Kuya (Koya)
(903-972) earliest Japanese Buddhist monk to popularize the use of nembutsu
After becoming tonsured as a novice priest around the age of 20, Kuya became a wanderer, and the first of a new class of wandering monks, the hijiri, "nembutsu wanderers." He was respected among the common people for his willingness to live among them and forgo creature comforts.
In 948 he settled at Mt. Hiei (the headquarters of the Tendai sect) and was ordained as a priest. This event seemed to have been a watershed in his life. He began to accept support from the imperial court and in 963 founded Saiko-ji temple in Kyoto. He lived there quietly for the rest of his life. Though a precursor to the distinctive Pure Land Buddhism later promoted by Honen (11331212) and the Jodo-Shu in the 13th century, he is a prime representative of the Amitabha devotion cult that had become an integral part of Tendai Buddhism.
Kwan Um school
The Kwan Um school of Zen is a Western expression of Korean Son Buddhism founded by Seung Sahn Sunim (1927-2002), generally called Dae Soen Sa Nim by his students. Seung Sahn was ordained as a novice monk at Magok-sa temple in Korea in 1948. Two years of study and examinations by several masters led to his receiving his INKASHOMEI (seal) of enlightenment.
Seung Sahn served in the South Korean Army during the Korean War, after which he became the abbot of a Buddhist temple and served on the board of directors of the Chogye Order. In the 1960s he founded temples among Korean expatriates in Japan and Hong Kong. In 1971 Seung Sahn moved to the united States and opened a Zen center in Providence, Rhode Island, the first of many. In 1983, he formally organized the Kwan Um school of Zen as an umbrella organization for the many centers related to him. Several years later he founded the first Korean style Zen monastery, the Diamond Hill Zen Monastery, in Rhode Island. It became the training ground for his more advanced students, a number of whom were given their inka by Seung Sahn.
Through the 1990s, the school spread internationally. A European headquarters in Paris oversees temples across the continent including in Russia and the countries of Eastern Europe. A center in Seoul oversees temples in Korea, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore. There is also work in Australia, Brazil, and South Africa.
Seung Sahn became one of the most well-known teachers in the Western Buddhist community. He authored several books in which he expounded the mixture of Soto and Rinzai Zen traditions he taught.
Laity, Annabel (Chan Duc, "True Virtue")
(b. unknown) follower of Thich Nhat Hanh and major contemporary translator
Annabel Laity is a key lieutenant in Thich Nhat Hanh’s Buddhist organization. She became a follower in 1986 and a Dharma teacher in 1990. She was director of the Maple Forest Monastery, USA, from 1997 and abbess of the Green Mountain Dharma Centre from 1998. She was born in England and studied Sanskrit in India. She has translated many of Thich Nhat Hanh’s books, such as Breathe! You Are Alive (1998) and Thundering Silence: Sutra on Knowing the Better Way to Catch a Snake (1993).
Laos, Buddhism in
Buddhism appears to have been introduced into Laos as early as the 10th century. Today, after a turbulent period during the 20th century, it remains the religion of most Laotians.
During the reign of King Fa Ngum (1316-73), founder of the Lao kingdom of Lan Xang in the mid-14th century, Buddhism played a dominant role in Laotian society. Over successive centuries the Lao Buddhist sangha (community of monks) promoted morality and an attitude of respect for the ruler. In return, the successive Lao kings generously supported the sangha. By the time Westerners first explored Laos in the 17th century, they were able to see a relatively wealthy monastic establishment that was consuming a significant portion of the kingdom’s income.
In 1707, the Lan Xang kingdom fell apart and several rival kingdoms emerged. That action also split the community of monks, each group of which adhered to the ruler in the territory in which they resided. As Thailand (Siam) established control over the various parts of Laos in the 19 th century, the sangha had largely lost its former privileged position. Laotian Buddhism’s low point was reached in the years after the Thais sacked Viang Chan (now Vientiane, the Laotian capital) in 1828. The sangha was further split as different reform movements emerged. The Dham-mayuttika Nikaya reform movement founded by the future Thai king Rama IV (1804-68) was also influential in Laos. Just as in Thailand, there was a dominant Mahanikaya as well as a reformist Dhammayuttika Nikaya.
The arrival of the French in the 1890s to establish a protectorate did little to change Buddhism’s or the sangha’s position, beyond opening the country to Christian missionaries. An independent Kingdom of Laos was founded in 1953 after the French pullout, and the new government restored Buddhism’s privileged position. However, the new government was almost immediately drawn into conflict with the Communist Pathet Lao movement. To keep the Buddhist community loyal, the government imposed a new administrative structure on it that at every level paralleled the government’s hierarchy. The sangha was led by the sangharaja, a monk selected by the senior abbots and approved by the government. The Pathet Laos encouraged different factions among the sangha to oppose the government.
In 1975, the Pathet Lao took control of the country. Most of those monks formerly loyal to the government left Laos. They were part of an exodus that saw approximately 10 percent of the population become refugees. They founded a number of Laotian ethnic temples and monasteries in their new countries of residence—France, Australia, Canada, and the united States.
Within Laos, the new government completely reorganized the Buddhist community. They abolished all the sectarian groupings and founded the Lao United Buddhists Association (LUBA), a substructure within the government-supported Lao Front for National Construction. The office of sang-haraja was abandoned and leadership given to the new president of the LUBA. After a sharp decline in support, Buddhism has recovered and continues as the religion of the majority of Laotians.
Laozi (Lao-tzu)
(c. 500 b.c.e.) Chinese philosopher of the Dao
Laozi is the most enigmatic of China’s great philosophers. He is traditionally said to be the author of the Daodejing. He was said to have lived during Confucius’s time and to have debated with him. Depending on which school wrote the account, Laozi sometimes bested Confucius, and at other times served to illustrate Confucius’s point.
The first biographical reference is in the Shiji (Records of the historian), a massive work from the early Han dynasty (221 B.C.E.-220 c.e.). According to this source Laozi (surnamed Li) was born in Chu, a state in what today is central China, and he kept the archives at the Zhou ruler’s court. He resigned and went west, where he met one Yin Xi, "Guardian of the Pass," at the Xiangu mountain pass. Yin Xi requested that Laozi write down his wisdom before he would allow him to pass. At this request Laozi wrote the Daodejing. After this there are no more reports on his whereabouts. Nevertheless, his recorded age was at least 160 years, according to the Shiji.
Laozi’s association with Daoist concepts meant that he soon became a figure of religious veneration. He is now worshipped as one of the highest deities in the Daoist pantheon, under the title Taishang Laojun, or simply Laojun.
Laozi was also used as a tool in debates between Buddhists and Daoists. Daoists often insisted that Laozi continued west to India, where he taught disciples, including Sakyamuni Buddha. Thus all Buddhist teachings originated with Laozi, a claim unsupported by evidence but sure to cause controversy.
Lhamo Latso, Lake
(Oracle Lake, Vision Lake)
Lake Lhamo Latso is one of the holy natural sites in Tibet. The lake is located some hundred miles southeast of Lhasa. Above the lake on the hillside is a throne where the Dalai Lama and others over the years have traveled to sit, meditate, and receive a vision and/or information on a particular question. It is often the place where Tibetan leaders go for information to assist them in identifying a new incarnation of a deceased lama.
The power possessed by the lake is derived from an ancient Tibetan belief that every country has a la, or "life-spirit." The lake is the home of the la of Tibet. The lake has also become associated with the la of each Dalai Lama.
The lake’s most famous use in the 20th century occurred in 1933 after the death of the 13th Dalai Lama. The regent, who assumes power after the death of the Dalai Lama until the next one is identified and comes of age, made a pilgrimage to Lhamo Latso, where he was able to discern the information that led him and his colleagues to Tenzin Gyatso, the young boy then living in central Tibet who became the 14th Dalai Lama. More recently, in 1995, four monks from Tashil-humpo monastery, the monastery founded by TSoNG Khapa, who originated the Gelug school of Buddhism to which the Dalai Lama belongs, made the trek to Lhamo Latso, to gather information on the next Panchen Lama (second only to Dalai Lama) in the Gelug community.
Li (1) (principle, pattern, form)
Li is the ultimate structure(s) of both reality and human nature—it is essential to learn as one strives to become a sage. Western scholars of Chinese thought often speak of Neo-Confucianism when referring to the Confucian renaissance during the Song dynasty (960-1279). The term Neo-Confucianism is somewhat misleading; Chinese traditionally speak of later Confucianism as lixue (the learning of principle) in reference to the centrality of metaphysics in this later reinterpreta-tion of Confucian teachings. It is this notion of li, which might best be conceived as the abstract "essence" of something that makes it what it is, that became the linchpin for Neo-Confucian views of reality, the place of human beings, and harmonious relationships between them exemplified by the sage.
Li originally referred to the veins within a piece of jade, its elemental and essential structure revealed through careful inspection and observation. We already see the word used in a more or less metaphysical sense in the Book OF Changes, where it is spoken of in conjunction with instructions on the use of the Yi as a way of understanding the cosmos and developing one’s moral nature. The pre-Han thinker Hanfeizi (d. 233 b.c.e.), known for his association with "legalism," also speaks of li as both the cosmic pattern/order established by Dao and the ordering (patterning) process itself. Neo-Daoist thinkers such as Wang Bi (226-249) also speak of li in this latter sense, stressing it as the unity behind the diversity of existence. However, it is in the doctrinal schools of Chinese Buddhism (Hua Yan and Tian Tai) that we first see a fully sketched out metaphysics involving the harmonious inter-penetration of li, the abstract principle of reality, and the concrete, individual "things" (events,phenomena) that compose existence. It is almost certain that this Buddhist metaphysical scheme of li, as the "absolute" manifesting in actual events, was borrowed and reinterpreted by the great Song Neo-Confucians.
Although Zhou Dunyi (1017-73) speaks of li in sections of his work, it really is the Cheng brothers, particularly Cheng Yi (1033-1107), who elaborate upon it in detail. And it is through their influence that Zhu Xi (1130-1200), the great Neo-Confucian systematizer, formulates his own ideas. According to Zhu’s interpretation (which became the standard one among Neo-Confucian thinkers), all things are to be understood as combinations of li (principle) and QI ("matter-energy"). Li is the principle that gives an individual thing its structure, whereas qi is the basic "stuff" that li informs. Neither li nor qi are "things" in the ordinary sense. Rather, all things are the result of li’s becoming instantiated within qi; one never finds li apart from qi nor qi apart from li, although the latter is, in some sense, logically and ontologically prior to the former. A reasonable analogy to Zhu’s scheme is Aristotle’s distinction between "form" and "matter." Just as with the ancient Greeks, so we can view the Neo-Confucian metaphysical scheme of li-qi as a way of accounting for the relationship of the "One and the Many." Zhu compares this relationship of li-qi to seeds of grain: each seed has a certain particularity yet also shares generic elements of structure, growth, use, and so forth. As a Confucian, though, Zhu insists (unlike the Buddhists) that li is absolutely real in substance and functional expression, not "illusory" or "empty."
As the absolute principle, li has various dimensions. Cosmically, li is the Taiji, the "Great ultimate" (lit. "great ridgepole") from which all individual things derive. Again, using analogies from Western philosophy, we might conceive the Taiji as the "Li of li" similar to Plato’s description of the Good as the "Form of forms" or Aristotle’s concept of God. Li in this cosmic sense is an impersonal principle, but Zhu equates it with references in earlier Chinese texts to Shangdi, the "Lord on High."
However, it is the presence of li in human beings that is of most concern to Zhu and his fellow Confucians. The li of human beings is their intellectual and moral nature (intellect and morality are rarely separated in the traditional Chinese view). It is in essence identical with the "Mind of Heaven" (li in its most abstract sense) and can "penetrate" all things in order to understand their principles. Cheng Yi even went so far as to claim, "When one finally understands principle, even millions of things can be understood." Interestingly, it is li in the sense of this innate, original "moral mind" that receives the most emphasis in the later challenge to Zhu Xi’s philosophy, the "School of Mind" associated with Wang Yangming (Wang Shouren, 1472-1529). Wang speaks of li in this existential sense as a person’s "original substance" (benti), "heavenly principle" (tianli), or even more commonly, "True Self." The obvious influence of Chan Buddhism in this understanding of li reflects the mystical and phenomenological bent of Wang’s philosophy, which has sometimes been misunderstood as a kind of metaphysical idealism.
Despite its variety of interpretations, there can be no doubt that li as "principle" or "absolute" is the key concept in Neo-Confucian metaphysics. As both an ontological and a mystical absolute, the Neo-Confucian li invites intriguing comparisons to the "godhead" spoken of medieval Christian mystics.
Li (2) (rites, rituals)
As opposed to the term li that refers to the absolute principle in reality, this second term li concerns ritual action. The emphasis on li (ritual) is one of the most enigmatic but crucial features of Confucianism. As with many Chinese terms, it is difficult to find an adequate translation for li because it has such a broad range of meanings. The term has been variously rendered as "rites," "ceremony," "propriety," "decorum," even "etiquette," although it seems to have originally referred to sacrificial rituals. Some scholars have even suggested translating li as "civility." While none of these translations are adequate, together they do convey a sense of the complexity and importance of this term in ancient China. The li are the complex body of manners guiding social behavior as well as court rituals, ancestor rites, worship of gods, and so on. In a sense, the li comprise a blueprint for social interaction. Proper adherence to the li is one of the hallmarks of a cultivated person, someone who knows the "social graces." The li epitomize the aesthetic and social dimensions of Chinese (and all of East Asian) culture. They also underscore the basic Chinese notion of harmony between the cosmic and human realms. So important are the li for Confucians that they were sometimes known as the "school of li."
In the Confucian view, the li have their roots in antiquity, in the ancient customs of the great societies of the past, particularly the early Zhou, when a just society following Dao had been established. Confucius himself appears to be the first thinker to recognize the importance of li in founding a good social order, and he often speaks of the li in the Analects. For Confucius, it seems that the li are the channels and forms of proper behavior for a junzi, a "noble person." As an ethical person, a junzi expresses himself through them. Ideally they are ingrained so that a properly cultivated person can follow them effortlessly (wuwei) and thus put others at ease. Above all the li are the means by which a ruler should govern his people rather than through law and punishments.
Mencius also maintains the centrality of the li, regarding respect for them as one of the four innate "buds" of virtue within all human beings.
However, of all the early Confucians it is Xunzi who provides the fullest discussion of li. For Xunzi, li are necessary for making a person truly human. Human beings are born "evil" (selfish, lustful) according to Xunzi but become good through education. The key component to such education are the li, which shape and restrain one’s natural impulses so that one can take one’s place in society. In his discussion of the ways li functions, Xunzi evinces a keen psychological and sociological understanding of the role of socialization in forming human character. Quite simply, one becomes fully human by learning the ways human beings should behave in various circumstances. The examples of such proper behavior are found in the li.
There can be little doubt that Confucian stress on li and their importance for individual moral/spiritual development and social order was a major reason for Confucianism’s being adopted as the state ideology during the Han dynasty. The li were a means of maintaining the hallowed traditions of the past and giving the new rulers an air of legitimacy in the eyes of the populace. They also provided the emperor with a concrete example of orderly social interaction, thus serving as a model for the functioning of the well-run empire. one of the great Confucian classics compiled during the Han was the famous Liji (Record of rites), a collection of ancient materials stressing the role of the li in human society. During the Song dynasty (960-1279), the Neo-Confucian thinker Zhu Xi (1130-1200) selected two chapters from this work, assigning them independent status in the Confucian canon—the Daxue (Great learning) and the Zhongyong (The mean). Both are classic expressions of Confucian spirituality in which the li serve as the basis for self-cultivation.
Liangzhi (innate knowledge)
Liangzhi ("innate knowledge") is the path to knowledge advocated by the Confucian thinker Wang Yangming (1472-1529). Knowledge has never been a purely intellectual matter in Confucianism. Rather, the tradition has long advocated the necessity of extending one’s learning into daily life. Simply put, the focus from the time of Confucius has always been ethical in the broadest sense; the Confucian Dao is the Way of acting in concert with others to ensure a harmonious society. All training, therefore, should contribute to this end—a process outlined in the classic work, the Da xue (Great Learning). However, from the time of the rise of Neo-Confucianism, Confucian thinkers have differed on the details of this training. For Zhu Xi, one needs to cultivate oneself by "investigating things." Wang Yangming, by contrast, repudiates this intellectual approach, opting for a more intuitive and active path centered on what he called liangzhi.
For Wang, liangzhi is not something acquired but is a basic part of any human being. As he says, "It is my nature, endowed by Heaven, the original substance of my mind, naturally intelligent, shining, clear, and understanding." Wang even equates this with Mencius’s reference to humanity’s shared sense of right and wrong. In Wang’s view, this innate moral knowing does not require learning or deliberation but must be developed and extended outward. one does this by acting rightly. Thus, in the fullest sense one’s "innate knowing" is demonstrated not just by the feeling of alarm one experiences at seeing a child about to fall into a well but in the action of saving her by, for instance, seizing her hand.
Perhaps the best way to understand Wang’s position is that liangzhi is the inherent capacity for moral behavior that we must realize (i.e., "make real") through our personal actions. ultimately one cannot separate action and knowledge. Wang’s understanding of "innate knowledge" has some affinity with the position of Socrates, who famously maintained that "to know the good is to do the good." It also suggests similarities with Martin Heidegger’s analysis in Being and Time in which he seeks to uncover our basic "understanding of being" revealed in everyday behavior.
Lingbao Daoism (Lingpao Taoism)
The Lingbao (numinous treasure) school is the branch of religious Daoism based on the Lingbao Scriptures. These 40 texts date from the third century c.e. and contain information on such issues as ritual, the gods of the Daoist pantheon, and funeral ceremonies. The name Lingbao was given to these texts by Lu Xiujing (406-477), who cataloged them. These texts continue to make up a major part of the Daozang, the Daoist Canon.
There are three divisions to the Lingbao texts. The first consists of two relatively old works from the later Han period (206 B.C.E.-220 c.e.). They were compiled sometime in the fourth century c.e. , one (the Wupian zhenwen, Perfect text in five tablets) by Ge Chaofu, a descendant of the famous alchemist Ge Hong (283-343). These two works include ritual spells that probably dated back to the magicians of the Han period, called fangshi.
The second group of Lingbao Scriptures were issued at the birth of creation and are communicated by the Daoist deity Yuanshi Tianzun, the Celestial Venerable of the Primordial Beginning. They include teachings on universal salvation and karma and reflect the strong influence of Buddhist ideas then entering China.
The second group, nine works, are associated with Ge Xuan, a fangshi who was great uncle of Ge Hong. While these texts contain magical spells and emphasize worship of Zhang Daoling, the first Celestial Master, and Laozi, they also show Buddhist influence. Lingbao did not become an organized system or "school" until Lu Xiujing synthesized all these disparate materials in the fifth century c.e. Eventually the texts became part of the Shangqing category, or "Cavern," in the Daozong. However, Lingbao rituals continued to be recognized and are performed today.
Lingbao was an early term for a kind of spirit medium who contacted and indeed controlled dead spirits. Such shamans were found throughout southern China as far back as the Shijing, or Book of songs, c. 700 b.c.e. Lingbao were related to a ceremony in which the soul of a departed ancestor was called back, and a young child, for instance, a grandson of the departed, would "wear" the skull and act as the "guardian" of the numinous spirit. Later the skull was dropped and a wooden tablet that similarly represented the spirit of the ancestor set in place. Later Lingbao ritual was fixed by Lu Xiujing. He decided on standard formats for ordinations, purifications, feasts (zhai), and offerings (jiao). Lingbao ritual centered on nine zhai, or purification rites. Each rite included physical purifications (bathing, fasting, avoiding sex), mental purification (confession and meditation), and prayers. The zhai was not a new ceremony in China. It was originally a purification and fasting rite associated with certain deities. After Lu Xiujing’s revisions it also became associated with prayers and repentance.
Lingbao texts are important because they reflect the incorporation of the five phases (wux-ing) cosmology into standard Daoist thinking. Overall, the Lingbao corpus, as formalized by Lu Xiujing, was a grand compilation that involved reference to the Daodejing, the Ge family, Shangq-ing, and Buddhism.
Lingyin
Lingyin (Soul’s retreat, or the place the gods go to find rest) temple is located near Hangzhou, eastern China, in the mountainous area near Hangzhou’s West Lake. At its height more than 1,000 monks resided in its many dormitories. First constructed in the fourth century, it is still a working temple today that houses a large monastic community but is also daily filled with visitors to what has become a major Chinese tourist attraction.
Lingyin temple dates to the early fourth century c.e. and the arrival of a monk from India, Hui Li. He began what would become a large monastic complex around 326 c.e. Chan Buddhism emerged in China in the fifth century and Lingyin became identified with Chan as one of its most prominent centers.
Among the notable features of the land upon which Lingyin rests is Feilai Feng, or "Peak that flew from afar." According to the story, Hui Li believed that the mountain had been transported to China from India because it looked so much like ones he had seen in his homeland. over the centuries the mountain was decorated with numerous carvings of bodhisattvas and other enlightened beings, most carved between the 10th and 14th centuries. The most famous of the carvings is a large one of Maitreya, the Future Buddha.
Lingyan has survived through the many ups and downs of Chinese history. Its buildings have been destroyed and rebuilt more than a dozen times. It was a favored spot during the Qing dynasty (1644-1911). Lingyin escaped much of the harm done to religious structures in the Hangzhou region during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.
The current structures date from the 19th century. The main buildings that survive to the present include the Great and Magnificent Hall (or Mahavira Hall), which houses large statues of Buddha and Guan Yin, and the Front Hall, which has statues of Buddha’s four warrior attendants. The statue of Sakyamuni Buddha is 18 feet high. It was constructed during the Tang dynasty (607-960) from 24 pieces of camphor wood. It is one of the larger wooden Buddhas in the world. The Hall of the Five Hundred Arhats, as its name implies, contains hundreds of life-size statues of enlightened personages. A more recent, post-Qing building is the Hall for Bhaisajya-guru Buddha, also known as the Medicine Buddha, for his healing powers.
