18 Facts About Yongming Yanshou

Yongming Yanshou was a prominent Buddhist monk during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period and early Song Dynasty in China.

Yongming Yanshou promoted a non-sectarian and inclusive Mahayana Buddhism, drawing on Chan, Huayan, Tiantai and Pure Land.

Yongming Yanshou is first mentioned in biographical form by Zanning in a work called the Song Biographies of Eminent Monks, which was produced in 988,12 years after Yanshou's death.

Yongming Yanshou lived largely during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, in the independent Wuyue kingdom.

However, most of this activity took place in the north of China, while Yongming Yanshou resided in the independent Wuyue kingdom of the south, which was relatively stable during this time.

Yongming Yanshou was born in either the capital city of Wuyue, modern-day Hangzhou, or a suburb of it, Yuhang, in the year 904.

Yongming Yanshou would have served as an official before becoming a monk, although the exact nature of the position is disagreed upon in biographical sources.

Yongming Yanshou probably became a monk around 932 under the Zen teacher Ts'ui Yen.

Yongming Yanshou is said to have practiced seated chanting and silent meditation.

In 960, the King of Wuyue, Qian Chu, assigned Yongming Yanshou to be the abbot of Lingyin Temple, which the king had recently re-established.

Yongming Yanshou received gifts from the King of Korea, Gwangjong of Goryeo, and in return he ordained 36 Korean monks, who then returned home to teach.

Yongming Yanshou is best known for promoting a synthesis of the diverse teachings of the Chinese Buddhist schools of his time, including Chan, Tiantai, Huayan, Weishi, and Pure Land.

Yongming Yanshou held that scriptural study and Chan realization are not separate paths, and that Chan praxis was compatible with the study of scripture and Buddhist philosophy.

Yongming Yanshou is famous for having taught the "dual-practice of Chan and Pure Land", holding that both practices assured one of Buddhahood much better than the practice of either on their own.

Yongming Yanshou taught nianfo as part of the Tiantai Lotus Samadhi repentance ritual.

For Yongming Yanshou, the Pure Land practice of nianfo was a skillful means which had to be practiced in the context of the bodhisattva precepts and the practice of myriad good deeds, including chan meditation.

Nevertheless, as Welter writes, Yongming Yanshou saw nianfo as a subsidiary practice for ordinary people of lesser capacities, as indicated by the following passage from the Zongjing lu:.

Second, Yongming Yanshou spent much time in Tiantai mountain and wrote on Tiantai topics, and it was Tiantai scholars who first began to write of Pure Land Buddhism as its own school.