THE IMPORTANT PATH OF CHAN FOREST LINEAGE

I am sometimes asked by students to tell them what my Chan lIneage is, and they are sometimes disappointed when the answer I give is to point to my bamboo cane. They are then quite puzzled and I explain that my lineage resides within Natural Bamboo.

                                                           Now how can that be? 

What they want to know is who taught me and transmitted the secrets of my particular brand of Chan.  

The answer still resides in my bamboo cane.

In order to understand it might be correct to refer you all to the book by Peter N. Gregory,  

Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism, printed by University of Hawai'i Press, 2002, pp. 50-51.

                          The relevant passage declares correctly the following:

"The question of Nanyin’s filiation raises the complex issue of how the notion of lineage was understood in eighth- and ninth-century Ch’an, and here one should be extremely cautious not to read back into the late T’ang sources notions that were only clearly articulated and codified in the Sung.

"The Chinese term in question is "zong" (lineage, tradition, essential teaching, source of inspiration). 

"While "zong" was a central term within Ch’an polemics of the eighth century, its meaning was often ambiguous. It could be and frequently was used to mean “lineage.” But it could also mean the “essential teaching” in terms of which a specific tradition defined itself. 

"Such use in the Platform Sutra, for example, is reflected in Yampolsky’s translation of "zong" as “cardinal principle”. The two meanings of zong were not clearly demarcated and often overlapped in usage. Tsung-mi uses "zong"  in both senses in his Ch’an Preface. Sometimes it means simply lineage, but more often it is used in a broader sense related to its general meaning of essential teaching."

"The particular "zong" to which a teacher belonged was not merely a matter of lineal filiation but also had to do with the source of inspiration to which his tradition turned. 

"It was the essential teaching emphasized within a given tradition that defined it as a "zong" as much as the lineal filiation of a succession of teachers. A "zong" was, as it were, a “progenitive idea” around which a tradition crystallized.

"Even though the personal bond of the master-disciple relatonship linked the tradition together, the character of that relationship was not fixed.

"If someone claimed that he carried on the "zong" of a particular teacher, he may have been inspired by him during a brief period of study in his youth, he may have received ordination from him, or he may have succeeded to the abbotship of his temple.

"In the late eighth and early ninth centuries, there were no fixed ceremonies according to which a disciple’s understanding was sanctioned by his master, thereby authorizing him to carry on his master’s tradition.

"At that time the notion of the transmission and succession of the Dharma was not clearly defined, and the attendant notion of lineage was fluid.

"What particular "zong" of a given teacher chose to identify with might be decided by a range of factors, including his relationship with his own teachers, the nature of his understanding, and his own teaching personality –all of which would be inextricably connected in his own experience. 

                                                The Rising of Lineage Myths

"The issue of "zong" was also influenced by the changing trends within the Chinese Buddhist world.

"That factors directly related to a teacher’s own self-interest were often involved in such matters does not mean that there was anything inherently “dishonest” about it. It was simply a matter of putting one’s best foot forward.

"Patronage, after all, was related to the influence and prestige of one’s "zong"."

So when I say that my lineage is within my bamboo cane, then I am declaring that my Model is first and foremost the “progenitive idea” around which the tradition crystallized which I now teach and the various Chan and Dao sources of inspiration to which my tradition has turned and has been developed for my students.

                                                                                                                                           Shanjian