A nice summary on the development of teachings by Ven. Hui-Feng:


Before explaining how the sukha-tathagatagarbhikas ( ) explain the "apparent conflict", and Chan too, let's take a few steps back.

Even in the early sutras, there is the idea of certain teachings as being "fully drawn out" (nitartha), and others as "yet to be drawn out" (neyartha). We could say, "explicit" and "implicit". However, at first, which were which was not stated.

So, there were some "apparent conflicts" quite early on. The biggest by far was that of the "pudgala", which was kind of a synonym for "atman". In some sutras the Buddha says things like "the pudgala does this and that", "the pudgala is reborn in some place", and so forth; and in other sutras, the Buddha states that "there is no atman, no pudgala, no sattva..." and so forth.

Now, one school, the Pudgalavadins, tried to come up with a theory that kept all teachings on a similar "truth" level. They ended up with an "expressible pudgala", which was rather dubious. Still, they tended to fall towards the extreme of eternalism, rather than annihilism. So, although neither are correct, the former is better than the latter (see my signature).

The other schools, notably the Abhidharma groups, came up with the "dharma theory", which broke everything down into irreducible parts, each of which was impermanent, dissatisfactory and not self (and empty too). Now, based on a group of these irreducible dharmas, one could have a designation, but these desigations / names, etc. were not real per se. Classic example: The five aggregates are real, the "person" is a designation based on the aggregates.

They then used this theory to explain the apparent contradiction, ie. that teachings that spoke of a "pudgala", "atman", etc. were actually just "conventional designations" and thus "implicit" and "to be fully drawn out", whereas thos that taught in terms of "dharmas", were "ultimate teachings" and "already fully drawn out". (I've an essay in my Blog, see signature, on this one if you want more details.)

To seal this, the Abhidharma literature which is slightly later than the sutras almost always tries to use the "dharma" / "ultimate" terminology. Therefore, a bunch of later explanatory literature wins the day.

But, there were still some problems with this Abhidharma dharma-theory. In particular, the tendency towards explaining these irreducible dharmas as somehow substantial. In fact, even up to the point of the Sarvastivada considering dharmas as themselves little atman, etc. (Remember, the Sarvastivada is from a school closely related to the Pudgalavadins.) Again, a slight leaning towards eternalism.

Now, another body of literature starts to appear, ie. the Mahayana sutras. Once again, they have the advantage of being the latest texts, so they can make arguments against all the earlier material, and consolidate a complete systematic view. The emphasis is on the fact that even these so-called Dharmas are empty too, not just empty of an atman / pudgala, but empty of any sort of substantiality, eternality, and so forth.

But, again, this has the tendency towards nihilism in the eyes of some. So, yet another body of literature starts to appear. Well, two, actually. These are the Yogacara literature, stemming from the Sarvastivadins. And, the Tathagatagarbha literature.

Because they are now the newest stuff, they can explicity within the text themselves say things like "Oh, the XXX sutra is just a provisional teaching, this sutra that you are reading now is the real, true and ultimate teaching!!" And, of course, the XXX sutra doesn't say anything to the contrary - because this new Tathagatagarbha sutra didn't even exist at the time to be refuted!!

Every new batch of literature that came out stated that it (and usually, only it), was the "explicit" and ultimate teaching, etc. etc. and that everything that had come before was merely provisional.

In India, this was nitartha versus neyartha. But in China, slightly different. The Chinese for a start received a lot of their Buddhism "all at once", or, at least in a quite different order at first to the Indians. ie. they got Abhidharma stuff first, then some Mahayana stuff, and then the Agama sutras, and then mostly Mahayana stuff with some later commentaries of Abhidharma and Mahayana.

So, mainly starting from Tiantai Zhiyi, they started to make "doxographies", and try to put the various sutras in order - of time, and importance. Of course, they considered (almost) every text that had "Thus have I heard..." to be all taught during the Buddha's time. However, because the later texts claimed to be more ultimate, etc. they ended up being put later in the Buddha's career.

eg. whereas modern scholars would say that the range of sutras, early and Mahayana, took place over about 8 centuries, Zhiyi crammed them all within the life time of Sakyamuni. First, the Avatamsaka, then the Agamas, then the Prajnaparamita, then the Vaipulyas (other Mahayana sutras), then the Lotus Sutra and finally the Mahayana Parinirvana Sutra.

Actually, the Mahayana Parinirvana Sutra (not to be confused with the early Parinirvana Sutra) was a genius idea! If they set the sutra at the parinirvana of the Buddha, then obviously it would have to be the Buddhas last (and thus ultimate) teaching! And yes, this was a Tathagatagarbha text.

All these were already translated, and the Tiantai doxography already in place, by the time that Chan came on the scene. So, the Mahayana sutras, especially the Tathagatagarbha sutras, were supreme. For Chan at first, the Lankavatara Sutra was extremely important, but also the Parinirvana, etc. Lotus, etc.

During the first few generations of Chan, they mainly used these Mahayana sutras as the basis of their practice. Bodhidharma cites them, so do Daoxin, Hongren and Huineng. It's called "based on the scripture, realize the mind / truth". This later came to be called "Ruali Chan", "rulai" being the translation of "tathagata", referring to the Tathagatagarbha sutras.

Later, in the late Tang and Song, etc. there was a move towards "patriarch Chan". Though the Sutra content was there, it was less obvious, and there was usage of techniques like "silent illlumination", "word/thought watching", etc. Still, most of these were based around later Mahayana thought, especially Tathagatagarbha. There were some exceptions, but they were minor.

It was in this later period that Chan goes to Japan and we have Zen. Also, a lot of Zen in Japan is Tendai influenced, so the notion of the importance of the Lotus Sutra and Parinirvana Sutra is perhaps even stronger than in China.

These Chan and Zen boys and girls were largely not scholars by this stage. Thus, where the Indian pandits were quickly putting Tathagatagarbha at the bottom end of their doctrinal scale of "which teaching is ultimate", subsuming it under a Madhyamaka (and Yogacara) over-system, the Chinese (and Japanese) did not. Nobody was really going around noting that "Hey, these buddhists are talking like the Vedantins or Brahmins!?", because there weren't (m)any Brahmins in China! Everything Indian got subsumed into the Buddhist fold.

Also, around the late Tang, the routes to India were not as open, and so the latest Indian explanations did not make it to China. Unlike in Tibet, which is the time when Buddhism started there. Their Tathagatagarbha and Yogacara was already largely the later, pre-packaged in Madhyamaka outfit version, and so it stayed.



(If only I could usually write a 1000 word essay so quickly! hahahahaha!)

Huifeng