ANDRE VAN DER BRAAK

TOWARDS A PHILOSOPHY OF CHAN ENLIGHTENMENT:

LINJI’S ANTI-ENLIGHTENMENT RHETORIC

I. INTRODUCTION

In his 1996 essay on Chan historiography and Chan philosophy1, Chung-Ying Cheng

notes how early studies of the Chan Buddhist tradition have approached Chan

enlightenment (answering the questions “What is enlightenment?,” “Can anyone attain

it?,” “How is it to be attained?,” “Why is it important to be attained?”) from an internal

and philosophical perspective. In Cheng’s words, they have been on the side of wujie 悟

解 (“understanding according to my mind, signifying a self-realization of my nature

or/and my mind”). Recently, however, much research on Chan enlightenment has taken

an external, historiographic perspective, focusing on how notions of enlightenment are

formed, and how and why claims to enlightenment have been accepted as warranted by

certain kinds of people (Cheng describes this as the lijie 理解 approach: “understanding

according to reason or rational thinking”).

These philosophical and historiographical perspectives have increasingly been at

odds with another. Stephen Heine has given an overview of the current standoff in

Chan/Zen Studies between an internal philosophical and an external historiographical

approach. The traditional Zen narrative views enlightenment as “a direct, unmediated

experience of reality beyond the realm of conditioning, which does not require

intercession through the conventional use of objects of worship, such as images,

symbols, or representations of deities.”2 Such a notion of a “pure” Zen, which privileges

enlightenment as an unmediated experience of reality, has been contested by modern

scholarship. Historical and cultural criticism points out the importance of speech and ANDRE VAN DER BRAAK, Professor Buddhist Philosophy in Dialogue with other World Views, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. E-mail: a.vander.braak@vu.nl

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mediation throughout the historical Chan tradition, which “makes traditional claims for

the priority of iconoclasm seem like little more than idle rhetorical flourishes.”3

Heine, as well as other authors such as Bernard Faure and Dale Wright, points to

the need for a contextualized, hermeneutical approach to Chan studies. In his

Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism, Wright uses Blofeld’s translation of the

writings of Huangbo Xiyun 黄檗希運 (d.850) as a case study to point to the risks of a

purely internal philosophical approach, unsupported by external historiographical

research.4 The main risk is that one uncritically interprets the Chan tradition in terms of

one’s own horizon, thereby reducing the foreign to one’s own.5 One of the important

aspects of Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics is exactly to make room for the

Anstoss of the other, by becoming familiar with one’s own “pre-understandings” and

“pre-judgments” that inevitably shape our own historical, cultural and linguistic

frameworks, but that are also the precondition for comprehension.

Adding to the hermeneutic challenge for Chan/Zen studies is the fact that the

Chinese Chan tradition has come to the West through the mediation of Japanese Zen

orthodoxy (especially Rinzai), as embodied for example in the famous Japanese

researcher Yanagida.6 This effective history [Wirkungsgeschichte] of the Chinese Chan

writings in the Japanese Rinzai tradition has co-determined the establishment of a

modern Zen orthodoxy in the West. As various researchers have stressed, it is time now

to differentiate between the modern orthodox interpretation of Chan (through the filter

of the Japanese Rinzai school of Zen) and the historical orthodox forms of Chan (as

embodied in the original writings of the Chan masters and their effective history in Tang

and Song China).7 Such a differentiation between these two orthodoxies is made

possible by a host of new research on Chan. Since 1976, Chinese research has

blossomed on Huineng 慧能 (638-713) and the Hongzhou school 洪州宗.8 In the

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West, two excellent monographs have appeared on the Hongzhou school by Jia and

Poceski.9

This article will use as a case study the famous ninth-century Chan master Linji

Yixuan (臨濟義玄) (d. 866), considered the founder of the Japanese Rinzai school. The

record of his teachings, the “Linji lu 《 臨濟錄 》”, has been accorded the highest

praise within the Chan/Zen tradition. According to translator Burton Watson, it is “the

oldest and most authentic voice that has come down to us from the early tradition of

Chinese Chan or Zen, the fullest exposition of its teachings.”10 It can be regarded as no

less than the pinnacle of Zen thought. The received view is that Linji advocates

breaking through all fixed conceptions in order to be able to realize a state of

enlightenment. Translator Burton Watson summarizes Linji’s project as attempting to

lead his listeners

to still the mind, to stop it from making discriminations and nurturing attachments toward

certain phenomena and feelings of aversion toward others. When this state of calmness of

mind is achieved, the darkness of ignorance and passion will be dispelled and the mind

can perceive the underlying unity of the absolute. The individual will then have achieved

the state of enlightenment and will be freed from the cycle of birth and death, because

such a person is now totally indifferent to them both.11

At the same time, however, the Linji lu contains some very strong rhetoric that seems to

deny the possibility of such a state of enlightenment (or in any way certain conceptions

of and approaches to it) and to stress the futility of striving after it.

Bodhi and nirvāna are hitching posts for donkeys

(puti niepan ru ji lu jue 菩提涅槃如繫驢橛).12

There’s no Buddha, no Dharma, no practice, no enlightenment

(wu fo wu fa wu xiu wu zheng 無佛無法無修無證).13

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There is no Buddha to be sought, no Way to be carried out, no Dharma to be gained

(kuo wu fo ke qiu wu dao ke cheng wu fa ke de 闊無佛可求無道可成無法可得).14

If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha (feng fo sha fo 逢佛殺佛).15

Such phrases seem to utterly deconstruct enlightenment as a soteriological goal that can

be reached through Buddhist practice or studied via Buddhist sutras.

This article attempts to apply an integrated hermeneutical approach, combining

philosophical and historiographical perspectives, to this notorious anti-enlightenment

rhetoric. It will first consider Youru Wang’s philosophical studies concerning the

deconstruction of enlightenment in the Hongzhou school (ranging from its founder

Mazu Dayi 馬祖道一 (709-788) to Linji). Wang argues that Linji, together with the

other members of the Hongzhou School, should primarily be read as a deconstructive

thinker within the Chan tradition, and that his anti-enlightenment rhetoric should be

interpreted as taking place in an ongoing dialectic between the reification and

deconstruction of Buddha nature. Wang’s views on the evolution of the Chan discourse

on enlightenment will be briefly outlined.

Thereafter, we will present the historiographical research of Albert Welter on the

formation of the Linji lu within the context of the development of Chan in the early

Song. Welter shows through a detailed textual analysis how the Linji lu developed over

the course of Chan history in a way that sheds new light on the development of Chan

Buddhism in its Chinese context.16 Welter’s historiographical discoveries contribute to a

more hermeneutically rich understanding of Linji’s views on enlightenment.

The integration of Wang’s philosophical analysis with Welter’s historical

narrative can be a modest contribution to the development of a genealogy of Chan

enlightenment. To construct a genealogy, in the ordinary sense of the word, is to map

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out ancestors or sets of parents from which an individual or family of descendents has

come (in this sense, the Chan tradition is thoroughly genealogical, since lineage plays

an essential part in it). In the Nietzschean sense of the word, a genealogy is the search

not so much for the validity or truthfulness as it is for the origins of certain notions,

customs or practices. A genealogical investigation reveals that concepts with seemingly

fixed meanings are in actuality the result of a contingent series of consecutive

reinterpretations, none of which can be privileged as the “original” or “true”

interpretation.

Enlightenment can be seen as one of these fixed notions whose solidity is in dire

need of deconstruction. As Welter remarks, “Zen propagandists and apologists in the

twentieth century sold the world on the story of Zen as a transcendental spiritualism

untainted by political and institutional involvements.”17 Zen enlightenment has been

presented as a transcendent, pure experience. However, the notion of enlightenment

within the Chan tradition is the product of a complicated historical development.18

II. THE EVOLUTION OF CHAN DISCOURSE ON ENLIGHTENMENT

The Chan tradition is rooted in two Indian Buddhist philosophical traditions: the

tathāgatagarbha tradition and the Mādhyamika thought of Nāgārjuna. Its discourse on

enlightenment contains elements of both kataphasis (discourse which proceeds by

affirmations) and apophasis (discourse which proceeds by negations).

The kataphatic strains in Chan thought are connected with the tathāgatagarbha

notion of Buddha nature (foxing 佛性). The term garbha means both “embryo” and

“womb.” Therefore, on the one hand, it points to the fact that every sentient being

possesses the germ to attain Buddhahood. On the other hand, it refers to the universal

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essence of Buddhahood (also expressed as Buddha nature). In tathāgatagarbha thought,

enlightenment is conceptualized as the realization of one’s Buddha nature.

“Buddha nature,” however, is but one of the many Buddhist terms and concepts,

such as nirvāna, paramārtha, and sūnyatā, that are to be properly used in a

soteriological way, not a metaphysical way. In order to avoid their reification, they need

to be deconstructed again and again. Therefore, apart from the kataphatic strain in Chan

thought, a continuous apophatic strain can be discerned, which goes back to

Mādhyamika thought and its emphasis on sūnyatā. Wang describes the inner struggles

within the evolution of Chan discourse on enlightenment as an ongoing dialectic

between kataphasis and apophasis, between the substantialization of Buddha nature and

its deconstruction. According to Wang, the Chinese adaptation of the tathāgatagarbha

thought eventually evolved into the deconstruction of Buddha nature in Chan.19

Nāgārjuna’s apophatic thought has been extensively interpreted in terms of and

compared to deconstructive thinkers such as Derrida, following Magliola’s influential

book Derrida on the Mend.20 According to Magliola, the Chan tradition contains a

logocentric, absolutist strain (connected with the Northern School of Chan, rooted in the

kataphatic Yogācāra philosophy) and a differential strain (connected with the Southern

School of Chan, rooted in the apophatic Mādhyamika tradition).21 According to Wang,

however, the Southern School of Chan, especially Huineng and the Hongzhou school,

deconstructs not only the Northern School of Chan, but also logocentric tendencies

within the Southern Chan school itself.

In Chinese Buddhism, the Indian Buddhist discourse on enlightenment was

transposed into the Chinese philosophical discourse of ti 體(substance or essence) and

yong 用(function). Early Chan conceived of realizing one’s Buddha nature in terms of

contemplating and seeing ti, which could be described as the source from which mind

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emerges and part of that which gives rise to the mind. In terms of the famous dictum

traditionally attributed to Bodhidharma (but probably from a later date): “directly point

to the human mind (zhi zhi ren xin 直指人心); see one’s nature and become a Buddha”

(jian xing cheng fo 見性成佛).

As part of his investigation into the deconstruction of Buddha nature in Chan

Buddhism, Wang provides a contextual analysis of two moments of inner struggle

within the evolution of the Chan discourse on enlightenment. Wang interprets both

struggles as between the reification of soteriological terms, and a subsequent

deconstructive operation to counteract this reification.22

The first internal Chan struggle regarding the orthodox view of enlightenment

occurs around 700. It is portrayed in The Platform Sutra in the famous story of the

verses of Yuquan Shenxiu 玉泉神秀 (606? – 706), head monk under the fifth Chan

patriarch, and Dajian Huineng (638-713), the later sixth Chan patriarch. According to

Wang, Shenxiu portrayed enlightenment as linian 離念 (being free from thoughts).

Wang calls this a “quasi-reifying interpretation” that leaves room for a logocentric

hierarchy that privileges pure over impure, the true mind over the ordinary mind, ti over

yong. 23 Enlightenment is consequently conceived as entering into a pure and quiet

state, possibly leading to a dangerous Chan escapism.

According to Wang, Huineng corrected Shenxiu’s interpretation. Huineng

speaks of wunian 無念 (no-thought or no-thinking), referring not so much to an empty

mind as to an apophatic emptiness of deluded thought. As Huineng puts it, “no-thought

means not to be carried away by thought in the process of thought.”24 Wunian 無念

refers to an attitude of flowing together with thoughts and things.

Wang investigates a second moment of internal struggle in the evolution of the

Chan discourse on enlightenment among two descendants of Huineng: his self-

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professed disciple Shenhui 神會 (684-758), a well-known Chan populariser and speaker,

and Daoyi Mazu 馬祖道一 (709-788), the founder of the Hongzhou School of Southern

Chan. According to Wang, Shenhui gave an interpretation of Huineng’s notion of

wunian that is problematic. He privileged intuitive knowledge over ordinary,

discriminative cognition. He taught “establishing awareness and cognition” (li zhijian

立知見), and in this way favoured ti over yong. Wang argues that the Hongzhou school

rejected Shenhui’s logocentric hierarchy of ti and yong. With its motto “let the mind be

free” (renxin 任心), it emphasized flowing together with ever-changing reality and

being free (renyun zizai 任運自在). Enlightenment is not about realizing a fixed and

unchanging essence within; it refers to being harmonious with change and flux.

Mazu stressed that Buddha nature manifests in function (yong). The essence of

the mind is seen through its external functioning. The ultimate realm of enlightenment

manifests itself everywhere in human life. For Mazu, the distinction between gradual

and sudden enlightenment, so important in the earlier conflict in Chan, became

meaningless. Mazu ultimately denied any kind of awakening, even the awakening of the

ordinary mind to itself, since the ordinary mind is already Buddha nature. No cultivation

is therefore necessary; Mazu advocated to simply let the mind be free, and to follow

along with the movements of all things or circumstances (renyun 任運).

Wang emphasizes that the Hongzhou school is also engaged in self-

deconstruction. He refers to Linji’s self-erasing of his notion of “an authentic person

without rank”. Soon after Linji proposes this notion, he adds “What kind of shitty ass-

wiper this authentic person without rank is!”25 Wang holds that “Linji may be the one,

among all Chan masters, who uses the clearest language to deconstruct all kataphatic

terms that Chan Buddhists have been using, including those used by himself.”26 He puts

Linji in the differential strain of Chan, and paints him as a champion of deconstruction:

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“the entire Linji lu is full of the spirit and energy of deconstruction and self-

deconstruction.”27 This is a long cry from Watson’s construal that Linji aims to still the

mind in order to be able to perceive “the underlying unity of the absolute.” In light of

Wang’s perspective, Watson’s interpretation of Linji ascribes a rather kataphatic

discourse on enlightenment to him.

Robert Buswell has yet another interpretation of Linji’s views of enlightenment.

According to Buswell, Linji focused on the importance of cultivating faith, interpreted

as the beneficial influence constantly emanating from the inherently enlightened

Buddha nature, prompting all conscious beings toward enlightenment. Faith would then

be equivalent to the innate functioning of ti.28

The Master instructed the group, saying (shi shizhong yun 師示眾云): “Those who study

the Way these days need to have faith in themselves (rujin xuedao ren qie yao zixin 如今

學道人且要自信) and not go looking for something outside (mo xiangwai mi莫向外

覓).29

It’s because you don’t have enough faith (zhi wei er xinbuji 秖為爾信不及) that you rush

around moment by moment looking for something (niannian chi qiu 念念馳求) . You

throw away your head and then hunt for a head (she tou mi tou 捨頭覓頭), and you can’t

seem to stop yourselves (zi buneng xie自不能歇).30

Buswell interprets this focus on the cultivation of faith as a restoration of the Chan

focus on the direct experience of the essence of mind.31 He also connects it to

tathāgatagarbha thought, where faith is the principal soteriological tool prompting

realization of immanent enlightenment.32

III PHILOSOPHICAL HERMENEUTICAL CONSIDERATIONS

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The above interpretations of Linji’s anti-enlightenment rhetoric aim to come to a better

understanding of Linji’s views. Philosophical hermeneutics, however, reverses the

relationship between understanding and interpretation: interpretations do not lead to

understanding, as is usually thought, but our interpretations are already based on pre-

conscious forms of understanding that constitute our world. As Heidegger puts it in

section 32 of Being and Time:

Interpretation is grounded existentially in understanding: the latter does not arise from the

former. Nor is interpretation the acquiring of information about what is understood; it is

rather the working out of possibilities projected in understanding.33

From a philosophical hermeneutical perspective, any text that is given to us is always

mediated through language, culture and history, and is always interpreted by us

according to our pre-understandings. One of such pre-conscious understandings in

interpreting the Linji lu is that it constitutes a unitary text, adequately reflecting the

thought of a historical author, Linji Yixuan. Welter’s historiographical research on the

development of the Linji lu helps to bring such pre-understanding to light. As Welter

notes, “it remains common to read the Linji lu transparently, as if it contains records of

Linji’s actual teachings and activities, eyewitness accounts scribbled down by students

and observers, passed down and recorded in a modified form by compilers of later

collections of Chan writings. Nothing could be farther from the truth.”34

Welter stresses three main historiographical considerations. First, he

differentiates between the ninth-century historical person Linji Yixuan and the text that

bears his name, the Linji lu. He points out that, although this text is presented as eye-

witness accounts of Linji (and may have indeed been inspired by the actual words and

deeds of Linji), 250 years separate Linji’s death in 866 and the final formulation of the

Linji lu in 1120. Secondly, the evolution of the Linji lu text is connected to the Chan

movement that took its inspiration from Linji, the Linji faction that came into

10

prominence in early eleventh-century Song China. Thirdly, he points out the importance

of the social and political context in which the Linji lu developed: in early eleventh-

century Song China, a battle was going on about what counted as the “true” Chan

teachings, a political process provocatively described by Welter as “the development of

Chan orthodoxy.”

The development of correct (orthos) doctrine (doxa), a belief in established

teachings and standards to orient the proper application of practice and ritual, Welter

notes, may be thought to not apply to Chan, since Chan is widely believed to be about

what one practices, not what one believes. However, in Chan no less than in other

religious traditions, “orthodoxy functions as a contested terrain used by competing

groups to sanction their interpretations and marginalize opponents. Rather than posit a

single orthodoxy, which is the aim of orthodoxy itself, multiple orthodoxies exist in

[the] Chan/Zen tradition.”35 Welter shows how social, political, and ideological

considerations greatly influenced the formation of the Linji lu.

IV. THE FORMATION OF THE LINJI LU AND THE BATTLE FOR CHAN ORTHODOXY

Welter describes how the formation of the Linji lu in the early Song took place within

the context of controversy within Chan thought that is reminiscent of the controversy

between Shenxiu and Huineng three centuries before. He argues that this controversy

can even be considered more important for deciding crucial issues pertaining to Chan

orthodoxy.36 The Chan movement that was originally ascending in the early Song was

instigated by descendants of Fayan Wenyi 法眼文益(885-958). The Fayan faction

accepted the validity of the many Buddhist approaches. It emphasized the Mahāyāna

Buddhist hermeneutical device of upaya (skillful means):

11

Each master has numerous methods for converting students; none are by definition

superior and none should be excluded, except those that defy orthodox Buddhist teaching

and practice. All methods may be effective as enticements for benefiting living beings;

their goal is the same. Chan masters who have no experience with Buddhist teachings and

doctrines (jiaolun 教論) are ineffective. By rushing students through orthodox views

while employing unorthodox methods, they mix heresies with important doctrines and

impede the progress of their students. Instead of rejecting words (wuyan 無言), Fayan

insists on verbal explanations. Instead of rejecting Buddhist teaching (wufa 無法), Fayan

insists on relying on it.37

This Fayan faction was embattled by the Linji faction, who regarded the Fayan

emphasis on upaya as a compromise of Chan truth, which condoned rationalized

explanations of truth, doctrinal formulations, liturgical practices, etc. The Linji faction

claimed that Chan, in all its teachings and methods, should be exclusively aimed at

enlightenment, defined as “a special transmission outside the teachings” (jiaowai

biechuan 教外別傳), unmediated by words and phrases. This secretly transmitted

esoteric Chan dharma was considered superior to the exoteric dharma of the Buddhist

sutras. According to the Fayan faction, however, the exoteric expression of the Lotus

Sutra and other scriptures was a legitimate expression of Buddhist teaching.38

Welter distinguishes several stages in the formation of the Linji lu:

(1) The earliest recorded fragments of Linji’s teachings occur in 952, in the

compilation of the “Zutang ji 《 祖堂集 》” (Patriarch’s Hall Anthology). The

Zutang ji honors Mazu’s Hongzhou school as Chan orthodoxy, yet does not consider

Linji but rather Xuefeng Yicun 雪蜂義存 (822-908) as heir to this legacy.39 Linji is

simply one of around two hundred and fifty Chan masters that were deemed worthy of

an entry in the compilation.

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(2) In 1004, the “Jingde Chuandeng lu 《 景德傳燈 錄 》” (Jingde-era Lamp

Transmission Record) was compiled, containing the records of over 1700 Chan figures.

In this compilation, Linji was one of only twelve Chan masters whose teachings were

recorded in a special appendix, an indication of the increased influence of his followers.

The Jingde Chuandeng lu was originally compiled by Daoyuan 道原(d.u.) of the Fayan

faction in 1004, and eventually edited by Yang Yi 楊億 (974-1020) of the Linji faction

in 1009. Its publication represented a concession by Fayan lineage members at the Song

court toward the formation of Chan as an independent movement. As Welter notes,

literati interest in Chan shifted away from the conciliatory and doctrinally conservative

approach of the Fayan faction toward the more innovative approach of the Linji

faction.40

(3) In 1029, the “Tiansheng Guandeng lu 《 天聖廣燈 錄 》” (Tiansheng-era

Expanded Lamp Record) was published, which confirmed the supremacy of the Linji

faction at the Song Court. It contains fascicles devoted to the “records of sayings” (yulu

語錄) of Mazu, Baizhang Huaihai 百丈懷海 (720-814), Huangbo, and Linji,

represented as a lineage culminating in Linji, now a major Chan patriarch. This

arrangement was confirmed in the “Sijia yulu 《 四家語 錄 》” (Records of Sayings

of the Four Masters, published before 1069), which lists Linji alongside Mazu,

Baizhang and Huangbo as part of the four great Chan patriarchs. The version of the

Linji lu in the Tiansheng Guandeng lu is the earliest known version of its full contents.41

The Tiansheng Guandeng lu portrayed Chan as “a special transmission outside

the teachings” (jiaowai biechuan 教外別傳), a leading slogan of the Linji faction, and

associated with the yulu collections of the Linji faction. The Tiansheng Guandeng lu

stresses Chan’s silent, secret transmission. It distinguishes between the Buddha’s

exoteric preaching of the three vehicles, and the esoteric transmission of Chan. Around

13

the time of the Tiansheng Guandeng lu, an apocryphal scripture appears that recounts,

for the first time, the famous story of the mind-to-mind transmission from Shakyamuni

to Mahākāśyapa by silently upholding a flower. This would turn into the founding myth

of Chan.

(4) The “final” edition of the Linji lu in separate format, published in 1120,

differs from the Tiansheng Guandeng lu only in the arrangement of its contents, but

contains no significant difference in the wording itself. By the early twelfth century,

questions regarding correct lineage and orthodox principles had been resolved. This

Linji lu edition contains an extra preface and a memorial inscription that describes how

Linji initially studied the vinaya and read widely from scriptures, until he turned to

Chan:

He suddenly sighed and said, “These are prescriptions for saving the world. They do not

point to a special transmission outside the scriptures.” He subsequently changed his robes

and set off to journey elsewhere.42

By disassociating itself from Buddhist scriptures and doctrines in this way, the Linji lu

aligned itself with Song literary preferences.43

Welter shows how the text of the Linji lu is gradually embellished with

rhetorical flourishes. For example, Linji’s teaching of “the true man with no-rank”

(wuwei zhenren 無位真人) is presented as follows:

Zutang ji Jingde Chuandeng lu earlier

version

Jingde Chuandeng lu later

version

On one occasion, the Master

(Linji) addressed the

assembly: “I, a mountain

monk, tell you clearly –

within the body-field of

One day, Linji entered the

[Dharma] Hall and said:

“My fellow compatriots,

within your lump of red

flesh there is a true man

One day, Linji entered the

[Dharma] Hall and said:

“My fellow compatriots,

within your lump of red

flesh there is a true man

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the five skandhas there is a

true man with no-rank,

always present, not even a

hair’s breadth away. Why

don’t you recognize him?

Then, a monk asked, “What

is this true man with no

rank?”

The Master struck him and

said: “The true man with

no-rank, what an impure

thing.”

with no rank, constantly

entering and exiting the

openings of your face. If

you do not recognize him,

just ask this old monk

(i.e., me).”

At the time, a monk asked:

“Who is the true man of no

rank?

Linji struck him and

exclaimed: “The true man

with no rank – what a dried

lump of shit!”

with no rank, constantly

entering and exiting the

openings of your face. Any

of you who haven’t

figured this out yet, Look!

Look!

At the time, a monk asked:

“Who is the true man of no

rank?

Linji got down off his

meditation seat, grabbed

the monk and said:

“Speak! Speak!”

The monk tried to say

something.

Linji let go of him, and

said: “The true man with no

rank – what a dried lump of

shit!” He then returned to

his quarters.

Figure 144

Welter remarks that, although one would expect the opposite, the supposedly rawer

Chan text (the Zutang ji) contains more polite language and standardized phrases than

the later polished and cleaned up text (the Jingde Chuandeng lu).

The various versions of the Linji lu also contain different accounts of Linji’s

transmission, involving Huangbo and Dayu 大愚. In the well-known account of the

15

Linji lu, Linji is awakened by the repeated blows of Huangbo. Here Dayu plays a

subsidiary role: Linji is sent to him by Huangbo, and he makes Linji realize the

“grandmotherly compassion” of Huangbo.

But in the earlier account of the Zutang ji, Linji is a student of Huangbo who

decides on his own to visit Dayu. He becomes enlightened by Dayu, and Huangbo plays

a subsidiary role. Later in the Zutang ji, Linji is portrayed as Dayu’s disciple. After his

awakening, Linji spent over ten years serving Dayu. At his death, Dayu sent Linji away

to teach, and instructed him to never forget Huangbo. Welter interprets this last

conclusion as “nothing more than a tenuous attempt to cover over the details of the

account of Linji’s awakening under Dayu, as described here, with the demands of a later

orthodoxy requiring succession through Huangbo.”45 This conforms to McRae’s second

Rule of Zen studies: lineage statements must be seen as “polemical tools of self-

assertion, not critical evaluations of chronological fact.”46 The fact that Linji’s

connection with Huangbo was strengthened beyond what was historically warranted,

could perhaps explain why the Linji lu doesn’t contain any mention of Huangbo’s

famous teachings of the transmission of One Mind (yixin 一心). If Linji was a student

of Dayu for years, the teachings in the Linji lu are probably closer to Dayu than to

Huangbo.

Welter’s research brings up a fundamental question that the Chan researcher has

to contend with: does the Linji lu represent the views of the “author” Linji Yixuan, or is

the text best approached as an amalgamate of historically accrued political and

ideological interests of the Linji faction? Since Welter’s historiographical discoveries

force us to differentiate between the Linji lu as an influential text in the history of the

Chan/Zen tradition and the thought of the historical figure of Linji Yixuan, it is

necessary to separate both more clearly.

16

Jinhua Jia has argued that the first important task facing Chan studies is the

discrimination between original or relatively datable materials, and later layers of

modification and recreation.47 She herself has addressed this issue with regard to the

writings of Hongzhou founder Mazu. She stresses the importance of ascertaining which

writings can be attributed to the historical Mazu, and which writings have been

composed by later followers. Until such analysis has been performed, one needs to be

careful with drawing conclusions about the Chan patriarchs themselves. For example,

Wang describes how Mazu self-deconstructed his earlier view of “the mind is Buddha”

by adding a new teaching: “neither mind nor Buddha.”48 Jia’s analysis of the texts,

however, shows that the story of Mazu’s new teaching is not by Mazu himself but added

by his later followers. The teaching of “neither mind nor Buddha” doesn’t occur in

Mazu’s sermons but only in an encounter dialogue in the “Mazu yulu《馬祖語 錄 》”

(1029-1069). It must therefore be considered a later fabrication, Jia argues.49

Therefore, just as is the case with Linji, we should distinguish between the

historical Mazu and the later construction “Mazu.” Mazu used kataphatic terms that

were deconstructed by the later “Mazu,” who used apophatic terms. A similar warning

should be used with regard to Linji’s famous “shitty ass wiper” comment. This colourful

remark has been interpreted by Wang as evidence of Linji’s self-erasing of his ideal of

the authentic person without rank. But it only surfaces in later editions of the Linji lu, as

we have shown, and should therefore be interpreted as added rhetoric of the later Linji

faction. In light of the difficulty in determining what the historical Linji Yixuan taught,

should we perhaps speak of “the Linji paradigm,” just as some researchers prefer to

speak of “the Bodhidharma paradigm” rather than of the historical Bodhidharma?50

17

V. DISCUSSION

This article has considered two approaches to the study of Chan Buddhism: an

“internal” philosophical articulation of enlightenment, versus an “external” historical

and cultural understanding of it. These two approaches are both needed for their

respective purposes, and neither should be a replacement for the other or be reduced to

the other.

According to Watson, Linji holds rather kataphatic convictions about a state of

enlightenment that allows the mind to perceive the underlying unity of the absolute.

Linji’s anti-enlightenment rhetoric can then be interpreted as a form of upaya in order to

facilitate a breakthrough to such a state of enlightenment. According to Wang, Linji’s

anti-enlightenment rhetoric constitutes an apophatic deconstruction of a more kataphatic

discourse that threatens to reify the notion of Buddha nature. What is somewhat

problematic about Wang’s analysis, however, is that he tends to focus on

deconstructing the concept of enlightenment, at the expense of the actual experience of

enlightenment which may still call for articulation and understanding. He makes the

Hongzhou school Chan masters look like contemporary philosophers of deconstruction,

whereas throughout the Chan tradition (including the Hongzhou school) it was through

the experience of enlightenment that one could come to avoid involuntary reification of

ideas and concepts. Buswell is more sympathetic to the “internal” approach, and

interprets Linji’s rhetoric as an attempt to discourage his disciples from seeking

enlightenment outside themselves, and returning to a direct experience of ti.

Welter’s historical perspective on the anti-enlightenment rhetoric in the Linji lu

attributes it predominantly to political and social factors. It is not only, and perhaps not

even primarily, a form of deconstruction, but served the interest of the monks, rulers,

and literati at the Song court. Seen from this perspective, Linji’s anti-enlightenment

18

rhetoric was used by the Linji faction in order to secure prestige, patronage, and

privileges in Chinese Song society. The anti-Buddhist representations of enlightenment

in the Linji lu served as the expression of a new Chan orthodoxy that appealed to the

taste of Song literati, and kept a helpful distance of Buddhism and Buddhist practices.

When attempting to integrate such internal and external perspectives, it is useful

to keep in mind that doing philosophical hermeneutics implies a different conception of

truth and understanding than both internal and external approaches maintain. Both

approaches attempt to gain access to “the way things really are” to arrive at some final

soteriological or historical truth about Chan enlightenment. Any Chan orthodoxy is

unavoidably committed to defining “the true message” of Linji. Any historiographical

researcher aims at a more true and accurate picture of the Chan tradition as a historical,

sociological and political phenomenon. But from a philosophical hermeneutical point of

view, we need to be careful with projecting contemporary Western philosophical

concerns onto tenth- and eleventh century Chinese society. Was philosophical

deconstruction actually an interest of the Linji faction? Or should we speak, to mimic

Faure’s famous phrase of a “rhetoric of immediacy,” of a “rhetoric of deconstruction”?

Was the subversive language of Linji used by the Linji faction as a means to become a

powerful institution? Perhaps Linji the charismatic Chan patriarch is purely a later

creation. As becomes clear from Welter’s account, the Chan movement and its Linji

faction is not immune from a Weberian “routinization of charisma.”

Welter’s findings about Linji can perhaps also be generalized to the wider

evolution of the Chan tradition itself. The dialectic between Buddha nature and

emptiness has been interpreted within the narrative of the Chan tradition itself as being

between “true radical Zen” and “compromised gradual Zen,” “orthodox” and “non-

19

orthodox,” and sudden versus gradual. But at least as important is the place of Chan vis

a vis the Buddhist religious tradition, and the identity of the Chan movement itself.

Shenxiu, Zongmi, and the Fayan faction saw Chan as a part of an integrated

Buddhism that included scriptural study, ritual, and other traditional activities. The

Hongzhou school, and especially its Linji faction, portrayed itself as emphasizing that

Chan was separate from all other forms of Buddhism, even a separate transmission

outside the teachings. However, as Mario Poceski notes, although members of the

Hongzhou school are often portrayed as iconoclastic champions of deconstruction in

academic Chan/Zen studies, the Hongzhou school was probably much closer to the

mainstream of Buddhism and early Chan than Zen apologetics would have us believe.51

The modern approach to Chan studies has tended to portray it as a movement of

radical individualism. To modern minds, a Chan text must be the product of an

individual mind, arising out of a personal inner subjectivity. But this might tell us more

about our own Romantic preoccupations with inner depths of subjectivity, than about

Chan. Perhaps we need to leave behind our iconoclastic image of Linji as an

enlightened Chan master, or as a master of deconstruction, and become initiated into the

particular forms of understanding, the social, religious, philosophical and cultural

contexts that gave rise to the Linji lu. As more and more historiographical research

becomes available, a more balanced and mature view of the development of Chan

philosophy, including a genealogy of Chan enlightenment becomes an exciting

possibility.

However, Chan/Zen researchers should beware to uncritically accept the

iconoclastic anti-enlightenment rhetoric of Linji and other Hongzhou school members.

This could lead them to view the Chan tradition as prefering apophatic deconstruction

over kataphatic articulations of the enlightenment experience, whereas in fact it mostly

20

recognizes that both apophatic and kataphatic discourses are needed for understanding

enlightenment. The danger of overly relying on the historical and cultural approach is

rejecting or minimizing the meaningfulness of a philosophy of Chan enlightenment. For

example, Chan researcher Alan Cole even denies the enlightenment experience

altogether when he claims that “Chan enlightenment, and the lineages that supposedly

delivered it, rest on a large zero.”52 On the contrary: an external critique of the notion of

Chan enlightenment can serve to make room for a much-needed renewed “internal”

articulation and understanding of the experience of enlightenment.

PHILOSOPHY EAST WEST FOUNDATION

The Netherlands

NIETZSCHE RESEARCH GROUP

Radboud University, Nijmegen

Endnotes

The author would like to thank Eric Nelson, Henny van der Veere and Mario Poceski

for their comments and discussions. He would also like to gratefully acknowledge

Professor Chung-ying Cheng’s important comments and the efficient editorial help

received from the Journal’s other editors.

21

1 Chung-Ying Cheng, “Chan Historiography and Chan Philosophy: A Review Essay on

Bernard Faure’s Chan Insight and Oversight,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy, vol. 23 (1996):

489-507.

2 Stephen Heine, Zen Skin, Zen Marrow. Will the Real Zen Buddhism Please Stand Up?

(Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 7.

3 Ibid., 9.

4 Dale S. Wright, Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 1998).

5 For a further elaboration of the philosophical implications of Wright’s hermeneutical

approach to Chan/Zen studies, see André van der Braak, “Enlightenment Revisited. Romantic,

historicist, hermeneutic and comparative perspectives on Zen,” Acta Comparanda no. XIX

(2008): 87-97.

6 Mario Poceski gives a critical overview of Yanagida’s views on the Hongzhou school of

Chan. See Mario Poceski, Ordinary Mind as the Way: The Hongzhou School and the Growth

of Chan Buddhism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 235-238.

7 Youru Wang, Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism. The other way

of speaking (London: Routledge, 2003), 53.

8 Mou Yongsheng, “Contemporary Chinese Study of Huineng in Mainland China”, Dao: A

Journal of Comparative Philosophy, vol. 5 no. 2 (2006): 349-369; Su Shuhua 蘇樹華,

Hongzhou Chan 洪州禪 (Beijing: Zongjiao wenhua chubanshe, 2005); Zheng Xiaojiang 鄭曉

江 (ed.), Jixin Jifo, Feixin Feifo: Chanzong Dashi Mazu Daoyi即心即佛, 非心非佛: 禪宗大

師馬祖道一 [Mind is Buddha; Not Mind, Not Buddha: Great Master of the Chan School

Mazu Daoyi] (Beijing: Zongjiao wenhua chubanshe, 2006).

9 Jinhua Jia, The Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism in Eighth- through Tenth-Century

China (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006); See also Poceski, Ordinary Mind

as the Way.

10 Burton Watson, trans. The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi. A Translation of the Lin-chi lu

(New York: Columbia University Press, 1993/1999), ix.

11 Ibid., xxii.

12 Taishō shinshu daizōkyō (henceforth “T”) 47.497c11; see Watson, The Zen Teachings of

Master Lin-Chi, 26.

13 T47.500c4; Watson, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi, 53.

14 T47.501c24; Watson, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi, 62.

15 T47.500b22; Watson, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi, 52.

16 Albert Welter, The Linji lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy. The Development of

Chan’s Records of Sayings Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

17 Albert Welter, Monks, Rulers, and Literati. The Political Ascendancy of Chan Buddhism

(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 4.

18 See Van der Braak, “Enlightenment Revisited”, 87-97 for a further overview of the

historicity of the notion of enlightenment.

19 Wang, Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism, 54.

20 Robert Magliola, Derrida on the Mend, (West Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1984).

21 Ibid., 96.

22 Wang, Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism, 65.

23 Ibid., 67.

24 Philip B. Yampolsky, The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (New York: Columbia

University Press, 1967), 138.

25 Watson, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi, 13.

26 Wang, Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism, 79.

27 Ibid.

28 Robert E. Buswell, Jr., “The ‘Short-Cut’ Approach of K’an-hua Meditation: The Evolution

of a Practical Subitism in Chinese Ch’an Buddhism,” in Sudden and Gradual: Approaches to

Enlightenment in Chinese Thought, ed. Peter N. Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawaii

Press, 1987): 340-343.

29 T47.499a4; Watson, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi, 40.

30 T47.498b14f; Watson, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-Chi, 34.

31 Buswell, “The ‘Short-Cut’ Approach of K’an-hua Meditation”, 342.

32 Ibid., 343.

33 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), 188.

34 Welter, The Linji lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy, 109.

35 Ibid., 11f.

36 Ibid., 32.

37 Ibid., 33.

38 Ibid., 42.

39 Ibid., 110.

40 Ibid., 112.

41 Ibid., 6.

42 T. 47.506c10-11, quoted in Welter, The Linji lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy, 125.

43 Welter, The Linji lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy, 107.

44 Ibid., 87f.

45 Ibid., 98.

46 John R. McRae, Seeing Through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in

Chinese Chan Buddhism (Berkeley: University of California Press 2003), xix.

47 Jia, The Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism in Eighth- through Tenth-Century China, 4.

48 Wang, Linguistic Strategies in Daoist Zhuangzi and Chan Buddhism, 78.

49 Jia, The Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism in Eighth- through Tenth-Century China, 56.

50 Bernard Faure, “Bodhidharma as Textual and Religious Paradigm,” History of Religions,

vol. 25, no. 3 (1986): 187-198.

51 Poceski, Ordinary Mind as the Way, 11.

52 Alan Cole, Fathering Your Father, The Zen of Fabrication in Tang Buddhism (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 2009), 309.