Tracking Bodhidharma (37 page)

I can't conceal my interest, and I tell Chenguang that I know how earthshaking such a discovery would be regarded and sympathize with the idea of keeping it out of the public eye for a time. He seems nervous and now doesn't seem inclined to reveal any more information than he has already.

“What institution is in charge of the stele?” I ask.

He tells me there are several different groups involved, including the local Pukou government and the Nanjing cultural relic bureau. I know that I've already gotten more information than I'm entitled to know, so
I don't press my host to compromise himself any more than he has.

After some more polite conversation, I thank Chenguang for his hospitality and take my leave. I take a few more photos of recent excavation areas, then brace myself for the Mad Hatter ride back to the Pukou bus station.

In some general comments about the Zen school in the
Continued Biographies,
Daoxuan suggests clues that indicate Emperor Wu would have sought to meet Bodhidharma. For example, he describes the popularity of the Zen movement that spread in sixth-century China and offers information about the situation in Nanjing in particular:

Daoxuan's comments offer a unique view of the Buddhism of his age, a time he called the “End of Dharma” (Chinese:
mofa
). Daoxuan describes the problems of that age. In particular, he says that the importance of observing “mind” was being forgotten, and devotional practice and precepts were essential Zen practice. Daoxuan also described how this undermining of the Dharma would only get worse: “The Zen doctrines will [soon] be corrupted and then propagated everywhere, their meaning diluted with polluted ideas such as ‘form illuminates emptiness,' which is already much talked about, or [the idea of] ‘experiencing chaos is peace.”' Daoxuan's reference to “form illuminates emptiness” is apparently an oblique criticism of the Heart Sutra, which Buddhologist Jan Nattier and others have shown to have gained currency in Chinese Buddhism about the time of Daoxuan's writing.

Daoxuan obviously thought that the “Dharma-ending age” had already arrived, and he predicted it would promulgate more false teachings. He states that various false doctrines would enter the religion. This was the time surrounding the creation of tablets at Yunju Temple that I described earlier. To Daoxuan and others, saving the Dharma through such actions was paramount.

What follows in Daoxuan's text is noteworthy. He specifically praises some of the other “former masters” of the Zen school:

Then Daoxuan speaks specifically of Bodhidharma (I quoted some lines of this passage earlier, but the complete passage is especially important):

Daoxuan seems to be of two minds about Bodhidharma's teachings. On the one hand he says that Bodhidharma's teaching is “difficult to fathom.” Yet he also says that “Those who enter the Zen gate in the morning expound it in the evening.” Here we see the same Sudden Enlightenment teaching idea that is associated with the Southern Zen school, the line regarded as springing from Bodhidharma that passed down through Chinese and East Asian history.

Notably, this passage of the
Continued Biographies
offers a rare insight into the state of Zen during and immediately after Bodhidharma's life. It indicates that Bodhidharma must be considered a central player in the debate about the nature of the mind, a debate that
Emperor Wu entertained and encouraged. It should be pointed out, however, that Daoxuan, who was not a Zen monk, held an understanding of Bodhidharma's teaching that was not the same as that of later generations of Zen teachers. The latter appear to have avoided talking about emptiness because they realized that such metaphysical doctrines unduly confuse people. Daoxuan's view that Bodhidharma's teaching was the “mysterious and deep doctrine of emptiness” may indirectly indicate that later Zen evolved away from Bodhidharma to become something less metaphysically oriented. Daoxuan himself provides the reason why this evolution would occur when he criticizes the idea of “form illuminates emptiness.” This may be an oblique criticism of the metaphysically heavy Heart Sutra that gradually gained a foothold in the Zen tradition. When Daoxuan wrote these words around the year 650, the Prajnaparamita Sutra promoted extensively by Emperor Wu was widely studied. Daoxuan's criticism may have been directed against the metaphysical nature of that and other scriptures. Ironically, its text, still widely chanted in the Zen world, says “form is nothing other than emptiness, emptiness nothing other than form.” In my view, Daoxuan declares that Zen's true meaning and teachings, as taught by Bodhidharma, would be widely corrupted and undermined by this idea during Daoxuan's life and the ages that followed.

It is particularly surprising that Daoxuan, who was the most important monk of the Precepts school in his era, compares that school unfavorably to Zen teachings on the nature of the mind. He indicates that sole reliance on the precepts is inferior to the Zen masters who came previously, and that this turn toward the precepts is indicative that the “Dharma-ending age” had now arrived.

How did Daoxuan, a towering figure of China's Precepts school, gain such a deep appreciation for doctrines about the nature of “mind” ? During the period after the year 640, when Daoxuan wrote his
Continued Biographies,
he resided in China's capital city of Chang An (now the city of Xian). Daoxuan personally assisted the famous monk Xuan Zang in translating new Yogacara (Yogis) teachings that the latter had brought back from India. Thus, Daoxuan's exposure to “mind” teachings was extensive, and he understood the relationship between such Yogi ideas and the Zen school. He seems to have understood that Zen was the best vehicle for the spread of “mind” teachings in China.

Thus, textual evidence left by Daoxuan reveals a Zen tradition that, in its origins, was truly “outside of scriptures.” Even Daoxuan, who was not of the Zen tradition, honored early Zen highly and deplored that its mind teachings were forgotten after Bodhidharma and its other early teachers passed from the scene.

The sun shines on the solitary green peak.
The moon floats above the cold creek waters.
When the sublime mystery of the ancestors is understood,
You will never again turn to your small mind for peace.

“The entire great earth is a gate to liberation. If you push on it, you can't enter it. How can the white-haired monk standing before you compel you to enter? When you reach this place, why do you let your nostrils be in someone else's hand?” The master paused, and then said, “If you want to see the moon in the sky, put down your oar.”