand ministers dare not imitate him and blindly follow suit? Thereupon the court was made into a practice site (monastery), and the ruler and ministers became Dharma companions. According to Yongzheng’s introduction, within a single year there were eight princes and grand ministers who advanced to the realm of awakening under his enlightenment. Among them were four princes, a prince of a commandery, and three grand ministers, who obtained the seal of approval from this emperor-lineage master. He said, From the last twelfth lunar month, I read books of the lineage-vehicle (Chan), and so I happened to compile recorded sayings from [the time of] the virtuosos of the past in my spare time from administering state affairs. And I spoke of it with the princes and grand ministers et cetera at court, and from spring into summer, in less than half a year, eight princes and grand ministers were able to be thoroughly enlightened. The Chan companions, past and present…who talked of emptiness and spoke of marvels were [as numerous] as millet and hemp, and those who were enlightened to their own mind were [as rare as] phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. The present princes and grand ministers in the space of half a year briefly experienced my prompts and so I obtained a number of people who at one time who greatly penetrated [the truth]. How is that not a great occasion of the Dharma-meeting!64

It appears that Yongzheng was very conceited about his own accomplishments in Chan learning. Not only could he enlighten himself and be self-awakened, but he could also enlighten others and wake others, that is, he made people be clearly enlightened to their own mind and he was superior to the Chan monks in the mountains and on pilgrimage. Chan thought had not only flowed out from the monkhood into the laymen, it had also gone from the monasteries to occupy the palace. One can definitely call this a “great occasion of a Dharma meeting.” This is a major feature in the development of Chan thought in the early Qing. Yongzheng’s Chan-learning concepts likewise bore the nature of a synthesis and of being secularized, with a concentrated expression in his Yuxuan yulu and Jianmo bianyi lu. The former is constituted of a selection of the recorded sayings of generations of famous Chan masters, including monks and Daoist priests associated with Chan, together with a preface, to make clear his own Chan views, their importance being established thereby. The latter is a record of his intervention in the disputes between the master and follower, Yuanwu and Fazang, with refutations and proofs. Since these are collections of Yongzheng’s Chan thought, they were also an aspect of the expression of the secularization of Chan learning in the early Qing. The Yuxuan yulu was completed in the eleventh year of Yongzheng’s reign (1733). Besides the recorded sayings of Chan masters through history, it also has the recorded sayings of those like Sengzhao and Hanshan who were monks outside of the Chan institution and of the Daoist master, Ziyang Zhenren Zhang Boduan. 64

Yongzheng, Yuxuan yulu 19, “Dangjin Fahui yuzhi xu” (Preface to the Imperially Instituted Dharma Meeting of the Present).

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After each section there is a separately written preface, in which Yongzheng evaluates and expresses his own Chan-learning thought. At first, in his overall preface, he announced the aim of his selection of the recorded sayings. He said, When I think of the mission of insight of humans and gods, of the separate transmission of the Buddha and patriarchs, of leaving both eyebrows to hang down to the ground in order to enlighten sentient beings, of keeping golden cinnabar in heaven to raise the withered and rotten (dead), how could I allow these evil demons to blind the correct eyes [of appreciation] and to inspire the application of poison and so completely eliminate the marvelous mind? I really had something that I had to say, words that I could not bear not to say. This number of great excellent teachers (indicating the twelve Chan masters and Zhang Boiduan quoted in the preface), really all have a penetration of the subtle and a clarification of the basis, have thoroughly investigated the tenets and comprehended the core [ideas], deeply tallying with the non-duality of Vimalak¯ırti, and the tenet of the single taste of Caoqi, being able to make those who have not yet seen to obtain the marvelous seeing of the unseen, and those who have yet to hear to access the marvelous hearing of not hearing, and those yet to know to penetrate the correct knowing of the unknown, and those who have yet to understand to achieve the great understanding of being without understanding.

What he had to say and what he could not bear not to say is what he called the style of evil demons. “[Due to] being distant from the saint (Buddha), demons and non-Buddhists increasingly proliferate, do not discern the mind of the Buddha, and falsely take part in the seats of the patriarchs.” This style had spread throughout the Chan monasteries. In view of this, he wanted to use the true knowledge and profound views of these great teachers, that is, the one-taste tenet of Caoqi, to liberate the Chan institution from its dire situation. That is to say, he needed at the moment of the utmost decline of the Chan Way to renew and revise the Chan thought of the sixth patriarch, Huineng. Speaking of this, one can say that it was most appropriate for the Chan thought of those times. In fact, even though Yongzheng regarded himself as the leader of the religion, he was unable to have, and also had, no creative opinions about Chan thought. He berated the last inferior followers of the Chan School, wanting to use the “Yongzheng Chan” of “the sole taste of Caoqi” to replace their Chan. Nevertheless, while putting it into action, it was also difficult to avoid picking up the snivel and spittle of Chan masters past and present, and adopting the entangling vines of language of the gongan and stringing them together and filling in the gaps to create Dharma talks, or playing games in the palace, or showing off in front of court officials, which really were things that should not have been adopted. Nevertheless, the Yuxuan yulu had significance for the period in its understanding of Chan thought. In particular, in each of the prefaces Yongzheng used his own views to advance and revere Chan learning, and in the unfathomably deep and profound ocean of Chan, often revealed a tendency towards synthesis and engagement with the world. In his preface, Yongzheng repeatedly stressed that “The core tenets of the five houses are equally the one taste of Caoqi,” the aim being to make the five lineages of the five petals of the one flower return to the Chan thought of Huineng. He pointed out that “The sayings and sentences of the 156 Chan masters of the ages selected for this collection, with the exception of Huineng, are indeed all of the ultimate principles of the original endowment … and are no different to the great teachers in

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the previous selections.”65 This speaks of the meaning of the synthesis of the five lineages. When it came to his “promotion and demotion of past and present,” it was truly to further advance the establishment of his synthesis of the five lineages with Caoqi. He pointed out that “All of those in the lineage-school, like Fu Dashi, like Dazhu [Hui]hai, like Danxia Tianran, like Lingyun Qin, like Deshan [Xuan]jian, like Xinghua Jiang, like Changqing Leng, like Fengxue Zhao, like Fenyang Zhao, like Duan Shizi, like Dahui [Zong]gao, like Hongjue Fan, and like Gaofeng [Yuan]miao, were promoted as lineage masters to raise and support future students, and in dealing with their occasions for enlightenment and their words of instruction, there was not one of them who could be selected.”66 All at once he has denied a number of famous Chan masters of each of the lineages from the Tang and Song onwards (only Gaofeng was a Yuan-dynasty Chan monk). For example, he reprimanded Deshan for “not having a single case that could be selected, with the exception of the blow of the staff,” and Mazu for his “appreciation of the words” of Dazhu, which “are not necessarily authentic,” and Zonggao “for several hundred years looking repeatedly at the people within China and completely recording their arsenal (indicating Zonggao’s Zongmen wuku),” but “not one of them can be adopted” and that in this text by Zonggao “there are many places that are incoherent and mistaken” and so on. Here Yongzheng stresses that they have deviated from Caoqi Chan. Concerning the cases of later generations of Chan masters talking with relish of scolding the patriarchs and abusing the Buddha, Yongzheng not only viewed this as treasonable behavior, but he also refuted them via theory. He said, “According to the view of Danxia, is there another Buddha besides the wooden Buddha?” And they sat turning their backs on the Buddha and they spat at the Buddha. “These views and interpretations are the same as those of Danxia; they just know of sweeping away the statue before one’s eyes, yet they are unaware that they themselves grasp thousands and tens of thousands of statues.”67 It should be said that in regard to the distinction drawn by the Chan School between “separation from characteristics while in characteristics” and the grasping of characteristics, that Yongzheng also grasped this with considerable accuracy. Yongzheng not only synthesized the five lineages, he also synthesized Chan and Doctrine, and synthesized Chan and Pure Land. He said, “In the preface to the recorded sayings of Dharma Master Sengzhao, I have already spoken in detail of the unity of the Lineage (Chan) and Doctrine.”68 In fact, he specially selected and recorded the sayings of Sengzhao, and even though his aim was to explain the importance of lecturing on the sutras and explaining that the teachings of the sutras themselves tally with the tenets of the separate transmission outside of the teaching (Doctrine), yet objectively it also demonstrates the contributions Sengzhao made to the formation of Chan thought. Just as he said, as with Sengzhao’s treatises,

65

Yongzheng, Lidai Chanshi qianji xu in Zhongguo Chanzong daquan, 1991, p. 749. Yongzheng, Lidai Chanshi qianji xu, p. 748. 67 Yongzheng, Lidai Chanshi qianji xu, p. 749. 68 Yongzheng, Lidai Chanshi qianji xu, p. 749. 66

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“by using this lecture on the sutras he was truly not relying on letters.”69 Thus, not relying on letters and lectures on sutras are placed on a par, and the Chan of marvelous enlightenment unexpectedly agrees with the doctrines of intellectual enlightenment. Of the Jin-Song period Buddhist scholars, Yongzheng especially venerated Sengzhao and Huiyuan. He said, “Speaking of Pure Land, I esteem Huiyuan; speaking of lecturing on sutras, I esteem Sengzhao.”70 “In the north, Kum¯araj¯ıva lectured on and translated sutra texts, and in the south, the worthies of the Lotus Society zealously cultivated the Pure Land.”71 These words likewise express his ideological tendency to unify Chan and Pure Land. Fascicle 13 of the Yuxuan yulu was devoted to selected records of the words of Zhuhong about “the mergence and linkage” of Chan and Pure Land “in order to show that it is one gateway [along with] the Pure Land.”72 However, as he specially pointed out, the practice of the Pure Land necessarily required the guidance of the core precepts of Chan, and if one attains proper enlightenment, the flowers (in which one is born in the Pure Land) open so that one sees the Buddha, which is the “direct pointing mind-transmission.” If not, then “If students are unclear about the core tenets [of Chan], then that is making the sentence of Hail to Amit¯abha Buddha into meaningless language, and if one deals with it for one moment or for ten thousand years, one naturally spies out one’s nostrils (Buddha-nature).”73 Here he is really making nianfo (calling out the name of the Buddha) into a huatou with the idea of advancing investigation. One can see that Yongzheng’s Pure Land concept of the unification of Chan and Pure Land was also a form of thinking of the Chan School’s mind-only Pure Land. Yongzheng’s synthetic thought is also expressed in his synthesis of Chan with Daoism. He made Zhang Boduan’s Wuzhen pian into an essential Chan scripture and included it in his Yuxuan yulu. One should say that this tallies with the actual situation in which the Daoism of the Song and the Yuan was changed to be like Chan. Yongzheng said that the thirty-two hymn-g¯ath¯as written by Zhang Boduan “are each the marvelous tenet of the highest One Vehicle that came from the west (India) and are expressions of the nature-ground,” and that “The words and sentences in the work directly realize and discern thoroughly, directly pointing at marvelous perfection, which rarely exist among the virtuosos of old in the Chan School, being like their selfbenefit and benefit of others, and the inconceivable,” as if the Chan School still needed the Chan School, and even some Chan masters, like Xue Daoguang and others, “all were devoted to him as his disciples.”74 Although these words somewhat overstate the facts, yet it is a fact that Chan thought had penetrated to a great extent. Because

69

Yongzheng, Yuxuan yulu, “Sengzhao bian xu” (Preface to the Compilation of Sengzhao), p. 749. Yongzheng, Yuxuan yulu, “Sengzhao bian xu,” p. 743. 71 Yongzheng, Yuxuan yulu, “Kianchi bia xu” (Preface on the Compilation of Lianchi/Zhuhong), p. 747. 72 Ibid. 73 Ibid. 74 Yongzheng, Yuxuan yulu, “Ziyang Zhenren bian xu” (Preface to the Compilation on Zhang Boduan), p. 745. 70

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of this, Yongzheng selected and recorded Zhang Boduan’s words and discussions as Chan thought, which was not unreasonable. It should be seen that in the final analysis, Yongzheng wanted to incorporate the organization of, and lectures on and studies of Chan thought into the Way of governing the world. Because of this, he also expressed his Chan-learning spirit of engagement with the world and expressed a tendency to merge the Chan Dharma into a unity with the mundane law. He said, “The scholars who transcended the world were certain to aid the sage kings of old in influencing (lit. perfuming) their minds and bodies in order to [find] the basis for rule over all matters.” Starting from the time of Emperor Shizu (Shunzhi), the Qing court had taken the virtuosos of old of the Chan School to be the scholars who transcended the world and made Chan learning into “a basis for rule over all matters.” Therefore, “In my spare time from dealing with state affairs, I investigated the learning of the mind-nature with the father and son [in the Dharma] Yulin [Tong]xiu and Yin[rather Mao]qi [Xing]sen, and once we came together, we were no different to the Yellow Emperor and Cheng Tang (the Prince of Shang who became the first emperor of Shang), and it is not [only] my reign that has the habit of respecting monks.” He is telling people that he had a mental empathy with Chan monks, that they sought information from each other, and that this was not due to the custom of venerating monks, but was to seek their assistance in “ruling over all matters.” The letters between Yulin Tongxiu father and son, “expound and propagate the marvelous tenets of the lineage-vehicle, and really can benefit people and save the world.” Therefore, he then “selected and gathered the [letters], edited and published them, to transmit their instructions to the future generations.”75 Although there are not many such words in the prefaces to the compilations, still these words are sufficient to express Yongzheng’s subjective consciousness of using Chan learning to assist the royal civilization. In relation to this, he especially opposed the scolding of the patriarchs and the abusing of the Buddha. This was not purely due to the fact that this style of crazy Chan contravened the Chan Way. Viewed fundamentally, this also emerged from the aspect of “the activities of Buddhist service.” He said, “If this [crazy Chan] is the case, then the descendants are burning the tablets of their ancestors and the court ministers are scrapping the imperial throne. Is this permissible?”76 His reply naturally was that “it is not permissible.” Thus, the transcendental Chan School spirit of opposing respect for authority, in Yongzheng became a defense of the traditional order and a tool for the consolidation of feudal autocracy, and his tendency to engage Chan learning with the world goes without saying. It should also be pointed out that in his prefaces, Yongzheng again and again emphasized that the Chan School did not depend on letters, “that enlightenment does not reside in words,”77 that it is “transcendence of thoughts and the elimination

75

Yongzheng, Yuxuan yulu, “Yulin Yinqi bian xu” (Preface for the Compilation of Yulin and Yin[Mao]qi), p. 746. 76 Yongzheng, Lidai Chanshi qianji xu, p. 749. 77 Yongzheng, Yuxuan yulu, “Yongjia bian xu” (Preface to the Compilation on Yongjia), pp. 743–744.

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of [intellectual] understanding, the direct pointing at one’s own mind,”78 and that “Understanding arises in accordance with the text, which totally has no relation with the text,”79 and “therefore there are no language and no words that can be relied on,”80 and so on. This seems to also oppose intellectual understanding, and so this does not conform with the advocacy of lettered Chan that was the fashion of the time. Nevertheless, his vast compilations and selections, and his own writing of recorded sayings, and even making the lectures on the sutras by Sengzhao, the awakening to the truth by Daoist priests, and the versification by Hanshan and Shide into the tenets of the one taste of Caoqi, evidently means one cannot say that he rejected language and letters. In fact, as he saw it, provided colloquial language, verse, ornate language, and doctrinal language assisted in the enlightened understanding of the marvelous tenets of the highest vehicle that came from the west and were of assistance in the apprehension of Chan learning, then all of these are Chan language! In other areas, he also explicitly pointed out that the Chan School of the separate transmission outside of the teachings “can be wordless and can be worded,” the key lying in “each word naturally flowing out from the inherent nature.” “What the World Honored One said in forty-nine years and the ancient hammers (words to trigger enlightenment) that are the 1,700 gongan cases, all of these are language and letters.”81 Such an interpretation evidently contradicts the theory of non-reliance on letters. In this respect, it is definitely related to the nature of the Chan of not falling into linguistic explanations, but even more importantly, in order to restrict thought and freedom of expression, Yongzheng availed himself of the assistance of one form of the Chan School that possessed a similar nature to that of the literary inquisition of those times. When it came to his emphasis on language and letters, which also was necessary for the criticism of Fazang and Hongren, not only was he unable to justify himself through this emphasis, but to the contrary it exposed his ideological arbitrariness and his theoretical immaturity. One can also see that his Chan learning was completely in compliance with his mundane law. If one says that the Yuxuan yulu was made in order to clarify and propagate the tenet of the one taste of Caoqi, to restore the correct genealogy of Chan learning, and to synthesize the five lineages, even though ultimately it was for use in the mundane world, it still retained words with the nature of a scholarly inquiry. However, the Jianmo bianyi lu was purely a political intervention into the internal disputes of the Linji lineage. As mentioned previously, the disputes over the origins of the lineage between master and pupil, Fazang and Hongren, superficially appear to be a dispute over the ´ akyamuni’s lifting up of a flower and the circle diagram of the King of Awesome S¯

78

Yongzheng, Yuxuan yulu, “Yuanming Jushi bian zixu” (Own Preface to the Compilation on Layman Yuanming), p. 746. 79 Yongzheng, Yuxuan yulu, “Hanshan Shide bian xu” (Preface to the Compilation of Hanshan and Shide), p. 744. 80 Yongzheng, Yuxuan yulu, “Yuanming Jushi bian zixu,” p. 747. 81 Yongzheng, Yuzhi Jianmo bianyi lu shangyu (Imperial Decree on the Jianmo bianyi lu).

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Voice, and the direct pointing at the human mind and the tenets of the five houselineages. However, in reality, the focus of the arguments lay in differences over method. Since there was a dispute between them over argumentation and method, later it also became a personal conflict swayed by emotion. Of course, whatever is said, this was also an internal matter of the Chan School. Nevertheless, a century later Emperor Yongzheng again brought up an old story, and with his status as a ruler over people and jointly a leader of the religion, he wrote the Jianmo bianyi lu to directly intervene in a dispute between monks. He bitterly denounced the theories of Fazang and Hongren, and he used the entire book to thoroughly defame them and all their disciples and followers. “He had the governor and inspector-general of the metropolitan areas and the provinces investigate this in detail and completely remove the factions and never allow them to again enter the courtyard of the patriarchs.”82 This was the conclusion to the monk disputes of the end of the Ming and the early Qing. Nevertheless, this overbearing cultural despotism was applied to the Chan School, which can also be said to have been a misfortune in the history of Chan thought! The Jianmo bianyi lu’s refutation of Fazang and Hongren, however, has the intention of repeating the exorcism of the evils of Yuanwu, and not only does it not have any original views, it was also made up of coarse words and abusive language, was lengthy and tedious, and it unleashed a deep-seated hatred that even extended to the dry bones in their tombs. Yongzheng’s demonization of Fazang, of Hongren, his demonization of their theories, and demonization of their Dharma sons and grandsons, overflows between the lines. Really, he had lost the essence of being a ruler over people. Yongzheng first of all points out that “The Way of the Buddha and patriarchs indicates that the basis is being enlightened to one’s own mind.” Seen only literally, this was a Chan platitude, yet here, this clearly deviates from what Yuanwu called the staff-blow and shouting Chan of the Buddha as patriarch lifting up a flower. Following this, he also definitely said that the recorded sayings of Yuanwu and Yuanxiu had “words and sentences and [ineffable] abilities and functions that solely raise improvement and directly point to the human mind, which tallies with the intention of [Bodhidharma’s] coming from the west, and obtains the correct genealogy of Caoqi.” Fazang’s words “completely delude the inherent nature … unbridled his subjective fantasies, deceive the world and delude people; these are truly the knowledge and views of non-Buddhists and demons.” Thereupon, he used his status as an emperor “who has power and has position” to exorcise these demonic theories. Nevertheless, he could only follow the path of Yuanwu’s thinking, focusing on the so-called Awesome Voice. He harmonized with the question of the methods of the Chan School to state his own opinion: Now the demonic [Fa]zang set up the diagram of a circle O, which he took to be the c of thousands of buddhas, their kas.a¯ ya (robes) continuously [transmitted], which is the lineage of the core-tenets….The demon was succeeded by Hongren, who regarded Sa˙ngh¯anandi (one of the Indian patriarchs) meeting with a youth holding a mirror right in front of him as being an indication of the existence of the diagram all along, to prove that his demonic 82

Yongzheng, Yuzhi Jianmo bianyi lu shangyu.

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teacher’s image of the one O was not unreasonable. Furthermore, he used the incident of the ´ akyamuni before he kas.a¯ ya being paraded around in front of the stupa of many sons [by S¯ gave this robe to K¯as´yapa] to make the kas.a¯ ya a proof of the lineage of the core tenets. [Yuan]wu and [Yuan]xiu both used a staff-blow to direct people, [but] the demon [Fa]zang castigated him, calling his teaching the Chan of a stubborn and surly person, which at its base was the suppression of thought and the elimination of views to directly point at the human mind. If the demon [Fa]zang used thoughts and views to understand, then that was very much an absurdity. Did not the ancients say that one staff-blow or shout do not make the staff-blow or shout a function? So how can one adhere to this one staff-blow and shout? The demon’s intention was just to oppose staff-blows and shouts, with the hope of using his falsely-designed circle diagram and his real dharma of the double-headed four dharmas to seek out the strange and adopt the superior [method/dharma].

In fact, in terms of the history of the Chan School, of course both the circle O diagram of the Awesome Voice King spoken of by Fazang and the lifting up of the flower by the Buddha-patriarch that was venerated by Yuanwu and the tradition, were naturally thought to be far-fetched theories. Originally there is nothing that can be said as to their truth or falsity. It was nothing more than Fazang wanting to stress the core tenets of the five houses and arguing for the Buddha King of Awesome Voice in opposition to the theory of the lifting of the flower; and Yuanwu using this in order to highlight the method of the staff-blow and the shout and to firmly hold to the unilinear direct transmission. These different theories of the origin of the lineage both expressed the intention to synthesize Chan. The clash over methods were also always at variance, each side holding to their own theories, and even though it cannot be said that Yuanwu was completely mistaken, still Fazang’s view that the use of the staff-blow and the shout were one of the abuses of Chan evidently coincided with trends in the development of Chan thought. Nevertheless, Yongzheng, “as a person who practiced the cultivation of equality and governing with peace, whose body resided beyond the bounds [of the Chan School], not being a person to preach the Dharma as an abbot,” still thought that he “clearly knew the ideas of the demons and non-Buddhists, saw perspicaciously through the deeds of the present demons and foresaw the depths of the disasters that will be wrought by the demons in future,” and also thought that he had to speak about it, being unable to bear not speaking about it. In fact, Yongzheng did not preach any principle; it was just that he also wanted to use his authority as a ruler over people to intervene in the monk disputes. He produced a judgement about the rights and wrongs of the different opinions held by Chan monks and their views on different methods and sectarian affairs. He also resorted to lame arguments and put government measures into practice with respect to these matters. For example, he said, “If I allow them to use all means of persuasion, can it go beyond the twelve-part divisions of the Tripitaka?” “If you wish to explain the principles and discuss the text, I myself have cultivated-talent scholars here, so what use are the followers of the lineage?” “One can know the demonic shape of Fazang father and son, for, several hundreds of years earlier Zhaozhou had already made a judgement, so it is no longer necessary to come to see and know this for the first time,” and so on.

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Why did Yongzheng have such a bitter hatred for Fazang and Hongren and personally write a text of eight fascicles and engage in such a battle of words with already dead reverends, and send orders to the governors and inspectors of the metropolitan areas and provinces and notify the lineage-institutions of the empire? It really was an unheard-of fantastic story past and present in China and beyond, and also was definitely not something an ideological and scholarly dispute can explain. Seen superficially, it reflected the early Qing cultural despotism that restricted freedom of thought. Nevertheless, in the text, with the exclusion of abuse and scolding, it everywhere gave people a feeling that not everything had been said yet. This explains that behind the use of lame arguments there was also an inexpressible original cause or a background to it. His text especially emphasized the annihilation of demonic views and the devotion of all his efforts to attack the demonic sons and grandsons of Fazang’s line, which is very much worth pondering. He said, At present, these demonic sons and demonic grandsons do not even sit [in meditation] or [offer] incense, they do not observe the [summer] retreat, and even drink alcohol and eat meat, defame the precepts and violate the vinaya, and only use the intoning of poems and the writing of prose to flatter the gentry, and they associate with prostitutes, actors, and tricksters. How is this not defiling the courtyards of the patriarchs? In those days the demonic [Fa]zang took giving pleasure to the gentry to be his safeguard, making the monastic followers compete to pursue the clod [like dogs that chase after the clod and not the person who threw it], and consequently they are drawn into this category, and the followers up to now have been scattered in not a few numbers among the population, and the lineage-school has been weakened and destroyed. This is the reason for managing this. If I now do not halt and denounce this, when will this demonic Dharma be extinguished? Those fellows such as Fazang and Hongren only associate with the gentry, relying on their power with the idea of protecting their position in the Dharma [as abbots]. Among the gentry, those who rely on their reputations became laymen, accept this foolish stupidity, and they boost each other….How then, by not keeping the retreat, not sitting or offering incense, only working at intoning poetry and writing prose to flatter the gentry, abandoning the fundamental to chase the derivative, and in this way by harboring [such ill] intentions, are they different from the laity?83

It can be clearly seen from these words that Yongzheng’s profound aversion for them had two aspects: one is that the line of Fazang were ingratiating themselves with the gentry and relying on their power; and two, that Fazang’s pupils had been spread among the population, congregating to form groups. It is evident that his attacks on dead reverends was also nothing more than an external act to cover his intentions towards those living “demonic sons and demonic grandsons.” Naturally, if the branch of Fazang was flattering those gentry who wanted to change their service over to the new court, the conclusion was that those groups who pledged loyalty to the Qing royal court would be unlikely to suffer this application of poison, even to the extent of being able to receive appreciation from the leader of the religion. Nevertheless, unfortunately for them, it was very likely that they flattered and gathered together with those groups who were all dissident forces opposed to the Qing royal court. 83

All above quotes are from Yuzhi Jianmo bianyi lu shangyu.

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Objectively speaking, the monastic and lay realms both praised and censured Fazang, passing different judgements on him. Muyun Tongmen (1599–1671), a pupil of Yuanwu who was a fellow pupil with Fazang, wrote five treatises in his Shemo lun (On Managing the Demons) disparaged Fazang and Hongren, master and disciple. He said, Now if one’s words slander a teacher, defame a teacher, hate a teacher, and resent a teacher, that is to be a great demon in the Dharma. Aren’t these the words of the bodhisattva Samantabhadra in the Avatamsaka ˙ S¯utra? Using this to examine it, Mr. Han (Fazang) also did not have the courage and the strength [to do so], and it seems he was one who could not be called a demon. It is just because he hindered and confused the Correct Dharma that he can be called a demon.84

Tongmun’s idea was to say that although Fazang lacked the courage to slander the master’s school, yet, as he had confused the Correct Dharma, he could be called a demon. Really this idea fundamentally denied Fazang a position in Linji or even the Chan School. Nevertheless, the master in the world of poetry in the early Qing, who as an official reached the post of Minister of Justice, the Yuyang Shanren, Wang Shizhen (1634–1711), considered that Fazang had protested injustice and praised him as a “dragon-elephant (great monk) in the End Period of the Dharma.” He said, I had read the recorded sayings and the Wuzong yuan of Chan Master [Fa]zang of Sanfeng and I regard him as being a great monk of the end period of the Dharma. His raising of the Zhizheng zhuan to elucidate the tenets of Linji and Fenyang was to distantly inherit the Dharma from Jiyin [Dehong], and he was also an admonishing child of Tiantong. And Muweng (Qian Qianyi)’s Liechao shi [ ji] (Poems of the Dynasties) says that the Chan of Sanfeng was that of a monster in the world. Being insulted like this, what more is there to say?85

Although Wang is speaking as a non-Buddhist, still he did not convey the coloration of a sectarian, so he can be regarded as a pure onlooker. His doubts about the defamation of Fazang as a monster in the world held there was another original cause, and so it cannot be said to have been totally without a basis. The great figure of early Qing dynasty Caodong, Juelang Daosheng, also stood as an onlooker and he objectively assessed the matter as follows: The lineage from Linji that has already fallen prostrate definitely cannot be without Tiantong, nor can it be without Sanfeng, and furthermore it cannot be without this elder. Ask who was it who knew himself to be Lingyan; it was none other than this old fellow of Qixia.86

The disputes reverted to disputes over whether he was a demon or was not a demon. This was each person speaking a different opinion. Daosheng’s words avoided the necessity for a dispute and he also affirmed the historical positions of both sides, so the dispute should have already been concluded. Yongzheng had again dragged up an old case, condemning in speech and writing the demon Fazang, the demon 84

Tongmen, Shemo lun. Wang Shizhen, Juyi lu 27. 86 Daosheng, Juelang yulu 11. 85

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Hongren, and their demonic sons and grandsons. One must say that Yongzhen had some other aim. Ding Angong wrote a Mingshi zayong (Miscellaneous Songs of Ming Events) that brought up Hanyue Fazang. It says, Hanyue of Sanfeng in an old Chan hall, The bell and sounding plank [sounds] fade and fall in the ruins of the stupas and cloisters. Is it the Way, is it demonic? I do not understand. This mountain gate (monastery) ultimately has Cai Zhongxiang.

This poem was veiled and indirect, yet clearly it eulogized the line of Fazang for its attitude of non-collaboration with the Qing court. Cai Zhongxiang, style Maode, was Fazang’s direct disciple. At the time that Taiyuan was besieged, Cai vehemently set out his opinion, saying, “I have studied the Way for many years and I have already investigated birth and death, and today is exactly the time my life ends.” Huang Zongxi also recorded this event as follows: [Hong]ren of Tanji at Anyin [Monastery] wrote the Wuzong jiu in order to express his submission to Sanfeng and probably most of it came from Ren’an, so that Sanfeng’s Way was reliable and did not collapse.87

His idea is that the Wuzong jiu came forth from the pen of Ren’an. Ren’an’s name was Qiran, style Xiuchu. He had escaped into Chan after the fall of the Ming in order to preserve his integrity. Huang also had a poem speaking of this matter, saying, “He had entered the southern capital to defend against the rebellion that had occurred and he immediately consulted at Anyin to write to save the lineage.”88 One can see that Fazang not only had a disciple who would risk death to oppose the Qing, he also was greatly praised by the gentry of the late Ming and the early Qing. His “demonic sons and demonic grandsons” were mostly these kinds of noncollaborators, which as Professor Chen Yuan said, “The majority of the school were loyal and righteous, and also were liable to be unhappy and get angry.”89 Therefore, Yongzheng naturally resented bitterly their “intoning of poems and writing prose” and their behavior of non-collaboration and acting in collusion with the gentry loyal to the Ming. Yongzheng also carefully avoided making mention of this, but he had to impose sanctions on them. Seen overall, Yongzheng’s Chan sayings and his direct intervention into the monk disputes can be spoken of in this way. By Yongzheng’s time, the total permeation by Chan thought of Chinese culture had reached its peak, so that even the supreme governor and ruler over the empire had to resort to speaking of Chan to assist in the work of royal civilization and use it as a means of absolutism, coercing Chan thought to enter into the orbit of government. When Yongzheng denounced Fazang, he spoke a sentence that specifically tallied with the realities of the Chan School in 87

Huang Zongxi, Nanlei wenji, Houji 4. Huang Zongxi, Bashuai (Eight Declines). 89 Chen Yuan, Qingchu sengzheng ji, fascicle 2, “Muyun wulun zheng” (Muyun’s five treatises dispute,” p. 62. 88

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those times: “My intention is that the Chan School does not prosper more than it does today, and also does not decay from what it is today.” “Those who give sermons [as abbots] and hold the whisk cannot conceive of this.”90 Indeed, this is a sign of prosperity. The emperor and the aristocracy talking of Chan and enlightenment to the Way in particular was a sign of prosperity. And yet, they were unable to admit that it was exactly because they had made an intervention of cultural absolutism that the already long-weakened and decadent Chan School was brought close to the brink of extinction; that Chan thought and its permeation into Chinese culture had truly become a spent force. The corruption of the lineage institution, the declining and coming to an end of Chan thought, resulted in rousing scholars with the sense of a mission to undertake a reorganization and sublation of Chan thought and culture. The tendency for Chan thought to engage with the world, it should be said, was given complete impetus to by scholars from after the early Qing. This can also be said to have been the first steps in the transformation of Chan thought into its modern form.

90

Yongzheng, Yuzhi Jianmo bianyi lu shangyu.

Chapter 16

The Qing Confucians’ Sublation and Reformation of Chan Learning

Having passed through the brilliance of the five petals emerging from the one flower at the end of the Tang and the Five Dynasties through to the Chinese Chan School of the early Song, and the Chinese Chan learning having passed through the synthesis and permeation of the Song onwards, and the changes and transformations of the Yuan and the Ming, by the early Qing, the Chan institution in particular formed a hidden roost preferred by gentry who were loyal to the former Ming, an excellent place for concealment and the preservation of their integrity. It also formed a base for those Chan monks who linked up with the wealthy and influential, who were blinded by greed and scrambled for glory and sought patronage, so as to also defend those of similar views and attack those who differed. In addition, emperors of the early Qing used Chan learning and restricted it, and so the Chan School and Chan learning flourished due to this, but it also declined due to this. Yongzheng especially intervened directly in the monk disputes and in the atmosphere of the cultural despotism of “the dreaded literary inquisition that was to be avoided,” even though Chan thought greatly advanced even further in the direction of secularization, its ability to influence culture undoubtedly became a spent force. In response to this, the task of conducting reflection, sublation, and reform historically fell onto the shoulders of later students. Without the slightest doubt, the Song-dynasty Lixue (neo-Confucianism) that was erected on the basis of metaphysics could not be separated from Chan thought. And there was the Xinxue (Mind-and-Heart Learning) of the Ming period, especially the doctrine of reaching good knowing of the Yaojiang learning, which followed entirely the same path of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature. This was the so-called Yangming-Chan. With respect to ideological liberation, Wang Yangming learning or what is called Yangming-Chan, definitely did not lack the enlightening of the benighted and a function that overcomes easily and completely, yet its lack of substance also led to the later inferior followers becoming feeble. The teachings of “putting it down is it” and “leaving it up to according with conditions” further made them to take on the appearance of being self-indulgent. These people’s behavior, without the addition of restraint, would resemble crazy Chan, which is what was called “the path of the non-obstruction between alcohol, sex, and luck in making © Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_16

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money, and bodhi,” or like what Yan Yuan satirized as “With nothing to do and folded arms, they talk of the mind-nature, facing death to repay the ruler.” It is no wonder that the early Qing scholars used the punishments of the Ming loyalists to push Wang Yangming learning to the top. They drew lessons from the bitter experience and severely condemned the study of the mind and nature of the Song and the Ming, as Li Gong (1659–1733) said, After the Song, the two schools [of Buddhism and Daoism] flourished, and the Confucians were infected by their theories [such as] calm sitting and introspection, discussing the nature and talking of heaven, each of those violating the words of Confucius. When it came to removing the perilous and settling the trends of the great regulations and laws, they saluted and wide-eyed handed over their authority to the military and vulgar scholars. In the Ming period, the court did not have a single reliable minister. They sat in the hall of the Minister of War punctuating and annotating the Zuozhuan (the Zuo Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals) while the enemy troops arrived at the city walls, and they continued to compose poetry, conscious of performing meritorious deeds and establishing their reputations, all of these [activities] pertaining to the trivial. Day and night, they breathed and grasped for the writing of books, saying this is a work to be transmitted to the world, and [as a result] in the end the world was [like] rivers bursting with rotting fish and the people were in sackcloth and ashes.1

Consequently, the early Qing scholars abandoned empty talk of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature and concentrated on lecturing on the Practical Learning that could be applied to running the world. Even though the early Qing elevated the learning of Cheng and Zhu to the highest position in the state shrine, nevertheless, the scholarly world still criticized Song learning (neo-Confucianism) and Wang Yangming learning. Thus, the alliances of Lixue and Xinxue with Chan thought, which some say was like a shadow following a body, were bound to together undergo a settling of accounts, and researchers on the Chan School all at once instead rolled up the books and did not look at them, becoming idle, and they returned to avenues of deep research into the Buddhist principles of the Sui and Tang dynasties. Chan thought also was then in the midst of a change-over in time periods, of cultural criticism, and reforms in theory, which were actualized in a turning towards engagement with the world. It should also be explained that Chan thought had passed through six or seven hundred years of synthesis and transformation, and that from Yongzheng onwards, the other sects of Buddhism were almost non-existent. People talking of Chan were talking of Buddhism, researching Buddhism were researching Chan. In particular, in people’s eyes such categories of Chinese Buddhism as Pure Land, Tiantai, and Huayan were completely submerged in the ocean of Chan, and Chan thought had already been suffused throughout to become the whole of Buddhist learning. Therefore, the great majority of Qing-dynasty scholars who researched, criticized, and used Buddhism started from Chan thought. Right through to the end of the Qing and the start of the Republican period, one group of scholars had their sights set on the reconstruction of Faxiang (Yog¯ac¯ara) theory, and that caused this phenomenon 1

Shugu houji (Latter Collection of Shugu), “Yu Fang Linggao shu” (Letter to Fang Linggao).

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to change. However, they were unable to be divorced from Chan and purely talk of Faxiang. Since early Qing scholarship “loathed and rejected the meditation of the subject and tended towards the investigation of the objective,”2 the Practical Learning scholars therefore mostly held a critical attitude towards Chan. But the remaining lineages of Wang Yangming learning and the scholars who venerated the learning of the Cheng brothers and Zhu Xi mostly defended, praised, and even renewed Chan learning. Right until the rise of the New Text Classics Learning, Chan thought, after it had passed through the ordeal of its first criticism, instead formed an underground stream in the scholarly world. By the late Qing, the New Learning (Western Studies) scholars used their own opinions to promote or dismiss Chan learning, and they regarded the Chan Dharma as a mundane law and re-illuminated the aspects of the Buddhist learning of human life. Naturally, the Han Learning scholars who were related to the Practical Learning also admired Chan learning very much. For example, there were Mao Qiling (1623–1716), whom Ruan Yuan called the founder of the Qing-dynasty Evidential Studies, and Jiang Fan (1761–1831), who wrote the Hanxue shicheng ji (Record of the Transmissions from the Masters of Han Learning). Their standpoints sometimes were biased towards Wang Yangming learning, sometimes to Song learning, and to the grand master of modern Chinese National Learning, Zhang Taiyan (1869–1936). (Zhang also loved the complex analyses of name and characteristics of Faxiang doctrine.) This also can explain the power of the cultural influence of Chan thought, which had already transcended the ramparts of scholarly antithesis.

Part 1: Early Qing Practical Learning and Dai Zhen’s Criticism of Chan Learning As mentioned previously, reflecting on the pain of the loss of the Ming, the early Qing scholars concentrated on the real task of scholarship applicable to managing the country. Thus, they attacked Lixue, Xinxue, and the allied Chan learning that had enlightening the mind and seeing the nature at their core. Gu Yanwu (1613–1682) first raised the great flag of “the study of the classics being Lixue,” which aimed to return to original Confucianism. He thus rejected Lixue and Chan learning, saying, What was in the past called Lixue is the study of the classics….What is now called Lixue is Chan learning. The non-adoption of the five classics but having the assistance of the recorded sayings [of Chan]…is to discard the recorded sayings of the sage (Confucius) and to serve the later Confucians, which is called not knowing the basis.3

2

Liang Qichao, Zhongguo jinsanbai nian xueshu shi (History of the Last Three Hundred Years of Chinese Scholarship), Jiangsu Guangling guji keyin she, 1990, p. 1. 3 Tinglin wenji (Collected Prose of Gu Yanwu), fascicle 3, “Yu Shi Yushan shu” (Letter to Shi Yushan).

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As Gu Yanwu saw it, the reason why “the present Lixue” should be criticized had its original cause in them abandoning the study of the classics founded by the sage. Their non-adoption of the five classics, only using the recorded sayings of Chan as their nourishment, meant they had lost their basis, and so they had fallen into Chan learning and had collaborated with it. Quan Zuwang (1705–1755) simply interpreted this as, “If you abandon the study of the classics, then the so-called Lixue is Chan learning.”4 The evaluation of Lixue by Gu and Quan is generally the same. In fact, Lixue had truly absorbed Chan thought (naturally this includes the other sects of Buddhism which the Chan School in fact can be seen to have infiltrated, so every time later people talked of Chan and Buddhism, they mostly gave it this sense of this infiltration, and the development of Confucian thought really gained strength from Chan thought building on that foundation). Nevertheless. Gu still did not think this was really so. His criticism was: Chan learning regards principle (li) to be an obstacle and solely points at the mind, saying, “Do not rely on letters, a singular transmission of the seal of the mind.” The learning of the sages and the worthies (Confucianism) develops from the one mind into a function of the empire and the state and is nothing but the circulation of utmost principle. It is a clear and distinctive discernment, and [due to] the differences in each person and [passing through] a thousand years without interruption, how can one say that they transmitted it? Vulgar theories have infected it, even though worthies may be unable to not copy it and use its words….The Zhongyong zhangju (Paragraphs and Sentences of the Zhongyong) quotes the words of a Cheng brother that said that this work imparted the mind and method of the school of Confucius and also is a borrowing of the words of the Buddhists. Is that not worth consideration?5

The Chan School thought that principle is an obstacle, that did not rely on letters, and had a sole linear transmission of the mind-seal. Naturally that formed an opposition to “the cultivation of equality and governing with peace” of the Practical Learning scholars. Nevertheless, introspection of the mind within is a feature of the Chan School, and Confucian thought did not completely reject the way of thinking of the Chan School, and therefore Chan was able to operate together with Lixue. This was only possible due to changes in values. Gu then raised difficult questions about the insubtantial Chan learning leading to Lixue. Just because this was so, the reforms in the secularization of Chan thought were then able to be put into practice. If one says that Gu Yanwu’s criticism of Lixue for irregularly adopting Chan learning was comparatively tactful in its diction, he harbored a bitter impression engraved in his memory with respect of Wang Yangming learning falling into Chan learning. He pointed out that “The Liu [of Former Zhao] and Shi [of Later Zhao] disordered China based on the spread of the disaster of pure conversation (qingtan). Everybody knows this, but who knows that the present-day pure conversation is even more disastrous than in former times. The pure conversation of the past talked of the Daoist philosophers, the present pure conversation talks of Confucius and Mencius…using empty words on enlightening the mind and seeing the nature, they exchange it for 4

Quan Zuwang, Jiqi Tingting ji (Collection from the Adjudication Pavilion on Mt. Jiqi), fascicle 12, “Tinglin Xiansheng shendao biao” (Grave Memorial for Sir Tinglin [Gu Yanwu]). 5 Gu Yanwu, Rizhi lu (Record of Knowledge Gained Day by Day), fascicle 18, “Xinxue”.

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the Practical Learning of cultivating oneself and governing people. The top aides [of the court] were lazy and all matters were neglected; the brave warriors (defending armies) disappeared and all corners of the country were in turmoil. China was in ruins and was overturned [by the Manchus]; the ancestral shrines [of the state] were wastelands.”6 The shifting of blame completely onto the Wang Yangming learning for the pure conversation on enlightening the mind and seeing the nature is rather an overstatement. Evidently, he viewed Chan learning for being the source of the spread of the disaster of this pure conversation. He pointed out that after the Cheng brothers, there were three inflows into Chan learning: the first was Xie Langzuo, who “studied the Chengs and entered into Chan”; the second was Zhang Jiucheng, “who used Chan to enter into Confucianism,” and the third, Lu Jiuyuan who, although he “established his own theory,” “also had nothing but the core-tenets of Chan.” Moreover, Wang Yangming learning also “glossed over the faults of Lu [Jiuyuan] but paid no heed to correcting the errors of Zhu Xi, deceiving and misleading later students profoundly.” In this way, though criticizing Wang Yangming learning, he introduced a denunciation of Chan learning. He said, Wencheng (Wang Yangming) used its matchless assistance to advocate his new theory and to inspire the country… But Minister Wang (Wang Shizhen) issued a goad, saying, “If present scholars occasionally get a glimpse of it, they wish to completely abolish the theories of the previous Confucians and put theirs above them. If they do not study, they take advantage of words about consistency in order to cover over its crudity; if they do not practice, they will flee into the village of nature and the mandate so that people are unable to interrogate them.” These three sayings were all about the circumstances of those days. Therefore, the two chief disciples of the Wang school were Taizhou and Longqi. In one transmissiongeneration, the learning of Taizhou came to be headed by Yan Shannong (Yan Jun), and in the second generation there were Luo Jinqi and Zhao Dazhou. Longqi’s learning came in one generation to He Xinyin (Liang Ruyuan, 1517–1579), and in the second generation there were Li Zhuowu and Tao Shikui. In the past, Fan Wuzi said that the crimes of Wang Bi and He Yan were greater than those of the [tyrants] Jie and Zhou, thinking that the disasters for a generation were minor but the harm through the ages was major; that the loss to one’s own virtue was slight but the crime of confusing the masses was great. Su Zizhan (Su Shi, 1037-1101) said that Li Si created troubles for the empire; and when it came to the burning of the books and the burial [alive] of the scholars [by Li Si], he ignored the fact that all this came from his teacher Xun Qing (Xunzi) who talked loftily about unusual theories.7 There was a person who changed the empire and his refined style lasted for over a century, and it existed in ancient times. Wang Yifu [Wang Yan, 256–361]’s pure conversation and Wang Jiefu [Wang Anshi, 1021–1086]’s new theory both exist in the present, this being the good knowing of Wang Boan (Wang Yangming).

In fact, the later descendants of Wang Yangming learning did not stop with Taizhou’s Wang Gen (1483–1540) and Wang Ji (Longqi, 1498–1583), there were also the branches of Jiangyou and Nanzhong, and even the Wang Yangming school of Zhezhong had as its chief disciple Qian Dehong (1496–1574) et cetera. Gu Yanwu was just highlighting the tendency of Wang Yangming learning to be influenced by 6

Rizhi lu, fascicle 7, “Fuzi zhi yan xing yu tiandao” (The Words of Confucius on Nature and the Heavenly Way). 7 Rizhi lu, “Zhuzi wannian dinglun” (The Set Theories of Zhu Xi’s Late Years).

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Chan, and he intentionally indicated the two Wangs, and further explained that Wang Yangming’s theory of leading to good knowing was really a repeated transmission of Chan learning, and that its harmful effect was like Xun Qing of the pre-Qin, He Yan and Wang Bi of the Wei-Jin period, and even Wang Anshi of the Song, “thinking that the disaster for a generation was minor, and the harm through the ages was major; the loss to one’s own virtue was slight, but the crime of confusing the masses was great.” He thought that this can be regarded as bequeathing disasters without end. In this way, the criticism of Wang Yangming learning was rather extreme, yet Wang can be said to have unintentionally given his approval to the far-reaching influence of Chan thought, and “each ushered in literary excellence for several hundred years.” Truly this is what he said. Discussing it fairly, the above-described disparagement of Chan thought by Gu Yanwu was a launching of values totally in search of the practical work and actual effect of the application of it to the management of the country, and therefore he was bound to reject the transcendental spirit of introspection. He also pointed out that the sage (Confucius) established a teaching, “and also had the division of reality (ti) and function, but he lacked application of mind to the theory of the interior,” and that from when the teaching of Zhuangzi arose, “Then brilliant scholars, who detested the scorn for the Odes and the Documents, regarded this as the reason why the previous kings governed the dregs of the empire. Then Buddhism later entered China and the theories of the pristine compassion that it spoke of happened to move the people of the world to long after it.” The result was a theory of pure freedom, and it proceeded on to the meaning of non-birth and non-death. Students after this consequently called Buddhist books the inner scriptures. “Now the inner is Buddhism and the outer is our Confucianism. This is following the words of the monks, so how could a gentleman say such a thing?”8 Even though Gu was not interested in the division between inner and outer, still he accepted that scholarship distinguished reality and function. Since he had claimed that “to practice for oneself is shameful,” he was also unable to totally deny using the mind for the study of the internal. This was just because in the particular historical circumstances he wished to encourage the government to enlighten and use the Practical Learning in the management of the country. Therefore, he opposed the pathway of scholarly research that “solely pays attention to the internal.” Thus, the result of his criticism of Chan learning was not to make one return to calm extinction (nirvana), but was to urge rapid development along the pathway towards engagement with the world. The scholarly factions of Yan and Li, while criticizing Lixue, were particularly direct in their criticism of Chan learning. Yan Yuan said, The masters of the Song, with the exception of Hu Wending, were all tainted by Chan. Messers Yu, Yang, and Xie were said to have been much tainted by Zhu Xi. Zhou [Dunyi]’s diagram of the supreme ultimate began with the ultimate of nothingness and ended with mastery over tranquility. Zhu Xi’s discussions did not deal with the images of qi (material energy) and used non-examination to examine it, sitting in tranquility for half a day, and the remainder he did not discuss. When I clearly examine the root of the decay of the Confucian 8

Rizhi lu, fascicle 18, “Neidian” (Inner scriptures).

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Way, it lies with the Chan School. Therefore, in discriminating between learnings, first discriminate the Chan School.9

The permeation of Confucian theories by Chan thought led to the Way of the Confucians decaying. This is clearly a biased view. In reality, Yan criticized Chan learning for the concept of “talking of emptiness (xu).” He pointed out that. The matter of reading books is to bring about knowledge. If nothing else is done, it is futile learning, and if it is [for] tranquil sitting, then it is Chan learning.10 If one says reading books is sufficient for managing the affairs of the empire and that it is not necessary to cultivate practice, that is leading the empire [back] to Han Confucianism. If one says that in one room one is to master tranquility and reverence, and that this is sufficient to be enlightened to the principles of the empire and that it is not necessary to temper that with experience, that is to lead the empire into Chan.11

Yan wanted to reduce learning to its essential points, stressing the cultivation of practice and the gaining of experience. He truly stood on the standpoint of managing the country and dealing with concrete matters, as opposed to the vain speciousness and empty calm of Chan learning. Therefore, he criticized Zhu Xi, Lu Jiuyuan, and the Chan School, saying, “The Buddhists talked of emptiness to the Song Confucians and the Song Confucians talked of principle to the Buddhists.” “(Zhu Xi) pondered empty calm and the Chan School did so even more than did Lu Jiuyuan.” Li Gong accepted his teacher’s ideas and he likewise “destroyed and swept away all of that which the factions of the Han and the Song, Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan had relied on.”12 What Zhu and Lu had relied on, in Li Zhu (Gong)’s view, was nothing but Chan learning. He pointed out in respect of the fundamental theories of scholarship, that the paths of the learning of Zhu and Lu returned to the same source, their theories of the mastery of reverence and the mastery of tranquility all turned their backs on the school of the sage and reverted instead to the Chan calm quiescence. He also glossed the meaning of the character “wu” (enlightenment), explaining that Zhu and Lu illuminated and noted sudden and gradual enlightenment, both derived from Chan learning: Those who in recent times venerate the Chengs and Zhu point out that the sudden enlightenment of Lu [Jiuyuan] and Wang [Yangming] are Chan, not knowing that the ancient classics lacked the character wu. Enlightenment is a Chan tenet and it does not reside especially in “sudden.” Cheng and Zhu loved reading and valued alert awakening, and therefore [thought that] enlightenment should be gradual. Lu and Wang belittled reading and concentrated on alert awakening, and therefore [thought that] enlightenment should be sudden. So [these people of recent times] viewed Cheng and Zhu as being more serious.13

9

Yan Yuan, Sishu zhengwu (Corrections of Errors in the Four Books), fascicle 2. Li Gong, Yan Xizhai xiansheng nianpu (Chronology of the Life of Master Yan Yuan), fascicle 1. 11 Yan Yuan, Yanxing lu (Record of Words and Deeds), last fascicle, “Buwei dishiba” (Eighteenth of Things Not to Do). 12 Liang Qichao, Zhongguo jinsanbai nian xueshu shi, 1990, p. 105. 13 Li Gong, Lunyu zhuanzhu wen (Questions on Specialist Notes on the Analects). 10

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In saying that enlightenment is a Chan tenet, Li is spot on. Since Cheng, Zhu, Lu, and Wang all devoted themselves to alert awakening, they are all of the one gateway of the “enlightenment” of the Chan masters, but the difference in the rapidity of sudden and gradual did not influence their essential view. In reality, this was the longcustomary division of south (Southern Chan) being sudden and the north (Northern Chan) being gradual. This basically was not accurate, with Zhu Xi using “sudden” to slander Lu and Wang as being Chan. Therefore, this gave Li Gong the feeling that there was self-deception operating here. The fact that Cheng and Zhu, and Lu and Wang approached Chan cannot be denied. Naturally, Li Gong based himself on the position of pragmatism to refute them. He said, The learning of the sage is the fulfillment of the body by fully comprehending one’s nature, but present-day Confucians fall into [the misconception that] the body is to be used to illuminate the nature. If the ears and eyes are just used for listening and reading, then the ears and eyes will lose sixty or seventy [percent of their] functions. If the hand is only used for writing, then the hand will lose seventy or eighty [percent of its] function. If the feet dislike movement, then the feet will lose ninety [percent] of their function. If one sits in tranquility, examines the mind, and the body does not enjoy doing things, then the body and the mind will lose ninety [percent] of their functions. Since the body is not used to its full, how will the nature be fulfilled?14

Because of this, he blamed the Chengs, Zhu, Lu, and Wang, and the Chan learning that they relied on, as “nourishing a useless mind,” as “cultivating a useless body,” and as “performing useless learning.” He warned that “If you do not thoroughly remove these faults, one cannot ask about the ways of the world.”15 In summary, the learning of Yan Yuan and Li Gong that Liang Qichao titled “contemporary” and “pragmatism,” saw “enlightening the mind and seeing the nature” to be purely useless matters, and even though one must say that it had a definite limitation, still it reflected the features of the changeover in the time periods. Yan also deeply analyzed the Chan School’s inconceivable realm psychologically, saying, Now they play with the flowers in a mirror or with the moon in the waters, believing that that is sufficient to amuse the eyes and minds of people. If one removes the mirror and the water, the flowers and the moon will not exist. If one spends a lifetime facing the mirror and the water, one will merely deceive oneself for a lifetime. If you point to the water so that the moon is reflected in it and take the mirror [away] so that the flowers are broken off and worn, this must [occur] innumerable times. Therefore, the more the principles of emptiness and tranquility are spoken about, the more they will delude; and the more marvelous the effectiveness of calm and tranquility, the more they are false.16

According to this analysis, the realms sought by the Chan School cannot be said to be non-existent, yet they are only phenomenal realms in which the depths of human psychology broadly refract the flowers in the mirror and the moon in the water, which are products of abnormal psychology. This analysis also attacked the inconceivable mystique of Chan, which accurately is sufficient for the analysis to be 14

Shugu xiansheng nianpu, fascicle 1. Ibid. 16 Yan Yuan, Cunren bian (Collection on the Preservation of People). 15

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“contemporary.” Yet if one says that the Chan School strives to transcend antithesis and grasps the developmental direction towards subjective consciousness, and that this is purely the principle of the delusions of emptiness and the efficacy of false illusion, then that would not be quite factual. It should instead be said that this flexible application was used to criticize the late inferior followers of the Chan School for contending to show off their skills and that therefore they played with the mysticism of profound emptiness, which is very apt. Compared to what is described above, Dai Zhen (1724–1777)’s criticism of Lixue and Chan, of course theoretically, but also in a real sense, was much more penetrating. His work, the Mengzi ziyi shuzheng (Commentary on the Proofs of the Meanings of Characters in Mencius) concentrated on advancing a criticism of the Song Confucians’ concepts of principle and desires, demonstrating in all over ten places where the Chengs and Zhu Xi held the same position as Chan learning. In fact, he pursued the path that Yan Yuan had with “in discriminating learning, first discriminate the Chan School.” He particularly pointed out that “Confucians since the Song have all striven to refute Daoism and Buddhism, not knowing that they themselves have irregularly followed their words, and one by one they have applied them to the classics… What these people’s minds know are all their words, but they also do not know that these are different from the Six Classics and the words of Confucius and Mencius.” His idea was to say that the Song Confucians had irregularly adopted elements from Daoism and Buddhism, forming a new scholarly principle, namely Lixue, and that later people had already not divided this (Confucianism) from that (Daoism and Buddhism), or as some had said, they had used the words of Daoism and Buddhism, mixing them with the sayings of Confucius and Mencius. Exactly because this was the case, Confucian thinkers had achieved a new development. So Dai Zhen then began from this way of thinking to search for the similarities and commonalities of Lixue and Chan learning. He pointed out that the ears and eyes of the Song Confucians had been infected by Chan learning and the Daoist philosophers, and that therefore they took the way of thinking of Chan and the Daoists to be the one “principle” that is the intrinsic reality of all the myriad transformations of the universe, which is what he meant by: Since the learning of the Chengs and Zhu Xi took advantage of and based themselves on the Daoist philosophers and the Buddhists, they only used the one character “principle” and changed it to be the so-called “true controller” and “true emptiness,” and the rest they did not change… Due to the Song Confucians mixing [ideas from] Xunzi, Laozi, Zhuangzi, and the Buddhists with the Six Classics and the books of Confucius and Mencius, students now do not know that this is wrong, and so the Way of the Six Classics, Confucius, and Mencius is lost!

It should be pointed out that Dai Zhen was not entirely accurate in thinking that the principle (li)-ontology of the Song Confucians had borrowed from the theories of the Daoist philosophers and Buddhists. The Daoist philosophers spoke of the intrinsic reality (benti) and the Buddhists actually denied the existence of any intrinsic reality. The fundamental concept of being apart from thought and apart from characteristics of the Chan School was also erected on the foundations of there being no intrinsic reality. If one definitely must say that there is an intrinsic reality, naturally that is what

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the Chan School called one’s own mind. On this point, the ways of thinking of Lixue and Chan learning are very dissimilar, and instead it was Wang Yangming learning that had a similar path forward as Chan. The Song Confucians actually followed the Chan School with regard to the tranquil sitting and examination of the mind, which was what Dai meant by saying “the rest they did not change,” the chief part of which is also talking about this. That is to say, Dai Zhen’s grasp of Chan learning was also limited. It is no wonder that Zhang Taiyan said, “The sutras and treatises of the Buddhists had not been seen by Dai Zhen. He only perversely grasped hold of the common sayings of Chan people and added his refutations and censures, with especially many errors.”17 As for Dai’s criticisms of the concepts of principle and desire of the Lixue masters, Dai Zhen first of all attributed them to the theories of “no desire” of the Buddhists and Daoists. He said, Zhou Dunyi’s Tongshu (Book of Comprehension, [section 20]) said, “Can the sage learn? I say, he can. Does he have wants? I say he has. I asked to hear about it. I say, he wants one thing. The one is to be without desire. If there are no desires there will be tranquil emptiness and activity that is just. If one is in tranquil emptiness then there will be clarity, and if there is clarity there is comprehension. If activity is just there will be impartiality, and if there is impartiality there will be universality. Clarity, comprehension, fairness, and universality are almost [being a sage]!”18 This is a theory of Laozi, Zhuangzi, and the Buddhists. Zhu Xi also frequently said, “They are hidden by human desires.” All think that to be without desire is to be without any covering… Therefore, Laozi said, “Always make the people ignorant and without desire,” and he alienated himself from the human body, but he valued its true controller. After this, the Buddhists wrote treatises that spoke differently about this, but they were in fact the same.

To explain the commonalities and similarities of Lixue with Chan and Laozi via the way of thinking of no desires and no coverings clearly tallies with reality, but it is also “perversely grasping hold of the common sayings of Chan people and adding refutations and censures.” Dai Zhen said of this criticism, All hunger, cold, melancholy, resentment, drinking and eating, male and female, and feelings of ordinary thoughts that are hidden and distorted are called human desires. Therefore, in the end these physical and mental desires are difficult to control. What they called the existence of principle is to have principle only in name and ultimately is no more than the feeling that one has eliminated emotions and desires… To [claim that] the empire must be without the abandonment of the way of nourishing life and getting to preserve it [means] that all of these matters have a desire to be without a desire, which is to be without [purposeful] action (wuwei)… Laozi, Zhuangzi, and the Buddhists hold to being without desire and without [purposeful] action, and therefore they do not talk of principle. The sage’s task was to obtain principle in desires and in actions. For this reason, a gentleman-ruler ( junzi) also is without selfishness and does not value being without desires.

17

Zhang Taiyan, Taiyan wenlu chubian (First Collection of the Recorded Prose of Taiyan), “Shi Dai” (An Explanation of Dai), in Zhang Taiyan quanji (Complete Works of Zhang Taiyan), 4, Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1985, p. 124. 18 See translation by Derk Bodde of Fung Yu-lan, A History of Chinese Philosophy, two vols, Princeton University Press, 1953, vol. 2, p. 448.

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Hunger, cold, melancholy, resentment, eating and drinking, male and female, and so on are called human desires, which are the way of the nourishment of the lives of humanity. Therefore, his conclusion is that people cannot be without desire, and if one is without desire, then one abandons the way of nourishing life and also denies human existence. This is a criticism of Lixue and Chan learning from the angle of dealing with concrete matters and managing the country. In fact, people cannot be without desires, yet also one cannot have an unlimited expansion of individuals’ selfish desires. Confucians likewise propounded being careful of one’s conduct when alone, being without ego and “not doing to others what one does not desire for oneself.” All of these emerged from the angle of a purified morality. Dai Zhen clearly made the problem of morality and ethics into a question of the survival of society. Seen from the angle of reality, his criticism of asceticism (prohibition of desire) doubtlessly possessed a progressive function of emancipating oneself from old ideas and the development of society, yet logically speaking this kind of criticism of the disguised replacement of a concept and the contents of the changed propositions becomes aimless and fruitless, and his presentation of an argument likewise was untenable. As for his emphasis on human desires, he said that “The flourishing of morality satisfies all of people’s desires and achieves all of people’s emotions.”19 This clearly is a paradox. It is no wonder that Fang Dongshu (1772–1851) criticized it as being “a great confusion of the Way.” Dai Zhen’s criticism of Chan learning is systematically expressed in his “Da Peng Jinshi Yun chushu” (First Letter of Reply to Presented Scholar Peng Yun). At first he points out that Peng Shaosheng (1740–1796)’s Erlin ju zhiyi (Meaning of the Writing of the Collection of Layman Erlin) was a “realm of literature that is elevated and superb,” and so its meaning resides in being the Way and “is greatly open to the mind lineage (Chan) and investigating and vivifying the theories of the Chengs and Zhu in order to apply it to the six classics, Confucius, and Mencius, making them magnificent without bounds.” He proceeded to explain the historical source of the confluence of Confucianism and Buddhism. Before the Song, Confucius and Mencius were just Confucius and Mencius, and Daoism and Buddhism were just Daoism and Buddhism. Those who talked about Daoism and Buddhism to elevate and make their words marvelous did not rely on Confucius and Mencius. From the Song onwards, the books of Confucius and Mencius were no longer understood and Confucians irregularly followed the words of the Daoists and Buddhists in order to understand them. Then those who read the Confucian books and who entered into Daoism and Buddhism, and those who loved Daoism and Buddhism immersed themselves in [those books], and since they had referred to the Confucian books, they were delighted that its [Confucian] Way could provide assistance, and so they relied on Confucian books in order to talk of Daoism and Buddhism. In regard to those who agreed with them, together they verified the mind lineage (Chan), and with regard to those who differed from them, they entrusted their theories to the six classics, Confucius, and Mencius, saying, “What I have obtained are the subtle words and the profound meanings of the sage,” and they (these theories) are complex and interlocked, repeatedly changing and increasingly skilled, are integrated and without flaws.

19

The above quotes, with the exception of those clearly indicated, are all from Mengzi ziyi shuzheng.

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Seen from the view of cultural development, the mutual permeation and selection of different cultures, as something that is hard to avoid, meant that they made up for their own deficiencies by drawing on the strengths of the others in the course of the cross-currents, which brought out the best in each other. The Song Confucians, just by obtaining the assistance of Chan learning, were then able to construct an extensive and brilliant Lixue, and traditional Confucian learning was then renewed. In fact, before the Song, innovations due to the interactions of Confucianism and Buddhism already existed and the mainstream of Wei-Jin period Xuanxue (Dark Learning) was made up of “Confucians irregularly following the words of the Daoists and Buddhists in order to interpret them” and “relying on Confucian books in order to talk of Daoism and Buddhism.” Still, in this respect, Dai Zhen thought that the Lixue that had introduced Chan into Confucianism was a non-identical Way that contradicted the Way of the sage, and therefore he quoted the words of Confucius to say that “those whose Way is not identical cannot plan for one another,”20 declaring that his Way and Peng Shaosheng’s Way were “completely divergent” and are “without an iota of similarity.” In sum, Dai regarded Chan learning as being a heresy and he challenged it. Dai first pointed out that the philosophers, the Cheng brothers, Zhang Zai, and Zhu Xi all regarded themselves as Confucians but became involved with Chan learning, and moreover, they “used the words of the sages and the worthies to point out what they had obtained from the Buddhists.” Even though they were conscious of the differences between Confucianism and Buddhism, which is what is meant by “we Confucians base ourselves on Heaven and the heresy (Buddhism) bases itself on the mind,” and “we Confucians regard principle to be non-arising and non-ceasing; the Buddhists regard the spirit-consciousness to be non-arising and non-ceasing,” and yet they “merely transformed their words” by “combining Heaven and mind into one, and combining principle and the spirit-consciousness into one.” Therefore, he criticized this by saying, “Even though one says principle, says knowing, says learning; they are all shams, just confusing virtue.” By saying that Lixue combined Heaven and mind into one and combined principle and the spirit into one, and saying that is the joint adoption of the theories of Confucianism and Chan, we should recognize that Dai Zhen attacked the lifeline of Lixue. Yet he said that what the Confucians had imbibed from Chan learning was all a sham and just confuses their virtues, so one can only view this as Dai upholding the position of orthodox Confucian learning in a biased thesis, just as he said that one needed “to refute the appearances of errors in order to correct our school and protect our race.” Next, Dai Zhen firmly adhered to the standpoint of the thesis of the extinction of the spirit (soul) and he criticized the Buddhist view of birth and death of “non-rising and non-ceasing.” He stressed that “the vitality is a thing, the wandering soul is a transformation,” but the Chan masters only “see the wandering soul to be an aspect of the transformation and they are ignorant of its great permanence,” which is that

20

Lunyu, XV.39.

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they only see its transformation and they deny its extinction, and so then they have the theories of “non-rising and non-ceasing.” He reproached them, saying, The Buddhist “non-rising and non-ceasing” is nothing but their own selfishness, is nothing but grief over their extinction! Therefore, they used the absence of desire to form their selfishness.

Reproaching Chan masters for their own selfishness is constantly spoken of by Lixue thinkers to exorcise Buddhism. Dai Zhen thought that the theory of “nonrising and non-ceasing” was merely the Buddhists “grieving their extinction” out of a selfishness that they wanted to keep hidden, and he viewed their theory of rising and ceasing to be the same as being selfish, and being without desire to be linked to this, in order to criticize it. This was probably created out of a shallow understanding of the Buddhists. No wonder that later people just shouted that Buddhism is “a philosophy that fears death.” Based on this, Dai Zhen also quoted the words of Mencius such as, “A gentleman desires a wide land and many people,” and “The desire for the valuable is the shared idea of people,” and “Fish is what I desire; bear’s paw is also what I desire,” and “Life is what I desire; righteousness is also what I desire.” These words “do not exist in Daoism and Buddhism and yet they alone secretly desire their wandering soul and grieve over its extinction and so make it a pursuit.” Dai used this to explain that having desire is to be impartial, and so being without desire is to be selfish, which evidently is a confusion in logic. However, he thought that “Desire that does not flow into selfishness is humaneness, and not being submerged [in desire] and yet to dislike [this desire] is to be righteous,” explaining that not all desire is of benefit to the way of nourishing life, but one should allow for desire in order to preserve life. Seen essentially, of course it is only the restriction on and even the elimination of the teachings of Confucius, Mencius, and also the Chengs and Zhu, or Daoism and Buddhism, that will enable these selfish desires and bad desires that are opposed to impartiality and the good. The thesis of non-rising and non-ceasing of the Chan masters was also to allow people to be unconcerned about birth and death and to be courageous in doing things. Dai Zhen also considered this critical analysis that he had made about this to be the words of one school. Continuing, he also pointed out that the words “reside nowhere and give rise to that mind” used by the Chan masters was particularly close to Wang Yangming ideas. The Chan masters said, “Do not think of good, do not think of evil, at the time recognize one’s own original face (different to the original text)” and Wang also said that “The lack of good and lack of evil is the reality (ti) of the mind.” As Dai saw it, nowhere to reside is OK, and the original face is also OK, and that the reality of the mind that is without good or without evil and so on is a concept of the transcendence of antithesis, and “do not value the good at all” “values what they secretly desire and grieves over its extinction.” He also explained, “The original face spoken of by the Buddhists and the reality (ti) of good knowing spoken of by Yangming are nothing more than maintaining their self-satisfaction. Since it is self-satisfaction, they must be self-important. This is removed from the ‘select the good and firmly keep to it,’ ‘broad learning, interrogation, careful thought, clear distinction, and honest behavior’ of the Zhongyong by far more than thousands and tens of thousands of miles.” Chan

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masters recognized that the nature is intrinsically pristine and therefore one needs to transcend the mundane views of good and evil; Wang Yangming thought that to be without good and without evil is the utmost good. These two definitely were not the same, yet essentially both were pursuing a kind of eternal and universal good. Based on this, Dai Zhen said that they “did not value good” and thought that this was the origin of their selfishness that “grieved over their extinction,” and so they could not avoid imposing it somewhat on people. When it came to speaking about this kind of original face and the reality of good knowing being far removed from the thought of the Zhongyong, it was perhaps not entirely so. Finally, Dai Zhen also specially emphasized that combining the Way of Chan, Laozi, Lu Jiuyuan, and Wang Yangming with the words of Confucius, Mencius, the Chengs and Zhu Xi into one, in reality was borrowing the names of Confucius and practicing the reality of the Chan masters, and in this way “by mixing in the theory of no desire is to become even more distant from principle, and by grasping on to this idea, views become even firmer, making the misfortune for our people even more intense.” In this he tended to favor the Chengs and Zhu, and yet his criticism of Chan learning and of the Xinxue of Wang Yangming cannot be called not intense. He also said that “To mistakenly pursue taking on the appearance of other people [means] there is no way to not be changed into the reality of those other people.” He demanded that those who were outwardly Confucian but inwardly Chan, open-mindedly and comprehensively examine the six classics and the words of Confucius and Mencius, in order to return to devotion to the Way of Mencius. He further explained that his criticism of Chan learning was aimed at the elimination of heresy and to purify the lineage of the Confucian Way (daotong). His inquiry into that which was shared by Lixue, Xinxue, and Chan was deeper than that of the Confucians of the early Qing, and therefore the influence of his criticism of Chan learning was greater. In particular, in the historical circumstances of the literary inquisitions that were to be avoided and to be feared, this time he took responsibility for providing scholarly evidence for the restoration of the learning of the sage, which was also commendable. Someone who is regarded as sharing the same opinions as Dai Zhen was his scholar-friend Hong Bang (1745–1780), who came from the same town as Dai. “For a lifetime, Hong studied and inquired into the Way and was sincerely convinced by Dai. Scholars of that time could not comprehend the meaning of the Mengzi ziyi shuzheng; only Bang regarded its merit to be no less than that of Yu [the controller of floods and founder of the Xia dynasty].” He wrote the Dongyuan xingzhuang (Obituary of Dongyuan), purposely selecting from the Da Peng Jinshi Yun chushu (First Letter of Reply to the Presented Scholar Peng Yun). Yet Bang’s teacher, Zhu Yun (1729–1781) thought it was not necessary to record it, saying, “What should be transmitted of Dai’s work is not this.” Clearly Zhu had reservations about Dai’s criticisms of the language and theories of Lixue and Chan learning, which may have the sense of being taboo for a worthy. Because of this, Hong Bang sent a letter to his teacher to debate this. He pointed out that his teacher thought that the classics arose from the theories and research methods handed down from a teacher, “and that one cannot further be concerned with the tenets of the nature and the mandate, and one should instead write of their shortcomings in order to cover their advantages.”

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In this way he evaded the learning of the nature and the mandate, which really was “an incomplete examination of the reason why Dai was of a mind to write and the reason why Bang wrote out Dai’s ideas.” As Hong Bang saw it, The letter from Dai to the presented scholar Peng did not criticize the Chengs and Zhu, and corrected the failures of Lu and Wang. If it was not to correct Lu and Wang, it was to exorcise the evil theories of the Daoists and Buddhists. If it was not to exorcise the Daoists and Buddhists, it was to exorcise later scholars who really were Daoists and Buddhists and externally [pretended to be] Confucians, and introduced the words of the [Duke of] Zhou and Confucius into the teachings of the Daoists and Buddhists, and due to the resemblances with the Daoists and Buddhists, they confuse the truth of [the Duke of] Zhou and Confucius, and all are attached to the learning of the Chengs and Zhu.

That is to say, the target of Dai was really Chan learning, especially those laterperiod scholars who were outwardly Confucian but inwardly Buddhist. However, seen academically, this was also a criticism of the Chengs and Zhu, and Lu and Wang, for introducing Chan learning into their Confucianism. Hong Bang and Dai Zhen may be regarded as sharing a power of comprehension. Therefore, Jiang Fan (a scholar of theories of interpretations of the classics) sighed that “Mr. Hong can be regarded as a Confucian who protected the Way.” Hong greatly disagreed with the then current theory that said, “That which the previous Confucians resisted and rejected were specially the crudities of Daoism and Buddhism, but even though their refinements were the subtle tenets of [the Duke of] Zhou and Confucius, they were not in error.” Hong rejected this, saying, Talk about the nature and talk about the mind also did not arise after the Song. The philosophers of the end of the Zhou and the books written in the Qin and Han periods setting up theories often mentioned them….In the Wei-Jin period, this study flourished, and Buddhist books flowed into China, and also they prospered in accord with the times. These books were basically shallow and false, insufficient to be the Way, and the translators mixed in the tenets of the Daoist philosophers and through this they embellished their theories, greatly unblocking their original style.

The study of mind and nature is not a Buddhist patent and it also did not arise after Buddhism was introduced into China. The books of the philosophers had already dealt with them, and also the Way of the Buddhists had selected the tenets of the Daoist philosophers to form a Sinicized Chan learning. Hong Bang’s knowledge of the sources of Chan learning was even superior to that of Dai Zhen and the Confucians of the early Qing. Yet he was not supportive of this Way; he rejected it. He told people that the books of Han Yu that exorcised Buddhism, such as his Yuan Dao, “made scholars clearly know the mistakes of the two teachings [of Buddhism and Daoism],” and yet Liu Zongyuan (773–819) had said that the crime committed by Han was “his deeds,” and that what “he could not dismiss [of Buddhism] often concurred with the Yijing and the Analects, and that was not a different Way to that of Confucius. As soon as some of these theories emerged, later scholars often grasped these theories and searched for them in the Yijing and the Analects. And yet what they meant by the Yijing and the Analects were also the commentaries [on these texts] by Wang [Bi, 226–249] of the Wei and the collected interpretations of He [Yan, d. 249] that they solely used.” Therefore, their theories also mixed in the words of the Daoists and

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Buddhists. Then, “After the Xining era (1068–1077) of the Song, this abuse deepened daily until the learning of Wang of Yaojiang only used Buddhist books to interpret the Analects and Mencius… Therefore, the theories about principle, the Way, mind, and nature, were often mixed in with the tenets of the Daoists and Buddhists.” It should be recognized that Hong was fairly accurate in grasping the historical evolution of the traditional Chinese scholarship on the mind and nature, in particular with regard to the content of the core-tenets of the Song Confucians, the learning of Yaojiang, Chan learning, and the Ming Confucians. Yet the point that Hong Bang wanted to convey was not in order to advocate the principle of the nature and the mandate of the Chan masters, but it was as he said, “If the results of their theories are correct, then follow them and one will discover them,” and if one allows that people know “the results” of Chan learning “to be wrong, then those who study the classics should definitely not be silent.” In other words, he wrote in order to let scholars know the errors of Chan learning and reject them. It is just as he said, Dai’s discussion of the Way of the nature is not found in the books of Mencius…and so these are not words about the tenets of the nature and the mandate, but are only commentarial glosses… If later scholars are without an enthusiasm for the elevated marvel of the mind, then they [should] clearly examine human relationships among all things.21

In fact, Hong Bang’s accusations against Chan learning lay in the idea that their theory of the mind-nature is of no benefit to human relationships and all things, that it is specious and is not real. Their understanding of Chan learning was still superior to the understanding by Gu Yanwu and Yan Yuan. However, once it concerns theoretical thinking, their understandings are definitely correct, but their criticisms are lacking in force, high-sounding and impractical, and one does not know what they are saying. Ruan Yuan (1764–1849) began from the critical examination of letters to raise difficult questions about Chan learning. He said, The reasons why the Han [dynasty] learning of the classics was then venerated was that they were still very close [in time] to the sage and the worthies, and that the theories of the two religions, Buddhism and Daoism] were yet to appear… The books of the Buddhists would not have been clear in language and text without translation. The erudite and brilliant scholars of the Northern Dynasties and the intelligent and perspicacious scholars of the Song and the Qi [dynasties] used their own ideas and made far-fetched interpretations of these ideas, so as to make later scholars continue them with increasing delight, and they changed them and necessarily followed them, [so it] was not the Buddhists confusing the Confucians but was the Confucians confusing the Buddhists… I have said that the scholarship of the two Han [dynasties] was pure and refined, which was before the two teachings [of Buddhism and Daoism] arose.22

Ruan Yuan thought that the reason why Han learning was pure had its basic cause in that it had not been influenced by the Chinese translations of the Buddhist scriptures. His idea was to say that later Confucians, naturally including the Song 21

Jiang Fan, Hanxue shicheng ji (Record of the Transmissions from the Masters of Han Learning), fascicle 6, Shanghai shudian, 1983, p. 103. 22 Ruan Yuan, Hanxue shicheng ji xu (Preface to the Record of the Transmissions from the Masters of Han Learning).

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Confucians and the students of Yaojiang (Wang), made far-fetched interpretations of the principles of Buddhism; they used their own ideas to advance or dismiss Chan learning, so it was not only Confucians confusing Buddhism, but they themselves also became further distant from the Way of the sage. Naturally, he disparaged Chan learning from the angle of pragmatism. Therefore, he also said, “The Confucian learning of our dynasty is practical, its task being to be critical, its task being to seek the truth.”23 However, what he calls practical is the practical of the Confucian classics and books, and what he calls the truth is the truth of Confucian learning that has removed the principles of Chan. Concretely speaking about the translation of the Buddhist scriptures, Ruan raised examples such as the Sanskrit word stupa, for which Chinese had no corresponding words, but it was translated by the one character ta, which it used to indicate this thing. If so, one cannot give rise to a different meaning. And yet, “The Buddhists say there are things here that existed at the beginning when humanity was yet to be born, an empty numinosity that is perfect and pure, a light that illuminates the universe, and people receive it when they are born….The translators of the Jin and Song and the Yao Qin grasped hold of this thing and sought for it in the Chinese scriptures and they found the one character ‘nature.’” Thereupon they used “nature” to translate this. Ruan thought that this was due to the translation creating a confusion in theory. The “nature” of Li Ao’s fuxing (return to the nature) is a confusion created out of this confusion.24 Ruan Yuan’s evidential examination cannot be said to be inaccurate and yet he thought that the translation of this pre-existing radiance as “nature” confused Confucians and Buddhists, and so he denied it, which is a biased view. In fact, the Buddhist concept that was translated “nature” was also fairly vivid. Ruan Yuan thought that this was Confucianism confusing Buddhism, but in fact it was a very good example of the merging of Chinese and Indian culture. Ruan Yuan also emphasized that the path of scholarship had as its task the seeking out of difficulties, “and that which is difficult is not to be avoided and the easy is not to be followed. Therefore, what the sages and worthies are able to do must be to arrive at the difficult [questions].”25 “How can one set up an aim in the morning and have completed one’s purpose in the evening?”26 Because of this idea, he criticized the simple and easy Way of the Chan masters, saying, “The Buddhist scriptures of the Six Dynasties [period] were too complex, so Buddhists separately pioneered Chan learning, and they were able to not speak of all the sutras, but [simply] face a wall and see the nature [as Bodhidharma supposedly did].”27 Here Ruan Yuan is using the standpoint of an evidential examination scholar to talk about an attitude of scholarly research and its methods, and the theory of seeing the nature being still a

23

Ibid. Ruan Yuan, Yanjiu shi xuji (Continued Collection of the Research Room), fascicle 3, “Taxing shuo” (On the stupa and nature). 25 Ruan Yuan, Shijiazhai yangxin lu xu (Preface to the Records of Self Renewal of Shijia Studio). 26 Ruan Yuan, Hanxue shicheng ji xu. 27 Ruan Yuan, Shijiazhai yangxin lu xu, “Fuxing bian” (Discrimination of Returning to the Nature). 24

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philosophical problem, and so views as to its being correct or not does not need to be commented on. Summing up the above, the Han Leaning scholars during a period of change labelled “study of the classics as Lixue” in order to at once be the banner of practical applications for managing the country, the intention being to use the learning of the sages and worthies of old to replace the then current theory of nature and principle and to use this return to the past in practical applications. Therefore, Ruan criticized and settled accounts with the inflated and empty words of the “current” Lixue and Xinxue, and this was bound to relate to the Chan learning that the Song and Yuan scholars had relied on, namely, “In discriminating learning first discriminate the Chan School.” Nevertheless, as soon as it concerned the depths of thinking, during which there will definitely be not a few particles of flashing insight, he for the most part accurately and without error grasped the changes in Chan thought and its infiltration of Confucian and Buddhist thought. Yet the language of his criticism rather displayed a high-mindedness and an impracticality that missed the point. Because of this, one can see that it was imperative for Chan learning to turn towards engagement with the world, and that Chan learning research also depends on including scholars who opposed Chan thought within its fold to continuously deepen it. This is what the later Modern Text ( jinwen) scholars of the classics did in using their own opinions to promote or dismiss Buddhist theories, and this was also used as a theoretical weapon for governing the world and creating some ideological preparation for that.

Part 2: The Early Qing Confucians and Peng Shaosheng’s Praise of Chan Learning In his Qingdai xueshu gailun (Outline of Qing Dynasty Scholarship), Liang Qichao wrote, “Prior to the Qing, Buddhist scholarship was in extreme decay….Of the laymen who studied Buddhism, Wang Fuzhi of the early Qing greatly studied the Faxiang School, but [his research] was not particularly good.” This explains that the early Qing scholars had already replaced monks in undertaking the mission of researching Buddhist learning. Even though Wang Fuzhi’s Xiangzong luosuo (The Hawsers of the Net of Faxiang) is research on the Faxiang School that had already been long extinct, still his inquiries into categories such as consciousness (vijñ¯ana), sense-object (vis.aya), mind-king, mental associates, as well as nature, conditions, views, and obstacles everywhere show the influence of Chan thought. His discussion of the theory of the nature mostly coincides with Chan learning. It was not just Wang Fuzhi of the three great scholars of the early Qing, with the exception of Gu Yuanwu, but also Huang Zongxi who also especially praised Chan learning frequently. He repeatedly declared that the study of the core tenets; namely, “That which fills heaven and earth is the mind,” “The differences between scholarship are over [whether one] truly sees heaven and earth to be inexhaustible,” and “Therefore, the thorough investigation of principles is the thorough investigation of the myriad

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divergences of this mind, and it is not the thorough investigation of the myriad divergences of all things,” and “The recorded sayings of the previous Confucians each differed according to the person, which is just the approval of the reality of my mind” and so on; generally follow the same course of thinking as Chan learning, or as some would say, Lixue and Yangming-Chan. He also took aim at the differing opinions of the scholarship of his times that enabled Chan thought to gain a foothold. He said, Why must present-day gentlemen ( junzi) seek to take off on a single path and plagiarize to form their theories? By weighing up past and present, they [find] only slight differences and similarities, which they slander for turning their backs on the classics and for betraying the Way. The learning of the two [religions, Buddhism and Daoism] were exorcised by the Chengs and Zhu, not necessarily clearly, but it shows that when the Confucian is introduced in person to them that they are lofty and open.28

These words are already sufficient to show Huang’s partiality for Chan learning. When he was evaluating Wang Ji he simply said, After [Lu] Xiangshan one cannot be without Cihu (Yang Jian), and after Wencheng (Wang Yangming) one cannot be without Longqi (Wang Ji). Concerning the flourishing and decay of scholarship and the following of it, Cihu unblocked the billows of Xiangshan and the master (Wang Ji) drained the river into the source, and he discovered even more in the scholarship of Wencheng.29

On the basis of their teachers’ theories, Yang Jian and Wang Ji both fully elaborated on Chan learning, using Chan to interpret Confucianism. They were famous individuals who were outwardly Confucian and inwardly Chan. In this way, Huang praised and commended them, and it cannot be said that he was not also praising and commending Chan learning. This tendency in thought is often mentioned in his Mingru xuean, but as this has been often quoted in the previous parts, it will not be further elaborated on here. Nevertheless, in the early Qing scholarly atmosphere in which Practical Learning criticized enlightening the mind and seeing the nature as empty words, the first to clear Chan thought from these charges was the founder of Evidential Studies, Mao Qiling. Mao Qiling (1623–1716), style Dake, had the sobriquet Xihe Xiansheng. When the Ming fell, he avoided the armies on Nanshan, where he built a mud hut and where he read books. His learning was based on that of Wang Yangming. In the eighteenth year of Kangxi (1679), he passed the Erudite Scholasticus special examination (that was held only once, 1679) and he was assigned to be an examining editor in the Hanlin Academy to serve as a compiler and editor in the Office for the Ming History Project. He used evidential scholarship as a weapon in his research on the classics, citing and basing himself on the ancients and the moderns, being unsparing in his criticism of the scholarship of the Chengs and Zhu, and yet, by not concealing his words about what he held in common with Chan learning, he also did his utmost to 28

Huang Zongxi, Mingru xuean, second preface to the first fascicle, Zhonghua shuju, 1986, p. 7. Huang Zongxi, Mingru xuean, fascicle 12, “Langzhong Wang Longqi xiansheng Ji” (Director Wang Longqi, Master Ji), p. 240.

29

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state the core tenets of the Chan masters. In order to first affirm the principles of the mind and nature of Chan learning, and its concurrence with the Way of Confucius and Mencius, he said, Confucius said, “If one holds fast then one preserves it.”30 Is this not holding fast to this mind? If one abandons it, then it is lost. Is this not saying that this mind cannot be abandoned? Mencius said, “Seek for the lost mind,”31 so only fear the abandonment of it and concentrate on finding this already abandoned mind. This is one sage (Confucius) and one worthy (Mencius) [saying this]. They were resolute and clear and over thousands of years and many generations, who will again dare use Chan learning to deny them?32

As he saw it, the Chan masters discussed the mind, and Confucius and Mencius discussed the mind, so who would dare say that the discussion of the mind by the Chan masters is incorrect? He further pointed out that. The sage and the Buddha are not the same, but as humans they are the same. Each person is not the same, but this mind is the same. It is not the case that this mind arose after the Buddha-dharma entered China, nor was it the case that there was talk of this mind only after the Buddha-dharma entered China… Now, as the Buddhists have the theory of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature, this causes the orthodox learning of the sages and worthies on the correct mind, exhaustive investigation of the nature, preservation of the mind, and nourishing of the nature to on the contrary not dare be spoken of, [for] as soon as one speaks of the mind-nature, one will be categorized as being like Buddhism, and because of this, of causing [the theories of] my body that was born of Heaven above and the mind-nature that is spoken of and sought after by all the thousands of sages and thousands of worthies in a morning to be attributed to the Buddhists. Is this permissible?33

His reply is naturally that it is not permissible and this is really speaking about the common feature of the learning of the sage and Chan learning, but that the enlightening of the mind and seeing the nature of Chan learning and the mind-nature that is sought after by Confucius and Mencius are accidentally shared opinions and so naturally one cannot speak of the mind-nature and yet deny Confucius and Mencius, and of course one cannot accordingly speak of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature and yet view Chan learning to be a heresy. However, Mao also pointed out that the learning of the Confucians about mind-nature was not the same as that of Chan. He said, “In seeking the mind, we Confucians have reality (ti) and function; the Buddhists in seeking the mind have reality but no function. The reality is the same but the function is not the same. In seeking the mind, we Confucians have effort and result; the Buddhists in seeking the mind have effort but no result… The current Yangming [thought] has reality, has function, has effort, and has result. This learning solely seeks for the mind…but does not have an iota of similarity with the Buddhists.”34 There are some defects in these words, since all have reality and have 30

Tr. Mencius, VI.1.8.4; Legge, The Chinese Classics, vol. 5, p. 409. See Zhu’s gloss in the notes. Tr. Mencius, VI.1.11.4. 32 Mao Qiling, Zheke bianxue wen (Texts on the Discriminative Learning that Convinces Interlocutors). 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 31

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effort, so one cannot say they do not have any similarity in the least. However, his idea is very clear; essentially, he emphasized that Chan learning turned its back on the concrete tasks of worldly society, and on this point, there is a similarity in views with the Practical Learning thinkers. In criticizing Lixue and approving of Chan learning, this clearly has a relationship with his standpoint of Wang Yangming learning, and naturally has a direct connection with his way of promoting Chan and dismissing Daoism. He said, Buddhism and Daoism are very different. The Daoists are selfish and for benefit of self, it is for me and that is all… If it is the Buddhists, then their ideas are vast in scope. They also think to tolerate people and regard them as being included, and they also forget [other] persons and self, and they also want to act on profound principle. So they are not very distant from the Way of the sage.35

This is Mao’s interpretation, which is not the same as that of most people. As he saw it, the Learning of the Dao (Daoxue) is the learning of the Daoists, what the Chengs and Zhu called Lixue is Daoxue and is not Confucian learning; the basic cause for this distinction is that the learning of the Daoists is selfish, is for the self; and even though the learning of Yangming is mixed with Chan learning, still Chan learning is in agreement with the Way of the sage, and therefore the learning of Yangming is Confucian learning, the learning of the sage, but is not Daoxue. His tendency to promote Chan and praise Wang Yangming, and his disparaging of Daoism and his belittling of the Song Confucians, is revealed in his words. Another Han Learning scholar who had deep associations with Chan learning and wrote Hanxue shicheng ji and Songxue yuanyuan ji (Records of the Origins of Song Learning) was Jiang Fan (1761–1831), style Zibing. Liang Qichao said that Jiang Fan clearly distinguished the Han and Song schools of Confucianism, “doing no more than describing the social psychology of those times as usual, but this cannot be taken as a fault.” Yet Liang blamed him for his “subjective formation of opinions being too deep, and for his talk of Han Learning more or less supporting the Yuanhe Hui faction [of Hui Tong, 1697–1758]. His talk of Song Learning loved their mixture with the Chan School.”36 In fact, it was exactly as Liang said, with Jiang Fan saying in a note at the end of his Songxue yuanyuan ji that. The former gentleman (my father) learned Buddhism for years and he was clear about its comings and goings. He said, “Confucianism is itself Confucianism; Buddhism is itself Buddhism. Why must they be compared and made the same? Whether one studies Confucianism or studies Buddhism, just observe that what they [have to say about] the nature being close and that is all. When Confucians talk of Chan, they leave out their deeds and retain their truth. Is this permissible? One must say that Confucianism and Buddhism are of an identical basis, but this is hidden by eminent brilliance.” I carefully observed my family’s instructions and do not read Confucian books very much and do not dare exorcise Buddhism, and also do not dare flatter Buddhism. Those in the know [should] understand this.37 35

Mao Qiling, Daxue zhiben houtu shuo (On the Later Diagram of the Knowing of the Basis of the Great Learning). 36 Liang Qichao, Zhongguo jinsanbai nian xueshu shi, 15, p. 297. 37 Jiang Fan, Songxue yuanyuan ji, appended record, Shanghai shudian, 1983, pp. 38–39.

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Jiang Fan’s father studied Buddhism for years and clearly investigated Chan learning inside and out, and he advocated that Buddhism and Confucianism were not necessarily to be compared and made the same. Confucians who talked of Chan were externally Confucian and internally Buddhist. Jiang Fan carefully observed his family tradition, and since he did not exorcise Buddhism, he also did not flatter Buddhism; it was just that he had an interest in Chan thought and that was all. He had pointed out that. Gentlemen from Sun Qifeng [1583–1675] onwards were all scholars from the north [of China]. Northerners are constitutionally direct and love righteousness and physically they are strong and active. Southerners practice and revere exaggeration and love soaring speech, and this abuse flowed into Buddhism, even to the extent of introducing Confucianism into Buddhism, and rather with the theories of Lu and Wang underwent even greater strange variations. The Northern learning regarded Baiquan (Qian Shixi) and the Erqu (Li Yong) to be the [sources of their] lineages, and their debates were not dominated by one thinker and they hoped to understand by themselves. They were without a single saying that fell into the cavern of Chan. That is, although Li Erqu espoused good knowing, yet he did not solely concentrate on Xinxue and therefore they are not regarded as talking Chan and not regarded as acting as Chan.38

Here Jiang Fan thought that Southerners practice and revere exaggeration and that this had entered into Buddhism and Daoism as abuses, whereas the Northern learning hoped to understand by themselves and therefore had not fallen into the cavern of Chan, which seems to mean that he disparaged Chan learning, but in his books there are no words of disrespect for scholars who held the Chan School in high esteem, and at times there are also words of praise for it. For example, he wrote of Luo Yougao (1733–1778), “His study of Buddhism was energetic and vigorous, so he is sure to be born into the Pure Land,” and he evaluated Peng Shaosheng’s “works talking of Chan as also having selected words from the elegant and refined, of not being involved in the evil practices of the Chan recorded sayings.” This explains that he largely took an objective attitude towards scholarly research. His scholarly diligence can be known from the following two passages discussing works of Chan. The first says, One generation after Lu [Jiuyuan/Xiangshan] there was Mr. Yang [Jian] of Cihu, whose language was very much mixed in with Chan principles and as a result, scholars took this opportunity to attack him, and then they concentrated their arrows on [Lu] Xiangshan. Who knows that Zhu Xi’s words also were close to Chan? Now to analyze principle to be the utmost subtlety, the words must relate to emptiness and be without margins, so this is a fault of worthies going beyond it.39

He here has no intention of blaming Zhu and Lu for talking of Chan and he has no bias against any side as being selfish. He also recognized that the principle of the words reached an accurate, comprehensive and meticulous extent, so unavoidably they referred to the principles of Chan and to seek to totally blame them for this was unreasonable. This is evidently a commendation of Chan learning. The second passage says, 38 39

Jiang Fan, Songxue yuanyuan ji, fascicle 1, p. 12. Jiang Fan, Songxue yuanyuan ji, start of fascicle 1, pp. 1–2.

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Confucian students had exorcised Buddhism for a long time and then in the Song the Confucians exorcised it even more strongly. But Chan has recorded sayings and the Confucians also have recorded sayings. The Chan recorded sayings use the language of the streets; the Song Confucians’ recorded sayings also use the language of the streets. Why then, since they exorcise them, do they also imitate them? The Song Confucians talk of mind-nature and the Chan also talk of mind-nature, and their language is similar and is easily confused for the other. The Confucians also are not self-aware that they have strayed into the method (Dharma) of the others (Chan). Ever since the learning of Xiangshan arose, the words of Cihu (Yang Jian) have been close to Chan. The learning of Yaojiang continued to arise and it changed direction and entered into Buddhism and could not further overturn its premises. And yet they still revere their own avoidance of this [Chan] learning, saying, “Our words are Confucian words and not Chan words; our actions are Confucian actions and not Chan actions, and are like the gentlemen Shen (Guomo) and Shi (Xiaoxian).40

Jiang Fan’s words clearly spoke of the historical reality of how this brought out the best of Confucianism and Chan, and they also revealed that Chan thought had a power of infiltration that could not be resisted. When it came to Song Learning, their avoidance of speaking about their essence of being changed to be like Chan was like grasping on to a change while half concealing it, and Jiang Fan slightly revealed the sense of his reproach. In fact, Jiang Fan, by saying that “Song Learning enjoyed mixing with the Chan School,” also portrayed the psychology of the society of that time. This portrayal was not mixed in with a subjective component. Liang Qichao also made a correction to Jiang Fan’s criticism. For example, Jiang said, “There are those who accuse Lu and Wang of being heretics and who also slander the achievements of Wencheng (Yangming), even to the extent of saying that the fall of the Ming was not brought about by factions and was not brought about by enemies but was brought about by Wang Yangming learning. Ha! These words are wrong!”41 Jiang was just making an objective and fair comment on this inappropriate criticism, and he seems to have had no idea of partially helping any one school. The Practical Learning that was about managing the country of the early Qing was transformed into the style of reading books and loving the old of the Qianlong and Jiaqing (period, 1736–1820), and its spirit of dealing with concrete matters was contrasted with the Lixue of the Song and the Ming, and Chan learning accordingly was criticized by the Han Learning thinkers. Nevertheless, even though the Evidential Studies of glossing and editing texts made really major contributions by organizing old texts, its fragmentation by being bogged down in trivial complexity also made people dislike it. The first is to advance a criticism of Han Learning was Fang Dongshu, who was also a defender of Chan learning thought. Fang Dongshu (1772–1851), style Zhizhi, was a student under Yao Nai and so he was in the camp of Ruan Yuan. He wrote Hanxue shangtui (An Assessment of Han Learning) and so on. He studied the classics via the ideas of the Chengs and Zhu Xi, and he also pursued deep studies of Chan learning. He claimed that in the scholarship 40 41

Jiang Fan, Songxue yuanyuan ji, appendix, p. 38. Shen and Shi were Qing-dynasty Confucians. Jiang Fan, Songxue yuanyuan ji, end of last fascicle, p. 28.

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up to the Han and the Song, Chan learning could co-exist with Confucianism, but one should not preserve the existence of the biased views of sects, but in reality, he based himself on Lixue to irregularly adopt Chan learning, and he critiqued the learning of evidential scholarship. He said, Wild ducks are known for being in swamps and so when a whirlwind blows they return to [the swamps] and are not bewildered. It (evidential scholarship) exorcises Buddhism, it also attacks Lu and Wang, in particular, it makes the greatest heretical enemies the Chengs and Zhu. In the present period of decline there is [a cause] for this named evidential Han Learning. Its theories use letters to harm phrasing and uses phrasing to harm the meaning; it discards the mind and trusts to the eyes, whittling away and causing decay to the spirit and being of no benefit to the functions of the world. Its words fill the empire and its ignoring of the classics betrays the Way and is worse than Yang [Zhu], the Mohists, the Buddhists, and the Daoists.

He also said, What the Buddhists practice is extremely ascetic and what they teach is very strict….so why deal with it by exorcising it?42

Attacking Lu and Wang was incorrect, making enemies of the Chengs and Zhu is also incorrect, so exorcising Chan and Buddhism naturally is also incorrect. Fang’s standpoint of protecting Chan learning is evident to see. However, he also highlighted scholarship’s spirit of responding to the world. He said that Han Learning “is contrary to one’s own thoughts and deeds and pushes to where it is of no benefit to the people, families, or the state.”43 “It is unrelated to one’s body, mind, nature, and life but its scholarship on the national economy and people’s livelihood is great.”44 He discussed the cultivation of the body, mind, nature, and life together with the concrete tasks of the national economy and people’s livelihood, making this a pretext for criticizing Han Leaning evidential scholarship for just being studies on paper. It can also be said that he was giving them a taste of their own medicine. It can be seen from this that the tendency towards the secularization of Chan thought had opened up only one way forward. Nevertheless, in the Qianlong-Jiaqing period, the protection of Chan learning with the utmost strength was a symbol indicating a change in scholarship. In fact, this was started by Peng Shaosheng. Liang Qichao wrote, By the Qianlong period there was Peng Shaosheng and Luo Yougao (in fact there was also Wang Jin) who were devoted to the [Buddhist] faith. Shaosheng had exchanged discussions and refutations with Dai Zhen. Later, Gong Zizhen [1792–1841] studied under Shaosheng (this theory is not certain)… Wei Yuan [1794–1856] likewise…. Gong and Wei were praised by New Text scholars, and therefore the New Text scholars of the classics mostly combined it with the study of Buddhist learning.45

42

Fang Dongshu, Yiweixuan ji (Collection of Yiwei Study), “Biandao lun” (On Discriminating the Way). 43 Fang Dongshu, Hanxue shangtui, fascicles 2 and 3. 44 Ibid. 45 Fang Dongshu, Hanxue shangtui, last fascicle.

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One can see that of the modern scholars who praised Chan learning and who reformed and used it, it was Peng Shaosheng who initiated the functions of this practice. Peng Shaosheng (1704–1796), Jiqing, had the style Yunchu, sobriquet Layman Chimu, Zhizigui, and Layman Erlin was his Dharma-name given when he received the bodhisattva precepts. He was a native of Suzhou. He was born into a family with a history of official service, was educated at home, read Confucian books, and he especially loved the learning of Lu and Wang. In his youth he passed the regional examinations, and in the jichou year of Qianlong (1769), he became a presented scholar ( jinshi), and by convention he was selected to be the magistrate of a county but he did not take the post. He associated with the two teachers, Xue Qifeng (1734–1774) and Wang Jin (1725–1792), and as a consequence read the Tripitaka. He investigated his mind with Chan learning and became devoted to Pure Land. His depth in the learning of Lu and Wang was also due to Confucianism being introduced into Chan. Jiang Fan said that his “texts discussing learning were meticulous and fine in meaning, and his discipline was strict. His works talking of Chan have also selected words that are elegant and refined and are unrelated to the bad habits of the Chan recorded sayings.” This reflects the special features of Qing-dynasty scholars in talking of Chan learning. Peng wrote very many works, the most famous being the Jushi zhuan (Biographies of Laymen). In his early years, Shaosheng followed Xue Qifeng and Wang Jin in listening to the Buddha-dharma and he was close friends with Luo Yougao and Wang Jin. They compared notes on Chan learning and, after reading the works of Zhenke, they directed their minds to aspire for the Pure Land. Then, in the thirty-eighth year of Qianlong (1773), Peng received the bodhisattva precepts from Shiding in a Suzhou hermitage. Peng said, I read the works of Confucius and obtained their secret meanings, using the tenets and directions of the Xici and “no partiality” of the Zhongyong, and I wandered through the sea of the store (pitaka) of Huayan that merges perfectly without obstruction the supramundane and the mundane. For the first time I knew that the sages of this land are mostly bodhisattvas of great authority whose skillful means are joyfully presented.46

Seen from this, Peng’s learning used Confucianism to interpret Chan and was also a linkage of Confucianism and Buddhism and a unification of the two laws of the supramundane and mundane. Therefore, his Chan learning thought presents the tendency of a Confucian to engage with the world. His works explaining Confucianism were also greatly influenced by prajñ¯a and Huayan thought. For example, his Lunyu yizhu yi (Doubts on Collected Interlinear Commentaries on the Analects), Daxue zhangju yi (Doubts on the Philology of the Great Learning), Zhongyong zhangju yi (Doubts on the Philology of the Zhongyong), and the Mengzi jizhu yi (Doubts on the Collected Interlinear Commentaries on Mencius) have doubts about the scholarship of the Chengs and Zhu in which he discussed and refuted points. This is markedly different from the methods of the Han Learning evidential scholarship. It was his use of the mind-nature of the Chan masters to link Confucianism and 46

Peng Shaosheng, Yisheng jueyi lun (On the Resolution of Doubts About the One Vehicle).

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Buddhism together, and to clarify reality (ti) and function, that is a Yangming-Chan form of thinking. He pointed out that. The one book, the Daxue, is the learning of the mind transmitted by the sage of old and is summed up thoroughly in the one phrase “clarifies radiant virtue.” To be close to the people is a natural function in radiant virtue; it is not external. The people are of the same reality (body) as I am, which is what is meant by “being close to,” and it is also my one reality (body) and that is all….The volume that the mind encompasses is an empty vastness without horizons, and what the people see and hear is what I see and hear, and what the people are anxious about and what they delight in is what I am anxious about and delight in. What is called knowing to the utmost is externally seeing those things, but things are without those things. Things being without those things is called the measure of things. If one internally contemplates their thoughts, that thought is without this thought. Thought that is without this thought is called the thought that is sincere. If one further contemplates this mind, the mind will be like this mind. If the mind is like this mind, it is called the mind that is correct. Through this one uses the individual (body) to return to the individual (body), uses the family to return to the family, uses the country to return to the country, and uses the world to return to the world, and does not labor this mind, does not move this thought, does not confuse things. This is called physical cultivation, family equalization, country government, world pacification, and their mechanisms are not disconnected from knowing the basis. The family, country, and world take the individual (body) to be the basis and the individual (body) takes knowing to be the basis.47

He first of all explains that the core of the Daxue, “clarifying radiant virtue,” is the learning of the “mind that is transmitted” of the Chan School, and that “being close to people” is the function of the transmitted mind. Because the people and I are of the same reality (body), to clarify (enlighten) a person’s mind is a function of being close to the people. In this way he used Confucian thought to reform the secularization of Chan learning. And his interpretation of the “eight items” of the Daxue in particular is brimming over with the Chan School ideas of being apart from characteristics (without things), apart from thoughts (without thoughts), and returning to the intrinsic mind (mind that is without this mind). What he meant by “not laboring this mind, not moving the thoughts, not confusing things” are the methods of the cultivation of the person, the equalizing of the family, the governing of the country, and pacifying the world, which are also the learning of knowing the basis that is “seeking back into the self” and “seeing the nature and becoming buddha.” With just these few words he totally reveals his idea of the fusion of Confucianism and Buddhism, and fusion of transcending the world and engaging with the world into one reality. His book, Yisheng jueyi lun focused on expressing just this idea while he is refuting the words and theses of the Chengs and Zhu, and of Buddhism. In his refutation of the Cheng theory that the Buddhists regarded loyalty, filial piety, humaneness, and righteousness to all be things that had to be done, as being the desire to attain innocence even when one has lost that innocence, Peng emphasized that, “These are hardly the words of the Buddhists.” He pointed out that, The Buddhists talk of using no self, no person, no sentient beings, and no life to cultivate all good dharmas, which is meant to attain anuttara-samyak-sambodi ˙ (supreme correct enlightenment). In the pristine ocean there is inherently not a single dharma and so one does not 47

Jiang Fan, Songxue yuanyuan ji, appended record, pp. 35–36.

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discard a single dharma, and loyalty, filial piety, humaneness, and righteousness influence and are consequently are [held] in common.

It should be recognized that Buddhists regarded loyalty, filial piety, humaneness, and righteousness to be duties, which converged with the Chinese cultural tradition and as being a compulsory reform of oneself. In actual life, Buddhists cut off their hair and become monks, which is to deny the authority of the ruler and one’s father, and to say that this is loyalty and filial piety is unavoidably far-fetched. And yet Peng Shaosheng showed via the depths of theory that the Buddha-dharma inherently does not have a single dharma and yet does not abandon a single dharma, and is influenced by loyalty, filial piety, humaneness, and righteousness and is consequently held in common (with the Chinese tradition), which means that his words are reasonable. One can see that the principle spoken of by the Buddha managed to plausibly please all sides, and Peng’s theories were a compulsory reform during the course of the change of Chan learning towards engagement with the world. Peng also countered Cheng’s attack that said that “The Buddhists only work at reaching the uppermost, but they do not condescend to teach,” “they being for example like using a tube to observe the sky, only taking as their task that directly above and only seeing one part [of the sky], not seeing on all sides. Therefore, they cannot deal with matters.” Peng thought that “these words mock [those of a] fixed nature48 and so s´r¯avakas and open-minded crazy Chan people approved, but those who truly see the mind have reality and function as one suchness, which are combined without the internal and external.” The idea is to say that it is only those of a fixed nature, the s´r¯avaka and the crazy Chan people, who cannot manage affairs, and that the Chan learning genuinely “sees the nature and becomes buddha,” which is exactly the opposite to that. Not only does Chan learning exert itself to reach the uppermost, but it also descends to teach, being able to deal with matters. He said, [Chan learning] has nowhere to dwell and yet one gives rise to this mind, and [one’s mind is] therefore quiescent but always illuminating, functions and yet is always quiescent, from start to finish it has focused on the internal and omitted the external. [Chan learning] is [being] strict and pure in the vinaya, diligently practices the six p¯aramit¯as and does not exhaust the conditioned (the active) and does not dwell in the unconditioned (the inactive). From start to finish it has spoken of the uppermost and has omitted the inferior (the descent to teach). When Bodhidharma came from the west he faced a wall for nine years, and Zhaozhou did not irregularly pay attention to anything else except for the two times of breakfast and the mid-day meal, always nourishing and maintaining [that focus]. Their diligence being like this, can one say that as soon as one knows it that that is the end of the matter?

He also provided examples, speaking of the s´r¯aman.era precepts, the bhiks.u precepts, the five precepts, the eight precepts for nuns, and the bodhisattva precepts, which differ according to the person and so the details are not the same, yet they are all meant to halt evil and advance the good, “so also how can they be biased,” and “when it comes to the teaching, they are vehicles for each other, also often forming the reverse and obverse of the Confucian words. The Fanwang jing says that filial piety is called a precept, and those who cultivate the pure activity (karma) regard 48

Tr. a theory in Buddhism that certain beings have a predetermined nature or destination.

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being filial and nourishing one’s parents to be the primary field of merit and they regard subjects deceiving their ruler and sons deceiving their father to be a great evil. These general ideas can be inferred from this.” Summing this in one sentence, Buddhism and Confucianism mutually form the inner and the outer, which not only took as their tasks reaching the uppermost but also descending to teach those below. This is what the Buddhists say is “Above seek the Buddhist Way, below convert sentient beings.” One can see from this that Peng regarded the Chan School highly and one can see his secularizing reform of Chan thought. Speaking of the relationship between the mind and things, Peng also held the Chan School theories of the view of the mind and he counter-attacked the criticism made by Zhu Xi that the Chan “use of the mind to seek the mind” is “using the eyes to see the eyes.” Using the mind to contemplate things is the external mind used to seek things; to say using things to contemplate the mind [means that] external things are used to seek the mind. The mind has no internal or external, and therefore things have no internal and external; as things have no internal and external, therefore contemplate that there is no internal and external.

‘This is entirely the Chan School’s “all dharmas appear in one’s own nature,” and as a result of this, Peng emphasized the idea of “introspection into one’s own mind.” Naturally this is different from the “principle” of the Lixue thinkers. In Peng’s view, the mind is things, the mind is principle, and Amit¯abha is the existence of heavenly principle! Based on this, he also pointed out that. The words and appearances seen and heard are not outside of the one mind, and the essence of the mind is called sagacity… If one is apart from this one mind, there is also the principle of the seen and heard words and appearances that is one and which links them. What is this called? The knowledgeable know this to be the Buddha- nature, and the ignorant called it the soul… To know letters is entirely an effort and is just like the Confucians knowing the indicators of humaneness… This is called knowing the mind and is also called seeing the nature. If one day one overcomes the self and returns to propriety, the world will return to humaneness.

It is evident that he used the Chan School theories of the mind and nature to unite Confucianism and Buddhism, and he applied it to social life. In his view, The Daxue speaks of mind and does not speak of the nature, but the nature is the mind. The Zhongyong speaks of the nature and does not speak of the mind, but the mind is the nature. The great Yijing discusses principle and does not discuss qi (material energy), but qi is principle. Mencius discusses qi, which is also to discuss the Way, and qi is also the Way. Putting this together, we say it is one mind and that is all.

Nevertheless, the Song Confucians quoted from the above-named classics, but they branched off from the thought of the sage (Confucius), dividing the mind and nature into two, splitting principle and qi into two, and to the contrary, they were not like the Chan masters who even more approached the theories of Confucius and Mencius. Hearing these words, they appear to be very fresh. Then he also used the form of thinking of the Chan School to reject the theories of the Song Confucians. Those who realize the mind [know it is] one and does not establish [anything], so how can two exist? None of those who see that there are two know the mind.

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The Song Confucians split the mind and nature into two, which means “they do not know the mind.” And “None of all the dharmas are not established from within the mind.” Therefore, only by knowing the mind can one know all supramundane and mundane dharmas. Peng Shaosheng established the inherent reality of the mind and the nature, his aim also being to explain the Chan learning does not transcend the world “and what is called transcendence of the world is a mundane calculation, is in particular discriminating what the mind sees.” That is to say, since the Song Confucians do not realize their own mind, they see the mind as being two (that is the discriminating mind), and of course, there is a discrimination between Confucians who manage the country and the Buddhists who maintain transcendence of the world. He counter-attacked the theory of Lu Jiuyuan that allocated Confucianism and Buddhism respectively to righteousness versus profit, impartiality versus selfishness, managing the country versus transcendence of the world, by saying, The Confucians have never managed the country and the Buddhists also have never transcended the world, and what is said to be transcendence of the world and being in the world are in particular what are seen by the discriminating mind. The great men of the past…even though their virtue covered the whole country, their achievements were for all generations, and initially they did not see that there was an empire. If one must be fastidious about this and use management of the country to be [what one is] mindful [of], then it is given over to the existence of the empire, and is selfishness… It is not enough to talk about the minds of [Fu]xi, and emperors Yao and Shun, and [King] Wen of Zhou as being decisive.

This paragraph also bears the Chan School’s form of thinking, is awkward reading, and is very unintelligible. His idea is to say that even though the ancient sages like Yao and Shun regarded managing the country to be the concern of the mind, still their virtue covered the country and their achievements lasted for all generations, and therefore he said, “the Confucians originally never managed the world.” If one takes managing the country to be the mind, one will wish to have the empire, and that then is selfishness. The Buddhists also did not transcend the world, and what they called transcendence of the world is “transcending the three worlds of existence, transcending the world of the five skandhas. If one must speak of it, it is saying that the world is the one rising-and-ceasing mind….When thoughts of rising and ceasing end, that is transcendence of the world.” In other words, what Buddhism calls transcendence of the world is entirely the extinction of the mind of birth-anddeath (samsara), and having extinguished the mind of birth-and-death, then one can courageously do things. This is not only a defense of the Buddhists, but it is also a direct criticism of the Song Confucians—he is saying that they regard the world as their own property (being selfish). Naturally he also recognized that he could not say that there was no transcendence of the world that the Confucians criticized, “in particular what the s´r¯avakas and followers of the Lesser Vehicle speak of,” but that was unrelated to the Chan School and matters of the Greater Vehicle. One should say that Peng’s dialectical thinking about transcendence of the world and engagement with the world by the Buddhists grasped the core of Buddhist thinking and was a basis in thinking for the establishment and building of the Buddhism of human life (humanistic Buddhist) of modern times.

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He wrote this text in the forty-fifth year of Qianlong (1780). Eleven years later he also supplemented these words. He said that Wang Jin “evaluated them as decisive words and he also said it was not only the perfect theme (zong) of the Buddhists, but was also the realized meaning of the Confucians, but he deleted the paragraph warning against killing living things and he [added] a paragraph discussing Laozi and Zhuangzi. His intention was to harmonize and unite the three religions, not wishing to have a superior or inferior among them” and so on. Yet Peng still did not think this was right, for “The matter of prohibiting killing is a path equally followed by Confucians and Buddhists, so how can one say that Buddhists love life and that Confucians love killing?… If one regards killing as being righteousness, then righteousness will be the enemy of humaneness!”49 From this it can be seen that Peng linked Confucianism and Buddhism by grasping their scholarly essence, and if not then, viewed superficially, the Confucians also had no idea of prohibiting killing, and at most one could say that “The gentleman distances himself from the kitchen” for “hearing the sounds [of slaughter] they could not bear to eat their flesh” [Mencius] and that is all. In order to propel Chan learning towards engagement with the world, in the aspect of merging Confucianism and Buddhism, one can say that that he had a deeper understanding compared to previous people. Peng also wrote a Yu Dai Dongyuan shu (Letter to Dai Dongyuan), which debated the core tenets of the two books by Dai Zhen, Yuan shan (On the Origins of Goodness) and Mengzi ziyi shuzheng. Peng concentrated on the elucidation of the consistency of Confucianism and Chan. He first of all affirmed that “The heavenly mandate is not outside of the human mind, and the Way of Heaven is not beyond human affairs. For this reason, it is impossible to speak of heaven apart from humans. This is the final point of the discussion in these two books.” Yet he also pointed out that Dai severely attacked and strenuously exorcised the Lixue thinkers’ words about “being involved with the two [religions of Buddhism and Daoism].” He said, The words of the previous Confucians were not without faults, but their [use] of the external mind to seek principle was already clearly denied by Wang Yangming… In my humble opinion, there are no things apart [from the mind], and there are no forms or matter apart from the heavenly nature. Why? If square and round are taken as an analogy for things, then the analogy for them is the setsquare and compass. There is never a case of abandoning the setsquare and compass and having [something] square and round… If waves are taken as an analogy for form and matter, then the analogy for their nature is water. There has never been a case of abandoning water and finding a wave.

There are no things apart from the mind and no matter apart from the nature. Undoubtedly this is also the agreement of reality and function of the Chan School, and is the idea of seeing the nature. Peng’s judgement of the aspect of the Lixue thinkers that dealt with Chan learning clearly was an affirmative attitude. Later generations mostly think of Peng Shaosheng as being a Pure Land believer, but in fact this is a misunderstanding. Peng said, “Lately I have been reading Master Lianchi (Zhuhong)’s Amituo jing shuchao (Abstracts of a Commentary on the Amit¯abha S¯utra) and have diligently compiled various letters about the Pure Land, 49

The above quotes all come from Peng’s Yisheng jueyi lun.

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which startled me and I became vigilant, and so I vowed to rely on Pure Land in this life.”50 Yet what he spoke of as the Pure Land was entirely the “mind-only Pure Land” of the Chan School. One can see that the transformation of the Pure Land of the west into the mind-only Pure Land was in reality perfected by Peng Shaosheng. The joint practice of Chan and Pure Land for the most part followed the road of inherent transcendence. He said, If one knows that form and matter are the nature of heaven, then one will not allow talking of the mind apart from the [Pure] Land. If one knows that the nature of heaven is form and matter, then one will not allow that one can find the Land outside of the mind. Speaking of the mind apart from the Land is taking the heavenly nature as having an outside… To seek the Land outside of the mind is to regard form and matter as having an outside. Whenever the mind is pure the Buddha-land is pure.51 From now onwards there is no need to again talk about reaching good knowing since the six characters nanwu Amituofo (Hail to Amit¯abha Buddha) are reaching good knowing. There is no need to again talk of preserving the heavenly principle, since nanwu Amituofo is the preservation of the heavenly principle.52

There is no land outside of the mind, mind is the land, but still its nature is form and matter, which is the idea of the unity of reality and function. The Pure Land thought that is built on this concept is clearly a development of the train of thought from the Platform Sutra’s “The direct mind is the Pure Land,” and “The buddha is a creation of one’s own nature, do not seek it outside of one’s self.” The saying that if the mind is pure then the land is pure is a direct borrowing, which can explain this point in particular. Peng used the mind-only Pure Land concept as a substitute for good knowing and as a substitute for heavenly principle, fully expressing this ideological tendency to merge and link Chan, Pure Land, Zhu Xi, and Wang Yangming. The modern joint practice of Chan and Pure Land also follows this path in its development. The Jushi zhuan is the work of Peng Shaosheng that is famous, and it is also a compendium of Layman Buddhism. It starts with Mou Rong of the Eastern Han and comes down to Peng Shaosheng himself in the Qianlong reign of the Qing. There are 227 biographies proper and 77 appended mentions, in total 304 people. Its aim was to sum up the Buddhist learning of the laymen and also to explain the joint practice of Chan and Pure Land, the unity of Confucianism and Buddhism, and especially the principle of the non-duality of transcendence of the world and engagement with the world. Famous ministers and important Confucians were recorded in the biographies, and there were also common people and sons of concubines. Naturally, the great majority of the gentry also had a certain political position and a scholarly position. They used their own cultural accomplishments and social influence to elucidate 50

Peng Shaosheng, Yixingju ji (Collection of Yixingju), fascicle 4, “Yu tongxue” (For My Fellow Students). 51 Yixingju ji, fascicle 3, “Jingtu shengxian lushu” (An Account of the Record of the Sages and Worthies of the Pure Land). 52 Peng Shaosheng, Yixingju ji, fascicle 4, “Yu tongxue”.

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the principles of Buddhism while also ceaselessly emphasizing the content of the Buddha-dharma’s engagement with the world, the aim being also to combine mastery of Confucianism and Buddhism, and to combine transcendence of the world with engagement with the world. For example, Chen Guiyi of the Southern Song answered Zhen Dexiu (1178–1235)’s questions about matters of Chan as follows: Sutras are the Buddha’s words; Chan is the Buddha’s mind. At first, there was no contradiction between them, but people of the world searched the words and pursued the sentences, becoming submerged in the networks of the teachings, not knowing that they themselves had the great matter of the light. Therefore, [when] Bodhidharma came from the west, he [taught] non-reliance on letters, direct pointing at the human mind, and seeing the nature to become buddha to be the separate transmission outside of the teachings. It is not that there is a single principle separately existing outside of the teachings, it just requires clearly realizing this mind and not being attached to the characteristics of the teaching. Now, if one only chants the Buddha’s words and do not return to oneself, this is like counting other people’s treasures, while one is without half a coin.53

The Chan School does not have a separate principle; it simply requires being apart from thoughts and apart from characteristics, with a clear realization of one’s intrinsic mind. In this way, there are no divisions of sects and differences between Confucianism and Buddhism. Exactly because it is like this, Wang Tingyan clearly pointed out in the postface that, The learning of Zhiguizi (Peng) came and went between Confucianism and Buddhism, and from the first he never forcibly united them, but in the end he does not show that there are differences…. Zhiguizi himself arose to rescue students of Confucianism and Buddhism who were confused and did not know the basis, who were sectarian and attacked those who differed, who wept over permanent separations. The work of this book is to have students remove their views of difference and identity, and return to following their basis, making an effort to do so.54

It is evident that Peng intended to propel Buddhist thought towards engagement with the world. The distribution of the Jushi zhuan certainly lead to a definite function that added fuel to the fire that gave rise to the Layman Buddhism of modern times. At the same time as Peng Shaosheng, there were also Xue Qifeng (Jiasan), Luo Yougao (Taishan), and Wang Jin (Dashen), who studied “Lixue and also comprehended the Buddhist scriptures.” They bore the title of being “a separate faction of Lixue.”55 Xue was orphaned young and was raised by his maternal uncle, Sir Guang Yanfu. His uncle was originally a student of Confucianism, but he detested worldly ways, left home and became a monk. He was called Reverend Buer by the people of the Wu region. His thought influenced Qifeng, who therefore thought that the core tenet of learning was seeing the nature. He followed Huineng of the past and was able to go backwards and forwards between Confucianism and Buddhism. Peng Shaosheng was greatly influenced by Xue. 53

Peng Shaosheng, Jushi zhuan, fascicle 34. Yangkong Jushi, Wang Tingyan, Jushi zhuan, postface. 55 Zhang Zhidong, Shumu dawen (Questions and Answers on Bibliography), appendix, “Guochao zhushu zhujia xingming lue” (List of Names of Authors of Works Written in the Qing). 54

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When Luo Yougao was young, he learnt the arts of attack and defense, and he read military books. He sought instruction from Song Changtu of Yudu. Song told Luo that study of the military arts was not an urgent task and he related the words Fan Wengong (Zhongyan) used to encourage Zhang Zai (1020–1076), and so instead he read Confucian books extensively. Later, in the capital, he climbed a tower and set fire to himself, but he was rescued. Then he entrusted himself to a Buddhist monastery. He continued on together with Peng Shaosheng, a student of his own master, to investigate the school of the mind (Chan) and he studied the nature and the mandate doctrines of Confucianism. He wrote Shidao (Interpretation of Banners). He wrote that there are two sages of the east and the west whose authority in reality was mutual, but whose schools repeatedly separated when they revert to names and characteristics but are apart from words and eliminate thoughts.56 Clearly this is based on Chan learning. Peng Shaosheng evaluated his thought as follows: “His learning is sourced in the six [Confucian] classics, and he comes and goes between [Zi]si, Mencius, Zhuangzi, and Xun[zi], and he covered from Han [Yu] to Li [Ao], entering Buddhism via Confucianism. He immersed himself in the books of Tiantai Yongming…and what he wrote down in words about Confucianism was Confucian, and about Buddhism was Buddhist. From the start he never showed their commonalities or their differences.”57 Clearly this was Confucianism and Buddhism using each other, and is that path of the joint practice of Chan and Pure Land. When Wang Jin was young, he was famed as a poet, and Yuan Mai (1716–1797, a famed poet) praised him greatly. When Reverend Buer saw a poem by Wang written on a wall at Huqiu Monastery, he said that this white-clothed (layman) has a great capacity. Wang Jin thought that the duty of study was to comprehend the Buddhist scriptures and to work at learning Confucianism in order to enter Buddhism, and that the separation and recombination of their words and thoughts are inconceivable. Peng Shaosheng evaluated his texts, writing that they were like the exhaling of qi (atmosphere) that forms clouds. Peng said, “From the Zhao Song (dynasty) onwards, Confucians fought with Buddhists and Confucians fought Confucians, all interlocked in confusion, and none were able to correct them. Now, to unify their similarities and differences, and to communicate across the gaps in their understanding, he (Wang) imitated the two letters written by Zhao Dazhou (Zhenji, 1508–1576) of the Ming and he wrote two and three records in order to clarify the way of managing the country.” Wang also wrote a private record of forty g¯ath¯as on the reading of books in order to communicate the method of transcending the world, and he wrote a private record on reading the Yijing and Laozi in order to link up the boundaries between heaven and humans. A person said that Wang Jin’s learning was neither that of Zhu Xi nor that of Wang Yangming, and that the books he wrote were neither Mencius nor Zhuangzi, and that his poetic compositions were neither like those of the Song nor like those of the Tang, so that people are not indecent and are not crazy and that one is to conduct oneself in society as neither round (perfect) nor square (upright). 56

Jiang Fan, Songxue yuanyuan ji, appendix, p. 32. Peng Shaosheng, Luozi yiji houshu (A Later Account of the Bequeathed Collections of Luo Yougao).

57

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He said that his learning is to be without walls and his actions to be without ruts, and that one is to carry on alone like this,58 which is to say that he did not fall onto either side, being like an antelope hanging up by its horns (unsearchable), which is entirely the transcendental atmosphere of the Chan School. In sum, the “separate branch of Lixue” of the joint Confucianism and Buddhism of the learning of Peng and the others was a total affirmation given on the basis of Chan thought. It was not the same as the commendation of Chan learning by Han Learning scholars. They thought that Chan learning is not only of benefit to body and mind, but also that it is a remedy for the worldly Way. They are reality and function, and when reality and function are unified, through this (unification) they unconsciously reformed the advancing secularization of Chan thought. Peng’s Pure Land thought also completed the transformation to mind-only Pure Land, and some say it was a return to Chan thought.

Part 3: The New Text Classicists’ Use of Their Own Ideas to Promote or Dismiss Chan Learning and Their Use of Chan Learning After Peng Shaosheng, while facing hardship and destitution, Chan thought began to pass through many realms of thought and scholarship, and naturally it endured the fashion for severely attacking and strenuously exorcising Chan learning of the Qianlong and Jiaqing reigns until it reached a dead-end, which was related to its causing people to dislike it. The New Text classical learning that suddenly arose in the Qianlong-Jiaqing period had the study of the Gongyang Commentary on the Zuozhuan Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals as its core. They detected the great meaning of a practical application to managing the country in the subtle words of the sage (Confucius). Selecting the principles of Gongyang for managing the country, they also had to exorcise the theories of chenwei (prognostication and unorthodox commentaries on the classics). The moral instructions of the Confucians lacked a rational reasoning and were insufficient to convince people; Western philosophy was shallowly sourced and impoverished, and considered unsuitable for the Chinese national sentiment; but the classic Sinicized Buddhist learning, of course in its aspects of discussion of the mind and of the nature, and its discussions of reality and function et cetera, all had a strict reasonableness, and therefore it could satisfy the thirst at that time for rational thinking and created a new theoretical pivot for the subtle words and grand meanings of the Gongyang practical application to managing the country. In the background to the sudden arising of the New Text classical learning, Chan thought had, by turning to the laymen and the elders, formed an underground stream in the scholarly world, and in the twentieth century it created a single specialist school of scholarship that shone splendidly in the realm of thought. 58

Qingdai qibai mingren chuanji (Biographies of Seven Hundred People of the Qing Dynasty), Zhongguo shudian, 1984, p. 1582.

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Zhang Taiyan pointed out that “As for the activity of Buddhism in China, it was only the Chan School that flourished, which was due to their own valuing of the mind, not introducing spirits and gods, and according with Chinese psychology.”59 This correctly explains the role that Chan thought played in facing ingrained habits that are hard to break and the precarious political situation that formed the psychological background to the revival of the brilliant culture of modern China. Liang Qichao had pointed out in his Qingdai xueshu gailun that Gong Zizhen, Wei Yuan, and the students of Buddhism who followed Peng Shaosheng were commended by the New Text scholars “and therefore the New Text scholars often also studied Buddhist learning.” They were for example Kang Youwei, Tan Sitong, and Liang Qichao himself, who in the theories they proposed in their books, often advanced or dismissed Buddhist theories, drew upon Chan learning, which in general reflects Chan thought in the cultural phenomena of the modern age in which “even the most evil of people in the end cannot be eliminated” and in which “it is sure to be always an important element of society.” Gong Zizhen (1792–1841) also named Gongzuo, style Seren, sobriquet Dingan, was a famous poet of the modern period, a thinker, and in the vanguard of logical reasoning in modern Buddhist learning.60 Gong was born in Hangzhou into a family of officials, an old clan of classical scholars. His maternal grandfather was Duan Yucai (1735–1875), a student of Dai Zhen and a famous philologist. His father, Lizheng, was a presented scholar in the bingzhou year of the Jiaqing era (1796). Lizheng loved Buddhism and often met with famous monks. The academician Hu Shunong wrote an elegiac couplet in praise of him that said, “As good must be repaid, I know that your descendants will be inheritors [of this].”61 Gong Zizhen, being in such a social and family environment, built his thought on the basis of “When young I believed in turning the wheel [of the Dharma], when mature I glimpsed the Greater Vehicle.”62 Before the age of twenty-seven sui, when Gong was flushed with success, he formed an unbreakable connection with Chan monks in the capital. This is what he meant by “In the morning I borrowed a sutra covered with a hat; in the evening I returned the sutra enshrining (shelving) it with a lamp.”63 This expresses his diligent pursuit of the principles of the Buddhists. He also learnt Buddhism from Jiang Yuan (1767–1838), calling him “the first guiding teacher I had in studying Buddhism.”64 Liang Qichao said that Gong Zizhen had learnt Buddhism from Peng Shaosheng, which has some discrepancy from the facts, but Jiang Yuan learnt Buddhism from 59

Zhang Taiyan, “Da Tiezheng” (Answer to Tiezheng) in Zhang Taiyan quanji (Complete Works of Zhang Taiyan), 4, Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1985, p. 369. 60 See Ma Tianxiang, Wan Qing Foxue yu jindai shehui sichao (Late Qing Buddhist Learning and the Ideological Trends of Modern Society), Taipei, Wenjin chubanshe, 1992, and Henan Daxue chubanshe, 2005. 61 Ding Shen and Ding Bing, Guochao Hangjun shi sanji (Three Collections of Poems from Hangzhou of the Qing Court). 62 Gong Zizhen, Qitian le xu (Preface to a Delight the Equal of Heaven). 63 Gong Zizhen, Jihai zashi (Miscellaneous Poem of the Jihai Year). 64 Gong Zizhen, Yu Jiang Jushi jian (Letter to Layman Jiang).

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Peng, and Gong had also learnt Buddhism from Jiang Yuan. Gong wrote a poem praising Jiang’s attainments in Buddhist studies: “Master Tie lectured on the sutras, the path to the monastery sloping,” and “It seems that the master has ultimately triumphed over crazy Chan” and so on. From the age of twenty-seven, in sequence Gong followed the New Text classics scholars of the Changzhou faction, Zhuang Shoujia and Liu Fenglu (1776–1829), to seek the grand meanings of the subtle words of Gongyang Learning, and he exchanged poems with Song Xiangfeng (1776–1860), and together they swam in the ocean of Chan. “Out of a crowd of ten thousand people there is one to shake hands with, making the sleeves of my clothes fragrant for ten years.” Then he was influenced by the principles of Gongyang and by Chan learning, and in the end, it had an effect for a decade. Consequently, he further “wrote a verse on the selfish mind of prayer” of, “I also agreed to investigate Chan, laughing at the limits to the name crazy, and I confess that the future ease was ended.”65 His learning used the grand meaning of the subtle words of Gongyang to talk of practical applications for managing the country, just opening up its common practice and being satisfied with superficial knowledge, while he concentrated on Buddhist learning alone. “The selection of matter and talking of emptiness becomes a habit that I cherish.” “Clothes fragrant, with a Chan meditation couch, nonchalantly dying.” “Discussing poetry and discussing painting is also discussing Chan.” “Not bringing a famous prostitute is a famous monk.” These verses all depict the realities of Gong Zizhen’s thought and behavior as being immersed in Chan learning. Li Ciming (1830–1895)’s Yueman tang riji (Diary of Yueman Hall) evaluated Gong, saying, “He loved to use Buddhist language and often used g¯ath¯as in praise, and his followers finally formed the Gongan faction.” There was also a person who inscribed a couplet and a verse in praise, writing, “His wisdom encompassed all things, there was nothing he did not think of, his words filled the empire and they have never been debated.”66 “If he was crazy he talked of Chan; if he was compassionate he spoke of dreams.”67 All of these lines reflected the fact that the principles of the Buddhists had already become habitual in his psychological depths and that he used the transcendental concepts of the Chan School to face worldly affairs, and that he took pains with his style. Record 165 of the Jihai zashi records his arrival at Qiaosong Hermitage to see Dharma Master Cifeng. “I asked about the Tiantai Lineage doubts about meaning, but he was deaf and did not answer.” Cifeng escorted Gong to the monastery gate, and Gong Zizhen at once returned to his usual attitude of scolding the later inferior followers of the Chan School for examining huatou and he eventually used a poem-g¯ath¯a that resembles a “huatou” to investigate the Chan opportunity: I say that sending off a guest is not a matter of Buddhism. The master says not sending him off is not Buddhist wisdom. Both show that sending off and not sending off are right, 65

Gong Zizhen, Qitian le. Jihai zashi, note. 67 Anonymous, Qitian le, “He yingshi ci”. 66

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In the golden-light great land that is Qiaosong Monastery.

The theory of the double illumination of sending off and not sending off is the Chan School’s transcendental concept of “To speak about a thing is not to be on target” and “Principle transcends the tetralemma.” Gong also wrote a poem instructing the lecturer on the Lengyan jing, Yiyun, that said, “As soon as one allows selection of the opportunity and investigates a vivifying sentence, do not take letters and exchange them for crazy Chan.”68 He not only drew the Buddhist scriptures into his poetry, but he also strove to his utmost to advocate investigating the vivifying sentence. His criticism of crazy Chan expressed exactly his defense of the purity of Chan thought. One can see that his scolding of Chan was also selective. In sum, in the fifty years of Gong Zizhen’s short life he had formed an indissoluble connection with Buddhism and he used the principles of Buddhism to speak of the principles of Gongyang Learning. He used Chan learning to develop the methods of managing the country and governing the mind. He wrote commentarial explanations, evidential examinations, and edited and printed Buddhist scriptures, using the principles of Buddhism to express his own thoughts and feelings. Just in his 315 poems in his Jihai zashi, over forty poems quote Buddhist scriptures and he borrowed poetry to talk of Chan or he borrowed Chan to discuss principle and used Chan to express emotion. The very last poem fully expresses a kind of wordless realism that covers heaven and earth and cuts across all currents [Tr. from words of Yunmen]: The chanting ended, the atmosphere of the rivers and mountains is not numinous, Tens of thousands and thousands of stories, one green (oil) lantern. Suddenly I lay down my brush, with no words to say, And I again bowed to the seven-fascicle sutra of Tiantai.

The chants in the rivers and mountains end and all kinds of stories ultimately cannot be a substitute for the ineffable realm. Repeatedly bowing to Tiantai expresses his enthusiasm for Buddhist learning, and via the direct perception that is Chan and Pure Land he poured his energy into a particular emphasis on the Tiantai School’s logical thinking. It is usually thought that Gong Zizhen primarily devoted himself to research on the Tiantai School and his self-appellation of “a descendant of Tiantai” in particular bolstered this idea. In fact, this was not the case, for Gong Zizhen was only interested in Tiantai after he was forty-two sui, which was a change of direction in his thought, because at the same time he valued the Faxiang and Huayan schools that are even more intensely pervaded with philosophical analysis. It should be said that his research into Buddhist learning and his use of it also tallies with the course of Chan thought that was giving equal importance to Chan and doctrine, the joint practice of Chan and Pure Land, and the confluence of the various schools. And since his criticism of the later inferior followers of the Chan School was in regard of the reforms of Chan thought, naturally this was also a glorification of Chan thought. Even in his 68

Jihai zashi, poem 147.

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last years, when he had turned towards the study of the Tiantai School core-tenets of guanxin (examination of the mind), “the insentient having a [buddha] nature,” and “three thousand [realms] in a thought-moment,” he also especially emphasized that Huineng’s Platform Sutra can be sourced back in the Lotus and Nirvana sutras, and therefore the Platform Sutra is similar to the thought of Zhiyi, the Tiantai founder. Therefore, he also said, “I really do not see an iota of difference between the two thinkers of Tiantai (Zhiyi) and Caoxi (Huineng).”69 Clearly, Gong was hoping for the adoption of the merging of Chan and doctrine, and for a theoretical exploration as to how the human mind possesses such an enormous ability. Wei Yuan’s grandson Wei Jizi discussed the features of Gong Zizhen’s Buddhist thought. He said, Shanmin’s learning of Buddhism in the main was the keeping of incantations and the coretenets of Tiantai’s Fahua [thought], and he scolded Chan learning. He once said it was not knowing the character beng (earthen jar) that forms the conditioned. Lecture Master Huifeng and Layman Qian Yian repeatedly scolded this position, which is not surprising. My late grandfather (Wei Yuan) discussed this saying, “The scholarship of Dingan (Gong) all lay in language and letters, at its utmost sweeping away everything, not relying on letters, and if so, there is nowhere to place one’s body. This is the reason why he did not know the profundity of Chan.”70

One can see from just this that Gong’s Buddhist learning not only specialized on Tiantai, but in fact, for the overwhelming period of his lifetime, he also attached importance to Esoteric Buddhism, Pure Land and so on as skillful means of maintaining practice, and his criticism of Chan learning was also only in respect of nonreliance on letters and to reject the latter inferior followers of the Chan School who concentrated on the barbed comments of gongan practice and therefore played with mysteries. Therefore, although his teachers and friends frequently scolded him, he was not surprised. Because Gong took pains over lettered Chan, there was no difference between the Chan meanings in his lettered Chan and the development of Chan thought. When it came to Wei Yuan saying that he did not know the profundity of Chan, that may have been a fact, but that is just saying that Gong’s scholarship lay with letters and that therefore his castigation of the theory of the non-reliance on letters may also tally with the realities of his thought. Naturally, one can also see Wei Yuan’s greater admiration for Chan learning. Gong undoubtedly had a partiality for Esoteric Buddhism, Pure Land, and the Chan School, which were selections he made due to the demands of the realities of his thought. It should be recognized that the search for the ultimate of Buddhism lay in awakening and enlightenment, which is clarifying the mind and seeing the nature, turning away from the false and returning to the true, so therefore there are people who say that the spirit of Buddhism does not reside in the tens of thousands of volumes of scriptures, but in the meditative-sam¯adhi of courageous and vigorous advancement, of not being timid and not retreating. This theory cannot be said to lack reason, and 69

Gong Zizhen, Ershisanzu ershiqizu tongyi (Similarities and Differences Between the Twentyseven Patriarchs and the Twenty-three Patriarchs). 70 Wei Jizi, Yuhu Shanmin yishi (The Bequeathed Matters of Yuhu Shanmin).

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Chan, Pure Land, and Esoteric Buddhism in reality describe all of the processes of the search for the ultimate simplified into the sudden enlightenment of no thought within thought and being apart from characteristics while in characteristics, which thus enabled them to broadly spread across the vast land of Chinese culture. There were knowledgeable scholars present in the atmosphere of an age in which “all were mute” who entirely emphasized the functions of the power of the mind. Using the Chan that is characterized as “valuing one’s own mind” and “this mind is buddha,” as well as Pure Land, these first of all formed a theoretical weapon for Gong Zizhen to pursue ideological liberation He said, Originally the Chan School…is the embryonic breathing (breathing via the abdomen) of the thousand buddhas, is the toil of the three vehicles, and is the key promise of the eight teachings [according to the Tiantai classification]… These words are bright and clear, and therefore cover the three [levels of] ability. Its arts are most plain and solid in their correctness. Therefore, it wrote of the learning of [people of the] three abilities so that they would be without abuses.71

Seen in this way, the Chan School is what thousands of buddhas subscribed to, what the three vehicles inculcated, and what the eight teachings promised. In a sentence, the Chan School covers the Buddha-vehicle and contains the various schools, which is sufficient to show Gong’s respect for the Chan School, and which also tallies with the realities of the Chan thought that alone flourished in the empire of the Qing and later. As for his criticism of the latter inferior followers of the Chan School, it appears as with previous knowledgeable gentry and some scholars in the Chan institution, that the aim lay in eliminating the accumulated abuses of Chan and to restore the true spirit of Caoqi and thereby propel Chan thought under new conditions to search for new developments. As he saw it, the schools of Buddhism were not the same, but by “relying on the sutras to write explanations, and being rich in principle and conforming to the meaning,” what the tens of thousands of sutras write will not exhaust the words and those words do not exhaust the meanings, so where can there be any separate transmission outside of the teachings? Therefore, not without sighing, he said, From the late Tang onwards, the semblance of the Dharma gradually withered, and then there was Caoqi who denounced the use of the sutras and s´a¯ stras. Then there was the patriarch of Caoqi and those who lost the understanding and practice of Caoqi. The more time passed the more excessive this was, and the longer it existed the easier it became, and [people] acted to obscure Chan and assumed the name of Chan, and the literati of the Confucian persuasion loved that it was simple and easy; and the associates of bald-pates who were illiterate practiced its crazy cunning, recorded sayings arose in profusion, many being the same as fiction, and the skilled used concealment and the inept used rumor, and the worst mixed in comedy to form it.72

Gong’s criticism extends back to the late Tang, when some so-called Chan people took Caoqi (Huineng) to be the lineage ancestor, but practiced contrary to the Way 71

Gong Zizhen, Zhina gude yishu xu (Preface to the Bequeathed Writings of the Virtuosos of Old of China). 72 Ibid.

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of Caoqi. They used the pretext of the separate transmission outside of the teachings and non-reliance on letters to make matters simple, easy and absurd, and the more it evolved the more intense the various kinds of abuses were. Not only were there illiterate reverends, they thought crazy cunning was Chan, and the shallow literati also used this simple convenience to pose as cultured persons, and they probably had the idea of using Confucianism to confuse Chan. In particular, there were those “associates of bald-pates” who assumed the name of Chan in order to obscure the practice of Chan and who therefore played with mysteries, misled the public, and the recorded sayings and gongan run rampant and the spirit of Chan was all gone. There were also people who used obscure and hard to understand jargon, and utterly crude and vulgar language to win fame by deceiving people. He pointed out that these people were “maggot monks” parasitic on Buddhism itself. Clearly, he took it as his personal duty to develop Chan thought healthily in order to eliminate these maggot monks. It should be explained that Chan thought regarded simplicity and ease as its outstanding features. Yet saying that it is simple and easy, which is in contrast to being complex and troublesome, is not the same as it having no content, having no method, and having no rules. Nevertheless, the essential spirit of enlightening the mind, seeing the nature, and the transcendence of antithesis that latter inferior followers of the Chan School claimed they adhered to, was exactly what Gong Zizhen wanted to criticize. His condemnation of simplicity and ease was mainly directed ´ akyamuni Buddha said.”73 against non-reliance on letters and “difference with what S¯ This also tallies with the features of his scholarship of using language and letters to be the basis. He often extolled Chan thought, saying of the Platform Sutra of the sixth patriarch that it is “most honest and straightforward, most refined and elegant,” and “opened up the highest Dharma-gate of the mind-only lineage.”74 He wrote the Zuilu qifo ge (Final Record on G¯ath¯as of the Seven Buddhas), Ershisanzu ershiqizu tongyi (Similarities and Differences of the Twenty-Three Patriarchs and the TwentySeven Patriarchs), stressing that the Qifo ge (G¯ath¯as of the Seven Patriarchs) “must not have been written by Chinese” and therefore “it is undoubtable that they use nine levels of meaning to refute the four levels of doubt, affirming that they were written by Bodhidharma.” He went on to express the demand for a firm “respectful service of the sixth patriarch” and had heroic verse-lines like “I desire to include craziness gradually into Chan,”75 and “If the Chan barrier is smashed with a swish, the jade-like beauty [wields] a sword like a rainbow,”76 which express his endorsement of Chan thought. Even so, Gong Zizhen ultimately made no deep research into Chan thought, and he also produced no creative developments. It is truly as Liang Qichao said, “Overall, Zizhen’s learning had the fault of not going into depth and his thought only drew out 73

The Shanghai renmin chubanshe 1957 edn of Gong Zizhen quanji has “suowen” (what is heard), but I have corrected it based on the context. 74 Gong Zizhen, Zuilu tanjing (Final Record on the Platform Sutra). 75 Gong Zizhen, Yigu sanshou (Three Poems of the Post-station Drum). 76 Gong Zizhen, Yezuo ershou (Two Poems on Sitting at Night).

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its threads and that is all; it also was covered over by magnificent diction, the meaning not being straightforward and open-minded.”77 Gong’s relation to Chan learning was also like this. He taught and drew on Chan learning by valuing his mind and he used the emotional hues of the romanticism of his magnificent elegance to promote the bluster of Gongyang Learning, pandering to the late-Qing period scholars’ thirst for an enterprising spirit of freedom and liberation, igniting their passion for a change in the status quo. One cannot deny that he made a major contribution. A person evaluated him, saying, “From the late Qing, the argumentative words of Dingan (Gong) were sourced in the Buddhist scriptures, and he glossed this over with Nanhua (Zhuangzi). He had no important students, and so there was no discussion of this.”78 The argumentative words of Dingan had their origins in the eight characters of the Buddhist scriptures79 and they ignited the scholarly realm of the end-of-the-Qing and early-Republic period thought to propose revolution, bragging of righteous courage, advancing and dismissing the principle of Chan and the special features of the age that paid attention to style. Wei Yuan, who was of equal fame with Gong Zizhen, even though widely famed in modern times for his ideas about managing the country, thought that the ingrained habits of the society of his time would die hard. The first of these habits was “the disaster of the emptiness of human talent” and the second was “the disaster of the sleep of the human mind.”80 Nevertheless, the governance of the country was necessarily based on the mind seeking the blessings of material things, and if this is to be applied to governance then it depends on people using their talents to the utmost. Human talent also reverts to its basis in the purification of the human mind, and therefore, fundamentally speaking, the value of managing the country is also sourced in the human mind. Because of this, he not only raised the scholarly guidelines of “Using the study of the classics is the art of governance,” and also using the Chan School thought of “If the mind is pure, the land will be pure,” and so he established his concept of the Pure Land, which he introduced into his philosophy of managing the country. His collection, the Jingtu sijing (Four Sutras of the Pure Land) was a representative work in the history of Chan thought of that Pure Land on the other shore being sublimated into the theory of the mind-only Pure Land. Wei Yuan (1794–1857), style Moshen, in his later years called himself “The bodhisattva-precepts disciple Wei Chengguan.” “I took this Dharma-name because I kept the precepts.”81 He was the son of a petty clerk of Shaoyang in Hunan. He had a son, Wei Qi, who was in the post of governor (magistrate) of a county in Jiangsu,

77

Liang Qichao, Qingdai xueshu gailun, in Liang Qichao quanji, vol. 5, Beijing chubanshe, 1999, p. 3100. 78 Yao Hua (1876–1930), Futang leizao (Categories of Literary Embellishments of Futang). 79 Tr. in Nirvana Sutra, “rising and ceasing already ceased, quiescent cessation is joy.”. 80 Wei Yuan, Haiguo tuzhi (Treatise on Overseas Countries). 81 Zhou Zhipo, Yuanke Jingtu sijing xu (Preface to the Original Printing of the Four Sutras of the Pure Land).

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“who regarded learning in order to manage the country as his own burden,”82 and who also “immersed his mind in Chan learning and he also used the arts. He himself was dedicated to the marvel of calligraphy and he was greatly promoted at the time.”83 At seven sui, Wei Yuan entered a private school; at fifteen he carefully studied the meanings of Wang Yangming’s Xinxue and then he asked about the learning of the Han and the Song, and he learnt the principles of the Gongyang management of the country from Liu Fenglu. He and Gong Zizhen were equally famed in the empire for their extraordinary talents and they exchanged views and notes on the ancient texts, and sat discussing the Chan Dharma, and “the statements of their arguments were equally matched.”84 The teachers he respected and the friends with whom he interacted most of the time also conveyed feelings of delight in Chan, or were scholars who very accomplished in Chan learning. For example, Yao Xueshuang rented a monk’s monastery, “a broken room in which the wind howled, the frost covered the mats, and he sat in stasis unmoving”85 ; Jiang Xiangnan (1795–1854), who called Wei Yuan “the same as a second-coming (reborn) monk”86 ; and Chen Shirong with whom Wei Yuan travelled to Maoshan and Baohuashan, presented Wei with a poem, “Without a need to discuss the Buddha-dharma, he still conformed to its decorum….You can obtain the idea of Chan, and I also rested on a pair of bamboo staves.”87 There was also the Secretary of the Ministry of Personnel, Chen Qishi (1795–1842), who exchanged words on Buddhism and Daoism with Wei. He also had frequent exchanges with monks and in particular this strengthened his consciousness of the principles of Buddhism for assisting in the learning of managing the country. In the twenty-fifth year of the Jiaqing era (1820), Wei Yuan wrote Laozi benyi xu (Preface to the Basic Meanings of Laozi) in which he pointed out that “the thinkers, Su Ziyou (Su Zhe, 1039–1112), Chiao Hong (1541–1620), and Li Zhi also were moved by the meanings of the Buddhists to explain Laozi, but not one of them got the truth. In fact, none of the pioneers of Buddhism [in China] equaled Liezi…and Yukou (Liezi)’s core-tenets were close to those of the Buddha, and it was not only the sage of the west (Buddha) who totally converted without speaking, for there was a chapter [of Zhuangzi] that governs the self without action.” One can see that before Wei was twenty-seven sui, he already had an independent understanding of the principles of Buddhism and their differences and similarities with Confucianism, Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Liezi. Two years later he made an evaluation of the poems of Chen Hang (1785–1826): 82

Gu Yun, “Qing gu zhixian Shaoyang Wei jun mubiao” (Grave Inscription of the Late Governor of Shaoyang, Sir Wei, of the Qing), in Boshan wenlu (Recorded Prose of Boshan), fascicle 7. 83 Weishi yiwen (Anecdotes of Mr. Wei). 84 Chai E, Fantian lu conglu (Collected Records of the Hut of Fantian). 85 Guian Yao Xiansheng zhuan (Biography of Master Yao of Guian). 86 Jiang Xiangnan, Kunshan bie Gong Zizhen Dingan (Taking Leave of Gong Zizhen Dingan at Kunshan). 87 Chen Shirong, “Xie Moshen yu Baohua tongshe sengshe” (Travelling Together with Moshen to Baohua and Staying Together in a Monastic Residence).

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In the empty mountains there is nobody, sunk in thought he goes alone. The leaves of the trees have all dropped, the air of the stones is green by itself. The antelope hanging by its horns [means] there are no tracks to be found. Joining up with the eastern ocean, he poled his boat and departed. The man of Yupingshan is able to talk of it but was unable to do it, but Taichu (Chen Hang) was almost able to do so.88

This sort of empty mountain without anybody is pure, vast, deep, and quiet, like an antelope hanging by its horns, being a transcendental realm of Chan that does not fall into levels. Wei Yuan thought that Chen Hang had almost grasped it. And the man of Yupingshan was still able to speak of it but was unable to discern the realm of Chan. One can see that Wei Yuan viewed his own accomplishments in Chan learning as being very high. In the eighth year of Daoguang (1828), the thirty-five-year-old Wei Yuan travelled to Hangzhou, where he stayed in the residence of Qian Yian (d. 1837), a famous scholar of Chan learning of that time. He bowed to Qian as his teacher and “I listened to him on the Buddhist scriptures, seeking the essentials for transcending the world, and I immersed my mind in the Chan principles, broadly reading the sutra-store. I invited the two Dharma masters, Xirun and Cifeng to lecture on Mah¯ay¯ana and the Lengyan and Lotus [sutras].”89 Later, again in the capital, he practiced Pure Land under the guidance of Dharma Master Ruian of Hongluo Monastery, which was the occasion for his turn towards the Pure Land. One can see that his Pure Land thought in the main was based on Chan learning. At the start of the Xianfeng era (1851–1862), at fifty-eight sui Wei Yuan was appointed governor of Gaoyou Prefecture. He invited Ruian to Gaoyou to specifically propagate Pure Land. While in this post, Wei Yuan composed a poem expressing his life of the joint practice of government and learning Buddhism: “Summoned to reside as an official is like being a monk living in a monastery,/ For half a year temporarily dwelling in this ruined city,” and “The monk understanding, sends flowers and sends bamboo,/ The clerk busily copies documents and copies the classics.”90 These verses graphically display before our eyes his life of burying himself in official documents and Buddhist scriptures. At sixty-one sui, he shifted his residence to Xinghua and concentrated on the work of purification, calling himself the bodhisattva-precepts disciple Wei Chengguan. He compiled and selected the three Pure Land sutras and he regarded the Puxian xingyuan pin (Chapter of Samantabhadra’s Deeds and Vows, a chapter of the Huayan jing) to be a Pure Land sutra, and he called them the Jingtu sijing (Four Pure Land Sutras). He described each of them, summing this up in five sections to elucidate his Pure Land concepts of mind-only Pure Land and one’s ownnature Amit¯abha. Two years later, he wrote out the Four Sutras and he dashed off a letter requesting his friend Zhou Zhipo to print and distribute it. The letter said,

88 Jianxue zhai shoushu shigao (Drafts of Poems Written in the Hand of Jianxue Studio), first fascicle; Taichu is the zi of Chan Hang. 89 Wei Qi, Shaoyang Wei fujun shilue (Brief Accounts of the Events of the Lord of the Superior Prefecture, Wei of Shaoyang). 90 Wei Yuan, Gaoyouzhou shu qiuri outi (An Occasional Poem Signed at Gaoyouzhou).

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Elder brother, encountering such hard times, no conditioned dharmas are worth relying on. Only this fully-revealed Dharma of the three realms was completed by the force of our Buddha’s vow, yet it bloomed into the one mind (concentration), and in the end he rose to the ninth grade [of rebirth in the Pure Land]….If you can print and circulate it, the benefit will not be minor, so please do not be remiss in carrying this out vigorously.91

Even though this book reveals a feeling of desolation of the end age, yet he stressed that all worldly dharmas are ineffective against the bad ingrained habits of the end age, and there is only the power of using one’s own mind to cultivate sam¯adhi and spreading the practices of the fully-revealed Dharma of the three realms. Only then can one remove the abuses and shake off the decay, and make sentient beings at the end of life to rise to the ninth grade of rebirth in the Pure Land, and liberate them from the extreme misery of the end age. Seen fundamentally, Wei Yuan’s thought on managing the country regarded governing the mind to be the basis. He thought that the rise and decay of states and the government and confusion of society are determined by human talent, and that the emptiness of human talent hinges on the sleep of the human mind. In the court there are vulgar and hypocritical, decrepit sons of rich families; the provinces, superior prefectures, prefectures, and counties are the hometowns of greedy officials and corrupt clerks who cruelly oppress the people, and therefore the Way of the practical application to managing the country initially needs to “first pacify the accumulated disasters of the human mind,” making the human mind “depart from sleep and become aware,” and if this is achieved then “the disaster of sleep departs and justice will thrive, and if the disaster of emptiness is removed then the tempest [of revolution] occurs.”92 Therefore, his Pure Land thought likewise focused on the mind and is not earthly. In his post-script to the Chongkan Jingtu sijing (Reprint of the Four Pure Land Sutras), Yang Wenhui (1837–1911) clearly pointed out that the Chan thought of this was mind-only Pure Land. He wrote, “Mr. Wei’s learning of the management of the country is what people all know about, but they do not know that his source is the mind-ground, and with the work of purification being perfected, then it gives rise to function from reality.” The management of the country is function; the government of the mind is the basis, and the enlightenment is to the one mind, and his replacement of the faith in the Pure Land on the other shore with the mind-only Pure Land of Chan learning was naturally an imperative. First of all, his learning of managing the country especially emphasized that it was a function of mental power. He said, A gentleman (ruler), in using the learning of the world, takes power to its full from the outside and produces power as an extension from the inside. The extent of that power is due to the contraction and spread of the mind.93

91

Zhou Zhipo, Yuanke Jingtu sijing xu (Account of the Original Printing of the Four Pure Land Sutras). 92 Wei Yuan, Haiguo tuzhi. 93 Wei Yuan, Mogu, Xuepian (Silent Composition: Learning Section), 11, 7.

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Therefore, he thought that “The mind is the lord of heaven, the divine radiance emerges from it.”94 He viewed the mind as covering heaven and earth, as the the original source of the production of all things, and if one grasps the power of the mind then it will serve as the fountainhead of all power. Therefore, he had a number of discussions of the mind. For example: The human mind is the mind of heaven and earth. The numinous light is like the sun, is the mind; the divine light is like the moon, is the eyes. If the light gathers then there is birth and if it is scattered there is death… Fire is not as bright as this, water is not as clean as this, metal is not as brilliant as this, and wood and stone are not as productive as this. Therefore, light is the original spirit of the human body. If the spirit gathers in the mind, it emerges in the eyes, and the mind illuminates all matters and the eyes illuminate all things… If one is thoroughly enlightened to the source of the mind and all things are present within me, then that is great knowing and great awakening. Great awakening is like the sun… Minor awakening is like lamplight; occasional awakening is like a lightning flash; false awakening is like a crackling fire. The words of learning are awakening using the previously awakened to awaken the later awakening.95 One understands by finding the intrinsic mind in the five thousand words [of the Laozi], but there is nothing that one does not understand by finding the five thousand words in my intrinsic mind.96

All right then, Wei Yuan in just this way esteemed the idea that there is not a thing that is not enlightened by the mind and that the mind is a function that can do everything. He uses the awakening of the “thorough enlightenment to the mindsource” of the Chan School to link Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, and then he established the position of the inherent reality of the mind. In his early years, Wei Yuan researched Buddhism and he asked about the Chan Dharma from Qian Yian when he was thirty-five sui. In his last years, he also devoted himself to learning Pure Land practice from Ruian, and his Jingtu sijing was famous. One can say that he was also a scholar who jointly cultivated Chan, Doctrine, and Pure Land, and that he was also a thinker who blended the theory of managing the world with conducting rational reform of the Pure Land faith. Therefore, his Pure Land thought essentially embodied the Chan School form of thinking of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature. Seen formally, Pure Land thought was originally based on three sutras and one treatise, that is, the Wuliangshou jing, Guan wuliangshou jing, Amituo jing, and the Wangsheng lun (On Rebirth), and its core tenets are the practice of the actions of mindfulness of Buddha (nianfo) as the internal cause and the power of the vow of Amit¯abha as the external condition, and that when the internal and external correspond, one will be reborn in paradise. Nevertheless, the Chan School understanding of Pure Land was “If one accords with the purity of the mind, the Pure Land will 94

Ibid. Wei Yuan, Mogu, Xuepian, 5, 1. 96 Wei Yuan, Lun Laozi (On Laozi), 1. 95

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be pure,” and Chan pointed out that “Confused people are mindful of the Buddha to be born over there; the enlightened by themselves purify their mind,”97 and this really also claims that “seeing the nature and becoming buddha” is also a criticism of the belief in an illusory Pure Land. Ever since the Song, after Yongming Yanshou championed the unification of Chan and Pure Land, the later inferior followers of the Chan School loved its simple convenience and they then made the western Pure Land on the other shore the object of their prayers. By the Yuan-Ming period, it had been changed and the emphasis was on the religious belief of nianfo Chan. This alienation of the Chan School went right through to the late Ming when it then began to return to the mind-only Pure Land of the Chan School. It was exactly on this foundation that Wei Yuan erected his concept of the mind-only Pure Land. He replaced the Wangsheng lun with the Puxian xingyuan pin to make the Jingtu sijing, his aim being to strengthen the theory of the intrinsic awakening of the mind-nature and to pare away the hues of the illusion of and superstition about seeking for rebirth in an external Pure Land. This itself is an innovation in Pure Land and is naturally a consequent improvement on the thought of the Platform Sutra. He specially pointed out that. The Puxian pusa xingyuan pin is the destination of the Huayan jing and is not just a sutra of the one gateway of the Pure Land. The Huayan jing takes the ocean of the world of the [lotus] flower store (the Pure Land of Vairocana) and the buddha lands that are [as numerous as] atoms to be limitless and boundless, and to be the inexhaustible Buddha that enlightens the mind. So how can it solely point towards a paradise?… And they do not know that the one mind that is the Amit¯abha of one’s own nature intrinsically encompasses the Dharmarealm… If one cultivates Pure Land practice and does not read the Xingyuan pin, then that teaching is partial and imperfect, and therefore [this text] is placed at the end of the four sutras, being the destination of the Pure Land.98

Amit¯abha exists in the self-nature, the one mind encompasses the Dharma-realm; this is the fundamental tenet of the Xingyuan pin that is the destination for the Huayan jing. Wei Yuan replaced the Pure Land of ultimate joy with the one mind, and with the Amit¯abha Buddha that acts as the self-nature made the destination of the Pure Land to at once change that destination from the external Pure Land on the other shore or in the future to be the inherent mind and self-nature. His Chan learning content is fully revealed through this. In his “Overall Account” he emphasized that “For perfection there is nothing more perfect than the Xingyuan pin,” which likewise was for the completion of this theoretical sublimation. He went further to point out that. Via the purity of the one mind one can be even more mindful that the identity of the nominal, which is emptiness, and which is the middle, is that which is apart from the tetralemma, eliminates all negations, which is the phenomenon of the one mind entering the principle of the one mind.99

97

Platform Sutra. Wei Yuan, Puxian xingyuan pin xu. 99 Ibid. 98

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This sentence in particular unwinds on paper that the being apart from words and apart from characteristics and the transcendence of dualistic opposition of the Chan School is the “universally present ocean of the Huayan store that is all Dharma gateways”100 of the intrinsic mind. Seen in terms of content, the Jingtu sijing also highlights the theories of mindonly Pure Land and seeing the nature to become buddha. Even though he says, “Compared to the horizontal departure from the three realms (to be born in the Pure Land immanently with help of other power), the vertical departure from the three realms (the gradual escape by one’s own power in stages) are as far apart as heaven and earth as to their ease and distance,” yet he bestowed the meaning of Pure Land with Chan thought. For example, The squirming sentient beings definitely all have the Buddha-nature.101 In the mind of every person there is the Amitayus Buddha… Now know that desire is the basis of suffering, and that desire is the basis of the Way. If joy is not at its maximum, then dislike will not eventuate, and if dislike is not at its maximum, one will not be able to escape from the three realms. In this way there is adoption and rejection, in this way there is to emerge into and to be apart from [the three realms]… Even though one desires the mind to not be focused solely [on this], it cannot be done. If not, then verbally maintain [mindfulness] of the vast name and mentally be concerned with delight in the world, and desires to ultimately escape from the three realms. Is that not difficult!102 The Visualization Sutra (Guanjing) is [about] the mind creating the buddha, this mind being buddha. These words are even more direct than the lineage-sect (Chan)’s seeing the nature and becoming buddha… Take Amit¯abha to be one’s own nature, and being mindful of one’s nature that is Amit¯abha; take the mind-only of the Pure Land and be mindful of the mind-only Pure Land… [When] the mind and the realm (object, the Pure Land) are perfectly merged, one has entered the inconceivable.103

How are such categories as these different from the Chan School’s mind-only Pure Land and seeing the nature to become buddha? In particular, if desire is the basis of suffering and when joy is at its peak then dislike occurs, and there is adoption and abandonment, and departure from and being apart from them, then these are entirely the form of thinking of the Chan School. In sum, Wei Yuan’s theoretical sublimation of Pure Land faith and his reforms of management of the country reflected the scholarly modernization of Chan thought and a tendency to secularization. Yet the ultimate concern of the joint practice of Chan and Pure Land is never again the paradise world to the west, but are the problems of the reality of the human mind and the problems of society. Looking at the modulations of and reforms in Chan thought by Gong and Wei together, they indicated that Chan thought had already begun a complete turn towards engagement with the world. Gong’s praise for Chan learning was romantic and 100

Ibid. Wei Yuan, Wuliangshou jing huishi xu (Account of the Compilation of the Translations of the Wuliangshou jing). 102 Ibid. 103 Wei Yuan, Guanwuliangshoufo jing xu (Account of the Guanwuliangshoufo jing). 101

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also critical; Wei Yuan’s use of Chan thought was realistic and constructive. Gong regarded the theories of the mind-nature of the Chan School and Tiantai to be the core, that its aim lay in the work of ordering culture, and in his later years he turned to research into Buddhist philosophy in order to pioneer a way forward for modern Buddhist speculation. Wei Yuan used the mind-only Pure Land of Chan to reform Pure Land faith, making it into a theoretical weapon of governing the mind and managing the country, and also to clear away the paths for a modern Buddhist learning of managing the country. The Japanese scholar Inaba Kunzan (1876–1840) said that, “Since Gong and Wei, the Gongyang Learning faction were often openly disciples of the Buddha who researched Buddhism, and in fact in the last eighty years this was the one change that occurred in Gongyang Learning.” This fully explained that Gong and Wei still had a pioneering historical contribution to the customary practice of turning the trends of thought of modern society, of Buddhist learning, in particular that of Chan thought, towards engagement with the world. Therefore, following this, there were those like “Wang Kaiyun (1833–1916), who had a reputation for having a rich interest in Buddhism, and his pupil Liao Ping (1852–1932), who regarded the uncrowned king (Confucius) and the king of emptiness (Buddha) to be in agreement, and it goes without saying that he researched Buddhism. Kang Youwei viewed Confucius and the religious leader Jesus to be equal, and he thoroughly changed the theory of Liao Ping without leaving a trace.”104 Kang Youwei (1858–1927), who has gone down in the history books as a New Text scholar who used management of the country and introduced constitutional reforms, was born in the eighth year of the Xianfeng era (1858). At that time, the government was on the wane, morale had completely collapsed, and the whole country was in tumult, and the Great Qing Empire had already lost its strength. The realm of scholarly thought also was unable to hold onto to what remained and preserve the outmoded, and the scholars studied the classics into their old age, resigning from their official posts. Needing to change, they denied change as being insufficient as a plan for survival, and blamed change for not being able to save them from destruction, and so they successively returned to the past, following Confucius and Gongyang Learning, seeking the basis for change therein, and for the principles of change and the system of change. The underground of the realm of thought at that time, Buddhism, was just then propelling itself towards engagement with the world, and Chan thought was infiltrating the world of thought and scholarship, especially New Text thought. Kang Youwei also changed it to his own use, to make it into an ideological weapon for his constitutional reforms and to rescue the country. Liang Qichao said, “Kang Youwei basically loved to talk of religion, often using his own opinions to advance or dismiss Buddhist theories.”105 The religion spoken of here is Chan. He also pointed out that Kang “gained the most benefit from the Chan

104

Inaba Kunzan, Qngchao quanshi (Complete History of the Qing Court), last volume, Zhonghua shuju, 1914. 105 Liang Qichao, Qingdai xueshu gailun in Liang Qichao quanshu (Complete Works of Liang Qichao), vol. 5, Beijing chubanshe, 1999.

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School, but he regarded the Huayan School as his destination.”106 He explained that Kang was deeply influenced by Chan thought, which lay in Chan learning harmonizing the various schools, which was an entirely natural situation in the later period of feudal society in which there was no Buddhism that was not Chan. From his childhood, Kang Youwei had received instruction at his paternal grandfather’s knee. At nineteen, he studied under the grand Confucian of Guangdong and Guangxi, Zhu Jiujiang (Zhu Ciqi, 1807–1882), and then he was also under the influence of the New Text classicist Liao Ping, when he concentrated on learning the words of the Gongyang thinkers. And yet he “privately loved to seek a state of calming the mind and establishing his life.” Consequently, in the year that he was twenty-one sui, “He suddenly stopped studying, abandoned his books, shut his door and declined to see his friends, tranquilly sitting and nourishing his mind,” and he turned his attention eagerly towards the vast open spaces of Chan thought. His practice was the Chan School method of tranquil sitting and examining the mind. He said, When I was sitting tranquilly, I unexpectedly saw that heaven and earth, and all things were of one body (reality) with me, and I greatly emitted a light. When I regarded myself as a sage I was happy and smiled, but when I unexpectedly thought of the suffering of the common people I was depressed and cried… This is what the Lengyan jing calls entering the mind by the flying demons, in which seeking the Way is extremely urgent. It is often like this when one has not yet devoted [oneself to Buddhism].107

He clearly wished to take advantage of the gateway entry into the Way of the Chan School in search for the truth of human life. Because of this he had gone too far and entered into the demonic temptation and was unable to extract himself from it, and so he used examination of one’s own conduct as advocated by the Lengyan jing. In the second year, he then “entered Xiqiaoshan and lived in Baiyundong and there concentrated on reading the books of the Daoists and Buddhists,” and he imitated ´ akyamuni’s realization of the Way of bodhi, “always sitting at night the plot of S¯ for a full month without sleeping, willfully roaming in thought in the heavens and the human world of maximum pleasure and maximum suffering, trying all of them out in himself.” His idea was to draw support from the Chan learning method of contemplating the mind, seeking the source of things and the path of release from, and the basic causes of, the corruption of society and the suffering of the common people. He also spoke of his experience of this kind of Chan contemplation. At first the demons (temptations) confused me and then the dreams finished, and my spirit overcame this and was joyfully self-satisfied. I practiced the path of the five victories108 and I saw that there is a self outside of my body and I also made the self enter into the body, seeing the body as being like a skeleton and seeing the person as being like a pig.109 106

Liang Qichao, Kang Youwei zhuan (Biography of Kang Youwei) in Liang Qichao quanji, vol.

5. 107

Kang Nanhai Xiansheng zibian nianpu. Tr. unclear, possibly the overcoming of one element by another, such as water wins over fire; possibly a physical analysis. Not a Buddhist term. 109 Ibid. 108

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One can see that when Kang Youwei was seeking high and low for the principles of a reform in the management of the country, he not only required understanding and cited the theories of the Chan School, but he also “tried all” of the religious practices of Chan “on himself,” aiming to obtain the support of the Chan School’s forms of thinking and he arrived at a kind of transcendental realm where there are no characteristics of the person, self, and sentient being, and thereby made this the theoretical foundation for the establishment of his idea of the person and self as one, of being at one with sentient beings, liberating people, of saving the world and oneself, of self-awakening. This was a reform of the nature of the management of the country via Chan thought. Since his use of a form of meditation, of the experience of the maximum pleasure and maximum suffering of the heavens and human world, expressed his mindfulness of the urgency to save the world and the religious feelings that he held, one can also see that his return to early meditation methods successively agreed with the scholarly thought of a return to the past. Liang Qichao, in his summary of his period of Buddhist thought, finally displayed his ideas about the reform of the nature of the management of the country via Chan thought. (The master, Kang Youwei) buried himself in the Buddhist scriptures and was deeply enlightened. He regarded the learning of Lixue to not only exist in the realm of the bodily form but that one must also seek its basis in the realm of the soul. Consequently, he concentrated his mind and went his own way, and sought the source of all phenomena and things. He thoroughly investigated all of the principles of things from their greatest in the great thousands of heavens down to the atoms and mustard seeds at the smallest, and he constantly, over several days and nights, did not lie down, or sit, or travel, looking up at the moon and stars, bending down to listen to the creeks and springs, sitting facing the forest and thickets, a block without a peer. Internally he contemplated the manas (ego) faculty, externally he examined the characteristics of things, raising the matter of the empire, so there was nothing that could disturb his mind. At first, he was like the World Honored One rising up from under the bodhi tree, and awestruck he sighed at [the idea of] in heaven above and on earth below only I am honored. For his entire life, the master’s knowledge really consisted of this. Its result was that he had an aim to obtain the great matter of transcending the world from the Buddha, and since he regarded the characteristics of the person, of the self, and of sentient beings to be one, that there was nothing to be adopted and nothing to be attached to, and that there is just this present body in the world, and due to the perfect mixture into the oceanic nature, he was at one with sentient beings and compassionately and universally liberated them till the time when there were no more. For this reason, he regarded wisdom to be the reality and compassion to be the function, and he was not tainted by anything and did not abandon anything. He also used the power of his vow without end, and therefore his donation for the future was not the equal of his donation for the present; great and the petty were equal and therefore his sympathy for the other world was not the equal to his sympathy with that which is the closest, and in that he mightily departed from transcendence of the world and entered into engagement with the world, and looking all around backwards and forwards, he had the ambition to cleanse the empire.110

Kang drew upon the theory of enlightening the mind and seeing the nature from Buddhist learning, and he knew that the learning of Xingli (Nature and principle of orthodox neo-Confucianism) not only dealt with the external world but needed 110

Liang Qichao, Kang Youwei zhuan.

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to search for the basis in the soul, and thereupon he practiced introspection and investigated enlightenment and silent illumination, and he conceived the mental attitude of the world savior who is alone honored in heaven above and on earth below. This was a practice of the thought of the Chan School of “Buddha is a creation of one’s own nature, do not seek buddha outside of oneself,” and, “At this very time suddenly return to one’s intrinsic mind,” and “Via one’s own mind suddenly manifest the intrinsic nature of true suchness.”111 This also was a concrete expression of his use of his own opinion to promote or dismiss Buddhist theories. The “Recognize the mind and see the nature, and by oneself perfect the Buddhist Way”112 spoken by the Chan School was said in order to guide sentient beings to value their own mind, to be self-awakened and self-enlightened, and fundamentally it was a denial of the existence of a savior of the world. And Kang recognized that if the intrinsic mind forms the leaders of the religions, then that is the prerequisite for the creation of the mission to sacrifice oneself to save the world. As for donation, Kang donated to the present and sympathized with what is the closest, and transcended the world to engage with the world. Clearly, he converted the Chan School principle of the mind nature to a salvationism that focused on this shore and focused on the present, and he converted Chan’s innate transcendence into an externally-oriented pursuit of “cleansing the empire.” In the seventh year of the Guangxu era (1881), the twenty-seven sui Kang Youwei returned to his hometown due to the French occupation of Vietnam and lived in Tanru Pavilion; he swam in the ocean of philosophical thinking and ended with “drawing up the system of the Great Harmony (Datong, a utopia).” At that time, “He read very many Buddhist scriptures, and in addition Brahman[ism], on the side including the four teachings, and he also worked on mathematics and read the books of Greek learning.” “He lived alone in a pavilion, all connections being cleared away, bending his head to read and looking up to think.” “What he was enlightened to was daily deepened.” What was he enlightened to? Kang Youwei had an ingenious description: Because of the vast number of magnifications by microscopes one can see a flea as being like a wheel and see an ant as if it is an elephant, [thus] one can be enlightened to the principles of the equalization of size. Because an electric light beam travels a hundred thousand kilometers in a second, one is enlightened to the equalization of speed… Since one knows there is no coming and no going, then solely make the present be the dh¯ar¯an.¯ı (complete control); since one knows that non-existence does not exist, then solely make birth to be the preservation of existence; since one knows there is no refined or coarse, no purity and impurity, then solely take enlightened-awakening to be the benefit (experience). Since all seeking after admiration has been completely eliminated, then solely regard humaneness and kindness to be your benefit (experience).113

The equalization of size and the equalization of speed, that there is no coming and going, no coarse and refined, no pure and impure, that all differentiations and antitheses do not exist, the Chan School’s transcendental thought that refutes “opposition” and is “departing and entering is apart from both sides,” can entirely be 111

Platform Sutra. Ibid. 113 Kang Nanhai Xiansheng zibian nianpu. 112

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proven by modern scientific technology, which is also a prominent feature of modern Buddhism. However, this way of thinking of the transcendence of dualistic opposition and the realm that it constructs is no longer introspection and internal enlightenment; being apart from thought and apart from characteristics, and the ideational realm of the freedom and naturalness of the calm mind of inaction, is still to regard humaneness and kindness as being employed for a pursuit of the external and spirit of participation. The reform of the nature of the engagement with the world via Chan thought was erected exactly on the perfection of a unified basis bringing together transcendence and the spirit of participation. Based on this, Kang advanced further to describe the soteriology of the transformation into participation in society: Therefore, do not dwell in heaven and therefore enter hell; do not throw oneself into the Pure Land and therefore come to the polluted world; do not be an emperor or king but be a scholar; do not approve of one’s own purity; do not approve of your lone pleasure, do not hope for your own veneration, but be close to sentient beings and provide ease in delivering them. Therefore, every day take the salvation of the world to be your thought and every moment take saving the world to be one’s work and abandon one’s life for them.114

If there is no opposition, that is the transcendence of the existence of all kinds of contrasts. Then there can be no separation of heaven and hell, no division of the Pure Land and the polluted world, and then one is able to equalize the internal and external, and equalize birth and death. The Chan School pursuit of the internal also enables the location of the aim that is the intrinsic mind, which is to require producing a kind of covering of heaven and earth without any approval and no denial, no blame and no praise, and a capability to perform the work without being shackled. He applied this to the transformation of society; in particular, he took it as an indicator for saving the world, and compared to the theories of managing the country, this was closer to the original intention of the Chan School. Therefore, when Kang was thirty-one sui, he resolutely ran to his study and pondered philosophy, using Chan thought to inculcate a spirit of the salvation of the world, and he gave himself to the work of the reformation of the constitution in an effort to rescue and preserve the country. However, the main focus of Kang Youwei’s use and reform of Chan thought was the establishment of the realm of the spirit described above. Even though Liang Qichao said that “He gained the greatest benefit from the Chan School,” that was only a conclusion made from that concern with fundamental significance. In fact, his utopian (datong) thought of saving the world for the most part was formed on the basis of the Buddhist value judgement that human life is all suffering and via the theory of the natural human nature that would remove suffering and seek pleasure that developed out of the humaneness taught by the Confucians. And also, he purely used his own requirements of the principles of Buddhism and applied them to the reformation of the world, and since he had no transmission from a teacher and had no sect and no scriptural norms, his “obtaining of the most benefit from the Chan School” was probably just such a creative rationalization. 114

Ibid.

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Liang Qichao’s Buddhist research was far superior to that of the previous generations of Qing Confucians. He made a vast contribution to, and held his own distinctive views about Buddhist history, Buddhist texts, Buddhist philosophy, and the comparison of Chinese and Indian culture. Yet he did very little research on the Chan School. In his researches into Buddhist philosophy he concentrated on the complex and difficult analyses of names and characteristics of the Faxiang School, and he hardly even mentioned the Chan School’s introspective thinking. This was related to the world of modern thought that valued the elements of rational analysis. Nevertheless, the influence of the Chan School way of thinking on him is very evident and he largely followed the same path as Kang Youwei in prosecuting a change in the nature of the management of the country. For example, he said when he wrote about Tan Sitong: Therefore, know that this world transcends the world; there is no so-called Pure Land. This person is the self; there is no so-called sentient being… Those who comprehend this will roam freely and can transcend birth and can enter death, can be humane and can save sentient beings.115

The world is transcendence of the world; this is not only the transcendental consciousness of “no opposition” of the Chan School, it is the mind-only Pure Land of the introspection that is in Chan learning, and it is also the foundation of the thinking about the Pure Land on this shore. Therefore, Liang not only emphasized roaming freely, he also inculcated the spirit of dedicating oneself to the kind of Chan learning of transcending birth and entering death, and he also emphasized the adorned Dharma-realm constructed in the world, not only in order to liberate the souls of people and beings, but also to liberate the physical bodies of people, forming his principle of “no Dharma-realm beyond the world” and “creating a Dharma-realm in the world.”116 In this way, from fundamentally denying the Buddhists’ thought about transcendence of the world to reforming the society of this present world on this shore, improving government and constructing a Pure Land of the human world, sharing the pleasures of the Great Harmony (Datong) and not needing to wait for a future age to be reborn on the other shore, this was a humanistic Buddhist learning for the modern age and an ideological trend that points out a Buddhism of the human world. In this sense, modern humanistic Buddhism really developed from Chan thought. Besides, when talking about reform of the nature of the citizenry, “of the method of the spirit of relief,” Liang especially pointed out that Confucian learning and “our country’s second fountainhead,”117 namely Buddhism, can “support and wield the popular morale to form a firm basis for the country.”118 He thought that past and present, Chinese and foreign, “heroes can complete the great work [of creating a state] vigorously in a generation” and “religious thought does that.” The reason why 115

Liang Qichao, Tan Sitong zhuan (Biography of Tan Sitong), in Liang Qichao quanji, vol. 5. Liang Qichao, Kang Youwei zhuan in Liang Qichao quanji, vol. 5. 117 Liang Qichao, Dongnan Daxue kebi gaobieci (Valediction for Graduates from Dongnan University), in Liang Qichao quanji, vol. 5. 118 Liang Qichao, Zhiguoxue de liangtiao dalu (Two Main Paths for Studies of the Administration of the Country), in Liang Qichao quanji, vol. 5. 116

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modern thinkers can arouse social agitation is “that they all had obtained knowledge from Buddhist learning.” The basic cause lay in the fact that they were able “to call up and give reign to all hopes,” and “can make people attain release from the bonds of external sense-objects” and “can make people who are by nature weak shake with enthusiasm and be strong and courageous.”119 These also can be triggered off due to the essential spirit of “valuing one’s own mind” of the Chan School. Liang’s chief concern with the history of the Chan School was also his criticism of the later inferior followers of the Chan School. He said, based on the Buddha’s preaching of birth, persisting, change, and cessation that the traces of the shifts in the vicissitudes of social and ideological trends indicated that in the period of the introduction of Buddhism into China it was expressed by going west in search of the Dharma and the translation of sutras and s´a¯ stras; and in the construction period there was the foundation of the sects of Buddhism with Chinese traits. Under the heading of doctrine (teachings), there were the three schools (themes, of Faxiang, Madhyamaka, and Dharma-nature/tath¯agatagarbha), which flourished as a trinity; and there was the separate transmission outside of the teachings, with one flower having five petals, that is the Chan School and Chan learning that were fully approved of by Liang. Yet he also pointed out “that after the Tang there was almost no Buddhist learning.” This was because, following the flourishing of Buddhism, “The elaboration of the interpretation of the meanings of the sutras had largely ended, but as the chanting of them become more extensive, it gradually fell into the derision of a poor man speaking about gold.” Especially as “Chan was practiced in the empire and the sects were abolished, gongan became as numerous as hemp and recorded sayings filled to the rafters, and at that the Buddha-dharma was at its maximum prosperity, but then the Buddha-dharma weakened.” The cause for this resided in the Chan School’s so-called “There was only the secret transmission of the mind-seal, and so it was difficult to grasp the truth of it, and [Chan people] slandered the patriarchs and abused the Buddha, and doubts about them were numerous.” He concluded by saying, With the flourishing practice of the Chan School, the sects were all eliminated and we really had no standards by which to gauge the depths of the people who sat crouching and used staff blows and shouts. The external cause for this were the Confucians from all over who plagiarized Buddhist principles to establish their own schools and the leading scholars in the country formed a tendency to follow that path and the realm of the monks was increasingly lacking in talent [as a result].

Liang was clearly opposed to the abuses of Chan such as the secret transmission of the mind-seal, non-reliance on letters, of proliferating gongan, and the barbed comments and use of the staff-blows and shouts. Chan learning flowed among the leading scholars in the country, which was something the intellectual class found difficult to avoid. From the angle of the entirety of culture, Liang explained the decay of Buddhism from the inside that was then expanded beyond it. Clearly this is entirely in concurrence with reality. What he meant by “the Buddha-dharma was then at its maximum prosperity” and “then the Buddha-dharma weakened” was that Buddhism 119

Liang Qichao, Lun zongjiaojia yu zhexuejia zhi changduan deshi (On the Pluses and Minuses of the Religious and Philosophers) in Liang Qichao quanji, vol. 5.

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flourished with the Chan School and weakened with the later inferior followers of the Chan School. Based on this understanding, he further thought that because Buddhism had “developed to excess, the later inferior followers multiplied the abuses, and therefore the Qing dynasty scholars produced a violent reaction against them,” and then “Qing learning developed to excess and their later inferior followers also had abuses, and so a reaction in the form of a return to origins occurred again.” The rise of late-Qing Buddhist learning was already a part of a natural tendency. These words of Liang about the developments and changes in Chan thought grasped and understood this with considerable accuracy and were also fairly profound. Unlike Kang and Liang, Tan Sitong did not specially use the reform of the nature of managing the country via Chan learning to strengthen his own mind, eliminate the characteristics of the person and of the self, to transcend birth and enter death, and to roam freely. Tan introduced the core concepts of the Chan School into his own system of thought and he strove to erect a logical structure for his learning of humaneness (renxue) that had the nature of managing the country. He used the Chan School’s mind-nature as the core for this and attempted to combine it with the minddharma of the sages and worthies of the world and to advance that as a revolution in philosophy. If one says that Kang and Liang’s use and reform of Chan thought was to open up the path of Wei Yuan’s Buddhist learning in order to manage the country, Tan Sitong regarded the mind and consciousness to be the intrinsic reality of the logical structure of human learning, which was a concrete implementation of a theoretical construction on the path of Buddhist-learning reasoning pioneered by Gong Zizhen. Tan Sitong, style Fusheng, called himself Zhuangfei, was a late Qing thinker who possessed an intense social critical consciousness. There “was nothing in scholarship he did not look into.”120 He had long despised the imperial civil service examinations and loved the New Text classicism, and therefore his love of Buddhist learning was also part of the prevailing custom of modern New Text classical learning. When Tan first read books, “Having followed a family member up to the tombs [of my ancestors], I had to travel on to Dabei Cloister, and as the cloister was next to Yiyuan [Monastery], and its monks and my elder brothers had long been acquaintances, they guided me through all the profound tunes.”121 The four words on “through the profound tunes” explain that in the thought of his early years that Tan had already roamed through the ocean of Chan. Therefore, after the defeat of China in the battles of jiawu (1894, the Sino-Japanese War), Tan “was so grieved and indignant that he could do nothing about it,” and people suspected that he might hide himself as a Buddhist monk, “shaving my head to become a monastic.”122 This explains that he had an extraordinary connection with Buddhism.

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Liang Qichao, Tan Sitong zhuan (Biography of Tan Sitong), in Liang Qichao quanji, vol. 5. Tan Sitong, Chengnan sijiuming bing xu (Preface to and Inscription of Longing for the Past South of the City), in Tan Sitong quanji (Complete Works of Tan Sitong), vol. 1, Zhonghua shuju, 1981, p. 22. 122 Tan Sitong, Xing suanxue yi (Discussion of the Promotion of Mathematics). 121

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Around the first month of 1895, the Japanese army brought the flames of war to the Shandong Peninsula and in a letter of reply to Liu Songfu, Tan Sitong encouraged the study of Chan learning. He wrote, “The path of tranquility is empty and numinous, the material force (qi) of heaven is abundant; this is the Dharma-gateway of skillful means for entering Chan learning… If one desires to nurture this numinous light, increase encouragement, and on another day, [desire] to rescue all sentient beings. This is almost inconceivable.”123 Clearly, Tan was using Chan learning to inspire aspiration and had already expressed the way of thinking of “using the mind to reverse calamities.” It is exactly because of the infiltration by Chan learning that when he lived in the capital, he went over and over refined thoughts, “and I first knew that what I hoped for was all in vain,” and “What I learned on usual days, on reaching the final vagueness (ignorance), was that there was nothing left to rely on.” “What I hoped for was all in vain, so really what I learned was all in vain.” That is to say that the New Text classical studies that on usual days he had devoted himself to and the directions of traditional thinking such as Mohism and the content of this thought were all insufficient to slake his thirst for knowledge, and so naturally he also did not have the strength “to reverse the calamities,” to transform the world, and to perform the onerous duty of rescuing all suffering sentient beings. He was conscious that “The reason why humans are numinous is the mind. Should human strength not be able to do this, the mind should not lack the ability to achieve this.” “If one can realize the original source of the mind, one can produce a divine magic for billions of years to come.”124 This line of thought follows the same path as enlightenment of the mind to see the nature taught by the Chan School. Because of this, he wanted “to separately pioneer a kind of learning that bursts through the nets,”125 which necessarily prays for a Chan thought and Buddhist philosophy of the other sects that “if it is not Chinese, it is a little Western; and that if is Chinese it is Western.”126 Then he put into practice what he preached. In the capital he gradually became acquainted with a number of Buddhist scholars like Wu Yanzhou, Xia Zongyou, the father and son Wu Xiaocun, and following Chan School scholars, he said that the mind-Dharma lay with Wu Yanzhou in Shanghai, and he studied and practiced Chan learning with him. Because of this, Wu was praised by him as being “the number one guiding teacher for learning Buddhism.”127 Following this, Tan began to systematically research and apply Chan thought. He also made vows and kept dh¯ar¯an.¯ı, which were rarely interrupted, and he used the forms of meditation to form his mental resolve, of which he said, “I was gradually able myself to enter sam¯adhi and was able to pass one or two hours before I first exited the sam¯adhi. Also, in my eyes it also gradually was like what I 123

Tan Sitong, Zhi Liu Songfu (To Liu Songfu), 6. Tan Sitong, Shang Ouyang Zhonggu (Sent to Ouyang Zhonggu), 10. 125 Tan Sitong, Zhi Tang Caichang (Sent to Tang Caichang). 126 Tr. these words also used by Liang in respect of the relation of Chinese versus Western thought and practices. Some of these thinkers thought that Western knowledge had its origin in or equivalence in ancient China. Being so lapidary, they could be susceptible to various interpretations. Tan was known to be an advocate of ‘Westernization’. 127 Tan Sitong, Jinling ting shuofa shi xu (Preface to a Poem on Listening to a Sermon at Jinling), in Tan Sitong quanji, vol. 1, Zhonghua shuju, 181, p. 246. 124

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had seen.”128 This shows his admiration for Chan learning and that it was not only in theory but also in applying it to the practice of the mind-nature that “improved on that which I had been unable to do.” In the sixth month of the same year, Tan, as the vice-prefect, received help to be a candidate-in-waiting for the governorship of the superior prefecture, so he stayed in Nanjing, where he profoundly investigated the refined depths of Confucianism and Buddhism, and mastered the mental-dharmas of the various philosophers. He also paid his respects to his “second guiding teacher” under whom he learnt Buddhism, the grand master of modern Buddhist studies, Yang Renshan (Wenhui).129 He also “spent time going to and fro with him,”130 and “as a result he was able to look through all the Tripitaka, and what he gained was daily even more refined and deep.”131 In the preface to his Jinling ting shuofa shi he also wrote that the two guiding teachers, Wu Yanzhou and Yang Renshan “often met in Jinling and spoke of the very profound and subtly marvelous meanings, and so I understood what I had not known previously.”132 It was exactly when he was residing in Nanjing that he carried out systematic research and gained a deep understanding of the Chan School, Huayan, and Faxiang. According to the words of Di Pingzi (1872–1941), Tan Sitong paid a visit to Liang Qichao, who was ill, and the two of them “talked of the Dharma to the end of the day,” but their ideas had not been exhausted, and so “The next day Fusheng (Tan) wrote to Rengong (Liang).”133 In his letter, Tan freely expressed his views of Chan and criticized Liang for having no connections with the Chan Dharma. He wrote, From this, I further know that the Dharma is truly ineffable, and if it is spoken of, it is not the Dharma. By non-reliance on letters, the Way eliminates language and the Chan School is genuinely unequalled by all [the other] schools. In the past, Master Yanzhou preached the mind-Dharma in Shanghai, but you only fear stepping into emptiness, and alarmed and frightened you do not dare accept it. I deeply regard this as strange and that your illness has grown out of this. You pledge not to become a buddha. Admittedly this is vigorous progress, but I wish to say something more. You pledge not to become a buddha, but the buddha is still present, so why not finally say there is no buddha? Why not be straightforward about it? Moreover, in the end would not it be even more straightforward to not speak of Buddhism?134

This letter is clearly an imitation of the event of Huineng writing a poem on a monastery wall, striving to grasp the transcendent spirit of being apart from characteristics and apart from thoughts. He not only emphasized non-reliance on letters, that the Dharma is ineffable, he further affirmed the spirit of engagement with the world of “pledging not to become buddha,” and he advanced further to point out that not becoming buddha and yet there is a buddha present is in the end not speaking of Buddha, it is speaking of the realm of Chan. These words clearly tally with 128

Tan Sitong, Shang Ouyang Zhonggu, 10, in Tan Sitong quanji, last vol., p. 461. Tan Sitong, Jinling ting shuofa shi xu, in Tan Sitong quanji, vol. 1, p. 246. 130 Tan Sitong, Shang Ouyang Zhonggu, 10, in Tan Sitong quanji, last vol., p. 461. 131 Liang Qichao, Tan Sitong zhuan. 132 Tan Sitong, Jinling ting shuofa shi xu, in Tan Sitong quanji, vol. 1, p. 246. 133 Di Pingzi, Pingdengge biji (Notes from Pingdeng Pavilion). 134 Tan Sitong, Zhi Liang Qichao. 129

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Huineng’s spirit of “just be apart from all characteristics” and “not be tainted by any sense-objects.”135 The “There is no Buddha and no demon” and “there are no sentient beings” that he spoke of is clearly the Chan School’s concept of transcendence and no opposition. His advice to Liang Qichao undoubtedly shows that he had already observed directly the deep meaning of the Chan School’s mind-source, with the sense of not “laboring the mind to think and the mouth to speak,” and completely agrees with the train of thought of the “Way does not require cultivation,” “Chan does not require learning,” and “If one has no worries then there will be no three realms to be escaped from, and if one does not practice there will not be bodhi to be sought” said by Huanglong Huinan. Tan’s understanding of Chan thought was no longer mediocre, and he was very conceited about it. This is clearly expressed in his letter sent to Tang Fucheng: If one wants equality one must change the different into the same, and if one wants to change the different into the same, one must be without the characteristics of ego. If one wants to be without the characteristics of ego one must eliminate the ego (manas) consciousness. How does one eliminate the ego consciousness?… “The great earth, mountains and rivers clearly reach the eyes.” Because these words are not easy to comprehend, please verify them from the Yijing that says, “Moving to and fro, this clearly comes from your thoughts.” The Master (Confucius) said, “What does the world think of and what does it worry about? The world returns together and parts its ways. As soon as one comes to have worries, what thoughts and what worries [does the] world have?” This realm is almost like the Chan School’s Way of eliminating the ego consciousness. Of my associates, whose who can speak of this are only Tiechao and Zhuoru.136

Clearly, Tan’s concept of equality was built on the foundations of the transcendence of antithesis of the Chan School that advocated being apart from characteristics and being apart from thought in order to change the different into the same. Here, he also uses the Yijing to explain Chan and uses Confucius to explain Chan, endowing the concept of equality with even more rational knowledge. Of his associates able to recognize this point, in his view, there were only Liang Qichao and Wu Tiechao whom he thought were sufficiently important. However, to give Chan learning such an understanding as being of the nature of managing the country at that time was hard to commend. Naturally, Tan Sitong’s esteem for Chan thought and his selection of its ideological materials, and his use of its forms of thinking had as its aim not propelling the development of Chan thought but to establish the intrinsic reality of the mind and consciousness as a logical system of Buddhist learning for managing the country. In his view, the core part of his learning of humaneness was the mind and mental power, and that Buddhist learning, especially the Sinified Buddhist learning, namely the Chan School and Huayan, all regarded the mind as being the starting point, and he regarded it as being the ultimate concern. The capacity of the mind of the Chan School is vast, enlightening the mind to see the nature, and also attaining the intrinsic mind. The Huayan School claimed that “The three realms are nothing but one mind, outside of the mind there are no other dharmas,” and the Faxiang School 135 136

Platform Sutra. Tan Sitong, Yu Tang Fucheng shu (Letter to Tang Fucheng), in Tan Sitong quanji, vol. 1, p. 259.

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that was revived in modern times repeatedly argued via the eight consciousnesses (vijñ¯anas) and the principles of the three levels of understanding of existence, that “All dharmas are nothing-but consciousness.” Undoubtedly, these evoked a sympathetic response in Tan’s epistemology. Therefore, when he established the position of the intrinsic reality of the mind, he specially indicated that “All who would be students of humaneness should comprehend it from the Buddhist books, the books of Huayan, the mind-school (Chan), and Faxiang.” His adoption of the name mind-school for the Chan School in particular shows his partiality for Chan thought. Just because this was so, everywhere in his Renxue (A Study of Humaneness) one can see traces of the influence of Chan thought. In his “Self Introduction” for the Renxue, there are the words, “The Way is in shit and piss, the Buddha-dharma is in a dried shitstick; there is nothing it cannot be. Why? All are names. But their reality certainly cannot be lost.” He has borrowed the language of the Chan School and it thoroughly revealed the universality of the “Way”—its “reality” definitely cannot be lost. He also said, “I do not speak of the teaching, since it itself forms the teaching that is not a verbalized teaching. The teaching that is not a verbalized teaching is what the Chan School calls non-reliance on letters, and also says it is carrying water and toting firewood, all is divine comprehension and marvelous function.”137 The important point is his stress on the “marvelous enlightenment” that he takes to be the function of the mind of intrinsic reality that is the subject. This was a total borrowing and use of a Chan form of thinking. However, this was just one aspect of his thought. Using Liang Qichao’s words, he really did “bring together the mind-dharmas of the world’s saints and philosophers,” and therefore, the Renxue blended the thoughts of various thinkers and used them, smelting together Buddhism, Confucianism, East and West in the same furnace. His system was definitely enormous, yet it was disordered and disorganized. Nevertheless, it made a contribution to the revolution in philosophy and the reform in the nature of the management of the country it made via Chan thought cannot be ignored. Even so, we cannot fail to recognize that even though the synthesis of Chan thought, especially as a blending and mastery of all of Buddhist thought, led to the tendency for the Chan School to replace the entirety of Buddhism, this meant ultimately that it also lost its inherent features and independent existence. Yet the Buddha-dharma focus on the mind turned it towards the world of scholarship, and so scholars could not concentrate their search of the Buddhist principles only on the Chan School, and especially at the end of the Qing, the recovery of the lost Faxiang texts meant that the learning of Faxiang and Nothing-but Consciousness (Vijñ¯anav¯ada) was further able to satisfy the demands by the scholarly world for a theoretical thinking to rescue and try and preserve the existence of China. In addition, under the pressures of the time, Buddhism necessarily accomplished its own reform of its management of the country, ending with the call for a humanistic Buddhist learning that pervaded the two worlds of the monastics and the laity, and Chan thought formed the main part of that thinking and was submerged right in the middle of the theory of humanistic Buddhist learning. The development of twentieth-century 137

Tan Sitong, Renxue, 48, in Tan Sitong quanji, last vol., p. 369.

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Chan thought in the monastic world was the humanistic Buddhist learning and its related theoretical exposition; in the scholarly world, one aspect was that it was made the material for theoretical thinking, for the building of one’s own system of thought and the realization of a philosophical revolution, like Zhang Taiyan using Chan to interpret Zhuangzi’s Qiwu lun (Chapter on the Equalization of Things) and the Faxiang nothing-but consciousness philosophy, and Xiong Shili’s ontology of the intrinsic mind. The second aspect was the organization of and systematic research into the progress of Chan School culture, as with Jiang Weiqiao, Huang Chanhua, Tang Yongtong, Hu Shi, Yinshun, and also professors Feng Youlan, Hou Wailu, and Fan Wenlan. This was a prominent feature of the development of Chan thought of that century. Naturally, there were also those like Yang Du (1875–1931), a politician with the status of a scholar who was openly also a Chan master. His mingling with men of letters to pose as a cultured person also displayed the feature of being the Chan delight of the gentry. Yet his use of the transcendental spirit of Chan to actualize it in the modulations of psychology also reflects the infiltration of Chan thought into modern society.

Chapter 17

The Participatory Spirit of the Chan Monks of the End of the Qing and the Early Republican Period

One of the results of the secularization of the Chan thought in the Qing period was that the center of Chan learning shifted from the Buddhists to the scholars and the laymen, with Chan monks increasingly devoid of talent. Of the 104 Qing-dynasty Chan people recorded in the Xichan pian (Section on the Practitioners of Chan) in the Xin xugaoseng zhuan (New Continued Lives of Eminent Monks), with the exception of famous monks whose fame had moved high officials before the time of Yongzheng, the Chan monks of the end of the Qing were as rare as stars at dawn, such as the Chan person, the Ascetic Bazhi (Eight Fingers) Jing’an, who was a rarity of rarities; the second were the few Chan people in the lineage-institution who had ambition and knowledge. Both made efforts to reform Chan thought and to speed up the process of the secularization of the Chan School and expressed a fresh consciousness of social participation. Even though the two great authorities and the four great venerable elders made no great contributions to the development of Chan thought, their self-aware participatory spirit also had a certain demonstrative function for the later humanistic Buddhist learning and the human-world Buddhism.

Part 1: The Four Great Venerable Elders of the End of the Qing, and Others Dading and Zhikai at the time were called the two great authorities of the lineage school. According to tradition, Dading of Jinshan Monastery was number one in meditation, Zhikai of Tianning Monastery was number one in awesome dignity, Shengzu of Baohuashan was number one in the conduct of the precepts, and Faren of Chishan was number one in wisdom. These were the four great venerable elders. One can see that Dading, Zhikai, and Faren were monks who had considerable influence in the Chan world of that time. Dading (1823–1906), style Miyuan, lay surname Deng, was a native of Huangban in Hubei. In his childhood he was vegetarian and his ambition was to leave behind the © Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_17

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dust of the lay world. When his father passed away, he took the tonsure from Benfen of Rensheng Monastery in Suizhou. In the seventh year of the Xianfeng era (1855), he received the full precepts from Yingchuan of Jingxin Monastery in Xiangyang at the age of thirty-two. He went to Baoguang Monastery in Sichuan, where he tried to consult Miaoxiang but failed to do so. Then he travelled all over to the Zhongnan and Wutai mountains, to Jiuhua and Putuo, and to Gaomin Monastery in Weiyang and Tianning Monastery in Piling. He arrived at Jinshan and consulted Guanxin Hui and had an enlightenment experience due to being asked, “Who is it that is mindful of Buddha?” His original name was Dading大頂, but when Guan asked his name he mistakenly heard it as Dading大定, and therefore he asked, “How many hours [do you spend] in one sam¯adhi定?”1 Dading replied, “I do not descend into numbers.” Guan laughed, saying, “One can say it was a large sam¯adhi (dading).” From this time on he was also named Dading大定. In the thirteenth year of the Tongzhi era (1874), Guan passed away, and at that time Dading returned to his hometown and lived in Guiyuan Monastery. Then the monks of the monastery invited Dading to return to Jinshan, asking him to succeed as abbot. He was aged fifty. He stayed in the post for two years and then retired to live in one room, where he always sat and never lay down, untiringly meditating and chanting texts. In the twenty-ninth year of the Guangxu era (1903), he reached the age of eighty, when he opened up a platform to propagate the precepts-Dharma, and he invited over five hundred to be precepts’ disciples, so great was the prosperity of his Dharma-assembly at that time. Some requested that he instruct them in the methods of meditation (Chanfa), but he did not give any explanation, and they sincerely asked repeatedly, and then in a stern voice he said, “If you truly want to investigate Chan, you must thoroughly be without any laxity, for if you retreat while on the path, the previous achievements will all be abandoned.” His words were agonizing and the listeners became tearful. He travelled to Putuo and discussed securing a place in life during the twenty-four hours of the day with the first monk of the assembly. He sighed deeply, saying, “Truth and falsity are mutually dependent, and even though one verifies the truth, still this is treating the matter of sides, so how can it be the ultimate?” He taught people his whole life and he truly investigated real enlightenment, and he did not value sharp, smooth talk. From start to finish he maintained the distinctive character of the Chan School, and his style also was sufficient to be bequeathed to later generations. He departed the world in 1906 at the age of eighty-three.2 Zhikai (1852–1922), named Qingrong, a native of Yangzhou in Jiangsu, was surnamed Xu. He was of a prominent clan of Jiangdu (Yangzhou) who for generations had loved Buddhism. When Zhikai was young he was often ill, and based on his parents’ orders to become a monk, he apprenticed himself in the school of Reverend Mingzhen of Jiuhua Monastery, and at seventeen sui he received the complete precepts from Reverend Yinkai of Zhishi Monastery in Tai County. Following this, he visited all the famous monasteries of Hangzhou, Tiantai, and Putuo. In the tenth year of the Tongzhi era (1871), he stopped temporarily in Tianning Monastery in 1 2

Tr. there are a number of possible translations of this. The later ding can mean sam¯adhi. Xin xugaoseng zhuan, fascicle 26, in Gaosengzhuan heji, Shanghai guji chubanshe, 1991, p. 861.

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Changzhou, and he alone was highly regarded by the abbot Dingnian. Later he joined Jinshan and he went on pilgrimage to the Zhongnan Mountains, where he built a hut and tranquilly practiced. His hut-hermitage was deep in the mountains and tradition has it that he encountered a tiger. Zhikai was unmoved mentally for even a moment and the tiger held its breath, was docile, and left. From this time on, every day the tiger was sure to pass by the hermitage, roaring three times each time it came and went. Later he shifted to live in a Lama cave, and a person thought there was a monster in the cave, and that it often harassed residents. He urged Zhikai to not go in. Zhikai said, “Previously it was venerated, [but] they corrected this and maintained an incantation practice that made it into an enemy! My mind is the same as the vast emptiness (sky) and it has no welcoming and no rejecting. Even if it repels me, I will not repel it, and whether or not it venerates me, I will allow that.” He lived in the cave for three years and in the end there were no monstrous anomalies. The stories of his handling of demons are all imaginary, yet his calmness as a Chan practitioner was fully revealed in them, and therefore he had a high reputation as the number one in awesome dignity. Zhikai thought that the Mah¯ay¯ana Buddha-dharma should be the liberation of people and the liberation of oneself, and so one should not sit idly deep in the mountains. Then he returned to Tianning Monastery as it was his urgent duty to rescue the world and liberate sentient beings. In order to restore Tianning Monastery to its former appearance, Zhikai went in all directions to solicit funds, travelling to the Guanwai region. Later he succeeded to the post of abbot of Tianning, and whenever he met students who were accomplished, he deeply bored into them and reprimanded them severely without the slightest forgiveness, and very many people obtained benefits from this. He told people, “Those who have great compassion may use severe beatings to guide people.” One day a certain head monk heard of Zhikai’s name and went on a special trip to make enquiries of him. The monk composed a poem and preached a g¯ath¯a dependent on the scriptures and recorded sayings. He wrote down millions of words and still the meaning was not completed. Zhikai therefore asked him, “Apart from the people of the past, where is your own self? Try to speak a sentence [revealing this].” He really lived up to his reputation by striking him with a staff and shouting. When Zhikai was in Yufo Monastery in Shanghai he founded the Layperson’s Nianfo Society, attracting prominent figures of the Shanghai region. Zhikai had some achievements in promoting the rise of layperson Buddhist learning. When he was seventy, he also founded the Fojiao Cihui hui (Buddhist Compassion Society), and time and again he launched and organized relief for victims of disaster in north China. He himself said that “This is a matter of one’s original endowment.” The people who were aided were crying along the roads, saying, “Elder reverend, you have saved us.” In 1913, Zhikai succeeded the Ascetic Bazhi in the post as the second president of the Zhonghua Fojiao zonghui (Chinese Buddhist Association). In 1920, he founded a platform to transmit the Dharma, and the disciples of the four assemblies numbered 1500. In the winter of 1922, he passed away while sitting upright. Among Zhikai’s disciples there were Yuexia, Yingci and others. In the early Republican years, following Zhikai’s order, they founded Huayan University in

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Shanghai, and also Fendeng and Changshu at Xingfu Monastery set up the Fajie Xueyuan (Dharma-realm Academy). Yingci also responded to an invitation that he be the abbot of the Qingliang Academy in Changzhou. One can also say that Zhikai had the merit of inspiring the education of present-day monks.3 Faren (1844–1905) of Chishan, who was called “number one in wisdom,” first lived in Jinshan and was the chief monk when Dading was abbot. Later he propagated the Dharma in the Zhongnan Mountains and he built the Great Rush Cluster of All Directions (Shifang Damaopeng) at the Xihe Rapids. Following this, he also founded Bore Monastery on Chishan in Nanjing, and when he founded monasteries, he did so through his own efforts, and he used the practices of austerity to aid his meditation practice. His style of the Way was broadcast afar and the number of his students increased daily, but there were people who complacently became forces for disaster. Before he departed the world, he told his disciples, “There is no need to be mindful of the buddha (nianfo) after my death; one just needs to be mindful of the Heart Sutra.” He left a g¯ath¯a that said, The world is luxurious, the Buddha has preached it completely. What need is there for me to again preach the Dharma? [After] my death I will not be born into the Western Land. With one thought-moment I return from Tus.ita to Sah¯a.4

The Sanskrit Sah¯a means forbearance and the world of Sah¯a is the land of forbearance and the world of sentient beings that patiently accepts suffering and frustrations. Tus.ita is a Pure Land of the heavenly realm. Faren’s idea was not to seek a rebirth in the Pure Land, but to dwell in actual society and to use the feelings of fearlessness and compassion to convert sentient beings and liberate sentient beings, and of course, in birth and death he always showed concern for engagement with the world. Faren had a disciple, Xianwen, style Kuiyin (1856–1909), who was a son of the Yang family, natives of Xiang (Hunan). At eleven sui, his father sent him to Gaoming Monastery, where he joined Jueshi to be tonsured. When he reached majority, he received the full precepts at Cixia’s place in Xiyushan. He travelled to Mount Hongluo and day and night made strenuous efforts, intoning sutras such as the Lengyan and Lotus, researching them for six years, penetrating all the profound tenets. Again, he visited famous monasteries all over, adding to his knowledge. At Cuifeng Monastery on Mount Jiuhua, he heard a lecture on the Buddha-dharma and was suddenly enlightened to the ocean of the nature. Thereupon he went to Chishan, and relying on Faren he investigated and improved his understanding. In the twenty-eighth year of the Guangxu reign (1902), he made a hut on Mt. Lu and dedicated himself to the Chan-dharma (meditation), “morning and night practicing assiduously, his sides not touching the mat (floor), and it seemed that he had transcended birth and death.” The Surveillance Commissioner Liu Sixun heard 3

Xin xugaoseng zhuan, fascicle 35, in Gaoseng zhuan heji, Ahanghai guji chubanshe, 1991, p. 882. Requoted from Dongchu, Zhongguo Fojiao jindai shi (History of Modern Chinese Buddhism), Dongchu chubanshe, Taiwan, 1984, last vol., p. 569. 4

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of Xianwen’s reputation in the Way and he asked him to be abbot of Pilu Monastery in Jinling. At the end of the Qing, the trend of using monastic property to create schools reached Pilu Monastery. Xianwen rushed up and down and so was able to separately built a learning hall and he restored Pilu to its former glory. Then he greatly expounded the style of the school, “in spring and summer lecturing, in autumn and winter assiduously investigating, discovering his mind-ground.” He had several hundred followers and so he formed once again a famous monastery like one in the sacred land of Six Dynasties’ Buddhism. In the first year of the Xuantong era (1909), he talked about the Buddha-dharma with the famous monk of Tiantai, Dixian (1858–1932), on the topic of “Even though the characteristics of matter (r¯upa) are perfect, the expounding and propagating of the mind of the Huayan [ jing] is still not finished.” One can see that he was a supporter of the combination of Chan and doctrine. In the winter of the same year, before he passed away, he wrote a g¯ath¯a that said, The mind is revealed as the master in the body, The mind follows the two guests. After I am burned, there will be a heap of bones, Please stop thinking that is the true [likeness, me]. Investigating and discerning the worldly Chan of the human world, Half of it is like a cloud reflection, half like mist. At times I got to encounter the benefit of an easterly wind, And directly headed for the mountain top riding an iron ship.

Looking at the words of the two g¯ath¯as, one can know that since they retained the enlightening of the mind and seeing the nature of the Chan School and its transcendent spirit of letting be in accordance with conditions, that he also had a tendency towards “worldly Chan” that transformed transcendence into participation. Xianwen had a Dharma talk in one fascicle recorded by his disciple Qingchi.5 There was another monk of the Xiang region, Liyun (1887–1966), who was famed in China and overseas for his poetry and calligraphy, and his name has gone down in Chan history for initiating the education of monks and protecting monasteries. Liyun was a son of the Chen family in Nanjing. When he was a child, he was tonsured in Lixian Hermitage in Changsha. He was intelligent by nature and he had a marvelous understanding by reading books, and he was particularly skilled at calligraphy. He loved to compose poems to express the Chan opportunities. At the end of the Guangxu era, he succeeded to the position of Hucen and he went to and from with the Dean (of an academy) Xu Shujun (1842–1910), and he formed the Lotus Society of Lushan. He exchanged verses without missing an evening. Because of this, his fame was spread among the high officials and the famous elder scholars of Xiang, and Wang Xiangqi (Wang Kaiyun, 1833–1916) and Guo Junren and others 5

Xin xugaoseng zhuan, fascicle 35, in Gaoseng zhuan heji, p. 882.

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replied to him. He travelled to Suzhou and Hangzhou, and the Hanlin academician Xu of Renhe admired his elegance. Xu repaired Baocheng Monastery on Gushan near Xihu (West Lake), wanting to ask Liyun to be abbot there. Just as the monastery was being completed, Liyun returned to his hometown, and then Academician Xu took “Liuyun” as his room name to express his admiration for Liyun. The tide of the use of monastic property to build schools directly endangered various monastic properties and the monks rallied to oppose this but to no avail. At that time there was the Japanese monk Mizuno Baigy¯o (1877–1949) who sought the Dharma in Nanyue. His path brought him to Changsha. He had long admired Liyun for his fame in the Way, so he came to consult him. In addition to seeking advice, they spoke of the situation of Japanese Buddhism. Mizuno said that Japanese Buddhism followed shifts in the socio-political trends and was renewed along with the destiny of the nation, “and the various kinds of power of karma were nothing but the rise of learning. If one wants to plan the protection of the teaching and the preservation of the principles and freely spread Buddhist tenets, it does not go beyond this.” Liyun accepted this advice and in the next year he used Kaifu Monastery to found a monastic school and he echoed Zhang Taiyan’s slogan of “Run your own schools and protect your monastic property yourself,” bringing monastic education and the trend of using monastic property to create secular schools into conflict. At the same time, he also established a Buddhist Association, with Liyun as its chair. Thereupon, the trend of seizing monastic property stopped slightly. In the thirty-first year of the Guangxu era (1905), again due to Mizuno’s words, Liyun thought of travelling overseas. Then he led his pupils to Japan, looking fully at the Buddhist monasteries of Tokyo and Kyoto, at monastic schools, and also at Japanese scenery, and at the conventions of government and religion. He wrote Dongyou ji (Records of Travels to the East) to record his experiences. This was also a fine event in the Sino-Japanese Buddhist cultural exchange. According to this record, when Japanese monks heard Liyun was about to return, 110 monks tried to detain him, and when he came to depart, he left his worn-out shoes as a momento. Such esteem for him can be glimpsed from this. After he returned to China, Liyun specially realized that the rise and fall of Chan lay in the fostering of monastic talent, and so in order to train later generations he rewarded and promoted the newly graduated and took setting up monastic schools as his personal duty. Spurred on by Liyun, his students Lufeng and Yinchan fanned his legacy, continuously travelled east, further promoting the Sino-Japanese Buddhist cultural exchange.6 Xuyun (1840/7–1959)7 had a taboo of Guyan, his style was Deqing, also named Yanche, and in his latter years he called himself Xuyun. He was born in the Daoguang era and he lived through the Xianfeng, Tongzhi, and Guangxu eras, and through the Republican period and into New China, and was aged 120 sui (at his death). One can say he was a Chan master who had experienced many changes in his lifetime. He initiated the trend in the Way of farming Chan, practiced education in teaching 6 7

Xin xugaoseng zhuan, fascicle 35, in Gaoseng zhuan heji, p. 881. His year of birth is uncertain, provisional dates.

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monasteries, and propelled the Chan School towards engagement with the world, and of the modern and contemporary Chan monks, was an influential Chan master. Xuyun’s grandfather was a native of Xiangxiang County and was surnamed Xiao. His father, Yutang, held office in Fujian (Province), and so Xuyun was born in Quanzhou. At thirteen sui he followed his father back to their hometown, and at seventeen sui he began to think about becoming a monk. Then he went to Nanyue with his cousin, and on the way there they were encouraged by their families to return. Their families forced them to leave Xiang (Hunan) and go to Min (Fujian), and they were ordered to marry women of the Tian and Tan clans. Yet Xuyun’s ambition to become a monk had not changed, and in the year that he was nineteen sui he was tonsured by Dharma Master Changkai in Yongquan Monastery at Gushan. In the next year (probably 1859), he received the full precepts from Reverend Miaolian of Gushan. He became a member of the forty-fifth generation since Linji. After this, Xuyun abandoned everything, cutting himself off from worldly connections, hiding in the cliffs and caves of Gushan, with one robe winter and summer and wild vegetables to allay his hunger. When he was twenty-five sui, his father Yutang passed away in Xiangxiang, and his aunt (his father’s concubine) surnamed Wang, accompanied by the Tian and Tan ladies, shaved off their hair and became nuns in Mount Guanyin, Xiangxiang. Xuyun, with mixed feelings of grief and joy, returned to Yongquan Monastery and labored in the service of the assembly there. In sequence he was in the monastic posts in charge of water cartage, head gardener (in charge of planting vegetables), and operating the food hall. At twenty-seven sui he left Gushan, going on pilgrimage to consult masters. He went all over to Tiantai, Putuo, Tiantong and Ayuwang monasteries, and to famous large monasteries in Hangzhou, Changzhou, and Yangzhou et cetera. At thirty-one sui, he studied with Rongjing at Tiantai, and at thirty-six sui he listened to lectures on the Lotus Sutra by Minxi of Gaoming Monastery, and he also followed the venerable elders Guanxin and Dading in the investigation of the Chan-dharma. At forty-three sui he made up his mind to visit Mount Wutai, bowing every three steps, and in the tenth year of Guangxu (1884) he reached Xiantong Monastery on Mount Wutai, spending close to three years there. After three years he left the mountain, going south into Guanzhong (central Shaanxi Province), visiting the monastic site of the famous translator Kum¯araj¯ıva and the Zhongnan Mountains. Then he entered Sichuan, visited Chengdu, worshipped at Wenshu Cloister, and travelled to Mount Emei. After that he headed west to Daqianlu (Tatsienlu), crossed the snowy mountains and entered the center of Tibetan government and religion, Lhasa, where he worshipped at the Potala Palace, and then went to Tashilunpo Monastery in Shigatse. At fifty sui he continued to travel south, crossing the Himalayas, passing through ´ Lanka and Burma. In the seventh Bhutan, reaching India. From Bengal he went to Sri month of the same year he returned to China from Burma, passing through Dali, where he stayed at Mount Jizu. At fifty-three sui, he went together with Yuexia (1858–1917) and others to Mt. Jiuhua in Anhui Province. At fifty-six sui he lived in Gaomin Monastery in Jiangsu Province. From the age of twenty-seven sui, Xuyun, with three robes and one bowl, walked alone, his footprints covering South Asia, and he strove for the ideal of exchange of Buddhist culture between China and

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foreign countries. He was unique in the realm of monkhood at the end of the Qing period. Tradition says that when he was at Gaomin Monastery, because boiling water splashed on his hands, he dropped a tea cup he was holding onto the ground. The smashing sound caused him to be enlightened. He was already fifty-six sui, so we can say that his great capacity matured late in life. He wrote two g¯ath¯as to express his enlightenment experience: The cup fell and struck the ground, The echoing sound was clear and distinct. Empty space was shattered, At that the crazy mind ended. Scalding my hands, I smashed a cup. My home ruined and people lost, it is hard to speak. When spring arrives, the aroma of flowers flourish everywhere. The mountains, rivers, and great earth are the Thus Come One.8

Around 1898, Xuyun received orders from Jiaoshan in Jiangsu to lecture on the Lengyan and Lotus sutras et cetera at Auyuwang Monastery. In 1901, he went to the Zhongnan Mountains where he made a hut and immersed himself in practice and consulted together with Jiechen. They wrote a poem together: Alone I travelled the world, without a brother, Ignorant of compassion, I rushed outwards by myself (Xuyun’s couplet). If, Chan older brother, you want to have this thought, Join together and [when the] lotus emerges, we will see our teacher (Jiechen’s couplet).9

After this, Xuyun again continued to lecture on the sutras and transmitted the precepts in famous monasteries. Around 1905, he left China for a second time, going to South-east Asia to spread the teachings. He lectured on the sutras at Taiping Monastery in Southern Burma, and in Penang, Malacca, and Kuala Lumpur, and over ten thousand people devoted themselves to Buddhism as a result. After he returned to China, he went to Beijing to obtain the Longzang (version of the Tripitaka), which he brought back to Mt. Jizu. The emperor ordered that Boyu Hermitage be made into Huguo Zhusheng Chan Monastery (monastery to protect the nation and pray for the emperor). At that time, Xuyun was also in his seventieth year, and he again went south. It is said that when he was Thailand he once sat cross-legged and entered sam¯adhi for nine days, causing a sensation in the Thai capital. In 1911, the Republic was founded and Li Genyuan (1874–1965) was appointed the Deputy Commander of the Yunnan Revolutionary Army. Li lead his troops to occupy Xidan Monastery on Mt. Jizu, and he also ordered the arrest of Xuyun for questioning about a crime. Xuyun engaged Li in an argument backwards and 8

Dongchu, Zhongguo Fojiao jindaishi, p. 788. Shaoming, Mianhuai Xuyun Heshang de shengde (Recollection of the Abundant Merits of Reverend Xuyun), “Records of Famous Monks.”

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forwards, in the end causing Li to devote himself to Buddhism. This is also a muchtold story. For the purposes of monastic property, Xuyun returned with Jing’an (1851– 1912) to Beijing, but because Jing’an died in Fayuan Monastery, Xuyun carried the coffin back to the Shanghai region, and then he continued on to Yunnan where he established the Fojiao Diansheng fenhui (Yunnan Province Branch of the Buddhist Association). In 1920, in response to a request from the Governor of Yunnan, Tang Jiyao (1883–1927), he shifted residence to Huating Monastery in Kunming, where he re-established the ancient monastery and changed its name to Yunqi. Ten years later he also responded to a request from the Chairman of Fujian Province, Yang Youjing (Yang Shuzhuang, 1882–1934) to be abbot of Gushan Monastery, and legend has it that a thousand-year old iron tree (sago palm?) bloomed for the first time, and although this was a coincidence, it still reflected a sense of reverence for Xuyun. In 1934, when Xuyun was already an old man close to a hundred years old, he also responded to a request from officials and gentlemen of Guangdong to become abbot of Nanhua Monastery. Xuyun, knowing that this monastic site of the sixth patriarch had long been abandoned, wanted to continue on from the ambition of Hanshan Deqing and restore Caoqi’s Nanhua Monastery. In 1936, Lin Sen (1868– 1943) and Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kaishek) made a pilgrimage tour to Nanhua. During the war of resistance against Japan, Xuyun not only lead the monks of the monastery in daily worship and repentance for two hours, but he also required the assembly of the monastery to reduce their food intake, the savings to be contributed to aid the state and for the relief of disaster victims. In 1942, in response to a request from Lin Sen, he went to Chongqing to chair the “Huguo xizai fahui” (Dharma Assembly for the Protection of the Country and Disaster Relief). He discussed the principles of philosophy eastern and western with Lin Sen, Jiang Jieshi, and Dai Jitao (1891– 1949), maintaining an objectivity in the discussion, and he was praised greatly by the authorities. He distributed the objects he obtained during the Dharma Assembly to various monasteries on his return trip. He said, “If one pointlessly spends one’s savings, one pointlessly confuses people’s ideas.” These words fully display his spirit of not using things to confuse ideas, and of public service and overcoming of the self. In 1943, he announced that the Nanhua project was completed. Xuyun wrote the Chongxiu Caoqi Nannhua-si ji (Record of the Reconstruction of Nanhua Monastery of Caoqi), which details the circumstances of the resurrection of Nanhua. In it, the sentences, “For ten years of operation, and in the process of administration, I was physically and mentally exhausted, and for the first time I wrote out its scope.” This reveals his experience of hardship and feelings of happiness. Then he came to know that the old monastery of Yunmen survived and he also saw the mummified body of (Yunmen) Wenyan, and he made up his mind to re-found the Yunmen site of the Way (monastery), and after a number of years, it was restored to its former glory. In the winter of 1948, the American Amanda Jennings came to China out of admiration for Xuyun, not caring about the distance. She joined Xuyun’s group and practiced Chan and she paid her respect as a disciple. Her Dharma name was Kuanhong. While she was in China, she followed Xuyun in the learning and practice

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of Chan and she was very able in Chan learning. This can be considered an interlude in Sino-American cultural exchange. In September 1952, the Buddhist world convened a grand assembly in Beijing’s Guangji Monastery to pray for world peace. It asked Xuyun to preside at the platform. On the 1st October, Xuyun represented all the monastics of the country in receiving precious gifts of relics, palm-leaf sutras, and a bodhi tree from the representatives of ´ Lanka. In June 1953, Xuyun took the post of honorary president of the Chinese Sri Buddhist Association. In the meeting, Xuyun expressed his basic standpoint with respect to the reform of Buddhism. He stressed that “Buddhism was originally positive, progressive, and was not backward or vulgar. We in this new age of revolution should show a great, fearless spirit and make an effort to learn, supplementing each item of knowledge and skill.” “Develop the spirit of patriotism and internationalism in order to fully meet one’s responsibility to the people.” He specially demanded that one “clear away non-Buddhist superstitions, scrupulously observe the precepts, vinaya, and pure regulations in order to increase the faith of the masses.” He not only required the “absorption of the refined meanings of each school” in “order to clarify the true characteristics of the Buddha-dharma,” he also wanted “self-reliance on the foundation of the existing economy in order to safeguard the foundations of the Buddhist institution.” All of these reflected his creation of a spirit of engagement with the world as a Chan monk. In the same year, the Xuyun Lao Heshang qikai shilun (Records of Seven Instructions by Elder Reverend Xuyun) was published. In 1955, the Chinese Buddhist Association convened its second enlarged meeting in the capital. It passed a resolution to establish a Chinese Buddhist Academy. Xuyun acclaimed this, specially writing a text, the Yunju guanjian (My Humble Opinion), placing unbounded hope that the Chinese Buddhist Academy would foster human talent and spread the Dharma. He pointed out that “The everyday life of disciples of the Buddha of clothing, food, and housing et cetera may change to suit the circumstances; only the principles of the thought of the three learnings, namely vinaya, meditation, and wisdom are unalterable.” “There are some lifestyle habits in Buddhism also that should naturally be made to suit the times.”10 Since he had expressed his deep interest in the education of the monkhood, he also gave expression that it be made to suit the times, and that the combination of change and the unchanging is to be the guiding ideology that facilitated the Buddhist turn towards engagement with the world. In October 1959, Xuyun passed away in his Yunju Thatched Hut, aged about 120 sui. Even though Xuyun was the child of a family that had held high office for generations, he still pledged himself to Chan learning, and before the age of fifty-six sui, he had investigated, studied, and gone on pilgrimage throughout China, South Asia, and experienced hardships, being constant through thick and thin. After fifty-six sui, he spread the Dharma, liberated beings, repaired monasteries, and reclaimed wasteland to plant crops, all with his own strength, in order to self-establish farming Chan in society. In his over sixty-year career of spreading the Dharma, he was never the abbot of an existing monastery, never accepted rich worship, and he led his assembly to 10

Ibid.

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found monasteries and repair monasteries, with group labor a duty. He enacted the style of Baizhang’s rule of if you do not work for a day you do not eat for a day. At just one place, Yunju Monastery, he not only erected a hall of over 180 columns, he also cleared land for planting and irrigating fields all around the monastery, in all over 180 mu (one mu equals one sixth of an acre) and 50 mu of dry fields, and the grain harvest was several tens of thousands of catties ( jin, one jin equals a half kilogram). They also made numerous other secondary agricultural products such as bamboo implements and tea leaves, always providing the life necessities for an assembly of over five hundred people. He also organized the clearing of wasteland and the creation of forests, actively participating in social activities, putting the Chan School spirit of engagement with the world into practice. Dongchu said that Xuyun “in his one person participated in the Dharma of five schools, his sun of insight was doubly bright, and he was in fact the number one person in the last century.”11 Even though these words have some excessive praise, still it can be seen that Xuyun still had a special place among the s´ramanas of modern times who were rare talents, being a proper Chan School monk in the midst of the corruption of the Dharma-gateway.

Part 2: Jing’an’s Chan Poetry on Protecting the Teachings and Loving the Country and Taixu’s Buddhist Reform Movement Zhang Taiyan wrote Gao baiyi shu (Letter Informing the White-Clothed Laypeople) in which he evaluated the circumstances of the monastic world of the end of the Qing: “How could the monks of the present and half-mobilised laypeople, whose names are unknown, discuss the teachings of the sutras?” Right in the midst of this degeneration of the Dharma-gateway, in an age when the talents of monks were deficient, the Chan School institution finally produced two great reverends whom the monkhood and laity admired and whose fame spread to the capital and the provinces. One was an illiterate who was naturally able to compose literature and who used the mind-Dharma of Chan and literary coherence to create poetry about protecting the country and loving the country. This was the monk ascetic Bazhi Jing’an. The other had no schooling as a child and yet his learning comprehended Buddhism and nonBuddhist teachings, and he wrote numerous works and enacted three great revolutions in Buddhism, advocating a Buddhism of the human world and the government of a humanistic Buddhism. This was the political reverend Taixu. Jing’an (1851–1912) was born into a farming family surnamed Huang of Shitan in Xiantan, Hunan. When he was a child, his family was poor and their food and clothing were insufficient, so he was an oxherder for a peasant family. In the home school of a wealthy family he was almost a servant for the students, passing a lone and wretched childhood. When he was twelve sui, he heard a Tang poem in the rain, 11

The above quotes are found respectively in Dongchu’s Zhongguo Fojiao jindai shi and Shiming’s Mianhuai Xuyun Heshang de shengde.

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the line “Young and alone, being an employee early on,” touched his folorn feelings and he burst into tears. At eighteen sui, he joined Fahua Monastery in Xiangyang and became a monk. He venerated the Elder Donglin as his teacher, was named Jing’an, with the style Jichan. He received the full precepts from Xiankai in the same year. Later, he heard of the tenets of the separate transmission outside of the transmission of the teaching from Chan Master Hengzhi (1811–1875) of Qishan, and braving the snow he went to consult at Renrui Monastery, where he ascetically practiced the Chan Dharma (meditation) while doing menial labor. According to Jing’an’s own account, when he was twenty-one sui he went to Baling Shengqin, and he climbed Yueyang Pavilion. He saw that the water and the sky were of the same color, the emerald waves over a vast expanse, when he suddenly came up with the sentence, “The waters of [Lake] Dongting have sent off a monk,” and the cousin of Guo Songtao (1818–1891), an eminent official and diplomat of the late Qing, the poet Guo Jusun, said he had divine assistance. Guo vigorously encouraged Jing’an to study poetry, and he taught him the learning of the hundred philosophers. After he had chanted the Tangshi sanbai shou (Three Hundred Tang Poems) once, he wrote his own poems. This was when he was twenty-three sui. Because of his circumstances of previously lacking a literary education, he said therefore “I exerted myself most severely. Should one character not be appropriate, I felt I was bearing a heavy burden to the extent that I forgot to sleep and eat, and it took several years before a poem was completed.”12 One could regard him as a person who suffered for his poetry. He made up his mind to take a boat to Lushan Monastery in Changsha to consult Liyun Fangpu, and to discuss poetry and study Chan. There was a transmission of the seal from mind to mind, and they very much regretted that they had met so late. At twenty-five sui, that is, 1875, Jing’an lived in Fahua Monastery in Xiangyang. In the same year he left Xiang and travelled around Wuyue (the Yangzi delta and Zhejiang), and he visited Chan elders and he investigated Chan with Dading at Jinshan Monastery, a famous site of the Way of the Chan School. He also went boating on Xihu (West Lake) and he formed a society to recite poetry. He climbed the famous tower-pavilions of Yueyang and Huanghe to observe the maple bridge and night mooring (mentioned in Jiang Ji’s poem), all being mirages and autumn tides, seeing what he had not seen before. “When he encountered cliffs and valleys, and hidden streams, he sang in their midst. When he was hungry and thirsty, he drank from the springs and rested beneath the cypress trees. He loved to mix the Lengyan and Yuanjue sutras with Zhuangzi and the Lisao (from the Songs of Chu) to make songs.” Therefore, although his poetry often sighed at the bleakness of worldly affairs, in the end this did not shake off the delicacy of nature and the unaffected blending of reason with emotion. In 1877, Jing’an imitated the Buddhist patriarch’s “drying a boil in search of half a g¯ath¯a,” and in front of the relic stupa of Ayuwang Monastery he “burned off two fingers in offering to the Buddha.”13 Hence his name of the Ascetic Bazhi (Eight Fingers). Three years later, “He spied out Tiantong and Xuedu, 12 13

Jing’an, Shiji zishu (Account of My Poetry Collection). Jing’an, Lingxiang ta zixu ming (Inscription on My Preface for Lingxiang Stupa).

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exhaustively embracing the scenery of the rosy clouds, islets, moon, and lakes, and the literati of the commandery,” “all of whom responded to his poems.”14 In 1891, Jing’an’s earliest poetry collection, the Jiaomei yin (Songs on Chewing Plums) was printed in Ningbo. In August 1884, French warships attacked Jilong (Keelung) in Taiwan and the mouth of the Min River in Fujian. At that time Jing’an was lying ill in Yanqing Monastery. Filled with righteous indignation, he wanted to go forth, see the invading enemy, and strike them with with his bare hands. Later he returned by boat to Changsha and settled on Yanxia Peak of Nanyue. He was thirty-four years old and had been on pilgrimage for ten years. In June 1886, together with Wang Kaiyun and other famous scholars, he formed a “Bihu yinshe” (Society for Songs of Emerald Lake) at Kaifu Monastery in Changsha, and in September he went to Wang, Guo Songtao, and others to summon them to a “Bilang hu zhongyang hui” (Double Ninth Festival Meeting of Emerald Wave Lake). In 1889, he again formed the “Baimen jiahui” (Excellent Meeting of Baimen). During this time, Chen Bohua (Chen Sanli, 1853–1937) and Luo Shunxun collected the works of Jing’an from the twelfth year of the Tongzhi era (1873) to the fourteenth year of the Guangxu era (1888) and compiled them into five fascicles, which were published and distributed as Bazhi toutuo shiji (Collected Poems of the Ascetic Eight Fingers). Wang Kaiyun wrote a preface for it. Later, Ye Dehui (1864–1927) collected Jing’an’s poetic works from the fifteenth year of Guangxu (1889) onwards and made it a continuing imprint, forming the Bazhi toutuo shiji in ten fascicles, which was distributed throughout the country. In 1904, there was also the publication of Baimei ji (White Plum Collection). From forty sui to fifty-one sui, Jing’an in sequence was appointed abbot of six monasteries; Luoshan in Hengyang, Shangfeng and Dashan on Nanyue, Miyin on Weishan in Ningxiang, Shending in Xiangyang, and Shanglin in Changsha; and he also went to court against those in power over monastic property, making the drums and conch trumpets of the six monasteries all reverberate. While in Changsha, he met with Hu Zhixue, who had fortunately survived the Sino-Japanese War. When he saw Hu’s wooden foot and the bodily scars, he felt a sadness welling up within and because of this he cried. He wrote a poem: “The general with a severed foot, brave and bold,/Just with his single sword, crossed the enemy’s moat./Looking back at the section’s soldiers, where are they now?/Filling his eyes with fresh graves, this was a former encampment,/Wielding his long sword he returned [reference to Feng Huan of the Warring States], the previous deeds in vain./Only remaining in a thatched room, inviting in the autumn wind,/Desolate and dreary, he does not ask of military matters./A body filled with bullet wounds and without battle commendations.” There is a veneration for patriotic officers and men, and imprecations against the war of invasion, and also there is a resentment against, and unease with, the actual evil world. In 1898, Tan Sitong and Tang Caitang established the Nanxue hui (Southern Study Society) in Changsha, and after, with the failure to change the constitution, the martyrdom of the six gentlemen ( junzi, including Tan, in September), Jing’an 14

Xin xugaoseng zhuan, fascicle 65, in Gaoseng zhuan heji, p. 959.

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wrote the poem “Jishi shiba yun” (A Record of Events in Eighteen Rhymes). It is sorrowful and desolate, the poetic style clearly transformed into being steady, strong, and experienced. In 1902, Tiantong Monastery of Ningbo had a vacancy and the head monk Huanren led the assembly of the monastery to Changsha to request Jing’an to be the abbot of that monastery. Thus, for eleven years Jing’an appointed the wise and employed the capable, bearing the burden and applying his efforts, lecturing in summer and meditating in winter, almost without fail every year. At Tiantong Monastery he also continued and revived all the projects of Yuanwu that had been abandoned. Once, Jing’an saw the teachers and students of Ningbo Normal School’s Yude Hall enter the mountain to collect specimens, “and they walked with majestic steps, and came in lined ranks,” and so he was impressed by and prayed for them, saying, “For a rich country and strong military, give rise to benefit and remove abuses” and “Be ardent in education, together swear to be loyal and sincere.”15 He focused on expressing his spirit of not being apart from the world and his participation in it. In 1905, there were flood inundations along the Yangzi and Huai rivers. Jing’an composed a poem, “Jiangbei shuizai” (The Watery Disasters North of the Yangzi), and he realistically reflected the harm the floods had on the toiling masses. The peasants wandered homeless, did not have food and clothing, and there were tragic scenes of the land strewn with corpses. This was all recorded in his poem, and it describes the extreme sadness in his heart. At this time, the trend of using monastic property to create secular schools engulfed the whole country, and a monk in Hangzhou used the name of Jing’an to unite the monks of thirty-five monasteries in Zhejiang and sent a request to Japanese monks, falsely hoping they would provide protection and resist the regional officials’ appropriation of monastic property. Jing’an recognized this as bringing “disgrace on the country and disgrace on the teaching, there being nothing worse than this, flying off a letter to the foreign affairs office displaying its falsity by the misuse of my name. I forcefully requested the urgent repudiation of this.”16 Then, at the start of 1908, he founded the Seng jiaoyu hui (Association for the Education of Monks) in Ningbo, in order to “protect the teachings and support the [Chan] school and to erect schools.” He rushed backwards and forwards, implementing policies of “self-managed schools and self-protected monastic property.” In the Association for the Education of Monks, Jing’an founded and operated primary schools for the people and for monks. He was really a forerunner of modern Chinese education for the monkhood. In the same year, a member of the Tongmeng hui (Revolutionary League, founded by Sun Yatsen), Reverend Qiyun, was captured in Wujiang because he had participated in anti-Qing revolutionary activity. Jing’an used all of his power to mediate with the provincial governor of Jiangsu and got Qiyun released on bail.

15

Jing’an, Ningbo shifan Yude jiaotang jiaoyuan xie zhusheng ru Taibai shan caiji zhiwu zhuci (Congratulatory Words on the Teachers of the Yude Educational Hall of Ningbo Normal Accompanying Students into Mt. Taibai to Collect Plants). 16 Jing’an, Lingxiang ta zixu ming.

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After the xinhai (1911) Revolution, the forceful seizure of monastic property intensified and armies were stationed in the monasteries and phalansteries, and in the towns scoundrels also used the pretext of restoration to order the monks to provide funds or coerced them to become soldiers. Jing’an recognized that “Politics and religion aid each other, so in order to equalize the country, one carries out the equalization of religion. The tenets propagated by our Buddha are most suited to a republic.”17 He allied himself with the monks of the original seventeen administrative jurisdictions (provinces) to inaugurate the “Zhonghua Fojiao Zonghui” (Chinese General Buddhist Association). He went to Nanjing to visit Sun Zhongshan (Sun Yatsen). In 1912, the General Buddhist Association was established in Liuyun Monastery in Shanghai, and Jing’an was appointed its president. This was the first nationwide Chinese Buddhist organization. At that time, there was an incident of the appropriation of the monastic property of Baoqing Monastery in Hunan, and Jing’an, due to the requests from the monks in Xiang (Hunan), together with his disciple Daokai and Xuyun and others went to Beijing to present a petition, intending to request the Ministry of the Interior to sincerely hand down an order to return the monastic property. On 2nd October, he visited a certain Mr. Du of the lay administration in order to show that the monastic property was owned by the monk assembly, but instead he was humiliated, and indignant, he returned to where he was staying in Fayuan Monastery, and that night he passed away due to illness, then aged sixty-two sui. Jing’an had become a monk at eighteen sui and he passed forty-five years as a member of the Chan School. Since he was famed for his Chan poetry and also for his patriotism and his protection of the teaching, he was approved of by the monkhood and the laity. On one hand, he strove to discourage the self and eliminate ambition in order to liberate people from the extreme suffering of “the burning house that is the human world”; but on the other hand, he also had love and hate for society and for human life. On one hand, this was the spirit of transcendence of the Chan School, the refining of the free and unconventional divine resonance and the genuine faith in Buddhism that deepened his inclination towards religion; but on the other hand, his deep reflection on human life, due to the violent social turmoil and his extensive social contacts, also weakened his religious feelings. Because of this, Jing’an’s thought displays contradictions, yet it also was developed, continuing uninterrupted in two stages. These were his pre-thirty-four sui thought of transcending the world and the deepening of his turn towards religion and his use of poetry to talk of Chan, his poetic style being clear but shallow and neglected to convey compassion, and the thought from thirty-four sui right through to his last years, in which he felt deep grief at the domestic troubles and foreign invasions, which promoted his thought taking on a clear turn towards secularization and a weakening of his feeling of religious transcendence. His use of poetry to speak of ambition, and his poetic style of being steady and strong became songs of passionate fervor. This showed that he was no longer an individual with a recollection of life and death transcending the pollution and lay world of free and unconventional disposition, and showed that he became

17

Feng Minzi, Jing’an Heshang xingzhuang (Account of Conduct of Reverend Jing’an).

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worried about the times and the harm to the world, and expressed his patriotic spirit and national consciousness of fond memories of family and country. If you wish to see the Dharma of the three vehicles, Come and investigate one-finger Chan. Humans and gods open up the path of awakening, And with the robe and bowl obtain a genuine transmission. …. With the raising of a flower he showed me, The subtle smile verifying the previous conditioning.18

Here Jing’an draws the Buddha-dharma and gongan into his poem, his idea being to seek the Dharma just as in the old story of the Buddha as patriarch raising a flower and that the Buddha-dharma is entirely in “one finger.” This clearly reflected his firm belief in the reality of a supernatural existence, which expressed a Chan School form of thinking and also expressed his admiration for the religious faith in the Buddhist platform. In 1879, he wrote a poem, “Fuzhu Xuyuan Shangren” (Entrusted to Senior Xuyuan) that showed it was also a search until the end of his life to succeed to the genuine transmission from Caoqi: If you want to succeed to the transmission of Caoqi’s robe and bowl, To reach the source you must know the source of the mind. Having known the source of the mind, there is nothing else to do, The mud-ox in the water slept embracing the moon.

“If you know the intrinsic mind, that is release…which is prajñ¯a and sam¯adhi.”19 This is a fundamental spirit of the Platform Sutra, and therefore to succeed to the lineage of Caoqi, one must, and thoroughly, discern the mind-source. Like this, if one is a mud-ox in water, one may be enlightened to prajñ¯a and sam¯adhi. “The myriad dharmas before one’s eyes are mental dharmas, so what use is there in meeting a person to find a guide?”20 “Knowing the mind, there is no need to again seek the Dharma; Reaching the [other] shore, what further need is there for a boat?”21 In this way Jing’an was following after Caoqi, using “knowing the mind and seeing the nature, oneself achieving the Buddha Way.” His ultimate concern was, “At that very time, suddenly return to get the intrinsic mind.”22 It is no wonder that he bragged that he had attained the idea of holding up the flower, comparing himself to K¯as´yapa, “the number one ascetic.” “In the west (India) from ancient times there were three

18

Jing’an, Deng Yuelu shan cheng Liyun Changlao (Climbing Mt. Yuelu and Presented to Elder Liyun). 19 Platform Sutra. 20 Jing’an, “Yuanmiao Shangren cong Nanyue lai…” (The Senior Yuanmiao Came from Nanyue….). 21 Jing’an, “Fuzhu Fazhou Shangren” (Entrusted to Senior Fazhou). 22 Platform Sutra.

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K¯as´yapas, so what prevents the eastern land (China) having two Jichan?”23 This is not only a Chan School form of thinking, but it also included even more Buddhicized psychology. As for Jing’an’s use of the various forms of Chan mechanisms such as the “three barriers” and “tetralemma” to guide and encourage those lagging behind, he regarded the everyday family activities of wearing clothes and eating food, shitting and pissing, carting water and toting firewood et cetera to be “the manifestation of the auspicious sign of the emission of the light of the Thus Come One.”24 So then he also expressed the irrational thinking and the laying down of everything is right of “cutting off the many currents” in Chan thought, skillfully giving free reign to the fundamental attitude to life. Naturally this was a result of the influence on him of gongan Chan. When he became fifty-eight sui, Jing’an still retained the introspection of the Chan School in the depths of his thought, using the content of the mind or preaching the hues of a transcendental reality. Su Dongpo wrote a verse, “Craving to see the emperor, a gathering of [women] in red attire.”25 Lu Fangweng (Lu Yu, 1125–1210) changed the meaning to say, “The line just disliking the emperor, the [women] in red attire, how much more do people say he is like Liuliang (a lotus).”26 So Jing’an used the form of thinking of the pure mind that is unpolluted, which pointed to the line of Lu Yu, “Even though it (this verse) is marvelous, it falls into the Lesser Vehicle [level of understanding].” Jing’an’s idea indicates that the word “disliking” was nothing more than the Lesser Vehicle method of practice of “eliminating delusion” and does not reach the level of the Greater Vehicle, especially the Chan School’s teaching of recognizing one’s own intrinsic mind, of leaving things up to according with conditions and “not being apart from and not polluted while in the six dusts (sense-data),” a realm of absolute transcendence. Therefore, his turning words were: The root of the marvelous pure numinosity has already been planted deep, Although the damask [clothes] and the dust are close, the [dust] does not encroach. Do not dislike the emperor and the beauty of the red attire, For you need to know that he and I do not pollute our minds. [If] one can make the Buddha land accord with mental purity, I depend on your Huayan (flower garland) to spew forth a marvelous aroma.27

Even though the emperor and red attire are beautiful and the dusty world is full of enticements, his own mind was pristine, for even if he has emerged from out of the mire and the pollution (like a lotus), he could not be influenced. If the mind is pure, the 23

Jing’an, “Changsha Longtan shan you Jichan Yu yu tongzi” (Mt. Longtan in Changsha has a Jichan Who Has the Same Characters as Myself). 24 Jing’an, “Fo chengdao ri…sheru zhai shantang” (On the Day the Buddha Achieved the Way…Setting up a Formal Sermon for the Maigre Feast). 25 Tr. this verse can be read in several ways. The “emperor” is literally a halcyon carriage cover or umbrella. 26 Tr. Liuliang refers to Zhang Changzong, who had a beautiful face, like a lotus, and so Liuliang often indicated a lotus. 27 Jing’an, “Chuanyu” (Turning Words).

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land is pure; it is not necessarily outside of the mind and one is not to look for a pure land outside of the world. “If the mind is at peace and one retires from the world, it is not necessary to enter into the peach-blossom spring (an imaginary utopia).” Thus, Jing’an pulled this illusory object towards the self that contains all, and since he had stressed the subjective consciousness that transcended the object, this also explains the principles of engagement with the world being the transcendence of the world. Really, this was a versification of the principles of the later-period confrontation with dismal human life and the striving after attaining release in the world and the construction of a pure land. In fact, Jing’an had early on already recognized the illusoriness of Buddhism’s pursuit of an external world and that ultimately it was unable to separate itself from the real world to have an independent existence. Therefore he increasingly lamented that “The mundane and supramundane all have entanglements, which is difficult for both the monks and the laity.”28 Nevertheless, the theory of inward seeking after the mind-nature and the spirit of not being apart from the reality of the world of the Chan School catered exactly to his ceaseless development of a spirit of engagement with the world and then an inwards, refined mental experience, an ultimate concern to transcend antithesis, and this then changed into a consciousness of individual liberation and a spirit of the tragic and heroic sacrifice of oneself and to make this actively contribute to achieving the protection of the teaching and love of country in his social activities. In summary, there are three main objective conditions that propelled Jing’an’s thought towards engagement with society: the first was the degeneracy of the Chan school; the second was the perilous national situation; and the third was his extreme social contact. As the school had degenerated, he hoped that Chan thought would revitalize the Chan institution; as the national situation was perilous, he looked to the country becoming rich and the people becoming strong; and as he had extensive social contacts it expanded his field of vision, deepening his group consciousness and his national (volk) feeling, which thereby stimulated his consciousness of suffering, worries about the Dharma, worries about the country, and worries about the people, and his feeling of a mission to protect the teaching, love the country, and save the world and rescue people. A single Chan School monk not only regarded reviving the school as his own task, but also took the country, people, and world to be his ultimate concern, which in the realm of modern Buddhism was not an exceptional phenomenon. First of all, in order to rescue Buddhism from the misfortune of decline, he proposed plans “to protect the teaching and support the lineage [of Chan], and establish schools,” and to use the education of monks to foster the talents of the monks and make the Dharma-gateway reverberate so that it would be revived. The aim of this thinking was to protect the teaching, yet its forms were secular. He said, “Now we happen to be in the age of evolutionary competition, so we cannot shut our doors to protect ourselves, so I plan to protect the teaching and support the lineage, and to

28

Jing’an, “Ci Tuchan cishi geyun” (A G¯ath¯a Rhyme on the Occasion of Tuchan’s Death).

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do so we must establish schools.”29 He introduced the terms of the newly imported Western learning, such as evolutionary competition, into his thought, and so this emphasized his openness to progress, and evidently this was in respect of the thorough reform of the Chan learning that he revered and protected. For this reason, “I rushed around in the chaos, never resting.”30 Jing’an socialized with the heads of the government offices in the prefectures and counties, and in the Chan School monasteries he carried out the protection of property, the promotion of learning, the creation of societies, and in the end, he sacrificed his own life to protect the teaching and support the lineage, behaviors which were entirely secularized. Next, Jing’an’s turn towards engagement with the world was most prominently expressed in the aspects of his worries about the country and the people, of enriching the country and strengthening the military, and the patriotism of not tolerating humiliation by foreign powers. During his childhood he experienced frustrations and enduring bitterness to the full, facing the actual world as being like a house on fire; and the situation of the country was like a wall of eggs (fragile). Therefore, he remembered his grief as an individual, which he extended to an indignant shout about all classes of society: “The blue sky is about to fall, the clouds holding it up;/ The emerald ocean is about to dry up, our tears join into a current./I ascended a high tower alone and turned my head once,/Holding back my tears to look at the central plains [of China].”31 This was clearly not a youthful sigh of being lonely, of “a drawn-out sadness and indignation that has long been hard to report.”32 This kind of individual taste for remaining aloof from the world, of “the mountain forest (monastery) that casts off the dust and the vulgar world,”33 was a worry about the world and grief over the times, a nationalist consciousness that fondly remembered family and country. Yang Shuda (1885–1956) evaluated Jing’an as follows: “Even though his body was in the Buddhist institution, his mind was entangled with the state.”34 This was exactly an epitome of his complex operation of religious feelings towards Chan thought, the nationalistic feelings that are revealed by this, and his high degree of patriotic spirit. His “Jianbei shuizai yishou” used an extreme sorrow and a realistic description to realize a scene of that period that was too horrible to look at, expressing his sympathy for sentient beings, open-heartedly wanting to shatter people’s patriotic sentiments: A stranger came from Xuzhou, and before he spoke his tears streamed down. The Huai [river] now is in a year of disaster, recalling past times of anomalies…. The farmhouses were washed away and farming tools are rarely seen. The dead are swept away by the waves, the living have nowhere to reside…. The starving came wanting to beg food; in all directions nobody is cooking. Babies are embraced by nursing mothers, the mother, sick, holds the child crying…. It would be better to sell the baby to allay hunger for a moment…Unearthing 29

Jing’an, “Chuxi shizhong” (Instructions to the Assembly on New Year’s Eve). Jing’an, “Chuxi shizhong.” 31 “Zhi Baojue Jushi shu” (Letter to Layman Baojue). 32 Jing’an, “Zhufa shidi” (Instructions to a Younger Brother on His Tonsure). 33 Jing’an, “You Qingyuan si” (Travel to Qingyuan Monastery). 34 Yang Shuda, Bazhi Toutuo wenji yijuan (The Collected Writings of the Ascetic Bazhi in One Fascicle). 30

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the grass, the grass has no roots; stripping the trees, the trees [are left with] no bark; the hungry chew clothes for the cotton, when the cotton is gone they are cold with no clothes…. Broken-hearted, how can one bear to see it. People are emaciated, only the dogs are fat.

The houses were knocked over and the rooms collapsed, the dead and the coffins washed away; the living had nowhere to live, babies were sold to allay hunger, the grass had no roots, the trees had no bark, and people resorted to stop-gap measures detrimental to their long-term interests. Humans were emaciated and the dogs were fat, only strange people eating people. This is such a horrific scene. This is such a penetrating poem that cannot be described without a deep consciousness of concern for the country and the people, and without a feeling of immediate concern. “Jackals and tigers then become a disaster and one could not know whether one would survive or die. People just had a mind like a stone, not caring that life hangs like a thread.”35 This poem relied on his patriotic thoughts that worried about the country and people; it also depicted his heroic and progressive spirit of saving the world. Jing’an was “inwardly grieved by the weakness of the Dharma and externally worried about the dangers to the country.” The people were poverty stricken, the country was weak, powerful neighbors increasingly pressured China, the Dharma-gateway was degenerate; at no time was he not concerned at heart. He was anxious about the internal and the external, with the consciousness of being apart from characteristics and apart from thoughts of the Chan School being completely changed into a spirit of participation. “The tears of humans and gods mixed together, all one’s feelings came forth,” “The great ocean was boiling with distress, the entire body with blood ablaze.”36 In Jing’an’s mind, his joy, anger, sadness, and delight, and the rise and fall, and strength and weakness of the state and volk were tightly linked together. “Holding stones in her beak, it was difficult to fill [the ocean]; the distress of Jingwei,”37 “The enemies of the country have yet to be repaid, to the shame of this old monk.” These poems expressed his spirit of sacrifice and of the moral courage of the volk who forgot all else in the pursuit of duty, and since this was secular transformation of the transcendental thought of the Chan School, it was also the practice and sublimation in actual life of the Mah¯ay¯ana core tenets of regarding transcendence as participation, in which one also cuts off an arm to feed a tiger, to save sentient beings. Jing’an’s extensive social contacts meant he had an ability to promote a turn towards engagement with the world, and it was also a concrete expression of his secularization. Among the people with whom he had close relations, there were the highest ranked officials above and famous scholars of the court and provinces below; there were kind and upright people who sacrificed themselves for the 1898 constitutional changes, and there were also members of revolutionary parties who were imprisoned for rising in revolt against the Qing; there were great masters of Buddhist learning who craved a religious revival, there were also famous scholars who applied themselves to research on culture. Among them there were those like the grand Confucians of Xiang (Hunan), Wang Kaiyun and Guo Songtao, the governor 35

Jing’an, “Nanyue zagan sishou” (Four Poems of Mixed Feelings at Nanyue). Ibid. 37 Tr. Jingwei was a mythical bird who tried to fill the ocean with pebbles she brought in her beak. 36

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and scholar of Chan, Wu Yanzhou, the poet Chen Boyan, the artist Chen Shizeng, and the Layman Yang Renshan. There were also Tan Sitong, Zhang Taiyan, Di Chuqing, and Yang Du, all prominent officials and eminent personages. In their exchanges, there were not only poetic responses talking of Chan and speaking g¯ath¯as aloud, but they also freely talked of their universal love for the people and things, their thoughts being tied to the sufferings of the people, and they took the rise and fall of the empire to be their own responsibility. They directly influenced his form of thinking and the content of his thought, and cleansed him of such a negative tendency to transcend the world, and gave birth to his spirit of participation. All had a certain role in this. Besides this, it should be explained, as seen from the angle of his poetry, Jing’an’s Chan poems and those of lay literati are also very different. The poems of the literati are not inclined to the conveying of emotions and the speaking of ambitions, and just degenerated into speaking of the blending of principle, feelings, and scenes coherently and smoothly. Chan poetry ultimately also needs to speak of Chan and consequently it contained the illogicality of Chan or it spoke of the special features that transcend logical thinking. Because of this, Chan poetry was expressed via the thinking of direct perception that is emotional experience. Jing’an’s poetry often displayed the idea of, “due to the [pointing by] the finger one sees the moon, obtaining the meaning and forgetting the description,” and the idea that direct perception via meditation and also by purely giving reign to what is intrinsically so and so on recognizes events and things and expresses forms of thought. “Where do the six bandits (the senses) come from to make fun of Amit¯abha?/They are all demons (temptations) that have been given rise to from out of the mind./If confused, the six faculties produce the six bandits,/When one is enlightened, the six bandits are the p¯aramit¯as.”38 The form of thinking of the Chan School seen in his poems is evident.39 Exactly because he was able to fully link his emotional experience of isolation with the realm of phenomena in his meditation and his careful examination, his poems therefore frequently produced an unexpected result, enabling people to see from his poems an endless fluctuating sunlight (of dawn or sunset), smelling the fleeting and unstable aroma of plum flowers, hearing the faint sounds of bells and chimes, and placing oneself in the mental realm that transcends things. On seeing: Myriads of trees, withered and bleak, birds stop flying there. The mountains on all sides in wind and snow, one monk returns. On the path he is not afraid that the cold will penetrate his bones, Reaping the plum flowers, whose aroma penetrates his clothes.40

On listening: Many sounds of crying birds outside the shaded window, 38

Jing’an, “Chen Yuansheng guancha xie qixiang” (Chen Yuansheng Examining the Painting of his Portrait). 39 See Ma Tianxiang, Wan Qing Foxue yu jindai shehui sichao, Taiwan, Wenjian chubanshe, 1992, and Henan Daxue chubanshe, 2005. 40 Jing’an, “Xuegui” (Returning in the Snow).

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Startled to rise, the mountain monk sweeps away the fallen blooms.41 A number of sounds of the flute of an immortal on a tower in the distance, The lake faces the governing mountain, a spot of green. Arriving with these winds and waves, it emboldens poetic courage, The crazy song startles awake the old dragon on hearing it.42

This feeling and this scene distinctly show an inexpressibly delicate and graceful beauty, and also has an idea of being hidden and remote, that meaning lies beyond words. One can see that Jing’an’s poetry was full of, and was dipped in, his own tears and blood, and was infiltrated by his own emotional experience of having been alone. Likewise, his poems overflow with the transcendental mood of Chan, reflecting back on and dimly illuminating the phenomenal world. Taixu (1889–1947) was a son of the Lü family of Chongde in Zhejiang. He lost his parents when he was a child. When he was sixteen, he was tonsured and became a monk. His Dharma style was Weixin. Once, in front of a statue of Buddha, he sought his name by divination, obtaining the slip for Maitreya that said, “This body is already within the great void (taixu).” Therefore, he took the name Taixu. In the same year, he received the full precepts from Jing’an at Tiantong Monastery. In 1909, Taixu cursorily read Kang Youwei’s Datong shu (Book of Grand Harmony), Liang Qichao’s Xinmin shuo (Theory of a New People), Zhang Taiyan’s Gao Fozi shu (Letter Informing a Buddhist), Tan Sitong’s Renxue, and Yan Fu (1851–1923)’s Tianyan lun (On Evolution) and his translations. He also was influenced by the theories of Tolstoy and Kropotkin found in the Xin shiji (New Century) by Wu Zhihui (1865–1953) that was produced in Paris. Thus, he had an ambition to renovate Buddhism “and create and rouse a new movement in Buddhism,”43 and he generously used Buddhism to change and rescue the country and to rescue the empire as his task. With the xinhai (1911) Revolution and the foundation of the Republic, he conformed to trends in the developments of contemporary society and he publicly advocated three great revolutions in “the principles of the teaching (religion),” “the system of the teaching,” and “the property of the teaching.” He devoted himself to a Buddhist learning of human life and the establishment of the thought of a humanistic Buddhism. To do so, he made the Chan School, which was also Buddhism, turn towards engagement with the world and develop to its high-water mark. He used his status as a bhiks.u to extensively set foot in social life. For his whole life he vigorously dedicated himself to the work of the restoration of Buddhism, and he had the jocular title of “political monk.” A Taixu Dashi quanshu (Complete Writings of Great Master Taixu) of over six million characters is in circulation. In the last years of the Qing Dynasty, the numbers of monks and nuns nationwide were 800,000, yet the Dharma-gateway was in ruins, and the style of the school had declined daily and was already in an irretrievable situation. The monks’ social status was confused; many lacked educational attainments and did not observe the precepts 41

Jing’an, “Songchun” (Seeing off Spring). Jing’an, “Guo Dongting hu” (Passing Lake Dongting). 43 Taixu, Wode Fojiao gaijin yundong shi (A History of My Movement to Improve Buddhism). 42

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and regulations, solely fussing about property and money. It was truly as Zhang Taiyan said, “How could the monks of the present and half-mobilised laypeople, whose names are unknown, discuss the teachings of the sutras?”44 The lineage institution had already reached a state that could not but be reformed. Taixu pointed out that, “In the representation of the monks and monasteries of Buddhism, we are yet to be able to catch up with the construction of contemporary state and society,” and “If one is not in tune with the demands of the society of this time and this place, then in order to promote the Buddhist spirit, it has lost the significance of its existence. If one thus does not pursue improvement, then one must end up being obsolete. So the present monastery system and monk system of China must be put in order.”45 Then he publicly presented the Buddhist slogan of “three great revolutions,” following the model of the Three Principles of the People of Sun Yatsen. The first was the revolution in the principles of the teaching (doctrine). Taixu said this was the Principle of Democracy (People’s Rights) that was the first of the Three Principles of the People. He imported the slogans of capitalist democracy, freedom, universal love, and equality into Buddhist doctrine from secular society. In terms of the religious aspect, he wanted to include Chan thought within Buddhist learning and change it into “a philosophy of an active human life” and to use humanistic Buddhism to construct a human Pure Land. This really was a need to actualize a Buddhist turn towards engagement with the world and introduce it into the theory of ideas. Taixu recognized that from the Ming period onwards that the quality of the monk assembly was inferior, and that they had seriously deviated from the true spirit of the Buddha’s “six harmonies doctrine” of monastic life. What these later inferior followers had arrived at formed a psychology of extreme world-weariness, or they set up teachings for the posthumous destinies of the emperors and princes, or they used the fortunes and misfortunes of the soul as tools to keep the people in ignorance. Following on to the end of the Qing, the pursuit of the Buddhist transcendence that is the actualization of enlightenment and the liberation of oneself and the liberation of others was virtually washed away. All that remained were the corrupt customs of overcoming death and sending off the dead. The focus of this revolution in doctrine then was on the elimination of the tendency of the later inferior followers of the Chan School of the dislike of the world that disintegrates the self, depends on the world, and that establishes the corrupt customs of the teachings for the spirits of the dead, and prayers for the dead and good fortune. This revolution lay in the revival of the six harmonies doctrine of the Buddha, “gradually liberating [Chinese Buddhism] from ‘the Buddhism of monasteries and monks’ and forming a ‘mass Buddhism of all in society’.”46 Chinese call the followers of Buddha seng, which is an abbreviation of the Sanskrit sangha, its meaning being harmony and assembly (crowd). Harmoniously united into an assembly, everything in the monk assembly is also a shared possession. There 44

Zhang Taiyan, Gao Baiyi shu (Letter Informing a Layperson). Taixu, Sanshinianlai Zhongguo zhi Fojiao (Chinese Buddhism of the Last Thirty Years). 46 Taixu, Sanshinianlai Zhongguo zhi Fojiao. 45

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is no individual name on and individual benefit from these possessions. This fully manifests the humanistic spirit of Buddhist equality, democracy, and solidarity. Taixu called the completely secularized explanation “the six harmonies’ doctrine (zhuyi).” Views in harmony and joint understanding = academic freedom. Benefits in harmony and equal sharing = economic equality. Ideas in harmony and joint enjoyment = democratic freedom. Bodies in harmony and joint residence = freedom of residence. Precepts in harmony and joint cultivation = freedom of belief. Voices in harmony and no disputes = freedom of speech.

Thus, although the extension and reform of the meaning of the Buddhist teachings was Taixu’s creation, it was also a necessary product of the turn of Buddhist thought towards engagement with the world, and it was also a distorted expression of “Chinese-sourced Western-style” thought. It made out that Buddhism originally had the spirit of democracy and the pursuit of freedom, all being smeared with the coloring of contemporary bourgeois thought, and it also drew the Chan School’s inconceivable transcendental quality of free and unconventional divine resonance, of being apart from characteristics and apart from thoughts, closer to actual society. Not only was this so, the revolution in doctrine also required a fundamental facilitation of the melding of the Dharma (law) of world renunciation and the worldly law into a unity to actualize the compassionate vow to rescue the world. This also seamlessly coincides with the trend to modern social thought of national preservation. He said, What is this world of humanity? The powerful states of Africa, Asia, America, and Europe are all already bound up in the disaster of war…. Steel bullets are shot in profusion, flames fly across the sky, red blood forms an ocean, and the white bones reach the sky. In addition to this there are the disasters of floods and droughts, there is the miasma of epidemics, and what are left are the survivors of the acute suffering of war. The tears of the farmers fall into the fields, the merchants are poverty-stricken in their shops, the scholars have no place for employment, the industrial workers have destroyed the work of their industriousness. I am very sad for all these people, innumerable the hundred million scandals that lead them to drag out a miserable existence and be completely shameless people. If not, then women full of good wine laugh merrily and curse angrily just to make ends meet at the end of the year, just for relief from death. Again, if that is not the case, then they will travel afar and escape to fertile [areas], drown in the ocean and are buried in the mountains, spreading the books on renouncing friendships of Zhu Mu [of the Later Han] and writing discussions of Xi Kang [223-268] and his fostering of life. If that is not the case, then they are terribly suspicious, deluding themselves and confusing others, the inauspicious and auspicious arise in confusion, and strange phenomena emerge one after another. Those who support the [Way] of the world are the asura (titans), those who survive are [the denizens of] hell, the starving ghosts, and beasts; and those who are eminent dislike people, abandon the world and alone advance to the heavens. Alas! The path of humans is rare and has almost ended.

The people are in extreme misery, are badly injured and in acute pain, or they drag out a miserable existence, living as if drunk or in a dream, some deluding themselves and misleading others, winning fame by deceiving people. Each one of the ruling class are devils and fiends, wrapping people up in the flames of war,

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reducing humanity into hell, and the best of people do no more than dislike the world and hope to enter heaven. Facing this lawless survival of the actual world, “Jesus of the Western world bequeathed words, the principles violated and themes absurd since they are insufficient to respond to the demands of human wisdom. The standards for human affairs are proved by the treatises of Li (Laozi) and Confucius of the East, but these also have no power to impose sanctions on and control the thoughts and deeds of these human beings.” Therefore, Taixu especially emphasized that one needs to “show the tath¯agatagarbha (store of the Thus Come One; potential for Buddhahood) to purify the sources of the human mind, spread the bodhisattva vehicle, and correct the basis of the Way of humans.”47 That is to say, in order to reform a humanistic Buddhism, a Buddhist learning of human life, purify human thoughts, and correct the Way of humans, not only did one have to save the country, one also had to bear the heavy burden of changing the world. Since this was a fundamental direction of Chan thought, it was also the ultimate concern of Taixu’s revolution in doctrine. As Taixu said, the revolution in doctrine was nothing more than to “restore Buddhism and benefit sentient beings,” and the Buddha-dharma was no more than a means to actualize this aim. Therefore, he did not bind himself to the faction of the Chan School and so was able to harmonize Chinese and Western, assemble the Chinese and Indian, thoroughly study Faxiang, devote himself to Pure Land, and fundamentally eliminate the individualty of each of the schools. Mr. Lu Xun praised him as “an amicable person of modern times, his thought refreshing,”48 which also has the sense that he had synthesized thought. As shown in his concept of the Pure Land, Taixu not only was a subscriber to the theory of the Chan School, Nothing-but Mind, and Pure Land, but he was also a seeker after and a devotee of the human Pure Land, and since this removed the illusoriness of the Pure Land on another shore, it further manifested the reality of the theory of Buddhism saving the world. He said, Rely on each person’s pristine mind in order to cultivate much causation of the pure and the good, and then gradually advance, and after a long, long time, this human world of evil pollutants will change totally to become an ornamented Pure Land. There is no need to separately seek a Pure Land outside the human world.49

The reliance on the pristine mind, the gathering of pure and good causations, so that the defiled world can change to be a Pure Land is entirely the form of thinking of the Platform Sutra, “If it accords with the purity of the mind, then the the buddha land is pure.” However, Taixu transformed an inner transcendence into something external, and naturally this was also a pursuit of the actual and so it was a concrete expression of the turn towards engagement with the world and was also a continuation and development of the ultimate reliance on the ornamented Pure Land of people from the Ming dynasty thinkers through to Peng Shaosheng, Wei Yuan, Yang Renshan, 47

All the above quotes are found in Taixu, “Jueshe congshu chuban zhi xuanyan” (Proclamation of the Publication of the Collected Works of the Awakening Society). Tr. this publication was a quarterly journal, in English Buddhist Miscellany. 48 Sun Fuyuan, Lu Xun Xiansheng yanzhong de Taixu Dashi (Great Master Taixu As Seen Through the Eyes of Mr. Lu Xun). 49 Taixu, Zhilun (Supporting Theses).

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and Tan Sitong and so on. Thus, the Pure Land is in the human world. Therefore, there is no need to be reborn into a paradise. It just requires one to do the work of Buddhist disciples in saving the world and liberating people, and so the pursuit of an illusory Pure Land is thus given a worldly and actual content. The second, the revolution in the system of the teaching is the reform of the Sangha system. Taixu called this the nationalism of the Three Principles of the People. This was directed against the malpractices in the large monastic system of those times. In particular, he raised the slogan of reform with regard to the question of monastic property that partook of a hue of the feudalistic patriarchal clan system. Because of this, it had a close connection with the revolution in the property of the religion. Really this required a complete set of regulations on a democratic structure and a system of labor for supporting oneself by one’s own labor. Taixu pointed out, With the success of the Xinhai (1911) Revolution, China has established a republican constitutional state. The Sangha system also must rely on the Buddhist system, and in addition be reformed to suit the times, making it become the monkhood and monasteries demanded by Chinese society from now on. This is the motivation for my creation of a Sangha system.50

The Sangha system also needed to change in accord with the times. This was a conclusion produced from the concepts of history he held and changes in thought, and it was also a question of how the Sangha system could respond to the demands of contemporary society and actualize a change towards an engagement with the world. As said previously, the monasteries originally had a completely democratic system. This was the so-called doctrine of the six harmonies, in which the monks simply begged for food and patched robes, taking their possessions and hanging them up while travelling. Since this could not be a strictly regulated system of living, they were also without the conditions for a self-reliant life. This evidently did not accord with the Chinese national sentiment of diligence being the basis and a country founded on farming. Therefore, Chinese monks from the beginning performed the economic activities of reclaiming and cultivating wasteland, and of being travelling merchants who traded. In particular, after the Dali reign era (766–779) of the Tang, the Chan School flourished greatly, and the former circumstances of living among the caves and cliffs were unsuited for the situation of give and take with their gatherings of followers, of giving sermons and being abbots. Therefore, from Huairang on down, Mazu Daoyi opened up wasteland and separately built a large monastery. Following this, Baizhang Huaihai created pure regulations for Chan monasteries, with the practice of a universal requirement to group labor, carrying out Chan learning with a practice of production, implementing the regulatory system of, “If you do not work for a day, you do not eat for a day.” This rationalized labor and economic activity and systematized it. It affirmed the value of worldly activity and weakened the democratic spirit of the original monasteries. With the promulgation in the Yuan of Dehui’s Chizhuan Baizhang qinggui (Imperially Commissioned Pure Regulations of Baizhang), Chan and Doctrine (schools) were in conflict, each protecting their own specialist work, and there was a private succession to property. After this, Dharmafactions were gradually formed and monasteries formed set systems of patriarchal 50

Taixu, Wode gaijin Fojiao yundong lueshu.

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succession rules and relationships, and so the democratic spirit was almost entirely lost and monastic property was monopolized by a few abbots. What emerged was a system in which monopolized monastic property was distributed between Dharmafactions and tonsure-factions. They lived off the toil of other people, their desire blazing like a fire, currying favor with the influential, competing without rest for a day, so how could there be time for chanting the scriptures or investigating Chan, and how could there be advancement towards the transcendental spirit and the concern to save the world and liberate people? In order to strive for the survival of Buddhism itself and pursue its development socially, one could not but reform the Sangha system. In 1915, Taixu wrote Zhengli sengqie zhidu lun (On the Ordering of the Sangha System), which was aimed against the corruption of the monk order and the corrupt practice of superstitions and fabrications. It proposed a “movement to save the monks” by “the cultivation of the true and realization of reality in order to form a correct result,” “sacrificing oneself to benefit the masses in order to be diligent in superior practices,” and by “broadly learning and deeply researching in order to prosper the principles of the learning.” It was a concrete opinion on a series of reforms of the monk system made in order to actualize the safeguarding of the foundations for a Buddhist learning of human life. He required that There be elimination of: a) the use of superstitions and the establishment of teachings for the afterlife of rulers and ministers, b) the making of families of tonsure factions and the system of private transmission of property of Dharma factions. Reform: a) change withdrawing into seclusion into a vigorous advancement in practice to convert and guide society. b) changing from saving the dead by making offerings to the soul, to aiding the living and working for the mass of people. Build: a) based on the culture of the Three Principles of the People, build a Buddhism of human life through people and bodhisattvas. b) use the Buddhism of human life to build a Chinese monk system. c) adopt the new to change the old and form a system of believers in a Chinese Mah¯ay¯ana of human life. d) use the Buddhism of human life to form the national laity and human world of ten good deeds and decency.51

It is evident that the fundamental aim of the revolution in the system of the teaching lay in the building of a Buddhism of human life to guarantee that it will be 51

Requoted from Dongchu, Zhongguo Fojiao jindai shi, last vol., p. 569, Dongchu chubanshe (Taiwan), 1984 printing, pp. 966–967.

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of service to society. Taixu’s concentration was on three aspects; firmly establishing the system of the education of the Sangha, that monastic property is a common possession of the monks in the democratic equalization of the Sangha, and on the actualization of this reform of the system of the teaching. He clearly pointed out that monastic property was not the public property of society and was not something that any organization, individual, or even government was able to seize. Monastic property was the possession of the monk assembly in all directions, it is “the things of the monks of all directions,” which also breaks away from the feudalistic abuses of the succession to property via private transmissions of the Dharma-factions and tonsure families. He emphasized through the service to society by farming Chan and industrial Chan, and the policy of labor to support oneself, that the monastic system of democracy be re-established on a firm foundation. For this reason, Taixu published a series of writings to set out his viewpoints on the reform of the monk system. He especially emphasized that “The monk assembly also cannot but be a productive element, in order to work for their own position in society,”52 and “that they foster a physique capable of industrious labor and live a life of poverty indifferent to fame and wealth.”53 He fully affirmed lay activity, which was a social value of wealth creation. Naturally, this was for the restoration of the democratic tradition and the rebuilding to present a physical guarantee. The reform of the Sangha education system had a decisive function and farreaching significance for the development of Buddhism in contemporary society, and because of this Taixu gave importance to, and practiced a long-term strategic plan of the reform of Buddhism by fostering monk talent. He recognized that “Abbots of the Sangha need to pass through a strict and long period of training, foster the moral learning of nobility and refinement, and the complete good, making the cultivation and learning of the Buddha-dharma and its real practice the core focus, and extensively investigate the theories of modern thought, preparing to create a Sangha to propagate the Buddha-dharma and genuinely represent the spirit of Buddhism to save the world and its people.”54 He also lead the building of a unified system of systematic learning. In his establishment of a three-level system for monks, the first level is the system of student monks, using a progressive, systematic and complete education of monks and nuns, to make them into the best of human talent among the monks. Taixu also put his teaching into practice by setting up colleges of Buddhist learning in various places nationwide like the Wuchang Buddhist Academy, the Minnan Buddhist Academy, the Sino-Tibetan Buddhist Institute, the Wuchang Buddhist Institute for Women, and he instituted the World Buddhist Institute, attempting to construct a kind of world Buddhist culture. It can be thus said that Taixu was a positive promoter of modern Sangha education. Besides, Taixu also proposed a separate system for the monks and the laity. He recognized that “If one is a lay Buddhist follower, then one should research, believe in, 52

Taixu, Sengzhi jinlun (Currect Discussion of the Monk System). Taixu, Xiandai seng jiaoyu de weiwang yu Fojiao de qiantu (The Perils of Modern Monk Education and the Way Forward for Buddhism). 54 Taixu, Wode gaijin Fojiao yundong lueshi. 53

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and understand the theories of the Buddha-dharma. One should take social morality to be the basis for practice and really practice the human-world morality of the five precepts and ten good deeds, and improve the society and government, education, customs, and habits. This kind of moral standard of unassuming and approachable people is the easiest to implement and spread in the human world, making everybody able to study Buddhism and become Buddhists.”55 In this way, the Buddha-dharma and social morality are to be combined, encouraging the laity to implement the Buddha-dharma and to focus their attention on improving the social environment and atmosphere, in particular showing them the spirit of engagement with society. He called his revolution in the property of the teaching the Principle of the People’s Livelihood. This was one of the Three Principles of the People, and with the exception of the fixed monastic property that was the common possession of the monk assembly, the feature that he highlighted was the use of monastic property to set up study halls, which was also focused on the education of monk talent. What deserves to be specially explained is that Taixu was a descendant of the Chan institution, and his thought already could not be contained within the traditional word “Chan,” for in order to respond to the spirit of the age that was engagement with the world, he used “be comprehensive” (tong) as his own task. He pointed out that “Buddhist learning derives from enlightenment, philosophy derives from inference, and science comes from experience.” “The more science develops, the more the true meaning of the Buddha will become clear.” “Science is the pursuit of material progress, and Buddhist learning is the pursuit of psychological progress.”56 He strove to find the common ground while preserving the differences between science, philosophy, and Buddhist learning, and to make the Buddha-dharma into a contemporary Buddhist learning of being generous and benefiting beings. Therefore, he advocated a “specialization on researching schools [of Buddhism] separately” and he emphasized that “different paths revert to being the same.” In his system of Chan learning, Chan and Doctrine, the Nature and Characteristics schools, and the Exoteric and the Esoteric are “identically the one Great Vehicle, equal.”57 Since this tallies with the tendencies in the development of Buddhist learning to split and unite, it also reflected the historical fact of the synthesis of Chan thought. Taixu properly based himself on a search for being comprehensive and seeking to be the same, and he presented a model of his thinking on the unification of Chan and Doctrine as follows:

55

Ibid. Taixu, Foxue, kexue jiqi ta zongjiao zhi yitong (The Differences Between Buddhist Learning, Science. And Other Religions). 57 Requoted from Dan Peigen, Jinian Foxue jidachengzhe Taixu Dashi (A Commemoration of the Grand Synthesizer of Buddhist Learning, Great Master Taixu). 56

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17 The Participatory Spirit of the Chan Monks of the End of the Qing … Buddha-dharma | _________________________

Foundation

Way

|

|

Nanshan Vinaya School

________________ realization

doctrine

|

|

Chan School of Shaoshi ______________ Esoteric |

Exoteric __________________

Kaiyuan Esoteric faith School

Dharma

|

__________________

Lushan Characteristics Pure Land

|

Nature ________

Cien

insight wisdom

Weishi School

|

_______

Jiaxiang Final Qingliang Sanlun School |

|

Tiantai ________ Huayan Xianshou

Taixu explained his model as follows: Looking at this vertically, one can see the rules for the conforming order. Nanshan is before and Qingliang is later. In the reverse order, Qingliang is before and Nanshan is later. Looking at it horizontally, one can see the rules of the conforming order,58 the former is Qingliang and the latter is Nanshan; and the rules of the reverse order are Nanshan is before and Qingliang is later. Since the reverse and the conforming are all in a succession, horizontal and vertical do not obstruct each other.59

Taixu’s idea was to say that the Buddha-dharma can be divided into two sections, the foundation and the Way. The foundation is the precepts and regulations, and therefore it is the Vinaya School. The Way is the essential meanings of the remaining schools. The Way can also be divided into realization and teaching (doctrine), with realization being the Chan School and Doctrine being the various schools of the Exoteric and Esoteric divisions. The remainder can be figured out through analogy. Thus, Taixu summed up the Buddha-dharma as definitely not being fully as people expect, yet he created this kind of model of “the entirety of the beginning being linked to the end, and the entirety of the end penetrating back to the beginning, there not being one that does not have all, and all including the one,” which undoubtedly 58

According to the vertical distribution, the right comes first, and therefore the order goes from bottom to top. 59 Taixu, Fojiao gezong yuanliu (The Origins and Branches of the Sects of Buddhism).

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reflected his intention to integrate Buddhist thought. It also tallies with his conduct of practice. Looking overall at the changes in the thought and behavior of Chan monks of the end of the Qing and the early Republican period, one can see that the fundamental turning of Chan thought towards the modern world had already emerged. Firstly, the factions established by the Chan School from the Tang Dynasty had by this time virtually all disappeared, but as Chan thought was contained in each of the schools, it can formally be said to have taken over the position of the entirety of Buddhism, and that the Chinese Chan School had completely melted away the Buddhism of India. Secondly, it had ceaselessly discarded the empty profundities and ungraspable parts of Chan and given prominence to its correct mind and the theories of the mind-nature that rescue the world and are a spirit of participation. This was exactly the outstanding feature of the Buddhist learning of the modern period. Later, Lü Cheng (1896–1989) specially discussed the necessary tendency for the development of thought regarding the Buddha-dharma and the world, in particular this spirit of making it rational and systematic. As for Hu Shi’s use of historical perspective to set forth the position of Chan learning and the use of insight (prajñ¯a) to explain Chan, and Yinshun’s division between the ultimate and skillful means to talk of Chan, these were both cases of the age making them do so.

Part V

A Comparison of Research into the Chan School in Recent Times: A Contemporary Explanation of Chan

At the start of the twentieth century, a debate between Eastern and Western culture emerged on the deep cultural soil of China, making traditional Chinese scholarship take on an entirely new look. The debates of course each emerged from their own camps, and what they devoted themselves to was on how to construct a future for Chinese culture. Nevertheless, their focus undoubtedly also resided on how to evaluate all aspects of the past of the tradition. Therefore, the world of scholarship also surfaced as a continuation of the golden age of the contention of a hundred schools of thought of the Spring and Autumn, the Warring States, and the Wei-Jin and Northern and Southern Courts periods and later. They strove hard to grasp the fundamental original causes of the rise and fall in the disorder of (contemporary) government in the thought of the past, and they explored the glorious course of the advancement of humankind. It is evident that in their investigation of past thought that they first needed to trace back and raise its developments and changes in chronological order and locate themselves among these individuals, the historical facts, and various kinds of causal backgrounds and conditions. Secondly, they needed to examine the forms and content of that thought and grasp the core concepts of the functions that emerged in space and their gradual evolution. In other words, the first is the need to search for concrete and objective historical evidence, and the second is the requirement to penetrate through the representations, to observe this thought freely and its nature of being a spiritual world for itself. For the most part, they used the two above-mentioned methods, which fully reveal the necessary and sequenced course of thought and culture. Yet, the situation was that there was no lack of adoption of the first method, with some putting a special emphasis on the use of the first approach. This presents for us systematic and targeted conditions to be compared. Slightly later, dialectical materialistic thought held that in the latter half of nineteenth-century Europe in a capitalistic society of scientific civilization, the declaration of a material civilization would give birth to the collapse of that society, making that society “not dare to look squarely at and examine materialist society, and struggle to use the philosophy of idealism directed at seeking spiritual solace, liberation and a way out in the mind. Then the research into human life took the place of cosmology and methodology…. This is what is called fin de siècle philosophy. Directly after the

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March Fourth Cultural Movement ended in 1927, one can say that this was China’s fin de siècle.”1 At that time, such stupid-looking and frustrated politicians always apparently and plausibly listened carefully to Great Master Taixu’s lectures to them and their company so that they all had to enter into Buddhist learning. In particular, among them there were a few extremely evil warlords who killed people like flies, “and also all those who had a tendency to devote themselves to Buddhism.”2 The former were critical of the search for a philosophy of human life; the latter had an affirmative attitude toward the development of the question of human life. Yet of course this criticism was also affirmative, all revealing the troubled times of frequent tragic disasters of that period, and that therefore the question of human life was an important content of scholarly research. In fact, as described above, modern Western thinkers faced a material civilization that advanced by leaps and bounds, bringing a negative effect on humanity and producing new troubles. Then in the realm of scholarship, they signaled and raised the banner of humanism of restoration from the material to the spiritual, from the material to the mental, from science to human life, from the Western to the Eastern, and from the contemporary to the traditional. This began to appear in the seventeenth century. There arose an implementation of a reaction against scientism that regarded the material and utility to be its aims in the form of a romanticism of the limitless expansion of individual selfish desire. The sudden rise of modern Buddhist learning and the emergence in quantity of a tendency to research the Chan School was actually a distinct characteristic of something that was in the air. There was also Li Shicen (1892–1934), who held Marxist philosophy in high esteem. He quoted the words of Feuerbach: “God is our very first thought; reason is our second thought; and humankind is our very last thought.” Li explained this as follows: In the Middle Ages it was entirely thought that God created the world, and after Darwin’s theory of the origin of the species appeared, the theory of the creation of the world daily diminished gradually, and the theory of evolution went further from biology into sociology, and then further into psychology, “the more it was spread the more profound it became,” going from Spinoza to Bergson, “and the more the avenues of human life were opened up the more extensive it became,” and so “not only could the idea of God not have a foothold, but the idea of reason arrived in this period, and also it did not lead to any vacillation in any moment.” Then, “We human beings go from understanding humans and their relation to nature to the relationship between people, and from the relationship between people to the value of oneself…. If the view of human life arrives at that time, then there will be a genuine view of human life to be spoken of.”3 Li clearly shows a sequential state of affairs in the development of thought from divinity to reason and ending with humanity. At the same time, he also specially emphasized that “the thought of the Buddhists entirely begins from 1

Ai Siqi, “Ershinianlai zhi Zhongguo zhexue sichao” (Trends in Chinese Philosophy for the Past Twenty Years) in Zhonghua yuebao, fascicle 2 no. 1, December 1993. 2 Li Shicen, “Foxue yu rensheng” (Buddhist Learning and Human Life) in Li Shicen jiangyan ji (Collected Lectures of Li Shicen), Shangwu yinshuguan, 1924. 3 Li Shicen, Rensheng zhexue (A Philosophy of Human Life), Shangwu yinshuguan, 1926.

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human life,” and he advocated Buddhist learning: “It is not especially in conflict with science in the least, but it also can make the methodology of science even more accurate and the scientific classification even more correct, and the effectiveness of science even more assured.”4 Clearly, he viewed the rise of Buddhist learning as the thought itself discovering its own necessary result, which was a response to the calls by humankind for “an ultimate thought,” and that this thought was mutually compatible with science, complementing each other in the philosophy of human life. Whether his viewpoint is correct or not will not be discussed for the time being, but really there are here definitely many places for possibilities of deliberation. And yet, Buddhist learning was a weapon in theory for the reform of society and in the observation of the keen intellect of human life, and in the China of the end of the Qing and the early Republic and even the world domain, the New Confucianism that was preeminent and that was fashionable overseas used Buddhist learning to construct its philosophy of life, and this fact also proved Li’s words to be true. Having understood this point, the research into modern Chan School history and the sudden upsurge in Chan learning had the effect of obtaining twice the result with half the effort. Truly, the Buddhism that was introduced from India into China underwent the baptism of Chinese culture and due to changes, gains and losses, it formed a Chinese Buddhism, and a Chinese Buddhist learning with distinctive features, in particular, the Chan School that had the special characteristics of a single and easy directness, that used introspection to see the nature and become buddha, and which occupied the most important place in the transformation of the thought of Chinese Buddhist culture. In the early period, it kept abreast of the doctrines of other schools of thought, and by the Song period, the Chinese Chan School of “a single leap of direct entry” consequently obtained the opportunity to occupy the headquarters of Chinese ideological culture. Even though there were great achievements by Faxiang and Pure Land in the revival of modern Chinese Buddhist learning, with regard to the investigations into the question of human life and its historical position, there is no doubt that these achievements did not equal those in the Chan School, in particular its infusion and infiltration into the thought of the other schools and into Confucian thought. Therefore, research into Buddhist history and learning cannot be divorced from the Chan School and cannot but be the object of mainstream research. Tang Yongtong, Jiang Weiqiao, Huang Chanhua and the later Feng Youlan, Hou Wailu, and Fan Wenlan all made their own contributions to research into the Chan School and their differing viewpoints also propelled the development of deeper research. Also, there was Hu Shi’s guide to Chan learning, Yinshun’s history of the Chan School, and in Japan just across the sea, there was the Zen thought of Suzuki Daisetsu that was called Suzuki Zen. These were specialist researches on the Chan School and Chan thought. Some of them used the methods of scientific positivism involving extensive quotes in evidence, distinguishing the false and indicating the new, and clarifying the precise position of Chan thought in history and culture; some used the methods of the combination of history and logic, and while doing textual research on historical facts, strove via reason to grasp the inherent rules of its developments and changes; some used a kind 4

Li Shicen, “Foxue yue rensheng.”

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of mystical direct perception called “a complete spiritualization” in order to deeply comprehend the totality and clearly observe the original source, and then obtain a completely new impression. The former is objective and positivist; the next group is reasonable and logical; the last emphasizes that it is only when external history is abandoned, the forms of logical thinking transcend dualistic antithesis, and one directly perceives and experiences, can one obtain the spirit and nature of Chan, and consequently, Chan is illogical and fanciful. Scholars were just using these different forms, and from different angles, they researched the forms and content, history and method, phenomena and nature of Chan thought. In fact, in any kind of scholarship, some talk of knowledge, in particular the knowledge of the humanities, which all have the two aspects of the directions of research; historical, formal, phenomenal, methodological, content, and essential. Research into the Chan School is not an exception. Nevertheless, ever since Buddhism was introduced into Chinese territory from the Han Dynasty onwards, Buddhist followers often gave priority to the translation of the scriptures and the writing of commentaries on them. Also, there was a concentration on meditation and enlightenment. They wanted to blend in the thorough understanding of the truth from the West, and yet they lacked a systematic concept of history. Even the works of historians are often mistaken about the traces of the rise and decay and shifts in Chinese Buddhism. Strictly speaking, in the discussion of history, it is very difficult to say that there is a systematic history of Chinese Buddhism. Even though a number of biographies of eminent monks and books on lineage and the records of lamplight transmissions can slightly remedy this inadequacy, they may have been written due to the intentional grasping of biases and abuses, and fights over the lineage of the Way; or they may have been written based on shallow knowledge and views, falsely adding ornamentation. The result was the continuous production of dubious books; the evil and auspicious occur mixed together, and speculation and strained interpretations all increased over time. In these books, with their fragmentation, interweaving of the true and false, and co-existence of the refined and the confused, the history of Buddhism had already lost its true face. When it came to its ideological nature, people are even further divided over words, and they are unable to reach an agreement. In particular, the form of the illogical experience of enlightenment in which the Way is cut off from language, as in the Chan School’s non-reliance on letters, cannot also reveal a consensus that directly penetrates its core. That is to say, of course in the historical aspect, but also in the aspect of its ideological nature, it is not easy to find this consensus. The differences between researchers in respect of the knowledge and the methodology adopted really means they cannot be without divergent views and disputes. Naturally, speaking of research as a whole, it is necessary to take into account the two aspects described above; that is, the ordering and the investigation of “history” and “principle.” The first is the need to investigate broadly and search in detail, a minute investigation of the facts, in order to return to the true features of the history; the second also requires a realization of the mind-nature with sympathy and a silent response, enlightenment to its real characteristics, and to perceive its mysteries. It is truly as Tang Yongtong said, “If one merely pursues it through evidential research into letters,” this is only a hunt for things of the past, “and one will be sure to not

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get to the truth.”5 But this is only putting an effort into the principles of the verbal differences between people, and is not taking notice of developments in thought, of the channeled search of the genealogies and changes and shifts in the sects, and of the distinguishing of true and false historical materials. It also can only run on the path toward talking of the mystical and profound, or to recognize the false as true, which also is surely unable to get the facts. It is just because this was so that modern scholars researching Buddhism usually took account of these two aspects. While they were doing textual research on the historical facts, those like Tang Yongtong, Jiang Weiqiao, and Liang Qichao were everywhere careful about clarifying the doctrines in detail and the inherent connections between history and thought; and those like Taixu and Ouyang Jingwu, in the two factions of Wuhan and Nanjing, when they were probing into the real characteristics of things, also did not neglect to investigate the changes in the sects, the truth and falsity of the historical materials, even if they did concentrate on concrete evidence; and Hu Shi, who “could only work on the ‘factual history’ of Buddhism as a pastime,”6 and who not only just did evidential research on the lineage of the Chan School, but who also, not without reason, argued that there was an ideological revolution of the Vajracchedik¯a (Diamond Sutra) against the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra, revealed the ultimate and method of Chan in his point-by-point analysis of the “totally insignificant” Chan mechanisms.7 One cannot deny that modern research on Buddhist learning also had specialists who devoted themselves to evidential research into historical materials and the investigation of doctrine. The former were those like Chen Yuan; the latter like the Zen learning of Suzuki Daisetsu. Undoubtedly, the above division is over the differences in research directions and research methodology, which is also to say that they belong to the two different domains of history and philosophy. In research on the Chan School, historians talk of Chan, and Chan practitioners talk of history. Originally there was nothing wrong with this, and there was no cause for criticism of the divergent views of Chan learning within which opinions differed. Even though the original cause arose from the differences between the religious and the secular, and the different forms of thinking about studying “history” and the study of “principle,” still more important was the Chan learning of direct awakening and enlightenment being the fundamental pathway that basically regarded shedding light on individual creative thinking to be where all currents return. This was hard to avoid in respect of different understandings and explanations of Chan. Hu Shi’s guide to Chan learning was weighted toward the evidential examination of factual history; Yinshun’s history of the Chan School was also weighted to the deeds of transmission and can be said also to have been about Chan methods of skillful means; and the Suzuki Zen praised by the West as a “new gospel,” which uses Chan to examine Chan, was a realization of the mind-nature. Each of them used their distinctive thought operations and forms 5

Tang Yongtong, Han Wei Liang-Jin Nanbei chao Fojiaoshi, postface, Zhonghua shuju, 1988. Tang Degan, Hu Shi koushu zizhuan (Oral Autobiography of Hu Shi), Taibei zhuanji wenxue chubanshe, 1981. 7 Hu Shi, “Zhongguo Chanxue zhi fazhan” (The Development of Chinese Chan Learning) 4, in Hu Shi shuo Chan (Hu Shi Speaks of Chan), Dongfang chubanshe, 1993, p. 196. 6

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of research, being people who gained a head start in the world of modern scholarship, and so remedied the deficiencies in the area of history. They provided modern explanations for, popularizations of, and secularized Chan thought in the world domain, imparting its brilliant achievements. Comparing their thought, methods, and research content clearly has significance in bringing out the essentials and opening the locks to the ordering of Buddhist culture.

Chapter 18

A Comparison of the Genesis of the Research into the Chan School by Hu Shi, Suzuki Daisetsu, and Yinshun

As is well known, Hu Shi was a master of Chinese studies who venerated positivism and had a fresh, modern consciousness. Positivism demands “respecting the facts and respecting evidence,” all requiring “the provision of evidence.” Therefore, Hu especially emphasized the material to be studied and the genetic method. Being a grand master of Chinese studies, although he recognized that China’s “many things are not the equal of its people,” in reality he devoted the energy of his whole life to research on the history of Chinese thought and Chinese literature and so on. It was just as Cai Yuanpei’s evaluation of him said: “His vision in understanding old books did not yield to the scholars of the Qianlong and Jiaqing eras of the Qing Dynasty.”1 It was exactly this scientific positivism and these concepts of history that always informed his idea that one should “have doubt about the undoubted” and “to treat all scholarly theories and ideals as provisional and awaiting proof.”2 He specially maintained a logical, critical attitude. He recognized that seen from this standpoint, “even though [the disciples of the Buddha] put on the air of a scientific analysis,” yet ultimately this was “superstition” and “all of its psychology of nothingbut consciousness and its theories of logic (yinming) are only methods to camouflage the lowest quality superstitions [such as] dh¯aran.¯ı.”3 Right through to his last years, Hu still emphasized that “My criticism of Indian thought is very severe” and “One must accept my lack of a good impression of the religion and philosophical aspects of the Buddhists… and I have no respect for them. I straightaway recognize that in its thousand years of diffusion throughout China (from the Eastern Han to the Northern Song) that it was harmful and with no benefits for the life of the citizens of China, and even more its harm was very deep and huge.” “The period of the Indianization of

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Cai Yuanpei, “Da Li Jun Qinnan han” (Letter of Reply to Mr. Li Qinnan) in Cai Yuanpei quanji (Complete Works of Cai Yuanpei), 3, Zhonghua shuju, 1984, p. 271. 2 Hu Shi, “Jieshao wo ziji de sixiang” (Introducing My Own Thought), requoted from Hu Shi shuo Chan, preface, Dongfang chubanshe, 1993, p. 1. 3 Hu Shi, “Du Wang Xiaoxu Xiansheng de Foxue yu kexue” (On Reading Master Wang Xiaoxu’s Buddhist Learning and Science,” quoted from Dongchu, Zhongguo jindai Fojiaoshi, p. 576. © Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_18

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China was a very great misfortune for the life of the citizens of China.”4 Therefore, he called his research into the history of the Chinese Chan School to be the work of “muckraking,” of removing the rubbish from out of Chinese culture. It is evident that the concepts of history, the focus on materials and methods, and the critical attitude towards the Buddha-dharma, including Chan learning in this, in his scholarship could not be accepted by such a great master of Chan learning as Suzuki Daisetsu and was naturally diametrically different from the ideas of Yinshun, who was a disciple of Buddhism. Therefore, even they all selected the Chan School as the object of their research, yet a different cultural environment created different psychological qualities, which determined their subsequent different research directions, which also determined that they definitely could not have had the same genesis. As with Cai Yuanpei’s evaluation, Hu Shi received an inheritance from Han Learning and he also he had an understanding of the history of Western philosophy. He was a contemporary scholar who linked China and the West. At first sight, Hu Shi, who basically did not have a good impression of Buddhism, and yet whose research put in order the Chinese cultural heritage, really made it difficult for people to seek an answer. As for his research into the history of the Chan School, the result of his enlightening the benighted also cannot be explained by the words “muckraking.” Also, using Hu Shi’s own words, “All learning and ideas are nothing but historical materials. The Buddha-dharma is the thought and faith advocated by only a certain part of humankind in a certain period.”5 One can see that he viewed the Buddha-dharma as being venerated cultural material on the thought and faith of a portion of people in certain stages of history. He saw Chan learning as “being unable to be entirely condemned out of hand,”6 as being a method of self-enlightenment to human life. Chinese Chan moreover was a new method that revolutionized Indian chan/meditation. Not only could this concept of history that viewed the history of the Chan School as historical materials and method reform it from the bottom and correct the pseudo-history and lies, and appreciate the wisdom of the truth of the ordinary human life and society from out of the mystical talk of profound emptiness, but this also concurred with one of his two great aims of putting Chinese cultural heritage in order – namely, the systematic research into the history of Chinese thought. Seen from this angle, not only is it not difficult to find an explanation for Hu Shi’s research on the Chan School, but it also it tallies with the characteristics of his scholarship that “used the vision of history to broaden the scope of Chinese studies.”7 In fact, in the early twentieth century when Hu Shi devoted himself to research into the history of Chinese philosophy, he began to notice Buddhist learning. In other words, just when Hu Shi was starting his own academic career, he confronted the influence of Buddhist culture on traditional philosophy. Then, when he came into

4

Tang Degang, Hu Shi koushu zizhuan. Hu Shi, “Du Wang Xiaoxu Xiansheng de Foxue yu kexue,” quoted from Dongchu, Zhongguo jindai Fojiao shi, p. 576. 6 Hu Shi, “Zhongguo Chanxue zhi fazhen” 4, Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 198. 7 Tang Degang, Hu Shi koushu zizhuan. 5

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contact with the development of the thought from after the Eastern Han to the WeiJin Northern and Southern Dynasties period, he unavoidably needed to touch on the relationships between Buddhism and Huang-Lao (Daoist philosophy), Daoist religion, and Xuanxue (Dark Learning). It was then that he began to pay attention to the profoundly marvelous and abstruse Buddhist learning. In the 1920s, he successively published essays researching Chan learning. Among them were “Putidamo kao” (A Study of Bodhidharma), which was a chapter in the history of Chinese medieval philosophy written by him. At the same time, he discovered the recorded sayings et cetera of Shenhui among the Dunhuang manuscripts held in Paris and London, and he wrote a review of Suzuki’s Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series) in the Times Literary Supplement. In 1928, in a reply to a letter from Tang Yongtong, he talked greatly of the guiding principles for the history of the Chan School, beginning an attempt to use new concepts and new methods, “rewriting from the start” a history of the Chan School that had scholarly value, trying through this to reveal its nature of being an iconoclastic religion. At the same time, this attempt was unwittingly transformed into a kind of attitude towards Buddhist culture to which he added an enthusiasm for research into Chan culture. One can see from this that the motivation that sparked off Hu Shi’s research into Buddhist learning and Chan School history arose out of his writing of a history of Chinese philosophy. Since he lacked a sympathetic understanding of Buddhism, he also was not doing so to propagate the Way. Liang Shuming evaluated Hu by saying, “His defect is that he cannot enter into it deeply, and in the Zhongguo zhexue shi dagang (Broad Outline History of Chinese Philosophy) written by him he could not write more than two fascicles. Because he could not find an access point into Buddhism, he had no means of taking up his pen to write of the Chan School of Buddhism.”8 This evaluation also has a certain reason. Because of this, Hu Shi got a not too pleasant nickname—“the first fascicle master” who “can only write half a book.” At least this explains that as he did not comprehend the sources and changes in Chinese Buddhist learning, he had no means of faithfully completing a history of Chinese philosophy, or for his research to be named a systematic, ordered work on the history of Chinese thought. Naturally, Liang’s evaluation and Suzuki Daisetsu’s counterattack on Hu Shi, which say that Hu only knew the historical background and did not know Chan itself, having such a focus of attention, hardly realize that this was a fresh feature of Hu Shi’s Chan learning that rather breathed life into a scholarly path of enquiry. In 1924, Hu Shi ventured to write a draft of Zhongguo Chanzong shi (A History of the Chinese Chan School), which truly aroused his creative enthusiasm and also his positivist thinking of “doubt” and “regarding all theories and ideals as provisional and awaiting proof.” He said, “When I came to write about Huineng, I was already very doubtful; when I wrote about Shenhui, I could not put down my pen.”9 Ten 8

Liang Shuming, “Luetan Hu Shizhi” (Briefly Talking of Hu Shi), in Hu Shi yanjiu conglu (Collected Records of Research on Hu Shi), Sanlian shidian, 1989, p. 3. 9 Hu Shi, Shenhui Heshang yiji xu (Preface to the Remaining Works of Reverend Shenhui), in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 143.

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years later, Hu Shi responded to an invitation from Beijng Normal University, where he gave the lectures, Zhongguo Chanxue zhi fazhan, which was the genesis for Hu starting to explain in detail his research into the Chan School. He pointed out that, of course, in China and also in Japan, the research into Chan learning “mostly uses a kind of religious attitude in research. It is only a belief in it and has not the slightest doubts.” “Next, it lacks an historical vision,” and third, the materials used “are mostly from the Song Dynasty and later,” and “they pay no attention to the collection of this material.” It was exactly because of these three deficiencies in the work on the history of the Chan School, added to which the great masters of the Chan School “all love to create falsities” “and so people of the orthodox lineage in the end often lift their sights to willfully alter the history of Chan learning,”10 that caused the falsely-altered pseudo-histories of the Chan School to perpetuate errors, which then became custom through long usage. He firmly believed that “For the most part, the Chan School material that is preserved today is eighty to ninety percent material [dating] from after the Northern Song reverends Daoyuan, Zanning, and Qisong, material which has often undergone various kinds of processes of false changes and fabrications.”11 Shenhui in particular was “a great swindler and specialist forger.”12 Therefore, he needed to search for original materials on the period of the development of the Tang Dynasty Chan School to rewrite a history of the Chan School from the start. In fact, he did just that. One can see from this that Hu Shi’s initial motivation for researching Buddhist history was in response to his need to research the history of Chinese thought. The first rule for his specialist research into Chan history was produced because the monks who “recognized the truth but created falsity” had distorted history. The second was aimed at the researchers of his time who emerged out of faith, “who used the false to create the truth,” and so they could not get the true appearance of the Chan School. Based on these two points, he first of all began by acquiring the materials, wanting to “anew write a definitive and faithful history of the early Nanzong (Southern Lineage of Chan).”13 Using his own words, it was a work of research into the history of Chinese thought in order to create an “original contribution.”14 In 1931, Hu Shi gave the Korean scholar Kim Kugy˘ong a letter in which he criticized Suzuki’s “excessive faith in old histories of the Chan School and therefore in the end he was unable to understand the history after the Lengqie (La˙nka) School,” and he also once told Liang Shiqiu that Suzuki’s theories on the Chan School “have all deceived Westerners.”15 From all of these one can see Hu Shi’s positivist attitude, non-religious concepts, 10

In his oral autobiography of his last years, Hu Shi said that 90–95% of the Chan School is entirely nonsense talk, fabrication, fraud, dissemblance, and posing. 11 Hu Shi, Shenhui Heshang yiji xu, in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 143. 12 Tang Degang, Hu Shi koushu zizhuan. 13 Hu Shi, Shenhui Heshang yiji xu, in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 143. 14 Tang Degang, Hu Shi koushu zizhuan. 15 Liang Shiqiu huairen conglu: Hu Shizhi Xiansheng lunshi (Liang Shiqiu’s Collections of Memories of People: Master Hu Shi’s Discussion of Poetry), Zhongguo guangbo dianshi chubanshe, 1991, p. 165.

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and concepts of history, which he held about the Chan School from start to finish in his research into Buddhist learning. This definitely does not apply to Yinshun, who had an especially deep religious orientation, nor to Suzuki, who everywhere wanted to grasp the inherent transcendental spirit of Chan learning. Regarding Suzuki Daisetsu’s research into the Chan School, some in speaking of the genesis of his Chan learning (Zengaku) wanted it to be as simple and natural as possible. Regarding his Chan/Zen faith, some endorse the idea that it seems through the course of his life that it was unceasingly nurtured and grew. Suzuki’s original personal name was Teitar¯o. Later it was changed to Daisetsu due to his study of Buddhism. His special sobriquet was Layman Yaf¯ury¯u. He was born in 1870 in Kanazawa City in Ishikawa-ken, northern Japan. He said in his Yaf¯ury¯uan jiden (Autobiography of Yaf¯ury¯uan) that he was born where there were many Shingon and S¯ot¯o School worshippers, the great majority of people believing in Buddhism. Suzuki’s mother was also a pious Shingon believer. In the eighth year of Meiji (1875), when Suzuki was five sui, has father and elder brother left this world one after the other, and his mother was in hospital due to illness. While she was ill, she bowed to the Buddha and chanted sutras unceasingly, which left a deep impression on the child Suzuki. This speaks of the influence of his environment and the imperceptible influences his family had on him; that the spirit of Buddhism had already been implanted in his innocent mind. When he was at middle school, Suzuki’s mathematics teacher, H¯oj¯o Tokiyuki (1858–1929) admired the Chan School and followed the famous Zen master Imakita K¯osen (1816–1892) of Engaku-ji in Kamakura in his study of Zen. This mathematics teacher powerfully propagated the Zen School in Kanazawa, gathering students for major talks on sitting in meditation. Suzuki clearly received an initiation into Zengaku (Chan learning). In 1891, Suzuki entered the philosophy course of the Humanities Faculty of Tokyo Imperial University. In the same year, at the recommendation of Hayakawa Senkichir¯o (1863–1922), he studied Zen with Imakita K¯osen. In the autumn of 1892, he also took S¯oen (1860–1919) of the Engaku-ji faction of the Rinzai School as his teacher. In this way, Suzuki, through the influences of his environment and the imperceptible influence of the religious atmosphere of his family, and the initiation and guidance of his teacher-friend, self-consciously began to follow that “path through to Zengaku.” Because of this, he was definitely unlike Hu Shi who came to the research into Buddhist learning in response to a scholarly need and so discovered that Chan masters had distorted history and therefore he had the ambition to write a “faithful history of the Chan School.” Suzuki had unconsciously already identified himself with Zen. He was also not a researcher into Chan history and the Chan Dharma who came from outside of the students of Zen. He was a Zen practitioner who had totally committed himself, body and mind, to becoming enlightened to the sphere of Zen. According to memories recorded in his late years, on a winter’s day of one year, “on the eighth

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day of the twelfth lunar month he controlled his mind (sesshin),”16 and yet from start to finish he could not get an understanding of the gongan (k¯oan) he was pondering, and the concept of “mu” (does not exist) lay across his mind at all times. He said, On the fifth day, when the sesshin period was about to end, I was already no longer conscious of the character mu (does not exist). I was already at one with mu and I identified with mu. Because of this, by being conscious of mu, the barrier to understanding that it contained no longer existed, and that is the genuine realm of sam¯adhi.

Thus, his comprehension closely resembles the stories of Xiangyan Zhixian and Wang Yangming hitting bamboo. When Zhixian hit bamboo, “he was suddenly enlightened”; Wang struck bamboo and “labored his thoughts, making him ill.” Suzuki investigated mu and on the fifth day he realized the realm of sam¯adhi. He said, after he was enlightened, “When I ran from the Zen hall towards where I was staying in the monastery, I saw only that the trees under the moonlight and I myself were both pure, transparent light.”17 This feeling definitely did not pay attention to source materials, pay attention to logic, and pay attention to the concepts of history that scholars can appreciate. From this we can see that Suzuki’s Zengaku from the start was not on the same path that Hu Shi pursued. Hu Shi, who thought of himself as a scholar, required the discrimination between true and false historical materials and the shifts in thought, and therefore wanted to remove the false and preserve the true, and for that to be passed through scientific analysis to reveal the secular appearances of the changes in thought. Based on his training when young and his faith in the Chan School, Suzuki grasped the infinite concepts of the Chan School transcendence of dualistic anithesis, and therefore he did not remove the false and preserve the true of Chan learning, and so his was a duplication of thought. In 1893, Suzuki followed his teacher to the other shore of the Pacific Ocean and became an assistant to the American Buddhist scholar Paul Carus, and he proceeded to spread his Japanese-style of Zengaku into the world domain, and he won the title of “World Zennist.” He and Hu Shi, who had sought afar for historical materials on Shenhui in Paris, London, Tokyo, and Dunhuang, clearly proceeded along two paths that began from different starting points. If one says that Hu Shi’s research into the history of the Chan School emerged out of the needs for research into the history of Chinese thought and to disentangle the errors and distinguish the falsifications, Suzuki based himself on the silent recognition of the spirit of the Chan School and the duplication of stories, and Yinshun, who regarded himself as a disciple of Buddhism, in his research into the history of the Chan School was acting to propagate correct views and a progressive examination of history. In terms of his significance, Yinshun also had the quality of being a scholar. Yinshun’s lay name was Zhang Luqin and sobriquet Shengzheng, was a native of Haining in Zhejiang Province. When he was young his family was poor and he had to drop out of primary school at thirteen sui. He then learnt Chinese medicine and the 16

Tr. sesshin is a term derived from the story of the Buddha sitting in meditation from the first day to the eighth day of the twelfth month. 17 Suzuki Daisetsu, Zenten Zenchi: s¯ onen no kioku (?) (Zen Heaven and Zen Earth: Recollections of My Early Years).

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Way of immortality. Then he became a primary school teacher. In 1925, just about the time that Hu Shi began to try and write his draft of the Zhongguo Chanzong shi (History of the Chinese Chan School), Yinshun read Feng Mengzhen (1548–1605)’s Zhuangzi xu (Introduction to Zhuangzi), and in it there was the sentence, “Were not Zhuangzi’s text and Guo (Xiang)’s commentary the precursors of the Buddhadharma?” This provoked his interest in searching the Buddha-dharma. After this, he sought the Buddhist scriptures in many places, studying diligently and reading assiduously, hoping to find the quintessential meaning of the Buddhists and harboring an intense craving for knowledge. He was forced to leave home to seek teachers and visit friends in the famous monasteries in the mountain forests. In the autumn of 1930, when he was twenty-five sui, he was tonsured at Fuquan Hermitage on Mt. Putuo and became a monk via a recommendation of Dharma Master Yushan. The next year he followed Great Master Taixu in studying Buddhism at the Minnan Foxueyuan (South Fujian Institute of Buddhist Learning), and due to this he forged a link with Taixu’s “Buddhist Learning of Human Life” and “Humanistic Buddhism.” Right through to 1947 when Taixu passed away, Yinshun was at the Wuchang Foxueyuan founded by Taixu and at the Han-Zang jiaoliyuan (Sino-Tibetan Buddhist Institute) in Sichuan and so on, where he was employed as a lecturer, and he went further to accept the ideas of humanistic Buddhism and the Buddhist learning of human life. One may say thus that Yinshun regarded these as having a political hue and through them he promoted a revolution in Buddhism, and in scholarship he could harmonize Chinese and Western, blend together the various schools, and in the world of the monks he also headed the list of the disciples of Taixu who could be proud of his erudition. His methods of research and his grasp of Buddhist doctrine definitely cannot be just that of Buddhist faith, and he did not select any of the various sorts of Buddhist texts and monk biographies to bow down to and worship. In 1938, when he was at the Wuchang Institute of Buddhist Learning, he resolved to conduct a text-critical examination of Buddhist history, proceeding from the concepts of the Buddhist learning of human life, and in the given time and space of the actual world to understand the sources and the evolution of the Buddha-dharma, and thereby promote the propagation of the Correct Dharma and the turn of Buddhism towards engagement with the world. After Taixu passed away, Yinshun then resided as abbot of Xuedu Monastery in Fenghua, where he worked on the compilation of the Taixu Dashi quanshu (Complete Works of Great Master Taixu), through which he necessarily accepted Taixu’s thought even more deeply. In 1952, Yinshun shifted to Taiwan from Hong Kong, founding and being abbot of the Fuyun Jingshe (Monastery) in Xinzhu. He was also employed as the guiding master of Shandao Monastery. From 1964, he devoted himself to research and writing, and propagating the Dharma overseas. According to what Yinshun has said, his scholarly career passed through four periods; namely, study, development, preaching, and maturity. Of these, in the development period from 1940 to 1952, he created a large volume of lectures and writings. He wrote Xing kong xue tanyuan (Search for the Sources of the Learning of the Nature and Emptiness) and Zhongguan jinlun (A Modern Discussion of Madhyamaka) et cetera; after 1964, his thought matured even more. This was the golden age of his

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scholarly career and he published not a few excellent works. His Zhongguo Chanzong shi (History of the Chinese Chan School) is a masterpiece written in his period of mature thought. In February 1971, which was five years after Suzuki had passed away and nine years after Hu Shi had deceased, the Zhongguo Chanzong shi was published. Before it was published, Yinshun wrote in the preface: I am not an heir of Bodhidharma and Caoqi, nor have I tried to fathom gongan or have an interest in the empty talk of the principles of Chan. In earlier years, the Zhongyang ribao (Central Daily News) had it that the Platform Sutra was written by Shenhui or that it represented the exhortations of Huineng, which drew my attention towards this history.

According to this, Yinshun’s writing of a history of the Chinese Chan School was brought about by the debate over the question of the authorship of the Platform Sutra carried in the Zhongyang ribao. Due to the lack of available source materials, we do not know who to point to as author, but Hu Shi had already in the 1920s and early 1930s publicly announced to the scholarly world his electrifying words, “the prajñ¯a revolution,” “the Southern School attack on the Northern School,” and “Shenhui’s fabrication” with regard to the question of Shenhui and the Platform Sutra. A half century later, Yinshun, who was an eminent disciple of Great Master Taixu who was known far and wide, pledged himself to research Buddhist history but was unable to obtain knowledge of the debate till the end of the 1960s from the Zhongyang ribao. It should be said that he had already had a plan concerning his research into the history of the Chinese Chan School before this time. Naturally, it was not impossible that this news was seen by him as forming a direct cause or a contributing cause for his research. Yet he specially stressed that he was not a disciple of the Chan School transmission of the Dharma, and that he also was not a religious believer who focused on the barbed comments, staff blows and shouts, and the Chan opportunities of profound thoughts, but for a single monk this was worth pondering. The idea that he enunciated was in his explanation, which said that he was not following the standpoint of Buddhism and nor was he following the faith of the Chan School, but he was researching Chan learning and Chan history from the angle of scholarship. He continued on to say, Reading the sections relating to the history of the Chan School in Hu Shi’s Shenhui Heshang yiji (Remaining Records of Reverend Shenhui), Hu Shi wencun (Preserved Writings of Hu Shi), and Hu Shi shugao (Drafts by Hu Shi), and the works of Japanese scholars…concerning the collection and handling of new materials, these were of a great assistance to my research! And yet I became aware that in the period from Bodhidharma to the Huichang [Persecution of Buddhism] years, that [Chan] had evolved from an Indian chan to a Chinese form (maybe my views are not excessive), which seems to still need considerable research.

Thus he also made the expression of his intentions even clearer. That is to say, research into the history of the Chinese Chan School needed to be even further deepened on the basis of the research by Hu Shi and some of the Japanese scholars. In particular, the 350 years from Bodhidharma via Huineng through to the third generation from Huineng with Huaihai, Weiyan, and Daowu, “are exactly the period of uninterrupted development of Bodhidharma’s Chan, which gradually adapted to

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and became Chinese Chan.” This is going “from an Indian chan to a Chinese Chan,” that is the evolutionary course of “the fusion of Chinese and Indian culture,” which required a deeper and repeated investigation. One can see that the genesis of Yinshun’s research into Chan School history emerged out of an earnest pursuit of scholarly research, which was a change from his early fostering of a mind of Chan School knowledge into a scholarly practice. Discussed from this point of view, there is no difference between his research and that of Hu Shi and even that of Tang Yongtong and others, even though the depths of his thought contained even more religious sentiments. Nevertheless, the Zhongguo Chanzong shi was ultimately a relatively systematic history of the Chan School written by a Chinese. However, the foci of attention on the genesis of the research into the Chan School by Yinshun and Hu Shi also had differences. Hu Shi thought that over 90% of all extant Chan School materials were untruthfully altered and fabricated; Yinshun only thought that “the transmission of Channists of the past clearly are inaccurate and inadequate.” Their methods of looking at whether the materials were true or false and at their inaccuracies were not the same. Naturally, this also determined that the material they drew upon were not the same. The second thing that was not the same was that Hu Shi viewed the period before the Song as being important, that is, that “the greatest period of Chan School development” was from the time of Empress Wu Zetian to the fall of the Northern Song. Yinshun concentrated on the process of the evolution of a Chinese Chan out of an Indian chan from Bodhidharma until the Huichang period. On account of the fabrications by Chan monks, Hu Shi wanted to rewrite the history of the Chan School and take note of the secularizing tendency of Chan learning. Yinshun further emphasized the revelation of how the school of Huineng consistently made Thus Come (tath¯agata) Chan (rulai chan) more philosophically Daoist, which was making it more like Dark Learning and into a Chinese Chan. Simply speaking, Hu Shi used the standpoint of a scholar and responded to the demands of the research into the history of Chinese thought and so turned to research on Buddhism, and due to the fabrications of history by Chan monks in the past he concentrated on the contributions of Shenhui to the history of the Chan School. Suzuki used his daily strengthening religious sentiments and naturally he devoted himself to the understanding and reproduction of Chan learning. However, Yinshun, with the status of a disciple of Buddhism, was dissatisfied with the inaccuracies of the lineage masters in respect of Chan history and the Chan Dharma, and so adopted scholarly research, and yet this was not the path of religious belief.

Chapter 19

A Comparison of the Core Concepts of the Chan Learning of Hu Shi, Suzuki Daisetsu, and Yinshun

Beginning from the end of the nineteenth century, the world of scholarship valued highly the fin de siècle philosophy. They thought that the proclamation of a material civilization fostered the downfall of that society. They began to turn from the material to the soul in search of spiritual solace, and due to this, research into the question of human life replaced the positions of cosmology and methodology, and this was the fin de siècle philosophy. Therefore, there were people who even thought that China in the decade-plus years after the May Fourth Movement was also fin de siècle. They created universal rules for the development of thought, and for the time being it will not be considered whether they were correct or not, and yet thinkers facing a material civilization that was advancing rapidly in its developments and that bore negative consequences for humanity, producing new confusions, meant that in fact these thinkers made moves in scholarship for a total change of direction from the material to the spiritual, from the natural to the mental, from science to human life, and from the present towards the traditional, and from the East to the West. They used the question of the nature of the mind and the question of human life that were at the core of Buddhist philosophy, which in the late-Qing to earlyRepublican period and even in the world domain, that were just like promises of renewal, and made them preeminent, which really demonstrated that the question of human life occupied an important position in contemporary scholarship. Even all stupid-looking and frustrated politicians who pretended to listen seriously to the lectures by Great Master Taixu and who had connections with his school were unable to access Buddhist learning. In particular, some were warlords who killed people enmass, and yet they were also devoted to the Buddhist tendency to “be compassionate and liberate all [beings]” and “to love sentient beings.” The sudden rise of modern Buddhist culture, with a background that was a riot of confused hues, being the result of research into Buddhist learning, and definitely research into Chan learning, had to take the course of developing in greater depth. In fact, their different methods and different conclusions in the research into the history of the Chan School were produced in the main due to different understandings of the core concepts of Chan.

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Occurring in the early period of the 1950s, the debate between Hu Shi and Suzuki Daisetsu is still fresh in the memories of people of the present day. Because they had a shared interest in research into the early Chan School, they had formed a friendship as early as the 1930s. However, at this point, because they also understood Chan differently, this friendship changed and became an emotional diametrically opposed debate. Really, their mutual accusations were made even though they had a similar factual basis. The guiding ideas of their arguments were poles apart. The focus point of their debate did not lie in how to grasp the essential spirit of Chan, but lay in the core concept of how to understand what Chan is and was made with respect of grasping the “true essence” of Chan. Because of their different methodological approaches, it was possible to make different choices, and even though these were accurate, this was the component of error. One should see that Hu Shi and Suzuki already had different methods of looking at Chan learning, probably because they found it hard to grasp such fancies that were baseless idle talk, or it was due to a deficiency in their accumulated knowledge. Therefore, they made such general criticisms. In 1927, Hu Shi published a review of Suzuki’s Essays in Zen Buddhism in the London Times Literary Supplement, pointing out that the passages in the Essays concerning Chan history were comparatively weak and short. In 1931, Hu Shi also sent a letter to the Korean scholar Kim Kugy˘ong in which he criticized Suzuki for an “excessive belief in the old histories of the Chan School, and therefore in the end he was unable to understand the history of the period after the Lengqie (La˙nka) School [of the sixth and seventh centuries].” In other words, he recognized that Suzuki only relied on the untruthfully altered old histories of the Chan School, which was not the truth about the Chan School. And yet, this ultimately also had no relation to understanding the Chan School itself. In April 1953, Hu Shi wrote “Ch’an Buddhism in China, its History and Method,” which was published in Hawaii University’s Philosophy East and West. In these essays he criticized Suzuki’s Chan learning. He said that although Suzuki’s works talking about Chan “have succeeded in winning an audience and a number of believers,” “I have never concealed from him my disappointment in his method of approach.” Hu’s “greatest disappointment has been that, according to Suzuki and his disciples, Zen is illogical, irrational, and therefore, beyond our intellectual understanding.” It appears that this criticism of Suzuki’s method was actually not correct. Hu drew support from his examination of the history of Chan and the intellectual and rational analysis, and also a secularized knowledge, and so he fundamentally denied Suzuki’s intentions. He wrote, Any man who takes this unhistorical and anti-historical position can never understand the Zen (Chan) movement or the teaching of the great Zen masters. Nor can he hope to make Zen properly understood by the people of the East or the West. The best he can do is to tell the world that Zen is Zen and is altogether beyond our logical comprehension

This criticism really is to say that Suzuki’s Chan not only was not what the Chan masters taught, but also was never what they said. If one says that this criticism is also implicit, that is saying that he was sparing Suzuki’s feelings, but he did say to

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Liang Shiqiu, “One does not need to believe his nonsense, which is hoodwinking Westerners!” This is a direct expression of his thoughts. If this was the case, then it is of vital importance, and it is no wonder that the compiler sent an abstract of Hu’s text to Suzuki Daisetsu in Japan. Without the slightest polite reservation, Suzuki wrote a long article discussing Chan, proceeding to counter-attack Hu Shi’s criticisms. He rather caustically pointed out that Hu Shi knew nothing of Chan, and since he had not discussed the qualifications for being Chan, “then there is no need to discuss its various historical backgrounds.” In April 1954, Philosophy East and West, vol. 3 no. 1 published these two essays on the Chan School together. To be fair, Hu Shi’s essay did not directly engage in critical views of Suzuki’s Chan learning; it was just an examination of history and spoke mostly of the question of method. Of course, he also strove to prove that this “Chan” is “the Chan that fundamentally cannot be calculated”1 and is “definitely unlike the ordinary and usually described illogicality and irrationality,” and that it only needs “to be placed in the normal tendencies of that revolutionary age,” which enables one to “obtain an appropriate understanding.” “There is a conscious and rational method which may be described as a method of education via painful learning, by letting the individual find out things through his own effort and through his ever-widening experience.” Explained from the reverse side, this so-called “Chan” is not “irrational” and “altogether beyond the ken of human understanding,” since reason can understand it and logic can grasp its “innovation or revolution within Chinese Buddhism.” Suzuki did not think so; in diametric opposition he refuted Hu Shi’s viewpoint. From the aspects of the knowing that is not knowledge, the history that is not time and place, and the logic that is not reason, he repeatedly stressed that “With the exception of the historical background that is beyond the understanding of Chan, Hu Shi basically does not know Chan itself.”2 Yet he did not state clearly what is “all the marvelous meanings” of “knowing,” and what is “time and space and non-time-and-space,” and what also is his non-historicist logic. This no doubt is above criticism, because Chan itself is ineffable. And yet Hu Shi naturally did not regard this as worthy of the slightest attention. From another side, Hu Shi’s criticisms of Suzuki definitely invited many people’s opposition. As he himself said, his position was that in China, Japan, and even in English-speaking countries where, due to these Chan sayings being obscure and hard to understand, they on the contrary were loved by people, something that was not entirely accepted by people (researchers into Buddhist learning).3 Liang Shiqiu said, after hearing Hu Shi say that Suzuki had deceived people, that “Master Hu was an experimentalist and naturally he was unable to comprehend the realm of Chan.”4 His idea was to say that Hu did not understand the essence of Chan. Suzuki’s assistant, 1

Tr. original, “altogether beyond the ken of human understanding”? Tr. this is probably a translation of Suzuki’s “Hu Shih does not understand Zen as it is in itself, apart from its ‘historical setting’” in “Zen: A Reply to Hu Shih” in Philosophy East and West. 3 Tang Degang, Hu Shi koushu zizhuan, Taibei chuanji wenxue chubanshe, 1981. 4 Liang Shiqiu huairen conglu, p. 165. 2

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Kud¯o Sumiko, a year after Suzuki’s death, published his texts related to the debate on Chan learning. In her translator’s appendix she wrote: Dr. Hu Shi used his status as an historian to oppose Master Daisetsu. In recent years there has been a vogue for all sorts of attempts to scientifically analyze and elucidate Chan from the angles of historiography, psychology, and psychiatry, and this naturally is a welcome phenomenon. However, just as Master Daisetsu has said, no matter how much we amass such detailed scientific research, we still have no means to deeply penetrate to the essence of Chan. The dispute between the Channist Master Daisetsu and the historian Dr. Hu Shi clearly showed the difference in the two kinds of standpoint, which is worth pondering

These words of Kud¯o doubtlessly are biased towards Daisetsu’s approach, yet she says that the standpoints of the Channist and the historian are not the same, which should say it in a word. When Tang Degang was writing Hu Shi koushu zizhuan, he often raised the fact that when the scholar Hu Shi was “arranging Buddhism” he was too “scientific” and that he “overly emphasized scholarly facts”; religion “usually seeks to emphasize the meaning of life and the satisfaction of feelings and this thing ‘Chan’ has a definite attraction in these aspects.” These words also criticize Hu Shi’s deviations from the understanding of Chan’s core concepts, which likewise is worth people pondering. One can see from this that the opposition between Suzuki and Hu Shi over knowledge of the core concepts of the Chan School was an opposition of “Chan” versus “non-Chan.” In Hu Shi’s view, the essence of the Chinese Chan School was a revolution within Chinese Buddhist learning and its true mission was in liberating knowing and was a method of “smashing barriers, transcending all,” “making people content” and “making people become an everyday person who eats and shits.” Or he said it was a “wisdom” that “figures out a means out of no means.”5 Seen historically, this was a thought and belief some people advocated; seen realistically, it was an Occam’s razor6 for “the razor of Chinese Ch’an, with which the medieval ghosts, the gods, the bodhisattvas and the Buddhas, the four stages of dhy¯ana, the four formless states of sam¯adhi, the six divine powers of the attained yoga practitioner, etc., were to be cut off and destroyed,” or he said it is “[Layman] P’ang’s razor,” “the razor of Chinese Ch’an.”7 This is the idea of his “fundamentally cannot be counted as Chan,” is “not Chan”!8 Simply speaking, the Chan Hu Shi understood is the wisdom of the ordinary person of liberated knowing. This can be entirely grasped by reason and logic. Suzuki’s understanding of Chan is hard to touch on via language and ideas, and the historical

5

Hu Shi, “Zhongguo Chanxue zhi fazhan” 4, in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 200. Occam’s razor indicates an economical rule or a rule of utmost frugality. It excludes anything unnecessary and that must not be added to. This was proposed by the scholastic Occam and was used to obtain incomparable sharpness. 7 Hu Shi, “Chanzong zai Zhongguo: tade lishi he fangfa” (Ch’an [Zen] Buddhism in China: its History and Method), in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 261 (p. 17). 8 Tr. there is a difficulty here in that what he might be saying is that chan (meditation) is not Chan. 6

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background to action is entirely psychologized and “is a kind of unique existence that cannot be reproduced.”9 In his book, Tongxiang Chanxue zhi lu,10 he made the following explanations of Chan: It is the antipode to logic, by which I mean the dualistic mode of thinking Zen wants to rise above logic, Zen wants to find a higher affirmation where there are no antitheses Hush the dualism of subject and object, forget both, transcend the intellect, sever yourself from the understanding, and directly penetrate deep into the identity of the Buddha-mind Through the refinement of body and mind, to clearly see the original face of one’s mind The freedom of the mind that has cast off any unnatural bonds An absolute authority inherent within an individual person that is established by removing any external authority A living fact of human life that depends on acknowledging reality, which unusually is the obtaining of a self inspired by an unrepeatable fact of usual life…. That makes people at every moment embrace an eternal time and an unlimited space

As Suzuki saw it, the dualistic antitheses of cause and effect, time and space, subject and object, human and god, and humans and nature etc. that are constructed by reason “all cause the spirit to be unable to free itself from this pitfall.” Therefore, he required recognition of the original face of things, so one cannot rely on reason and can only rely on knowing and sensation “that do not involve the path of reason and directly were in contact with the facts arising from life,” and therefore he could also say Chan is “the most realistic and the most direct method of training the mind.” It was only having such that one is capable of “impartially experiencing and capturing the ultimate truth.” Summarizing what Suzuki said above, Chan is a denial of dualistic antithesis that shakes off the natural bonds, realizes the freedom of the mind, and clearly sees one’s own original face, which “is a completely positive, eternal affirmation” of an absolute of the inherent authority within the self that is erected on the eternal and unlimited. Simply speaking, the absolute affirmation of oneself that transcends dualistic antithesis is the essence of Chan. In his reply to Hu Shi, Suzuki raised the theory of elimination. “According to the Zen point of view, the universe is a circle without a circumference, and every one of us is the center of the universe. To put it more concretely: I am the center, I am the universe, I am the creator. I raise the hand and lo! there is space, there is time, there is causation. Every logical law and every metaphysical principle rush in to confirm the reality of my hand.” One can even more clearly understand from this that Suzuki’s thinking of eradicating dualistic antithesis 9

Suzuki Daisetsu, “Chan: Jingda Hu Shi Boshi” (Zen: A Reply to Hu Shih) in Zhongguo Chanzong Daquan (Great Collection on the Chinese Chan School), Changchun chubanshe, 1991, p. 1063. 10 Tr. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, pp., pp.8, 39, 125 for first three quotes; the remainder I have translated from Chinese because the original has not been located.

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is the realization and affirmation of oneself as being the ultimate concern. Naturally, this violation of conventional thinking, as seen by Hu Shi, a historian who venerated factual evidence, was undoubted madness, yet he also affirmed madness as a method. In order to explain the reality and possibility of this absolute affirmation, Suzuki stressed the explanation of the connotation of “knowing.” He said that Zongmi took Shenhui’s method of teaching and reduced it to the “knowing” of the “gate of the marvels.” Hu Shi translated this as “knowledge,” which totally lost its original meaning. This was a result of him “fundamentally not understanding Chan itself.” He thought that Shenhui’s “knowing” in fact was a discriminatory knowledge that contrasted with a “prajñ¯a knowing,” and this was different from “knowledge about that” from a “knowledge that came out of that,” which was an unknowable knowledge and was not a knowable knowledge. That corresponded to Spinoza’s “direct intuitive knowledge” (Scientia intuitive), a “kind of intuition [that] is absolutely certain and infallible and, in contrast to ratio, produces the highest peace and virtue of the mind,” which is “utterly convincing and contributive to the feeling that ‘I am the ultimate reality itself,’ that ‘I am absolute knower.’” This further explains the spirit of Chan, even though what I myself affirm is eternal and limitless. This is a kind of post-modern ultimate concern. The above description is of an entirely secularized wisdom and method opposed to a trans-time-and-space absolute affirmation, which is the opposition between Hu Shi and Suzuki Daisetsu’s “not Chan” and “Chan.” In fact, they both committed an evident error. As Suzuki said, Chan is not only irrational and illogical, only being able to rely on the experiential comprehension of intuition, but also is ineffable. This should be said to be correct. Hu Shi had openly denied this particular characteristic of Chan, completely relying on the language of logical thinking to interpret Chan as being a method to “be born after being placed in a dead end,” and therefore he wrote about Chan at great length. Even though he produced a function of waking people from ignorance, yet in respect of such difficulties in the use of letters and language to clearly express the essence of Chan he only attained something feeble and insipid. Thus, his interpretation of Chan was also “fundamentally uncountable as [being] Chan.” Suzuki then caused people to not comprehend, and he used every conceivable means of using language to express his own ideas about that thing that could not be “described in linguistic description or in writing.” Therefore, even though he wrote prolifically, not only was his absolute affirmation that transcended affirmation and denial inconsistent with the negative spirit of the “no mind” and “no abiding” of the Chan School, it was also inconsistent with the traditional Buddhist concept of “emptying that which is empty.” Naturally, in the aspects of his affirmation of the human subjective consciousness and the unlimited expansion of mental consciousness, he also agreed with the Chan masters. Thus, all these talks about Chan that he made were not the equal in their charm to the quick-witted replies he made to an audience

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after giving a speech at Hawaii University.11 In that sense, the author of this book’s interpretation of Suzuki’s thought has also committed the same error. Just because of Chan’s “ineffable” nature, Hu Shi’s understanding of it as “wisdom,” “the life of everyday people,” and “liberated knowing,” and Suzuki Daisetsu’s “mental training,” “ordinary life,” and “inherent absolute,” at first appear also to be so similar that they even had a sense of reaching the same goals by different routes. And yet Hu Shi’s understanding is ultimately realistic, tangible and visible. Suzuki’s method of speaking could only rely on his own mind’s lone pondering and comprehension. Looking at these concrete methods of expression, they appear to be the same and yet different, seem to be reasonable but are not. These two are probably exactly as Ms. Kud¯o said; that they were an opposition of Chan and history, which was the locus of people’s interests. Yinshun was born in the first years of the twentieth century and his Zhongguo Chanzong shi was completed after the scholars who had researched the Chan School, Hu Shi and Suzuki, had passed away. It should be said that his research into the history of the Chan School possessed even more convenient conditions and contemporary consciousness. His background was in the Buddhist Order and he was profoundly influenced by respect for “the Buddhist learning of human life,” and he also unavoidably absorbed contemporary scholars’ scientific and text-critical methods of writing history. Even though he did not mention Suzuki’s Chan learning, it was still impossible that they had no contact. Therefore, in comparison, his knowledge of the Chan School in particular appears to have been important. According to what Yinshun himself said, “Chan history should have two major parts: the deeds and inheritances of the Channists; and the bestowal of expedient means and the development of the Chan method.” Undoubtedly, the history of the Chan School stresses the historical, yet he not only considered the historical materials to be valuable, which is largely similar to Hu Shi’s methods of research, he also viewed “the diversity of tradition” as important, and in another aspect, he also emphasized the bestowal of expedient means and the development of the Chan method. Of course, expedient means are not the essence of Chan, yet this also translates up¯aya (expedient means) as “good skills” and “plan of transformation.” This is an adaptation and implementation of the core concepts of Chan, and therefore it directly links to the core of Chan. When Yinshun was talking about expedient means he was unable to not talk about what Chan is. He drew on a metaphor: There was a person who found an old road in the wilderness. He followed the old road and found a walled town and the palace of ancient kings. Then he returned to encourage the king of his country to shift the capital to the old royal palace. There “it is peaceful and calm, and the residents are very prosperous.” That is to say, it is a fact that the Buddha-dharma is an experience of self-awakening. The Buddha is found, is enlightened to, and achieves the ultimate freedom of liberation…. Speaking from the realm of the Buddha’s self-awakening, it is something all knowledge, language and letters can exert. Just like the discovery of an old royal palace, how does one speak about it to people? Even if another person accepts this 11

When the speech came to an end a person asked him what is the truth and he answered, “Winter winter, winter winter, winter winter.” Asked again what this meant, he again replied, “Winter winter…”.

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as a fact, it is not the equal of personally passing through the old royal palace. One needs to verify it through one’s own trip there. On this point, the Buddha-dharma (Chan) not only is not a critical investigation that can be critically investigated, it is also not a theory that can be explained

Well, that has just brought us here. This is speaking of Chan in terms of the whole of Buddhist learning. Yinshun recognized that Chan is the fact of the self-awakening experience. In other words, the essence of Chan is the personal verification and experience (the sole criterion for the testing of the truth was the historical source of practice, which was seen as being the Chan School). He stressed that this could not be proved evidentially and also could not be used in theory, that is, proved logically. Seen from this point of view, he and Hu Shi were entirely different and he and Suzuki followed different paths leading to the same goal. Nevertheless, the difference between Yinshun and Suzuki is also very clear. Yinshun not only viewed the Chan School as being an ineffable, self-awakening, and experiential enlightenment that could not be critically investigated, but even more importantly, he also viewed it as being an expedient means of excellent skills to guide students that can be sought out and investigated. He said, But the Buddha-dharma does not stop with being an experience via one’s own mind (zong, tenet) and how one speaks the unspoken, and also the spoken, and the expressed ( jiao, the teaching). The Buddha-dharma has already become the Buddha-dharma of actual (in time and space) human beings. Even though the finger is not the moon, yet it can definitely lead people to notice the moon and find the moon. Therefore, even though “To speak of a thing is to not be on target,” still that does not prevent one from expressing the content of the experience of one’s own mind. Language and letters (properly speaking, rhetorical, and meaningless words) are OK; silence and not making a sound is OK; illustrating with the aid of gestures is OK; all are used to draw people to the best stepping-stones to success. Experiential enlightenment pertains to self-realization; it is “not depending on the teaching of others,” is “non-reliance on letters,” and is the “mental transmission.” Speaking of it in terms of a guiding expedient means, it exists among people, and it formed into a Chan style of a time, a region, a lineage and a faction. This is able to be sought out and able to be investigated, and one can see that this was an historical fact in the development of Chan

One can see that Yinshun very skillfully divided Chan into the “tenet (essence)” of the experience of one’s own mind and the “teaching” of skillful expedient means. Even though the finger is not the moon, it is still able to point out the moon, and even though the “tenet” cannot be spoken, the teachings are expedient means that show the “tenet,” which is a real fact that can be examined. Because of this, he disregarded the experiential enlightenment and self-realization that cannot use language and letters for it to be expressed, namely “the trans-time-and-space experience,” and solely spoke of the rules and methods for being enlightened, namely “the expedient means that are in actual time and space.” It appears this was a sensible and easy approach. Seen from this viewpoint, Chan is an expedient means to teach people self-realization.12 Speaking concretely of the Chinese Chan School, Yinshun simply abandoned the profound and empty principles of Chan, prominently emphasizing that Bodhidharma’s Chan is more influenced by philosophical Daoism and was more like Dark 12

All the quotes are from Yinshun’s “Preface” to his Zhongguo Chanzong shi, Shanghai shudian, 1992.

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Learning. He said that Bodhidharma’s school did not value the system of vinaya, did not value the teachings of the sutras, and did not value other-power, which was the usual tendency of Chan masters. “This mind is Buddha,” “There is no cultivation and no realization,” which are clichés of Mah¯ay¯ana; and Heze (Shenhui)’s “the knowing of non-abiding,” and Hongzhou’s “function is seeing the nature” are all the bestowal of the expedient means of Indian chan (meditation). It was only the philosophical Daoist ideas of “The no-mind is the Way,” which was the Chan learning of Niutou that was absorbed by Caoqi (Huineng). That “then formed the Chinese Chan School of absolute critical and destructive (discriminatory) knowledge, not using creation, which also solely gave importance to self-benefit and despised the services that benefit others.” Even though previous scholars agreed in thinking that Buddhist learning absorbed philosophical Daoist thought, in particular the union with the profound style in the south-east Yangzi basin, Yinshun examined the increasingly Dark Learning-influenced Niutou Chan as an important position in the history of the Chinese Chan School from the aspect of the bestowal of expedient means and their changes. This theory can be said to be enlightening the ignorant and opening a new path of investigation. Summarizing the above, of course Hu Shi viewed Chan as being a kind of wisdom and method that can be grasped through the use of history and logic, Suzuki stressed that Chan was an absolute affirmation that transcends time and space that cannot be described in language and letters, and Yinshun analyzed Chan as being skillful means to teach people to understand the tenet and obtain the meaning, and was a Sinified (philosophical Daoist-influenced) Indian chan (meditation). Really, they all viewed Chan as being a kind of method of actualizing oneself that enables expression. Regardless of whether they accepted this or not, that experience and enlightened realm of Chan has no way to use language and letters to express this. However, comparatively speaking, Yinshun’s viewpoint has a characteristic of analysis, and also, while he was talking of principle, he clearly displayed a scholarly style that was intimate with history and reality. It is only the words of the lowly that go unheeded, and his was a history of the Chan School that was far from capturing the influence on the scholarly world of Hu Shi’s text-critical writings and Suzuki’s works that tried to talk about Chan in his own way.

Chapter 20

A Comparison of the Research Methodology of the Chan Learning of Hu Shi, Suzuki Daisetsu, and Yinshun

The methods of dealing with Chan learning of Hu Shi and Suzuki were evidently different. Simply speaking, Hu Shi used concepts of history to be the guiding, objective search for proof; Suzuki built a subjective interpretation based on a foundation of faith. The former depends on materials for an evidential examination of historical facts; the latter uses experiential enlightenment as a pathway to enter the Way. Since Yinshun did not reject concepts of history, he therefore also used evidential examination in the writing of history, and at the same time he also denied the traditional concepts that the essence of Chan, with the exception of self-realization and experiential enlightenment, has no means of being concretely proven. Because of this, he placed emphasis in his research on being able to speak on the basis of “the expedient means of actual time and space” and so adopted a comparative and analytical method. Also, in the text of that famous debate, Hu Shi said, “[If] we…place [Chan] in its proper historical settings, and study it…then, but not until then, an intelligent and rational understanding…of this…may yet be achieved.” This is exactly the historical method of those “actions in an historical background that we can know nothing about” that Suzuki completely denied. Here, the so-called historical background is undoubtedly the identification and choice of whether historical sources are true or false, which is his positivist method. Someone evaluated this, saying that the reason why Hu Shi was in fashion at one time was “not because he had some systematic major contribution…but because of the historical significance and value of his experimentalism.”1 This was not without reason. Hu Shi spoke everywhere of the scientific method of “producing the evidence,” not only in the method of conducting scholarly research, but at the first airing of the subject, and also in the social revolution at the intersection of the new and the old where there is very much a heroic manner of overturning everything. Naturally, this was not exceptional in Hu’s research on Chan School history.

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Ai Siqi, “Ershier nian lai zhi Zhongguo zhexue sichao,” in Zhonghua yuebao, vol. 2 no. 1, Dec. 1993.

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In his last years, Hu Shi concluded that his life of scholarship “revolved around this concept of ‘method.’ ‘Method’ really dominated forty years of my writing. Fundamentally speaking, I really benefited from the influence of Dewey on this point.” He continued by quoting a sentence from Dewey: This (formal logic – the logic of the syllogism) is the use of the ordinary truth to support that thing that has no support for it and is untenable.

Hu Shi explained, What does this mean? Dewey thought that the reason why Aristotle’s logic was able in medieval Europe to be again successfully wielded as reasoning was just because the Church properly required a formal logic to support its system of faith. If this system of thought lacked the support of formal logic, it would have been incoherent and fragmented, shaken to its roots.

In other words, formal logic existed to support such a contorted system of belief. In China, the “three methods of illustration” of Mohism that were rules of inference, were a logic to demonstrate the existence of god and truthful thinking. When it came to the Buddhist yinming (hetu-vidy¯a; logic), it had a boundless vitality for Buddhism. It appears that “syllogism” in the same way “was entirely the utilization of this tool of wisdom to support such things, concepts, and beliefs that had no support and which hung by a thread!” and that this denial of a logic of thinking formed a premise for Hu Shi’s positivist method. Hu Shi pointed out that Dewey looked for a system of thought that sought proof and satisfactory resolution in the end through a doubt that reached hypotheses. This “helped me move to an understanding of the fundamentals of ordinary scientific research.” He recognized that such traditional methods of scholarship as text-critical and evidential examination were evidential investigation, that is “an evidential inquiry (not trust without evidence),” which was the “Zadig method”2 that was so named by Thomas Henry Huxley. From this we can see that the method of Hu Shi’s scholarship was a method that combined “doubt” and “the search for proof,” and it also rejected logic. What he wanted was “real evidence” and not “inference,” the reliance on the source materials which is not logic! Suzuki criticized Hu for adopting a method of logic, which really was unfair to the Master of “authentic evidence.” On this point, these two men to the contrary have something in common: both stressed a direct confrontation with reality. However, the reality Hu Shi wanted was the “truth” that is carried in the classical texts; and Suzuki’s reality was the compatibility of existence and the (spiritual) mind. Hu Shi had already very confidently said that his research into the history of Chinese thought had at the start of the 1930s become an original contribution, which was his collection and explanation of four manuscripts related to Shenhui. These “collections and explanations” were his “new concepts and new methods” in his research into the Chan School. 2

Zadig, an ancient Babylonian philosopher, who was good at the examination of extant signs, used this inference about events that had happened, which was a method of deducing the cause from the effect. All the above quotes are from Hu Shi koushu zizhuan.

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Hu Shi, as soon as he began his long report, “The Development of Zen Buddhism in China,” gave a detailed explanation concerning what he himself called a new message. First there was a criticism, this of course being directed at the Chinese and Japanese researches into Chan learning for “mainly using a religious attitude to research. This is to believe [the sources] without the slightest doubt.” “Next is that they lack the insights of history.” Third is that “They do not take care about the collection of source materials.” Continuing, he said, “My research into Chan cannot be said to be entirely without the afore-mentioned defects. However, in the twentyfifth year of the Republic (1936), I went to Paris with the intention of collecting materials.” The words, “with the intention,” are most important in explaining this aspect of Hu Shi’s method. That is to say, due to his intention and doubts, he was able to overturn old theories and “seek proof” in the materials he had amassed. In fact, his method really had differences from those of the usual methods, which was that he regarded doubt as a premise and regarded history as a background, and he regarded materials to be the evidence. This was “the art of positivist thinking.” In reality, the elders of the Qianlong and Jiaqing periods (mid-eighteenth century to 1820) had already adopted the evidential method of “no trust without evidence,” which is what he said was the scientific rule that had “something in common” with what Huxley called the Zadig method. First of all, Hu Shi held a skeptical attitude towards the Chan School historical materials extant at that time. He thought that the great masters of the Chan School “all loved to make fabrications”: Shenhui was a “great swindler” and a “specialist forger”; Daoyuan, Qisong, and Zanning also “untruthfully altered and forged” the history of the Chan School, and therefore, 95% of the material related to the Chan School “is all a mass of nonsense, fabrication, fraud, dissembling, and striking a pose.” Because this “triggered my completion of a work on the history of medieval thought that was fairly satisfactory and fairly abundant in destructiveness,”3 this is what he said was to “again see the personal opinions of this St. Paul of the Southern Lineage” as a “true history of the Chan School.”4 Also, in this famous work, in the passages of the argument that he instigated, Hu Shi took the attitude of doubt and called it “the razor of [Layman] Pang” or “the razor of Chinese Zen” that is “as sharp as the famous Occam’s razor.”5 He wanted to use it to “cut off and destroy…the medieval ghosts, the gods, the bodhisattvas and the Buddhas, the four stages of dhy¯ana, the four formless states of sam¯adhi, and the six divine powers of the attained yoga practitioner.” Here one can say that “doubt” was the primary “razor” Hu Shi used in writing the history of the Chan School. Next, speaking in terms of the concepts of history, Hu Shi specially emphasized “placing Chan in its historical setting and then studying it.” He thought that the period of the greatest development of the Chan School was from the end of the seventh century until the eleventh century, which is the four hundred years from the time of Empress Wu Zetian to the fall of the Northern 3

Tang Degang, Hu Shi shuoshu zizhuan. Hu Shi, Shenhui Heshand yiji, “Preface,” in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 143. 5 Layman Pang of the Tang had a g¯ ath¯a that said, “I just want to empty all that exists,/ Carefull not to fill all that which is non-existent.” Hu Shi said that “empty all that exists” is Pang’s razor. 4

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Song. Yet, the source materials that touch on that time “were mostly from after the Song period.”6 In addition, he thought that “Buddhism is a timeless and space-less religion,”7 and that Indians were also a people who were lacking in the concepts of history, and therefore, the historical sources for the Buddhism and even the Chan School that were transmitted from India are incomplete, so that “there is not the slightest historical basis to be newly discovered,”8 all of which provided him with an ideological source and premise for his doubts. This triggered his search for original source materials on the Chan School from the Tang and before (one should say this was from the Tang to the Northern Song) so that he could examine the development of Chan learning within historical truth. Really, his concept of history and his giving importance to source materials, which stressed the positivism of “presenting the evidence,” largely have the same content. His research into the Chan School really was the collection of the four manuscripts, their ordering, and explanation. Then he also presumed that source materials related to the Chan School of the Tang period would, one, be found in Japanese monasteries, and two, “could be sought and found among the manuscripts that came out of Dunhuang.”9 Of the Dunhuang manuscripts, with the exception of those held in the Beijing Library that “were things that other people did not want,” “the important ones are in London and Paris.”10 Then, in 1926, he went by chance to Europe and he spent some time in the Paris Library where he discovered three recorded sayings (yulu) texts of Shenhui. Again, in London, he discovered Shenhui’s Xianzong ji (Record of Revealing the Tenet/Lineage), and then in Japan he saw a photolithographic reproduction of the Dunhuang version of the Platform Sutra from London. These were just the materials he used to overthrow the traditional history of the Chan School and convinced him that Shenhui was the seventh patriarch of the Southern Lineage, shocking the world of scholarship, making people come to a flabbergasted and dumfounded conclusion: namely, that Shenhui was “the commander-in-chief of the Southern Lineage attack on the Northern Lineage, was the builder of a new Chan learning, and was the author of the Platform Sutra.”11 And, the Chan School was the revolutionary viewpoint of the Diamond Sutra versus the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra. Based on this, Hu Shi then said that in his rewriting of the history of the Chan School, that there was inevitably some sensation and exaggeration. He also said, “Having discovered a number of documents of Shenhui…we have still not discovered a true history, but have just detected the creators of the false history, and just discovered how false histories came to be created.” His conclusion was that “Shenhui was the number-one expert at creating the false history of the Chan School (Southern Lineage).” Before Shenhui’s birth and after Shenhui’s death, “the Buddhist schools of the entire country (with the exception of the Tiantai line) were also profusely creating 6

Hu Shi, “Zhongguo Chanxue zhi fazhan” in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 167. Hu Shi, “Chanxue gushi kao,” in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 94. 8 Tang Degang, Hu Shi koushu zizhuan. 9 Hu Shi, Shenhui Heshang yiji xu in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 143. 10 Hu Shi, “Zhongguo Chanxue zhi fazhan,” in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 167. 11 Hu Shi, Shenhui Heshang yiji xu, in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 143. 7

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histories and creating genealogical tables of the transmission of the Dharma, which came to be tools for currying favor with those in power!”12 Then these erroneous histories were circulated. Up till then, it was only Hu who had indicated these actions of fabrications by the Reverend, and Hu’s work was rich in its destruction of meaning. One can see that Hu Shi’s researches into Chan history at its best can only be said to be “distinguishing the fake”! Nevertheless, Hu Shi’s method of starting from doubt, continuing with hypotheses, and ending with the “concrete evidence” that distinguished the false, ultimately was also a kind of deductive method. He really did not propose any sound evidence to overturn the previously existing histories of the Chan School. He said that the real author of the Platform Sutra was Shenhui and so on, which was also related to a suspicion of “single instances,” and this seems to have been too arbitrary. Therefore, Hu Shi’s Chan learning suffered not a few censures; Suzuki’s counter-attack being not in regard to Hu’s method but to historical facts and concepts. Tang Yongtong specially pointed out in his research that “Chan Master Dajian (Huineng) abandoned the La˙nk¯avat¯ara and adopted the Diamond [Sutra], which was also a natural tendency in the evolution of scholarship. Speaking of it in these terms, the sixth patriarch can be considered a revolution and also can be called a restoration.” The restoration was “to understand the tenet and obtain the meaning.”13 Tang’s theory of “understand the tenet and obtain the meaning” highlights that this was a coherent spirit of the Chan School (of course, it is not certain that it was an understanding of the tenets of Bodhidharma and obtaining the meaning of the Dongshan Famen), which is not like Hu Shi’s theory of the revolution due to the division of the Diamond from the La˙nk¯avat¯ara. But it cannot be denied that Hu Shi’s positivist method had a major influence on the scholarly world. His evidential investigation of Chan history was publicly acknowledged by not a few scholars, in particular, “that Heze (Shenhui) was really the first to bring” the Southern Lineage “to prosperity,”14 and that the division between Northern and Southern Chan was in fact caused by Shenhui, thereby amply affirming the important role Shenhui played in the history of Chan. This had already obtained the consensus from those scholars engaged with this project. Since Suzuki had thought that Chan is the mental training “that is beyond the ken of human understanding,” this means that “The uniqueness of Zen consists not only in its obvious irrationality but also in its most unusual methods of demonstrating its truth,”15 “having a life that does not depend on history.”16 Therefore, he determined that in his research, in his subjective way of speaking, that it was necessary to reject reason and logic, and reject the external, objective history. Nevertheless, in his road 12

Hu Shi, “Chanzong shi de zhenlishi he jialishi” (True and False Histories of the Chan School), in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 29. 13 Tang Yongtong, Han Wei Liang-Jin Nanbeichao Fojiao shi, last section, p. 570. 14 Tang Yongtong, Sui Tang Fojiao shigao (Draft History of Sui and Tang Buddhism), Zhonghua shuju, 1988, p. 189. 15 Suzuki Daisetsu, Living by Zen, p. 23. Tr. the Chinese translation is a little different to the English original which is given here. 16 Suzuki Daisetsu, “Chan: Jingda Hu Shi Boshi,” in Zhongguo Chanzong Daquan, p. 1063.

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towards Chan learning he did not completely reject history, and to a great extent he likewise adopted forms of reason and logic. In fact, Suzuki, like ordinary people, could not shake off the bonds of reason. On one hand, he emphasized the “irreproducibility” of Chan, while on the other hand he also did his utmost to reproduce it; on one hand he thought that Chan could not be described in language and text, while on the other hand he also wrote at great length, greatly talking of the Chan Way. These contradictions of concepts and methods, subjectivity and facts, theory and practice, allowed no way for these to be shaken off at all by any single person basing themselves on faith and studying Chan learning (and not doing Chan). Now, to date, many people recognize that Suzuki’s study of Chan utilized the irrational, illogical, and the ahistorical or supra-rational, supra-logical, and supra-historical methods, and obviously this was an excessive faith in, and a misinterpretation of, Suzuki’s statements. The aim of what he called the transcendence of time and space, and transcendence of reason, was nothing other than being to prove that Chan was a reality of a unique existence that transcends the subjective and objective, transcends life and death, being entirely a potential for the existence of a spiritualized self. Therefore, the methods of history, reason, and logic are only needed to actualize this aim, and likewise can all be applied. He said that “It is necessary to understand Chan from within Chan,” which simply reflects his standpoint of faith, but it cannot represent the entire method of his study of Chan. These can only be his theory and are not the rules he everywhere necessarily abided by in his practice. One should see that Hu Shi denied the formal logic of inference, yet in his concrete researches he still emphasized that Chan can be explained via the use of reason and logic; even though Suzuki thought that Chan is irrational and illogical, yet he was also unable to avoid using reason and logic to describe Chan in language and text. The contradictions in their methodology and concrete methods of scholarship are very much worth pondering. Speaking about the concepts of history, Suzuki thought that Chan, like history, was related to time. What was unlike history is that Chan is also “timelessness.” Therefore, “Chan is all-inclusive with regard to time and the timeless,” which is to say that Chan is a combination of history and the ahistorical. He also pointed out, even though Chan cannot be explained via history, still “History may tell much about Zen in its relation to other things or events, but it is all about Zen.” Therefore, he not only took care to collect source materials on Chan School history, and he traced back the source of the Platform Sutra from among the Dunhuang sutra scrolls, and he wrote a minor history of the life of Huineng, and he also played a role as a “guest performer” historian, and he compared the different intelligence of the Chinese and Indian people, explaining that the Chan School could only exist, and it could only be produced, in China, “and what is important is the absolute present—that operates in its progress, its life being in its living present.” Chan’s so-called opposition to tradition was that “their objective is not iconoclasm, but their way of judging values comes out automatically as such from their inner life.”17 That emerges in the course of history and lies in the earth-consciousness that they had given birth to.18 He had 17 18

Suzuki Daisetsu, “Chan: Jingda Hu Shi Boshi,” in Zhongguo Chanzong daquan, p. 1065. Tr. Suzuki’s exact words are “that the Chinese mind is more earth-conscious.”.

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in an earlier book especially pointed to the legend of “Danxia burning the Buddha [statue],” about which “I am doubtful of its historic accuracy” because this action was “highly sacrilegious” of the Buddha.19 From this it can be seen that all of this is a record that conflicts with his belief, and that he also needed to use “the viewpoint of history” to examine it. He also did not entirely dismiss logic as useless. He said, “Logic has real value and one should make flexible use of it to the maximum,” and “There is contained in logic the hard labor of humanity and it is our own consciousness.”20 He even went to the extent of criticizing Hu Shi for “his logic of deducing the Zen methodology of irrationalism…is, to say the least, illogical.” In fact, his words talking about Chan also relied on logic to demonstrate it to people. It was just, however, that he also stressed that the highest realm of human life was something logic could not touch on. Therefore, he thought, “when it [logic] fails to work, or when it tries to go beyond its proper limits, we must cry ‘Halt!’”21 What he said about logic was to “use it flexibly,” which is very important for understanding his method of studying Chan. Evidently, in his method of studying Chan, Suzuki took in everything and worked with logic and the illogical at the same time. The concepts of history are for explaining the rationality of ahistorical concepts, and logic was also for proving the necessity of the illogical, and when it came to the explanation through language and letters, undoubtedly this lay in stressing the reliability of direct perception and experiential enlightenment. Here, what must be taken note of is that what Suzuki adopted was a method for the study of Chan (in a scholarly way) and was not a form of Chan. Consequently, we cannot simply believe what Suzuki said, or think that his method was simply ahistorical and illogical, and we also cannot think that it is historical and logical. The flexible use of these kinds of method served his form of thinking of the transcendence of dualistic antithesis. This sort of transcendence or speaking to surmount the form of dualistic and antithetical thinking, was his intuitional logic applied to his study of Chan. This was extremely close to the dialectical thinking of the Mah¯ay¯ana Madhyamika, but with respect to the antithesis, what he adopted was not to dispel antagonism, but to surmount it, and was not a denial but a “high level affirmation.” Suzuki pointed out that ignorance in Buddhism “is another name for logical dualism,” and this unique interpretation tallies with the basic idea of the Buddhadharma. Seen from the standpoint of the Buddha-dharma, as there is a false mind that sees the various sense-objects, “If the mind arises, dharmas arise; if the mind ceases, dharmas cease,”22 and erroneous cognition that is due to this is called the “ignorance” that the false mind creates. Therefore, the fundamental aim of the Buddha-dharma lies in transforming the consciousness that is ignorance into aware enlightenment, and all of the practice methods of Buddhism are focused on the development of this 19

Suzuki Daisetsu, Tongxiang Chanxue zhi lu. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, p. 125. Suzuki Daisetsu, “Chan: Jingda Hu Shi Boshi,” in Zhongguo Chanzong daquan, p. 1071. Tr. I have not located the English original of these statements. 21 Suzuki Daisetsu, Tongxiang Chanxue zhi lu. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, p. 59. 22 Dasheng qixin lun (On Giving Rise to Mahayana Faith). 20

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concept, of which the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) of the eight negations is a representative example, and its truth is just like the surmounting of dualistic anithesis that Suzuki spoke of. And yet what Buddhism preached is that the cessation of this mind is the cessation of dharmas, which is to take all the troubles of anitheses between subjective and objective and eliminate them within the mind and consciousness, indicating a denial and a denial of denial. Suzuki could not but take notice of this point and he also thought that the “Zen is negation” and “is forced to resort to negation,”23 “another form of expression of Chan is the melting away, which is the negation of antithesis.” Yet in order to give him his own method of finding the historical source, sometimes he ascertained an orthodox lineage and he advanced the interpretation of the truth of Chan “that one can also find and ascertain one aspect of affirmation in the circumstances of non-negation and non-affirmation.”24 He also said that the experience of Chan enlightenment “often uses the terms of negation to express it, but speaking realistically, what it adopts with respect of everything and all dharmas is still an attitude of positive affirmation. It uses the attitude of equality and the unbiased to deal with all things. Buddhist scholars…call this acceptance, which is also reception…which goes beyond any kind of relative relationship or all the dharmas of dualistic discrimination.”25 One can recognize that this is the concept of negation held by Suzuki about Buddhist learning or the Chan School in order to search for their roots in a form of transcendence of dualistic anithesis. As Suzuki saw it, the logic and reason that are built on the foundations of dualistic antithesis are originally artificial things, and they not only distorted the world of freedom, but also shackled the human spiritual world. These two forms of dualistic antithetical thinking, in which “We generally think that ‘A is A’ is absolute, and that the proposition ‘A is not-A’ or ‘A is B’ is unthinkable” mean that “We have never been able to break through these conditions of the understanding” and “have never been able to obtain a thorough understanding.” There is only that Chan School sort of thinking of the negation of dualistic antithesis, which urges us to gain a “new approach to the reality of things.” This is a kind of unnecessary logical inference and is also a way of observing things without the formation of a dualistic division. This form of observation of things is not an antithesis between A and not A, but is “the meaning of the proposition’A is A’ [that] is realized only when ‘A is not A’.” Its idea is of having transcended life and death, which also surmounted the antithesis of yes and no, and “attained the point where the world can be viewed, as it were, from within.”26 Here the “examination as a thing” was also the confrontation with reality (zu den Sachen) that relied on direct perception, which was not a reliance on rational analysis, and by transcending the forms of dualistic anithesis, grasps “the original 23

Suzuki Daisetsu, Tongxiang Chanxue zhi lu. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, p. 51. Suzuki Daisetsu, “Chan de shiji jiaoxue fangfa” (A Method of the Realistic Teaching of Chan) in Zhongguo Chanzong daquan, pp. 1078–1081. 25 Suzuki Daisetsu, “Lun Chan wu” (On Zen Enlightenment), in Zhongguo Chanzong daquan, p. 1099. 26 Suzuki Daisetsu, Tongxiang Chanxue zhi lu. Tr. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, pp. 59–60. The Chinese translations are at times a little different, but I have provided what I think is the original English. 24

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face” of things. In this way, since one has observed the actual state of affairs, this also causes the spiritual world that is on the verge of collapse to obtain liberation, and obtain an expected “harmonious serenity.” Suzuki also did not tire of the vexing quotation of Chan gongan, using them to explain that method of transcending dualistic antithesis. He used such cases as “Emptied handed I hold a hoe,” “Walking I ride an ox,” “The wooden horse neighs and the stone man dances,” “the sound of one hand,” “Li drinks and Zhang gets drunk,” and “The bridge flows but the water does not,” and so on. These all lie in informing people that “Zen would say: ‘A’ is ‘A’ because ‘A’ is not ‘A’; or ‘A’ is not ‘A,’ therefore, ‘A’ is ‘A.’”27 This way of thinking that violates the law of contradiction of “A is not non-A” ( ^ (A ∧ ^ A) is exactly what he painstakingly pursued. The reason he said “I believe because it is irrational”28 (Credo quia absurdum est) was undoubtedly in reaction against the law of contradiction, which was his internal inclination to transcend dualistic antithesis. Suzuki also pointed out that the method of the transcendence of dualistic antithesis must avoid the four propositions (catuskhotia) spoken of by Chan masters: 1, it is A (existence); 2, it is not A (non-existence); 3, it is A and also is not A (both existence and non-existence); and 4, not A and also not non-A (not existence and not non-existence). He said that truth “can be found under the conditions that are not affirmation and also not negation.”29 Here he has borrowed the tetralemma or the tetralemma discrimination of the Sanlun xuanyi (Profound Meanings of the Three Treatises [a Madhyamaka text by Jizang, 549–623]) in which it talks of “Reality eliminates the one hundred denials, the principle transcends the tetralemma.” This and the law of the excluded middle of A or not A (or A∨A) absolutely do not accommodate each other. Suzuki’s A is A, A is not A, and even A is not non-A, exactly reflects his reaction against the law of contradiction and the law of the excluded middle as universal rules in formal logic. In fact, in modern non-dual value (non-dualistic) logic that is a multivalent (many valued) logic and intuitionistic logic, the law of the excluded middle is not established as proven. Especially with the negating nature of intuitionistic logic, since its “not non-A does not imply A” violates the law of contradiction (the law of non-contradiction), it also tallies with Suzuki’s form of thinking of a super-affirmation or “high-level affirmation” of negation. Nevertheless, this kind of striving to shake off the dualistic anithesis form of thinking truly made linguistic expression evidently pale and feeble, and therefore as far as possible Suzuki allowed facts to replace the exposition of his own theories. At the end of Chap. 4 of his An Introduction to Zen Buddhism (p. 65), he quoted a story of Fayan that exactly embodies the efforts he made in this respect. O you, my disciples. If you say there is, you go against Yoka (Yongjia); if you say there is not, you contradict our old master Buddha. If he were with us, then how would he pass through the dilemma? If you know, however, just exactly where we are, we shall be interviewing 27

Suzuki Daisetsu, “Chan: Jingda Hu Shi Boshi,” in Zhongguo Chanzong daquan, p. 1070. Suzuki Daisetsu, Tongxiang Chanxue zhi lu. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, p. 62. 29 Suzuki Daisetsu, “Chan de shiji jiaoxue fangfa,” in Zhongguo Chanzong daquan, p. 1078. 28

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Buddha in the morning and saluting him in the evening. If, on the other hand, you confess your ignorance, I will let you see into the secret. When I say there is not, this does not necessarily mean a negation; when I say there is, this also does not signify and affirmation. Turn eastward and look at the Western Land; face the south and the North Star is pointed out there!

Since it is so, looking east and seeing the west, facing south and observing the north, is naturally not what ordinary people can understand. Yet he strove in the world of dualistic antithesis that was constructed by natural reason and religious reason to grasp that the objectives of the principles and real aspects of things were still real. He used his reply of “Winter Winter, Winter Winter, Winter Winter” as symbolic of the question and he wanted to lead people to themselves deliberate on the supra-mundane level. Compared to the two men described above, Yinshun’s method seems to be evidently a little more traditional. He valued historical materials, but he did not use history as the only technique for studying the history of the Chan School. He also believed that the realm of Chan is something that all knowledge and language and letters can do nothing about. And yet he did not view it in that way as mystical, and so he thought that Chan did not stop with the experience of one’s own mind but could be analyzed and spoken about. As a consequence, what he adopted was still a form of the combination of history and logic, and concretely speaking, it was a form of comparison and analysis. Frankly speaking, when compared to Hu Shi and Tang Yongtong and those scholars who had linked China and the West, Yinshun was really no better at the evidential examination of historical materials. Even though he used a great volume of source materials in his research, he was deficient in the collation and correction of the source materials he cited, and in the distinguishing of the false and recognition of the true, and in the work of critical exegesis and explanations of pronunciation and meanings, which meant he was unable to provide a powerful support for his arguments. Nevertheless, even though one cannot say that Yinshun, who was active later, had a short-cut to success, still he ultimately had the benefit of “enjoying the cool,” being exempted not a little from the work of sifting the gold out of the sand. His expertise was more in analysis, in particular making sure that the one flaw in his research into the history of the Chan School did not mar it overall. At that time, one could say that he developed his own unique style. In his preface to the Zhongguo Chanzong shi, he specially pointed out that Damo 達摩 Chan30 flourished when it reached Daoxin, that is, the fourth patriarch, and it was exactly because of the flourishing of the Chan institution that led to internal opposition and splits, “as with the opposition between Niutou and Dongshan, the opposition between the Southern Lineage and the Northern Lineage, and the opposition between Hongzhou and Heze [Chan].” During their splits and developments, there was also a 30

On Damo達摩, Yinshun thought that the Chinese translation of that Bodhidharma who brought chan/Chan from the Western Regions and Damo達磨 was the mistaken translation for Dharmatrata 大磨多羅 who came to China after the Yongjia period (424–453) of the Song. This theory was unavoidably somewhat stuck in past interpretations. Damo Chan is used by Yinshun to describe the difference of the chan transmitted out of India from Sinified Chan.

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unification by Caoqi (Huineng). These various oppositions were all centered on the evolution and development of Indian chan into Chinese Chan. Therefore, he grasped this thread throughout and in the comparative analysis he showed the history of the development of the Chinese Chan School. At the start of this book, Yinshun, based on the different Chinese translations for Bodhidharma, thought that Shenhui had also discriminated and wrote down Dharmatrata 達摩多羅 and Bodhidharma 菩提達摩, and then Shenhui’s pupils wrote Dharmatrata 達磨多羅, and the pupils of Hongzhou then wrote Bodhidharma 菩提 達磨. The distinction between 磨 and 摩 was “using the new translation to correct the old translation,” transmitting a change for the better, “showing that the rising prosperity of Southern Chan had surpassed that of the North, and what the Southern [Chan] had circulated became a fixed theory of the Chan institution.” In fact, Damo 達摩 was also 達磨, and it seems unlikely that this was a new translation substituting for an old translation as Yinshun had said. It was nothing more than the translators choosing to not use the same characters. Hu Shi recognized that Shenhui did not understand Sanskrit, and also that Shenhui made Bodhidharma and Dharmatrata into one person in order to deceive people (Note, what he wrote was in all cases 摩). Of course, the key to Yinshun having preached this new unconventional theory lies not in his evidential examination having no basis or meaning, but lay in his following this single thread, marking out the division into Northern and Southern Chan learning in order to aid his comparison. Continuing, he pointed out that the early period Damo Chan advocated “reliance on the teaching and enlightenment to the tenet,” that one needed a technique to extricate oneself from the sutra teachings, and these masters of the La˙nk¯a[vat¯ara S¯utra], whether or not they were pupils of Huike, “had already drifted spiritually beyond the gateway of Damo Chan.” To explain this point, he also compared the features of the Chan/meditation learning of Damo and Sengchou, of which Daoxuan wrote, “[Seng]chou favored the [four kinds of] mindfulness [that have] clear definitions [and so they] can be venerated; Damo’s is the tenet of emptiness, a profound teaching that is abstruse and difficult.” In the comparison, Yinshun highlighted that Damo Chan did not value the Sangha and its regulations, forming a phenomenon like the lay world, “which is just the embryo of the Chinese Chan School monastic system.” Not only was it like this, he went further and divided Damo Chan into two factions; those who valued the teaching and those who valued the tenets. The former were the masters of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra who distinguished name and characteristics; the latter were those meditators who did not value the regulations of the Vinaya and did not value the traditions of the sutras. In this way, the initial contrast of Southern Chan and Northern Chan, Damo and Sengchou, and the teaching and tenet factions within Damo Chan, revealed Yinshun’s divisions of the mainstream, these two threads propelling and being comparatively the prelude to the path of the development of Chan learning. Afterwards, “The comet that spread light in all directions arose in Huangmei [with Daoxin and Hongren] and Damo Chan opened a new page.”31 Chinese Chan developed under the influence of Indian chan/meditation. 31

Yinshun, Zhongguo Chanzong shi, Chap. 1, p. 37.

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Following this, the entire book centers on the path of the development of Chan learning driven by these two threads, and the genealogy compared the features of the Chan learning of the Dongshan and Niutou, the Northern and Southern Lineages, and the Heze and Hongzhou lines, pointing out that in the end they converged in the lineage of Caoqi, forming the total transformation into Chinese Chan learning. In summary, the Indian chan introduced into China was consequently influenced by Chinese culture and then split, were in opposition, and along with its increasing influence and infiltration, it ended up being changed into something like Daoist philosophy and Dark Learning. The Damo Chan that retained the traits of Indian chan was in the main assimilated into Niutou Chan learning and was made like Daoist philosophy, and Huineng’s simple and direct method also pioneered a path for Damo Chan to be Sinified. Yinshun viewed Damo Chan as being Indian chan, and it was assimilated through the Dark Learning thought in Niutou Chan learning that arose out of [Damo Chan]. This is reminiscent of a tortuous incomprehension, but the comparative analysis that he made from the clash and harmonization produced when Indian and Chinese cultures came into contact was based on sound authority and followed as a matter of course. The distinction between Damo Chan and the Chan that was changed to be like Daoist philosophy further approaches the truth of the history of the development of Chan thought. Yinshun used the rise of the Dongshan Famen to commence his lineage comparisons. He thought that Damo Chan was only a minor lineage in the northern courts and that it was only when the fourth patriarch Daoxin indicated “the essential expedient means for entering the Way and calming the mind” and Hongren, the fifth patriarch, advocated “the combination of chan/meditation and the bodhisattva precepts” that Damo Chan prospered in Huangmei in Jiangdong. After that, the Dongshan Famen of Hongren “obtained the meaning and understood the tenet” and formed the mainstream of Chinese Chan learning. At the same time, Farong, who was titled “the Damo of China to the East (Dongxia),” travelled to Mt. Niutou in Runzhou on the lower reaches of the Yangzi and spoke of “obtaining a natural insight,” and he also had “a verification from Great Master [Dao]xin.” His group developed rapidly. Then the Prajñ¯a Southern Lineage of Mt. Niutou stood up as equal to the La˙nk¯a[vat¯ara] Southern Lineage, which were two major lineages that were both titled Southern Lineage. This theory and that of Hu Shi who took Shenhui as initiating the Diamond [Sutra] prajñ¯a revolution against the La˙nk¯avat¯ara were clearly not the same. Not only this, Yinshun also thought that the Prajñ¯a Southern Lineage centered on Mt. Niutou and the Southern Lineage of the La˙nk¯a had already been in frequent contact, which involved the establishment of the rival lines of Huibu and Huike, Zhiyan and Sengcan, and Shanfu and Daoxin. In this regard, he really also viewed the Southern Lineage of La˙nk¯a as being Damo Chan, which was also equally the reception of the instructions of Indian chan from Damo (Bodhidharma) down to Huike, Sengcan, and Daoxin, and in its contact with the Prajñ¯a Southern Lineage, which infiltrated it, it gradually transformed Damo Chan. It is necessary to point out that Yinshun’s theory is really saying that Damo Chan itself created the conditions and forms of thinking of its own transformation, and that Niutou Chan, after it had been influenced by Daoist philosophical thought, and also by its progressive

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infiltration into Damo Chan in a different period, thereby facilitated the birth of its matrix, which really was the actualization of its own Sinification. Nevertheless, the reason he gave for Niutou Chan not directly transforming into Chinese Chan, and only fostering and calling it a Sinified Southern Lineage of the La˙nk¯a of Damo Chan, has caused people incomprehension. Yinshun fundamentally did not prepare any explanation at all in this work, and so it was hard to avoid putting his arguments into strained circumstances and making them less than satisfactory. Yet Yinshun took the differences and the contacts between the two kinds of thought and traced them back to the second patriarch, Huike, and strengthened his method of comparative research and then highlighted his idea that Damo Chan underwent a very long course of gradual Sinification under the influence of Niutou Chan, and made two threads even more distinct via the advancement of the comparative method. After Daoxin, the Dongshan Famen that was merged with the Prajñ¯a Southern Lineage of Niutou began to develop different paths among Hongren’s pupils. Then, Yinshun also made a longitudinal comparison across time, before and after. He pointed out that from when Dongshan was established, that the Chan School originally had a system of inheritance of one person per generation, and from Hongren onwards it began to “individually spread side-by-side.” Even though Shenhui and Puji strived to reverse this situation, “the division of the lamplight in the inheritance” and “the equal fragrance of the five leaves (schools)” also replaced the sole transmission of an orthodox lineage of one person per generation. This expressed the special characteristics of the equal advancement of the divided paths of the Chinese Chan School. Such a comparison of before and after highlighted the results of the Sinification of the Chan School, and by following comparisons of the Southern and Northern Lineages, and Heze and Hongzhou, he clarified the historical premises. Four lineages were derived from the Dongshan Famen: Southern, Northern, Jingzhong, and Xuanshen. Of them, Yinshun concentrated on comparing the Southern and Northern Lineages. Unlike Hu Shi, Yinshun consistently maintained that the Diamond Sutra replaced the La˙nk¯avat¯ara and the Wenshu shuo bore (Prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a Spoken by Mañju´sr¯ı) sutras, which was a shared tendency in the realm of Buddhism and the whole of the Chan School. Shenxiu’s Northern Lineage and Huineng’s Southern Lineage both valued the Diamond Sutra. Their differences resided solely in the fact that the Northern Lineage to a certain extent was inclined towards the La˙nk¯avat¯ara. As Yinshun saw it, Huineng used the combination of the precepts without characteristics and the mah¯aprajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a of “no thought is the tenet,” “no characteristics are the reality,” and “non-abiding is the basis” to be the most important distinctive feature, and each one of these revealed the Buddha-dharma via the self-nature of sentient beings. Shenxiu regarded “being apart from thoughtmoments” (linian) and “pure mind” to be the provision of expedient means and that one “completely leaps to the stage of the Buddha” in the midst of a totally empty space, which really was a Sinicized Chan School that had reformed Damo Chan. This is not entirely the same as the traditional theory of the divided paths of the Southern sudden and Northern gradual (enlightenment or teaching). Because in Yinshun’s view, the “There is no Buddha outside of the mind” of the Dongshan Lineage and “The single thought-moment of pure mind is the sudden leap to the stage of the

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Buddha” of Shenxiu were both “sudden enlightenment,” even though the students of the Southern Lineage had the qualifications to be called “the sudden teaching,” ultimately this was not the fundamental locus for the divisions between the South and the North. However, he accepted that the opposition of North and South was also due to the theory of “Southern sudden and Northern gradual” instigated by Shenhui and that it was also disseminated by Shenhui. This agrees with how Tang Yongtong saw it, as “The names for North and South began due to him [Shenhui].”32 Yinshun thought that after Huineng had passed away, that the Chan School had absorbed the Southern, Northern, and Niutou factions, “and that by the time of the Huichang Persecution of Buddhism, the Chan School had advanced into the age of ‘the division of the lamplight beyond the patriarchs,’ which was what ordinary people knew as the Chan School.”33 Evidently, in this way Yinshun emphasized that “the division of the lamplight and its spread” were the two classical features of the Chinese Chan School, which not only showed his recognition of the distinctive features of the Chan School, but this emphasis also has a close, indivisible relationship with his comparative method. He pointed out that among Huineng’s pupils there was not only the Heze lineage of Shenhui, but also there was the Hongzhou school that prospered in China’s south, and the lineages of Shitou and Baotang. Based on this, Yinshun further compared their differences and similarities in their style of Chan. He said, Shenhui took his instructions from the house-style of Huangmei, and he repeatedly and universally said that there are precepts and there is chan, preserving the tradition of Dongshan; he venerated the teaching that is in words, that teaching (doctrine) and Chan are in agreement, while at the same time he developed the tendency of “not depending on words”; and he had an affirmative attitude towards the “sam¯adhi of the tainted.” The Hongzhou faction adopted the skillful theory of instituting the pure regulations for monasteries, forming their own house style; they did not value words and opposed intellectual understanding; they were a stream who valued the comprehension of knowledgeable views and the entry into sam¯adhi. Generally, Shitou and the Hongzhou were similar. The Baotang lineage was also a Chan that did not depend on words, but they inherited the non-selection by abilities and the form of universal preaching for the masses and adoption of direct speaking from Hongren onwards; their “not being constrained in teaching and practice” denied the ordinary precepts and regulations, and was the ultimate in refuting characteristics.

Even though it was like this, still these four factions ultimately were all sourced in Caoqi, and they also had many similarities. For example, in the aspect of meditationsam¯adhi, they all continued Huineng’s idea of “all is without hindrance” and they regarded walking, standing, sitting, and lying down to all be Chan, and as the conduct of the cultivation of practice.

32 33

Tang Yongtong, Sui Tang Fojiao shigao, p. 189. Yinshun, Zhongguo Chanzong shi, Chap. 7, p. 181.

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Yinshun further pointed out that the Niutou Chan that was centered in Jiangdong from the eighth century onwards had a major influence on Caoqi’s Southern Lineage. The “everyday mind of the Way” of Hongzhou in particular coincided entirely with the spirit of Niutou’s “The Way is basically empty space” and “The no mind includes the Way.” Its “Way” says “This mind is Buddha” and “it as such is fully present,” which is very unlike the Damo Chan theory of no-mind. This is a common understanding linking the Dark Learning-influenced Niutou and the Confucianized Buddhist learning. Through this comparison Yinshun further showed that even though Niutou Chan was extinguished, its distinctive characteristics still survived, and through this, the Chan method of the Shitou line displayed a new posture and the Hongzhou school further deepened the Chinese Southern Lineage. After this comparison of this set of lineages, Yinshun quoted the Chanyuan zhuquan duxu (General Preface to the Collection Describing the Sources of Chan) that wrote, “Southern [Hui]neng and Northern [Shen]xiu hated each other like water and fire; Heze and Hongzhou were like warring brothers.” This encapsulated the differences and oppositions of the Chan School factions. Nevertheless, Yinshun only said with respect of the “hostility” between Heze and Hongzhou that “in the disrespect towards the teaching and the veneration of the teaching, in their differentiations of the Dharma-gateways of ‘everything is the Way’ and ‘quiescent knowing indicates the reality’ and so on, these genuinely express the core of the disagreement, which was still a problem of the Dharma-lineage.” Yinshun thought that it was really “being secularized.” That is, he thought that their opposition was not a debate over theories and was only a disagreement over the collateral and main lineages, and so was following secular vicissitudes. Yinshun also advanced a further explanation, which was that the disciples of Daoyi in the Xianhe and Yuanhe reign eras (806–821) were summoned to the capital where they denounced the school of Shenhui for “transforming the orange bush [of the South] into the thorn bush [of the North], ultimately forming the Platform Sutra in order to transmit the zong (lineage or tenet).” They took the line from Huineng to Huairang and on to Daoyi to be the true genealogy of Caoqi, and he thought that the hostility of warring brothers actually arose out of this.34 Clearly, Yinshun viewed the above-described dispute over the orthodox lineage to have its source in the divisions and oppositions between Heze and Hongzhou, and compared with what had been described previously, this theory has some reticence, revealing a feeling of it being a spent force. This is probably the result of “secularization.” Simply speaking, Yinshun’s comparison clearly revealed the divisions that developed in the mainstream of the Chan School and the shapes of the development of the two lines. As the diagram shows:

34

Yinshun, Zhongguo Chanzong shi, Chap. 9, p. 416.

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Daoxin→Niutou | Hongren→Shenxiu | Huineng→Shenhui ↓ Jiangnan

Southern

↓

Lineage

↓

Hongzhou

Shitou

↓

↓

↓

↓ Baotang ↓

↓

Linji Weiyang Caodong Yunmen Fayan

In the course of the splits and developments in this mainstream, Niutou Chan learning exerted an influence from start to finish, and it propelled the Sinification of Damo Chan. At the very end of his book, Yinshun has a summary that amply reflects his intentions in making the comparison: Damo Chan…was not suited to South [China]’s weakness for text about the empty and the profound, but when it moved to the North it gradually bred and grew. In the age of the unification of China by the Tang dynasty, it drifted to the South, where it absorbed the Southern spirit, dividing into oppositions and formed various kinds of sects, which in the end were again united by Caoqi….The line of Zhixian of Jiannan (Sichuan) and the line of the Niutou of Jiangdong were dissolved into the Dharma-lineage of Caoqi…The Northern Lineage and the Heze Lineage passed through the Huichang Persecution of Buddhism, and in the northern Central Plains weakened and weakened even further.35 The Chan School formed two major lineages in the empire, the Hongzhou and Shitou. The Hongzhou line…was active in Jiangnan but displayed the features of the Northerners, and after Huichang, its mainstream shifted to the North. But in the South, almost all belonged to the Shitou school. The great division of the Southern Lineage into two can be said to have been an adaptation to the North and the South that then naturally formed two lines. Practically speaking, the heirs of Shitou assumed the face of Damo Chan and were a bloodline of the south-eastern learning line that was deeply imbued with Niutou.

Built on an analysis founded on the bases of comparison, even though the author had some problems in his expressions in letters and logic, still his meaning was clear, and there are some very incisive views. Compared to Hu Shi’s position that rejected formal logic and to Suzuki who emphasized Chan’s irrationality and strived to shake off the forms of dualistic and antithetical thinking, the form of the combination of history and logic adopted by Yinshun, concretely speaking, was the comparison of the development of two threads and the form of the analysis that was based on 35

Similar words to these are not uncommon in this book and are very much worth pondering.

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comparison talked even more in conformity with people’s habits of thinking. He was not like Suzuki who thus allowed people to perceive a mystery that cannot be fathomed, and he was unlike Hu Shi whose theories made people feel they were uneven and arbitrary.

Chapter 21

A Comparison of Concrete Problems in the Research on the History of the Chan School of Hu Shi, Suzuki Daisetsu, and Yinshun

As the standpoints on the research into the Chan School were not the same, one may say that the differences in cultural concepts with regard to its essential spirit and understanding were not the same, and so the starting points of Hu Shi, Suzuki, and Yinshun were clearly not the same. If one thinks that Chan is surreal, then it requires the use of the entire mind to deeply enter into Chan before one can discover Chan; if one thinks that Chan is a wisdom that is a liberating knowledge and historical materials, then one will advocate placing it in historical context in order to research it; if one views Chan as a joint progress of history and principle existing together and of being the relative existence of self-awareness and expedient means, then one will pay more attention to the experience of one’s own mind transcending time and space and the simultaneous evolution of expedient means historically, so as to handle the historical facts of the Chan School. The former is “the rediscovery” or “duplication” of Chan thought; the intermediate one is the Chan understood through historical source materials; and the last handles history via the use of the experience of Chan and expedient means. The first is a duplication of Chan, the second the use of history to return to the original Chan, and the third is the use of Chan to deal with history. Speaking in these terms, Suzuki is mystical, Hu Shi is positivist, and Yinshun is experiential rationalist. Therefore, of course in their understanding of the meaning of Chan, and also when handling concrete historical materials, they necessarily had differences. These differences created various degrees of disparities when they were thinking about concrete questions. Among them there were antithetical understandings that were self-consciously created out of the fundamental divergences in the understanding between Suzuki and Hu Shi, and there was also the similarity in thought and method between Yinshun and Hu Shi that unconsciously produced divergences. Naturally, what they ultimately faced was an identical thing and the commonalities came clearly into view. Because Hu Shi and Suzuki Daisetsu had a shared interest in the early-period history of the Chan School in the early 1930s, they formed a longlasting friendship. They both viewed Shenhui’s position in Chan School history as being very important and they both published the writings of Shenhui, and moreover, © Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9_21

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they learnt from each other through the exchange of letters, conveying their deep thoughts from afar. Right through to 1960, Hu Shi also sent letters to Iriya Yoshitaka, fully praising Suzuki for his “great contribution” in producing collections of materials on Chan School history. It was just that later, due to the views of both sides becoming further apart over time, that then summoned up a written polemic. Their divergences were deeply implicated in the necessary conclusions of their research. When it comes to the common points of the three men, for the most part these were the consensus of those writing histories of the Chan School. For example, the common points included the division of Indian chan from Chinese Chan; Chinese Chan was a reform of or revolution in Indian chan;1 that Chinese Chan was influenced by and made similar to Daoist philosophy and Dark Learning to a different extent compared to Indian chan; and that Huineng and Shenhui played a major role in the history of the Chinese Chan School. This is like Suzuki thinking that the Chan School’s ability is to clearly see the essence of things, which “definitely does not rely on a high level concentration of thought,” which is the “enlightenment to the nature” that does not rely on rational analysis; and like Hu Shi demonstrating that the doctrinal teachings of the Chan School went from “not speaking too plainly” to “valuing the enlightenment that was obtained by oneself”; and like Yinshun, who stressed that the Chan Dharma was a “self-awakening” that transcended time and space or was an “experience of one’s own mind.” Ignoring the concrete content of their knowledge, this was really like trying to harmonize the sounds of different musical instruments. There really were such large discrepancies between Suzuki’s use of language to repeatedly explain that Chan’s essential meaning cannot be conveyed in words or literary metaphors, Hu Shi’s interpretation that Chan had been entirely secularized, and also Yinshun’s saying that it “did not pertain to self-realization” and that it rather pertained to “expedient means actualized in time and space.” Even though this was the case, one cannot deny that the differences between them can also be found everywhere as compared to them “being the same.” This is especially notable. Fundamentally speaking, Suzuki’s form of thinking of the transcendence of dualistic antithesis was definitely unlike Hu Shi’s positivism in what it was able to accept, and also they were not like that which a person nurtured in the kind of atmosphere that Yinshun dealt with was able to understand. For the most part, the understanding and analysis of the concrete questions that Hu Shi and Suzuki faced were due to their parting of the ways. Without the slightest doubt, Hu Shi viewed the liberation of knowing to be the authentic mission of Chan, and therefore he repeatedly stressed that the Chan School was a revolution in the history of Chinese thought, and therefore the results of his research were a brilliant contribution. From this it can be seen that his and Suzuki’s understanding of the Chan School—“It must transcend all possible conditions, limitations, and antitheses that hinder its free activity”2 —and seen literally, there really was no difference. Yet essentially speaking, Hu Shi thought that it was the famous Occam’s razor that was used to wipe out all the absurd and forged things of medieval 1 2

Suzuki thought that the Chan School was a unique product of the East Asian spirit. Suzuki Daisetsu, Tongxiang Chanxue zhi lu. An Introduction to Zen Buddhism, p. 68.

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times, including those within the Chan School itself. Consequently, this necessarily offended Suzuki’s faith, and therefore Suzuki made a big issue of the word “zhi” (know), expressing his absolute disagreement with Hu Shi’s standpoint. He ridiculed Hu Shi for translating zhi as knowledge, for then all its totally marvelous meaning is lost. “When chih (zhi) is rendered—as it is by Hu Shih—as ‘knowledge,’ all is lost, not only Shen-hui and Hui-neng but also Zen itself.” He pointed out that Shenhui’s “zhi” was the “prajñ¯a zhi (knowing)” that is antithetical to “discriminatory knowledge,” and that it is absolutely objective and that also in itself “knowledge which comes out of that” is not “knowledge about it.” It is “unknowable knowledge” and not “knowable knowledge.” This unknowable knowledge in fact is a kind of “intuitive knowledge,” which is the prajñ¯a intuition. Its unique location lies in its authoritative nature, which is the absolute knower. It corresponds to Spinoza’s “intuitive knowledge” (Scientia intuitive), which “is absolutely certain and infallible and, in contrast to ratio, produces the highest peace and virtue of the mind”3 Likewise, it shakes off the bonds of knowledge. Here Suzuki has created something totally opposed to the connotation of Hu Shi’s ‘knowledge’. It is also like when Hu Shi was talking about the methods of teaching Chan, he quoted a g¯ath¯a by Fayan (d. 1104). “You may examine and admire the embroidered drake,/But the golden needle which made it, I’ll not pass on to you,” to explain the importance of “not speaking too plainly” in the process of the experience of a verifying enlightenment. His translation into the English, “I’ll not pass it onto you” in fact was not far from Suzuki’s understanding, but Suzuki also criticized Hu Shi’s translation and understanding. He thought that prajñ¯a-intution was a transcendence of the two opposing sides of the subjective and the objective and was not something that knowledge could grasp and also was not something direct speaking could explain, for “the so-called ‘not speaking too plainly’” “is not just not to speak plainly” and cannot be spoken. Therefore, that golden needle “cannot be delivered to him even when you want that done” because each person’s subconsciousness has that golden needle existing within it waiting for us to find it and it does not wait on another person to give it to us, and therefore the translation should be “I can’t pass it on to you.”4 Of course, the “obtaining by oneself” that they spoke of, carefully considered, is certainly not the same, being respectively built on the basis of the intrinsic nature and built on the basis of guidance. However, at first sight, the Chan that Suzuki had “spoken of too plainly” had some suspicion of being nitpicking. Hu Shi and Suzuki both quoted Fayan in respect of his metaphors for Chan. Foyan talked of a thief teaching a thief, the story of theft. Suzuki thought that this was not the same as the usual “comprehension” by “understanding through [discriminatory] knowledge,” it “revealing the inherent consciousness of a person” and “facilitating a certain sort of mental operation.” Hu Shi thought that it was a “wisdom” that 3

Suzuki Daisetsu, “Chan: Jingda Hu Shi Boshi,” in Zhongguo Chanzong Daquan, p. 1068. Suzuki Daisetsu, “Chan: Jingda Hu Shi Boshi,” in Zhongguo Chanzong Daquan, p. 1073. Tr. part of Suzuki’s analysis is of Zhu Xi’s supposed interpretation that the golden needle was working beneath the embroidery, that is, was hidden. Hu Shi’s “Ch’an (Zen) Buddhism in China,” p. 21 cites Zhu Xi, but does not say that the needle was working behind the embroidery.

4

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was “a method conceived out of no method.”5 Clearly, Suzuki was talking about this question from the point of view of psychology and Hu Shi undoubtedly had everyday life in mind. Using Hu Shi’s humor, one can recognize this was just the difference between the “way of speaking of a herder” and “the way of speaking of a butcher.”6 From the above we know that the differences over the understanding of many questions between Suzuki and Hu Shi were really very subtle. Nevertheless, the conflict was acute and unbridgeable. First, is that the psychological analysis that transcends dualistic antithesis and the scientific forms of positivism were just like fish swimming and a car moving. One cannot compare them and say which is superior, so it is difficult to compare them. Second, Hu Shi’s slandering of the images of the gods fundamentally offended Suzuki’s faith and provoked his actions “in defense of the Way.” The burning of the Buddha statue by Danxia not only expressed the negating spirit of the Buddha-dharma, but also completely coincided with Suzuki’s concept of the transcendence of dualistic antithesis, yet because Danxia “blasphemed the Buddha,” Suzuki just grasped one side. Not only did he deny that it was a story that was praised by the Buddhist institution, but he also went further and doubted that it was historical. On this question, he was was even more pious when compared to Yinshun who had a status as a member of the Buddhist institution. No wonder that Hu Shi criticized Suzuki for translating a “dried stick of dung” as a “dried-up dirt cleaner” because it was an obstruction to respect for the Buddha-patriarch, as being “incorrect and meaningless.” Unlike the above description, in the aspect of research into history, the views of Hu Shi and Yinshun can provide a few comparisons. First, their understanding of the turning points for the Sinification of Indian Buddhism was not the same. Chinese Buddhism is the Sinification of Indian Buddhism and the Chan School is a classical form of Chinese Buddhism. This is the consensus of scholars who have researched the history of Buddhism and the history 5

This is an old story. When Fayan was lecturing on Chan, he said that when a burglar was getting old, his son asked him about how the son should make a living. The old man led his son secretly into a rich home, opening a cupboard to allow his son to squeeze into it. The old man locked him in the cupboard and loudly shouted that there is a burglar. The houseowners searched and the son in the cupboard was pressed and unable to get out. Then he imitated the gnawing of a rat, which made someone open the cupboard and the son was able to flee. The rich householder chased him to the river bank and out of desperation he had the idea of tossing a stone into the river. The rich householder thought that the burglar had jumped into the river. The son escaped capture. After he returned, he saw the old burglar sitting calmly and drinking alcohol, and so he complained, saying why did he harm him in this way. The old burglar, knowing how he had escaped, said, “Hereafter do not worry that you will have no food to eat.” Fayan said, “This is the Chan that I speak of.” 6 Hu Shi once compared the Chan School to two ways of speaking. He said there was once a tailor who worked hard and sent his son to school. Once, the son sent a letter asking for money and the tailor asked the neighboring butcher, who was barely able to read and write, to read the letter. “Father, bring money quickly!” The tailor listened angrily, thinking that the son who was studying books did not know how to be respectful. The herdsman said after seeing the letter that the start of the letter said, “Dear father, at your knees, I know the favor of you raising me and that it was not easy for you to have me study books, but recently I really need money to buy books and things, and I hope you will send me some. I would be very grateful.” The tailor heard this happily and sent money straightaway.

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of thought and culture. They almost entirely agree in affirming that the authentic founder of the Chan School was Huineng, who, in the process of the Sinification of Buddhism, initiated a decisive function. And yet, the development of thought is definitely not an abrupt breakthrough and really is a process of slow change. Buddhism entered China around the first century and it clashed with traditional culture, and then harmonized with, rejected, infiltrated, and included the learning of Huang-Lao (religious Daoism), and it came into contact with and mutually complemented the Dark Learning that combined Confucianism and Daoism, and by the height of the Tang had transformed into a Buddhism and a Buddhist learning that had Chinese characteristics. All of this has become a fixed conclusion of the scholarly world. Nevertheless, Hu Shi and Yinshun each had their own unique views on the turning point for this transformation, which distinctly expressed the features of their research into the Chan School. One can say that Hu Shi’s research into the Chan School and his research into Buddhist history began from Shenhui. The explanation and examination of the events of Shenhui’s life and the truth or falsity of these historical materials was the main content of his research into the Chan School. He emphasized that his “writing about Reverend Shenhui was really a rewriting of Chan School history,”7 praising Shenhui by saying, “In the history of Chinese Buddhism there was not a second person who made such a huge contribution and eternal influence.”8 The conclusions of his research were: 1. Shenhui was the true author of the Platform Sutra. 2. The Chan School was a revolutionary movement in the history of Chinese thought and the history of Chinese Buddhism.9 3. Shenhui was the commander-in-chief of the Southern Lineage attack on the North “and was the true pioneering patriarch of the Chan School.”10 4. Shenhui was “the founder of the new Chan learning.”11 Surveying these four conclusions, Hu Shi clearly denied Huineng an important place in the history of the Chan School, replacing him with Shenhui. In that regard, even though Hu Shi had no means of “producing the evidence,” he even accepted that “Huineng in those days definitely had revolutionary achievements.”12 Nevertheless, he also adopted the preconception of a “daring hypothesis,” which was that via Huineng it was “possible” to explain to cherished ordinary folks “by ending all the ink in the universe” and enlighten them with “a single and a direct message,” and that with one change Huineng, “who left no writing,” secretly received the true 7

Tang Degang, Hu Shi koushu zizhuan. Pan Ping, comp., “Hu Shi Chanxue yanjiu jishi” (Chronicle of Hu Shi’s Research into Chan Learning), in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 272. 9 Hu Shi, “Chanzongshi de yige xinkanfa” (A New Way of Looking at the History of the Chan School), in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 239. 10 Tang Degang, Hu Shi koushu zizhuan. 11 Hu Shi, Shenhui Heshang yiji xu, in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 143. 12 Hu Shi, “Lun Chan xiaozha” (Minor Notes on Chan), in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 13. 8

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transmission. This was “most likely again changed into a myth that was compiled by Shenhui.”13 The revolution in thought of the Chan School as Hu Shi wrote, was propelled entirely by Shenhui’s efforts. He repeatedly talked about the loss and the recovery of the Dunhuang manuscripts and the story of how he went and found these materials in distant countries, which had the aim of publicizing his “most brilliant role”—that the turning point in the Sinification of Buddhism lay in Shenhui’s Southern Lineage attack on the North. On this point, Hu Shi much too arbitrarily emphasized the function of an individual, highlighting the accidental nature of history, and because of this it was hard for him to avoid being reproached by everybody. In fact, the development of thought is not controlled by the manipulations at the will of individuals, and also it is not decided by the accidents of history. That is to say, Yinshun strove to grasp the discovery of thought itself and the protracted nature and necessity of the development itself, and that understanding naturally is poles apart from the view of Hu Shi. Yinshun thought that the Sinification of Buddhism was a process of the sequential evolution of expedient means. The Damo Chan that preserved the nature of Indian chan continuously assimilated Niutou learning, and the path of Sinification that was pioneered by Huineng ended with Hongzhou and especially with the heirs of Shitou, which then completed the entire transformation of Buddhist culture. For the most part Yinshun saw this question from the regionality of culture. He pointed out that the inheritance and transmission of Niutou Chan “had a distinct regional characteristic.” The Jiangdong (region of the lower Yangzi) that had Dark Learning as its focus was exactly the place where Niutou flourished and did not weaken. Its root-source was in Sheshan (Mt. She), passed through Maoshan, entered [Mt.] Niutou, and was assimilated with the Dark Learning of Jiangdong. Their relationship was extremely close. Analyzed in terms of the cultural background, the Buddha-dharma that rose to prosperity in the Wei-Jin period, “mutually echoed the Dark Learning that ‘regarded non-existence to be the basis of the Way’.” Since the “metropolitan Buddhism” formed on that foundation used Daoist philosophy to explain the Buddha-dharma, this then planted the seeds for the mixture of Buddhism and Daoism. Niutou, which was located in the Jiangzuo (lower reaches of the Yangzi) region where the profound style flourished, was most easily influenced by this atmosphere. Through his examination of the bearers of culture, Farong, who was called “the Damo of China” and was “an extensive reader of Daoist books,” studied Buddhist and non-Buddhist theories, and was not satisfied by the Yixue (elucidation of the meanings of the classics) of thinking about what one has heard, so he sought the self-realization of the Chan mind. Therefore, it was easy for Farong to produce a tendency towards the convergence of prajñ¯a and Dark Learning. Yinshun specially emphasized that the formation of Niutou also had the following two causes. First, is that in the Zhenguan era (627–649), the weakening of the Yixue that had originally flourished there meant that Yixue was not understood and that the Buddha-dharma was easily mixed with mundane scholarly theories. The second is that the Buddhism of the southern courts originally had a tradition of opposition to “mind-only” (doctrine), 13

Hu Shi, “Chanzong zai Zhongguo: tade lishi he fangfa,” in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 255.

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and this was continued by Farong using the thought of “empty space is the basis of the Way.” This “Way” of “empty space” means to “not follow names and words, mind and thoughts,” “transcends mind and things, and cannot be compatible with the relationship of the mind and sense-object.” In this way, Farong used “causation” to be the connection. This was not a Buddhism of ontology, which was at once changed into the philosophical Daoist thought of “the intrinsic reality (ontology) of the Way.” The turning point in the Sinification of Buddhism was not only in the influence of Dark Learning and its transformation of Niutou, but was also in the formation of the Chan School, which was a product of the Sinification of Buddhism, which also began with Niutou and was brought to completion by Niutou Chan further approaching the Hongzhou and Shitou schools. This concepts of not falling into names and words, of the transcendence and elimination of the mind and things, and Suzuki’s form of thinking of the transcendence of dualistic antithesis, are inseparable. Yinshun targeted Hu Shi’s theory of the Southern Lineage attack on Northern Chan, clearly pointing out that Indian chan transmuted into the Chinese Chan School… and Hu Shi regarded Chinese Chan as having been done by Shenhui. In fact, not only was it not Shenhui, it was also not Huineng. The root-source of Chinese Chan and the builder of Chinese Chan was Niutou. One should call the “Damo of the East” in each case to be Farong.14

Yinshun stressed that the builder of Chinese Chan was Farong, its true meaning being that he wanted people to view the process of the evolution and transformation in thinking to be important. This theory can be thought to have been a cautious statement of the research results that the majority of scholars had adopted, but as it highlighted Niutou Farong, it was original in conception and so it formed a vigorously expressed different theory. In fact, Farong was just an intermediary link in the making of Indian chan like philosophical Daoism. Second, they differed on the connotations of the split into the Northern and Southern lineages. The discrepancies in their understanding of the turning points in the Sinification of Buddhism led them to have different opinions on the question of the split in the Chan School into Southern and Northern lineages. It also involved a different viewpoint on the questions of the lineages’ respect for the scriptures and sudden and gradual (enlightenment or teachings). What scripture did the Chan School ultimately make its guiding thought that was to be preached? Hu Shi had already made the first statements to enlighten the ignorant. Yinshun’s interpretation also made many in the scholarly world see things in a new light. Simply speaking; Hu Shi thought: From Bodhidharma through to Shenxiu was entirely the orthodox lineage of the La˙nka School that used the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra to be the core-essentials of that lineage. Huineng and Shenhui overturned the Dharma-lineage of the La˙nka School, using the Diamond Sutra as a replacement for the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra, which was the Prajñ¯a School overturning the La˙nka School. The split between the Northern and Southern lineages arose due to this. 14

Yinshun, Zhongguo Chanzong shi, p. 128.

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Yinshun thought: The replacement of the Wenshu shuo bore jing by the Jin’gang bore jing (Vajracchedik¯aprajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a S¯utra/Diamond Sutra) was not made by Shenhui as an individual, but was done by the entire Chan School and was even a common trend in the Buddhist realm. He especially pointed out that the Diamond Sutra was the representative of the Prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a sutras, “which was something the Northern Lineage also shared.”15 The key to the split between the Southern and Northern lineages lay in their expedient means being different. The Southern Lineage “observed the mind” (kanxin) and “observed purity,” the Northern Lineage “was mindful of Buddha” and “purified the mind,” and the split between the Northern and Southern lineages was only due to this.

Naturally, Hu Shi’s “theory of revolution” and its denial negated the very long course of the development and changes in Buddhist thought itself. In his “Chanzong shi de yige xinkanfa,” he also pointed out that Buddhism “in over a millennium was influenced by Chinese thought and culture and was slowly Sinified,” “which was the result of an evolution over a very long period.” Yet he boldly hypothesized that Bodhidharma had crossed the seas to come east, and in the Liu Song period had “founded a sect—the La˙nka School….This was an Indian monk simplifying Buddhism with a reform,” which thus established a concrete premise for the revolution of the Diamond versus the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra. That is to say, the existence of the La˙nka School immediately became the target of the Southern Lineage, which means that the difference in the reverence for the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra and the Diamond Sutra was the fundamental cause of the split between the Northern and Southern lineages. Therefore, his theory of evolution was in service of his “theory of revolution.” Once Hu Shi’s “theory of the revolution” of the Diamond versus the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra emerged, it was hard to avoid reproaches arising in the scholarly world. Already in his Han Wei Liang-Jin Nanbeichao Fojiao shi, Tang Yongtong had raised trenchant views on revolution and restoration, thinking that Bodhidharma used the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra to “demonstrate the empty tenet of no characteristics and therefore he gave it to students,” and that Huineng “abandoned the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra and adopted the Diamond Sutra, which was likely a natural trend in the evolution of scholarship….The revolution lay simply in the denunciation of the Northern Lineage sutra-masters’ learning of names and characteristics (in reality this is saying that they were still insufficiently changed by Daoist philosophy). And the restorationists, traced back to Bodhidharma, energetically sought to ‘understand the tenet and obtain the meaning,’ and promoted the original spirit of ‘the single vehicle tenet (lineage) of South India’.” This theory clearly highlighted the continuity and the gradual advance in the development of thought and not the abrupt breakthrough of such contingency. His “revolution” was targeted at those who followed Bodhidharma and who were bogged down in the tenets of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra and lost the original idea of no characteristics for the learning of name and characteristics “the further distant they were from the tenets of Bodhidharma” (really this is saying that they were still insufficiently changed by Daoist philosophy). Succinctly speaking, the Diamond Sutra of the Southern Lineage was based on the fundamental meanings 15

Yinshun, Zhongguo Chanzong shi, Chap. 4, p. 160.

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of Bodhidharma’s La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra, and it definitely was not a revolution against the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra. This theory highlights the influence of Daoist philosophy on Chan and approaches the truth about the development of thought, which can also convince scholars. Yinshun was clearly influenced by Tang Yongtong. Yinshun first of all clearly demonstrated that Damo Chan “depended on the teaching for enlightenment to the tenet” and differentiated valuing the teaching and valuing the tenet. “Those who valued the teaching spread to become the masters of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra who discriminated name and characteristics. Those who valued the tenets also formed into the Channists (meditators) who did not value the system of the vinaya and did not value the teachings of the sutras.”16 Therefore, of course the Southern and the Northern Chan both valued the Diamond Sutra and both took the Diamond Sutra to be a representative of Prajñ¯a. “Shenxiu depended on the gateway of rising and ceasing, and headed for the ultimate from initial awakening; Huineng relied on the inherent purity of the reality of the mind of the gateway of rising and ceasing to directly enter into the gateway of mind as true suchness. In sum, the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra was replaced by the Awakening of Faith (Qixin lun) and the Mah¯aprajñ¯a-p¯aramit¯a S¯utra was replaced by the Vajracchedik¯a-prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a S¯utra, which was a common tendency of the age of Shenxiu and Huineng.” Based on this, Yinshun censured the view that “thinks that Huineng (Shenhui) used the Diamond Sutra to replace the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra as being fundamentally wrong.” He wrote, “To say that Damo used the four-fascicle La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra to seal the mind, and that Huineng replaced it with the Diamond Sutra, that does not accord at all with the facts.” Nevertheless, how can one understand him quoting Hu Shi’s theory about the Diamond Sutra being a revolution against the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra? Even though Yinshun did not directly mention Hu Shi’s name, really he was a target for his interpretation. Shenhui praised to his utmost the Vajracchedik¯a-prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a S¯utra and he changed the Mah¯aprajñ¯a-p¯aramit¯a to Vajracchedik¯a-prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a….It was entirely a transmission of the Dharma from Damo to Huineng “that preached the Tath¯agata’s knowledge and views based on the Diamond Sutra.” One can see that the person who particularly raised the Vajracchedik¯a-prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a S¯utra was not Huineng but Huineng’s disciple Shenhui. Therefore, it seems you might as well say that the Platform Sutra has a part related to the Diamond Sutra that was added by Shenhui and his disciples.

Yinshun further stressed that since it is said that the Northern and Southern lineages both viewed the Diamond Sutra as being important and that in Lingnan (Guangdong region) Huineng “encouraged monks and laity to uphold the Diamond Sutra,” and in these circumstances the Diamond Sutra was valued by Channists (meditators), “[because] it not only agreed with the Dharma-gate of no-characteristics of the highest vehicle, but also because it was an appropriate length and broadly praised the merit of upholding it, it was easy to accept and hold on to.” As Yinshun saw it, the Diamond Sutra was valued in the Chan School, which also had a very secular cause, which was that the sutra text was succinct and easy to accept and 16

Yinshun, Zhongguo Chanzong shi, Chap. 1, p. 37.

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hold on to. As for “Shenhui holding the Diamond Sutra in high esteem, even saying that the transmission of the lamplight through six generations was all due to seeing the nature based on the speaking of the Diamond Sutra, this is unavoidably an over exaggeration.”17 Summing up what he wrote, Yinshun clearly is denying the theory of the revolution of the Diamond Sutra against the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra. As he saw it, since Bodhidharma did not purely use the four-fascicle La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra to seal the mind, his “Erru sixing” (Two Entrances and Four Practices) already included the meanings of the Vimalak¯ırti and Prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a sutras. Daoxin further fused the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra and the Prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a sutras together in the same furnace, and therefore Huineng did not rely on the premise of using the Diamond to replace the La˙nk¯avat¯ara. In other words, the spirit of the Vajracchedik¯a-prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a S¯utra linked Bodhidharma to Huineng, including the Chan School of Shenxiu and Shenhui, together. This idea and that of Tang Yongtong’s “restoration theory” of the understanding of the tenet and obtaining the meaning were very close. It was just that Yinshun seems to have also had the intention of highlighting that the theory of the revolution was aimless and fruitless, and that Shenhui produced it for some reason, adding a Diamond Sutra part to the Platform Sutra, which strenuously praised the Vajracchedik¯a-prajñ¯ap¯aramit¯a S¯utra and that clearly was “an over exaggeration.”18 From this he infers that Hu Shi’s errors are self-evident. Since Yinshun denied Hu Shi’s theory of a revolution, it naturally followed that he denied that Shenhui was “the destroyer of the Northern Lineage of Chan.” He quoted as evidence the memorial to the throne in the seventh year of the Dali era (772) by the Northern Lineage believer Dugu Ji (725–777) concerning writing historical facts in a lineage to prove that after Shenhui had passed away that the Northern Lineage still survived and had ignored the position of Shenhui’s lineage. Yinshun then stressed that “at least the Northern Lineage of those times had not weakened or been eliminated. However, [the claim that] after Shenhui came to Luoyang, Shenhui’s political achievements vaulted him into the mainstream of the Chan institution and Puji’s heirs lost their leading position is contrary to the facts.” Based on this, Yinshun not only criticized Hu Shi’s theory about Shenhui destroying the Northern Lineage, but he also pointed out that the Song gaoseng zhuan’s statement that “the school of Puji was full and after it was empty” was all “exaggerated and inconsistent with the facts.” He said the decline of the Northern Lineage was due to the persecution of Buddhism by Emperor Wu in the Huichang period and the confusions in the military governments in the Five Dynasties period, with the people living in destitution, which 17

Yinshun, Zhongguo Chanzong shi, Chap. 4, p. 162. Yinshun first says on p. 158 of his Zhongguo Chanzong shi that “Bodhidharma used the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra to seal the mind” and continues on then to say that this does not tally with the facts. He stressed that the Diamond Sutra was representative of prajñ¯a and was valued by the Northern and Southern lineages. He also said that the six generations of the transmission of lamplight that depended on the Diamond Sutra’s seeing the nature was an “over exaggeration,” and that one can see that where the author was deficient in thinking and not rigorous in his writing, bringing about the fault of a strained argument. However, careful examination of his meaning is still worth considering. 18

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created a total decline of the culture of the Central Plains (north China). Shenhui’s Heze Chan line also went into oblivion in the midst of this decline along with the Northern Lineage, “allowing the Chan of South [China] alone to prosper in China.”19 Seen from another side, in the course of the Sinification of the Chan School under the influence of Niutou Chan, in the midst of this decline, Chan was greatly propelled forward. This also concurs with his viewpoint that this was the turning point in the Sinification of the Chan School. The problem of sudden and gradual is regarded as the fundamental problem in the split between the Northern and Southern Chan School. Generally, one can say that this was a consensus of the scholarly world, and also that it formed a fact accepted by society. Tang Yongtong also called the sixth patriarch, Huineng, and his heirs “the sudden gate” and he took Shenhui as having promoted the sudden gate and brought about “the complete disappearance of gradual cultivation….The names Northern Lineage and Southern Lineage started from this.”20 Tang also related the names Northern Lineage and Southern Lineage to gradual and sudden respectively. Hu Shi was no exception, and he, from the angle of the La˙nka School, thought that those from Bodhidharma to Shenxiu maintained the basic meaning of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra, namely gradual cultivation, and advocated the method of “the gradual purification that is not sudden,” and that only with Huineng “was it already not the tenets of the La˙nk¯avat¯ara S¯utra of ‘gradual purification that is not sudden’,” and so Shenhui “entirely recommended ‘sudden enlightenment,’ which was not the basic meaning of the La˙nka School at all.”21 They inherited Daosheng’s “thesis of sudden enlightenment to become Buddha” and “the revolutionary sect of the ‘sudden lineage’ that subsequently opened up in the South,” which “did not use that tediously complex method of ‘gradual cultivation’ in seeking the great penetration and great enlightenment only from the side of wisdom.”22 Clearly, Hu Shi, from the side of wisdom indicated that the distinction between “sudden enlightenment” and “gradual cultivation” connoted the split between Northern and Southern Chan. Yinshun pointed out that Shenhui thought that “Southern sudden and Northern gradual” was the essence of the opposition within the Dharma-gate, but even though really this was already a traditional viewpoint of the scholarly world, still Yinshun went further in his analysis, saying that the question of sudden and gradual also had connotations of the two aspects of principle and practice, namely that the sudden enlightenment and the gradual enlightenment of principle, and the sudden entry and gradual entry of practice, “in the sense of the Mah¯ay¯ana sutras, has all along been that the ‘enlightenment to principle must be sudden’.” That is to say, all of the Mah¯ay¯ana sects, including the Chan School, advocate sudden enlightenment with regard to enlightenment to principle. Therefore, Yinshun also pointed out that “the ‘This mind is buddha’ and ‘There is no buddha outside of the mind, and no mind outside of the buddha’ of the Dongshan (Famen) lineage may all be called sudden Chan,” and that 19

Yinshun, Zhongguo Chanzong shi, Chap. 7, p. 194. Tang Yongtong, Sui Tang Fojiao shigao, p. 189. 21 Hu Shi, “Lengqiezong kao” (A Study of the La˙ nka School), in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 234. 22 Hu Shi, “Zhongguo Chanxue zhi fazhan,” in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 184. 20

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the Northern Lineage headed by Shenxiu “also titled itself ‘sudden enlightenment’.” This clearly is Yinshun especially indicating a new meaning and an area where he did not agree with majority opinion. He went on to explain that “sudden and gradual are a question of the sharpness and obtuseness of abilities; it is not that the methods are not the same. Obtuse ability requires many eons of gradual cultivation,” and if one is of sharp ability then “one does not need expedient means, directly pointing and directly showing.” In this way, his explanation of the problem of sudden and gradual in terms of sharp or obtuse ability, compared to Hu Shi’s understanding of the split into North and South in terms of the understanding of sudden and gradual from the aspect of wisdom, obviously reveals the different methods of understanding the question by a religious and a scholar. Yinshun thought that both the Northern and Southern lineages advocated sudden enlightenment, and tracing these back to their source, he thought that it was really due to them both being sourced in the “One Vehicle Tenet (Lineage) of South India.” It was only due to the emergence of Shenhui that “there was also an evolution into the opposition between the Southern Lineage and the Northern Lineage” within the one great Southern Lineage.23 Hu Shi thought that Bodhidharma was a product of the new Buddhism of the South, which is that “The ‘Southern Lineage’ of India later competed to become China’s ‘Southern Lineage’.”24 These two theories are roughly the same. Yet in the process of concrete research, Hu Shi still maintained the traditional way of talking about the Northern and Southern lineages. Yinshun did not do so. He specially rectified the name Southern Lineage. He said that even though there is a factual basis for speaking in terms of Southern Huineng and Northern Shenxiu and of them being propagated separately, of Southern opposing the Northern, still before “Southern Huineng and Northern Shenxiu” appeared, “the Southern Lineage in fact already existed” and “one can see that the term Southern Lineage originally had no connection with Southern Huineng and Northern Shenxiu,” but was related to South India, possessing a “source in the special significance of South India,” and therefore the line of Shenxiu “was originally also the Southern Lineage.” From Daoxin on, it was spread into the Yangzi basin and to Lingnan (Guangdong and Guangxi), and Hongzhou and Shitou “further promoted the distinctive features of the ‘Southern Lineage,’ also taking the ‘Southern Lineage’ to be the orthodox lineage position.” Besides, Yinshun distinguished the northern lines and southern lines of Buddhism via the southern and northern courts, the southern area and the northern area. He distinguished the Southern Lineage and Northern Lineage through regional cultures, citing as proof source materials that say that the three contemplations of Tiantai were called the Southern Lineage. This unavoidably had some elements of sticking stubbornly to old views. However, at first view this seems to be a meaningless “rectification of names,” while it was really Yinshun wanting to clarify the influence Niutou Chan received from Dark Learning and the efforts it made to Sinify the Chan School. His general conclusion was:

23 24

Yinshun, Zhongguo Chanzong shi, Chap. 7, p. 311. Hu Shi, “Lun Chan xiaozha,” in Hu Shi shuo Chan, p. 15.

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Dark Learning and pure conversation (qingtan) are the southern spirit that seeped into the mental realms of the aristocrats and famous scholars and which was then expressed by them, and therefore it was simple and easy, yet insufficient and plain….With the Sui and Tang unification [of China], Jiangdong was no longer the center of politics and culture, and the aristocracy almost entirely disappeared, and the Chan style that was rather unaffected and sought reality, and began to flourish in Jiangdong was Niutou Chan.25

One can see through this that Yinshun in his definitions of the Southern and Northern lineages focused on explaining that the “Southern Lineage” was the Chan School Sinified under the influence of the Dark Learning thought of South China and which flourished in the South. It not only included Huineng of the South and Shenxiu of the North who were heirs of the Dongshan Famen, but what was particularly noticeable was that the influence from Niutou Chan deepened, and it “also deepened the changes to the Chinese Southern School to another level” in the Hongzhou and Shitou Chan that were universally compatible with it.26 He only had a few words on this and did not elaborate. By comparing the genesis of the research, the understanding of the core concepts of Chan learning, the research methods, and concrete content of that research, we not only can see that the Chan learning of Suzuki who had created a contemporary Chan and the Chan learning of the historian Hu Shi, and the Chan history of the religious Yinshun and the Chan history of the text-critic Hu Shi, each have their own distinctive traits, and at the same time it also shows the plurality of modern research into the Chan School and the distinctive features of its gradual deepening. Since they have recollected and reflected on the history of Chan, this also was an interpretation of Chan’s creativity. Talking in this sense, since the Chan School that they understood was not the chan (meditation) learning of the Six Dynasties, and was also not the Chan principles in its transformation, one cannot also say that it is the five petals from the one flower, but is the Chan School that is completely Sinified. Speaking of the research of Suzuki, Hu Shi, and Yinshun, we have already shown some examples, to a greater or to a lesser extent, as to whether it is specious or is fact, and whether they brought a scientific modern consciousness or a post-modern consciousness to the subject, and whether the history of Chan is due to the necessity of cultural development or is said to be a natural law. Speaking in terms of the motive for the research, Hu Shi was responding to the demands of research into the history of Chinese thought; Suzuki used the religious faith that had been molded since his childhood and he strove to gradually deepen the grasping of the unlimited concept of the transcendence of dualistic antithesis; and Yinshun then, because he was dissatisfied with the mistakes about the histories of Chan and Chan methods by lineage masters, gave rise to ideas of remedying defects and correcting errors. Suzuki made Chan the truth of human life and used mind in order to realize Chan; Hu Shi made Chan a kind of culture and method, and used history to restore Chan, and his may be said to be a Chan of evidential examination. 25 26

Yinshun, Zhongguo Chanzong shi, Chap. 3, p. 95. Yinshun, Zhongguo Chanzong shi, Chap. 9, p. 410.

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Yinshun made Chan into cultural history and also made it the philosophy of human life, and even more importantly, he made it a kind of unique religious tradition, and he used Chan to deal with history. Using the mind to realize Chan determined Suzuki’s duplication of Chan; using history to restore Chan determined Hu Shi’s employment of the forms of positivism in relation to the Chan School; and the use of Chan to deal with history determined Yinshun’s research that further valued the forms of comparative analysis of the skillful use of expedient means. In summary, Suzuki’s attitude to human life of the realization of the transcendence of dualistic antithesis was mystical; Hu Shi’s positivist historical method was realism; and Yinshun’s comparative analysis of the split in the mainstream and the progress of these two threads was reasonable and logical. These different expressions of mysticism, realism, and rationalism just reflected the plurality of modern research into the Chan School and they reside in the special characteristics of the deepening of different approaches.

Postscript

Outside my window drizzle pitters and patters. The rare breath of a spring day melted into a moist air. Over the period of four years, this book draft has passed through four universities, and was now accompanied by this soundless drizzle and the dispersal of spring in the air, ending with a declaration that it was finished. A feeling of brief relaxation and of release came unexpectedly, instead adding to the excitement. Four years previously, when I was in North-Western University, under the direction of my teacher, Zhang Qizhi, I applied for and obtained a Chinese Social Science fund. Even though the money was meagre, I still took it as a heavy responsibility. Several years later, although I did not again hear the sound of the bell and drum of Yanta (Wild Goose Pagoda in Xian not far from North-Western University), I still saw the swaying of the palm trees of Qiong Island (Hainan) and the red of the maple trees at the foot of the mountain that were like fire, or I accompanied my wife and daughter in the shopping center dripping with perspiration. Nevertheless, the heroic period of the Zhou, Qin, Han and Tang fostered a heroic mettle, which constantly urges me in the morning to be bold and in the evening to be alert, not daring to be lazy in the least. From September last year, I in particular did not dare leave my desk for a moment. Today, with over four hundred thousand words, I have come to the end of the entire manuscript, but I lack that former relaxation and joy I had felt after the completion of any part of the book manuscript. It seems that this was probably due to an overly long period of anxiety and fatigue. However, it could also be due to a new project being already piled up in front of me and to an ever-present regret in my sub-consciousness. The American attitude to life is “Work when you work, play when you play.” In any case, I find it this hard to accomplish. It seems that Master Lu Xun said that I generally hear a voice summoning me forward and onward, leaving me no way to stop. This probably is an urge to be competitive and excel, yet one also cannot say it is not the spur of the weighty feeling of it being a mission. I generally am conscious that, as I had selected this bumpy and unshaded road that yet went through to the future, that I was duty bound to not turn back, but to face the target, advance stride by stride, and because of this there is only work, work, work!

© Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9

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Postscript

Once I had finished each book I have published previously, I had a sort of regret. Therefore, when this book was still not delivered as a draft manuscript, I already vaguely felt and lamented that this regret had already floated up from my subconsciousness. It is not the history of the Chan School nor purely the history of Chan thought, but the history of Chan thought in the culture in the whole of Chinese culture or in culture. Ignoring the discussion of this as form of Buddhism, I think that Chan thought really was a popularization of the philosophy of Zhuangzi and Laozi (Daoist philosophy). Consequently, I have not retrod the paths previous people have already traversed and have placed the object of research in that which they have least touched on. One may say that the object is the Chan thought of the Song and after that has been very little engaged with systematically. Thus, what I could use for reference was next to nothing and the search for source materials doubtlessly added to the excessive difficulty, and their meagerness meant it was hard to avoid places that were in error. However, the good care of relatives, the trust and support coming from everybody, and also the encouragement and advice of Professor Li Xueqin, enabled the completion of this project, further strengthened my confidence, and also created beneficial conditions. I believe that there are ultimately new ideas in this text that can be consulted by the scholarly world and by colleagues, and this consoles me. In memory of the time after I had set up this project, I have written a couplet to leave to my teachers and students: Sharing a seat with Buddha, I sit looking at the sun and moon floating in the rivers and seas, A monk offered me a brush and I wrote of spring and autumn startling the fish and dragons.

A playful work, I do not expect that in the end it will be appreciated by many people. The monk and the Buddha in it are no more than metonyms, and today as I see it, I in fact really lie in hope that there will be a morning one day on which we can all arrive at such a realm. I thank the National Social Science Foundation program office. I thank my teachers, Professors Zhang Qizhi and Li Xueqin, and I thank Professor Ji Xianlin for his inscription (on the cover). My thanks also go to my close friends at NorthWestern University, Ma Lin’an and Fang Guanghua. In particular, thanks go to Hunan Educational Publishing for their guidance and for the compilation work by Liu Xinmin. But I want to reflect on this time and hope that I can yet repay my teachers and fiends even slightly. I sincerely offer this book to my seniors in the academic world, to my fellow scholars, and to the readers.

Conventions

Dates: The majority of dates are given by the author as the reign era years of Chinese dynasties that used the lunar calendar. These have been retained because lunar-calendar years do not correspond exactly to the Western calendar year. An eleventh or twelfth month in the lunar calendar may equate with the January or February of the following Western year. Moreover, reign eras were sometimes not proclaimed until some months after succession (for more, see “Appendix 5. Reign Titles (nianhao) Han Through Tang” in Paul W. Kroll, A Student’s Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese, rev. edn, Brill, Boston, 2017 and George A. Kennedy, ZH Guide: An Introduction to Sinology, New Haven, Yale University, 1953, pp. 21– 22). I have added the Western calendar year in brackets following the reign-era year, following Mathias Tchang, Synchronismes Chinois, Shanghai, 1905, as it provides the sexagenary cycle, parallel reign eras when there were rival regimes, and has information on the accession, abdication, and death dates of rulers. Dates for monks have been adopted from Yuan Bin and Kang Jian, eds, Chanzong da cidian, Wuhan, Chongwen shuju, 2010, and Komazawa Daigaku Zengaku daijiten hensansho, comp., Zengaku daijiten, 3 vols, Tokyo: Daishukan shoten, 1977. Dates for lay people have been taken from select volumes in the Cambridge History of China series, Victor H. Mair, ed., The Columbia History of Chinese Literature, New York, Columbia University Press, 2001, and Herbert A. Giles, A Chinese Biographical Dictionary, 1898, specialist monographs, and failing all else, from the internet. Years of age are given in sui because in this system a child is said to be one the year the child is born, and the next lunar new years day the child is two. Thus, in western reckoning, the person may be in fact one or even two years younger. Names: Chinese, including monks, had multiple names. These include surnames, personal names (ming), style (zi, courtesy name), taboo name (hui), and sobriquet (hao, sometimes translated brush name, but when granted by an emperor, closer to an honorific name) and posthumous names. See Kennedy, pp. 37–38, 45. There were also toponyms that preceded the names of famous people. Monks had Dharma-names ´ akya), a member of the Buddha’s and toponyms, and their surname was usually Shi (S¯

© Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9

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family. Their toponym was usually their monastery or place of residence when they became famous. For example, Zhaozhou Congshen was Congshen who lived in the district of Zhaozhou. Toponyms are often used instead of Dharma-names. The author has used most of these names, and in quotes another name for the same person may be used. I have usually indicated in brackets the name most often used in order to reduce confusion. Titles: Official titles of lay people follow Charles O. Hucker, A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1985. For monks, I have translated heshang as reverend, cunzhe as venerable, shouzuo as seniormost monk (in an assembly), shi as master. There were hierarchies in the Sangha (Buddhist Order), such as abbot of a monastery (si), deans, heads of cloisters (yuan), heads of hermitages (an) and so on. Technical terms and colloquial language: For Chan technical language, I have consulted Chanzong da cidian and Zengaku daijiten; for non-Chan Buddhist terms I have consulted Nakamura Hajime, ed. Bukky¯o daijiten, 3 vols, Tokyo: Tokyo shoseki, 1975. For colloquialisms, which were widely used in Chan, I have also used Iriya Yoshitaka and Koga Hidehiko, Zengo jiten, Kyoto, Shibunkaku, 1991, and T. Y. Tien, A Dictionary of Colloquial Terms and Expressions in Chinese Vernacular Fictions, rev. edn, Taipei, Shen Wen Feng Print Co., 1984. For Daoist terms, I have used Hu Fuchen, ed., Zhonghua Daojiao da cidian, Beijing, Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1995. Book, poem, and epigraph titles: These are all translated, but as they often contain allusions, personal references, studio names and the like, they are sometimes difficult to translate without reading them in detail. Therefore, some translations are tentative. Some have been translated in The Columbia History of Chinese Literature. Quotes of classics: I have consulted James Legge, The Chinese Classics, 5 vols, rev. edn, Taipei, Wenshizhe chubanshe, 1972 reprint. Although dated, it is convenient as it contains the Chinese text and the notes sometimes refer to explanations made via traditional commentaries. For Zhuangzi I have used Burton Watson, tr, The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu, New York, Columbia University Press, 1968. Sources: Either because they were not available or because many of the later-period texts were not included in standard collections like the Taisho Shinshu daizokyo or CBETA, the author has referred to most pre-modern texts by fascicles and not by page number. It is likely some texts used were woodblock prints, which is why pagination and publication data may not be provided. Special terms: Jiao and xue. These words appear often in the text and have multiple meanings. Jiao can mean teachings in some contexts, but religion in others. However, when contrasted with Chan, it means doctrine, and as it was designated as a school during the Ming dynasty, jiao is also translated as Doctrine. Xue or learning, as in Lixue (the neo-Confucian learning concentrated on principle or pattern) or Xinxue (the neo-Confucian learning concentrated on the heart-mind), is used to distinguish a system of thought or scholarship from the more general and religiously hued jiao. Thus Chanxue (Chan Learning) is distinct from simply Chan or Chan teachings. Chan, chan, and Chanzong and Chanmen. Chan, capitalized is the Chan (J. Zen) as distinct from chan (meditation). Chanzong is the Chan lineage or Chan School,

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but in the case of Chanzong sixiang I have translated it as Chan thought. Where Chanmen is used, I have translated simply as Chan or sometimes Chan institution as the context dictated. Translator’s comments: () are used by the translator for explanations, inside quotes as an equivalent to explain a word or term, or who a person was, for example (dates, a major poet). The author also used () to make comments, usually a long phrase or sentence. As these are relatively self-evident, these are not distinguished. [] are used inside quotes to supply context or make the sentence intelligible, to compensate for lacunae. Tr. used in notes to indicate my explanation.

Further Readings

As this history deals with material on Chan that has rarely been considered outside of a few monographs and articles on individual Chan masters in English, and for that matter, in Chinese and Japanese, and because of the author’s erudition and expectation that his Chinese readers should know or be able to consult encyclopedias of Chinese history and thought for references to individuals and events, and for encyclopedias or dictionaries of allusions, a select list of books in English is provided that may be helpful. As I have not seen or checked all of the translations, the scholarly value of some of the translations are unknown. A standard history, based mainly on Japanese scholarship, Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History, India and China, trans. James W. Heisig and Paul Knitter, New York, Macmillan, 1988, is now rather dated. It has only 50 pages on Chan from the start of the Song until the end of the book, with virtually nothing on the Ming through to the Republican period. Thus, it is of little assistance to readers of Ma’s book, which concentrates on the Song to Republican period. For the history of Chinese thought in general, Fung Yu-lan’s History of Chinese Philosophy, vol. II, trans. Derk Bodde, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1953, and Wing-Tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1963, are useful for some context. Part 1 Chapter 2 Early Chan is covered in John McRae, The Northern School and the formation of early Ch’an Buddhism, Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 1986, and Bernard Faure, The Will to Orthodoxy: A Critical Genealogy of Northern Chan Buddhism, trans. Phyllis Brooks, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1997. For the Platform Sutra and Huineng, see Philip B. Yampolsky, The Platform S¯utra of the Sixth Patriarch, New York, Columbia University Press, 1967; John Jorgensen, Inventing Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarch, Leiden, Brill, 2005; and Morten Schlütter and Stephen F. Teiser, eds, Readings of the Platform S¯utra, New York, Columbia University Press, 2012. © Higher Education Press Limited Company 2023 T. Ma, History of the Development of Chinese Chan Thought, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-5686-9

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Chapter 3 For the post-Huineng period of the Tang and the formation of lamplight transmission texts and recorded sayings of a number of the famous masters of the Tang and Five Dynasties, see, for Mazu, Jinhua Jia, The Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism in Eighth-Through Tenth-Century China, Albany, State University of New York Press, 2006; Mario Poceski, Ordinary Mind as the Way: The Hongzhou School and the Growth of Chan Buddhism, New York, Oxford University Press, 2007, and The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature, New York, Oxford University Press, 2015. For Linji, see Ruth Fuller Sasaki, ed. Thomas Y¯uh¯o Kirchner, The Record of Linji, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2009; Albert Welter, The Linji lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy, New York, Oxford University Press, 2008. For Yunmen, see Urs App, Master Yunmen: From the Record of the Chan Teacher “Gate of the Clouds,” New York, Kodansha America, 1994. For Zongmi, see Jeffrey Lyle Broughton, Zongmi on Chan, New York, Columbia University Press, 2009; Peter N. Gregory, Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2002. Part 2 For Song Buddhism, see Peter N. Gregory and Daniel Getz, eds, Buddhism in the Song, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 1999. Chapter 5 On Yongming Yanshou, see Albert Welter, Yongming Yanshou’s Conception of Chan, New York, Oxford University Press, 2011. For Qisong, see Elizabeth Morrison, The Power of Patriarchs: Qisong and Lineage in Chinese Buddhism, Leiden, Brill, 2010. Chapter 6 For the Biyan lu, see Thomas Cleary, The Blue Cliff Record, Berkeley, Numata Center, 1998. For Huihong and Lettered Chan, see George Albert Keyforth III, “Transmitting the Lamp of Learning in Classical Chan Buddhism: Juefan Huihong (1071–1128) and Literary Chan,” Ph.D. diss, University of California, Los Angeles, 2001. For discussion of how these texts of Lettered Chan functioned, although set in a Japanese context, Victor S¯ogen Hori, Zen Sand: The Book of Capping Phrases for K¯oan Practice, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2003, is useful. Chapter 7 On kanhua and Silent Illumination Chan, see Morten Schlüter, How Zen Became Zen: The Dispute over Enlightenment and the Formation of Chan Buddhism in SongDynasty China, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2008. On gongan, see Steven Heine and Dale S. Wright, eds, The K¯oan: Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism, New York, Oxford University Press, 2000. For Dahui Zonggao’s Dahui shu, see Bhikkhu Ho Beop and S. B. Hettiaratchi, trans, A Manual of Zen: Epistle of Da Hui, Busan, English Research Center of

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Buddhist Texts, 2018; Christopher Cleary, trans, Swampland Flowers: The Letters and Lectures of Zen Master Ta Hui, New York, Grove Press, 1977 (text from Zhiyue lu). Chapter 8 On Zanning, see Albert A. Dalia, “The ‘Political Career’ of the Buddhist Historian Tsan-ning” in David W. Chappell, ed., Buddhist and Taoist Practice in Medieval Chinese Society, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i, 1987, pp. 147–180. For selections from Jingde chuandeng lu, Lu K’uan Yü (Charles Luk), Ch’an and Zen Teaching: Second Series, London, Rider, 1961, pp. 27–83, and from Wudeng huiyuan, pp. 84–126, 158–214. On the lamplight histories, see Albert Welter, Monks, Rulers, and Literati: The Political Ascendancy of Chan Buddhism, New York, Oxford University Press, 2006. Chapter 9 On Zhu Xi and Chan, see John Makeham, ed., The Buddhist Roots of Zhu Xi’s Philosophical Thought, New York, Oxford University Press, 2018. On poetry and Chan, see John Jorgensen, “Sensibility of the Insensible: The Genealogy of a Ch’an Aesthetic and the Passionate Dream of Poetic Creation,” Ph.D. diss, Australian National University, Canberra, 1989. Part 3 Chapter 10 Translation of Wansong Xingxiu’s Congrong lu, Thomas Cleary, The Book of Serenity: One Hundred Zen Dialogues, Shambala, 2005. For Qiu Chuji, see Arthur Waley, The Travels of an Alchemist, London, George Routledge and Sons, 1931. For Quanzhen texts, see Stephen Eskildsen, The Teachings and Practices of the Early Quanzhen Taoist Masters, Albany, State University of New York Press, 2004; Louis Komjathy, The Way of Complete Perfection: A Quanzhen Daoist Anthology, Albany, State University of New York Press, pbk 2013. For Yelu Chucai, see Igor de Rachewiltz, “Yeh-lü Ch’u-ts’ai (1189–1243): Buddhist Idealist and Confucian Statesman,” in Arthur F. Wright and Denis Twitchett, eds, Confucian Personalities, Stanford, Stanford University Press, 1962, pp. 189–216. Chapter 11 For Mingben, see Natasha Heller, Illusory Abiding: The Cultural Construction of the Chan Monk Zhongfeng Mingben, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Asia Center, 2014. For translations from the works of Hengchuan, Gulin, Zhuxian, and Daian (who are not considered in this book), J. C. Cleary, Zen under the Gun: Four Zen Masters from Turbulent Times, Somerville MA, Wisdom Publications, 2010.

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For Zhuhong, Chün-fang Yü, The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis, New York, Columbia University Press; J. C. Cleary, trans, Pure Land Pure Mind: The Buddhism of Masters Chu-hung and Tsung-pen, New York, The Sutra Translation Committee of the United States and Canada, 1994. Chapter 12 On Deqing, see Sung-peng Hsu, A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and Thought of Han-shan Te-ch’ing, 1546-1623, University Park, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1979. For Zhixu, J. C. Cleary, trans., Mind-Seal of the Patriarchs: Patriarch Ou-i’s Commentary on the Amitabha Sutra, New York, The Sutra Translation Committee of the United States and Canada, 1997. For Zhenke, see J. C. Cleary, Zibo: The Last Great Zen Master of China, New York, The Sutra Translation Committee of the United States and Canada, 1989. For Yuanlai, see Jeff Shore, Great Doubt: Practicing Zen in the World, Somerville MA, Wisdom Publications, 2016. Chapter 13 On Wang Yangming, see Julia Ching, To Acquire Wisdom: The Way of Wang Yangming, New York, Columbia University Press, 1976; Wing-Tsit Chan, “How Buddhistic is Wang Yang-ming,” Philosophy East & West v. 12 (1962), pp. 203–215. For Yuan Hongdao, see Martine Vallette-Hémery, Yuan Hongdao (1568–1610): Théorie et Pratique Littéraires, Paris, Collège de France, 1982. For Li Zhi, see Pauline C. Lee, Li Zhi, Confucianism, and the Virtue of Desire, Albany, State University of New York Press, 2012; Rivi Handler-Spitz, Pauline C. Lee, trans, A Book to Burn and a Book to Keep (Hidden), New York, Columbia University Press, 2016. Chapter 14 Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China, New York, Oxford University Press, 2008. For Luo Chinshun, see Irene Bloom, trans, Knowledge Painfully Acquired: The K’un-chih chi by Lo Ch’in-shun, New York, Columbia University Press, 1987. Part 4 Chapter 15 See Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute. Chapter 16 For an overview of Qing scholarship, see Benjamin A. Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Chang in Imperial China, Cambridge Mass, Harvard University Press, 1984. See articles in Wm. Theodore de Bary and the Conference on Seventeenth-Century Chinese Thought, eds, The Unfolding of Neo-Confucianism, New York, Columbia University Press, 1975.

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For Wang Fuzhi, see Alison Harley Black, Man and Nature in the Philosophical Thought of Wang Fu-chih, Seattle, University of Washington Press, 1989. For an aspect of Chan not covered here, see Beata Grant, Eminent Nuns; Women Chan Masters of Seventeenth-Century China, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2009. Chapter 17 See Chan Sin-wai, Buddhism in Late Ch’ing Political Thought, Hong Kong, The Chinese University Press, 1985. Holmes Welch, The Buddhist Revival in China, Cambridge Mass., Harvard University Press, 1968. For Taixu, Don A. Pittman, Toward a Modern Chinese Buddhism: Taixu’s Reforms, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2001. For Jingan’s poems, selections in Red Pine and Mike O’Connor, eds, The Clouds Should Know Me by Now: Buddhist Poet Monks of China, Somerville, Wisdom Publications, 1998, pp. 173–198. Part 5 For Hu Shi, see Jerome B. Grieder, Hu Shih and the Chinese Renaissance: Liberalism in the Chinese Revolution, 1917–1937, Cambridge Mass., Cambridge University Press, 1970. For Suzuki Daisetsu, see Judith Snodgrass, “Publishing Eastern Buddhism: D. T. Suzuki’s Journey to the West,” Casting Faiths, 2009, pp. 46–72. For comments on Hu Shi and Suzuki, see Bernard Faure, Chan Insights and Oversights: An Epistemological Critique of the Chan Tradition, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993. For Yinshun, see Marcus Bingenheimer, “Writing History of Buddhist Thought in the Twentieth Century: Yinshun (1906–2005) in the Context of Chinese Buddhist Historiography,” Journal of Global Buddhism, v. 10, pp. 255–290.