Dharma Garland Sino
Preview of Ch.3 and Ch.4, Seeing through Zen, by John R. McRae
under the instruction of Prof. yu zhen lee
I. McRae's four rules of zen studies
1. more untrue, more important
mythopeic: religious imagination (p.xix, 1st cluster)
2. lineage assertions deteriorate critical evaluations
modern concept of historical accuracy (p.xix, 2nd c.)
[question] what is the modern concept of historical accuracy? why will lineage assertions have to be against it?
3. precision is imprecise
the greater detail is an artifact of temporal distant; the vagueness of earlier accounts should be comforting in its integrity. (p.xix, 3rd c.)
4. cold realism eliminates dismissive misapprehension
[q] why would depiction of patriarchs and icons cripple our understanding of tang-'golden age' and song- 'stagnant formalism', where the author favors song as 'mature pattern' that 'defines the tradition up until the modern period? (p.xx, 1st c.;p.19, song dyn.)
II. proto chan and the treatise on the two entrances and four practices
A. def. (p.32, 2nd c.)
1. '2 main gates of dharma' (二入)refers to enlightenment through understanding and meditation (to see and to think with the innermost being); '4 practices to reach main gates' (四行) deals with enlightenment through different daily practices. In the section on the latter, the four practices are listed as being at the core of bodhidharma's (達摩；?-AD535) teaching (to do in daily lives):
the 'practice of retribution of enmity',
[q] what is its dialectical resource?
the 'practice of acceptance of circumstances",
the 'practice of the absence of craving',
the 'practice of accordance with the dharma'.
B. 4 doubts over proto chan community:
1. treatise on icon huike, rather bodhidharma (p.28, 3rd c.)
2. varied individual association btw huike and bodhidharma, plus lankavatara sutra (p.28, 3rd c.)
3. temporal vicissitude: 645 v. 574 (p.28, 3rd c.)
4. distant associations from luoyang (p.29, 2nd c.)
C. germ of maybe all later chan theory (p.28, 3rd c.):
true nature is possessed by all sentient beings, which can only be covered up by false sense impressions, which one should discard and take refuge in the so-called 'truth' will then be frozen in 'wall contemplation'.
it ought to be thus mysteriously identified with the true principle and without discrimination, serene and inactive --- the entrance of principle.
D. Yanagida Seizan's (柳田聖山；1922-2006) view of zen :
rather than being distracted by the superficial manifestations of our own consciousnesses, practitioners should instead emphasize their profound confidence in the existence of the buddha-nature at the very heart of our innermost being. (p.30, 1st c.)
[q] what if we take advantage of such amazing methodology onto another fields rather than buddha-nature and dharma?
III. ch.3 metropolitan chan
A. 'chan boom' in the imperial chinese capitals
1. chang'an (lively mix of culture) and luoyang (budhst center from 2nd century onward)
2. xuanzang (玄奘；AD600?-664) and chang'an: boom in chang'an over daoism
3. wu zetian (武則天；690-705) and luoyang: political position justification through budhsm (p.47, 1st c.)
4. shenxiu (玉泉神秀；606?-706), jade spring temple, record of the transmission of the lamp (景德傳燈錄；1004), and emps. wu (3.+4.=first metropolitan chan) (p.48, 3rd c.)
5. shenxiu's radical reinterpretation of bdhsm based on his own religious insight, putting daily personal hygiene into bdhm chan together, and explicit practice of meditation (p.50-p.53)
B. shenhui's (荷澤神會；670-762) campaign against the northern school
1. chongyuan's (?) record: 'impermissible' for puji (嵩山普寂；651-740) - the coinage of 'northern school' (p.54, citation)
2. shenhui, the evangelist on the ordination platform to generate aspiration on behalf of all beings (p.55, 2nd c.)
3. 'a new kind of chan that was no chan at all' - no meditation practice (p.56, 2nd c.)
[q] who is chongyuan? why is his recording so important and credible?
C. the oxhead school: resolving the factionalist crisis
1. sharp dichotomy resolved by oxhead emergence (p.56, 4th c.)
2. possible reasons for tauchung:
i. little energy from the northern school
ii. shenxiu's 'sudden good, gradual bad' idea not accepted
ii. jiaoran (釋皎然；720-805) 's eulogy: bodhidharma, lao'an (老安；580?-708), huineng (大鑒慧能；638-713), zhiyi (天台智頤；538-597), but none for huineng solely - maybe relatively dormant period for the southern (p.57, 2nd c.)
3. define itself separately from northern and southern in treatise on the transcendence of cognition (絕觀論；650?) (p.58, 2nd 3rd c.)
4. how different?
i. explicitly fictional depiction for interaction between teacher and student since 750 downward
ii. threefold structure vs. shenxui's dualistic (sudden/gradual), structurally resembling hegel's thesis-antithesis-synthesis (p.60, 1st c.)
D. the platform sutra (六祖壇經；760?) as the climax text of early chan
1. the story of 'bodhi tree and the mirror'
2. retrospect of 1.:
i. diamond sutra (金剛經) vs. lankavatara sutra (楞伽經)
ii. 'mind-verses' never mentioned - composed after shenhui's death
iii. nothing to do with zongmi's (圭峰宗密；780-841) gradualism (漸悟) vs. subitism (頓悟) dualism; according to author, zongmi is bit off the ortho-lineage (p.63, 1st c.)
[q] which one is earlier, diamond str or lankavatara sta? when?
3. McRae's defense for shenxui:
i. where's 'mirror'? (p.64, citation)
ii. northern is profounder than southern
iii. oxhead style three-fold statement (p.65, 2nd, 3rd c.)
iv. borrowing form shenhui's 'north-south' idea (p.66, 1st c.)
v. actually happened? no way! (p.67, 1st c.)
vi. very likely to utilize stories from northern school rather than southern (p.67, 3rd c.)
and McRae's conclusion for platform sutra is:
a 'melange of early chan teachings... inheriting the style of reinterpreting conventional bdhst pronouncements as meditation instructions that had been originally developed by shenxiu and that was maintained to some extent by shenhui and to an even greater degree by the oxhead school' (p.66, 1st c.)
[q] what is the 'miraculous discovery' about this sutra on p.60, 2nd c.?
[q] is lankavatara sutra pseudepigrapho? why? how is藥師山紫虛居士's commentary?
E. huineng as illiterate sage and the evolution of chan
1. great influence on classical chinese chan through encounter dialogues by an illiterate, poor, but filial layman, almost forgotten by dunghuang, shenhui, and hardly parallel to imperial, social-, economical-privileged shenxui.
2. meanings:
a revelation to those who were of lower social class and nameless monks that innately enlightenment be crucial prerequisite for patriarchate access. (p.69, 1st c.)
3. 'proletarier aller länder, vereinigt euch!'
F. three other sets of events
1. the thought of nonthought : esoteric bddhsm: indian subhakarasimha (善無畏；637-735) to amoghavajra (不空；705-774) to native yixing (一行；683-727) and jingxian (敬賢；660-723) (p.70, 2nd c.)
2. demolishing of bddh: an lushan's rebel (安史之亂；755-763) + huichang period (會昌滅佛；ca.845) (p.71, 2nd c.)
3. end of bddh scripture translation: (p.71, 4th c.)
i. esoteric rituals than doctrinal enlightenment after amoghavajra
ii. imperial divestment
iii. moslem conquered khotan (和闐；今新疆和田市), midway in silk road, transmission from bddh haeartland to china became impossible
IV. ch.4 the riddle of encounter dialogue
A. 'classical chan' and encounter dialogue
1. emergence around 750-1000 as primary mode of practice and discourse, antecedents of the 'five houses' (p.13, figure 2;p.18, middle chan)
2. zhàozhōu cōngshěn (趙州從諗；778-897) became ordained as a monk at an early age. At the age of 18, he met nánquán pǔyuàn (南泉普願；748–835), a successor of mǎzǔ dàoyī (馬祖道一；709–788), and eventually received the dharma from him. many koans (公案) in both the blue cliff record (碧巖錄；1140?) and the gateless gate (無門關；1228?) concern zhaozhou, with twelve cases in the former and five in the latter being attributed to him. He is, however, probably best known for the first koan in the gateless gate. (p.74, 1st c.)
3. dongshan liangjie (洞山良价；807–869) was a zen buddhist monk of 9th century china. he founded the caodong school (曹洞宗) of zen. He is also known for the poetic verses of the five ranks. (p.74, 1st c.)
'no' and 'three pounds of hemps': nonsensical, nontransmission, different realm of understanding, illogical (p76, 1st c.)
4. classic chan, different from middle chan with platform sutra around 750-780-1000 (p.13, fg.2, p.76, 1st c., p.77, 1st c.): texts, unclear def., in discourse records, eschewing straightforward idea exchanging, actually occurred
[q] how did the author know they really happened?
5. anthology of the patriarchal hall (祖堂集；952) identifies bodhidharma as the 28th patriarch of buddhism in an uninterrupted line that extends all the way back to the buddha himself. (p.79)
6. however, the transmission of the lamp is an important early source for the history of chan buddhism. It is a voluminous work consisting of biographies of the zen patriarchs and other prominent buddhist monks, produced in the song dynasty by shi daoyuan (釋道原；ca.1150-1250).
the work was published in 30 volumes and is the primary source of information for the history of chan in china. the lives of zen masters and disciples are systematically listed, beginning with the first seven buddhas (gautama buddha is seventh in this list). the "lamp" in the title refers to "dharma" (teachings of the Buddha). a total of 1701 biographies are listed in the book. (p.79, 3rd c.)
B. the story of mazu's enlightenment
1. tile grinding, archetypal of encounter dialogue (p.80, 3rd c.)
2. version comparison:
unified editorial posture (p.81)
3. timothy h. barrett said to the author in may, 1993:
'process of editorial evolution resembles nothing so much as the circulation of joke books at roughly the same time'!!! (p.166, note 15)
[q] what are the 'five skillful means' (五方便) of northern school? (p.83)
C. the eightfold path to the emergence of transcribed encounter dialogue
1. not focal on suññatā (空), prajñā (智), nor chinese culture - cliche (p.83)
2. rhetorical wit, humanistic view, and the rejection of all fixed ideas
3. zhuangzi (莊子；BC369-286) daoism and chan (p.84)
[q] how to define 'socially oriented'?
4. 8 signs for socially-oriented chan from tang to song:
魅a. the image of the chan master responding spontaneously to his students: occult charisma of interaction ability (p.85, 1st c.)
俗b. 'questions about things' in the northern school:
to melt spiritual cultivation into activities of daily life (p.86, 2nd c.)
[q] why wasn't it prevalent in southern school?
義c. the chan style of explanation in eighth-century sources
i. hyperbole: treatise on the essentials of cultivating the mind (修心要論；760?) of northern school shenxiu, yifu (西京義福；658-736), puji
ii. more deflated style: oxhead faquin (徑山法欽；714-792), and tiantai or vinaya huizhen (左溪玄朗；673-754、律宗五祖慧正？；673-751) (p.87, 4th c.)
[q] which is huizen affiliated to, tiantai or vinaya?
用d. doctrinal bases for the social orientation of early chan practice
dyad of emphasis: inner realization v. outward-directed activity (p.90, 3rd c.)
習e. the use of retualized dialogue between teachers and students
i. the five skillful means of the northern school: the relation between retualization and socialization (p.92, 3rd c.)
ii. reiteration of misunderstanding about distinction between tang and song (p.93, 1st c.)
傳f. the widespread use of anecdote and dialogue in teaching
the great storyteller: heze shenhui (p.93, 3rd c.)
創 g. the fabrication of enlightenment narratives
double dealer (innovative use of chan text): fictionalized accounts in treatise on the transcendence of cognition, treatise on the true principle (中譯？), essential determination (頓悟真宗要訣) (p.94, 4th c.)
[q] '?'
退 h. the genealogical structure of chan dialogue
- lotus sutra (法華經)
- the transmission of treasure grove (禪林僧寶傳；1100)
i. rigid narrative structure (p.96, 4th c.)
ii. symmetrical structure: 'marga' (成佛之道) paradigm (p.97, 1st c.)
iii. from unipolar game-piece to bipolar - new chan style in post-shenhui era (p.98, 3rd c.)
D. 3 hypothesis: how encounter dialogues emerged? (p.99, 1st c.)
1. back room chatting
2. revelation for elegant public occasions by shenxiu and lao'an
3. 952ad (anthology of the patriarchal hall) - a watershed from discourses of celebrated masters and imperial or literati interlocutors to those of their disciples
E. 3 shift stages of chan teaching from oral to written: (p.99-100)
1. initial transcription from chang'an dialect to written forms:
vocal utterances, dialect perculiarities (p.100, 1st c.)
2. circulation, evaluation, selection: same stories, different actors (p.100, 2nd c.)
3. editorial modification:
linji yixuan (臨濟義玄；?-866): tendency to modify (removed away from actual participation; institutional transformations in song dyn.) to increase the perceived religious utility of the dialogues (p.100, 3rd c.)
附記
本報告提及之禪宗論著概略時間比較：
法華經 ?
金剛經 ?
楞伽經 ?
二入四行 535
牛頭絕觀 650
修心要論 760?
六祖壇經 760
朝鮮祖堂 950
景德傳燈 1000
頓悟真宗 1000?
禪林僧寶 1100?
克勤碧巖 1100?
慧開無門 1220
留言列表
神學一 (3)