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BUDDHISM WITH “CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS”:
CHAN AND THE AUTHORITY OF RESPONSIVE VIRTUOSITY
As a way of gaining insight into Chinese culture, I want to look at how Buddhism ceases being an
Indian tradition imported into China and becomes a truly Chinese traditionsan-jiao-wei-yi.
 Emperor Xiaozong (r. 1162-89): three teachings = ding
I.
Early Buddhism
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II.
pivotal insights:
o all things arise interdependently, including persons (w/o material-spiritual essence)
o trouble and suffering mark errant patterns of interdependence
o interdependence goes awry as a function of:
 ignorance, habit formations, craving desire
 karma
 the recursive consonance between experienced outcomes and
opportunities and sustained patterns of values/intentions/actions
o interdependence re-directed by:
 dissolving troubling karma
 cultivating wisdom, attentive mastery, moral clarity
 meditation as practice of liberating presence: mindfulness,
concentration, insight
 4 immeasurables or brahma-vihara
Implication:
o Middle Way = coursing perpendicular/oblique to spectrums of views
 undertaken on the basis of things yathabhutam
o since suffering differs depending on person/culture, so must responses to suffering
Buddhist history: responsive differentiationnew “ecologies of enlightenment”
From Indian Buddhism to Buddhism in China to Chinese Buddhism
Kisagotami story (from Therigatha, Verses of the Elder Nuns)
Evidence of the relative ease with which Buddhist practices were adopted in China:
 6th CE > 2,000,000 ordained = 1/25 of population
 8th CE >700,000 ordained = 1/70 of 50 million
o Sincerity: offerings ≈70% of imperial wealth in Buddhist institutions (untaxed)
Through at least the mid-Tang, however, Buddhism remains a “foreign religion”
 transgressive enough to impel major purges in 446, 575 and 845
A. Phase of Accommodation. 2nd to 6th century characterized by Buddhism placing itself within
typically Chinese sensibilities along three dimensions: writings, rituals, remarkable persons
Writings (wen): resonated with Chinese convictions re the authority and efficacy of writing as the
performance of relationship between celestial and terrestrial (tian/di)
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enduring text-centered traditions: Huayan, Jingtu (Pure Land) and Tiantai
Rituals (li): resonated with Confucian ancestor veneration and care across generations:
 1] rites for merit making; 2] building temples, statues; 3] relic veneration; 4] “creating”
sacred mountains and pilgrimage; 5] public repentance rituals & appeals to bodhisattvas—
from respecting ancestors to releasing ancestors
Remarkable persons. Monks (and nuns) in China were both real and ideal persons. As evidenced,
for example, in Huijiao’s (497-554) Biographies of Eminent Monks and Daoxuan’s (596-667)
Further Biographies: three domains of extraordinary and exemplary conduct:
 asceticism, thaumaturgy, scholarship
B. Phase of Advocacy. By 7th century, advocacy of distinctively Buddhist concepts/practices as
superior in responding to the Chinese problematic of change: stress on karma (ye) [Buddha:
the possibility of liberation is a function of karma]
 Daoxuan (7th CE); Zongmi (9th CE)
Accepting primacy of practice, Chinese Buddhists nevertheless begin stressing the limitations of
both Confucian li and the primacy of the ancestral and Daoist dao and primacy of the natural
Buddhist practice epitomized by the bodhisattva vow = extending the scale of responsibility to
qualitatively transforming the dramatic interdependence of all things, exemplifying horizonless
commitment to realizing a liberating future for all sentient beings.
Upaya (fang-bian) “skillful means”
 Key texts: Huayen, Lotus and Vimalakirti Sutras; all insist on non-duality, unlimited
upaya of bodhisattvas and relational development
Buddha-nature: fo-xing “buddha-nature” (Chinese neologism that interprets Indian concepts of
tathagatagarbha and alayavijnana)
 India: answers metaphysical questions about individual karma, consciousness and the
possibility of enlightenment
 China: answers questions about situation/relational transformation, establishing the
promise of enlightenment [breakdown: xiaoren v junzi]
o Fazang (7th-8th CE): emptiness = interdependence + interpenetration
Turn in Chinese Buddhist construction of authority epitomized return of Xuanzang (602-44),
convinced that “Buddha-nature” is not Buddhist: icchantika controversy.
III.
Chan: The Authority of Appreciative and Contributory Virtuosity
While Chan (transliteration of dhyana) was often referred to as the “Meditation School,”
meditation masters were major category for classifying monks from the late Han.
 “The Great Calming and Contemplation” Tiantai master, Zhiyi (538-97)
o meditation as a means-to wisdom and enlightenment, supported by canonical literature
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Chan reconceived meditation as the embodied demonstration-of relational virtuosity—the
live expression of upaya and Buddha-nature
o “A special transmission outside the teachings; not established on word and letters
(wen-zi); directly pointing at human mind; seeing one’s nature, becoming a Buddha.”
The traditional Chan narrative pivots historically on the arrival of Bodhidharma from India in the
late 5th to early 6th century—the 28th lineage holder after the Buddha—proponent of the “two
entrances” of li (hetu: informing condition/reason) and xing (practice/conduct):
 li: all sentient beings have the same true nature
 xing: make good on wrongs done; correspond with conditions; seek nothing; tally actions
with the Dharma (all natures are pure)
Presaging later Chan, Bodhidharma and members of his circle held that:
 bodhimandala = “the place where you are walking, lying, sitting, or standing is the place
of enlightenment; wherever you pick up your feet or put them down—that is the place of
enlightenment!”
 “The qi of those who attain realization through the medium of written words is weak;
those attaining realization from their own circumstances and events will have robust qi.
Seeing the Dharma in the medium of events means never losing mindfulness anywhere.”
Huineng (638-713): The (Preeminent) Local Boy and the home-cooked Platform Sutra
Contra authority of experience or the authority of texts, the authority of praxis: “It is precisely
Buddhist practice/conduct that is Buddha.” This means, “At all times whether walking, standing,
sitting, or lying down, continually conduct yourself with authentic heart-mind (zhen xin).”
 authentic heart-mind “is not sitting in quiescence or casting aside delusion and letting
nothing arise in the mind—that is insentiency! An obstruction of dao!”
o meditation is not a means to the end of wisdom; meditation is embodying (ti)
wisdom, wisdom is the function (yong) of embodiment
 (zhi-hui vs asravas)
o key: “seeing our own nature” = seeing that it is constantly enlightening.
 dun-wu: “sudden enlightenment” versus “readiness to awaken”
Mazu (709-88): “shock tactics” and the radical presence of “ordinary heart-mind is Buddha”—
taking “no fixed position” as method.
Meeting with Huairang and tile event: seeing the path versus seeing from the path—oneness with
our situation as it is, directed toward liberation
 Chan meditation is not about sitting or reclining. Buddha has no fixed form. Holding onto
the form of silent sitting = killing the Buddha, failing to penetrate his naturally fluid
pattern of liberating relationships.
Mazu practices ten years and leaves around 750 CE….twenty years on the road, during which
China experiences arguably its most tragic decade ever.
 “The Dao is not a function of cultivation…ordinary mind is Dao…Right now, whether
walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, responding to opportunity/danger and joining
things entirely is Dao.”
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“shock tactics” as opportunities/dangers requiring immediate response; relational
catalysts
“A Buddha is capable of authoritative personhood (ren). Having realized understanding
kindness and the excellent nature of opportunities and dangers, one is able to break through
the net of doubts snaring all sentient beings. Departing from ‘is’ and ‘is-not’ and other
such bondages….leaping over quantity and calculation, one is without obstruction in
whatever one does. When your situation and its pattern are penetrated, [your actions] are
like the sky giving rise to clouds; suddenly they exist and then they don’t. Not leaving
behind any obstructing traces, they are like phrases written on water.”
For Mazu, the “the world’s myriad things are one’s own body”.
 Revising the meaning of our situation: lifting a hand or raising our eyebrows—an
intentional but effortless activity—Buddhist practice as freeing ourselves from “paralysis.”
 Chan entails realizing an utterly flexible “harmony of body and mind that reaches out
through all four limbs…benefiting what cannot be benefited, doing what cannot be done.”
Linji (d. 866): Chan realization means becoming a “true person of no rank” (wuwei zhenren
無位真人) “lively as a fish jumping in the water, simply performing one’s function in response to
all situations.”
Enlightenment via Huangbo’s “grandmotherly kindness” and Dayu’s challenge
 4 Character Chan: sui-shi-ying-yong “According with the situation, responding as needed”
or realizing appreciative and contributory virtuosity
 practice = relinquishing horizons of relevance, responsibility, readiness
o relational virtuosity
Purge of 845 by Emperor Wuzongdismantling 5,000 monastic complexes, destruction of 40,000
shrines burning of Buddhist librariesChan rising in stature over latter years of Tang into Song
 Confucian literati composing a new ideal of Chinese culture; distanced from the
cosmopolitan Tang; stress on guwen; skepticism about traditional Buddhist cultures
Historical Coda
By 10th century, there are “Five Families” or “Five Houses” of Chan: Fayan (Fayan Wenyi 855958); Guiyang (Guishan Lingyou 771-854; Yangshan Huiji 813-890); Yunmen (Yunmen
Wenyan, d. 949); Caodong (Dongshan Liangjie 807-69; Linji (d. 866)
 rise of explicitly denoted “Chan” monasteries and temples vs traditional mixed schools
 By 11th century: Fayan, Guiyang and Yunmen “absorbed” by Linji Family
 By 12th century: concern about the use of gong-an and the ritualized iconoclasm of Linji
Chanre-emergence of Caodong lineage
o mozhao “silent illumination” or zuochan “just sitting” vs huatou “head word”
 meditating to demonstrate horizonless and poised attention
 meditating to demonstrate improvisational genius using key words from
gongan “public cases” as canonical texts (cp. commentary as disciplining
interpretation vs heuristic engagement)
o zhenjin pu (real gold store) vs zahou pu (convenience store)