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Heze Shenhui
Heze Shenhui (Chinese:菏泽神會/神会; Wade–Giles: Shen-hui; Japanese: Kataku Jinne, 684–758) was a Chinese Buddhist monk of the so-called "Southern School" of Zen, who "claimed to have studied under Huineng." Shenhui is notable for his strident attacks on Yuquan Shenxiu and the associated "Northern School", which was the most prominent branch of Chan Buddhism in China at the time. He accused them of propagating ''gradual teachings'', as opposed to his own ''sudden teachings''. Shenhui's own lineage, called the Heze lineage (菏泽宗), probably died out around the time of the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution in 845, with Guifeng Zongmi being the only notable monk in the lineage. Biography Shenhui was born in Xiangyang with the surname Gao (高). He learned The Five Classics of Confucius and the philosophy of Laozi and Zhuangzi at a young age. At the age of 14 he became a monk under Huineng, a disciple of Hongren and the founder of the Southern School of Zen. For a tim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xiangyang
Xiangyang is a prefecture-level city in northwestern Hubei province, China and the second largest city in Hubei by population. It was known as Xiangfan from 1950 to 2010. The Han River runs through Xiangyang's centre and divides the city north–south. The city itself is an agglomeration of two once separate cities: Fancheng and Xiangyang (or Xiangcheng), and was known as Xiangfan before 2010. What remains of old Xiangyang is located south of the Han River and contains one of the oldest still-intact city walls in China, while Fancheng is located to the north of the Han River. Both cities served prominent historical roles in both ancient and pre-modern Chinese history. Today, the city has been a target of government and private investment as the country seeks to urbanize and develop the interior provinces. Its built-up area made up of 3 urban districts had 2,319,640 inhabitants at the 2020 census while the whole municipality contained approximately 5,260,951 people. Histor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daman Hongren
Hongren (, 601–674), posthumous name ''Daman'', was the 5th Patriarch of Chan Buddhism (Chinese: 禅宗五祖). Hongren is said to have received Dharma transmission from Dayi Daoxin and passed on the symbolic bowl and robe of transmission to Huineng, the Sixth and last Chan Patriarch. Biography As with all the early Chan patriarchs, many of the details of Hongren’s life are uncertain and much of his biography is layered with legend added well after his death. The following biography is based on Chan traditional sources. Childhood Hongren was born in Huangmei with the family name Chou. His father abandoned the family but Hongren displayed exemplary filial duty in supporting his mother. Although the ''Records of the Teachers and Disciples of the Lankavatara'' claim that Hongren’s father abandoned the family, Chan scholar John McRae points out that Hongren’s residence was converted to a monastery, implying that Hongren’s family was probably wealthy and prominent locally. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zazen
''Zazen'' (literally " seated meditation"; ja, 座禅; , pronounced ) is a meditative discipline that is typically the primary practice of the Zen Buddhist tradition. However, the term is a general one not unique to Zen, and thus technically any Buddhist tradition's seated meditation is "zazen". The term ''zuòchán'' can be found in early Chinese Buddhist sources, such as the Dhyāna sutras. For example, the famous translator Kumārajīva (344-413) translated a work termed ''Zuòchán sān mēi jīng'' (''A'' ''Manual on the Samādhi of Sitting Meditation'') and the Chinese Tiantai master Zhiyi (538–597 CE) wrote some very influential works on sitting meditation.Swanson, Paul L. (2002). ''Ch'an and Chih-kuan: T'ien-t’ai Chih-i's View of "Zen" and the Practice of the Lotus Sutra''. Presented at the International Lotus Sutra Conference on the theme "The Lotus Sutra and Zen", 11–16 July 2002. Source: (accessed: 6 August 2008). p.4 The earliest manual on sitting meditati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sutra
''Sutra'' ( sa, सूत्र, translit=sūtra, translit-std=IAST, translation=string, thread)Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an aphorism or a collection of aphorisms in the form of a manual or, more broadly, a condensed manual or text. Sutras are a genre of ancient and medieval Indian texts found in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. In Hinduism, sutras are a distinct type of literary composition, a compilation of short aphoristic statements.Gavin Flood (1996), ''An Introduction to Hinduism'', Cambridge University Press, , pages 54–55 Each sutra is any short rule, like a theorem distilled into few words or syllables, around which teachings of ritual, philosophy, grammar, or any field of knowledge can be woven. The oldest sutras of Hinduism are found in the Brahmana and Aranyaka layers of the Vedas. Every school of Hindu philosophy, Vedic guides for rites of passage, v ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subitism
The term subitism points to sudden awakening, the idea that insight into Buddha-nature, or the nature of mind, is "sudden," c.q. "in one glance," "uncovered all together," or "together, completely, simultaneously," in contrast to "successively or being uncovered one after the other." It may be posited as opposite to gradualism, the original Buddhist approach which says that following the dharma can be achieved only step by step, through an arduous practice. Etymology The application of the term "subitism" to Buddhism is derived from the French '' illumination subite'' (sudden awakening), contrasting with 'illumination graduelle' (gradual awakening). It gained currency in this use in English from the work of sinologist Paul Demiéville. His 1947 work 'Mirror of the Mind' was widely read in the U.S. It inaugurated a series by him on subitism and gradualism. The Chinese term ''tun'', as used in ''tun- wu'', translated as "subite," sudden, has a broader meaning than "sudden." It is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shenxiu
Yuquan Shenxiu (, 606?–706) was one of the most influential Chan masters of his day, a Patriarch of the East Mountain Teaching of Chan Buddhism. Shenxiu was Dharma heir of Daman Hongren (601–674), honoured by Wu Zetian (r. 690–705) of the Tang dynasty, and the putative author of the ''Guan Xin Lun'' (Treatise on the Contemplation of the Mind, written between 675 and 700), a text once attributed to Bodhidharma. Biography Shenxiu was born in Weishi County, suburb of Luoyang, Henan, then secondary capital of China. His family name was Li. His family was aristocratic and may have been related to the Tang dynasty imperial family He was educated in the Chinese classics and Taoism and became a Buddhist at the age of thirteen when he went to the government granaries at Kaifeng during a famine to plead the release of grain to the starving population. There he met an unnamed Buddhist and was inspired to take up Buddhism. After some seven years of a homeless life visiting the famo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bodhidharma
Bodhidharma was a semi-legendary Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century CE. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Chan Buddhism to China, and regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. According to a 17th century apocryphal story found in a manual called Yijin Jing, he began the physical training of the monks of Shaolin Monastery that led to the creation of Shaolin kungfu. He is known as Dámó in China and as Daruma in Japan. His name means "''dharma'' of awakening ( bodhi)" in Sanskrit. Little contemporary biographical information on Bodhidharma is extant, and subsequent accounts became layered with legend and unreliable details. According to the principal Chinese sources, Bodhidharma came from the Western Regions, which typically refers to Central Asia but can also include the Indian subcontinent, and is described as either a "Persian Central Asian" or a "South Indian ..the third son of a great Indian king." Throughout Buddhist art, Bodhidharma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henan Province
Henan (; or ; ; alternatively Honan) is a landlocked province of China, in the central part of the country. Henan is often referred to as Zhongyuan or Zhongzhou (), which literally means "central plain" or "midland", although the name is also applied to the entirety of China proper. Henan is a birthplace of Han Chinese civilization, with over 3,200 years of recorded history and remained China's cultural, economic and political center until approximately 1,000 years ago. Henan Province is home to many heritage sites, including the ruins of Shang dynasty capital city Yin and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the Eight Great Ancient Capitals of China, Luoyang, Anyang, Kaifeng and Zhengzhou, are in Henan. The practice of tai chi also began here in Chen Jia Gou Village (Chen style), as did the later Yang and Wu styles. Although the name of the province () means "south of the ellowriver.", approximately a quarter of the province lies north of the Yellow River, also known as the H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Longmen Grottoes
The Longmen Grottoes () or Longmen Caves are some of the finest examples of Chinese Buddhist art. Housing tens of thousands of statues of Shakyamuni Buddha and his disciples, they are located south of present-day Luoyang in Henan province, China. The images, many once painted, were carved as outside rock reliefs and inside artificial caves excavated from the limestone cliffs of the Xiangshan () and Longmenshan, running east and west. The Yi River () flows northward between them and the area used to be called Yique (). The alternative name of "Dragon's Gate Grottoes" derives from the resemblance of the two hills that check the flow of the Yi River to the typical " Chinese gate towers" that once marked the entrance to Luoyang from the south. There are as many as 100,000 statues within the 2,345 caves, ranging from to in height. The area also contains nearly 2,500 stelae and inscriptions, hence the name “Forest of Ancient Stelae", as well as over sixty Buddhist pagodas. Si ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stupa
A stupa ( sa, स्तूप, lit=heap, ) is a mound-like or hemispherical structure containing relics (such as ''śarīra'' – typically the remains of Buddhist monks or nuns) that is used as a place of meditation. In Buddhism, circumambulation or ''pradakhshina'' has been an important ritual and devotional practice since the earliest times, and stupas always have a ''pradakhshina'' path around them. The original South Asian form is a large solid dome above a tholobate or drum with vertical sides, which usually sits on a square base. There is no access to the inside of the structure. In large stupas there may be walkways for circumambulation on top of the base as well as on the ground below it. Large stupas have or had ''vedikā'' railings outside the path around the base, often highly decorated with sculpture, especially at the torana gateways, of which there are usually four. At the top of the dome is a thin vertical element, with one of more horizontal discs spreadin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
An Lushan Rebellion
The An Lushan Rebellion was an uprising against the Tang dynasty of China towards the mid-point of the dynasty (from 755 to 763), with an attempt to replace it with the Yan dynasty. The rebellion was originally led by An Lushan, a general officer of the Tang military system. The event involved military activity and direct deaths from battle, but also significant associated population loss from famine, and population dislocations. The event is also known, especially in Chinese historiography, either as the An–Shi Rebellion or as the An–Shi Disturbances (). The use of the term ''luàn'' ("chaos") indicates the extreme social instability and population loss which eventually resulted, far beyond the initial consequences of the rebellion. Traditionally, Chinese family names have begun with the family name first. In this case the family name of the initial rebel leader is An. The term ''Ān-Shǐ'' is used to recognize that the rebellion continued after An Lushan's death, with the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Luoyang
Luoyang is a city located in the confluence area of Luo River (Henan), Luo River and Yellow River in the west of Henan province. Governed as a prefecture-level city, it borders the provincial capital of Zhengzhou to the east, Pingdingshan to the southeast, Nanyang, Henan, Nanyang to the south, Sanmenxia to the west, Jiyuan to the north, and Jiaozuo to the northeast. As of December 31, 2018, Luoyang had a population of 6,888,500 inhabitants with 2,751,400 people living in the built-up (or metro) area made of the city's five out of six urban districts (except the Jili District not continuously urbanized) and Yanshi District, now being conurbated. Situated on the Central Plain (China), central plain of China, Luoyang is among the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities#East Asia, oldest cities in China and one of the History of China#Ancient China, cradles of Chinese civilization. It is the earliest of the Historical capitals of China, Four Great Ancient Capitals of China. Name ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
