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Chan Rhetoric of Uncertainty in the Blue Cliff Record

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Chan Rhetoric of Uncertainty in the Blue Cliff Record Chan Rhetoric of Uncertainty in the Blue Cliff Record Chan Rhetoric of Uncertainty in the Blue Cliff Record Sharpening a Sword at the Dragon Gate z STEVEN HEINE 1 1 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 is a registered trade mark 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, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2016 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 978–0–19–939776–1 (hbk); 978–0–19–939777–8 (pbk) 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Webcom, Canada Contents Preface vii 1. Prolegomenon to a New Hermeneutic: On Being Uncertain about Uncertainty 1 2. Entering the Dragon Gate: Textual Formation in Historical and Rhetorical Contexts 46 3. Unintended Baggage? Part I: Yuanwu in His Own Write Vis- à- Vis Xuedou 90 4. Unintended Baggage? Part II: Yuanwu in His Own Write Vis- à- Vis Dahui 128 5. Sharpening a Sword: Case Studies of Representative Gongan 173 6. Questions Are in the Answers: Enduring Legacy in Relation to Textual Controversies 223 Appendix 1: Blue Cliff Record Lineage Chart 259 Appendix 2: Blue Cliff Record Cases with Notes 261 Appendix 3: Blue Cliff Record Cases in Other Chan/ Zen Texts 267 Appendix 4: Timelines 271 Notes 275 Sino- Japanese Glossary 313 Bibliography 325 Index 337 Preface In the summer of 2015 I had the opportunity to visit Mount Jiashan, the Buddhist temple located in a relatively remote spot of northwestern Hunan province that was the main site where the original lectures com- menting on Chan gongan (J. kōan) cases with verses by Xuedou were delivered by master Yuanwu in the early 1100s and were published more than a decade later as the Blue Cliff Record. The text had a rocky early his- tory in that, following considerable initial fanfare, it was apparently lost or destroyed within two decades after publication, but then it was recovered and brought a century and a half later to Japan, where it has ever since been celebrated and cherished. There are also legends that, in the inter- vening years, Japanese pilgrims to the mainland, including Dōgen, were shown copies of the collection during a long phase in which, to the best of our understanding based mainly on a lack of citations, it was otherwise kept out of mainstream circulation. In recent years the text is once again being studied and appreciated in China even as we must still grapple with the complex legacy of the collection. The main goal of my trip was to gain a better sense of the significance of some of these mysterious developments. The visit at once confirmed and overturned many of my assumptions and expectations. It was intrigu- ing to learn that with the ongoing revival of traditional Buddhist sites in China today, the temple is now promoting the heritage of its “three trea- sures,” about which some legends and rumors were no doubt being mixed or conflated. One of the treasures is the text of the classic gongan com- mentary, recently printed in a new edition that includes a rendering in modern Chinese and is sold in a shop there. Another treasure is the Blue Cliff Spring, as shown in Figure 0.1, which is situated down the hill from the temple buildings and supposedly inspired the lectures and also helped create the third treasure of tea. viii Preface Figure 0.1 Author visiting Blue Cliff Spring in Hunan province. Jiashan Temple, courtesy of the author. Because of the supposedly perfect balance in the water (hard to believe in smog- ridden China), this purity helped lead to the famous saying, “Chan and Tea Have One Taste,” which was written on a scroll attributed to Yuanwu, although the practice of linking the beverage with meditation preceded his tenure as abbot. Meanwhile I was not surprised to find that near the spring a man- made lake was built for boating and a new “ancient street” for entertaining tourists with old-fashioned cultural attractions including tea was under construction. As in many well-traveled places in China these days, when something is called ancient this can mean it is actually a year or two old. It struck me that the most important feature being promoted was not religious but political. Based on another legend that is highly contested the temple claims that Li Zicheng, a late Ming rebel who was able to declare himself King Dashun in Beijing for forty-eight days before being van- quished by Qing invaders, retired after his battles to these grounds where he lived in retreat for nearly thirty years. A colossal mausoleum along with a museum dedicated to memorializing the warrior, who also wrote dozens of poems about plum blossoms, is the largest structure on the compound. Another political aspect is that the only temple building that is older than thirty years is a hall that was once used by soldiers in the Long March, who scrawled, “Death to wealthy landlords,” on the rear wall, which ensured Preface ix that it was preserved during the Cultural Revolution; otherwise the temple was entirely rebuilt over the past decades, especially since the time of a visit by Jiang Zemin in the mid-1990s, and now it is designated a four-star tourist site (out of five). One experience that amused me was a sign hung over the urinal in the men’s room that cautioned, “Lean forward a step so you won’t drip urine” 向前一步靠.滴水不外漏. This headline was accompanied by an explanation of a passage from Yuanwu’s recorded sayings suggesting, “The Barrier of Jiashan means stepping back three hundred paces.” Another Chan paradox, I thought, while pondering that after my nearly fifty years of studies of Chan it had all come down to that one drop of pee! Meanwhile a friend pointed out that similar signs are common in China as part of a campaign since the 2008 Olympics to encourage “civi- lized behavior” (wenming), but this may be the only example featuring a Buddhist interpretation. On a more serious note, I was interested to find a stele near the spring inscribed with a poem titled, “From Above Jiashan Temple,” by Li Qunyu 李群玉 (813– 860), a famous Tang dynasty poet: The cloister is filled with the sound of the spring, and the temple halls feel refreshed, Through an opening in the curtain, the light rain carries the scent of forested pines. Gazing to the south from the eastern peak, the moon appears through the raindrops, And is smiling, while its golden light gently touches the cool waters below. 夾山寺上方.滿院泉聲山殿涼.疏簾微雨野松香.東峰下視南溟月. 笑踏金波看海光. Note that the last character in the first line is typically used in poetry to mean a qualitative sense of what is “cool,” much the way we say today “that feels cool,” but it is also tinged with a poignant quality. Also “moon appears” is not quite literal but emphasizes the personality of nature as expressed in the next line, and since this site is nowhere near the ocean or a large body of water (other than a man-made lake) the literal reference to “sea” 海 in the last phrase is taken to refer to the x Preface spring itself that appeared grander than what it is (or maybe it was different then). During the visit I was most deeply influenced by the retelling by repre- sentatives of the temple of their version of the story of how the Blue Cliff Record came to Japan—a historical puzzle that had become my scholarly kōan. According to this account, which I feel rings true despite its indebt- edness to hagiography, during increasingly difficult times for Chan under shifting political circumstances in its native land there was an impetus on the part of various temple leaders to transfer important documents for safekeeping to another country that was newly interested and eager to learn the intricacies of this religious philosophy and practice. Eventually, one way or another, this effort was successful. The people I spoke with at Jiashan were also happy to acknowledge that following the Cultural Revolution it was the Japanese who, after keeping alive the legacy of the temple for centuries, came to China and taught them the history of gongan/ kōan training as well as the role of tea ceremony. They enthusiastically told the story, illustrated in Figure 0.2 as part of a series of drawings on the history of the temple, of a tea master who came from Kyoto in the early 1990s to taste the water from Blue Cliff Spring. He declared that it was perfectly suited to preparing the beverage. A temple website also states that in 1998 Professor Ishii Shūdō of Komazawa University, who has mentored me and numerous Western scholars, led a delegation of authorities who gave instruction on the history of the Blue Cliff Record and its impact on Japanese Zen.
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