Zhanran

Jingxi Zhanran (; J. Keikei Tannen; K. Hyŏnggye Tamyŏn, c. 711-782) was the sixth patriarch of the Tiantai school of Chinese Buddhism. Zhanran is considered to be the most important Tiantai figure after the founder Zhiyi. He was also called Master Miaole (Sublime Bliss), Dharma Master Jizhu (Lord of Exegesis), and Jingqi (荊溪) after his birthplace.

Zhanran helped define, defend, and popularize the Tiantai tradition during the Tang dynasty, further developing its doctrinal system based on Zhiyi's writings. He authored important commentaries on Zhiyi's works as well as original treatises of his own. He is also the first figure to use the term "Tiantai School" (Tiantai zong). Scholars disagree on the reasons why he might have stayed away from court. He may have wanted to avoid politics and favored personal connections with his disciples, or he may have been worried that the emperors were more supportive of Daoism and Esoteric Buddhism.

Works There are at least 33 works attributed to Zhan-ran, though only 21 are extant, and eleven of them have been questioned by modern scholars as being later works.

Zhanran's three main works are all large influential commentaries on the works of Zhiyi:

Zhiguan fuxing zhuan hongjue (止觀輔行傳弘決, T1912), a commentary on the Mohe Zhiguan (摩訶止觀, The Great Calming and Contemplation, T1911). Fahua Xuanyi Shiqian (法華玄義釋籤, T1717), a sub-commentary on Fahua Xuanyi (法華玄義, The Profound Meaning of The Lotus Sutra, T1716), Zhiyi's commentary to the Lotus Sutra. Fahua Wenju Ji (法華文句記, T1719), a sub-commentary on Fahua Wenju (法華文句, The Words and Phrases of The Lotus Sutra, T1718), Zhiyi's other commentary to the Lotus Sutra. He also wrote several other shorter digests of his commentary on the Mohe Zhiguan. These smaller works are the Zhiguan yili (止觀義例, T. 1913) which critiques Chan meditation, the Zhiguan fuxing suyao ji (止觀 輔行捜要記, X. 919), and the Zhiguan dayi (止觀大 意, T. 1914).

Zhanran also wrote two sub-commentaries to Zhiyi's Vimalakirti Sutra commentaries.

Zhanran also wrote some original works, such as the influential Adamantine Scalpel Treatise (Jin’gangpi Lun 金剛錍論, T. 1932), which discusses how Buddha-nature, being all-pervasive and non-dual, is also found in inanimate things like mountains and rocks.

Teaching Mount Tiantai by Wu Bin (1605, Honolulu Museum of Art). According to Zhanran, buddha-nature pervades all insentient reality, including mountains. Zhanran is best known for his scriptural exegesis of Zhiyi's Tiantai teaching, as well as his promotion of the influential doctrine of universal Buddha-nature, which is said to fully pervade (bian 念) insentient as well as sentient beings. This teaching is called "the Buddha-nature of Insentient Beings" (wujing youxing 無情有性) and after Zhanran it became one of the key distinctive teachings of the Tiantai tradition. Through the influence of Saicho and the Japanese Tendai school, this doctrine also infused all of Japanese Buddhism. According to Zhanran: Every blade of grass, tree, pebble, and particle of dust is perfectly endowed with buddha-nature ...The practitioner of the perfect teaching, from beginning to end, knows that ultimate principle is non-dual and that there are no objects apart from mind. Who then is sentient? What then is insentient? Within the assembly of the Lotus, there is no discrimination. Zhanran's understanding of buddha-nature relies on the classic Tiantai view of threefold buddha nature (三因佛性) which means that buddha-nature can be understood as having three aspects:

Buddha-Nature as the Proper Cause (正因佛性), the inner potential for Buddhahood in all and the true nature of reality itself Buddha-Nature as the Revealing Cause (了因佛性), the wisdom of Buddhahood, the wisdom that leads to Buddhahood Buddha-Nature as the Conditioning Cause (緣因佛性), the practices leading to Buddhahood and the activities of Buddhahood

Thus, when Zhanran says all things have buddha-nature, he means it in this threefold sense, which is always present in this triple way. That is to say, one never has just one of these aspects, when one is present, the others are present. Furthermore, this triple buddha-nature is non-dual with suffering, delusion and karma. From the perspective of deluded beings, there is just suffering, delusion and karma. But from the Buddha's point of view, suffering includes the potential for Buddhahood (proper cause), which is known by wisdom (revealing cause) and acted upon (conditioning cause). As such, Zhanran's summarizes his doctrine of Buddha-nature with the following statement: From the beginningless past, you have had nothing but afflictions, karma, and suffering. Precisely this is entirely the Three Causes (of Buddhahood, i.e., the Threefold Buddha-nature) as Principle and as the Nature. Instead, he sees buddha-nature as that which pervades all things and is non-dual with all things (pure or impure, samsaric or nirvanic), writing in the Diamond Scalpel that "this nature is neither internal [nor] external, [but] pervades-all [like] empty space; it is the same as all the Buddhas, and equal to the Dharma Realm (Dharmadhātu)...[this nature] universally inherently-entails [all]."

Thus, for Zhanran, delusion and suffering have always existed and did not arise at some point out of a pure basis or devolved out an enlightened mind. At the same time, delusion and suffering are nothing but the threefold buddha-nature seen from the perspective of a Buddha (and thus, are also Buddhahood). Delusion contains in it the potential for wisdom and suffering the potential for nirvana.

Space-like all-pervasiveness The next step in Zhanran's exposition of buddha-nature is explaining its all-pervasiveness: this nature is neither within nor without and pervades all space, and thus it is the same as all Buddhas and equal to the entire dharma-realm. Once he/she accepts that it pervades all, I would next reveal that it inherently includes and entails all. That is, since it is the same as all Buddhas and equal to the entire dharma-realm, this all pervasive nature inherently includes and entails the bodies of all Buddhas, such that one body is all bodies. And again, it (inherently includes and entails) all the lands that are called forth by all Buddhas, such that one land is all lands. The body and the land it inhabits are thus identical, such that speaking of the body is speaking of the land. The same is true for large and small and for one and many. It is because beings possess this nature that we say they have the (Buddha-)nature. Zhanran emphasizes the all-pervasive character of buddha-nature as its defining attribute, employing this characteristic (which is also Suchness itself) to argue for its applicability to the insentient. Since Buddha-nature, by its very nature, is not some "thing" external nor internal to all things, and since excludes nothing, it must also pervade everything (at all times), including that which lacks sentience. This universal character of buddha-nature is also shared with the three truths taught in Tiantai (and indeed, buddha-nature is in a way identical to the three truths).

Zhanran primarily derives his theory of buddha-nature's universality from Mahayana sutras which compare buddha-nature to space (虛空 ākāśa), seeing it as all-pervasive. The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra for example states "the Buddha-Nature of sentient beings is like empty-space. Empty-space is neither [a thing] of the past, nor of the future, nor of the present; nothing is internal nor external [to it]…Buddha-Nature is also like this." The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra also states that buddha-nature is all pervasive and omnipresent, permeating all times and places: "Those dharmas which have permanence [to them] pervade all places, like empty-space; there is nowhere where they do not exist. The Tathagatas are also like this; pervading all places and therefore they are permanent." This character of buddha-nature is also related to the fact that it is also, like nirvana, uncompounded (無爲, asaṃskṛtā), not-contingent or dependent on anything.

Zhanran draws on the idea of space because it is something which is found everywhere in a general sense. It is equally there in empty space and in "filled in" or occupied with matter. Likewise, buddha-nature is there when buddhahood is manifest and when it is locally absent. It is not something that can be removed nor attained or created, but unconditioned and omnipresent. This is the reason why for Zhanran, buddha-nature cannot be restricted to sentient beings and must also include the insentient. If it was restricted to living beings, buddha-nature would be limited and conditioned, which is inconsistent with the theory as described in the sutras.

Mutual Inclusion Zhanran also invokes the Tiantai doctrine of inherent entailment (xingju 性具) or mutual inclusion. Dehn describes this unique and distinct Tiantai doctrine as follows: "the identities of things are not fixed or finite, but rather that all things always and everywhere inherently-entail 性具 all others— including their opposites." This means that, for any thing X, it can be said that it is non-dual with all non-Xs, since whatever is not X is also a part of what defines and conditions X. Since the identity of any individual thing is constituted also by what it is not, nothing could exist in a vacuum separated from all other things which are not it. Thus, every phenomenon (dharma) has an identity which includes what it is and also what it is not. For delusion to inherently entail wisdom means that wisdom also inherently entails delusion. It also means that both delusion and Buddha-wisdom inherently entail and pervade all dharmas. The same is true for Buddhahood and sentient-beingness. Zhanran compares this view with the view of other traditions, like Zen, who have an asymmetrical view in which buddha-nature or the pure mind included within deluded beings but the reverse is not true (i.e. delusion is not included within Buddhahood)

Relying on the doctrines of mutual inclusion and all-pervasiveness, Zhanran argues for "the non-duality of primary and dependent [karmic] recompense." This means that a being's karma fructifies as both their body and mind and as their environment. As such, Buddhas and their buddhalands are non-dual, and this is likewise the case of beings and their environment. Since sentient beings and Buddhas mutually entail each other (along with their lands), we can say insentient elements include buddha-nature. The mutual inclusion theory further entails the mutual inclusion of the ten dharma realms - a cosmological schema which contains all of reality. In this view, each realm of existence contains all others, and so do sentient and insentient phenomena as well. Mutual inclusion thus subverts the conventional dichotomy between subject and object, rendering their distinction merely provisional. Such a view affirms the non-duality of sentience and insentience, as well as of mentality and materiality, thereby undermining any absolute bifurcation between these categories. Due to mutual inclusion and all-pervasiveness, Buddha bodies and buddhalands are understood as interwoven with all beings and all realms other than the Buddha realm. Consequently, even the material environments of this world—regarded as insentient—are affirmed to possess Buddha-nature. This doctrine establishes a continuity between Buddha-nature and insentient existence. Zhanran's Diamond Scalpel contains the following passage:

The myriad dharmas are none other than Suchness, because it is unchanging. Suchness expresses itself as the myriad dharmas, because it accords with conditions. Isn’t your belief that insentient beings lack Buddha-nature the same as saying that the myriad dharmas do not participate in Suchness? These Huayan influences would becoming more pronounced in the thought of later thinkers who drew on Zhanran, eventually culminating in the Song era debates between the faction of Siming Zhili and the so called "off mountain" faction.