A. THE ROOT MASTERS OF TRUE CHAN TRADITION

白馬寺

THE WHITE HORSE TEMPLE

THE FIRST TEMPLE OF BUDDHA DHARMA IN CHINA

THE TRUE ORIGINAL MASTERS OF THE  CHAN  TRANSMISSION

安世高  An Shigao   (An Shih Kao)     148-170

智禅   Zhichan   (Chih Chan)           147-200

佛圖 澄 Fotu Deng  (Fo-tu Teng)        232-348

竺法護  Zhu Fahu   (Chu Fa Hu)         200-291

 竺发达 Zhu Fadai   (Chu Fa Tai)       317-385

止頓道 林 Zhidun Daolin (Chih-tun Tao-lin) 314-366

道安 Dao'an         (Tao An)             312-385

慧遠 Huiyuan        (Hui Yuan)         337-417

道生 Dào shēng    (Tao Sheng)      355 425

僧肇 Sengzhao    (Seng Chao)      373-414

僧朗 Senglang      (Seng-lang)       410-510?

法朗 Falang         (Fa-Lang)           507-581

吉藏  Jizang         (Chi-tsang)        549 623

智觀  Zhiguan        (Chih-kuan)             502-557

智凯  Zhikai           (Chih-Kai )        533-610

Now we have the curious case of the following masters of the theoretical Lanka tradition:

慧可  Dazu Huike            (T’ai-tsu Hui-k’o)       487 - 593

僧燦  Jianzhi Sengcan   (Chien-shih Seng-ts’an)  - 606

道信  Daoxin                    (Tao-hsin)        580-651.

弘忍  Hongren                 (Hung-jen)       601-674.

together with

玉泉神秀 Yuquan Shenxiu   (Shen-hsui)    605-706

大鑒惠能 Dajian Huineng Huìnéng (Hui-neng)   638-713

Clarified and strongly supported by eighth- and ninth-century documents hidden away for over a thousand years in a sealed cave library in the desert region of Dunhuang 敦煌, recently edited and published in China and Japan, we hear about the Chan lineage introduced about  A.D. 700, when the Empress Wu 武后 invited an old Chan monk, over ninety years old, from the Lanka School 楞伽宗, to visit her at the capital city of Changan.

The monk was Shenxiu 神秀, who was famous for his meditation practice and ascetic life at his retreat in the Wutang Mountains 武當山.

When he arrived, the Empress was said to have done him the unusual honor of curtsying and making him a guest in one of her palaces. Her two emperor-sons ( deposed in 684 and 690) and the whole Court are said to have respected him and sat at his feet for teachings.

For four years he was honored as "the Lord of the Law at the Two National Capitals of Changan and Loyang, and the Teacher of Three Emperors."

When he died in 705, he was mourned officially by the Court and hundreds of thousands of the populace.

By imperial order, three monasteries were built in his memory, one at the Capital, one at his birthplace in Honan, and one at the place of his meditations. A brother of the two emperors and the prose writer Chang Yueh 張群 wrote his biographical monuments.

In the text of Zhāng​qún​ (Chang Yueh), this genealogical line of Shenxui's Dharma descent was made public:

 Po-ti-da-ma  菩提達摩 (Bodhidharma, बोधिधर्म) about 440 - 528.

Huike (慧可)         487 - 593

Sengcan (僧燦)       ? - 606

Daoxin (道信)       580 - 651

Hongren (弘忍)     601 - 674

After Shenxiu's death, P'u-chi 普寂 and I-fu 義福  continued to be honored as National Teachers of the Chinese Empire.

This list remained unchallenged until 735 sixty one years after the death of  Hongren (弘忍) and was accepted as one of the several lines of Dharma descent presented in the Lanka model deriving from  Bodhidharma.

An early fragmentary document 楞伽人法志, known, as the Records of the Masters and the Law of the Lanka School, which was written after the death of Shenxiu in 706 by one of the latter's fellow students, was quoted in another history of the Lanka model written and preserved among the Tunhuang manuscripts.

It was stated that the Master Hongren had said before his death that there were eleven disciples who could carry on his teaching. 

He mentioned nothing of lineage or direct succession.

This list of eleven includes Shenxui (Shen-hsiu) as number one and Zhishen, 智詵, (Chih-hsin) as number two,

The second man on the list,  Zhishen (died 702), was a teacher of Chan in western China from whom descended two important models which the historian Zongmi mentioned as two of the seven important models of Ch'an of the eighth century, before the two models descended from Zhishen became nationally famous.

Dajian Huineng (大鑒惠能 ) was number eight.

The claim that he alone was the secret transmitter of the true teaching and the inheritor of "the robe of the Patriarchs" was in all probability a myth, an invention of a monk, Shenhui 神会 (Shen-hui) 670-762, who was thirty years old when Shenxui died.

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Shenhui's invention

In the year 734, twenty eight years after the death of Shenxiu when Pu-ji was still at the height of his influence and prestige, a southern monk, Shen-hui 神會, then about 64 years old, stood up at a large gathering in a monastery in Huatai 滑臺 in modern Honan and openly challenged the Zhāng​qún​ (Chang Yueh) line of descent. He claimed that Shenxiu and his teachings were not valid and not historical.

"Bodhidharma," said this strange monk, "gave to Huike an outer robe (jiāshā​​, 袈裟 ) as testimonial of the transmission of the true Law.

"This robe was handed down by Huike to his chosen successor, and in four generations it came to Hongen.

"But Hongen gave it, not to Shenxiu, but to Huineng 慧能 of Shaochou 韶州 in the South." And he went on to say: "Even Shenxiu himself always said that the robe of transmission had gone to the South. That is why he never claimed in his life-time that he was the sixth successor.

"But now the Chan master Pu-ji claims that he is the seventh generation, thereby falsely establishing his teacher, Shenxiu, to be the sixth successor. That is not to be permitted."

One monk at the meeting raised this warning: "You are attacking the Ch'an master Pu-ji who is nationally known and nationally honored. Are you not risking your own life?"

To this Shenhui replied: "I have called this solemn gathering for the sole purpose of determining the true teaching and settling a great question of right and wrong — for the benefit of all who desire to learn the Truth. I do not care for my own life."

Yet it was clear in so doing he placed himself as the only generator of Huineng's ideas, and thus in the shoes of the so called seventh patriarch.

He declared that the teachings of Shenxiu and Puji were false, because they taught a Gradual Enlightenment not a Sudden one.

"The great teachers of the School, throughout six generations, have all taught 'the sword must pierce directly through,' directly pointing to the sudden realization of one's nature: they never talked about gradations of enlightenment. All those who want to learn the Dao (Way) must achieve Sudden Enlightenment to be followed by Gradual Cultivation. It is like child-birth, which is a sudden affair, but the child will require a long process of nurture and education before he attains his full bodily and intellectual growth."

He condemned the dhyana practice taught by Puji and fellow students of Shenxiu.

This was the fourfold formula of Shenxiu:

First, "concentrating the mind in order to enter dhyana".

Second, "settling the mind in that state by watching its forms of purity".

Third,  "arousing the mind to shine in insight".

Finally "controlling the mind for its inner verification" .

Analysis of these phases shows them to be:

First, "concentration upon breathing".

Second, "the attainment of attentive Defensive Qi".

Third,  "the no-mind and no-action, permitting the passing into the direct experiences".

Finally," the discernment of the liberation".

Shenhui said, "all this is "hindrance to bodhi (awakening)", and he swept aside all forms of sitting in meditation (zou chan, 坐禪), which then must nclude the present zazen practiced by the Soto model, as entirely unnecessary.

He said: "If it is right to sit in meditation, then why should Vimalakiirti scold Saariputta for sitting in meditation in the woods? Here in my school, to have no thoughts is meditation-sitting, and to see one's original nature is dhyaana (chan)."

Shenhui proceeded from denunciation to the pronouncement of a new Chan which renounces Chan itself and was therefore no Chan at all. 

Shenhui could not claim that the idea of a sudden enlightenment was a new theory, because that concept had been introduced by Chan's early pioneers and later by Bodhidharma as a separate line, but he referred to a lineage from Bodhidharma, namely, the true teachings of the six generations of the school of Bodhidharma, which was false:

Po-ti-da-ma (Bodhidharma)

Huike   

Sengcan

Daoxin  

Hongren

Huenang

This attempt at a political coup took place in 734 in a monastery in Huatai, a provincial capital. Five years later the Chan master Pu-jhi died. In his biographical monument written by the Li Yong 李邕 (678-747), the genealogical line from Bodhidharma to Shenxui was repeated.

It was recorded that he told his disciples, "I was entrusted by my deceased Master with the transmission of the Secret Seal of the Law." 

Previously in 745, Shenhui was called to the Heze Monastery at Loyang, He was then seventy-seven and remained there more than eight years.

From this monastery, he now repeated his open challenge claiming that Shenxhiu, Yi-fu, and Pu-ji were teachings "Gradual Enlightenment " and were false.

He invented apocryphal stories about Bodhidharma's life, such as his interview with the Emperor of Liang and the tale of the second Patriarch's cutting off his own arm to show his earnest desire for instruction. They are today are further embellished and form part of the  traditional history of Chinese Ch'an and modern Zen which adpts are induced to believe and do so willingly.

GRADUAL VERSUS SUDDEN

First it must be mentioned that there is sufficient evidence which supports the idea that the protagonists in the fabled poetry contest, Shenxui and Huineng, never resided at the Hongren monastery on Tung Shan at the same time, so the base of that argument is fiction.

In all later Chan documents the East Mountain school of thought , which was the name given to those who came from Shenxui discipline, was represented as "Gradual awakening" and the Southern school of thought as "Sudden".

This distinction we now know to be also false in great measure, for the now falsly labelled Northern views on practice and enlightenment reveal a "sudden" position, while Southern literature written during less heated moments frankly acknowledges the need to spend time preparing oneself for the moment of ‘sudden’ enlightenment.

Furthermore, ironically, during the famous Council of Lhasa held in Tibet in 792 to debate the "sudden and gradualist positions", Indian monks argued the gradualist position, and an East Mountain (Northern model) monk represented the sudden position.

It is abundantly clear to those who have extensive contemplation experience that no matter what length of time one specifies from the beginning of practice to the attainment of Awakening or any direct experience, it becomes ‘gradual’ only because the two are arbitrarily separated by some criteria.

Historical examination of the controversy reveals many problems with the traditional account of both the events themselves and the views ascribed to each side.

 CONSEQUENCES

Shenhui was eloquent and his teachings popular because they were easy to understand and practice, although his ctual contemplation practices were never defined at all and in fact did not differ from Shenxiu's except that Shenhui had defined the preparatory steps that were neccessary for the majority of Chan followers.

His popularity was attracting popular support, so he was accused of gathering large crowds of lay people around him that might be a fount of "conspiracy injurious to the interests of the State." The Emperor Hsuan-tsung 玄宗 after an interview with him, exiled him to live in Yiyang 弋陽 in Kiangsi, and he was transferred to three other places in the next two years.

At the end of this third year of exile between 755 and 756,  the great rebellion of General An Lu-shan 安祿山  threatened to overthrow the great T'ang Dynasty.

The rebel armies, starting out from the northeastern provinces and sweeping across the northern plains, had great success. The Emporer fled. For the new Emperor, the great problem was how to raise money to carry on the war.

One of the emergency measures was the insidious measure of selling Buddhist "licenses" (dudie 度牒 ) for ordaining new  monks and nuns. Shenhui was remembered, probably by his Chan friends like Miao Jin-qing 苗晉卿 and Fang Guan 房琯, who had become leaders in the war government and to push the sales. Shenhui at the age of 89 was enlisted, preaching to large crowds.

The new Emperor, in appreciation of his work,  made him the honored guest of the Empire. Shenhui died in 760 at the age of ninety-two. Four years later In 770, an imperial decree named his chapel "The Hall of Praj~naa Transmission of the True School."

Later Tsungmi 宗密 (died 841) reports that in 796 Emperor Te-tsung 德宗 asked the heir apparent to call a council of Ch'an masters to determine the true teaching of Chan and settle the controversy.  As a result, probably con politicl influnce  "the Master of Heze" (Shenhui) was established by imperial degree as the "Seventh Patriarch".

Thus without being specifically stated, Huineng posthumously was elevated to the sixth patriarch position and in 815, at the request of the Viceroy of Lingnan, an imperial decree conferred posthumous honors on Huineng, who "had died 106 years previously, and deignated him The Master of Great Insight." "

Local Buddhists and lay public requested two of the great writers of the age, Liu Tsung-yuan 柳宗元 (died 819) and Liu Yu-hsi 劉禹錫 (died 842), to write two biographical monuments in memory of Hui-neng.

The madness of lineages had begun and would in religious Buddhism be perpetuated the followers of the Masters of the Golden age to ally their teachings to the new order, without substance, but enforcing their legitimacy through the fabricated lineage to Buddha himself.

Is there a Lineage in the Tibetan and Zen sense?

Certainly not! What is true transmission?

It is the receipt of Inspiration and Teachings, which can stem from one or many sources.