by Youru Wang
Fourth, the Dao De Jing, the Zhuangzi, and the philosophy of neo-Daoism provided Chan Buddhism not only with their profound insights into the limits of language and the necessity of negotiating with them, but also with their exemplary strategies of “the teaching of non-speaking (buyan zhijiao)” and “the speaking of non-speaking (yan wuyan),” to perform linguistic twisting and detouring as a way to play at the boundaries of language, including the use of double negation, paradox, and irony. Chan Buddhism inherited these insights and linguistic strategies, combined them with its own legacy of Mahayana Buddhist insights and linguistic strategies, further developed the non-dualistic perspective on the relation between speaking and non-speaking, and produced a vast body of texts that taught Chan by a detour (raolu shuochan). Of these texts, the most illustrative were the texts of Chan gong’an, which often employed shock effects on the students’ conventional ways of thinking in order to trigger their awakening through the use of elusive, enigmatic, or ironic language.
DAOXIN (580–651)
A Chan master in the Sui dynasty (581–618) and Tang dynasty (618–907), he was considered the dharma heir to Sengcan and the fourth patriarch of Chan Buddhism. He was born in Henei (in present-day Qinyang, Henan). His family name was Sima. He entered monastic life as a boy, disciplining himself with Buddhist precepts even though his teacher was quite undisciplined. Around 590, he went to Mount Wangong in Shuzhou (in present-day Anhui) and studied with Sengcan for about 10 years. After Sengcan left him for Mount Luofu, Daoxin traveled around for some time, and started to teach people. In 607, he was officially ordained as a monk. During the war at the end of the Sui, Daoxin took residence in Dalin Temple on Mount Lu. In 624, he arrived at Mount Shuangfeng in Huangmei (in present-day Hubei); he taught there for about 27 years. He died in 651. He had about half a dozen disciples. Some of them had biographies in the Xu Gaoseng Zhuan. The most prominent among them was Hongren, who was appointed by the dying Daoxin as his dharma heir. Contemporary scholars generally agree that Daoxin and Hongren should be seen as the real founders of early Chan Buddhism, in contrast to the proto-Chan figures such as Bodhidharma and Huike.
Daoxin left behind a work called Rudao Anxin Yao Fangbian Famen (The Expedient Teaching of the Essentials of Entering the Path and Pacifying the Mind), which was included in his biography in the Lengqie Shizi Ji by Jingjue. One of Daoxin’s main teachings on the approach of meditation is the idea of “maintaining the one without wavering (shouyi buyi).” Borrowing from Daoist terminology, this idea instructs the student to contemplate on any individual thing, or any single component of one’s mental and physical existence, as the object of meditation with unfaltering attention until one realizes emptiness or the true nature of things, which is the manifestation of the Buddha-mind. The idea is not very different from the insight-oriented Mahayana meditation but possesses a simplified style and less appeal to gradations. It meets the expectation of later generations of Chan. However, a recent study on Daoxin and Hongren has argued that Daoxin’s work was produced by followers of the East Mountain teaching (Dongshan Famen), at a later time than Hongren’s Treatise on the Essentials of Cultivating the Mind (Xiuxin Yaolun). Due to the retrospective nature of these texts attributed to the two Chan masters, there is therefore no direct evolution of ideas from Daoxin to Hongren.
DASHENG QIXIN LUN AND CHAN
Dasheng Qixin Lun (The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana) is a short treatise elaborating on Mahayana thought. It was attributed to the Indian Buddhist thinker and poet Aśvaghoṣa and rendered by the then famous Indian translator Paramārtha from Sanskrit (title: Mahāyāna-śraddhotpāda Śāstra) into Chinese in 550 CE. No Sanskrit original was ever discovered. Many scholars believe it is an apocryphal work, reflecting the Chinese appropriation of the tathāgatagarbha (rulaizang/Buddha-nature) thought. Ingeniously blending many of the major Mahayana ideas together, the text makes distinctions between “original enlightenment” and “acquired enlightenment,” the true and the deluded aspects of the one mind, and assimilates the categories of the ti (essence or the whole) and the yong (function) into its system. Some contemporary scholars have suggested that this text contributed to the substantialization of Buddha-nature in East Asia. Others have contended that by acknowledging the limits of all these conceptual distinctions and identifying the one mind of suchness with “the mind of the sentient being,” it has contributed to the de-substantialization of Buddha-nature, although it does place emphasis on the mind of suchness, the ti, and its purity.
The treatise brought enormous impetus as well as theoretical problems to Chinese Buddhist schools and their doctrines, including Chan schools and their ideologies. Not only did Shenxiu’s idea of linian (being free from thoughts) and his privileging of the true mind, of the motionlessness and its purity, originate from the Awakening of Faith, but Shenhui’s stress on the intuitive knowledge of the original tranquility (the ti) was also a variation on the central theme of the Awakening of Faith. However, the more radical movements within the Hongzhou school and classical Chan began to deconstruct certain influences of the Awakening of Faith, such as its privileging of the ti over the yong, by emphasizing that outside of everyday activities and functions there would be no Buddha-nature.
DAYANG JINGXUAN (943–1027)
A Chan master of the Caodong school in the Song dynasty, Jingxuan was a native of Jiangxia (in present-day Wuchang of Hubei Province). His family name was Zhang. He entered monastic life at Chongxiao Temple in Nanjing and was ordained there at the age of 19, under his uncle Zhitong, who was the abbot. He soon demonstrated a thorough understanding of the emptiness and started to travel under his uncle’s recommendation. He studied with the Caodong master Yuanguan (d.u.) at Liangshan Temple in Dingzhou and experienced awakening. In 1000, he went to Dayang Temple in Hubei to study with another Caodong master, Huijian (d.u.), and accepted an invitation to succeed to Huijian’s abbacy. At the age of 80, he asked his friend, the Linji Chan master Fushan Fayuan (991–1067), to find an heir for the Caodong lineage, since he felt that no student of his own was eligible. This anecdote reflects the crisis of the Caodong school during that time. Jingxuan died at the age of 85. His posthumous title was “Great Master of Illuminating Peace” (ming’an dashi), and his teachings were preserved in his one-fascicle record of sayings, the Dayang Ming’an Dashi Shibaban Miaoyu.
DAZHU HUIHAI (d.u.)
A Chan master in the Tang dynasty and one of the major disciples of Mazu Daoyi, he was originally a disciple of master Daozhi (d.u.) at Dayun Temple in Yuezhou (present-day Shaoxing of Zhejiang province). He later went to Jiangxi and studied with Mazu. After six years, he went back to Yuezhou to help the aged Daozhi. A couple texts of recorded sayings including the Dunwu Yaomen are attributed to him. His biography recounts that Mazu was very happy with his Dunwu Yaomen, calling him the “great pearl (dazhu).” In terms of its themes and literary and rhetorical style, contemporary scholars have regarded the Dunwu Yaomen (especially the first part of the extant version) as a transitional text between early and classical Chan. The influence of early Chan rhetoric such as Shenhui’s terminology is clearly adopted, although some content does resonate with the teachings of Mazu and his followers of the Hongzhou school. Thus, with some reservation, the Dunwu Yaomen is still considered an important text for the study of the Hongzhou school. A different view on the Dunwu Yaomen is that, considering the early marks of its themes and rhetoric, and based on the study of related historical materials, the extant version of Dunwu Yaomen might be confused with Dazhu’s early teacher Daozhi’s Dayun Yaofa, which could possibly have been edited by Dazhu. The original version of the Dunwu Yaomen could be those sermons and dialogues still preserved in fascicle 28—Yuezhou Dazhu Huihai Heshang Yu—of the Jingde Chuandeng Lu, the contents of which are more in accord with Mazu’s sermons and other reliable Hongzhou texts.
DEAD WORDS
This is an English translation of the Chinese words siju (alternative translation, “dead sentences”) or siyu (alterna
tive translation, “dead speech”). The Chan notion of dead words is opposed to the Chan notion of living words (huoju or shengyu). When words cannot help to eschew fixed binary distinctions, cannot open the mind to flowing reality and unique situations, and cannot serve Chan soteriological purposes well, they are considered dead words. Therefore, living words are those that can help to shock Chan students away from conventional ways of thinking, to be responsive to or in tune with flowing reality, and to trigger enlightenment. Living words are those that can point to what is outside language or what is not spoken. Chan texts involve numerous examples of using living words, including poetic words, paradoxical words, and even tautological expressions.
DESHAN XUANJIAN (782–865)
A Chan master of the Tang dynasty, Xuanjian was a native of Jiannan in present-day Sichuan. His family name was Zhou. He started monastic life when he was a boy and studied Buddhist precepts, scriptures, and treatises extensively and deeply. Often expounding on the Diamond Sūtra, he was known as “Diamond Zhou.” He later met Longtan Chongxin (d.u.), the disciple of Tianhuang Daowu, in Lizhou, Hunan, and it was with Chongxin that he achieved awakening. He stayed with Chongxin for about 30 years. In 860, the governor of Langzhou invited him to be abbot at Gude Monastery on Mount De. He had about 1,000 students. Among his disciples, Xuefeng Yichun was the most prominent. Xuanjian died in 865 at the age of 84. His posthumous title was Jianxing Chanshi (“Chan Master of Realizing [Self] Nature”). One of Xuanjian’s famous styles of instruction was his use of the stick as a means for shock therapy. The Chan tradition usually compared Xuanjian with Linji by the juxtaposition of “Deshan’s stick” and “Linji’s shout.” Xuanjian’s emphasis on “wushi (having nothing special to do)” and “wuqiu (no-seeking)” is indeed very close to Linji’s teaching. Besides that, they both used iconoclastic expressions in the context of helping students’ detachment. Before the designation of the “five houses” became popular in the mid-Northern Song, Deshan Xuanjian was seen as one of the emerging houses of Chan with its own distinguished house style (jiafeng).
DHARMA (Ch. fa)
This Sanskrit term in its Buddhist use involves two basic meanings. One designates the entirety of Buddhist teachings or Buddhist truths, as is sometimes more clearly used in a compound “Buddha-dharma.” The other designates individual things, elements, or phenomena, either material or mental. Chan Buddhist texts inherit these two traditional uses of the term.
DHARMA HALL
See .
DONGLIN CHANGZONG (1025–1091)
A Chan master of the Huanglong lineage of the Linji school in the Song dynasty, Changzong was a native of Jianzhou in present-day Fujian province. His family name was Shi. He entered monastic life at the age of 11 and received his official ordination eight years later with the preceptor Qisi at Dazhong Temple. Being attracted by Huanglong Huinan’s great fame, he went to Guizong Temple at Mount Lu to study with Huinan. After about 20 years, Changzong became the closest disciple of Huinan and gained his own fame. After Huinan’s death, he was invited to take up residence at Letan Temple. In 1080, the governor Wang Shao (1030–1081) requested Changzong to be the abbot of Donglin Temple at Mount Lu. In 1083, despite Changzong’s rejection of the imperial invitation to the abbacy at Zhihai Temple, Emperor Shenzong (r. 1067–1085) granted him the title “Chan Master of Extensive Benefit” (Guanghui Chanshi). In 1084, the famous literatus Su Shi (1037–1101) visited Donglin Temple and consulted Changzong for Buddhist dharma. In 1088, Emperor Zhezong (r. 1085–1100) granted Changzong the title “Chan Master of Illuminating Awakening” (Zhaojue Chanshi). During the 12 years of his abbacy at Dongli, he had more than 700 followers and many disciples. His teaching method inherited Huinan’s style of “ordinary and genuine Chan (pingshi Chan),” which originated from Linji’s emphasis on “doing nothing (wushi)” and “being just ordinary.” However, after Changzong’s dharma brother Zhenjing Kewen launched an influential criticism of wushi Chan, Changzong’s prominence declined in Chan history.
DONGSHAN FAMEN
See .
DONGSHAN LIANGJIE (807–869)
One of the most prominent Chan masters of the Tang dynasty, Liangjie is regarded as the founder of the Caodong school of Chan. Born in a place near Shaoxing in present-day Zhejiang Province of southern China, he became a novice in the local village’s Buddhist monastery at a very young age and soon left his family to study with a number of Chan masters. He first studied with Mazu Daoyi’s disciples Wuxie Lingmo (747–818), Nanquan Puyuan, and another Hongzhou master, Guishan Lingyou, and reached enlightenment after studying with Yunyan Tansheng (782–841), who was in the lineage of Shitou Siqian and Yaoshan Weiyan, according to the tradition. At the age of 53, he established his own temple on Cave Mountain (dongshan) in the area of Hongzhou (or Ruizhou in Song) in Jiangxi Province. Among his disciples, the two most famous were Yunju Daoying and Caoshan Benji. The latter is considered the second founder of the Caodong school, although Dongshan’s lineage only continues further with the branch of Yunju. Dongshan died at the age of 63 and was honored by the imperial court with the title of “Chan Master of Awakening to the Origin” (Wuben Chanshi).
Dongshan’s teachings and style are demonstrated in his numerous encounter dialogues with his teachers and students. These dialogues are preserved (or believed to be so) in the “transmission of the lamp” anthologies such as the Zutang Ji and Jingde Chuandeng Lu, which are among the earliest records and relatively more reliable. The extant Ming Dynasty edition of The Recorded Sayings of Dongshan Liangjie (Dongshan Yulu) is traditionally authoritative and includes some long poetic writings of Dongshan, such as “The Jewel Mirror Samadhi” (Baojing Sanmei). However, these added documents were never mentioned by any earlier sources other than an early 12th century text, and their origins are not clearly identifiable despite the fact that they have long been used as Dongshan’s own works.
Many of his dialogues and stories are related to the understanding and experience of reality, the suchness of the universal interconnection/interpenetration of things, or Buddha-nature. The central point of many dialogues is that this reality or suchness is everyone’s authentic being; “it” could be met everywhere and in everything due to its inherent closeness and intimacy to everyone, yet “it” also turns one farther away if one externalizes, objectifies, or conceptualizes “it.” Much of Dongshan’s attention is thus focused on how to convey the subtlety of this experience and how to inspire the students to realize suchness through their own experience in practicing non-attachment and overcoming the limitation of the conventional way of thinking and using language.
Although Dongshan shares with many other Chan masters the traditional teaching that suchness cannot be constructed by words, he makes it very clear that suchness is not the absence of words (fei wuyan). His strategy is distinctively summarized as “never tell too plainly (bushuopo)”—the strategy of indirect communication aiming only at edifying and provoking by using few words but extraordinary wit and mental dexterity. Distinguished from Linji’s shouting or Deshan’s hitting, Dongshan’s style is gentler and subtler, less disruptive but no less challenging, making skillful use of hinting and poetic words (“use drumming [on the side] and singing together”) to accommodate different people and situations.
The Caodoing tradition also attributes the doctrine of five ranks (wuwei) to Dongshan, based on “The Jewel Mirror Samadhi” and other documents. It is a doctrine about five kinds of interrelationship between the right/true (zheng) and the partial (pian), between universal and particular, or ultimate and apparent reality, and so forth, in the experience of the world, which could be seen as a Chan variation on Huayan Buddhism’s four relationships between principle (li) and phenomena/events (shi). This doctrine attracted many commentaries and exegetical works from later generations of Chan. Modern scholars have argued that it is just an expedient means or pedagogical schemata and should not hold central importance in his teachings. Furthermore, Dongshan’s teachings on suchness, its subtlety, an
d his unique approach can be well presented without resort to this doctrine of five ranks.
DONGSHAN SHOUCHU (910–990)
A Chan master of the Yunmen school of the Northern Song dynasty and the disciple of Yunmen Wenyan, Shouchu was a native of Fengxiang (in present-day Shaanxi province). His family name was Fu. At the age of 16, he entered his monastic life at Mount Kongtong in Weizhou (in present-day Gansu province); he later received official ordination at Sheli Temple in Jingzhou. He was not interested in the study of the precepts there and traveled from the North to the South. At Yunmen Temple in Shaozhou (in present-day Guangdong province), he studied with Yunmen Wenyan and attained awakening. In 948, Shouchu was invited to be abbot at Dongshan Temple in Xiangzhou (in present-day Hubei province), where he taught for more than 40 years. In 981, Emperor Taizong (r. 976–997) granted him a purple robe and the title “Great Master of Source Wisdom” (Zonghui Dashi). His teaching was preserved in the Xiangzhou Dongshan Dierdai Chu Chanshi Yulu, which could be found in the collection of the Guzunsu Yulu. Following his teacher Wenyan, Shouchu taught his students to experience and realize the dao through all everyday things and activities (suiwu tongzhen), and used obscure, extravagant, or even vulgar language to shock students away from conceptual reasoning while hinting at the point of his teaching. His answer, “Three pounds of hemp (ma sanjin),” to the question “What is Buddha,” became a famous gong’an and appeared in Chan gong’an anthologies. Shouchu was also the first to elucidate on the difference between huoju (“living words”) and siju (“dead words”),” which summarized the Yunmen teaching on the use of language and influenced the subsequent development of Song Chan Buddhism.