| Yúnmén Wényǎn | |
|---|---|
| School | Ch'an |
| Personal | |
| Nationality | Chinese |
| Born | 862 or 864 China |
| Died | 949 |
| Senior posting | |
| Title | Ch'an-shih |
Yúnmén Wényǎn (862 or 864[1]-949 CE), (雲門文偃; Japanese: Ummon Bun'en; he is also variously known in English as "Unmon", "Ummon Daishi", "Ummon Zenji"), was a major[2] Chinese Zen master in Tang-era China. He founded one of the five major schools of Chan (Chinese Zen), the "Yunmen school", after succeeding his famous master, Xuefeng Yicun (or Hsueh-feng I-ts'un; Japanese: Seppo Gison[1]; another famous disciple of Yicun would be Fa-yen Wen-i (885-958)[3]) (822-908), for whom he had served as a head monk. When founding his school, he taught at the Yunmen monastery of Shaozhou, from which he received his name. The Yunmen school flourished into the early Song Dynasty, with particular influence on the upper classes, and eventually culminating in the compilation and writing of the Blue Cliff Record. The school would eventually be absorbed by the Rinzai school later in the Song. The lineage still lives on to this day through Chan Master Hsu Yun (1840-195?). He rebuilt the Yun men temple and the 6th patriarchs temple Nan-hua Si. The Yunmen school continues through Master Hsu Yun, Fo Yuan, and Master Ming Zhao Shakya, who have disciples in America and abroad.[4]
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Yunmen was born in the town of Jiaxing near Suzhou and southwest of Shanghai[1] to the Zhang family (but later as a monk he would take the name Wenyan; to avoid confusion he will be referred to by his later name of "Yunmen"), apparently in 864 CE. His birth-year is uncertain; the two memorial stele at the Yunmen monastery mention he was 86 years old when he died in 949 CE, which suggests that 864 is his birth year.
While a boy, Yunmen became a monk under a "commandment master" named Zhi Cheng (as Miura and Sasaki describe it,[5] which usually refers to a specialist in vinaya: monastic rules and discipline; Sørensen mentions that some sources say that Chih-Ch'eng/Zhi Cheng was actually a Ch'an master) in Jiaxing. He studied there for several years, taking his monastic vows at age 20, in 883 CE. The teachings there did not satisfy him, and he went to Daozong's school (also known as Bokushu, Reverend Chen, Muzhou Daozong, Ch'en Tsun-su, Mu-chou Tao-tsung, Tao-ming, Muzhou Daoming etc.;[1] "an eccentric disciple of Huang-po who practiced an extremely rigorous form of Zen in Mu-chou, after which place he was named[1]) to gain enlightenment and legendarily had his leg broken for his trouble. It was first said around 1100 that Yunmen was crippled in the leg:
Ummon [Yunmen] went to Bokushu's temple to seek Zen. The first time he went, he was not admitted. The second time he went, he was not admitted. The third time he went the gate was opened slightly by Bokushu, and thus Ummon stuck his leg in attempting to gain entrance. Bokushu urged him to "Speak! Speak!"; as Ummon opened his mouth, Bokushu pushed him out and slammed shut the large gate so swiftly that Ummon's leg was caught and was broken.
Daozong told Yunmen to visit the pre-eminent Zen master of the day,[6] Xuefeng Yicun of Mt. Hsiang-ku, in Fuzhou (Fukushū) in modern-day Fujian, and become his disciple, as Daozong was too old (~100 years old) to further teach Yunmen. After a few years studying with him, Yunmen did so, and received after several years, enlightenment. While Yunmen had received his teacher's seal and approval, he nevertheless did not become abbot, probably because his stay was only on the order of 4 or 5 years. When Yicun died, Yunmen began travelling and visited quite a number of monasteries, cementing his reputation as a Ch'an master.
During a subsequent visit to the tomb of the Sixth Patriarch in Guangdong, Yunmen ended up joining (c. 911 CE) the monastery of Rumin Chanshi/Ling-shu Ju-min, who died in 918 CE; the two of them became great friends. With his death, Yunmen became head priest of the Lingshu monastery on Mt. Lingshu (Reiju-in). In this Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period, the T'ang dynasty was greatly weakened, and entire sections of the empire had split away; the south was peaceful and developed, but the "North was torn by the ravages of war".[1] The area of Southern China where Yunmen lived broke free during the rebellion of Huang Chao, a viceroy of the Liu family. Eventually, the Liu family became the rulers of the Southern Han (918-978) kingdom during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms Period. The ruler, Liu Yan, visited the monastery for Rumin's cremation (as Liu often sought Rumin's advice), and met Yunmen.
Impressed, Liu Yan extended him his patronage and protection, as well as confirming his appointment as the new abbot of the Lingshu monastery. But Yunmen's fame drew a great flow of visitors from all over China and even from Korea. All these visitors proved too distracting for Yunmen's taste, and in 923, he asked the king (Liu Yan having died by this time[6]) to aid him in building a new monastery on Mount Yunmen. The king acquiesced, and five years later, at the age of 64, Yunmen began living in and teaching in the monastery on the mountain from which he took the name by which he is best known. While the king and some of Yunmen's disciples continued to try to give Yunmen more responsibilities and honors, Yunmen refused, and returned to his monastery. This proved to be a wise decision, as his influence diminished considerably in succeeding years through palace intrigues and invasions.
One day, when Yunmen was 85 (or 86), he composed a farewell letter to his patron, the new king of the Southern Han, and gave a final lecture to his monks, finishing with the statement: "Coming and going is continuous. I must be on my way!" Then he (reputedly, in great pain because of his crippled leg) sat in a full lotus posture and died. He would be buried with great honors (but not as great as the state would have liked, as befitted a great master and spiritual minister of the state), and his surprisingly well-preserved corpse was exhumed several years later, and given a procession. In honor of this, his monastery was given a new name, and two stele erected, which recorded his biography. Yunmen was succeeded as abbot by Dongshan Shouchu (Japanese: Tōzan Shusho; d. 900[7]). Suhotsu became abbot in 990 CE; although at the time, his foremost disciple was accounted Pai-yün Shih-hsing, who had founded his own temple on the nearby Mt. Pai-yün. His corpse would be venerated until the 20th-century, when it would disappear during the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.
| How steep is Yün-mên's mountain! |
| How low the white clouds hang! |
| The mountain stream rushes so swiftly |
| That fish cannot venture to stay. |
| One's coming is well-understood |
| From the moment one steps in the door. |
| Why should I speak of the dust |
| On the track that is worn by the wheel? |
| — Yun-men, from the Jingde Chuandeng Lu 《景德傳燈錄》 |
Yunmen was renowned for his forceful and direct yet subtle teaching, often expressed through sudden shouts and blows with a staff, and for his wisdom and skill at oratory: he was "the most eloquent of the Ch'an masters."[8] Fittingly, Yunmen is one of the greatest pioneers of "live words", "old cases", and paradoxical statements that would later evolve into the koan tradition, along with Zhaozhou (Japanese: Jōshū Jūshin). He also famously specialized in apparently meaningless short sharp single word answers, like "Guan!" (literally, "barrier" or "frontier pass") — these were called "Yunmen's One Word Barriers". These one-word barriers "...were meant to aid practice, to spur insight, and thus to promote realization. Not only his punchy one-syllable retorts, but also his more extended conversation and stories came to be used as koan."[9] While his short ones were popular, some of his longer ones were iconic and among the most famous koans:
Most were collected in the Yúnmén kuāngzhēn chánshī guǎnglù (雲門匡眞禪師廣錄). But not all were — 18 were later discovered when a subsequent master of the Yunmen school, one Xuetou Chongxian (Setchō Jūken, 980-1052 CE) published his Boze songgu, which contained one hundred "old cases" (as koans were sometimes called) popular in his teaching line, in which the 18 Yunmen koans were included. Of the many stories and koans in Blue Cliff Records, 18 involve Yunmen; eight of Yunmen's sayings are included in Records of Serenity, and five in The Gateless Gate; further examples could be found in the Ninden gammoku,[11] and the Ummonroku.[12] He was also considerably more mystical than certain other teachers who tended to concrete description; an apocryphal anecdote that began circulating around the beginning of the 12th century has Yunmen going so far as to forbid any of his sayings or teachings from being recorded by his many pupils ("What is the good of recording my words and tying up your tongues?" was one of his sayings):
His disciples reputedly numbered 790, an unusual number of whom became enlightened. These successors would spread the Yunmen school widely; it flourished as one of the Five Schools for about 300 years, after which it was absorbed into the Linji School towards the end of the Southern Song dynasty (~1127 CE).
Yunmen's Japanese name, Ummon, was the namesake for a character which was featured prominently in Dan Simmons' acclaimed Hyperion Cantos science fiction series; Simmon's Ummon was a vastly advanced, intelligent AI from the "TechnoCore", who reveals key plot elements to the main characters, through koans and mondo (dialogue).
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