ZEN IRODALOM ZEN LITERATURE
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玉泉神秀 Yuquan Shenxiu (606?-706)
(Rōmaji:) Gyokusen
Jinshū
Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism: Shen-hsiu (605-706)
In traditional histories of Chinese Ch'an Buddhism, Shen-hsiu is accounted the founder and first patriarch of the short-lived (and somewhat heretical) Northern School of Ch'an. Recent critical studies of early Ch'an sources, however, have revealed a different picture of the man and his religious practices. As a youth, Shen-hsiu is reputed to have been a very bright and adept student, reading widely in the classics of Taoism and Confucianism as well as Buddhism. The uncertainty of the years leading up to the establishment of the T'ang dynasty impelled him into monastic life, and it is possible he was ordained a monk in the very year of the first T'ang emperor's accession, 618. After this, there is no record of any of his activities until his meeting with the fifth patriarch of the Ch'an school, Hung-jen (601-74), in the year 656. Even though the latter was only a few years Shen-hsiu's senior, Shen-hsiu took him for his master and studied with him for six years, reading the La ṇ kāvatāra Sūtra, Hung-jen's favoured scripture, and finally attaining the master's seal of authentic enlightenment (inka). Upon receiving this recognition, he left the East Mountain (Chinese, Tung Shan) community and withdrew into solitude. In contradiction to traditional accounts that depict Shen-hsiu vying unsuccessfully for recognition as the sixth patriarch in a poetry contest with Hui-neng (638-713), Shen-hsiu's departure can be dated to 661, some ten years before Hui-neng's arrival at East Mountain.
Very little information exists on the next fifteen years of his life. He comes back into view in the year 676, already over 70 years of age. He may have reverted to lay life during this fallow period, eventually returning to the monastic fold and enrolling in the Yü-ch'üan Temple in Hupei province. Wishing to practise in solitude, he built a hermitage about 1½ miles from the temple. Ten years later, he began taking in some students, but almost as soon as he began teaching, his reputation spread and many came to practise under his guidance. Interestingly, among those who studied with him was one Shen-hui (684-758), the man who would eventually denounce Shen-hsiu's path as ‘gradualist' and advocate its abandonment in favour of the ‘subitist' (or sudden enlightenment) position (see subitism) of the so-called ‘Southern School'. Shen-hsiu's fame eventually reached the imperial court, where the Empress Wu Tse-t'ien, who had usurped imperial authority and was ruling in her own name, had been using Buddhism and eminent Buddhist clergy to bolster her claims to legitimacy. He was invited to the court in Lo-yang in 700, when he was already well over 90, and when he arrived, the empress breached all protocol by prostrating to him. Both she and her successors honoured the master with titles such as National Teacher (Chinese, kuo shih), and kept him at court despite his wish to return to his home temple. He finally died in 706, over 100 years old. He was buried with state honours, and he is one of only three Buddhist monks to receive a biographical notice in the official histories of the T'ang dynasty. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the unwanted eminence that was thrust upon him, envy and hostility grew against him in some quarters after his death. In 732, his former disciple, Shen-hui, denounced him for having sold out to court life and abandoned the true teachings of Ch'an, exchanging the practice of sudden enlightenment for a gradual practice. Because the rhetoric of ‘sudden enlightenment' eventually became normative as a result of the Northern-Southern School controversy, the charges stuck, and Shen-hsiu's reputation faded over time.
However, the actual content of Shen-hsiu's teaching and practice is different from the caricature that emerged from the polemical writings of his critics. It is true that he never rejected textual and scriptural study, and for this the later Ch'an tradition, rejecting such pursuits and calling itself a ‘special transmission outside of words and letters', was deficient in his eyes. He inherited a preference for the La ṇ kāvatāra Sūtra from his master Hung-jen, and is known to have composed a lengthy commentary on the Avata ṃ saka Sūtra (Chinese, Hua-yen ching). In reality, however, the criticism is misplaced: Shen-hsiu never saw himself as the founder of a school of Ch'an, and so was unaware and unconcerned with the polemics of later times. He was a well-rounded Buddhist monk, accomplished in meditation and study, and, in a non-partisan spirit, willing to learn from a multitude of sources. Modern scholarship is now drawing attention to his connections with and influence from both T'ien-t'ai and Hua-yen thought. In addition, his practice is not so easily boiled down to a strictly gradual approach. In fact, he and his followers recommended approaches both sudden and gradual, depending upon the abilities and previous experience of the trainee. For these reasons, Shen-hsiu's true accomplishments and contributions to the history of Buddhism in China have been overshadowed for centuries by the polemics of earlier controversies, and it was only in the 20th century that scholarship has began to recover a more balanced picture.
Robert Zeuschner, “An Analysis of the Philosophical Criticisms of Northern Ch'an Buddhism,”
PhD dissertation, University of Hawaii, 1977.
Zeuschner tackles the longstanding charges by propagandist Shenhui of the “Southern School” of Chan Buddhism that the so-called “Northern School” of Shenxiu, et al., was quietist, dualistic, and teaching an inferior path of gradual enlightenment. Zeuschner shows how Shenhui and his Southern School were attached to “Absolute level” discourse (paramartha-satya) and the strict prajna-wisdom approach, whereas Shenxiu and his colleagues were more willing to use both Absolute-truth teachings and also pragmatic, compassionate, relative-truth teachings (samvrti-satya) as a form of upaya, skillful means, to help liberate fellow sentient beings. Zeuschner's dissertation, worth reading for anyone still confused on this point, is archived at
http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10125/10044/uhm_phd_7801060_r.pdf?sequence=2
John R. McRae,
PDF: The Northern School and the Formation of Early Ch’an Buddhism
University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1986, KURODA INSTITUTE (Studies in East Asian Buddhism; no. 3)
PDF: The Spirit of Zen
by Sam van Schaik
Yale University Press, 2018, 272 p.
Leading Buddhist scholar Sam van Schaik explores the history and essence of Zen, based on a new translation of one of the earliest surviving collections of teachings by Zen masters. These teachings, titled The Masters and Students of the Lanka, were discovered in a sealed cave on the old Silk Road, in modern Gansu, China, in the early twentieth century. All more than a thousand years old, the manuscripts have sometimes been called the Buddhist Dead Sea Scrolls, and their translation has opened a new window onto the history of Buddhism.
Contents
Preface viii
PART I Introducing Zen 1
1 The Practice of Zen 3
2 Zen and the West 19
3 The History of Zen 31
4 The Lost Texts of Zen 47
5 Early Zen Meditation 63PART II The Masters of the Lanka 83
6 Manuscripts and Translation 85
7 Jingjue: Student of Emptiness 88
8 Gunabhadra: Introducing the Lankāvatāra 102
9 Bodhidharma: Sudden and Gradual 114
10 Huike: The Buddha Within 129
11 Sengcan: Heaven in a Grain of Sand 141
12 Daoxin I: How to Sit 150
13 Daoxin II: Teachings for Beginners 168
14 Hongren: The Buddha in Everything 181
15 Shenxiu: Zen in the World 194Notes 209
References 244
Index 000
CHAPTER 15. SHENXIU: ZEN IN THE WORLD
The balance of the Masters of the Lanka changes in the chapter on Hongren, which gives as much space to his life as to his teachings. And then in the chapter on Shenxiu, the focus is almost entirely on his life. Certainly, much more was known about his life than that of his predecessors, but his teachings were also much more widely circulated. The Masters of the Lanka gives us his oral teaching style, but says nothing of the many written texts attributed to Shenxiu. This may be due to the number and length of his works, which would have been in general circulation anyway. These works, which survive in the Dunhuang manuscripts, include his Treatise on Original Luminosity and Treatise on Contemplating the Mind. 1
In this chapter we see Shenxiu's progress from being a student of Hongren on East Mountain, to being a court teacher, highly in demand, constantly travelling between the two capital cities of Luoyang and Chang'an. His favour with the empress Wu Zetian led to him being given the title of Imperial Preceptor. In fact, the chapter implies that Shenxiu was also the National Preceptor, a post that was subsequently held by Hongren's other students, Xuanze and Laoan. Perhaps Shenxiu was appointed Imperial Preceptor to Empress Wu, and later National Preceptor to her successor, Zhongzong. 2
In any case, the Masters of the Lanka reports a conversation between Empress Wu and Shenxiu, in which the empress asks for the essence of his teaching. Shenxiu replies that it is the single practice concentration, as taught in the 700-verse Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. This is the practice that is taught at length in Daoxin's teachings in the Masters of the Lanka , which involves visualization and repetition of the name of a buddha. Of course we cannot know whether this conversation really took place, but it does play a key role in one of Shenxiu's most important works.
Shenxiu's Five Skilful Means is a liturgy and sermon for the ceremony of receiving the vows of a bodhisattva – like the Platform Sutra and Daoxin's Dharma Teachings for the Bodhisattva Precepts. 3 It begins with a verse that is to be recited by all participants, making the four great vows:
I vow to save the innumerable sentient beings.
I vow to eradicate the limitless afflictions.
I vow to master the infinite teachings.
I vow to realize the unsurpassable enlightenment of buddhahood.This aspirational prayer, the expression of the bodhisattva's awakening mind (bodhicitta), is followed by five commitments: to stay away from harmful associations, to stay close to spiritual companions, to maintain the bodhisattva vows at all times, to read and contemplate Mahayana sutras, and to strive to liberate sentient beings from suffering. After this the participants recite a prayer of repentance for all of their past actions that have transgressed the ten virtues of Buddhism.
After these conventional preliminaries, the teacher explains ‘the precepts of purity', which is the understanding that the true nature of the precepts is the buddha nature. This is, in principle, an immediate and instantaneous method for realization: ‘In one instant you can purify your mind and suddenly transcend to the stage of buddhahood.' 4 After explaining this, the preceptor strikes a wooden sounding board, and everyone sits in mindfulness of the buddha.
This is followed by a ritualized question and answer session. The preceptor begins by quoting a passage from the Diamond Sutra to the effect that all categories are unreal. The participants in the ceremony then do the meditation practice that we have seen in Daoxin's and Hongren's chapters, letting go of the distinction between internal senses and external objects and letting the mind and body fill the world in a sense of ‘sameness'. The preceptor then asks, ‘What do you see?' and the participants all reply, ‘I do not see a single thing.'
Similar ritualized questions and answers feature in later parts of the ceremony as well. The similarity of the questions to those that appear in the Masters of the Lanka is intriguing. As John McRae has suggested, it may be these kinds of ritualized exchanges that formed the basis for the later question and answer dialogues of koan practice. That is to say, they came out of a new kind of organized monastic practice, rather than spontaneous encounters between teachers and students. 5
When we look at Shenxiu's career, this makes sense. During his time, Zen teachings became established in monasteries, and with Shenxiu we see the first examples of what Zen monastic rituals looked like. And it is with him, or at the earliest with his teacher Hongren, that the teaching method of breaking through ordinary conceptual thinking with questions first appears. Shenxiu's teachings in the Masters of the Lanka do not come directly from the Five Skilful Means or his other known works, but they do overlap. For example, at one point in the latter, the preceptor strikes his wooden sounding board and asks the participants, ‘Do you hear the sound?' 6 And in the Masters of the Lanka , Shenxiu is said to have asked his students:
When you hear a bell being struck, does the sound exist when it is struck? Does it exist before it is struck? Is sound really sound?
I think we can be fairly confident in crediting Shenxiu with playing a significant part in popularizing this particular kind of question and answer teaching style, which seems to have developed into the koan tradition. It is also interesting to read the Five Skilful Means next to the Platform Sutra and see how much they have in common. Since both are intended for the bodhisattva precepts ceremony, they share a similar structure, but there is more to it than that. Shenxiu's ‘precepts of purity' are akin to Huineng's ‘formless precepts': both use the perfection of wisdom sutras as their authority for a nonconceptual realization, and both extol an immediate access to one's own buddha nature, the nature of mind.
This undercuts the characterization of Shenxiu's teachings in the Platform Sutra as conventional, gradual and indirect. Criticism of Shenxiu does not feature in Huineng's sermon itself, but in the material before and after, which was added later. For instance, before the sermon in Platform Sutra , in the biography of Huineng, there is the famous ‘poetry battle' in which Huineng is said to have bested Shenxiu – though this can never have happened, as the two were not studying with Hongren at the same time. And after the sermon, there is a story of Shenxiu dispatching one of his students to spy on Huineng: the student goes to see Huineng, receives instruction, and becomes convinced of the latter's superiority.
In words attributed to Huineng, the text directly explains why his teachings are better than Shenxiu's:
The Master continued, ‘The morality, meditation, and wisdom of your master are intended for small-minded people. My morality, meditation, and wisdom are intended for people of bigger minds. Once people realize their own nature, they don't differentiate between morality, meditation, and wisdom.' 7
This is hardly a fair characterization of Shenxiu, the author of the treatises Original Luminosity and Contemplating the Mind , but as those works faded into obscurity, and the Platform Sutra did not, this is the picture of Shenxiu that endured. Still, we might wonder why the authors of the Platform Sutra , which was dedicated to communicating the nature of Huineng's teachings and the story of his life, also had to denigrate his contemporary.
The answer is surely found in Shenxiu's fame and success in gaining the support of Empress Wu, which brought Zen into the realm of politics. In the next generation his students, especially Puji, benefited from his fame, and became influential in their own right. And while Shenxiu had never, as far as we know, claimed to be the only legitimate successor to Hongren, the fact that he had been given the role of Imperial Preceptor gave him a great deal of legitimacy.
Zen teachers whose lineages did not come via Shenxiu were not always happy with this situation, and this resulted in the promotion of the relatively obscure figure of Huineng as the true successor to Hongren. And Huineng's promotion had to be at the expense of Shenxiu. So we can see Shenxiu as a victim of his own success, at least posthumously – in the end, known to later generations only through the story in the Platform Sutra in which his poem was beaten by Huineng's, and the characterization of his teaching as gradualist, rather than immediate.
However, this is only one part of the story. What the Dunhuang manuscripts tell us is that by the tenth century the teachings of Shenxiu and his lineage were being transmitted right alongside those of Huineng and his lineage. If not forgotten, the disputes of the eighth century were at least no longer relevant. The so-called ‘Northern School' of Shenxiu had not died out in the meantime, as people often assume; its texts and practices were still being transmitted and copied. Some two centuries after the original controversies, the distinction between the ‘Northern' and ‘Southern' schools was irrelevant in the context of teaching and practising meditation.
For Buddhist practitioners, lineage is always important, and differences do exist between one teaching lineage and another; but a teacher may belong to more than one lineage, and often the most important principle in Buddhism is: use what works. The teachings are, after all, only a means to an end. Splits between religious schools, which scholars like to trace to doctrinal distinctions, are usually caused by local political situations. The distinction between the Northern and Southern schools of Zen was largely made by a single influential monk, Shenhui, who took his polemical sermons across the country when he went on tours in which he gave the bodhisattva precepts ceremony to large audiences.
The differences between Shenxiu and Huineng's teaching are minor, and the Platform Sutra simply preserves a particular point in time when some students of the latter were attempting to differentiate their own doctrines from those of the more dominant students of Shenxiu. Afterwards, there was little interest in continuing to insist on a distinction that didn't make any difference. There is a passage in the Platform Sutra itself that expresses this view, going in the opposite direction from some of the other polemical passages in the text. Here, the text explains that the names ‘Northern' and ‘Southern' are only used because Shenxiu was at Yuquan monastery, and Huineng lived some twelve miles to the south. In this passage, the Platform Sutra is equally dismissive of the idea that the teachings of the Southern School are ‘direct', and those of the Northern School ‘indirect'. 8
And what is the origin of ‘direct' and ‘indirect'? Although there is only one kind of dharma, understanding can be fast or slow. When understanding is slow, we say it's ‘indirect'. And when understanding is fast, we say it's ‘direct'. The dharma isn't direct or indirect, it's people who are sharp or dull. This is why we have the terms ‘direct' and ‘indirect'. 9
* * *
One mysterious and pithy teaching attributed to Shenxiu appears only in the Masters of the Lanka – his last words. I have translated these as ‘Bend with the crooked and the straight'. However, this enigmatic three-character phrase qū qū zhí has been interpreted in many other ways as well. For example, J.C. Cleary has ‘bend the crooked and make it straight', and John McRae suggests in a similar vein ‘the vagaries of the world are now straightened'. He also cites with approval the interpretation of Yanagida, which takes the first and second characters as a reference to the indirect teachings of the Buddha: ‘the teachings of the expedient means have been made direct'. 10 Bernard Faure has simply ‘plié, courbé, redressé' (‘bent, curved, straightened'). 11
So, why ‘Bend with the crooked and the straight'? The first character ( qū ) has several meanings, usually as a verb, around the concept of bending; one of these is ‘submit to, yield to'. The second and third characters ( qū zhí ) are conventional antonyms, ‘crooked and straight', which appear together in Chinese Confucian classics such as the Liji : ‘The round and the deflected, the crooked and the straight, each has its own category.' And in the Shangshu : ‘The nature of water is to soak and descend; of fire, to blaze and ascend; of wood, to be crooked and straight; of metal, to yield and change.' 12
Thus I would suggest that Shenxiu was using a phrase that would be familiar to an educated audience at the court. What does it mean? Roughly, the sense is be flexible, not rigid; one might say, go with the flow. This interpetation is also reminiscent of a later statement by Dogen about the most important thing he learned from his Zen teacher in China: ‘a soft and flexible mind'. 13
* * *
The Masters of the Lanka concludes with a very brief chapter on four of Shenxiu's students. Really, almost nothing is said about them or their teachings, and they are not differentiated from each other. The chapter only serves to let us know who were considered to be the foremost inheritors of Shenxiu's teachings. From other historical sources we know that one of these four, Puji, took Shenxiu's place at the imperial court, and was very successful there, with hundreds of monastic students as well as his royal patrons. 14
It is interesting to see, in these last two chapters, that the model of a single teacher to student transmission is dropped. The beginning of Shenxiu's chapter mentions him alongside two other students of Hongren, and repeats Hongren's statement that ten of his students are authorized to carry on his teachings. In the concluding chapter, four teachers representing the next generation of the Lanka lineage are mentioned.
Thus the Masters of the Lanka does not take part in the arguments that arose in the generation after Hongren's students about which one of those students was the true inheritor of his authority. Instead the model of one master per generation ends with Hongren. This is different from both the slightly earlier Transmission of the Dharma Jewel , which has Shenxiu as the sole representative of Hongren's authority, and the somewhat later Genealogy of the Dharma Jewel , which has Huineng in the same role. Instead, the Masters of the Lanka has the Zen teachings spreading outwards, like the branches of a tree moving away from the trunk, reaching towards the sky.
TRANSLATIONChapter Seven
In the Tang dynasty, the three great teachers, Master Shenxiu of Yuquan monastery in Jingzhou, Master Xuanze of Shoushan monastery in Anzhou, and Master Laoan of Huishan monastery on Mount Song in Luozhou, were appointed by the noble Empress Wu Zetian, Emperor Yingtian Shenlong and Emperor Taishang in succession to the post of National Preceptor. 15 The great master Hongren made a prediction about them when he said, ‘Only ten of my disciples will be capable of passing on my methods'. 16 Together, they were the successors to meditation master Hongren.
According to the master of Shoushan in Anzhou, who compiled the Record of the People and Dharma of the Lanka , the meditation master Shenxiu had the family name Li. His family were from Weishi in Bianzhou. 17 He left home and crossed the upper Yangtse river to seek the path that he yearned for, travelling till he reached the home of the meditation teacher Hongren at Shuangfeng Mountain in Qizhou.
And he was accepted by this meditation master,
Who was silently illuminated by the lamp of meditation,
Who had abandoned the methods of verbal expression, 18
Who had put an end to the operation of his mental functions, 19
Who never produced any written records. 20Later, when Shenxiu was living at Yuquan monastery in Jingzhou, in the first year of the Dazu era (701), he was summoned to the Eastern Capital (Luoyang). He accompanied the imperial carriages back and forth between the two capitals, giving teachings, and was personally appointed by the empress as her Imperial Preceptor. 21
The noble Empress Wu Zetian asked the meditation master Shenxiu, ‘Which school of thought does the sdharma that you transmit belong to?' 22
He answered, ‘I belong to the teaching tradition of East Mountain in Jingzhou.'
She asked him to tell her what their scriptural authority was, and he answered, ‘Our authority is the the Saptaśatikā-prajñāpāramitā sūtra 's teaching on the single practice concentration.'
Zetian said, ‘If we were to assess the practice of the path, no other teaching tradition surpasses that of the East Mountain. Since Shenxiu is a follower of Hongren, he is somebody who speaks the truth.' 23
* * *
On the thirteenth day of the third month of the first year of the Shenlong era (705), Emperor Yingtian Shenlong issued the following decree: 24
This meditation teacher's footprints are free from the dust of the world, and his spirit roams free of worldly concerns. In accord with the subtle principle free from categories, he guides those who have lost their way in the bonds of existence. Inside, the waters of concentration are still and pure. Outside, the pearls of morality are bright and clear. His disciples turn their minds to Buddhism, setting off towards fords and bridges to ask for an explanation of his teaching tradition, hoping to take the first steps on the path. 25 Recently the meditation teacher has been wishing to return to his homeland. You must act without delay to assist him in his heart's desire. Do not get in the way of his yearning for the elm trees! 26 I have granted him this letter to make my intentions known. Now I have pointed my finger, no more words need be said. 27
Thus the meditation teacher gained the respect of two emperors. 28 Teaching in both capitals, he brought benefit to both court and countryside, bringing innumerable people to liberation. 29 By imperial decree, Baoen Monastery was established in his birthplace, the great village of Li. 30
On the twenty-eighth day of the second month of the second year of the Shenlong era (15 March 706), he sat in meditation posture without discomfort and spoke three words as his last testament: ‘Bend with the crooked and the straight.' 31 He passed away peacefully at Tiangong Monastery in the Eastern Capital, having seen over a hundred springs and autumns. Monastic and lay devotees from across the city came together and hung the temples with banners. 32 The funeral was carried out on Longmen Mountain, with the imperial princesses and sons-in-law all providing memorial statements. 33 The emperor issued the following decree:
The late meditation teacher Shenxiu,
His immaculate awareness in harmony with the world,
His spiritual energy permeating his inner being,
Has reached the inner core of nonduality.
He alone has won the topknot jewel, 34
While defending the gate of true oneness.
The mirror of his mind, hanging alone,
In perfect clarity responds to the needs of beings. 35
All appearances come together in his luminous spirit,
Unconditioned and spontaneously present,
Clear of dust, free of entanglements. 36
Even as he moved towards the sunset of his life,
His spirit became brighter day by day.
The moment that he pierced the depths of subtle and profound awareness, 37
He became a guide for the eyes and ears of a multitude of beings.
In the sameness of non-conceptualization and vast compassion,
He devoted himself to guiding those who came under his influence,
Setting his heart on nirvana for everyone. 38
He thought long and hard about the transmission of the teachings,
Even though the principle is free from name and form.
He never needed or pursued respect,
Yet he was an ideal teacher of students.
So, with the aspiration that he should always be covered in glory,
I hereby confer on him the title Meditation Teacher Datong. 39The emperor decreed: ‘It would be fitting to dispatch the frontrider to the heir apparent, Lu Zhengquan, to escort Shenxiu's remains to Jingzhou, and to establish a stele at Dumen Monastery. Zhengquan should also make a report about the condition of the monastery on the day of his return.' 40
One of the monks at the monastery wrote the following eulogy:
Our incomparable teacher
Has traversed the path to the ultimate truth,
Pure liberation,
Reality itself, perfectly luminous.
He explained the unsurpassed path,
Opened the path to unsurpassed insight.
His karmic imprints dissolved in the sameness
Of a mind that is free of the three times.
He used conventional language to demonstrate the principle,
In accordance with the way of the principle.
He always acted as a ship of the dharma,
Taking people across the river.* * *
The great teacher said – The Nirvana Sutra teaches that, ‘If you understand a single word of this properly, then you are worthy of the title of Preceptor.' 41 The words come from the sutra, but the realization is within.
He also said – Does this mind have a mind? What kind of mind is your mind?
He also said – When you see forms do they have form? What kind of form are forms?
He also said – When you hear a bell being struck, does the sound exist when it is struck? Does it exist before it is struck? What kind of sound are sounds?
He also said – Does the sound of a bell being struck only exist inside the monastery, or does the sound of the bell pervade the whole universe as well? 42
He also said – The body disappears but the reflection remains. 43 The bridge flows but the water does not. My path is based on the unity of two words, ‘essence' and ‘activity'. 44 It is also called ‘the gate to the twofold mystery'. 45 It is also called ‘turning the wheel of the dharma'. It is also called ‘the path and its result'.
He also said – First no seeing, then seeing. Seeing is always the cessation of seeing, and the return of seeing again. 46
He also said – The Jewel Garland Sutra says: ‘Bodhisattvas illuminate stillness; buddhas make luminosity still.'
He also said – A mustard seed may enter Mount Meru, and Mount Meru may enter a mustard seed.
Also, seeing a bird fly past, he would ask – What is this?
He also said – Can you spend the time sitting in meditation at the end of a branch?
He also said – Can you walk straight through a wall?
He also said – It is taught in the Nirvana Sutra that the bodhisattva's body has no limits, yet he came from the east. 47 Since the bodhisattva's body has no limits or boundaries, then how did he come from the east? Why could he not come from the west, or from the south or north? Are they not equally possible?
Conclusion
In the Tang dynasty, meditation teacher Puji from Songgao Mountain in Luozhou, meditation teacher Jingxian from Song Mountain, meditation teacher Yifu from Lan Mountain near Chang'an, and meditation teacher Huifu from Yu Mountain in Lantian, all studied as dharma companions at the same time with a single master. They were all successors to Master Datong. 48
They left home when they were young, kept their precepts pure, and sought a teacher to ask about the path. Travelling far to find a tradition of meditation, they arrived at Yuquan monastery in Jingzhou where they met Master Datong, whose personal name was Shenxiu, and received the transmission of his meditation teachings.
All of these teachers served the great teacher together for more than ten years. They each attained clear realization. The jewel of meditation was the only thing that shone for them. The great teacher entrusted Puji, Jingxian, Yifu and Huifu together with the blazing lamp that lights up the world, and transmitted to them the great crystal mirror. 49
All people under heaven who sit in meditation admired these four meditation teachers, saying:
The mountain of dharma is pure,
The sea of dharma is clear,
The mirror of dharma is bright,
The lamp of dharma shines out.They sat at ease atop famous mountains and cleared their minds in deep valleys. Their virtue merged with the ocean of the original nature. Their practice bloomed on the branches of meditation. In unconditioned purity, they walked alone and unhampered. They illuminated the dark with the lamp of meditation, and all who learned from them realized the buddha mind.
* * *
Ever since the Song dynasty (420–77), there have been eminent meditation teachers of great virtue, coming one generation after another. 50 Beginning with the tripiṭaka master Guṇabhadra in the Song, the flame has been passed on through the generations down to the Tang dynasty; altogether eight generations have accomplished the path and attained the result, comprising twenty-four people. 51
Record of the Teachers and Students of the Lanka
— one volume
NOTES
1. The best source in English on Shenxiu and his works remains John McRae's The Northern School and the Formation of Early Ch'an Buddhism (McRae 1986). This work contains complete translations of the Treatise on Original Luminosity ( Yuánmíng lùn ) and Five Skilful Means ( Wǔ fāngbiàn ), as well as excerpts from the Treatise on Contemplating the Mind ( Guānxīn lùn ).
2. ‘Imperial Preceptor' is dìshī 帝師, and ‘National Preceptor' is guóshī 國師. While the post of National Preceptor has been shown to go back as far as the Northern Qi dynasty (550–77), modern scholarship generally discusses the origins of the Imperial Preceptor post during the Tangut kingdom in the late twelfth century (Dunnell 1992). The post became famous soon after this during the reign of the Mongols, particularly with Kublai Khan's appointment of Chogyal Pagpa (1230–85) to the role of Imperial Preceptor. The appointment of Shenxiu by Wu Zetian to a post of the same name several centuries earlier seems to have been missed in these discussions.
3. The five skilful means are the five chapters of the text itself; they are (i) explaining the essence of buddhahood, or teaching the transcendence of thought; (ii) opening the gates of wisdom, or teaching motionlessness; (iii) the teaching on manifesting the inconceivable; (iv) elucidating the true nature of entities; (v) the naturally unobstructed path of liberation. Fivefold structures are particularly popular in early Zen; we have already seen the five types of meditation used by Daoxin. The eighth-century teacher Moheyan taught five levels of meditation as well (van Schaik 2015: 146):
1. If you experience the movements of the deluded mind, this is a neutral state.
2. If you experience the movements of the deluded mind and you follow that experience, this is the state of an ordinary sentient being.
3. If you experience the movements of the deluded mind and you understand that movement as a fault, then that experience will stop the various movements.
4. If you experience the movements of the deluded mind and know that they are without self, then this is one-sided peace, quiescent in emptiness.
5. If you experience the movements of the deluded mind and do not conceptualize or follow them, then each thought is liberated as soon as it comes. This is the correct meditation.
Five levels of realization are also attributed to Dongshan Liangjie (807–69). See the discussion of these in Leighton 2015.
4. McRae 1986: 172.
5. McRae 2003: 92–3.
6. McRae 1986: 180.
7. Red Pine 2006: 36.
8. The distinction between direct and indirect teachings is an important one in Mahayana Buddhism. A number of sutras – such as the Saṃdhinirmocana – and exegetical works distinguish between statements of the Buddha that expressed the truth directly (Skt nītārtha ) and those statements which were meant for students for whom the direct truth is not appropriate, and therefore require interpretation (Skt neyārtha ).
9. Red Pine 2006: 34.
10. Cleary 1986: 74; McRae 1986: 54–5.
11. Faure 1989: 174.
12. Liji (Yueji 30), translation in Legge 1990a: 110; Chinese text consulted in http://ctext.org/shang-shu/great-plan. Shangshu (IV.3), translation in Legge 1990b: 141; Chinese text consulted in http://ctext.org/liji/yue-ji.
13. Nishiyama and Stevens 1975: I.xvi. ‘Soft and flexible mind' translates Japanese nyūnan shin 柔軟心 .
14. See Faure 1997: 93–6.
15. Wu Zetian reigned from 690 to 705. She was followed by Zhongzong (r. 684; 705–10), also known as Yingwang, Prince of Ying, and a period of his reign was known as Shenlong (705–7). The period of his rule from 705–710 was dominated by Empress Wei (d. 710), his consort. He was followed by Ruizong (r. 684–90; 710–12); Emperor Taishang is an honorific title meaning ‘retired emperor'. Another influential figure during both of these emperors' reigns was Princess Taiping (d. 713), youngest daughter of Wu Zetian. This period was followed by the reign of Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–56). Cleary (1986: 72) misses out the other two emperors in his translation. Faure (1989: 171) omits some of the text, perhaps partially following an ellipsis in Pelliot chinois 3703. ‘National Preceptor' here translates guóshī.
16. ‘Prediction' is shòujì 授記 (Skt vyākaraṇa ) which in Buddhist scriptures refers specifically to a guarantee from the Buddha that a person will attain enlightenment.
17. Bianzhou was a prefecture in modern Kaifeng from the sixth to the tenth century. Present-day Weishi County is in Henan, under the administration of Kaifeng.
18. ‘Abandoned the methods of verbal expression' is yányǔ dào duàn 言語道斷, a phrase that became popular in Zen, and was earlier used by Zhiyi.
19. ‘Put an end to the operation of his mental functions' is xīnxíng chù miè 心行處滅, a common phrase.
20. Cleary (1986: 72–3) and Faure (1989: 172) translate these four lines as describing Shenxiu; however, the last line about not producing any writings suggests they are about Hongren. Also, the two commonly used four-character phrases yányǔ dào duàn 言語道斷 and xīnxíng chù miè 心行處滅 refer to enlightened beings, so may be more applicable at this point in the narrative to Shenxiu's teacher.
21. At the beginning of the text the only post mentioned is National Preceptor: guóshī 國師. So either the titles are being used interchangeably, or Shenxiu was the only one of the three teachers mentioned at the beginning who was granted the role of Imperial Preceptor as well as (or subsequent to) having the role of National Preceptor.
22. Here, ‘school of thought' is a translation of jiā zōngzhǐ 家宗旨.
23. Neither Cleary (1986: 73) nor Faure (1989: 173) makes these two lines part of Zetian's speech.
24. As mentioned earlier, this is Zhongzong (r. 684; 705–10).
25. Literally, ‘hoping to go to the beginning point of the path'. On the other hand, Cleary (1986: 73) and Faure (1989: 174) translated this as a ‘leader' or ‘guide' on the path.
26. As Faure (1989: 174, n.14) points out, this is an allusion to a story about the emperor Gaozu (206–195 BC), who had the elm trees of his home village transplanted to his new palace.
27. This looks like a letter of passage; for other examples in a Dunhuang manuscript, see van Schaik and Galambos 2011.
28. Faure (1989: 174) has ‘three emperors' based on Pelliot chinois 3703, but as only two are mentioned and ‘three' is actually an insertion in Pelliot chinois 3703, I follow Pelliot chinois 3646 here.
29. The phrase ‘court and countryside' ( cháo yě 朝野 ) refers to the aristocracy and the ordinary people.
30. According to McRae (1986: 46), Li was actually the name of Shenxiu's family, and it was the family residence that was converted into a monastery as a result of the emperor's decree.
31. On the interpretation of this enigmatic phrase, see the introduction to this chapter.
32. ‘Monastic and lay devotees' is literally ‘the four orders', i.e. bhikṣu , bhikṣuṇī , upāsaka and upāsikā .
33. The rank of ‘emperor's son-in-law' is fùmǎ 駙馬 . The ‘imperial princess' is gōngzhǔ 公主 , as for example Wencheng Gongzhu, the princess who married the Tibetan emperor Songtsen Gampo in the early seventh century.
34. The ‘topknot jewel' is jìzhū 髻珠, the king's most prized possession in the Lotus Sutra parable (Muller, DDB).
35. This is a play on the popular metaphor of a network of hanging mirrors, all reflecting each other, which appears in Sengcan's chapter. Here, Shenxiu's unique nature is conveyed with the image of a mirror hanging alone.
36. ‘Luminous spirit' is shénmíng 神明. Though the term's origins predate Buddhism in China, later it came to be a synonym for the Buddha nature.
37. This line is difficult to translate as it stands. Here I read the character qián 前 (‘in front; preceding') as a scribal error for qián 潛 , meaning ‘to plumb the depths, probe'. Middle Chinese pronunciations are the near homophones dzen and dzjem respectively (Kroll 2015: 361).
38. Here I am substituting yīqiè 一切 (‘everyone') for yīshāng 一傷 (‘single suffering'). If we keep the original character, a translation could be ‘he set his heart on the nirvana of a single suffering [being]'. On the other hand, Faure has the emperor's speech moving into the first person to say he was upset at the thought of the death of Shenxiu.
39. This is Shenxiu's official title. Literally, dàtōng 大通 means ‘vastly pervasive' (compare the Tibetan title Longchen ).
40. For the name of the monastery, Pelliot chinois 3436 has Dumensi, while Pelliot chinois 3703 has Duren. The name of Shenxiu's monastery, from other sources, is Dumen, and I use that here. See McRae (1989: 50, 55–6) on this monastery, and the full ceremonies around Shenxiu's death. Faure's (1989: 175) translation states that the officer was told to establish the monastery, as well as the stele, which seems to be wrong.
41. Mahāparinirvāṇa sūtra : T.12, no. 374, p. 384, c16.
42. Literally ‘the universe of the ten directions'.
43. ‘Reflection' (or shadow) is yǐng 影 , which can also mean ‘portrait', which does remain after the body is gone. However, the line is probably meant to be contradictory. As Faure (1989: 177, n.28) points out, this reverses the usual order of things, in which the body is primary and the shadow dependent on it. This theme continues in the next line, ‘The bridge flows but the water does not'.
44. ‘Essence and activity' is tǐyòng 體用. The concept appears frequently in Shenxiu's works; see for example McRae 1986: 178.
45. The ‘twofold mystery' ( chóngxuán 重玄 ) was the name of a school of Daoism (see Pregadio 2008: 1.274ff.). The term is derived from Laozi; as the name for a school, it apparently goes back to the sixth century but reached its apogee during the Tang dynasty. The Daoist context of the term was known to Buddhist writers well before this: ‘Buddhist thinkers such as Zhi Dun (314–66), Sengzhou (374–414), and Jizang (549–623) used the expression chongxuan to speak of Laozi's truth, and identify it as a Taoist usage' (Pregadio 2008: 275). Thus Shenxiu is, at least as an allusion, refering to a Daoist concept here.
46. This seems to be a reference to the abhidharma doctrine that everything is renewed in every instant. The same point is made in a dialogue between a teacher and student in one of the Dunhuang Tibetan Zen texts (see van Schaik 2015: 106–7). Note that Cleary (1986: 76) and Faure (1989: 177) both translate this differently, leaving out the character jì 寂 (‘peace, cessation') which is in Pelliot chinois 3436 but missing in the Taisho edition.
47. Chapter 28 of the Mahāparinirvāṇa sūtra (T.12, no. 374) addresses the nature of the Buddha, including the idea that the Buddha came from eastern India, but also that his body fills all of space.
48. Faure (1997: 207, n.33) discusses Jingxian and also suggests that this eighth chapter is a later addition by a disciple of one of these four figures, and because Jingxian is obscure, he suggests it could be one of his disciples. However, there is no compelling reason to think that this is the case.
49. In this metaphor, it seems that the lamp is the teachings, and the mirror the clear minds of the disciples.
50. ‘Eminent' is dàdé 大德, literally ‘of great virtue'. It is a term of respect for senior monks.
51. The twenty-four are: eleven masters at the head of the eight chapters; Bodhidharma's other two students Daoyu and Tanlin (excluding Huike who is already counted); Hongren's other nine main disciples (i.e. excluding Shenxiu who is already counted); Xuanze and Jingjue.
Lachman, Charles Henry,
PDF: "The Ch'an Master Shen-hsiu (+606? +706): Three Literary Portraits of a Patriarch Manqué"
Open Access Dissertations and Theses. Paper 5676. McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, 1973
Gâthâs of Shen-hsiu and Hui-neng
The story of Chan Master Shi Shenxiu 釋神秀 (606?-706)
of Dumen 度門 temple, Dangyang mountain 當陽山
in Jingzhou 荊州,[63] during Tang 唐 dynasty
Translated by Rev. Thich Hang Dat (Trung Huynh)
(T no. 2061, 50:755c26-756b04)
Shi Shenxiu'‟s last name was Li 李 of present-day Dongjing 東京,[64] and he was of
Wei 尉 people.[65] When he was young, he studied Confucian, Taoist, and history texts,
profoundly and thoroughly. He had knowledge extensively and entirely [of the secular
teachings]. However, he already had his own aspiration of cutting [hair] and dying [cloth]
to leave the dust [of the afflicted world] to receive the Dharma [of Buddhism]. Later on
he met the fifth patriarch Hongren 弘忍 of Dongshan 東山 temple in Shuangfeng 雙峰,
Qizhou 蘄州 who took sitting in meditation as his business [work]. Thereupon, he
exclaimed and admired him, “This is my true teacher!” He determinedly endured the
toiling of gathering woods and drawing the water from the well by himself to seek
[Hongren‟s Dharma teaching] the Way.
Previously, during the late Wei 魏 dynasty (386-534),[66] there was an Indian
śramaṇa, Bodhidharma 菩提達磨 (480-520), who had attained the wonderful dharma of
Chan school that was transmitted by Śākyamuni Buddha himself and passed down [to
many generations] sequentially; the robe and the bowl were used as the transmission
marks [seals] from generation to generation. [According to the legend] Bodhidharma took
the voyage sea coming to [China]. Emperor Liang Wudi 梁武帝 (502-557) asked
63 Jingzhou prefecture level city is nearby Changjiang river 長江 in Hubei 湖北.
64 That is Luoyang 洛陽.
65 Weishi county is in Kaifeng 開封, Henan.
66 Beiwei 北魏.
conditioned matters,[67] while Bodhidharma valued transmitting the dharma door [of
direct] essential mind. The potential [of the Emperor] and the teaching [of Bodhidharma]
were reciprocally in contradiction as pouring water onto the rock. Therefore,
[Bodhidharma] went to Wei territory to live in seclusion at Shaolin 少林 temple on
mount Songqiu 嵩丘, and soon after he died [over there]. During that year, an
ambassador official of Wei dynasty, Songyun 宋雲, saw [Bodhidharma] at the Pamir
蔥嶺 plateau. His disciples [opened] the burial mound, but they found only his clothes
and a shoe.
[Bodhidharma] transmitted dharma to Huike 慧可 (487-593); Huike transmitted it
to Sengcan 僧粲 (?-606); Sengcan transmitted it to Daoxin 道信 (580-651); Daoxin
transmitted it to Hongren 弘忍 (601-674). Hongren and Daoxin stayed together at
Dongshan. Therefore, that dharma was called the dharma door [teaching] of Dongshan
東山. Shenxiu had served Hongren who silently acknowledged Shenxiu'‟s effort [talent],
regarded highly, and told him, “I have taught many people. However, regarding the
complete illumination of understanding of mystical and unsolved matters, no one could
surpass you.”
During Shangyuan 上元 reign (760-761), Hongren passed away. Shenxiu went to
mountain Dangyang 當陽 of Jiangling 江陵[68] to reside.[69] The Buddhists from around
67 Emperor Liang asked Bodhidharma whether he has gained merits of building the temples, printing the
sutra, and assisting the monks‟ ordination or not. Bodhidharma replied that the emperor has no merit at all.
According to him, the true merit is the pure knowing, wonderful and perfect which essence is emptiness.
One cannot gain such merit by worldly means. (Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History in India and
China (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1988), 91.)
68 Jiangling county is in Jingzhou 荊州, Hubei 湖北.
69 Today is Hebei prefect, Dangyang district.
four seas came because of the extravagant wind.[70] The reputation of the Way and the
fragrant universally permeated [ignorant people] equally.[71] Because the Empress
Dowager Zetian Taihou 則天太后 (625-705) heard [of him], she summoned him to visit
the capital. She ordered the shoulder carriage to carry him onto the palace hall, and she
herself also kneeled and prostrated him respectfully. At the temple of the inner palace, the
Empress made offerings to him abundantly and often inquired about Buddhadharma. She
ordered to place imperial order on his previous mountain temple of Dumen 度門 to praise
his virtues. At that time, from [the above such as] princes and dukes, and to below such
as scholars, warriors, common people in the capital, city, and village apprehensively
visited and paid respect to him. Probably, thousand [a great number of] these secular
people went to gaze, submit, and pay respect to him each day.
When emperor [Tang] Zhongzong Xiaohe [唐]中宗孝和 (656-710) ascended the
throne, he also favored and respected him [Shenxiu] even more. The Palace Secretary[72]
Ling Zhangshuo 令張說 often inquired about the Dharma and respectfully considered
himself Shenxiu'‟s disciple. He conservatively [humbly] told others, “The Chan Master‟s
[Shenxiu] height is eight feet. His big eyebrow, elegant eyes, and powerful benevolent
and majestic conducts showed that he is a great device [virtuous source] for the imperial
court.”
Previously, Shenxiu'‟s classmate [dharma brother], Chan master Huineng 慧能,
had similar moral and conduct portraits. Both of them mutually and selflessly expanded
70 Namely, the Buddhists everywhere in China came to learn from him because of his great virtuous
conduct and teaching which spread vastly as the wind.
71 Namely, his great reputation of achievement spread as fragrant which permeated into the mind of
ignorant people.
72 Zhongshu 中書.
successfully the Way. [Shenxiu] formerly requested the Empress Wu Zetian to invite
Huineng going to the capital. However, Huineng seriously and strongly declined the
invitation. Shenxiu wrote a preface letter to Huineng personally to explain the Empress‟s
requested intention. Eventually, Huineng did not move [change his mind] and told the
[Imperial] Envoy,[73] “My body is not healthy. The northern people have short self
perception and vulgar attachment, or they do not respect the Dharma. Also, my teacher
has bequeathed me that I have karmic affinity with the Lingnan 嶺南 area.[74] Therefore, I
can not disobey [my teacher‟s teaching].” Huineng never crossed over Dayuling 大庾嶺
mountain[75] to the end of his life. Below the heaven [people in China] spread the words
that Shenxiu'‟s teaching was that of the Northern school, and Huineng'‟s teaching was that
of Southern school. These two schools‟ brand names were initiated from here.
During the second year of Shenlong 神龍 reign (706), Shenxiu passed away. All
scholars, warriors, and common people came to attend the funeral procession. An
imperial order bestowed his posthumous name as “Datong Chanshi 大通禪師” [Chan
Master Great Penetration]. Also, [the emperor] ordered to build the Baoen temple at his
old residence within the general imperial dwelling. Qi Wangfan 岐王範, the Yan Duke of
State 燕國公 Changshou 張說, and the hermit Luhong 徵士盧鴻,[76] each made [wrote]
the monument eulogy and worn mourning clothes. [So] many famous scholars, high
ranking officials, [and others came to his funeral service that] could not be counted
[easily]. His disciples, Puji 普寂 (651-739) and Yifu 義福, were all seriously respected by
the imperial court and ordinary people. They built [carried on] the lineage of their
master'‟s Way [teaching].
73 Shizhe 使者.
74 South of the five ranges; it is an old term for south China, especially Guandong and Guangxi.
75 Dayu mountain range is between southwest Jiangxi and Guangdong.
76 The meaning of this title “Zhengshi 徵士” is found in the Ciyuan 辭源 dictionary, page 1091.1.
See more at:
PDF: Notes on Chan
Sam van Schaik
PDF: A zen szellemisége
Fordította: Dr. Borbély-Bartis Katalin
Pallas Athéné Könyvkiadó Kft., Budapest, 2019, 288 oldal
A 20. század elején, a régi Selyemút mentén, egy lezárt barlangban találtak rá a zen mesterek legrégebbi, több mint 1000 éves tanításaira. A "buddhista holt-tengeri tekercseknek" is nevezett kéziratok teljesen új megvilágításba helyezték a buddhizmus történetét. Sam van Schaik, a tibeti buddhizmus történetének elismert kutatója e szövegemlékek saját fordításai alapján nyújt bepillantást a zen történetébe és lényegébe.
Tartalomjegyzék
Előszó a magyar kiadáshoz 11
Előszó 13ELSŐ RÉSZ: A ZEN BEMUTATÁSA 17
Első fejezet - A zen gyakorlata 19
Második fejezet - A zen és a Nyugat 35
Harmadik fejezet -A zen története 47
Negyedik fejezet - A zen elveszett írásai 63
Ötödik fejezet - Korai zen meditáció 79MÁSODIK RÉSZ: A LANKA MESTEREI 97
Hatodik fejezet - Kéziratok és fordítás 99
Hetedik fejezet - Csing-csüe: Az üresség tanítványa 103
Nyolcadik fejezet - Gunabhadra: A Lankāvatāra bemutatása 117
Kilencedik fejezet - Bódhidharma: Az azonnali és a fokozatos 129
Tizedik fejezet - Huike: A belső Buddha 143
Tizenegyedik fejezet - Szeng-can. Egy homokszemben a világot 155
Tizenkettedik fejezet -Tao-hszin I: Az ülés módja 165
Tizenharmadik fejezet -Tao-hszin 11: Kezdőknek szóló tanítások 181
Tizennegyedik fejezet - Hongren: A mindenben megtalálható Buddha 193
Tizenötödik fejezet - Sen-hsziu: A zen a nagyvilágban 205Jegyzetek 219
Irodalomjegyzék 273
Tárgymutató 283
