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Concept
Guifeng Zongmi
Summary
Guifeng Zongmi () (780–1 February 841) was a Tang dynasty Buddhist scholar and bhikkhu, installed as fifth patriarch of the Huayan school as well as a patriarch of the Heze school of Southern Chan Buddhism. He wrote a number of works on the contemporary situation of Tang Buddhism, which also discussed Taoism and Confucianism. He also wrote critical analyses of Chan and Huayan, as well as numerous scriptural exegeses.
Zongmi was deeply interested in both the practical and doctrinal aspects of Buddhism. He was especially concerned about harmonizing the views of those that tended toward exclusivity in either direction. He provided doctrinal classifications of Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings, accounting for the apparent disparities in doctrines by categorizing them according to their specific aims.
Zongmi was born in 780 into the powerful and influential He () family in what is now central Sichuan. In his early years, he studied the Chinese classics, hoping for a career in the provincial government. When he was seventeen or eighteen, Zongmi lost his father and took up Buddhist studies. In an 811 letter to Chengguan, he wrote that for three years he "gave up eating meat, examined [Buddhist] scriptures and treatises, became familiar with the virtues of meditation and sought out the acquaintance of noted monks."
At the age of twenty-two, he returned to the Confucian classics and deepened his understanding, studying at the Yixueyuan 義學院 Confucian Academy in Suizhou. His later writings reveal a detailed familiarity with the Analects, the Classic of Filial Piety, and the Book of Rites, as well as historical texts and Daoist classics such as the works of Laozi.
At the age of twenty-four, Zongmi met the Chan master Suizhou Daoyuan ( and trained in Chan for two or three years. He received Daoyuan's seal in 807, the year he was fully ordained as a Buddhist monk.
In his autobiographical summary he states that it was the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment () that led him to enlightenment, his "mind-ground opened thoroughly [...
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