Tag Archives: Chan Prolegomenon

The Chan Prolegomenon: Introductory Remarks

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Vajragoni

Tsung-mi’s Chan Prolegomenon (also known as the Ch’an Preface) is a vast-work considered to be his most crowning-achievement. In it he proves himself to be a great synthetic-agent as he weaves together all the major petulant Ch’an schools of his day and age, like the Northern, Ox-Head and Hongzhou—seeking to find that one common denominator that would surmount their irreconcilable differences.  Tsung-mi was the Noble-Lamp bearer who attempted to lead them all out of the dark tunnel of fractious-divide into the Luminous Light and Union of the Dharmadhātu. The work is like a colossal Chinese puzzle, with each piece fitting under what Jeffrey Broughton refers to as certain axioms, that attempt to correlate essential Ch’an teachings of the contentious traditions—all vying for primacy. In this respect it’s unfortunate that contemporary zennists haven’t even referred to a work of such stature, since it could help to allay all the vying-factions that attempt to discredit each other; what Tsung-mi has to say is very relevant today: read more

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Tsung-mi: An Intimate Study

Posted on April 1, 2014 by Vajragoni

Tsung-mi (780-841)

A good subtitle for this series would be, “The Spiritual Knowing that knows no darkness.” With brilliant erudition Tsung-mi (pronounced Zongmi—preferred spelling by modern-day scholars) set out to define Bodhidharma’s Mind Transmission as a silent knowing of Mind’s Substance; yet at the same time not eschewing the canonical words that are embedded in the silence. The prime reason for Bodhidharma’s phrase, Mind Transmission outside of scriptures, simply assuaged the Chinese mindset that, at the time, was infatuated with grasping at words while being blind to the Actual Mind-Substance that the words were pointing at. In this sense, the word “silent” referred to Bodhidharma’s own remaining still and quiet until the adept came to intuitively “know” on one’s own the nature of Mind’s Substance. It was after this “knowing” that he said to the adept, ‘That is how it really is [fang yan zhenshi shi]! This is in complete contradistinction to today’s Zennists’ understanding; the following is from a Zen dictionary published by the Sōtō Zen School: read more

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