by Youru Wang
It was reported that Shenxiu’s leading disciple, Puji, built a hall of seven patriarchs at Shaolin Temple on Mount Song to follow the dharma transmission theory of the Chuan Fabao Ji and track his own lineage position back from Shenxiu (while accommodating Faru) to Bodhidharma. Around 752, Shenhui built a portrait hall at Heze Temple in Luoyang to promote a clearer one-to-one patriarchal succession, including Indian and Chinese patriarchs. Shenhui’s disciples also used money from the imperial treasury to build a hall featuring portraits of seven Chan patriarchs, including Shenhui. Contemporary scholars have noted how Shenhui’s disciples developed similarities between the lineage from Bodhidharma to Shenhui and that of the imperial clan by reproducing the arrangement of the imperial ancestral temples in their patriarch halls and borrowing ideas from Confucian memorial ritual.
Such patriarch halls or portrait halls eventually became a common feature of major Song Buddhist monasteries, as Chan monasticism became dominant. The main change to Chan portrait halls in the Song and Yuan dynasties was that enshrining portraits of abbots gradually replaced the enshrinement of all early Chan patriarchs. The portraits of Bodhidharma and Baizhang Huaihai were most noticeably kept, along with portraits of the previous abbots of each monastery. Consequently, the patriarch halls no longer represented the genealogy of a particular master, but rather the genealogy of an entire monastery, even though the purpose of enshrining portraits was basically the same: to assert religious orthodoxy and affiliation on historical-genealogical grounds and to ensure the continuous safety and prosperity of the monastic institution. The portraits were worshiped and were offered food and drink on a daily basis in patriarch halls. During the major memorial services for patriarchs and abbots, based on the anniversaries of their deaths, the relevant portraits were brought out of the patriarch hall and set up in the dharma hall (fadang) to receive congregational offerings and prayers, then returned to the patriarch hall after the ceremony.
PATRIARCH’S HALL COLLECTION
See .
PEI XIU (797–870)
A well-known lay Buddhist and an official of high rank in the Tang dynasty, Pei Xiu was born into a family of Buddhist faith. His father was also a successful official. After passing the imperial civil service test at the highest level, Pei Xiu served in a series of important official posts, both regional and central, culminating in the position of prime minister of China in 852. Although he received the finest education in Confucian classics, which paved the way for his political career, Pei Xiu often engaged in the study of Buddhism. He was associated with a number of eminent Buddhist monks throughout his life, especially the famous Chan and Huayan master/scholar Zongmi and later on Huangbo Xiyun. Pei Xiu had the closet and most long-lasting relationship with Zongmi. Not only did he consult the Buddhist dharma with Zongmi many times, but he also wrote prefaces to several of Zongmi’s works and Zongmi’s epitaph. During his tenure as the governor of the Hongzhou area, he invited the reputed Huagnbo Xiyun to preach Chan at Longxing Temple and became his lay disciple. In 848, as the governor of Xuanzhou, Pei Xiu again invited Xiyun to teach Chan, at Kaiyuan Temple in Xuancheng (also called Wanling). After Xiyun’s death, Pei Xiu edited and prefaced Xiyun’s sermons and conversations, known as Chuanxin Fayao and Wanling Lu. Scholars think Pei Xiu’s descriptions of Zongmi and Xiyun’s teachings in his own writings are quite accurate and valuable.
PENETRATING THREE PROPOSITIONS
English translation of the Chinese phrase touguo sanju wai. It is one of Baizhang Huaihai’s main teachings, recorded in the Baizhang Guanglu. Related to this teaching of “penetrating three propositions or sentences” are Baizhang’s other important notion, “cutting-off two opposites (geduan liangtou ju),” and his introduction of the distinction between living words (shengyu) and dead words (siyu). For Baizhang, sayings such as “mind is Buddha” and “there is cultivation and there is realization” were dead words; sayings such as “no mind, no Buddha” and “neither cultivation nor realization” were living words. As living words, these negative sayings helped students detach themselves from those affirmative sayings and avoid reifying them, although these negative sayings also had their own limits. To help students practice non-attachment to either affirmative or negative sayings, Baizhang introduced his teaching of cutting-off two opposites, which negates both affirmation and negation (the latter is also called the negation of negation, or double negation).
The teaching of cutting-off two opposites brought his students to a higher level or perspective, a third proposition, which was often described as “not even anything (affirmative or negative).” But even this last proposition—no attachment to “either affirmative or negative”—must be detached as well, according to Baizhang’s teaching of penetrating three propositions, and that is the highest spiritual level of Chan. The cultivation and practice of non-attachment was thus seen by Baizhang as processional, as a chain of continuous deconstruction, going through and beyond each and all limited perspectives. It goes without saying that the influence of the Madyamaka (zhongguan) dialectic was assimilated by Baizhang’s teaching of penetrating three propositions. That dialectic, however, was contextualized, ingeniously simplified, and put into colloquial terms. It demonstrates Baizhang’s insight into the use of language in Chan practice while maintaining the Chan critique of language. Baizhang’s insights have been largely neglected by modern scholarship and only recently have some scholars begun to call attention to them.
PERSON OF DAO WITHOUT RELIANCE (Ch. wuyi daoren)
A term used by Linji Yixuan in the Linji Lu, similar to his notion of “authentic person without rank (wuwei zhenren).” The terms “person of dao” (daoren) and “authentic person” (zhenren) were both borrowed from Daoist vocabulary and used in Chan Buddhist soteriological contexts, representing a gradually evolved and innovative understanding of the traditional teaching of Buddha-nature (foxing) in classical Chinese Chan. Both are concerned with concrete individual human beings (ren), with the potential of realizing Buddha-nature or enlightenment within each human being, and with the soteriological goal of transforming individual personhood through everyday activities. “Person of dao without reliance” is described as free to be born or die, to go or stay as one would put on, or take off, a garment. This person attaches himself or herself to no forms, no characteristics, no root, no origin, no abiding place, and yet this person is vibrantly alive. All kinds of expedient means can be used well, but while using them, this person has nothing to attach to. Here terms such as “without reliance” (wuyi) and “freedom” (ziyou) are used in the context of non-attachment; namely, being free from attachment, or no-reliance on things once attached to. Recently, scholars have questioned the consistency between this notion of no-reliance and the traditional Buddhist teaching of dependent co-arising, wondering if the former is an oversight in Chan, since in terms of the latter, nothing and nobody can be independent of, or free from, conditions. Although the notion of “person of dao without reliance” is open to different interpretations, this recent questioning promotes a more critical examination of all Chan perspectives.
PLATFORM SŪTRA
The Platform Sūtra of the Sixth Patriarch (Liuzu Tanjing) was a sacred scripture of the Southern school of Chinese Chan Buddhism and is one of the most widely read Chan texts in East Asia. It was the only Chinese Buddhist text bearing the title of scripture without claiming Indian origin. The sūtra recorded the sermons of the sixth patriarch, Huineng, and included detailed biographical stories of Huineng and his conversations with disciples. The most popular (and longer) versions of this sūtra were the editions by Zongbao of the Yuan dynasty and by Qisong of the Song dynasty. The extant earliest (and shorter) version of the sūtra is a text circulated in the late 8th century, which was discovered in the 20th century at Dunhuang. The biographical part of the sūtra tells the legends of how Huineng achieved his enlightenment despite his illiteracy and low social status, and especially how he won, in a verse competition, over Shenxiu, to become the dharma heir of
the fifth patriarch, Hongren.
Modern scholars have long been questioning the historical accuracy of these legends about Huineng, since no other reliable historical records contain similar details. Recent historians have particularly pointed out the fictionality and imaginative nature of these narratives, especially the stories of the verse competition between Huineng and Shenxiu and the transmission of Bodhidharma’s robe and bowl from Hongren to Huineng. Given that the teachings of Shenhui (who first established Huineng’s orthodoxy) and Huineng have a lot in common—such as the emphasis on sudden enlightenment, the notion of wunian (no-thought), and the non-duality of concentration and wisdom (dinghui bu’er)—and that both Shenhui and the Platform Sūtra use similar biographical materials about Huineng, some scholars assume that Shenhui’s followers were the actual authors or editors of the Platform Sūtra. Others argue that one can still detect nuances between Shenhui’s thought and Huineng’s. For example, Shenhui’s interpretation of no-thought further developed what Huineng said in the sūtra, and Shenhui’s privileging of intuitive knowing (zhijian) was absent in the Platform Sūtra.
More recently, some scholars argue that the current Dunhuang version of the sūtra is not the sole product of Shenhui’s lineage, since some inconsistency in Huineng’s teaching is evident from the text. They believe that it was further revised by another school of early Chan, based on the fact that the sūtra somehow marginalized Shenhui and modified his rhetoric of subitism and sectarianism by stating that the dharma has no division of sudden and gradual, or Southern and Northern. One such attribution was made to a member of the Ox-Head school, since this school kept its distance from both the Southern and Northern schools. Others still argue that members of the Hongzhou school involved themselves in the compilation of the sūtra. The crucial point that this debate over the authorship of the sūtra has made is that we have no way of knowing exactly what Huineng taught through any historically reliable and detailed documents. This is not to assert that there was nothing being taught by Huineng or to depreciate the Platform Sūtra; the importance of the teachings attributed to Huineng by the text can hardly be overestimated. Ideas such as de-substantializing Buddha-nature, realizing and carrying out non-attachment in one’s whole being and activity (jianxing), the non-duality of meditation and wisdom, and the practice of “formless precepts” helped shape the identity of mainstream Chan and became part of Chan’s enduring and renewable heritage.
POEMS OF HANSHAN
Also known as Hanshanzi Shiji (Collection of Poems of Cold Mountain), this work is attributed to an obscure and legendarily eccentric monk-poet, Hanshan (Cold Mountain, ca. 710 or 711–?) of the Tang dynasty. The commonly used edition of this collection is dated to 1189. It consists of more than 300 poems by Hanshan and some appended poems by Shide (d.u.) and Fenggan (d.u.), with a preface by a certain Lüqiu Yin, who refers to a monk Daoqiao as the compiler. The author of the preface tells how he met the master Fenggan and then Hanshan and Shide in the Guoqing Temple at Mount Tiantai (the legendary three recluses), then relates the origin of this collection. However, most scholars now believe this preface is a forgery. Another source from the late Tang, which mentioned those poems being written on trees, rocks, and walls by Hanshan while he was a recluse at Cold Cliff (hanyan) on Mount Tiantai from 766 to 779 and being collected by Xu Lingfu (d.u.), is more acceptable. From the contents of the poems, it seems that Hanshan retired from being an officer, but information about his life is extremely sparse, and those details derived from the content are often contradictory and hardly convincing.
Recent scholars also question the authorship of these poems. It has been generally acknowledged that in terms of content, style, and linguistic features (such as rhyming), the collection could be divided into two different groups. One group of poems was perhaps composed in the late Tang and Five Dynasties and includes most of the Chan-themed poems. The other group was perhaps composed during the mid-Tang and includes many traditional Buddhist-themed poems unrelated to Chan. These two groups of poems are from two different hands. A very recent study revealed that the late Tang Chan master Caoshan Benji’s poems, which interpreted the poems of Hanshan, had been mixed up with the original poems of Hanshan, meaning that Caoshan Benji is perhaps the author of those Chan poems that exist in the collection, which differ greatly from Hanshan’s other poems. Despite these problems, the Poems of Hanshan has been inspiring to, and loved by, numerous readers throughout history. Many famous Chan masters quoted from the Poems of Hanshan in their sermons, writings, and conversations. The Poems of Hanshan has become one of the most popular works in Chinese literature and is regarded as the highest achievement of Chinese Buddhist poetry and the pioneer of Chinese vernacular poetry.
PRAJÑĀPĀRAMITĀ SŪTRAS AND CHAN
These sūtras are often called the Perfection of Wisdom literature in English because they form a group or genre that share the similar title of Prajñāpāramitā and contain main Mahayana teachings. The group includes the longer version of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, for example, the sūtra in 8,000 lines, and the shorter and more condensed ones, such as the Diamond Sūtra (Vajracchedikā-Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra) and the Heart Sūtra (Prajñāpāramitā-Hṛdaya Sūtra). The former were among the earliest Mahayana scriptures; some were composed from 100 BCE to 100 CE. These sūtras taught the supreme altruistic path of bodhisattva, the practice of six perfections, and the notions of emptiness (being devoid of self-nature of all things including the Buddhist goal of nirvana) and suchness (tathatā), among other things. Different translators produced several versions of the Chinese translation of these sūtras. They became one of the foundational sources of Chinese Chan Buddhist teaching and practice. In Chan texts of recorded sayings (yulu), many Chan masters quoted from the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras. The most popular use is that of the more condensed Heart Sūtra and Diamond Sūtra. The mutual identification of form (se) and emptiness (kong) in the Heart Sūtra is a favorite expression used in Chan discourses and integrated into the Chan understanding of the mutual identification of phenomena (shi) and principle (li). The Chan notion of non-abiding (wuzhu), attributed to Huineng in the Platform Sūtra and used by later generations, was directly derived from the Diamond Sūtra. The paradoxical logic of “A = Non-A” in the Diamond Sūtra also profoundly influenced the use of paradox to serve soteriological purposes that is characteristic of Chan discourses.
PUJI (651–739)
A Chan master of the Tang dynasty and the most prominent disciple and successor of Shenxiu and his Northern school, Puji was born into a family of Feng. He studied Chinese classics when he was young but was dissatisfied and turned to the study of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures and treatises. He took the precepts under Preceptor Duan (d.u.) of Luoyang and studied the Vinaya with Preceptor Jing (634–712) of Nanquan (in present-day Anhui). He then went to Shaolin Temple to follow the master Faru. Upon learning of Faru’s death, he went to Yuquan Temple to study with Shenxiu. During the following seven years, he focused on the study of the Sūtra of Inquiry by the God of Thinking-about-Goodness (Siyi Fantian Suowen Jing) and the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra under Shenxiu’s instruction. In 700, Shenxiu recommended Puji for official ordination, and during 701–704, Puji was at Songyue Temple on Mount Song. After Shenxiu’s death in 706, Emperor Zhongzong (r. 684, 705–710) appointed Puji as the leader of Shenxiu’s disciples. In 723, Puji took up residence at Jing’ai Temple in Luoyang. He was installed by Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–756) at Xingtang Temple in Luoyang in 727, where he preached dharma until his death. During this period, his fame and influence at the capital reached their peak. It was said that there were 10,000 followers of Puji and more than 60 students at temple. He captured the highest success of the Northern school at the capital but also accelerated the school’s final fall by attaching its fate so closely to the imperial court. He was honored as the “Chan Master of Great Illumination.”
PUQING
This Chinese word refers to communal labor or “universal invitation” to manual
labor. This universal call to manual labor was one of the “rules of purity” (qinggui) attributed to Baizhang Huaihai as his invention, outlined by the Chanmen Guishi in the Jingde Chuangdeng Lu and highlighted by the Song historiographers. Baizhang’s initiative of this rule of communal labor was also related to his famous dictum that a day without work is a day without food, which was recorded by many Chan texts (e.g., the Zutang Ji, among the earliest). This oft-cited dictum, along with the rule of communal labor, has been seen as a landmark of the Chan school’s innovation of the traditional Buddhist monastery, its inclusion of mundane activities into spiritual cultivation, and its promotion of economic self-sufficiency, with profound historical, sociopolitical, and religious influences. However, recent studies of Chan have questioned the innovativeness of puqing and shed light on the neglected continuity between this alleged unique Chan monastic rule and its roots in early Buddhist teachings and practices. References to the principle and practice of communal manual labor and service can be found in both the Indian Vinaya texts and the biographies of eminent Chinese monks.
Q
QI
When used as a verb by Chan texts, this Chinese word means “to get along with each other” and “to accord or to harmonize with each other.” It also means “to attain” and “to experience and to understand.” These meanings are applicable when it is used in compounds such as qihe, qihui, and qiwu. They form a group of words that express the unique experiential-existential dimension of the mutual realization and verification of Chan enlightenment—the special mind-to-mind transmission in Chan.
