Jingying Huiyuan (Chinese: 淨影慧遠, "Huiyuan of Jingying Temple", Japanese: Jōyō Eon; c. 523–592) was an eminent Chinese Buddhist scholar-monk of the Dilun branch of Chinese Yogācāra.淨影慧遠 Jingying Huiyuan Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, Entry created: 2009-06-17 He was a prolific commentator who wrote various commentaries on key Mahayana Sutras. He was the first Chinese author to write commentaries on the Pure Land Sutras (which still survive) and his commentary on the Contemplation Sutra influenced later Pure Land Buddhist figures like Daochuo and Shandao.Tanaka (1990), pp. xviii-xxii Like later Pure Land figures, Huiyuan taught that even ordinary people could attain birth in the Pure Land through recitation of the Buddha Amitabha's name (nianfo).Tanaka (1990), p. x.
Huiyuan's philosophy is a synthesis of Yogācāra and buddha-nature thought. He also advanced the doctrines of essence-function and the "dependent origination of the tathāgatagarbha" (Ch: 如來藏緣起, pinyin: rulaizang yuanqi), which holds that buddha-nature is the essence of both nirvāṇa and saṃsāra, both of which were seen as its "functions" (yong). Huiyuan synthesized this teaching with the Yogacara mind-only philosophy, identifying buddha-nature with the fundamental consciousness (ālāyavijñāna). Huiyuan's metaphysics was influential on later Huayan authors, like Fazang.
Life Huiyuan was born in Dunhuang (in modern-day Gansu) and became a monk in Guxiangusi monastery (Shanxi province) at an early age. At age twenty he received full ordination from the Dilun (Dasabhumikasutra school) master Fashang (495–580) and studied Vinaya under vinaya master Dayin (d.u.). Fashang in turn had been a student of the patriarch of the Southern Dilun sect, Huiguang (慧光). Huiyuan studied under Fashang for over seven years.Tanaka (1990), p. 24. Huiyuan's works mainly follow the thought of the previous Dilun masters, who syncretized the Yogacara philosophy of Vasubandhu and the buddha-nature thought of the Nirvana sutra.Chen, Shuman. "The Liberation of Matter: Examining Jingxi Zhanran’s Philosophy of the Buddha-Nature of Insentient Beings in Tiantai Buddhism," p. 132. PhD diss., Northwestern University, 2014. Huiyuan also later studied with a scholar of the Shelun tradition, Tanqian (曇遷, 542–607).Ming-Wood Liu. (1985). The Mind-Only Teaching of Ching-ying Hui-yüan: An Early Interpretation of Yogācāra Thought in China. Philosophy East and West, 35(4), 351–376. doi:10.2307/1398535Jorgensen et al (trans.) (2019), p. 11.
Huiyuan later resided at Qinghuasi monastery. During the reign of the Northern Zhou Emperor Wu (r. 560–578), there was a persecution of Buddhism in which many temples were seized and many monks forced into lay life or military service.
The emperor also ordered Buddhist elders to gather so he could inform them of his reasons for the persecution: Buddhist images violated the formlessless of the Buddha, the temples were wasteful and Buddhist monasticism was counter to filial piety.Tanaka (1990), p. 25. Huiyuan is said to have stood up and debated the emperor on these issues and a transcript of this debate has survived. Huiyuan then lived in seclusion for some three years during the rest of the persecution, focusing on reciting sutras and meditation.Tanaka (1990), pp. 27-28.
After the rise of the Sui Dynasty (581–618), Huiyuan became the overseer of the saṃgha (shamendu) in Henan and worked to restore the Buddhist community. At the request of Emperor Wen (r. 581–604), Huiyuan eventually moved to the capital of Daxing where he resided at Daxingshansi monastery and later at Jingyingsi monastery, built by the emperor specifically for Huiyuan.
Jingying Huiyuan was prolific, writing numerous commentaries on key Mahayana texts, including commentaries on the Avataṃsakasūtra, Mahāparinirvānasūtra, Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra, Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādasūtra, and on Vasubandhu's Daśabhūmika Commentary (Shidi jing lun). He also wrote the Compendium of the Purport of Mahāyāna (Dasheng yi zhang), an influential encyclopedia of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
Thought
Metaphysics
Huiyuan's central philosophy was a combination of Yogacara mind-only thought, which holds that all phenomena arise from mind, and the buddha-nature teaching, which holds that all beings have Buddhahood within.Tanaka (1990), p. 35. Huiyuan owes much of this basic metaphysics to his teacher Fashang as well as to earlier Mahayana texts like the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra and the Awakening of Faith (which according to Huiyuan, was written based on the Laṅkāvatāra).Jorgensen et al. (2019), p. 16. For Huiyuan, all reality (samsara and nirvana) dependently arises from a pure consciousness or "true mind", the buddha-nature, a doctrine he referred to as "tathāgatagarbha dependent arising" (rulaizang yuanqi), a term he coined.Tanaka (1990), p. 36. Huiyuan equates the buddha-nature with the Yogacara basis consciousness (ālāyavijñāna). In drawing this equivalence, he cites the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra which outright states "tathāgatagarbha is called the ālāyavijñāna."
Huiyuan's teaching on buddha-nature also draws on essence-function (tiyong) theory and this was influential on later East Asian Buddhist tradition. For Huiyuan, all beings have the buddha-nature, which is an innate, pure, and real kind of awareness (juecha 覺察).Chen 2014, p. 133 It is the intrinsic reality (ti 體) which "constantly abides" (changzhu 常住; nitya) and yet also adjusts to conditions.Jorgensen et al. (2019), p. 50. Huiyuan also defines it as the primary cause or seed of Buddhahood and as the immutable true pure mind which can never be tainted. In spite of this, Huiyuan also affirms that the buddha-nature can appear or manifest in pure or impure ways. All of these appearances (of samsara and nirvana) are the "functions" (yong) of Buddha-nature, which is the immutable essence (ti) of all things.Chen 2014, p. 134. This also means that all sentient beings with definitely becomes Buddhas eventually.
As a Yogacarin, Huiyuan held that "all dharmas are produced by the one mind, just as events in dreams are created by the mind in slumber." According to Huiyuan, all phenomena (dharmas) arise from the mutual interplay of the mind of thusness (無爲法, also called the true consciousness - zhenshi 真識 - which is unconditioned) and the mind of falsehood (有爲法, or the false consciousness, which is conditioned).Okamoto, Itpei. (2017). The Dependent Arising (緣起) and the Tathāgatagarbha (如來藏) of Jingying Huiyuan (浄影寺 慧遠). Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies, 53(0), 1~25.Jorgensen et al. (2019), p. 40. The false mind gives rise to the illusory world of samsara. However, for Huiyuan, this false mind is provisional, since all things ultimately arise from the true mind, the buddha-nature. Huiyuan draws on the analogy of the rope mistaken as a snake in the darkness for this distinction. The true consciousness (zhenshi 真識) is associated with the rope in this simile (which does not change) while the false consciousness (wangshi 妄識) is like the illusion of a snake (which arises and ceases).
These two (true mind and false mind) are not separate but are ultimately in union as essence-function (體用論, ti-yong). Huiyuan understand this metaphysics as being supported by the Daśabhūmika-sūtra's statement that the twelve links of dependent arising come from one mind (一心), which he understood as referring to the unconditioned mind of thusness. As such, according to Ming-Wood Liu the main philosophy of Huiyuan relies on "the ontological dependence of all phenomenal beings whether physical or mental on the intrinsically pure mind which every sentient being originally possesses".
In his commentary on the Ten Stages Treatise of Vasubandhu, Huiyuan argues that the essence of all things, the buddha-nature, the tathāgatagarbha (buddha womb), which he also calls the absolute mind, is also the source of all dependently arisen reality:Reaching the limit of the original nature, everything is collected only by the absolute aspect of dependent arising. This is the principle of the absolute aspect of dependent arising. As the Dasabhumika sutra says: "all twelve links of the chain of dependent arising are created by one mind." "All is created by mind" means that all is created by the absolute mind".Hamar, Imre. "Huayan Explorations of the Realm of Reality" in Poceski, Mario (editor). The Wiley Blackwell Companion to East and Inner Asian Buddhism, John Wiley & Sons, Feb 14, 2014. Huiyuan's thought also relies on the Yogacara schema of the eight consciousnesses. In this schema, the foundational consciousness (which is the ground for all phenomena) is the storehouse consciousness (ālāyavijñāna). Huiyuan glosses this term as supreme consciousness, pure consciousness, true consciousness, tathata consciousness and root consciousness. It is the intrinsically pure and eternal origin of all things but can be covered up by the defilements and thus it is the tathāgatagarbha which is the pure basis for all other consciousnesses (as taught in the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra). He further describes the relationship between the foundational consciousness (ālāyavijñāna) and the deluded seventh consciousness as being like a body and its shadow.
Regarding the defiled and deluded element of consciousness, Huiyuan reserves the term ādāna-vijñāna (grasping consciousness) for this. Thus, while in most Indian Yogacara texts, the term ādāna-vijñāna was just a synonym for the ālāyavijñāna (which was seen as containing defiled karmic seeds), Huiyuan mostly reserves the term ālāya for the pure consciousness (amalavijñāna) or buddha-nature, and uses ādāna-vijñāna for the defiled and deluded consciousness. This false consciousness is described by Huiyuan as "the ground of the original ignorance" which is the cause of all false thoughts and objects (including all the senses and sense organs), the source of the defilements, discrimination and clinging to the self. However, this false consciousness is not the final source of all things, since it is itself totally reliant on the true mind for its existence. Thus, Huiyuan writes that "the false self (ādāna) arises dependent on the true self (ālāya)".