Гуйфэн Цзунми: Таң дәуірінің буддалық ғалымы мен ойшылы

Chinese Buddhist monk and scholar

Guifeng Zongmi (780–1 February 841) was a Tang dynasty Chinese Buddhist monk and scholar who is considered a patriarch of both the Huayan school and Chan Buddhism. Zongmi wrote a number of works on several Mahayana Sutras, Chan and Huayan, and he also discussed Taoism and Confucianism. His works are a major source for studying the various Chan schools of the Tang. Zongmi was deeply interested in both the practical and doctrinal aspects of Mahayana Buddhism, especially the teachings of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment and the Mahayana Awakening of Faith. Zongmi's work is concerned with harmonizing the various Chan teachings (especially the doctrines of sudden awakening and original enlightenment) with other Chinese Buddhist traditions, especially Huayan, though he also drew on the work of Tiantai Zhiyi in his ritual works. His philosophy attempts to create a comprehensive worldview that includes and sublimates all Buddhist and non buddhist teachings of his time into a single harmonious spiritual vision.

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 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. He eventually converted to Buddhism, but Zongmi's Confucian moral values never left him and he spent much of his career attempting to integrate Confucian ethics with Buddhism.

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. Daoyuan was part of a southern Chan tradition called the Jingzhong school, which was based in Chengdu, Sichuan. This lineage goes back to the Korean prince and Chan master Kim Hwasang (c. 684–762, also known as Jingzhong Wuxiang, 浄衆無相 ), and to his student Shenhui (not to be confused with the earlier Heze Shenhui). According to Broughton, Daoyuan's teacher, Yizhou Nanyin, the abbot of Shengshou Monastery, likely trained with Heze Shenhui and this other Shenhui of Sichuan. In his autobiographical summary, Zongmi recounts how after a sutra chanting service, he encountered a copy of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment. According to Gregory, "after only reading two or three pages, he had an awakening, an experience whose intensity so overwhelmed him that he found himself spontaneously dancing for joy." Zongmi would later write: "at one word [from Daoyuan] my mind ground opened thoroughly, and with one scroll [of the Scripture of Perfect Enlightenment] its meaning was as clear and bright as the heavens." Zongmi's sudden awakening during this period had a profound impact upon his subsequent scholarly career. He spent the next several years studying the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment and its commentaries extensively. He propounded the necessity of scriptural studies in Chan, and was highly critical of what he saw as the antinomianism of the Hongzhou lineage derived from Mazu Daoyi (709–788), which practiced "entrusting oneself to act freely according to the nature of one's feelings".

In 810, at the age of thirty, Zongmi met Lingfeng , a disciple of the preeminent Buddhist scholar and Huayan exegete Chengguan (, 738–839). Lingfeng gave Zongmi a copy of Chengguan's commentary and sub commentary on the Avatamsaka Sutra. The two texts were to have a profound impact on Zongmi. He studied these texts and the sūtra with great intensity, declaring later that due to his assiduous efforts, finally "all remaining doubts were completely washed away." In 812 Zongmi travelled to the western capital, Chang'an, where he spent two years studying with Chengguan, who was not only the undisputed authority on Huayan, but was also highly knowledgeable in Chan, Tiantai, the vinaya and East Asian Mādhyamaka.

In 816, Zongmi withdrew to the Zhongnan Mountains southwest of Chang'an and began his writing career, composing an annotated outline of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, and a compilation of passages from four commentaries on the sūtra. For the next three years Zongmi continued his scholarly research, reading through the Buddhist canon, the Tripiṭaka, and traveling to various temples on Zhongnan. He returned Chang'an in 819 and continued his studies utilizing the extensive libraries of various monasteries in the capital city. In late 819 he completed a commentary and subcommentary on the Diamond Sutra. In early 821 he returned to Cottage Temple beneath Gui Peak and hence became known as "Guifeng Zongmi". In mid 823, he finally finished his own commentary on the text that had led to his first awakening, Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, and the culmination of a vow he had made some fifteen years earlier. For the next five years, Zongmi continued writing and studying in the Zhongnan Mountains as his fame grew.

Zongmi was summoned to the capital in 828 by Emperor Wenzong (r. 826–840) and awarded the purple robe and the honorific title "Great Worthy" (; bhadanta). The two years he spent in the capital were significant for Zongmi. He was now a nationally honored Buddhist master with extensive contacts among the literati of the day, such as the devout Buddhist layman and scholar official Pei Xiu and the famed poet Bai Juyi (772–846). During this time, Zongmi turned his considerable knowledge and intellect towards writing for a broader audience rather than the technical exegetical works he had produced for a limited readership of Buddhist specialists. His scholarly efforts became directed towards the intellectual issues of the day and much of his subsequent work was produced at the appeals of assorted literati of the day. One such works directed at the lay literati was Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity. During this period, Zongmi also began collecting every extant Chan text in circulation with the goal of producing a Chan canon to create a new section of the Buddhist canon. This work is lost but the title, Collected Writings on the Source of Chan remains.

It was Zongmi's association with the great and the powerful that led to his downfall in 835 in an event known as the Sweet Dew Incident. A high official and friend of Zongmi, Li Xun, in connivance with Emperor Wenzong of Tang and his general Zheng Zhu, attempted to curb the power of the court eunuchs by killing them all. The plot failed and Li Xun fled to the Zhongnan Mountains, seeking refuge with Zongmi. Li Xun was quickly captured and executed and Zongmi was arrested and tried for treason. Impressed with Zongmi's bravery and honesty in the face of execution, the eunuch generals spared Zongmi. Little is known about Zongmi's activities after this event, though he certainly would not have been welcome at court and evidence from his late commentary on the Yulanpen sutra indicates he returned home to Sichuan. Zongmi died in the zazen posture on 1 February 841 in Chang'an. According to his wishes, his body was left as food for scavengers, and was then cremated. Twelve years later he was awarded the posthumous title "Samādhi Prajñā Dhyāna Master" and his remains were interred in a stupa called Blue Lotus.

Zongmi's work continued to be studied by later Chinese Buddhists. His ecumenical vision of Chan as a single family with many branches and his account of Tang Chan lineages were influential sources for later Song dynasty Chan works. His work was also very influential on the "Huayan Chan" traditions of the Khitan Liao Empire (916 1125) and the Tangut kingdom (1038 1227) of the Western Xia. Zongmi's views about sudden awakening, gradual cultivation, and the importance of scripture to Chan practice was also influential on the later Chan figure Yongming Yanshou, whose Mind Mirror (Zongjinglu) echoes Zongmi's views on these topics. The Mind Mirror was widely printed during the Song dynasty and widely circulated. According to Broughton, the Mind Mirror "conveyed to Song Chan the most fundamental elements of Zongmi's Chan Prolegomenon, sometimes in Zongmi's wording or close paraphrases". Zongmi's ideas also remained influential during the later Song and Ming dynasties. The paradigm of "sudden awakening, gradual cultivation" was promoted and defended by later Chan figures like as Dahui Zonggao (1089 1163) and Hanshan Deqing (1546 1623). According to Albert Welter, during the Song era, there were to main contrasting styles of Chan, the "moderate" sutra based Chan (wenzi chan) of Zongmi and Yanshou, and the "rhetorical" Chan of the Linji school which is based on recorded sayings literature (like the Linji yulu). The rhetorical Chan held that Chan was "separate transmission outside the teachings" (jiaowai biechuan) and thus saw sutra based Chan as a confused and futile method and the sutras as "old toilet paper that wipes away filth" (Extensive Record of Yunmen). Furthermore, Zongmi's thought also influenced later Neo Confucianism. For example, Zhu Xi's (1130 1200) critique of Chan Buddhism is a but recapitulation, in Confucian terms, of Zongmi's critique of the Hongzhou school. The Chan of Zongmi and Yanshou was also influential on Korean Buddhism, due to its impact on Jinul's (1158 1210) system, who also argued for the unity of Chan and the teachings. According to Broughton, Jinul's influential Excerpts from the Separately Circulated Record of the Dharma Collection with Inserted Personal Notes "is an expression of sutra based sudden awakening gradual practice Guifeng Chan". The gradual practice is centered around the Kanhua Chan of Dahui, making Jinul's system a mix of Zongmi Chan and Dahui's Linji Chan. Zongmi's Chan Preface remained one of the most widely printed texts throughout Korean Buddhist history, with a large number of woodblock print editions. Zongmi's thought continues to be influential on modern Korean Seon (where the Preface remains part of the study curriculum of the Chogye order), and his ideas remain a major topic of discussion today. Through the influence of the Mind Mirror, Zongmi Yanshou Chan also reached Japan, were it was influential on the Daruma school of Zen and on the thought of early Rinzai figures like Myoan Yosai (1141 1215) and Enni Ben'en (1202 1280). The works of Zongmi and Yanshou were also printed by the monasteries of the Five Mountains of Rinzai (around Kyoto and Kamakura). This tradition valued textual study, and the influence of Zongmi can be seen in the works of some of its important literari figures, like Kiyō Hōshū (1361 1424), who promoted Zongmi's teachings with the aphorism: "No Zen separate from the teachings; no teachings separate from Zen."

Zongmi's lifelong work was the attempt to incorporate differing and sometimes conflicting systems into an integrated framework that harmonized various Buddhist teachings and traditions, especially those of Chan practice and Huayan doctrine. More specifically, according to Peter Gregory, one of Zongmi's main philosophical projects was to reformulate Huayan thought so as to "provide an ontological basis and philosophical rationale for Ch'an practice". This philosophical basis also provided a basic ethical theory for Chan which could stand up against Confucian critiques. It also provided the moral foundations needed to critique the more antinomian forms of Chan Buddhism that had developed in the Tang. Metaphysically speaking, Zongmi moves beyond the thought of earlier Huayan thinkers like Fazang, who emphasized the doctrine of perfect interfusion or unobstructed interpenetration. Instead, Zongmi emphasizes the teachings of the Mahayana Awakening of Faith on the "one mind" (一心) and the teachings of the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment on the teaching of sudden enlightenment (頓教) followed by gradual cultivation, which is based on the originally enlightened mind that all beings have.

The central doctrine of the highest teaching which is at the core of Zongmi's thought is the idea that all beings are endowed with a "perfectly enlightenment mind", which is none other than the buddha nature (tathagatagarbha), the Dharmadhātu (法界, absolute reality) and the "one mind" of the Awakening of Faith. According to Zongmi:The teaching of the one vehicle that reveals the nature holds that all sentient beings without exception have the intrinsically enlightened true mind. From time without beginning it is permanently abiding and immaculate. It is shining, unobscured, clear and bright ever present awareness. It is also called Buddha nature, and it is also called tathagatagarbha. From time without beginning deluded thoughts cover it, and [sentient beings] by themselves are not aware of it. Because they only recognize their inferior qualities, they become indulgently attached, enmeshed in karma, and experience the suffering of birth and death. The Great Enlightened One took pity upon them and taught that everything without exception is empty. He further revealed that the purity of the numinous enlightened true mind is wholly identical with that of all Buddhas. Zongmi saw the term "empty tranquil awareness" as expressing the positive and negative aspects of the ultimate reality:"Empty" means empty of all phenomenal appearances and is still a negative term. "Tranquil" just indicates the principle of the immutability of the true nature and is not the same as nothingness. "Awareness" indicates the revelation of the very essence and is not the same as discrimination. It alone constitutes the intrinsic essence of the true mind. Another way that Zongmi described the ultimate truth is by the term "awareness" (chih), which he also sometimes calls the "numinous awareness" (ling chih), "numinous awareness unobscured" (ling chih pu mei), "ever present awareness" (ch'ang chih), and "empty tranquil awareness" (k'ung chi [chih] chih). This awareness is not the defiled mind, mental discrimination, nor is it an object of the mind. According to Gregory, for Zongmi, this awareness is "the underlying ground of consciousness that is always present in all sentient life", it is "the noetic ground of both delusion and enlightenment, ignorance and wisdom, or, as he aptly terms it, the mind ground (hsin li)." In the Chan Preface, Zongmi explains the mind ground through the simile of the wish fulfilling gem (cintamani) which is like a crystal ball that reflects all things. According to Zongmi,

Just the perfect brightness of jade like purity [yingjing yuanming] is the jewel substance [zhuti]. The black color, up to and including all the other colors, such as blue and yellow, etc., are unreal. When one truly sees the color black, the black from the outset is not black. It is just the brightness If, at the locus of the color characteristics, one after the other you just see the perfect brightness of jade like sparkling purity, then you are not confused about the jewel. If you are just free of confusion about the jewel, then black is non black; black is the bright jewel, and so on with all colors. This is freedom [from the two extremes of] existence and non existence. Zongmi follows the Śrīmālādevī sutra and the Awakening of Faith in seeing this ultimate mind ground as being both empty and not empty, in the sense that it is empty of defilement and discrimination, but not empty of positive qualities like the four perfect qualities (Skt: guṇapāramitā, which are: permanence, purity, bliss, and self), as well as all the buddha qualities. For Zongmi, any gradual practice of the Buddhist path must be grounded in faith in the originally enlightened mind. This is what makes it possible to attain a sudden awakening to our own originally enlightened state. This true awakened mind is what is revealed during the experience of sudden awakening. It is a recognition of what is already the case, one's innate originally awakened nature. This is like how gold is already present in ore. Before awakening, the true mind is deluded and covered by thoughts and wrong views. Zongmi's metaphysics thus follows the "one mind two gates" model of the Awakening of Faith which sees the pure aspect of the true mind as the buddha nature, and the deluded side as the storehouse consciousness, out which the other seven consciousnesses arise. As such, Zongmi saw enlightenment and delusion as two parallel sides of the same non dual reality. Zongmi cites the Avatamsaka sutra which states that "there is not a single sentient being that is not fully endowed with the wisdom of the Tathagata" as a major source for this teaching. He also sees this teaching as exemplified by numerous sources, like the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, Ghanavyuha, Śrīmālādevī, Tathagatagarbha sutra, Nirvana sutra, Awakening of Faith, Buddha nature treatise (Foxing lun) and Ratnagotravibhāga.

This ultimate ground of reality, the "dharmadhatu of suchness" (chen ju fa chieh), is, according to Zongmi, "the pure mind that is the source of Buddhas and sentient beings." It is the nature of the essence of mind which gives rise to all dharmas (phenomena). This is termed "nature origination" (hsing ch'i) which ultimately refers to the manifestation of all phenomena in the universe from the ultimate nature. Nature origination is also identified with the concept of the interpenetration of the absolute and the phenomenal realms (li shih wu ai). Like gold (i. e. the nature) and the various objects that can be produced from gold (dharmas), they are neither the same exact thing, nor are they different in essence. According to Zongmi, this teaching of nature origination is one of the key differences between Huayan thought and Yogacara, since for Yogacara, the pure suchness is inert and unchanging, while in Huayan and in the Awakening of Faith, suchness also has a conditioned aspect that gives rise to all dharmas. Furthermore, it is precisely due to the fact that all dharmas originate wholly from suchness that all dharmas also interpenetrate. As Zongmi writes, nature origination "is why Buddhas and sentient beings are inextricably interconnected and the pure and defiled lands harmoniously interpenetrate." As such, for Zongmi, the Huayan idea of the interfusion and interpenetration of all dharmas with each other (shih shih wu ai) is subordinate to and derived from the interpenetration of the ultimate principle and phenomena that arise from it (li shih wu ai). Zongmi also makes use of the East Asian discourse of essence and function (ti yong) to explain the ultimate nature. In this analysis, Buddha nature (i. e. suchness) is described as the essence (ti) which is the pure and absolute (pu pien) aspect of the mind. Meanwhile, the innate capacities and manifestations of Buddha nature are its functioning, which includes an intrinsic unchanging awareness, and also the impermanent and conditioned (sui yuan) aspects of mind which respond to various causes and conditions. According to Zongmi, all of these are aspects of a unitary reality which includes both dependent arising on the conventional level and also nature origination which is more fundamental and makes conventional causality possible. Ultimate reality thus includes all phenomena in the world which are all empty and interconnected with each other, as well as the ontological basis of reality, the dynamic mind ground of awareness (chih), which generates all phenomena.

Aside from promoting the importance of "gradual" classic Buddhist practices such as taking of precepts and taking part in rituals, Zongmi also promoted the importance of doctrinal study as an indispensable element of spiritual cultivation. Indeed, for Zongmi, the Buddhist scriptures were a key element of validating one's spiritual experiences, even in Chan, which relies on a direct "mind to mind" transmission of the essential meaning. According to Zongmi, even though Bodhidharma taught in this direct way, he did not reject Buddhist scripture or see enlightenment as a separate teaching from what is taught in the sutras. Zongmi held that those who believed that Chan was separate from doctrinal study were deeply confused. As such, Zongmi promoted the "correspondence of the teachings and Chan" (chiao ch'an i chih), which sees the meaning of Chan as the same as the meaning of the scriptures. Because of this, Zongmi's Chan Preface states that: "the scriptures are like a marking line to be used as a standard to determine true and false those who transmit Ch'an must use the scriptures and treatises as a standard." According to Zongmi, Chan and Buddhism rely on three sources of knowledge (pramana): inference, direct perception and the word of the Buddha. Those who only rely on one of these are unbalanced, and they may go astray by merely relying on their own unguided experiences, which may be faulty. Zongmi thus promotes an approach to spiritual cultivation that relies on a harmonious development of both meditation and doctrinal study. That being said, for Zongmi, the scriptures themselves are not Chan, which relies on an intuitive mysterious or dark understanding based on "getting the idea and forgetting the words". As such, the meaning of Chan and the sutras "are spontaneously understood in a mysterious way", not in a conceptual intellectual way. The reading and study of the sutras therefore, are a useful guide to the true meaning, but they are not the true meaning itself, which appears in the source of one's mind suddenly without calculation, and without becoming caught up in the words or clinging to the text. This is the meaning of the phrase Zongmi attributes to Bodhidharma "no involvement with the written word." It is not a rejection of textual study, but an indication that Chan realization goes beyond words even while also skillfully making use of the scriptures. This is the way in which the following simile by Zongmi on Chan (which is beyond words) and the scriptures is to be understood:The sutras are like an inked marking string [shengmo], serving as a model by which to establish the false and the correct. The inked marking string is not the skill itself; a skillful craftsman must use the string as a standard [wei ping]. The sutras and treatises are not Chan; one who transmits Chan must use the sutras and treatises as a norm [wei zhun]. Broughton argues that the sutra based "sudden enlightenment, gradual cultivation" Chan was the normative type of Chan during the Song and Ming dynasties, as well as in Goryeo Korea. Zongmi's sutra based Chan view contrasts with another popular Zen narrative which sees Chan / Zen as being separate from textual learning altogether, and sees scriptural study as pointless for the Zen practitioner. According to Broughton, modern Japanese Rinzai Zen generally promotes this other popular narrative which is "an image of Zen framed by the Record of Linji wherein the real teacher boldly discards the teachings of the Buddhist canon."

Zongmi's analysis of Chan (i. e. Zen Buddhism) also attempted to harmonize the various splits and debates which existed among the various Chan schools of his time, which often engaged in debate and disparaging attacks on each other. Citing the parable of the blind men and the elephant, Zongmi thinks that the various competing Chan schools have different parts of the whole truth, and his doctrinal framework seeks to provide a holistic account of all of the various schools of Chan, writing: "If taken in isolation, each of them is wrong. But if taken together, each of them is valid." This shows Zongmi's basic doctrinal tendency which as Gregory explains "is always to articulate a comprehensive framework in which such discrepant perspectives can be harmoniously subsumed. Such a comprehensive framework not only provides a larger context in which the divergent perspectives can be validated as parts of a whole, it also provides a new and higher perspective that is superior to the others because it succeeds in sublating them within itself."

Zongmi's critique of Northern Chan was based on its practice of removing impurities in the mind to reach enlightenment. He associated this teaching with the Chinese Yogacara school and saw the practice as a gradual method that was not authentic Chan. Zongmi criticized this on the basis that the Northern school was under the misconception that impurities were inherently different or separate from the pure mind, making this a dualistic view that fails to understand the natural working of intrinsic enlightenment. Zongmi held that the impurities of the mind were merely adventitious, empty and ultimatelly non dual with the pure mind, since they are nothing but the empty manifestations (yung) of the ultimate nature. Thus, the impurities are not inherently impure, they merely appear that way due to our dualistic misperception. In attempting to remove them one merely feeds that sense of duality. Instead, for Zongmi, we need to first have an initial awakening to the true nature of things, which includes the principle of the non duality of the pure nature and the impure manifestations, of the identity of samsara and nirvana. It is only based on this awakening which validates the mundane world of appearances as a manifestation of the true nature that one can practice the path of Chan.

Zongmi's criticism of another prominent Chan lineage, the Oxhead school, is based on their understanding of emptiness, which Zongmi saw as one sided. He claimed that the Oxhead School taught "no mind" (wuxin, 無心) but did not recognize the nonempty aspect of mind, assuming that the intrinsically enlightened nature is only "empty" and "that there is nothing to be cognized". Drawing on the buddha nature sutras like the Nirvana sutra, Zongmi argues that emptiness does not mean a pure negation, since according to the Nirvana sutra, "when there is nothing in a jar, the jar is said to be empty it does not mean that there is no jar." As such, the Chan teaching of "no mind" means that the true mind is empty of defilements and concepts. As such, the teaching of the Oxhead school is one sided since it only focuses on emptiness and negation, but does not know the intrinsically enlightened mind and the ultimate reality. In critiquing the purely negative dialectic of this school, Zongmi writes "if there are no real things whatsoever, then on the basis of what are illusions made to appear? Moreover, there has never been a case of the illusory things in the world before us being able to arise without being based on something real therefore we know that this teaching merely destroys our attachment to feelings but does not yet reveal the nature that is true and numinous."

Zongmi also criticized the Baotang school in similar ways. According to Zongmi, this school had misinterpreted Shenhui's teaching on "no thought" as entailing "the rejection of all forms of traditional Buddhist ethical practice and ritual observance." According to Zongmi, this school rejected conventional Buddhist practices like "worship, repentance, reciting scriptures, painting Buddhist images, and copying sutras" because they sought to "extinguish discriminative consciousness" (mieh shih).

Zongmi's writings were extensive and infuential. He wrote commentaries, ritual manuals, and popular essays for literati audiences. There is no certainty about the quantity of Zongmi's writings. Zongmi's epitaph, written by his student Pei Xiu, (787?–860) listed over ninety fascicles. Tsan ning's (919–1001) biography claimed over two hundred. For modern scholars, Zongmi provides the "most valuable sources on Tang dynasty Zen. There is no other extant source even remotely as informative". Unfortunately, many of Zongmi's works are lost, including his Collected Writings on the Source of Ch’an which would provide modern scholars with an invaluable source to reconstruct Tang dynasty Chan.

Zongmi's first major work was his commentary and sub commentary on Sūtra of Perfect Enlightenment, completed in 823–824. The sub commentary contains extensive data on the teachings, ideas and practices on the seven houses of Chan. These data are derived from personal experience and observations. Zongmi also wrote a major work in eighteen fascicles called A Manual of Procedures for the Cultivation and Realization of Ritual Practice according to the Scripture of Perfect Enlightenment. In this work, Zongmi discusses the theoretical basis of Buddhist practice as well as the specific details of Buddhist practice. According to Gregory, the work is influenced by the writings of Zhiyi and explains a "complex program of ritual and meditation practice in terms of the Scripture of Perfect Enlightenment."

The Chart of the Master Disciple Succession of the Chan Gate That Has Transmitted the Mind Ground in China (Chung hua ch’uan hsin ti ch’an men shih tzu ch’eng his t’u), was written at the request of Pei Xiu sometime between 830 and 833. The work clarifies the major Chan traditions of the Tang era. It contains detailed critiques of the Northern School, the Ox head School and the two branches of Southern Chan, the Hongzhou and his own Heze lineage.

The Prolegomenon to the Collection of Expressions of the Chan Source, also known as the Chan Preface, was written around 833. It provides a theoretical basis for Zongmi's vision of the correlation between Chan and the Buddhist scriptures. It gives accounts of the several lineages extant at the time, many of which had died out by the time of the Song dynasty (960–1279). This work was the preface to Collection of Expressions of the Chan Source, (Chan yuan zhuquanji) which was a large collection of Chan texts that Zongmi compiled as a kind of Chan scriptural canon, i. e. a Chan pitaka (basket of scriptures). Unfortunately, this collection itself is lost, and only the Chan Preface exists.

Zongmi's Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity, (or On the Original Nature of Man, or The Debate on an Original Person, Chinese: 原人論 Yüanren lun) was written sometime between 828 and 835. This essay became one of his best known works and was popular with the literati of the time. The writing style is simple and straightforward, and the content not overly technical, making the work accessible to non Buddhist intellectuals of the day. The essay surveys the current major Buddhist teachings of the day, as well as Confucian and Taoist teachings, defending his Buddhist view as the most comprehensive of all. It develops a holistic and inclusive perspective of all the Buddhist and non buddhist teachings, while also discussing the nature of existence and the human condition. De Bary writes that the essay may have been written as a kind of rejoinder to the On the original Nature of Man (Yuan jen) and On the Tao (Yuan tao) by the contemporary Confucian Han Yu (768–824).