by Youru Wang
XUEFENG TEMPLE (Ch. Xuefeng Si)
Temple of “Snow Peak.” Located on Mount Xuefeng in Minhou County in Fujian Province in China, it was built in 875 after the Chan master Xuefeng Yicun went there to preach dharma in 870. The temple was sponsored by the Min monarch Wang Shenzhi (r. 909–925). Wang named the original Xianggu Peak Snow Peak (Xuefeng) and named the temple Yingtian Xuefeng Chanyuan. In 894, the temple was moved to its current location. In 978, during the Song dynasty, the temple was renamed Xufeng Chongsheng Chan Temple, Xuefeng Temple for short. During its most prosperous period, the community (sangha) included more than 1,500 people. The temple was rebuilt during the Ming and Qing dynasties. A stone pagoda in which Xuefeng Yicun was buried and a wooden hut that was Yicun’s earliest residence, among many other things, have also been preserved through modern times.
XUEFENG YICUN (822–908)
A Chan master of the Tang dynasty, Yicun occupies a special place in Chan history. The founder of the Yunmen school, Yunmen Wenyan, and the founder of the Fayan school, Fayan Wenyi, were both from his lineage. The details of his life are recorded in his epitaph, written by Wang Tao (?–911) and preserved in the Complete Writings of Tang (Quan Tang Wen). The Song Gaoseng Zhuan’s biography of Yicun is based on this epitaph. His teachings are collected in the Xuefeng Zhenjue Chanshi Yulu, compiled by Lin Hongyan (d.u.) in the Ming dynasty. A chronological biographical list is attached to this yulu.
A native of Nan’an in Quanzhou (in present-day Fujian), Yicun was born into a Buddhist family. His secular surname was Zeng. At the age of 12, he went to Yurun Temple in Putian to study with Preceptor Qingxuan (d.u.). At the age of 17, he entered monastic life and studied with the Chan master Hongzhao Linxun (d.u.) at Mount Furong. Later, he traveled to many places and was officially ordained at Baosha Temple in Youzhou. At Wuling, he attended Deshan Xuanjie. In 865, he returned to Mount Furong. During the years 870–875, he built a monastery on Peak Xianggu, west of Fuzhou, and named it Xuefeng (Snow Peak). His preaching won strong support from several local officials, including Wei Xiu (d.u.), Chen Yan (?–891), and the Min monarch Wang Shenzhi (r. 909–925). He was invited by them to offer instruction. It is said that he had more than 1,500 followers. Emperor Xizong (r. 873–888) granted him the title Zhenjue Dashi (“Great Master of True Awakening”) and a purple robe. He died at the age of 87.
His teaching emphasized the inseparableness of realizing self-nature and everyday activities and situations and opposed seeking enlightenment through external authorities, including words and speeches. However, he is well known for his iconoclastic expression, vulgar language, and hitting his students with sticks during instruction. In contrast, in the records of his instruction to the Min monarch Wang Shenzhi, Yicun’s speech was much more conventional.
XUYUN (1840–1959)
A Chan master of modern times, Xuyun was born into the Xiao family (originally from Xiangxiang of Hunan) in Quanzhou, Fujian. At the age of 15, he decided to be a monk, but was forced by his father to stay home and get married. At the age of 19, he left home and entered his monastic life under the master Changkai (d.u.) at Yongquan Temple in Fuzhou. The following year, he was ordained under the master Miaolian (d.u.). After three years of practicing asceticism, he traveled to many famous temples; sacred mountains; and even Tibet, India, Sri Lanka, and Burma. In 1895, he achieved enlightenment at Gaoming Temple in Yangzhou. Throughout his life, he took up residence at 15 temples, revived 6 great monasteries, and reconstructed more than 80 sites. In 1906, he was granted the title Foci Hongfa Dashi (“Great Master of Buddha’s Compassion and Spreading Dharma”) by Emperor Guangxu (r. 1875–1908). In 1953, he was elected honorary president of the Association of Chinese Buddhism. He became the dharma heir of all five Chan schools, and through him, these lineages expanded over three or four new generations. Millions of people received ordination or precepts from him. He helped edit the collected portraits of Chan patriarchs (Fozu Daoying) and other books of Chan lineages and wrote commentaries on a number of Buddhist scriptures. His teachings were preserved in the Xuyun Heshang Fahui, the Xuyun Heshang Fahui Xubian, and the Xuyun Heshang Kaishi Lu.
Y
YANGMING CHAN
This term was first used by neo-Confucian scholars in the late Ming Dynasty to characterize the syncretic teaching of the most influential Ming neo-Confucian master, Wang Yangming (1472–1528). Yangming distinguished his teaching from the Song neo-Confucian master Zhuxi’s (1130–1200) doctrine on the learning of principle (lixue) by emphasizing the notion of the extension of innate knowledge (zhi liangzhi), which saw the mind (xin) and the principle (li) of things as inseparable. Although Yangming’s doctrine on the learning of the mind (xinxue) and the notion of the innate knowledge (liangzhi) were grounded in Mencius’s (372–289 BCE) teaching, he interpreted the mind and the innate knowledge as being everyone’s original wholeness of existence (benti) and ultimate goodness (zhishan), being self-evident (ziming), complete (yuancheng), and sufficient (juzu), transcending any intellectual maneuver or investigation of things, and with no reliance on external help. To become a Confucian sage, for Yangming, was to realize inwardly this liangzhi and let it naturally shine forth. His interpretation was clearly influenced by the Chan Buddhist notions of Buddha-nature (or self-nature) and sudden enlightenment. His adoption even included his direct use of Chan rhetoric, such as “original face,” “no-thought,” “no-abiding,” and so forth. Moreover, in his style of instruction and pedagogy, he preferred to use Chan-like colloquial language in his encounter dialogues with students and others. He also assimilated the Chan strategy to use different teachings for different people, according to their higher or lower capacities. In his later years, his well-known and more controversial teaching of “four sentences” started with the notion that the mind, or the wholeness, transcended the distinction of ordinary goodness and evil, a notion very similar to Chan Buddhist ideology, which was criticized by other Confucian scholars. Some of his direct disciples and their disciples, such as Wang Ji (1498–1583) and Luo Rufang (1515–1588), further developed this aspect of Yangming’s later thought and blurred the boundary between neo-Confucianism and Chan Buddhism more.
Yangming Chan could be seen as a phenomenon that resulted from Yangming’s syncretic approach to all three Chinese traditions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. Yangming Chan does not mean that Yangming became a Chan Buddhist after being very engaged in the study of Buddhism and Chan during his later life. Rather, it indicates that Yangming appropriated and wove such a considerable element of Chan Buddhist thought into his own Confucian teaching that it grew ever closer to Chan and therefore could be qualified as a kind of “Chan of Confucianism” for the first time ever.
YANGQI FANGHUI (992–1049)
A Chan master of the Song dynasty and the founder of the Yangqi branch (Yangqi pai) in the Linji school, Fanghui was a native of Yichun in Yuanzhou (in present-day Jiangxi). His family name was Leng. After becoming a monk, he started to read scriptures and traveled in search of good teachers. Eventually he went to study with Shishuang Chuyuan. With Chuyuan, he achieved awakening and became his dharma heir. Later, he taught at Putong Chan Monastery on Mount Yangqi in Yuanzhou, then also at Haihui Temple on Mount Yungai in Tanzhou. He died at the age of 58. He had about 10 dharma heirs. Among them, Baiyun Shouduan was the most famous, and his dharma heir was Wuzu Fayan, the teacher of Yuanwu Keqin. Keqin himself produced two well-known disciples: Dahui Zonggao and Huqiu Shaolong. In four generations, the branch of Yangqi had dominated the Linji school and surpassed its rival, the branch of Huanglong. The lineage of Yangqi continued to modern times, and all present-day Japanese Rinzai masters belong to this lineage. With a style of using simple and clear words, emphasizing flexibility, and integrating the methods of the Yunmen school into its own Linji heritage, Fanghui’s teachings, including his sermons, were preserved in three collections of his recorded sayings.
YANGSHAN HUIJI (807–883)
A Chan master of the Tang dynasty and the cof
ounder, along with Guishan Lingyou, of the Guiyan school, Huiji was born into a family of Ye in Shaozhou in present-day Guangdong. At the age of 17, he became a monk at Nanhua Temple (originally called Baolin Temple during the time of Huineng). He went to Jizhou in Jiangxi to study with Danyuan Yingzhen (d.u.), a disciple of Nanyang Huizhong, who was an heir of Huineng. With Danyuan, Huiji reached his first awakening and learned to use circle-figures (yuanxiang) as a teaching device. Later, he went to Tanzhou of Hunan to study with Guishan Lingyou and remained there for about 15 years. He became Guishan’s dharma heir and had a father-son type relationship with his teacher. At the age of 35, he went to Mount Yang in Yuanzhou in Jiangxi to start his own teaching, following his teacher’s style and often using circle-figures to convey the principle of Chan. All in all, he had 500–1,000 students, including 11 officials. Among them, 10 were his dharma heirs. He died at the age of 77 at Shaozhou. His posthumous title was Zhitong Dashi (“Great Master of Wisdom-Realization”). His instructions and dialogues were included in the Ming dynasty edition of the Wujia Yulu as Yanshan Huiji Chanshi Yulu. Information about him in earlier Chan texts, such as Zutang Ji, is deemed more reliable.
YAOFANG
Literally, “medical prescription,” a Chinese Chan expression to illustrate the Mahayana Buddhist concept of expedient means. Sometimes it is used in the compound yingshi yaofang (“temporary medical prescription”), to emphasize more clearly that all medical prescriptions are made for the patients’ temporary sicknesses. Once the situation changes, the doctor’s medical prescription must change as well. Such is the temporary and expedient nature of all Buddhist, including Chan, teachings.
YAOSHAN WEIYAN (743–827)
A Chan master of the Tang dynasty, Weiyan was regarded as the disciple of Shitou Xiqian exclusively by the Chan tradition. However, Weiyan’s stele inscription, “Weiyan Dashi Beiming,” written by the famous literatous Tangshen (d.u.) and preserved in the Tangwen Sui (The Quintessence of Tang Writings) of 1011, tells a different story. Apparently, Weiyan studied with three different masters: Shitou Xiqian, Mazu Daoyi, and Master Hong (of the Northern school) (d.u.), spending the longest with Mazu. This is a cause of controversy. The recent revisiting of this stele inscription by contemporary scholars shows that it is a reliable text. According to this inscription and with the correction of some minor errors, Weiyan’s family name was Han, his family origin was Jiangzhou (in present-day Shanxi), and he was born in Xinfeng in Nankang (in present-day Jiangxi). At the age of 17 (in 760), he became a novice monk and attended Chan master Huizhao (d.u.) at Mount West of Chaozhou (in present-day Guangdong). In 768, he received full ordination from the Vinaya master Xicao (d.u.). After staying with Mazu for a long time, he went to Mount Yao in Lizhou (in present-day Hunan) to preach in 789, remaining there until his death. The inscription also presented Weiyan as a relatively conservative Chan master, who preached scriptures and led a self-disciplined life, which is very different from how he was described in the later Chan texts, as having discarded the three learnings as useless furniture and forbidden others to read scriptures. Scholars believe that this inscription was not forged by the followers of the Hongzhou school during the late Tang and Five Dynasties. What was added to Weiyan’s biography by the later texts is inauthentic, including the story of his relationship with the Confucian scholar Li Ao (772–841).
YIN
When used as a verb by Chinese Chan texts, it means “to accord or to harmonize with each other” and “to verify each other” regarding enlightenment and the mind-to-mind transmission. It is often used in compounds such as yinhe, yinke, and yinzheng.
See also .
YINSHUN (1906–2005)
A scholar-monk of modern times, Yinshun was a native of Haining in Zhejiang. His family name was Zhang. He studied at a private school in his youth and later learned Chinese medicine, but his interest was in the study of philosophy and religion. He became an elementary school teacher at the age of 16. At the age of 20, he turned to the study of Buddhism. He became a monk at Fuquan Hermitage of Mount Putuo with the master Qingnian (1875–1957) and was ordained under the master Yuanying at Tiantong Temple. During his study at Minnan Buddhist College and Wuchang Buddhist College, he met with the masters Xuyun, Cizhou (1877–1958), and Taixu. At the age of 42, he became the chief editor for the Taixu Dashi Quanshu. In 1949, he moved to Hong Kong and became the president of the Hong Kong Buddhist Federation. In 1952, he moved to Taiwan, taking the positions of guiding master (and later abbot) at Shandao Temple and editor of the journal Haichao Yin. He founded a number of Buddhist institutes, including Fuyan Jingshe, Women’s College of Buddhism, and Huiri Lecture House. In 1965, he was appointed professor of philosophy at the College of Chinese Culture. During 1970–1974, he published his anthology Miaoyun Ji in 24 volumes. In 1971, his History of Chinese Chan Buddhism was published; because of that, two years later he received an honorary doctoral degree of humanities from Taisho University in Japan. He was known for the originality of his scholarship, for the great range and number of his publications on Buddhism, for his critical attitude and opposition to sectarianism, and for his advocacy of renjian fojiao (Buddhism in the human world).
YINYUAN LONGQI (1592–1673)
A Chan master of the Linji school at the end of the Ming dynasty and the beginning of the Qing dynasty, Longqi was a native of Fuqing in Fuzhou (in present-day Fujian province). His family name was Lin. At the age of 23, he made a pilgrimage to Mount Putuo and served at the Chaoyin Caven. Some years later, he was officially ordained on Mount Huangbo. He then continued his pilgrimage to many sacred places and studied Buddhist scriptures. In 1624, he received dharma transmission from the Linji master Miyun Yuanwu. In 1633, Longqi took up residence at Western Building in Huangbo Temple to assist the abbot Feiyin Tongrong and wound up becoming his dharma heir. Four years later, Longqi succeeded Tongrong to become the abbot of Huangbo Temple. He then served as abbot respectively at Fuyan Temple in Zhejiang and Longquan Temple in Fujian, returning to Mount Huangbo in 1646. In 1654, Yiran Xingrong (1601–1668) of Kōfukuji in Nagasaki invited Longqi to Japan. Accompanied by 30 monks, Longqi arrived at Nagasaki by sea. Seven years later, Longqi established Manpukuji at Mount Ōbaku, promoting the style of Huangbo Xiyun and invigorating monastic precepts. He became the founding patriarch of the Japanese Ōbaku school, one of the three Japanese Zen schools. While preaching in Japan, Longqi involved himself in the Japanese reprinting of his master Tongrong’s controversial book, Wudeng Yantong, and sent the copies back to China to support his master. The Wudeng Yantong also helped form the orthodoxy for his Ōbaku school. In 1673, the Japanese emperor Gomizunoo granted Longqi the title “National Teacher of Great Radiance and Universal Illumination” (Daikō Fushō Kokushi). Longqi had 23 disciples and left behind many texts, including the Fushō kokushi kōroku.
YIQI WEICHUAN
This is the classical Chan definition of the communication or transmission of the enlightened mind. Translated into English, it is “the experience, realization, and resonance of enlightenment are the transmission.” This definition was originally presented by Pei Xiu, a famous lay disciple of Huangbo Xiyun and the editor of the latter’s Chuanxin Fayao, in his “Hymn on the Transmission of the Mind,” appended to the Chuanxin Fayao. Pei Xiu’s account and summary of Huangbo’s teaching on the transmission of the mind approximates Huangbo’s own words preserved in the Chuanxin Fayao.
According to Huangbo, enlightenment or the enlightened mind cannot be transmitted in any ordinary sense as external knowledge or something internal. The transmission from mind to mind (yixin chuanxin) must be understood as the mutual realization or verification of enlightenment (yixin yinxin). The mind of the master and the mind of the disciple are brought into harmony or accord by each one’s enlightenment. This is the true meaning of Chan transmission. Huangbo also uses another term, qihui, to emphasize that being able to verify and harmonize one’s mind with another enlightened mind is first and foremost to experience and realize one’s ow
n enlightenment. This experience and realization of one’s own enlightenment is a practical matter, inseparable from activities in the everyday world and involvement with others. More than the understanding of words, it encompasses one’s existential choice, the conversion of one’s life outlook and attitude, goodwill, and decision making; in short, the transformation of the entire personhood. Pei Xiu’s yiqi weichuan quite accurately conveys Huangbo’s interpretation of Chan transmission as the mutual realization and resonance of enlightenment (qihui).
YIXIN
See .
YIXIN CHUANXIN
A Chinese expression for mind-to-mind transmission, the so-called uniqueness of Chan transmission (bianchuan). The content of this Chan transmission can literally be referred to as Buddhist Dharma (fofa, the teaching and goal of Buddhism), emptiness, enlightenment, and so forth. In classical Chan Buddhism, it was more often referred to as Buddha-mind, or one mind, which is equivalent to the realization of Buddha-nature, the overall condition of all individual beings and things, and its functions through the ordinary mind. However, the word “transmission” (chuan) is somewhat misleading in this context, since Buddha mind or the enlightened mind cannot be transmitted in any conventional sense as something external or internal, and this cannot be done merely through the understanding of written words. The transmission from mind to mind requires the existential-practical transformation of the human mind and the entire personhood. Only the mutual realization and verification of enlightenment in a practical context can be seen as the transmission from mind to mind.
