Asian Traditions of Meditation

by Halvor Eifring

  Interestingly, we are also told that the practitioner may say the huàtóu out loud, an issue that is never addressed by Dàhuì. It is clearly implied that if not said out loud the huàtóu should be repeated mentally, in a measured pace. We will return to this in the last section of this chapter.

  Doubt seems to have become the sine qua non of kànhuà Chán in the Yuán and Míng dynasties. Even as gōng’àn that Dàhuì had never used became popular, Chán masters kept appealing to his authority, pointing out how kànhuà practice with such gōng’àn generated the same doubt as the dog gōng’àn. This emphasis on doubt in the Yuán and Míng seems to go significantly beyond Dàhuì’s own presentation of doubt.

  Pure Land Practice and Kànhuà Chán

  In the quote from Zhìchè Duànyún above, where he lists several different gōng’àn that can be used in kànhuà Chán meditation, one stands out: the practitioner may investigate the invocation of the name of the Buddha (niànfó).34 This is a reference to a very old and popular practice in China: chanting homage to the Buddha Amitābha (Ch. Ēmítuófó) in the hope of being reborn in his paradisiacal Pure Land (with the phrase “namo Ēmítuófó”). In fact, the practice of Buddha invocation has been ubiquitous in Chinese Buddhism for most of its history, and has blended easily with a range of practices and doctrinal positions. It thus cannot be associated with any particular Buddhist school, nor can it be identified as an independent school, although together with other related practices it is often referred to as “Pure Land Buddhism.”35 Although scholars sometimes have been slow to recognize this, the practice of niànfó was incorporated into much of the Chinese Chán tradition right from its inception.36

  It is perhaps not surprising that, as kànhuà Chán become increasingly widespread with the Chán school, the name of Amitābha and the practice of niànfó came to be integrated into kànhuà meditation. This may be the greatest innovation in kànhuà Chán after Dàhuì.

  Interestingly, the use of the name of Amitābha in kànhuà-style meditation was in the Míng and later thought to have begun with Zhēnxiē Qīngliǎo (1088–1151) of the Cáodòng tradition, who was the Dharma brother of the famous Hóngzhì Zhèngjué. Qīngliǎo was one of the main targets of Dàhuì’s attacks on heretical masters who taught silent illumination (mòzhào),37 and it seems somewhat surprising that he should be credited with being the first Chán master who applied something like Dàhuì’s kànhuà technique to Buddha invocation.

  None of the extant sermons and writings by Qīngliǎo suggests that he was particularly interested in Pure Land practice, and he certainly nowhere advocates kànhuà meditation. But in a work on Pure Land practice from 1381, the Jìngtŭ jiǎnyào lù, we find Qīngliǎo quoted as saying:

  If you understand the one mind, then there is no other Dharma. Just take the four characters “Ē-mí-tuó-fó” and make them a huàtóu. Twenty-four hours a day, from the time of the first ten recitations in the morning, just like that hold these words up. Do not recite with the mind, do not recite with no-mind, do not recite with both mind and no-mind, and do not recite with neither not-mind nor not-no-mind. Then you will cut off the realms of before and after and not a single thought will arise, and without going through any of the Bodhisattva stages you will suddenly reach Buddhahood.38

  This passage seems to depict an intense and prolonged focus on Amitābha’s name as a huàtóu, with the use of a tetralemma in the style of the iconic Mahāyāna philosopher Nāgārjuna (ca. 150–250 CE) to cut off any conceptualizing. It is quite similar to descriptions of the effort needed in regular kànhuà Chán meditation, although there is no indication of doubt.

  But it seems unlikely that these are the actual words of Qīngliǎo. The Jìngtŭ huòwèn, a work by Tiānrú Wéizé (1286–1354), in its standard edition includes a quote by Qīngliǎo that is almost identical to the one above.39 However, what is probably an earlier version of the Jìngtŭ huòwèn is included in the Jìngtŭ shíyào, and here Qīngliǎo is quoted rather differently:

  If you understand the one mind, then there is no other Dharma. Just take the four characters “Ē-mí-tuó-fó” and just like that go recite them 24 hours a day. If you can comprehend that the mind that does the reciting fundamentally has no recitation, no non-recitation, no both-have-and-do-not-have recitation, and no neither-have-nor-not-have recitation, then that which recites is thus and that which is recited is also like that.40

  Here there seems to be a much greater emphasis on the actual recitation, and there is no mention of Amitābha’s name as a huàtóu, nor any Chán-style claim to a direct realization of Buddhahood. Still, the sentiment is similar to the later version of the quote, and it cannot be ruled out that Qīngliǎo did teach an approach to Pure Land practice as described here. The Jìngtŭ huòwèn was first compiled several hundred years after the time of Qīngliǎo, and we cannot know when this passage first began to be attributed to him. But it is not impossible that Qīngliǎo could have advocated a contemplation of the act of invoking the name of Amitābha, which perhaps began the development of using Amitābha recitation in kànhuà practice. In any case, the passage attributed to Qīngliǎo in the Jìngtŭ jiǎnyào lù and in the standard edition of the Jìngtŭ huòwèn became a popular one, and it is quoted and further elaborated upon in a number of works from the Míng and Qing dynasties, although none of the authors actually seem themselves to have advocated using Amitābha’s name as a huàtóu.

  However, there were other Chán masters who advocated an intense focus on Buddha invocation that may be seen as a direct precursor to the use of niànfó in kànhuà Chán. The Venerable Yìnqiān has recently suggested that Yōután Pŭdù (1255–1330), a well-known leader in the White Lotus movement,41 was especially influential in this regard. Pŭdù writes,

  If you wish to practice Chán and see your own true nature, then just rely on this Dharma. In a quiet room you must sit firmly in meditation, with the correct body posture. Sweep away all karmic entanglements, and cut off mental defilements. Look straight ahead with open eyes, externally do not attach to objects and internally do not become fixed in concentration. Tracing back the radiance,42 the internal and external both become still. Then, delicately, you raise the sounds of the recitation “namo Ēmítuófó” several times [in your mind], tracing back the radiance and spontaneously contemplating “seeing your own nature.” What is it, ultimately, that becomes a Buddha? It is the Amitābha of my own original nature. Again, you must contemplate and focus on investigating that which now being raised. This one recitation arises from where? If you can completely penetrate this one recitation, then you can also completely penetrate [the question of] who is doing the analyzing.43

  It is possible that a practice of contemplating the recitation of the name of Amitābha as described above was at some point fairly common, although it never seems to have become very popular. However, it may have inspired a different gōng’àn referring to Pure Land practice that did become widely used in kànhuà Chán. This is the question “Who is the one reciting the name of the Buddha [Niànfó [zhě] shì shuí]?” that is often referred to as the niànfó gōng’àn.

  One of the earliest Chán masters associated with the mature niànfó gōng’àn is the fourteenth-century Zhìchè Duànyún referred to above. In his Chánguān cèjìn, the famous Míng dynasty Buddhist master Yúnqī Zhūhóng (1535–1615) cites Duànyún in this way:

  When you recite the Buddha’s name out loud, whether it is three, five, or seven times, silently ask yourself “Where does this one sound of the Buddha[’s name] come from?” Also ask “Who is the one reciting the name of the Buddha?” When there is doubt, just go take charge of that doubt. If you cannot get close to the place from where the question comes, don’t cut off the feeling of doubt. Once again raise [the question] “Ultimately, who is the one reciting the name of the Buddha?”44

  In Duànyún’s extant work we find no reference to kànhuà practice using the niànfó gōng’àn as Zhūhóng reported it. But, as we have seen earlier, Duànyún’
s work does in fact contain a passage in which he equates investigating the invocation of the name of the Buddha with the investigation of the “no/wú” of the dog gōng’àn. This clearly indicates that Duànyún considered reflection on niànfó in kànhuà Chán meditation a common and uncontroversial practice. Many examples show that in the centuries after Duànyún this was indeed the case.

  For example, the Míng dynasty Chán master Dúfēng Běnshàn (ca. 1400–1480) has this to say in a sermon:

  When you contemplate the “who is the one reciting the name of the Buddha,” you must push down on the word “who” and enter deeply into a feeling of doubt. Doubt this “who is the one reciting the name of the Buddha.” Therefore it is said: “Great doubt, great enlightenment; small doubt, small enlightenment; no doubt, no enlightenment.” Fine words indeed! If you begin to gain a mind of urgency, then the feeling of doubt will be strong, and the huàtóu will naturally manifest before you.45

  It would seem that in its mature form, the Buddha recitation gōng’àn as used in kànhuà practice functioned very much like the dog gōng’àn or the ten-thousand-things-return-to-one gōng’àn discussed above. We see the same focus on a single word that functions as the huàtóu or keyword, and the now familiar focus on doubt. In fact, several Míng dynasty Chán masters emphasize exactly this similarity and declare the different gōng’àn used in kànhuà Chán as functionally equivalent. Zhūhóng sums up this position very succinctly in his comments on an (apochryphal) story about Huángbó Xīyùn (d. between 847 and 859) advocating the use of the dog gōng’àn in kànhuà Chán:46

  When these later generations talk about gōng’àn, this [dog gōng’àn] is the one that is understood to be the beginning of the practice of contemplating the huàtóu. However, there is no need to be so attached to the word “no/wú.” Whether it is the word “wú,” or “the ten-thousand things,” or “Mt. Sumeru,” or “completely dead and cremated,” and so on, or investigating the invocation of the name of the Buddha, they all follow the standard of “guarding the one”47 and have enlightenment as the goal. The focus of the doubt is not the same, but as for enlightenment it is no different.48

  Calling the Huàtóu Out Aloud

  As we have seen, Zhūhóng cites Zhìchè Duànyún as instructing practitioners to recite the Buddha’s name out loud and then investigate where the sound is coming from and who is doing the reciting. This seems to have been a common practice when using the niànfó gōng’àn in kànhuà Chán. Dúfēng Běnshàn, in a section different from the one cited above, also instructs practitioners to invoke the Buddha several times and then turn to the niànfó gōng’àn: “Invoke the Buddha’s name three, five, or seven times and then retreat and turn back [on yourself] the question ‘Who is the one reciting the name of the Buddha?’—‘Who is the one reciting the name of the Buddha?’—‘Ultimately, who is the one reciting the name of the Buddha?’ Hūṃ!”49 In fact, the notion that employing the niànfó gōng’àn in kànhuà Chán requires, at least initially, the recitation of it, seems to have been a standard one. Later in the Míng, the famous Buddhist master Hānshān Déqīng (1546–1623) wrote, “Slowly bring up the one sound of the Buddha [recitation] and focus on observing from where this one sound of the Buddha ultimately arises. When you have recited it five or seven times, deluded thoughts will not appear [anymore]. Again you must go into a feeling of doubt, and examine who, ultimately, is the one reciting the name of the Buddha?”50 I think we have to conclude from this evidence that kànhuà Chán with the niànfó gōng’àn has an element of orality that is crucial to it.

  However, perhaps more surprising, it seems that this use of recitation in kànhuà Chán may have been extended to the huàtóu itself. As we have seen, in Zhìchè Duànyún’s sermon about the gōng’àn, “The ten-thousand things return to one, where does the one return to?,” Duànyún made it clear that the huàtóu should either be recited internally or said out loud. The notion that the huàtóu could be said out loud may have been a common one in the Míng. Interestingly, Yúnqī Zhūhóng cites one of his own teachers in a passage that seems to affirm that this was an option in kànhuà practice. In his Chánguān cèjìn, Zhūhóng has the following quote from Xiàoyán (Yuèxīn) Débǎo (1509–1578): “When you raise the huàtóu … the feeling of doubt must be perpetual and constant, and you must be deeply immersed in complete sincerity, whether you keep your mouth shut and practice in silence, or you pursue the investigation out loud.”51

  The notion that the huàtóu could be called out loud seems to run counter to the technique as Dàhuì described it, and reminds us of tantric mantra recitation practice. It may be counted as another major development within kànhuà Chán in the Míng. It seems more than likely that this came into kànhuà Chán with the niànfó gōng’àn, since niànfó is very much an oral practice—if not exclusively so. In this way, the techniques of niànfó and kànhuà Chán may have come to be brought closer together, an interesting possibility that warrants further investigation.

  Conclusion

  Kànhuà Chán during the Yuán and Míng dynasties was in many ways remarkably faithful to Dàhuì’s vision, and Dàhuì continued to be understood as the ultimate authority of kànhuà practice. Nevertheless, several significant developments took place within the practice. The most important of these, no doubt, was the integration of niànfó practice into kànhuà Chán with the niànfó gōng’àn, a development that has been little studied, and which deserves much more attention than I have been able to give it in this chapter.52

  But several other developments in kànhuà Chán are also noteworthy. The notion that kànhuà meditation could be a device to calm the mind went directly against Dàhuì’s vision. To Dàhuì, kànhuà Chán was a tool to gain enlightenment, that is, if it did not lead to enlightenment, a person’s efforts were wasted. Meditation therefore had no value in itself, and it did not lead to greater peace, or a calmer mind—or, if it did, this was not really relevant to Dàhuì. Also, it seems unlikely that Dàhuì would have approved of the practice of calling the huàtóu out aloud, which makes kànhuà Chán seem uncomfortably close to Buddha invocation. And even though Dàhuì did talk about the importance of doubt in kànhuà practice, the Chán masters of the Yuán and Míng emphasized doubt to a much greater degree than Dàhuì had done. Thus, kànhuà Chán by no means remained static, but continued to evolve as Chinese society and its ideas about Buddhism changed.

  Notes

  1. See, for example, Yuánwù Fóguǒ Chánshī yŭlù, 790, c23–24.

  2. Yúnmén Kuāngzhēn Chánshī guǎnglù, 547, c1–2.

  3. “Encounter dialogue” is John McRae’s translation of kien mondō, a neologism he attributes to Yanagida Seizan; see McRae, “Ox-head School,” 244n48.

  4. For further discussion, see Foulk, “Form and Function of Koan Literature.”

  5. The discussion of Dàhuì that follows is partly based on Schlütter, How Zen Became Zen, especially chapter 5.

  6. Some of the issues discussed here are also addressed in Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute.

  7. For an elaboration of these points, see Schlütter, How Zen Became Zen.

  8. For a discussion of the various works attributed to Dàhuì, see Ishii, “Daie goroku.”

  9. For an excellent study of Dàhuì and many of the aspects of his relationship with literati figures, see Levering, “Ch’an Enlightenment for Laymen”; see also Levering, “Ta-hui and Lay Buddhists.”

  10. Both before and after Dàhuì, the word huàtóu seems often to have been used synonymously with gōng’àn, although Dàhuì himself clearly distinguished the two.

  11. Dàhuì pŭjué Chánshī pŭshuō, 962, a10–13. This and most of the subsequent passages by Dàhuì are translated in Schlütter, How Zen Became Zen.

  12. Dàhuì Pŭjué Chánshī yŭlù, 901, c27–902, a6.

  13. For an interesting analysis of the dog gōng’àn in its Chinese context, see Sharf, “How to Think with Chan Gong’an.” See also Heine, Like Cats and Dogs, f
or a comprehensive discussion of the use and history of this gōng’àn in East Asian Zen.

  14. For more discussion of Dàhuì’s kànhuà Chán, see, for example, Buswell, “‘Short-cut’ Approach”; Levering, “Ch’an Enlightenment for Laymen”; and Yü, “Ta-hui Tsung-kao.”

  15. See Yampolsky, Platform Sutra, 136–141, Chinese text, 6–8.

  16. Dàhuì pŭjué Chánshī yŭlù, 828, b16–19.

  17. In Schlütter, How Zen Became Zen, 118, I translate this as “But it is only when you do quietsitting that you will feel these two kinds of diseases appear. If you [instead] just hold up …” I now believe this translation is misleading, and depicts Dàhuì as being more negative about seated meditation than he actually was.

  18. Dàhuì pŭjué Chánshī yŭlù, 922, a24–b8; Araki, Daie sho, 57.

  19. I am grateful to Miriam Levering for alerting me to this sermon in her presentation at the conference “Buddhism and Society in Song-Dynasty China” at UCLA on May 18, 2002.

  20. Dàhuì pŭjué Chánshī yŭlù, 869, c11–870, a7.

  21. Dàhuì pŭjué Chánshī niánpŭ, 807, a1–2.

  22. Doubt in Dàhuì’s kànhuà Chán is discussed by Yanagida, “Chūgoku Zenshūshi,” 98–104; Levering, “Ch’an Enlightenment for Laymen,” 297–303; and Buswell, “‘Short-cut’ Approach,” 351–356.

  23. Dàhuì Pŭjué Chánshī yŭlù, 886, a28; cited in Yanagida, “Chūgoku Zenshūshi,” 100; and Levering, “Ch’an Enlightenment for Laymen,” 302.

  24. Dàhuì Pŭjué Chánshī yŭlù, 930, a14–18; Araki, Daie sho, 127. Cited in Yanagida, “Chūgoku Zenshūshi,” 99; and in Levering, “Ch’an Enlightenment for Laymen,” 302.