[{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BlogPosting","@id":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/en\/wiki24\/zhongfeng-mingben-wikipedia\/#BlogPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/en\/wiki24\/zhongfeng-mingben-wikipedia\/","headline":"Zhongfeng Mingben – Wikipedia","name":"Zhongfeng Mingben – Wikipedia","description":"before-content-x4 Zhongfeng Mingben Born 1263 Died 1323 Religion Buddhism School Linji Other\u00a0names Chung-feng Ming-pen (Wade Giles) Teacher Gaofeng Yuanmiao after-content-x4","datePublished":"2019-01-20","dateModified":"2019-01-20","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/en\/wiki24\/author\/lordneo\/#Person","name":"lordneo","url":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/en\/wiki24\/author\/lordneo\/","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c9645c498c9701c88b89b8537773dd7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/c9645c498c9701c88b89b8537773dd7c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Enzyklop\u00e4die","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/wiki4\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download.jpg","url":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/wiki4\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/download.jpg","width":600,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/b\/b1\/Zhongfeng_Mingben.jpg\/220px-Zhongfeng_Mingben.jpg","url":"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/b\/b1\/Zhongfeng_Mingben.jpg\/220px-Zhongfeng_Mingben.jpg","height":"487","width":"220"},"url":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/en\/wiki24\/zhongfeng-mingben-wikipedia\/","wordCount":4550,"articleBody":"     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});before-content-x4Zhongfeng MingbenBorn1263Died1323ReligionBuddhismSchoolLinjiOther\u00a0namesChung-feng Ming-pen (Wade Giles)TeacherGaofeng Yuanmiao       (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});after-content-x4Zhongfeng Mingben (Chinese: \u4e2d\u5cf0\u660e\u672c; Wade\u2013Giles: Chung-feng Ming-pen; Japanese: Ch\u016bh\u014d My\u014dhon), 1263\u20131323 was a Chan Buddhist master who lived at the beginning of Yuan China. He adhered to the rigorous style of the Linji school and influenced Zen through several Japanese teachers who studied under him.Table of Contents       (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});after-content-x4Biography[edit]Teachings[edit]Illusion[edit]Physical practice[edit]Pure Land[edit]Influence[edit]Monastic discipline[edit]Gong-an[edit]Japanese Zen[edit]Wild fox slobber[edit]Criticism[edit]References[edit]Written references[edit]Web references[edit]Sources[edit]Further reading[edit]Biography[edit]Zhongfeng Mingben’s family name was Sun. He was the youngest of seven children. His mother died when he was nine years old. Already in his teenage years he wanted to become a monk. From fifteen he observed the layman’s Five Precepts. His left hand became mutilated when, in his youth he burned the little finger as a sacrifice to the Buddha. This may have been inspired by chapter 23 of the Lotus Sutra:If there is one, opening up his thought, wishes to attain Anuttar\u0101 samyaksa\u1e43bodhi, if he can burn a finger or a toe as an offering to a Buddhastupa, he shall exceed one who uses realm or walled city, wife or children, or even all the lands, mountains, forests, rivers, ponds, and sundry precious objects in the whole thousand-million-fold world as offerings.In 1287 Zhongfeng Mingben received tonsure at Shiziyuan Monastery on Tianmu Mountain. In 1288 he was ordained as a monk. Contrary to the norm, he grew long hair in (presumed) accordance with his teacher, Gaofeng Yuanmai.As a young man he was appointed to succeed the abbot of the monastery on Tianmu Mountain, but fled the monastery in a search for solitude.As an adult he had an “overpowering physical build”. He was called “The old Buddha south of the sea”, an allusion to Mazu Daoyi, (709\u2013788) one of the most influential teachers of Chan Buddhism, who lived during the Tang dynasty (618\u2013907), the “golden age of Zen”. Zhongfeng Mingben declined a number of titles, appointments and positions, temporarily choosing instead a life of wandering and solitary meditation. He turned down an invitation of Ayurbarwada Buyantu Khan to come to the Yuan court.       (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});after-content-x4Teachings[edit]Illusion[edit]In Zhongfeng Mingben’s Huanzhu Jiaxun, “Family instructions of Illusory Abiding”, he describes himself as “the illusionary man”, alluding to the play of Maya and the ability of tricksters to create an illusionary world. Zhongfeng Mingben states that this world is illusory, but that there is no alternative to this illusion. Students have to realize the pervasiveness of this illusion, and learn to act within it. The alternative for this illusionary or relative world, the absolute truth, is not to be regarded as an enduring phenomenon.Zhongfeng Mingben relies on the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment in his teachings on how to overcome this illusion. This sutra gives metaphors connected to illusion to explain the insubstantial nature of ignorance, such as dreams or flowers in the sky.[note 1][note 2] Illusory phenomena emerge from an intrinsically pure ground.[note 3] Since the illusions are not real in themselves, their disappearance will not change this pure ground. But the disappearance itself is also illusionary since the mind is enlightened or pure from the beginning. This makes it impossible to speak of either being enlightened or unenlightened, a position which is clearly at odds with basic Buddhist teachings. This is “cured” by overcoming “the discriminating thought processes that posit terms like illusion and real“.Physical practice[edit]Illusion is also created by relying on words. There are alternative, non-discursive ways of relating to words, one of them being k’an-hua, “observing the key phrase”, the method of k\u014dan study introduced by Dahui Zonggao (1089\u20131163). Insight must be based in bodily experience rather than mere intellectual discrimination.Another physical practice is calligraphy, the writing of characters. This writing is a bodily act. The writing of a character is not an intellectual inquiry, but “a performance of it”. Zhongfeng Mingben was a celebrated calligraphy artist.Pure Land[edit]Zhongfeng Mingben merged Ch\u00e1n with Pure Land teachings. Together with Yongming Yanshou  (904\u2013975), who lived three centuries earlier, he was an influential proponent of this dual practice.Influence[edit]Monastic discipline[edit]Zhongfeng Mingben lived after the “golden age of Ch\u00e1n” of the Tang and the proliferation of Ch\u00e1n during the Tang. His age was regarded as an age of mofa (“Degenerate age of the Law”). Zhongfeng Mingben attributed this to a lack of monastic discipline and a lack of personal dedication by monks, and tried to counter this by writing a monastic code, the Huan-chu ch’ing-kuei (Jpn. Genju shingi), in 1317. This work influenced Mus\u014d Soseki, a contemporary of Zhongfeng Mingben, when he wrote his guidelines for monasteries and monks, the Rinsen kakun.Gong-an[edit]Further information: K\u014danZhongfeng Mingben was the first to compare the sayings and teachings of the ‘masters of the old’ with the public cases of the court, the gong-an.According to Zhongfeng Mingben g\u014dng’\u00e0n abbreviates g\u014dngf\u01d4 zh\u012b \u00e0nd\u00fa (\u516c\u5e9c\u4e4b\u6848\u7258, Japanese k\u014dfu no antoku \u2013 literally the andu “official correspondence; documents; files” of a gongfu  “government post”), which referred to a “public record” or the “case records of a public law court” in Tang-dynasty China.[note 4]K\u014dan\/gong’an thus serves as a metaphor for principles of reality beyond the private opinion of one person, and a teacher may test the student’s ability to recognize and understand that principle.Japanese Zen[edit]  Epistle to Zhongfeng Mingben (\u4e0e\u4e2d\u5cf0\u660e\u672c\u5c3a\u7258, yoch\u016bh\u014d my\u014dhon sekitoku) One of six letters, ink on paper; Seikad\u014d Bunko Art Museum, TokyoSeveral Japanese Buddhists came to China to study with Zhongfeng Mingben on Mount T’ien-mu. They formed the Genj\u016b line of the Rinka monasteries, the more independent monasteries outside the cities and the Five Mountain System of government-approved temples. Kosen Ingen   was the most important of these Japanese students.[note 5] Other students include Koh\u014d Kakumy\u014d, a teacher of Bassui Tokush\u014d, and Jakushitsu Genk\u014d (1290\u20131367), the founder of Eigen-ji.Although they never met, Zhongfeng Mingben had a close affinity with Mus\u014d Soseki, via the Japanese students who studied with him.Wild fox slobber[edit]Hakuin’s warning against “wild fox slobber” can be traced back to Zhongfeng Mingben. The term “wild fox” points to teachers who lead students astray by giving wrong information. The term wild fox is also the name of the Wild fox koan. Whereas Zhongfeng Mingben warns against the impossible attempt of totally silencing the mind, Hakuin uses the term in a more positive sense, to denote the workings of koans, which “possess the power to cause sudden death in students, raising the great doubt in their minds that will lead them to the ‘great death’ and the rebirth of satori and enlightenment”.Criticism[edit]Zhongfeng Mingben’s teachings mark the beginning of a development in Chinese Ch\u00e1n which made it vulnerable in the competition with other teachings:[T]he tradition came to be increasingly anti-intellectual in orientation and, in the process, reduced its complex heritage to simple formulae for which literal interpretations were thought to be adequate.This development left Chinese Ch\u00e1n vulnerable for criticisms by neo-Confucianism, which developed after the Song dynasty. Its anti-intellectual rhetoric was no match for the intellectual discourse of the neo-Confucianists.Huanzhu Jiaxun, “The family instructions of “Illusory Abiding”.Zhongfeng huai Qingtu shi, “Poem of Zhongfeng’s love for the Pure Land”.[29]Admonition on filiality.Sanshi xinian, “Apprehending the thought [of Amithaba Buddha] within the Three Divisions of the Day”.T’ien-mu Chung-feng Ho-shang Kuang-lu, “The Comprehensive Record of Chung-feng”; \u00a0includes his writings and recorded sayings (goroku) compiled by Po-T’ing T’zu-chi for the last Yuan emperor, Shun-ti and presented in 1334.^ “Flowers in the sky” is translated in Japanese as “Kuge” (ch. 19; “Shobogenzo” by Dogen Zenji). Sky stands for “empty” thus “Flowers in the empty”. This corresponds to the principle of the insubstantiality (one of the three seals of Buddhism) thus that everything exists and nothing is real, in the sense that nothing has its own fixed reality, fixed measure, fixed form, nothing that is alive, has its own nature or independent, autonomous substantiality.[web 1]^ The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment says: “What is ignorance? Good sons, all sentient beings fall into various inverted views without beginning. Just like a disoriented person who confuses the four directions, they mistakenly take the Four Elements as the attributes of their bodies and the conditioned shadows of the Six Objects as the attributes of their mind. It is just like when our eyes are diseased and we see flowers in the sky, or a second moon. Good sons, the sky actually has no flowers\u2014they are the false attachment of the diseased person. And because of this false attachment, not only are we confused about the self-nature of the sky; we are also mixed up about the place where real flowers come from. From this, there is the falsely existent transmigration through life and death. Therefore it is called “ignorance.”[web 2]^ The Buddha nature, or the A\u0101layavij\u00f1\u0101na^ Assertions that the literal meaning of kung-an is the table, desk, or bench of a magistrate appear on page 18 of Foulk 2000. See also ^  (1295\u20131374) Founding priest of H\u014dkizan Ch\u014dju-ji temple, Kenchoji School, Rinzai[web 3]References[edit]Written references[edit]Web references[edit]Sources[edit]Chen, Pi-Yen (2010), Fanbai. Chinese Buddhist Monastic Chants, A-R Editions, Inc., ISBN\u00a09780895796721Baroni, Helen J. (2002), The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Zen Buddhism, Rosen Publishing Group, ISBN\u00a00823922405de Bary, Theodore; Bloom, Irene (2000), Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 1, Columbia University Press, ISBN\u00a09780231109390Dumoulin, Heinrich (2005a), Zen Buddhism: A History. Volume 1: India and China, World Wisdom Books, ISBN\u00a09780941532891Dumoulin, Heinrich (2005b), Zen Buddhism: A History. Volume 2: Japan, World Wisdom Books, ISBN\u00a09780941532907Foulk, T. Griffith (2000), “The form and function of k\u014dan literature. A historical overview”,  in Steven Heine; Dale S. Wright (eds.), The K\u014dan. Texts and contexts in Zen Buddhism, Oxford University Press, ISBN\u00a00195117492Hakuin (2009), Hakuin’s Precious Mirror Cave: A Zen Miscellany, Counterpoint Press, ISBN\u00a09781582434759Heller, Natasha (December 2009a), “The Chan Master as Illusionist: Zhongfeng Mingben’s Huanzhu Jiaxun” (PDF), Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 69 (2): 271\u2013308, doi:10.1353\/jas.0.0020, S2CID\u00a0170819511Lauer, Uta (2002), A Master of His Own: The Calligraphy of the Chan Abbot Zhongfeng Mingben (1262\u20131323), Franz Steiner Verlag, ISBN\u00a09783515079327McCausland, Shane (2011), Zhao Mengfu: Calligraphy and Painting for Khubilai’s China, Hong Kong University PressMcRae, John (2003), Seeing Through Zen. Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism, The University Press Group Ltd, ISBN\u00a09780520237988Patry Leidy, Denise (2009), The Art of Buddhism: An Introduction to Its History and Meaning, Shambhala Publications, ISBN\u00a09781590306703Payne, Richard Karl; Tanaka, Kenneth Kazuo (2004), Approaching the Land of Bliss: Religious Praxis in the Cult of Amit\u0101bha, University of Hawaii Press, ISBN\u00a09780824825782Sasaki, Ruth Fuller (1965), “Introduction”,  in Isshu Miura; Ruth Fuller Sasaki (eds.), The Zen K\u014dan, Harvest\/HBJWright, Dale S. (2000), “Koan History. Transformative Language in Chinese Buddhist Thought”,  in Steven Heine; Dale S. Wright (eds.), The Koan. Texts and Contexts in Zen Buddhism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN\u00a00195117492Further reading[edit]Lauer, Uta (2002), A Master of His Own: The Calligraphy of the Chan Abbot Zhongfeng Mingben (1262\u20131323), Franz Steiner Verlag, ISBN\u00a09783515079327Heller, Natasha Lynne (2005), Illusory abiding: The life and work of Zhongfeng Mingben (1263\u20131323), Harvard University, OCLC\u00a085262269Heller, Natasha (2009b), “7: Between Zhongfeng Mingben and Zhao Mengfu: Chan Letters in Their Manuscript Context”, Buddhist Manuscript Cultures, vol.\u00a0III, New York: Routledge, pp.\u00a0109\u2013123, ISBN\u00a0978-0-415-77616-5     (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});after-content-x4"},{"@context":"http:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/en\/wiki24\/#breadcrumbitem","name":"Enzyklop\u00e4die"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https:\/\/wiki.edu.vn\/en\/wiki24\/zhongfeng-mingben-wikipedia\/#breadcrumbitem","name":"Zhongfeng Mingben – Wikipedia"}}]}]