5. JINGZHONG SHENHUI 浄衆神会

It was this Suizhou Daoyuan (Sui-chou Tao-yüan) whom Zongmi claimed as his own teacher. There is no mention of this monk except in Zongmi's biography.

This was a subtle deception which came with traditional confusion and questionable expedient means with regard to the identity of Weizong, who was also known as I-chou Nanyin, being the teacher of 沈昭 Chenzhao (776-883) and this 圣寿南印 Suizhou Daoyuan (750-820). 

This Zhang Weizong was clearly one of Jingzhong Shenhui's principal disciples. Records show that he claims to have studied the words of Huineng and, not understanding them, went to Jingzhong Shenhui for teachings regarding them. So if it was at all true, Nanyin first trained under Heze Shenhui or his disciple Cizhou Zhiru before going to Sichuan, becoming one of Jingzhong Shenhui’s important disciples.

Nevertheless, in the stampede to ally with the newly invented Huineng lineage, he claims lineage from that brief association.

We cannot even be sure that Zhang Weizong's claim is valid or whether he simply stepped into the shoes of another Weizong (705-782), who was actually a disciple of Heze Shenhui, by his own design or if it was a later manipulation in order to make a better claim.

There is however a record in the Lidai fabao ji that tells of his passing on of "the robe" to Weizong, also known as I-chou Nanyin.

In terms of the traditional idea of lineage, this was indeed a deception, but remember that the idea of lineage was an invention of that equally  fraudulent Golden Age and the term "zong" (tsong) also signified "model," or even "source of inspiration."

However, Zongmi, apparently accepted this claim, and we can give Zongmi the benefit of doubt and consider that indeed he received his transmission of understanding from the Jingzhong Shenhui teachings, but felt his inspiration was received from the Heze Shenhui transmission of the false Huneng scriptures of the Platform Sutra.

This Zhang Weizong (Nanyin), of questionable Heze allegiance, was installed as abbot of Shengshou Monastery in Chengdu in 807, the same year in which Zongmi obtained the "mind seal" from Nanyin’s disciple Daoyuan.

This is not an awakening by any means, but a teaching in terms of the "Buddhist Mind Only”, which consists in a profound understanding of the stabilized mind, in which there is a constant awareness of one mind with two aspects, which was so important for Zongmi's philosophy.

We can in the vision of Zongmi imagine it as the conceptualized awareness on one hand and the unnamed awareness that is the Buddha aspect beyond.

Were the teachings of Jingzhong Shenhui different from those he may have received from Suizhou Daoyuan by way of Zhang Weizong? Knowing that may give us a better idea of the subtleties of Zongmi's conceptual and contemplation development. Unfortunately we have too little information available, so we can only move back to the teachings of Zhang Weizong.

The teachings were in essence East Mountain Teachings, pejoratively called "Northern teachings," which which Zongmi could not lineage-wise join himself, believing in the supremacy of Huineng's Contemplation by direct means, but still that influence persisted and if nothing conflicted then it is logical that it be accepted.

Apart from Jingzhong Shenhui,  Jingzhong Wuxiang  who is known also as Master, 金和尚 Kim Ho-shang, had other famous students. Among them were 無住禪師, Baotang Wuzhu (714–774), Suizhou (Sang-shi), Tong Guanxian Xiu (Tongchuan Ji) and  Mazu Daoyi (709-788), also known as Zhangsong Ma.

It was through Suizhou in about 750 that Chan Dharma became known in Tibet by the Nyingmapa when he revealed three Dharma texts of Wuxiang. His other student, Wuzhu of the Baotang Model, had his teachings also transmitted in Tibet by Ye-shes Wangpo.

Finally it was the famous East Mountain Model master 和尚摩訶衍, Heshang Moheyan, who transmitted what may have been a synthesis of the Northern School of Chan and the Baotang School, in the famous Sudden/Gradual Council Lhasa debate in Tibet in the late eighth century.

This shows clearly the influence of Jingzhong Wuxiang on the Buddha Dharma scene in China at that time and it is his words that may be used to give an idea of Suizhou Daoyuan's influence upon Zongmi. There is also no doubt that these teachings were considered as teachings concerning "direct" access to the Buddha mind.

The most important, even essential teaching for Zongmi was the 無想門, Gate of no-conceptualization. In contemplation that is reflected in the ultimate conceptualization of Awareness, thus the Awareness beyond Awareness.

That is reflected in the part of Brahmacarya Wang's poem:

The eye of wisdom is close to the mind of emptiness

Not the holes that open into your skull.

You don't recognize what (that) facing you says

"It doesn't matter that your mother's name is respectable."

This is very subtle, but worth the time taken in seeing the connection.

As a contemplator, not as an intellectual scholar, look also at the following teaching, common to both Wuxiang and Wuzhu:

Take no-thought as the precepts

The nature of the precept is like emptiness.

What else important did Wuxuang teach? We have Wuxiang's three oft-repeated phrases, "no-recollection, no-thought and no-forgetting," 莫忆莫念莫忘, mo yi mo niàn mo wàng, understanding that no "thought" really means no "ideation," which is cognitive.

Actually, if we read the phrase using the alternative translation of "mo" as meaning "there is none who," the sense is more profound, for it negates all Identity relation in the mental processes of remembering (from memory), consequent idea-generation (within cognition) and  forgetting (the alternative translation being "not neglecting," or "not overlooking," for mo wàng).

Zongmi mentions that Wuzu took the third part as meaning "no delusion" not "no forgetting" and took great exception to this.

Anyway, we do obtain a necessary view of Zogmi's position by his separation of Wuxiang and Wuzhu, declaring that their teachings were different, with the idea that there was with Wuzhu the erroneous notion of "extinguishing consciousness by NOT adhering to the teachings and practices."

If one looks closely at this, we find the clear importance in Zongmi's view of extinguishing consciousness and his objection was that that extinguishing cannot be obtained without adherence to both teachings and practice.

He is then effectively declaring that teachings and naturally their understanding are necessary in order to extinguish that last cognitive consciousness.

This, it is suggested, may well be why he missed the important element of the "direct" entry to the Buddha-mind which was later placed in his hands in his later fortuitous teachings from Huayen.

The importance of his teachings, however led to a clarity with regard to alternative "direct" contemplations.

• Publisher: Columbia University Press (June 23, 2007)

• Language: English

• ISBN-10: 0231136641

• ISBN-13: 978-0231136648