(, "sacred embryo" or "embryo of sagehood") is a Chinese syncretic metaphor for achieving Buddhist liberation or Daoist transcendence. The circa fifth century CE Chinese Buddhist Humane King Sutra first recorded ("sagely womb") describing the bodhisattva path towards attaining Buddhahood; was related to the ancient Traditional Chinese Medical view of conception involving what is called the " Palace of the Child" 胞宫 (bāo gōng) and the Heart/Mind connection through the Bao Mai pathway that connects the kidney jing,天癸 (Tian Gui) or essence with the Shen or Spirit, this became the concept of cultivation of right mind in Chinese Mahayana Buddhism particularly Chan or latter Zen as expressed by Venerable Xiè'ēn a Chinese Buddhist medical physician. this is also called ("embryo/womb of the Buddha", Chinese ) that all sentient beings are born with the Buddha-nature potential to become enlightened. The Chan Buddhist teaching master Mazu Daoyi (709-788) first mentioned post-enlightenment , and by the tenth century Chan monks were regularly described as recluses nurturing their sacred embryo in isolated locations. The renowned Daoist Zhang Boduan (984-1082) was first to use the expression ("sagely embryo") in a context of physiological Internal Alchemy, and adepts developed prolonged meditation techniques through which one can supposedly become pregnant, gestate, and give birth to a spiritually perfected doppelganger.
Terminology Chinese is a linguistic compound of two common words:
peerless, incomparable, uniquely endowed; paragon; a conventional epithet for sovereign .... possessing wisdom, judgment, and moral excellence; profoundly wise and virtuous; sage(ly), sagacious; holy, sacred; holy person, saint .... master practitioner of an art ... The second meaning can refer to Buddha or Buddhism, for instance, .
fetus, embryo; womb; something encapsulated like a fetus. embryonic, fetal; source, origin; e.g., (Daoism) , embryonic breathing, technique of "pneuma circulation" in which an adept breathes in stillness, without using nose or mouth, as when in the womb; early stage of development; something in an unfinished state. give birth to; spawn; congenital. ... Chinese can ambiguously be translated as English embryo, fetus, or womb. The Chinese lexicon differentiates this semantic field with , , , , and .
The unabridged ("Comprehensive Chinese Word Dictionary"), which is lexicographically comparable to the Oxford English Dictionary, defines with two meanings:
(Hanyu Da Cidian 1994, 8: 669)
There is no standard English translation for Chinese and scholars have rendered it as: "divine embryo" "holy embryo" "Embryo of Sainthood" or "Sacred Embryo" "Embryo of Sainthood" "sagely embryo" or "embryo of sainthood" "sagely embryo" "saintly embryo" "embryo of sagehood" "holy fetus" "Autogestation" is Christine Mollier's unique translation, "the generation of an embryo of immortality, the germ of a perfect being, develops within the practitioner's body through a process of 'autogestation' that can be labelled as an internal sexual alchemy".
In Daoist terminology, Sacred Embryo has several synonyms, including , , , , and .
Indian Buddhism
The Chinese Buddhist word was associated with the better-known Indian Mahayana Buddhist concept of ("embryo/womb of the [i.e., Buddha]") referring to the inherent potential of any sentient being to become a buddha.
is a Pali word (meaning "one who has thus come/gone") that Gautama Buddha uses when referring to himself or other Buddhas in the Pāli Canon, and translated as Chinese . is a Sanskrit word (meaning "womb; fetus; embryo; child; interior; inside"), sharing the ambiguity of Chinese . Buddhist scholars translated into the "awkward Chinese phrase" with , thus, the sexual and gestational connotations of the Indian Buddhist "doctrine of the embryo of the thus-come one were lost in translation".
Many Indian Buddhist scriptures portrayed the female body, especially the womb, as impure, and characterized fetal gestation as the "focal point of human suffering", representing the cosmic misery of ("cyclical birth and death"). In response, Buddhists also developed elaborate legends about the Buddha Śākyamuni's supernatural birth. His mother Queen Māyā supposedly was impregnated while dreaming that a white elephant entered her body, her pregnancy was painless, and the Buddha was born from underneath her right arm. These narrative elements helped establish the Buddha not only as different from ordinary people but more specifically as "impervious to the pollution and suffering understood to ordinarily accompany sexual intercourse, fetal gestation, and birth".
The metaphysical terms of ("embryo/matrix of the thus-come one") and Chinese ("sacred embryo") were closely related to the concept of Buddha-nature, Sanskrit or Chinese , the latent potential to achieve Buddhahood that lies dormant in all sentient beings.
Medieval Chinese Buddhism The , an apocryphal scripture composed around the fifth century during the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534), first used the expression describing the bodhisattva path towards attaining Buddhahood: "Buddhas and bodhisattvas cultivate and nourish the ten types of consciousness into a sagely embryo." While Indian Buddhist texts described the bodhisattva path as consisting of ten sequential stages or "grounds" (Sanskrit , Chinese ), the Chinese expanded this sequence to include thirty additional preliminary stages or "minds" (), resulting in a much longer path towards enlightenment. These thirty minds that precede entry into the ten grounds, "constitute an intermediate sequence of stages during which the aspirant's sagehood is already 'conceived' but nevertheless still 'embryonic'". According to the Humane King Sutra, "In these , the bodhisattva is capable of transforming sentient beings in small measure and has already surpassed all of the good stages of the two vehicles. All buddhas and bodhisattvas nurture these ten minds, which constitute an embryo of sagehood." Instead of the transitional encompassing only the first ten minds, a subsequent passage more broadly associates it with all thirty, " the embryo of sagehood's thirty stages of patiently subduing , the ten faiths, ten cessations, and ten firm minds, Among all buddhas of the three times [past, present, and future] who have practiced within , There are none who were not born from this patient subjugation ." These two quotes show that the Chinese concept of ("embryo of sagehood") is entirely different from the Indian Buddhist concept of or Chinese ("embryo of the thus-come one"), which is equivalent to ("buddha-nature"). While buddha-nature refers to the universal buddhahood inherent in all sentient beings, the discusses as specifically referring to an exceptional aspirant's progress on sagely fetal growth along the bodhisattva path.
The Chinese term never seems to have been used to translate the Sanskrit word despite their apparent similarities. In Chinese Buddhism, "sage" (Sanskrit , Chinese ) and "thus-come one" (, ) are standard epithets for buddhas; and both Sanskrit and Chinese can ambiguously mean either "womb" or "embryo". The most comprehensive Chinese-language collection of the Buddha's biographies, the sixth-century ), uses the term referring to the embryonic Buddha Śākyamuni within Queen Māyā's womb, which suggests that some Chinese Buddhists may have connected the embryo of sagehood to the Buddha's miraculous fetal gestation.
and were not used interchangeably in China, and there was a verbal contrast in their usages. On the one hand, a "soteriology of sudden liberative vision" was associated with the words "embryo of the thus-come one" or "buddha-nature", typically used with the Chinese verbs or . For example, the popular Chinese Buddhist saying that . With the understanding that a buddha is instantaneous, it is categorically all or nothing. On the other, a "soteriology of gradual development" was associated with the "embryo (or womb) of sagehood". Medieval Chinese Buddhist texts did not mention "seeing" the , but rather used the verbs , , , and most commonly or (to nurture). "Nurturing the embryo of sagehood" derives from the ancient prenatal concept of . These verbs illustrate that "the embryo of sagehood" retained closer semantic connections to literal embryology than did the "embryo of the thus-come one", which was understood in China as equivalent to buddha-nature.
Vasubandhu's (Shiqin , fl. 300-400) () describes the Ten Stages of the original Indian Buddhist path of the bodhisattva as being "like pregnancy in a womb" (). The Chinese Buddhist scholar-monk Fashang (, 495–580) explains, " "like pregnancy in a womb" takes women as an example and takes pregnancy as a metaphor. In the first month, carries the embryo, and after ten months, is completely developed. Bodhisattvas are also like this: in the first ground, they attain the embryo of sagehood , and in the tenth ground, the body of sagehood is completely developed." Instead of following the sequence of thirty minds preceding entry into the ten grounds/stages, Fashang connects the embryo of sagehood to the earlier Indian Buddhist understanding of the unfolding bodhisattva path as consisting only of the ten grounds themselves, with each progressive month of pregnancy corresponding to one ground.
The 594 , Great Calming and Contemplation) Buddhist doctrinal summa, based on lectures given by Zhiyi (538–597), the fourth patriarch of Tiantai Buddhism, discusses ("embryo / womb of sagehood") meditation in terms of the . Practitioners who skillfully regulate these three matters cause [themselves] to be conceived within the womb of sagehood. Because the activity of their minds is not yet fully under their command, they ought to apply their minds to bringing together the father and mother of skillful means and the perfection of wisdom , who will conceive within the womb of sagehood. Why would allow themselves to be conceived within the wombs of denizens of hell, the three [unfortunate] destinies, or the realms of humans or gods? Zhiyi interprets not just as an analogy for gradually growing enlightenment but as a literal site for rebirth, that should be considered highly preferable to rebirth in the destinies of samsara.
Zhiyi also uses to explain that the describes as "peacefully abiding in worldly truth, when someone first emerges from the womb, this is called 'nonbirth-birth'." Now to explain "worldly truth." when ignorance combines with dharma nature and all kinds of separations and distinctions are produced ; thus it is called "worldly truth." As for "peacefully abiding," if by means of calming and contemplation , one abides peacefully in worldly truth, then it becomes an inconceivable object, and the stage of practicing observation is completed; thus it is called "peacefully abiding." Because one peacefully abides, is called "being conceived within the womb of sagehood." When one first activates one's buddha knowledge and vision and recognizes that are unborn (), this stage is called "exiting the womb of sagehood." Because [at this stage] one does not see worldly truth ignorance, says "not born." Because one obtains buddha knowledge and buddha vision, says "born." The Treatise () says: "all are not born, but is born," which is the meaning . Zhiyi's disciple Guanding (, 561–632) explains that "Peacefully abiding in worldly truth" has two meanings. Exoterically, it denotes the time from first thinking of conception in a womb until death. Esoterically, it means a bodhisattva who is at the stage of cultivating skillful means, which reiterates Zhiyi's notion of worldly truth as a womb within which the practitioner grows as a bodhisattva. "When cultivation gives rise to realization and ignorance is destroyed, this [moment] constitutes the first emergence from the womb; it is also nirvana, which is beginningless and yet is said thenceforth to begin.
Chan Buddhism