Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings Read Online Free PDF Page A

north.
    Central to the Bodhidharma legend is his interview with Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty. 4 Their meeting is iconic—a definitive event that reflects early Zen’s portrayal of itself as outside the Buddhist religious establishment. Later descriptions of the meeting, such as the first case of the Blue Cliff Record , provide little background of the circumstances of each of these historic figures. For this reason, the underlying significance of their meeting may not be apparent to audiences removed from their time. Some background information, therefore, may be helpful.
    As mentioned in the introduction, an early record of Bodhidharma’s life thought by scholars to be relatively reliable is a text entitled the Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks , authored by a famous monk who was not of the Zen school named Dao Xuan (596–667). The biography Dao Xuan wrote about Bodhidharma, authored around the year 650, more than a century after Bodhidharma lived, is regarded as relatively impartial and more reliable than later accounts that glorified Bodhidharma’s life.
    The Continued Biographies introduces Bodhidharma as follows:
BODHIDHARMA: A Brahman from Southern India. His spiritual wisdom was expansive. All who heard him became enlightened. He was devoted to the Mahayana practice of the profound solitary mind. He attained high comprehension of all aspects of samadhi. 5 Through compassion for this place [China] he taught the Yogacara [teachings]. 6 He first arrived in South China during the Liu-Song dynasty [before 489 C.E.]. At the end of his life he again traveled to live under the Wei [the dynasty that ruled North China]. Whereever he went he taught Chan . . .
     
    In various places in the Continued Biographies Dao Xuan offers evidence that Bodhidharma avoided contact with China’s emperors. Dao Xuan says that Bodhidharma’s followers were numerous “like a city,” but emperors were unable to attract him to give lectures at their court. Historical evidence appears to support Dao Xuan’s statements that Bodhidharma avoided China’s imperial courts. While other missionary monks from India sought imperial patronage, there is no evidence that Bodhidharma did so. During the time Bodhidharma was in China the country was divided between two competing dynasties. The Wei dynasty ruled in the north of the country, while a succession of dynasties, including the Song, Qi, and Liang, ruled in the south. The emperors of these kingdoms were avowedly Buddhist, spending great sums to support the religion. In a country where winters are freezing cold, the need for support to build Buddhist monasteries was an overriding concern for the religion. Yet there is no evidence that Bodhidharma sought support from emperors or high court officials for this or any other purpose. Instead, the Continued Biographies indicates Bodhidharma spent much time teaching and practicing among “peaks and caves.” 7
    In contrast to Bodhidharma’s mendicant life away from the centers of China’s religious establishment, there is the story of Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty, a figure of key historical and religious importance not just in China but for all of East Asia. Emperor Wu gained power after leading a rebellion against a vicious and incompetent Qi dynasty emperor who was guilty of murder and mayhem.
    According to Chinese Buddhist tradition, shortly after gaining power Emperor Wu embraced Buddhism partly because his wife, who had recently died, appeared to him in a dream in the body of a large snake. From the dream she explained that she had undergone rebirth in a snake’s body because of her sins during her life. She begged the emperor to help her escape her fate by appealing to the Buddha for help on her behalf. Emperor Wu ordered the creation and observance of a ceremony to try and save his wife. But not stopping there, he also devised a ceremony called the “Water and Land Liberation Ceremony” that appealed to beings in the upper realms of