Sudden Enlightenment or Gradual Awakening?

The Debate Between Kamalaśīla and Heshang Moheyan

 

 

          In the early period of Buddhism’s dissemination into Tibet, it faced widespread opposition from Tibetans who were adherents of indigenous traditions. Among Buddhists, there were also competing groups advocated differing doctrines and practices. Two of the most prominent of these were factions that propounded traditional Indian Mahayana models of the Buddist path and others that favored the approach of the Chinese Chan school. The main exponent of the Chinese position was a meditation master named Mahayana (Chinese: Heshang Moheyan), who is reported to have taught that awakening is attained suddenly and is not a result of gradual training. It dawns in a sudden flash of insight, after which all mental afflictions are eliminated.

          His opponents, who followed the Indic model of the five paths and ten levels, contended that the process of awakening gradually removes mental afflictions. Because these are deeply rooted and are the result of countless lifetimes of familiarization with negative thoughts and deeds, they cannot be extirpated all at once. It is no more possible for an ordinary being to become a buddha in one moment of awakening than for a mountain climber to scale a high peak in one jump.

          It is clear from Tibetan and Chinese records that both sides had popular support, and to settle the dispute the king arrange for a debate between representatives of the Indian school and Heshang Moheyan and his followers. The Indian side was headed by Kamalaśīla, a student of Shatarakshita. According to Pudön, Shantarakshita had foreseen the conflict before his death and had told the king that when it occurred Kamalasila should be invited to Tibet to argue for the Indian position. Tibetan and Chinese records report that the two sides met in Lhasa around the year 792 for a debate  that was intended to settle the question once and for all. The system of the winner would become the standard in Tibet, and the losing side would be forbidden to spread its doctrines.

          The Council of Lhasa: An Apocryphal Story? In a study of this story in Minor Buddhist Texts II, Giuseppe Tucci argues against the idea that the debate could have been held in Lhasa. He contends that at the time Lhasa was a small and isolated town, and during the season in which the debate is purported to have occurred, travel would have been difficult. He believed that the debate probably took place in Samyé, the nexus of Tibetan Buddhism at the time. Paul Demiéville, whose groundbreaking study La Concile de Lhasa followed the traditional story of a single debate in Lhasa, later emended his position and stated that these were probably a series of exchanges between proponents of sudden and gradual awakening that took place over a period of many years, with the Indian gradualist faction eventually triumphing. Other scholar – Yoshiro Imaeda, for instance – doubt that a debate even occurred, and Luis Gómez contends that while there were probably disputes between the two factions, they were not settle in a single, definitive council, but rather took the form of “a haphazard series of indirect confrontation.” Gómez bases this conclusion on discrepancies in documents that purport to give an account of the debate.

          Whether or not the debate took the form reported in traditional sources (and even if it never occurred at all), the story is an important one for Tibetan Buddhists, who believed that the council resulted in a clear victory for Indian gradualist Buddhism and the defeat of Chinese teachings of sudden awakening. At the very least, the prevalence of the story indicates that during the eight century there was a conflict between Indian Buddhist models of gradual awakening and Chinese teachings of sudden awakening and that the Indian model eventually won out. If there was a single council, it seems probable that it did not end the conflict and that the Chinese suddenist teachings were popular in Tibet, but they subsequently declined. The widespead disapproval of such doctrines even among temporary Tibetan scholars may be seen in the fact that schools which speak of sudden awakening often feel compelled to argue that their teachings are significantly different from those of Heshang Moheyan.

          Pudön’s Account: The most influential Tibetan account of the debate is found in Pudön’s History of Buddhism, which states that Chan doctrines and practices had gained many adherents in Tibet, to the dismay of people who follow Indian models. In order to counteract the perceived heresies of the Chinese, their opponents convened a council in which they would be required to defend their positions. The greatest concern of the Indian faction was the purported antinomianism of Heshang Moheyan. Pudön reports that the Heshang and his followers eschews the practices of moral cultivation, saying that it is irrelevant to the goal of buddhahood. Awakening, he claimed, is only found by those who attain a state of complete inactivity in which though ceases. According to Pudön, the Heshang wrote treaties that denounced traditional dharma practice and claimed that awakening is gained by those who remain in a sleeplike state. In Pudön’s account, Heshang Moheyan began debate by summarizing his position:

          He who has no thoughts and inclinations at all can be fully delivered from Phenomenal Life. The absence of any thought, search, or investigation brings about the non perception of the reality of separate entities. In such a manner one can attain (Buddhahood) at once, like (a Bodhisattva) who can has attained the tenth Stage.

          Kamalaśīla replied:

          If one has no thought concerning any of the elements of existence and does not direct the mind upon them, this does not mean that one can cease to remember all that one has experienced and to think of it … If the mere absence of (consciousness and) recollection is regarded as sufficient, it follows that in a swoon or at the intoxication one comes to the state where there is no constructive thought … Without correct analysis there is no means of attaining liberation from constructive thought.

          The Indian scholar Jñanendra pressed the point by asking the Chinese faction: “If you can attain buddhahood at any time, what are you doing now?” In other words, if they had the potential to become buddhas at any moment, why were they wasting their time discussing it, rather than doing it? He then stated the Indian Mahayana view that awakening is the result of gradual perfection of compassion and wisdom, a process that begins with moral cultivation and meditation practice. These remove mental defilements and lead to progressively deeper understanding of reality, culminating in omniscience. Jñanendra contended that if one were to follow the Chan path it would be impossible to attain the state of buddhahood, since one would simply sleep and do nothing.

          According to Pudön’s account, the Chinese faction were unable to answer these charges and remained silent. The king declared that the position of the Indian gradualists was victorious and decreed that henceforth the teaching of Heshang Moheyan should be banned. The members of the Chinese faction acknowledgeed their defeat and returned home to China. Pudön adds that Heshang Moheyan was so upset by this loss of face that he committed suicide with a number of his followers. Kamalaśīla, however, was not able to savor his victory for long, because some surviving disciples of the Heshang hired Chinese assassins to kill him. Pudön states that they murdered Kamalaśīla by squeezing his kidneys.

          The Chinese record composed by Wangxi contradicts Pudön’s statement that the Indian faction won. Wangxi reports that Heshang Moheyan and his teachings were declared the winners of the debate, but he adds that the Heshang was so upset by the degeneration of dharma in Tibet that he committed suicide along with some of his followers. This seems rather suspicious, since if he had been victorious he would presumably have felt vindicated and not suicidal.

          The story of the defeat of Heshang Moheyan is well known among Tibetan Buddhists, who view it as clear evidence of the superiority of Indian gradualist Mahayana. Chinese Buddhism is widely regarded as a system that diverges from the tradition founded by Shakyamuni, but the original motivation for this belief may have been as much political as doctrinal. While the Chinese, Tibetan, and Indian sources give evidence of marked differences in outlook and pratices, the aversion the that developed toward Chinese forms of Buddhism may have been at least partially motivated by political considerations. Tibetan relation with India were generally amicable, but Tibet and China had a long and bitter history of conflict. Both were central powers in Central Asia, and both were involved in armed competition for supremacy in the region. Given their history, it is unlikely that the king would have ruled in favor of the Chinese faction. Moreover, even if he were as devout as traditional sources claim, his duties as a ruler of a large empire probably prevented him from studying Buddhist philosophy in depth, and so in all likelihood he lacked the background knowledge to be able to understand the subtleties of the competing positions ./.

Source: Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism by John Powers