seventh world of chan buddhism - Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun

As monasteries and shrines competed with each other in opulence, fortunes in metals
were invested in statuary and religious objects. Buildings were palatial and the priests and
nuns who inhabited them were fed and attired in a manner guaranteed to make them feel at
home in such luxurious surroundings. Since the soiling of hands was forbidden, somebody
had to be brought in to do the work. And though a simple soul might suppose that slavery
would violate a Precept or two, such was held not to be the case. Thousands of temple slaves
were purchased or received as donations.
To the chagrin of merchants, Buddhist monasteries became centers of banking,
pawnbroking, marketing and that other adjunct of commercial investment, fortune telling. To
the consternation of kings and treasury ministers, more and more wealth, though under their
noses, was out of their reach. And so, whenever Buddhist monasteries got too greedy or were
too obviously created as tax shelters owned, built, and administered by rich families for
purposes that had nothing beyond appearance to do with religion, the threshold of official
tolerance would be crossed. Periodically Buddhist lands and property were confiscated and
the ranks of this resplendent Sangha thinned considerably. Ultimately, such priests as
remained were forced to tolerate more spartan accommodations. The priestly menu was
drastically revised: meat dishes, plain or fancy, were permanently stricken from the carte du
jour.
While monastic centers occasionally suffered, village Buddhism managed always to
prosper. Local churches did what local churches have to do in order to survive: they adopted
orphaned gods and ceremonies and traded scriptural veracity for the pronouncements of
fortune-tellers and the incantations of magicians and quacks. The village temple was the
focal point of village culture; and people didn't usually come to it in order to work,
physically or mentally, for the attainment of wisdom. Most came for gossip, laughs, cures,
sympathy, food, excitement, and to get their futures predicted. Most came, in short, to be
entertained.
Aside from official criticism of monastic centers, northern Buddhism also
encountered opposition from its growing rival, Daoism.
The Han Dynasty which succeeded Qin Shihuangdi deliberately declined to renew his
flirtation with Daoism, a slight which served to keep Daoism free of "Old Guard" taint when
the Han Dynasty was itself toppled by invading, northern barbarians in A.D. 220.
With Confucianism effectively sidelined, Buddhists and Daoists prospered. Devotees
came in three varieties: the spiritual who sought monastic isolation; the scholarly who
preferred the more sophisticated diversions of urban or courtly life, and the ordinary village
faithful who delighted in magic, superstition, and the dubious benefits of medical science and
divination.
Since only Daoist philosophers had been able to get any kind of grip on the new
Buddhist metaphysics, sutra translations were increasingly expressed in Daoist terminology, a
CHAPTER 4 ORIGINS OF THE TWO MAIN SCHOOLS OF CHAN
S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM
47