.
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The purpose of this essay is to examine the
emergence of Ch'an Buddhism as a separate and
distinct sect in China. The argument is NOT that the
traditions concerning this emergence are unreliable,
but rather that attention to the historical context
of their compilation may help to explain some of the
distinctive features of Ch'an as a sect of Chinese
Buddhism. I will attempt to distinguish the Ch'an
traditions from the emergence of Ch'an as a
separtate sect of Chinese Buddhism. It may be that
some features of the traditional history of the
Ch'an sect are a reconstruction, after the fact, for
apologetic purposes.
Ch'an is an esoteric sect of Mahayana
Buddhism,in which the experience of enlightenment is
transmitted directly from master to disciple,
through the practice of seated meditation. The name
Ch'an itself suggests this singular focus on
meditation-practice, since it is the Chinese
pronunciation of dhyana, commonly translated by the
English word "meditation." Ch'an became a vigorous
reform movement within Chinese Buddhism, proposing
as its distinctive feature:
A special tradition outside the scriptures;
No dependence upon words and letters;
Direct pointing at the human soul;
Seeing into one's own nature and attaining
Buddhahood.(1)
Because of its esoteric nature, there would be
no necessity for Ch'an to exist as a separate sect.
Virtually all Buddhist sects of which I am aware,
including all the major sects of Chinese
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Buddhism, have esoteric elements within them, and
all sects teach and encourage the practice of seated
meditation, the focus of Ch'an traditions.
Furthermore, the formation of a separate and
distinct sect is contrary to the esoteric impulse,
since it brings into the open the intimate
relationship between master and disciple, and to
some extent compromises that relationship by
publicity. Because the major sects of Chinese
Buddhism were formed around a master's
interpretation of a specific scriptural text, the
reference to " a special tradition outside the
scriptures" would seem to weigh against the
emergence of Ch'an as a distinct sect in its own
right. Therefore, it is appropriate to ask what
explains this emergence.
The received tradition is that the Ch'an sect
was brought to China by a saint, Bodhidharma, who
"came from the West" in the mid-sixth century to
establish the sect in China. Reliable information
about Bodhidharma is tenuous. Dumoulin insists: "
that he existed and was a native of India can be
regarded as definitely established. " (2) According
to tradition, he was a dhyana master who enjoyed
great esteem and won many disciples. There is
textual evidence to suggest that he resided for a
time at the Yu ng-ning monastery on Mt. Sung, near
Lo-yang, during the early sixth century, and another
monastery nearby, Shao-lin, is also associated with
his name.
According to the received tradition,
Bodhidharma was the mediator of a tradition going
back to Shakyamuni himself: the Buddha once turned a
flower in his fingers while his face " broke into
laughter," only the disciple Kasyapa understood the
meaning of this laugher, and he was entrusted with
the "seal of the Buddha-mind" on which Ch'an
tradition rests.(3) Bodhidharma is the 28th
patriarch in the Indian succession, and the first in
the Chinese, of Ch'an patriarchs. However, as
Dumoulin admits, the tr adition concerning the Ch'an
patriarchate is by no means clear and unambiguous,
most especially so far as the Indian line is
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concerned, and the lists of Chinese Ch'an patriarchs
often include names which also occur in the
patriarchates of other sects of Chinese Buddhism,
notably Hua-yen. Let us consider the tradition of
Chinese succession in some detail.
Hui-k'o, Bodhidharma's successor, cannot be
separated from the legendary accretions surrounding
the career of his master, as is shown by the story
that he attained his patriarchate by cutting off his
arm and presenting it to Bodhidharma.(4) The facts
about Seng-ts'an, the third patriarch, are so spare
that even Tao-hsuan, the official historian of the
Ch'an patriarchate, does not accord him separate
treatment. (5) During the tenure of the fourth
patriarch, Tao-hsin,(6) a schism occurred when one
of his disciples, Fa-jung, founded a movement which
(according to Masunaga, and cited by Dumoulin) was
carried to Japan by Dengyo Daishi (the monk, Saicho,
who founded Tendai Buddhism in Japan). As we shall
see, the idea that Ch'an practice could exist within
another sect (T'ien-t'ai in China, Tendai in Japan)
is suggestive concerning the origins of Ch'an as a
separate sect.
Then, after the fifth patriarch, Hung-jen, came
the dramatic schism brought about by the controversy
over who would be the sixth patriarch. Shen-hsiu,
the foremost disciple of Hung-jen, appears to have
been accepted by the majority as deserving the
succession; however, an independent tradition grew
up that the master had secretly designated Hui-neng
as the sixth patriarch. This tradition became
entrenched in the South, and the collapse of the
northern traditions, apparently as a result of the
deat h of Shen-hsius's disciples during the T'ang
persecutions, left the southern tradition in
possession of the field.
Thus, in the normative tradition, Hui-neng,
the Sixth patriarch in the Chinese succession, is
regarded as the "second" and actual founder of
Ch'an, hallowed by many generations of disciples.
Modern scholars who have examined the sources of
bio-
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graphical information about him, the earliest of
which come from the late T'ang and Sung periods, do
not find that these sources inspire confidence.(7)
At the core of the traditions concerning Hui-neng
stands the dramatic episode of his nocturnal, and
therefore secret, succession, and his "flight to the
south" to escape the vengeance of his opponents.
Even Dumoulin, who gives credence to much of the
historical information about Hui-neng, sees the core
of this tradition as a "tendentious invention" aimed
at the enemies of the southern Ch'an schools, which
are represented in this tradition as the legitimate
successor to Bodhidharma. It appears that we do not
possess any historically reliable sources for either
the life or the teachings of Hui-neng.
The period from the death of Hui-neng (c.713)
until the persecution of Buddhism under the Emperor
Wu-tsung (842~45) is the Golden Age of Ch'an, about
which chronicles, sayings, and kung-an (koan)
collections, preserved mostly in Japan, furnish us
with virtually unlimited information. Only the
southern Ch'an schools survived and flourished after
the great persecution, and these traditions were
preserved and given their normative shape in the
so-called "Five Houses" of Ch'an Buddhism. Let us
now consid er some of the factors which may have
influenced the preservation and shaping of the Ch'an
traditions in the aftermath of the great persecution
of Buddhism in the later T'ang Dynasty.
It is characteristic of religious movements
under persecution that they preserve their histories
in forms that justify both the occurrence of
persecution and the survival of a "remnant." A
common theme of such histories is that of
repristination, i.e; that the surviving remnant
preserves the original, pure form of the religious
ideal which is embodied in their tradition, and that
the survival of the pure remnant is thus a mandate
for the radical reform of the community. The
repristination motif thus functions both as an
explanation of why the persecution came upon the
community (it has corrupted the purity of its
tradition), and as a
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justification of the remnant's survival.
The normative Ch'an tradition shows this
tendency. Ch'an preserves a "secret" tradition which
goes back to Shakyamuni himself, and which contains
the "essence"of his own experience of enlightenmest,
to be transmitted to future generations. This secret
is transmitted directly from Master to disciple
through non-verbal communication, based on the
practice of seated meditation. The clear implication
is that those sects which were destroyed had either
lost or corrupted the original, pure tradition, an d
were thus purged in order to allow the original
dharma to emerge from the purifying fires of
persecution. This view not only validates the
survivors' tradition (now in possession of the field
by default, as it were), but also provides a way to
deal with the well-attested phenomenon of "survival
guilt" associated with those who do survive such a
holocaust.(8) Thus Bodhidharma, the Founder, is
portrayed as wandering from place to place,
eventually reaching the cewter of Imperial power,
fearlessly preaching the fruitlessness of building
temples and reciting sutras... preaching those
activities whose " fruitlessness " was revealed by
the terrible persecution.
The practice of seated meditation is basic to
any form of monastic Buddhism whatsoever. Likewise,
any monastic establishment would include persons
responsible for teaching and overseeing this
practice. Such people would be dhyana "masters"
(i.e; teachers of meditation practice), in both name
and function. In such a monastery, the dharma master
might or might not be the same person responsible
for dhyana instruction. It seems plausible that a
person known to be a dhyana instructor in a given
monastery would not necessarily be the preserver and
transmitter of a distinctive sectarian tradition
(although he would, of course, be the preserver and
transmitter of a tradition about the practice of
seated meditation). This would explain a succession
of teachers (dhyana masters, in Chinese, Ch'an
masters) who need not be
P.396
representatives of a separate, sectarian tradition.
It is this phenomenon, I suggest, which underlies
the traditions about a pre- T'ang Dynasty Ch'an
"patriarchate, " and which also explains the
confusion between the Ch'an patriarchate and those
of other sects, especially Hua-yen, There is nothing
unique about Ch'an doctrine; it is an eclectic form
of Mahayana philosophy. So there is no contradiction
involved in a tradition of meditation practice
co-existing with the sectarian docrtines of the
various sects of Chinese Buddhism. Masters whose
names appear in the succession-lists of both Ch'an
and another sectarian tradition would simply be both
dharma- and dhyana-masters in their respective
monasteries.
The strong apologetic motif of the "flight to
the south," to avoid the wrath of those disappointed
by the secret succession of Hui-neng (Shen-hsiu and
his followers), is also understandable in this frame
of reference. Shen-hsiu represents the "mainstream"
of Chinese Buddhism, precisely those elemets which
would be wiped out by the persecution (as indeed the
northern tradition was). In the relatively isolated
monasteries of the south, those who fled would have
naturally looked back on their experience as
containing a message for future generations. This
message was eventually understood: they preserved
the pure, original insights upon which the tradition
rested for its liberating spiritual power. They had
survived--fleeing to the south as had the legendary
Hui-neng--in order to bear witness to future
generations concering the "essence" of the
tradition, embodied in the direct, immediate
experience of enlightenment out of which the dharma
originated. Scriptures, temples, icons might be
destroyed (as they were); masters of doctrinal
subtlety might by martyred or disappear into the
safety of anonymity; but the liberating power of the
tradition could be preserved within the framework of
meditation practice, in a word, ch'an. Thus the
purity of the tradition was restored, to be handed
down to future generations.
P.397
One final comment: It may be that there was an
esoteric practice within early Chinese Buddhism
which centered on meditation. The evidence is
suggestive. The rapid success of the Buddhist
mission in China points to a superiority over Taoist
folk religion, and this could well lie in the
superiority of meditation practice over the ancient
folk-Taoist "internal hygiene" (nei-tan). Among the
earliest Buddhist writings to be translated were
sutras which dealt with meditation and described the
stages of c onsciousness along the way to liberating
wisdom. We know that the earliest forms of
meditation practiced in China were the Amida vision
and the Prajna-paramita-samadhi, which sees through
the emptiness of all things. None of this is
reflected in the Mahayana philosophy which
characterizes the major sects prior to the emergence
of the Ch'an schools. The evidence indicates that
all the schools which were carried from China to
Japan prior to the great persecution contained an
esoteric element (including Tenda i, the source of
all the "popular" Buddhist movements in Japan).
If we acknowledge that the Ch'an schools
preserve an esoteric form of Mahayana Buddhism,
based on the practice of seated meditation, then the
Ch'an traditions do not falsify the history of
Buddhism in China, except in the sense that emphasis
on seated meditation and the direct experience of
enlightenment must be understood as a perspective on
Chinese Buddhism as a whole, rather that as a basis
for sectarian separatism.
At its best, Ch'an has never been sectarian in
spirit. Perhaps this revisionist perspective on its
early history may serve to reawaken its reforming
spirit for our age.
────────────
NOTES
(1) This famous four-line stanza is attributed to
Bodhidharma, but was actually formulated much
later; according to Suzuki [ Essays in Zen
Buddhism, vol.I,(London, 1933; new eds., 1950,
1958), p.176], the verses can be traced back no
further than Nan-ch'uan P'u-yuan, a Ch'an master
of the
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T'ang era (traditional dates, 748~834).
(2) A.History of Zen Buddhism (1969), p.69.
(3) Cf. Dumoulin, Wu-men Kuan: Der Pass ohne Tor
(Monumenta Nipponica Monograph No. 13; G, Tokyo,
1953), p.171ff. I have been unable to trace this
Kasyapa legend to sources outside the Ch'an
tradition, but I suspect that it would be
characteristic of esoteric Buddhism in general
to preserve such a story.
(4) Earliest information about Hui-k'o is found in
T'ang Dynasty sources; cf. Ching-Chueh (ed.),
Leng-ch'ieh shih-chih chi, in Ta chwun tsang,
vol. 51, pp.1284-86; Tu Fei, Ch'uan-fa pao-chi,
op, cit., p.1291.
(5) Cf.Ching -chu (ed.), Leng-ch'ieh shih chi, op.
cit p.1286; other sources appear to depend on
this account.
(6) Cf. Ching -chueh, as above, pp. 1286-89; Tu Fei,
as above, p.1291.
(7) For example, see Ching -chueh, as above, pp.
1291ff.; Tu Fei, as above, p. 1291; also the
anonymous source Li-tai fa-pao chi, op. Cit., p.
182.Sung Dynasty sources appear to depend on
these accounts. It is of interest that in all
the T'ang Dynasty sources Shen hsiu represents
the main Line of succession. Ui, in Zenshuu
Kenkyuu (Cf. Dumoulin, A History of Zen
Buddhism, p.302, n.1), examines fifteen primary
sources of biographical information about
Hui-neng and concludes that none of them can be
traced with confidence to a time prior to the
great T'ang persecutions.
(8) See Robert J.Lifton, Death In Life: Survivors of
Hiro-shima (New York, 1967), esp. Chapter 12,
"The Survivor."
P.399
提要
本文目的，在於探索禪宗何以在中國佛教以不同的宗派
出現。要討論的，並非謂傳統上所述禪宗如何成立的講法為
不可信，而是注意到記載這些史事的史籍如何編成，或有助
於解釋禪宗的特有風貌。
禪宗被認定是大乘佛教的秘傳宗派且曾在中國佛教內有
過強有力的改革；禪宗是由菩提達磨帶進中國來，他有一代
一代的華夏繼承人，而這些繼承人之中有若干人郤同時是其
它宗派的祖師；自五祖而後，禪宗戲刻性地分裂，北宗以神
秀為首，南方則以慧能為首，後來北宗可能由於唐武宗的毀
佛而消沈，而南宗取得了正統地位。
作者指出一般宗教運動的特性為：舉凡一個宗教受到逼
害之後，其教史必然探究教難何以發生？又檢討教難後還遺
留了些什麼？一般而言，這類宗教史籍會顯示出倖存者保存
了最原始、最純真的教旨，而這既原始又純真的教旨郤反映
了倖存者這一派的傳統，於是倖存者們便接管了一切，連最
初的改革運動亦出於他們之手了。
標準的禪宗傳統顯示了上述的趨向，也就是說，當教史
記載他們的創始者曾在說法中申言建寺誦經無用，這是他們
經歷了可佈的滅法運動，覺得寺院建成終會被毀，經典寫成
終會被燒的反映。又慧能向南逃亡的故事，其主題也可從上
述架構中弄個明白：由於武宗毀佛，倖存者逃亡到南方避難
後，覺得誦經無用，因而提出佛法中原本所無的 [ 頓悟 ]
之說，為了使後世禪師信服，乃有慧能創頓教之說。
進一步，本文作者指出以下兩點： (一)禪宗的修禪方式
跟中國其它佛教宗派的教義並無牴牾之處。(二 ) 早期的中
國佛教可能有一祕傳的修行方式，而這方式是以坐禪為中心
。