Buddhist Scriptures

by Donald Lopez

  [Details of the remainder of their stay in Hainan, of their trek across the mountains of Canton, and of Yōei’s death are omitted.]

  Ganjin’s group stayed in Guanzhou for one year until spring. Then they set out for Shaozhou. The townspeople accompanied them far out of town to bid them farewell. They walked more than seven hundred li upstream until they arrived at Chanju Temple in Shaozhou, where they rested three days. The magistrate of Shaozhou next housed them in Faquan Temple. Faquan is the monastery that Empress Zetian Wuhou [623–705] had constructed in honour of Huineng, the sixth Chan patriarch. It still houses an image of Huineng. Later Ganjin’s group moved to Kaiyuan Temple.

  Fushō thereupon decided to leave the group and head north back to the King Aśoka Monastery. It was the ninth year of Tianbao [750]. Ganjin took Fushō’s hand. Crying tears of sadness, he reassured Fushō: ‘I made a vow to cross the sea to transmit the vinaya. I will not give up on my vow until I reach Japan.’ Their feelings were beyond description.

  Ganjin developed a fever, which burned his forehead. His eyesight became dim. A barbarian who lived nearby said that he knew how to treat eyes. He applied his treatment, but Ganjin lost his sight.…

  [Later that same year] while travelling on the river to Jizhou, the monk Xiangyan sat up in a meditation posture on the deck of the boat. He asked Situo, ‘Is the great upādhyāya still asleep or has he awoken?’ Situo replied: ‘He is still asleep.’ Xiangyan said: ‘I am about to die.’ Situo woke Ganjin to inform him. Ganjin lit incense and brought out a small bench for Xiangyan to lean upon. They faced him towards the west to invoke the name of Amitābha Buddha. Xiangyan said the name once, and then his upright seated figure became still and silent. Ganjin cried out: ‘Xiangyan! Xiangyan!’ His grief and anguish was limitless….

  [Details of the journey back to Yangzhou and of the sixth, successful voyage to Japan are omitted.]

  Ganjin Arrives in Nara, the Capital of Japan

  On the fourth day of the second moon [of 754] Ganjin arrived at the capital [Nara]. A government representative of the junior fourth grade named Asokaō greeted Ganjin’s group outside the Raseimon Gate to the inner city and guided them to the Great Eastern Temple [Tōdaiji]. On the fifth day the Chinese vinaya-master Daoxuan and the Indian monk Bodhisena came to welcome Ganjin. The prime minister [saisō], the minister of the right, the councillor of state [dainagon], and all the other government officers also came to greet Ganjin. A few days later the court official Kibi no Makibi [695–775] [who had spent nineteen years studying in China] came to speak with Ganjin. He told him: ‘The great upādhyāya crossing the distant seas to arrive in our kingdom assists our court’s plans. Our pleasure is beyond description. The court constructed this massive Great Eastern Temple ten years ago with the desire of erecting an ordination platform for the transmission of the vinaya precepts. There has not been a day or night when we have forgotten this plan. Now all the senior virtuous monks [of Japan] are coming from distant provinces in order to receive vinaya ordination in accordance with our wishes. Henceforth you will be responsible for all details of the ordination procedures.’ In addition, Bishop Rōben [689–773] was charged with the task of presenting the court with a census of all the monks who had accompanied Ganjin. Within days the court instructed Bishop Rōben to award each of them with the title of Great Dharma-Masters Who Transmit the Flame.

  By the fourth moon of that year, an ordination platform had been constructed in front of the colossal image of Vairocana Buddha [within the Great Eastern Temple]. The heavenly sovereign [Shōmu, 701–756] was the first to ascend the platform and receive ordination with the bodhisattva precepts. His queen and his princes followed him in receiving ordination. Next, the novice Shōshu and more than four hundred and forty others received ordination according to the vinaya. Next, more than eighty senior Japanese monks – such as Ryōyu, Ken’yō, Shichū, Zenchō, Dōen, Hyōtoku, Ningi, Zensha, Gyōsen, Gyōnin, etc. – renounced their previous self-ordinations and received new ordinations from Ganjin….

  Beginning in the second year of Tianbao [743], on five occasions the great upādhyāya had braved the hardships and dangers of crossing the sea to transmit the precepts. Although he was forced back each time, he did not abandon his vow. On his sixth voyage across the sea he reached Japan. Thirty-six of his companions, impermanent as are all things, perished along the way. More than two hundred others quit the mission. Only the great upādhyāya, the scholar-monk Fushō and the Tiantai monk Situo participated in all six voyages from start to finish. After twelve years of travel, Ganjin fulfilled his vow by arriving in Japan and transmitting the holy precepts of the vinaya. His accomplishment testifies to the fact that in his compassion for saving living beings, in his store of karmic fortune, and in his willingness to sacrifice his own life, Ganjin had perfected many virtues.

  [Details of Ganjin’s subsequent career in Japan are omitted.]

  Translation by William Bodiford of Tō daiwajō tōsei den, (full title: Hōmuzō daisōjō Tō Ganjin kakai tōsei den), in Dai Nihon Bukkyōzensho, vol. 113 (Tokyo: Bussho Kankōkai, 1912–22).

  34

  ZEN FOR NATIONAL DEFENCE

  The various schools and sects that have developed and, in some cases, disappeared over the history of Buddhism have not occurred in a simple linear progression. New movements have arisen among existing schools, and, if they are to succeed, it is necessary that they distinguish themselves from their contemporaries. In order to gain followers, patrons and, especially, royal sanction, new schools have needed to proclaim both their authenticity (typically portrayed in terms of lineage) and their benefits. Such benefits usually include not only the attainment of enlightenment, but other, perhaps more mundane, rewards to those who offer their support.

  Zen was one of the last major schools of Buddhism to become established in Japan. Contact with China, from which the previous schools of Japanese Buddhism had derived, had diminished by the time the Tendai monk Eisai (1141–1215), whose previous training had focused on tantric practice, visited China at the age of twenty-eight. His visit was brief, and he returned with sixty volumes of Tiantai texts. However, while in China, he had observed the popularity of Chan (the Chinese term translated into Japanese as Zen). Some twenty years later he sailed to China again, this time hoping to travel to India. Prohibited from doing so, he remained in China, studying at a Chan monastery, where he received permission to transmit the Zen teachings. His study also included the vinaya, which had been denigrated in his Tendai sect as a Hīnayāna practice. After four years in China, he returned to Japan.

  Zen teachings were not unknown in Japan prior to Eisai’s return. The teachings of Bodhidharma were known and practised within Tendai, but previous efforts to establish Zen as an independent school were met with disfavour, both by the established schools and the imperial court. Eisai therefore needed to establish his own authority as a Zen master, and to seek imperial approval. He did so in his major work, written in 1198, entitled, significantly, Promote Zen to Protect this Kingdom’s Rulers (Kōzen gokokuron), excerpts from which appear here. He submitted it to the military dictatorship based in Kamakura.

  Here he defended Zen as an authentic teaching of the Buddha, recounting the story of the ‘mind-to-mind transmission’ from the Buddha to Mahākāśyapa, and then tracing the lineage of Zen from India to China and, eventually, to himself. He defends Zen as an appropriate teaching for the degenerate age and for Japan, citing sūtras to support his argument. He also answers the charges that Zen practice is little more than attachment to emptiness.

  But he is equally concerned to demonstrate the importance of monastic discipline. It was believed that the security and prosperity of Japan depended on a variety of deities who had the power to protect the islands from natural calamity and foreign invasion. In order to maintain the favour and support of these deities, the appropriate offerings and prayers had to be performed. The efficacy of such rituals depended on the purity of those who performed them; Eisai argued that the ethic
al discipline of Zen monks made them the most potent practitioners of the rituals for the protection of the state.

  Eisai is best remembered in Japan, however, for something else he brought back from China: tea, which Chinese monks drank to stay awake during their hours of meditation. Eisai wrote a two-volume treatise called Drink Tea for Health (Kissa Yōjōki).

  Promote Zen to Protect this Kingdom’s Rulers

  Preface

  … The great hero Śākyamuni’s [holding up a flower and thereby] conveying his mind dharma to the golden dhuta [ascetic; i.e., to his disciple Mahākāśyapa] is known as the special transmission outside the teachings. Beginning with their turned heads on Vulture Peak [Gṛdhrakūṭa] and their smiling faces inside Cockleg Cave [where Śākyamuni and Mahākāśyapa conducted the dharma-transmission ceremony], Śākyamuni’s raised flower has blossomed into thousands of offshoots and the mystical fountainhead has filled ten thousand streams. In India and China this Zen lineage is known for its tightly linked succession of proper dharma heirs. Thus has the true dharma propagated by the buddhas of old been handed down along with the dharma robe. Thus have the correct ritual forms of Buddhist ascetic training been made manifest. The substance of the dharma is kept whole through master–disciple relationships, and confusion over correct and incorrect monastic decorum is thereby eliminated….

  Why then [do Buddhists in this kingdom] discard the five family lineages of Zen? Many malign this teaching, calling it the Zen of blind trance. Others doubt it, calling it the evil of clinging to emptiness. Still others consider it ill-suited to this latter age of dharma decline, saying that it is not needed in our land…. [To refute them,] I have compiled an anthology of the Buddhist scriptures that record the essential teachings of our lineage for consideration by today’s pundits and for the benefit of posterity. This anthology is titled Promote Zen to Protect this Kingdom’s Rulers in accordance with the basic idea of the Benevolent Kings Sūtra…. It consists of ten chapters: (1) causing the Buddha’s dharma to abide for ever, (2) protecting this kingdom’s rulers, (3) resolving doubts, (4) evidence that ancient worthies [practised Zen], (5) my spiritual bloodline, (6) scriptural evidence to increase faith, (7) basic tenets that encourage Zen practice, (8) establishing Zen facilities, (9) Zen legends from the continent, and (10) transferring merit and making vows.

  Causing the Buddha’s Dharma to Abide For Ever

  … The Storehouse of Buddhist Morality Sūtra [Japanese: Butsuzōkyō] says: ‘The Buddha preached, “Śāriputra! That kind of person has discarded the unsurpassed dharma jewel and fallen into perverse views. That kind of śramaṇa [Buddhist ascetic] has become a caṇḍāla [untouchable]. Śāriputra! My pure dharma will gradually disappear because of such circumstances. The dharma of bodhi [wisdom], for which I long transmigrated in saṃsāra and endured every suffering in order to perfect, will be destroyed in the [future] age of such evil people. I would not permit them to receive even a drop of water.” ’ The Brahmā Net Bodhisattva Precept Sūtra says: ‘Whoever violates the proper moral precepts must not be allowed to receive any offerings from dānapati [patrons], must not be allowed to walk on the king’s land, and must not be allowed to drink the king’s water. Five thousand great demons always obstruct such a one’s way. The demons say, “You great thief! If you set foot in a room, in a town, or in a house, we will sweep your footprints away.” ’ And so forth, down to the words: ‘One who violates the Buddhist precepts is a beast.’… The Great Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra says: ‘Śāriputra! After I pass into nirvŚṇa, during the latter five-hundred-year periods, the profound prajñā [i.e., perfection of wisdom] sūtras will cause Buddhism to flourish in north-eastern regions [i.e., in China, Japan and Korea]. Why should this be so? Because it is what all tathāgatas profoundly value and what they protect in their memory. They will prevent this sūtra from disappearing in that region.’ The above passages clarify the principle that it is the Zen dharma of promoting the vinaya that causes the buddha-dharma to endure…

  Protecting this Kingdom’s Rulers

  The Benevolent Kings Sūtra says: ‘Buddhas entrust prajnŪā to all present and future kings of small kingdoms as a secret kingdom-protecting jewel.’ The prajñā mentioned in this passage is the essence of Zen (zenshū)…. The Śūraṅgama Sūtra says: ‘The Buddha preached, “Ānanda! Uphold these four moral rules [i.e., against sexuality, stealing, killing and falsehoods] so that you will be as pure as white snow. Wholeheartedly chant my Handara [White Parasol] magical spell. Select a morally pure person to be your leader. Wear new, clean robes. Light incense and seclude yourself. Chant this magical spell, which has been revealed by buddha-mind itself, one hundred and eight times…. Whoever chants this spell cannot be burned by fire and cannot be drowned in water. And if the chanters attain mental absorption, then no malicious spells or unlucky stars can cause any evil to arise…. Within a radius of twelve yojana, not a single disaster or calamity could ever occur.” ’ Zen temples constantly practise the White Parasol dharma taught in this text. It is our ritual for protecting our kingdom’s rulers….

  Resolving Doubts

  Question [one]: Some people say that during the latter five-hundred-year periods, people have become dull and stupid. Who can practise this doctrine? Answer:… The Lotus Sūtra says: ‘Later, during the final age when the dharma is about to disappear, whoever receives and upholds this Lotus Sūtra should arouse a mind of great compassion towards both lay-people and monastics. They should arouse a mind of great compassion towards whoever is not a bodhisattva.’ And so forth, down to the words: ‘[They should vow that] when I attain bodhi [awakening], regardless of where those people might be, I will use the magical power of my wisdom to lead them to abide in the dharma.’ The passages cited above all concern the last age. Moreover, the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra, the Lotus Sūtra and the Nirvāṇa Sūtra all teach techniques for contemplation by sitting Zen. If this practice was not suitable for people in the last age, then the Buddha would not have taught it in these texts. For this reason, Zen is practised throughout the Great Song Empire [i.e., China]. Only people who are not aware of that fact can think that Zen practice is not characteristic of the age when the buddha-dharma disappears.

  In the previous quotation, where the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra mentions ‘northeastern regions’, it refers to China, Korea and Japan. Zen already has been transmitted to China and the Fayan lineage of Zen has already been transmitted to Korea. When National Teacher Deshao [Japanese: Tokushō, 891–972] of the Tang Empire sought missing Tiantai [Japanese: Tendai] texts from Korea and Japan, Zen was flourishing in Korea. It continued to flourish in Korea for three hundred years after his death. In Japan, during the Tenpyō Period, Daoxuan [Japanese: Dōsen, 702–760] came from Tang China and taught Zen to the upādhyāya Gyōhyō (722–787) at the Temple of Great Peace [Daianji]…. I, Eisai, lament that Daoxuan’s Zen lineage died out in Japan. Based on my faith in the Buddha’s true teaching concerning the latter five-hundred-year periods, I want to revive this lost Zen lineage. In terms of both geographic region and temporal period, it accords with the Buddha’s predictions. How can you say that it is not suitable [for present-day Japanese]?…

  Question [two]: Some people say that because Zen does not rely on words and letters it cannot be trusted. If it lacks scriptural basis, then a king cannot have faith in it. Moreover, you are a bastard. Why should you be permitted access to the sovereign’s ear? Answer: The Benevolent Kings Sūtra says: ‘Right now with my five kinds of vision I clearly see all kings of the past, present and future. Every one of them became king by means of past karma generated by having served five hundred buddhas….’ From this passage know that all kings upon hearing the true dharma will accept it and have faith in it. Kings who already worship the Buddha are even more likely to have faith. What king has ever first sought proof and only afterwards donated alms?… The great kings who rule over the lunar regions [i.e., India] hear of three monks being distressed and immediately build a saṅghārāma [monastery] for
them. Is the holy king of the solar region [i.e., Japan] going to allow the complaints of one monk to prevent him from issuing a single-page proclamation [promoting Zen]? Your criticisms are the kinds of circumstances that destroy the buddha-dharma and destroy the kingdom. Don’t say such things!… The Buddha has already entrusted the unsurpassed true dharma of prajñā to the kingdom’s rulers. They can decide for themselves what to promote. Why should your extreme jealousy prevent them? Because I want to revive the expired Zen lineage, you try to find fault with me. Even if I am a bastard, how can that be a fault of Zen?…

  Question [ten]: Some criticize you, asking what makes you think this new Zen lineage will cause Buddhism to flourish for ever? Answer: Moral precepts and monastic discipline cause Buddhism to flourish for ever. Moral precepts and monastic discipline are the essence of Zen. Therefore, Zen causes Buddhism to flourish for ever….

  Question [sixteen]: What about those who mistakenly refer to the Zen lineage as the ‘Dharumashū’? They teach: ‘There is nothing to practise, nothing to cultivate. Originally afflictions [kleśa] do not exist. From the beginning afflictions are bodhi. Therefore, moral precepts and monastic rituals are of no use. One should merely eat and sleep as needed. Why must anyone labour to recall the buddha [nembutsu], to worship relics, or to observe dietary restrictions?’ What about their teaching? Answer: There is no evil that such people will not do. They are the ones the sūtras denounce as nihilists. One must not talk with such people nor even sit with them. One must avoid them by a thousand yojana….