North of Xian, the Wei River flows from west to east on its way to join the Yellow River. This area of the Wei and Yellow River basins gave rise to China’s earliest legendary kings, such as the Yellow Emperor, and the area is considered to be the original homeland of the Han Chinese.
Not far from Xian, we cross the Wei River and proceed northeast through the fertile flatlands that spawned China’s earliest history. Our goal is the place where the Yellow River enters the area from the north.
After a couple of hours’ drive, we reach Hancheng, a newly industrialized city ringed with chemical plants that lies against the low-lying hills of an encroaching range of mountains. The air, heavy with industrial haze, is further fouled with a yellow cloud kicked up from new road construction. The loess dust of the area, the source of Yellow River silt, covers the countryside. The chemical process plants of Hancheng look like the same type that encroach on Changlu Temple near Nanjing, leaving the same taste on the tongue as you pass them.
After bouncing our way through the road construction around the Hancheng industrial zone, we soon reach Yu Gate, where the Yellow River emerges from the mountains. The river runs from north to south at this location and serves as the border between China’s confusingly named Shaanxi and Shanxi Provinces.
My first view of Yu Gate is disappointing. The place seems forgotten. Some enormous boulders remain at the place where the Yellow River exits the mountains, and a bridge spans its waters. The old boulders at this spot help form a natural ford across the river. Historical accounts indicate ancient armies crossed the river at this location to travel to the North China Plain, thus the place had strategic significance on the chessboard of China’s old battlefields.
It was these boulders and the rapids just upstream from there that gave rise to the grand rapids of legend. But upstream, on the far shore of the river, a modern gravel pit has gashed a big hole in the side of the Dragon Mountains. As a result, it appears that gravelly detritus has filled in the waterway, taming the white water where fish once turned into dragons. We gaze up and down barren landscape. Only a few scrub trees break the pale monotony of the steep rocky slopes that plunge toward the now placid river.
Sometime in recent history, an entrepreneur, or maybe the local tourist board, tried to make a go of the place. At the side of the road, a badly rusted sign still advertises the FISH JUMPING DRAGON GATE in faded characters. Also barely readable are signs pointing toward the place’s EIGHT FAMOUS SIGHTS, among which are the GARGLING JADE SPRINGS, the ROCK LANDINGS, and the THUNDEROUS THREE-LEVELED RAPIDS. But the signs have fallen against the hillside. No tourists but us are around, and no gargling springs or three-tiered rapids seem anywhere apparent. There is only the thin, quiet river on a fall afternoon, meandering meekly through bare mountains. Upstream, at a distance, are some low, gentle rapids.
A few dilapidated buildings next to the road indicate that something remains of a village that once stood here. A man standing in front of one of the shacks waves to me, and I walk over to ask him about the place. He greets me with a toothless smile and motions toward a sign indicating that the old building is in fact a restaurant.
“Is there any legend about Bodhidharma coming here?” I ask.
No, he tells me. There is only the legend of the Great Yu. He doesn’t know anything about Bodhidharma coming to this place. And no, he has never heard of Thousand Saints Temple.
“Wasn’t there a temple here before?”
The man nods. “It’s gone now,” he says. “Everything is gone. But we have a photo of the old days.” He motions me toward the broken door that hangs on the front of the building. “Go take a look.”
I am uncertain whether this is just his ploy to get some customers. But I follow the man’s invitation nonetheless and walk through the shabby entrance of the little eatery.
I enter the darkened room where a couple young men slurp noodles at one of the four or five tables in the little restaurant. In the dim light I can make out, on the back wall, a blown-up photograph. It is huge, maybe ten feet wide, and covers the entire back wall of the little eatery. Maybe it was taken in the 1930s or 1940s. It shows, in full detail, the grandeur of Dragon Gate before modernity laid waste to it. The panoramic photo displays a wide and deep river, full of fishing vessels and cargo junks, all moored or anchored near a grand shrine dedicated to Yu the Great. The huge shrine perches like a bird above the deep river waters, its Ming-style roof curving upward like a bird taking wing over the waves, or maybe like a fish leaping to become a dragon.
That evening when Eric and I return from Dragon Gate, we pass and stop at Empty Appearance Temple to talk to its abbot, the monk Shi Yanci. He meets us at the front gate and then leads us into the temple reception room for tea.
“Do you have any idea where Thousand Saints Temple was located?” I ask him.
“No,” he replies, pouring the tea.
“It’s supposed to be at Yu Gate,” I say. “Today we went to the Yu Gate where the Yellow River comes out of the mountains. The place that is also called Dragon Gate.”
“That’s not where Bodhidharma died,” says the abbot. “It’s too far from here. Also, there are many Yu Gates. Yu had many projects in many places, and when he was finished, many of those places were called Yu Gate. It may have been on the Luo River instead of the Yellow River. The Luo River flows south of here.”
I remember that the Second Ancestor’s biography indicated he buried Bodhidharma on the banks of the Luo River. But that account seems uncertain because it contradicts Bodhidharma’s biography written by the same author, Daoxuan.
Yanci slurps a mouthful of tea and continues. “There are some places on the Luo River that were called Yu Gate. But no one has ever found a Thousand Saints Temple.”
I sit quietly and sip some tea, trying to sort out the mystery.
Yanci puts down his cup and smiles. Then he says, “If you keep coming and going, you’ll never find Bodhidharma.”
50. Epilogue
AN IMPORTANT interpretation of Bodhidharma’s historical significance is that he symbolized resistance to the politicization of Buddhism in China. Buddhist emperors, of whom Emperor Wu was one of many, used the symbols and doctrines of the religion to enhance and legitimize their political rule. Of course, the emperors who used Buddhism in this way did not always do so cynically. Emperor Wu appears to have embraced the religion on a deep personal level. Nevertheless, the politicization and resultant degradation of Buddhism, especially the degradation of the home-leaving ideal, led Buddhism to be a component of East Asian political ideology and a foundation of state power. This mixture of religion and statecraft was no less disastrous in East Asia than it has proved to be in other places.
The tools of Imperial-Way Buddhism included the following:1. The Bodhisattva Path: The Mahayana doctrine of the Bodhisattva Path was vital to Imperial-Way Buddhism. This doctrine exalted non-home-leavers and thus denigrated the original world-leaving ideal espoused by the historical Buddha. Emperor Wu’s rule signifies a high tide of this trend in China.
2. Control of the precepts and ordination ceremonies: Emperors naturally had an interest in limiting the total number of home-leaving monks and nuns. Monks were not subject to taxation, military service, or conscripted labor. Likewise, nuns were not producing citizens or carrying out the essential work that women provided to an agrarian society. Naturally, many young men or women, especially those without an inheritance or better prospects, might select a religious life if it were readily available, so emperors established stringent intellectual and other requirements to limit the number of home-leavers. Monks were typically required to memorize long passages of scripture as part of the imperially sanctioned qualification process.
3. Funding the construction of monasteries: In China’s icy winters, monks and nuns needed permanent and sturdy housing to withstand the elements. As the main source of funds for building and maintaining monasteries, emperors had the right to select their abbots. They also selected the Buddhist
teachings that would be taught in the imperial monastic system. In this manner, much of Buddhism naturally became “imperial” in nature.
4. Scripture translation: Emperors, as the patrons of major translation projects, could select or approve works for translation that tended to exalt their own position and prerogatives. An example of this was Emperor Wu’s focus on the King Ashoka Sutra. Another important aspect of this phenomenon was the selection of “metaphysical” sutras, scriptures that suggested the existence of a divine realm beyond ordinary life and beyond the comprehension of ordinary people. Emperors and their coteries of religious monks made political use of metaphysical scriptures by assuming a role as interpreters of “higher truths.”
Bodhidharma’s life represents a counterpoint to Imperial-Way Buddhism:1. The Buddhist historian Daoxuan, whose accounts are largely credible, claims Bodhidharma purposefully avoided emperors and their courts.
2. Daoxuan also recorded that Bodhidharma’s senior disciple, Sengfu, avoided Emperor Wu’s court during a long time span even though he lived only a short distance from the imperial palace. His avoidance was both religious and political in nature, but in principle Sengfu did not avoid the world in general. This is evidenced by the account that Sengfu traveled, at the invitation of Emperor Wu’s older brother, from Nanjing to distant Sichuan Province, where he expounded Zen teachings.
3. Some credible evidence indicates Bodhidharma himself lived in the general vicinity of Nanjing, not far from Emperor Wu’s court, for an extended period of time. If so, it would appear he also avoided the court in the manner described by Daoxuan.
4. Sengfu’s record indicates that Bodhidharma did not rely on sutras but instead emphasized “observing” (the nature of mind). This is at odds with Imperial-Way Buddhism’s emphasis on sutra study and metaphysical interpretations of Buddhist doctrine.
5. Later Zen teachers of Bodhidharma’s lineage, particularly the Fourth Ancestor Daoxin, fought against imperial control of their religious practice. Chinese scholars believe Daoxin adopted farming as a means of survival independent of imperial sponsorship, despite the fact that farming violated the traditional precepts against monks doing manual labor or taking life (earthworms and pests unavoidably killed in the process of cultivation and food preparation). This lifestyle was further codified by Baizhang, who established the “Pure Rules” of monastic life. Chinese Zen Buddhism thus adopted the work ethic to survive.
6. Zen masters of Bodhidharma’s traditional lineage, at least for a certain period of time, forcefully rejected metaphysics. The literature of most early Zen masters, but particularly key figures such as Daoxin, Baizhang, and the later Huanglong, makes this clear. This antimetaphysical position stands in clear contrast to the sutra-derived doctrines advanced by Imperial Zen. Under Imperial Zen, these doctrines (e.g., Buddha nature, the Bodhisattva Path) became not simply “skillful means” teachings. They were reined in a manner completely at odds with Southern school Zen teachings.
What seems apparent is that early Bodhidharma Zen underwent important changes to take root in China and to avoid political interference. The establishment of farming monasteries, the changes in the nature of the precepts, and the direct efforts of the Zen school to remain politically independent were all aspects of the long historical process of integration.
Chinese Zen dealt with many problems unique to China. One of these was maintaining the home-leaving ideal in a society where family was paramount and where the physical act of leaving home and entering a hostile natural environment required some external support and organization.
Bodhidharma and his Zen tradition were, from a political perspective, an adaptation to this situation. It appears that Zen valued independence and the home-leaving ideal above the strict application of the traditional precepts. It posed the “nature of the mind” as the intellectual and moral justification for farming and other nontraditional home-leaving lifestyles.
These points complement a number of questions already raised by many scholars and suggest some new interpretations for early Zen. It is beyond the scope of this book to review and examine all them all. Here are a few that come immediately to mind:1. The Southern school of Zen was not simply the Sudden Enlightenment school but also the branch of Zen that, for a certain period, successfully avoided direct control by Imperial-Way Buddhism. The Northern school, which ostensibly represented the Gradual Enlightenment method of practice, was a branch of the tradition that violated the taboo against involvement with the emperor that Bodhidharma symbolized to his spiritual heirs.
2. Zen especially honored the Fourth Ancestor Daoxin and Zen Master Baizhang for helping maintain Zen’s independence from the throne by establishing farming and labor as a means of livelihood for the home-leaving Sangha.
3. Zen eschewed sutras not simply because such literature tended to cause people to reify Buddhist concepts (“emptiness,” “Buddha nature,” etc.) and thus engender metaphysical thinking, but also because of their strong association with and exploitation by Imperial-Way Buddhism.
4. The idea of the “bodhisattva way,” perhaps from its inception, was nurtured by monarchs as a way to laicize and subvert Buddhism’s world-leaving ideals. By claiming to be a bodhisattva or incarnation of the Tathagata, kings endeavored to be the head of the church and thus maintain political control of Buddhism and its antiworldly tendencies. In the case of Emperor Wu, where this question can be examined in some detail, it is clear that even the clergy closest to the emperor sometimes tried to counter imperial usurpation of the religion’s independence.
Zen Buddhism was not always at odds with Imperial-Way Buddhism, however. For example, the adoption of the Bodhisattva Precepts served the purposes of both Imperial Zen and Bodhidharma’s Zen. Emperor Wu drew on different translations and adaptations of these precepts to create the Home-Leaving, Home-Abiding Bodhisattva Precepts and thus allowed Bodhisattva Emperors to have exalted spiritual status. But Zen also had an interest in emphasizing such precepts, as they could be used in lieu of traditional precepts that Zen farmer monks were violating. An interesting facet of this is that although Zen monks undertook farming, they adhered to the vegetarian diet espoused by Emperor Wu and adopted the vegetarian lifestyle as a permanent part of Chinese Buddhism. In these and certain other respects, the interests of Imperial Zen and Bodhidharma Zen coincided.
Whether or not Bodhidharma personally sought to create or maintain a non-Imperial-Way Buddhism in China or not, I believe that later Zen generations honored Bodhidharma’s politics as much as his spiritual practice. Zen’s emphasis on the legendary meeting between Emperor Wu and Bodhidharma supports this idea, and the dialogue of the traditional story supports this conclusion. Moreover, when we examine the huge number of Buddhist masters who were called “Zen masters” in China prior to Bodhidharma’s arrival, we need to sort out why Bodhidharma was given the title “First Ancestor” of Zen. I think that Zen’s emphasis on avoiding Imperial-Way Buddhism offers at least a partial explanation of this dilemma.
If, in China, the opposition between Bodhidharma’s Zen and Imperial-Way Buddhism seems clear, in Japan any antagonism between that country’s Zen tradition and the throne is less obvious. There, Zen has often served the throne and the national polity. There are notable exceptions and acts of resistance to this in Japan’s Zen history, such as Dogen’s apparent rejection of politics or the resistance that ensued to Meiji government decrees that weakened home-leaving. Such examples show that at times the Bodhidharma/Emperor Wu antagonism was in play. In general, however, Zen was far less successful at avoiding imperial interference in Japan than in China. Indeed, Myoan Esai did not successfully transplant Zen to Japan until it had devolved in China to be the handmaiden of the imperial court. Bodhidharma’s Zen was far from its original position of political independence in China when Esai, Benin, and others arrived there to carry it back to Japan around the beginning of the thirteenth century. This later, essentially neutered Zen was acceptable to Japan’s political elites. It is notable
that Japanese monks had various contact with Chinese Zen teachers prior to that time, but none resulted in Zen taking root in the island nation.
The connections (both direct and through Korea) between Emperor Wu’s court and the establishment of Buddhism in Japan shows that from the very beginning its success in that country hinged on politics. Buddhism’s role in politics waxed and waned there until the modern era, when it played a prominent role in World War II. A foreign-designed constitution separating church and state ultimately removed overt religious metaphysics from the Japanese national polity.
The metaphysical component of Japanese Buddhism, conjoined to politics, led to a path far removed from the religion’s early ideals. This has led some modern Japanese scholars to claim that Japanese institutional Buddhism is not Buddhism at all. In my view this does not mean that there were not authentic Japanese Buddhists who grasped the religion for the right reasons and practiced it faithfully in every age. Many Japanese Buddhists undoubtedly understood the significance of the failed meeting between Bodhidharma and Emperor Wu for reasons as I’ve outlined in this book.
Yet in Japan, the fusion of imperial authority with Buddhist metaphysics and institutions was extreme. The practical result of this mixing was that the Buddhist home-leaving ideal was eventually diluted to a degree far beyond what occurred in China, and the bodhisattva ideal more or less replaced the home-leaving ideal completely. During the Meiji period of the late nineteenth century, the Japanese government chained Japan’s Buddhism to the rise of the modern nation-state. New policies reinforced trends toward laicization that permitted monks to marry and made privately owned temples commonplace. The very existence of “priests,” a word foreign to the lexicon of Buddhism in India and China, indicates the creation of an exalted spiritual class that, aside from their titles, were often not markedly different in their concerns and lifestyles from those of lay Buddhists. Of course, “priests” had an additional role as the adjudicators of orthodoxy, an orthodoxy that in Japan was part of the ruling ideology. This phenomenon is especially ironic in the context of Zen Buddhism, a religion that emphasizes that differences between “sacred” and “mundane,” “enlightened” and “ordinary” are in an important sense without meaning.
Tracking Bodhidharma Page 39