This excerpt is from the book "Chan and Enlightenment" by Master Sheng Yen (Wikipedia). It's in the first talk titled "Chan and Enlightenment". The Chan Buddhism Wikipedia entry has a section titled Periodization which has two additional ways of dividing periods of Chan history. Where possible, I included links to more information on people and texts. Anything in parentheses without links was originally in the text, the links are my additions (with the exception of the Chinese title for "The Gate of Essential Expediencies for Entering the Path and Calming the Mind").
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The Chan School of China
The Chan School in China can be seen as Chan prior to the coming of the Sixth Patriarch Huineng (Wikipedia | Terebess), when he became the Sixth Patriarch, and after his passing.
Prior to the Sixth Patriarch, Master Huineng
Prior to the Sixth Patriarch Master Huineng, the Chan School took shape in two directions, one of them being passed down from Bodhidharma (Wikipedia | Terebess), and the other being transmitted by the lineage masters of other schools. When the lineage of Bodhidharma was passed down to the Fourth Patriarch, Master Daoxin (580-651) (Wikipedia | Terebess), it branched into two lines of Niutou Farong (594-657) (Wikipedia | Terebess) and Dongshan Hongren (601-674) (Wikipedia | Terebess). Generally, Hongren is taken to be the Fifth Patriarch of the Chan school because he was the teacher of Huineng. In fact, Farong was also the disciple of the Fourth Patriarch, and his line was carried on for seven generations, and gradually disappeared after Niake Daolin (741-824). As for Chan masters outside the lineage of Bodhidharma, they include Zhu Daoshen (355-434), Sengchou (480-560) (Chinese Wikipedia | Terebess), Facong (468-559) (buddhaspace.org in Chinese), and other masters of the early phase, who all extended an influence on the subsequent thoughts of Chan School. Moreover, Nanyue Huisu (515-577), Tiantai Zhiyi (538-597) (Wikipedia), and other masters of the Tiantai tradition (Wikipedia), as well as Qingliang Chenguan (738-839) (Wikipedia)) and Guifeng Zongmi (780-841) (Wikipedia) of Huayan School (Wikipedia), were also renowned meditation masters.
The approach during the period from Bodhidharma to the Sixth Patriarch, Master Huineng, is not necessarily all just that of sudden enlightenment. For example, The Two Entrances and Four Practices (Wikipedia | Terebess, scroll down | Reddit) of Bodhidharma advocate entry through principle and entry through practice. Entrance through principle is to enter the essence of the teaching (to perfectly understand the teaching) through the method of direct contemplation, and to awaken to one's buddha-nature through sudden enlightenment. Entrance through practice includes four kinds of contemplative practices, namely, accepting karmic retribution, adapting to conditions, non-seeking, and acting in accordance with the Dharma. The entrance through practice is a gradual Dharma approach with stages of progress.
"The Gate of Essential Expediencies for Entering the Path and Calming the Mind" (入道安心要方便 門) by the Fourth Patriarch, Master Daoxin, also says, "Directly contemplate the body and mind as well as the four elements and five skandhas (Encyclopedia of Buddhism) in a quiet place." It further says, "By constantly contemplating the grasping, awareness, delusive consciousness, thinking, and wandering throughs till the scattered mind no longer arises, one attains coarse calm abiding (or stillness). If one's mind has become completely still and free of grasping thoughts, one will become calm and concentrated bit by bit, and one's various vexations will also subside bit by bit."
"On the Essentials for Cultivating Mind" (alias "On the Supreme Vehicle") (dailyzen.com), the work of the Fifth Patriarch, Master Hongren, maintains that it is first and foremost to guard the mind, saying, "Guarding the mind is the root foundation for nirvana, the essential gate for entering the Path, the core of the twelve divisions of all sutras, and the progenitor of all buddhas in the past, present, and future." It further says, "If one only guards the mind with absorption and without giving rise to wandering thoughts, the Dharma of nirvana will naturally manifest." In this approach, there is a mind for one to guard, so it is not a sudden teaching. In particular, he also said, "Based on the Sutra of Contemplating on the Amitayus Buddha (Wikipedia | MIT hosted page), if a beginner practices sitting meditation, he or she should sit up straight, focus on the right thought, close the eyes and mouth, and look straight forward, visualizing a sun - far or near as he or she pleases - and guard the true mind, without abiding from one instant of thought to another." (The same as "On the Essentials for Cultivating the Mind." mentioned above). This also has a method, and what is more, it is based on the visualization of the sun from the Pure Land sutras.
From the three afore-mentioned citations, we can see that the Chan School before the Sixth Patriarch is still a continuation of the meditative contemplation in India. It is only until the time of Huineng that there appeared the mode of Chan, which is said to directly point to an individual's mind and not fall under gradual stages.
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Part 2 - The Chan of Master Huineng (Not posted yet)
Submitted October 28, 2019 at 08:38AM by CaseyAPayne https://ift.tt/2MTA2xG
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