Cleary - Introduction to Chan Buddhism

Introduction to Chan Buddhism

By Thomas Cleary

Forward

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.. In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind

Edward L. Bernays, Public Relations specialist, in Propaganda. (1920)

By using expressions that hoo k and clamp, you can excite and arrest people. Hooking and clamping talk involves speaking in a manner that is now the same, now different. Considering the thoughts going on in their minds, examine their ideas to know what they like and dislike; then spe ak of what they value, using exciting and arresting words to hold them fast by hooking onto what they like.

Wang Cizhong, political strategist, in The Master of Demon Valley (3 rd c. BCE)

Its easier to fool people than to convince them they have been foo led.

Mark Twain (d. 1910)

Who binds you?

Sengcan, Chan Buddhist (d. 606)

My teaching only requires that you not be deluded by others.

Linji, Chan Buddhist (d. 867)

Chan Buddhism was concerned with the practical question of how the mind may be bound or liberated. Chan teaching employed diverse Buddhist scriptures, produced its own methods, amalgamated with other Buddhist schools, and even fostered new applications of native Confucian and Taoist teachings.

The name Chan was derived from a Chinese transliteration of dhyana, a Sanskrit word for meditation. Meditation is common to all schools of Buddhism, albeit in different forms. Meditation practices are also taught in Chinese Taoist texts, originally associated with physical health, mental clarity, an d personal equilibrium for public service.

Buddhist meditation methods were introduced to China in the early Common Era through extracts and translations from Buddhist literature, an inventory that would expand for centuries; and also through the instruc tions and examples of advanced practitioners from Central Asia and India, along with growing circles of Chinese associates and followers.

The use of the term Chan as a name for a sect or school was originally a chroniclers convention, only later adopted by practitioners themselves, who also used many other terms, like the school of Buddhas mind, or the school of the source or the aim, to distinguish their pragmatic approach to Buddhist teachings.

Standard Chan legend attributes the founding of the school in China to an iconic Indian monk named Bodhidharma , which means Teaching of Enlightenment. Bodhidharma is said to have employed the Buddhist scripture known as the Lankavatara sutra. This scripture presents certain premises basic to Chan Buddhist me thods:

This scripture has multiple meanings to guide recipients of all dispositions, not disputation that is actually contradictory.

The word of the Buddha has no statement.

Ultimate truth is not a statement, nor is ultimate truth what is expressed by a statement.

The leading principle of the goal is distinguished by first-hand experience, beyond speech, imagination, and words, reaching the realm where there is no impulse, the inherent characteristic of arrival at the stage of first-hand realization, excluding all the destructive forces of speculation and dogmatism.

The leading principle of instruction is discerning accommodation to peoples conditions.

The teachings are not literal, and yet Buddhas do not present them for no reason. They presen t them in consideration of mental construction. Without material to use, instruction in all the teachings would disappear.. Those who are dedicated to enlightenment should be free of obsession with the articulation of the recital of teaching. The reci tal of teaching has different meanings on account of the engagement of peoples mentalities.

Just as if someone points out something to someone with a finger, and the latter looks only at the fingertip, in the same way ignorant ordinary people, as if of infantile disposition, will go to their death adhering to the fingertip of meaning as articulated, and will not arrive at the ultimate meaning beyond the fingertip of expression.. Just as the ignorant one fixed on the pointing fingertip does not apprehe nd the moon, so does one attached to the letter not know what Im teaching.

As a physician prescribes the type of treatment according to the illness, and there is no division in the science but treatment is distinguished by the type of illness, so do I teach the family of beings according to the afflictions with which they are troubled, after having ascertained the powers of beings capacities.

According to Biographies of Eminent Monks, a nonsectarian series, the first master to make Chan a distinct Buddhist order was a monk named Huaihai, usually known as Baizhang after a popular epithet of the mountain where he lived. Traditional histories date his lifetime from 720 to 814, the middl e of the colorful Tang Dynasty. Like most other classical masters, he studied the canonical teachings of Buddhism, and then went on to Chan. He is famed for instituting the rule A day without working is a day without eating, and many of the teaching st ories of his spiritual heirs take place in the context of practical work. The great practitioner, he said in another well-known example, is not blind to cause and effect. As the Lankavatara sutra says, Beans dont sprout from sesame seed, rice does not produce barley, wheat and corn are of different kinds.

The recorded sayings of Baizhang are of particular value in Chan Buddhism, as they explain the symbolism of Buddhist scripture in accessible applications, presenting the principles, problems, and processes of Buddhist practices in systematic, straightforward terms.

Baizhang articulates three stages of Buddhist teaching and Chan practice: detachment, not dwelling in detachment, and not making an understanding of not dwelling.

This three-step outl ine of Chan practice is also referred to as the three paths, which are called the path of the bird, the hidden path, and outreach.

The path of the bird, trackless, describes the phase of detachment.

The hidden path, neither here nor there, describe s not being attached even to nonattachment, not dwelling in detachment.

Outreach, returning to the world with open hands, describes not making an understanding of not dwelling, where everywhere is a site of enlightenment and everything is teaching.

The famous Chan teacher Xuansha recapitulated the three phases in three axioms:

1) Equanimity; accept the totality of present actuality

2) Return attention to cause and effect, not sticking to constant oneness.

3) Penetrate infinite vision of knowledge, comprehend the universe; enter absorption in compassion, responding to developments without convention.

Many practical applications of these formulas appear in Chan technical literature.

The Chan teacher Guishan said,

The mind of a wayfarer is plain and direct, without artificiality. There is neither avoidance nor obsession, no deceptive wandering mind. At all times seeing and hearing are normal. There are no further details. One does not, furthermore, c lose the eyes or shut the ears; as long as feelings do not stick to things, that will do.

The Chan teacher Huangbo is on record as advising a lay student in these terms:

Just do not conceive opinion and interpretation on top of perception and cognition , and do not stir thoughts on perception and cognition. Do not seek mind apart from perception and cognition either, and do not try to get to reality by rejecting perception and cognition. When you are neither immersed nor removed, neither dwelling nor cl inging, free and independent, then nothing is not a site of enlightenment.