The Zen Experience Part 42

6.Ibid., p. 101.

7.Ibid., p. 103.

8.A detailed discussion of this era may be found in Woodbridge Bingham, The Founding of the T'ang Dynasty (New York: Octagon Books, 1970).

9.His biography may be found in C. P. Fitzgerald, Son of Heaven (New York: AMS Press Inc., 1971), reprint of 1933 Cambridge University Press edition.

10.See Dumoulin, History of Zen Buddhism, p. 78.

11.This story is translated in Cat's Yawn, p. 18.

12.Dumoulin, History of Zen Buddhism, pp. 78-79.

13.Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, Third Series, p. 28.

14.A lucid account of Fa-jung may be found in Chang Chung-yuan, trans., Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism (New York: Random House, 1969; paperback edition, Vintage, 1971), which is a beautiful translation of portions of The Transmission of the Lamp (Ching-te ch'uan-teng-lu), the text from 1004. This text was a major source for the abbreviated biography given here.

15.Chang Chung-yuan, Original Teachings of Ch'an Buddhism, p. 19.

16.Ibid., p. 5.

17.A version of this exchange is given in Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, p. 202.

18.See Yampolsky, Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, p. 16.

4. SHEN-HSIU AND SHEN-HUI: GRADUAL" AND "SUDDEN" MASTERS

1.For an excellent biography see C. P. Fitzgerald, The Empress Wu (Vancouver: University of British Columbia, 1968). Curiously, nowhere in this biography is there mention of her lionizing of the Ch'an master Shen-hsiu, something that figures largely in all Ch'an histories.

2.A biography of Shen-hsiu from Ch'an sources may be found in Yampolsky, Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch. Further details may be found in Hu Shih, "Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism in China: Its History and Method," Philosophy East and West, 3, 1 (April 1953), pp. 3-24. See also Kenneth Ch'en, Buddhism in China (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964).

3.Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, p. 214.

4.Two books that give something of the intellectual atmosphere of T'ang China are biographies of its two leading poets: Arthur Waley, The Poetry and Career of Li Po (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1950); and A. R. Davis, Tu Fu (New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1971).

5.For a detailed biography of Shen-hui, see Yampolsky, Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch.

6.The scholar who brought the significance of Shen-hui to the attention of the world was Hu Shih, whose landmark English-language papers on Zen are "Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism in China: Its History and Method" and "The Development of Zen Buddhism in China." These works draw upon the ma.n.u.scripts discovered this century in the Tun-huang caves in the mountains of far northwest China. These ma.n.u.scripts clarified many of the mysteries surrounding the early history of Ch'an, enabling scholars for the first time to distinguish between real and manufactured history--since some of the works were written before Ch'an historians began to embroider upon the known facts. A brief but useful account of the finding of these caves and the subsequent removal of many of the ma.n.u.scripts to the British Museum in London and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris may be found in Cat's Yawn. The best discussion of the significance of these finds and of Hu Shih's lifelong interpretive work is provided by Yampolsky, Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch.

Regarding the circ.u.mstances of this sermon, Walter Liebenthal ("The Sermon of Shen-hui," Asia Major, N.S. 3, 2 [1952], p. 134) says, "There are only two opportunities to deliver addresses in the ritual of Buddhist monasteries, one during the uposatha ceremony held monthly when the pratimoksa rules are read to the members of the community and they are admonished to confess their sins, one during the initiation ceremony held once or twice a year. For the purpose of initiation special platforms are raised, one for monks and one for nuns, inside the compounds of some especially selected monasteries."

7.Quoted in Hilda Hookham, A Short History of China (New York: St.

Martin's Press, Inc., 1972; paperback edition, New York: New American Library, 1972), p. 175.

8.Discussions of the adventures of An Lu-shan may be found in most general surveys of Chinese history, including Hookham, Short History of China, Wolfram Eberhard, A History of China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960); Kenneth Scott Latourette, The Chinese: Their History and Culture (New York: Macmillan, 1962); John A. Harrison, The Chinese Empire (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1972); and Rene Grousset, The Rise and Splendour of the Chinese Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962).

9.This is the interpretation of Hu Shih. For translations of the major works of Shen-hui, see Walter Liebenthal, "The Sermon of Shen-hui," pp.

132-55; and Wm. Theodore de Bary, ed., Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. 1., pp. 356-60. Also see Edward Conze, ed., Buddhist Texts Through the Ages (Oxford: Bruno Ca.s.sirer, 1954), excerpted in Wade Baskin, ed., Cla.s.sics in Chinese Philosophy (Totowa, N. J.: Littlefield, Adams, 1974). A short translation is also provided in Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, Third Series, pp. 37 ff. The fullest translation of the works of Shen-hui found in the Tun-huang caves is in Jacques Gernet, Entret/ens du Maitre de _Dhyana_ Chen-houei du Ho-tso (Hanoi: Publications de l'ecole frangaise d'Extreme-Orient, Vol. 31, 1949). An English translation of a portion of this text may be found in Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963).

10.Liebenthal, "Sermon of Shen-hui," pp. 136 ff.

11.Ibid., p. 144.

12.Ibid., pp. 146, 147, 149.

13.See Hu Shih, "Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism in China."

14.Hu Shih, "Development of Zen Buddhism in China," p. 493.

15.Hu Shih, "Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism in China," p. 11.

16.The differences between the Northern and Southern schools of Ch'an during the eighth century are explored in the works of Hu Shih, Philip Yampolsky, and Walter Liebenthal noted elsewhere in these notes. Other general surveys of Chinese religion and culture that have useful a.n.a.lyses of the question include Wing-tsit Chan, Source Book in Chinese Philosophy, pp. 425 ff., D. Howard Smith, Chinese Religions; and Fung Yu-lan, Short History of Chinese Philosophy.

17.A study of the last distinguished member of Shen-hui's school, the scholar Tsung-mi (780-841), may be found in Jeffrey Broughton, "Kuei- feng Tsung-mi: The Convergence of Ch'an and the Teachings" (Ph. D.

dissertation, Columbia University, 1975).

18. D. T. Suzuki, "Zen: A Reply to Hu Shih," Philosophy East and West, 3, 1 (April 1953), pp. 25-46.

19.

5. HUI-NENG: THE SIXTH PATRIARCH AND FATHER OF MODERN ZEN

1.A number of English translations of the Platform Sutra are in existence. Among the most authoritative must certainly be counted Yampolsky, Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch; and Wing-tsit Chan, The Platform Scripture (New York: St. John's University Press, 1963). A widely circulated translation is in A. F. Price and Wong Mou-Lam, The Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Hui-Neng (Berkeley, Calif.: Shambhala, 1969). Another well-known version is found in Charles Luk, Ch'an and Zen Teaching: Third Series (New York: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1971). Two lesser-known translations are Paul F. Fung and George D. Fung, The Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch on the Pristine Orthodox Dharma (San Francisco: Buddha's Universal Church, 1964); and Hsuan Hua, The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra (San Francisco: Buddhist Text Translation Society, 1971).

2.From the Diamond Sutra, contained in Dwight G.o.ddard, ed., A Buddhist Bible (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970), p. 102. Another version may be found in Price and Wong, Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Hui-neng. An extended commentary may be found in Charles Luk,

Ch'an and Zen Teaching, First Series, pp. 149-208. Later Ch'anists have maintained that Hung-jen taught both the Diamond Sutra and the Lankavatara Sutra, the respective scriptures of what came to be called Southern and Northern schools of Ch'an. However, most scholars today believe that his major emphasis was on the Lankavatara Sutra, not the Diamond Sutra as the legend of Hui-neng would have.

3.From Price and Wong, Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Hui-neng, p. 15.

4.Ibid., p. 18.

5.The earliest version of the Platform Sutra is that found in the Tun- huang caves and translated by Yampolsky and Chan. This ma.n.u.script Yampolsky dates from the middle of the ninth century. A much later version, dated 1153, was found in a temple in Kyoto, j.a.pan, in 1934.

This is said to be a copy of a version dating from 967. The standard version up until this century was a much longer work which dates from 1291. As a general rule of thumb with the early Ch'an writings, the shorter the work, the better the chance it is early and authentic. For this reason, the shorter Tun-huang works are now believed to be the most authoritative and best account of the thoughts of the Sixth Patriarch.

6.Yampolsky, Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, p. 69.

7.The most obvious problem with attribution of the Platform Sutra to Hui-neng is that many of the sections of the sermon appear almost verbatim in The Sermon of Shen-hui, indicating that either one was a copy of the other or they had a common source (which could have been the simple setting down of a verbal tradition). It has been pointed out that Shen-hui, who praises Hui-neng to the skies in his sermon, never claims to be quoting the master. Instead, he p.r.o.nounces as his own a number of pa.s.sages that one day would be found in the work attributed to Hui-neng. The scholar Hu Shih has drawn the most obvious conclusion and has declared that Shen-hui and his school more or less created the legend of Hui-neng--lock, stock, and sutra. Others refuse to go this far, preferring instead to conclude that Shen-hui and Hui-neng are merely two representatives of the same school.

8.Yampolsky, Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, p. 157.