| Tung-shan Liang-chieh | |
|---|---|
| Religion | Ch'an |
| School | Tsao-tung |
| Personal | |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Born | 806 China |
| Died | 869 |
| Senior posting | |
| Title | Ch'an master |
Liang-chieh of Tung-shan (807–869), often referred to simply as Tung-Shan or Dongshan Liangjie (Ch. 洞山良价), was a Ch'an (Zen) master of 9th century China. Along with his pupil Ts'ao-shan Pen-chi, he is best known for founding the Ts'ao-tung, or later Sōtō, school of Ch'an. He is well known for the poetic Verses of the Five Ranks.
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Liang-chieh was born during the Tang dynasty in the town of Kuei-chi, in the southeast of the present day Chekiang Province. He started his private studies in Ch'an Buddhism at a young age, as was popular among educated elite families of the time. Reputedly, it was during a tutor's recitation of the Heart Sutra of Buddhism that Liang-chieh voiced his disagreement with the fundamental doctrine. As a result, at the age of ten he left his home and traveled to the nearby Wu-hsieh Mountain, one of many mountaintop monasteries, where he joined the students of Ch'an Master Ling-mo . He also had his head shaved and took on the yellow robes which represented the first steps in his path to becoming a monk. At the age of twenty one he went to Mt. Sung, the location of the Shao-lin-ssu Temple ordination platform, and took the Complete Precepts.
In a manner similar to that of his contemporary Lin-chi, the founder of another Ch'an sect, he spent a large portion of his early life wandering between Ch'an masters and hermits in the Hung-chou region. Notable among these was Master Yun-yen T'an-sheng (Ungan Donjo) (780–841), of whom Liang-Chieh became the dharma heir. Most of what is recorded regarding his journey and studies exists in the form of philosophical dialogues, or koan, between him and his various teachers. These provide very little insight into his personality or experiences beyond his daily rituals, style of spiritual education, and a few specific events. During the later years of his pilgrimage Emperor Wuzong's Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution (843–845) reached its height, but it had little effect on Liang-chieh or his newfound followers. A little over a decade later in 859, Liang-chieh felt he had completed his role as an assistant instructor at Hsin-feng Mountain, so with the blessing of his last masters he took some students and left to establish his own school.
At the age of 52, in the tradition of his previous Ch'an masters, Liang-chieh established a mountain school at Tung-shan in Kao-an of the Yu-chang hsien province. This Ts'ao-tung school became regarded as one of the Five Houses of Ch'an. Yet it should be recognized that they have only historically become understood as being "sects", and at the time were just considered schools led by individualistic masters with distinct styles and personality. In reality, the fact that they were all located in close geographic proximity to each other, with the exception of Lin-chi, and that they all were at the height of their teaching around the same time sparked a custom among students to routinely visit the other masters.
Tung-shan died at the age of 63, in the tenth year of the Hsien-t'ung era (869), having spent 42 years as a monk. His shrine, built in keeping with Buddhist tradition, was named the Stupa of Wisdom-awareness, and his posthumous name was Ch'an Master Wu-Pen. According to one of the koan of his sect, Tung-shan announced the end of his life several days ahead of time, and used the opportunity to teach his students one final time. In response to their grief over the news of his coming death, he told them to create a "delusion banquet". After a week of preparations he took one bite, and told them not to "make a great commotion over nothing", then went to his room and died.
Although Lin-chi and Liang-chieh shared pupils, Liang-chieh had a particular style. Since his early life he had utilized gatcha, or small poems, in order to try to better understand and expound the meaning of Ch'an principles for himself and others. Further features of the school also included a particular interpretation of koan, an emphasis on "silent illumination Ch'an", and organization of students into the "three root types". He is still well-known for his re-evaluation of the Five Ranks.
The newly renamed Master Tung-shan argued that the koan should not have a specific goal, because that would naturally "[imply] an artificial distinction between ignorance and enlightenment". Instead, he encouraged the use of silent illumination Ch'an (mo-chao Ch'an) as a way to "sit just to sit", and take a self-fulfilling, rather than a competitive, path to enlightenment. These two differences contrasted especially with Lin-chi's new Ch'an sect, which was his main competition for students' attention at the time. "Silent illumination Ch'an" was originally one of many pejorative terms created by Lin-chi regarding Tung-shan's style, which demonstrated the threat he felt as several of his students left to join Liang-chieh's school.
Tung-shan was distinguished by his ability to instruct all three categories of students, which he defined as
A large portion of Master Tung-shan's fame came from his complete re-evaluation of the longstanding Verses of the Five Ranks. The Five Ranks were a doctrine which mapped out five stages of comprehension of the relationship between the absolute and relative realities. The Five Ranks are[1]:
For each of these ranks, Tung-shan wrote a verse trying to bring such abstract ideals in the realm of real experience. He used metaphors of day to day occurrences that his students could understand. His student Ts'ao-shan Pen-chi later went on to relate the Five Ranks to the classic Chinese text, the I Ching.
According to his students, Tung-shan had a "profound understanding of the ultimate goal", and was a spiritual leader whose "subtle influence spread beneath heaven". Tung-shan had many pupils who provided lineage pathways to carry on his teachings, but his most renowned students were T'sao-shan (840–901) and Yun-chu (835–902).
T'sao-shan refined and finalized on Tung-shan's works on Buddhist doctrine, which is why his name was – possibly – included in the name of the sect. (Another possibility is that the Ts'ao of the Ts'ao-tung school name refers to Ts'ao-his Hui-neng, the 6th Ancestor of Ch'an.) The lineage that T'sao-shan began, ironically, did not last beyond his immediate disciples, but because he was personally entrusted with Tung-shan's teaching, including the doctrine of the Five Ranks and the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, he is held in esteem by a variety of Buddhists.
Yun-chu on the other hand, started a branch of Tung-shan's lineage which lasted in China until the 17th century. Thirteen generations later Dogen Kigen (1200–1253) was educated in the traditions of Tung-shan's Ch'an Buddhism. Following his education, he returned to his homeland of Japan and started the Soto school.
Liang-chieh's chief contributions were his systemization of the teaching of the Five Ranks, and his lineage. By clarifying several Buddhist doctrines, he maintained interest in Buddhism among all levels of intellectual capacity. He, along with his contemporaries, also preserved both the teachings and the popularity of the religion at the same time that its followers were being repressed by the government. As it was, even after amnesty was granted by Emperor Wuzong's successor to all foreign religions, Buddhism never reclaimed its former significance in Chinese culture. But he established a tradition that lives on till the present day.
Regardless of whether it was because their religion discouraged biographical records, or because the information was destroyed in the Buddhist persecution, we are left with very little documentation about his life. Like many masters of the middle period of Ch'an history, information is usually limited to dates, names and general locations. One example of this would be the controversy over whether the T'sao-tung sect is named for Tung-shan and his student, which some argue would be strange since his lineage died out, or Tung-shan and the temple of the sixth patriarch of Ch'an, T'sao-his.
Almost the only primary sources we have for such information are two collections of doctrine and lineage, T'su-t'ang-chi (Records from the Halls of the Patriarchs) and Chling-te-chum-teng-lu (Transmission of the Lamp). In this case, they both only list the name as having been generated from Tun-shan's connections to "T'sao", and they are equally ambiguous on most other facts. One historian commented that
"... it is as though Tung-shan were a drop of water that, on striking a pond, was totally swallowed up, leaving only a set of concentric ripples ... to examine".
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