Ch’an Buddhism in China
Its History and Method
part 4
- Part 1 : Shen-Hui and the establishment of chinese Ch’an
- Part 2 : Hui-Neng, The so-called Sixth Patriarch
- Part 3 : The 7 schools in the eighth century
- part 4 : the great persecution
- part 5 : development of the Ch’an method
THE GREAT PERSECUTION AND THE POST-PERSECUTION ICONOCLASM
But this reformation within Buddhism itself, this internal revolution within a section of Buddhism, had not gone far enough or long enough to save Buddhism from a catastrophic external revolution. This external revolution came in August, 845, in the form of the greatest persecution of Buddhism in the entire history of its two thousand years in China.
The Great Persecution was ordered by Emperor Wu-tsung 武宗 (841-846), who was undoubtedly under the strong influence of a few leading Taoist priests. But the persecution of 845-846, like those of 446, 574, and 955, also represented the deep-rooted centuries-long Chinese nationalistic resentment against Buddhism as a foreign and un-Chinese religion. Early in the ninth century, Han Yu 韓愈 (768-824), one of the greatest classical writers of China, published a famous essay in which he openly denounced Buddhism as un-Chinese, as a way of life of the barbarians. He frankly advocated a ruthless suppression: “Restore its people to human living! Burn its books! And convert its buildings to human dwellings!” Twenty-one years after his death, those savage slogans were carried out in every detail.
The Great Persecution lasted only two years, but long enough to destroy 4,600 big temples and monasteries and over 40,000 minor places of worship and Ch’an retreat, confiscate millions of acres of landed property of the Church, free 150,000 male and female slaves or retainers of the temples and monasteries, and force 265,000 monks and nuns to return to secular life. Only two temples with thirty monks each were permitted to stand in each of the two capitals, Changan and Loyang. Of the 228 prefectures in the Empire, only the capital cities of the “first-grade” prefectures were permitted to retain one temple each with ten monks. Buddhist scriptures and images and stone monuments were destroyed wherever they were found. At the end of one of the persecution decrees, after enumerating what had already p. 18 been accomplished in the policy of Buddhist persecution, the Emperor said: “Henceforth the affairs of monks and nuns shall be governed by the Bureau of Affairs of Foreigners, thereby to show clearly that they belong to the religion of the barbarians.”
The persecution, disastrous and barbaric as it was, probably had the effect of enhancing the prestige of the Ch’an monks, who never had to rely upon the great wealth or the architectural splendor and extravagance of the great temples and monasteries. Indeed, they did not have to rely even upon the scriptures. And at least some of them had been theoretically or even overtly iconoclastic.
In one of the unusually frank biographical monuments of the post-persecution period, the biographer of the monk Ling-yu 靈佑 (died 853), a descendant of Ma-tsu and founder of the Kwei-shan 溈山 and Yang-shan 仰山 Schools of Ch’an, tells us that at the time of the Great Persecution, Ling-yu simply put on the cap and dress of the layman when he was ordered to return to secular life. “He did not want to be in any way different from the people,” said the biographer. And when the persecution was over and the Buddhist religion was permitted to revive, the Governor of Hunan, who was a Buddhist and a friend of many leading Ch’an masters including Tsung-mi, invited Ling-yu to come out of his retirement and suggested that he should shave off his beard and hair. He refused to shave, saying with a smile: “Do you think that Buddhism has anything to do with my hair and beard?” But when he was repeatedly urged to shave, he yielded, again with a smile. [12] That was the way a great Ch’an master looked at the Great Persecution. He did not seem to have been much disturbed.
It is no wonder, therefore, that the two greatest Ch’an teachers of the decades immediately following the persecution were the iconoclastic Hsuan chien of Teshan 德山 and I-hsuan of Linchi 臨濟 (Rinzai in Japanese).
Hsuan-chien 宣鑑 (died 865), the spiritual ancestor of the Yunmen 雲門 (Ummon in Japanese) and Fa-yen 法眼 (Hoogen in Japanese) Schools of the tenth century, taught a doctrine of “doing nothing” which harks back to Ma-tsu and reminds us of the philosophy of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. “My advice to you,” said he, “is, take a rest and have nothing to do. Even if that little blue-eyed barbarian, Bodhidharma, should come back here and now, he could only teach you to do nothing. Put on your clothes, eat your food, and move your bowels. That’s all. No life-and-death [cycle] to fear. No transmigration to dread. No nirvaa.na to achieve, and no bodhi to acquire. Just try to be an ordinary human being, having nothing to do.”
He was fond of using the most profane language in speaking of things sacred in Buddhism:
Here, there is neither Buddha, nor Patriarchs. . . . The bodhisattvas are only dung-heap coolies. Nirvaa.na and bodhi are dead stumps to tie your donkeys to. The twelve divisions of the Sacred Teaching are only lists of ghosts, sheets of paper fit only for wiping the pus from your boils. And all the ‘four fruitions’ and ‘ten stages’ are mere ghosts lingering in their decayed graves. Have these anything to do with your salvation?
The wise seek not the Buddha. The Buddha is the great murderer who has seduced so many people into the pitfalls of the prostituting Devil.
That old barbarian rascal [Buddha] claimed that he had survived the destruction of three worlds. Where is he now? Did he not die after eighty years of life? Was he in any way different from you?” “O ye wise men, disengage your bodies and your minds! Free yourselves from all bondages.While Hsuan-chien lived and taught in western Hunan, his contemporary and possibly his student, I-hsuan 義玄 (died 866), was opening his school in the north — in the western part of modern Hopei. His school was known as the Lin-chi School, which in the next two centuries became the most influential school of Ch’an.
The greatness of I-hsuan seems to lie in his emphatic recognition of the function of intellectual emancipation as the real mission of Chinese Ch’an. He said:
The mission of Bodhidharma’s coming to the East was to find a man who would not be deceived by men.
Here in my place, I have not a single truth to give you. My work is only to free men from their bondage, to heal their illness, and to beat the ghosts out of them.
Inwardly and outwardly, do try to kill everything that comes in your way. If the Buddha be in your way, kill the Buddha. If the Patriarchs be in your way, kill the Patriarchs. If the Arahats be in your way, kill them. If your father and mother be in your way, kill them too. . . . That is the only path to your liberation, your freedom.
Be independent, and cling to nothing. . . . Even though Heaven and Earth are turned upside down, I doubt not. Even though all the Buddhas appear before my eyes, I have not the slightest gladness at heart. Even though the hell-fire of all the three underworlds burst open before me, I have not the slightest fear.
Recognize yourself! Wherefore do you seek here and seek there for your Buddhas and your bodhisattvas! Wherefore do you seek to get out of the three worlds? O ye fools, where do you want to go?All this from Hsuan-chien and I-hsuan, written in the plain language p. 20 (pai-hua 白話 ) of the people, is Chinese Ch’an, which, I repeat, is no Ch’an at all.
But the pious Buddhists insist on telling us that all this was not naturalism or nihilism and was certainly not meant to be iconoclastic! They tell us that those great masters never intended to convey the sense which their plain and profane words seem to convey. They, we are told, talked in the language of Zen, which “is beyond the ken of human understanding”!
- Part 1 : Shen-Hui and the establishment of chinese Ch’an
- Part 2 : Hui-Neng, The so-called Sixth Patriarch
- Part 3 : The 7 schools in the eighth century
- part 4 : the great persecution
- part 5 : development of the Ch’an method
Hu Shih
Philosophy East and West, Vol.. 3, No. 1 (January, 1953), pp. 3-24
© 1953 by University of Hawaii Press, Hawaii, USA
– Source www.thezensite.com
