Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings (5 page)

In various places in the
Continued Biographies
Dao Xuan offers evidence that Bodhidharma avoided contact with China’s emperors. Dao Xuan says that Bodhidharma’s followers were numerous “like a city,” but emperors were unable to attract him to give lectures at their court. Historical evidence appears to support Dao Xuan’s statements that Bodhidharma avoided China’s imperial courts. While other missionary monks from India sought imperial patronage, there is no evidence that Bodhidharma did so. During the time Bodhidharma was in China the country was divided between two competing dynasties. The Wei dynasty ruled in the north of the country, while a succession of dynasties, including the Song, Qi, and Liang, ruled in the south. The emperors of these kingdoms were avowedly Buddhist, spending great sums to support the religion. In a country where winters are freezing cold, the need for support to build Buddhist monasteries was an overriding concern for the religion. Yet there is no evidence that Bodhidharma sought support from emperors or high court officials for this or any other purpose. Instead, the
Continued Biographies
indicates Bodhidharma spent much time teaching and practicing among “peaks and caves.”
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In contrast to Bodhidharma’s mendicant life away from the centers of China’s religious establishment, there is the story of Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty, a figure of key historical and religious importance not just in China but for all of East Asia. Emperor Wu gained power after leading a rebellion against a vicious and incompetent Qi dynasty emperor who was guilty of murder and mayhem.

According to Chinese Buddhist tradition, shortly after gaining power Emperor Wu embraced Buddhism partly because his wife, who had recently died, appeared to him in a dream in the body of a large snake. From the dream she explained that she had undergone rebirth in a snake’s body because of her sins during her life. She begged the emperor to help her escape her fate by appealing to the Buddha for help on her behalf. Emperor Wu ordered the creation and observance of a ceremony to try and save his wife. But not stopping there, he also devised a ceremony called the “Water and Land Liberation Ceremony” that appealed to beings in the upper realms of existence such as humans, bodhisattvas, and gods, to help beings in the lower realms of existence such as hungry ghosts, hell-dwellers, and animals—and even demons. This ceremony is still performed in Buddhist temples throughout China every year. Emperor Wu himself authored much of the liturgy used in these ceremonies, and eminent Buddhist monks of his day organized and carried them out with Emperor Wu’s participation. According to legend, Emperor Wu’s wife thereupon escaped from her rebirth as a snake, and Emperor Wu devotion to Buddhism became ever stronger in the years that followed.

Early in Emperor Wu’s rule (502–549 C.E.) he embraced vegetarianism, began to practice celibacy, and studied Buddhist scriptures in depth. In the year 519, at a ceremony in the Flowered Woods Garden at the rear of his palace complex, he formally took the vows of a Buddhist monk and gave up his position as emperor. Soon, however, the country’s aristocracy paid a “ransom” to make him return to his position leading the country. In total, Emperor Wu formally became a “home-leaver” (as Buddhist renunciants are called) four times during his long reign, but returned to become emperor after a short period on each occasion.

Emperor Wu built or refurbished hundreds of Buddhism temples in his empire. Around his capital, now the city of Nanjing, he constructed temples that honored his late parents, plus a large number of other new temples and monasteries. One temple built to honor his father sat perched on the peak of nearby Bell Mountain, and required extensive resources for its construction and the maintenance of the large number of monks that resided there. Emperor Wu continued this building campaign for decades and consumed a large amount of the country’s wealth for this purpose.

Through his devotion to the study and expounding of Buddhist scriptures and doctrine, Emperor Wu spent much time that might otherwise have been spent governing the country. Old records indicate he slept on a simple mat in a plain room inside his palace, where he spent long hours studying Buddhist texts and composing his own commentaries on their contents. He built ordination platforms where members of the aristocracy, along with the general public, together received the bodhisattva precepts in vast public assemblies. He devotedly studied the Prajnaparamita Sutra, and paid special attention to the Lotus and Nirvana sutras, among others.

Bearing in mind the great chasm in the Buddhist beliefs and practices between Bodhidharma and Emperor Wu, what follows is the standard account of their meeting in the
Compendium of Five Lamps
:

After sailing for three years, [Bodhidharma] arrived at Nanhai [Guangzhou]. The date was the twenty-first day of the ninth [lunar] month of [the year 527]. The governor of Guangzhou, [named] Xiao Angju received him ceremoniously and made his arrival known to Emperor Wu. When the emperor learned of this report, he dispatched an invitation [for Bodhidharma to come to the capital Nanjing]. [On the first day of the tenth lunar month of 528] Bodhidharma arrived in Nanjing.

The emperor spoke to him as follows: “Since I’ve assumed the throne I’ve built temples and written [about] scriptures, plus I’ve brought about the ordination of an incalculable number of monks. What merit does this [activity] have?”

Bodhidharma replied, “No merit whatsoever.”

The emperor then asked, “Why does this have no merit?”

Bodhidharma said, “These are matters of small consequence in the affairs of men and gods that are caused by transgressions [literally,
outflows
]. It’s like shadows chasing form, nothing real about it [literally,
although it’s there it’s not real
].”

The emperor then asked, “What is genuine merit?”

Bodhidharma said, “Pure wisdom of sublime perfection, experiencing one’s [personal] solitary emptiness, seeking nothing in the world.”

The emperor then asked, “What is the first principle of the holy truth?”

Bodhidharma said, “Across the vastness, nothing holy.”

The emperor said, “Who is facing me?”

Bodhidharma said, “I don’t know.”

Bodhidharma’s answer to Emperor Wu’s questions clearly may be interpreted as saying that Zen values solitary meditation dedicated to observing the nature of the mind, as opposed to outward directed displays of religiosity. This is in line with the Buddha’s legendary sermon on Vulture Peak that described the Zen dharma as “signless.” Zen monks often famously rejected symbols otherwise embraced by Buddhism. Their iconoclastic acts often appeared to show disrespect toward things like statues of the Buddha, items that other Buddhists regarded as sacred symbols of the faith. But this interpretation, while valid, may only scratch the surface of why Bodhidharma and Emperor Wu were at loggerheads.

Bodhidharma’s actions with regard to Emperor Wu may also be credited to an important paradox at the heart of Zen. One place the paradox may found is in understanding the role of “bodhisattvas,” exalted spiritual beings that are unique to Mahayana Buddhism. Emperor Wu was devoted to the study of sutras that honored bodhisattvas, as well as other doctrinal ideas spreading in Chinese Buddhism at that time. These ideas fell under the heading of the Chinese word
yi xue
, which means “doctrinal study.” Emperor Wu actively engaged in discussion of such ideas, inviting many prominent Buddhist teachers to his court to expound and debate them. The role of bodhisattvas, a concept central to Mahayana Buddhism and expounded in popular texts like the Lotus Sutra, opened the door for lay people, including emperors, to have high-ranking spiritual positions by virtue of their vows and actions. The bodhisattva vows, especially as set forth in a text called the Brahma Net Sutra, were recited by both home leaving monks and lay people. Also, teachings of the Nirvana Sutra spread the idea that all beings have “buddha nature” and could become buddhas. These developments blurred the distinction between traditional home-leaving monks and the rest of society.

Bodhidharma, as he is presented in later historical accounts like the one cited above, is clearly credited with rejecting the doctrinal approach to Buddhism taken by Emperor Wu and instead uphelding the solitary practice of a home-leaving monk, a monk who meditates on the nature of the mind. The
Continued Biographies
offers various passages to support this difference in the religious practices of Emperor Wu and Bodhidharma. It indicates that Bodhidharma generally did not make use of scriptures in his teaching mission, the Lankavatara Sutra, a text emphasizing the nature of the mind, being the lone exception.

In this light, the meeting between Bodhidharma and Emperor Wu represents not only a disagreement in how Buddhism should be practiced, but a political difference as well. To Emperor Wu, Buddhism was not simply a matter of personal religious insight as personified through Zen practice, but a political ideology, a means by which to guide the state. The Buddhist doctrines that invested the emperor with both spiritual and temporal authority were to him a matter of great interest.

When Zen placed importance on the legendary meeting and failure of agreement between Bodhidharma and Emperor Wu, the tradition distanced itself from political and doctrinal issues that detracted from its central insight and practice, a practice that emphasized observing the nature of the mind.

While some early Zen masters, particularly the Fourth Ancestor Daoxin, introduced scriptural and doctrinal terminology into the Zen tradition, the writings of certain other early Zen masters indicate that these developments were not meant to show approval of doctrinal study, much less acceptance of a metaphysical interpretation of reality that flowed naturally from such teachings.

In the traditional story, after his encounter with Emperor Wu, Bodhidharma proceeded north, crossing the Yang-tse River “on a single blade of grass,” a scene often depicted in Chinese paintings and sculpture. At Shaolin Monastery on Mt. Song, Bodhidharma is said to have spent nine years facing the wall of a cave in meditation. Late in life, it is possible that Bodhidharma lived near Luoyang City, which was then a showcase for the splendor of sixth-century Chinese Buddhism. A widely accepted account appearing to confirm this possibility quotes the comments of a monk named Bodhidharma concerning the grandeur of Luoyang’s great temples during the decade beginning in 520.
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In legends, Bodhidharma’s personality is solemn. The enlightened joy and ironic humor that vibrate in many Chinese Zen personalities and stories is not clearly evident in the early years of the sect. Indeed, the artistic paintings and sculptures of Bodhidharma created centuries later depict his legendary seriousness with a sour-looking face, sometimes glaring with what is misconstrued as ill-concealed rage. It is Bodhidharma’s scowl, not the placid countenance of a bodhisattva, that announces the Zen of the ancestors. His painful look augurs the fearsome enlightenment gates of Linji’s shout, Deshan’s stick, and Yunmen’s one-word barriers.

According to tradition, Bodhidharma gathered at least four prominent disciples. Huike, remembered as the Second Ancestor, received the “mind-to-mind” transmission that passed in turn to later Zen generations. The
Compendium of Five Lamps
provides the traditional story of this event
.
⁹