Toward a Typology of Nien-Fo

7/31/2019 Toward a Typology of Nien-Fo

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Toward a Typology ofToward a Typology ofToward a Typology ofToward a Typology ofToward a Typology ofNien-foNien-foNien-foNien-foNien-fo: A Study in: A Study in: A Study in: A Study in: A Study inMethods of Buddha-Invocation inMethods of Buddha-Invocation inMethods of Buddha-Invocation inMethods of Buddha-Invocation inMethods of Buddha-Invocation inChinese Pure Land BuddhismChinese Pure Land BuddhismChinese Pure Land BuddhismChinese Pure Land BuddhismChinese Pure Land Buddhism

Charles B. JonesCharles B. JonesCharles B. JonesCharles B. JonesCharles B. JonesThe Catholic University of America

I. INTRODUCTION

AS STUDENTS IN THE WEST study Pure Land Buddhism in East Asia,they learn a number of standard facts. They learn that there is a Pure Landschool, that it originated in China with Hui-yans (334416) WhiteLotus Association, and was popularized by a series of eminent teachers:Tan-luan (476542), Tao-cho (562645), Shan-tao (613681), and a fewother figures. The prime import of their teaching was that the ordinary

person (Ch. fan-fu), lacking the skills and leisure of the monastic religiousvirtuoso, could call upon the name of the buddha Amitbha in faith, andthe buddha would come to them at the time of death, lift them out ofsamsara, and take them to rebirth in the Pure Land called Sukhvat, anideal location for study and practice. Once there, they would be assured ofeventual enlightenment and buddhahood.1 This school fed directly intothe formation of the major lines of Pure Land Buddhism in Japan, whichstress the unworthiness and inability of believers to effect their ownliberation through traditional Buddhist practices (denigrated as self-

power, Jpn.jiriki) and the need to call upon Amitbhas name in trust andsincerity, believing that he will do what is necessary on the believers

behalf.In this construction, there are few elements, and Pure Land teaching

and practice look like simplicity itself. The main practice of the school,called nien-foin Chinese and nembutsu in Japanese, consists of the oralinvocation of the Buddhas name, in response to which the buddha will

bring one to rebirth. This is a practice that can be taught and practicedeffectively without much nuance, variety, or theological-philosophical

depth to it.2Over time, however, a steadily-accumulating body of research has

increasingly called the hegemony of this understanding of Pure Land intodoubt, particularly in the case of its Chinese manifestations. Some scholarsare now questioning the legitimacy of referring to Pure Land as a school


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at all, citing its lack of institutional coherence and continuity, textualtradition, or clear-cut lineage of teachers and students.3 Others, while notdisputing the existence of the school as such, point out that a great dealof Pure Land practice and writing took place outside the bounds of theschool as generally conceived.4 Others have brought forward for atten-tion the various conceptions of Pure Land practice beyond simple nien-fo/nembutsu.5 Our picture of Chinese Pure Land thought and practice is

becoming more complex all the time.In addition to doubts in these areas, another topic within Chinese Pure

Land studies in which some fine-tuning seems necessary is the corepractice ofnien-foitself. Many years ago, Hori Ichir published an articlein English entitled Nembutsu as Folk Religion, which pointed out,among other things, that within the generally simpler world of JapanesePure Land Buddhism, people could and did perform nembutsu for allkinds of reasons, not all of which had to do with gaining rebirth.6 As I havespent much time over the past several years reading through a wide varietyof Chinese Pure Land materials, mostly dating from the Sung dynasty(9601279) or later, I have also noticed significant variations in the wayindividual authors, both in and out of the Pure Land school, present thepractice ofnien-fo. While all accept this as the fundamental practice of theeasy path, their exposition of the nature and methods of the practiceshow that the term, in fact, is quite elastic. One finds various answers to thefollowing questions: (1) In what does the practice ofnien-foconsist? (2) Isthere one or are there many ways to nien-fo? (3) If many, are they random(the 84,000 medicines model), or do they form a graded path (the mrgamodel)? (4) What results should one expect from ones chosen method(s)ofnien-fo, either in this life or after death? (5) How does (do) the chosenmethod(s) ofnien-fowork to bring about their results?

In one brief article such as this, it is not realistic to expect a full rehearsalof all the answers to all of the above questions regarding Chinese Pure LandBuddhism in toto; such a study may well turn into a monograph as Icontinue to pursue it. I wish to limit myself here to the relatively simplequestion of how different practices relate to each other. This breaks downinto two subsidiary questions: First, how does nien-forelate to otherpractices within Buddhism? Second, if there is a variety of ways in whichto perform nien-foitself, how do these methods relate to each other as wellas to non-nien-fopractices?

The intention of this study is not to lay out a table of methods, in whichany one way of positioning and doing nien-fooccupies a single, discreteplace along a continuum. As the reader will see, the material does not lenditself to such neat organization. Rather, I wish to pose the followinganalysis as a heuristic, a way of querying the material in order to seerelationships with other practices that cut across the spectrum of ChineseBuddhist praxis in a number of directions at once. One may ask a series of


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questions of the materials at hand; the answer to one question may positionthe practice ofnien-foin one way for a particular authority, but in anotherway when a different question is asked of that same authority. Such aninvestigation must not be deemed unsuccessful if it fails to yield a rigorousand consistent taxonomy of practice; it simply gives us a way to think moresystematically about the variety ofnien-fomethods that have appeared inthe history of Chinese Pure Land Buddhism.

II. WHEN NIEN-FOIS ONE PRACTICE AMONG MANY

Some Pure Land teachers based their understanding ofnien-foon thePratyutpanna-samdhi-stra rather than the traditional Three Stras(Ch. ching-tu san pu), and so positioned the practice ofnien-fowithin itsscheme of multiple practices. In the case of Hui-yan, we find a clearinstance where the practice ofnien-fois construed as a certain type ofpractice intended to reach a certain kind of result, both of which differconsiderably from the way they are usually presented in works on PureLand Buddhism. If we look into the Ta-cheng ta yi chang(Chapters on theGreat Meaning of the Mahyna, a compilation of correspondence be-tween Hui-yan and Kumrajva found at Taish, vol. 45, no. 1856, pp.122143), we find that Hui-yan, explicitly basing his question on thePratyutpanna-samdhi-stra, asks Kumrajva how it is that a buddhaseen in dreams, being an image manufactured by the practitioners ownmind, could teach one things one does not already know, as the stra says.The specifics of the question and answer need not detain us here; we needonly observe that Hui-yan (1) clearly bases his practice on a scriptureoutside of the usual three Pure Land stras, (2) that he intends thepractice to lead not only to rebirth in Sukhvat, but also to the nien-fosamdhiand a vision of the buddha Amitbha in the present life, and (3)part of the purpose of this visualization-leading-to-vision is so that the

buddha can bestow teachings on the practitioner.7 In addition, this is onlyone of a number of concerns Hui-yan raised with Kumrajva; like thestra itself, his range of learning and practice included many other ele-ments in addition to those centering on the Pure Land of Amitbha. All ofthese factors present a significant contrast to more traditional methods ofnien-fo, and tended to be ignored or glossed over by later Chinese PureLand thinkers, even as they elevated Hui-yan to the status of firstpatriarch of Pure Land.

Chih-is constantly-walking samdhi was also based on thePratyutpanna-samdhi-stra. As described by Daniel Stevenson,8 thispractice was a complicated and difficult one, to be attempted only by clergywho had already demonstrated great tenacity, devotion, and adherence tothe disciplinary and procedural precepts of the monastic order. In this case,


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the term niendenotes both visualization and oral invocation, as themeditator is directed to construct a highly detailed eidetic image of the

buddha while slowly and sonorously reciting the name. At the same time,the meditator is to realize the empty nature of the visualized buddha as amanifestation of his or her own mind (something also affirmed by thePratyutpanna-samdhi-stra at Taish, vol. 13, no. 418, p. 905c).9 Thus, thepurpose ofnien-fohere is not only to gain a vision of the buddha(s), but alsoto realize wisdom at the same time. Finally, we should note that theconstantly-walking samdhi is only one of four different modes ofpractice contained in the Mo-ho chih-kuan, others of which contain withinthemselves further subtypes, constituting a broad palette of possiblepractices.

Both Hui-yan and Chih-i, then, clearly saw nien-foin a certain waybased on the Pratyutpanna-samdhi-stra, which differed from thestripped-down nien-fopractice of other teachers, in addition to which theysaw it as only one mode of practice among many.

III. WHEN NIEN-FOIS THE ONLY PRACTICE,BUT TAKES MANY FORMS

Another approach to Pure Land practice was to recommend nien-foasa single practice, but to take this single practice as itself multiform. Inother words, while recommending nien-fo, one also analyzed it intoseveral varieties. When a teacher takes this approach, two other possibili-ties emerge: (1) one may see the varieties ofnien-foas simply differentmodes of practice suited to different practitioners, an approach that reso-nates with traditional Buddhist views of methods of cultivations as medi-cines directed toward the treatment of distinct ailments. (2) One mightalso try to arrange the various types ofnien-fointo a sort of graded path,in which case a single practitioner would begin at the beginning with thesimplest practice and then progress through the more advanced levels.

A. Nien-foas Medicine Cabinet

As an example of the medicine cabinet approach, I have chosen theeminent Buddhist figure Yin-kuang (18611940). Revered since his deathas the thirteenth patriarch of the Pure Land movement, Yin-kuangdedicated his entire monastic career to defending and advancing PureLand practice. Hundreds of devotees were deeply affected by personalvisits to his cell at the Ling-yen Shan Temple in Suchou, and thousands ofothers were (and are) moved and inspired by his writings, recently col-lected and published as the Complete Works of the Great Master Yin-kuang(Yin-kuang ta-shih chan chi).10


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Surveying Yin-kuangs works, one finds a few systematic expositionsof Pure Land thought and practice, but his writing appears to have beendriven by practical rather than theoretical concerns. One sees him engagingin apologetics or pastoral work in his writings (the former in his treatises,the latter in letters to his disciples). Thus, if what I have seen of his writingso far holds true for the corpus of his workin toto, then it would seem that

he never set out Pure Land practice as a graded path, but recommendedpractices for individuals as the need required.

To give an example, among the memorial essays written after Yin-kuangs death, we find one entitled The Great Master Taught Me theMethod ofnien-fo (ta shih chiao wo nien-fo fang-fa), in which a disciplenamed Tzu-chou describes the method this way: Yin-kuang told him torecite the name of Amitbha ten times mentally, but without actuallycounting from one to ten. In other words, Tzu-chou was simply to be awareof his oral recitation and, without counting or using a rosary, know when

he had recited ten times. This method, clearly based on the Chan techniqueof counting breaths, served not only the purpose of gaining the devoteerebirth in Sukhvat, but also of increasing his concentration in thepresent life.11

In a letter to another disciple, Yin-kuang defined nien-foas bothrecitation and visualization, and stressed the need for constancy in prac-tice. Ones nien-fo, he said, had to take place in a context of faith inAmitbhas primal vows, and ones own vows to be reborn in Sukhvatand return the merit of ones practice to all living beings. He described thepractice in quasi-esoteric terms as consisting of acts of body, speech, andmind, and gave advice to this disciple on factors of practice that wouldaffect the quality of the samdhihe would attain, clearly indicating that heconsidered nien-foa serious practice that, as with the other disciplinementioned above, would produce benefits even prior to gaining rebirth. Atthe end of the letter, he denies that mere oral invocation will produce any

benefit, in this life or after death, without the proper framework of genuineand unremitting aspiration for rebirth and effort.12 Done within thisframework, however, nien-focould produce marvellous results; Yin-kuang even credited the practice with curing him of conjunctivitis.13

One could spend a lot of time gathering up the scattered fragments ofYin-kuangs teachings and recommendations and try to bring some systemand order into it. The point here is that Yin-kuang himself did not do so, andit appears that, while he had some basic ideas about nien-fothat held in allcases (such as the need for aspiration and constancy of practice), he also didnot hesitate to vary the practice for different people (as seen in the varietyof recommendations that appear in his letters), and to vary it for differentpurposes (achieving rebirth, attaining samdhi, or curing illness). The factthat Yin-kuang never tried to systematize the practice, or put his variousmethods into any kind of order, demonstrates that, for him, it was like


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medicine to be administered for specific purposes, and not a graded pathwhere one moved from easier to more difficult practices. This contrastswith the systems to be presented below.

B. Nien-foas Graded Path

1. Kui-feng Tsung-mis Fourfold Typology

As my first example of the graded path approach, I have chosen Kui-feng Tsung-mi (780841), even though I am aware that this choice is loadedwith difficulties. As a Hua-yen patriarch and Chan master, it may seemmore logical to include him in the above section, among the teachers whosaw nien-foas one practice among many. This is the very difficulty statedin the introduction with attempting to position any single authoritativefigure in a discrete place on a kind of table of practices and teachings.

According to Mochizuki Shinks Chgoku Jdokyri shi, in thefourth fascicle of his Hua-yen ching pu-hsien hsing-yan pin shu chao(Subcommentary on [Cheng-kuans] Commentary on the Chapter ofSamantabhadras Practice of his Vows, Zoku zky7, p. 773ff)14 Tsung-mi set out four different types ofnien-fo, each with its own scriptural basis.These are:

1. Oral invocation (cheng ming nien), which he based on a passagerelating to the single-practice samdhi (yi hsing san-mei) foundin the scripture Wen-shu-shih-li suo shuo mo-ho pan-juo po-lo-miching(The Perfection of WisdomStra Preached by Majur,Taish, vol. 8, no. 232, pp. 726732), which recommends selectinga particular buddha (not necessarily Amitbha), facing that

buddhas direction, and calling upon his name out loud until oneachieves a vision of all buddhas of the present world. This, ofcourse, is reminiscent of the practice outlined in the Pratyutpanna-samdhi-stra, except that it does not involve visualization, onlyoral recitation of the name. Tsung-mi presented this as a sufficientmeans to gain the vision of the buddhas.

2. Contemplating the image (kuan hsiang=nien), which in-volves contemplating a physical image or picture of the buddha.He based this on the Ta pao chi ching(Great Collection Stra, alsocalled Pu-ming pu-sa hui, Taish, vol. 11, no. 31043, pp. 631638). This says that, in contemplating an image of the buddha, onerealizes the non-duality of the image with the buddha, and in thisway one achieves the five powers (wu tung) and the samdhiofuniversal light (pu kuang san-mei).


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3. Contemplating the characteristics (kuan hsiang nien), inwhich one contemplates the major and minor marks of a buddhas

body. One may select one mark upon which to focus, or contem-plate them all simultaneously. The first is based on the scripture Foshuo kuan fo san-mei hai ching(Stra on the Samdhi-ocean of theContemplation of the Buddha, Taish, vol. 15, no. 643, pp. 645697), which speaks of gazing at the tuft of white hair between the

buddhas eyes. The second is based on the Tsuo chan san-meiching(Stra on the Samdhi of Seated Meditation, Taish, vol, 15,no. 614, pp. 269286), which recommends constant contemplationof the buddhas body as a means of entering the buddha-way. Ifone can do this, and not set ones mind on earth, wind, fire, water,or any dharma, then one will gain a vision of all the buddhas ofthe ten directions and the three times, and will eliminate countlesskalpas of karmic guilt.

4. Contemplating the True Mark (shih hsiang nien), which is foradvanced practitioners with an enlightened vision of the world. Inthis, one contemplates the buddhas dharmakya, which in nondualterms is also the contemplation of ones own true self and the truenature of all phenomena. This is also based on The Perfection ofWisdom Stra Preached by Majur(Taish, no. 232), whichdescribes the true nature of the buddha as unproduced andunextinguished, neither going nor coming, without name andwithout feature, that alone is called buddha. The scripture alsocalls this the single-practice samdhi, and Tsung-mi cites otherperfection of wisdom literature, such as the Ta chih-tu luninsupport of this view of the buddha.

Mochizuki Shink, in listing these techniques, says that Tsung-mipresented these four methods ofnien-foas a graded path going fromeasiest/shallowest to most difficult/most profound.15 For our purposes,we can observe several relevant features of his thought. First, his outlinerests on different scriptural bases than traditional Pure Land practice.Second, it is clearly aimed at gaining a vision of the buddha in this life andon attainment of wisdom and/or enlightenment (as opposed to gainingrebirth in the Pure Land after death). Third, and perhaps most problemati-cally, he does not appear to use the term nien-foto describe these practices,

but only the single word nien. This may call into question the identificationof Tsung-mi as a Pure Land figure, but whatever his own intentions may

have been in setting out this scheme, his typology and path have come tobe used by later Pure Land teachers in need of a graded curriculum ofpractice. For example, I first ran across this typology in an essay entitledSsu chung nien-fo(Four types ofnien-fo) by the contemporary Taiwan-


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based Pure Land master Chih-y, where he sets it out as a set of techniquesfor his own disciples.16

2. Yn-chi Chu-hungs Deepening Realization

A second example of a master who saw Pure Land and nien-foas anunfolding or ascending path of practice is the Ming dynasty monk-re-former Yn-chi Chu-hung (15351615). One may find an extended state-ment of his vision of Pure Land practice in the first fascicle of his A-mi-toching shu chao(Subcommentary to the Commentary on the SmallerSukhvat-vyha-stra, Zoku zky33, pp. 326491).17

At the outset, Chu-hung states that he sees the purpose of practicingnien-fo(for which he also uses the terms cheng-ming[recite the name] andchih-ming [hold the name]) is to achieve the single, unperturbedmind (yi hsin pu luan) or the buddha-recitation samdhi, two terms heclearly holds to be synonyms (p. 334ab). He then makes a strong statementof what he feels the nature of the buddha and his Pure Land to be, and theway in which nien-foworks. Following the teachings of the second chapterof the Vimalakrti-stra, he states,

Now thoughts/contemplations/recitations (nien) are empty, andproduction enters into non-production [or, birth enters into non-

birth], and to nienthe buddha (nien-fo) is to nienthe mind. Birththere (i.e., in the Pure Land) does not mean leaving birth here (thepresent defiled world). Mind, buddha, and sentient beings formone body, the middle stream does not abide on [either of] the two

banks. Therefore, we say the Amitbha of ones own nature; thePure Land of mind-only (p. 334b1112).

Based on this, one might think that Chu-hung is espousing the position ofmind-only Pure Land, (wei-hsin ching-tu) a position that came later intopolemical opposition to a more literal reading of Pure Land cosmologycalled Western Direction Pure Land (hsi-fang ching-tu). Taking thiswith his earlier statement that one is to use nien-foto put an end to scatteredthoughts and achieve the single, unperturbed mind and a state ofsamdhi, one may well think that he was putting forward a path of practiceaimed at an lite audience of religious virtuosi.

However, he has also stated that he includes oral invocation under therubric nien-fo, indicating an easier level of practice. This apparent contra-diction resolves itself somewhat when he brings in the vocabulary ofprinciple (li) and phenomena (shih) at page 334a. In a subsequent sectionentitled Broadly demonstrating what chih-mingcovers, which begins atpage 335a10, he says that the one mind divides into two types, the onemind of principle (li yi hsin) and the one mind of phenomena (shih yi


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hsin). Here he clarifies that his use of the vocabulary of mind-only PureLand is to be understood as pointing to the one mind of principle, and infact represents only one end of a duality that must be interfused with theother end in order to achieve the highest wisdom. In fact, he does notapprove of those who one-sidedly claim that Amitbha is onlya manifes-tation of ones own nature, or that the Pure Land is onlythis world as seen

by a purified consciousness. At the level of the one mind of phenomena,Amitbha and his Pure Land are separate and distinct from the practitio-ner, existing countless buddha-lands off to the west. Only a truly enlight-ened being can see both of these truths at once.

The ordinary practitioner of the Pure Land path, alas, is stuck at a lowerlevel of realization, and here Chu-hung makes a crucial recommendation.Since unenlightened beings can only hold one end of the principle/phenomena dyad at a time, it is actually better to lean toward phenomenathan principle. He decries those who, based on crazy wisdom (kuanghui) assert a bland monism that collapses all distinctions and underminesreligious practice and achievement. Better, he says, to be an ignorantpeasant ardently reciting the buddhas name in hopes of rebirth in the PureLand than an educated monk with a little realization who thinks that he hasalready run the race and attained the vision of non-duality. At least thefoolish practitioner will recite the name continuously and keep the pre-cepts. They will achieve rebirth in the Pure Land (wang-sheng) and attaina purified body (ching-shen).18

In a later passage, Chu-hung goes on to list ten advantages of the PureLand path. While the first nine are general and serve a hortatory function,the tenth presents practical instructions for practice which Chu-hungrelates directly to the teachings of the Smaller Sukhvat-vyha stra. Afterpraising the superiority ofnien-foover all other gates of practice, Chu-

hung states that there are many gates to nien-foitself.19 When he lists thefour types, one finds that he uses Kui-feng Tsung-mis typology as givenabove, but in reverse order, and with the caveat that ordinary practitionerswill find Kui-fengs numbers two through four too difficult and dangerous.His final recommendation is that everyone begin with the easiest practice,that ofchih-mingor holding the name, as it is the simplest and thequickest. One cannot expect to begin to contemplate the true mark andgrasp the true mark. (p. 346b10). Just as nien-fois the shortcut amongshortcuts, so chih-ming nien-fois the shortcut among shortcuts withrespect to the varieties ofnien-fo. This is why both the Largerand SmallerSukhvat-vyha strastake the teaching ofchih fo ming hao(holding theBuddhas name) as their main import.20

Chn-fang Y, in reading this same commentary, discovered in thesecond fascicle other recommendations. For instance, depending upon thesituation, holding the name could indicate audible recitation of thename, silent contemplation of the name, or contemplation accompanied by


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barely-audible whispering of the name.21 She also notes that, further on inthe commentary, Chu-hung details two specific ways of performing nien-fo, or, more accurately, two different states of mind within which oneperforms the practice, that lead to the attainment of the one mind ofphenomena and the one mind of principle. The first, called phenom-enal holding of the name (shih chih-ming), consists of mental/oralinvocation of the name where one remains concentrated on the syllables ofthe name. This creates the one mind of phenomena, which means a mindcleared of defilements, calmed, and focused. It creates concentration, notwisdom, and so corresponds to the calming (chih) phase of the two-partchih-kuanmeditation. The second, called noumenal holding of the name(li chih-ming), moves the focus from the name to the mind that holds it,realizing the non-duality of practitioner and buddha. This leads to theattainment of wisdom in the one mind of principle that Chu-hung hadearlier identified with the higher attainment.22 However, as we have seenearlier, this was a dangerous practice, entailing the risk of becoming fixatedon principle and non-duality to the denigration of phenomenal reality.

While this represents nothing more than a very brief summary of a longand intricate argument in favor of Pure Land practice, we should notice atleast this much with regard to Chu-hungs thought: First, he clearlyrecognizes the superiority of Pure Land practice over all other types ofBuddhist cultivation.23 Second, while recognizing a variety of methods ofnien-fobased mainly on Tsung-mis typology, he turned Tsung-mis list onits head and asserted the superiority of the most basic form of practice, thatof holding the name. Third, he nevertheless maintained a graded hierar-chy of practice, even if he was less optimistic than Tsung-mi about thepossibility that beings in this life could progress past the first of the fourstages. Fourth, he built upon this multiplicity of methods subsumed underthe term nien-foand turned it into a complete system of practice that couldpotentially accomplish for all practitioners any Buddhist objective, fromrebirth in the Pure Land to the completion of the Six Perfections to therealization of the highest wisdom. Finally, he recognized several levels ofattainment that accrue from completion of the various stages: from rebirthin the Pure Land as a result of holding the name to the attainment ofsamdhiand the realization of the perfect interpenetration of principle andphenomena accompanying the arising of the single, undisturbed mind.

IV. WHEN NIEN-FOIS A SINGLE PRACTICE:CHI-HSING CHO-WU (17411810)

Not all Pure Land masters took the view ofnien-foas a graded path,and among these, we can take as an example another figure from the list ofPure Land patriarchs, the former Chan master Chi-hsing Cho-wu. He


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had abandoned the practice of Chan somewhere in mid-life, perhaps dueto illness or some other circumstance that led him to question the real

benefit of Chan enlightenment. While he practiced dual cultivation fora while, he came in the end to abandon Chan and advocate only thepractice ofnien-fo. Cho-wus literary remains are rather sparse, and so itis difficult to know whether we have access to the entire range of histhought, but within his Recorded Sayings,24 we can find only a single ideaof how one ought to nien-fo.

The practice began with several prerequisites. The practitioner neededto have generated bodhicitta, the altruistic resolve to attain enlightenmentfor the sake of all sentient beings. He or she also needed to generate faithin the Pure Land path, and a genuine aspiration to achieve rebirth in thePure Land.25 In addition, one needed four other minds: a sense of shameat past wrongdoing, joy at having learned of the Pure Land path, sorrow atthe weight of ones karmic obstructions, and gratitude to the buddha for

having taught this path.26 With these minds firmly set, one moved to thepractice ofnien-foitself.

Like Chu-hung, Cho-wu used the term chih-mingto indicate bothaudible recitation and silent internal contemplation of the name. Cho-wuspecifically recommended keeping Amitbhas name in ones mind at alltimes to purify it. Whereas Chu-hung used the image of a lion emergingfrom its den, whose roar silences all the other beasts to indicate the powerof the name held in mind,27 Cho-wu compared the name to a manigemwhich, when dropped into turbid water, clarifies it instantly. It is alsoimportant to note that Cho-wu only made use of the name, and eschewedvisualization of the buddhas form. Indeed, for him the two were equiva-lent. He argued that the buddha would not even merit the name buddhaif he were not already fully endowed with all the virtues, merits, and bodilyadornments of a buddha, and so the name could serve as a placeholder forthe full image, rendering complex and difficult visualization exercisesunnecessary.28 Thus, while he seemed indifferent as to whether ones nien-fowere audible or silent, he was quite clear that to nien-fomeant to holdthe name and nothing else.

Even though he constricted Tsung-mis and Chu-hungs typology ofnien-fofrom a four-stage graded path to this single practice, he still heldthat this one practice could lead to both this-worldly and post-mortem

benefits. That the practice led to rebirth in the Pure Land after death seemedobvious to him. But he also echoed Chu-hungs assertions that the veryprocess of performing nien-foled to a purification of the mind and attain-ment of wisdom. However, Chu-hung had separated holding the nameinto two aspects of phenomenon and principle, one leading to purificationand the other leading to wisdom. Cho-wu, on the other hand, predicated

both results on the one practice, and did not require his students tocontemplate their own state of mind and its non-duality with the buddha.


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Instead, he asserted that the non-duality was simply a given, and that thevery practice ofnien-focaused the practitioners innate buddha-wisdom tomanifest spontaneously, without the student necessarily realizing thatsuch a thing was happening.

This was because Cho-wu gave Amitbha Buddha a more active rolein the process. Chu-hung seemed to think that realization of non-dualityand manifestation of buddha-wisdom was the practitioners responsibil-ity. Cho-wu stated that, because in nien-foboth the buddha and thepractitioner hold each other in their gazes, the buddhas wisdom automati-cally became part of the practitioners purified mind, even if the practitio-ner was unaware of this happening:

Now if at this present moment, my mind is focused on Amitbha,the Western Region, and on seeking rebirth in the Pure Land ofutmost bliss, then at this very moment the proper and dependent[recompense] of the western region are within my mind, and mymind is within the proper and dependent [recompense] of thewestern region. They are like two mirrors exchanging light andmutually illuminating each other. This is the mark of horizontallypervading the ten directions. If it firmly exhausts the three marginsof time, then the very moment of contemplating the buddha is thevery moment of seeing the buddha and becoming the buddha. Thevery moment of seeking rebirth is the very moment of attainingrebirth and the very moment of liberating all beings. The threemargins of time are all a single, identical time; there is no beforeand after . . . . Awakening to this principle is most difficult; havingfaith in it is most easy.29

Thus, in Cho-wu we have an example of a master who saw nien-foas asingle practice, not a graded path or even a heterogeneous variety ofpractices, but a practice which nevertheless could fulfill all of the possiblegoals of Buddhist cultivation.30

V. WHEN NIEN-FOIS SUBORDINATED TO OTHER PRACTICES

Not all of those who recommended Pure Land practice to their follow-ers qualify to be called Pure Land masters. Others, particularly in the Chanschool, sometimes taught some form of Pure Land practice, but clearly asa subsidiary practice or within their own schools understanding of how itmight work. I am making this a different category than those who teachPure Land and nien-foas one path among many, because in this instanceone sometimes finds Pure Land denigrated as a last resort or redefined so


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as to eliminate it as competition, not as one respectable practice amongothers. Two examples of this kind of teaching will suffice.

V.A. Han-shan Te-ching (15461623), the late Ming-dynasty Buddhistreformer, was very clear in his own thought that Chan meditation wasmuch better than Pure Land practices, and he never hesitated to say so,even when speaking to gatherings of Pure Land devotees. Nevertheless, hedid not dismiss the practice outright; instead, he assigned it a place withinan overall scheme of practice that culminated in Chan. His various talksand writings have been anthologized in the collection known as Han-shanlao-jen meng-yu chi, or A Record of Elder Han-shans Dream Travels,from which the following is derived.31

In an essay entitled Instructing Laity to Form a nien-foSociety (Shihyu-po-sai jie nien-fo she), Han-shan begins by extolling the rich variety ofBuddhist practices, comparing it to the rain that falls on all plants alikewithout differentiation in itself. Plants, on the other hand, have differingcapacities, and so absorb only what they are able: grass absorbs what issuitable for grass, trees absorb what is suitable for trees. He then related thestory of ten laymen who came to him once to receive the five lay preceptsand some instruction in practice. He saw that they were sincere, but veryunenlightened and not capable of much realization, at least in the nearfuture. Thus, out of compassion, he instructed them in the Pure Land path,and directed them to perform oral invocation (cheng-ming) and repen-tance three times daily, and to meet once a month together. They were togenerate a genuine aspiration for rebirth in Sukhvat. Han-shan indicatesthat this is a low-level practice for beginners, but is a valid practicenonetheless. Since it will make their faith more steady and purify theirminds, how can it be false? However, he still clearly expected them tooutgrow the practice as soon as possible and move on to more productivemethods of cultivation.32

In another talk entitled Instructions in the Essentials ofnien-fo (Shihnien-fo chieh-yao),33 Han-shan gives a more theoretical treatment of thepractice ofnien-fo, in which the reasons for his low estimation of thepractice become apparent. The problem for him is not in the practice itself,

but in the fact that people use it as a stand-alone practice withoutcontextualizing it in an overall picture of Buddhist thought. Precisely

because people believe that the practice ofnien-fo, however conceived,works automatically without any further input on their part, they make nofurther progress on the path beyond what this bare practice has to offer.They must always remember, he says, that the great matter is to pen-etrate birth and death so as to liberate themselves from it. When practitio-ners fail even to acknowledge that they have this task, then nien-foin hopesof gaining rebirth in Sukhvat becomes just another form of clinging, andthus obstructs progress. Here is how he puts the matter:


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The practice ofnien-foseeking rebirth in the Pure Land wasoriginally aimed at penetrating the great matter of birth-and-death. That is why it was stated as, nien-foand penetrate birth-and-death. People of today generate the mind to penetrate birth-and-death, but they are only willing to nien-fo. [They think that by]merely saying buddha, they will penetrate birth-and-death. Ifone does not know the roots of birth-and-death, then in whatdirection can you nien? If the mind that engages in nien-focannotcut off the roots of birth-and-death, then how can it penetrate birth-and-death?34

In other words, the phrase nien-foand penetrate birth-and-death (nien-fo liao sheng-ssu) has been misconstrued at a basic, grammatical level.Whereas the original meaning was something like perform nien-foandthen go on to penetrate birth-and-death, contemporary practitioners haveinterpreted the phrase to mean perform nien-foby saying the wordbuddha and you will penetrate birth-and-death. This basic grammaticalmisreading, as well as the misunderstanding that nien-foentails nothingmore than oral recitation of the buddhas name, have led to a seriousdistortion of the practice and the results one may reasonably expectfrom it.

V.B. Hs-yn (1840?1959), the modern Chan master, was once pro-posed as a candidate for the title of thirteenth patriarch of the Pure Landschool, an honor that went instead to Yin-kuang. When one looks throughthe thoughts and speeches recorded in his Chronological autobiography(nien-pu), one can indeed find approving and instructive speeches aboutthe Pure Land gate. However, I wish to argue that, like Han-shan, Hs-ynwas not among those presenting Pure Land as one valid path among many,

because, like many Chan masters, he took the position of mind-only PureLand (wei-hsin ching-tu), and subsumed it within a Chan frameworkand assumed that it aimed toward Chan goals.

For example, in December 1952, he gave a dharma-talk before follow-ers of Yin-kuang on the occasion of the latters twelfth death-anniversary.In this speech, he charged those who chose the Pure Land path to keep totheir original vow, firm in their faith. The worst mistake that one can makein Buddhist practice, he said, is to jump from one method to anotherindiscriminately. Therefore, he praised Yin-kuangs unremitting devotionto the practice of reciting Amitbhas name and commended it to thoseassembled.

However, when Hs-yn brought Pure Land in for comparison withChan, he found no difference in the results to which both methods lead. Inthis extract, it becomes clear that Hs-yn saw nien-foand Chan hua-toupractice as equivalent:


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Chan and Pure Land seem to be two different methods as seen bybeginners, but are really one to experienced practitioners. The hua-tou [sic] technique in Chan meditation, which puts an end to thestream of birth and death, also requires a firm believing mind to beeffective. If the hua-tou is not firmly held, Chan practice will fail.If the believing mind is strong and if the hua-tou is firmly held, thepractitioner will be mindless of even eating and drinking and histraining will take effect; when sense-organs disengage from sensedata, his attainment will be similar to that achieved by a reciter ofthe Buddhas name when his training becomes effective and whenthe Pure Land manifests in front of him. In this state, noumenonand phenomenon intermingle, Mind and Buddha are not a dualityand both are in the state of suchness which is absolute and freefrom all contraries and relativities. Then what difference is there

between Chan and Pure Land?35

That final rhetorical question gets its obvious answer (i.e., there is nodifference) from the fact that Hs-yn describes nien-foas just anotherkind ofhua-tou practice. One sees here no indication whatsoever thatreciting the buddhas name could have any effect other than to produce aChan-style enlightenment experienceno rebirth in the Pure Land evenfor the simplest practitioners, none of Cho-wus ebullient confidence thatnien-foputs ones mind into resonance with Amitbhas and thus guaran-tees rebirth, only a phrase to which one holds on with firm faith until itdetaches one from the dusts of this world and leads one to realize thenonduality of principle and phenomenon. For Hs-yn, one penetrates theword Amitbha just as one penetrates Chao-chous wu.

These two Chan figures represent what some (Yin-kuang included)have considered the illegitimate colonizing of Pure Land by those of otherschools. This kind of praise for the Pure Land path is, for them, the morepernicious because it appears positive on the surface, but when one looksinto the substance behind the words of praise, one finds Pure Land practiceredefined so as to become indistinguishable from the methods of the Chanschool. Once this happens, then much that is special and distinctive aboutPure Land disappears, having been absorbed into the framework of itsrival. This represents, then, a form of teaching about nien-foin which thepractice becomes a gateway out of the Pure Land context and into otherunderstandings of Buddhist practice and attainment. For this reason I havecreated this special category for teachings ofnien-fo, and not simply placedthem as other examples ofnien-foas one practice among many, as insection II above.


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VI. WHEN NIEN-FOIS NOT FOR REBIRTH

As mentioned at the outset, Hori Ichir noted some thirty years agothat in Japan, the nembutsu became, at the level of folk religion, anincantation credited with the power to provide a variety of this-worldly

benefits in addition to assuring rebirth in the Pure Land after death.Ogasawara Sensh once noted a similar tendency in China since recenttimes to posit this-worldly benefits from nien-fo,36 but in fact the trend goes

back at least to Sung times. Daniel Getz has called attention to the fact thatwhen the Sung-dynasty Tien-tai reformer Ssu-ming Chih-li (9601028)organized his Pure Land society in the early eleventh century, one of thepurposes he envisioned for the societys practice was to extend theemperors longevity and contribute to the prosperity of the people.37 Inaddition, Getz reports that a layman who, having lost his sight, recited the

buddhas name 360,000 times, filling four printed charts, whereupon hiseyesight was restored.38 This story reminds one of the modern reformerYin-kuangs use ofnien-foto cure his conjunctivitis, as mentioned above.

All this is merely to call attention to the fact that not everyone whopracticed nien-foin China did so for the purpose of gaining rebirth in thePure Land, or to achieve the nien-fo san-mei, or the single, unperturbedmind, or to attain a vision of the buddha, or for any other specificallyBuddhist purpose. It appears to be easy for people to regard a short,mantra-like invocation as having magical power to grant wishes in this life.Not a profound point, granted, but one that needs mention in this catalogueofnien-fopractice.

I will finish by reporting on a text whose provenance I am still tryingto determine. Called Forty-eight Ways to nien-fo (Nien-fo ssu-shih-pafa) by one Cheng Wei-an, it has been reprinted many times in manyformats, both as an independent treatise and in anthologies of Pure Landtexts.39 It contains brief presentations of forty-eight different methods ofperforming nien-foand describes the situations in which one might wishto use each one.

Even though we have seen that there are many ways to nien-fo, this textdoes not give any method of mental contemplation or visualization. Eachtechnique is described as a way to chih-ming, to hold the name, and allseem to point to some form of oral invocation of Amitbhas name. To givea few examples: When one is sleepy or ones thoughts are scattered, thenone ought to recite the Buddhas name in a loud voice (p. 55). If one is tired,one may rest by reciting quietly for a time, restoring the buddha-chi(fo-chi) until one is again able to recite loudly (p. 55). If one is in a placeunsuitable for any audible practice, then one may try the vajra recitation,in which one moves only the lips, or the silent recitation in which onekeeps the mouth closed and moves only the tongue (p. 55). There are


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instructions for reciting the name in various other circumstances: whenwalking or sitting straight (p. 56), at fixed times of day (p. 57), before a

buddha-image (pp. 5758, in which case one faces the image and does notworry if one is not facing west, and also seeks nothing more than arespectful realization of ones nonduality with the buddha). There areother methods marked by certain moods or attitudes, such as extremerespect (p. 58), in grave misfortune (p. 59), or with utter sincerity (p. 59).Others are meant to accompany other Buddhist acts or liturgies, such asmaking offerings to buddhas or clergy (p. 61), or giving alms (p. 62). Someseem quasi-esoteric, such as the one called Holding the name in themidst of light (p. 63), in which one lets the sound of ones recitationrevolve around the space within the heart, visualizes the sound turninginto light, and then dwelling in the midst of this light, still reciting thename (or perhaps contemplating? The text reverts from the word chih-mingto nien-fohere).

And so the text proceeds, until at the end one finds ways to hold thename in dreams, in sickness, at the end of life, and finally, while makingvows and performing repentances (pp. 6971). It may appear at first thatthis text really belongs in another section of this paper, among those who

hold to many methods of performing nien-fowithout organizing them intoa graded path; this text does have that kind ofad hoc, medicine chestcharacter about it. However, I include it here, not because the methodsdescribed are not aimed at rebirth in the Pure Land, but because, assumingthis goal, it posits different methods ofnien-foor chih-mingfor their sideeffects. That is, within the assumption that the practitioner would like toachieve rebirth in the Land of Utmost Bliss, it seems to ask the question: aslong as you plan to perform nien-foanyway, why not vary the practice toachieve other, more immediate goals, such as arousing the mind, cheeringoneself up when feeling self-pity, or to return your parents kindness?

VII. CONCLUSIONS

At this early stage of the work, I am not sure what this brief paper hasaccomplished. It began with my noting the wide variety of methods of PureLand practice found throughout the long stream of Chinese Pure Landliterature, and wondering if there might be some way to organize them andunderstand them in terms of the technique presented, the goal it seeks toachieve, and the rationale by which the practitioner understands it to bringthat goal about.

Having made this first attempt at systematizing the profusion ofmethods that I found in this (admittedly incomplete) survey of the litera-ture, it seems clear that much refinement is necessary, both in terms ofdetermining categories to be used, and in the placement of various authors


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within these categories. Nevertheless, I find value in this attempt as a firstapproach to the task of looking more systematically at a practice that is tooeasily seen as simple and homogeneous and finding that, when authoritiesrecommend that their followers engage in the practice ofnien-fo, they mayin fact have very different ideas about what this means. Here I have onlyasked the single question of how nien-forelates to other practices, or, incases where nien-foitself takes different forms, how these forms relate toeach other. Many other analytic questions could be raised, as indicated in theopening, and I hope to continue pursuing this line of investigation until I havea clearer idea of what, exactly, one does when one practices nien-fo.


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NOTES

1. This is the gist of the section on Pure Land in China as presented inKenneth Chen, Buddhism in China: A Historical Survey(Princeton, New

Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 338350. This work is stillused as a textbook in many classes on East Asian Buddhism.

2. An anecdote: When I first presented this paper at the 2000 AnnualMeeting of the AAS, a colleague noted that these stereotypes were at leasttwenty years out of date, and perhaps needed no further belaboring. Later

that same day, however, these very views were articulated by anothercolleague whose research was in Chinese religion, but not Buddhism.Evidently, specialists in Pure Land studies need to work harder to commu-nicate advances in the field to others.

3. See, for example, Daniel A. Getz, Jr., Tien-tai Pure Land Societies andthe Creation of the Pure Land Patriarchate, in Buddhism in the Sung, ed.Peter N. Gregory and Daniel A. Getz, Jr. (Honolulu: University of HawaiiPress, 1999), p.477; and Robert H. Sharf, On Chan-Pure Land Syncretismin Medieval China, a paper presented at the Third Chung-hwa Interna-

tional Conference on Buddhism, Taipei, Taiwan, July 1997, pp. 23.4. Daniel. Getz, Siming Zhili and Tiantai Pure Land in the Sung Dynasty(Ph.D. diss. Yale University, 1994), which examines the founding of PureLand societies by Tien-tai figures, and Kenneth K. Tanaka, The Dawn ofChinese Pure Land Buddhist Doctrine: Chingying Hui-yans Commen-tary on the Visualization Stra (Albany, New York: State University ofNew York Press, 1990), which looked at the Pure Land writings of a figurenot normally thought of as a member of the school and whose workcovered many other facets of Buddhist thought and practice as well.

5. See, for instance, Richard K. Payne, The Five Contemplative Gates ofVasubandhus Rebirth Treatiseas a Ritualized Visualization Practice,David Chappell, The Formation of the Pure Land Movement in China:Tao-cho and Shan-tao, and Roger J. Corless, Tan-luan: the First System-atizer of Pure Land Buddhism, all in The Pure Land Tradition: Historyand Development, ed. James Foard, Michael Solomon, and Richard Payne(Berkeley, California: Berkeley Buddhist Studies Series, 1996), as well asChn-fang Y, The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late

Ming Synthesis(New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), particularlychapter three.

6. Hori Ichir, Folk Religion in Japan: Continuity and Change, ed. JosephM. Kitagawa and Alan L. Miller (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1968), pp. 83139.


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7. As an aside, one may also note the similarity between this Buddhistpractice and Taoist practices of the period, also aimed at visiting deities andreceiving teachings.

8. Daniel B. Stevenson, The Four Kinds ofsamdhiin Early Tien-taiBuddhism, in Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, ed. Peter N.Gregory (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986), pp. 4598.

9. For an Engish translation of this stra, see Paul Harrison, trans., ThePratyutpanna Samdhi Stra, BDK English Tripitaka 25II (Berkeley:Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1998).

10. Yin-kuang, Yin-kuang ta-shih chan chi(The Complete Works of GreatMaster Yin-kuang), rev. and expanded, ed. Shih Kuang-ting, 7 vols. (Taipei:Fo-chiao Shu-ch, 1991).

11. Yin-kuang ta-shih chan chi, vol. 7, pp. 47172.

12. Yin-kuang ta-shih chan chi, vol. 1, pp. 3943.

13. Shih Chien-cheng, Yin-kuang ta-shih te sheng-ping y ssu-hsiang(TheLife and Thought of the Great Master Yin-kuang), (Taipei: Tung-chuPublishing Co., 1989), p. 20. He recommended nien-foto others to cureillnesses; see his letter to a certain layman in Yin-kuang ta-shih chanchi, vol. 1, pp. 32728.

14. The following four types ofnien-foare outlined in Mochizuki Shink,Chgoku jdokyri shi(A History of Chinese Pure Land Thought), (Kyoto:Hzkan, 1942), pp. 309311. The title is a variant of that given in Peter N.Gregory, Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1991), p. 319, and I have to assume they are talking aboutthe same work. The reference in the Zoku zkyis also different, as Iconsulted the Hsin Wen Feng edition published in Taipei.

15. Mochizuki, Chgoku jdokyri shi, p. 311.

16. Chih-y, Ssu chung nien-fo (Four Kinds ofnien-fo), in Chih-pan lienchao, vol. 2 (San-hsia: Hsi-lien Ching-yan, 1986), pp. 7180.

17. Again, the volume and page numbers refer to the Hsin Wen Fengreprint edition printed in Taipei.

18. Zoku zky33, pp. 35b1336a10.

19. Ibid., pp. 346a13-14 (commentary), 346b4ff (subcommentary).

20. Ibid., p. 347a7-16.

21. Y, p. 59. Y cites the edition of Chu-hungs commentary found in theanthology Lien-chih ta-shih fa-hui(The Dharma-words of Great MasterLien-chih [i.e., Chu-hung]), and so I have not yet been able to correlate itwith the Zoku zkyversion.

22. Y, pp. 5960.


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23. Chu-hungs denigration of efforts at self-cultivation that led to pride in onesaccomplishments explains why later, the Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku (16851768)vehemently objected to recognizing him as a Zen master as well as a Pure Landthinker. See Hakuins critique in Philip Yampolsky, ed. and trans, The Zen MasterHakuin(New York: Columbia University Press, 1971), pp. 147148.

24. Chi-hsing Cho-wu, Cho-wu chan-shih y-lu (The Recorded Sayingsof Chan Master Cho-wu), Zoku zky109, pp. 750790.

25. Zoku zky109, p. 757b916.

26. Ibid., p. 772b58.

27. Zoku zky33, p. 334a1517.

28. Zoku zky109, pp. 762b5, 767b7.29. Ibid., p. 756a39.

30. For more information on Chi-hsing Cho-wu, see Charles B. Jones,Mentally Constructing What Already Exists: The Pure Land Thought ofChan Master Jixing Chewu (17411810), Journal of the InternationalSociety of Buddhist Studies23-1 (2000), pp. 4370.

31. Han-shan Te-ching, Han-shan lao-jen meng-yu chi(Record of ElderHan-shans Dream Travels), ed. Tung-chiung, 4 vols (Chiang-pei: Chiang-

pei ko ching chu, 1879; Rpt., Taipei: Hsin Wen Feng, 1992). In subsequentnotes, this will be abbreviated as Meng-yu chi.

32. Meng-yu chi1, pp. 107110.

33. Ibid., pp. 336340.

34. Ibid., pp. 336337.

35. Hs-yn, Empty Cloud: the Autobiograhy of the Chinese Zen MasterHs-yn, trans. Charles Luk; rev. and ed. Richard Hunn (Longmead:Element Books, 1988), pp. 15354.

36. Ogasawara Sensh, Chgoku kindai jdoky no ichi ksatsu (Aninquiry into the modern Chinese Pure Land school), Rykoku shidan34(1951), p. 12.

37. Getz, Tien-tai Pure Land Societies and the Creation of the Pure LandPatriarchate, pp. 494495.

38. Ibid., p. 501.

39. My copy of the text is found in Cheng Wei-an, Nien-fo ssu-shih-pa fa(Forty-eight Ways to nien-fo), in Ching-tsuo yao-cheh y nien-fo fa-yao

(Essential instructions for meditation and an outline ofnien-fo), ed. YanLiao-fan and Mao Ling-yn (Taipei: Chang-chun shu), pp. 5471. Toavoid a profusion of footnotes, page numbers will be given in the text of thisarticle, all referring to this edition.

Documents

Toward a Typology of Nien-Fo