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FARMING MEDITATION

WHEN BUDDHISM SPREAD from India to China, it needed time to adapt and adjust itself. The teachings didn’t change but they assimilated certain aspects of Chinese culture. Chan is very much a product of both Chinese culture and Buddhism.

The early history of Buddhism in China is complex and shrouded in legend. Buddhism was probably first introduced in China about two thousand years ago during the Han dynasty and bumped up against the already-established religions of Confucianism and Taoism. It resonated with certain aspects of Taoism. Early Sanskrit Buddhist texts that were translated into Chinese have a certain Taoist flavor.

According to tradition, the White Horse Temple was established in 68 CE in Henan Province. It is said to be the cradle of Chinese Buddhism. Buddhism took hold and grew. Then, in 446, Emperor Taiwu sought to suppress it, destroying monasteries, Buddhist art and texts, and killing monks.

When Taiwu died, his successor, Emperor Wencheng, restored Buddhism. There were a number of different Buddhist schools, including the Pure Land and Tiantai (which emphasized the Lotus Sutra). Tradition has the Indian sage Bodhidharma arriving in China in about 500 CE. Bodhidharma sat in front of a blank wall for nine years. So Chan was born.

Buddhism took on a distinctly Chinese character when it came to China. During the time of the Buddha and for hundreds of years afterward in India, monastics—both monks and nuns—lived a wandering life in the warm forests, collecting alms for their food. This kind of renunciative wandering life was already established in India, and, in fact, it was how Buddha lived both before and after enlightenment.

The first Buddhists were nomadic ascetics. In exchange for alms, they would teach, sharing their wisdom, which had a tangible value in the society in which they lived. That tradition continues in India today. Wandering sadhus crisscross the land with alms bowls and staffs and little else. It is a hard life of freedom and beauty, but in China it never worked for a variety of reasons. For one thing, in most parts of China during much of the year, if you slept in the forest in simple robes you would freeze.

More importantly, there were cultural reasons that asceticism didn’t take hold in China. Not only would you freeze in China if you wandered around collecting alms, you would probably starve. In China, beggars, even those with august religious traditions behind them, are despised. Confucius had taught that you should give back to your family and society. He stressed industriousness—a strong work ethic. His was a philosophy of the here and now, of how to make our day-to-day life run smoothly and efficiently.

Buddhism changed in China with the establishment of monasteries that supported themselves through agriculture. The first Chan monastery was built by Mazu Daoyi (709–88) at Kung-kung Mountain in southern Kiangsi Province. He had many disciples and is credited as the most influential teacher in the history of Chan.

With the advent of Chan monasteries, the lifestyle of Chinese Buddhists changed. Legend has it that Master Baizhang set down rules for the monastic discipline and formalized this new kind of life: monastics would farm and support themselves instead of begging for food. Baizhang famously said: “One day without work is one day without food.”

The establishment of monasteries was not only a result of adopting a Chinese work ethic. Monasteries in China were large, sometimes containing thousands of people. If these large numbers of monks went into villages to beg, it would have been like robbing the village. How could the villagers, who usually had only enough for themselves, supply so much food?

Also at this time, the diets of monks changed. They became vegetarians. This was in line with the Mahayana vow of great compassion, or bodhicitta. If we look into the teaching of no-self, we know that all sentient beings are interrelated. We see ourselves in all sentient beings.

Indian Buddhists had not been vegetarians. When you’re begging for alms, you take what you can get, meat included. Some Mahayana traditions retain the practice of eating meat, but that is largely because, in Tibet at least, there is little arable land and the nomadic life of herders is tied to yaks. Tibetan Buddhists don’t feast on meat.

During the early period of Chinese Buddhism, we see what’s called nong chan in Chinese. Nong means “hoe,” “cultivation,” “farmer,” and “farming.” Nong chan is farming meditation, which ties Chan into the very roots of Chinese agrarian society. It is not surprising—although it is somewhat ironic—that the refined language of Chinese philosophical discourse is steeped in the agrarian tradition; after all, the farmers were illiterate peasants who didn’t own their own land.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons that there is anti-philosophical tendency in Chan that comes from the way the early monks aligned their way of life to the way of life of illiterate Chinese peasants. After the farmer-monks finished working in the evening, they went back to the monastery and meditated in the Chan hall. A simple life. Working in the fields through the day. Meditating in the evening.

These monks also practiced meditation while they were farming. In Chan, your life is your practice. They meditated while they broke ground and sowed seeds. They meditated weeding and watering and tending their crops.

In Japanese Zen, this farming tradition of Chan becomes landscape cultivation, gardening, and the spare and beautiful Zen gardens. If we look carefully, we can see the rough agricultural roots of nong chan in the tremendous aesthetic refinement of the gardens in the monasteries of Kyoto.

 

IT IS NO coincidence that in Buddhism we talk about the mind field, xing tian, an idea that is originally from the ancient Chinese Buddhist texts, not Sanskrit. We who teach Chan often use the mind field as a metaphor. We talk about softening the field’s soil by removing rocks from it and, in the process, softening our hearts. Into this softened soil we sow the seeds of the Buddha’s teaching. We water the field with compassion. In Chinese we say, Shui shi yi qie de yao mu: “Water is the mother of all medicine.”

The mind field is consciousness, the codependent arising of all phenomena. In order to grow this “field” and produce fruit from seeds, we need water, soil, and sunlight; many elements need to come together. The fruit cannot come out suddenly all by itself. Similarly, the mind field also needs to be cultivated and nurtured in order for the seeds of wisdom to sprout and grow.

Our minds are inseparable from the totality of all that exists. We share a common consciousness with everything else. Every leaf is Buddha. The river is Buddha’s tongue and its sound is his voice.

If you want to help sentient beings, you have to get your hands dirty.

Just like farming.

Nong chan.