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

was necessary, went back to South China and stayed in the mountains there for sixteen years
before re-emerging in Guangzhou (Canton) as the Sixth Patriarch.
Immediately upon the announcement of the accession, Shen Xiu, understandably
miffed, moved out of East Mountain monastery with a group of his supporters who
indignantly insisted upon conferring the title of Sixth Patriarch upon him anyway. He
founded his own monastery in which he adhered to traditional Buddhist methods. His
practice continued to include daily sessions of mind-blanking meditation. To Shen Xiu,
simply living like an enlightened person was all that was necessary for a person to claim to be
enlightened, and that was that! Already renowned for his personal integrity and erudition, he
had no difficulty in securing a reputation for being a great Chan master.
So, while few people may have known or even cared about the creed of this peculiar
Buddhist sect, everyone knew about this exemplary master. And that is why when the
Empress Wu increasingly found her name being sullied and her ambitions being stymied and
her priests being wickedly disloyal, she thought of Shen Xiu.
Then, as her enemies played their high cards against her, she calmly countered with
her trump. She summoned to court His Eminence, Shen Xiu, Sixth Patriarch of Northern
Chan.
And when this old man was finally ushered into her inquisitive court, the mighty Wu
did something Chinese empresses simply did not do: she descended from the Imperial throne
and to everyone's utter astonishment curtsied deeply to him. The upstart sect of Chan
Buddhism had scored a grand slam.
Chinese orthodox Buddhism, so obviously in its decadent phase, virtually collapsed
when confronted by such an unassailable obstacle as the venerable Shen Xiu. Who could fail
to pay him obeisance when Wu appointed him Lord of the Dharma? Who could oppose his
imperially sponsored reforms or fail to support the new monasteries which Wu constructed in
his honor? Under the new regime, Buddhist priests and nuns got out of the flesh trade and
put their pharmacological expertise to work by treating less challenging conditions than
sexual dysfunction: Buddhist monasteries actually became hospitals for sick people. And,
having not too much else to do with their spare time, Buddhist priests also managed to invent
printing. (The oldest printed document in the world happens to be a copy of the Diamond
Sutra printed in A.D. 868. It is a work of such technical refinement that experts estimate that
the actual invention of printing had occurred at least a hundred years earlier.)
Wu, fit at last to be called a benefactress of her religion, survived to live out her reign.
Regal Northern Chan would live on long enough to allow its offspring, under the
regency of the formidable Dogen Zenji, to emigrate to Japan as Soto Zen, the vehicle of
gradual enlightenment. The School did not die out entirely in China: A few isolated
monasteries managed to survive and are still viable institutions today.
CHAPTER 4 ORIGINS OF THE TWO MAIN SCHOOLS OF CHAN
S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM
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