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Given the place of Chan Buddhism within Song
Dynasty literati culture, a Chan master during the Song Dynasty found excellence in
literary expression a major asset. Dahui Zonggao (1089~1163) was arguably the Song
Dynasty’s most important Chan monk. A valuable
part of his education as a future Chan master took place when he visited several times the
already famous Chan poet and literatus Juefan Huihong (1071~1128); Juefan assisted him on
at least two literary projects. Juefan Huihong (also known as Dehong) was a member of a
circle of monks and laymen belonging to the Huanglong school of Chan centering on Baofeng
Monastery at Mt. Shimen in the northern part of Jiangxi province to which Dahui also
belonged for a number of years.
Dahui’s writings include a number of comments about Juefan Huihong’s enlightenment, his expulsion from the Zhenjing Kewen’s (1025~1102) monastery immediately following his awakening, and understanding of Chan. These are helpful in understanding Huihong’s complex relation to the Chan school, as well as in illuminating Dahui’s view of Chan enlightenment and training.
Key words: 1. Dahui Zonggao 2. Juefan Huihong 3. Chan 4. Song Dynasty Literati Culture
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In 1101 at the age of thirteen the future Da-hui Zong-gao (大慧宗杲) (1089~1163) abandoned the classical education that he had barely begun and decided to become a Buddhist monk.[1] Three years later he was ordained. By the time he died in 1163 he had become the preeminent Chan abbot and teacher of the empire. He had attracted many patrons and students from the educated elite, including Zhang Jiu-cheng (張九成, 1092~1159), Fu Zhi-rou (富直柔, ?~1156), Zhang Xiao-xiang (張孝祥, ca. 1129~1170), Tang Si-tui (湯思退, ?~1164), Liu Zi-huei (劉子翬, 1107~1147), Ly Ben-zhong (呂本中, 1084~1145), Zhang Jun (張浚, 1096~1164) and Wang Ying-chen (汪應辰, 1118~1176). He had found a new method for making Linji Chan teaching and practice more effective, and thereby changed the way teaching and practice were done in the Lin-ji house, not only for the rest of the Song (宋) Dynasty but for all the succeeding centuries in China, Korea and Japan. His Dharma-heirs and others from the Lin-ji house who were inspired by him occupied many of the abbacies at major Song temples. At the end of his life he presided over two of the empire’s most prominent monasteries, Ah-yu-wang-shan (阿育王山) and Jing-shan (徑山). He enjoyed the patronage of the Emperor Xiao-zong (孝宗), who gave him the name, Da-hui (大慧), “Great Wisdom.”
How did the young monk become such a successful abbot and teacher? How did he attract so many scholar-official patrons, students and friends, as a Song Chan master had to do to be successful? The answer requires a longer and more complex narrative than space allows here. But the conventional answer
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would no doubt focus on the importance of Da-hui’s years of koan study followed by his decisive breakthrough to full awakening under the tutelage of the great Northern Song master Yuan-wu Ke-qin (圓悟克勤, 1063~1135). A more adequate answer would include the many kinds of training, education and experience Da-hui received in the twenty years before he met Yuan-wu. And it would also take due note of the fact that Da-hui’s education during those years was of many kinds.
From the 1950’s until recently, the myth of the formation of a Chan or Zen master as told in the West emphasized long years of solitary self-examination through seated meditation, patient endurance of hardships in the monastery, face to face encounters with the teacher, and transformative moments of sudden awakening. One who had successfully met and overcome these challenges was ready to teach and lead a Zen community. No particular study of Buddhist sutras or Buddhist philosophies, let alone literary training or the study of secular subjects, was required for mastery of this teaching that was transmitted “without dependence on words and letters.” Along with this myth went another myth, that Zen monasteries were found on remote mountain peaks and were a world unto themselves, independent of, or even completely divorced from, the mundane concerns and depressing politics of the larger society. While the popular versions of these myths developed in the West with reference to Zen in Japan, they were extended as well to the case of Chan in China, for most of the most famous “Zen stories” on which these myths are based are stories of Chan masters. The second myth was held even among historians of the Song and scholars of literature until quite recently; such scholars proceeded as though Buddhists could be safely ignored.
This second of these two myths is now coming under attack. Scholars of Buddhism now attend to the ways in which state control, state funding and the patronage of the wealthy and
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influential played large roles in the successes and failures of many monasteries and lineages, both in Japan and in China.[2] Likewise scholars of China are becoming more aware of the many way members of the elite and Chan masters interacted.[3] As the second myth erodes, the first myth must crumble too. For the formation of a master who must teach and lead a complex and necessarily worldly institution must in fact include more than the kinds of training available through monastic hardship and the meditation mat.
From the sources available on Da-hui’s education and formation in the period before he met Yuan-wu, we can see that the first twenty years of his training offered him five areas of knowledge and experience that he would later draw upon as a Chan abbot and teacher: (1) Chan study and training, including prominently the study of “discourse records” (yu-lu 語錄) and koans; (2) encounter with different “houses” of Chan and awareness of sectarianism within Chan; (3) education in literary expression; (4) study of Buddhist and Confucian theory; and (5) education in conducting relations with lay patrons. This essay will look particularly at the area of literary expression, and will focus on the strong possibility that Da-hui received a significant portion of his education in that area from the well-known monk-literatus Jue-fan Hui-hong (覺範慧洪), and from Hui-hong’s friend the poet Han Zhu (韓朱) (T. Zi-cang 子蒼, d.1135).
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The sequence of events that led to Da-hui’s first meeting with Jue-fan Hui-hong began in 1109, when Da-hui sought further education and training in the Huang-long branch of the Lin-ji school.[4] Da-hui enrolled in Jewel Peak Monastery (Bao-feng Yuan 寶峰院) in the northern part of present day Jiangxi Province, where Zhan-tang Wen-zhuen (湛堂文準, 1061~1115), a Linji house Huang-long branch teacher, was abbot. Jewel Peak was in the Stone Gate Mountains (Shi-men Shan 石門山). The monastery was also called Le-tan (泐潭) Monastery after a nearby lake.[5] It was famous as the place where Ma-zu Dao-yi (馬祖道一) had died and was buried. The price of admission to the famous Bao-feng Monastery may have been Da-hui’s willingness to be sent back to his home district to raise money, for that same year in which Da-hui enrolled he accepted the job of being the monastery’s itinerant fund-raiser for Xuanzhou, his native prefecture, and left in the twelfth month of 1109 for that work.[6]
His fund-raising task took a while to complete. The whole of 1110 and part of 1111 he spent back home in Xuanzhou as a fund-raiser, living with his brother. In the eighth month of 1111 he finally filled his register of donations, and returned to Jewel Peak Monastery.[7]
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Da-hui’s training prospered at Bao-feng Monastery. He soon was treated as a senior student and assigned teaching duties, at which he excelled. Toward the end of Da-hui’s stay at Jewel Peak, Zhan-tang called the younger monk to him and made the following comment:
“Senior monk Gao, you understood my Chan at once. When I ask you to explain it, you explain it well. When I ask you to hold up stories of the ancients and comment on them in prose (nian-gu 拈古), or make up verses commenting on the sayings of the masters of old (song-gu 頌古), to give instructions to the monks (xiao-can 小參), or to give sermons (pu-shuo 普說, lit general instructions), you also do all these things well.[8] There is only one thing that is not right. Do you know what it is?”
Da-hui replied, “What is it I do not know?”
Zhan-tang said, “He! You lack this one release. If you do not obtain this one release, when I am speaking with you in my quarters, there is Chan, but the minute you leave my quarters, there is none. When you are awake and thinking, there is Chan , but when you are asleep, then there is none. If you are like this, then how are you going to defeat samsara?”
Da-hui replied, “This is exactly what I have doubts about.”[9]
But he was not given Dharma-transmission, and in 1115, when Da-hui was 27 by Chinese reckoning, Zhan-tang died.
Zhan-tang had forbidden his students to write down his sermons and Dharma instructions.[10] But Da-hui no doubt
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understood that in the Northern Song to bring one’s teacher the honor due to him, publishing a master’s words was important. The living members of a Chan lineage needed well-known ancestors, and publishing one’s teacher’s sermons and dialogues words was one way to make one’s teacher well-known. So Da-hui recited and edited what he remembered of Zhan-tang’s words.
He took the resulting collection to the distinguished Chan literatus Jue-fan Hui-hong, who was at the time also called De-hong (德洪), to discuss the editing.[11] Hui-hong wrote an afterword in which he mentioned that he received Zhan-tang’s Discourse Record from Da-hui and praised it highly.[12] Hui-hong also wrote a record of Zhan-tang’s travels (Xing-zhuang 行狀).[13]
Jue-fan Hui-hong was from Duan-zhou in present-day Jiangxi province. At 14 he became a monk and studied the Abhidharmako`sa and “Consciousness Only,” then switched to the study of Chan. He had been abbot of Bei-Chan-si in Lin-chuan, and of Qing-jing-si in Jin-ling (present-day Nanking). Hui-hong, a prolific writer and compiler and a famous poet and man of letters, wrote in many literary genres. Distressed by the omission of too many famous Chan monks from Zan-ning’s Biographies of Eminent Monks compiled in the Song (Da Song Gao-seng-zhuan), he compiled a collection of the biographies of Chan monks called the Biographies
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of Chan Monks (Chan-lin seng-bao zhuan).[14] He wrote a work on how to write poetry, and a work of poetry criticism that influenced the literary activities of Japanese monks in the “Gozan” era.[15] He wrote commentaries on sutras, most prominently the Lotus Sutra, the Hua-yan Suutra, and the `Suura.mgama Suutra.[16] His most famous works are the Anecdotes from the “Groves” of Chan (Lin-jian lu), a collection of instructions and sayings from earlier eminent teachers and officials distinguished for their conduct; and the Stone Gate’s [i.e., Hui-hong’s] Lettered Chan (Shi-men wen-zi Chan), a collection of Hui-hong’s writings in all literary genres.[17]
Hui-hong had like Zhan-tang also studied with Zhen-jing Ke-wen first at Mt. Jiu-feng (九峰) in Jiangxi, then at Mt. Lu (廬山), and finally at the Bao-feng Monastery at Shi-men (Stone Gate).[18] He was Zhen-jing’s Dharma-heir. Although he was expelled from the
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monastery hours after his first awakening while studying with Zhen-jing, he wrote a funerary essay for Zhen-jing, collected materials for a biography of him, and edited his Discourse Record.[19]
Hui-hong was also a close friend and protégé of the famous lay Buddhist Zhang Shang-ying (張商英, 1043~1122), whom Da-hui was to visit the following year to ask Zhang to write a funerary inscription (ta-ming 塔銘) for Zhan-tang. Zhang Shang-ying like Hui-hong had received his Chan education primarily from teachers in the Huang-long branch of the Lin-ji house. It was Zhang Shang-ying at whose invitation Hui-hong’s teacher Zhen-jing Ke-wen had accepted the abbacy of the Bao-feng Monastery in Shi-men. Zhang was then governor of Hong-chou, the administrative region in which Shi-men was located. Over the years Zhang befriended Hui-hong many times, including four occasions on which Hui-hong had landed in jail.
After Zhang Shang-ying had criticized the current ministerial favorite Cai Jing and had fallen from power in 1111, he was unable to prevent Cai from exiling Hui-hong to Hai-nan Island. In 1115, when Da-hui sought him out, Hui-hong had returned from that exile on to his home area of Xin-jiang, where he enjoyed a relatively peaceful four years at Buddhist temples at Dong-shan (東山) and Jiu-feng-shan (九峰山). He died in 1128 at 58 suei.
As far as we know, the purpose of Da-hui’s first visit to Hui-hong was confined to working together on Zhan-tang’s discourse record. But it was not to be Da-hui’s last visit to Hui-hong. In 1117 Da-hui traveled to Jui-chou prefecture again to see Hui-hong again and to ask him for a preface to another discourse record Da-hui had put together, this time for an eleventh century Lin-ji house master, Da-ning Dao-kuan was a Dharma-heir of Ze-ming Chu-yuan (986~1039) and thus a Dharma-brother of Huang-long Hui-nan (1002~1069) and Yang-qi Fang-hui (992~1049). While visiting Hui-
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hong on this occasion Da-hui met a scholar-official and poet who became a fast friend, Han Zi-cang.[20]
The Annalistic Biography for Da-hui tells of Jue-fan Hui-hong’s admiration for Da-hui and his literary efforts. But it says little of what Da-hui thought about Hui-hong, who was his senior by eighteen years, his Dharma uncle at least for as long as Da-hui regarded Zhan-tang as his principal teacher, and already a famous Chan poet and literatus. But Da-hui’s actions betray his interest, for Da-hui continued to visit both Hui-hong and Han Zi-cang. During his thirty-first year, according to the Annalistic Biography, he spent a lot of time with Han, who was governor at Fen-ning (分寧) in Hong-zhou (洪州). In 1119 Da-hui sought out Hui-hong again, going to Yun-yan (雲嚴) in present-day Hunan province to visit him.[21]
In several of Da-hui’s sermons from later in his life he made friendly but somewhat critical comments about Hui-hong and his interpretation of Chan stories. In two sermons he said that Hui-hong had a genuine “awakening” when studying with Zhen-jing Ke-wen. In one he gives the following account:
You should know that Jue-fan also himself had an awakening, it was just that he left his teacher too early. He studied with Zhen-jing. Zhen-jing said one day to him, “Hui-hong sometimes has areas where he has arrived, and sometimes has areas where he has not
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arrived.”
He then asked Zhen-jing, “If one has arrived, one has arrived; if one has not arrived, one has not arrived. How can you speak of my having areas where I have arrived, and areas where I have not arrived?”
Zhen-jing said, “Now I ask you, it is just like the hymn (song) by Feng-xue (Yen-zhao, 896~973, a fourth generation Lin-ji monk), which says:
Five white cats, claws large and sharp,
Raised in the monastery to exterminate vermin.
Clearly, in the method of seeking safety by climbing a tree to hide.
You must avoid leaving behind a testamentary promise to one’s sister’s sons (i.e., nephews who do not have the same surname and thus are outside one’s lineage).
Now, what is this method of seeking safety?”
Hong then shouted his “he.”
Zhen-jing said, “This one he ── there are some areas in which it has arrived, and some areas in which it has not.”
At this remark he had a flash of sudden insight.[22]
But the next day because of an incident he left the monastery──in the other sermon Da-hui says he was expelled from the monastery, while other sources say he was expelled from the monastery for breaking the rules──and in Da-hui’s view, he never got proper training after that. The result, in Da-hui’s view, was that when Hui-hong discussed gong-ans, sometimes what he said was good, coming from his awakened mind, and sometimes it was completely off the mark. His answers were sometimes contrived. In the second sermon, Da-hui attributed this to the unfortunate circumstance of Hui-hong’s not belonging after his expulsion to a teaching lineage.[23]
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Da-hui’s account of Hui-hong’s insight followed by the unfortunate interruption of Hui-hong’s studies is corroborated by Da-hui’s disciple Zhong-wen Xiao-ying (d.u.). In his collection of anecdotes called the Lo-hu ye-lu, (Unofficial Notes from Lake Lo), completed c.1155, Zhong-wen gives a longer account of Hui-hong’s awakening and its aftermath. He repeats what Da-hui says about Zhen-jing’s bringing up the hymn (song) by Feng-xue Yen-zhao, then completes the story as follows:
The next day, because he had violated the rules of the monastery, he was expelled. He was then twenty-eight years old. He set out to travel around Eastern Wu (Jiangsu and Zhejiang). While staying at Jing-ci (Yong-ming si, headquarters of the Hua-yan lineage), he wrote a poem to express Feng-xue’s meaning and sent it off to Zhen-jing:
The five white cats had no cracks,
They waited for an idle moment to dart out and scare people.
They would roll over and jump (cavort) a hundred thousand times.
He (Feng-xue) coolly observed them, and made them a topic of conversation.As I now understand, I can play about with it a little.
Let him (Ke-wen) like it or let him scold.
Moreover I laugh at the old man in the tree.
He can only climb up the tree; he can’t get down.[24]
A number of the times that Da-hui brought up Hui-hong in
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sermons it was to criticize Hui-hong’s interpretations of specific Chan stories. And as we know, after Jui-fan had passed from the scene, Da-hui made disparaging comments about “literary Chan” (wen-tzi Chan 文字禪), a term that was very closely associated with Hui-hong. But we should not be misled by the Da-hui’s sharing with audiences later in life his mixed judgement of Hui-hong’s attainment. Several pieces of evidence make it clear that in these years after Zhan-tang’s death, Da-hui was interested in expressing Chan in words. In this realm Hui-hong was an important friend, for in this realm he had already an established reputation as the author of many widely appreciated pieces in Buddhist and secular genres. As an advocate for the idea that inexpressible as Chan is, poetry is a suitable medium for one’s inevitable attempts to express it, he was a leading bridge between the world of Chan and the literary world. Da-hui himself had in 1118 written a verse that was highly praised by the poet Li Peng (李彭) (T. Shang-lao 商老) (n. d.). At the very least he knew from the teaching that he had now done at Bao-feng Monastery that composing gathas (jie 偈) and hymns or eulogies (song 頌) was an important skill for a Chan teacher. He may have had hopes of developing his talent for expression in Buddhist verse, or even in the poetic forms of the secular literary tradition, although the latter would have probably required more literary education than he had. Verse did not prove to be the way in which Da-hui himself brought Chan into the wider Song literati discourse, for his own verse has never been judged outstanding. But as Da-hui well knew, composing verse was an absolutely necessary part of the public and private activity of Chan masters in the Song. I feel certain that he took the opportunity to learn from Hui-hong.
Han Zi-cang and Hui-hong were not the only literary men with whom Da-hui associated during this period. One of Zhan-tang’s close associates during the years that Da-hui was at Bao-feng Monastery was the poet Li Peng. In Da-hui’s Arsenal for the Chan
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School, Da-hui tells of leaving Bao-feng Monastery to visit Li Peng, saying when he left that he would be back in a month. He actually returned forty days later, and was so strictly bawled out by the First Seat that he broke out in a sweat.[25] After Zhan-tang’s death Li Peng was involved in the decisions about how to honor the master. Li was also one with whom Da-hui enjoyed composing and performing Buddhist poetry. Xiao-ying in Gan-shan yun-wo ji-tan tells that Da-hui once went boating with Li Peng. Beating time with an oar, Da-hui sang “The Fisherman” (Yu-fu), then challenged Li to write hymns of praise for the various masters in the lineage of his first teacher, which Da-hui offered to sing to the same tune. Li Peng produced ten such song lyrics “in jest” before their outing was finished.[26] Nonetheless it is doubtful that Li Peng had the wide experience and learning that Hui-hong had. Da-hui must have improved his skills and taste in the poetic expression of Buddhism through his contacts with Hui-hong and Han Zi-cang.
In 1120 Da-hui went to visit Zhang Shang-ying for a second time, and from there left for the capital, never, so far as we know, to see Hui-hong again.[27] Hui-hong died in 1128, not long after Da-hui’s flight to the south. Han Zi-cang, however, remained a good friend of Da-hui for many years.[28]
In an essay that centers on the career of the Chan monk Fa-xiu
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(1027~1090), Robert M. Gimello challenged scholars to pay attention to Chan as participants in Song literati culture. He urged scholars to reflect on how Chan masters perceived the relationship of Chan study to the study of words, and the relationship of creative expression in Chan to creative expression in poetry.[29] More recently Joseph D. Parker has written a useful book on how Zen monks understood the relation between Chan and poetry (and painting) at the “Five Mountains” monasteries in Japan in the early Muromachi period.[30]
I do not propose to take up all of the complex issues raised in these works. I wish merely to draw further attention to what I take to be a major implication of both. Verse was an important medium of communication in Chan and Zen, as truths that defy expression in doctrine or prose could be hinted at in poetry. A leader in Chan in the Song, as in Zen at the “Five Mountains” monasteries, had to be enough at home in the realm of secular poetry to understand and quote it. And he or she had to be able to compose in the forms of Buddhist verse.
Chan training itself helped, for koan practice was a constant interaction with metaphors. Chan training also was believed to free the mind to produce verse spontaneously in the expression of deep insight. Nonetheless, to be good enough with words to publish and to hold one’s own with literati patrons, it no doubt helped to have mentors and friends who were poets. Da-hui was fortunate in that respect.
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一名宋朝禪師發現，良好的文學表達，對於禪宗立足於宋朝的文人文化，扮演著重要的角色。大慧宗皋（1089∼1163）或許可說是宋朝最重要的禪師，之前曾數度參訪當時已成名的文人詩僧覺範慧洪（1071∼1128），這樣的養成教育對於他日後成為禪師幫助很大。覺範在至少兩個文案上幫助過他。覺範慧洪（或稱德洪）隸屬臨濟宗黃龍派，此派是以江西北部的西門山寶峰寺為活動中心，大慧也曾在此依止數年。
大慧的作品裡有一些針對覺範開悟的評論，覺範是在被真淨克文（1025∼1102）逐出寺廟時開悟。這些評論有助於瞭解慧洪與禪宗的複雜關係，同時也有助於釐清大慧對於禪宗開悟與訓練的見解。
關鍵詞：1. 大慧宗皋 2. 覺範慧洪 3. 禪 4. 宋朝文人文化
[1] Chinese customarily refer to Da-hui Zong-gao by his ordination name, Zong-gao, and not by Da-hui, one of three names given to Zong-gao by emperors to honor him. Japanese authors customarily refer to him by the first of the honorific names, Da-hui, followed by his ordination name, or simply Da-hui. Da-hui calls himself by a series of other names, self-chosen or taken from where he was teaching; the most common of these names was “Miao-xi.” The literature in English so far largely uses “Da-hui Zong-gao.”
[2] The essays in the forthcoming Buddhism in the Sung, edited by Peter N. Gregory and Daniel Getz, reflect the current strong interest in this kind of contextualization of Song Buddhism. On the Japan side, see Joseph D. Parker’s translations and his introductions to them entitled “Contested Orthodoxies in Five Mountains Zen Buddhism,” in Religions of Japan in Practice, edited by George Tanabe, Jr., Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999, pp.423-434.
[3] Beata Grant’s Mount Lu Revisited: Buddhism in the Life and Writings of Su Shih, Honolulu: U. of Hawaii Press, 1994, is a good example of this trend.
[4] This was not Da-hui’s first opportunity to study with a Huang-long teacher. He had in 1109 when he was twenty-one traveled to Shu-zhou and studied briefly with Hai-hui Ts’ung, Dharma-heir of Lo-han Hsi-nan, before going on to seek out Zhan-tang at Jewel Peak. Nenpu (jo), p.116a; Pu-shuo, p.465a.
[6] Ishii, Nenpu (jo), p.116a; Pu-shuo, p.403b. No source is given in the Nian-pu for these details. On the meaning of hua-chu, cf. Jimbo Nyoten and Ando Bunei, eds., Zengaku jiten (Tokyo: Muga Sanbo, 1927), p.308.
[7] Ishii, Nenpu (jo), p.116a-117a. The source given by the Nian-pu is an oral communication between Da-hui and an attendant monk. The Nian-pu says that most hua-chu filled their registers more quickly than Da-hui did. Judging from the story about Da-hui, fund-raisers were sent out to raise a set amount in donations or donations from a set number of lay patrons, and were instructed not to return before completing the task.
[8] Ishii, Nenpu (jo), p.118a. An abbreviated version of this is at Pu-shuo, p.426b: “I studied for seventeen years. I composed gathas (jie), songs (song), holding up the ancients (nian-gu), substitute words (dai-bie) ──there was nothing that I did not master.” “Substitute words” are giving answers that substitute for the student’s failed answer (dai-yu), or giving answers that substitute for the teacher’s answer (bie-yu).
[10] Ishii, Nenpu (jo), p.118b. The source for the Nian-pu’s statement of these details is unknown.
[11] Nian-pu, 27th year, Ishii, Nenpu (jo), p.118b-119a. There are biographies of Hui-hong in Jia-tai pu-deng lu, zhuan 7; Wu-deng hui-yuan, zhuan 17; Fo-zu li-dai tong-zai, zhuan 19. For a biography in English, see Robert M. Gimello, “Chan Buddhism, Learning and Letters in the Northern Song: The Case of Jue-fan Hui-hong (1071~1128).” Unpublished paper, 1989. Da-hui probably traveled from Le-tan in Nan-chang prefecture to Nine-peak Mountain in Shang-gao district or Dong-shan in Xin-jiang district in Jui-chou prefecture to visit Hui-hong. Cf. Nenpu (ge), p.134b.
[12] Zhan-tang’s Record of Words, with this afterword, no longer exists. But the afterword exists in a collection of Hui-hong’s writings. It bears a date of the tenth month of 1115. Cf. Ishii, Nenpu (ge), p.134b.
[13] T.947a. This is extant in his Shi-men wen-zi Chan, zhuan 30.
[14] This work was completed in 1123. HTC 137:439-565. On Hui-hong’s criticisms of Zan-ning and his motive for compiling the Chan-lin seng-bao zhuan, see Ishii Shudo, Sodai Zenshu shi no kenkyu, Tokyo: Daito shuppansha, 1987, p.1-2 and p.6, note 1 and 2; also p. 48.
[15] The work on how to write poetry was the Tian-chu jin-luan, in 3 zhuan. A reproduction of a Ming edition is published by Chung-hua shu-chu. On Hui-hong’s Leng-chai yeh-hua (Nocturnal Words from the Cold Studio), which influenced Japanese Gozan poets, see A. Levy’s entry on this title in Hervouet, ed, A Sung Bibliography, pp.335-336. This text gives samples and evaluations of lines by Tang and Song poets. On the subject, see Joseph D. Parker, Zen Buddhist Landscape Arts in Early Muromachi Japan (1336~1573), Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1999, esp. pp.39, 40 and 70.
[16] On the Lotus Sutra, Hui-hong wrote a commentary in 7 zhuan, the Miao-fa lian-hua jing he lun (The Lotus Sutra together with an exposition thereof). HTC 47:701-835.
[17] On Jue-fan Hui-hong’s biography, see Abe Joichi, “Hoku So no gakuso Tokuko Kakuhan ni tsuite,” in Komazawa Daigaku Shigaku, no.24, March 1977, and Ishii, Sodai, p.6 fn. 1.
[18] On Hui-hong as a famous song lyricist from Lin-chuan, see Stuart H. Sargent, “Contexts of the Song Lyric in Song Times: Communication Technology, Social Change, Morality,” in Voices of the Song Lyric in China, edited by Pauline Yu. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994, p.241-242.
[19] Gimello, unpublished manuscript, p.10.
[20] Han Zi-cang, a longstanding friend of Hui-hong, had once been a follower of Su Shi (Su Dong-po). On Hui-hong’s death he erected a pagoda for Hui-hong on Phoenix Roost Peak thirty miles southwest of Mt. Lu. Cf. Gimello, unpublished paper. He remained a friend of Da-hui for the rest of his life; a letter from him to Da-hui in 1133 encouraging Da-hui to end his quiet, semi-retired life and launch a public career probably played a role in Da-hui’s entering in 1134 the path to the abbotship of a large monastery. An account of Han Zi-cang’s and Da-hui’s friendship is found in Gan-shan Yun-wo ji-tan, zhuan shang, Revised and Corrected Zokuzokyo, Taiwan reprint, vol.86, p.663c-664a.
[21] Ishii, Nenpu (jo), pp.122a-124a.
[22] Pu-shuo, p.475b.
[23] Pu-shuo, p.464d.
[24] Lo-hu ye-lu, zhuan shang, Revised and Corrected Zokuzokyo, Taiwan reprint, vol.83, no. 1577, p.383b. I have benefited from the translation by Robert M. Gimello in his unpublished manuscript on Hui-hong. I have borrowed some words and phrases, but have come up with a very different translation.
[25] Revised and Corrected Zokuzokyo, Taiwan reprint, vol.83, p.367a-b.
[26] This story is told in Sargent, p.234.
[27] Although the two might have seen each other at the capital, since Hui-hong seems to have visited the capital during Da-hui’s stay there, there is no mention of it in the Annalistic Biography.
[28] Da-hui mentions Han Zi-cang in sermons in Pu-shuo 455b and 466b; in the former he quotes Han Zi-cang’s telling him that he can memorize poetry with no trouble at all but the Avata.msaka Sutra is hard to memorize because it seems dreamlike; in the latter Da-hui talks about their being together at Lin-chuan. Da-hui also mentions Han Zi-cang’s work on a stuupa inscription for Hui-hong. The Annalistic Biography for Da-hui records important contact between Da-hui and Han Zi-cang at Da-hui’s ages 31, 40, 42, 45-47, and 51. Ishii, Nenpu (ge), p.137.
[29] “Marga and Culture: Learning, Letters and Liberation in Northern Sung Ch’an,” in Paths to Liberation: The Marga and its Transformations in Buddhist Thought, edited by Robert E. Buswell and Robert M. Gimello. Kuroda Institute Studies in East Asian Buddhism 7. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992, pp.371-438.
[30] Joseph D. Parker, Zen Buddhist Landscape Arts of Early Muromachi Japan (1336~1573). Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1999.