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Over the centuries, diverse Chan/Zen traditions throughout East Asia have venerated Baizhang Huaihai (J. Hyakujō Ekai, 749–814) as one of the greatest Chan teachers of the Tang era (618–907). Celebrated as the leading disciple of the renowned Mazu Daoyi (709–788), the “founder” of the Hongzhou school that came to dominate Chan during the mid-Tang period, Baizhang is still evoked as a source of religious inspiration and authority, and he remains one of the most recognized Chan teachers of all time. This chapter is a brief study of those changing perceptions and images, spanning most of the history of Chan in East Asia, down to the present. The shifting images of Baizhang mirror the multifaceted and far-reaching changes that marked Chan’s historical trajectory as a major tradition of East Asian Buddhism, with significant ramifications for its complex evolution that still shape its intricate present-day predicaments.

This chapter focuses on the image of Zen (Chan) Master Dahui Zonggao (1089–1163) presented in the Dahui’s Letters (Dahui shu) and the Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Dahui Pujue (Dahui Pujue Chanshi yulu). Dahui Zonggao permanently transformed Chinese Chan Buddhism. First, he was strongly influential in blending Chan with Huayan Buddhist philosophy; second and most important, Dahui devised a meditation method that has been fundamental to Chan practice ever since, the kan huatou method. Dahui Zonggao’s influence has been vast, and a considerable part of his lasting attraction and popularity can be attributed to the image of his forceful, fearless and caring personality and teaching style found in his records. It is high time that we examined these texts in terms of the image of Dahui, his insights and ideas, his personality, and his teaching methods, for it is through this image that his influence has been felt.

Chan/Zen Buddhism is a tradition known for the transmission of lineages whereby a current master at once pays obeisance to and severely criticizes the patriarchs. East Asian training traditions generally emphasize that a disciple needs to be able to surpass his teacher, who must be magnanimous enough to encourage and acknowledge the value of the comeuppance. The literary works of Dōgen (1200–1253) epitomize this process. This chapter examines the various ways Dōgen’s image and sense of self-identity is formed by his twofold approach to his predecessors. First, it surveys the full extent of Chan masters cited by Dōgen and what this indicates about his view of sectarian transmission; for example, who he cites and why he praises or refutes their teachings. Next, it focuses on the ways that Chinese Caodong school masters Hongzhi (1091–1157) and Rujing (1163–1228) influenced Dōgen’s philosophy and literary style and helped shape his view of monastic institutional administration and practice.

This chapter describes the rise of Chan Buddhism by focusing on the Linji and Caodong schools and their leaders such as Miyun Yuanwu, Hanyue Fazang, Muchen Daomin, Feiyin Tongrong, Zhanran Yuancheng, Wuming Huijing, Yinyuan Longgi, Shilian Dashan, and Fang Yizhi. It shows that these prominent figures first rose under the patronage of the literati, and later their lineage spread all over China in the late Ming and early Qing. During the Ming‐Qing transition, many literati became monks.

This chapter examines literature influences on the compilation of records of Chan Buddhism, particularly the Jingde Transmission of the Lamp and the Tiansheng Expanded Lamp Record. It describes the Jingde Transmission of the Lamp as reflecting a compromise between rhetorical definitions of Chan as independent, subitist, antinomian, and so forth, as opposed to interpretations of Chan as harmonious with the rituals and traditions of conventional Buddhism. It suggests that the purpose of the Tiansheng Expanded Lamp Record was to affirm an interpretation of Chan associated with members of the Linji faction who had become increasingly influential among officials at the Song court and it functioned as a vehicle promoting the Linji faction and its interpretation of Chan.

This chapter explores the relationship between Dōgen's thought and that of leading Song Chan thinkers of the Caodong (Sōtō) and Linji (Rinzai) lineages, particularly the intense rivalry between the approaches of “silent illumination” and “introspecting the kōan.”. When considering the concept of silent illumination, Chan refers to the Chan style of Hongzhi, a fellow disciple with Zhenxie of Danxia and a member of the same Caodong order as Dōgen's teacher, Rujing. Although not necessarily aligning himself with this view, it is clear that the style Dōgen disagreed with most strongly was introspecting the kōan Zen, represented by the illustrious Linji master Dahui (1089–1163), whom Dōgen both praised and excoriated in various writings. The chapter addresses the following questions that are critical to Dōgen studies: What kind of attributes characterized the paths of silent illumination and introspecting-the-kōan during the Song Dynasty? What connection does Dōgen Zen, which resulted from his importation of Song Chan to Kamakura Japan, have with the various Song schools and approaches? In short, it considers the characteristics of Dōgen Zen against the currents of Chinese Chan history and ideology in order to understand and explicates the influences Dōgen received, as well as the unique features of religious practice he formulated and promulgated.

This chapter examines how the Linji tradition targeted the entire new Caodong tradition with their criticism of silent illumination. Available sources suggest that other members of the Linji lineage began attacking the silent illumination teachings of the new Caodong tradition even prior to the time of Dahui Zonggao. However, Dahui's attacks ushered in a whole new era in the relations between the different Chan traditions. With his fierce attacks on the Caodong tradition, Dahui was the first to break the code of harmony that the Chan school had been able to maintain throughout the earlier part of the Song. This surely was noted across Song-dynasty elite society, and many literati and officials may have felt uncomfortable with it.

This conclusion discusses the sectarianism seen in Dahui and other Linji masters. The apex of the rise of the new Caodong tradition coincided with a time when the Chan school as a whole had begun to feel itself under pressure and had become more dependent on support from the literati. This helps to explain why the reinvented Caodong tradition may not have been regarded as a welcome addition by the other Chan traditions and why it may have seen an early need to differentiate itself from the dominant Linji tradition by shifting to a more sectarian mode and developing a distinctive teaching that could appeal to literati. It also suggests that the Linji tradition's attacks on the Caodong teachings were mainly directed toward members of the literati rather than toward monastics.

This paper discusses the kànhuà technique developed by the Chinese Línjì (Jpn.: Rinzai) master Dàhuì Zōnggǎo (1089-1163) that became a widespread form of meditation in East Asian Zen. Kànhuà meditation focuses on the keyword or “punch line” (Ch.: huàtóu, Jpn.: watō, Kor.: hwadu) of puzzling Chán “encounter dialogues” (or kōan stories) associated with past Chán (Zen) masters. Dàhuì insisted on a sudden breakthrough enlightenment and considered kànhuà meditation an alternative to a dead-end, no-enlightenment, seated meditation that he associated with the rival Cáodòng (Jpn.: Sōtō) tradition of Chán. The paper further explores four innovations in kànhuà meditation during the centuries after Dàhuì: the use of kànhuà meditation to calm the mind; a greater emphasis on doubt; the integration of Pure Land practice into the kànhuà technique; and the notion that the huàtóu could be called out aloud. However, in spite of such changes kànhuà Chán stayed close to Dàhuì’s vision.

This introductory chapter provides a background of the Buddhism that developed in the Song dynasty. Two developments in Song Buddhism are especially well known. The first is the growth of Chan Buddhism, which became the dominant form of elite monastic Buddhism in the Song. The other is the sectarian dispute that took place between the Linji and Caodong traditions of Chan in the twelfth century, involving competing approaches to enlightenment and practice known as “silent illumination” (mozhao) and kanhua Chan (literally, Chan of observing the word). Silent illumination is associated with a quiet meditation in which the inherent Buddha-nature that all sentient beings possess naturally shines forth, while kanhua Chan is associated with an intense focus on the punch line of a gongan that is meant to lead to a dramatic breakthrough experience of original enlightenment.

This chapter analyzes Dahui Zonggao's (1089–1163) attacks on Caodong tradition's silent illumination, and discusses the kanhua Chan that he developed to counter it. The success of the Caodong tradition was clearly perceived as a threat by the dominant Linji tradition, whose members attacked the Caodong tradition in various ways—most notably targeting its teachings of “heretical silent illumination Chan.” Indeed, Dahui associated silent illumination with a kind of meditation that uses the mind to control the mind, which suppresses thought and which induces a state of unreflective calm devoid of wisdom. This kind of practice, he argued, is a soteriological dead end and can never lead to enlightenment.

This epilogue assesses the extent to which seventeenth-century women Chan masters participate in, benefit from, and contribute to the revival of seventeenth-century Linji Chan. The first thing to note is that this was a time when more and more educated women were becoming active participants in the literary world through reading, writing, editing, and having works published, and they, like their male literati counterparts, were attracted and intrigued by this “textual” Chan revival. Indeed, the rhetoric of heroism and equality that was reimagined as part of the seventeenth-century revival of Chan Buddhism provided women with an opportunity to “do what men do”—that is, pursue active and respected public lives as Chan masters.

The sixth and final chapter begins with a sketch of sa?gha-state relations in northern China over the course of the Five Dynasties and then explores the effects of the Five Dynasties–Song transition on Chan monks in and around the Song capital at Kaifeng and in southeastern cities. As is well known, beginning in the early decades of the Song dynasty, the dharma-heirs of the renowned Tang-dynasty Chan master Linji Yixuan consistently won the support of prominent Song officials. The biographies of Linji clerics and their patrons in northern cities recounted in the final section of this chapter indicate that the processes of political unification and cultural consolidation influenced a shift in imperial patronage from monks affiliated with the lineages of Yicun and Shibei to the descendants of Linji.

A discussion of the main issues regarding Yuanwu’s appropriation of Xuedou’s verse comments through interlinear capping phrases and prose evaluations by looking carefully at several examples in selected cases of the way Yuanwu reacts to his predecessor. According to my reading, from the very start of the collection Yuanwu emphasizes the innate limitations of discourse as a possible detriment to awakening, while at the same time he shows, perhaps in somewhat tongue-in-cheek fashion, how appropriate language in the hands of a powerfully expressive poet-monk such as Xuedou can and does become a constructive tool for realizing enlightenment.

An explanation of specific rhetorical functions of several representative Blue Cliff Record cases by focusing on three levels of writing: the first level includes prominent words or phrasing used by Yuanwu; the second level refers to how his interlinear comments on cases and verse selected by Xuedou provide remarks regarding the dynamics of the competitive style of the source encounter dialogues; and the third level indicates how literary techniques construct the rhetoric of uncertainty, or a studied ambivalence and indeterminacy about the basis for truth-claims regarding issues of language, perception, doubt, and time in relation to awakening as well as issues concerning Chan’s lineal transmission. Special emphasis is on analyzing the interpretative styles of capping phrases and evaluative reactions, a style that is used with two different structures based on whether Yuanwu is commenting on cases or on verses.