Buddha-nature (as Depicted in the Lankavatara-sutra)

by Nguyen Dac Sy | 2012 | 70,344 words

This page relates ‘The Buddha-nature in Gongan and Mozhao Chan’ of the study on (the thought of) Buddha-nature as it is presented in the Lankavatara-sutra (in English). The text represents an ancient Mahayana teaching from the 3rd century CE in the form of a dialogue between the Buddha and Bodhisattva Mahamati, while discussing topics such as Yogacara, Buddha-nature, Alayavijnana (the primacy of consciousness) and the Atman (Self).

2.3. The Buddha-nature in Gongan and Mozhao Chan

< Previous

Next >

After the time of the sixth patriarch Huineng, because of the propaganda of Shenhui, Chan became the major school and its doctrine of sudden enlightenment was very popular in China. This was the second period of Chan School which characterized by the violent methods of teaching and practice. Opening this period was Mazu Daoyi (709-788 CE), the second generation of Huineng, who was considered as the first Chan master used vigorous methods such as shouting, beating, kicking, etc. to teach his disciples. Such the methods continued to put into the teaching of Linji Yixuan (died 866 CE), who found the Linji sect of Chan in China. After the time of Linji, such the violent methods as shouting, beating, etc. did no longer exist. The third period of Chan was marked by the practices of gongan (former Chan master‘s dialogue) and Mozhao (Silent-illumination). The former is the typical practice of the Linji sect, while the latter is the main practice of the Caodong sect of Chan.

The first period could be made from Bodhidharma to the sixth patriarch Hui-neng. In this period, Chan masters used to directly and softly point out their disciple‘s Buddha-nature. For example, when Huike came and said to Bodhidharma:

“My mind is not yet pacified. Pray, master, pacify it!”

“Bring your mind here, and I will have it pacified.” Bodhidharma replied.

“I have sought it these many years and am still unable to get hold of it!” Huike hesitated for a moment but finally said.

“There! It is pacified once for all.” Bodhidharma replied.^[1]

Thus, pacifying the mind and realizing Buddha-nature was the main purpose of early Chan in China. The Laṅkāvatārasūtra , one of the scriptures of the Tathāgatagarbha literature, is prominently associated with the early history of Chan. The text is said to have been handed from Bodhidharma to the second patriarch Huike, and was commended by Bodhidharma as an incomparable truthful guide of Chan. Afterward, many of the early Chan monks lectured on the basis of the text and wrote comments on it.^[2] Buddha nature thought was more important in some Chan patriarchs in this period.

It was especially prominent in the East Mountain tradition of Daoxin and Hongren, Chan‘s fourth and fifth patriarch, respectively.

For example, we have the following story:

Hongren said to his master Daoxin: “What is one-practice samādhi? It is realizing that the Dharmakāya of the Buddhas and the nature of sentient beings are identical”. The fourth patriarch Daoxin understood then that Hongren had entered directly into the one-point samādhi and had perfectly reached the deep Dharmadhātu.^[3]

After the time of the sixth patriarch Huineng, because of the propaganda of Shenhui, Chan became the major school and its doctrine of sudden enlightenment was very popular in China. This was the second period of Chan School which characterized by the violent methods of teaching and practice. Opening this period was Mazu, the second generation of Huineng, who was considered as the first Chan master used vigorous methods such as shouting, beating, kicking, etc. to teach his disciples. Such the methods continued to put into the teaching of Linji.

Mozhao Chan holds the method of sitting in meditation in silence (默 mo) and illumination (照 zhao). The term Mozhao Chan is associated with the Song dynasty master Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091-1157 CE) of the Caodong School. However, the practice itself may be traced back as far as the Buddha Śākyamuni, who is said to have silently and illuminatingly sat in meditation during forty nine days and nights under the Bodhi tree before attaining enlightenment. In China, the first patriarch Bodhidharma had also sat at gaze in front of wall for nine years in the Shao-lin temple. Then, Mozhao Chan was also the main teaching of Shenxiu (600-706 CE), who was considered as the sixth patriarch according to the Northern branch‘s tradition of Chan in China. According to Sheng-yen, a modern Chinese Chan master, in order to understand Mozhao Chan, it is important to understand that while there are no thoughts, the mind also is still very clear, very aware. Both the silence (mo) and the illumination (zhao) must be there. While there is nothing going on in our mind, you are not unaware that nothing is happening. If your mind is unknowing, this is Chan sickness, not Mozhao Chan. So in this state, the mind is transparent. Its power is there, its function being to fill the mind with illuminating power, like the sun, shining everywhere.^[4] Hence, Mozhao Chan or Silent-illumination is the sitting in meditation in which there is nothing moving but the mind is bright, illuminated. Silence and illumination are also the characteristics of Buddha-nature or selfnature. Mozhao Chan can directly lead the practitioner into his own nature; therefore it is also the method of sudden enlightenment.

While the Mozhao Chan emphasized above everything else the importance of sitting in meditation, the gongan Chan insisted on dynamic meditation and sudden enlightenment. According to Suzuki, the importance of the Gongan Chan is so great that when it is understood, more than the half of Chan is understood.^[5]

Literally, gongan is a short form of the words anli gongtang, which means a “precedent”, i.e. a rule of law established for the first time by a court for a particular type of case and thereafter referred to in deciding similar cases^[6] . In other words, gongan is plainly a precedent established in a previous legal case that is either binding on or persuasive for a court when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts. Chan borrowed and used the term gongan to refer to a record of a significant anecdote or dialogue of previous Chan masters that often bears directly upon their training or enlightenment.^[7] Later Chan followers used gongan as a subject to practice and a means to test their mind until their enlightenment. Gongans of former masters are also used by practitioners as subjects for meditation until their own nature revealed. Chan masters also use gongan to check their disciples. The positive function of gongan is to push the ordinary reasonable thinking into the end, lead all false minds to the state of one mind, i.e. the doubt-state (yiqing) or doubt-mass (yituan), which is the solidification of doubt at the bottom of one‘s mind. Therefore, the content of a gongan is usually nonsensical and illogical in order to emerge this doubt-state. For example, the gongan of Zhaozhou (778-897 CE) named “the Zhaozhou‘s dog”: ‘ Is there Buddha-nature in a dog?’A monk asked. ‘ None’(wu), Zhaozhou answered.^[8] In the time of Zhaozhou, i.e. the Tang dynasty, most of Buddhist scriptures have been translated into Chinese and all Buddhist schools have flourished; hence it was certainly that most of Buddhist monks had read the thought “all sentient beings possess the Buddha-nature” in some scriptures of Tathāgatagarbha literature. However, the acceptance that a pure state like Buddha-nature is possessed in a low species like a dog is very difficult to admit in dualistic mind of the monk. Hence, the question “is there Buddha-nature in a dog” arose. A doubt has arisen in the monk‘s mind. When this monk came to knock at the door of Chan to solve his doubt, instead of receiving the answer “yes” as his hope, Zhaozhou said “none” which made this monk drop into a big doubt-state without any word to speak. In this case, Zhaozhou himself did not intend to use any what we call gongan to teach a monk, and the story ran naturally between Zhaozhou and this monk. But later on, Chan masters used this anecdote to teach disciples. Such the anecdote is called gongan. They also analyzed and collected what is the essential part in a gongan which can make a practitioner drop into doubt-state, for example, the word “none” in the gongan “Zhaozhou‘s dog”. This essential part of a gongan is called the “ huatou” phrase, in which hua 話 means “speech” and tou 頭 means “head or before”. Hence, huatou means “head or before of speech”, which denotes the point just before thinking. It is normally that human beings think before speaking. The point just before thinking is no-thought (wunian), and hence no-thinking and no-speech. The words huatou and gongan are sometimes used interchangeably. Thus, a huatou phrase or a gongan is used by a practitioner to easily cut off all thinking and push practitioner to the state of before thinking. The state before thinking (of course, it is also before speaking) is the original state or self-nature, Buddha-nature, etc. of living beings.

The movement of using gongan and huatou phrase became very widespread when the two works of the Linji Sect of collection of gongans came into existence. They are the Biyanlu^[9] (the Blue Cliff Records) composed by Yuanwu Keqin (1063¬-1135) and the Wumenguan^[10] (Gateless gate) written by Wumen Huikai (1183-1260).. However, it was Dahui Zonggao (1089-1163 CE), a disciple of Yuanwu, who was the popularizer of the Kanhua Chan, i.e. Chan involving the investigation (kan) of a huatou phrase^[11] , that the gongan Chan became the typical practice of the Linji Sect of Chan.

Briefly, the history of thought and practice of Chan School has respectively gone through the three periods. The first period was characterized by the straightly and gently pointing the human mind for attaining Buddhahood. The second period was marked by the violent methods such as shouting, beating, etc. And the third period was specified by the gongan Chan and the Mozhao Chan. All these practices and teachings of Chan are based on the thought that all sentient beings possessed the Buddha-nature. The inherent Buddha-nature within sentient being is endowed with all merits, virtues and wisdoms of a Buddha, therefore whenever Buddha-nature is realized, the qualities of a Buddha is also revealed, and the Buddhahood is attained. The key in order to suddenly realize Buddha-nature, according to Chan practices, is that needs not to mention the false minds or defilements when practicing because they are unreal, but needs to directly see into one‘s own nature. All the above practices of the three periods of Chan were based on this key, hence they can help practitioner to suddenly attain enlightenment. Thus, Buddha-nature and sudden enlightenment are the fundamental doctrines of Chan School, from which all Chan‘s practices and teachings have been established.