ZEN MESTEREK ZEN MASTERS
« Zen főoldal
« vissza a Terebess Online nyitólapjára

嵩岳慧安 Songshan Hui'an (582-709), aka 老安 Lao'an

(Rōmaji:) Suzan E'an

Songshan Hui'an (582-709)
Huian of Songshan [E'an of Suzan] a disciple of 大滿弘忍 Daman Hongren (601-674)
by Satya Vayu (1969-)
http://touchingearth.info/dregs/

Master Hui'an (also known as Lao'an) was from Jingzhou in Hubei Province. As a young man he became a monk without government sanction or official connection to a monastery, and during a government crackdown against such ordinations he fled to the forests and began a life of wandering in the mountains. During a period of food shortages associated with a major canal construction project, Hui'an, still in his twenties, began to collect extra food to distribute to the needy. From this work his reputation began to grow, and eventually he was invited to receive honors at the royal court. Hui'an turned down the offer, and instead returned to a life of backcountry retreat. He entered the Heng Mountains in Hunan and focused on meditation there for many years. Eventually, already in his forties or fifties, he decided to investigate the growing Zen community at Huangmei, and arrived there at the end of Master Daoxin's life. Staying on to study with Master Hongren, Hui'an's understanding and practice came to maturation, and he became recognized as a prominent teacher of the “East Mountain” School.
When Hui'an was again invited to court for honors, he again refused, and, like before, decided to drop out of view by returning to the wandering yogi life in the mountains. He first went to live in a cave retreat on Zhongnan Mountain south of Chang'an for several years, and then moved to a hut in the misty mountains of Huatai near Luoyang. By imperial edict a monastery was built near his hut for Hui'an to lead, but the aging master soon gave up the post and instead resumed his wandering. After first spending some time at the famous Jade Spring Monastery in Jingzhou, where his now well-known “East Mountain School” colleague Shenxiu was teaching, Master Hui'an finally settled on Mt. Song and began to teach at Gathering Virtue (Huishan) Monastery.
During this time the Empress Wu Zetian had ascended to power, and she proved an enthusiastic supporter of the many disciples of Master Hongren who were spreading the East Mountain School teachings of Zen. As Master Hui'an was one of the senior teachers of this circle, he was once again invited for honors at court, and finally the master relented.

While staying at the royal palace, Master Hui'an was offered a bath by the Empress to be administered by attractive female attendants. Unperturbed and with complete composure, Hui'an went about enjoying his bath. The empress (perhaps watching) was deeply impressed, and she was said to remark, “Only through seeing him enter the water can you learn of the existence of a superior man.”

Another time at the court, the empress requested an audience with Master Hui'an during which she asked him his age. The master replied, “I don't remember.”
The empress said, “Really? How could that be?”
The master said, “This body is subject to birth and death in cycles without beginning or end. What is the point of noting progress in years? Awareness flows like water - grasping at the arising and disappearing of bubbles is just deluded thinking. Life from birth to death is just the same – why mark it with months or years?” The empress had an understanding and bowed in gratitude.

Master Hui'an returned to Mt. Song and lived out the last few years of his long life at Shaolin Monastery. He was said to have lived to the extraordinary age of 128. Days before his passing he asked his disciples to take care of his body after death by simply leaving it in the forest and entrusting it to nature.

Hui'an's deep reverence for nature and the hermit life (also notable in the Oxhead School), and his lifestyle of freedom and independence from social regulation, left a strong influence on his students. When Hui'an's disciple Fuxian Renjian was called before Empress Wu, he refused to speak, instead only presenting her with a collection of his poems, and then refusing the gifts she offered in return. One of the poems had the line, “Today I entrust all to destiny, cavorting freely,” from which came his nickname Tengteng (“Freely Cavorting”).
Another of Hui'an's disciples, Jingzang, spent more than ten years with his teacher until the master's death, and then traveled south to study with Hui'an's lesser-known colleague Huineng, who had also studied with Master Hongren at the East Mountain School After several years with Master Huineng, Jingzang returned north, eventually settling back on Mt. Song at a sub-temple of Gathering Virtue Monastery that had been built as a memorial to Master Hui'an. Here he eventually began to teach. Despite his time spent with Huineng, who would later become legendary, Jingzang remained dedicated to the memory of his original teacher Hui'an.
A monk named Huairang was another student of Hui'an's who, perhaps on the master's advice, also traveled south to study with Huineng. Huairang, however, remained in the south after his time with Huineng, and became an important figure in the later history of Zen as the teacher of the influential Master Mazu.

Lao-an
by Philip B Yampolsky
In: The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch: the text of the Tun-huang manuscript
with translation, introduction, and notes by Philip B Yampolsky.
New York & London, Columbia University Press, 1967. pp. 17-18.

Lao-an was a priest of unusual renown, partly because of the extraordinary
age he is said to have attained. Most works give his name as
Hui-an.[41] which was his real Buddhist name. Of the Wei family, he
was born in 582 in Chih-chiang in Ching-chou.[42] Wandering from
temple to temple, he gave his efforts to helping the starving. Sometime
in the Chen-kuan era (627-649) he went to Mount Shuang-feng, where
he studied under Hung-jen, After completing his training, he resided
in a number of temples; in 664 he was at Mount Chung-nan in Shensi
and, although summoned by Ernperor Kao-tsung, declined to come to
court. At different times he was at the Hui-shan Temple in Loyang,
the Yü-ch'üan Temple, and the Shao-lin Temple. He was called to
court by the Empress Wu, and is said to have been honored on a par
with Shen-hsiu. He died in 709. His heir, Yüan-kuei (644-716), and
the latter's disciple Ling-yün (d. 729) were both priests of sufficient
consequence to have biographical monuments inscribed in their honor.[43]

NOTES

[41] For his biography, see Sung kao-seng chuan, T50, p. 823b-c, and Ching-te ch'uan-teng
lu, T51, p. 231c. His biographical inscription is by Sung Tan, Sung-shan Hui-shan ssu
ku ta-te Tao-an ch'an-shih pei-ming, CTW, ch. 396 (IX, 5104-5). The text contains
lacunae. Although referred to as Tao-an here, there seems to be no doubt that the subject
of the inscription is Hui-an. See Ui, Zenshū shi kenkyū, I, 150-52.

[42] Chih-chiang hsien, Hupeh.

[43] For Yüan-kuei, see Hsü Ch'ou, Sung-yüeh Kuei ch'an-shih ying-t'ang chi, CTW, ch.
790 (XVII, 10435-36) and Jen-su, Ta-T'ang Sung-yüeh Hsien-chü ssu ku ta-u Kuei
ch'an-shih t'a-chi, CTW, ch. 914 (XIX, 12022); for Ling-yün, see Ts'ui Ch'i, Tang Shaolin
ssu Ling-yün ch'an-shih t'a-pei, CTW, ch. 303 (Vll, 3893-94).

https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lao%E2%80%99an_Hui%E2%80%99an