Tracking Bodhidharma

by Andy Ferguson

  The emperor then asked, “What is genuine merit?”

  Bodhidharma said, “Pure wisdom of sublime perfection, experiencing one’s [personal] solitary emptiness, seeking nothing in the world.”

  The emperor then asked, “What is the first principle of the holy truth?”

  Bodhidharma said, “Across the vastness, nothing holy.”

  The emperor said, “Who is facing me?”

  Bodhidharma said, “I don’t know.”

  The emperor did not understand, and Bodhidharma knew that they were not in accord with one another. On the nineteen day of the month, he retreated to the north of China.

  On the twenty-third day of the eleventh month, he arrived at Luoyang. In the third year of the reign of the Wei emperor Xiao Mingdi, [Bodhidharma] took up residence at Shaolin Temple and sat in meditation facing a wall, remaining silent day and night. No one could fathom him, and he was known as the “wall-gazing Brahman.”

  This version of events has problems immediately apparent to scholars. The most obvious is that Bodhidharma is said to have arrived in China in 527, but thereafter he is said to have arrived in Luoyang in the third year of the Northern Wei emperor Xiao Mingdi, which was actually the year 518. Such problems with the mentioned dates are only some of the reasons scholars reject this account as an invention created centuries later. For this reason many say that a meeting between Bodhidharma and Emperor Wu simply didn’t happen. Western and Japanese scholars take it as a given that this was a legend that simply advanced the cause of a faction of Chan Buddhism with the emperor of the Tang dynasty about two hundred years after the Bodhidharma lived (more on this later). Thus this story of the famous meeting, which is regarded by Chan practitioners and much of China as a foundational event in Chan and Chinese cultural history, is largely dismissed as a fiction by scholars in East and West.

  This is strange. The meeting between Emperor Wu and Bodhidharma is regarded as a critical, if rather obscure, event of the Zen tradition. Is it possible that the scholars are wrong, and that the event really did occur, even though early records do not show clearly that it happened?

  As I’ve already taken pains to point out, the relatively reliable Continued Biographies offers an account much at odds with the account shown above. It says that Sengfu was Bodhidharma’s oldest disciple and that he enjoyed great fame at the very center of Emperor Wu’s empire and capital city during a time starting about thirty years before 527, when the traditional account claims Bodhidharma arrived. Moreover, our trip to Tianchang City, at least, suggests there is tangible evidence, including historical records that are not easily discountable, that Bodhidharma lived in the vicinity of Nanjing during the period in question. But even if Bodhidharma did live in Tianchang during that time, what could have brought the Indian sage and the Chinese emperor together? This is especially hard to understand given that Bodhidharma and his disciples all seemed to take pains to avoid meeting emperors.

  In my view it seems likely that if Sengfu died in the year 524, as the Continued Biographies indicates, and Bodhidharma was anywhere in the vicinity of Nanjing, that he would have come to his disciple’s funeral. It seems unlikely he could have ignored that event. When he came at last to the court of Emperor Wu, the emperor likely seized the chance to meet the famous teacher from India who had long avoided him. Perhaps after a grand funeral ceremony at Tongtai Temple, the emperor invited Bodhidharma to visit him in the Flowered Woods Garden, a quiet place where they could speak in private.

  Perhaps their meeting went somewhat like traditional accounts of that event. Bodhidharma may have said a few words that revealed an awkward distance between the two men’s views of Buddhism. Bodhidharma may have regarded the Imperial-Way Buddhism of Emperor Wu as little different from the court religion he left behind in North China. And then, after the meeting, Bodhidharma may have decided he must retreat from the public spotlight and avoid the annoying acclaim directed toward him by Imperial-Way Buddhism. Perhaps he decided to return again to someplace removed from “imperial sway” and so made his way back up the Yang-tse River to faraway regions.

  Bodhidharma and his followers appear to have clung to the idea of being a home-leaver in a very literal sense, not accepting Emperor Wu’s dilution of the ideal by expanding the Bodhisattva Vow and extending it equally to lay people. Bodhidharma’s possible resentment toward the laicization of organized Buddhism would not have been unique. We’ve already seen that Zhizang, foremost among the most honored of the emperor’s house monks, deeply held and publically displayed this same attitude.

  Sengfu’s biography also reinforces this view. While Sengfu’s moral example was honored by Emperor Wu’s court, as his biography shows, Sengfu himself appeared unconcerned, if not contemptuous, of Imperial-Way Buddhism. That the emperor and his family honored him so greatly shows that the home-leaving ideal still held powerful sway as a model. The fact that Emperor Wu at least nominally “left home” on several occasions confirms that the ideal endured despite attempts to dilute it. The idea behind Huiyuan’s treatise “A Monk Does Not Bow to a King” continued to hold sway despite Emperor Wu’s grab at supreme religious authority, and Bodhidharma and his disciples seem to represent, to later generations, the greatest example of resisting the dilution of Buddhism’s most honored practice, that of leaving society behind.

  As Mentioned before, in the Continued Biographies the author Daoxuan wrote a long passage of text that described monks of the Zen tradition. Among his comments about the most famous monks of Emperor Wu’s age, he refers to Bodhidharma, saying that he “did not stay in places of imperial sway, and those who loved to see him could not draw him to them.” This description fits not only with what we know about Bodhidharma, but about his disciple Sengfu as well. The attitude appears to extend down through several generations of Bodhidharma’s disciples, with the Fourth Ancestor’s refusal to respond to the emperor’s summons being a shining later example of this refusal to submit to imperial authority.

  35. Dingshan Temple

  IT’S THREE O’CLOCK in the afternoon. I’ve wasted nearly an entire day, I set out this morning to find Dingshan Temple, located inside Laoshan Forest Park, which the map indicates to be across the Yang-tse and about ten miles upriver from Nanjing. First I spent a couple of hours trying to negotiate the bus system to get to Laoshan Park. But I made the mistake of getting on a bus to the Six Harmonies district, believing I could make a transfer once I crossed the river. But the bus didn’t stop anywhere I could do this, so I ended up taking a taxi from a distant spot to the Pukou bus station. Pukou is a development zone a few miles from the Laoshan Park. At the station, I learned that a number 380 bus would take me to Laoshan and also to a hot springs resort that the map indicated is inside the park. That looked good. But I didn’t realize the bus passed through the wrong side of the park and then made its way into the countryside far from Dingshan Temple, my intended destination. Two or three people on the bus decided my being there was a good chance to practice their English, and it took me a long time to realize that Laoshan Park was now far behind me. I got off the bus and crossed the road to catch one going back to where I came from.

  According to old records, Emperor Wu established Dingshan (“Samadhi Mountain”; remember that samadhi means, roughly, “meditative concentration”) Temple in the year 503, just a year after he came to power. He set up the temple to honor a monk named Fading (“Dharma Samadhi”) who, according to the same record, was devoted to a life of “rigorous denunciation practice” and who “taught in the south and north” of the country ( ). This aroused my suspicions. The year 503 would coincide with the time when the war between Xiao Yan (Emperor Wu) and Baojuan was not long finished. Emperor Wu would have barely taken the throne. The country was nearly broke, and civil order was barely restored. So who was this mysterious monk of “rigorous denunciation practice” who taught in the south and the north of China? Could Bodhidharma have adopted an alias to avoid persecution and followed Xiao Yan down the Yang-tse as he foug
ht his way to the capital to overthrow the boy emperor? This may be a stretch, but the only other reference I can find to a monk of this name is about one who practiced recitations of prajna scriptures a hundred thousand times. That doesn’t sound like the normal meaning of “vigorous renunciation practice” to me. A monk out in a forest doing serious meditation in the forest is what I associate with “rigorous denunciation.”

  But whether or not the monk Dharma Samadhi was actually Bodhidharma perhaps doesn’t matter, because Dingshan Temple figures into the Bodhidharma story anyway. The temple’s old records claim that Bodhidharma lived at the place for (variously) one and a half or three years, during the time right after he met Emperor Wu and crossed the Yang-tse. Such an account is impossible to square with Bodhidharma’s traditional story. It also means he would have arrived at Shaolin Temple much later than anyone thinks he did (more on Shaolin later). If he meditated at Shaolin for nine years, as stated in his traditional story, then his time there would extend to the year 540. That contradicts both the traditional story as well as the more plausible story I’ve been investigating. So what does this mean?

  Following the idea that Bodhidharma left Luoyang in the year 494, as is indirectly suggested by Sengfu’s bio in the Continued Biographies, then Bodhidharma may have arrived in the Nanjing area on or before 503 and lived there for much of the next twenty years. Dingshan Temple, across the river and in a forested area away from Nanjing, might have been a good place to stay for at least part of that time. The temple claims to have various rocks and ledges where Bodhidharma sat in meditation, with vestiges of his wall-gazing still evident for visitors to see. Interestingly, the place also has a Plant the Staff Spring, reputedly discovered when Bodhidharma struck the ground with his staff and pure water gushed out—another connection between Bodhidharma and springs. Plus, the action of discovering such a spring by striking the ground is typically connected with the founder of a temple. The Sixth Ancestor Huineng and others have similar legends related to finding springs at their teaching places. The spring at Dingshan is still flowing sweet water today.

  I first visited Dingshan Temple a few years ago with my friend Eric. Since the remains of the temple were destroyed during the ’50s, there is little there in the way of an active Buddhist temple today. A few recently constructed buildings house a few monks, and much of the place has been given over to archeological research.

  Eric and I arrived unannounced and spent a few hours exploring the place with the old monk in charge. He explained the significance of the temple in light of the traditional story, saying that Bodhidharma stayed there for three years after meeting Emperor Wu. He showed us the spring and other landmarks, making a point of showing us a Ming dynasty (1328—1644) stone stele that is thought to have the earliest engraving of Bodhidharma’s likeness, older than anything at Shaolin Temple. An archeological dig was ongoing around the time we were there. The monk said the archeologists had uncovered an old foundation dating from the Song dynasty (960—1278). This didn’t seem very interesting to me, since the Song dynasty occurred five hundred years after Bodhidharma supposedly came to the place. By that time, all the myths about Bodhidharma were several centuries old. A Song dynasty foundation doesn’t offer any evidence about whether old “blue eyes” ever visited here or not.

  During our first visit to the temple, I didn’t get an exact sense of its location, as the roads leading to it were under construction and we seemed to weave through various hills. But later I read press reports on the Internet that the temple had been designated a “Bodhidharma Research Site.” Unsure what that meant, I decided it was worth another visit to find out if anything new had turned up.

  So now I’m standing at a busy intersection wondering which direction to go. A traffic cop is gazing languidly at passing traffic, not seeming very busy. I approach him and ask politely whether he knows of a place called Dingshan Temple.

  This draws a blank. “What Temple?” he asks.

  “Dingshan Temple,” I say again firmly.

  “There’s no Dingshan Temple around here,” he says.

  I retreat toward the bus stop I came from a few minutes earlier. Some motorbikes are hanging around waiting for customers. Often the cheapest and fastest (if also most dangerous) way to get around in China’s urban areas is on such bikes. They often hang around bus stops offering lifts home to pedestrians. For $1 or less, they’ll transport you the last mile to your place and may even have a basket to hold your groceries. If you have a motorbike in China, you have a business.

  I approach a woman on such a bike and ask her if she’s heard of Dingshan Temple. She hasn’t. Then a man on a bike nearby says he’s heard of it.

  “Dingshan Temple? You’ve heard of Dingshan Temple?”

  “Yes,” he says, “I know where it is.”

  With the day growing late I decide to throw caution to the wind and jump on the back of the man’s motorbike. After I’m firmly aboard, we roar off into the chaos of Pukou’s rush hour. I’d hoped we would be traveling into the park area, but that’s not the case. Instead we’re soon weaving in and out of traffic on the city’s main thoroughfare, heading directly back toward Nanjing.

  A few brushes with death later, the driver pulls onto a curb by a big intersection. He calls to a woman cleaning dishes at a small restaurant, asking if she knows where Dingshan Temple is located. She doesn’t. I’ve about decided that my chances of finding Dingshan Temple again, at least today, are hovering near hopeless. I tell the motorcycle driver that he should take me to the Nanjing bus stop. But no sooner than the words leave my mouth when the woman’s daughter emerges from behind a rack of dishes to say, “Dingshan Temple?” It’s right up that road!” She points down a street that heads north toward the hills.

  Off we go again, weaving in and out of traffic until, a few intersections later, things start to look a little familiar. Then I recognize the landscape, but where just two years ago there were unfinished roads and bare dirt, there are now many very modern-looking condos, semidetached houses, and a golf course. Soon we see some signs pointing to the temple, and as we come into a valley I definitely remember, we overtake a monk riding on a bicycle. We slow down and ask him where the temple is. He points up the road and smiles.

  As the sun approaches the western mountaintops, I at last find myself in one of the shacks that now passes for Dingshan Temple, sitting across a table from the monk we encountered on the bicycle moments earlier. His name is Chenguang (“Morning Shining”), and he’s about thirty years old.

  Dingshan Temple sits below Lion Peak, in a valley of very auspicious feng shui. It faces south, the sacred direction, and is protected on three sides by hills. Best of all, it has a lake out front. It seems possible that in ancient times the lake was a “Liberate Life Pond” that often sits in front of temples and serves as a place to free fish and turtles saved from the market. Thus the temple complies perfectly with the adage “Mountains behind, water in front,” the feng shui ideal. Bodhidharma’s spring sits exactly where you’d expect it to be if it were in front of an old Dharma Hall.

  I ask Chenguang about the spring. He says, “Yes, the spring is still there. It’s where we get all the fresh water for our temple.” He offers me a cup of hot water.

  I explain to him that I came here two years ago but have seen recent news reports saying the place is now a “Bodhidharma Research Site.” However, from the looks of things, not much has changed since my last visit. Have excavations continued?

  Chenguang says that a lot of archeological work has been done on the site, but it has stopped for the time being. He says, “All the things they’ve found here have been taken away and are kept elsewhere.”

  I mention that I saw the Ming dynasty stele on my previous visit, and he says that it has been removed from the site for cleaning.

  “Have any more interesting things been found?” I venture.

  “A lot has been found here.”

  “Any old stone tablets?” I ask.

  “
They’ve found an old stele,” he says.

  “Do they know when it was set up?”

  “It’s from the Liang dynasty,” he says. I try not to show my excitement and surprise at his answer.

  “Does it talk about Bodhidharma?”

  “Yes, it records something about Bodhidharma, and it dates from the Liang dynasty.”

  What he says is pretty earthshaking. I’ve been sifting for clues about Bodhidharma’s early whereabouts for many years, but a reliable record about him from his own time has been impossible to come by. I feel like someone who’s spent his life looking for a cure for cancer hearing about a new therapy with an 80-percent cure rate. I feel like Indiana Jones. “Really? They’ve found something from the Liang dynasty that records Bodhidharma’s life here? Where is the stele now?”

  Chenguang now realizes that he may have inadvertently let a cat out of the bag. He pauses and then says, “It’s a secret.”

  China is full of secrets. Of course there are the normal, garden-variety secrets like military secrets and state secrets, but there are many others as well. Many secrets have to do with the whereabouts of important things, especially things related to historical events. Two centuries of looting by Chinese and foreign treasure hunters, domestic and foreign wars, plus assorted political upheavals have made people wary of revealing the whereabouts of important things. It’s quite understandable. At the Fifth Zen Ancestor’s temple in Huangmei there is a “True Body Hall” where the body of the Fifth Zen Ancestor is said to have remained until it was “lost during World War II.” Different stories about the body’s whereabouts continue to circulate. I’ve always felt that someone knows exactly where it is but won’t give a straight answer about it.

  If there really is a newly discovered Bodhidharma stele, it’s anyone’s guess as to why it might be kept secreted away somewhere. Perhaps there’s a political fight between government entities about who should be in charge of it. Maybe the local government wants to keep it on the site in order to display it to attract tourist money, whereas the Nanjing City or provincial governments might want to remove it to a place they control, like the Nanjing museum. Or perhaps, in this case, scholars just want to have time to study the stele quietly without interruption. Anyway, given the amount of interest in and out of China in such an object, it’s a little surprising that some information about it hasn’t come out. Maybe Chenguang is mistaken. Perhaps he thought that something taken from the site was from the Liang dynasty, Emperor Wu’s own time, but it was in fact from much later. Until knowledgeable authorities are willing to speak about such an object, we can only guess about it.