Chan Sect in Han Buddhism

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The Chan or Dhyana sect is a major sect of Chinese Buddhism whose establishment was made possible through the efforts of Huineng, an eminent monk of the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

Huineng (638-713) was a native of Fanyang (present-day Zhuoxian, Hebei Province) whose secular surname was Lu. His father was an official who was demoted to Xinzhou (present-day Xinxing County, Guangdong) on the South China Sea, and died when Huineng was a child. The family fortune declined as a result. After he grew up, he had to sell fagots to provide for his mother.

One day, overhearing someone recite the Vajracchedika-prajnaparamita-sutra (Diamond Sutra), he became impressed with its good meaning. Huineng asked the man who had taught him the scripture, and learned that the teacher was Master Hongren at a place known as Huangmei. He reported this to his mother, and asked for her permission to go to Huangmei and seek out the truth. His mother consented, but Huineng did not set out on his journey north until he had raised enough money and supplies for her. When he arrived in Huangmei, Hongren (602-675) asked him where he came from and what was the purpose of his visit. He answered that he came from south of the Five Ridges (present-day Guangdong and Guangxi) and that he wanted to become a monk. When Hongren said that men from south of the Five Ridges had no aptitude for Boddhahood, Huineng replied, “Men may come from south or north, but the capacity to comprehend Buddhism knows no geographical distinction.” Hongren, impressed by the reply, immediately knew that he was facing a man who could be taught and would likely amount to something, and he soon arranged for Huineng to work in a rice-husking workshop.

Eight months later Hongren decided that he would choose from his disciples someone who could inherit his mantle by asking each of them to compose a hymn on their understanding of the Buddhist doctrines. Shenxiu, his top disciple, came up with a verse that said, “I have a body like the bodhi tree and a heart like the mirror on a pedestal. I want to clean them from time to time, so as to keep them free from dust.” Huineng, on seeing the monk pasting up the verse on the wall while reading it aloud, immediately improvised a piece in response, “The bodhi never has a tree, nor has the mirror a pedestal. The heart of a Buddhist is calm and clean – how can they be contaminated by dust?” Not knowing how to read and write, Huineng asked a fellow monk to write down this composition beside Shenxiu’s. When Hongren read the two pieces, he immediately knew that Huineng had a better understanding of Buddhism. That night, he invited Huineng to his abode and passed on to him the most secret part of his instructions, and gave him a monastic habit as a token of his trust.

Huineng immediately went on a journey back home that very night when he learned the secret to the Buddhist doctrines. Upon his arrival in the south, he followed Hongren’s instructions and consigned himself for 15 years to an anonymous life among a team of hunters. While the hunters ate meat, he adhered to a vegetarian’s diet by picking out the vegetables mixed in meat dishes. During a visit to the Faxing Monastery (present-day Guangxiao Monastery of Guangzhou) as a lay Buddhist, he attended Monk Yinzong’s lecture on the Mahapari-nirvana-sutra. He saw two monks among the audience who were arguing about whether a stream moved because of the wind or by itself. As the two of them became all worked up over the argument, Huineng chipped in, “Why don’t you stop arguing? The stream moves not because of the wind nor by itself – it moves because both of your hearts are moving.” Yinzong the lecturer was taken aback when he overheard the remark. “I have long heard of the arrival of a master from Huangmei,” Yinzong said, coming down from his podium. “Are you that distinguished guest?” Huineng showed him the gift his teacher had given him. Yinzong was impressed and he arranged for the lay Buddhist to settle down in the monastery and ordained him as a monk. Later, Huineng moved to the Baolin Monastery (present-day Nanhua Monastery) in Shaozhou. Once, delivering a lecture in the Dafan Monastery at the invitation of the provincial governor Wei Qu, he brought the house down. His disciple, Fahai, recorded the lecture and compiled it into what is today’s widely read classic, Analects of the Sixth Chan Patriarch Huineng.

In 705, Tang Emperor Zhongzong (r. 705-710) sent a messenger to Nanhai (present-day Guangdong) to summon Huineng to the capital city of Luoyang. Huineng turned down the invitation on the basis of being a long forgotten hermit, his old age, and his poor health. A very sympathetic Zhongzong bestowed on him a kasaya, a patchwork outer vestment, and large quantities of daily supplies.

Throughout his life Huineng was devoted to disseminating the Chan doctrines in the south. His unique interpretations of the doctrines had a tremendous influence on the development of the Chan sect, and because of this he was regarded as the de facto patriarch of it.

The traditional history of Buddhism, however, regards the Indian monk Bodhidharma as the father of the Chan sect. After he arrived in China, his theories were passed down along the following the line: Huike (487-593), Sengcan (?-606), Daoxin (580-651), Hongren (602-675), and Huineng. So Huineng was the sixth and last patriarch of the Chan sect. This line of heritage was composed by Qisong (1007-1072), a preeminent monk of the Song Dynasty. As a matter of fact, the Chan prior to Huineng was merely a discipline of learning rather than a sect of Buddhism.

During his lifetime Huineng had a large team of disciples, and the three most influential among them were Xingsi (?-740), Huairang (677-744), and Shenhui (686-760). Xingsi was a native of Luling (present-day Ji’an, Jiangxi Province) who became a novice while yet a child. After he obtained the secret instructions from Huineng, he returned to Luling and settled in the Qingju Temple on Qingyuan Mountain. His mantle, carried forward by his disciple Xiqian, or Monk Shitou, later evolved into three of the five subsects of the Chan: Caodong, Yunmen, and Fayan. Huairang (677-744) came from Ankang (present-day Ankang, Shaanxi Province) and became a monk at age 15. After he studied for a time under Huineng, he settled on Mount Hengshan, the Southern Mountain Sanctuary, and recruited Daoyi as his disciple.

Daoyi (709-788) was a native of Shifang, Hanzhou (present-day Shifang, Sichuan Province) and arrived at Mount Hengshan during the Kaiyuan reign of the Tang Dynasty and practiced meditation all day long. Huairang, who lived nearby in the Guanyin Temple, immediately knew this was a young man of promise and paid him a visit. Seeing Daoyi meditating, Huairang asked what he was doing, sitting there like that. Daoyi said he was trying to attain enlightenment and achieve buddhahood. At this reply Huairang said nothing but picking up a brick started grinding it against a stone. Daoyi, curious, asked, “Why do you grind the brick?” Huairang answered, “To turn it into a mirror.” Daoyi, even more bewildered, asked again, “How can a brick become a mirror?” Huairang answered, “knowing that a brick cannot become a mirror, can meditation alone turn you into a Buddha?” Daoyi was taken aback, and he asked Huairang for advice. After the encounter Daoyi became Huairang’s disciple, and, inheriting his teacher’s methodology, finally emerged as the patriarch of the Weiyang and Linji subsects of the Chan sect. Later the Yangqi and Huanglong subsects merged as the Linji sect. Thus the Chan sect became a sect of Chinese Buddhism with five branches and seven subsects.

Shenxiu, a disciple of Hongren, continued to disseminate Chan teachings after his master’s death and, with the monks at the eastern capital of Luoyang and western capital at Chang’an all becoming his followers, exerted a great influence on the religious life in north China. When Shenhui, a disciple of Huineng, arrived in the North from present-day Guangdong, he was somewhat resentful of what was happening there, and he began advocating that Huineng’s southern branch of the Chan sect was better than Shenxiu’s northern branch. He set up a pancaparisad (quinquennial assembly where men and women, old and young, share the alms both in kind and in spirit on an equal footing; it is also an occasion for confession, penance, and remission.) at the Dayun Temple of Huatai (present-day Huaxian County, Henan Province) for a debate between the two branches. During the debate the conclusion was reached that the southern branch was for immediate enlightenment and should thus be called the “instantaneous subsect of Chan,” and that the northern branch was for gradual enlightenment and should thus be called the “progressive subsect of Chan.” Hence the Chan sect was divided into two geographical branches. However, as the instantaneous subsect spread northward, Shenxiu’s northern subsect went on a decline and gradually disappeared. In all this, Shenhui played a major role. Yet his southern subsect also met its demise by the sixth generation. At the same time, another southern branch of Chan headed by Huairang gradually spread to the north.

The five branches and seven subsects of the Chan sect each flourished at different periods of time, but the Linji subsect was the most influential, with the Caodong subsect ranking second. For a time the adage among Buddhists in China was: “While the Linji subsect of Chan has the entire country under its influence, the Chaodong subsect manages to control half the country.”

The creeds of Chan sect are transmitted from mind to mind, without recourse to language, words, or writings, and above all, without the use of any scripture. Chan advocates attaining Buddhahood by discovering one’s own innate Buddha nature. Legend has it that once Sakyamuni brandished a bouquet of flowers during an audience at the Nirvana Assembly. While most of the audience was bewildered by this gesture, only Kasyapa, one of Sakyamuni’s ten disciples, smiled in tacit understanding of the Buddha’s intentions. That transmission of the Buddha’s holy words by the mind has been inherited through the ages, and the 28th-generation disciple, Bodhidharma, brought this method to China. It is the belief of the Chan sect that man’s mind is pure and clean to start with, but such purity fails to manifest itself because it has been obliterated by worldly worries. Once the mind obtains the straightforward guidance of the knowledge of benevolence, it can immediately see its true nature and achieve Buddhahood.

Because the Chan sect chose to dispense with written scriptures, it suffered no loss of literature during the persecution of Buddhism under the reign of Emperor Wuzong of the Tang Dynasty. That is why during the long period from the Five Dynasties to the Song Dynasty (907-1279), the sect was able to achieve the acme of its development. After the Song Dynasty, however, some of its subsects gradually went on a decline.

The tradition of the Chan sect to do without recourse to writing was challenged by the emergence of quite a few books on the quotations of Chan masters after the Song Dynasty. This was something unheard of in previous Chan history. However, it is precisely because of these quotations that posterity has been able to cherish Chan literature as a major component of the cultural heritage of Chinese Buddhism, so much so that in modern times the celebrated Buddhist scholar Taixu maintained that the “Chan Pitaka” should be added to the Tripitaka of Chinese Buddhism. By the “Chan Pitaka” he meant precisely the collection of quotations of Chan masters.