TẬP SAN NGHIÊN CỨU PHẬT
HỌC
SỐ 19 - PL.2550 - 2006
[MỤC LỤC]
Some Problems of Nhân Tông’s Thought
by
Lê Mạnh Thát
The Emperor Nhân Tông made extremely magnificent
achievements that were totally dedicated to our country and Buddhism. It
is, therefore, quite natural for us to raise the question as to how his
life and activities were directed and what thought his personality was
actually influenced by.
Nowadays, all of his works mentioned in the
Thánh Đăng Ngữ Lục such as the Thiền Lâm Thiết Chủy Ngữ Lục,
the Thiền Lâm Thiết Chủy Hậu Lục, the Đại Hương Hải Ấn Thi Tập,
the Tăng Già Toái Sự and the Thạch Thất Mỵ Ngữ are lost.
What has been preserved so far consists of only some discourses and
writings in verse and prose written down somewhere in the Thánh Đăng
Ngữ Lục, the Việt Âm Thi Tập, the Thiền Tông Bản Hạnh,
the Tam Tổ Thực Lục, etc., and in some Chinese works like the
Tien-nan hsin-chi, the Ch’en Kang-chung shih-chi, etc. For
that reason, it is truly not easy to make a thorough study of his
thought today.
From what has just been referred to, however, we
may determine some problems that the Emperor is believed to have
concerned himself with. Undoubtedly, Buddhism is in the first place all
that the Emperor became highly interested in so early in his life. Yet,
when he was officially entrusted with the responsibility for governing
the country, particularly in a period full of turmoil and hardship as
has been said in the preceding chapters, what was given the highest
priority in all of his activities is naturally not only Buddhism but
further the protection of the country’s territory, the independence of
the Fatherland, and the security of the people. Consequently, it is not
too difficult for us to come to an immediate conclusion that the Emperor
must have occupied himself with various issues concerning social,
political, diplomatic and military circumstances of the country at the
time. His major task was inevitably to set forth by all means some
general strategy that might help first gain a decisive victory in the
struggle against the enemy and then bring about a peaceful and
prosperous Đại Việt in the postwar period. This is obviously evidenced
through the wars of defense in 1285 and 1288 and the subsequent
development and improvement of the people’s living. What then is the
general strategy implemented by him to direct these two wars of
resistance in the first place? The answer is natural that it was his
great attempts at mobilizing the potential strength of the nation that
made possible such a glorious victory for the people. Yet, what is the
nation’s potential strength and how is it mobilized?
As a matter of fact, the nation’s potential
strength is unquestionably inherent within all the people’s patriotism,
irrespective of ages, religions, social classes, national races
whatsoever they pertain to. It is through such a general guiding
principle that we can today recognize that in the armed forces commanded
by the Emperor Nhân Tông to fight against Mongol-Yüan invaders there
could always exist various types of people: some being born of imperial
family such as Trần Quang Khải, Trần Hưng Đạo, Trần Quốc Tung, etc.;
some coming from the masses such as Phạm Ngũ Lão, Nguyễn Khoái, etc.;
some ever working as servants such as Yết Kiêu, Dã Tượng; some of very
young age such as Trần Quốc Toản beside some of very old age such as the
elders in the Assembly of Diên Hồng with their unanimous shout “fight”;
some belonging to minority groups such as Hà Đặc, Hà Chương; some being
foreign ascetics such as Hứa Tông Đạo; even some ever serving as
generals in the enemy’s army such as Trương Hiển, etc. For such various
social classes to have been gathered, any policy could hardly be
effectively carried out without some great solidarity as the primary
basis for it.
Such great solidarity, however, may be achieved
only when the common people of the country and their leaders have the
same privilege to protect and the same objective to struggle for. This
may be obviously revealed through a Proclamation sent by Trần Hưng Đạo
to all officers and soldiers of the army, where he spoke in the name of
the Emperor Nhân Tông:
Under my command, you have all had
golden opportunity to partake in military activities for a long time.
Those having no uniforms have been provided with; those having no food
have been given. Those of low ranks have been promoted, of little
emolument given bonuses. Those serving on water have been supplied with
ships, on land supplied with horses. In fighting, we have all faced the
same dangers; and in retreat, we have all enjoyed pleasures together. We
are not inferior at all to Kung-chien’s treatment of his generals and
servants or Wu-Lang’s treatment of his assistants, are we?
Yet, at present, though seeing our Lord
be insulted, you do not show any anxiety at all; though suffering
national humiliation, you do not feel a trace of shame. As being
generals of the Imperial Court, you cannot arouse a bit of anger when
serving the barbarians, nor can you get angry at hearing the music from
the banquets for the enemy’s messengers.
On the other hand, some of you have been
crazy on cock-fighting, and some on gambling. Some have been interested
in tending their fields and gardens to serve their homes. Some have been
attached to their wives and children for their selfish satisfaction.
Some have been occupied with their own material possessions without any
reflection on national and military affairs. Some have been fond of
hunting without any practice of military arts. Some have sought pleasure
in drinking good wine, and some in singing nonsense. Provided the Tatars
penetrate [into our country], is it then possible for the spurs of your
cocks to pierce the enemy’s armors, for your tricks in gambling to be
used as military tactics, for your fields and gardens to ransom your
beloved bodies, for your wives and children to undertake national
affairs, for your wealth to be in exchange for the enemy’s heads, for
your hounds to drive the invaders away, for your good wine to make the
enemy deadly drunk, for your good singing to make them deaf?
How miserable it then would be that our
King and the subjects were all captured. Not only is my own hamlet lost
but your emoluments also belong to the others. Not only is my family
driven away but your wives and children are also taken. Not only is our
ancestors’ land trampled, but your parents’ graves are also dug out. Not
only do I suffer humiliation that would exist in this very life and
perhaps remain tainted for hundreds of years later, but also you cannot
avoid being looked down as defeated generals. Would it then be possible
for you to enjoy yourselves at will?
From the above proclamation Trần Hưng Đạo pointed
out the common privilege between the leaders and the common people of
the country, which may be viewed as the indispensable basis of national
solidarity. All the people are aware that they have the same privilege
to share and thus have to work together to protect it. The protection of
one’s privilege is the condition and premise for the existence of the
others’. It is in this dialectical relation of privilege that the sense
that the same country and the same community need to be loved and
protected comes into existence. And, in reality, to love one’s country
is nothing other than to love one’s family, one’s ancestral graves,
one’s space and place where one is living. It may be said that Trần Hưng
Đạo has, for the first time, elucidated the factors of patriotism, which
are expressed in such objective and intelligible terms of his
literature.
Indeed, it is from such a view that the Emperor
Nhân Tông, in his preparation for the two wars as well as his making of
peace in the postwar period, attempted to take a series of political,
economic and cultural measures for the sake of the people’s great
solidarity, which may be proved through his administrative policy as
well as his personal life. As has been said before, to ensure a peaceful
life for the people, the Emperor had various measures taken for
developing agriculture, commerce, industry and handicraft
simultaneously. And for social relations to be improved, he attempted to
solve the issues concerning criminals and conflicts among the people. To
help them understand the policies that were inseparably related to their
daily living, he had all imperial decrees announced not only in Chinese
but further in Vietnamese, the everyday speech of the Đại Việt people at
the time.
Nevertheless, with all the policies carried out
above, the Emperor could perform only part of his role as an ideal
political leader that the Buddhist teaching under the reign of Lý helped
produce earlier, which may be justified through a writing by the Great
Master Giác Tính Hải Chiếu about the renowned Buddhist General Lý Thường
Kiệt:
Internally, his
mind is mild and brilliant; externally, his appearance is plain and
humane. He never gives up his efforts to reform old customs. Because of
his work always performed economically and his instructions for the
people always given temperately, he has been able to become a solid
support for them. So generously does he always try his best to help the
people that they all hold him in the greatest respect. He makes use of
his vigorous strength to eliminate the enemy. He bases himself on his
own brilliant mind to judge cases so that prisons are never overcrowded.
Knowing that food is the Heaven of all the people and agriculture is the
root of the State, he never neglects any cultivation of land. He is
talented but not proud. Even the old in the countryside can receive his
care and nurture so frequently that their lives are always at ease. His
principles as such may be said to have been the basis of ruling the
people, the art of allaying the people, from which may accrue all good
things.
On the part of the Emperor Nhân Tông, not being
satisfied merely with the carrying-out of national policies he went so
far as to apply such principles of great solidarity even to his everyday
life. The Complete History of Đại Việt has told us that “the King
often went out. On the way, seeing servants of the nobles he, calling
them by name, asked ‘Where are your masters?’ and, simultaneously,
forbade his escorts to drive them away. On his return to the palace, he
called in his subjects, saying, ‘In ordinary days, my courtiers are
always found around me; but only those people, [that is, the nobles’
servants,] present themselves when the country falls into misfortune.’
Thus spoke the king since he had been deeply moved by their loyalty and
assistance through his terrible times.”
The fact above proves that the Emperor appreciated
not only gifted leaders pertaining to the upper class but also the
common people of the lowest class such as the servants just mentioned.
Though they might have possessed neither good education nor enough
wealth to serve for the country in time of misfortune, they could devote
a great deal and, sometimes, even their own lives to the common cause of
defending the Fatherland.
Such an appreciation by the Emperor seems to have
been laid on the same basis as Trần Hưng Đạo’s remark on Yết Kiêu, a
servant of his, in the battle of Nội Bàng in the 1285 war: “It is due to
its six strong bones supporting wings that the Great Bird can fly high.
Without them, it remains merely an ordinary bird.” In the history of our
country the reign of the Emperor Nhân Tông may be the only period when
the consistency of a leader’s political and sensational concern about
his people in war as well as in peace has been so coherently and
evidently manifested. A proof among others is that those servants who
had devoted themselves to the two wars of defense continued to receive
special care from him even in the postwar period. It may be due to his
concern, which should be considered to have taken root deep within his
nature, that he was frequently occupied with the issues in relation to
the two regions Ô Mã and Việt Lý of Champa, not only in the aspect of
security but also in that of economy.
Though being composed nearly a hundred years
following the reign of the Emperor Nhân Tông, the An-nan chih-yüan
deals with the situation that “the population of Giao Chỉ increased so
rapidly that land was not enough for them to cultivate.” And earlier,
that is, in the year 1266, the Emperor Trần Thánh Tông allowed the
nobles to gather the needy throughout the country who would be employed
as servants to cultivate and establish plantations in the waste areas
along the coast, as is recorded in the Complete History of Đại Việt:
“In the winter, the 10th month, (of Bính Dần, 1260), the King
(Trần Thánh Tông) issued the decree that nobles, princesses and their
husbands, and concubines might employ those servants who were poor and
homeless to cultivate waste land for plantations. It was since then that
the nobles actually possessed their own plantations.”
Such a large-scaled cultivation of waste land
around the year 1266 shows some pressure caused by the increase of
population of Đại Việt in her course of development. It may be said that
the increase of population did occur in the reign of Lý Thánh Tông when
three districts Địa Lý, Ma Linh and Bố Chính were officially annexed to
the map of Đại Việt at the same time of the foundation of the Thảo Đường
Dhyāna school. Indeed, the birth of this school was aimed at assisting
and meeting the needs of the afore-said annexation. After fifty years at
peace under the reigns of Lý Thái Tổ (r.1010-1028) and Lý Thái Tông
(r.1028-1054), the population of our country increased to such a point
that the land already cultivated had reached its limits. For that
reason, it then was inevitable that a fighting expedition had to be
initiated, the culminating point of which was the annexation of the
three above-mentioned districts.
Nevertheless, when the annexation of these
districts was accomplished, there naturally accrued an issue that the
population should be somehow increased to meet some fruitful cultivation
of the land just annexed. In reality, just around the year 1266 the
Emperor Trần Thánh Tông had been aware of some pressure of such an
increase of population. Therefore, it is not surprising for us at all
that only forty years later the Emperor Nhân Tông had two districts Ô Mã
and Việt Lý annexed to our country. The latter annexation could once
more slow down the increase of population of Đại Việt at the time. Yet,
on behalf of the need of cultivation in the new land and that of
maintaining security therein to some extent, the problem of population
arose again. Since then, just like the Thảo Đường school, the Trúc Lâm
school came into being as a support for the task of increasing the
population of the time.
We will see how mightily this Dhyāna school,
parallel with the common cause of southward advance, has exercised its
strong influence upon the Vietnamese people. In the history of
examination in Vietnam, Trúc Lâm is the only Dhyāna school whose
doctrine was employed as a topic in the examination called đình
under the reign of Early Lê. For instance, in the topic of the so-called
examination organized in the year of Cảnh Thống, Nhâm Tuất (1502) which
consists of forty-seven questions in total, the one numbered 15 reads as
follows: “What teaching have Điều Ngự and Huyền Quang preached so that
they can eventually become the Buddha and the Patriarch?”. And the
answer of a candidate named Lê Ích Mộc (1459- ?) is as follows: “If
based upon the previous time, it may be said that under the Trần dynasty
the Venerables Tiêu Diêu, Tuệ Trung, Điều Ngự, Huyền Quang realized the
supreme teaching so that they were capable of penetrating into the Realm
of Amitābha and exposing the essentials of Dhyāna teaching, which is all
that they have handed down. It is, therefore, quite natural that those
of subsequent generations who can comprehend the principle of
non-arising are all able to attain to Nirvāṇa and become Buddhas,
Patriarchs.” As a consequence, it is due to his answering the topic in
such a manner that Lê Ích Mộc was selected to be the honors graduate of
that examination.
Thus the doctrine of the Trúc Lâm school became a
major subject of the contemporary curriculum and actually received much
concern from the kings of the Early Lê dynasty. Viewed from the aspect
of the task of extending the southern boundary of the country, this is
easily comprehensible. As has been said above, the Trúc Lâm school came
into being mainly for the purpose of assisting and satisfying the
requirements of the Emperor Nhân Tông’s policy of marching southward.
Yet, as the increase of population was more and more necessarily
demanded in the reign of Early Lê when the consecutive fighting
expeditions, the culminating point of which was the boundary posts
erected by the Emperor Lê Thánh Tông’s order on Mount Đá Bia in Phú Yên
Province in the south of the Fatherland in 1470, were being launched,
the thought of the Trúc Lâm school was again applied to the new policy
of the nation, that is, an increase in population for the cultivation of
the land just annexed to the country.
Accordingly, subsequent to the policy of the
people’s great solidarity for the defense of the country, the thought of
the Trúc Lâm school as a basis of the people’s common cause of marching
southward was another contribution of the Emperor Nhân Tông to the
history of thought in Vietnam. As has been said, the thought of this
school originates from the Thảo Đường school founded by the Emperor Lý
Thánh Tông. Hence, it may be said that the former is the succeeding, or
rather, higher development of the latter, if not its embodiment. The
single regret is that all the documents concerning the Thảo Đường
school, with the exception of a single text listing the lineage of this
school which is recorded at the end of the Thiền Uyển Tập Anh (Collected
Prominent Figures of Dhyāna Garden), are lost. As a consequence, any
discussions as to this school are for the most part speculations which
are apt to produce some groundless and, sometimes, false comments.
In spite of this, with a glimpse at the list of
Dhyāna masters pertaining to this school, from the first patriarch,
namely, the Emperor Lý Thánh Tông to the last one called Imperial
Assistant Phạm Đẳng, we can see that in each of its five consecutive
generations there always exist some lay Dhyāna masters who are mostly
the State’s officials, that is, kings and ministers. In some
generations, lay masters are in the vast majority. For instance, the
fifth generation consists of four masters, among whom three masters are
the Emperor Lý Cao Tông, Nguyễn Thức and Phạm Đẳng. Thus, the most
remarkable point of this list is that most of Dhyāna masters are laymen;
that is to say, the Thảo Đường school is a secular one chiefly serving
those who are living among the common people of the country.
Another point concerning this secular school is
that its masters are mostly kings and imperial officials. Besides the
emperors Lý Thánh Tông, Lý Anh Tông and Lý Cao Tông, the rest are
recorded in full of their names and ranks, the highest of which is
thái phó and the lowest is xướng nhi quản giáp, a position
founded by Lý Thái Tổ’s order in 1025. Thus, suffice it to say that it
is due to its own characteristic as that of a social class that the Thảo
Đường school had to be transformed into the Trúc Lâm school because a
Dhyāna school cannot survive unless it comes into the world not for the
sake of any individual class of society. This may be all that has
limited the attraction of the Thảo Đường school toward the masses. Once
separated from the masses, it could by no means exist. Therefore, it is
natural that in order to preserve its continuity it has to transform
itself into a new school, that is, Trúc Lâm Yên Tử.
Generally considered, the Trúc Lâm school thus
originates from the Thảo Đường school. Nevertheless, for its development
to be achieved to the full, not only did the former adopt all the good
of the past but it also had to muster all the strength of its present
age. In the afore-said discourse dated the 9th of the 1st
month of Bính Ngọ (1306), the Emperor Nhân Tông expressed his thanks to
Vô Nhị Thượng Nhân and Tuệ Trung Thượng Sỹ that “the water of
dharma-rains delivered by them has permeated through the subsequent
generations.” Vô Nhị Thượng Nhân is none other than the Emperor Thánh
Tông as revealed by the Thánh Đăng Ngữ Lục. And Tuệ Trung Thượng
Sỹ is Tuệ Trung Trần Quốc Tung, who confirmed the Emperor Nhân Tông’s
realization of Dhyāna teaching as in the latter’s statement recorded in
the Thượng Sỹ Hành Trạng.
As being Nhân Tông’s father, the Emperor Trần Thánh
Tông must have exercised some decisive influence upon the birth and
growth of thought of the former. Thus, what is the Emperor Trần Thánh
Tông’s thought? Again, the works of the Emperor Trần Thánh Tông such as
the Văn Tập, the Thiền Tông Liễu Ngộ Ca, the Chí Giá
Minh, the Phóng Ngư and the Cừu Tập are lost.
From the Thánh Đăng Ngữ Lục, the Việt Âm Thi Tập, the
Toàn Việt Thi Lục, and so on, however, we can extract some remarks
on his thought as follows:
First, in Trần Thánh Tông’s works is Li-kao’s
thought of Dhyāna often found. The first verse of the former written
down in the Thánh Đăng Ngữ Lục, for instance, reads:
For more than forty years my mind has
escaped
Out of numerous gates of prisons.
In moving I am now like an empty cave
full of violent wind;
In resting I am like a quiet lake in the
bright moonlight.
This phrase with its five marvelous
meanings has been mastered;
And that way with the ten words I have
penetrated in.
Someone has asked me what new thing I
could obtain:
The clouds in the blue sky and the water
in the vessel.
Of it the last line in Chinese original is “雲
在
青
天
水
在
瓶”, which is originally
one line of a quatrain written and dedicated by Li-kao (772-841) to
Master Yao-shan Wei-yen (751-834):
練
得
身
形
似
鶴
形
千
株
松
下
兩
含
經
我
來
問
道
無
餘
説
雲
在
青
天
水
在
瓶
This proves that Trần Thánh Tông was deeply
inspired by what Li-kao expressed in his verse. Concerning the latter,
though he was a Buddhist layman, he wrote several accounts condemning
the ordination of Buddhist monks, the building of great temples and the
casting of big statues of Buddha for the reason that such affairs could
not bring about any merits at all but the exhaustion of national
resources. As to the ordination of Buddhist monks, he says: “Buddhist
followers do not raise silk-worms but obtain abundant clothes; nor do
they plow fields but gain a great deal of food and drinks; they live
idly but are served by hundreds of thousands of people. Based upon these
facts alone, it may be known that numerous people are cold and
starving…” As to the building of temples and casting of statues, arguing
that such works were more expensive than the building of the A-fang
Palace, he put up the question: “Is it not dependent on the people’s
resources that these affairs are being carried out?”
Such words by Li-kao as cited above may be found
again in some comments by Lê Văn Hưu (1230-?) on the Emperor Lý Thái
Tổ’s task of ordaining Buddhist monks and building temples, which is
recorded by Ngô Sỹ Liên in the Complete History of Đại Việt:
For only two
years since Lý Thái Tổ’s enthronement, though temples for both ancestors
and spirits of land and grain were not yet built, he ordered [Buddhist]
temples in the Routes to be rebuilt and more than a thousand people in
the capital ordained as Buddhist monks. These cost the nation too much
wealth and labor. Wealth does not rain from the Heaven; nor is labor
granted by gods. So, is it not that all was taken from the people’s
‘blood and fat’? In thus doing, may it be called collecting merits? As a
lord who is initiating an imperial career, one must lead an economical
life for fear that the subsequent generations would follow a lazy and
luxurious lifestyle. Yet, Thái Tổ left such a way of living that the
succeeding generations could not be blamed at all for their own affairs
of building excessively high stūpas, erecting carved marble pillars,
casting statues of Buddha and building much more splendid temples than
the King’s palace. Is it not for that reason that many of the common
people hurt their own bodies, changed their clothing, abandoned their
careers, renounced their relatives to become monks? As a consequence,
more than half of the population were monks and temples were built
everywhere across the country.
Reading Lê Văn Hưu’s comment, one often has the
impression that this is a criticism of Buddhism, particularly Buddhism
in the Lý dynasty, from the Confucianist standpoint. And, in reality,
this is also a typical comment found in most of the books written about
Lê Văn Hưu. Nevertheless, it is an utterly false comment which has
proceeded from some premature research in the Buddhist ideology of the
Trần period. Those who have read Li-kao’s works can see on the spot that
both Lê Văn Hưu’s thought and his wording are extracted from the works
of the former. Accordingly, in the Trần’s time there were at least two
authors of our country who were deeply influenced by Li-kao’s ideology
of Buddhism, that is, the Emperor Thánh Tông and Lê Văn Hưu, let alone
his impact on a verse of Master Không Lộ (?-1119), which is usually
known as the “Ngôn Hoài.”
It should be borne in mind that Lê Văn Hưu composed
the Đại Việt Sử Ký (History of Đại Việt) by the order and
direction of the Emperor Thánh Tông, as in the words of the Complete
History of Đại Việt: “In the spring, the 1st month, of
Nhâm Thìn (1272) Academic Scholar and Editor of National History Lê Văn
Hưu, by the imperial order, finished compiling the History of Đại
Việt, consisting of 30 volumes dealing with the time of the Emperor
Triệu Vũ up to that of Lý Chiêu Hoàng. When the work was submitted to
the King, he issued a decree of rewarding.” Thus, the History of Đại
Việt is a formal history of the State of Đại Việt, or rather, the
state ruled by the Emperor Trần Thánh Tông; that is to say, it has
naturally to reflect the views and positions of the contemporary state.
Therefore, we are not surprised at all at the fact that Li-kao’s thought
and wording flourish within the works of Trần Thánh Tông and Lê Văn Hưu.
Naturally, it was not in the time of Trần Thánh
Tông that the matter concerning so many temples built and so many monks
ordained began to be dealt with as a serious problem that needed to be
unraveled. Just by the end of the Lý period, that is, in the early years
of the thirteenth century, Đàm Dĩ Mông set forth, in an extremely crude
parlance, a proposal that Buddhist monks should be dismissed, which is
recorded in the Đại Việt Sử Lược (An Abridged History of Đại
Việt) as follows: “Today, the Buddhist clergy and their servants
have covered more than half of the population. They gather in groups and
associations, considering themselves to be so-called ‘masters’ and
‘disciples,’ living together and doing a lot of unwholesome things, such
as openly eating meat and drinking wine just in the sacred places,
committing sexual intercourse just in the Halls of Meditation and the
pure institutes. [To belie their evils] they hide themselves by day and
appear by night just like a pack of foxes or rats. It has become such a
bad habit for them that their actions have spoiled not only the monastic
living but also the secular one. This will become worse and worse unless
it must be immediately prohibited.”
Just in his works, the Emperor Trần Thái Tông, too,
mentions the situation that “though when going to the temple they have
opportunity to approach the Buddha and sūtras, they never have a glance
at them for a moment. In the shrine as well as in the Saṃgha’s
dwelling-place they, girls and boys, gather only to flirt with each
other, desiring sensuous pleasures without any concern about the sacred
Dharma-Guardians or Dragon-Spirits, in the presence of whom they never
bow themselves but only concentrate their mind on pleasures,” and “the
sacred texts and commentaries are competitively obtained not only by lay
people but also by monks. They attack each other, criticize the Elders,
and scold even their parents. The ‘grass’ of patience has withered
within them; the ‘fire’ of poison has flared up within them. Their words
hurt things and animals; their utterances harm human beings, without any
perception of loving-kindness and compassion, any observation of
precepts and monastic rules. Though living behind the Gate of Śūnyatā,
they fail to get an insight into the principle of selflessness.”
Such was the circumstance of Buddhist monks and
their temples and monasteries under the reign of Trần Thái Tông. For
that reason, in his Phổ Khuyến Phát Bồ Đề Tâm (An Open
Exhortation of Arousing the Bodhi-Mind), he set forth the principle
that “without asking about great or small capability [of realizing
Buddhist teaching], dividing lay from monastic practitioners, or being
concerned about monks or laymen, the point is in that one must get an
insight into one’s mind. One should not attach oneself to forms of male
and female because there is originally none such called ‘male’ or
‘female.’ Those who have no knowledge [of Buddhist teachings] divide the
teachings into the three ones; yet, those who have been awakened can
master only one and the same term ‘mind’.” It was from such a principle
that Trần Thánh Tông and Lê Văn Hưu considered the task of building
temples and stūpas to be “exploiting the ‘blood’ and ‘fat’ of the
masses” and Buddhist monks only to be those “who hurt their bodies,
changed their clothes, abandoned their careers, renounced their
relatives.”
Grown up and trained in such a cultural tradition
of his family, it was natural for the Emperor Nhân Tông that he had
necessarily and urgently to set forth some solution for the benefit of
both the people and Buddhism. And it was at this point that the role of
Tuệ Trung Trần Quốc Tung became extremely crucial. In a passage written
down about his experience of enlightenment through a dialogue between
him and the former, his master, in 1287, the Emperor Nhân Tông posed a
very normal and practical question that “How is it possible for those
who have had the habit of eating meat and drinking wine not to be
exerted by the effect of such unwholesome actions?” This is an actuality
that we can meet not only in Đại Việt in the Emperor Nhân Tông’s time
but further at any place and at any time on earth, as to which the
solution from Tuệ Trung’s standpoint is very simple; that is, not to
consider it a serious matter. For the actions of eating meat and
drinking wine convey within themselves nothing so called ‘fault’ or
‘merit’, as in Tuệ Trung’s words:
Eating grass and eating meat,
That depends on beings’ consciousness.
All kinds of grass grow when spring
comes.
What may be called faults and merits?
When composing the “Worldly Life with Joy in the
Way” later, the Emperor Nhân Tông expressed again the same view in a
much easier-to-understand manner:
How joyful it is,
A worldly life in accord with the Way!
Sleeping when tired, eating when hungry;
Stop seeking for treasure originally
inherent.
As no mind arises in the presence of
things,
Not any question on Dhyāna is required
then.
Now it is evident from the Emperor’s view that
Buddhism is Life, without any distinctions between them. For what does
Buddhism mean if not merely a process in quest of the truth? And as
being the truth, it surely does not lie within Buddhist teachings but
right in the heart of living. In other words, just as what is
graphically indicated in the Vajracchedikā-sūtra, which is
regarded as the central text of Buddhism in the Trần dynasty, so the
Buddhist teaching is essentially likened to a finger pointing to the
moon or a raft carrying its practitioners to the other side of the
river. In this connection, even the Buddhist teaching must be abandoned
for any possible realization of its essential significance. Further, the
text also emphasizes the thought of “all dharmas are buddha-dharmas.”
Consequently, we should not be surprised at all at the Emperor Nhân
Tông’s view as exposed in the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way.”
The long verse composed by him about the idea that
some pleasure in the Way of Dhyāna may be attained to just in worldly
life is formally titled the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way” and
consists of ten short sections. In the bibliography written by An Thiền
in the beginning of the 19th century and recorded in the
Đạo Giáo Nguyên Lục, therefore, the verse is called “Trần Triều Thập
Hội Lục” (Record of the “Ten Sections” in the Trần Dynasty). Just in the
opening lines of the first section, the Emperor determines what the
categories of life and way therein imply:
Though settling in the city,
The way of living I take is of forest
and mountain.
Life is “city” and the Way is “forest and
mountain.” Though living as a man amidst the busy city with numerous
secular affairs undertaken, his way of treating everything remains as
pure as that of forest and mountain. This point directly reflects the
view of “without asking about great or small capability [of realizing
Buddhist teaching], dividing lay from monastic practitioners” advanced
by Trần Thái Tông. It has so far been rather popular for everyone to
understand that by “great capability” it means that though settling in
the midst of a city, a practitioner is still capable of keeping his mind
pure; and by “small capability” it means that the practitioner has to
settle in the mountains to discipline himself effectively. Thus,
Buddhist followers in the Trần dynasty, depending upon their own social
stations and their own capacity, demonstrate accordingly their way of
living right in the midst of the world. As a consequence, for
enlightenment to be attained to, they simply make their attempts at
Abandoning ideas of I-ness and
Other-ness,
There appears the true character of
“diamond”;
Eliminating all greed and anger,
Then comes the marvelous nature of
Perfect Enlightenment.
(Section 2)
Hence, it is quite obvious that there is no place
for one’s efforts to get awakened other than where one is living. If the
Emperor Thái Tông, while being on the throne, was once told by the
National Teacher Phù Vân that “There is no Buddha in the mountains;
Buddha is just within one’s mind; the mind that is pure and
understanding is true Buddha,” then the Emperor Nhân Tông, when
composing the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way,” agreed that
The illuminating nature is not moved by
wealth and desire,
Not because of settling on Mount Cánh
Diều in Yên Tử;
The still mindfulness is not stirred by
sound and sight,
Not due to sitting in the Sạn Temple on
Mount Đông.
(Section 3)
Actually, it is not because one has practiced
Buddhist teachings on Mount Cánh Diều in Yên Tử or in the Sạn Temple on
Mount Đông that one may eventually get awakened. These places are at
most where one may enjoy the beauty of nature to nurture spirit as what
Huyền Quang expresses in his “A Depiction of the Vân Yên Temple”:
Sitting on the Vân Tiêu peak,
‘Riding’ on Mount Cánh Diều,
Mount Đông looks like a mound of green
gold,
And the East Sea like the mouth of an
oyster.
Enlightenment is thus to be attained right in the
world. It should not be sought for in the mountains. Nevertheless, the
Emperor Nhân Tông did not go so far as to deny the benefit of a life
there. For many times he himself spent his days in the wilderness such
as Yên Tử, Vũ Lâm. In the “Song of the Realization of the Way” he
describes that way of living as follows:
Content with life in poverty,
I have sought a place to train myself.
Secluded in the high mountains,
Hiding in the wilderness,
Where joyfully the gibbons
Make friends with me.
In deserted forests and mountains
I let go of mind and body.
Thus the most important thing is not where to live,
in the mountains or in the city, but how to get awakened to the truth.
We have seen that enlightenment may be attained at any place,
particularly just in a life fraught with worldly affairs. It is in
secular life that the merit of enlightenment is to be doubly prized. For
a country in essence is a community where always exist various social
duties and mutual responsibilities. No one can exist outside society.
For that reason, the Emperor praises and appreciates efforts to attain
enlightenment made just in such a life full of defilements and mutual
relations, of which his personality is an typical example:
Achieved in the midst of the world,
That merit is increasingly admired;
An unsuccessful cultivation in the
mountains
Is nothing but a vain attempt.
(Section 3)
In reality, the Emperor attained enlightenment in
the busiest days of his life when he was urgently preparing for the war
waged by Kublai Khan upon our country in the summer of 1287. Further,
his enlightenment came right after his mother passed away. Among
unfortunate changes and grim realities of life, however, the Emperor
could be aware of the value of what is usually termed tranquility and
insight in Buddhism, just as in his own words:
The ten thousand actions calmed and my
being at ease;
Already for half a day I have let go of
mind and body.
(Section 1)
Accordingly, as one reaches the state of “the
ten thousand actions calmed,” one’s being then can be at all times
found in calmness. Enlightenment is not separated from human beings and
the Buddha exists just within everyone of us. Still in the Emperor’s
words, if one leads a life of virtue, uprightness, and humaneness based
upon disciplinary rules and generosity, one is a Buddha Śākyamuni, a
Buddha Maitreya:
Cultivating humaneness and uprightness,
accumulating virtues,
That is undoubtedly Śākya’s conducts;
Observing precepts, uprooting greed,
That is surely Maitreya’s personality.
(Section 4)
Thus it should not be thought that there are only
the historical Buddha Śākyamuni and the future Buddha Maitreya. A
Buddhist follower in the time of Nhân Tông is aware that he can live as
these Buddhas if, besides humaneness, uprightness, and virtue, he is
leading a simple life:
Whether robes and blankets are patched
or tattered,
They help me survive the cold of winter.
Whether rice and gruel are plain or
somewhat rotten,
They help me overcome everyday hunger.
(Section 5)
Reading these lines, we are reminded of the
Emperor’s journey to Hải Đông for an urgent conference with Trần Hưng
Đạo after the base of Nội Bàng was completely broken down by the enemy.
He left the capital and traveled all day without any food until he was
served a meal with rice of bad quality by a soldier named Trần Lai. The
Vietnamese Buddhists, even though a king, have lived such simple lives.
But they are always depicted as
Keeping nature-precepts pure, making
form-precepts perfect,
To be, internally and externally, an
Adorning Bodhisattva;
Righteously serving one’s lord,
respectfully obeying one’s father,
That is a Great Man of loyalty and
filial piety.
(Section 6)
Consequently, a Vietnamese Buddhist in the Trần
dynasty represents the ideal of both an Adorning Bodhisattva and a Great
Man of loyalty and filial piety. The former, of course, refers to a
great category of Buddhism and the latter a great one of Confucianism.
Nevertheless, reading up on Great Man as described in Confucianist
texts, we may recognize the Emperor Nhân Tông’s contribution in this
doctrinal aspect. In the second section of Chapter “T’êng Wen-kung,” for
instance, Mencius formulates a Great Man to be the one who “cannot be
blinded by wealth, changed by poverty, and overcome by authority.”
This ideal when compared with Nhân Tông’s
definition of personality of a Vietnamese Buddhist, however, seems
rather narrow and verbose. For, as being a man who has made a decision
of “righteously serving his lord and respectfully obeying his father,”
he is certainly no longer affected by wealth, poverty or authority. The
content of the category of Great Man in the Emperor Nhân Tông’s
thought, therefore, proves to be much more intrinsic, extensive and
comprehensive. This may be considered to be a typical case where some
Chinese terms that denote originally some conceptions of Confucianism
convey quite a different meaning at our ancestors’ disposal. Formerly,
we have attempted to analyze Nguyễn Trãi’s thought of humaneness and
uprightness, which is often attributed by some Vietnamese researchers to
Confucianism, and have come to quite different conclusions.
The ideal type of Vietnamese Buddhists, therefore,
has been for the first time conceived within a highly practical content.
Not only are they expected to be “keeping nature-precepts pure and
making form-precepts perfect” to become Adorning Bodhisattvas, but
also they have to make attempts at “righteously serving lord and
respectfully obeying father” to become “Great Men of loyalty and
filial piety.” This may be said to be an ideal personality not only
of Vietnamese Buddhists but also of the Vietnamese people as a whole. In
effect, it should not be forgotten that those who brought about the most
glorious achievements for the nation in the Emperor Nhân Tông’s time
were for the most part Buddhist adherents, from the supreme leaders in
the central government such as Trần Hưng Đạo, Trần Quang Khải down to
the villagers such as Lê Công Mạnh and his relatives. As being Adorning
Bodhisattvas, they led an ideal way of living in which they incessantly
made efforts of purifying their personality within the framework of
disciplinary rules. On the other hand, as being great men of loyalty and
piety, they did not fail to fulfill their duties to their Fatherland,
their ancestors and their own families:
Remembering Saints’ gratitude, loving
parents,
Respecting Masters, studying the
Teaching,
Admiring the Gautama, refraining from
‘the sweet,’
Observing precepts, becoming
vegetarians.
(Section 7)
In accord with such a guiding principle of living,
they were always willing to act for the welfare of society:
Making bridges and ferries, building
temples and stūpas,
That is the cultivation of the teaching
on external ornamentation;
Aspiring after sympathy-equanimity,
versed in pity-compassion,
That is the mastering of the sūtra on
internal tranquility.
(Section 8)
After the two wars imposed by the enemy upon our
people in 1285 and 1288, a great number of infrastructures in our
country, especially the system of bridges and ferries, were mostly
destroyed due to strategic requirements of our Army as well as merciless
destruction by the enemy. In his mission to our country in the year Nhâm
Thìn (1292), however, the Assistant-Messenger Ch’en-fu, watching the
bridges across the splendid river in the capital Thăng Long, could not
help expressing his surprise: “sixty miles far from the House of
Messengers is the An Hóa Bridge, a mile from which is the Thanh Hóa
Bridge. On this bridge is a house of nineteen apartments,” as has been
said before. The entire country of Đại Việt was thus an immense
construction site after war, where the people labored earnestly to
reconstruct their country after many miserable years of war and losses.
It was the image of such enthusiastically laboring
people that touched the eyes of the country’s leader and made strong
impressions on his mind. For that reason, when composing the
“Worldly Life with Joy in the Way” he did not forget to mention the
building of bridges and ferries, the restoration of temples and stūpas
for the purpose of making the country more and more beautiful, which has
since then been regarded as an indispensable duty of Vietnamese
Buddhists to their Fatherland. It was thanks to such valuable tradition
that the Vietnamese Fatherland, after the terrible aftermath of war, did
become a Buddha-land, which the honors graduate Huyền Quang Lý Tải Đạo
expressed in the verse “A Depiction of the Vân Yên Temple”:
How magnificent it is,
Not less splendid than the Buddha-land
in the West;
And no part in the South can be compared
with it.
The Vulture Peak Mountain, who has
brought it here?
The scenery of Fei-lai, why does it
appear, too?
How free it is to enter the realm of
Saints,
How pleasant it is to get rid of secular
mind.
Such was the sight of the Vietnamese country at the
time. Consequently, the people were ready to sacrifice their lives to
protect it and reconstruct it to be a Buddha-land for themselves as well
as for their subsequent generations. Even though the Vietnamese
Buddhists might consider the construction of temples to be “exploiting
the ‘blood and fat’ of the people,” they were not so partial to deny or
oppose such a spiritual achievement. In all probability the Vietnamese
Buddhists’ leaders of the time could recognize Buddhist temples as a
spiritual foundation for maintaining and consolidating the existence of
the country. For instance, Phạm Sư Mạnh, an excellent student of Chu Văn
An (1292-1371), wrote about the Báo Thiên Stūpa in the following lines:
To protect the imperial capital from the
East and West
Is the soaring top of the magnificent
stūpa.
Like a column supporting the sky, it
keeps the country safe
Like a club erected on the ground, it
survives the wear of time.
And nearly two hundred years later, the Emperor Lê
Thánh Tông depicted the Trấn Quốc Temple in the same line of thought:
Standing between Heaven and Earth,
It helps consolidate the Imperial
Capital.
With the reputation widely known
throughout the country
The Trấn Quốc Temple in Tây Hồ is.
Accordingly, the Emperor Nhân Tông still called for
everyone not only to “make bridges and ferries” but further to “build
temples and stūpas,” and appreciated the role of Buddhist temples in
cultural and social life of the people, as in his own words:
Deserted mountains and wild forests
Are where hermits lead their free
living;
Secluded pagodas and tranquil temples
Are where ascetics spend their days of
non-action.
Indeed, whatever happened, a temple in a certain
autumn evening may have evoked within them some inexpressible
sensations, which the Emperor Nhân Tông himself ever experienced:
The old temple looks gloomy in the
autumn mist.
A fishing boat is floating slowly in the
first sounds of the evening bell.
Over the clear water and quiet mountains
the white sea-gulls are flying.
The wind subsides, the clouds are moving
leisurely over a few trees of red leaves.
Nevertheless, though making bridges and ferries,
building temples and stūpas, the Vietnamese Buddhists in the reign of
the Emperor Nhân Tông did not forget their major task of seeking after
enlightenment just in their secular lives:
To attain Buddhahood,
It would take much effort to discipline
mind;
To seek for gold,
It would take much time to filter sand.
There are, however, many ways for Buddhist
followers to attain enlightenment. They may follow Master Nan-ch’üan
P’u-yüan’s way of cutting down the cat, Tzu-hu Li-tsung’s warning of his
dog, and so on.
Old Wang’s cutting down the cat,
…
Master Hu’s warning of the dog,
Instructing …
(Section 9)
And there are many other ways of getting
enlightened that the Emperor Nhân Tông presents in the ninth section of
the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way,” from Bodhidharma’s time when he
met the Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty to Dhyāna Master Ling-yün
Chih-ch’in who attained enlightenment at the sight of blossoming
cherries, and Great Master Hsiang-yen who understood his “original face”
at the sound of a pebble striking the bamboo while he was sweeping the
ground. However manifold ways or methods of attaining enlightenment
might be, they are not so greatly different from each other. For the
truth realized in the enlightenment is in essence identical:
It is thus widely known
That, though the patriarchs’ teachings
Are different in many other ways,
They are indeed relatively similar.
(Section 9)
According to the Emperor Nhân Tông, such a worldly
life with joy in the Way is a life of Dhyāna in which various ways may
be applied to the attainment of enlightenment without being restricted
to any fixed practice. Various alternatives thus open up for a
practitioner of Dhyāna which may be optionally employed according to his
own capacity and circumstance. Yet, what would be attained to at the end
of the way is surely the same, that is, the enlightenment realized just
in his everyday living whether he experiences it in the mountains or in
a city full of secular defilements:
Śūnyatā is once realized;
Life then is in accord with original
nature.
Otherwise, that is not because of the
Patriarchs’ instructions
But because of our clinging mind.
For those adherents of smaller vehicle
who fail to realize the ultinate truth,
The Buddha invented a temporary city in
place of the Precious Abode.
But those with high capacity of
realizing the truth
Can attain enlightenment whether in the
city or in the mountains.
(Section 10)
The reason why there have existed so many different
ways of Dhyāna is that each practitioner possesses his own capacities
though the truth is always the same. If one cannot yet get awakened,
that is because one has not exhausted one’s total mental and physical
efforts of cultivating the way, not because the way the Buddhas and the
Patriarchs have instructed is not practicable. Just like his preceding
Dhyāna masters, the Emperor Nhân Tông was deeply aware of the fact that
it is not easy to get awakened to the essentials of Dhyāna. Accordingly,
in the “Song of the Realization of the Way” he mentioned the state in
which
Regarding the students of the Way,
Though there are a great number of them,
It is factually rare for a bamboo
To be turned into a dragon.
This fact is not surprising at all. A Chinese Ch’an
master, Yung-ming Yen-shou (904-975), ever said that in cultivating the
way of Dhyāna “of ten thousand practitioners only one is successful.” So
did the Emperor Nhân Tông himself see that though there were always a
great number of practitioners of Dhyāna, only one or two of them could
get enlightened. The reason for such a state is pointed out in the “Song
of the Realization of the Way”:
Owing to their beclouded mind,
North is mistaken for South.
In such an illustration as by the Emperor Nhân
Tông, it sounds just like an answer given by Pháp Minh to the Emperor Lý
Miễu’s question nearly a thousand years earlier than Nhân Tông’s time:
“occupying oneself with wrong-doing that is expected to be righteous,
attaching oneself to the false in the hope of its being the true; in
such a state of confusion and hesitation, even though the Buddha would
project light that can shake the earth, who can see it?” Obviously, the
phrase “owing to their beclouded mind” in the Emperor Nhân Tông’s
presentation is the very “state of confusion and hesitation” of
those who would like to see the Buddha in the time of Lý Miễu. Once, one
is trapped in such a state, it certainly follows that one will be “occupying
oneself with wrong-doing that is expected to be righteous, attaching
oneself to the false in the hope of its being the true,” or will go
northward in stead of southward as having been instructed. In such
confused states, to get awakened for a practitioner of Dhyāna remains
merely an illusion.
Nevertheless, after enlightenment has been attained
to, there would not be any distinction between mountain and city, the
Way and the world, a quiet life in the mountains and a busy one in the
city. Such is the thought of “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way.” It was
created for the purpose of meeting the requirement of reasoning in a new
phase of Buddhism when the Vietnamese Buddhists had to accomplish their
duties to the country and simultaneously had to supply Buddhism with new
energy by making use of its teaching in their fulfillment of national
tasks, which was successfully proved and gloriously typified by the
personality of the Emperor Nhân Tông.
As we have seen above, having been ordained a
Buddhist monk, who was spontaneously content with “wearing kṣaya,
sitting behind the paper curtain” and “a pot of egg-fruit, a jar
of soy” on Mount Yên Tử, the Emperor never detached himself from
national affairs, particularly those concerning Champa. As a
consequence, the two districts Ô and Lý became a part of Đại Việt’s
territory in this period. It must be said that this is a remarkable
achievement in the Emperor Nhân Tông’s life as a Buddhist monk. Never
before in the history of our country as well as of other countries has a
Buddhist monk been capable of extending his country’s boundary, which
was particularly carried out extremely peacefully. According to the
disciplinary rules for an ordinary Buddhist living in a monastery, it is
generally regulated that he who has led a monastic life must not act as
a counselor of marriage. Yet, it was the Great Ascetic Hương Vân who did
so and fulfilled it with great success. As a matter of fact, Buddhism in
Vietnam, particularly Dhyāna Buddhism, has its own disciplinary rules
that are called “Regulations of the Meditation Hall,” as in the title of
a work by Master Minh Giác Kỳ Phương (1682-1744), and, for the most
part, not related to the ordinary set of rules of other traditions of
Buddhism.
Another particular point concerning the Emperor’s
act just mentioned is that after his return to Đại Việt from Champa, he
encountered a lot of opposition from most of imperial officials,
especially from the intellectual circles. Many compositions in verse and
prose were made by them to laugh over the Great Ascetic Hương Vân’s
action of having his noble and pretty daughter married to a king of
Champa who, in their opinion, was merely a barbarian man of inferiority.
And such a discriminatory view went on to be held to more than a hundred
years later by another intellectual, namely, Ngô Sỹ Liên in his comment
on the event in question:
In the old days, to solve the
barbarians’ repeated havocs on the borderland the Emperor Kao of the Han
dynasty adopted a girl of a common family and married her to Ch’an-wu.
Though the marriage to people of another race had ever been laughed over
by the preceding Confucians, [the Emperor Kao’s action] might be
sympathized with because it was aimed at concluding war and bringing
about peace for the people. It was for the same reason that when Hu-han,
going for audience at the court of the Han House, had the desire to be a
son-in-law of the Emperor Yuan, the latter was content to marry his
daughter Wang-hsiang to him. As to Nhân Tông, what did he mean when
having his daughter married to the Lord of Champa? If saying that
because he did not want to be blamed for breaking his promise that had
been made by chance in a journey [to Champa], why did he not have the
matter changed? The fact that he handed over the Heavenly Throne to the
King [Anh Tông] after entering the monastery could make it
possible for the latter to withdraw the promise easily. But why did the
Emperor Nhân Tông still keep the promise, instead? If he first had his
daughter married to a man of another race and then managed to bring her
back again, is it possible for him to be regarded as keeping his
promise?
In fact, without such a profound comprehension of
Buddhist thought as the Emperor Nhân Tông’s, one may hardly have a view
of equanimity as to human beings. Since Mâu Tử’s time, the concept that
Buddha-nature is inherent in every sentient being has been grasped by
the Vietnamese Buddhists to reject the idea of discrimination maintained
by the Great Han and thus the subsequent view falsely held by the circle
of Confucians that our Vietnamese people are of barbarian race and their
Han people are of Hua-hsia race. Right in the comment by Ngô Sỹ Liên
just cited sounds more or less something of such a view of
discrimination from the Chinese intellectuals. It is, however, very
fortunate for our country that some leaders of our people at that time,
who were deeply interested in the thought of indiscrimination in
Buddhist teachings such as Văn Túc Vương Trần Đạo Tải and Trần Khắc
Chung, were wise enough to side with the Emperor Nhân Tông in his
decision of such a political marriage. Eventually, Princess Huyền Trân
went to her husband’s home and thereupon the people of Đại Việt
possessed further a strip of land of more than two hundred kilometers
without costing an arrow or a soldier’s life.
The ideology of the Trúc Lâm school founded by the
Emperor Nhân Tông thus helped solve a series of issues posed for
Buddhism in Vietnam of the time and thereby could meet some requirements
that had not been able to be satisfied before by our people. We have
seen that it is not by chance that the thought of “Worldly Life with Joy
in the Way” has been set forth and its content established. Once more,
it is obviously evidenced that such an ideology factually proceeds from
the actualities of Đại Việt and aims at solving the problems caused by
such actualities.
Above, we have mentioned only a number of
fundamental problems within the range of current historical materials.
We have not dealt with some specific points of Dhyāna teaching such as
the principle of rūpa-śūnyatā that was elucidated through a long verse
by the Emperor Nhân Tông in his discourse at the Sùng Nghiêm Temple in
the late winter of Giáp Thìn (1304). Naturally, this principle was after
all spoken of by the Emperor Nhân Tông as something “such-and-such”;
that is to say, every practitioner has to get some insight into it by
himself through the instructions of his master. Such an experience, as
what the Emperor Nhân Tông exposed in the “Worldly Life with Joy in the
Way,” may be attained to by the “adherents of superior capacity in
realization” only. However, the most noteworthy point that needs to be
emphasized here is that in the lineage of the Trúc Lâm school a
practitioner of such capacity as mentioned above does not necessarily
pertain to the circle of the state’s officials but he may be in any of
various stations of society of the time.
Thus, after Nhân Tông’s time Buddhism in Vietnam
has developed in the course of what is presented in the “Worldly Life
with Joy in the Way.” The Buddhist teaching was no longer exclusively
left for any single part of society no matter how excellent and superior
it may be conventionally considered to be. Buddhism has spread widely
among various classes of the masses, just as what was written by Lê Quát
in a tablet inscription at the Thiệu Phúc Temple of the Bái Village in
Route Bắc Giang in 1270, which was later recorded by Ngô Sỹ Liên in the
Complete History of Đại Việt:
The Buddhist
followers set forth the doctrine of misfortune-and-fortune to transform
the people’s minds, which is firmly hold to by the subsequent
generations. From the nobles down to the common people, they never show
any shadow of regret about devoting their wealth to Buddhist affairs. If
they have an opportunity at present to make offerings to temples and
stūpas, they all feel greatly pleased. For they know that from such good
deeds they can enjoy their fruits in the future. For that reason, from
the Capital to districts and provinces, even in remote hamlets and
villages, the people follow [Buddhism] without any need of being
persuaded in advance and arouse their belief [in Buddhism] without any
need of taking an oath. Wherever the people inhabit, they build a temple
that is always restored when ruined, rebuilt when destroyed. The
pavilions and towers of bells and drums number as many as a half of the
population. Buddhism flourishes so favorably and is held in the highest
esteem by the people. As a boy, I ever read the [Confucian] Saints’
sayings, understood them and thereby had much opportunity to apply them
to the cultivation of the common people but I have never been able to
encourage an entire village to follow the Saints’ teaching. Though I
have ever wandered in the mountains and across the rivers and my
footsteps have been pressed on almost half of the country’s land, I have
never found anything called “the Temple of [Confucianist] Literature”
built by local inhabitants. Whereby I myself feel so shameful that the
present writing comes as a genuine presentation of my heart.
No doubt, the flourishing state of Buddhism until
the end of the fourteenth century when the Trần House began to decline
took its root in the ideology of the “Worldly Life with Joy in the Way.”
Buddhism was not attributed exclusively to its monastic adherents or any
of the noble classes and the state’s officials. Buddhism is for every
human being. Wherever the people are, there is a Buddhist temple built.
And this prosperity has received no less influential contributions from
the Emperor Nhân Tông and the doctrine of the Dhyāna school founded by
himself. Such is the truth that has been proved through so many stone
inscriptions. Nevertheless, some people keep on maintaining that
Buddhism could have declined by the end of the Trần dynasty,
particularly that after Master Huyền Quang’s death (1254-1334) the
“flourishing period [of Buddhism] came to an end.”
In effect, not only did Dhyāna Buddhism of Trúc Lâm
refuse to come to its end but it also developed so well as to prepare
itself for the undertaking of new tasks related to the country and
Buddhism that the history entrusted to it. That is to say, taking
advantage of some turmoil in our country of the time the Ming of China
carried out again their plot of invading our country. In face of such
brutal and barbarian invaders, our people as a whole, from the Buddhist
monks like Phạm Ngọc, etc., to the Buddhist laymen like Trần Trùng
Quang, Lê Lợi, Nguyễn Trãi, etc., rose up to drive away the enemy with
their glorious achievements in the battles of Chi Lăng, Xương Giang,
which brought about the independence for the Fatherland and the birth of
the Lê dynasty. Undoubtedly, Buddhism of the Trúc Lâm Yên Tử school went
on with its mission of serving the Buddha’s teaching and the people of
the reigns that followed through the outstanding characters of history
such as Master Đạo Khiêm(?-1445), Master Viên Thái (1400-1460), the
Highest Graduate Lê Ích Mộc (1459-?), Master Pháp Tính (1470-1550?),
Master Thọ Tiên Diễn Khánh (1550-1620?), Master Chân An Tuệ Tĩnh
(?-1711), Master Chân Nguyên Tuệ Đăng (1648-1726) and particularly
Master Hải Lượng Ngô Thời Nhiệm (1746-1803). And this will be the
subject of another study.
trans. by Đao Sinh |
