Dushun () (557–640) was the First Patriarch of the

Huayan School The Huayan or Flower Garland school of Buddhism (, from sa, अवतंसक, Avataṃsaka) is a tradition of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy that first flourished in China during the Tang dynasty (618-907). The Huayan worldview is based primar ...

Chinese Buddhism Chinese Buddhism or Han Buddhism ( zh, s=汉传佛教, t=漢傳佛教, p=Hànchuán Fójiào) is a Chinese form of Mahayana Buddhism which has shaped Chinese culture in a wide variety of areas including art, politics, literature, philosophy, ...

, which has the Indian

Avatamsaka Sutra The ' (IAST, sa, 𑀅𑀯𑀢𑀁𑀲𑀓 𑀲𑀽𑀢𑁆𑀭) or ''Buddhāvataṃsaka-nāma-mahāvaipulya-sūtra (The Mahāvaipulya Sūtra named “Buddhāvataṃsaka”)'' is one of the most influential Mahāyāna sutras of East Asian B ...

as its central scripture.

Biography

Dushun was born in present-day

Shaanxi province Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see § Name) is a landlocked province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichuan (SW), Gansu (W), Ningx ...

. He ordained at the age of seventeen and became a student of a monk named Weichen, from whom he learned meditation at Yinsheng temple. Dushun later retired to Zhixiang temple, a monastery in the

Zhongnan mountains The Zhongnan Mountains (), sometimes called the Taiyi Mountains () or Zhounan Mountains (), are a branch of the Qin Mountains located in Shaanxi Province, south of Xi'an, China that extend from Wugong County in the east of the province to Lantian ...

in the south of Shaanxi. There, Dushun began an in-depth study of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. The second patriarch,

Zhiyan Zhiyan () (602–668) was a Chinese Buddhist monk who is considered the second patriarch of the Chinese Buddhist Huayan school. Zhiyan was born in the second year of the reign of Emperor Wen of Sui. He was a devotee of the ''Avatamsaka Sutra'' and ...

(602-668 CE), studied under Dushun at Zhixiang temple and became recognized as his formal successor.

Works

Around fourteen works have been ascribed to Dushun throughout history; however, only two works can be definitively attributed to him. The first is ''The Ten Mysterious Gates of the Unitary Vehicle of the Huayan'' (zh: ''Huayan yisheng shixuan men''). This text was composed by

(602-668 CE), the second patriarch, but is supposedly a record of the oral teachings of Dushun. The second is ''Discernments of the Dharmadhātu of the Huayan'' (zh: ''Huayan fajie guanmen''), which does not survive as a stand-alone text but can be found in its entirety in several later commentaries. One highly influential text attributed to Dushun is ''Cessation and Contemplation in the Five Teachings of the Huayan'' (zh: ''Huayan wujiao zhiguan''); however, the authorship of this text is disputed.

Bibliography

* Buswell, Robert E., Lopez, Donald S. Jr. (2014). The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University Press, p. 275 (Dushun) * Hamar, Imre, ed. (2007), Reflecting Mirrors: Perspectives on Huayan Buddhism. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag * Cleary, Thomas''. Entry Into the Inconceivable: An Introduction to Hua-yen Buddhism''. University of Hawaii Press, 1983. * Van Norden, Bryan, and Nicholaos Jones. "Huayan Buddhism." ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (Winter 2019 Edition). Sui dynasty Buddhist monks Tang dynasty Buddhist monks 557 births 640 deaths Founders of Buddhist sects Huayan Buddhists {{China-reli-bio-stub