Touzi Yiqing (; ), sometimes also Touzi Qing Huayan, was a Chan (

Zen Zen (; from Chinese: ''Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka phil ...

)

Buddhist Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

monk during the early

Song Dynasty The Song dynasty ( ) was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 960 to 1279. The dynasty was founded by Emperor Taizu of Song, who usurped the throne of the Later Zhou dynasty and went on to conquer the rest of the Fiv ...

Biography

Touzi Yiqing was born in a city known at the time as Qingshe, which is near the present-day city of

Yanshi Yanshi District () is a district in the prefecture-level city of Luoyang in western Henan province, China. Yanshi lies on the Luo River and is the easternmost county-level division of Luoyang. History After the Zhou conquest of Shang in mid-11t ...

Henan Province Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Luo ...

. An account of his life from the ''Wudeng Huiyuan'' (Compendium of Five Lamps), and early 13th century collection of Buddhist biographies, claims he left his parents at the age of seven to study Buddhism at Miaoxing Temple, which was part of the Consciousness-only Sect. Eventually, however, he is said to have found the density of the teachings unhelpful, and so he left to study in the

Huayan school The Huayan school of Buddhism (, Wade–Giles: ''Hua-Yen,'' "Flower Garland," from the Sanskrit "''Avataṃsaka''") is a Mahayana, Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty, Tang dynasty (618-907).Yü, Chün-fan ...

instead. While studying in that tradition, he supposedly came to the realization that any attempt to teach Buddhism through the study of words could not succeed. He again left, this time settling on the Zen practitioner Fushan Fayuan, also known as Yuanjian, as his teacher. While Touzi's predecessor was said to be the last remaining teacher in the

Caodong Caodong school () is a Chinese Chan Buddhist branch and one of the Five Houses of Chán. The school emphasised sitting meditation (Ch: zuochan, Jp: zazen), and the " five ranks" teaching. During the Song dynasty, Caodong masters like Hongzh ...

Sōtō Sōtō Zen or is the largest of the three traditional sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism (the others being Rinzai school, Rinzai and Ōbaku). It is the Japanese line of the Chinese Caodong school, Cáodòng school, which was founded during the ...

Zen tradition, the lineage flourished with Touzi's devoted students, recovering much of its former prominence.

Indirect dharma-transmission

Touzi Yiqing is a significant figure in the lineage of

Zen because he did not actually study under the man commonly regarded as his predecessor, namely

Dayang Jingxuan Dayang Jingxuan (; ) was a Chan (Zen) Buddhist monk during the early Song dynasty. During his life, he was apparently the only living teacher representing Caodong/Sōtō school, and he was the last monk of that tradition to be mentioned in the in ...

. This is a unique exception to an otherwise steadfast rule that a lineage must involve direct teacher-to-student

dharma transmission In Chan and Zen Buddhism, dharma transmission is a custom in which a person is established as a "successor in an unbroken lineage of teachers and disciples, a spiritual 'bloodline' ('' kechimyaku'') theoretically traced back to the Buddha him ...

in order to be considered valid. Juefan Huihong's biographical compilation of 1119, the ''Chanlin sengbao zhuan'' (Chronicle of the Sangha Treasure in the Groves of Chan), claims that Touzi Yiqing was the "true son" of Dayang Jingxuan. The ''Xudeng lu'' of 1101 lists Touzi and nine others as disciples of Dayang. However, it also explains that Touzi did not actually ever meet Dayang, let alone receive dharma transmission from him. Instead, Touzi received dharma transmission from Fushan Fayuan, who had been a student of Dayang, but had himself had not received dharma transmission from Dayang either. In fact, Fushan had already received dharma transmission in the

Rinzai The Rinzai school (, zh, t=臨濟宗, s=临济宗, p=Línjì zōng), named after Linji Yixuan (Romaji: Rinzai Gigen, died 866 CE) is one of three sects of Zen in Japanese Buddhism, along with Sōtō and Ōbaku. The Chinese Linji school of ...

tradition, and thus could not receive it again. The scholar Morten Schlütter notes that this form of lineage transfer "has no real parallel in early Chan literature". This refers to the fact that Touzi was able to be considered the immediate heir to Dayang's lineage without having met him, and that Fayuan was able to hold Dayang's lineage "in trust" without actually being a bona fide heir. Schlütter further interprets Huihong's likely embellished account as an attempt to strengthen the rather weak link between Touzi and Dayang, who was the last Caodong monk recorded in the prestigious ''

Transmission of the Lamp ''The Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp'' (), often referred to as ''The Transmission of the Lamp'', is a 30 volume work consisting of putative biographies of the Chan Buddhist and Zen Buddhist patriarchs and other prominent Buddhist ...

'', in order to solidify the legitimacy of the lineage.Schlüter, pp.93–94,210

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yiqing, Touzi Chan Buddhist monks 1032 births 1083 deaths Song dynasty Buddhist monks 11th-century Chinese people People from Yanshi