Guifeng Zongmi
Guifeng Zongmi was a Tang dynasty Chinese Buddhist monk and scholar who is considered a patriarch of both the Huayan school and Chan Buddhism. Zongmi wrote a number of works on several Mahayana Sutras, Chan and Huayan, and he also discussed Taoism and Confucianism. His works are a major source for studying the various Chan schools of the Tang.
Zongmi was deeply interested in both the practical and doctrinal aspects of Mahayana Buddhism, especially the teachings of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment and the Mahayana Awakening of Faith. Zongmi's work is concerned with harmonizing the various Chan teachings with other Chinese Buddhist traditions, especially Huayan, though he also drew on the work of Tiantai Zhiyi in his ritual works. His philosophy attempts to create a comprehensive worldview that includes and sublimates all Buddhist and non-buddhist teachings of his time into a single harmonious spiritual vision.
Biography
Early years (780–810)
Zongmi was born in 780 into the powerful and influential He family in what is now central Sichuan. In his early years, he studied the Chinese classics, hoping for a career in the provincial government. When he was seventeen or eighteen, Zongmi lost his father and took up Buddhist studies. In an 811 letter to Chengguan, he wrote that for three years he "gave up eating meat, examined scriptures and treatises, became familiar with the virtues of meditation and sought out the acquaintance of noted monks."At the age of twenty-two, he returned to the Confucian classics and deepened his understanding, studying at the Yixueyuan Confucian Academy in Suizhou. His later writings reveal a detailed familiarity with the Analects, the Classic of Filial Piety, and the Book of Rites, as well as historical texts and Daoist classics such as the works of Laozi. He eventually converted to Buddhism, but Zongmi's Confucian moral values never left him and he spent much of his career attempting to integrate Confucian ethics with Buddhism.
Chan (804–810)
At the age of twenty-four, Zongmi met the Chan master Suizhou Daoyuan and trained in Chan for two or three years. He received Daoyuan's seal in 807, the year he was fully ordained as a Buddhist monk. Daoyuan was part of a southern Chan tradition called the Jingzhong school, which was based in Chengdu, Sichuan. This lineage goes back to the Korean prince and Chan master Kim Hwasang, and to his student Shenhui. According to Broughton, Daoyuan's teacher, Yizhou Nanyin, the abbot of Shengshou Monastery, likely trained with Heze Shenhui and this other Shenhui of Sichuan.In his autobiographical summary, Zongmi recounts how after a sutra chanting service, he encountered a copy of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment. According to Gregory, "after only reading two or three pages, he had an awakening, an experience whose intensity so overwhelmed him that he found himself spontaneously dancing for joy." Zongmi would later write: "at one word my mind-ground opened thoroughly, and with one scroll its meaning was as clear and bright as the heavens."
Zongmi's sudden awakening during this period had a profound impact upon his subsequent scholarly career. He spent the next several years studying the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment and its commentaries extensively. He propounded the necessity of scriptural studies in Chan, and was highly critical of what he saw as the antinomianism of the Hongzhou lineage derived from Mazu Daoyi, which practiced "entrusting oneself to act freely according to the nature of one's feelings".
Huayan (810–816)
In 810, at the age of thirty, Zongmi met Lingfeng, a disciple of the preeminent Buddhist scholar and Huayan exegete Chengguan. Lingfeng gave Zongmi a copy of Chengguan's commentary and sub-commentary on the Avatamsaka Sutra. The two texts were to have a profound impact on Zongmi. He studied these texts and the sūtra with great intensity, declaring later that due to his assiduous efforts, finally "all remaining doubts were completely washed away." In 812 Zongmi travelled to the western capital, Chang'an, where he spent two years studying with Chengguan, who was not only the undisputed authority on Huayan, but was also highly knowledgeable in Chan, Tiantai, the vinaya and East Asian Mādhyamaka.Mount Zhongnan and scholarly work (816–828)
In 816, Zongmi withdrew to the Zhongnan Mountains southwest of Chang'an and began his writing career, composing an annotated outline of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, and a compilation of passages from four commentaries on the sūtra. For the next three years Zongmi continued his scholarly research, reading through the Buddhist canon, the Tripiṭaka, and traveling to various temples on Zhongnan. He returned Chang'an in 819 and continued his studies utilizing the extensive libraries of various monasteries in the capital city. In late 819 he completed a commentary and subcommentary on the Diamond Sutra. In early 821 he returned to Cottage Temple beneath Gui Peak and hence became known as "Guifeng Zongmi". In mid-823, he finally finished his own commentary on the text that had led to his first awakening, Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, and the culmination of a vow he had made some fifteen years earlier. For the next five years, Zongmi continued writing and studying in the Zhongnan Mountains as his fame grew.Capital city (828–835)
Zongmi was summoned to the capital in 828 by Emperor Wenzong and awarded the purple robe and the honorific title "Great Worthy". The two years he spent in the capital were significant for Zongmi. He was now a nationally honored Buddhist master with extensive contacts among the literati of the day, such as the devout Buddhist layman and scholar-official Pei Xiu and the famed poet Bai Juyi.During this time, Zongmi turned his considerable knowledge and intellect towards writing for a broader audience rather than the technical exegetical works he had produced for a limited readership of Buddhist specialists. His scholarly efforts became directed towards the intellectual issues of the day and much of his subsequent work was produced at the appeals of assorted literati of the day. One such works directed at the lay literati was Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity.
During this period, Zongmi also began collecting every extant Chan text in circulation with the goal of producing a Chan canon to create a new section of the Buddhist canon. This work is lost, but the title, Collected Writings on the Source of Chan remains.
Last years (835–841)
It was Zongmi's association with the great and the powerful that led to his downfall in 835 in an event known as the Sweet Dew Incident. A high official and friend of Zongmi, Li Xun, in connivance with Emperor Wenzong of Tang and his general Zheng Zhu, attempted to curb the power of the court eunuchs by killing them all. The plot failed and Li Xun fled to the Zhongnan Mountains, seeking refuge with Zongmi. Li Xun was quickly captured and executed and Zongmi was arrested and tried for treason. Impressed with Zongmi's bravery and honesty in the face of execution, the eunuch generals spared Zongmi.Little is known about Zongmi's activities after this event, though he certainly would not have been welcome at court and evidence from his late commentary on the Yulanpen sutra indicates he returned home to Sichuan. Zongmi died in the zazen posture on 1 February 841 in Chang'an. According to his wishes, his body was left as food for scavengers, and was then cremated. Twelve years later he was awarded the posthumous title "Samādhi-Prajñā Dhyāna Master" and his remains were interred in a stupa called Blue Lotus.
Influence
Zongmi's work continued to be studied by later Chinese Buddhists. His ecumenical vision of Chan as a single family with many branches and his account of Tang Chan lineages were influential sources for later Song dynasty Chan works. His work was also very influential on the "Huayan-Chan" traditions of the Khitan Liao Empire and the Tangut kingdom of the Western Xia.Zongmi's ideas also remained influential during the later Song and Ming dynasties. For example, Zongmi's views about sudden awakening, gradual cultivation, and the importance of scripture to Chan practice was influential on the later Chan figure Yongming Yanshou, whose Mind Mirror echoes Zongmi's views on these topics. The Mind Mirror was widely printed during the Song dynasty and widely circulated. According to Broughton, the Mind Mirror "conveyed to Song Chan the most fundamental elements of Zongmi's Chan Prolegomenon, sometimes in Zongmi's wording or close paraphrases". Zongmi's paradigm of "sudden awakening, gradual cultivation" was also promoted and defended by later Chan figures like as Dahui Zonggao and Hanshan Deqing.
Zongmi's work was also very influential on the Song era Tiantai school. This led to the "home mountain" vs "off mountain" debates initiated by Siming Zhili who penned extensive criticisms of Zongmi's teaching.
According to Albert Welter, during the Song era, there were to main contrasting styles of Chan, the "moderate" sutra based Chan of Zongmi and Yanshou, and the "rhetorical" Chan of the Linji school which is based on recorded sayings literature. The rhetorical Chan held that Chan was "separate transmission outside the teachings" and thus saw sutra based Chan as a confused and futile method and the sutras as "old toilet paper that wipes away filth".
Furthermore, Zongmi's thought also influenced later Neo-Confucianism. For example, Zhu Xi's critique of Chan Buddhism is a but recapitulation, in Confucian terms, of Zongmi's critique of the Hongzhou school.
The Chan of Zongmi and Yanshou was also influential on Korean Buddhism, due to its impact on Jinul's system, who also argued for the unity of Chan and the teachings. According to Broughton, Jinul's influential Excerpts from the Separately Circulated Record of the Dharma Collection with Inserted Personal Notes "is an expression of sutra-based sudden awakening gradual practice Guifeng Chan". The gradual practice is centered around the Kanhua Chan of Dahui, making Jinul's system a mix of Zongmi Chan and Dahui's Linji Chan. Zongmi's Chan Preface remained one of the most widely printed texts throughout Korean Buddhist history, with a large number of woodblock print editions. Zongmi's thought continues to be influential on modern Korean Seon, and his ideas remain a major topic of discussion today.
Through the influence of the Mind Mirror, Zongmi-Yanshou Chan also reached Japan, were it was influential on the Daruma school of Zen and on the thought of early Rinzai figures like Myoan Yosai and Enni Ben'en. The works of Zongmi and Yanshou were also printed by the monasteries of the Five Mountains of Rinzai. This tradition valued textual study, and the influence of Zongmi can be seen in the works of some of its important literari figures, like Kiyō Hōshū, who promoted Zongmi's teachings with the aphorism: "No Zen separate from the teachings; no teachings separate from Zen."