Ch a pter si x

Body and Mind Like an Iron Wall

The Huatou in Practice

I n his engagement with the Chan literary tradition, Mingben’s

work in the genres of niangu and songgu reflect his erudition and
his ability to assume diffferent voices. These types of texts, however,
reveal little of what Mingben thought students of Chan should be
doing. His criticism of other Chan monks suggests that monks were
using references to the gongan literature to validate however they
chose to practice. Such maneuvers were necessary because they had
no experience that would serve as verifijication of their approach
and thus had to fall back on the words of authority fijigures to legiti-
mate what they were doing. Mingben consistently advocated for
true realization, a standard that was as difffijicult to achieve as it was
to validate. Further, an ideal of Chan that eschewed verbal descrip-
tions of realization meant that he could not produce an explicit
how-to guide to Chan practice. In sermons and other works, he
guided students by telling them what to avoid and explaining how
to think about the process.
Mingben’s chief criticisms of his students were that they hur-
ried their study of Chan, lacked faith and determination, and tended
to drift into intellectualization. But such students were not without
the capacity for rapid change (huer qianbian 忽爾遷變). A lengthy
passage from his “Shanfang yehua” describes three types of students
and the source of their problems: “For some, their ruling mind does
not relinquish [attachments], and they are rather burdened by their
272 chapter six

intelligence.1 Moreover, through the deceptions of teachers and

friends, their ‘awakening’ is still only understood through words,
and, unawares, they become immersed in discursive knowledge” 或
者勝心不捨, 頗負聦明, 矧乎師友之罔, 其悟理惟尚言通, 不自覺知涉入
知解. Others, fijinding that they cannot make progress in their study
of Chan, turn to diffferent approaches:

Some have little in the way of determination, and their knowledge is

limited, so whenever they make some efffort they have nothing stable
to rely on. They then say that it is no use, and have utterly no experi-
ence of the numinous efffijicacy of the teachings. Limiting themselves
to ten or twenty years, some suddenly change [what would have
been] the prior cause [of their awakening] because they have no re-
sults; and some take reciting the Buddha’s name as their path, and
practice morning and evening, clutching the beads in their pursuit
of pure karma.
或者志氣狹劣，識見淺陋，每向工夫邊倚靠不穩。將謂此無功用，法門絕
無靈驗。惟限以十年二十年，或不相應遽變前因，或以念佛為徑路，修行
朝暮，掐數珠求淨業。2

This type of student cannot persevere in one kind of practice, but

switching methods only ensures that they will be unable to main-
tain the concentrated practice necessary for realization. The third
type of person lacks the ability to reflect ( fanxing 反省) and ends
up distracted from their practice: “Some are originally without the
seeds of faith, [yet] encounter circumstances [so that] they give rise
to the mind [to pursue enlightenment], but underneath the three
rafters their sitting cushions are never warm, and in the fijield of the
eight consciousnesses grasping at objects never ends. They never
gnaw through a single critical phrase [huatou], and the hundred
types of delusion rise and disappear at all moments” 或元無信種, 遇
境興心, 三根椽下坐席未溫, 八識田中攀緣不斷; 一箇話頭咬嚼未破, 百

1. Note that Soothill and Hodous defijine this as the mind that “carries out the
Buddhist discipline.” Here it has the sense of the controlling portion of the mind.
Soothill and Hodous, Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms, 367.
2. GL 11b:4a–b; 32124b.