In my previous paper, "Hōtan's Interpretation of Sōotō Zen's Fivefold Relations in His Iron Wall with Cloud Scraps" (published in Indogaku Bukkyōgaku Kenkyū) I briefly introduced how the Japanese Kegon Scholar Hōtan employs a Tendai concept to interpret Sōtō Zen's Fivefold Relations. At the end of that paper, I mentioned that Hōtan performs a detailed analysis of the Fivefold Relations arguments of the Chinese Caodong Chan (J: Sōtō Zen) master Yongjue Yuanxian, but due to a lack of space I could not develop it any further. This paper can be regarded as a continuation of the preceding one. It examines how and why Hōtan differentiates his arguments from those presented in Yongjue's book Dongshang Guzhe (『洞上古轍』, the Orthodox of Caodong). Yongjue, a renowned Caodong Chan master at the end of Ming Dynasty in China, wrote the Dongshang Guzhe with the purpose of directing contemporaries'attention to the original doctrine of the two masters, Dongshan (洞山) and Caoshan (曹山). The commentary on the Fivefold Relations of Dongshan and Caoshan is one of the most important parts of the Dongshang Guzhe. Recent research conducted by Arai and Matsuda shows that Yongjue's explanation of the Fivefold Relations is unavoidably influenced by the Linji (J:Linzai) style, which is characterized by an emphasis on practice. This paper provides a closer and detailed analysis of Yongjue's commentary on the Fivefold Relations and shows that Yongjue interprets it as a process of five stages of practice. The practitioner starts from initial enlightenment (初悟) at the first stage, and then attains great enlightenment (大悟) at the third one. At the fourth stage, avoiding intoxication by self-fulfillment he strives to help others attain enlightenment, and at the fifth and last stage he finally reaches perfection after a further negation of the precedent step. Hōtan does not think that Yongjue's practice-centered interpretation has perfectly and exactly expressed the true intention of the Caodong masters, and develops his own position with an interlinear commentary on the texts of the Fivefold Relations after Yongjue's explanations, to argue that it should be interpreted in two ways in order to show its perfection. The paper shows the extent to which Hōtan relied on the Tendai concept of liuji (六即) to emphasize all sentient beings'intrinsic Buddha nature (性具). This intrinsic Buddha nature will eventually be attained by two main gradual processes of practice, one from the secular person (the first one of stages of practice) to the bodhisattva (the third stage), and the other from the bodhisattva to the perfect Buddha (the fifth stage).
