Book Review: Zongmi on Chan by Jeffrey Broughton

Zen Buddhism - Book Review: Zongmi on Chan (Translations from the Asian Classics) by Professor Jeffrey Lyle Broughton

!!WARNING - BOOK MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO BIAS - WARNING!!

Broughton’s “Zongmi on Chan” will be welcomed by Zen practitioners and anyone else interested in the foundational doctrines and techniques of Zen Buddhism.

Guifeng Zongmi [Tsung-mi] lived from 780 to 841, right in the thick of the so-called "Golden Age of Zen." Some of the "Zen Giants" who were contemporaries, and near-contemporaraies include, Ma-tsu [Baso] 709-788, Pai-chang [Hyakujo] 720-814, Nan-chuan [Nansen] 748-835, Lin-chi [Rinzai] d.866, Tung-shan [Tozan] 807-869, Hung-po [Obaku] d.850, and Chao-chou [Joshu] 778-897.

Besides his being a 4th generation dharma-heir of Huineng [Eno], Zongmi was highly educated, had a gift (and an inclination) for expressing the Dharma (Buddhist teaching), and, most fortunate for us, he was a prolific writer.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that his surviving works are considered to be some of the most reliable and comprehensive sources on the history, doctrines, and methodologies of Tang dynasty Zen. The works of this early Zen ancestor (also recognized as the 5th ancestor of Huayen Buddhism) were, and continue to be some of the most influential texts of Buddhist history.

In this thorough and fascinating treatment of Zongmi’s writings, Broughton offers up some lucidly (and well annotated) translations of Zongmi’s most important Zen works. These include a full translation of Zongmi's masterpiece, “The Chan Prolegomenon”, as well as translations of Zongmi’s, “Chan Letter”, “Chan Notes”, “Pei Xiu’s Preface” to The Chan Prolegomenon (Pei Xiu is the editor credited with compiling Huang-Po’s record).

But that's not all.

Also included is the Song Dynasty “Colophon to The Chan Prolegomenon” (from the Wanli 4 [1576] Korean Edition. Many of these translations are the first available in English. At the same time, Broughton brings those that have been previously translated (in partial and diverse works) together in this very accessible book.

Like the writings of the great Korean Zen (Soen) master, Chinul, and the eminent Japanese Zen master, Eihei Dogen, Zongmi’s works go far in debunking some of the major misrepresentations of Zen doctrine and praxis. (As with Chinul and Dogen) this is especially true regarding the variety of popular misunderstandings about the Zen axiom, “a seperate transmission outside scripture” and “not reliant on words and letters.” Zongmi’s works, perhaps even more forcefully than Chinul’s and Dogen’s, lucidly reveal how and why verbal teachings and textual study are integral and vital to authentic Zen practice/enlightenment.

In the Introduction, and throughout his annotation, Broughton skillfully walks the reader, step by step through Zongmi’s “Chan Prolegomenon” to reveal why the authentic transmission of Zen has never been, nor could ever be literally “separate” from the sutras, shastras, and Zen. In this illuminating explication, Broughton also delves deeply into the classic Zen text, “Mind Mirror” (of Yanshou) and its rationale (like Zongmi’s, Chinul’s, and Dogen’s) that Zen can only be authentically transmitted within the context of the sutras, shastras, and records of the Zen ancestors.

Whether you are new to Zen (or Zongmi) or you are a seasoned adept, this book will expand your understanding of Zen and deepen your admiration of Zongmi.

From the Product Description:

Japanese Zen often implies that textual learning ( gakumon) in Buddhism and personal experience ( taiken) in Zen are separate, but the career and writings of the Chinese Tang dynasty Chan master Guifeng Zongmi (780-841) undermine this division…

The Chan Prolegomenon persuasively argues that Chan “axiom realizations” are identical to the teachings embedded in canonical word and that one who transmits Chan must use the sutras and treatises as a standard. Japanese Rinzai Zen has, since the Edo period, marginalized the sutra-based Chan of the Chan Prolegomenon and its successor text, the Mind Mirror ( Zongjinglu) of Yongming Yanshou (904-976). This book contains the first in-depth treatment in English of the neglected Mind Mirror, positioning it as a restatement of Zongmi’s work for a Song dynasty audience.

The ideas and models of the Chan Prolegomenon, often disseminated in East Asia through the conduit of the Mind Mirror, were highly influential in the Chan traditions of Song and Ming China, Korea from the late Koryo onward, and Kamakura-Muromachi Japan. In addition, Tangut-language translations of Zongmi’s Chan Prolegomenon and Chan Letter constitute the very basis of the Chan tradition of the state of Xixia. As Broughton shows, the sutra-based Chan of Zongmi and Yanshou was much more normative in the East Asian world than previously believed, and readers who seek a deeper, more complete understanding of the Chan tradition will experience a surprising reorientation in this book.

About the Author

Jeffrey Broughton is professor of religious studies at California State University Long Beach and the author of The Bodhidharma Anthology: The Earliest Records of Zen.

Get the book, you won't be sorry!

Peace,
Ted Biringer

More Zen and Buddhist Book Reviews

Book Review: How Zen Became Zen

Book Review

How Zen Became Zen: The Dispute over Enlightenment and the Formation of Chan Buddhism in Song-Dynasty China by Morten Schlütter (Studies in East Asian Buddhism, No. 22Published in association with the Kuroda Institute)

In this masterpiece of modern Zen scholarship, Morten Schlutter presents a vastly important and astonishingly thorough account of the historical evidence of How Zen became Zen. While a number of studies in recent decades have revealed that the “traditional history” of Zen’s (Chan’s) “Golden Age” in Tang era China was actually retrospectively created in the Song Dynasty, Morten Schlutter’s “How Zen became Zen” is the first book to offer a thorough explanation, complete with a detailed analysis on how and why this occurred.

Here in this book are gathered together the groundbreaking discoveries of Zen scholarship in recent decades, PLUS an extensive range and scope of previously ignored source materials (that Schulutter has personally uncovered through meticulous research), all arranged and woven together with his own profound insight and knowledge into a rich tapestry that is both thoroughgoing and accessible.

In a meticulous, step by step presentation, Schlutter introduces the reader to all of the recent discoveries and reveals the wide range of influencing factors. Drawing on a vast array of original sources, Schlutter leaves no rock unturned. By exploring sources from competing `schools’ to governmental policies, from monastic institutions, to Chinese literati, from the recently unearthed texts in Northern China to epithets of Zen masters, readers are shown how and why Chinese Buddhism culminated in the astonishingly original and distinctive form of Buddhism known as “Zen” (Chan).

This book is essential reading (as well as reference) for all serious Zen students/practitioners.

From the Flaps:

How Zen Became Zen takes a novel approach to understanding one of the most crucial developments in Zen Buddhism: the dispute over the nature of enlightenment that erupted within the Chinese Chan (Zen) school in the twelfth century. The famous Linji (Rinzai) Chan master Dahui Zonggao (1089-1163) railed against “heretical silent illumination Chan” and strongly advocated kanhua (koan) meditation as an antidote. In this fascinating study, Morten Schlütter shows that Dahui’s target was the Caodong (Soto) Chan tradition that had been revived and reinvented in the early twelfth century, and that silent meditation was an approach to practice and enlightenment that originated within this “new” Chan tradition. Schlütter has written a refreshingly accessible account of the intricacies of the dispute, which is still reverberating through modern Zen in both Asia and the West. Dahui and his opponents’ arguments for their respective positions come across in this book in as earnest and relevant a manner as they must have seemed almost nine hundred years ago.

Although much of the book is devoted to illuminating the doctrinal and soteriological issues behind the enlightenment dispute, Schlütter makes the case that the dispute must be understood in the context of government policies toward Buddhism, economic factors, and social changes. He analyzes the remarkable ascent of Chan during the first centuries of the Song dynasty, when it became the dominant form of elite monastic Buddhism, and demonstrates that secular educated elites came to control the critical transmission from master to disciple (”procreation” as Schlütter terms it) in the Chan School.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Chan Buddhism in the Song: Some Background
2. The Chan School and the Song States
3. Procreation and Patronage in the Song Chan School
4. A New Chan Tradition: The Reinvention of the Caodong Lineage in the Song
5. A Dog Has No Buddha-Nature: Kanhua Chan and Dahui Zonggao’s Attacks on Silent Illumination
6. The Caodong Tradition as the Target of Attacks by the Linji Tradition
7. Silent Illumination and the Caodong Tradition
Conclusion
Notes
Caodong Lineage
Linji Lineage
Glossary
Bibliography
Index

More Zen and Buddhist Book Reviews by Ted Biringer

Book Review Soto Zen in Medieval Japan - William M. Bodiford

Soto Zen in Medieval Japan (Studies in East Asian Buddhism)by William M. Bodiford
The most extensive and informative English language book on the formation and development of Soto Zen to date.

William Bodiford’s “Soto Zen in Medieval Japan” (Studies in East Asian Buddhism) paints an extraordinarily clear picture of the history of Soto Zen in Japan.

No matter what view you may have of the transmission of Zen (any school, not just Soto) from China to Japan, reading this book is bound to alter that view dramatically! If you believe a more accurate understanding is an improvement, then the your “altered” view will be a grand improvement.

One of the more “unorthodox” discoveries that William Bodiford uncovered in his massive study was the role of Zen Koan literature in the earliest years of Soto Zen. While the role of koans in the Soto sect has often been characterized as minimal, or even non-essential, “Soto Zen in Medieval Japan” affirms that nothing could be further from the truth. While the founder of Soto Zen in Japan, Dogen, has often been portrayed as unconcerned with the Zen Koan literature, Bodiford bluntly reports different, stating:

“…there is no doubt that Dogen himself trained in and taught his students systematic methods of koan investigation. His teachings cannot be comprehended without intimate knowledge of Chinese koan…”

Not only does this remarkable scholar recognize that for Dogen a thorough grasp of the classic Zen koans was considered essential, he raises the purpose of Zen koans to a whole new level. Defined by uncomprehending scholars and pseudo-Zen adherents simply as “devices” or “riddles” aimed at some kind of “experience” brought on by psychological frustration, koans have been widely misunderstood. In his masterful study Bodiford resurrects many of the true, multifaceted and profoundly versatile uses and meanings of these unique literary expressions of enlightened wisdom. For instance, Bodiford states:

“Medieval Soto monks and nuns mastered the depths of Zen enlighten­ment, the trivial moments of daily life, and the routine activities of monastic training through the language of the Chinese Ch’an patriarchs as recorded in koan texts. This specialized idiom allowed Zen teachers and students to describe different approaches to practice, various states of meditation, and fine distinctions between points of view or levels of understanding. More important, koan study–like ordination rituals and funeral ceremonies–encapsulated Zen transcendence in tangible forms, expressed it in concrete performances, and allowed it to be communi­cated easily to monks, nuns, and laypersons. For clerics and villagers alike this body of Zen praxis fused together the symbolic transmission of the Buddha’s enlightenment, its embodiment in the words and actions of the Zen master, with the worlds lived and imagined, both inside and out­side the monastery. While koan training, ordination rituals, and funeral ceremonies comprise only three of the Zen practices performed by medieval Soto monks, each proved indispensable for the rapid growth of Soto institutions and the religious efficacy of these institutions within rural society.”

Exploring the masterful ingenuity of Soto Zen’s brilliant and charismatic founder (Eihei Dogen) and his relatively few, but dedicated disciples through the early and extremely challenging decades of Japan’s 13th century, Bodiford reveals the unique forces that catapulted Soto Zen into Japan. It is no wonder that Soto Zen Buddhism is easily the most powerful force of Buddhism in Japan to this very day.

Not only is this book easily the most extensive and informative English language book on the formation and development of Soto Zen to date, its illumination of the lives and teachings of Japan’s early Zen master’s (including Eihei Dogen) is astonishingly rich. Moreover, Bodiford’s revelations concerning the early Japanese history of both Rinzai Zen and Darumashu Zen are profoundly intriguing.

William Bodiford’s “Soto Zen in Medieval Japan” destined to stand as essential reading for serious Zen students/practitioners for many decades to come.

For more Buddhist and Zen Book reviews go to: Biringer's Book Reviews