Strolling in "Coral Grove": Yuan Hongdao's Shan Hu Lin and the Revival of Chan Buddhism in the Wanli Period (1573-1620) Item Type text; Electronic Thesis Authors Zi, Xin Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 04/10/2021 13:59:34 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/293625 STROLLING IN “CORAL GROVE”: YUAN HONGDAO’S SHANHU LIN AND THE REVIVAL OF CHAN BUDDHISM IN THE WANLI PERIOD (1573-1620) By Xin Zi ____________________________ Copyright © Xin Zi 2013 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2013 2 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: Xin Zi APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below: 05/07/2013 Jiang Wu Date Associate Professor Department of East Asian Studies 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank Professor Jiang Wu for the inspiration and precious photocopies to begin and continue this thesis on the Shan hu lin—an interesting and important work recording a famous man of letters of the late Ming China, Yuan Hongdao’s personal thoughts on Chan meditation and cultivation of the mind. In the course of my study on Chinese Buddhism in general and on the Chinese Buddhist Canon and Chan Buddhism in particular, I have received continuous guidance for three years from him. I should also like to take this opportunity to thank Professor Feng-hsi Liu and Professor Brigitta Lee for their kind direction and patience. I have benefited immensely from conversations with them. In writing this thesis I have learned a great deal from discussions with my peers, Shyling Glaze in particular, from the Department of East Asian Studies at the University of Arizona. I am indebted to Christopher Oakden who corrected grammatical mistakes of the first draft of this thesis and offered many pertinent and insightful suggestions. I should like particularly to thank my friends, Yinghui Wang, Yuan Peng, Xin Zhang, Juexuan Long, Ran Duan, Guanzhu Han, Kun Zhang, and Ding Ding for their constant encouragement and warm comfort. I am also grateful to my boyfriend, Gongwen Zhu for his assistance in printing out the copies of this thesis. Last but not least, I owe a particular debt of gratitude to my mother, Hongju Liu, who has always been there supporting me in every way. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES…………………………………………………………………….5 ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………….6 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................7 CHAPTER I: YUAN HONGDAO’S ASSOCIATION WITH CHAN……………...13 A Biographical Note on Yuan Hongdao.......................................................13 From Two Saints Temple to the Gold Shavings…………………………..………18 Yuan Hongdao’s Contacts with Li Zhi………………………….…………………23 Yuan Hongdao’s Association with Monks………………………………………...28 Yuan Hongdao’s Visits to Buddhist Temples……………………………………...35 The Reflection of Chan in Yuan Hongdao’s Poetry……………………………...40 The Reflection of Chan in Yuan Hongdao’s Epistolary Sources……………...….50 CHAPTER II: WRITING OF SHAN HU LIN…………………………………...…....59 Yuan Hongdao’s Reclusion in Gong’an…………………………………………...59 The Days in Deshan……………………………………………………………….62 The History of Deshan…………………………………………………………….68 CHAPTER III: TEXTUAL ANALYSIS OF SHAN HU LIN………………….............79 The Authenticity of Shan hu lin…………………………………………………...79 The Content Analysis of Shan hu lin……………………………………………...89 The Rhetoric Study of Shan hu lin………………………………………………120 CONCLUSION………………………….……………………………………….….127 APPENDIX I: THE ORIGINAL OF YOU DE SHAN JI……………………………131 APPENDIX II: THE ORIGINAL OF SHAN HU LIN XU………………………….132 APPENDIX III: THE ORIGINAL OF BA SHAN HU LIN………………………....133 REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………....134 5 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1…………………………………………………………………………….65 Figure 2.2………………………………………………………………………….…69 Figure 2.3………………………………………………………………………..….70 Figure 2.4………………………………………………………………………….....73 Figure 2.5…………………………………………………………………………….78 Figure 3.1……………………………………………………………………….……80 Figure 3.2………………………………………………………………………….…82 Figure 3.3…………………………………………………………………………….87 6 ABSTRACT Yuan Hongdao was an eminent leader of the Gong’an school in the literary circles during the Wanli Reign of the Ming Dynasty. Inevitably influenced by the trend of thought supported by the Confucian scholars who followed Wang Yangming’s (1472-1529) intellectual movement of “learning of the mind” and “innate knowing”, which was closely correlated with the reinvention of Chan Buddhism, Yuan Hongdao became an advocate of free expression of innate sensibility and an expert in Chan meditation. The Shan hu lin was an expression of Yuan Hongdao’s thoughts on Chan practice and self-cultivation and bore a deep meaning of the integration of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism. This thesis reveals Yuan Hongdao’s association with Chan Buddhism, examines the writing of the Shan hu lin, and analyzes its textual content, in order to demonstrate the revival of Chan Buddhism in the literati circle during the late Ming period. 7 INTRODUCTION Since Bodhidharma initially introduced Chan Buddhism into China, it had been well-developed and managed to survive the persecution of 845 during the reign of the Emperor Wuzong 武宗 (814-846) of the Tang Dynasty (617-907), because the practicability of Chan practice accorded with the earthbound national character of the Chinese people.1 While the development of Buddhism had experienced highs and lows, as a native belief that had taken root in the Chinese core value, Confucianism remained the mainstream ideology on which the Chinese intellectuals based their actions, though in history it went through several reforms, one among those was initiated by Wang Shouren 王仁 (1472-1529), a philosopher of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), who was well known as Wang Yangming 王陽明. Wang Yangming’s teaching of “learning of the mind” (xinxue 心學) and “innate knowing” (liangzhi 良知) naturally found connection to the Chan concept of the mind and the experience of sudden enlightenment. Many of Wang Yangming’s followers, especially a group called the Taizhou school (Taizhou xuepai 泰州學派), shifted their attention to Buddhist scriptures and believed that the study of Chan Buddhism would enrich their scholarship and improve their practice of self-cultivation.2 It was under this background of the popularity of Chan practice among Confucians that the main figure of this research, Yuan Hongdao 袁宏道 (1568-1610) grew mature. 1 Kenneth K. S. Ch’en, Buddhism in China: A History Survey (Princeton, N. J., Princeton University Press, 1972) P.363. 2 Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in dispute: the reinvention of Chan Buddhism in seventeeth-century China (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008) P.49-50. 8 Yuan Hongdao was a major figure of the Gong’an school 公派, a school of literature that advocated expressing the poet’s innate sensibility. Yuan Hongdao was considered a prominent poet of the late Ming Dynasty while he had strong confidence in his understanding of Chan Buddhism. In both religious thoughts and literary proposition, he was deeply affected by Li Zhi 李贄 (1527-1602), a representative scholar of the Taizhou school who embraced individualism and finally shaved his head and declared himself a Buddhist monk.3 Among his works, many poems and correspondences concerned Chan Buddhism, expressed his admiration for the lifestyle lived by Buddhist laymen and monks, and demonstrated his enlightenment in Chan Buddhism. The research subject of this thesis is Shan hu lin 珊瑚林 (Coral Grove), a work recording Yuan’s sayings on topics of Chan Buddhism and the general study of the Way, namely, the way of self-cultivation, and the conversations between him and his fellows, primarily Buddhist monks. The existence of the Shan hu lin had not been admitted at first. With the development of the study of Yuan Hongdao’s Buddhist thoughts, some scholars such as Qiu Minjie 邱敏捷 and Araki Kengo 荒木見悟 obtained archival copies of the Shan hu lin from the Naikaku Bunko 閣文庫 in Kyoto. The other source of the complete text of the Shan hu lin is Xu xiu si ku quan shu 續修四庫書 (The Continuation of Complete Library in the Four Branches of Literature). The copy of the Shan hu lin in Xu xiu si ku quan shu is the photocopy of the block-printed edition stored in Beijing Library. That edition was carved by the Qingxiang Zhai 清響斎, literally “the Clear Sound Studio”, during the Ming Dynasty. 3 Ray Huang, 1587, a Year of No Significance: The Ming Dynasty in Decline (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1981) P.197. 9 After comparison, I confirmed the copies from the two sources share the same master copy. This thesis is mainly based on the copy collected