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The Hongzhou school () was a Chinese school of Chán of the Tang period (618–907), which started with Mazu Daoyi and included key figures Dazhu Huihai, Baizhang Huaihai, his student Huangbo Xiyun, Nanquan Puyuan and his student Zhaozhou Congshen.
The name Hongzhou refers to the Tang dynasty province that was located in the northern part of present-day Jiangxi (the area around Nanchang). Mazu taught here during his last years and some of his disciples also taught in this region.
During the Song dynasty (960–1279), many texts were written which constructed encounter dialogues that included Hongzhou school masters as the main characters. These texts present them as iconoclastic and antinomian figures. However, modern scholars do not consider these later Song sources as reliable depictions of these historical figures.
In the latter half of his life, Mazu moved to Hongzhou (present day north Jiangxi), where he began taking students. First he resided on Gonggong mountain, and then he settled in Nanchang state-sponsored Kaiyuan monastery (today known as Youmin Temple) in Hongzhou (present day north Jiangxi). During his two decade period at this monastery, Mazu's fame spread and he attracted many disciples from throughout the empire.
According to Poceski, "Mazu had the largest number of close disciples (rushi dizi 入室弟子, literally, “disciples who entered the room”) among Chan teachers from the Tang period." Some students of Mazu include: Nanquan, Fenzhou Wuye (761–823), Guizong Zhichang (dates unknown), Xingshan Weikuan (755–817), Zhangjing Huaihui (756–815), Danxia Tianran (739–824), Dongsi Ruhui (744–823), Tianhuang Daowu (748–807), and Furong Taiyu (747–826).
Poceski also notes that Mazu's disciples "come across as monks at home in their dealings with powerful officials. They appear conversant with Buddhist texts, doctrines, and practices, and proficient at preaching to monks and literati alike."
Later tradition attributes to Bhaizang the creation of a unique kind of Chan monasticism and the authorship of an early set of rules for Chan monastics, the Pure Rules of Baizhang (), but there is no historical evidence for this. Indeed, according to Poceski "his traditional image as a patron saint of “Chan monasticism” is not in any meaningful way related to him as a historical person. Baizhang did not institute a novel system of Chan monastic rules that was institutionally disengaged from the mainstream tradition of Tang monasticism."
Later Song dynasty texts also attempt to make Baizhang the main "orthodox" recipient of Mazu's lineage. This is a later genealogical construct by Song authors, Mazu did not have one single "orthodox" disciple, but many different disciples who spread his teachings throughout China.
A major center of the Hongzhou tradition was at Mountain Lu, where the leading disciple Guizong Zhichang (dates unknown) and Fazang (dates unknown) built the first Chan communities on the mountain, like Guizong temple, which was visited by the poet Li Bai. Other disciples who formed communities of their own in Jiangxi include Shigong Huizang (dates unknown), Nanyuan Daoming (dates unknown), and Yangqi Zhenshu (d. 820).
Huaihui and Weikuan are known for having established the Hongzhou school in the imperial capital of Chang'an. Weikuan was even invited by Emperor Xianzong to preach at the imperial court in 809 and he remained in the capital's Xingshan monastery until the end of his life, becoming a central figure of the imperial capital's religious life. He was also the teacher of the poet Bai Juyi.
Regarding the old capital of Luoyang, the best known disciple of Mazu who taught here was Foguang Ruman (752–842?). He was also a teacher of the poet Bai Juyi.
Outside of Jiangxi, Yaoshan, Ruhui, Tanzang (758–827), Deng Yinfeng (dates unknown), and Zhaoti Huilang (738–820) all formed communities in Hunan, while Yanguan, Dazhu Huihai, and Damei Fachang formed communities in Zhejiang. Regarding the northern provinces, Shaanxi and Shanxi received disciples such as Wuye, Zhixian, and Magu Baoche (dates unknown).
The Hongzhou school superseded the older Chan schools and established themselves as their official successor, the inclusive defender of Tang Chan orthodoxy which avoided the antinomianism of Baotang and the sectarianism of Shenhui's Southern school. While individual teachers like Shitou Xiqian and Guifeng Zongmi did present alternative traditions, they never rivaled the Hongzhou tradition, which remained the normative form of Chan for the rest of the Tang and beyond.
Mazu's students were also influential during the spread of Chan to Korea during the pivotal period of the first half of the ninth century. During this period, almost all Korean Korean Seon monks who participated in the transmission of Chan to Korea were students of Mazu's disciples. These figures founded seven out of the Korean “nine mountain schools of Sŏn” (kusan sŏnmun).
As Poceski writes,
By the latter Tang dynasty, the Hongzhou school's was supplanted by various distinct regional traditions (the "five houses") that arose during the instability of the late Tang and the Five Dynasties eras. The first of these was the Guiyang school of Guishan Lingyou and his disciple Yangshan, but this tradition did not survive the fall of the Tang.
Poceski also highlights the importance of buddha-nature for the Hongzhou school, though he also writes that "overall there is a disposition to avoid imputing explicit ontological status to the Buddha-nature...this is accompanied by a Madhyamaka-like stress on nonattachment and elimination of one-sided views—especially evident in Baizhang's record—that are based on the notion that ultimate reality cannot be predicated."
He also argues that the Hongzhou school's doctrinal approach was an eclectic approach that drew on diverse sources, including Madhyamaka, Yogachara, the Huayan school's philosophy as well as Daozang.
Furthermore, their use of sources was "accompanied by an aversion to dogmatic assertions of indelible truths and an awareness of the provisional nature of conceptual constructs." Thus, while the Hongzhou school made use of various teachings, they were not to be seen as a fixed theory, since ultimate truth is indescribable and beyond words.
Mazu's citation of various sutras indicate that his teaching drew from Mahayana sources like the Laṅkāvatāra sutra's mind-only teaching (Yogachara - cittamatra). Other teachings of Mazu and Baizhang also quote or paraphrase other Mahayana sutras, like the Vimalakirti sutra and Prajnaparamita scriptures. According to Poceski, "rather than repudiating the scriptures or rejecting their authority, the records of Mazu and his disciples are full of quotations and allusions to a range of canonical texts." Poceski also notes that in Baizhang's record one can find numerous scriptural citations, including "obscure references and the use of a technical vocabulary that point to a mastery of canonical texts and doctrines." However, even while they retained the use of scripture and demonstrated a mastery of the canon, the Hongzhou sources also demonstrate that these Chan teachers had the ability to express the insights of Mahayana in a new way.
Regarding the reading of scriptures and studying doctrines, Baizhang says:
Awakening is the sudden letting go of all deluded thoughts, it is a mind that does not abide or cling to anything. Dazhu Huihai defines the "non-abiding mind" ( wuzhu xin) as follows:
Similarly, Huangbo writes that "if students of the Way wish to attain Buddhahood, they need not study all Buddhadharmas. They only need to study “non-seeking” and “non-attachment” ... Just transcend all afflictions, and then there is no Dharma that can be obtained."
The Hongzhou school, like many Mahayana traditions, held that all things are permeated and encompassed by an ultimate reality which complete and perfect, and is variously termed the “One Mind”, "original mind", "truth" or “Suchness”.
A key element of the Hongzhou's school's practice instructions was to let go of conceptual thoughts, which are always dualistic. The state which has let go of all views, concerns, and thoughts is called no-mind (wuxin) and was promoted by masters like Huangbo. Mazu states:
This view led to what Poceski terms "the determined refusal on the part of Mazu and his disciples to commit to a narrow doctrinal perspective." Mazu's school generally understood ultimate reality to be “inconceivable” (buke siyi), as "transcending conceptual constructs and verbal expressions." They thus stressed the need to avoid the reification of and attachment to religious texts, doctrines, practices, and experiences. Becoming attached to these turned them into obstacles to awakening instead of useful methods. Because of this, authors like Baizhang held that the truth of a doctrine was dependent on its power to lead to spiritual awakening.
Thus, according to Baizhang "true words cure sickness. If the cure manages to bring about healing, then all are true words. On if they cannot effectively cure sickness, all are false words. True words are false words, insofar as they give rise to views. False words are true words, insofar as they cut off the delusions of sentient beings." Ultimately, figures like Dazhu held that eventually one needs to abandon all words and teachings: "words are used to reveal the ultimate meaning, but when the meaning is realized, words are discarded."
The basic idea of the mind being buddha is that there is a true buddha mind or "a substratum of pure awareness" (as Poceski puts it) within all sentient beings, but this is obscured by passing defilements. As Mazu states (echoing the Awakening of Faith):
One source text of Mazu's teaching states:
Mazu and his students were careful to indicate that this teaching should not be reified as a kind of self (atman) or an unchanging essence. In other passages, Mazu states that he teaches mind is Buddha to "stop the crying of children" and that later he teaches them "it is neither mind nor Buddha" (feixin feifo) and that "it is not a thing" (bushi wu). Poceski notes that in this context the "mind is Buddha" teaching serves as an introductory teaching meant to inspire confidence, which later might even be negated as one progresses in one's training. Likewise, Baizhang argues that all such teaching statements are provisional and must ultimately be given up. What's more, Baizhang says, "If you say the immediate mirror awareness is correct, or that there is something else beyond the mirror awareness, this is all delusion"Sayings and Doings of Pai-chang, translated by Thomas Cleary, page 33, Center Publications, 1978 and, "Do not remain in your immediate mirror awareness, but do not seek enlightenment elsewhere."Sayings and Doings of Pai-chang, translated by Thomas Cleary, page 63, Center Publications, 1978
The phrase also appears in the Chao-chou Ch'an-shih Yu-Lu in which Zhaozhou Congshen (J. Jōshū Jūshin) (778–897) asks his teacher Nánquán Pǔyuàn (J: Nansen Fugan) (748–835) "What is the Way (Tao )?", to which Nánquán responds "Ordinary mind is the way."The Recorded Sayings of Zen Master Joshu, translated and introduced by James Green, page 11, Shambhala Publications, 2001 The full exchange is as follows:
According to Jia, while Mazu was influenced by the Huayan doctrine of nature-origination, which holds that all phenomena are manifestations of buddha-nature, his stance that buddha-nature manifests in function was nonetheless different:
The Hongzhou school was criticized for their apparent equation of ordinary mind and Buddha-nature. Guifeng Zongmi stated that "they fail to distinguish between ignorance and enlightenment, the inverted and the upright," arguing that Hongzhou Chan's mistake was rooted in its teaching that greed, hatred and delusion, good and evil, happiness or suffering are all Buddha-nature. Nanyang Huizhong stated that “the southern wrongly taught deluded mind as true mind, taking thief as son, and regarding mundane wisdom as Buddha wisdom.”
McRae presents an alternative viewpoint to both Jia and Poceski, although he does say that "in some ways Jia's treatment of the Mazu maxim 'ordinary mind is the way' is better than Poceski's." Following Ogawa Takashi, he says "ordinary mind" is neither a capacious container of enlightened and unenlightened mentalities (as Jia understands it) nor a pure mind divorced from all defilements (as Poceski understands it). Instead, ordinary mind is "the fundamental capability of cognition, the bare working of the human mind" which is functioning all the time, perfectly and automatically, as "primordial cognitive capacity."
Mazu also stated that the Buddha-nature or the Original Mind is already pure, without the need for cultivation and hence he stated that “the Way needs no cultivation”. This was because according to Mazu:
This view was also criticized by Zongmi because he believed it “betrayed the gate of gradual cultivation.”
For Mazu, Buddha nature was actualized in everyday human life and its actions. As noted by Jinhua Jia "the ultimate realm of enlightenment manifests itself everywhere in human life, and Buddha-nature functions in every aspect of daily experiences". Thus, Mazu argued:
Poceski's position is that while certain critiques of gradual methods are found, they generally center on critiques of mechanical cultivation as well as reification of and attachment to specific methods or skillful means. They do not outright reject spiritual cultivation per se.Poceski 2007, pp. 199-202.
On the other hand, according to Jia, the Hongzhou view is that:
According to Faure, the absence of such practices as the "one-practice samādhi" (yixing sanmei) in the Hongzhou school indicates an "epistemological split" between early and classical Chan.Bernard Faure, The Will to Orthodoxy: A Critical Genealogy of Northern Chan Buddhism, page 69, Stanford University Press, 1997 Also, Jinhua Jia observes that according to two Korean stele inscriptions, the Silla monk Toūi (d. 825) brought back to Korea the Hongzhou doctrines of “following one’s destiny freely and acting nothing” and “no-cultivation and no-certification,” and that these were strongly rejected by the earlier Korean scholastic schools.
Jia also points out how Mazu's attitude toward the doctrine of original enlightenment differs from that of the Awakening of Faith in which original enlightenment (benjue) is situated among two other terms, "non-enlightenment" (bujue) and "actualized enlightenment" (shijue), and the three together form a cycle of religious practice. She says Mazu simplifies this cycle by emphasizing only original enlightenment. Thus, for Mazu, one can discover that which "originally existed and exists at present" without any need for religious practice. However, Jia admits that while Mazu and his disciples theoretically rejected religious practice and cultivation, "Liturgically and practically, it is doubtful that the daily practices of traditional monastic life did not continue in Chan communities."
For Mazu, the Way is beyond both cultivating and not cultivating. He says:
Likewise, the Dunwu rudao yaomen lun, attributed to Mazu's immediate disciple Dazhu Huihai, taught going beyond both deeds and no deeds. It says, "You must just avoid letting your minds dwell upon anything whatsoever, which implies (being unconcerned about) either deeds or no deeds—that is what we call 'receiving a prediction of Buddhahood'."Ch'an Master Hui Hai, The Zen Teaching of Instantaneous Awakening, translated by John Blofeld, page 104, Buddhist Publishing Group, 2007 In a similar fashion, Baizhang says that to cling to non-seeking and non-doing is no different from seeking and doing. He says, "A Buddha is one who does not seek; seek this and you turn away. The principle is the principle of nonseeking; seek it and you lose it. If you cling to nonseeking, this is still the same as seeking; if you cling to nondoing, this is the same again as doing."Sayings and Doings of Pai-chang, translated by Thomas Cleary, page 80, Center Publications, 1978
In a negative statement regarding practice, Dazhu Huihai says:
"Using the mind for practices is like washing dirty things in sticky mud. Prajna is mysterious and wonderful. Itself unbegotten, its mighty functioning is at our service regardless of times and seasons."Ch'an Master Hui Hai, The Zen Teaching of Instantaneous Awakening, translated by John Blofeld, pages 132-133, Buddhist Publishing Group, 2007
On the other hand, Baizhang's record criticizes the view that since one is Buddha one does not need to practice:
To attach to original purity and original liberation, to consider oneself to be a Buddha, to be someone who understands Chan without, that belongs to the way of those heretics who deny and hold that things happen spontaneously.Poceski 2007, p. 203.Regarding their discussions of monastic training and spiritual cultivation, some gradual training elements can be found in the sources of the Hongzhou school. In one example, Baizhang used the simile of washing a dirty robe to explain how one should study. Similarly, Mazu urges the keeping of pure precepts and the accumulation of wholesome karma, and Da'an's record uses the Ten Bulls as a way to explain gradual progress on the path.Poceski 2007, pp. 203-205. According to Poceski, "a central theme in Baizhang guanglu is Chan practitioners' progression along stages that constitute a path of practice."Poceski 2007, p. 207.
These three progressive stages are explained through the "three propositions":Poceski 2007, p. 207-209.
Jinhua Jia points out that while some of the themes of the Baizhang guanglu are in accord with Mazu's ideas, Baizhang's "three propositions" involve an apophasis that differs from the more kataphatic stance of Mazu's sermons and is not found in Zongmi's account of Hongzhou doctrine. According to Jia, apophatic statements begin to appear in controversies over Hongzhou doctrine in the late Tang dynasty, with Mazu's second-generation disciples. Thus, Jia's position is that while the Baizhang guanglu may have been based on an original discourse text complied by Baizhang's disciples, it was also supplemented with the ideas of Baizhang's successors.
Thus, the Hongzhou school was not a static entity, but underwent doctrinal changes from one generation to the next. For example, Jia also observes that while Mazu's second-generation disciple (and Baizhang's immediate disciple) Huangbo Xiyun maintained Mazu's "this Mind is the Buddha," he changed Mazu's "ordinary mind is the Way" to "no-mind is the Way" in response to criticism that the Hongzhou school regarded the deluded mind as the true mind.
One such passage by Mazu states:
If one comprehends the mind and objects, then false thinking is not created again. When there is no more false thinking, that is acceptance of the non-arising of all dharmas. Originally it exists and it is present now, irrespective of cultivation of the Way and sitting in meditation. Not cultivating and not sitting is the Tathāgata's pure meditation.Some scholars, like Yanagida Seizan think that this passage shows Mazu rejected formal sitting meditation.Mario Poceski, Ordinary Mind as the Way: The Hongzhou School and the Growth of Chan Buddhism, page 136, Oxford University Press, 2007 Luis Gómez also observes that a number of texts exist in the literature which "suggest that some schools of early Ch’an rejected outright the practice of sitting in meditation,"Luis Gómez, Sudden and Gradual Approaches to Enlightenment in Chinese Thought, edited by Peter Gregory, page 79, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1987, 1991 although he believes that the conclusion that the Southern School rejected seated meditation outright is mistaken and "has been repeatedly and justly criticized."Luis Gómez, Sudden and Gradual Approaches to Enlightenment in Chinese Thought, edited by Peter Gregory, page 83, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1987, 1991
According to Poceski, "the passage simply asserts that the originally existing Buddha-nature does not depend on the practice of meditation or any other spiritual exercise—in itself, little more than a sound doctrinal statement. Mazu's position is echoed in canonical texts, most notably the Vimalakīrti." As such, Poceski argues that this passage is best read "as a warning against misguided contemplative practice and advice about the proper approach to spiritual cultivation."Poceski 2007, p. 137.
Poceski writes that "this interpretation is reinforced by Guishan jingce, which indicates that the monks at Guishan's monastery (and presumably monks at other monasteries associated with the Hongzhou school) engaged in a regimen of traditional monastic practices, of which meditation was an integral part." Poceski also points to Dayi's Zuochan ming ( Inscription on Sitting Meditation) which he says, "presents the practice in fairly conventional terms." However, as McRae points out, the Zuochan ming is only found in a Ming dynasty dynasty collection, even though Poceski introduces it as though it might be an early work.
According to Poceski, the lack of attention to meditation in Hongzhou sources is likely to be because their meditation methods were "not that different from those of other contemplative traditions, such as early Chan and Tiantai" though this does not mean they did not interpret them in a unique way according to their own teachings. However, Poceski admits, "We do not have enough evidence to judge the extent to which Mazu and his followers practiced sitting meditation (zuochan)".
One story depicts Mazu practicing sitting meditation (dhyana, chan) but being chided by his teacher Nanyue Huairang, who compared sitting in meditation in order to become a buddha with polishing a tile to make a mirror. According to Faure, this story is critiquing "the idea of 'becoming a Buddha' by means of any practice, lowered to the standing of a 'means' to achieve an 'end'."
Guifeng Zongmi (圭峰 宗密) (780–841), an influential teacher-scholar and patriarch of both the Chán and the Huayan school claimed that the Hung-chou tradition believed "everything as altogether true". Zongmi writes:
Hongzhou school teaches that the arising of mental activity, the movement of thought, snapping the fingers, or moving the eyes, all actions and activities are the functioning of the entire essence of the Buddha-nature. Since there is no other kind of functioning, greed, anger, and folly, the performance of good and bad actions, and the experiencing of their pleasurable and painful consequences are all, in their entirety, Buddha-nature.Poceski 2007, p. 171.According to Zongmi, the Hongzhou school teaching led to a radical non-dualistic view that believed that all actions, good or bad, are expressing Buddha-nature, and therefore denies the need for spiritual cultivation and moral discipline (Buddhist ethics). Zongmi's interpretation of the Hongzhou doctrine would be a dangerously Antinomianism view, as it eliminates all moral distinctions and validates any actions (including unethical ones) as expressions of the essence of Buddha-nature.Poceski 2007, p. 172.
While Zongmi acknowledged that the essence of Buddha-nature and its functioning in the day-to-day reality are but difference aspects of the same reality, he insisted that there is a difference. To avoid the dualism he saw in the Northern Line and the radical nondualism and antinomianism of the Hongzhou school, Zongmi's paradigm preserved "an ethically critical duality within a larger ontological unity", an ontology which he claimed was lacking in Hongzhou Chan.
According to Mario Poceski, traditional accounts that rely on Song dynasty sources like the Jingde chuandeng lu ( Jingde Era Record of the Transmission of the Lamp; c. 1004) depict the Hongzhou school as a revolutionary and iconoclastic group that rejected tradition and embraced antinomian practices. In Song texts "we find portrayals of Mazu and his disciples as iconoclasts par excellence, who transgress established norms and subvert received traditions. An example of such radical representations is the story about Mazu's disciple Nanquan (748–834) killing a cat."Poceski 2007, p. 9.
During the Song dynasty, the "yü-lü" ("record") genre developed, the recorded sayings of the masters, and the encounter dialogues. The best-known example is the Lin-ji yü-lü. It is part of the Ssu-chia yü lu (Jp. Shike Goruku, The Collection of the Four Houses), which contains the recorded sayings of Mazu Daoyi, Baizhang Huaihai, Huangbo Xiyun and Linji Yixuan. These recorded sayings are well-edited texts, written down up to 160 years after the supposed sayings and meetings.
Some apocryphal “encounter dialogue” (ch: jiyuan wenda, jp: kien mondō) stories depict the Hongzhou school making use of "shock techniques such as shouting, beating, and using irrational retorts to startle their students into realization".Poceski 2007, p. 10. The "shock techniques" found in many of these apocryphal stories became part of the traditional and still popular image of Chan masters displaying irrational and strange behaviour to help their students achieve enlightenment. Part of this image was due to later misinterpretations and translation errors, such as the loud belly shout known as katsu. In Chinese "katsu" means "to shout", which has traditionally been translated as "yelled 'katsu'" - which should mean "yelled a yell"See James D. Sellmann & Hans Julius Schneider (2003), Liberating Language in Linji and Wittgenstein. Asian Philosophy, Vol. 13, Nos. 2/3, 2003. Notes 26 and 41
Earlier scholars like D. T. Suzuki and Hu Shih relied on these sources and saw the Hongzhou school as a radical departure from traditional Buddhism. According to modern scholars like McRae, this idea of a "golden age" of iconoclastic and radical Chan masters was mainly a romantic invention of later Song Buddhists:
Mario Poceski writes:Poceski 2007, pp. 10-11.an unreflective reliance on the Song texts—especially the iconoclastic stories contained in them—is problematic because we cannot trace any of the encounter dialogues back to the Tang period. No source from the Tang period indicates that there was even an awareness of the existence of the encounter‐dialogue format, let alone that it was the main medium of instruction employed in Chan circles. The radicalized images of Mazu, Nanquan, and other Chan teachers from the mid‐Tang period make their first appearance in the middle of the tenth century, well over a century after their deaths. The earliest text that contains such anecdotes is Zutang ji (compiled in 952), and the iconoclastic stories became normative only during the Song period. Accordingly, we can best understand such records as apocryphal or legendary narratives. They were a focal element of imaginative Chan lore created in response to specific social and religious circumstances and served as a centerpiece of an emerging Chan ideology. By means of these stories, novel religious formulations and nascent orthodoxies were retroactively imputed back to the great Chan teachers of the Tang period. The connection with the glories of the bygone Tang era bestowed a sense of sanctity and was a potent tool for legitimizing the Chan school in the religious world of Song China.
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