Fotudeng

Fotu Cheng (Sanskrit: Buddhacinga?; ; ca. 232–348 CE ) was a Buddhist monk and missionary from Kucha. He studied in Kashmir and arrived in the Western Jin capital Luoyang in 310 CE, and was active in the spread of Buddhism in China during the Later Zhao dynasty of the Sixteen Kingdoms period. He succeeded in converting the Jie warlord Shi Le and became Shi's closest advisor as he founded the Later Zhao dynasty in 319 CE. Fotu Cheng uttered the only phrase that reached us in the Jie language, cited in connection with Shi Le's successful war against Liu Yao of the Han-Zhao dynasty in 328 CE, and recorded in the Chinese annals in Chinese transcription with a Chinese translation. This phrase was analyzed in several publications.

As a teacher of meditation Fotu Cheng is well known for his teaching methods of meditation, especially ānāpānasmṛti ("mindfulness of breathing"). Fotu Cheng widely taught ānāpānasmṛti through methods of counting breaths, so as to temper the breathing, simultaneously focusing the mind into a state of peaceful meditative concentration (Skt. samādhi). By teaching meditation methods as well as doctrine, Fotu Cheng popularized Buddhism quickly. According to Nan Huai-Chin, "Besides all its theoretical accounts of emptiness and existence, Buddhism also offered methods for genuine realization of spiritual powers and meditative concentration that could be relied upon. This is the reason that Buddhism began to develop so vigorously in China with Fotu Cheng."