the buddhist roots of chan

8/6/2019 The Buddhist Roots of Chan

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&f\V\ ~v0dlA ~Yhqek t V \\ ,( vr:' t A O u \ L\ A V \ ' N ' of \:0\tJA\~ ~ ( sC ;

c ; / o C ) .

CHAPTER 1The Buddhist Roots of Chan

Buddhism originated in northern India some 2,500 years ago as aresponse to the suffering inherent in the human condition. Beginningin his own lifetime, the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama-the Bud-dha, or "Awakened One" -were quickly spread throughout India,and, over a period of fiveor six centuries, they were carried across theentire continent of Asia. With the rise of transoceanic commerce andpolitics from the seventeenth century onward, Buddhist teachings andpractices spread into Africa, Europe, and the Americas and now exer-cise a truly global reach.Unlike the other major world religions, Buddhism is Iilotorganizedaround a universally shared core textJi!


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8 CHAN BUDDHISM

between the meaningful and complex life stories ofboth persons andpeoples. In the case of Buddhism and especially the Chinese develop-ment of Chan, this interweaving and eventual interpenetration of his-tories has been particularly complex and deep.

T he In dia n B irth o f B u dd hist T ho ug ht a nd P ra cticeIn the sixth century H.C.E., the subcontinent of India was in the midstof a cultural and intellectual tidal shift. Between eight hundred and athousand years earlier, nomadic Aryan peoples from Central Asiahadcrossed the Khyber Pass to settle on the Ganges plain. For reasons thatremain unclear, the powerful urban centers that had characterized theindigenous Harappan culture from the middle of the third millenniumB.C.E. had for the most part already been abandoned. Aided by theadvent of iron tools and weaponry, large agricultural communitieswere gradually consolidated under Aryan rule, and there developedthe distinctive social, political, economic, and religious institutions

e./\" '\'" that would dominate the life of the subcontinent for centuries there-IJ .1). , i ( after. By the sixth century, however, the pressures resulting from'..\.' r.,~.l.". .expanding political states, increasing urban development, and the riseIv ~ l\ v,l;\ v ' c . .. of a monetary economy were opening deep fissures in the authority of

the dominant aristocratic and religious elites. In particular, criticismbegan circulating of the beliefs and ritual practices derived from thecollection of Indo-Aryan religious hymns known as t I


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thus immaterial godhead or divine force. Instead, they insisted thatn~ su~ves :_he~eath of the body.thar good and evil are humanconstructs,_anathat reality isessentially and thoroughly material. Likemany present-day scientists, such proponents of materialism gener-ally argued that real l iberat ion was not some imagined release fromthe world, but the power of making and acting on choices in it. Themost extreme of these advocated indulgLng sense desires withoutrestraint or restriction in a hedonistic celebration of individual free-dom, with no thought of future l ives and consequences that would infact never come.Arrayed between these extremes Werevarious traditions more con-

cerned with fin~~_ t l 1 ~ _or:ect_pr~ctice for realizing moksha ratherth~~~solute doctrin:~ a~~,t>,"reality." Most often~-thes;;;-ups

1, advocated the immediate rejection of family life, material comforts, familia] andcommunal duties, caste identification, and the concerted'. / cti f thI :)1:;'hv/ pra lee 0 one or ano er form of ascet ic self-discipline and lor con-

a ;: S~?1'(..: : '~ t~~plati~n. Through a process of literal abstraction, many such tra-Uditions aimed to cut the pract it ioner ,f reeof all but the most tenuous

th_read~of connection with worldly life and experience~freedomfrom VIrtually any cause of perceived bondage. Other traditions, likethose that found fullest expression in the epic philosophical drama ofthe Bhagavad-Gita , were more explicitly conservative and advocatedunion or yoga simply through doing one's own duty, without regardto conseq~ences and the appearance of ri.~htand wrong.-:--It was I.nto a world of such complexlyfco_m~tIn[ vi


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12 CHAN BUDDHISM

together illan altern~:tive, monastic community organized to promotefI:\'ft 'li\I"'--\\~-i~t:nsifiedpr~ctioe. For those who diose to rema_iIlliouseliolders~(dN\)01Io\Vllf\~l:aKing,m some ways, the steeper approach to the Middle Way-he

provided guidelLnes for revising the meaning of their social relation-I_\- . ._~ A ships in ways conducive to the realization of full liberation from. suf-

f , \ " \ e v V 1 ~ : V - - feri Th' hasi al d_ -\ ( enng. IS emp asis on mUhl._ypport an the relevance of rela-\NI /, '\ V " / I V ! ' hi al i f -1' h --U . hOE_~_It'~'tO:_:_l~~on 0 en Ig tenment would later be central to the

.; 1 ) c : : . t tt:\ - freely admitting women and the members of the lowest castes into hisr l) U communi ty, he not only denied the significance of elite status, he

et - ttl/' f J r ; ; , r denied the significance of any essential status whatsoever. What trulymattered were not one's "state of affairs" or "identity," but the direc-tion and_q_ll~i1:j'ofone' s_attentiOIillillcl50nduct..-P~~haps no less radical was the Buddha's insistence that his ownspeech patterns and language not be considered crucial elements in

the spread of his teachings, or Dharma. Urging his students to uselocal patterns of speech and local.dialects in spreading the Dharma,the Buddha made it clear that &.~~tlearning and intellectual sophisti-cation were not necessary for liberatio~O~~~did not ~eed the ability

!. to readsacredtexts, the talentforI1~citing and understanding convo-'/ ' .]luted doctrmes, or the means and institutional authority to performIi complex rituals, Neither did one need to be able to enter into winningdebate with the advocates of the hundreds of views on "ultimate truth"that were then current in India. One needed only to keenly attend!tohow things have come to be, just asthey are. This alone was needed tosee the way of fully and meaningfully resolving suffering.

The Buddha's Root teachingsAccording, to the Buddha, the first step in liberation-the firs t s tep onthe Middle Path of Buddhist practice-is to come fully to rest and

' > < ! f . . realize that s ome th in g i sw r o n g h e re .It may be that you are in the midst of the breakup of a love rela-

The Buddhist Roots of Chan 13tionship. A family member or friend might recently have passed away.Or it may be that you are worried about an upcoming interview orexam, dizzy with hunger after missing your last meal, or simply wornout to the verge of exhaustion by the demands of parenthood.Whether it is a matter of dreams evaporating before our eyes, effortsgoing unrewarded, or a shock wave of terrorism breaking altogethertoo close to home, right now, thL~g_s~ar~_g2in_gwry.Hearing this, there is a! compclsion to object. Having just eaten, youfeelfull and content. Having just received a long sought after raise or

succeeded in catching the eye of an attractive classmate or coworker,"something iswrong here" doesn't ring quite true. There is no doubtthat love relationships often fail and dissolve into spells of deepdepression and sharp self-doubt. But what could be more right ~anthe feeling of falling inlove?What could be more joyous than the birthofa first child or the moment of a dream come finally true? What wasthe Buddha's point?

'['HE FOUR NOBLE TRUTHSAshe traveled from village to village and from town to town, the Bud-dha was often asked what he taught and how itdiffered from the teach--ings of other homeless ascetics and contemplatives as well as fro~those given by local brahmin interpreters of the Vedas and Upam-shad's. Most often, he would reply that his Dharma, or teaching, wasvery simple, consisting of only fOUIsimple truths that he would invitehis audience to consider:

1. All this is duhkha ("troubled" or "suffering").2. There isa pattern inhow duhkha arises.3. There is a pattern in how duhkha is resolved.4. There isan Eightfold Path for turning duhkha towardmeaningful resolution.

Like many of the first translators to render Buddhist texts intoWestern languages, many of those who heard these Four Noble Truthswould dismiss the first truth as a statement of unlimited and finallyuseless pessimism: "everything is suffering," But the first noble truthactually makes no such universal claim. The Buddha said, "All this is


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14 CHAN BUDDHISMtroubled or suffering." Hewouh] agree that wecan eat a chicken salador a hamburger and get rid of our hunger pains-at least for severa lhours: But aside from the fact that this "solution" isnot a last ing one,there IS the problem of perspective. Is eating a hamburger a trouble-free solution to the problem of hunger in our present situation as awhole?For example, how must this "solution" appear to chickens and

cows? How are Central American peasants affected bythe beef indus-~'s.forced. c~nversion of subsistence farmland to grazing-a cruciallmk in servxmg fast food cravings? The f irs t noble truth invi tes us tor_esista.:tin.~~~ifU~~.~~~Fe~:es in_p~erspectiv~do not r~ill~atter.They do. The fact that I m okay" does not necessarily entail that"you're okay." Realizing that all !! ri~:-our si tuat ion as a whole-is~o~ble9 or suffering. in~?_!vesH~peni~gour;elve;~e~t_9_~~;g._that,c ; : : = ? nght now, from some present perspective, thing~_ar~."!!Q._t_S2Pgell.. The second noble truth suggests that i fwelook closely enough, we

~Isco~er that there is a pat tern in things going wrong and that we aremvar~ably at least part of the reason whrwe are led by our usual per-spec~ve on the s~ffer ing and trouble all about us to see their originsaslymg well outside of us. Suffering and trouble are caused by others,or b y fate, or byjust plain bad luck. The second noble truth insists onour seeing things otherwise.v"Unlike pain, duhkha does not arise because of any single cause but

through a network of situation~specific, interdep~l1.dent conditions.Consider two chi ldren racing across a playground. The boy is a stepbehind the gir l and reaches out to catch hold ofher shir t, She loses herbalance and goes down in a rol ling tangle. Sit ting up, her knees andelbo~s sc~aped.and bleeding, she cries. One can explain the pain she~eelsm stnctly linear, causal terms. Her limbs hit the ground at aveloc-ity great enough that the impact tears the skin. Nerve endings in the~rea s~nd si~n.als to the brain announcing this violation of bodilyintegrity ..ThIS IS experienced aspain. With some antibiotic gel, a fewba~dages, and a warm hug, the pain can be eased enough for her tosmile and go on playing.But what if the boy is her best friend? As she stares at the blood

welling up out of her scraped knees, the girl suffers from much morethan bodily damage. She iswondering how he could have cheated just

The Buddhist Roots of Chan 15to wi n a playground race. Best f riends are not supposed to do that.Days, months, even years later, she will be affected by this betrayal ofbasic trust. The relationship, perhaps, will never be the same.In this example, the girl's suffering arises not only through the

impact of her l imbs on hard ground. Itarises depending, as well, oncertain values regarding friendship and what it can and cannotinclude. It depends on her personal history and how sh e interprets herfr iend's act of catching. hold of her shirt and causing her to fall .Per-haps he was only trying to s lowher down, not pul l her down. Or per-haps hewas trying to make a point to her: "You have been making thehighest test scores in math because you cheat , and cheat ing alwayshurts someone." Suffering arises, in other words, through a complex Iset of conditions thaiincll!d_e_e~gy_oj>~e~ed "facts"butalso broadly ~/\...shared cultural vcJ~es, personal histories, a~;idiVidual_belief~!bout I ~j""wh~t things can and cannot mean. .- Suffermgisffius not a s - e a s y - f o t reat as s imple pain. Dealing with

suffering requires unders tanding exact ly what kind of cul tural andpersonal impasse has been reached, what "normal" expectations havebeen violated, and which par ts of the s ituation are taken to be nego-t iable and which are not . When a chi ld dies inearly infancy, the trag-edy "naturally" seems much greater than when a grandparent dies.This isnot because there isany objective dif ference in the process ofdying or because there isany good time for death to occur. Tj1~illffer-r '

r r .enc~ is,.~!_~~!!~'!p',u!.!!:!:ral.When an older person passes awaywemay (" ~-~"1 '0fi~dite;SiertoaecePtbecausewebelieve.th :y . h~velivedafull. life. :her~._~. t t _ "" ~death of an infant seems premature-a VIOlatIOnof the way things J \ f+~(~should be. But we could just as well think that the death of an older (/ l t v . , y - , . . _ I. . d I' hi h I I c? ' d (_( " -person leaves behind many more severe re atI~nS_lps, a muc (..fI. l"d. '~r{.greater emotional vacuum than does the death of an mfant. In cultures \ Jwhere being human is considered an achievement, and persons are .understood as irreducibly ~elational in~ature, a miscarr iage may 110t ~-~~~warrant either soul-searching or suffe r ing, For a woman who con- .ceived a child in a short-lived, extramarital affair, a miscarriage mayeven be experienced with a sad measure of relief.from this, Buddhism does not conclude that suffering is not t ruly

real. It isreal. But like al l things, suffering arises conditionally a~partof a ~!!ern of interdep~ndence in~hi~h- ;;(and our perspe~ves, )


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16 CHAN BUDDHISMalways play ~part . In explaining the second noble truth, the Buddhaoftenmad~~s~ of a heuristic or learning device called the twelvefoldchain of interdependent origination, The origin of suffering, he said,can be seen as a wheel-like constellation of interconnected conditionsincluding ignorance, habit formations, consciousness, name and form,the six sense organs, sensory contacts, feelings, cravings, and attach-ments. That is, suffering cannot be dissociated fr0IJl_Ratterns in what

I w: ignore, fromy'att~Ts in how "'!,eLIlteract,l,nd froJ!l!our . s ense ofself-identity. At the core of all our troubled and troubling situationsareourbeliefs about who weare and who weare not. Underlying theseare more or lessconscious senses of what should and should not hap-

I pen, our particular wants or desires, and the limits these project forwhat we are responsible for and!what we are not.

In summarizing a_llhis, the Buddha.often remarked that the rootof al l our suffering is the conceit t h "I am~the arrogance of think-ing that weare essentially independentbeings and not intimately con-nected with and a part of all things. "Is and is-not," he said, "are thetwin barbs on which al l humankind is impaled." The aiTogance ofindependence and the degradation of dependence are two si'd;~~~fthe,samecoiii There isnever one without the oth~r. Insistingonour inde-pendent existence or on essential differences between "humanity" and"nature," or between "mind" and "body" or "self" and "other'" is toignore the immeasurably rich middle ground between them. Aswithany form of ignorance, this cannot lead to any ultimate security butonly to increasingly deep vulnerability.If the second noble truth alerts us to our implication in the arising

of duhkha, the third truth asks us to see that we are always in a posi -tion to be part of its resolution. In brief, this means restoring the hori-~onless mlddl~ ground ~ our interdependence withillthings. Healingthe w~oundof existen,==o~r_ p~~essenti~~(!{J_araten~Sslromal~thmgs-is something only we can do. The method of doing so isoutlined in the NOD1eEightfold Path, the fourth truth of practicallydeveloping right view, right intention, right speech, right action, rightlivelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right meditation.Traditionally, the Eightfold Path was understood as a comprehen-

sive, three-dimensionarresponse to troubled or troubling situations

'vi Y'J~~Vj,o. , .~.

The Buddhist Roots of Chan 17~the 'Systematic practice of wisQ_om,atte~~~~ viI!u()sity, ang~~darity. [nstead of being a once-and-for-all solutio~, the Eightfold Pathopen-slip a way of cOEtinuously reol!ien.ting oUylv_es.aw~yJrom sam-sara (in a Buddhist sense; chronic and intense suffering and trouble)"t~;~-rd nirvana (the liberating resolution of all suffering or trouble).

TheFomNoble Truths axenot a teaching that tel ls us how thingsreally are . They are not doctrines about the nature of "absolute real-i ty" or an attempt to explain the specif ic causes of our present sta te ofaffairs. Instead, these truths offSI~~tr~!.:gyJQI_cha~s~~ th! meaningof our sitUatioi1'-~~-wher~~are heading. Failing to understand thisreducesanyencounter W i th Buddhism to a ma~er of r~ading re~ipes/,,/without ever cooking and eating a meal. B~ddhist teachmg~~ direc-tions for revising or trag_sf()rming_9jlLrdatiollships. They can bedee-piy;;~~r~hi~g but only ifwe "cook" with them in the midst of ourown circumstances.

THE TEACHING OF THE THREE MARKSNowhere did the Buddha press this point more forcefully than inteaching the three "marks" of impermanence, absence of self, andduhkha. Ironically, this teaching has been particu1arlypr()_Il~to beingil!lterpret:d a_a d_9_C_rine a___lio_u~~_~--: _ i _ ? - _ - - g__reall_-_"~-e.I_n f~C!!-~t_enjo~nsus to practice seeing all t hin - _ permanent as ___ 2~~~()L~nyabid-ing essence or ide-ntitY:-~~-~:ubleAor-!n)Ub1ing. The differencebetween "are" and '\i? is highly significant.~

DuhkhaBecause I have already raised the problem of dunkha in discussingthe first noble truth, let me begin with the final "mark." For most peo-ple, seeing all things as troubled or troubling is the last thing theywant to do. Why would we want to go around being so utterly pessirnist ic , constantly "ruining" our situation by always picking outwhat iswrong with it?First, recall that realizing the first noble truth means seeing momentby moment that happiness always comes at some cost to someone orsomething. Far from being an exercise in hopeless pessimism, seeingall things astroubled or troubling means finding a way to understand


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18 CHAN BUDDHISMone's own situation from another's perspective. In,effect, this meansopening up connect ions that allow us to real ize ilJ shared presence.Doing so isthe basis of entering into ever-deepening community.Fundamentally, this means becoming ~w~ethat, insom~ way, we

al l make a difference to one another. We thus begin seeing that wehavea responsibility for asking what kind of difference. In this way, seeingal l things astroubled or troubling establishes the foundation or rootsfor cultivating the felt partnership oftrue compassion. Through it, wenot only begin healing the "wound of existence," webegin dissolvingthe concei t that " I am" and the habitual violence of excluding fromconcern illthat "I am not."

ImpermanenceThe invitation to see all things asimpermanent meets with a related

form of resistance. Asa doctrine about how things are, itwould seemto be an invitation to falsehood. Although it is not always easy toobserve, all material objects change-even the sun and the stars. Fareasier to observe are the changes in our own minds and feel ings, andin our relationships with others. But can the same besaid of al l things?What about mathematical truths or natural laws?What about the uni-verse as a whole? Pressed to answer similar questions-for example,"is the world eternal or not eternal?" -the Buddha customarilyremained silent. At other times, he would refuse to take a stand oneither "this" or "that" - that is, on either side of the opposi tion posedby the question.Pract ically, we can see al l things as impermanent regardless of

whether or not natural laws or mathematical truths are maintained tobe unchanging. Towhat end, though, would we do so?To begin with,it becomes impossible to assume-or even hope-that one can holdonto anything forever. This very decisively undercuts the kinds ofexpectation that lead to so much of our disappointment and suffer-ing. But at the same time, it makes it impossible for us to hold ontothe assumption that there isnothing wecan do to change our circum-stances. ~~in_g~t things as conEnuouslyshangi_Ilgjs to see that no sit-I ,y~tion is.~ > . : intra~table. Given that every situation displays .energyand movement , moment by moment , the only things in quest ion arer how fast and inwhat direction change occurs.

The Buddhist Roots of Chan 19Hav in g No S e lfSimilarly, seeing all things- including ourselves-as having no

essential na!~~~~~!_i~_e.'!tityeans t~t ~e_~~!ll!t_~laim a'2yth~iIo beinherentlY good o~inhere!1_!!y_Qad.This makes it nnpcssible for us~ither to be dogm~tic ab~~t our own beliefs and values or to hold firmprejudices against those of others. fu a very immediate fashion, itdis-solves the grounds. for the racial, ethnic, or religions stereotyping thatunderlies somuch of contemporary social and political conflict. Atthesame time, it dissolves any possible reason for claiming that a personcannot change, that we simply are who we ar~ By seeing all things asanatman~literally, as having "no self" -we forfeit the b_'l~iccondi-tions of maintaining chronic conflicts and opposition.In later forms of Buddhism, the teaching of no-self was strongly

allied with the practice of seeing ail things as empty (sunyaJ-that is,asa relational pat tern of interdependence. An analogy would be therelatively stable interference pattern that appears in a pond when twoor more stones are dropped into its otherwise still water. The impactof each s tone sends out a radiating set of waves. These sets of wavesmrersect at particular points on the surface of the pond, and an over-all pattern of intersections emerges. Once the waves stop radiatingfrom the points of impact, this pattern begins fading out and eventu-ally disappears.In . the same way, everything in one's s ituation-including one'sown self-emerges through the coming together of certain conditions.Things can be seen ashaving no essence or core because they actuallyconsist of particular pa ttern s o f re la ! l2_n sh ip .Th_atis, fi!_)th.ing_llierallyexists or stands apart from ai[other~. For this reason, in later Buddhistusage, emptiness-t~~e of any abiding, essential nature-isoften equated w i t h fullness. Far from signifying its privation, theemptiness of a thing consists in i ts unique way of bringing all otherthings into focus. Through each thing, al] things join.A good, concrete example is the way species relate within a sus-

tainable ecosystem. A!ithough it can appear competitive, a sustainableecosystem isa space of mutual contributions. In it, each species offerssome distinctive way of processing and circulating the resources of thesystem asa whole. In this way, they more or lessdirectly contribute tothe welfare of all the other species in the system.


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Consider trees. Asmembers of an ecosystem, trees depend on andare depended upon by many other species (some microscopic). Inaddition to mutual support with other living beings, trees depend! onthe balanced presence of soil, rainwater, sunlight, and gravity. In fact,they bring these into very unique patterns of relationship. But soil,water, sunlight, and gravity do not exist independently either. Theycan occur-literally, "flow together" -only oroa planet circling a starat a suitable distance for water to take liquid form and with sufficientmass and atmospheric pressure to retain it. In tum, planets arise onlyin the presence of both deep gravi tational wells and heavy matter ofthe sort produced in the hearts of very old stars. Stars arise only asparts of galaxies that are themselves parts of galactic families and so'on.The conditions generating any particular tree have no known limitin space or time. Trees literally and!uniquely gather into themselvesIthe forces of the heavens and earth and tellone irreplaceable aspect ofItheir shared history. Seeing all things asempty or having no self is to'open ourselves to the unique ways in which they contribute to our/ nature and the meaning of our presence together .

Doing so, we begin realizing that what wehave been referring to as"trees," "planets," "human beings," or "histories" are simply our per-~iti.Q~to!al patt~m~of rel~~~s that they focus. Fora lab worker, a dog isjust an experimental animal that must be treatedwith a specific amount of respect but that l ivesfor the sale purpose ofbeing subjected to tests that will advance human knowledge. For anonly child, a dog can be a playmate, a friend, and even a member ofthefamily. What wetake a dog to be reflects our own values-the horizonsofwhat~b~liev7(~;~1l all~w) to be relevant . -~-~---~-rnep~rcU1afsQroti'feip_exien.ce_m_thus deeItiy conditioned byour values and intentions. Indeed, day-to-day experiences eo not givecompktepT~ture~ of one's situation but only extensively edited ver-sions of it. Finally, they tellus more about ourselves-about our pur-~-0 poses and the horizons we set for whatwifl count as re!evant-than,,,-"'.J ~~~ - they do about the world as such.~


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tion rests on our seeing ourselves as not bein%independently existingbeings but as thoroughly interdependent. V

Seeing things karmica lly is to see our world asirreducibly dramatic.Iis a world in which all things are not only factually but also meaning-fulltin!~nI~r~ndent. Intentions and values [lot only matter, they are~ _-"_- -'-"'-"-~--an irreducible part of how things come about. In strictly fa~tual terms,a single microbe on a distanT planet can make only an infinitesimalcontribution to our life here on earth. It cannot alter the course ofglobal warming or restore either local or global eco logica l health. Butsimply by being (even very distantly) present, it changes the meaningof our own place in the cosmos. Itshows that lifeon earth isnot a com-plete anomaly and that we are not ultimately alone. In this dramaticsense, a single microbe can make a world of difference.In all Buddhist contexts, the teaching of karma is embedded ina

cosmology that denies the simple finality of death. The term for a lifeof chronic trouble and suffering- "samsara" -li terally refers to anunending and compulsive cycle of birth and death. In early forms of

,_!udclhism, nirvana was often defined asa release from this compulsivecycle. Fo r later Buddhists, liberation was not necessarily understoodas marking freedom from the cycle of birth and death itself but onlyfrom its~compulsive quality. .--.___"For the Veaic~traditionalists living in the Buddha's India, death

marked the departure of an eternal soul or life-essence (atman) fromtbe physical body. Depending on the actions committed by thisdeparted soul, itwould either be restored to its origin in the universalSoul or be reborn in one of several types ofbody. Itmight reincarnatein human form. But it might also reincarnate in the form of an ani -

, ..-"' /\ mal, a hungry ghost, a titan, or even a god. While Buddhism largelyA I ' ~{ ' U ~ U )acce~ted this gen~ral co~mological s~he~a and the presence of differ-U :1 ' r ; : , ' < \ i)'1 r I ~ n t b1l1~real~s, .t also involved a re!ectIo~ of s~me o.fits core ~rem-\ . f t . . ~ {t rses, ThISentirely changed the meaningof preVIOUSives , " "rebirth,"s: \ \u~ and karma.1 ', As seen in the teaching of the three marks, Buddhist practice

invo lves undermining our assumption that there exists something likean individualor universal, eternal soul or self. Seeing al l thingsas hav-~I1~~!~!~_!l1_&1h_e.r_e.islite~ngjOoerebom or.toreceive a new body. N_g_rs there anything that could carry karma for--- --

The Buddhist Roots of Chan 23ward from one life to the next. Nevertheless, the Buddha spoke atg r e a T T e n g i l i about karTIlaIllaying out over manylifetimes, even givingexamples from his own "prior births." How isthis to be understood?When asked ifthe person who intentionally carries out an action is

the very same person who will later experience its consequences, theBuddha replies that this would not be correct. Asked, then, ifit isa dif-ferent person who experiences the karmic results of an action, theBuddha again answers that this would not be correct~hat he doesaffirm isthat there isa connection between the actor and the one whoexperiences the consequences of an action ..If there were no connec-tion at all, he says, then there would be no point to Buddhist practice,no traveling of the Eightfold Path, and no chance of liberatio~If it isany consolation, this was no easier fo r most of the Buddha's

Indian audiences to understand than it is for us today. The crucialquestion~~ej"_e can b~_t~i'!1!~,:c:_n~~~~!ty~:re isn~_~?t~~_and abiding self thillp_ersist._(:)verh~ course ()rEl~tjllst one~u~~~~ylifetimes. If the actor and the person experiencing the consequencesof action are neither the same nor different, then what possible COI1-nection could they have?As a way of responding, reconsider the metaphor of stones beingtossed into a pond. In the course of our lives, we cast many stones.That is, we act intentionally, projecting our values decis ively into oursituation. Each one of these "stones" sets the pond's surface into vibra-tion' creating a radiating set of waves that course outward and, even-tually, rebound. TheJQtatra!tern crea~e_~~J:)'all~e.~eo,~edappingwaves constitutes.who we are as actors-our~_person~~~~_s. Whenwaves strike and rebound ~ - f f o b J e c t s in the pond OF bounce off thepond's edges, they reflect the shapes of those objects and of the ponditself and then alter or contribute to the overall pattern of who we are.These returning waves are the more or less immediate, experientialconsequences of our actions.Now, imagine that the border of this pond, our lived world, is aflexible membrane that separates it from other adjacent ponds. Asthemost powerful or persistent sets of waves-the carriers of our mostpowerful or persistent intentions and values-reach this membrane,they seti t into motion. No water from our pond-none of our lifesub-stance-passes into the adjacent pond. No stone that is cast into our

: ; I - -l > f f '. . z _ _ )~e)(~~-


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24 CFlA N BUDDHIS M

pond also fal ls into an adjacent one. Sti ll , there appears in that otherpond an interference pat tern very much like the one appearing in ourown. In that Ii fe, the same values, l ikes and disl ikes, intentions, anddesires will play out,This isonly a metaphor for how karma works. Itwill, like all analo-

giesand metaphors, break down at some point. Nevertheless, , itis use-ful to explore i ts i rnpl icat ions.Hrst , i t is dear that weare not alone incast ing s tones into the pond. {~d that "who we are" is influenced bywhat others do- their values and intentional activi ty. We are not pre-'Sentin our own lives as self-existing entities but aspatterns of interde-pendence. Second, although there iscontinuity in the dramatic patternof lived experience from lifeto life, no soul or bodily substance crossesover the barrier of death-the pond's bordering me~brar i"e. No self-no pattern of relational vibrations-is1i!craTIylrfteafrom one pondand set into another. That is, the actors are not re incarna ted. Whatconnects a prior life to a present or future life -ani just pa tterns ofmeaningful relationship. --------------~ ..- .---To press the dramatic me~ll_f,-~o-nL~!_l_~ay_tb.at_ii11houghthe

actors will change in each life, charactersremain_~_9!lga~Jach lifeina "birth series" islike a Shakespearean drama performed by differentsets of actors in diffe rent cities who are always free to improvisechanges in the course and meaning of the play. Our lifestories are partof as.9ntinuum of "performances" in which shared and developingdramatic themes and values. are embodied~~In the I at ak a T al es , or birth stories of the Buddha, a continuing castof characters plays the changing roles proper to each l ife. This dra-matic ensemble-like an acting troupe that has been together for sometime ~is a special sort of family affair. Sometimes , the Buddha in hisprior birth is a leading, characte r who shows other members of theensemble what i t means to orient their interactions or drama towardl iberation from trouble and suffering. In other bir th stor ies, one ofthese other characters may take the lead as teacher or as father o r asking. Asa whole, the dramatic ensemble reaches a collective turningpoint in the l ifeof Siddhartha Gautama. In this l ife, the ent ire groupof karmic cohorts- the Buddha's foremost disciples, his father, hisstepmother , his wife, his son, and soon-realize the meaning of irre-versible, full awakening.

The Buddhist Roots of Chan 25

T he E co lo gy o f Aw ak en in g: T he D iv er si ty o f B ud dh is t P ath sBuddhist practice aims at healing the wound of existence. Itprovidesguidance for blazing a meaningful path out of the compulsive cycle ofbirth and death and the trouble and suffe ring tha t are inevitably a part \ '': _of i t .As such, Buddhis t pract ice isalwaysboth a cri tique of~elf and a S,,~_-cri tique of cul ture. Although our individual values, intentions, and L_/ L -"~f'( e -aesires are central to our karma and the kind of l ifewe experience, so c : p ,; IQ _are the broader va lues and pa tterns of conduct tha t we inherit fromour culture.In the Buddha's own life, for example , he often had to counter

assumptions tha t seemed perfec tly normal to people born into thecul ture of cas te and gender bias that played such an important role ins tructur ing Indian society. As he directed his s tudents to travel andwidely transmit the Dharma, he made it clear that they should notbecome attached to his exact words and style of discourse. Instead, heinstructed them to adopt the local language nowhatever extent possi-ble and to speak to each audien_~ti_Il_anappropriate way. In fact, a key .~.d-;'f. +ocharacteristic ofbodhisattv~s,-or "enlighteningbeings," is their man- c l ! . - f . ' ~ (Qi festat ion of unl imited resources for responding to the specif.k .._and, ; -- . --- , I J';' (\t\at times, peculiar-needs of an audience. Si[Ilplr_put, ifsuffering dif-' I , : : : : = Jfees f rom person to person and from culture to c~ it~~~ so~ust thehealing response to suffering. --AsBuddhist teachings spread out from northeast India into the rest

of the Asian continent , they underwent signif icant interfusion with r :local cul tures and bel ief systems. This fusion continues to take place ~;: . I I)/1asvar ious forms of Buddhism reach the West . And so, although ThaiBuddhism and Tibetan Buddhism both trace their origins to the orig-inal teachings of the Buddha, they are arguably as different as Chris-tianity and Islam. And while both traditions respond, for example, tothe contemporary world and the challenges of rapid economic andpolitical globalization, they do so in distinctive ways.Given this variation, it would be misleading to view the historical

development of Buddhism in a linear fashion-either asa progressiveevolution leading up to the present or as a regressive devolution inwhich the Buddha's original insights become increasingly obscured.Instead, i t seems best to view Buddhist history as a countercultural-~--


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26 CHAN BUDDHISM

ecology of awakening. Contributing to this diverse ecological wholeare-iliree'mamtraditions, the Theravada, the Mahayana, and theVajrayana, each with many individual branches.

Each of these three "vehicles" (as they are often referred to in Bud-dhist circles) represents a unique pattern of response to the personaland culturglproblem of s_uferin'g~TheIheravad;iakes the~arhat, or"saint," to be the ideal of personal development-s-a Buddhist practi-tioner who has realized the cessation of allentangling forms of thought- -\ ~ '1 ~ y r\ V C J(},. .andaction, and who has stopped making any karma that would con-tinue to spin the wheel of birth and death. The saint has "cooleddown" or "blown out" al l of those pass ions that compel us towardconflict, cultivating instead unreserved compassion and loving-kind-ness . Released from karmic and relational bondage, the saint leavessams~ra altoge~er at death. For the Thera~ada tr:d~tion}, samsaraand nirvana (mbbana) are understood as radically distioot'. They holdthat one can no more saywhere the saint goesafter death than one cansay where a flame goes when it is blown out. Drawing on textsrecorded in the Palllanguage, the Theravada focuses on the historicalBuddha as teacher. Because they focused on personal release from suf-fering, these traditions were often disparagingly referred to by otherBuddhist l ineages as the Hinayana, or "small (or lesser) vehicle."Claiming, nevertheless, to represent the most direct inheritors of theearliest forms of Buddhist thought and practice, Theravada traditionsare now found, for example, in Thailand, Burma, Laos, and Sri Lanka.The Mahayana tradition takes the bodhisattva, or "enlightening

being," asthe ideal of personal development-a Buddhist practitionerf \ _ f - \ - . , _ f ; " y ~ v ' -r- who has vowe~ t~ conti .nue cy~ling ~rough bir th ~nd de~th unt il ~eU or she has participated Inhe liberation of all sentient bemgs. While

bodhisattvas have also dissolved the roots of bondage in this world,tli~Jemaj_ilfUlfy present in it. ReleaseaiTOffi contrIbutory limits, theyhave ;k;-;eropea un._1i~12rQ___~i~berating r_espons~ tothe dilemmas of d y l ife. FOIthe Mahayana, samsara and nirvana are; :; -ot-dT;tinCtre~' In eed, the tradi tion claims that not even a s inglehair can be s lipped between them-they are two sides ofa single phe-nomenon. Awakening isnot a release from the world but rather real-

\liZing that this ve!Y_~rld is ~u


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28 CHAN BU.DDHI SM

As an example, Korean Buddhist temples have altars devoted to spiritforces from native shamanism that have been "converted" by Bud-dhism and serve as protectors of the faith. This kind of accornmoda-tion iscrucial if Buddhism isto perform a truly counter cultural func-tion-that is, i f it is to criticize and revise that culture from within.Otherwise, it wiil remain an entirely ~ e~et of practices in conflictwith local traditions. As such. i t could never do the buddha-work ofkarmically resolving trouble or suffering. ,/A major part of the phase of accommodation pivots on the trans-

lation of Buddhist teachings and texts into local ianguages.f3utthatalone isnot enough. For example, Christian, Islamic, and Judaic textshave been translated into Chinese since at least the Tang dynasty withvery little sustained impact on the religious or spiritual culture of theChinese people. While there are Chinese Christ ians, Muslims, andJews, they have always been very much in the minority and are largelyviewed as"ethnic" innature. They have not-with the tragic exceptionof the Taiping movement-been considered fully Chinese. BecauseBuddhism does not offer absolute truths about the way the world is,but rather strategies for resolving trouble and suffering as we experi-ence them, it must always begin with an acceptance of this si tuationas it is taking_prace. Refusin!(to-dC,-so is to refuSetobe in a positiontruTyt6nelp'others or ourselves to revise the meaning 'O f our presencetogether.As Buddhism moves into a new cultural sphere , i t acknowledges

that the local culture and the personali ty struotures that i t sponsorsembody values that to some extent have "worked,.:lBuddhistspiritu-ality entails fir:~tmakingjoom for these indigenous resources and thenopening ~!--~ew directions~i;s~cond~ed toas one of advocacy . \ .In this p h a s C } , ' Mddhist concepts and pract ices are used both to

assess indigenous resources for responding to the problem of suffer-ing/trouble and to enhance them concretely. Ideally, Buddhist advo-cacy isnot a matter of comprehensively supplanting indigenous value

~I l " " ' 1 systems and rituals b.utrath~r.of s~Y_,.\I!Rlementins.0em. This}lO L/process de~ends.~n li~pr~Vlsmg personal.and cultural narratives that(t are recognized by the mdigenous population as complementing, and

not conflic ting, with their own. When fully successful; as i t Wasin

The Buddhist Roots of Chan 29China by the ninth or tenth century C.E., the transition from accom-modation to advocacy makes possible an internal and yet fully Bud-,dhist countercultural critique.

T he H isto ric al S pre ad o f B ud dh is m in to C hin a a nd th eB ir th o f C h in es e B ud dh is m

Buddhism first entered China roughly two thousand years ago and forsevera! centuries had a relatively modest impact on Chinese society. Bythe eigh!b century, however, Buddhism had become so integral a partofthe ,chinese way of lifethat somewhere between fivehundred thou-sand and seven hundred thousand men and women weI-; ordained asBuddhist monks or nuns-roughly one out of every eighty-five peoplein a country of approximately fif ty million. So thoroughly did Bud-dhism become infused into Chinese culture that i t came to be seen bymany Chinese asa native tradition alongside Confucianism and Dao-ism~China's great indigenous religious and philosophical systems.0ike different peaks in a mountain range, these three teachings came

Ieventually to be seen by many as at root one.k Initially, the spread of Buddhism through China took place throughnew forms of ritual and therapeutic conduct imported by Buddhistmeditative adepts and through the translation of Indian Buddhist textsinto Chinese. China and India are often thought of as two virtuallyautonomous cultural spheres, separated by both the tallest mountainrange in the world and impassably dense jungles. But already in thefirst century C.E., fairly sllbstan!ial:tra_ge and cultural diffusion weretaking place through the mountain passes of Central Asia controlledbythe Kusana Empire and over the northern and southern SilkRoadsthat skir ted the Talka Makan desert basin. Along these trade routes,joined at Kashgar inthe west and at Dunhuang in the east, were vibrantcenters of commerce and learning where Chinese, lndian.andIraniancivilizations blended and through which aCOi1tinuo~sstre-am of Bud-dhi~t layme~ha;,~it inenmt ~~~war!o_tlandynasty~na.for some time, the Chinese viewed Buddhism strictly asa "barbar-

ian" relig ion that merited lit tle direct attention except as a culturalcuriosity. But as the later Han dynasty started coming apart at theseams, increasing numbers of aristocrats and members of the imperial


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C B AN BIl!J'IDDHISMcourt turned to Buddhism as all alternative religious technology-s-analternate framework for making sense out of and forestalling (if notreversing) the imminent collapse of the empire. For at least half a mil-lennium, a core premise of Chinese politics had been that the author-ity to rule was founded on the "mandate ofheaven"-a mandate visi-ble to al l because itwas "sealed" by the union and harmony of Chinesesociety itself The apparent failure of the court to maintain the empire'sunity and vitality proved that there was a threat that heaven's man-date would be withdrawn not only from the ruling elite but from itsConfucian and Daoist ritual technologies aswell. This waJ_5!jJ_owerfulincentive to seek out other systems of value and rit@i:-~--~.-,_----~-,-~~The Han dYnastYeventually fell in 220 C.E. Throughout the ensu-, ing three centuries of disunity, China 's educated elite made deepen-ing use of Buddhist concepts, rituals, and meditative techniques, andsponsored the bu_ildingof monasteries and shrines. In this way, it waseffectively insured that Buddhist values anlpractices were incorpo-rated into China's enduring cultural body. Teams ofnative and foreignscholars were commissioned to carry out massive translation projects,and itquickly became apparent that China had sofargained access toonly a tiny fract ion of the Buddhist canon. Text-gathering missionswere sent to India, Chinese Buddhist scholars began the task of sortingand organizing the vast body of l iterature, and there evolved a rigor-ously academic commentarial tradition centered on Buddhist thoughtand practice.Itwas during this period that Buddhist scholasticism in China first

matured. Study groups formed around Central Asian and Indian textsand teachers from both Theravada and Mahayana traditions, thoughthe latter were inmuch greater number. Among the most importantof these were groups centered on treat ises from the ~adhyamika and'Z~gacara schools of Indian Buddhist thought. The former came clos-est-toDerng an identifiable and coherent school of Chinese thought,the Sanlun. In addit ion, groups formed around key Mahayana texts,most prominently the Lo tu s Su tr a and the Ni rvana Su tr a . Bythe sev-enth and eighth centuries, me recitation of such key sutras, translatedinto Chinese, became an important part of village-level Buddhistobservance and was associated with both vegetarian feasts and ritualofferings for the benefit of family and clan ancestors.

The Buddhist Roots of Chan 31At !:hesame time, interest in rigorous medilirtiOii)discipline was

gr()~g'.In the e~rliest cenhIries of B~~dhist tra~s.missio~in~o China,rul ing anstocracies were content to bring Buddhist meditation mas-ters into their fold in the hope of benefiting from their extraordinaryperceptual abilities and skills in both physical and.ps~chic hea~i~g;Bythe fourth century, however, communities of meditation practinonersformed around such Buddhist adepts as the Kuchean miracle workerFotudeng. In part, this trend seems to have been a function of preva~lent Chinese convictions that purely intellectual knowledge is at bestincomplete. Ant true~d~:standing is necessarily embodied andpract~y dem~strat~c;i. From at least the sixth century, itwas.p~ssi-ble for committed Buddhists-both ordained and lay-to part icipatein one-month and three-month-long meditation retreats, using avari-ety of techniques ranging from breath-focused mindfulness to invoca-t ions of the Buddha's name, the repeti tion of energy phrases or man-tra, and visualization.This combination of textual study and meditation practice laid thefoundation for the first truliCh~~e~sal001s of BuaaIiTsm that wouldflower over a mrce-bundrec-veer period from the sixth through ninthcenturies: Tiantai, HuaY~!1'._Qi!}W.Lilll_d_Ch2-n.hese four schools,each in its own unique fashion, represent the mature fruit of Buddhistaccommodation and advocacy in China. Although differing in dis-tinctive ways in their approach to conceiving and practicing Buddhistsrirituality-d]ffe~ences that will be addressed in modest detail in alater chapter-each of the~e sch_oolsulti~~!~!y~~5!f_e4~E~~tb.at al lbeings, wi~~1iQnJlave:OL~eXli!ess .,bl lddha-nature ..and. arethus candidates for a\\,~ening-Ofen'lightenment., As b u r n a m:o-;~dt~ward reconsolidation under the Sui in 589, how-

ever, very real tensions developed between indigenous cultural canonsand their imported Buddhist counterparts. The first large-scale purgeof Buddhism took place in 446,. and major imperially sanetioned per-secutions took place again in 574 and 842-845. In this last exercise ofimperial authority over Buddhism, the Tang emperor Wuzong forcedover a quarter of aJ mill ion monks and nuns back into society at largeand destroyed nearly five thousand temples and forty-thousandshrines across the country. While


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32 CHAN BUDD'HISM

ing such persecutions, more important perhaps was the economicimpact of Buddhism's tax-free religious status.The unified China of the Sui (589-6li7) and Tang (617-907) iso ften

~epicted as exhibiting unparalleled cultural creativity, cosmopolitan-Ism, and political stability. China extended its borders to include verynearly its present-day land area. The Grand Canal was bui lt to con-nect China's major waterways, making it possible to develop the firsttruly unified imperialeoonomy and to fund major overseas trade mis-sions to Southeast and South Asia and over land missions to CentralAsia and the Near East .The development of global commerce brought famil iar conse-

quences: a growing income gap between wealthy and poor; the emer-gence of a strong merchant middle class; the rise of fashions incloth-ing, art, and literature; and cultivateP-t-asfes-Fin-foreign goods. By the Iseventh century-the Tang capital, Chang'an, had become the largestand most cosmopolitan city in th~i,wodd. One million people lived Iwithin i~swalls and ~other m~on I )Hhe ' immediately surrounding Iarea, a SIzableproportion of which was non-Chinese. In the city werehundreds of Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhisttempfes and shrines butalso Manichean, Nestorian Christian, and Zoroastrian temples andchurches.China's new and distant borders were, however, hard to defend.

The logist ics of moving armies numbering in the hundreds of thou-sands as far as two thousand miles during a single military campaignrequired high levels of taxation throughout the empire. Border dasheswere common, internal protests were increasingly strident, and thecultural tensions associated with maintaining imperial uni ty over aland area nearly lour t imes that of Western Europe became increas-ingly clear. These tensions reached critical mass :overthe decade from'i755 to 764, when a combination of rebell ion and famine left two out

. of every three people in the country either dead or missing, cuttingthe official population from 53million to only 17million. To put thistragedy instark historiC


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CHAPTER 2'Diffe'rences in IndilanandChinese Cultural, Contexts

Buddhism aims at resolving suffering. Bause of this, it does notcome .in a~y universal, "one size ts all"vform. As suffering is nevergenenc, neither are its resolutions. What wesuffer and how are insep-arable from where and when we were born, the cultures we call ourown, and the choices and values that have helped make uswho weare.I ' ]Granted this, Buddhist practice inv~~ves~:itically challenging bethour ,~uh~~alinJ~:~~t~c~~_~_n~~e disE~~j!~()Es-iliafSEapeour uniqueand individual approaches to bemg-human. -.----~=-These are non:hallen-ge


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CHAN BUDDHIS'M

grief by family members and friends was thought to make i t hard~perhaps even impossible-a-for the dead fully to sever their worldly ties.Only by doing so could the soul (atman) of the dead persoFl achievefinal release into identi ty with the universal Atman-s-the divineground of all things. Failing this, the dead would continue to be rebornin bodies and life circumstances determined by the moral quali ty oftheir actions over the course of their recently ended lives.Because eachperson's true selfor essence was understood as identical to the univer-sal Atman, each rebirth was understood asyet another lapse into-mis-taken identity . ..JThe traditional Indian cremation ritual ended with pulverizing the

bones of the dead person and scattering lihisf inal powder and otherashes. Symbolically, this act announced the departed soul's freedomfrom any lasting connection with the people and places ithad begun toreave behind. Ideally, this freedom is complete, immediate, and per-manent. Then the soul is fully restored into the unity of limitless con-sciousness, existence, and bliss that is i ts own most profound truth.For those who have lived less than ideal lives, however, this willnot bethe case. Because of the karma created over th e course of their lives,they will be obliged-s-at some point in space and time-to be rebornand to.resume interact ions with others as apparently separate andoften contrary beings.

Indian ancestor worship aimed at encouraging the soul to continuei ts migration out of this world, putt ing an end to i ts mistaken identi -f ication with a physical body, the l ife circumstances surrounding i t,and the necessity of continued separation and suffering.ln the main-~eam Indian cultural narrative, suffering truly ends only through~~eunfon'Will li l1e"\iRIlf iil red;-pure presence mat ISBrahman~a/0_arbreaK m1ne:c0ntinuity ~fJrrelatwnsh~.1.2~ real-Iz~~~n of absolute existence.In chi~a;the dOID~;;:rt-Cultural narrative about death and ances-

tral worship was almost completely opposite. The funeral ritualinvolved the display of intense and long-lasting grief, especially by thedead person's children and closest relatives. After burial of the body,regular offerings of food and drink were made to the dead asa way ofinsuring that they would remain "in the home" along with other fam-ily members. As elders , the dead were accorded great respect and

Differences in Indian and Chinese Cultural Contexts 37. d prominently in the midst of their family or clan. In fact,r e rname - . . . .ancestors were ritual ly consulted in every major deClslOn-makmg

situation. .The mainstream Indian oonviction was that each person.has a sin-e e~anent soul. The Chinese were inclined to allow that we are

gl .h. 'gathering' of several kinds of "spirit" or subtle forms of energyeac a. . dthat leave the bedy at death and return to theiI separa te an, ,~Fop~rplaces in the cosmos. Th e tFU~.of a ~erso~ is not, however, ~lven inanyone of these departing spirit s or m their shared essence. indeed,they can be seen as natural elements tha~ help compos~ .us much ~~

d metal g'lue and bone are elements in the compOSItiOnof a gutwoo, ' , .tar or a violin. Our true nature as ~.r_S~E~co~jsts of~ umsllebo(iy ~frelationships mat can be nurtUrea,-~xtende_1!~ru:5!_rep.~ed.DFthe ChI-nese, being frulyhumanis- 3.Chleved through ct4tj,vatin~c.9ncretelylived (especially familial and social) relationships. Suffenng d~es notd through release from every sort of binding intercourse With oth-en . h'ers but with the realization of ~~~.ll_Sly_~ct~~atlons IpS. .Lying behind these very differen~~~~:~ ab~ut death and wh:, t It

means to be a p erson are strikinglt.?ppos:d~fion~~f .o~. l~ 0{ ( Ie v-the dominant Vedic tradition of India, change and multlRl[c~ty~1t1- \mately are understood as i!lusions. The order of the cosmos ISgl~enas-eternal and universal, and suffering is finally a result of not b~1I1gaware ofour ultimate identity with the essence of this or~. In Chma,change was not understood asan il lusion butE t?e.~~i~~ondition ~fa ll things. Thus the ancient classic the Yijing represents the or~er of thecosmos as a "familial" process of generation-like transformatwns thatisincomplete in the absence of the unexpected. For the Chinese, ~rderdid not imply absolute unity but rather an ong?~g.harmon~~!fer-ences and deference. ,/The Vedic lndian cosmos-not entirely unlike the Christian one-can be pictured! as a dosed circle: the origin of all things is, finally,identical with their end. The Chinese world, by contrast. suggests anopen spiral or spring that has neither a! clear beginning nor a dear. end.Confucius-arguably China's most influent ial sage=thus da1il le~that it is not the Dao, or pattern of the cosmos, that eX~'lfld~~\t Itmeans to be human but humans who extend the Dao. C~VlJYS for.L al . .. . ,,_ _ _ _ ./the Chinese. ispart of the way uungs _ways are.


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Ii", - - 1 _ 'c--,rt \

CHAN BUDDHI SM

Not surprisingly, while Indian philosophy a~d religious culturegrappled with a deep tension between the absolute One (Atrnan orBrahman) and the apparent multiplicity of individual souls, in Chinaa com~arable tension played out between the cultivated sage and theuncultivated commoner. In India, human self-realization and the endof suffering finally meant release from all natural and social forms of~elatedness. In China, they meant realizing exemplary skill in achiev-mg and maintaining appropriate natural and human relations.T he C om p leme nt ar y S tr eam s o f E ar ly C hi ne se R el ig io us ne ss :

C on fu cia ni sm a nd Da ois mFrom at least the fourth or fif th century B.C.E., there Weretwo mainstrategies for doing so: Confucianism and Daoism. The best evidencesuggests that these traditions emerged on substantial ly commonground and diverged only over a period of several centuries during the~ateZh~u and early Han dynasties. For the purpose of understandingBuddhist accommodation and advocacy in China, they are of crucialconcern.

Surrounding and in many ways interpenetrating these relativelywell-defin~d traditions, there also ,exist~eQ_bo_giesf popular practicethat ~nkf!~~Y_ll


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40 CH AN BUDDHIS Mture and civilization are actively conserved. ill this sense, ritual con-duct provides regular opportunities for directly embodying ancestral!wisdom.The Analects also make clear, however" that ritual conduct, or li; is

not just a matter of going through culturally prescribed motions. Itinvolves actively appropriating ancestral wisdom to one's immediatesituation. A strong analogy obtains between this sense of ritual andthe divinatory function of the Yijing, or Book o f C hang es - on e of theancient classics wi~~which Confucius is intimately associated. Theskeleton of the main text is made up of sixty-four six-line diagramsand imagistic descriptions of their composit ion, In the great com-mentary appended to this main text, these sixty-four hexagrams aredescribed as models of common situational changes. These hexagramsCan yield practical insight into the dynamics of one's present andfuture circumstances, but only when activated by one's own sustainedr awareness. Similarly, Confucian li will only yield social harmony when

i.actrvated by ren in one's own immediate circumstances.Itmight be thought that Confucius would have expended a great

deal of effort in detailed description of such an important quali ty,But, in fact, he avoided giving any explicit definition of reno From theexamples he cites and the way he characterizes its impsrtarrce , i t isclear that ten marks a profound qualitative shift in how we conductourselves as human beings. When ritual conduct is carr ied out withren, it islike hearing a virtuoso pianist giving an inspired performanceof a Mozart concerto. Although mallY pianists can play the concerto,only the virtuoso makes the musiccome so fully alive that everyonepresent ismoved by it, gathered into a spell of intensely shared appre-ciation.

Indeed, the effectiveness ojj:b:g_._aillC--embQQyi_ggen or authorita-tive personhoodwesthcughj c~paQl,eof reaching ai~ost ma,gicallev-els. Confucius maintained, for example, that political order could beeffected in the absence of any overt actions because a sage ruler needonly make himself respectful and take up his position in the rituallyprescribed direction for his kingdom to order itself. Sodeeply rootedwas this belief in the force of authoritat ive personhood that, in theConfucian world, social and polit ical disunity and disruption were

Differences in Indian and Chinese Cultural (;ontexts 41understood as signs of rulers who had lost their commanding pres-

e who no longer manifested T e n . When they apparently had lostenc "


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42 CH AN BU DDH IS MD;lOISM

Over ,!:hecenturies tlrJ.a~he Confucian tradition Was consolidated~any dissenting pe1"sf.ecFivesarose. The most important and long~lived of these was the Scheol of the Way') er D . T d-" h " ' , o w aoism, ra men asIt that thIsdist inctive approach torealiz ing harmony among th I-.al '---' e ce esI t l " ~u~~n, and natural realms was first articulated by a hermit-sage,Laozi, living atabout the same time asConfucius and later refined anddee~ened by Zhl.langzi in the fourth century R.C.E. 'But this tradition~as Itselfa rather late development. The texts attributed to these Dao-1Stpl'Ogenitors~the Daodejing and the Zhuangzi-were classed underseparate philosophical headings even throughout much of the Bandyn~sty. The former, after all, was ostensibly a mystically inflectedtreatise on.proper statecraft; ~helatter, a complexcolliecti;n of anec-clo:es.,sto:Ies, and philosophical dialogues that patently argued for aqUIetIstWithdrawal from official hife.Indeed, it wasDot until laneinthesecond century (approximately 120 ll.e.E.) that they were linked ascore texts for a School of the Way..'!~e association w~s n?t, however, ungrounded. Both texts openly

cnt:CIze~ the


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44 CHAN BUDDHISMTheir hooves correspond with their needs for both crossing difficultterrain and defending themselves. Their teeth are suited tocrushlngand milling hard grains. In contemporary scientific terms, organismsand thei r environments together make up an ecological whole-aseamless and self-sustaining way of things.Aseach of the world's myriad things accords with its unique dao-

it s pattern of cont ributing to the whole-it holds open a path for thefree circulation of energy (qi) from and back into the overall patternor Dao of the cosmos. To accord wi th one's dao is to be wholly trans-parent and unhindered. According to Zhuangzi, "When energy (qi)circulates freely, the ten thousand things take care of themselves."That i s, when the way of things (dao) is unobstructed, each thing isconsonant with al l other things. Harmony naturally and!continuouslyprevails. Although each thing is a distinctive focusing of this circula-tory process, i t is fully continuous with al l others.

instead of carefully rehearsing culturally regulated rituals as a wayof countering the conditions of our human suffering, the Daoist tradi-~ecomm_end_il iJ1i Ilg_g()_oflm-@d al lprinciples and ~s. Inthe l!..~~~~ti.on of thin~ events, insisting onSuch:e~Iili'-tP deny our ~ontiPJJiJY._ith al l things. Thus,~none of Zhuangzi s most famous vignettes, he--waJ


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CHAPTER 3Early Develo1pments inChinese Buddhism

The turning point of the BUAdh' ' "Cu ca s quest lor a soluti t h 'of suffering came WJ'ttLh' . . h' . . - LOn 0 t e problen,- . lJ IS InSlg, t Into th . dthings D' . . -. .e mter ependence of all- . lSCernmg a middl - b''" " . . e way etween the twin barbs of "l'S" drs-not a w t d an- ay Owar, he"aIing the - d .described this insight as like com' . wO,~n of :xlst,ence-hein deer iu . Ing across a lost and forgotten city", PJ ngle, almost entrrely overgrGwn and hidden from _. ,The metaphor suggest . , '., '. view,__s"seemg~Buddh~stliberation as~~~overy or restoration. Rath th --:--~~---. __ .sLpIO{;eSS of. - f~'---~.-~--~ er an markIng a discovery thmg 0 an entirely new dimension. Ii . ,e open-has come b ti l'b. . -- .' or a iteral transcendence of all thate ore, I eration entails all .th h ----~-~--~yres-tormgakindofence at as for a long ti b _' ,"-------- .~-' - pres-b ---- .' .." . ,~mt;.c_een lTll~$lng or Heglected, A s Buddh'ecomes f uH y Chinese and O,L . Ism. Han emerges as one f itforms, thiS understanding of liberatl', 0 IS exemplary. al on


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CHAN BUDDHISM

~nd China's disintegration into short-lived confederations facing con-tmuous threats o~chaos. AsChina moved toward unity under the Suiand Tang dynasties, Buddhism was looke_4~_not only for individualsolace, but~_~o for new y _ _ a l _ E ~ s al!d~str:i.!l~gieswith which to undertakestat~~raft! de~ne authority ~an~~E!.:g~bout communal continuity and~~~e. Bud~sm gradually shifted into stressing its differencesfrom China's native traditions, advocating its 0WIl!dao-the MiddleP.a~-as both more advanced and complete than those of Confu-c~~lsm and Daoism. The rhetorical effect ofthis shift toward empha-Sl:Zl~g Buddhism's competitive advantages reached a functional apo-gee IIIthe late Tang dynasty.~ crucial precondition for such open and full advocacy of Bud-

dhisrn .was a fundamental reframing of the grounds for Buddhistauthority-c-a move away from Indian texts and teachings from thepast to those of contemporary Chinese-born Buddhists. A briefa.ccount of this process will shed useful l ight on the cultu 1. . _ ra plrece-dent~ for the c~nceptIon and growth of Chan and its unprecedentedand Ic.ono~lastIc.approach to opening the liberating gates of wisdom,attentive virtuosity, and moral clarity,

T ex ts a nd C on te xts : T he P ha se o f A cc Q _r nrn od atio nFor. Buddhism to function as an extension or alternative to China'snative.forms of spiri tu~ity, '~thad~~e brought .. .nto the l i fewor ldof Chmese.c~ture and soclety.i?~~isIll/~as particularly well suited~oili .to building the conceptual bridges needed to initiate such anmfus.l~n of Buddhist thought into Chinese society and to articulatepr~vlSlonally the meanings of the three "gates" or "entrances" of Bud-~st pr~cti~,e.Zh~angzi's ?ra,~cal championing of "no-knowledge,"no~a~tlOn::~~_ r:~desl': ': ' for example, provided an apt Chinesecultural reference for aeconstructing the samsara aspect of the threegates. No-knowledge meant refraining from fixed or Princioled di -. . . r IScru~llna?On$, not holding onto any knowledge' as absolute, andM embracing the fluid .relationships obtaining among all things. It

lAU~1lV\~Jj'~Q~


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e.ntire life circumstances, centered on the family, and the opportuni,ties they afford or inhibi hese nderstandings account for the pop-ularity of stories in the I1ot~sSutJ" -one of the most widely respectedand revered Buddhist texts in China-that apparently depicted merit-making as a fa~ily_~ffaE"affecting not only one's living relatives, but(at least potentially) one's ancestors as well.Pe:h~ps ~sim?ortant as the content of Buddhist texts, the strong

association m China ofwriting and spiritual authority played a crucialr~le in ~e phase of accommodation. Writing had been intimately asso-ciated Withauthority in China since the Shang dynasty (roughly 1800to 1100 B.C.E.), when it formed the basis of communication betweenthe spirit realm and the ruling elite. By the time Buddhism beganyntering China in the Han dynasty, Chinese elite culture was pro-V foundly literate. Texts-including historical, philosophical, and poeticworks-not only served in the administration of governmentalauthority, they were vehicles for imagining the meaning of Chineseempire. Bythe late Zhou and Warring States periods, a relative lv smallbo~y of texts like ~e Yijing had come to serve assources of both inspi-ranon and evaluation for scholar-officials crafting competing modelsof authority. Wr:itt!n texts ~us fun_ctioned.i!S_sharedfoundations forintel lectual society and (for certain special w~rks) as objects with

/ sacred status and virtually magical potency. The fact that Buddhism,I e _ ~ h .A . . u \ was a tradit~on that rested on a complex textual canon gave it s ignifi-fi: I 1 ' 1 ( \ {IYI\L.,/cant authonty-much more than a str ictly ritual is tic or purely medi-c0 tative tra~tion would.have commanded. The mutual accommodation;D f Buddh.lsm and Chinese c~ture th.us depended heavily on match-

"./ing meamngs across Confucian, Daoist, and Indian Buddhist texts.At the same time, the gradual arrival of dozens and then hundreds

of Buddhist texts gave shocking evidence of a literary galaxy thatrivaled China 's and, for the first t ime, forced it to become aware of i tsown limits. On one hand, the huge corpus of Buddhist texts translatedinto Ch~nese stimulated intense fascination. They revealed a radicallyalternative cosmos that was at once familiar enough to escape imme-diate rejection and novel enough to generate great intel lectual ands?iritual excitement'! A contemporary parallel might be the publica-non of a previously unknown body of work giving evidence of amature and fully systematic alternative to present Western scientific

or medical traditions-an alternative that not only covers practicallythe same ground asours, but reaches out into realms wehad not evenimagined possible. On the other hand, given the association of writ-ing and authoriry in China, the growing bedy of Buddhisr texts wouldhave been viewed asboth profoundly challenging and seductive. Any-thing that effectively threatened the status quo was, after all, also analternative means of gaining, consolidating, and maintaining power-be it political, social, or religious.Not surprisingly, international translation projects-often involv-

ing dozens of scholars-were sponsored by the imperial!court and bywealthy members of society at large. As the Chinese Buddhist canongrew in size, however, so did concerns about how the body of Bud-dhist teachings was "originally" shapecl. Which texts shlllg be con-sidered more basic and which seen as:most spiritually advanced? Inca~eswhere texts contradicted each other=~di;;-the abs~~~~ of anyreliable historicalor cuitu~al ~~ntexts for explaining such differences-how could they be reconciled systematically!Texts had not entered China i~-any;;ganized fashion. The litera-

ture of both Mahayana and Theravada tradit ions came Overthe SilkRoad from Central Asia and India, none with dates of composition oranyexplicit hierarchic order. Buddhist texts inIndia-especially in theTheravada canon-were often collected according to such relat ivelyarbitrary categories as total! length or narrative themes and styles.Mahayana sutras were often set in patently ahistorical spaces and fea- /vtured beings from a vast array of nonhuman realms.

By the seventh century, Buddhism had been in existence for onethousand years, and each of i ts cl~::e_I's~ditions had itsown collec-t ion of core sutras ( texts said to record the words of the Buddha) andsastras (commentaries by sp~cial~SLBuddhist scholars). Enthe Bud-dhist universit ies of Central and South Asia-including at least one,Nalanda, with as many as ten thousand students and two thousandfaculty in residence-these texts and commentaries formed basiccurricula, and identifying and cr-itically assessing differences amongthem was required. But the texts and commentaries randomly trans-mitted into China by t r~vehng monks and merchants were part of noorganized curriculum>h fellto Chinese Buddhists to decide how theyshould be ordered, J

Early Developments in Chinese Buddhism 53


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52 CHAN BUDDHISM

Chinese Buddhists naturally turned to the authority of the suttal iterature that was held to record the words of the Buddha himself.New sutras were actively sought ill the hope of clarifying the overall

1 /' ( j; [ I 'I' j L 'trncture of the Dharrna-s-the full body of teachings delivered by the, I,;' J3_yddha. Each previously unknown sutra was greeted with expects,

/ tions that i t would allow all the others to fall into proper place andI..- .Vprovide at least a glimpse of the Dharma as a whole. The excitement

-both spiritual and intellectual-that each text would have generatedcan be imagined as comparable to the discovery O F missing gospels

" '{ recording the words of Jesus or lost books of the Hebrew scriptures.Because many Mahayana sutras explicitly represented the Buddha

asadjusting the content of his teachings in accordance with the needsof specific audiences, greater attention was eventually given to thesetexts and understanding their relationship to one anothe.' Basedpartly on internal textual evidence and partly on Chinese cultural dis-rositi~ns, se~e~al sutras e~~ged as c~ntr~y_~t. for example,the s / ima lak i rt i Su t ra depicted a lay student ofthe Buddha whose wis-dom, attentive virtuosity, and moral clarity far exceeded those of a ll

fJ , . k \ the (fu~y ord~~~d) disciples who figured in ~e earliest sutra litera-'. t t~re.Vimalakirti s lay status appealed to the Chinese not only becausehe represented a fully secular Buddhist ideal, but also because hisspiritual attainments and insight were manifest throughout his dailyaffairs. His skill as a bodhisattva did not depend! emdemonstrated!erudition or [iterary knowledge but on silent and unparalleled force ofcharacter. In the emergence of Chan, Virnalakirti's demonstration-not explanation-s-of the opening of the three gates of liberation wouldbe taken as fully authoritative.

f Other texts-s-most notably, the Lo tu s , Flower Ornament , and PureLand sutras=-offered such uniquely powerful visions of tile cosmosthat ~ist~r:_c~~hools for_medarou~~m. Often, the primary activityof these scliools was schelastic-vthe work of translating and writingcommentaries on its i


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gathering missions to India ceaseCi~y Chinese schools of Bud-dhism with their own authoritative cornmentarial traditions flour-

. . _i~h~ And, most important for the eventual emergence of Chan, the0\ ~0\\ ' t . . V ' I \ '1i~ealogy of Buddhist thought and practice gradually became disen-(_,_ gVgedf rom the transmission and translation of texts. Instead, it cameC\\ '{ i', _ t . . . 'I to bewe~ded to mterperson~ lines .oftrans~issi~n-a shift from texts. i to teachings understood as liberating relatienships between teachers

~ fJ . ~ l' and students. 1~ ~_+ 1 Q_JL~ t ' \ A - J SAdaptation and Authority: The Phase ofAdvocacyIn addition to written texts and teachings, from very early em, medi-tation adepts with heightened perceptual capabilities and/or skills inhealing played! a significant role in Buddhism's spread throughoutChina. Such adepts were often invited to participate in governmentand!court rites, and occasionally to serve as official advisors. For thevast , nonli terate rural population, the relative importance of suchadepts was even higher than inelite urban society. In responding to thephysical, emotional, and spiritual need's of villagers, meditation mas-ters were able to introduce basic Buddhist concepts about suffering,its causes, and its resolution. But in the context of such informal inter-actions-so very different from the highly choreographed conductrequired in elite circles-they were also in the position of actively:demonstrati-ng the freely compassionate spirit of Buddhist practice,The disparate significance of spiritual adepts and authoritative

texts in the countryside and urban society would come to playa majorrole in the shift from Chinese Buddhist accommodation to advocacy.Itwould also inform Chan's rise to almost unchallenged prominenceamong the Chinese Buddhist schools by the second half of the ninthicentury. Because the heaviLytext-centered schools of Chinese Bud-I dhism= the Huayan (Flower Ornament Sutra) and Tiantai (Lotus, Sutra)-constructed their authority in ways familiar to the main-

\ 'l~\:',~ I stream Chinese elite and were dependent on significant support from k _ I ( " I the imperial court and the urban aristocracy, they were very vulnera-"'{)l'i "I - r, ble to changes in political and economic climate. Asa self-proclaimed

r l 't J'-t\:)) meditation school that eventually distanced itself from the imperialL{r court and was widely distributed in rural monasteries-especially inregions far from the capital and China's political and economic cen-

tersQs well positioned t() survive both ~e indirect conse-uences of political upheaval and the much more direct effects oflostq ollticaland e~r. Perhaps more important, the tensions between \. 'p. . d scl I l~'" uld b . t d it C vcA"'" .$spiritual VIrtUOSIty n scho ar y , _lancewo e~c~rpora e In0 - __\ir-(Chan accounts of its own identi ~~pornayed Itself as a! refresh- SIJ (vIingly ru_sti~(Q1J_n1en;Ylt':lra!__trad!~~-,=,_~om!~!_t_:~th~tran~~is-sion of'textual traditions from India, but to the f1~~J:~shm_g_ofl:llyhomegrown buddhas on native soil-enlightened Chinese masterswhose teachmgs ana 'SoocirVirtuosity outstripped those fostered byConfuoianism and Daoism. 7At the center of th_~on ersrough"t to head by Xuanzang

were the concepts o(kar.' _a bud~a-~ature.' A.nd, indeed, it isthese two concepts tlkt~~e om~i? tfie uddhist advocacy of aChinese Middle Path that went between and well beyond Doth Confu-cian humanism and Daoist naturalism. I[lJcontrast with the conceptsof change, interdependence, and emptiness, there were no indigenousChinese an_alogues-even distant ones~for k~, Confucians andDaoists alike assumed a cosmological ,seheme-clerived from the Yij ingin which change was constant, patterned, and ~n:herent1yqualitative.Itwas not a view of change, however, in which intention was consid-ered fundamental. From the perspective of the Buddhist teaching ofkarma, Confucianism and Daoisrn failed to take fully into account theirreducibly dramatic or meaningful nature of the cosmos. To gener-ate practical insight into the interdependent arising and resolution ofsuffering, the roots of human temporality must be seen as value andintention.~The


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r---~full center stage but all three times: past, present, and future~]he bod-hisattva ideal involves understanding the historical prec~dents ofthe present moment but not being bound by reliance upon them. Itinvolves skill in spontaneously removing relational blockages but notbecoming attached to the aim of free and easy wandering in the pre-sent A Buddhist path toward resolving suffering involves drarnati-cahly revising the direction in which the interdeE..end~I1ceof an thingsismoving-a path of,cteatively engaging the future. _ jIn an irreducibly karmic cosmos, there is no question of whetherthings have a meaning or not but only of which meaning. r t is a cos-

mos in whichdifferences truly make a difference, in which changes ofheart are practically effective in reconfiguring the interpersonal pre-sent and future, and inwhich things are never just changing but alwaysgoing forward or going bade The.J:eaching of karma urges human,/ --~----- .IQl,beings to c~n_i4.e_r_asll.!iaL~~~ion_9f our life_~_ti~s...andthevalues and intentions that establish it. Ultimately we are responsiblefor wliether we:-'fiillrfuegates of our Interdependence with al l thingsswinging in the direction of sarnsara or nirvana.The karmic understanding of human temporality introduced the

Chinese to a new set of future-directed concerns. But it also under-mined the primacy of a f u e r a J ! uriaersTa.n~cIillgOfenealogy. Before theBuddhist advocacy of a karmic understanding of change, the fabric ofChinese society had been held together by ancestral lineages. The rit-ual structure of care was an effectively narrow one in which parentsfaced the past to attend to their ancestors just as ,one day, their ownchildren would attend to them. Although parents did have responsi-bility for raising their children and for carrying on the family line, thesense of familial future was largely matter of fact, not dramatic. See-ing things karmically shifted the focus from attending to' the past to

Jexplicitly caring for future generations to a degree not found in Con-

, fucianisrn,Italso shifted the focus of care from literal ancestors and descen-

dents to partners related by shared values and intentions. Tradition-ally, one did not make offerings fothe ancestors of neighbors or ofpeople from other villages. Concern for ancestral welfare was directedalong each family's blood lineage. The teaching of karma decenteredthe notion 2,.fblood relations or gen~ornted instead

{fAUO['tA.L6~ ~~ l(b\'~E . - C t \ if 0: tY ( t :A n\ltA)( :, , - IA \ l d ( V J I ( ( ) A J t v" - u J ' )

toward the lCentral~tyof ?dr~~tha.t is, .continuitybased on unwavenng coirrmitmerrt to a partlcular direction for themeaning of things. This teaching radically altered the meaning offamily.in the L ot us S ur ra and in the [ at ok a T al es ; depicting the Buddha'sprior lives, there are accounts of ensembles of characters- "dha~afamjlies" -moving together through. time toward. the shared realiza-tion of horizonless liberation. On these narrative journeys, membersof the ensemble alternately play such.dramatic roles asfather, mother,son, daughter, king, minister, teacher: studen~, or friend. I~.~o:-n!!:~stJ>ll'-,J"- ....- t . < : : _to me strict hierarchy of the ConfuClan facmily!... .thergamzatlOn~f..e,~ ~such-dharma families isnot a function of birth order but of dramatic _ V'.oj.clarit)'. TIle dramatic enseriiore-centetecrontFie liistoridili Buddha c Jry\ d1included his wifeand son, his parents, and each of his key disciples. It c- , 8 :was deeply significant for Chinese Buddhists that the karma shared ~1Mlll~)by each of these characters in the Buddha's l ife was so great ~ . ! . _ a l ]attained liberation: freedom from suffering is not something realizedalone or o m y for oneself.

Finally, the teaching of karma erases the horizons of responsibilitythat are part ofour typica l self-definition. Our presence together withothers-oUF sharing of a particular world and history-is alreadyevidence that we meaningfully belong together. We are not presenttogether by accident. Neither are we present together because of someobjective fate OF destiny that transcends our persona1 sense of themeaning of things. The first step i~!~ng tfue~conflictss~ ch_arac-teristic of our shared live~i~ither the Confucian one of establishingbi;ding cultural pre-ceden~~d principles; nor the Daoist one ofreverting to intention-free naturaliiess. Rathe~__~ ~ _~alizing._theabsence of an y absolute boundaries separating us from O}1__!~W.~tipnsand the possibility of ~ompleteIy revising their meaning. Doing so, wecatftrul~With our situation anarespono-as-needed to direct itaw:ay f rom samsara toward nirvana. But realizing this absence of . ~1 c d , . t _ v. \boundaries isalso seeing that we cannot truly save anyone being with-- r~ /.r 1 \. ' . . \llo .e ' A- ....1Mout saving al l bemgs. The teachmg of karma, understood m this way, ~reveals the bodhisattva vow of liberating all sentient beings asthe root vi. v ' ! v tr~,- Icondition for realizing any liberation at all. . . \ ~ If)ill /, . \ ; D , - ,The second central concept in the advocacy of Chinese Buddhism

/~ 58/ \ Early Developments in Chinese Buddhism 59


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is that of buddha- ii la:ture. Although it is loosely related to certainIndian teacb ings aDout the "womb or embryo of thusness" and the"treasury or storehouse consciousness," the concept of buddha-natureisdistinctively CllineseM~ny alternative accounts could be given forthe r ise of this concept in CPIinaand how itwas incorporated into thetheories and practices ohhe four major schools of Chinese Buddhism.

i ,)Common to al l such accounts, however, isr


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important strands of native Chinese thought on the relationshipbetween languag and truth.

Zhiyi took as his hermeneutical starting point the Mahayana teach-ing of the emptiness of all things. If a l ! l things are absent any inherentand essential nature, then no verbal formulation of the truth can beseen as final, since all words refer to conceptually identifiable phenom-ena. At best, they can point through phenomena toward underlyingpatterns of relationship or governing principles. They cannot providedirect access. Indeed, Zhiyi maintained that any verbal statement canonly be partially true. The most comprehensive-and thus most true-statements are not those that exdude al lothers, but rather those thatembrace contradiction and plurality ..f'0J,Zhiyi, no Buddhist teachings~roughly expresseatillstruth ~-the-teachingtIiat a n beings, ~ a v e Duddha-natUreor-- e natur~f_~nl~g~~nm~~t. A ~d ,~~ti-

'- -1frau~-ri~:u:~cllilst fexrm.ore profoundly revealed this truth thanthe Lo tus Su tra . Jhiyi was also responsible for writing the single mostinfluentiaJrneditation manual in Chinese Buddhist history (one on

I.. which many Chan teachers would draw): The G r ea tCa lm Ab id in g and) -\ - - , U I/'Jnsight Medi tation .Tiantai teachings appealed greatly to members of the Sui court, and

the school received significant royal patronage. This worked againstthe tradition, however, when the Sui fell. Although still amimportanttradition." Tiantai lost a certain degree of its prestige and prominence.

HUAYAN (PLOWER ORNAMENT)The Huayan tradition considers its first patriarch to have been.a famedmeditative adept and healer named Dushun (557-640), but the firstextant references to a distinctiv Huayan school oc~tLe..d__only m the'I -latter part of the seventh century inassociation with Fa~43-112)'? , . , , : 1 : P I/I~trad~tionally th.'e.third Huayan lineage holder. Al~g with the fifth

dpatnarch Zongmi (780-841)-who had the distinction of also being aChan lineage hclder=-Pazang was considered the primary architectof Huayan Buddhism. ---------.------- -~~~-7--.-- . .Like ZhlYI,Fazang was a firm believer illthe teaching of buddha-

nature and the interdependence and interpenetration of all things.Unlike his Tiantai counterpart , however, he did not believe that the"one (or unifying) vehicle" taught by the L ot us S u tr a marked the

most complete and sophisticated expression of the Buddha's Dharma.Much of his lifework-wnsisted __f explicating the meaning of the Ava-tamsak a S utra , o f H ua ya n S utra ~a text that in English translationruns well over l ,5~opagesfu length and that issurely among the mostbaroquely detailed descriptions of extraordinary awareness in worldliterature.The key to Fazang's reading of the Huayan Sutra is hiscommit-ment to' seeing buddha-nature-and thus the root or original natureof all things-as imparifillyand clearly reflecting the contributions ofall things to their-shared sitUation. tIiat is~UieTruenature ot tnJngs isto-reflect or confirm the contributions of


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Sukhavati-vyuha Sutra as a textual locus for his teaching, Bodhiruciinformed Tanluan that he was not likely to have Lime in this life toovercome his karmic blockages and realize full Buddhist awakening.But, ifhe sincerely and constantly practiced the recitation of the Bud-dh aAmitabha's name, he woUI,fse granteclbi rth"i; that buddha'sWestern Paradise-or PiTre Land. Indeed;theBuaanaAnut~bha hadvowedto answer iilie appeals of suffering beings in all realms and at al lt imes, insuring their birth in circumstances in which enlightenmentwas practically guaranteed.In keeping with the general trend of Chinese Buddhism, Tanluan

interpreted the Sukhavati-vyuha Sutra in light of the then developingChinese conception of buddha-nature. In his teaching of Pure LandBuddhism, he thus stressed the universal possibility of awakening for

";71 ~~~_e ,~~~~ ,itho~eption, if they were sImply to place their faith inAmitabha and his vow. But unlike the nascent Tiantai and Huayan tra-diti~ did not offer much hope of r eceiving rewards of anysort in this lifeby practicing Buddhism. The point of reciting the Bud-dha's name wasnot to awaken here and now, but rather to insure birthin circumstances that would guarantee full awakening.

Atfirst, Pure land teachings appealed to China's sociallyand polit-ically disenfranchised: commoners, merchants" and members of non-~ , - - - - - - -an Chinese ethnic groups. But after the An Lushan rebellion and thedecade of horror following it, the tradition found considerable appealin the court and elite social circles as well. The emphasis on continu-ous practice, in any situation whatsoever, was taken up by the Chantraditions in the eighth and ninth centuries and found commonground in the Huayan practice of group surra recitations, Eventually,the_l!l~ofd1anting and recitation became a common heritage of Chi-nese Buddhist practice. Indeed, it was pos~ible for Zongmi to statewiilioUtmy controversy that Chan mindfulness and Pure Land recita-tion were just two sides of a single process of realizing our originalbuddha-nature. Although most Chan teachers would follow the sixthChan patriarch, Huineng, in declaring that the Pure Land is not someother realm but our own pure and clear mind inthis very moment , allwere comfortable embracing the consonance of Pure Land practicewith Chan.Over time, the importance of Pure Land asan independent school

waned. Its core practices and. teachings were functionally absorbedas skillful means into the practice traditions of Huayan, Tiantai, andchan. Assuch Pure Land practices continue to be a part of the ChineseBuddhist experience to this day, especially in village settings. V

F ro m O r th od ox y to O r th op ra xy :T he C ru cia l T id e C ha ng e in Chinese Buddh ism

The concepts ofkarrna and buddha-nature pla

the buddhist roots of chan

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