4
Branching Out
Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.
BUDDHISM IS TRANSLATED INTO CHINESE
Though India was the birthplace of Buddhism, China gave Buddhism a place to develop and grow. Sutra translators and traveling monks brought the doctrine from India to China and from there it spread to Korea. Korea introduced Buddhism to Japan in 552 during the reign of Emperor Kinmei. The rulers sought concepts, rules, rituals, and principles to guide and inspire their subjects, to create order and purpose, and to help develop their lands and people. Buddhism fulfilled these purposes. The leaders patronized monks and endorsed translation centers.
Kumarajiva (344-413) was a brilliant scholar and monk who facilitated the spread of Buddhism to the Chinese—in his case through his translations of the sutras. Kumarajiva headed an official translation bureau in China where he supervised a thousand monks in the translation of ninety-four works into Chinese for his royal patron, Yao Hsing.
Kumarajiva’s disciple Seng-Chao (374-414) was a student of Taoism before converting to Buddhism. He interpreted Madhyamika philosophy through Taoist lenses, and thus developed a clear and unique system of conceptualizing the inconceivable, to communicate Buddhism to the Chinese in familiar terms. Through Kumarajiva and his disciples, many Mahayana sutras were made understandable to the Chinese. Then he and his followers, especially Seng-Chao, skillfully rendered the Madhyamika and Yogacara sutras so that these ideas, too, could continue to grow.
NEW BRANCHES GROW
The Yogacara and Madhyamika schools may have been the solid tree trunk of Mahayana. But as Mahayana took root in other countries, it grew new branches.
The first branch produced two Chinese sects, T’ien-t’ai (Tendai, Japanese) and Hua-yen (Kegon, Japanese)—both systematically classified as Buddhism. These schools held that reality can be conceptualized in certain ways. T’ien-t’ai developed a comprehensive system to reunite thinking with enlightenment. Hua-yen’s grand scheme was based on intuitive sudden enlightenment over the use of reason.
A second branch produced Pure Land Buddhism, and the Japanese forms of Jodo and Shin. Pure Land made the chant the nembutsu, “Namu-amida-butsu,” which loosely translated means meditate on Amitabha Buddha, into a sacred action.
According to the third branch, reality is unspeakable, unthinkable: All theories are false. Some Mahayana Buddhist sects, such as Zen, follow this tradition. Words, concepts, and theories, at best, only point toward the truth, but language cannot express it. Ludwig Wittgenstein, a renown European philosopher, stated it well: “Beyond this is silence.”
A fourth branch rejected the direct use of reasoning to lead to truth in favor of other ways, such as mandalas and mantras. Tibetan Buddhism and other Tantric sects such as Shingon follow this mystical path, using elaborate visualizations and rituals as the means to enlightenment.
T’IEN-T’ AI BUDDHISM
T’ien-t’ai began in China and was named after the mountain monastery where the master resided. Chih-i (538-597) is considered the founder of T’ien-t’ai. Although he was not its originator, he wrote, organized, and developed the concepts his teacher helped him to realize. Chih-i’s formulations became the means of conceptualizing T’ien-t’ai’s vision of Buddhism. He instituted concepts to systematize and incorporate the varieties of Buddhist doctrine into a unified, rational hierarchy. Each was given a place and a category.
T’ien-t’ai did not blend and synthesize all of Buddhism as one. Each retained its separate identity as a reflection of the whole.
THE THREEFOLD TRUTH
The threefold truth is the basic statement of the T’ien-t’ai doctrine. The first truth is that the world we think of as real is actually an illusion. We believe it is real because we experience it, but it is not real. The experienced world is empty of any lasting substance; it is transitory, an illusion given to us by our senses and mind.
The second truth is that this world of experience has a temporary existence. It is only partially or temporarily real. Things are real for now, due to their apparent, momentary existence. The second truth says we cannot say that nothing is present at all, for if we do, how could the senses and mind perceive things? Reality is fleeting, like a flash of light, but the flash does happen.
The third truth says there is something, but then asks what is it? It is not “nothing,” but neither is it “something.” A middle path emerges from the interaction between, a synthesis that includes them but also transcends them. This third truth is a mysterious fusion, so there is no distinction possible. Absolute mind is completely integrated with the universe. Everything is a function of the true state.
SUCHNESS: THE ULTIMATE UNITY
At the highest level of understanding, in a grand synthesis, all are present in one thought. This one thought is what the T’ien-t’ai calls Suchness, the ultimate category. Everything is just as it is.
For example, consider the common food product butter. Different kinds of butter vary in their subtle flavors, depending upon the brand, whether salt has been added, and how it is manufactured. But in its essence, all forms are still butter. Different flavors might taste differently to different people, but ultimately all butter is of the same essence.
This world is real. There is no other. The phenomena we see and experience are a function of their conditions, causes and effects, nature, and substance, which are intimately interrelated with the inner truth of the universe.
Whether we look at the world from the absolute (nirvana) or the relative (samsara) frame of reference, it is the same at its inner core yet different in its outer expression. The core is empty. Like a doughnut, whose nature depends on the hole, both dough and hole are necessary: No whole without the hole. Similar to physics’ modern theory of matter, nothing is constant; everything is always changing. Yet the central nothingness within everything is eternal and shared by all.
In the absolute sense, everything and everyone is of one root, one essence. Boundaries are only relative, depending on your point of view, always changing. When we can experience this, we can accept that things are just as they appear. We feel the interconnectedness of all reality and live our lives accordingly, in harmony, which is the true nature of reality.
THE FIVE PERIODS
As the Chinese became more knowledgeable about Buddhism, they began arranging, classifying, and systematizing sutras and doctrines. Students of Buddhism questioned how it was possible that one individual (Buddha) could have taught so many sutras, so widely, with so many apparent contradictions and inconsistencies. T’ien t’ai explained it by dividing Buddha’s teachings into five periods and eight methods.
The first period was the Hua-yen or Avatamsaka. Immediately following his enlightenment (528 B.C.E.), Buddha attempted to express the wisdom through the Avatamsaka Sutra. But the understandings were too advanced, and so he saved this sutra for later. The second period included the early scriptures and the Four Noble Truths that made up the Pali Canon of Hinayana Buddhism (528-200 B.C.E.). During the third period (200 B.C.E.-100 C.E.), the basic Mahayana sutras introduced the new concepts of Mahayana Buddhism. The Prajnaparamita Sutras of Perfect Wisdom were the fourth period (100-200 C.E.), with the concept of emptiness and no distinctions between doctrines. The fifth period (200-600) presented the Lotus Sutra, with its comprehensive unity of all teachings. T’ien-t’ai believed this period represented the most profound level of understanding.
THE EIGHT METHODS
The wisdom from each period was communicated using four teaching methods and four sets of texts. The Four Methods were Sudden Enlightenment, the most sophisticated; Gradual Enlightenment, using step-by-step Vipassana insight meditation; Secret Doctrine, incorporating rituals and mysticism; and the Indeterminate, an indirect, subtle way of teaching. In the fourth method, all students thought they were being spoken to and personally addressed by the Buddha, indirectly, through symbols, gestures, and teachings.
The doctrines included many collections of Buddhist texts. First were the early procedures laid out in the Tipitaka. The Shared Doctrine, used by both Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhists was next. The Distinctive Doctrine explained about becoming a bodhisattva, and the Complete Doctrine, from the Lotus Sutra, gave the dimensions of practice for Buddhahood, where everything is unified—all things are contained in each individual thing.
The Five Periods and Eight Methods showed how all of Buddha’s teachings from different times and places could be true. Buddha had used different approaches to teach people at varying levels of sophistication. T’ien-t’ai welcomed all the teachings as a diverse resource from which the students could draw, depending on their talents, capacities, and needs.
T’ien-t’ai’s clear and exacting formulations were used to teach Chinese Buddhism for many centuries. Later, T’ien-t’ai was brought to Japan and became known as Tendai Buddhism. Tendai Buddhism had a long and influential effect on Japan.
HUA-YEN: ONE IN ALL PHILOSOPHY
Hua-yen Buddhism arose in the seventh and eighth centuries. Fa-Tsang (643-712) is usually considered the founder, due in part to the volume of his writings. He is said to have written over one hundred works. He systematized and created a coherent, orderly philosophy under the patronage of Empress Wu. He was also a dynamic speaker who could move audiences with his words. According to legend, once, after delivering a dynamic lecture, the earth shook! His most popular writing was the Commentary on the Heart Sutra, still read today by practitioners from differing sects.
Weaving the flowers of Mahayana into a beautiful garland, the works of Fa-Tsang and the other great thinkers in the lineage helped to communicate this form of Buddhism. Eventually, Hua-yen was brought to Japan where it became known as Kegon.
THE GREAT UNIFICATION
There were three important principles in Hua-yen. The first principle, Realms of the Whole, was a unique contribution that allowed Hua-yen to be inclusive. Hua-yen made sense of the varied sects, synthesizing them together into one whole. On the surface, the many varied teachings of Buddha might seem different, but in their essence, they are all the same. Each sect actually presents only one view of the larger panorama, the realm of dharmadhatu.
Emptiness, the second principle, was central to all Mahayana sects. But Huayen doctrine included form within the formlessness. Emptiness was expressed in terms of its relation to fullness. Everything, each individual object, is both mirror and reflection, reflecting all other objects, and in turn, only the reflection in another mirror from another perspective. For example, the parts of an automobile gain their meaning united as a car, but are not, in themselves, a car. In the same way, the individual parts of the universe gain their essential meaning from the universe as part of the whole.
A calm lake quietly reflects the surroundings. In perfect stillness, which is the true image and which the reflection? Without a calm lake, no image of the surroundings can be reflected. Without the surroundings, there could be no reflection in the calm lake. They come into existence together in a flash.
A person sees the lake and the reflection as an experience. The perception takes place by means of the mind of the person viewing it. Therefore, is the perception only in the mind, or is it more than mind?
The third principle is Totality, mutual interdependent interaction among everything. Hua-yen included reality and substance as part of the totality, the whole. Hua-yen reintroduced logic and reason as part of the enlightened reality, essential within the grand synthesis of all that is. It all depends on your point of view, your level or realm of understanding, and your frame of reference. Therefore, Hua-yen was a round doctrine, without an edge or boundary. Each part complemented the other. No one part was complete without the other. Hua-yen’s perspective was not one-sided.
Each had its place, its part. Hua-yen’s realm is a totality, an integrated organic whole. It was an affirming, positive philosophy that included everything as threads in the tapestry of enlightenment. There is no obstruction since everything has mutual interpenetration and mutual identity, fused in the oneness of the dharmadhatu.
Although details may vary and emphases may differ, the essence, the central principle within all systems, was identical according to Hua-yen.
PURE LAND: THE EASY PATH
Pure Land Buddhism was a Mahayana sect that evolved gradually, beginning formally in China. Inspiration came from India, from sutras composed about three hundred years after the death of Buddha called the Pure Land Sutras.
The school that developed in China was led by Hui-yuan (336-416), who founded the White Lotus Society, named after a lotus-covered pond near his monastery. It was this society that became the basis for the Pure Land sect in China. They retired from society to seek seclusion and live according to the dharma. The teachings from the Pure Land perspective spread throughout other sects in China. In Japan, the ideas were organized and codified by Honen (1133-1212) into Jodo Buddhism, which arose in reaction to the often demanding efforts required for Buddhist practice.
Honen was a charismatic, warm, and inclusive man who had a deep desire to attain enlightenment. Yet he found it too difficult to practice the three disciplines of precepts, meditation, and knowledge on his own. One day Honen came across writings from the Pure Land sect that taught the use of the nembutsu. Honen was overjoyed, for here was an easy way to enlightenment.
The Pure Land adherents believed that Buddha’s enlightenment was timeless and spaceless, beyond the confines of his life. Enlightenment is personified as many Buddhas and bodhisattvas. The loving bodhisattva Amitabha vowed that he would refuse to be fully enlightened until all entered into nirvana. This vow committed him to altruistic and selfless devotion to others, permitting anyone to gain from him. Amitabha’s great sacrifice of his own personal nirvana was for others. The merit of a positive action can be transferred to another instead of being used by the person who earned it. Therefore, Amitabha could save anyone through transferring his merit. By sincerely calling his name, saying the nembutsu “Namu-amida-butsu,” he opens his paradise to anyone.
Pure Land puts faith in the power of Amitabha. Faith in “other power,” joriki, is the preferred path of Pure Land practitioners rather than faith in one’s “own power,” tariki. Joriki is an alternative to striving by your own efforts to reach enlightenment.
Honen’s student Shinran (1173-1262) developed his own sect, known as Jodo-Shin or Shin Buddhism. One of Shinran’s students evolved the Pure Land doctrine of nembutsu’s power to be even more pure, a complete self-contained practice that guaranteed enlightenment if wholeheartedly performed even once.
Though Honen and Shinran exclusively focused on the nembutsu as all that was necessary, followers later modified the doctrine to permit involvement in Buddhism’s other practices. Many of the sects of Buddhism have now included aspects of this doctrine— especially the chanting of the nembutsu and faith in the bodhisattva ideal as personified in Amitabha—as adjuncts to Mahayana practice.
Everyone who practices, whatever their situation, may be reborn in the Buddhist paradise. This easy way to achieve peace and enlightenment is inclusive and positive toward all. No one is excluded, regardless of former misconduct, weakness, or deficit, if they faithfully practice Amitabha’s vow.
This complete faith was so simple and dramatically powerful that it appealed to many. Even though Honen himself emphatically declared that nembutsu was not a form of meditation, others used it as a meditation and still do.
The Pure Land is a sentiment within the heart of Buddhist doctrine. In a sense, we are all in the Pure Land, here and now. This is our paradise if we let it become paradise.
ZEN BUDDHISM
Buddha held up a flower at Vulture Peak and smiled, communicating the spirit of enlightenment. All the monks sat solemnly, watching Buddha. Only Mahakasyapa understood, and smiled. This was the first recorded direct transmission of enlightenment, from mind to mind, without words. Zen began at this moment. Zen tradition carried the experience of enlightenment forward through twenty-eight patriarchs in India to Bodhidharma, who transmitted Zen to China. This tradition of transmitting enlightenment without using words, mind to mind, is the cornerstone of Zen and continues to the present day.
Since Zen’s doctrine emphasizes the essence within sutras and rituals of Buddhism, Zen has in whole or part been integrated with many other philosophies, religions, and activities, including art, martial arts, psychotherapy, and Christianity, among others.
TRANSMISSION FROM BODHIDHARMA TO THE WORLD
Bodhidharma (440-528) traveled to China, taught monks to meditate, and also taught them martial arts to help them actively learn. Bodhidharma believed that the elaborate rituals and doctrines in Buddhism were a distraction that prevented people from recognizing that their own nature here and now is enlightenment. “To find a buddha,” he said, “you have to see your nature.… If you don’t see your nature, invoking buddhas, reciting sutras, making offerings, and keeping precepts are all useless.”
Hui-neng (638-713) changed Zen by emphasizing the idea of sudden enlightenment. He is considered the founder of modern Zen. Since our mind is the buddha, we are already enlightened. There is nothing to seek, nothing to find. Meditation can help you realize this, but doing anything with intensity will have the same result. Walking, eating, sleeping—all are opportunities to practice Zen. The practice of enlightenment is interpreted in many ways, but the core, according to Zen, is meditation.
Zen evolved into various schools and branches, Soto and Rinzai in Japan, known as the Tsao-Tung and the Lin-chi lines in China, were most significant. They had different emphases, yet both carry the spirit of Zen. Soto focused on practicing clear-minded meditation, zazen. These practitioners deemphasized enlightenment in favor of the practice of meditation itself. They believed practice is inseparable from enlightenment rather than a path leading to it.
The Rinzai approach fervently strove for enlightenment and continually sought to deepen the experience through the practice of meditation on koans, stories from Zen masters that portray the enlightened mind in teaching situations.
Koans, zazen, and Zen arts evoke the open-minded inclusive awareness characteristic of Zen Buddhism. But paradoxically, in Zen, not one sutra or koan explicitly describes enlightenment, yet all illustrate it through the ultimate fusion of enlightenment with everyday life.