The Development of Chan in China
Compiled by Venerable Chan Master Shan-jiàn
山见 大禅 师 禪
Sources :
BLUE CLIFF RECORD 碧 岩录
GATELESS GATE 無門關
RECORDS OF SILENCE: 禅苑清規 CHANYUEN-CHINGKUEI
The Record of the Transmission of the Light. Ch'uan Teng Lu'
THE DENKOROKU:
Record of the Masters and Disciples of the Lankavatara 楞伽師資記
禪
The character pronounced "Chan" in Chinese (Pronounced "Zen" in Japanese) signifies “meditation” and is a transliteration of the Sanskrit term "dhyana". Yet Chan is a school that does not accept meditation as it is normally practiced or understood as concentration. It emphasizes and practices contemplation in a Daoist sense as "total absorption" which is identical to the Mahamudra state than can accompany normal living. It is the task of the “awakening” to meld the understanding with the world of illusion in a manner in which the adept can use illusion yet never be trapped by that illusion, converting it in the delusory view of duality. This creates a different perspective with regard to the illusions of this life and generates what we can call a “Pure Land” perception free of mental, emotional or visceral contamination. It is simply “being” and allowing the natural to occur without cognitive agitation or control. This re-converts the mind to its natural place as a tool and eliminates its delusory power as a master of attitudes, intentions and actions.
The Chan Master Dharma Heirs
Often neglected in the history of Chan, these following masters really set the footing for Chan in China, particularly with the development of the Prajnaparamita ideas, the concept of the Buddha Nature and Sunyata.
An Shih Kao (fl. 148-180)
A Parthian prince who had renounced his father's throne to become a Buddhist monk. Gathering a number of foreign monks together, he formed a centre in Lo-yang for the translation of sutras and texts into Chinese. He was actually a great Hinayana master.
Since the linguistic idiom and structure as well as the traditional modes of Chinese classical thought were utterly different from Sanskrit and Prakritic derivatives and Indian philosophical dialectic, the problem of translation presented enormous hurdles for the missionaries. An Shih-kao focussed entirely on texts which elucidated dhyana, the path of concentration and meditation. An Shih-kao declared, "Dhyana is the rudder of the ship of the Mahayana, the way leading past the barrier to nirvana."
Chih-ch'an
A Scythian monk who had a deep knowledge of the Prajnaparamita texts. He joined An Shih Kao. Although the fundamental ideas of karma and reincarnation were readily grasped by people who understood Taoist philosophy, they found it difficult to put them together with the Buddhist teaching of non-self. Eventually, a resolution to the difficulty was achieved through the development of the concept of shen-ling.
Shen-ling was seen as an abiding centre of life and intelligence which could not be characterized by any qualities belonging to the realm of phenomenal existence but which passed from incarnation to incarnation. We can imagine that as the antecedent idea for the inherited Buddha nature.
Fo-t'u-teng (d. ca. 340)
A monk of Central Asian origin who pursued his main interest in Buddhist sacred texts, especially those provided by An Shih-kao. He arrived in Lo-yang a year before its fall to the Hsiung-nu. Seeing that the city would be destroyed and that the political order was about to change, he allied himself with Shih Lo, who eventually became emperor. He was a zealous missionary who gathered a number of exceptional students about himself, including Tao-an. Upon the death of Shih Hu, Fo-t'u-teng foresaw bloody internecine war, and he began making arrangements for his disciples to leave the doomed capital of the dynasty. Fo-T'u-Teng founded the Buddhist order of nuns (317).
Tao-an (312-385)
Tao-an was a native Chinese Buddhist monk of major importance. He inspired his disciples to seek the word of the Buddha in the best translations of texts from India and to interpret them in a critical, almost "scientific," spirit. His family name was Wei, a traditionally Confucian family who lived in what is now southern Hopeh Province (Hebei).
He was born in a period of constant bloody warfare and seems to have been orphaned at an early age. He became a Buddhist novice at the age of 11, slowly distinguishing himself by his phenomenal intelligence, although his appearance was extremely unprepossessing. As was the custom, he left his monastery after ordination to wander from place to place seeking instruction from different masters, studying sometime after 335 with Fo-t'u-teng in Yeh (northern Honan).
When Fo-t'u-teng died shortly thereafter, Tao-an began a wandering life at the age of twenty-seven which lasted sixteen years. During this period he drew together a number of his former co-disciples and a large band of converts. Renouncing concern with magic, he began to lay the foundations of a permanent Buddhist presence in China.
Tao-an soon led his own disciples in various monasteries in the North, being joined by his most famous dharma heir, Hui-yüan, on Mt. Heng in northern China.
For Tao-an, prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom and the root of reality, consists of three intimately related conceptions: tathata, dharmakaya and bhutakoti.
Tathata is being such-as-it-is, which is such-as-it-is from beginning to end, and nothing can cause it to be otherwise than it is. Buddhas may arise and disappear, but tathata remains as it is in all eternity, everlasting and without support.
Dharmakaya is the One. It is eternally pure. In it being and non-being are together purified and it is never affected by what has names (cf. Tao Te Ching 1). . . . It is the eternal Way.
Bhutakoti, the Absolute, is free from all attachment. It is unmoving like a moored boat (Tao Te Ching 20). . . . It is non-activity and universal activity (Tao Te Ching 37). The myriad dharmas are all active, but this dharma is steeped in abysmal silence, and so it is said to be exempt from being. It is the one dharma which is real.
Hui yuan (334-416)
Dharma heir of Tao-an of Yen-man, in northern Shansi province. His ancestors had held high offices in the Chinese state, but a generation of foreign invasions and internecine fighting had reduced Hui-yuan's family to a level of poverty common amongst the once privileged educated class. Since there was little hope of improving the family's condition in Shansi, he readily won family approval to follow an uncle to Hsu-ch'ang and Lo-yang, where he could study the Confucian classics and embark upon the cursus honorum leading to a respectable position in the administrative aristocracy. His brilliance, poise and gracious manner were such that by the time he was an adolescent, he was considered knowledgeable in the Confucian "Six Classics" and an emerging master of the tao chia, the way of Tao, as taught by Lao Tzu and Chuang-Tzu. Despite his intention of becoming a respected Confucian scholar, he found that goal almost too easily attained, and he was drawn ever more deeply into hsuan hsueh, 'the dark learning' archetypally exemplified in the first chapter of the Tao Te Ching. Hui-yuan joined a number of scholars of his day in doubting the efficacy of li chiao – the quintessence of propriety and the key to the Confucian state in the absence of close attention to noumenal reality. He discovered, however, that one implication of the dark learning pointed to withdrawal from the world and its frenetic activity, and he found that appealing.
Although the idea of the life of a retired scholar and contemplative deeply affected Hui-yuan, he found that the seemingly endless warfare between northern and southern Chinese kingdoms and principalities prevented him from returning directly to his home. Instead of unduly risking his life, he made his way northward to the T'ai-hang mountains, a relatively serene refuge for monks and scholars who had fled Lo-yang and Yeh. Accompanied by Hui-ch'ih, his younger brother, he planned to travel along the mountain range to a point near Yen-man and from there take the short route to his homeland. Tao-an had built a monastery on Mount Heng in the T'ai-hang range, and Hui-yuan followed the route to it, for it offered a haven of safety on a risky journey. Once there, it was natural for him to listen to a discourse of Tao-an, a monk who had adopted a foreign religion and its equally alien practices. The effect on Hui-yuan was stunning and decisive. According to his biographer,
As soon as Hui-yuan had seen Tao-an, he was filled with reverence, thinking, 'He is truly my Master!' Later, when he heard Tao-an discourse on the prajnaparamita, suddenly awakened to the Truth, he said with a sigh, "Confucianism, Taoism and the others of the Nine Schools of philosophy are no more than chaff." Then, together with his younger brother, he threw away his hairpin and dropped his hair-lace, entrusting his life to Buddha and becoming a disciple.
Hui-yuan's interest in the dark learning had prepared him for the teachings of Tao-an. These pointed simultaneously to the highest noumenal realities and to the fundamental importance of meditation as the method par excellence for the alchemy of realization. Hui-yuan, along with his brother, entered the monastic community when he was twenty-one years old, and he remained the faultless disciple and faithful companion of Tao-an for twenty-five years. Though poor, he devoted himself to study day and night, so impressing other disciples that they were moved to look after his basic needs. When T'an-yi provided Hui-yuan with candles for his nightly studies, Tao-an remarked, "You really know a man's worth." Within a year Hui-yuan was allowed to discourse on the scriptures, and Tao-an was once heard to say, "Whether the Path is to be transmitted in the Eastern land – that depends on Hui-yuan."
In 364 Tao-an moved his large body of disciples away from Mount Heng because the wars in the region threatened the safety of the place. When it became clear that a community of several hundred monks could neither settle nor find refuge in the midst of this conflict, Tao-an sent different groups to far-flung areas to spread Buddha's doctrines. He himself eventually settled in Hsiang-yang, a strategic point on the road from Lo-yang to Ch'ang-an. There he built a monastery at the foot of Tortoise Mountain attracting monks and novices and receiving generous support from patrons. Hui-yuan became the head of the community and undertook religious and diplomatic missions for his teacher. Tao-an's concern for accurate translations of the scriptures was matched by his dedication to establishing a proper and enduring monastic community. The large T'an-ch'i ssu Monastery at Tortoise Mountain afforded him the opportunity to do so, and Hui-yuan was his chief aide in carrying out this aspect of his mission. He oversaw the daily affairs of the monastic community, looked after the monks and refined the rituals which were practised there.
Hui-yuan was constantly at Tao-an's side for sixteen years in Hsiang-yang. During this period Tao-an recited the Fang kuang po-jo ching, a Prajnaparamita scripture, and discoursed on it twice a year. Hui-yuan assimilated every aspect of this intensive study and also pursued a rigorous course in dhyana, meditation. He partook of the famous vow before Maitreya and saw that Tao-an's monastic principles were practised. They agreed that the ko-i method of translation, in which Buddhist conceptions were expressed in Confucian and Taoist terms, was inadequate and undesirable, but Hui-yuan drew upon his deep knowledge of the Taoist texts to illustrate points of doctrine and practice when discoursing to those for whom the Teachings of Buddha were unfamiliar. Once when Hui-yuan was giving a discourse on the Prajnaparamita, a listener challenged his views. After a series of polite but rigorous exchanges failed to produce a philosophical reconciliation, Hui-yuan drew an analogy from the writings of Chuang-Tzu, and his opponent immediately understood and accepted Hui-yuan's view. From that time on, Tao-an allowed Hui-yuan to use the Chinese classics to support Buddhist doctrines. Although ko-i was abandoned, comparative philosophy was accepted as an aid to understanding. Given Tao-an's conviction that Buddhist thought had to be expressed in language strictly suited to the expression of its subtleties, this concession revealed his complete confidence in Hui-yuan's insight and capacity to teach others.
Hui-yuan followed his teacher in fusing the Hinayana emphasis on meditation (dhyana) with the Mahayana emphasis on transcendental wisdom (prajnaparamita). Whilst Tao-an did not distinguish between the two great schools, Hui-yuan did. He taught that the realization of ultimate Reality could not be achieved by intellectual or ethical effort alone, or even by combining them. Rather, its realization was the result of persistent dhyana, which when pursued rigorously gradually transformed the nature of the intellectual quest and gave deeper meaning to the ethical life. For Hui-yuan, Hinayana exemplified the cardinal method for achieving the end expounded in Mahayana scriptures. He followed the great Hinayana master An Shih-kao, who declared, "Dhyana is the rudder of the ship of the Mahayana, the way leading past the barrier to nirvana," just as he later followed the doctrines of the Mahayana teacher Kumarajiva.
Kumarajiva (koomärjiv) (344-413)
Buddhist scholar and missionary, b. Kucha, in what is now Xinjiang, China. When his mother, a Kuchean princess, became a nun, he followed her into monastic life at the age of seven. He grew up in centers of Hinayana Buddhism, but he was converted to Mahayana Buddhism in his teens and became a specialist in Madhyamika philosophy. In 383, Chinese forces seized Kucha and carried Kumarajiva off to China. From 401 he was at the Ch'in court in the capital Chang'an (the modern Xi'an), where he taught and translated Buddhist scriptures into Chinese. More than 100 translations are attributed to him. Of these only about 24 can be authenticated, but they include some of the most important titles in the Chinese Buddhist canon. Kumarajiva's career had an epoch-making influence on Chinese Buddhist thought, not only because he made available important texts that were previously unknown, but also because he did much to clarify Buddhist terminology and philosophical concepts. He and his disciples established the Chinese branch of the Madhyamika, known as the San-lun, or "Three Treatises" school.
Seng Chao (384-414)
Seng-chao was born in 374 CE into an impoverished family which lived near Ch'ang-an. Although his poverty forced him into employment offering neither prestige nor financial gain, he was fortunate to become a copyist, reproducing Chinese texts with his elegant calligraphic hand. His exceptional natural intelligence allowed him to absorb the classics he copied, and even as a youth the breadth of his reading and the depth of his understanding were recognized by others. He was drawn to the Taoist scriptures and especially to their hsuan hsueh, 'dark learning', arcane interpretations of the more mysterious parts of the Tao Te Ching and the writings of Chuang-tzu. Many Taoists, confronted by the erosion of the social order and the uncertainties of almost ceaseless warfare amongst unstable alliances, sought to give new meaning to the concept of freedom in thought and action. Named tzu-jan (ziran), naturalness or spontaneity, this ideal was expounded by analogy with Nature, in which everything happens without anything being done by some obvious directing agency. The awareness that Nature was inherently intelligent in its activities led Taoist thinkers to meditate upon the mystery behind it, wu, essential non-being. Their concern with pen-t'i, the transcendental reality (pen) and its phenomenal manifestations (t'i), formed a natural bridge to the Buddhist distinction between paramarthasatya, absolute truth, and samvrittisatya, relative truth.
Seng-chao immersed himself in hsuan hsueh and absorbed its most profound doctrines, but he felt that somehow he had not penetrated to the core of understanding. When he happened to read the Vimalakirti Sutra, he experienced the thrill of finding new levels of insight, and immediately became a follower of buddhavachana, the word of Buddha, and donned the robes of a monk. Even as a young man, he was already famous in Ch'ang-an for his knowledge of Buddhist and Chinese texts, his brilliance as a thinker and expositor of their meanings, and for his mastery of the art of public debate. Admired by many, envied by some, he found only limited ways to deepen his understanding. Tao-an had died; the Buddhist community struggled to continue his work, and Kumarajiva, who had accepted Tao-an's invitation to come to Ch'ang-an, was held under virtual house arrest in Ku-tsang. Seng-chao yearned to study under him and, after waiting while one diplomatic effort after another failed to gain Kumarajiva's release, he decided to make the dangerous journey to Ku-tsang to join him.
Since Kumarajiva had a paucity of resources at his disposal in Ku-tsang, Seng-chao was not able to undertake a full course of studies, but he readily assimilated his Teacher's standpoint and dialectical method. When Kumarajiva eventually entered Ch'ang-an in 401, Seng-chao was with him, and though he was the youngest member of the circle of monks who formed the translation school, he was appointed Kumarajiva's special assistant by the ruler Yao Hsing. In addition to overseeing many of the details involved in translating lengthy and abstruse texts, Seng-chao also wrote prefaces to a number of them. He found time to compose a series of brilliant treatises on concepts and topics fundamental to Madhyamika thought, and these works became the foundation for the later Three Treatise school.
When he finished writing Prajna Has No Knowing, he showed his manuscript to Kumarajiva, who praised it as a perfect reflection of his own understanding. He sent a copy with Tao-sheng on one of his frequent visits to Mount Lu , where it was seen by Liu I-min, a highly honoured lay recluse, who said, "I did not suspect that there might be a Ho Yen [a great third-century Taoist] amongst the Buddhist monks as well." Liu I-min passed the treatise to Hui-yuan, who was so struck by its insights that he insisted the whole community at Mount Lu study it.
Seng-chao's other essays were also well received, and when Kumarajiva died in 413, Seng-chao was asked to write his obituary. Shortly after the passing of Kumarajiva, Seng-chao composed Nirvana Is Nameless, and Yao Hsing commissioned copies for the use of his royal household. Seng-chao died in 414, not long after his Teacher, leaving behind the largest and most influential collection of early Chinese Madhyamika writings which survive.
After Liu I-min read Prajna Has No Knowing, he wrote to Seng-chao, asking a number of questions about his method of analysis and understanding. Seng-chao revealed something of his conception of dialectical method – and his affinity for the method of Nagarjuna – in his reply:
To say that prajna is non-existent is to say that it is not affirmed as existent, but does not mean that it is affirmed as non-existent. To say that it is not non-existent is to say that it is not affirmed as non-existent, but does not mean that it is affirmed as not non-existent. It is not existent and not not existent. It is not non-existent and is not not non-existent.
Besides employing a double dilemma (or tetralemma) in respect to concepts like prajna, he indicated the importance of logical quantification.
In Prajna Has No Knowing, Seng-chao held that a fundamental tenet of the Prajnaparamita scriptures is the absence of any ontological characteristics in prajna, wisdom and insight. Yet even though there is nothing that prajna knows or sees, there is a kind of knowing without characteristics, or intuition without knowing. Drawing from his intimate familiarity with the Tao Te Ching, Seng-chao depicted this transcendental insight in terms of a mind devoid of knowledge. When consciousness is emptied of knowledge based on discernible characteristics, it can be filled with insight. In the paradoxical language Seng-chao sometimes preferred, the Sage can be said to know all and know nothing. In part this means that cognition of particulars masks the possibility of universal cognition or all-knowing (sarvajnata). It also means that the empty mind of the Sage is not mindlessness as ordinarily understood, but rather the mirror of utterly transcendental Reality, shunyata, the Void.
If prajna is knowledge without knowing, mirroring the inscrutable, then the mind of the Sage can recognize phenomena and respond to them but it cannot be said to do so with deliberation, intention or motive. Phenomena arise within the Void, but the 'empty' mind assumes a standpoint beyond them, and no attribute appropriate to a mind identified with phenomena can be assigned to it. Just as universal cognition is knowledge outside of events and their defining and adventitious characteristics, so pure mind is beyond the world even whilst seeming to participate in it. This is why Buddha could use innumerable suitable means to aid others in their myriad paths towards Enlightenment. Abiding beyond all means, he could employ what would be useful to that end.
If supreme knowledge is to be characterized, one would have to say with Seng-chao, "Though real, it is not existent; though empty it is not non-existent." Quoting from the Tao Te Ching, he added: "If you wish to say that it exists, it is formless and nameless." In the language of The Voice of the Silence, prajna is that condition in which one realizes "the voidness of the seeming full, the fullness of the seeming void." Since prajna is insight devoid of characteristics, it is void even whilst exercising insight. It is omnipresent, but no search for characteristics or qualities will reveal it. Thus, Seng-chao quoted from a sacred text, "without moving from perfect Enlightenment, the Tathagata establishes all dharmas, elements of existence." This knowing without knowing is knowing spontaneously and manifests as acting spontaneously. "What more can one know? What more can one do?"
Having set forth the doctrine he wished to convey, Seng-chao then stated nine objections and answered them, explaining that the use of paradoxical language is necessary when discussing prajna, for language cannot convey absolute Reality but can only suggest it. For example, prajna is said to have no knowing because it knows paramarthasatya, which is not an object of knowledge but rather the transcendental precondition without which there could be no objects of knowledge. Similarly, there is no distinction between the quiescence and activity of prajna, for its quiescence is its activity. The inherent limits of language are commensurate with the limits of philosophical understanding: dialectic brings the mind to its highest and clearest level of understanding and shows that true insight can be achieved only in a transcending act of realization, for which the most rigorous thought and meditation prepare the mind. "Even though language cannot express such realization, nothing save language can communicate it. Thus the Sage always speaks and never speaks."
A few years later Seng-chao returned to the relationship between language and reality, in part because he found that monks and disciples frequently misunderstood the notion of shunyata. In Voidness of the Non-Absolute he identified three critical misconceptions. First of all, some believe that shunyata is the negation of images of external objects and that such negation voids the mind of all limited conceptions. This view is correct in that total quiescence of consciousness is the necessary condition for realization of shunyata, but it implicitly clings to the belief that things are real whether the mind entertains them or not. Secondly, others believe that form is shunyata because form does not create itself and therefore is made by the Void. True, forms are not self-made, but this view wrongly suggests that shunyata itself has some inherent nature out of which forms are created. Thirdly, still others incline to the belief that shunyata is a kind of primordial non-existence out of which all that exists arises –as if what exists could somehow be reduced to shunyata. This is like saying that what exists is non-existing and what does not exist is also non-existing, and therefore non-existence (shunyata) is the matrix of everything. These three misconceptions rest upon a misunderstanding of the nature and limits of language.
Seng-chao argued that while it is acceptable to call things 'things,' one cannot call names 'things,' for things are not names and do not correspond to actualities. Names are not things and do not correspond to true concepts. Even though one may say that names correspond to things, one slips into a double ontological error in assuming that such a view means that true concepts correspond to actualities. Once this error is recognized and removed, one can see that paramarthasatya is a name and cannot be called a thing, nor can it be said – because paramarthasatya is absolute – that this name corresponds to a thing. Thus language cannot speak of paramarthasatya as an object, though one can talk about it in an attenuated way. Things constitute a problem for the understanding because they exist in some respects and do not exist in others. What exists does not coincide with paramarthasatya or shunyata, and what does not exist is not merely the negation of images. So even though 'existing' and 'non-existing' differ in respect to name, they are identical in reference. Things are like phantoms, men who exist but not as actual men.
Because a thing has no actuality that corresponds to a name, one cannot aver that a thing is real. Since a name cannot produce a real thing, names are not real. In simpler language, there is no correspondence between names and things that can bear the weight of reality assigned to it in ordinary speech. For Seng-chao, this understanding of the relation between things and names is not simply a discovery about language or a realization of the elusive nature of things, but is a fundamental insight into the mysterious being of the Sage. The Sage is one in consciousness with the shunyata of things and does not merely impose some adventitious concept of voidness on them. This means that he is identical with all dharmas, or ultimate constituents of existence, and is their support. The Sage is immanent in all things, one with their nature, as indescribable by language as they are. One could truly know a Sage only by becoming one. Thus the problem of adequately understanding the Sage is identical with that of adequately understanding reality.
The last of Seng-chao's great essays addressed the problem of change from a philosophical standpoint. Like Nagarjuna, he used the dialectical method to show the contradictions implicit in ordinary thinking, but in addition he shifted back and forth between the standpoints of paramarthasatya and samvrittisatya to show that much philosophical misunderstanding arises from the inability to consistently keep to one perspective. In Things Do Not Shift, Seng-chao noted that people ordinarily think that change signals movement through time. Nonetheless, the sutras teach that dharmas do not move.
Tao Sheng (360-434)
Tao-sheng was born around 360 C.E. at P'eng-ch'eng (now Kiu-chuan) in a family named Wei. Although little is known of his early life, his later biographers agree that he was intellectually curious, graced with a remarkable capacity for understanding, and "divinely intelligent". His voracious appetite for learning was equalled by a discerning open-mindedness which impelled him to seek truth wherever it might be found. While still a youth, he met the monk Chu Fa-t'ai, a devoted disciple of Tao-an, who had been sent to spread buddhavachana far and wide. Tao-sheng, won over by his instruction, became a monk and disciple under him. Showing the same thirst for knowledge as a monk that he had shown as a young scholar, he became a renowned Teacher by the time he was fully ordained.
In about 397 Tao-sheng made his way to Lu-shan, where he met Hui-yuan and settled down to study. Hui-yuan introduced him to Sanghadeva, an Indian monk who had made the arduous overland journey to Ch'ang-an, moved on to Lo-yang and then came to reside in Lu-shan. Taking Sanghadeva as his Teacher, Tao-sheng undertook a rigorous study of the Sarvastivadin version of the philosophical Abhidharma literature, a task which occupied his attention for six or seven years. In about 405 he travelled to Ch'ang-an and was received by Kumarajiva into his inner circle of disciples, where he made substantial contributions to the translation of the Vimalakirti Nirdesha Sutra and the Lotus Sutra. Tao-sheng became a vital link between Kumarajiva and Hui-yuan, and when he returned to Lu-shan in 408, he gave Hui-yuan a copy of Seng-chao's brilliant short treatise, Prajna Has No Knowing.
Soon after he returned to Lu-shan, Hui-yuan encouraged him to travel south to Chien-k'ang, the capital of Emperor Wen. During his stay, the emperor invited him to share the traditional Buddhist midday meal. While Tao-sheng and his fellow monks exchanged polite remarks and discourses on Buddha's teachings with the emperor, the hour grew rather late, and when servants began to set out dishes prepared for the occasion, several monks became uncomfortable with being expected to eat after the proper time for food had passed. Recognizing their discomfort, the emperor casually remarked, "It is just the beginning of midday now." Realizing that the emperor had reached out to the monks in a spirit of respect, and knowing that they would feel awkward if compelled to violate the rules of the Sangha, Tao-sheng invoked the classical Chinese idea that the emperor is the 'Son of Heaven', the representative of heaven on earth. He replied, "The sun is attached to Heaven, and since Heaven says it is noon, it must be so", and lifted his bowl to eat. Throughout his life he was known for fusing uncompromising integrity with astute presence of mind.
While in Chien-k'ang, Tao-sheng discovered Fa Hsien's translation of the Maha Parinirvana Sutra, the last teaching of Buddha on earth. Fa Hsien had brought the book from India in 414 and his translation appeared in 418. Although the text was immediately popular amongst the monks, it was also controversial. For Chinese Buddhists, the conception of nirvana – in which the candle of selfhood, and therefore of suffering, is blown out – was drawn from Prajnaparamita scriptures. There nirvana is linked to shunyata, the Void, and ultimate enlightenment is conceived as a kind of absolute emptiness. Despite the injunction to see "the voidness of the seeming full, the fullness of the seeming void", nirvana was thought of as the extinction of the very sense of self. The Maha Parinirvana Sutra, however, referred to the eternality of the Tathagata's dharmakaya and spoke of the pure joy of nirvana – thereby implying some kind of conscious nirvana. Since the Sutra purported to be Buddha's words it was revered, but the conception of self it implied seemed to verge on heresy.
Tao-sheng had already contemplated nirvana long and deeply, and when he read the Sutra the meaning seemed perfectly clear: nirvana is an utterly transcendental condition beyond any state of conditioned consciousness. The self is not destroyed by being extinguished, but is transcended through a supreme universalization which merges with infinitude. Conditionality is snuffed out so completely that pure consciousness alone remains, abiding in pristine joy beyond being and non-being. Tao-sheng became one of the Sutra's chief supporters, seeking to share its message for the rest of his life.
Nonetheless, Fa Hsien's translation presented a disturbing problem. As Tao-sheng studied the Sutra, he found that it treated icchantikas, those who live for the gratification of desires, as a special class of human being, in that they do not have the Buddha-nature. Since it is the germ of bodhicitta which eventually flowers into enlightenment, this assertion, if true, denies icchantikas the possibility of liberation from the bonds of conditioned existence. Tao-sheng entered into a deep meditation upon the spiritual and philosophical principles enunciated in the Sutra and came to the conclusion that Fa Hsien's translation was accurate, but that the copy of the text he had obtained in India was defective.
His announcement of this view startled his fellow monks. Pushed to support his stance in the face of a revered text stating a contrary view, he propounded his view that scriptures employed symbols to express ideas. Once the ideas were understood, the symbols could be forgotten. His insistence that all beings have the Buddha-nature was rooted in the ideas of the Maha Parinirvana Sutra as well as other texts, and he felt compelled to reject that portion of the scripture which seemed to violate its own principles.
The boldness of Tao-sheng's viewpoint shocked many of his companions in the Sangha, and a number of monks branded him a heretic, demanding he be expelled from the Order. He faced them squarely in debate and explained his thinking. Then he swore, "If what I say is contrary to the meaning of the Sutra, may this present body of mine be covered with sores, but if it is not contrary to its truth, may I sit in the Teacher's chair when I pass from life." Despite the discomfort this caused, his profound conviction of the possibility of universal enlightenment gave him the strength and courage to endure the storm which raged around him. Once the crisis had been quelled, he left Chien-k'ang for the peaceful solitude of Lu-shan, arriving there around 430.
Tao-sheng had barely managed to settle down on the sacred mountain before a new translation of the Maha Parinirvana Sutra arrived. Dharmakshema and Fa Hsien had found another manuscript of the text and promptly translated it. Tao-sheng avidly read the translation and discovered it taught that Tathagatas are eternal, pure and joyous but do not enter nirvana until all sentient beings achieve enlightenment. Further, he read that all beings, including icchantikas, have the Buddha-nature and are potentially capable of entering nirvana. This vindication was not a personal victory for Tao-sheng but proof of the insight and consistency of the Dharma and the penetrating power of meditation. The Buddhist community revered Tao-sheng as a noble example of wisdom and clarity of consciousness and he spent his last years as an honoured Teacher. Sometime in 434 he ascended the Teacher's throne at Lu-shan and delivered a brilliant discourse on the sutras. When he finished, the monk's staff slipped from his hand and, remaining upright, he abandoned his body, fulfilling the oath taken before the monks who once thought him a heretic.
Although he was admired for his bold stand in respect to the idea of the Buddha-nature, he was also widely known as an original thinker who held independent views on a variety of issues. On the basis of the Maha Parinirvana Sutra, Tao-sheng came to believe that the Chinese Buddhist view of the self was simplistic. Prajnaparamita scriptures and Sarvastivadin doctrines emphasized the anatman aspect of Buddha's Teaching, denying any ontological status to the 'I'. By refusing to give a metaphysical gloss to a psychological construction based on phenomenal experience, they established a fulcrum on which right conduct (shila) and insight (prajna) could be balanced. Buddhaghosa had extended this principle to meditation (samadhi), teaching that deep meditation upon the egolessness of things could lead to enlightenment. However, insisting that all possible phenomenal experience is devoid of permanence, and therefore of reality, does not amount to denying the possibility of a transcendental Self. It does reject any claim to ascribe characteristics –necessarily formulated in language and extracted from phenomenal experience– to this Self.
Tao-sheng recognized the fundamental importance of the anatman doctrine to Buddhist metaphysics, but saw that if it were not tied to a subtle conception of ethics which invokes an agent at least in the minimal sense as a focus for karma, the anatman doctrine could mislead people into psychological nihilism.
The concept of the Buddha-nature taught in the Maha Parinirvana Sutra provided the complement to the anatman doctrine. Tao-sheng saw in the idea of the universality of the Buddha-nature the affirmation of a metaphysically indescribable self, the germ of which is present in every sentient being. For Tao-sheng, this meant that shen-wo, the true Self, is the Buddha-nature in all beings.
To speak of a plurality of true Selves would require a metaphysical standpoint Buddha did not take. To say that the true Self is one presents the same difficulty, for even the mystery of the One and the many cannot encompass that which necessarily abides beyond even the subtlest discursive thought. Thus, Tao-sheng taught, the true Self is nothing other than shunyata, the Void, as elucidated in the Prajnaparamita scriptures.
This rejection of any sense of self derived from phenomenal existence nonetheless retains a self as moral agent. For Tao-sheng, sensory, psychic and intellectual experiences provide no basis for a permanent self. But the possibility of moral action, that is, karma, for beings capable of reflecting on what they do evidences the permanence of the true Self. To deny the Buddha-nature to the icchantikas, as the faulty text which Tao-sheng first read seemed to do, would be to deny the universality of karma. The accurate text, in supporting Tao-sheng's profound philosophical judgement, allowed him to envisage samsara, the ocean of illusive phenomenal existence, as a pilgrimage, the goal of which is union with Buddha –the full realization of the Buddha-nature. Not only is nihilistic psychology thereby avoided, but the Bodhisattva Path emerges as the natural course for any self-conscious being seeking the truth.
Since Tao-sheng was more concerned to learn and understand than to write, the full scope and unity of his thought was obscured, and his contemporaries were content to record memorable and generally aphoristic statements. Perhaps the most puzzling assertion of Tao-sheng is that "a good deed entails no reward." No one seemed to be sure of his meaning, save perhaps Hui-yuan, who wrote a treatise on karma which seemed to embody many of Tao-sheng's thoughts. From that text and the notes of other monks, it appears that he may have sought to accomplish two ends with this pithy claim. The first was psychological and social. Chinese Buddhist monks were accustomed to seeking the benevolent help of a dhanapati or patron who supported them by providing food and land and by building monasteries. In time, these noble acts of generosity, sometimes performed by aristocrats who were not Buddhists, were imitated by the laity, some of whom came to believe that donations to monks and monastic communities would secure them a kind of salvation or a felicitous rebirth. Giving for the sake of future reward represents exactly the kind of selfish motivation which generates endless rebirth in samsara, and Tao-sheng's aphorism warned all who heard it that they were fooling themselves.
Secondly, Tao-sheng's enigmatic saying was extremely suggestive philosophically. Given his view of the Buddha-nature based on the Maha Parinirvana Sutra, the path to enlightenment, ideally expressed in the Bodhisattva Path, is not enlightenment. While one treads the Path, all one's actions for good or ill, whether performed in wisdom or from ignorance, produce consequences. People think some actions hinder one's progress along the Path and others help it, and it is true that every action furthers or retards the pilgrimage through samsara. But the true Self is beyond all differentiated states and conditions and cannot be said to act. For the self still seen as the focus of karma or as moral agent on the Path, acts are better or worse, but for the true Self, realized in its own real nature, there is no action or reaction whatsoever. When one speaks of a good action in contrast to a bad action, 'good' is a relative concept, morally significant and ascriptive within the framework of karma. When one speaks of the action of an enlightened being as 'good', it is an absolute reference involving no relativity or comparative ascription. A being in whom the true Self is realized only appears to act from some focus in samsara while abiding beyond it. His good deeds are purely good precisely because they generate no karma, though benefiting all beings. Cultivation of detachment is the reflection of this state in the disciple's life.
Although his stand regarding the contents of the Maha Parinirvana Sutra caused dramatic debate in his own day, his views on enlightenment were considerably more controversial, initiating centuries of debate. They were summed up in his enigmatic declaration, "Buddhahood is achieved through instantaneous Enlightenment."
For Tao-sheng, the traditional Hindu distinction, inherited by the Buddhists, between absolute and relative truth corresponds to the distinction between enlightenment and ignorance. Enlightenment, which is entry into nirvana, cannot be described in psychological or ontological terms, since both pertain to samsara. It is a "state of mirror-like voidness" corresponding to the Confucian ideal of wu, non-being, and the Taoist mystery of the nameless Tao. Thus enlightenment can be best characterized as absolute Truth.
Although one speaks meaningfully of relative truths, one is simultaneously speaking of relative falsehoods, and so while there can be gradations between relative truths, absolute Truth is not some step beyond the highest relative truth. Borrowing a mathematical analogy, one can enumerate the series of whole numbers to some number n which seems virtually infinite. Nonetheless, infinity is not any n + 1. Infinity is a wholly different order from the number series. Similarly, nirvana is wholly different from samsara.