The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature z MARIO POCESKI 1 3 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 © Oxford University Press 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress. ISBN 978–0–19–022575–9 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Contents Preface and Acknowledgments vii Abbreviations xi Conventions xiii Introduction 1 PART I: Study of Chan Literature 1. Mazu’s Records and the Study of Chan Literature 17 2. Hagiographic Representations of Patriarch Ma 38 3. Further Communal Remembrances 61 4. Formation of Chan Genres 93 5. Four Main Genres 111 6. Protracted Makings of Texts and Patriarchs 133 PART II: Translation and Commentary of Mazu’s Records 1. Mazu’s Stele Inscription 175 2. Stone Case Inscription 195 3. Biographical Entry in Zu tang ji 199 4. Excerpts from Zong jing lu 239 vi Contents 5. Biographical Entry in Song gao seng zhuan 257 6. Biographical Entry in Jingde chuan deng lu 276 7. Sermon in Jingde chuan deng lu 298 Appendix: Additional Sources about Mazu 315 Glossary 317 Bibliography 327 Index 343 Preface and Acknowledgments The disTanT origins of this book go back in time to my late teens, when I first got seriously interested in the study of Chan/Zen Buddhism. That hap- pened at an island hermitage in Sri Lanka, where I took temporary residence after extended overland travel from Europe. The initial encounter with books about Zen prompted me to travel to East Asia in a youthful search for knowl- edge. The record of Mazu Daoyi (709–788), Mazu yulu, was among the earli- est Chinese texts I ever read, after I taught myself classical Chinese while living at another monastery located on an island, this time in Hong Kong. My first book, Sun Face Buddha (Asian Humanities Press 1993)—published before my entry into graduate school, while I was still in my twenties—included a translation of Mazu’s record, along with other related materials. Other mark- ers on the way to this volume included my PhD dissertation on Tang Chan (UCLA 2000) and my book on the history, doctrines, and practices of Mazu’s Hongzhou School, Ordinary Mind as the Way (Oxford 2007), along with a number of shorter publications on related subjects. The idea of this book was born while I was working on the Hongzhou School book, although a number of other projects, including work on two other books, delayed the progress on the manuscript. The work on a book of this kind, like much of humanistic scholarship, is for the most part a solitary undertaking. In a way, it evokes a comparison with monastic life, of the eremitic variety. Nonetheless, my academic life has taken me to many places and brought me into contact with a number of people. Over the years, I have greatly benefited from the support, example, and encour- agement that was kindly extended to me by a number of individuals and institutions. I would especially like to thank Steven Heine, Robert Buswell, Albert Welter, and Beata Grant, as well as my colleagues and students at the University of Florida, particularly Richard Wang. Much of the writing of the book, especially the final stages, was done during two research stays in Germany, as a Humboldt fellow and a visiting professor viii Preface and Acknowledgments at the University of Hamburg. I am especially grateful to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for their generous support, which enabled me to spend the summers and falls of 2013 and 2014 in Germany (plus a forthcoming stay in the summer of 2015). I am also greatly appreciative of the hospitality I have received in Hamburg, where I am affiliated with the Asien-Afrika-Institut. I have especially enjoyed the support and friendship of my academic host, Michael Zimmermann, the director of the University of Hamburg’s Center for Buddhist Studies, who also offered valuable feedback on the book’s introduc- tion and chapter 1. I also want to acknowledge the support I received from my home insti- tution, the University of Florida. That included grants that facilitated two research stays in Japan: Humanities Scholarship Enhancement Grant, from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, and Rothman Summer Fellowship, from the Center for the Humanities and the Public Sphere. During my second stay in Japan, in the summer of 2012, I was fortunate to be able to conduct research in Nagoya, where I used the excellent facilities of the Institute for Religion and Culture at Nanzan University. Special thanks go to James Heisig and Paul Swanson, who facilitated my stay there and inspired me by their high standards of scholarship. I wish to thank Cynthia Read, Executive Editor, and the production team at Oxford University Press, including Glenn Ramirez, for their excellent work and high level of professionalism, as well as Joy Matkowski for her expert editing. I would also like to acknowledge the encouragement and construc- tive feedback I received from the three anonymous scholars who reviewed the manuscript for Oxford. In preparing the present book, with the publisher’s permission I made use of materials from two earlier chapters, which I wrote for edited volumes published by Oxford: “Monastic Innovator, Iconoclast, and Teacher of Doctrine: The Varied Images of Chan Master Baizhang,” in Steven Heine and Dale Wright, eds., Zen Masters (Oxford 2010), and “Mazu yulu and the Creation of the Chan Records of Sayings,” in Steven Heine and Dale Wright, eds., The Zen Canon: Understanding the Classic Texts (Oxford 2004). I used only small and revised portions of the first, while the second publica- tion became a foundation for a number of sections in chapter 6. I especially want to thank Rev. Dixuan (Chen Yujing), a graduate stu- dent of mine, for going over most of the translations and offering valu- able comments. The same kind of thankfulness goes to Rev. Guoguang, for her helpful feedback on my translation of Mazu’s stele inscription. I also received assistance from Zhou Chunyang (a graduate student at Hamburg), who proffered the Chinese characters, and Zhang Yanchao (a graduate stu- dent at Florida), who located and sent me digital copies of various research Preface and Acknowledgments ix materials, especially during my stays abroad. Special thanks go to Ruth Sheng, a great colleague and a fomer graduate sudent of mine, for the won- derful calligraphy that graces the cover of the book. As always, at the end I want to express the greatest appreciation and gratitude to my wife, Hiroko Poceski, for her love, patience, and support. Abbreviations Canonical Collections T Taishō shinshū dai zōkyō 大正新修大藏經 X Xu zang jing 續藏經 (reprint of Dai nihon zoku zōkyō 大日本續藏經) Primary Sources BGL Baizhang guang lu 百丈廣錄 BLZ Baolin zhuan 寶林傳 BYL Bi yan lu 碧巖錄 CDL Jingde chuan deng lu 景德傳燈錄 FHJ Miao fa lianhua jing 妙法蓮華經 GSZ Gao seng zhuan 高僧傳 GZY Gu zunsu yulu 古尊宿語錄 HYJ Huayan jing 華嚴經 JTS Jiu tang shu 舊唐書 MY Mazu yulu 馬祖語錄 QTW Quan tang wen 全唐文 SGS Song gao seng zhuan 宋高僧傳 TGL Tiansheng guang deng lu 天聖廣燈錄 WMJ Weimojie jing 維摩詰經 WYY Wen yuan ying hua 文苑英華 XTS Xin tang shu 新唐書 ZJL Zong jing lu 宗鏡錄 ZTJ Zu tang ji 祖堂集 Languages C Chinese J Japanese xii Abbreviations P Pāli S Sanskrit Journals IBK Indogaku bukkyōgaku kenkyū 印度學佛教學研究 ZK Zengaku kenkyū 禪學研究 Conventions on The whole, the book follows standard academic conventions used in Western scholarship on Chinese Buddhism, especially Chan studies. The abbreviations listed here are used only in the notes and the bibliography, not in the main body of the text, with the exception of the language abbrevia- tions. Chinese words are transliterated according to the Pinyin system, with the exception of names that are better known in another transcription. For Japanese, I use the Revised Hepburn Romanization system. References to clas- sical Chinese texts include title (or abbreviation), followed by fascicle number and page(s) number (for instance, ZTJ 14.304–05). When individual texts are included in larger canonical collections, such as the Taishō and Zokuzōkyō edi- tions of the Buddhist canon, after the title and the fascicle number, I include the name (or abbreviation) of the collection, followed by the volume, page, col- umn indicator (a, b, or c), and (if relevant) line number.