4. JIANZHI SENGCAN 鑑智僧璨 and his Dharma Heir

GUNAPABADRHA 求那跋陀羅

BODHIDHARMA 菩提達摩

Huike (慧可) 487-593

Investigation of the connection with the Lankavatara teachings

鑑智僧 Jianzhi Sengcan (Chien-chih Seng-ts'an) ?–606

In orthodox Buddhism, what would be presented here is a long list of ancestors in a lineage, suggesting the direct transmission from one master to one Dharma heir, ignoring the truth of history. The legends were created by later orthodox masters who sought to make a connection to Bodhidharma.

It is said that ln 592 Sengcan initiated Daoxin into the profound doctrines of Chan. This was eight years before he died. Scholarship sheds great doubts about that first connection between Sengcan and Daoxin. Orthodox teachings insist, though proof is to the contrary, that Master Daoxin was his most important, if not the only, disciple. This proves not to be the case.

There was another Dharma heir called Vinītaruci 毘尼多流支, and he died in 594, which meant that in terms of an appropriate lineage connection Sengcan died without a "lineage" heir.

If one was looking for the ideal candidate for a fictitious connection with Bodhidharma, and thus with Buddha, Sengcan is an excellent candidate. Little is known of his life and teachings and he only had one acceptable Dharma heir, so Daoxin fit then perfectly. This is of course idle speculation which reflects upon the perpetrators not upon the great masters themselves.

鑑智僧 Jianzhi Sengcan ?–606

Vinītaruci 毘尼多流支 ~594,

What about Sengcan's connection with Huike? Was it sufficient, if it existed at all, for the transmission of Lankavatara teachings and related contemplations?

 Although Sengcan's birthplace and birth date are unknown, according to The Transmission of the Lamp (伝灯録), written much later in the thirteenth century, he was a layman over forty years old when he met Huike in 551. He remained with Huike for two years. . c.He  was with e.

Anticipating the persecution of Buddhists, Huike then ordered Sengcan to hide in the mountains and not to teach, so he remained in seclusion, dwelling in no fixed place. He died there in 606.

c

The conversion of Sengcan by Huike is recorded in the The Transmission of the Lamp, Part 3:

The important conversation between them that set Sengcan on the Dharma path took place in the following manner:

弟子身纏風恙、請和尚懺罪。

將罪來、與汝懺。

覓罪不可得

與汝懺罪竟。宜依佛法僧住。

今見和尚、已知是僧。未審何名佛、法。

I am riddled with sickness; please absolve me of my sin.

Bring me your sin and I will absolve you.

When I look for my sin I cannot find it.

I have absolved you. 

You should live by the Buddha, the Teaching, and the Community.

However, the translation and the like are themselves riddled with sickness.

A better translation would read:

弟子身纏風恙、請和尚懺罪。

(This) follower's life is tangled in worry, please pacify and still remorse feelings and guilt.

將罪來、與汝懺。

Invite your remorse feelings to arrive (manifest itself) together with guilt

覓罪不可得

(I) seek fault (and) cannot obtain

與汝懺罪竟

AH, Thou feel remorse and guilt unexpectedly (without reason)

宜依佛法僧住。

You should listen to the Dharma and dwell in the Buddhist monastic order

今見和尚 已知是僧。

Now (you) appear to be a Buddhist monk、

(you) are known to be a monk

未審何名佛、法。

(you) have not carried the name of Buddha and the Buddhist teachings

It appears less as a koan or a teaching in and of itself, but a valid reproach and advice, remembering that he was a follower of the Dharma, a sincere layman for over forty years old when he met Huike in 551.

The general sense remains the same, however we get a better idea of an actual Dharma follower who is looking for an advance in his life in which he still suffers. He is told to bring out the feelings of remorse and guilt and naturally all he has is the experience itself and cannot find the root fault.

What we are interested here is in trying to glean from the works of the old Masters gems of understanding which will help contemplators reach an awakening. We do this by tracing the passing of practices and teachings which they passed to their Dharma heirs. 

Furthermore, we must also remember that "to carry the name of the Buddha" is not necessarily the same as Carrying the Nature the mind of Buddha and might be more akin to the Avatamsaka form of Contemplations which we find in the teachings of Daoxin.

What do we know of Sengan's teachings?

From the poem, at least we can deduce that chanting the Buddha's name was a central practice, but actually we know very little more. Of all the Chan masters, Sengcan is the most ambiguous and the least known.

Most of what is known comes from the Transmission of the Lamp

However, most modern scholars have some doubts about the historical accuracy of the Lamp records. The earliest record names Sengcan is in Further Biographies of Eminent Monks by Daoxin (?- 667) where Sengcan is named immediately after Huike’s name. Sengcan is also named as one of seven disciples of Huike in a biographical entry of the Lankavatara Sutra master, Fa-ch’ung (587-665).

No further information is given (cf. Dumoulin, pp 96–97). It was not until the Records of the Transmission of the Dharma-treasure , compiled about 710 and drawing on the stories in the Further Biographies of Eminent Monks, that a teaching “lineage” for Chan was created.

One possible source for information is the famous poem Trust-mind Incription, but once more the authorship is questionable.

Contemporary scholarship doubts whether Sengcan was in fact the author as there is no record that Huike or Sengcan ever wrote anything. The expressions and idioms used in the work have caused many scholars to place the date of its composition later.

Furthermore, the similarity between the Hsin-hsin Ming and the Hsin Ming of Niu-t'ou Fa-jung (594-657), living at the time of Daoxin, has caused scholars to speculate that Hsin-hsin Ming was actually written after the time of the sixth patriarch Hui-neng3(638-713), as an improved version of the Mind Inscription.

Now if the Mind incription here examined represents the teachings and contemplations of Sengcan then we would expect some concordance with his student Vinītaruci 毘尼多流支 ~594, and less so with Daoxin, who appears not to have been his student.

We can probably exclude Daoxin as a Dharma heir of Sengcan in terms of Dharma absorption, but there was another disciple, however, Vinītaruci 毘尼多流支, who is totally ignored. After obtaining the Dharma Mind seal he became an abbot in South China and then in 580, twelve years begfore Daoxin's Dharma seal was theoretically given, went to Vietnam at Sengan's command.

Yet this important figure appears to have been shunted aside and neglected although his importance as a Dharma heir of the Lanka model is immense.

So let us first examine Vinītaruci's life and teachings

Orthodox history, bending the facts to suit its samsaric expedient means, declares that Daoxin was Sencan's Dharma heir and as a result the great importnce of Vinitaruci has been shunted aside.

He was not the first Dharma master to teach in Vietnam, but he had had the greatest impact. Other Dharma teachers had arrived from India in the first century, even before missionaries had entered China, for Vietnam was on the silk route, so that would have been the first natural espansion.

By the second and third centuries there were actually established and stable communities directed by Mau Bac (Mao po) y KhoungTang Hoi (K’ang Seng Hui).

The ground had been prepared and when Vinitaruci arrived the teachings of Sencan were the first to really take root in Vietnam, to be followed much later by the teachings of Wu Yen T'ung, who had studied in China with Master Pai- Chang.

Vinītaruci (毘尼多流支, ?–594)

Vinītaruci  means subdued pleasure (滅喜). He was born in 574 and went to Chang-an (長安), China, in search of the Dharma.

It is said that he met and became a Dharma heir of Sengcan 僧璨, who transmitted to him the Mind Seal and commanded him to go to southern China to deliver the multitudes.

He then went down south to Guangdong Province and became the abbot of the Zhizhie Temple (制止寺) in the city of Guangzhou. There he translated, from Sanskrit into Chinese, the Mahāyāna Vaipulya Sūtra of Total Retention and the Buddha Pronounces the Sūtra of the Elephant Head Ashram (CBETA, T14n0466).

In 580, the twelfth year of the Taijian years, Vinītaruci went to northern Vietnam and became the abbot of the Fayun Temple (法雲寺). He started his Vinītaruci Chan School and spread the Dharma in Vietnam for over ten years until his death in 594.

The Vinītaruci Chan School prospered in Vietnam for over six hundred years. His disciple Faxian (法賢, ?–626) was the first patriarch who successively passed the lineage down to Yishan (依山, ?–1216). Then this Chan School declined into obscurity. 

Other early Vietnamese Zen schools included the Thao Duong, (Thảo Đường), which also incorporated nianfo chanting techniques, and Vo Ngon Thong (Vô Ngôn Thông), which was associated with the teaching of Mazu.

But Vinītaruci's teachings included that true "suchness" and that the Buddha nature are never born and never perish and that all sentient beings have the same nature of true suchness or tathata (眞如).

This "suchness" expresses appreciation of the true nature of reality in any given moment. As no moment is exactly the same, each moment can be savored for what occurs at that precise time, independent of its intrinsic nature as natural or stained.

Examine this extract from the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, or Perfection of Wisdom,  on Tathagata-Suchness and Emptiness

Suchness and Emptiness go hand in hand as part of the Prajnaparamita literature, and if indeed, as we suspect, these themes were also central to Vinītaruci's master Sengcan, then that master is divorced from Huike as a Dharma heir.

However the Trust-Mind inscription is also filled with references to Suchness and Emptiness so we are no further in ascribing authorship of that text.

If the claim that the Trust-Mind Inscription is authored by Daoxin is substantiated we cannot rule out a Sengcan Daoxin connection on the base of belief systems.

But we can further examine Sengcan's beliefs through Vinītaruci's probable adherence to the little known sutra called the Sutra of Total Retention (大乘方廣總持經), the title of which is better rendered as: The Upright Great Vehicle Scripture to Spread and Always Maintain, in which Buddha declares.

Do not reject hearing, studying, or accepting the voice hearer sutras.

Suppose there are sentient beings that say these words: ‘Bodhisattvas should not hear, study, or accept the sutras the Buddha has pronounced for voice-hearers. These are not the true Dharma, nor the right path. ....’ Their contradictory words and actions are not in accord with the sutras.

Accept the Bodhi Mind.

Then the Buddha told Maitreya Bodhisattva-Mahasattva, “If, among good men and good women, there are those who have activated the bodhi mind and will accept and uphold, read and recite, and explain to others this Mahayana Vaipulya Sutra of Total Retention, we know that these people will not go down the evil life-paths.”

Do not teach only Emptiness.

The Bhikku Pure Life was transforming the sentient beings in that city only by means of the Vaipulya Dharma of Emptiness... What the bhikhu Pure Life says is filthy and impure.

(Fools) only praise the Dharma of Emptiness and claim that what they say is the Bodhi Way and the Bodhisattva action, and that only this Dharma is the true Dharma while all other Dharmas are not.

Do not only cultivate Prajnaparamita.

Those fools falsely claim that one can attain bodhi by cultivating prajña-paramita only. There is nothing right about their claim...Only prajña-paramita is the Tathagata action, the Bodhisattva action, and the sweet nectar action.’”

The Buddha told Mañjusri, “Their words contradict the Dharma.

The fools who believe in what they fixate on may say these words: ‘Bodhisattvas should learn prajña-paramita only. Do not learn other paramitas because prajña-paramita is the supreme.’ This statement is incorrect.

This places Segcan and his Dharma heirs outside the Huike influence.

We must conclude that Sengcan's teachings were both Emptiness-based and also Prajnaparamita-based. The going beyond the emptiness of the mind is certainly indicated as a contemplation.

Does the Heart Sutra guide us in the understanding of the method?

It declares:

Therefore I know Prajna paramita (is) the great holy mantram, the great untainted mantram,

ZE MU JO SHU ZE MU TO DO SHU NO JO IS SAI KU SHIN JITSU FU KO

the supreme mantram, the incomparable mantram. Is capable of assuaging all suffering. True not false.

KO SETSU HAN NYA HA PA MIT TA SHU SOKU SETSU SHU WATSU

Therefore he proclaimed Prajna paramita mantram and proclaimed mantram saying

GYA TE GYA TE HA RA GYA TE HA RA SO GYA TE BO DHI SO WA KA

gone, gone, to the other shore gone, reach (go) enlightenment accomplish.

We then must look at Daoxin and his teachings and practices to see if there is any connection between their Dharma teachings and contemplations.

 We must conclude that there was not. He was obscure and unknown and therfore a perfect target for inclusion within an invented lineage.

It is also interesting that an East Mountain Chan Master Zhanran (711-788), who spent energy and prestige tryng to get Master Sengcan recognition of some sort or another.

He is distinct from the Tiantai master Zhanran (711-788).

Sometime between 746 and 762 Zhanran moved to the Shangusi at Wangongshan in Shuzhou (present-day Anhui Province). He had been made the Administrator of the temple and acted as a care-taker of the pagoda erected at Wangongshan for Sengcan. Certainly not a high position of either teaching or contemplation merit.

He stayed at the Shangusi and became its supreme leader by the early 770s, when he initiated a campaign promoting the prestige of Sengcan.

He was supported by three of his fellow-monks and two powerful local officials, this campaign succeeded in securing from the imperial court nothing more than a formal title for Sengcan and a name for his Wangongshan stupa.

It was certain then that Sengcan had little importance relative to the other great masters at that time.

As a footnote we can add, that Zhanran's reputation grew significantly following this successful effort he took a role in defending the East Mountain (northern) Chan tradition.

For political and/or religious reasons, he was defeated and was expelled from the debate with his followers and died days later.

.e.