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內文 : Editor’s Preface
Volume five of Studies on Humanistic Buddhism contains eight articles translated from Chinese, one article that was written in English, and four student papers. The theme of the articles is Chan Buddhism, particularly Fo Guang Chan as developed by Venerable Master Hsing Yun. Chan is the Chinese version of what in English is often known by the Japanese pronunciation—Zen.
The topic of Chan was chosen because it is the foundation upon which Venerable Master Hsing Yun developed Humanistic Buddhism. He was the forty-eighth lineage holder of the Linji school of Chan. The past tense is used here because Venerable Master Hsing Yun passed away on the fifth of February in the year 2023. He was one of the main protagonists in the revival of Buddhism, and in giving Chan a breath of fresh air. It is fitting that most of the articles in this volume discuss Venerable Master Hsing Yun and his take on Chan. One was written by the Venerable Master himself. He taught us that Chan is an intrinsic part of life, not a theoretical abstraction. He reminded us that Chan does not discriminate. Not only is it available to both monastics and laypeople, but also that “Chan is not exclusive to Buddhism…Chan is the treasure that lies within everyone.”
It is an honor to follow in the footsteps of such an illustrious sage. This is not the forum to properly pay tribute to Venerable Master Hsing Yun and celebrate his life and work, but it is noteworthy for all the volunteers who work to create this journal that he was also a writer and an editor. Although Chan does not rely on, and cannot be fully described with language, words can be used as a skillful means of propagating the Dharma. As a young monk he was the editor-in-chief of Raging Billows Monthly, and then of Human Life Magazine. In 1957, he established his own periodical Awakening the World. He founded a Buddhist cultural center that developed into the Fo Guang Cultural Enterprise publishing company. In 2000, he started the first daily Buddhist newspaper, The Merit Times. In addition to editing and publishing, Venerable Master Hsing Yun was a prolific writer and has authored over one hundred books. Part of our mission with this journal is to make these and related works available in English.
Our journal is just one humble fruit from the lofty tree Venerable Master Hsing Yun planted, nurtured, and grew. Within the fruit, each seed seems tiny, yet each contains the Buddha’s light. Let’s scatter these seeds widely. “The bodhi seeds of the Buddha’s light are sown across the five continents; when the flowers bloom and bear fruit, the whole universe will be illuminated.”
Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s “A Discussion of Chan’’ presents an overview of his flavor of Chan. He sees Chan as an important antidote for the feeling that contemporary life is meaningless and full of anxiety. Chan is a way to purify our minds, inspire wisdom, and transcend worldliness. A phrase that appears in several articles in this volume is: “When the mind is pure, the land will also be pure.” The article begins with a brief history of Chan and its development in China. The next section looks at the subject matter of Chan—the mind. The mind referred to in Chan is not the mind of duality, discrimination, and discursive thoughts, but rather a higher level of mind that is beyond thought and language. The Venerable Master explains that this is why Chan masters have employed tools such as gong’an (koans) and huatou. These are tools to move the mind of the student beyond the normal understanding of the phenomenal world, to help them see through the duality of the nominal world. He then goes on to discuss the practice of Chan. While
Chan does have a theoretical aspect, its essence is practice. That is, spiritual cultivation. “Chan is not what one says with one’s mouth or what one thinks in one’s mind, but rather completely letting go of these things.” That is not to say that Chan is separate from the world. Once able to purify the mind, then “Chan is nothing but chopping wood and carrying water.”
Dong Qun continues to examine the nature of Chan in the article “What is Chan? Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s Point of View.” The article explores Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s expression of Chan, Chan as the foundation of Humanistic Buddhism, and Living Chan. A term that recurs throughout this volume is important here—ordinary mind. The ordinary mind refers to the fact that truth is found in this life within the mind of the individual. “Living Chan uses the ordinary mind to obtain a supramundane view.” In essence, the ordinary mind is not strictly a product of cultivation, but is revealed by a lack of delusion and defilement, by a lack of attachment to duality and discrimination. Venerable Master Hsing Yun used the term Living Chan because the ordinary mind can be found in all aspects of our lives. In the words of the Venerable Master, “Chan is the art of life.” Dong lists forty of the meditations that we can practice, some of them showing the creativity and spontaneity of Chan, such as eating and drinking, working, gratitude, poetry, and chess. The author concludes, “Essentially, Chan is a life guided by an ordinary mind, a life lived in true reality, a life oriented toward what is good. In other words, a beautiful life.”
The idea of Living Chan is further developed in the article “Exploring the Meaning and Practice of Fo Guang Humanistic Living Chan through Hsing Yun’s Chan Stories” by Lee Chih-Ying. Lee discusses Living Chan using examples from the book Hsing Yun’s Chan Stories. Specifically, the author focuses on the concepts that Dharma can only be found in the world, and that enlightenment cannot be attained away from the world. These are themes considered in several articles in this volume. Here Lee shows how, through media such as newspapers, television, and video recordings, Venerable Master Hsing Yun popularized Chan and brought it into peoples’ daily lives. To apply Chan in daily life, one should “diligently practice with discipline, and live with simplicity and gratitude.” The reason Chan is not always seen in daily life is “due to our deluded mind which disputes and differentiates, we fail to calm our minds and recognize the truth in our daily life, and thus seek the Dharma outside of our minds, when in fact treasures are hidden within.”
In “Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s Concept of True Practice in the Context of the History of Chan Thought—A Discussion of Symbolic Implications of Early Chan Buddhism and the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra,” Lin Pei-ying looks at how Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s idea of Chan and the concept of true practice continue the traditions of Chan while at the same time innovating it. The concept of true practice is based on the threefold training of morality (śilā), meditation (dhyāna or samādhi), and wisdom (prajñā). As Chan developed in China, there were disagreements as to the importance of each component of the threefold training. True practice is a balance of meditation and wisdom (morality is assumed). It was the pursuit of a theoretical basis for true practice that led to a rise in the popularity of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra in China. It is suggested that Bodhidharma introduced the sūtra into China as a skillful means of balancing the Chinese high regard for doctrinal studies with meditative practices. Lin points out that Venerable Master Hsing Yun also placed equal emphasis on wisdom and practice. He was clear that the role of scripture was to support and guide true practice. Lin quotes the Venerable Master: “Chan is not for us to study and discuss. Chan is to improve our lives.” At the same time, he introduced innovations. He put the concept of true practice into the context of contemporary society and used modern language to express it. He directly linked true practice to the bodhisattva path. He also steered the development of Humanistic Buddhism by placing equal emphasis on Chan, Pure Land, and precepts.
Duh Bau-Ruei’s “A Theoretical Analysis on the Possibility of Attaining Buddhahood Using the Mental Cultivation Methods of Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s ‘I am Buddha’ and Chan Master Huangbo’s ‘This Mind is Buddha’” compares Huangbo and Venerable Master Hsing Yun. Huangbo is the namesake of Mount Huangbo, where the Wanfu Temple is located. This temple is the ancestral home of the Ōbaku sect of Japanese Zen discussed in Liao Chao-heng’s article in this volume: “The Role of Chan Buddhism in East Asian Cultural Interaction during the Modern Period.” Huangbo was also the teacher of Linji Yixuan, founder of the Linji school of Chan Buddhism, of which Venerable Master Hsing Yun was the forty-eighth patriarch. Huangbo’s teaching is encapsulated in the phrase: “This mind is Buddha (即心是佛).” That is, all Buddhas and sentient beings are all of one transcendent mind or consciousness. The path to enlightenment is therefore to purify the expression of mind within ourselves. Duh notes that Huangbo also held that, “…emptiness is the way.” Emptiness does not mean nothingness, but rather an unconditioned reality that is the source of all phenomena. “Out of true emptiness arises wondrous existence.” Huangbo walked the middle way of letting the discursive, dualistic mind rest (no mind) and allowing the original mind (Buddha) shine. This results in prajñā, and eventually to Buddhahood. Venerable Master Hsing Yun’s concept of Humanistic Buddhism is summarized as, “I am Buddha.” By this, he does not mean that he has already attained Buddhahood, but that the Buddha serves as a role model. This results in bodhicitta. In essence, this aspiration to be like the Buddha leads to the bodhisattva path. Traveling this path leads to wholesome action, and points one in the direction of Buddhahood.
Li Yong’s article “Śamathavipaśyanā in Fo Guang Chan” discusses the meditative techniques used in Fo Guang Humanistic Living Chan, or Fo Guang Chan for short. Li quotes Venerable Master Hsing Yun, “Chan is the foundatio
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最佳賣點 : Volume five of Studies on Humanistic Buddhism contains eight articles translated from Chinese, one article that was written in English, and four stude