Mazu Daoyi (709–788) was a real person, whose historicity is significantly more complete than Bodhidharma or Huineng (or the other 4 patriarchs). We could go back to Nagarjuna also, who was even more mythological than Bodhidharma, or we could go back to King Ashoka's time, where records were yet more ambiguous. I study Mazu forward (730~~ on) with more historical interest than previous to Mazu. It was around Mazu's time that block printing had been invented in China. How Mazu and the zen characters who followed him treat history (treat the ancestors) seems to not be overly concerned with a literal truth: seems not to overly depend on factual legitimacy for a lineage authority. In other words, some kind of shift is evident between Mazu and the period of the patriarchs. These shifts help to inform. Another shift was the beginning of composing sutras in China, specifically sutras that did not include Buddha in the first person as narrator, which happened after Bodhidharma and just a few generations before Mazu. Its nuances like this that help to gradually appreciate the fundamental changes that had happened from the time that Kumarajiva had arrived in India (401?) and the time of Mazu. By the time of Mazu, there was a loose knit group that was speaking of Bodhidharma as poking "fun" at Emperor Wu for striving for merit in building temples. This group did not have a strong institutional presence, and quoting McRae, perhaps "no separate institutional presence". Virtually none of their places survived into the Song period. But we do know that Zongmi was specifically critical of Mazu and his followers, we do know they had their own group. Again, it is the literature that includes Mazu, Dongshan, and their followers through the Tang, a literature that was three or four centuries later the primary interest of Foyan, Yuanwu, Dahui, Mumon and Wangsong that I am referring to. They seem not to have diverged much (among themselves) on matters of Bodhidharma, Buddha, or Huineng. Yets as a group, they do diverge substantially from the Buddhist sects that were their contemporaries and predecessors. In other words, they have a common "mythology" (shared stories) of Bodhidharma, Buddha and Huineng, and they do not seem overly concerned about literal truth of the stories of the ancestors. Its as if the ancestors are expedient to the zen custom, and zen is not concerned that these same shared ancestors serve a very different purpose to other groups.
Taking this period from Mazu to Dahui (or Mumon), a period of about 500 years, we have a distinct literature that emerged, that evidently started first with an oral tradition.
Buddha and Bodhidharma, even Nagarjuna are as much of a literary invention as Jesus was. Mazu and Dongshan are more comparable to Paul of Tarsus in that they were actual literal historical figures. Yet still, just as not all of the books (of the new testament) attributed to Paul were his, by the time of Foyan, Yuanwu, and Dahui, we have a literature that has been "developed". When we study the zen cases, we are looking into a literature that was 500 years in the making. That this literature handles history from its own standpoint (Huineng and prior AND from Mazu forward) with certain liberties is obvious. But it doesn't diminish the zen cases as a worthy genre of literature in its own right, one that we now call the zen stories and conversations.
These zen stories and conversations don't have to be taken literally as a whole, but its pretty likely that a good bit of the content is attributed with enough validity that we can get a flavor of Layman Pang, Joshu, or Fayan. Obviously Foyan, Yuanwu, and Dahui thought so! But not McRae. Welter and Morrison are a good bit more nuanced. I think that when it came to Bodhidharma or Buddha, Foyan, Yuanwu, and Dahui knew very well they were dealing with mythological compositions.
The textual criticism of King Ashoka's time (the first documented "Buddhist" 260~~ BCE), or Nagarjuna's time, or Kumarajiva's, Bodhidharma's or Huineng's is not as far along as that of Paul of Tarsus or of the various gospels. Many buddhists in for some big revisions to their beliefs in coming years as their timeline is more exposed to scrutiny. Why don't McRae and other religious buddhist academics apply condescending terms they apply to zen characters ("hagiography", "encounter dialogue" or "iconoclasm") to Buddha or Nagarjuna? It seems they may have a double standard at play, may be confused about their own religion.
I don't have any skin in the lineage game: not a practitioner or a believer in doctrines. Simply interested in a group of Chinese (zen family) who lived over that 500 year period and how they saw the world, what seeing was to them. Call it zen seeing, if you will. Its impressive to me that these characters seemed to have their priorities straight. Had an insight into the way humans delude themselves. How humans confuse the map and the territory, live through abstract models. You don't find that often in historical literature or modern literature. So, this literature has my attention more than many other literatures. Its doing something rather unusual with pointing, with language, with body language.
The zen stories do not need to be deconstructed or demythologized from a religious apologetics perspective if after 500 years, its evident that Foyan, Yuanwu, etc had no need to press the zen material to such a task. But that is clearly what McRae and other religious studies academics wanted to do, and it has led to a good bit of misdirection in the study of the zen stories and conversations.
Those interested in seeing what the zen characters were pointing at will have to look for themselves by contemplating these zen stories and conversations. Historical context should be used to inform this study, not twist it to rationalize a religious interpretation. The friction between the priestly lineages with an orientation towards salvation and the students of zen was documented to have existed during the entire 500 year period referenced here. It continues today. It was projected back to the conversations between emperor Wu and Bodhidharma.
(Note: this post was inspired by a conversation that developed here: https://www.reddit.com/r/zen/comments/eigkjk/i_hope_in_the_2020s_we_can_normalize_the_idea/fcteaq0/?context=3)
Submitted January 02, 2020 at 07:55PM by rockytimber https://ift.tt/2ZOfrjw
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