Huiyuan

For the monk Huiyuan (523-592) of the Shidilun school, to see Jingying Huiyuan

Huiyuan 慧遠 (334 - 6th day of the 8th month 416), Japanese Eon (えおん), is a famous monk of the Dynastie Jin which played a big role in the development of the Bouddhisme in the south of the Chang Jiang. Disciple of the specialist in the texts Prajnaparamita and translator Dao' year, it was installed towards around fifty on the Mont Lushan where it was active during more than thirty years until its death, gathering many disciples. He made undertake Buddhist translations of texts, fascinating council starting from 402 near Kumarajiva on many points of doctrines, and reinforced the monastic discipline. He was the first to promote the devotion with Amitabha like helps with the meditation, this is why he is regarded by the movement amidist as his patriarch founder. Under the Song, the promoters of the syncretism of the three doctrines (Confucianism, taoism and Buddhism) will spread the legend of its meeting with CAT Hongjing and Lu Xiujing.

Biography

Its family name was Jia (賈) and its unknown first name. It is born with the Shanxi, in the county of Yanmenloufan (雁門樓煩縣) close to current Ningwu (寧武). After having studied traditional the confucéens and Taoist S, it follows at 13 years his maternal uncle (family name Linghu 令狐氏) to Xuchang and Luoyang. In 354, it decides to leave towards Nanchang to join the hermit confucéen Fan Xuanzi (范宣子), but the road towards the south is cut by the disorders which follow the death of Shihu (石虎), sovereign of the Zhao Postérieurs. It then decides to go on the mount Taihangshan (太行山) where the monk Dao' year (314 - 385) directs a community, and becomes its disciple with his Huichi younger brother. (慧持). It shows soon a good comprehension of the texts prajnaparamita which it comments on using the Zhuangzi . In 358, Dao' year sends it to Jingzhou (Hubei) near an other disciple, Lanfa Taiji (竺法汰疾), which informs him of the rebellion of the monk Daheng Changxin (道恆倡心) whose its pupil Daoyi (道壹) could not come to end. Huiyuan that point reaches and is acquired prestige.

Starting from 361, political instability obliges Dao' year and its disciples to frequently change residence. After a passage by the Henan with Ye and on the mount Wangwushan (王屋山), they set in 366 at Xiangyang at the Hubei, with the monastery Zhangxi (檀溪寺). In 378, the general Qin Fu Pei (苻丕) attacks Xiangyang and captures Dao' year, which is taken along to Chang' year to direct translations there. Before its departure, it gives leave to its disciples and their request to follow each one his way. Huiyuan is then 45 years old.

Taking along part of the disciples of its Master towards the field of the Eastern Jin, it turns over initially to Jingzhou where it resides three years at the monastery Shangming (上明寺). It gets under way then for the mount Luofushan (羅浮山) in the Guangdong. Nevertheless, passing by the Lushan mount, it is allured by the environment, the more so as a former school-fellow with whom it had bound of friendship, Huiyong (慧永), resides at it at the monastery of Xilin (西林寺). Huiyuan and its companions settle in 381 in a rudimentary hermitage named Vihara Longquan (龍泉精舍). Three years after, on the mediation of Huiyong, Huan Yi (桓伊), prefect of Jiangzhou (江州), makes build for him the monastery of Donglin (東林寺) or “Eastern Forest”, of which the name made during with the monastery of its school-fellow, “Western Forest”. Huiyuan sets at it and there gathers many disciples monks and laic. He undertakes and continues until his death a task of translation and explanation of Buddhist texts, with the assistance of Western monks whom he succeeds in making come on the mount, and of Kumarajiva, with which he corresponds. He writes works and structure his community monastic according to orthodoxe rules based on the Vinaya of the Sarvastivadin. He is the first to officially promote the devotion with Amitabha and the aspiration with his paradise like stages towards the release. He dies on the Lushan mount into 416 83 years old, without in being ever gone down again.

Translations and written

Huiyuan had in heart to advance in the comprehension of Buddhism and to propagate its doctrines. For this purpose, it sends in 391 its disciples Fajing (法淨) and Faling (法領) towards the North-West in the search of Sutra S. It endeavors to make come in Lushan monks Western areas to undertake translations. Thus, Sanghadeva translated the Heart of Abhidharma ( Apitanxinlun 阿毘曇心論) and the Tridharmakasasyra (Sanfadulun 三法度論); Budhabhadra (359 - 429), defector of Kumarajiva, translated with its request the average Sutra of the practice of the meditation of the skilful ( Xiuxingfangbianchanjing 修行方便禪經). Huiyuan writes the forewords; he will write also that of the Sutra of the Lotus. Buddhabhadra will also translate the Yogacarabhumi and later the Mahaparinirvanasutra .

It invites Dharmaruci to finish the translation of the monastic rules of Sarvastivadin ( Sarvastiva-davinaya , Shisonglu 十誦律) left unfinished by the death of Puṇyatara, companion of Kumarajiva.

Huiyuan, agent of the tradition prajnaparamita of Dao' year, continues to want to include/understand the thought Mahayana. Thus he undertakes a correspondence with Kumarajiva, via a Qin former general become monk under the name of Tanyong (曇邕). Its questions with the Master ( Wendachengzhongshenyi shibake 問大乘中深義十八科) and the answers of this last ( Luoshida 羅什答) are joined together in the Livre of the direction of the mahayana ( Dachengdayizhang 大乘大義章). When Kumarajiva completed the translation of the Traité prajnaparamita ( Dazhidulun 大智度論), the Master taoist Xianxiang (咸相) is solicited for a foreword, but declines. The emperor Yao Xing (姚興) of the Posterior Qin the request then with Huiyuan. This last prefaces the work and summarizes in twenty booklets the hundreds of origin ( Dazhidulunchaoxu 大智度論鈔序). Inspired, it composes the Daxinglun (大性論) which is worth to him the compliments of Kumarajiva for its intuition. The modern specialists consider that, taking into account the limitation of the accessible mahayana sources at the time, the thought of Huiyuan is especially formed on the basis of Abhidharma Hinayana, but that it is indeed, among its contemporaries, that which best included/understood the thought prajnaparamita. Later, an epistolary exchange will have place between Sengzhao (僧肇), disciple of Kumarajiva, and Liu Yimin (劉遺民), disciple of Huiyuan, concerning the Panrewuzhilun (般若無知論) composed by the first; it is gathered in a collection entitled Correspondance with the hermit Liu Yimin and others ( Yuyinshiliuyimin 與隱士劉遺民等書).

Education confucéenne and taoist of Huiyuan, the extent of its culture and the excellent behavior of its community are worth good relationships with the local authorities to him. Personalities go up to visit him to profit from its scholarship: Yin Zhongkan (殷仲堪), prefect of Jiangzhou whose monastery depends, comes in 392 to question it on the Yijing ; in 399, the Jin general and usurping Huan Xuan (桓玄) consult it on the Classique filial devotion . When Huan Xuan forwards to him the opinion that a monk must in all things incline himself in front of the emperor, Huiyuan answers by famous the epistle a monk is not inclined in front of the emperor , and imposes enough regard and respect so that, in spite of the hostility of Huan Xuan towards Buddhism, Lushan is always saved. In 405, He Zhennan (何鎮南), general who put an end to the usurpation, goes to its turn in Lushan and questions the cogency for the monks to wear a dress which discovers their right-hand man whereas, it supports, the Chinese tradition regards this side as disaster. A debate by interposed texts is started. He Zhennan forwards its opinion; Huiyuan answers in the Traité on the monastic dress by which he convinces He Zhennan that this characteristic external of Buddhism recovers a major similarity with the traditional currents of Chinese thought. It also contributes to the sinicization of Buddhism in the Mingbaolun (明報應論) and the Sanbaolun (三報論), in which it exposes a vision of the remuneration in conformity with the moral and religious thought Chinese, based inter alia on the belief in the permanence of the shen (神), spiritual component of the human being; one owes him also the Bianxinshilun (辨心識論).

He is in addition the author of poems gathered in the scattered Poèmes of the monastery of Donglin with Lushan (廬山東林雜詩), Stances in answer to the Master Kumarajiva (報羅什法師偈) and Wanfoyingming (萬佛影銘).

Disciples

The tradition reports that it had more than one hundred disciples, monks and laic, in well-read men majority. With the number of the first one can quote Tan Yong (曇邕), messenger between him and Kumarajiva, Tanheng (曇恆), Daobing (道昺), Fajing (法淨), Faling (法領), Daozu (道祖), Sengche (僧徹), Tanshun (曇順), Daowang (道汪), Faan (法安) which founded a place of worship with Xinyang (新陽) with the Gansu, then with Shu, Huiguan (慧觀), author of three works and forewords of will sutras. Huiyao (慧要), skilful craftsman, would have manufactured for the community a hydraulic clock in lotus and a mechanical wood bird. Huichi (慧持), younger brother of Huiyuan, was an appreciated preacher and was called with Jiankang (建康) to revise the translation of the Madhyamagama (中阿含經). Among the laic ones, one can quote Liu Yimin (劉遺民), Zong Bing (宗炳), Zhou Xuzhi (周續之), Lei Cizong (雷次宗), Bi Yingzhi (畢穎之), Zhang Jishuo (張季碩).

pure Ground

In the seventh month of the year 402, with hundred twenty-three disciples, it makes wish in front of the effigy of Amitabha reach the Western paradise of the Buddha; The text of the wish is written by Liu Yimin. Disturbed times and the difficulty in obtaining a satisfying corpus of texts perfectly included/understood make think that the pure ground of Amitabha is a crossing point necessary for much, where it will be possible for them to work with their release under better conditions. As from this moment, will take place of the meetings of the Société of the lotus ( bailianshe 白蓮社). Huiyuan defines this practice in the foreword of the Nianfosanmeishiji (念佛三昧詩集) like a form of visual meditation guanxiang (觀想) integrated into the whole of the practice; the practices amidists in China will be generally combined with the meditation chan. A legend claims that the Company of the lotus was thus named because its meetings had place near ponds of lotuses arranged by Xie Lingyun (謝靈運), nephew of Wang Xizhi and aristocrat whom one reproached his arrogance, to be able to be allowed to take part in the Company.

References and notes

See too

pure Ground | Amitabha | Kumarajiva | Dao' year

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