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Hsuan Hua Biography
Hsuan HuaHsuan Hua, a native of Shuangcheng County of Jilin Province, was born Bai Yushu on April 16, 1918.
His father was diligent and thrifty in managing the household. His mother was a Buddhist and a vegetarian who recited the Buddha's name daily. As a child, Yushu followed his mother's example, eating only vegetarian food and reciting the Buddha's name.
At 15, under the Venerable Chang Zhi, he took refuge in the Triple Gem (Buddha, the teachings of Buddha and the community of enlightened ones) and formally became a Buddhist. He began to attend school and studied texts of various Chinese schools of thought, and the fields of medicine, divination, astrology, and physiology.
During his student years, he also participated in the Path of Virtue Society and other charitable societies. He explained the Sixth Patriarch's1 Sutra, the Diamond Sutra, and other sutras for those who were illiterate, and started a free school for those who were poor and needy.
When he was 19 years old, Yushu's mother died, and he requested his master's permission to leave secular life. (Young monks cannot be ordained without the permission of the parents; both of Yushu’s parents were now dead.) He became a monastic under the Dharma name An Tzu.
An Tzu built a simple hut by his mother's grave and observed the practice of filial piety for three years. During that period, he made 18 great vows, paid reverence to the Avatamsaka Sutra,2 performed worship and pure repentance, practiced Ch'an meditation, studied Buddhist teachings, ate only one meal a day, and did not lie down to sleep at night.
When An Tzu's observance of filial piety was completed, he practiced asceticism in seclusion. Later he returned to the monastery where his master, the Venerable Chang Zhi, had once been the leader, and was chosen to be the abbot.
During the period that he lived in Manchukuo, An Tzu concentrated on understanding each student’s potential and offering appropriate teachings.
Master Hsu Yun, 1840-1959.In 1946, after the end of World War II, An Tzu traveled to Guangzhou to pay respects to the Venerable Master Hsu Yun, one of the great Ch'an teachers of his time.
In 1947 he went to Mount Putuo to receive the complete ordination.
In 1948 he reached Nanhua Monastery at Caoxi of Guangzhou, where he paid homage to Elder Master Hsu Yun and was assigned to be an instructor in the Nanhua Monastery Vinaya Academy.
Later he was appointed Dean of Academic Affairs. The Elder Master Hsu Yun saw that the Master was an outstanding individual in Buddhism and transmitted the Dharma lineage to him, giving him the Dharma name Hsuan Hua, meaning "Proclaim and Transform," and making him the ninth lineage holder of the Guiyang school of Ch'an, the forty-fifth generation since Mahākāśyapa.3
In 1948, Hsuan Hua went to Hong Kong to propagate Buddhism. Hsuan Hua gave equal importance to the five schools—Ch'an, Doctrine, Vinaya, Esoteric, and Pure Land. He also renovated and built temples, printed sutras and constructed images. He lived in Hong Kong for more than ten years and had his first substantial experience of Western culture.
After Master Hsu Yun passed away in 1959, and Hsuan Hua completed the proper ceremonies in his memory, he felt it was time to pursue his Dharma mission in the West. Several of his lay disciples from Hong Kong had already gone to the United States to study. He instructed them to establish a Buddhist association.
It was established in the United States as the Buddhist Lecture Hall, later renamed the Sino-American Buddhist Association and then the Dharma Realm Buddhist Association.
Hsuan Hua traveled to Australia in 1961 to investigate the conditions for the growth of Buddhism there. After a difficult year, he returned to Hong Kong in 1962. That same year, at the invitation of his Buddhist disciples in San Francisco, Hsuan Hua traveled alone to the United States. His intent was to "come to America to create Patriarchs, to create Buddhas, to create Bodhisattvas".
In 1963, Hsuan Hua left Chinatown and moved the Buddhist Lecture Hall to a first-floor apartment on the corner of Sutter and Webster Streets on the edge of San Francisco's Fillmore District and Japantown. There he lived in relative seclusion until 1968. Because the damp and windowless basement apartment resembled a grave, he nicknamed himself the "monk in the grave."
At the Sutter Street location Hsuan Hua started having regular contact with young Americans who were interested in meditation. Some came daily to his public meditation sessions from seven to eight o'clock every evening, and many also attended his sutra lectures. Translators were hired for those who could not understand Chinese; on some occasions, Hsuan Hua himself spoke to them in English to the best of his ability.
In 1967, Hsuan Hua moved the Buddhist Lecture Hall back to Chinatown, locating it in the Tianhou Temple. There he lectured on the Verses of the Seven Buddhas of Antiquity and the "Universal Door" Chapter of the Lotus Sūtra.4
In the spring of 1968, a group of university students at the University of Washington in Seattle wrote to Hsuan Hua and requested that he come to Seattle to lead a week-long meditation session. Hsuan Hua replied with an invitation to a Buddha-recitation session and a Chan (Zen) meditation session, each a weeklong, held at the Buddhist Lecture Hall in San Francisco.
In the summer of 1968, Hsuan Hua held a Śūraṅgama Sūtra 5 Study and Practice Summer Session. Over 30 students from the University of Washington in Seattle came to study the Buddha’s teachings, and some of them requested permission to become monks, beginning the tradition of native-born Sangha in American Buddhism.
The Śūraṅgama Sūtra lectures were recorded in an eight-part series of books containing the sutra and a traditionally rigorous form of commentary that addresses each passage.
With the founding of his American Sangha, Hsuan Hua embarked on his personal vision for Buddhism in the United States:
• Bringing the true and proper teachings of the Buddha to the West and establishing a proper monastic community of the fully ordained Sangha here.
• Organizing and supporting the translation of the entire Buddhist canon into English and other Western languages.
• Promoting wholesome education through the establishment of schools and universities
In 1972 he organized the first formal, full ordination ceremonies for Buddhist monks and nuns to be held in the West at Gold Mountain Dhyana Monastery. He invited elder masters to preside with him over the ordination ceremonies.
Subsequent ordinations were held at the City Of Ten Thousand Buddhas6 in 1976, 1979, 1982, 1989, 1991, and 1992, and progressively larger numbers of people received full ordination. Over 200 people from countries all over the world were ordained in these ceremonies.
Hsuan Hua supported Śūraṅgama Sūtra, which emphasized the worthlessness of the Dharma when unaccompanied by meditational ability and the importance of moral precepts as a foundation for the Path. He felt that Buddhism in China had in many cases degenerated into superstition and the practice of rituals and ceremonies without an underlying discipline and cultivation of a moral life. He hoped that by propagating Buddhism in the West, where it had no historical tradition, he could demonstrate the genuine principles of Buddhism.
While encouraging his disciples to learn the ancient traditions, he cautioned them against mistaking cultural overlay and ignorant superstition for the true Dharma and encouraged them to understand the logical reasons behind the ancient practices.
Among his reforms, Hsuan Hua re-established the wearing of the precept of kāṣāya7 as a sign of a member of the Sangha; emphasized dietary and ascetic practices; and promoted a simple code of conduct, Six Great Guidelines: not contending, not being greedy, not seeking, not being selfish, not pursuing personal profit, and not lying.
He also attempted to heal the two thousand year old rift between Mahayana and Theravada monastic communities by encouraging cordial relations between the Sanghas, inviting distinguished Theravada monks to preside with him in monastic ordination ceremonies, and initiated talks aimed at resolving areas of difference.
On June 7, 1995, Hsuan Hua died in Los Angeles at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center from complications of exhaustion. His funeral lasted from June 8 to July 29, 1995, and was attended by more than 2000 disciples from the United States, Canada, and various Asian and European countries.
After the funeral, memorial services commemorating Hsuan Hua's life were held in various parts of the world, including Taiwan, mainland China, and Canada. His śarīra, pearl or crystal-like bead-shaped objects that are purportedly found among the cremated ashes of Buddhist spiritual masters, were distributed to many of his temples, disciples and followers.
Works
• The Fifty Skandha Demon States
• The Intention of Patriarch Bodhidharma's Coming from the West
• Commentary on The Wonderful Dharma Lotus Flower Sutra
• Commentary on The Sutra in Forty-Two Sections
• Commentary on The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra
• Chan: the Essence of All Buddhas [16]
• Guanyin, Guanyin, Guanshiyin [17]
• The Professor Requests a Lecture From the Monk in the Grave
• Venerable Master Hua's Talks on Dharma, Volumes I-XI
• Buddha Root Farm
• News From True Cultivators
Sources
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hsuan_Hua
• https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Hsuan_Hua
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Ten_Thousand_Buddhas
• http://www.cttbusa.org/index.html
Footnotes
1. Dajian Huineng, also commonly known as the Sixth Patriarch or Sixth Ancestor of Chan, is a semi-legendary but central figure in the early history of Chinese Chan Buddhism. According to tradition he was an uneducated layman who suddenly attained awakening upon hearing the Diamond Sutra.
2. The Avataṃsaka Sūtra or the Mahāvaipulya Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, is one of the most influential Mahāyāna sutras of East Asian Buddhism. The title is rendered in English as Flower Garland Sutra, Flower Adornment Sutra, or Flower Ornament Scripture. The Avataṃsaka Sūtra describes a cosmos of infinite realms upon realms, mutually containing one another. This sutra was especially influential in East Asian Buddhism. The vision expressed in this work was the foundation for the creation of the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism, which was characterized by a philosophy of interpenetration. The Huayan school is known as Hwaeom in Korea and Kegon in Japan. The sutra is also influential in Chan Buddhism.
3. Mahā Kāśyapa or Mahākāśyapa (Pali: Mahākassapa) was one of the principal disciples of Gautama Buddha. He is regarded in Buddhism as an enlightened disciple, being foremost in ascetic practice. Mahākāśyapa assumed leadership of the monastic community following the paranirvāṇa (death) of the Buddha, presiding over the First Buddhist Council. He was considered the first patriarch in several early Buddhist schools and continued to have an important role as patriarch in the Chan and Zen traditions.
4. The Lotus Sūtra (Sanskrit: Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra, lit. 'Sūtra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma')[1] is one of the most popular and influential Mahayana sutras, and the basis on which the Tiantai, Tendai, Cheontae, and Nichiren schools of Buddhism were established.
5. The Śūraṅgama Sūtra is a Mahayana Buddhist sutra that has been especially influential in Chan Buddhism. The general doctrinal outlook of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra is that of esoteric Buddhism and Buddha-nature, with some influence from Yogacara.
6. The City Of Ten Thousand Buddhas, an international Buddhist community and monastery founded by Hsuan Hua, is one of the first Chinese Zen Buddhist temples in the United States, and one of the largest Buddhist communities in the Western Hemisphere. The city is situated in Talmage, Mendocino County, California about 2 miles (3.2 km) east of Ukiah, and 110 miles (180 km) north of San Francisco. It was one of the first Buddhist monasteries built in the United States. The temple follows the Guiyang Ch’an School, one of the five houses of classical Chinese Ch'an. The city is noted for their close adherence to the vinaya, the austere traditional Buddhist monastic code.
7. Kāṣāya are the robes of fully ordained Buddhist monks and nuns, named after a brown or saffron dye.
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