Three Important Contributions to the Chan tradition in China

1) Zen and work, rules for living.

2) Non-Metaphysical Zen3) Recognizing the primacy

of the “wheel of birth and death.”

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Old Baizhang Temple

Baizhang’s old temple.

“The Ancestral Temple Shines Again”

Baizhang’s old temple.

Baizhang carried on the tradition of Mazu (recall the story of Mazu and his teacher entitled “Nanquan kills the cat”. Here is a story about Baizhang’s “three jars of sauce” from the Record of Baizhang.

Mazu gave three jars of sauce to Baizhang. One day [later] Baizhang instructed a monk to place the three jars in front of the Dharma Hall. Then he entered the hall to speak. When the monks had assembled Baizhang picked up his staff and pointed it at the jars. He said, “If you can speak I won’t break them. If you can’t speak then I’ll break them. The monks didn’t say anything. Baizhang then broke the jars with his staff and returned to the abbot’s quarters.

Question: What are the jars?

The Record of Baizhang

Baizhang also adhered to the “signless” way.

Huangbo asked Baizhang, “Since ancient times, what

teaching has been used for people?”

Baizhang was silent for a long time.

Huangbo asked, “How should this be explained to future

(spiritual) descendants?

Baizhang said, “Just say that this old fellow was a person.”

Baizhang then went back to his abbot’s quarters.

The Record of Baizhang

More on the signless way:

Baizhang said, “When I was a child, I went with my mother to a temple to pray to Buddha. I pointed at the statue of Buddha and asked my mother, “What’s this?” She said, ‘It’s Buddha.’ I said, ‘He doesn’t look any different than anyone else.’ Thereafter I always practiced in this way.”

-The Record of Baizhang

Baizhang entered the hall to address the monks. He said, “I want someone to go and say something to Xitang [one of Baizhang’s Dharma siblings that was teachings at a different location].

The monk Wufeng said, “I’ll do it.”

Baizhang said, “What will you say to him?”

Wufeng said, “I speak it when I see him.”

Baizhang said, “Then when you see him what will you say?”

Wufeng said, “I’ll tell you when I come back here.”

Baizhang on Non-Abiding Mind and the appropriate response.

The Record of Baizhang

Yunyan asked Baizhang, “Master, who is it that you’re doing all this work for?

Baizhang said, “There’s one person who needs me to do it.”

Yunyan said, “ Why don’t you teach him to do it himself?”

Baizhang said, “He doesn’t know the language of our house.”

The Record of Baizhang

Baizhang’s contributions to Zen:

1) The “Pure Rules” and “A day of no work, a day of no eating.”

Vegetable Garden at Baizhang Monastery

Some Chinese historians claim that with the development of the “Signless Precepts” by Huineng, some of the traditional incentives toward discipline in the Zen tradition were lost. Accounts say that some monks rejected or even showed contempt for the sutras and precepts. The monk Danxia Tianran reportedly refused to receive the precepts from Shitou, covering his ears and running away from the ceremony.

Huineng Tearing Up a Sutra

By Liang Kai (13th century)

Baizhang brought order to the unruly Zen tradition with his “Pure Rules” for life in a Zen monastery. He “formalized” the monastic lifestyle said to have been started by Daoxin.

The “Pure Rules” lay out the regulations for life in the monastery, the requirements for observing religious occasions, the various officers and their duties, and other details for the activities of monastic life and discipline.

The original “Pure Rules” composed by Baizhang have been lost. What we have today are 11th and 13th century revivals of Baizhang’s rules. Note that the latest rules were entitled the “Imperially mandated practice of Baizhang’s Pure Rules.” This indicates that these later rules did not have the same focus of independence that the earlier rules did. They were composed when Zen had become part of the religious establishment.

In fact, the later “Pure Rules” pay much attention to how monks should honor the emperor’s birthday, receive visiting high officials, etc. This is in contrast to early Zen’s emphasis, by Bodhidharma, Huineng, Daoxin and others, to stay away from imperial circles

This big rock on the mountain behind Baizhang’s place has old characters that proclaims “The World Famous Pure Rules.”

In the context of the Baizhang’s ancient “Pure Rules’ we can see the importance of his dictum “A day of no working is a day of no eating.”

The Compendium of Five Lamps gives this account:

In the everyday work of the monastery, Baizhang always was foremost among the assembly at undertaking the tasks of the day. The monks in charge of the work were concerned about the master. They hid his tools and asked him to rest.Baizhang said, “I’m unworthy. How can I allow others to work in my behalf?”He looked everywhere for his tools but was unable to find them. He even forgot to eat [while looking for his tools], and thus the phrase “a day without working is a day without eating” has become known everywhere.

Baizhang Monastery

Baizhang Monastery

2) Non Metaphysical Zen Practice

Baizhang Huaihai strongly opposed a metaphysical interpretation of Zen and Zen practice. He made the following statement with respect to metaphysical speculation about Zen.

“If you cling to some fundamental [read: “metaphysical”] ‘purity’ or ‘liberation,’ or that you yourself are Buddha, or that you are someone who understands the Zen Way, then this falls under the false idea of ‘naturalism’ [i.e. something not subject to cause and effect]. If you cling to [the idea of self or things’] ‘existence,’ then this falls under the false idea of ‘eternalism.’ If you cling to [the self or things’] ‘non-existence’ this falls under the false idea of nihilism. If you cling to the twin concepts of existence and non-existence, this falls under the false idea of partiality. If you cling to a concept that things do not exist and also do not not exist, then this is the false idea of emptiness, and [all of these ideas] are also called the heresy of ignorance. One should only practice in the present without views of Buddha, nirvana, and so on, nor with any ideas about existence or non-existence, and so on; and without views about views, which is called the correct view; or what you have not heard or not not heard, for this is true hearing. This is all called overcoming false doctrines.”

A monk asked, “How can a person gain freedom?”Baizhang said, “If you attain it at this moment then you’ve attained it. If you can instantly cut off the emotions of the self, the five desires and winds of attachment, the greed and covetousness, the pollution and purity, that is to say, all delusive thoughts, then you’ll be like the sun and the moon hanging in space, purely shining–the mind like wood and stone; thoughts spared from worldly entrapments; like a great elephant crossing a river, engulfed in the rapids but taking no missteps. Heaven and hell can’t pull in such a person. When that person reads a sutra or observes a teaching, the words return to the person. The person knows that all teachings with words are only a reflection of the immediacy of self-nature and are just meant to guide you. Such teachings don’t penetrate the revolving realms of existence and non-existence. Only Diamond-Wisdom penetrates the revolving realms of existence and non-existence, and thus constitutes complete, independent freedom.

Baizhang also responded to a question as follows:

“If you don’t understand in this manner and just go on chanting the Vedic scriptures, then you’re just making matters worse, and moreover you’re slandering Buddha. This is not practice.

“But to be separate from all sound and form, though not abiding in the separateness, and not abiding in intellectual comprehension, this is the true practice of reading sutras and observing the teachings. One who lets the world be as it is, always acting in countless situations with clear rectitude, this is one who has truly cut off the passions.”

3) Baizhang’s 3rd contribution: Seeing the wheel of birth and death, the ‘revolving realms of existence and non-existence,” without engaging in metaphysics.

Every day when Zen master Baizhang spoke in the hall, there was an old man who would attend along with the assembly. One day when the congregation had departed, the old man remained. Baizhang asked him, “Who are you?”The old man said, “I’m not a person. Formerly, during the age of Kasyapa Buddha, I was the abbot of a monastery on this mountain. At that time a student asked me, ‘Does a great adept fall into cause and effect or not?’ I answered, saying, ‘A great adept does not fall into cause and effect.’ Thereafter, for five hundred lifetimes I’ve been reborn in the body of a fox. Now I ask that the master say a turning phrase in my behalf, so that I can shed the fox’s body.”Baizhang said, “Ask the question.”The old man said, “Does a great adept fall into cause and effect or not?”Baizhang said, “A great adept is not blind to cause and effect.”

Baizhang’s Wild Fox Cave

New Construction at Baizhang

New Construction at Baizhang

New Construction at Baizhang

New Construction at Baizhang

Visitors at Baizhang

Three monks from Baizhang’s Temple

The Gate at Baizhang’s New Temple

The End