Chinese Zen

Chinese Zen

This section rests on Dwight Goddard's introduction to A Buddhist Bible. The content is substantially abridged.

Mahayana Buddhism spread to central Asia, Himalaya areas including Tibet, and China, Mongolia, Korea, and Japan. Deep psychological insight of the Mahayana Buddhist Scriptures came as an intellectual revelation to Chinese scholars. At first the outstanding Buddhist leaders of Chinese Buddhism were Indian born and educated and it was an Indian type of Buddhism that was taught in China. But in the 300s AD a Chinese type of Buddhism began to make its presence known, as Buddhism absorbed vital elements of Taoism in particular.

In China, Buddhism tended toward mind-control; Confucianism tended toward mind culture, of what became conservative and firm standards - even though Confucius (Kong-zi) had been no conservative teacher in his days, to the contrary. The teachings of Taoism had many things in common with Buddhism. The doctrines of Tao and Buddha could be harmonised without strain in both their active aspect and their essence of mingled wisdom. Sanskrit terms of Indian Buddhism slowly gave way to Chinese, the term Tao was freely used for Buddhahood - yet also signifying dynamic activity. One of the early Ch'an Masters said: "Buddha is Tao, Tao is dhyana."

When Buddhism came to China, Taoism was the faith of the common people. To take things as they are and as they come is the teaching of Taoist wisdom. In one sense this is what Buddhism by its doctrine of "patient acceptance" teaches, but Buddhism is quite opposed to any lazy inertness in life. Buddhism teaches that good karma is to be attained by a disciplined approach, clear thinking, focused meditation, and attained wisdom.

Buddhist saint sought real solitude so as to attain self-realisation, of ultimate truth. The result of the contact of Indian Buddhism with Taoism was discipline and a cheerful peace of mind. The Ch'an monk is rather often to be found in some solitary hermitage, busy and cheerful.

Here is something Hsuanchien is reported to have said to his disciples - he is usually reckoned as an extremist Ch'an Buddhist: "The Bodhisattvas are only dung-heap coolies. Nirvana and bodhi are dead stumps to tie your donkey to."

Words like these illustrate how the literature of Ch'an Buddhism abounds with extravagant, flippant-looking or seemingly foolish remarks.

For a century it was a question whether the result of the intermingling would be Taoism as modified by Buddhism, or Buddhism modified by Taoism. Even down to day Taoist temples and Taoist monks are often indistinguishable from Buddhist temples.

By the 300s AD most of the outstanding Mahayana scriptures had been translated into Chinese. The first name that emerges in this connection is the monk Tao-an (   -385), learned in both Confucian and Taoist lore. It is easy to see from his writings that he looked on the Buddhist practices as good working methods.

Tao-an left a disciple, Hui-yuan (333-416), who was also a great scholar and learned in Taoist mysticism. He is most remembered as the founder of the White Lotus Society, where people concentrated on the Divine Name. Hui-yuan is regarded as the founder of the Pure Land Sects of China and Japan. He was interested in the serious practise of dhyana and to him the repetition of the Divine Name was the best method for attaining concentration of mind. There was nothing new in the practice of dhyana; it had existed in India for a millennium and was taken over by Buddha and given a new content of meaning as the Eighth Stage of his Noble Path.

After Hui-yuan, one of his disciples, Tao-seng ( -434) with his disciple, Tao-you, developed the doctrine of "Sudden Awakening", that thereafter entered into Chinese Buddhism. By this teaching the old conception of the gradual attainment of Buddhahood was challenged and in its place was offered, through the right concentration of dhyana, the possibility of sudden and perfect enlightenment.

Distinctive Chinese elements: A more strenuous dhyana, and the possibility of a sudden awakening and attainment of enlightenment, were mingled with the Indian philosophy of the Mahayana.

The next outstanding name, the founder of Ch'an Buddhism in China, is Bodhidharma. He arrived in South China about 470 AD and lived and travelled in China for decades.

An Imperial Meeting

Emperor Wu of Liang was very favorably inclined toward Buddhism; he founded temples, supported monks, and translated scriptures, but when he asked Bodhidharma during an interview what credit he himself had earned thereby, the old monk replied,

"None at all, your majesty."

To the question, "What is the first principle of the holy doctrine?" Bodhidharma replied, "There is nothing in it to be called 'holy,' Sire."

"Who is it, then, that confronts me?" asked the Emperor.

"I do not know, Your Majesty."

Bodhidharma practised for nine years a kind of concentrative dhyana that came to be called wall-gazing by the single method of mind-concentration on Mind-essence. To Bodhidharma, books, logical ideas, study, ritual, worship were useless; only simple but "seeking" and tireless "wall-gazing" was enough. [Cf. A Zen study]

His teachings

Mind-essence in its undifferentiated, no-thought, state may be transmitted by a Buddha. I have no interest in monastic rules, nor merely sitting in meditation."

In Bodhidharma's distrust of scriptures and intellectual knowledge, he made an exception of the Lankavatara Sutra, because that sutra taught the doctrine of the Self-realisation of the Oneness of all things in Mind-essence.

After nine years of "wall-gazing" he got one disciple who understood him, Hui-k'e (486-593). Bodhidharma gave him certain instruction that could only be transmitted from mind to mind, and gave him his own begging-bowl and robe and his copy of the Lankavatara Sutra, which afterward became the insignia of the Patriarchate.

At first and for a long time the "Sudden Awakening" Ch'an school was a hard one to attend. From that hard school rose a succession of Ch'an Masters. About the Mind-essence Hui-k'e is reported to have said, 'I know it always in a most convincing manner but to express it in words—that is impossible.' On this Bodhidharma said, 'That is the Mind-essence itself."

After Hui-k'e had attained his deep experience, he made light of his great learning, and sought for perfect enlightenment. He withdrew to a hermitage in the mountains and lived with the lowest classes of society till he was finally murdered by an envious Master.

Very little is known about the Tird Patriarch, Seng-ts'an ( -606) . He is said to have handed over his begging-bowl and the robe to Tao-hsin (580-651), who also was also a recluse.

The Fifth Patriarch was Hung-jen (605-675). He was a near neighbour or relative of Seng-ts'an and came to be with him when quite young. With Hung-jen, Ch'an Buddhism was made publicly known: Hung-jen headed a great establishment with hundreds of disciples and gained imperial favour. Among Hung-jen's disciples were two who afterwards came into great public notice; Hui-neng and Shen-hsui. When the time came for Hung-jen to appoint a successor, he passed by Shen-hsui and appointed Hui-neng, author of the Platform Sutra, an influential scripture.

The outstanding features of Hui-neng's Ch'an included:

1. Distrust of all dogmatic teachings.
2. An enquiring mind and earnest search into the depths of one's own nature.
3. Faith in the possibilities of such an enquiring mind, and in Self-Realisation of Enlightenment, Buddahood.
4. Adjusting to that self-realisation in life by "assonance" and congruence.

The conception of the active, wise Tao gave depth and substance to Hui-neng's convictions. He made little of the personal Buddha and very much of Prajna [Heavenly Wisdom] in which he saw the Ultimate Principle of Tao. The term he used for Ultimate Reality, and made so much of, was Mind-essence. Self-realisation of this was all the Buddha he cared about. It was Buddhahood and universal, undifferentiated and inscrutable enough. Thus, to Hui-neng, self-realisation of Mind-essence and Buddhahood were the same thing, and found within one's own mind from earnest dhyana (contemplation, deep meditation).

Literature  

Bb: Goddard, Dwight, ed. A Buddhist Bible. Thetford, Vt.: Dwight Goddard, 1932.

Prz: Chang, Garma C. The Practice of Zen. New York: Perennial/Harper, 1970.



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