It is not entirely without reason that Zen Buddhism is known as the Meditation School. Visitors to the modern Zen monastery, even if they are prepared to find meditation there, cannot but be struck by the extent to which the practice dominates the routine. The novice monk spends his first days almost entirely within the meditation hall, and, although he is expected during this period to learn some rudimentary features of clerical decorum, it is primarily his willingness to submit to the discipline of long hours of meditation in the cross-legged posture that will determine his admission into the community. Once accepted, he can expect to pass much of his daily life in this posture. Although customs differ with the institution and the season, it is not uncommon for the community to spend four to eight hours a day in formal meditation and at regular intervals to hold prolonged sessions during which the hours of practice may be increased to twelve, sixteen, or even more. To be sure, there are usually other things to do—rituals and begging rounds, study and lectures, administrative duties and manual labor—but, in principle at least, the monk's main work is meditation. When he meets in private with his master, it is often about the progress of this work that they are likely to talk.
Yet there is another sense in which Zen Buddhism appears to be an "anti-meditation school." For, whatever Zen monks may talk about in private, when they discuss their practice in public, they often seem to go out of their way to distance themselves from the ancient Buddhist exercises of samadhi and to criticize the traditional cultivation of dhyana. The two Japanese Zen churches, Rinzai and Sōtō, have their own characteristic ways of going about this: the former most often attacks absorption in trance as a mindless quietism—what it sometimes calls the "ghost cave" (kikutsu) of the spirit—and claims to replace it with the more dynamic technique of kanna, or kōan study; the latter rejects the utilitarian component of contemplative technique—the striving, as it says, to "make a Buddha" (sabutsu)—and offers in its stead what it considers the less psychologically limited, more spiritually profound practice of shikan taza, or "just sitting." Of course, these critiques of meditation are not simply modern Japanese developments; while the contemporary teachings of both schools may owe much to Edo sectarian ideology, both trace their positions back to the famous Southern Sung disputes between the advocates of k'an-hua, or concentration on the hua-t'ou, and the champions of mo-chao, or "silent illumination." Indeed, whatever their differences in psychological technique and interpretative strategy, both these positions can be seen as instances of a characteristic Zen polemic against contemplative practice that goes back much further, almost to the very origins of the religion itself. To this extent, the Meditation School seems never to have been entirely happy with its name.
The Zen ambivalence toward its own specialization is reflected not only in the record of its recurrent and sometimes bitter disputes over meditation but also in the fact that this record tells us surprisingly little about the actual content of Zen meditation practice. If the school's ideological doubts about the practice have not prevented Zen monks from engaging in it, they do seem to have made the tradition more loath than most to discuss the concrete details of its spiritual techniques. Still, we are not entirely without resources; for, in addition to what little we can glean from the vast corpus of biographies, sayings, essays, and other writings of the school, we also have recourse to a small but interesting body of texts specifically intended to guide the practitioner through the basics of Zen meditation. Most of them, as we might expect, seem to have been written with the neophyte in mind, a characteristic that, if it limits their usefulness in determining the full range of Zen practices, also probably makes them relatively faithful to the actual experience of the majority of Zen practitioners. Like the tradition as a whole, they tend to eschew the doctrinally tidy, suspiciously systematic accounts of meditation that we find in the scholastic treatises; unlike much of the tradition, they also tend to avoid philosophical obscurity and literary fancy—or at least to balance them with a healthy dose of plain talk.
Of these meditation manuals, the earliest and in some ways most influential is a brief tract from the Northern Sung entitled simply Tsoch'an i ("Principles of Seated Meditation"), attributed to a monk named Ch'ang-lu Tsung-tse (d.u.). Since this text is not very well known, I would like to introduce it here, together with some reflections on its place in the history of the Zen meditation tradition. Along the way, I shall suggest that, in writing his little manual, Tsung-tse broke with what might almost be called a conspiracy of silence about meditation and thereby helped to touch off the Southern Sung discourse on the subject—a discourse that, in one form or another, is still with us today.
The origin of the Tso-ch'an i is not entirely clear. The work is usually thought to have been composed as a section of the Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei ("Pure Regulations of the Zen Preserve"), the earliest extant Zen monastic code, compiled by Ch'ang-lu Tsung-tse in 1103. The best‐ known version of this code does indeed contain the manual in fascicle 8, but this version represents a revised and enlarged edition published in 1202 by a certain Yü Hsiang (d.u.).' A variant text of the Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei, produced in Korea from blocks carved in 1254 and based on a Northern Sung text printed in 1111, does not include the Tso-ch'an i. By far the earliest extant version of Tsung-tse's code, dated within a decade of the composition of the work, this variant strongly suggests that the original text of the Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei lacked the manual of meditation.²
If the Tso-ch'an i was not in fact written as a part of Tsung-tse's monastic code, we cannot be certain of its date or, indeed, of its authorship. Still, there is reason to think that it belongs to the period, around the turn of the twelfth century, in which Tsung-tse flourished. We know that the manual was in circulation well before the publication of Yü Hsiang's edition, for an abbreviated version of the text already appears in the "Dhyana" section of the Ta-tsang i-lan ("Compendium of the Canon"), the lengthy collection of scriptural passages compiled by Ch'en Shih (d.u.) sometime prior to 1157.³Ch'en Shih's quotation does not identify the author, but it does provide us with a terminus ad quem probably within a few decades of Tsung-tse's death. Yü Hsiang's version, moreover, contains a quotation from the Zen master Fa-yün Fa-hsiu (1027-1090), the presence of which indicates that the text cannot be earlier than mid eleventh century. This quotation is particularly significant because, as Yanagida Seizan has pointed out, it lends some credence to the tradition of Tsung-tse's authorship of the Tso-ch'an i. Although we have few details on Tsung-tse's life, we do know that he originally entered the order under Fa-hsiu. Hence, the appearance here of this master's saying—words not recorded elsewhere—would seem to provide circumstantial evidence for the work's ascription to his student Tsung-tse.⁴
However the Tso-ch'an i originated, it quickly became a well-known work after its publication in the Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei. The early and enduring reputation of the text among Zen students was no doubt considerably enhanced by its association with Tsung-tse's monastic code, for the Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei was widely regarded by the tradition as an expanded version of the original Zen regulations established by Po-chang Huai-hai (720-814). Hence, some who used its meditation manual may have done so in the belief that it preserved an ancient rite set down by the founder of Zen monasticism.⁵
In this, they were probably mistaken. Though Tsung-tse himself claims that his Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei represents a revision of Po-chang's rules to fit the circumstances of his day, it is by no means clear that he knew what those rules were. Despite Po-chang's fame as the creator of an independent Zen monastic system, and despite repeated references in the literature to the "Pure Regulations of Po-chang" (Po-chang ch'ing-kuei), there is little evidence that this monk actually produced a written code and still less that it survived to Tsungtse's time.⁶ In any case, given the radical changes in the Zen monastic system that had taken place in the centuries between the mid T'ang and the Sung, we may be sure that much in the Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei would have been unfamiliar to Po-chang. Particularly when we turn to our text, the Tso-ch'an i, the connection with Huai-hai seems remote indeed. There is no evidence whatsoever that this T'ang master wrote a meditation manual; and especially if—as appears likely—Tsung—tse's own manual was not originally intended for the Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei, there is no reason to think that it was based on Po-chang's teachings.
In the absence of any evidence that Po-chang authored the prototype for the Tso-ch'an i, Tsung-tse's manual represents the earliest known work of its kind in the Zen tradition. This does not, of course, by any means make it entirely without precedent in the Chinese Buddhist literature ; indeed, Tsung-tse himself calls our attention to several earlier accounts of meditation on which he drew. In a passage of the Tso-ch'an i warning against the "doings of Mara" (mo-shih), which can afflict the higher stages of meditation practice, he advises the reader who seeks further information to consult the Śūraṅgama-sūtra, T'ien-t'ai's Chih‐ kuan, and Kuei-feng's Hsiu-cheng i. Of these, the first presumably refers to the T'ang text in ten fascicles traditionally attributed to Paramiti, a work quite popular with Tsung-tse's Sung contemporaries, which contains a detailed discussion of fifty demoniacal states of mind into which the practitioner may fall.⁷ Apart from this particular discussion, there is nothing in the Śūraṅgama text that would serve as a basis for Tsung-tse's description of meditation. Such is not the case, however, with the other two works he mentions, which clearly have more intimate connections with his own manual.
We cannot say with certainty which text Tsung-tse intends by his reference to the Chih-kuan. One thinks first of the famous Mo-ho chih‐ kuan ("Greater [Treatise on] Calming and Discernment") by T'ien-t'ai Chih-i (538-597), a work that includes two lengthy sections on the various morbid and demoniacal states to which the meditator is susceptible.⁸Similar discussions, however, appear in other meditation texts by Chih-i, and it would seem that a more likely candidate here is the so-called Hsiao chih-kuan ("Lesser [Treatise on] Calming and Discernment"). Not only does this work contain an explanation of mo-shih, but, more importantly, it provides a concrete description of the preparation for, and practice of, meditation, several of the elements of which are reflected in the Tso-ch'an i. Moreover, it is the basis for the discussion of meditation practice in the Hsiu-cheng i, the other work to which Tsung-tse refers us.⁹
The Yüan-chüeh ching hsiu-cheng i ("Cultivation and Realization According to the Perfect Enlightenment Sūtra") by Kuei-feng Tsung-mi (780-841) represents an extended explication of Buddhist practice according to the Yüan-chüeh ching. It consists of three major divisions dealing with the conditions for practice, the method of worship, and the method of meditation. As Sekiguchi Shindai has shown, large sections of the text, especially of the first and third divisions, are taken directly from the Hsiao chih-kuan. Indeed, when these sections are assembled and rearranged, it appears that Tsung-mi has quoted Chih-i's work almost in toto. It is passages from these same sections, in which the Hsiu-cheng i is relying on the Hsiao chih-kuan, that have parallels in our text.¹⁰
Although we can assume from Tsung-tse's reference to the T'ien-t'ai chih-kuan that he was familiar with Chih-i's manual and may, indeed, have consulted it in the writing of his own, the question of its direct influence on his text remains problematic. Sekiguchi, in his several studies of the Hsiao chih-kuan, has called attention to the parallels between the two texts and has emphasized the degree to which not only Tsung-tse's work but also many of the subsequent meditation manuals of Zen have relied, at least indirectly, on Chih-i. Such emphasis, it may be noted, is but an extension of this Tendai scholar's general argument for the T'ien-t'ai influence on the Zen tradition.¹¹ Whatever the merits of that argument as it applies to the early history of the school, its significance in this case would seem to have some real historical and textual limitations.
The T'ien-t'ai hsiao chih-kuan, as Sekiguchi has emphasized, probably represents the first practical manual of meditation available to the Chinese. Although it draws on material from several Indian and Chinese sources, it differs from earlier works in being expressly intended to introduce the practice of seated meditation to the beginning student.¹² Except for a brief final section, therefore, it omits discussion of the kind of technical T'ien-t'ai doctrine characteristic of most of Chih-i's writings and emphasizes instead the concrete description of the actual techniques of mental and physical discipline. For this reason, the work—and especially its "T'iao-ho" chapter on the control of body, breath, and mind—could serve as a handy, nonsectarian guide to the basics of Buddhist mental discipline ; in fact, not only Tsung-mi but also many other Buddhist writers, from Tao-hsüan (596-667), Shan-tao (613-681), and Fa-tsang (643-712) on, referred to this chapter in their own presentations of seated meditation. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that by the Northern Sung a brief text like Tsung-tse's Tso-ch'an i, itself intended as a meditation primer, should reflect something of this popular guide. Yet such reflection should not blind us to the fact that, unlike the tso-ch'an section of Tsung-mi's Hsiu-cheng i, Tsung-tse's manual is essentially a new work, original in both its language and the focus of its treatment.¹³
The T'ien-t'ai hsiao chih-kuan's discussion of meditation practice is divided into ten chapters covering, in addition to the morbid and demoniacal states, such topics as control of desire and abandonment of the nivaraṇa, development of kuśula-mūla, practice of śamatha and vipaśyana, and so on. Tsung-tse ignores most of this technical material: not only, as might be expected, is there nothing in the Tso-ch'an i comparable to Chih-i's concluding chapter on the T'ien-t'ai dogma of the three truths (san-ti), but even on the central practice of chih-kuan itself we find not a word. Of the five chapters devoted to Chih-i's standard list of twenty-five spiritual techniques (fang-pien), only the first, on fulfilling the conditions for meditation, and (especially) the fourth, on regulating physical and mental activities in meditation, find significant parallels in our text. These parallels, moreover, aside from certain standard Buddhist admonishments, are limited almost wholly to the concrete description of the meditation posture—material that, by Tsung-tse's time, was surely the common lore of Chinese Buddhist monks and precisely the sort in which one would expect to find the least innovation. Under the circumstances, the question of influence, if it still remains relevant, becomes too vague to sustain much interest.¹⁴
Tsung-tse's Tso-ch'an i, then, is probably neither an elaboration of an earlier manual by Po-chang nor an abbreviation of Chih-i's work. Instead, it combines a portion of the kind of material found in the T'ient'ai text with a dash of the particular approach to meditation characteristic of some earlier Zen writings. The resulting mix—and the simple, colloquial style in which it is presented—gives Tsung-tse's Buddhism a very different flavor from Chih-i's sixth-century scholastic version. At the same time, it gives his meditation teachings a conservative, matter-of‐ fact quality that contrasts with much of the intervening Zen literature on the subject. This quality may, in fact, have been an important factor in the popularity of his manual, but it also makes the work—for all its seeming innocuousness—rather controversial. For if the text itself is new, its teachings, from the perspective of Sung Dynasty Zen, appear as something of a throwback to an earlier, less ideologically developed treatment of Buddhist practice—a treatment in some ways more akin to that of the Hsiao chih-kuan than to the received position of the school. Despite the widespread acceptance of the Tso-ch'an i, this heterodox character of the work was not entirely lost on its early readers, some of whom were prompted to react. To see why they were concerned, we shall need to recall the way in which the tradition had dealt with meditation. But first, let us look at what Tsung-tse himself has to say, and how his teaching compares with that of Chih-i.¹⁵
The Tso-ch'an i is a very brief text of no more than some 600-700 characters. Addressed to "the bodhisattva who studies prajñā," it opens with a reminder that the meditation to be described here should be cultivated for the benefit not just of the practitioner but of all living beings. Tsung-tse then mentions some preliminary conditions for the practice: the meditator should renounce worldly activities and seek quiet quarters, and he should regulate his eating and sleeping habits, avoiding either deprivation or indulgence. After these brief prefatory remarks, the text proceeds directly to the description of the meditation posture: one is to sit erect on a mat in the classic yogic cross-legged position (chieh chia‐ fu tso) or the variant semi-cross-legged position (pan chia-fu tso), with hands in the traditional meditation mudra of the Dharmadhatu (fa-chieh ting-yin); the tongue rests against the palate, and the lips and teeth are closed; the eyes are kept slightly open; the breath is regulated. Having thus composed himself, the meditator is to relinquish all judgments and simply observe his thoughts as they arise; once observed, thoughts will cease, and eventually the mind will become unified.
Having completed his description of the practice, Tsung-tse praises it as "the Dharma-gate of ease and joy." When properly performed, it is easy to do and good for both body and mind. Still, he warns, when done improperly, it can lead to illness and, as we have seen, can generate various undesirable experiences, against which one should brace oneself. The text goes on to advise that, on leaving samadhi, one should arise slowly and calmly and, at all times, should try to maintain a meditative calm in order to develop the ability to enter samadhi at will (ting-li). Finally, the Tso-ch'an i closes with an appreciation of meditation and an admonition to put it into practice: without it, one will simply drift aimlessly in the sea of saṃsāra, at the mercy of death; with it, the surface waves of the mind will subside, and the pearl of liberating wisdom beneath will appear of its own accord. Therefore, we are reminded, the sūtras have recommended it, and the great sages of the tradition have practiced it. We should cultivate this meditation without delay, lest death intervene before its benefits are realized.
Such, in outline, is our text. Most of it is rather standard Buddhist fare, and those familiar with Chih-i will indeed recognize echoes of his presentation of meditation. The opening admonition to the bodhisattva is, of course, a constant refrain of the Mahayana literature and echoes a similar passage in the Hsiao chih-kuan: "The practitioner beginning to study tso-ch'an and intending to cultivate the dharmas of the Buddhas of the Ten Directions and three realms should first produce the great vow to lead all beings to liberation and to seek the supreme enlightenment of a Buddha.¹⁶"The suspension of wordly activities and the retirement to secluded quarters, besides being obvious good advice, are items on an ancient list of five conditions for meditation discussed in the "Chüyüan" chapter of the Hsiao chih-kuan: purity in keeping the precepts, provision of food and clothing, retirement to a quiet place, cessation of worldly involvements, and contact with good friends.¹⁷ Moderation in food and sleep corresponds to the first two of the five kinds of regulation given in Chih-i's "T'iao-ho" chapter: food, sleep, body, breath, and mind.¹⁸
Similarly, of course, the description of the meditation posture has antecedents in the Hsiao chih-kuan, though Tsung-tse's passage is considerably abbreviated and, in fact, departs from Chih-i's model on some basic points: where the latter prefers to sit with the right leg crossed over the left, Tsung-tse opts for the position, more often seen in Zen, with the left on top; where Chih-i recommends that the eyes be closed, Tsung-tse goes out of his way to criticize this practice.¹⁹ Again, as we have seen, the subsequent warning on perverse states explicitly invokes Chih-i, and the remarks on remaining mindful on leaving samadhi recall advice in the closing section of his "T'iao-ho" chapter.²⁰
If these passages in the Tso-ch'an i resemble material in the Hsiao chih-kuan, more interesting are the passages that have no close equivalents. Of these, the most important and problematic is the teaching on the mental aspect of meditation. The "T'iao-ho" chapter follows the description of the meditation posture with a discussion of the techniques for regulating the mind to avoid the twin obstacles of torpor and agitation;²¹ and in other chapters Chih-i recommends various mental antidotes for different spiritual problems. But the core of his meditation is, of course, the traditional exercises of śamatha and vipaśyanā, from which his manual takes its name. In the "Cheng-hsiu" chapter, which is devoted to these exercises, he divides them into five types, depending on the purposes for which they are practiced. Of these, the first, intended to overcome the rough fluctuations of the mind at the outset of meditation, is basic. There are essentially two types of śamatha exercises for this purpose : one is more or less mechanical, involving fixation on an object or conscious suppression of random thoughts; the other is intellectual, in which the practitioner is to understand as each thought occurs that its object arises from conditions and has no nature of its own. This understood, the mind will not grasp the object, and deluded thoughts will cease. A somewhat more complicated technique is recommended for the vipaśyanā practice: if the meditator has failed to put an end to deluded thoughts through śamatha, he should reflect on these thoughts, asking himself whether they exist or not. Chih-i then supplies a set of arguments that the practitioner can rehearse to convince himself that neither the mind nor its object can be grasped; thus convinced, the mind will break off discrimination and become still.²²
Tsung-tse's meditation does not quite correspond to any of these techniques. What he calls the "essential art" of meditation is simply this:

Do not think of any good or evil whatsoever. Whenever a thought occurs, be
aware of it (nien ch'i chi chüeh); as soon as you are aware of it, it will van-
ish. If you remain for a long period forgetful of objects (wang yüan), you
will naturally become unified (i-p'ien).

This passage has no parallel in the Hsiao chih-kuan; as we shall shortly see, it probably derives from Zen sources. If it has any analog in Chih-i's teachings, it is not in the chih-kuan techniques described in his manual, but rather in the simple mindfulness practice recommended as one of the famous four kinds of samadhi in the Mo-ho chih-kuan—the practice referred to there as neither walking nor sitting (fei-hsing fei-tso) and otherwise known as the samadhi of awareness of mind (chüeh-i san-mei):

The master Nan-yüeh [i.e., Hui-ssu] called this [practice] "to follow one's
own mind" (sui-tzu-i)—that is, to cultivate samādhi whenever the mind
arises (i ch'i chi hsiu san-mei). The Ta-p'in ching (Pañcaviṃśati) refers to it
as the samādhi of awareness of mind—that is, [a state in which] wherever
the mind may be directed, one is conscious of, and clear about, it....
"Awareness" (chüeh) here means luminous understanding (chao-liao);
"mind" (i) means the mental dharmas (hsin-shu; caitasika).... In practic-
ing this, when a mental dharma arises, one reflects on, and contemplates, it,
without attending to its development—its source or outcome, its point of
origin or destination.²³

Whatever the antecedents of Tsung-tse's practice, it differs in one important respect from the vipaśyanā meditations recommended in the Hsiao chih-kuan. In these meditations, as is characteristically the case in vipaśyanā, the practitioner is expected to engage the object actively, contemplating it in terms of some Buddhist doctrine until he has brought about a change in the way the object occurs to him. In contrast, Tsungtse's meditation seems to involve no such discursive activity; instead, the practitioner is to relinquish judgments and passively observe his thoughts as they come and go. In this sense, his practice is more akin to such common śamatha techniques as following the breath, observing the activities of the body, and so on. The difference is worth noting because the active‐ passive dichotomy is a recurrent theme in Zen discussions of meditation and one source of internecine dispute. Some of the dispute is no doubt engendered by the linkage of this theme with the somewhat similar but separable dichotomy of clarity and calm, a matter quite vexing to the Zen meditation tradition. On this latter issue as well, it is instructive to compare the Tso-ch'an i with the Hsiao chih-kuan.
It will be recalled that the chih-kuan practice I summarized earlier is expressly recommended for the control of the gross fluctuations of the mind; it is intended to put an end to the stream of deluded thoughts characteristic of ordinary consciousness and to bring about the calm, concentrated state of samadhi. This same state would seem to be the goal of Tsung-tse's meditation: one is to observe one's thoughts so that they will cease; one is to continue observing them until they no longer occur and the mind becomes unified. This agreement on the goal of the practice is hardly surprising: no doubt most Buddhists would hold with Tsung-tse that the unified state of samādhi, or dhyāna, is indeed the essential art of meditation. They would also hold, however, that this state is not an end in itself. Whether or not it is a necessary condition for enlightenment, it is not a sufficient one but must be supplemented by the generation of insight, or wisdom. On this point Chih-i would surely concur, as his entire chih-kuan system makes quite clear. Whether Tsung-tse would also agree is much less clear, at least from the text of the Tso-ch'an i. His silence on this matter makes it possible to interpret the work as recommending the elimination of thought for its own sake. A tendency toward some such understanding of yogic discipline is probably endemic to the Buddhist meditation teachings, from the early dhyāna and samāpatti systems on, and the religion has repeatedly been obliged to counter it with an emphasis on the need for doctrinal study. Zen Buddhism, with its focus on meditation and its characteristic dismissal of theoretical studies, has probably been particularly susceptible to this tendency and has often struggled mightily against it. Hence, if only by omission, the Tso-ch'an i account of meditation touches a sensitive nerve in the tradition.
In fairness to Tsung-tse, it must be pointed out that he is not entirely oblivious to the question of wisdom. In his opening remarks he recommends the cultivation of samadhi for one who has taken the Bodhisattva Vows and seeks to study prajñā. This passage undoubtedly reflects the traditional formula of the three disciplines (san-hsüeh) and suggests that, like most Buddhists, Tsung-tse understood the three as a series, such that meditation is based on ethics and somehow leads to wisdom. Unfortunately, he does not pause to discuss the question of just how it leads to wisdom, although later on he does give at least a hint of what he may have had in mind. In his rather rambling discussion of the benefits of meditation, he seems to offer three: it will make one happy, healthy, and peaceful; it will prepare one to face death; and it will lead to wisdom. This last is expressed through of a well-known metaphor:

To seek the pearl, we should still the waves; if we disturb the water, it will be hard to get. When the water of meditation is clear, the pearl of the mind will
appear of itself. Therefore, the Perfect Enlightenment Sūtra says, "Unimpeded, immaculate wisdom always arises dependent on meditation."²⁴

As Tsung-tse uses it, the metaphor itself may have become somewhat opaque, but we can still discern the outlines of the model behind it: wisdom rests deep within the mind, obscured only by the surface fluctuations of thought; once these fluctuations are calmed, it is automatically made manifest. Hence, meditation leads to wisdom not in the usual sense that it prepares the mind to undertake the discipline of prajñā, but in the sense that it uncovers a preexistent prajñā inherent in the mind. In this sense, it is possible to speak of the calm of meditation, if not as an end in itself, at least as a sufficient condition for that end. The theory behind this way of speaking—the model of the pure, enlightened mind covered by discursive thinking—is by no means, of course, an uncommon one, not only in Zen texts but also in Chih-i's writings and other versions of Mahayana. Whatever we may say of it as a theory, from the perspective of practice it offered Buddhism a handy way of dealing with the difficult question of the relationship between samadhi and prajñā and provided a meaningful rationale for the cultivation of meditation. These virtues notwithstanding, the theory was questioned by some of the most influential figures of the early Zen movement—figures whose teachings became the basis for orthodoxy in the later tradition. On this point too, then, the Tso-ch'an i could raise the eyebrows (if not the hackles) of its more thoughtful readers.
Tsung-tse's approach to Buddhism may not be quite that of sixth‐ century T'ien-t'ai treatises, but neither is it quite what we are familiar with from the recorded sayings of the great Zen masters of the late T'ang and Five Dynasties—sayings so popular among Tsung-tse's Sung contemporaries. If anything, he seems rather to take us back to an earlier phase of the school, when the Zen movement was still seeking to articulate its basic doctrinal positions and define a form of religious practice consistent with them. Indeed, of all the preceding Zen literature, his manual is perhaps most reminiscent of the kind of material one sometimes finds in the texts associated with the seventh-century East Mountain tradition of the patriarchs Tao-hsin (580-651) and Hung-jen (601‐ 674). In the teachings of these men and their immediate successors in the so-called Northern School of the eighth century, we find the most explicit descriptions of Zen meditation prior to the Tso-ch'an i itself. In their teachings also we find the beginnings of the doctrines that, in the hands of their rivals in the Southern School, would render Zen meditation peculiarly problematic and help to silence, for some three centuries, the open discussion of its techniques.
This is not the place to explore in detail the early Zen meditation literature, a job in any case better left to those more expert in this matter than I. But it is worth recalling here several general features of this literature that help to explain some of the attitudes of the later tradition. Of the East Mountain corpus, we may take as examples the teachings of Tao-hsin in the Leng-ch'ieh shih-tzu chi ("Record of the Masters and Disciples of the Laṅkāvatāra") and the Hsiu-hsin yao lun ("Essentials of the Cultivation of the Mind"), attributed to Hung-jen. Whether or not this material represents accurate reports of the Buddhism of the Fourth and Fifth Patriarchs, it does preserve for us the understanding of their Buddhism current among influential factions of Zen in the eighth century. Both texts are highly practical in approach and provide fairly concrete instructions on a range of spiritual techniques. These seem to fall into three general types. One is a contemplation on emptiness roughly of the sort we have seen in Chih-i's meditations. We find this type, for example, in the Tao-hsin section of the Leng-ch'ieh shih-tzu chi, where it appears in conjunction with the famous practice of "guarding the one without moving" (shou-i pu-i). Here we are told to contemplate all dharmas of both body and mind—from the four elements and five skandhas to the dharmas of pṛthagjana and ārya—recognizing that they are all empty and quiescent, without origination or cessation, and so on. We should continue this practice in all activities, day and night, until we can see our own existence as but a reflection, a mirage, an echo. Should random thoughts intrude on the meditation, we are to see whatever occurs as ultimately not occurring, as coming from nowhere and going nowhere; when thoughts are seen thus, the mind becomes stabilized.²⁵
More commonly encountered, and probably more characteristic of the tradition, are two other types of meditation. One recommends the observation of some symbol of what, for want of a better term, we may call the ultimate principle. Such, for example, is the popular one-practice samadhi (i-hsing san-mei; ekavyūha-samādhi), introduced at the outset of the Tao-hsin section of the Leng-ch'ieh shih-tzu chi. Here (following the instructions of the Wen-shu shuo ching) the practitioner is to focus on the image of a single Buddha, recognizing therein the identity of that Buddha with the entire Dharmadhatu and with the practitioner's own mind.²⁶ In the Hung-jen section the same text, we find a meditation on the numeral one, either projected onto the horizon or visualized internally ; in this meditation one experiences a sense of unlimited space analogous to the dharmakāya.²⁷ Similarly, the Hsiu-hsin yao lun, using the sun as a metaphor for the true, enlightened mind within us all, recommends (following the Kuan wu-liang-shou ching) the contemplation of an image of the disk of the sun.²⁸
The other type of technique involves some sort of simple concentration exercise, which would seem to be the practical import of Tao-hsin's most basic description of "guarding the one without moving." This technique is defined simply as maintaining the concentrated observation of one thing (kuan i wu) until the mind becomes fixed in samadhi. If the mind wanders, it is to be brought back to the object, as the saying goes, like a bird held by a string. Just as the archer gradually narrows his aim to the very center of the target, so too the meditator should learn to focus his attention until the mind remains fixed on its object in each moment, and right mindfulness (cheng-nien) is present without interruption.²⁹ Closest, perhaps, to Tsung-tse's description of meditation are some of the accounts of Hung-jen's practice of "guarding the mind" (shou-hsin) given in the Hsiu-hsin yao lun. In the most explicit of these, we are told to abandon the seizing of objects, to regulate body, breath, and mind, and then gently to focus on the fluctuations of consciousness (hsin-shih liu-tung) until they disappear of their own accord. When they do so, they take with them all the obstacles to complete enlightenment.³⁰
The distinction among these types of meditation is not always clear, and such catchphrases as "guarding the one" or "guarding the mind" could, in practice, denote a variety of contemplative techniques. Whatever their differences, they seem to share a common theoretical context— the characteristic East Mountain doctrine of the pure, radiant consciousness inherent in every mind—and a common purpose—the detachment from, and eventual suppression of, the stream of discursive thoughts that obscures this consciousness. Perhaps most significantly, on the basis of these common elements, each of the techniques is typically presented as at once readily accessible to the beginner and yet leading directly to enlightenment.
This abrupt leap from a seemingly rather pedestrian psychophysical exercise to the rarified reaches of the spiritual path is well expressed in a passage from the Leng-ch'ieh shih-tzu chi attributed to Tao-hsin. There we are told that, when one first sets out to practice meditation and observe the mind, he should seek solitude. Sitting erect, he should loosen his robe and belt, relax his body, stretch himself several times, and exhale fully; then he will have a sense of expanding to his true nature and will become clear and vacant, tranquil and still. When he has thus regulated body and mind and settled his spirit, his breathing will be calm; as he gradually controls his mind, it will become clear and bright. When his contemplation becomes clear, and both inside and out become empty and pure, the mind itself will be quiescent, and the ārya mind (sheng-hsin) will appear. The text then goes on to tell us that the nature of this mind, always functioning within us, is the Buddha-nature, and that one who experiences this nature is forever released from saṃsāra and has transcended this world; he has, as the Vimalakīrti Sūtra says, suddenly regained his original mind (pen-hsin).³¹
Though this passage tells us little about the mental technique involved, its concrete description of some of the physical elements reminds us of both the Hsiao chih-kuan and the Tso-ch'an i. Indeed, the passage has been singled out by Sekiguchi as the first extant Zen account of meditation techniques.³² What is perhaps most striking from a doctrinal perspective is its apparent identification of the calm, clear state of samadhi with the attainment of the ārya path, and the impression it gives that the beginning meditator, simply by quieting his mind, can in a single sitting attain this samādhi and propel himself onto that path. Such hyperbolic praise of meditation is not, of course, unusual in Buddhist literature ; in fact, the message here is quite similar to the direct identification of śamatha with the attainment of nirvana that we sometimes find in the Hsiao chih-kuan itself.³³ Nor is the recommendation of a single, simple practice for exclusive cultivation without ample precedent: it is a characteristic of some of the very Mahayana sūtra literature on which both Chih-i and the East Mountain teachers like to draw for their accounts of meditation. Unlike more conservative interpretations of such literature, the East Mountain teachings tend to ignore the various graded hierarchies of vehicles, paths, stages, and the like that provide the traditional contexts for specific meditations. In effect, then, they seem to reduce the panoply of Buddhist spiritual exercises to a single practice and the perpetuity of the bodhisattva path to a single experience. In this, they are presenting one form of a "sudden" version of Buddhist practice.
The Zen tradition may look to its own Sixth Patriarch for its doctrine of sudden enlightenment, but by his day, of course, notions of a sudden approach to practice had been current in Chinese Buddhism for some time. One such notion was basic to the early T'ien-t'ai discussion of meditation and is well expressed in Kuan-ting's oft-quoted introduction to the Mo-ho chih-kuan. There we are told that, unlike the gradual cultivation of śamatha-vipaśyanā, which proceeds through the mārga by overcoming in turn the obstacles characteristic of each of the stages of the path, the "perfect sudden" (yüan-tun) practice takes from the start the ultimate reality of the Dharmadhatu itself as the sole object of meditation. Such a practice is based on what T'ien-t'ai considers the highest version of Buddhism—the one Buddha vehicle, in which, as the text says, every sight and every smell is the ultimate Middle Way, in which ignorance is identical with enlightenment, saṃsāra is identical with nirvana, and there is no religious path leading from one to the other. In such a practice, śamatha is nothing but the quiescence of dharmatā itself (fa‐ hsing chi-jan), and vipaśyanā is but its constant luminosity (ch'angchao).³⁴
In one sense, the distinction here between "gradual" and "sudden" practices can be seen as one between antidotal meditations, which are intended to counteract specific spiritual obstacles, and what we might call wisdom meditations, which, like the venerable nirvedha-bhāgīya exercises, take the metaphysical doctrines of Buddhism as their theme and lead directly (and, by necessity, quite suddenly and inexplicably) to an insight into the truth of these doctrines. The model here seems clearly to be the last of such meditations, the mighty vajropamasamādhi, in which the bodhisattva vaults, in one moment of trance, to supreme, perfect enlightenment. For his part, Chih-i is ever careful to hedge around such moments of ecstatic vision with the drudgery of traditional Buddhist training and to find room on his one great vehicle for even the humblest forms of upāya. Ever the scholar, he never forgets the distinction between theory and practice or the various levels of philosophical discourse and spiritual maturation. Yet for those impatient to taste the fruits of his supreme Buddha vehicle, the prospect of a sudden meditation beyond the old practices of the bodhisattvamārga was too tempting to postpone to the final course.
The most obvious problem with the "sudden" meditation, of course, is that, taken in itself, its radical nondualism undermines the rationale for its practice. Chih-i's ample Buddhism could easily live with this problem, for its catholic embrace of upāya allowed him room to discuss the practical methods of even this most mysterious and metaphysical of meditations—hence the Mo-ho chih-kuan's detailed presentation of the practice of contemplation of the mind, in which the "sudden" meditation is effected through the recognition of the three thousand dharmas in every thought (i-nien san-ch'ien). Similarly, the early Zen movement, though no doubt inspired by the notion of a perfect Buddha vehicle, still tended to operate within a model—of the Buddha-nature obscured—that retains what T'ien-t'ai would call the relative (hsiang-tai) understanding more characteristic of the separate (pieh) bodhisattva vehicle. Though its vision of meditation may have narrowed to the single, sudden practice that leads directly to enlightenment, it still takes for granted the kind of distinctions—between theory and practice, hetu and phala, meditation and wisdom—that allow it to speak frankly of the upāya through which this practice is implemented. But as the movement, perhaps in the heat of sectarian competition, began to focus more and more narrowly on the supreme vehicle (wu-shang sheng), on the one true teaching (chen-tsung), on the meditation of the Tathagata (ju-lai ch'an), and so on, the metaphysics of the absolute, nondual truth became the norm. Thus, the radiant Buddha-nature became ever brighter, its obscurations ever emptier, and the contradiction inherent in any description of a method for inducing the "sudden" practice ever more obvious.
It is this contradiction, of course, that so tickled the fancy of the movement known to us as the Southern School and inspired the severe criticisms of meditation that we find in texts like the Platform Sūtra and Shen-hui's T'an yü ("Platform Teachings") and Ting shih-fei lun ("Determination of the Truth"). Taking its stand in the uncompromised cardinal principle (ti-i i) of the Perfection of Wisdom alone, the movement delighted in pointing out the folly of methods to overcome what was, after all, not really real. Now the "sudden" practice was to be precisely that which sees through the unreal and abandons all upāya—that which is without attributes (wu-hsiang), without intentionality (wu-wei), without artifice (wu-tso), and so on. Since it was without characteristics, this practice could not be described; since it was without artifice, nothing could be done about it: it was enough to recognize this fact and leave off misguided attempts to cultivate Buddhism. Meditation, as Buddhist cultivation par excellence (and the forte of the Northern masters), was particularly to be avoided: any effort to control or suppress thoughts was ipso facto a "gradual"—and, hence, at best a second-rate-form of Buddhism. In first-rate Buddhism, the true meaning of sudden meditation was simply that the mind was inherently calm, inherently without any deluded thoughts (wu-nien) that might disturb it. In this way, the practical thrust of early Zen meditation was overwhelmed by its own logic: religious prescription was sublated in metaphysical description, and samādhi was liberated from its earthly burdens, to join prajñā in the higher realm of pure Principle.
Thus, by the mid eighth century, even as the movement was becoming known as the Meditation School, it was beginning to find itself unable openly to advocate the practice of meditation. This predicament is well reflected in the writings of Shen-hui himself: hemmed in by his doctrine of no-thought and its rejection of contemplative practices, he is left with little room for cultivation and can only hint shyly at how one might go about practicing his Buddhism. Not surprisingly, perhaps, what he hints at turns out to be a version of the mindfulness technique we have seen in Hung-jen—the same practice recommended much later by Tsung-tse.
In the Ting shih-fei lun, when asked about no-thought (wu-nien), Shen-hui replies that it is not thinking about being or nonbeing, about good or evil, bodhi or nirvāṇa, and so on; it is nothing but the Perfection of Wisdom, which is itself one-practice samadhi. He then describes this samadhi.
Good friends, for those at the stage of practice, whenever a thought occurs to the mind, be aware of it (hsin jo yu nien the chi pien chüeh-chao). When what has occurred to the mind disappears, the awareness of it vanishes of its own accord. This is no-thought.³⁵
Similarly, in the T'an yü, in warning against the misguided attempt to purify the mind of delusion, he says,

Friends, when you correctly employ the mind, if any deluded [thought]
occurs and you think about things either near or far, you should not try to
constrain it. Why? Because, if the putting forth of a thought is a sickness,
the constraint of it is also a sickness.... If any deluded [thought] occurs,
be aware of it (jo yu wang ch'i chi chüeh). When awareness and delusion
have both disappeared, this is the non-abiding mind of the original nature.³⁶

In keeping with his "sudden" doctrine, Shen-hui seems to be trying here to close the gap between the spiritual exercise and its goal—to offer a unified practice of samadhi and prajñā and provide an account of this practice that will be no more (and no less) than a description of the enlightened state itself. Since that state is our natural state of mind, and meditation and wisdom are both inherent, clearly only the most passive, most minimal of meditations will do—hence his rejection of formalized contemplation and visualization techniques in favor of a simple mindfulness. Yet for all his doubts about dhyana and suspicions of samadhi, his description of practice still seems to suggest (though he is careful to keep this ambiguous) that no-thought, or the original, non-abiding nature of the mind, is to be discovered when thoughts have been extinguished. In this, he is not so different from the earlier tradition or from Ch'ang-lu Tsung-tse. In fact, Shen-hui's Buddhism remains rather conservative: while he argues ardently for the Sudden School, he acknowledges here and there that his "sudden awakening," though it launches one directly onto the path, must still be followed by a gradual cultivation of that path.³⁷ As is well known, this teaching of sudden enlightenment and gradual practice (tun-wu chien-hsiu) was fixed in its classic form by his self-styled descendant in the fifth generation, the Hua-yen master Kueifeng Tsung-mi.
Tsung-mi sought to check the Zen School's rapid drift toward a radical rejection of works and to steer its practice back onto a more traditional Buddhist course. To this end, he tried to align its teachings with scholastic categories and confine its definition of "sudden awakening" to an initial insight attained at the early stages of the path.³⁸ Thus freed from the need for a single, "sudden" meditation, he could, as we have seen, advocate the frankly gradual techniques of Chih-i's Hsiao chih‐ kuan. Yet as heir to the supreme vehicle of the Southern School, even Tsung-mi had to bite his tongue. Such techniques belonged, after all, only to the very lowest form of Zen, that which teaches "the stopping of delusion and cultivation of mind" (hsi-wang hsiu-hsin). As we learn in his General Preface (Ch'an-yüan chu-ch'üan chi tu-hsü), this form of Zen, though it recognizes the Buddha-nature inherent in all beings, still believes that in ordinary beings the nature is obscured by ignorance, and, hence, that there is a real difference between pṛthagjana and ārya. On these grounds, it encourages the contemplation of the mind (kuan-hsin), in order to wipe away deluded thoughts. Thus it emphasizes techniques for entering samadhi, teaching one to "dwell in a quiet place, avoiding the hustle and bustle of the world, to regulate body and breath, to sit in silent meditation with the legs crossed, the tongue pressed against the palate, and the mind fixed on a single object." Such is the Zen of Shenhui's notorious enemy, the benighted Northern master Shen-hsiu; Shenhsiu's understanding, says Tsung-mi, may differ somewhat from that of T'ien-t'ai, but his techniques are basically the same.³⁹
The highest form of Zen, in contrast, "directly reveals the nature of the mind" (chih-hsien hsin-hsing). Here all dharmas are just the true nature, which is without attributes (wu-hsiang) and without conditions (wu-wei), beyond all distinctions of pṛthagjana and ārya, cause and effect, good and evil, and so on. In this teaching, deluded thoughts are inherently quiescent, and mental objects inherently empty: there is only the numinous awareness (ling-chih) that is one's own true nature, without thought (wu-nien) and without form (wu-hsiang). The practice of this Zen is simple and, by now, quite familiar.
If one is aware that all attributes are empty, the mind will naturally be without thought (wu-nien). As soon as a thought occurs, be aware of it (nien ch'i chi chüeh); as soon as you are aware of it, it will cease to exist. The profound gate of practice lies precisely here.⁴⁰ If even Tsung-mi was thus constrained by the "sudden" doctrine to relegate the meditation teachings of his own Hsiu-cheng i to the lowest rank of Zen, it is hardly surprising that his more radical contemporaries would be reluctant to associate their Buddhism with meditation. And though his catholic vision would be preserved by men like Yung-ming Yen-shou (904-975) and others who sought to integrate Zen and the scholastic systems, already by his day the mantle of the Sixth Patriarch had passed to the radicals. In their style of Zen, the emphasis shifts, as is sometimes said, from "substance" (t'i) to "function" (yung)—from the glorification of the calm, radiant Buddha-nature latent in every mind to the celebration of the natural wisdom active in every thought. Now the everyday mind is the Way, and the suppression of that mind is a mistake. In such a setting, to talk of sitting calmly in meditation is in poor taste; rather, one must be ever on one's toes, vitally engaged in the object. Thus, the great masters of the second half of the T'ang—especially those of the dominant Hung-chou School of Tsung-mi's adversary Ma-tsu Tao‐ i (709—788)—turned their often remarkable energies to the creation of new techniques more appropriate to the new spirit of the "sudden" practice. The old forms of cultivation were superseded—at least in the imagination of the tradition—by the revolutionary methods of beating and shouting or spontaneous dialogue, and formal discussion of Buddhist doctrine and praxis gave way to suggestive poetry, enigmatic sayings, and iconoclastic anecdotes. In the process, the philosophical rationale for Zen practice, not to mention its psychological content, became part of the great mystery of things.⁴¹
For all this, it is doubtful that many Zen monks, even in this period, actually escaped the practice of seated meditation. We may recall, for example, that the Sixth Patriarch himself, in the Platform Sūtra, leaves as his final teaching to his disciples the advice that they continue in the practice of tso-ch'an, just as they did when he was alive; that in the Li-tai fa-pao chi ("Record of the Generations of the Dharma Treasure") the radical Pao-t'ang master Wu-chu (714-777), whom Tsung-mi saw as negating all forms of Buddhist cultivation, still admits to practicing tsoch'an; that Hui-hai's Tun-wu ju-tao yao men ("Essential Teaching of Entering the Way Through Sudden Awakening") begins its teaching on "sudden awakening" by identifying tso-ch'an as the fundamental practice of Buddhism; that Ma-tsu himself, though he is chided by his master for it, is described by his biographers as having constantly practiced tsoch'an; and that, according to the Ch'an-men kuei-shih ("Zen Regulations"), Po-chang found it necessary to install long daises in his monasteries to accommodate the monks in their many hours of tso-ch'an.⁴² Such indications of the widespread practice of meditation could no doubt be multiplied severalfold. Indeed, the very fact that Wu-chu, Huai-jang, Lin-chi, and other masters of the period occasionally felt obliged to make light of the practice can be seen as an indication that it was taken for granted by the tradition. It is probably safe to assume that, even as these masters labored to warn their disciples against fixed notions of Buddhist training, the monks were sitting with legs crossed and tongues pressed against their palates. But what they were doing had now become a family secret. As Huai-jang is supposed to have said to the Sixth Patriarch, it was not that Zen monks had no practice, but that they refused to defile it.⁴³
In one sense, then, the style of classical Zen can be seen as the culmination of the efforts of the early movement to liberate Buddhism from its monastic confines and to open the religion to those unequal to, or unattracted by, the rigors of the traditional course of yogic discipline. In another sense—a sense, I think, too rarely recognized—its style represented the termination of such efforts, brought about in part by the very success of the school itself. The earlier meditation texts of the East Mountain tradition, like most of the Tun-huang Zen materials, were written by men who were striving to promote a new brand of Buddhism attractive to the new society of the mid T'ang. To this end, they sought, among other things, to articulate a practical approach to Buddhist training accessible to the ordinary man and to advertise that approach as a distinctive asset of the school. By the turn of the ninth century, however, the public promotion of Zen was no longer an issue, for by then the school was comfortably established as a legitimate institution. Now it could remain ensconced on its famous mountains and wait for its followers to come; and now it could revert to the esoteric style of the cloister, where meditation practice was taken for granted and its techniques transmitted orally within the community. In the context of this community, where the monk enjoyed intimate contact with the meditation master, the radical new devices of shouting, beating, riddles, and repartee undoubtedly served to invigorate the practice and inspire the practitioner  with a more vivid sense of his goal. But outside this context, these devices offered few clues to how the ordinary believer might gather himself spiritually for the leap to nirvana. Ironically enough, then, the practical effect of the new doctrine of "sudden awakening" was to reseal the doors of the meditation hall and reopen the traditional gap between clerical and lay Buddhist practice.
In any case, from the establishment of Zen as a separate Buddhist tradition and the recognition of the "sudden" doctrine as its distinctive teaching, it was over three centuries before the school began to discuss its meditation practices in public. By this time, of course, the Zen movement had undergone considerable change. From a loose network of independent meditation communities surrounding prominent masters, it had grown to become the central monastic organization of Chinese Buddhism, rapidly coming under control of the state. As its ranks swelled and its social, political, and economic responsibilities broadened, the school was forced to turn its attention to the formalization and regulation of its institutions and practices. At the same time, in their new position of prominence, Zen monks were mingling with the lay political and intellectual elite and, in the process, finding themselves participating in, and reacting to, secular Sung culture. In response, the school began to sharpen its poetic skills, develop a proper history of the church, and produce a body of literature on the sayings of its masters that would advertise the tradition through the new medium of printed books and would appeal to the new classicism of a resurgent Confucian scholarship. The school also began to consider ways in which its monastic practices might be translated into forms accessible to a wider segment of the community, so that it could assume its rightful place in the nascent Sung religious reformation. Hence, for the first time in a long time, the school was obliged to face the fact that it had such practices and to set about explaining them in public.
Tsung-tse stands, at the close of the eleventh century, near the beginning of some of these tendencies, tendencies that would soon yield the new Zen of the Southern Sung. He seems to have been a man of his time, and in several ways his Buddhism both reflects and contributes to the emerging reformation. Unfortunately, we know little of his life: though the school's histories make note of him and preserve a few of his sayings, they record no dates and almost no biographical information. For the most part, they simply repeat the brief notice in the Chien-chung ching‐ kuo hsü teng lu ("Further Record of the Lamp, from the Chien-chung Ching-kuo Era"), the first of the histories in which he appears. Since this work was compiled during his lifetime by Fo-kuo Wei-po, a fellow disciple of Tsung-tse's first master, Fa-hsiu, what little it does record is no doubt to be trusted. There we are told that Tsung-tse was from Yungnien, in Lo-chou (modern Honan), and that his family name was Sun. As a youth, he excelled in Confucian studies. He was encouraged to study Buddhism by Yüan-feng Ch'ing-man, a Yün-men monk in the lineage of the influential T'ien-i I-huai (993-1064), and, as we have seen, subsequently entered the order under I-huai's disciple Fa-yün Fa-hsiu. Thereafter, he studied with another of I-huai's disciples, Ch'ang-lu Ying-fu (d.u.), under whom he attained a sudden awakening to the way. He was favored with the patronage of the Lo-yang official Yang Wei (fl. 1067‐ 1098) and was honored by the court. Fo-kuo identifies him as a monk of the Hung-chi ch'an-yüan in Chen-ting, the monastery where, as we know from its colophon, the Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei was composed in 1103.⁴⁴
This is all that the Zen histories have to tell us, but Tsung-tse is also remembered in the literature of Pure Land. As early as the Lo-pang wen‐ lei ("Texts on Sukhāvatī"), the miscellany of Ching-t'u material published in 1200 by Shih-chih Tsung-hsiao, he is listed as the last of the five great patriarchs who carried on the tradition of the Lotus Society. A brief notice there informs us that he was given the honorific title Tz'u-chüeh, "Compassionate Enlightenment" (which also appears in the colophon of the Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei), and that he was living at Ch'ang-lu during the Yüan-yu era (1086-1093). There he was active in proselytizing and, apparently in 1089, founded a Lotus Assembly (lien-hua sheng-hui) to promote the universal cultivation of the nien-fo samadhi. His practice was to seek rebirth in the Western Pure Land by reciting the name of Amitabha up to ten thousand times a day, recording each recitation with a cross.⁴⁵ P'u-tu's Lu-shan lien-tsung pao-chien ("Precious Mirror of the Lotus School of Lu-shan"), of 1305, also contains a brief biography, which gives Tsung-tse's place of origin as Hsiang-yang and adds the information that he lost his father as a boy and took vows at the age of twenty-nine. Even as abbot of Ch'ang-lu, we are told here, he remained a deeply filial son and guided his mother in the nien-fo practice, so that she passed on in beatitude. He is said to have written a Ch'üan hsiao wen, a work in 120 sections "promoting filial piety," as well as a Tso-ch'an chen (sic), or "Lancet of Meditation.⁴⁶ "Tsung-hsiao's collection of Pure Land writings, the Lo-pang i-kao ("Documents on Sukhāvatī"), also reports on Tsung-tse's Ch'üan hsiao wen and provides a short extract; and the Lo-pang wen-lei preserves a few minor pieces by Tsung-tse, including a preface to the Kuan wu-liang-shou ching, some verses, and several brief tracts.⁴⁷
Tsung-tse's Pure Land writings seem, in one sense, to present another side of his religion, a side quite different from that of the Zen abbot who composed the monastic code and the meditation manual. For in these writings, and especially in the piece called Lien-hua sheng-hui lu wen ("Record of the Lotus Assembly"), apparently written for his nien‐ fo congregation, he emphasizes the difficulty of actually practicing monastic Buddhism in this Saha world and encourages his readers to turn to Amitabha and to call upon him to take them up to the next world, where they may enjoy the purity and bliss of Sukhāvatī. Whereas in the Saha world the practitioner is plagued by demons and assailed by sexual and other sensory temptations, in Sukhāvatī he is bathed in the radiance of Amitabha, everything around him proclaims the Dharma, and his karma is purified; there are no demonic experiences there, and no women.⁴⁸
In another sense, Tsung-tse's Pure Land piety seems of a piece with his approach to Zen. For, as is clear from his regimen of multiple recitations, Tsung-tse was no protestant ideologue of pure grace, seeking to deny the efficacy of works. Like other Zen masters who sought conciliation with the Ching-t'u teachings, he held that "Amitabha is our own nature, and the Pure Land our own mind," and that "the cardinal principle [of these teachings] is to think [on him] without thought (wu-nien), and to be born [therein] without birth (wu-sheng)."⁴⁹ Hence, elsewhere he could claim that "nien-fo and the study of Zen do not interfere with each other: they are but two methods based on the same principle."⁵⁰ And as in his Zen writings, so too here it is less the principle than the method of the Pure Land faith—perhaps especially its power to overcome spiritual obstacles—that seems to have most attracted him. He recommends the nien-fo practice in particular to beginners, as a means of developing kṣānti, and also to those near death, as a means of relieving pain and calming the mind.⁵¹
Tsung-tse, it seems, was a practical and a compassionate man. Undistracted by dogmatic niceties, he directly addressed the everyday problems of spiritual cultivation; undaunted by the weight of tradition, he sought to open up the mystery of Zen practice and to share with others, both inside and outside the cloister, some of the techniques and institutions that might aid them in that cultivation. On the one hand, deploring the confusion and corruption of monastic tradition that accompanied the rapid growth of the school, he tried to rationalize the training of monks by setting out, in his Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei, a detailed code of the bureaucratic structure, administrative procedures, and ritual forms of the Zen institution. On the other hand, lamenting the isolation of that institution from the Pure Land faith of the lay community, he sought—like his Yün-men predecessors I-huai and Ying-fu—to encourage interaction, bringing Ching-t'u practices into the ritual of his monastery and taking the Zen emphasis on mental cultivation out to his nien-fo society. It was probably for the sake of both these goals that he took it upon himself to make available, for the first time, a practical guide to the procedures of Zen meditation.⁵²
Tsung-tse may not have left us many profound Zen sayings, but what he did leave had a profound impact on subsequent Zen literature. His Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei became the inspiration and often the model for a new body of monastic codes. Whereas before its publication there had apparently been—if we discount the elusive Po-chang ch'ing-kueino detailed written rule, in the centuries following its appearance we find a steady stream of such texts in both China and Japan. Though some of these codes would, in time, come to supplant his own, many of the practices and institutions first set down by Tsung-tse endured. And though Zen monasteries would change considerably after his day, Tsung-tse's basic principle that they should be governed by written regulations remained a permanent fixture of the school.⁵³
Similarly, although the Zen tradition had managed to survive for half a millennium without producing a meditation manual, once Tsungtse's Tso-ch'an i appeared, it seems to have found a ready market and soon spawned a new genre of practical guides to mental cultivation. We have already seen that an abbreviated version of the text was quickly picked up by the layman Ch'en Shih for inclusion in his Ta-tsang i-lan, a work intended to make available a digest of the basic teachings of Buddhism for popular consumption. Following the publication of Yü Hsiang's edition of the Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei, the full text of the manual circulated within the monastic community as well; and, in 1338, it was incorporated, with only minor variations, in Te-hui's important Ch'ih-hsiu Po-chang ch'ing-kuei ("Imperial Recension of the Pure Regulations of Po-chang"). This work—compiled by order of the last Mongol emperor, Shun-tsung—became the standard code for the Zen monasteries of the Ming. Shortly after its publication, it was taken to Japan, like the Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei before it, where it provided a model for the regulation of the monasteries of the gozan system. In this way, Tsungtse's Tso-ch'an i spread its influence throughout the lay and clerical communities of both China and Japan and became a basic source for the description of Zen meditation.⁵⁴
It is perhaps a measure of the success of Tsung-tse's manual that it was soon imitated. Although there had long been a genre of brief poetic appreciations of meditation—texts known as "meditation lancets" (tsoch'an chen), "meditation inscriptions" (tso-ch'an ming), and so on—the popularity of the Tso-ch'an i soon inspired others to try their hands at the new, more explicit style of text. This seems to have been particularly true in Japan, where, of course, during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the school was earnestly seeking to explain itself to both the lay and clerical communities and to promote itself as a legitimate and attractive alternative to the established sects of Buddhism. In later Japanese Zen, the Tso-ch'an i was probably best known through its inclusion— together with the Hsin-hsin ming ("Inscription on Trusting the Mind"), Cheng-tao ko ("Song of Realization of the Way"), and K'uo-an's Shihniu t'u ("Ten Oxherding Pictures")—in the extremely popular collection called the Shibu roku ("Fourfold Record"). Exactly when these four texts were first collected—and whether in China or Japan—is not known, but it is likely that the Japanese were already familiar with Tsung-tse's manual before the Shibu roku appeared. As early as 1198, the Ta-tsang i-lan version was quoted by Yōsai (or Eisai, 1141-1215) in his Kōzen gokoku ron ("Treatise on the Promotion of Zen for Defense of the Nation"); and soon thereafter, in 1233, the Sōtō master Dōgen (1200‐ 1253) incorporated most of the Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei text into his own meditation manual, the Fukan zazen gi ("Universal Promotion of the Principles of Meditation").⁵⁵
This last work is undoubtedly the most famous attempt to improve on the Tso-ch'an i, but it was by no means the only one. Perhaps the earliest such text is the Ju-ju chü-shih tso-ch'an i ("Layman Ju-ju's Principles of Meditation"), attributed to the Yang-ch'i lay follower Yen Ping (d. 1212?) and preserved in the Kanazawa bunko. Yen Ping quotes from Tsung-tse but goes on to offer his own explanation of meditation, reflecting the k'an-hua practice popular in his day. We do not know when this work was introduced into Japan, but we do know that it was only one of a considerable number of similar meditation texts that circulated in the Kamakura period.⁵⁶ Dōgen, for example, wrote no less than four descriptions of zazen, and his descendent Keizan (1268-1325) added his own, relatively lengthy contribution, the Zazen yōjin ki ("Admonitions on Meditation"). Similarly, we have a Zazen gi by Muhon Kakushin (1207-1297), founder of the Hottō branch of Rinzai, and a Zazen ron by Enni Ben'en (1202-1280), written for his patron, the Regent Kujō Noriie. In the same period, the important Lin-chi missionary Lan-ch'i Tao-lung (Rankei Dōryū, 1213-1278) composed a well‐ known Zazen ron and also a brief Zazen gi. In addition to such meditation tracts, the masters of this period produced an abundance of informal writings—homilies, epistles, and so on, often in Japanese—that taught the basic techniques of Zen mental discipline to monk and layman alike.⁵⁷
If the rather sudden proliferation of such writings, both in Japan and on the continent, bears witness to the historical significance of Tsung-tse's manual in pioneering a new genre of meditation literature, it also probably indicates that the authors of these writings were not wholly satisfied with his account of meditation practice. In fact, almost none of the texts that succeeded it retains the Tso-ch'an i's core passage on the venerable concentration exercise that Tsung-tse calls the essential art of tso-ch'an, and almost all of them seek, in one way or another, to supplement (or replace) his rather humble, frankly utilitarian interpretation of the practice with the higher insights of Zen wisdom. For, by the time the first of these texts appeared, the school had already moved to stop the leak in the one true vehicle and right the alarming list toward samadhi that seemed to follow from his approach. If the Sung discourse on meditation opens with Tsung-tse's gentle advice on how to calm the mind, it also begins with his contemporary Hui-hung's stern reminder that the practice of Bodhidharma should not be confused with the cultivation of dhyana (hsi-ch'an) or his tradition with those misguided quietists who would turn the mind into "dead wood and cold ashes" (k'u-mu ssuhui).⁵⁸ These two poles marked out once again the old field of discourse within which the new teachings of mo-chao and k'an-hua would be debated.
The Southern Sung teachings of mo-chao and k'an-hua are regularly understood as two opposing approaches to Zen mental training: the former seeking to identify it with the primal nature of the mind itself—what is sometimes called the practice "before the aeon of annihilation" (k'ung-chieh i-ch'ien); the latter preferring to focus it on the insight into the nature of the mind (chien-hsing) that comes through the power of the kung-an. These two approaches dominate the new meditation literature that succeeds the Tso-ch'an i and set the terms of the subsequent Japanese debates between Sōtō and Rinzai. Yet, whatever their differences, there is an obvious sense in which each represents a reaffirmation of the traditional Zen preference for the "sudden" practice of the supreme wisdom—whether it be through the metaphysical elevation of meditation to the nondual realm revealed by such wisdom or through the psychological reduction of meditation to the act of wisdom that reveals this realm. To this extent, each must also reassert the classical Zen doubts about yogic technique and distance itself from Tsung-tse's mechanical method of concentration. In fact, even as the new meditation literature was carrying on the work (begun by Tsung-tse) of disseminating Zen methods, Tsungtse's own method—and the method of the early patriarchs of the school —was being dismissed as mere "toying with the spirit" (lung ching-hun) and as leading to the "deep pit" (shen-k'eng) of quietude. The Meditation School was once again closing the doors on its practice and moving to preserve the ancient secret of Zen meditation.⁵⁹

Notes
1.
See Chung-tiao pu-chu Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei, ZZ2/16/5.438-471. For the original date of Tsung-tse's compilation, see his preface, ibid., 438a. The Zoku zōkyō text is based on eighteenth-century Japanese printings; ear- lier, somewhat variant traditions of Yü Hsiang's edition are preserved in a Southern Sung printing from 1209 and a mid-Kamakura manuscript in the collection of the Kanazawa bunko. (See Kagamishima Genryū, "Kanazawa bunko bon Zen'en shingi ni tsuite," Kanazawa bunko kenkyū, vol. 14, no. 3 [1968], pp. 1-6.) An annotated modern edition can be found in Kagamishi- ma et al., Yakuchū Zen'en shingi (Tokyo: Sōtō-shū shūmuchō, 1972). My discussion here of the texts of the Tso-ch'an i is indebted to Kagamishima's introduction to this work, pp. 1-25, and to Yanagida Seizan's "Kaisetsu," in Kajitani Sōnin et al., Shinjin mei Shōdō ka Jūgyū zu Zazen gi, Zen no goroku, vol. 16 (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1974), pp. 225-238.
2.
Discussion of the Korean text and comparison of its contents with the Yü Hsiang edition can be found in Kozaka Kiyū, "Zen'en shingi no hen'yō katei ni tsuite: Kōrai bon Zen 'en shingi no kōsatsu o kaishite," IBK, vol. 20 (1972), pp. 720-724; and in Kagamishima's Yakuchū Zen'en shingi, pp. 5- 11.
3.
See Shōwa hōbō sōmokuroku 3.1305a-b. On the date of this work, see Yanagida Seizan, "Zenseki kaidai," in Nishitani Keiji and Yanagida Seizan, Zenke goroku, vol. 2, Sekai koten bungaku zenshū, vol. 36B (Tokyo: Chi- kuma shobō, 1974), p. 496. The Ta-tsang i-lan text is quite similar to Yü Hsiang's version but lacks several more or less parenthetical amplifications. (Major variants are indicated in the notes to my translation, appended below.) It is possible, of course, that this earliest extant text of the Tso- ch'an i is closer to the original and that the longer version represents a later expansion. Given the character of Ch'en Shih's digest, however, it is more likely that he quoted only the basic material of the manual.
4.
See Yanagida's "Kaisetsu," in Kajitani et al., Shinjin mei, pp. 232-233. The Ta-tsang i-lan version does not include the reference to Fa-hsiu; however, since this version is quite abbreviated, its absence there, although it does not help Prof. Yanagida's argument, does not detract from it. We shall come back later to what little is known of Tsung-tse's biography; for the reference to his association with Fa-hsiu (Yüan-t'ung ch'an-shih), see Chien-chung ching-kuo hsü teng lu, ZZ2B/9/2.133c11-12.
5.
So, for example, the Japanese Zen master Dōgen (1200-1253) justifies his own revisions of Tsung-tse's manual on the grounds that, "though it fol- lows Po-chang's original intentions (ko i), it adds several new clauses by I Shih [i.e., Tsung-tse]" and, therefore, suffers from various sorts of errors. See his so-called "Fukan zazen gi senjutsu yurai," in Ōkubo Dōshū, Dōgen zenji zenshū, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1970), p. 6.
6.
For Tsung-tse's reference to the Po-chang code, see Kagamishima, Yakuchū Zen'en shingi, p. 3. Our earliest source for Po-chang, the epitaph by Ch'en Hsü, written in 818 just after his death, makes no reference to a Po-chang ch'ing-kuei ("T'ang Hung-chou Po-chang shan ku Huai-hai ch'an-shih t'a- ming," Ch'üan T'ang wen, fasc. 446, pp. 4b-7a.); in fact, the tradition's knowledge of Po-chang's famous rule seems to have been limited to brief notices attached to his biography in the Sung kao-seng chuan (T50.770c- 771a) and Ching-te ch'uan-teng lu ("Ch'an-men kuei-shih," T51.250c- 251b). It is no doubt because the information contained in these sources is all he had on Po-chang's regulations that Tsung-tse felt it worth including the appended notices on Po-chang's rule, under the title "Po-chang kuei- sheng sung," at the end of his own code (Kagamishima, Yakuchū Zen'en shingi, pp. 340-352).
7.
Shou-leng-yen ching, T19.147a-155a. This work is now generally thought to be of Chinese origin. (See Mochizuki Shinkō, Bukkyō kyōten seiritsu shi ron [1946; repr., Tokyo: Hōzōkan, 1978], pp. 493-508; Paul Demiéville, Le Concile de Lhasa [Paris: Impremerie Nationale de France, 1952], pp. 43-52, n. 3.) Sekiguchi Shindai suggests that the reference here is to the earlier Śūraṅgamasamādhi-sūtra (Shou-leng-yen san-mei ching, T#642), translated by Kumārajīva (see his Tendai shikan no kenkyū [Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1969], p. 323); but this text, though it contains a discussion of Māra, does not provide explicit information on his obstructions of meditation. Kagami- shima, Yakuchū Zen'en shingi, p. 282, appears to have the two sūtras con- fused.
8.
T46.106a-111c, 114c-117a.
9.
For the Hsiao chih-kuan discussion of mo-shih, see Hsiu-hsi chih-kuan tso- ch'an fa yao, T46.470b-472b. This work, in one (or two) fascicles, summa- rizes Chih-i's earlier and much longer Shih ch'an po-lo-mi tz'u-ti fa-men (T#1916; see Sekiguchi, Tendai shō shikan, Iwanami bunko 33-309-3 [Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1974], pp. 203-207). T#1915 is based on the vulgate version; another, widely variant text entitled Lüeh-ming k'ai-meng ch'u-hsüeh tso-ch'an chih-kuan yao-men is preserved in Japan. For a study and comparison of all extant versions, see Sekiguchi, Tendai shō shikan no kenkyū (1954; repr., Tokyo: Sankibō busshorin, 1961).
10.
See Sekiguchi, Tendai shō shikan no kenkyū, pp. 29-32. The text of the Hsiu-cheng i can be found at ZZ2B/1/4-5.361-498; for a summary of its contents, see Kamata Shigeo, Shūmitsu kyōgaku no shisō shi teki kenkyū (Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1975), pp. 499-521. Tsung-mi also quotes extensively from the Hsiao chih-kuan in his Yüan-chüeh ching ta-shu ch'ao (ZZ1/14/5.454aff). Sekiguchi, op. cit., pp. 285-302, provides a table comparing the "Cheng-hsiu" section of the Hsiao chih-kuan with the Hsiu- cheng i, the Ta-shu ch'ao, and Chih-i's Ch'an-men yao-lüeh (ZZ2/4/1.35- 37) ; Kamata, op. cit., pp. 524-608, gives a similar table of the first three of these works covering the first and third divisions of the Hsiu-cheng i.
11.
Sekiguchi's general argument goes back at least to his Tendai shō shikan no kenkyū and Daruma daishi no kenkyū (1957; rev. ed., Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1969); he has reviewed many of the points of that argument in Tendai shikan no kenkyū, pp. 271-281. This last work (pp. 328-335) provides an elaborate table comparing the relevant sections of the Hsiao chih-kuan and Hsiu- cheng i with parallel passages in the Tso-ch'an i and several other Zen texts.
12.
See Chih-i's introduction, Sekiguchi, Tendai shō shikan no kenkyū, p. 322. There is a tradition that the work was composed for Chih-i's brother, the layman Ch'en Chen, who had been diagnosed as terminally ill; after he practiced the repentence recommended in the book, his health was fully restored. (For a discussion of the story, see Sekiguchi, op. cit., pp. 51-62.)
13.
For a list of early texts affected by the Hsiao chih-kuan, see Sekiguchi, Ten- dai shikan no kenkyū, pp. 343-344.
14.
Prior to Sekiguchi's publication of his table of the texts, Yamauchi Shun'yū did his own comparison and analysis of the Hsiao chih-kuan and Tso-ch'an i; he also concludes that Chih-i's influence is largely limited to the descrip- tion of the meditation posture (see "Zazen gi to Tendai shō shikan," Shū- gaku kenkyū, vol. 8 [1966], pp. 29-50).
15.
The following summary is based on the text in Kagamishima, Yakuchū Zen'en shingi, pp. 279-283, a full translation of which appears in the Appendix, below.
16.
T46.465b. This passage occurs in the vulgate version as the introduction to the "T'iao-ho" chapter, but it seems originally to have represented an intro- duction to the discussion of śamatha and vipaśyanā in the "Cheng-hsiu" chapter (see Sekiguchi, Tendai shō shikan no kenkyū, pp. 150-151).
17.
T46.462c-463b.
18.
T46.465b-466c.
19.
For the Hsiao chih-kuan description of the tso-ch'an posture, see T46.465c7ff.
20.
T46.466b.
21.
T46.466a.
22.
T46.466c-469b.
23.
T46.14b28-c4; see also Chih-i's Chüeh-i san-mei, T46.621-627. The inter- esting interpretation here of the term "chüeh-i" (usually "bodhyaṅga") is discussed at some length in Neal Donner, "The Great Calming and Contem- plation of Chih-i," (Ph.D. dissertation, University of British Columbia, 1976), pp. 252-253, n. 249. See also the chapter in this volume by Daniel Stevenson.
24.
The metaphor of water and waves is best known in Zen from the Laṅkāva- tāra Sūtra (e.g., T16.538c); Tsung-tse's line on the pearl here is probably from Tung-shan Liang-chieh (see T'ien-sheng kuang teng lu, ZZ2B/8/ 4.353d). The passage from the Yüan-chüeh ching occurs at T17.919a21.
25.
The Leng-ch'ieh shih-tzu chi appears at T85.1283ff; here I am using the edi- tion in Yanagida, Shoki no zen shi, vol. 1, Zen no goroku, vol. 2 (Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1971), pp. 248-249.
26.
Yanagida, Shoki no zen shi, vol. 1, p. 186. Though Chinese tradition, both inside and outside of Zen, tends to interpret the term i-hsing as "single prac- tice," it seems clear that here, as in the sūtra itself, the emphasis is on the original sense of "single array"—i.e., the entirety of the Dharmadhatu manifest in the samadhi.
27.
Ibid., p. 287.
28.
Tsui-shang sheng lun, T48.378a-b.
29.
Yanagida, Shoki no zen shi, vol. 1, p. 241.
30.
Tsui-shang sheng lun, T48.379a.
31.
Yanagida, Shoki no zen shi, vol. 1, p. 255.
32.
See, e.g., his Tendai shikan no kenkyū, p. 346.
33.
So, for example, this passage on "śamatha through comprehension of the truth" (t'i-chen chih): If the practitioner knows that the mind is without [its own] nature, why should there be reality to the dharmas [that arise from the mind]? ... Being empty and without substance, they cannot be grasped. If they are not grasped, the mind of deluded thoughts (wang-nien hsin) will cease; if the mind of deluded thoughts ceases, it is quiescent and unconditioned (wu- wei). This unconditionedness is the original source of all dharmas. If one rests one's mind in this original source, it is without defilement; if the mind is without defilement, then all karmic activity of saṃsāra ceases. When the karmic activity of saṃsāra ceases, this is itself nirvana. (See Sekiguchi's edi- tion, Tendai shō shikan no kenkyū, pp. 339-340.)
34.
T46.1c-2a.
35.
Hu Shih, Shen-hui ho-shang i-chi (rev. ed., Taipei: Hu Shih chi-nien kuan, 1970), pp. 308-309.
36.
Ibid., p. 249; reading cheng for fei in line 8 and supplying wang chü before mieh in line 11.
37.
See, e.g., Ting shih-fei lun, Hu Shih, op. cit., p. 287.
38.
Hence his distinction (following Ch'eng-kuan) between the awakening of understanding (chieh-wu), which is to be followed by gradual cultivation, and the awakening of realization (cheng-wu), which represents the culmina- tion of the Path. (See, e.g., his Yüan-chüeh ching ta shu ch'ao, ZZ1/14/ 3.280b.) The structure here clearly recapitulates the classical progression of the mārga from darśana, through bhāvanā, to aśaikṣa. See the concluding
chapter in this volume by Robert Buswell for a detailed discussion of Tsung- mi's theory of the Path.
39.
T48.402b-c.
40.
Ibid., 403a4-6. This passage is repeated under the section on Shen-hui's Ho- tse School in Tsung-mi's Zenmon shishi shōshū zu (*Ch'an-men shih-tzu ch'eng-hsi t'u), ZZ2/15/5.436c. Note that, for all its "higher wisdom," the first sentence here could be used to summarize the description of śamathā through comprehension of the truth that we have seen in the Hsiao chih- kuan.
41.
The basic theoretical position of this "classical" style of Zen is already depicted in Tsung-mi himself. Thus, for example, in the Tu-hsü passage we have just seen, he distinguishes between two versions of the highest Zen: one (the Southern position), based on the true nature of "numinous awareness" and the cultivation of no-thought; the other (the Hung-chou position) iden- tifying the Buddha-nature with the totality of human states. According to this latter view, there is no point in rousing the mind to cultivate the Path: true awakening, cultivation, and verification lie only in the free expression of one's natural mind in all circumstances (T48.402c).
42.
T'an ching, T48.345a20-21; Li-tai fa-pao chi, T51.191a1-2; Tun-wu ju-tao yao men, ZZ2/15/5.420c14-15; Ching-te ch'uan teng lu, T51.240c18ff; ibid., 251a13.
43.
Ching-te ch'uan teng lu, T51.240c. Huai-jang's famous criticism of Ma- tsu's meditation appears at the same location; for an example of Wu-chu's denial that he enters samadhi or abides in meditation, see Li-tai fa-pao chi, ibid., 195a29; Lin-chi's dismissal of those who "sit motionless with tongue pressed against the palate" appears in Lin-chi lu, T47.501a.
44.
ZZ2B/9/2.133c. The table of contents of the Hsü teng lu (ibid., 12a) gives the graph i rather than tse as the second element of Tsung-tse's name, and in fact a number of other early sources follow the form "Tsung-i." The prob- lem has been discussed in Kondō Ryōichi, "Chōro Sōsaku ni tsuite," IBK, vol. 14 (1966), pp. 280-283. There is some uncertainty about Tsung-tse's place of residence. The Chen-ting district is in modern Hopei, but the Hung-chi monastery there has not been identified. The Hung-chi ssu known in Zen records is at Ch'ang-lu, in modern Kiangsu.
45.
T47.193c.
46.
T47.324c. P'u-tu goes on to report that Tsung-tse once had a dream in which he was approached by a man named P'u-hui, who sought member- ship in the Lotus Assembly for himself and his brother P'u-hsien. After awakening, Tsung-tse realized that these were the two bodhisattvas who appear in the Hua-yen ching (T10.279bff). The story of the dream is found among Tsung-tse's writings in the Lo-pang wen-lei, ibid., 178a-b; the source of the other information here is unknown.
47.
Lo-pang i-kao, T47.249a; the notice is taken from the Lung-shu ching-t'u wen, T47.271a. Tsung-tse's preface appears at T47.167a-b; see also his "Lien-hua sheng-hui lu wen" (dated 1089), "Nien-fo fang t'ui fang-pien wen," "Nien-fo hui-hsiang fa-yüan wen," ibid., 177b-178c; and his verses, ibid., 219c-220a.
48.
Lo-pang wen-lei, T47.177b-178b; the same text is preserved in the Lung-shu ching-t'u wen under the title "Ch'üan ts'an-ch'an jen chien hsiu ching-t'u" ("Promotion of the Combined Cultivation of Pure Land Among Zen Prac- titioners," T47.283c- 284c).
49.
T47.177b23, 178a20.
50.
"Nien-fo tsan ch'an chiu tsung-chih shuo," Lu-shan lien-tsung pao-chien, T47.318b25-26.
51.
"Lien-hua sheng-hui wen," T47.177c; "Nien-fo hui-hsiang fa-yüan wen," ibid., 178c.
52.
Tsung-tse's nien-fo practice appears several times throughout the Ch'an- yüan ch'ing-kuei and clearly represented a major element in the ritual of his monastery. His combination of Zen tradition with Sung popular religion is perhaps nowhere better symbolized than in his saying "The one word 'filial' is the gateway to all mysteries," an expression that gives a homey, ethical twist to Tsung-mi's famous metaphysical dictum, "The one word 'aware- ness' is the gateway to all mysteries" (quoted in Lu-shan lien-tsung pao- chien, T47.306c26).
53.
For the history of the early literature on the monastic rule in China and Japan, see Imaeda Aishin, Chūsei zenshū shi no kenkyū (Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1970), pp. 56-72; Martin Collcutt, Five Mountains: The Rinzai Zen Monastic Institution in Medieval Japan (Cambridge: Har- vard University Press, 1981), pp. 133-170.
54.
For Te-hui's text of the Tso-ch'an i, see T48.1143a-b. The manual also appears in the Tzu-men ching-hsün, a compendium of practical advice for Zen monks compiled in 1313 by Yung-chung (d.u.) (T48.1047b-c). How- ever, since the extant text of this work is a much later, greatly expanded ver- sion, we cannot be entirely certain that the Tso-ch'an i was included in the original.
55.
For the Shibu roku text, the earliest extant version of which is a gozan printing from the fourteenth century, see Ōmori Sōgen, Kunchū Zenshū shibu roku (Kyoto: Kichūdō, 1962), pp. 1-18. For Yōsai's quotation, see T80.12a14-17. As Yanagida has pointed out, the fact that Yōsai often quotes the Ch'an-yüan ch'ing-kuei but uses the Ta-tsang i-lan as his source for the Tso-ch'an i provides additional evidence that, when he visited China in 1187, the manual was still not included in Tsung-tse's code (see Yanagi- da's additional notes to the Kōzen gokoku ron, in Ichikawa Hakugen et al., Chūsei zenke no shisō, Nihon shisō taikei, vol. 16 [Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1972], p. 398; and his "Yōsai to Kōzen gokoku ron no kadai," ibid., pp. 471-476). Dōgen's Fukan zazen gi can be found at Ōkubo Dōshū, Dōgen zenji zenshū, vol. 2, pp. 3-5.
56.
The Kanazawa manuscript of Yen Ping's text has been edited by Ishii Shūdō, in Kanazawa bunko shiryō zensho, vol. 1 (Yokohama: Kanazawa bunko, 1974), pp. 155-161. Yen Ping's biography does not appear in the Ch'an histories, but the Hsü ch'uang teng lu (T51.701a) identifies him as a follower of Ta-hui's disciple Hsüeh-feng Hui-jan.
57.
For Dōgen's descriptions of meditation, all of which reflect Tsung-tse's text, see (in addition to the Fukan zazen gi mentioned above) his Eihei kōroku (Ōkubo, Dōgen zenji zenshū, vol. 2, pp. 165-166), Shōbō genzō zazen gi (ibid., vol. I [Tokyo: Chikuma shobō, 1969], pp. 88-89), and Bendō hō (ibid., vol. 2, pp. 317-318). The Zazen yōjin ki can be found in Sōtō shū zensho, Shūgen, vol. 2 (1930; repr., Tokyo: Sōtō-shū zensho kankōkai, 1971), p. 423-427; see also Keizan's Sankon zazen setsu, ibid., 428-429. For Kakushin's Zazen gi, see Dai Nihon bukkyō zensho, vol. 96, pp. 211-212; more explicit instruction on meditation appears in his Hottō kokushi hōgo, ibid., pp. 220-222. Enni's Zazen ron appears as Shōichi kokushi hōgo, in Zenmon hōgo shū, vol. 2, pp. 411-424. For Lan-ch'i's Zazen ron, see Daikaku zenji zazen ron, Kokuyaku zengaku taisei, vol. 23  (Tokyo: Nishōdō shoten, 1930), pp. 1-8; his Zazen gi is preserved in a man- uscript of the Kanazawa bunko (see Kanazawa bunko shiryō zensho, vol. 1, pp. 161-168).
58.
In the Lin-chien lu, ZZ2/21/3.295d.
59.
"To indulge yourself by forgetting objects (wang yüan) is to fall into the deep pit.... To be aware of your thoughts as soon as they occur (nien ch'i chi chüeh) is [the practice of] one who toys with his spirit." ("Lancet of Zen" [Ch'an chen], appended to the Wu-men kuan, T48.299b1-3.)