Historical Dictionary of Chan Buddhism

by Youru Wang

  It seems clear that Hongren’s personal brilliance is a determining force behind the first Chan community at Huangmei—the East Mountain tradition (Dongshan Famen)—that he and his teacher Daoxin established. The number of direct disciples increased from Daoxin’s half-dozen to about 25, including the “ten great disciples.” Among these, Shenxiu, Faru, Hui’an, and Xuanze (d.u.) are the most prominent, according to the early sources. Faru’s epitaph indicates that he may be the first in Chan history to formulate a Chan lineage from Bodhidharma to Hongren and himself. Hui’an was among the most influential in the capitals and at the imperial court. Xuanze was famous for authoring the Lengqie Renfa Zhi (Records of Men and Methods [in the Transmission] of the Laṅkā[vatāra]). By the second half of the 7th century, this community had gained national recognition as a center of meditation training.

  Like his teacher Daoxin, Hongren taught his approach of meditation without writing any words. It was his students who recorded his teaching and created the basis for a text called Xiuxin Yaolun (Treatise on the Essentials of Cultivating the Mind), which is attributed to him. The text was discovered among the Dunhuang documents in the 20th century. An important idea of this text is “maintaining [the awareness of] the mind” (shouxin). It means to be constantly aware of the true mind or Buddha-nature. By maintaining the awareness of the mind without false thoughts or illusions, this true mind will, like the sun, shine forth naturally. To achieve shouxin requires vigorous effort in meditation, involving the visualization of the golden orb of the sun (the image of Buddha-nature or enlightenment) and calmly observing the clouds, or dusts of ignorance, that cover the sun until they cease to function.

  HONGZHI LU

  This is the Chinese title of The Records of Hongzhi, the extant Song edition of the recorded sayings (yulu) of Chan master Hongzhi Zhengjue, which was taken to Japan by Dōgen Kigen and became the source for several later Japanese editions, including the widely used Taishō version known as The Extensive Records of Chan Master Hongzhi (Hongzhi Chanshi Guanglu). In China, only a Ming dynasty edition of Hongzhi’s yulu survived. The Hongzhi Lu is one of the largest extant yulu collections of individual Chan masters, with a wide range of texts, from shangtang (ascending the hall) sermons and informal sermons (xiaocan) to commentaries on 100 gong’an cases, written instructions (fayu), poems (jisong), and portrait inscriptions from various periods of Hongzhi’s career at different monasteries. These texts were gathered in a loose collection of six volumes, with no division of fascicles. The collection also involves a complete biography of Hongzhi (xingyie ji) by his contemporary, Wang Boxiang (1106–1173). Most interestingly, this edition includes several original prefaces, postfaces, and publication notes, which are quite rare in the other extant Song yulu compilations. These materials help to reveal when and how the different parts of the yulu were first published, and how they were later put together. It is therefore quite clear that much of the material in this edition was first published during Hongzhi’s own lifetime.

  HONGZHI ZHENGJUE (1091–1157)

  One of the most influential Chan masters of the Caodong school in the Song dynasty. Born into a Buddhist family, Hongzhi became a novice at the age of 11 and was officially ordained three years later. He started to visit different Chan masters from the age of 18. With the Caodong master Danxia Zichun, he reached enlightenment when he was 23. In the following decade, he served in various administrative offices, assisting the abbacies of different Caodong masters at a number of monasteries while his fame grew. In 1124, he was appointed the abbot of Puzhao Temple in Sizhou (in modern northern Jiangsu) with the recommendation of the official Xiang Zizhen (1085–1152).

  During the next few years he moved around, taking abbacies at different monasteries, including the abbacy at Mount Changlu (in Jiangsu) with the recommendation of the Linji Chan master Yuanwu Keqin and the official Zhao Lingjin (d.u.). In 1129, Hongzhi arrived in the Zhejiang area, trying to evade the Jin army. When he passed by the Tiantong Temple, the congregation and local officials there persuaded him to take up the abbacy. He stayed there for almost 30 years until his death, with only a short break of being abbot at Lingying Temple in present-day Hangzhou for several months. During his final days in 1157, he asked the Linji master Dahui Zonggao to take care of his after-death affairs. The Southern Song emperor Gaozong (r. 1127–1162) granted him the posthumous title “Chan Master of Vast Wisdom” (Hongzhi Chanshi). It has been reported that he had about 280 official disciples, and that more than 20 of them were famous.

  Hongzhi’s name is most closely related to the approach of “silent illumination Chan (mozhao chan),” which, as opposed to the kanhua chan, has become one of the two dominant trainings of Song Chan. His poetic writing, Mozhao Ming (“Guidepost of Silent Illumination”), is, among others, the most illustrious text for his silent illumination Chan. This approach simplifies Chan practice by placing the strongest emphasis on quiet sitting meditation and teaches that one’s inherent Buddha-nature will manifest itself naturally in this state of stillness. The silent illumination thought synthesizes several Mahayana traditions with the Chinese notion of Buddha-nature functioning through all things and the Caodong doctrine of the interacting (huihu) of the ultimate and phenomenal. It integrates these traditional teachings into its suggestive, figurative, and poetic vocabulary, including the skillful use of nature imagery.

  The method and style of this silent illumination approach was highly effective in attracting literati and elites of Southern Song society. Probably due to this success, the silent illumination Chan received severe criticism from the Linji master Dahui Zonggao, with whom Hongzhi maintained a personal friendship. Hongzhi’s sermons, informal talks, dialogues, and poems are preserved extensively in the collection of his recorded sayings, the extant Song edition of which is called Hongzhi Lu. Although his approach recommends quiet sitting in stillness, throughout his life he frequently used gong’an and even compiled the collections of gong’an with his own comments.

  HONGZHOU SCHOOL (Ch. Hongzhou zong)

  This was a very influential sect of Chinese Chan Buddhism, which started with Mazu Daoyi and was named after the place where Mazu taught before his death, in what is now Jiangxi province in southern China. Throughout his teaching career spanning over four decades, Mazu attracted and trained a great number of followers and led a large Chan community. Many of Mazu’s disciples who themselves were famous Chan masters are associated with this sect, including Xitang Zhizang, Baizhang Huaihai, Dazhu Huihai, Ehu Dayi, Nanquan Puyuan, and Xingshan Weikuan. Some of them have their own famous disciples, such as Huangbo Xiyun and Guishan Lingyou, both disciples of Baizhang Huaihai, and Zhaozhou Congshen, the disciple of Nanquan Puyuan. These talented disciples spread the Hongzhou teaching beyond Jiangxi and the south, to the central and northern parts of China, including the two capitals, Chang’an and Luoyang. Following in their teacher’s footsteps, they sustained a good relationship with literati and government officials. This helped the Hongzhou school’s rise to national prominence, particularly as other schools of early Chan were in decline at the time.

  Modern scholarship on the Hongzhou school, based on the Song narratives of classical Chan, has been dominated by two interrelated perspectives. First, it has seen Mazu and his Hongzhou school as a revolutionary, or iconoclastic, movement that breaks away from Buddhist traditions and subverts established norms and practices. Second, it has regarded Mazu and his disciples as starting a new and independent religion and initiating a new form of practice widely known as encounter dialogues. These two perspectives have been seriously challenged by contemporary scholarship on the Hongzhou school. The radical iconoclastic image of the Hongzhou masters, portrayed by the stories of Chan encounter dialogues, was basically a Song editorial revision and addition to the raw materials of the “recorded saying (yulu)” texts originally circulated, many of which could not be seen by later generations. By critically analyzing and separating those more reliable parts of the Hongzhou texts, such as Mazu’s sermons, Dazh
u Huihai’s Dunwu Yaomen, the Baizhang Guanglu, and the Guishan Jingce, from those later produced and less reliable materials, especially those encounter dialogues attributed to these masters, contemporary scholars demonstrate that Mazu and his major disciples are not radical enough to be called iconoclasts.

  Rather than spontaneously reacting and using unconventional rhetoric and pedagogical means, which characterize most mature encounter dialogues that first emerged from the mid-9th to the mid-10th centuries, in these early texts the Hongzhou masters straightforwardly instructed students, used relatively conservative rhetoric preexisting in early Chan, and frequently quoted and alluded to scriptural passages. They advised students to comply with monastic precepts, follow mentors, accumulate good karma, and practice other cultivations, including meditation. In a word, their teachings and practices operated within the broader tradition of Chinese Buddhism. Furthermore, the traditionally claimed Hongzhou school’s independent spirit, in contrast to the heavy reliance on imperial and aristocratic patronage characteristic of early Chan and elite Chinese Buddhism, is no longer convincing. From its very beginning, the Hongzhou school was a recipient of strong support from local government officials, and soon afterward it received state approval and imperial patronage. Similarly, the legendary Baizhang “Rules of Purity” (Baizhang Qinggui), adopted by the later Chan tradition, in fact followed the Vinaya rules and those of early Chinese Buddhism, especially the school of precepts (Lüzong).

  However, the Hongzhou school’s working within tradition does not mean that there was a lack of innovation or creative reformulation of Buddhist teaching, in terms of practical needs in this school. Mazu’s notions “this mind is Buddha” and “the ordinary mind is the way” had a wide appeal to Chan Buddhists and Chinese people, which contributed to the popularity of this school. Through these notions, the school emphasized that enlightenment cannot be sought outside the human mind and its everyday activities. The everyday activities or functions of the human mind, including its ignorance and delusion, are necessary conditions and presuppositions for enlightenment. This was a strictly relational perspective on enlightenment, which could be justified by the teachings of Mahayana scriptures, but was formulated in fresh idiomatic terms. The masters did employ more colloquial language and many simplified kataphatic expressions in their sermons and teachings that were synthetic to Mahayana Buddhist doctrines and scriptures. The Hongzhou school as such was neither merely a foreseeable continuation of the received tradition nor a dramatic shifting of paradigm prompted by an iconoclastic atmosphere, owing to the masters’ great capacity to carry out the middle way as opposed to pursuing the extremes of either conformism or iconoclasm.

  The middle-way approach of the Hongzhou school is also demonstrated in its attempt to balance between configuring the new orthodoxy of Chan and the divisive sectarianism influenced by Shenhui’s campaign against the Northern school. This balanced attitude can be seen in Ehu Dayi and Xingshan Weikuan’s epitaphs, produced in the early 9th century, and the Biographies from the Treasure Groves [Temple] (Baolin Zhuan), compiled in 801. The Baolin Zhuan adopted a pluralistic position, describing the Chan lineage after the sixth patriarch as having evolved from the unilinear transmission to the multilinear transmission. Although the text ended with Mazu as the leading master of his generation, it simultaneously included figures outside the Hongzhou lineage and those of the preceding generation, such as Shenhui, Nanyang Huizhong, and Shitou Xiqian. The ecumenical and inclusive attitude is even clearer in Dayi and Weikuan’s epitaphs. Although they acknowledged Huineng as the major heir of Hongreng, they also recognized the lineages of Shenxiu and Niutou Farong as authentic branches of Chan Buddhism, in addition to the Heze and the Hongzhou lineages, without asserting the superiority of Hongzhou. They criticized the followers of Shenhui for their divisive sectarianism and their attachment to the distinction of the Southern and Northern schools. The various Chan lineages were seen as belonging to the same extended family, and each distinctive group as being part of the larger Chan movement, reflecting the changing atmosphere of Chan ecumenism as the Hongzhou school became widely accepted as the carrier of Chan orthodoxy.

  HONGZHOU ZONG

  See .

  HUANGBO XIYUN (?–855)

  A very famous and influential master of classical Chan Buddhism, he started his monastic life at a very young age on Mount Huangbo in Fujian province. After traveling to several places to study Chan, he became Baizhang Huihai’s disciple and was able to carry on the lineage of Mazu Daoyi and Hongzhou school, as some biographical writings on Huangbo have traditionally claimed. He then became a Chan teacher in a temple on Mount Lingjiu in Jiangxi province, which was also named Huangbo after the one in Fujian where he took his first vows. His fame rose rapidly, and he attracted a huge number of followers. Soon after his death in 855 (according to Fozu Tongji, but there is no consensus among scholars), his lay disciple Pei Xiu edited and published his recorded sayings, namely, the Chuanxin Fayao and Wanling Lu, which became indispensable sources for the study of classical Chan and was translated into Western languages in the late 1950s. Huangbo’s most well-known disciple is Linji Yixuan, the founder of the Linji school. Huangbo’s unique teaching and language style holds a special position in the transition from Mazu and Baizhang’s Hongzhou school to a more stylistic Linji school.

  HUANGLONG HUINAN (1002–1069)

  A Chan master of the Song dynasty and the founder of the Huanglong branch (Huanglong pai) of the Linji school, Huinan was a native of Xinzhou (in present-day Jiangxi). His family name was Zhang. He became a monk at the age of 11 and was ordained at age 19. As a student, he followed a master of the Yunmen school named Huaicheng (d.u.), but later decided to change to Shishuang Chuyuan of the Linji school. With the help of Chuyuan, he reached enlightenment at the age of 35. He taught at a number of temples in Jiangxi and eventually settled down on Mount Huanglong. He instructed many students, including 76 dharma heirs who carried his teaching to many places and made his lineage a dominating branch in the Song Linji school, although this lineage only continued for about 150 years. Huinan died at the age of 68. His posthumous title was Pujue Chanshi.

  The style of the Huanglong branch is illustrated by the “three gates of Huanglong (Huanglong sanguan).” This strategy uses three kinds of “turning speech” (zhuanyu) or “living sentence” (huoju) to test student understanding of the relationships between life and death, between ordinary persons and Buddhas, and between sentient beings and non-sentient beings. It was influenced by the strategies of Baizhang Huaihai and Yunmen Wenyan, but further developed diverse use of language to overcome the “dead” limits of language in Chan soteriological practice. The lineage of Huanglong was also the first of the Chinese Chan lineages to be transmitted to Japan by the Japanese monk Myōan Eisai.

  HUI’AN (582–709)

  Also called Lao’an or Dao’an. A Chan master of the Sui and Tang dynasties, Hui’an was a native of Zhijiang, Jingzhou (in present-day Hubei). His family name was Wei. It was said that in 597 he went into the forests to escape the Sui government’s campaign against those without official ordinations. During this time, as people were suffering from canal construction, he traveled around to beg food for the sick and poor. To avoid being summoned to court, he hid himself on Mount Taihe. In 616, he went to Mount Heng and practiced asceticism (toutuo) there. Between 627 and 649, he went to Huangmei to study with Hongreng. According to some sources, Hongreng ranked him and Shenxiu highest among his 10 great disciples. In 664, he took up residence at Mount Zhongnan, and he moved to Huatai in 683. After an unknown period of wandering, he moved to Shaolin Temple. Different sources give different dates for his first gaining access to the imperial court. Later, he received gifts from Emperor Zhongzong (r. 684, 705–710) and was invited to court again. He died at Shaolin Temple and left several successful disciples, who were acknowledged by the later orthodox Chan lamp histories along with their teacher. An epitaph for one of his disciples even elevated him as the sixth patriarc
h after Hongren. His teachings were not recorded, but some later Chan masters of the Southern school were reported to have studied with him, for example, Nanyue Huairang.

  HUICHANG PERSECUTION (Ch. Huichang paifo)

  The worst persecution of Buddhism in ancient Chinese history happened during the Huichang period (841–846) of the Tang dynasty. After a number of years of anti-Buddhist policies, Emperor Wuzong (r. 840–846) issued an imperial edict in 845 to abolish the practice of Buddhism and its institutions. This resulted in the destruction of numerous Buddhist temples, the confiscation of the money and estates of the monasteries, and the forced return of the monks and nuns to lay life. The unprecedented persecution was ended in 846, when Wuzong died and was succeeded by a more pro-Buddhist emperor, Xuanzong (r. 846–859). The Huichang persecution was almost a fatal blow to those schools of Chinese Buddhism with more intellectual and exegetical orientations, such as Tiantai, Huayan, and Faxiang. However, the Chan lineages of Mazu Daoyi and Shitou Xiqian in the south and in some less controlled areas of the north survived, grew quickly, and developed into “five houses” in the late Tang and Five Dynasties, occupying vacancies left by other Buddhist schools.

  HUIKE (485–ca. 574)

  A Chan master in the Northern Wei dynasty (439–534) and the Northern Qi dynasty (552–577), he was considered the dharma heir to Bodhidharma and the second patriarch of Chinese Chan Buddhism. Several stories about Huike and his teacher Bodhidharma were very popular throughout Chan history, but they have no historical basis. He was a native of Hulao (in present-day Henan). His family name was Ji. During his youth, he extensively studied the Chinese classics and Buddhist scriptures. He attained a certain level of enlightenment by himself but was criticized for having no teacher. At the age of 40, Huike met Bodhidharma in the area of Mount Song and Luoyang and studied with him for six years, coming to a deep understanding of the teaching of “one vehicle (yisheng).” In 534–537, he moved to the capital, Ye, where his practice encountered hostility from those who concentrated on scriptural exegesis. He later left the area of Ye and became a mendicant. A loosely associated group of followers and practitioners surrounded him from time to time at various locations in north China, as mentioned in the early sources, and characterized this stage of the “proto-Chan” movement. Among these followers, Sengcan was later regarded as Huike’s dharma heir.