But some clerics in Emperor Wu’s inner circle of house monks were apparently not happy with the special spiritual position the emperor had conferred on himself. While they were no doubt pleased that their religion now dominated spiritual life in the country, there’s evidence that the monks resented the emperor’s high-handed religious authority, a power that eclipsed their own status as home-leavers.
In Daoxuan’s Continued Biographies there is a biography about the monk Zhizang, a foremost Buddhist teacher and preceptor to the Crown Prince that I mentioned previously. Though he was among the most honored and famous of the emperor’s favorite monks, his biography reveals serious friction between him and Emperor Wu over the latter’s spiritual self-aggrandizement. Zhizang, due to the high status and honor Emperor Wu afforded him, was allowed to come and go in the palace as he pleased. In the course of elevating his own spiritual status, Emperor Wu issued an order saying that only the emperor himself would be allowed to lecture from the throne chair that served as a teaching seat in the palace. The implication of the emperor’s exclusive claim to this teaching chair was clear. The emperor wished to compel the religious community to recognize that he had ultimate spiritual status, and that the idea that kings were not of the Dharma realm, as reflected in Huiyuan’s dictum about not bowing to them, was not valid. The story relates that the monk Zhizang, whose former lay family had imperial connections, strode into the palace in a pique and went directly to the throne chair in question, ascended, and sat down on it. He then somewhat sarcastically declared, “I am [also] of the royal house and am not ashamed to sit in the royal seat. If the emperor wants to brandish his royal sword, he is, after all, a chakravartin monarch, and if he wants to kill me, he can kill me! I can go to a different realm, and even if it is hell itself, there’s nothing there that can stop me from carrying on with my practice!” The story relates that Emperor Wu, thus confronted, rescinded his order about being the sole user of this Dharma-expounding throne.
This was not the only indication of Zhizang’s rebellion against imperial prerogative. Another story from the biography reveals more of Zhizang’s resentment toward the emperor and also throws light on the problems that arise when Buddhism is the state ideology. According to this story, a problem arose in the country because many people availed themselves of the special rights enjoyed by clergy by simply taking the Bodhisattva Vows and claiming to be monks. The rights thus obtained were indeed attractive and included, besides permanent room and board, freedom from manual labor, the avoidance of military service, and no need to pay taxes. Not surprisingly, many young men without an inheritance opted for this path. With little genuine religious conviction, these “monks” further blurred the home-leaving and home-abiding boundary by sneaking out to carouse (visiting prostitutes, drinking wine, and partaking in other forbidden behaviors) with some of their “religious brethren.” Naturally, this behavior scandalized the religious community and called for some sort of action. Emperor Wu saw in this situation a way to extend his temporal authority over the religious community by punishing its miscreants, But Zhizang would have none of it, telling Emperor Wu to keep his non-home-leaving hands out of the church’s internal religious problems.
In Zhizang’s biography we find the recorded exchange between the two, in which the emperor declared, “What is it about such problems that they can’t be rectified by the imperial control?”
Zhizang’s somewhat insolent answer was that “The emperor’s role is to rectify relations amongst family relatives [a Confucian idea]. As for the affairs of the Tathagata [the Buddhist community], you have no authority to manage them!”
This was apparently an ongoing argument, for, on another occasion when Emperor Wu tried to seize administrative authority over Buddhist monks, Zhizang declared, “The Buddha Dharma is a great sea. Non-home-leavers cannot know of it.” According to the record, Emperor Wu did not take offense at this rebuff and ceded authority to Zhizang without complaint. Yet it shows that a real contradiction existed between the Buddhist community and the prerogatives sought by the growth of Imperial-Way Buddhism.
33. The Poem by Crown Prince Zhao Ming (Xiao Tong)
IN THE HISTORICAL records of Emperor Wu’s Liang dynasty, there is no mention of Bodhidharma. However, I think that a poem written by Crown Prince Zhao Ming holds a clue about whether a meeting between the emperor and the sage took place. Before I look at this question in detail, let’s take a look at the prince’s poem, “On a Dharma Meeting at Kaishan Temple”:Before the roosting birds have soared at dawn,
I order the carriage to leave the villa,
The horse ascends the winding path,
That weaves up Ram’s Gut Road,
The ancient forest barely visible,
We glimpse the dim outcroppings,
And the great trees on Falling Star Mountain.
Through the morning fog the sun starts to rise,
While geese swim in a dark pond,
And a frigid wind spreads the night’s last frost.
This truly solitary place,
This peaceful and spacious place is where Dharma is taught,
Jade trees and agate waters,
Conceal the place of the Dharma seat,
Somewhere amid the black bamboo and coral-colored earth,
Are the sage’s robe and a “bright moon” earring,
Entangled in lichens we descend some rocky steps,
Then we pull on osmanthus branches and grab pine tree limbs
To cross steep gullies where the sun is hidden,
Then in the mists appears the half-hidden pavilion.
How could a thousand ceremonies surpass this event?
A hundred generations will honor our emperor!
The spiritual truth here radiates limitlessly,
Like a boundless clear mirror,
The Dharma Wheel illuminates the dark room,
The wisdom ocean is crossed,
And the long-defiled dusty world,
Is drenched in light.
Who was the lecturer whom the Crown Prince got out of bed early to hear at Kaishan Temple that day? Historical evidence points to it being the monk Zhizang, the most famous of the house monks who taught the emperor and his court and who defied the emperor’s edict by sitting on his Dharma seat. He is also recorded to be the monk who officiated at a ceremony where the author of the poem took his Bodhisattva Precepts. The probable date of this Dharma talk, however, also suggests that Bodhidharma’s oldest disciple, Sengfu, lived at Kaishan Temple when it was given. It’s quite plausible, if not likely, that Sengfu was in attendance on the cold morning the prince traveled up the mountain to hear the Buddhist sermon offered by the unnamed speaker. The proximity of Sengfu to this event is tantalizing.
Emperor Wu doted on his son and crown prince. As a boy Zhao Ming devoted himself to Confucian and Buddhist study under his imperial tutors. When he came of age, Emperor Wu gave him charge of the Eastern Palace, a hall on the east side of the Tai Cheng Palace complex where famous religious and literary men of the day lectured to the emperor and his court. Zhao Ming was also familiar with, if not involved in, the multiple sutra translation projects and organization of scriptures that Emperor Wu ordered to be carried out. He was probably intimately involved in assembling the library in the Flowered Woods imperial garden. All this activity, under the direction of the famous prince, was at one of the great intellectual centers of ancient times. Foreign and domestic Buddhist masters and other scholars flocked to the Tai Cheng Palace at imperial invitation.
zhao Ming not only compiled the first anthology of Chinese literature, but also personally wrote commentaries on important Buddhist texts such as the Diamond Sutra. He extolled the poetry of Tao Yuanming, one of Huiyuan’s famous friends in the “Three Laughs” incident at East Woods Temple.
Zhao Ming’s fame in his own lifetime as a literary figure was widespread. Moreover, from the sophistication of the poem shown above, Zhao Ming must have been at least in his late teens or early
twenties when he wrote it. During the last years of his life, Zhao Ming moved to a place east of the capital city to live. From this we can surmise that this poem was very likely written between the years 518 and 525, a time that overlaps the time when Emperor Wu took his refashioned Bodhisattva Precepts in 519, when Bodhidharma reportedly set up his temple in not-too-distant Tianchang (522), and Bodhidharma’s senior disciple Sengfu died (524).
Given the Crown Prince’s exalted position, why didn’t the monk he went to hear that morning instead hold audience in the Tai Cheng Palace, the usual venue for giving sermons to the court? We know that both Sengfu and his teacher Bodhidharma were noted for their refusal to visit the court. Zhizang, whom Chinese historians credit with having given this talk, was not a stranger to the palace. So I wonder whether Chinese historians may have it wrong, and someone other than Zhizang gave the talk at Kaishan Temple that day. Could it have been a monk that refused to go to the palace to speak? This may be a stretch. But what is not speculation is that Bodhidharma’s oldest disciple, Sengfu, lived in the same temple where this talk was given, likely at the time it happened. Later, when Sengfu died, he was honored with an epithet for his monument by Zhao Ming, author of the poem. Remember that Zhao Ming was called on by his sister Yong Xing to laud Sengfu when he died.
Zhao Ming claims that that the event he attended that day surpassed a thousand religious ceremonies in importance. He also lavishes praise on his father, Emperor Wu. Whether this was genuine praise or just a formulaic insertion required by the Crown Prince’s political position, it implies that Emperor Wu arranged the meeting that day but was not the speaker.
The speaker himself is described to be giving his talk in a dark room, and Zhao Ming makes a metaphoric connection between the speaker’s shining Dharma words and the sunrise that is gradually illuminating the world outside the door. The entire poem both literally and metaphorically moves from the darkness to the light; it describes an “enlightenment” experience. The speaker’s words illuminate the room while the sun rises outside to drench the red earth of the mountain.
And the words hold other clues helpful to the search for Bodhidharma. More on this later.
34. Stone Fortress and Refreshing Mountain
THE WEATHER HAS WARMED, and I’m wearing only a light sweater against the morning chill at the bus stop for the number 6 line near my hotel. The morning traffic is heavy. It takes me nearly an hour to make the two-mile bus trip across downtown Nanjing to the Stone Fortress Park, a string of low hills that rise above the north side of the Qin Huai River before it empties into the Yang-tse. The Qin Huai River, part of Nanjing’s old defensive perimeter that looped under the city, witnessed some of the city’s most cataclysmic battles. Accounts relate that during some battles the bodies of the city’s attackers and defenders filled the waterway such that one could walk across them like a bridge. The river bank and modern park where I’m headed is due west from where the ancient Tai Cheng Palace once stood. Rebels of ancient times set up their command posts there to lay siege to the palace.
In feng shui parlance, Stone Fortress Park was the “tiger” of ancient Nanjing’s defenses. In old China the four cardinal directions were each associated with a mythical animal. The west was associated with the militarily symbolic white tiger. The place has the feng shui and astrological position of military might.
I get off the bus and walk across the street into the park. Almost at first glance it’s easy to see why the Stone Fortress was really the “tiger” of the city’s strategic positions. A ridge runs along the river, providing high ground to any defenders. Old bricks and columns sometimes jut from the ground. The exposed roots of large trees clutch old bricks. China’s history is everywhere like this—things buried, exposed, reburied, forgotten, remembered.
I go back to the street and walk a hundred meters or so toward the old city center. There, on the last of the hills along the river, is Qing Liang (“Refreshing”) Mountain. Nanjing’s connection to Bodhidharma connotes the birthplace of the Zen tradition. But this forested hill in the same city is connected not with the beginning, but with the end of Zen’s classical period. Until modern times a place called Refreshing Temple was located here. And now, after that temple’s all but complete destruction in the twentieth century, it is again being rebuilt. A famous Zen master named Fayan (885—958) once lived here.
Fayan was the archetypical Zen teacher of ancient times. He was brilliant and deeply knowledgeable about the tradition. He taught with famous flair and creativity. His cryptic observations are still widely remembered. “A monk asked [Zen Master Fayan], ‘What is the thing toward which an advanced student should pay special attention?’ Fayan said, ‘If the student has anything whatsoever that is regarded as “special,” then he shouldn’t be called ”advanced.“”’ Fayan’s temple has been destroyed and rebuilt repeatedly since he lived here. The Cultural Revolution was only the latest of the catastrophic events to occur on these premises. The only hall standing today with a connection to earlier times was built in the late Qing dynasty (1644—1911). Records say the monastery was once among the country’s largest, and old drawings depict it as beautifully designed. But if its ancient halls are gone, one landmark of those times remains. That landmark is the Baoda Spring, a source of pure water that Fayan and his disciples personally dug at the site. A story about the spring appears in classical Zen records. It is an example of how Zen often used the metaphor of an “eye” to refer to the nature of consciousness and the mind:Once, when sand filled in and obstructed a new spring that was being dug at the temple, Zen Master Fayan said, “The mouth of the spring is obstructed by sand. When the Dharma Eye is obstructed, what is it that obscures it?”
The monks were unable to answer.
Fayan said, “It’s obstructed by the eye!”
The same “eye” metaphor was used by the Buddha in his talk on Vulture Peak, as told in Zen’s founding myth, when he said, “I possess the Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, the signless mind of nirvana ...” The emperor actually granted the old Zen master the name Fayan after Fayan died. It means “Dharma Eye.”
The location of the spring in the landscape indicates that it may have been located in front of where the temple’s original Dharma Hall sat, symbolizing the source of the signless Dharma. Like Bodhidharma’s famous wells at Hualin and True Victory Temples, such places are often connected to Zen teachers. Water is characteristically a sort of “signless” (i.e., lacking special flavor) ingredient of life. I’ve noticed that Dharma Halls are positioned behind old springs at several old temple sites in the country.
Now, Refreshing Mountain Park surrounds the old temple site. It is a botanical garden containing many recently replanted native species. However, the religious significance of the place is not yet lost. A third-generation disciple of old Zen Master Fayan, a monk named Yongming Yanshou (904—975), transmitted Fayan’s Zen line to Korea. Now South Korean monks return to Refreshing Mountain Temple here in Nanjing to honor the origin of their Zen sect. They are working with local authorities to restore the temple, the mother temple of the Fayan Zen school.
Zen Master Yongming must be credited with spreading Fayan’s teachings not just to Korea but throughout China as well. But at the same time, that disciple of Fayan did much to mingle Zen teachings with other Buddhist schools and dilute its unique character. After Yongming, Zen was never quite the same. The emphasis on “pointing directly at mind” that served as the theme of early Zen was diluted by burying it more deeply in the practices of other Buddhist sects like the Pure Land and Tiantai traditions. Yongming’s ecumenical work led to the watering down of Zen’s original emphasis, and in my view, wittingly or not, he obscured the power of Bodhidharma’s simple instructions. Other Zen masters of later times followed suit. This led to a famous Zen master named Foguo (1063—1135), author of a well-known Zen book called the Blue Cliff Record, to say, “In ancient times Bodhidharma just taught ‘directly pointing at mind.’ Where was the forest of words we have to deal
with now?”
Above the area where the old halls of Refreshing Mountain Temple once stood, a flat and carefully landscaped plot sits beneath broad ginkgo trees. Their gold leaves glitter in the autumn sun. It’s obvious that the landscaped gardens and paths beneath the trees once held ancient monuments of the Zen teachers who lived and taught here. No doubt Fayan’s own stupa once stood here. Maybe it still rests a few meters beneath the surface where old folks now gather to chat and enjoy the fall day in the shade of a gazebo.
THE MEETING
The orthodox story of Bodhidharma’s meeting with Emperor Wu, as it appears in texts written many centuries after the alleged event, goes like this:After sailing for three years, [Bodhidharma] arrived at Nanhai [Guangzhou]. The date was the twenty-first day of the ninth [lunar] month of [the year 527]. The governor of Guangzhou, [named] Xiao Angju, received him ceremoniously and made his arrival known to Emperor Wu. When the emperor learned of this report, he dispatched an invitation [for Bodhidharma to come to the capital, Nanjing]. [On the first day of the tenth lunar month of 528] Bodhidharma arrived in Nanjing.
The emperor asked him, “Since I’ve assumed the throne, I’ve built temples and written scriptures, plus I’ve brought about the ordination of an incalculable number of monks. What merit does this [activity] have?”
Bodhidharma replied, “No merit whatsoever.”
The emperor then asked, “Why does this have no merit?”
Bodhidharma said, “These are matters of small consequence in the affairs of men and gods that are caused by transgressions [literally, outflows]. It’s like shadows chasing form, nothing real about it [literally, although it’s there, it’s not real].”
Tracking Bodhidharma Page 25