Buddhists cultivated farmland in China as early as the Eastern Jin Dynasty. For example, when the monk Shi Dao'an (312-385), who held an important position in the history of Chinese Buddhism, first entered Buddhism, he often "brought scriptures to the fields and read them when he was interested." Considering that in the first year of Yixi (405 AD) of Emperor An of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Some people accused ascetics of "cultivating fields and working with farmers". Presumably monastic agriculture had already reached a considerable scale at that time.
Zen practitioners are not always independent, listening to the pines and observing the clouds as people think. In fact, they have been closely related to agriculture very early on. Samantha Tamamido (356-442), a recluse from Jibin Kingdom who came to China during the Liu and Song Dynasties in the Southern Dynasty, not only promoted the Zen industry and translated three volumes of "The Secret Sutra of Zen" and other important scriptures, but also "planted thousands of trees and opened hundreds of gardens." acres.” Of course, this is not “Zen farming” in the true sense.
The premise for the formation of Zen agriculture is the settlement of Zen practitioners. Although as early as the Jian'an period of the Eastern Han Dynasty (196-220), Zen Master Pujing lived in peace in Jie Mao, Yuquan Mountain, Jingzhou (now Dangyang County, Hubei Province), until the Southern and Northern Dynasties, the most popular way of practice among Zen practitioners was still wandering, or Toutuo practiced asceticism on the tomb or under the tree, or they lived alone in a pure room and sat in lotus position. At this time there was neither a need nor a possibility for agricultural production.
If settlement is the prerequisite for the formation of Zen agriculture, then large-scale settlement makes agricultural farming a reality. This is mainly symbolized by the gathering of disciples by the fourth ancestor of Zen, Daoxin (580-651), and the fifth ancestor, Hongren (602-675). As the number of monks expanded, and many Zen temples were located in remote places in the mountains, it was obviously difficult to make a living without agricultural production and only relying on begging and charity from believers. This led to the formation of agricultural production in Zen Buddhism. At the same time, in an agricultural society with backward production tools, population is the most important productive force. Only the settlement and settlement of varying numbers of Zen people can have a large-scale effect on labor production and improve the material supply capacity of Zen people.
The solitary life of Zen practitioners enabled them to become independent economic entities. Zen practitioners first lived in Lu Temple and lived in other courtyards. Taking Zen Master Mazu Daoyi (709-788) as a symbol of his establishment of a forest for Zen monks during the Dali period of the Tang Dynasty, Zen monks became independent from the temple and allowed Zen agriculture to develop with an independent role, which could not only obtain land support from society and believers , and also formed its own characteristic agricultural production.
The formulation and implementation of "Zen Sect Rules" have established Zen agriculture on the basis of law. Since Buddhism emphasizes the equality of all living beings and non-killing, it believes that agricultural production work such as hoeing will harm countless underground lives and cause countless sins. At the same time, in order to suppress material desires, Buddhism opposes monks "setting up fields and houses, planting everything, and cutting down vegetation." , "Plowing and digging the ground." [4] This is strictly prohibited by various precepts such as the Ten Vinayas and the Brahma Net Sutra. In the first year of Xingyuan (784) of Emperor Dezong of the Tang Dynasty, Zen Master Huaihai (720-814) went to Baizhang Mountain (today's Fengxin County, Jiangxi Province) to build a temple and spread the Zen style. He compromised the precepts of the large and small vehicles and created the "Qing Rules of the Zen Garden". In the Qing Rules, the slogan "a day without work and a day without food" was put forward, and it became the life belief and behavior of Zen practitioners, making Zen practitioners' agricultural farming based on interpretations that are consistent with precepts and ethics:
< p>Question: Cutting down grass, cutting down trees, and digging and cultivating the earth, are these crimes punishable by punishment?The teacher said: You cannot be certain that you are guilty, nor can you be certain that you are not guilty. Guilty or innocent, it depends on the person. If you are tainted by greed, have a mind of choosing and rejecting, and cannot understand more than three sentences, this person is definitely guilty. If, beyond the three sentences, the mind is as empty and one should not have empty thoughts, this person is definitely not guilty.
It also goes like this: If a sin is committed, the Tao will not find it guilty and there will be no merit. If you don't commit sin, you will be guilty and have no merit. For example, in the law, the original confusion can harm people and the turning of the image can harm people, but it is not possible to harm people. What's more, according to the Zen sect, the mind is like a void, does not stop at anything, and has no sign of emptiness. Where can we put sin?
The evolution of Zen production and lifestyle determines the evolution of the ethical concepts of the Sangha. The "Baizhang Qinggui" is the crystallization of this evolution. The significance of "a day without work and a day without food" is that it affirms the morality and legality of labor in terms of religious ethics and the essential meaning of good and evil. It is also a fusion of Chinese cultural traditions that value labor and oppose begging and getting something for nothing. As the saying goes, "cultivating soil and killing grass, transporting salary and drawing water, raising fists and pointing fingers, etc. are all the uses of the innocent nature."
"A day without work and a day without food" requires every monk and nun to do it. To participate in labor and temple construction, this is the "general invitation" (commonly known as "chupo") labor principle in Zen, which means to invite the general public, work together from top to bottom, and work together. Later, eminent Zen monks such as Huang Bo opened fields and selected vegetables, picked tea and mixed it with sauce in Weishan, sifted rice with Shishuang, made shoes with Yunyan, planted pines and hoeed the ground in Linji, herded cattle in Yangshan to clear wasteland, hoeed tea gardens in Dongshan, steamed rice in troughs in Xuefeng, and Carrying rice on the doorstep, chopping firewood on Xuansha, etc. are all concrete manifestations of this value recognition.
The "Zen Garden Clear Rules" pioneered by Baizhang soon spread throughout the country. "Zen all over the world is like the wind destroying grass." This not only marks a new stage in the development of Zen, but also promotes the development of Zen agriculture to a new level. stage. As Zen agriculture progressed, large jungles quickly formed on this basis. The Fourth Patriarch Daoxin gathered 500 people in Huangmei Shuangfeng Mountain in Hubei Province for more than 30 years. The Fifth Patriarch Hong Ren lived in Dongshan for more than 20 years and had more than 700 disciples. When the Sixth Patriarch Huineng returned to Baolin Temple, there were more than 1,000 people.
In the early stages of the development of the jungle economy, due to the lack of manual and commercial activities, the main form and component of the Zen economy was agriculture. At the same time, population growth and agricultural development promoted each other.
The large-scale use of manpower and large-scale land cultivation have enabled the jungle economy to develop rapidly, and its main manifestation is the large-scale concentration of land. Like other sects of Chinese Buddhism, the sources of land for Zen temples are as follows:
One is "reward" or "gift". Relying on the social prestige and traditional advantages of monks or monasteries to receive rewards from the state (royal family), "granting land" is a major way for temples to obtain land. For example, Yang Guang, King of the Sui and Jin Dynasties, "respected the Zen forest and consecrated it to the temple Tanyue. He sent it to more than seventy households before and after. The water and mill, the upper and lower six structures will forever serve as the foundation and be passed down to this day." In the Tang Dynasty, the temples also received laws from the state. Obtain some land. For example, the Land Equalization Law of the Tang Dynasty stipulates that "Taoist priests are given thirty acres of land, women are given twenty acres of land, and the same is true for monks and nuns." Generally speaking, land rewards from emperors in the Southern and Northern Dynasties were often accompanied by "village". The use of people by the people shows the economic form of the lords, but after the Tang Dynasty, they were often only given "fields" and the economic nature was wage labor.
The second \ is "giving" or "donating". Land was obtained from nobles, wealthy people and believers, and some smaller donations added up to staggering amounts. Zen practitioners attracted a large number of secular intellectuals, celebrities and officials with their unique theories. Their patronage or assistance also contributed to secularized, manor-based Zen agriculture or economy. In the fourth year of Tianyou's reign (907), Emperor Zhaozong of the Tang Dynasty, the three brothers Deng Jin of Chongren County, Fuzhou bought land to build Pu'an Zen Temple, along with thirty hectares of fertile land. During the reign of Emperor Taizu of the Northern Song Dynasty, An Shouzhong of Zhixiong Prefecture donated 5,770 acres of land to Guangci Temple at one time. In the first year of Shaoxi's reign in the Southern Song Dynasty, Zhang Bo of Zhimi Pavilion gave up his residence and more than 6,300 acres of land to become Ciyun Temple. In the Southern Song Dynasty, when Zen Master Jiang Shan Liao Ming lived in Jingshan, he was respected by Yang Hewang and left his farmland in Suzhou with Zen Master Liao Ming. His annual income reached 20,000 dendrobium.
Three\ is "buy" or "take". Monasteries acquired land through their own production operations or by purchasing or annexing land from bankrupt farmers. In the Tang Dynasty, Zen Master Puguang purchased more than 1,000 acres of land in Haipu through solicitation, built banks and turned it into fields, earning an annual income of 1,000 dendrobium. During the reign of Emperor Suzong of the Tang Dynasty (756-761), the Xian Zen Master of Lingju Temple in Liuhe County, Yangzhou "built a chicken coop villa and a fat farm, and the mountain plains stretched over dozens of hectares." According to the "Residence Field Stele" of Foyan Temple in Taihua Mountain, Kunming, He made detailed records of how he purchased land:
In the 23rd year of the Yuan Dynasty (AD 1268), he purchased the land of Li Ahei, Zhang Bao, Jiang Mao and other heirs of Andengzhuang for 370 taels of silver. For the three items, 89 acres of farmland is worth 7 points, 55 acres of rice field is worth 2 points, 144 acres of farmland is worth 9 points, and the rent collected is 83 shi and 8 buckets. In the 25th year of the Yuan Dynasty (AD 1288), two pieces of land belonging to Zhang Asi, Yang Chunfa, Hua Wenying, and Li Mei of Monk Village were purchased for 315 taels of silver. The flat land was 132 acres and 3 cents, and the rice field was 38 acres and 8 cents, ** *170 acres is 1 cent, and the rent collected is 53 shi and 8 buckets...
Four\ is also more significant because of the hard work of the Zen people to open up wasteland and cultivate fields. While it may not have been the primary source of jungle land, it was an essential feature of Zen agriculture in the entire "monastic economy."
For example, Zen Master Nanquan Puyuan (748-834) entered Chiyang Nanquan Mountain in the eleventh year of Zhenyuan. ", working with shepherd boys; cutting mountains and fields, planting food for crops," which lasted for thirty years without leaving Nanquan Mountain. In the last years of Yuanhe (806-820), Emperor Xianzong, Zen Master Lingyou (771-853), under the orders of his master Huaihai, went to Weishan, Hunan to promote the Zen style. Zen masters and apprentices practiced Zen while farming. By the Xiantong period (860-874), the Weishan Zen Forest was home to many monks and a vast area. There were more than a thousand tenant households, and there were seven-year-old boys herding cattle for them. Others include monks from the Huayan Monastery in Anyanshan who opened up 800 acres of abandoned farmland in Pengdaao Mountain near the monastery. Master Yongjing of Shousheng Zen Temple in Penglai Mountain, Xiangshan, cultivated 300 acres of farmland and planted more than 100,000 pine trees. Tiantong Temple in Ningbo reclaims Haipu land and harvests 3,000 dendrobiums every year. This kind of reclaimed land promoted the development of the Zen forest economy, giving many jungles the scale of a manor economy. Moreover, the "permanent fields" of some famous Zen temples have also been operating for a long time, such as Hongren's Zhenhui Temple (located in Wuzu Mountain, Huangmei County, Hubei), and Huineng's Baolin Temple (located in Caoxi Mountain, Qujiang County, Guangdong, also known as Nanhua Zen Temple) from the early Tang Dynasty to the Song Dynasty, which lasted for hundreds of years. That's why some Zen practitioners in later generations said: "The fertile fields are endless, and it has been passed down from ancient times that the Buddha's home was home."
The reclamation of wasteland by Zen practitioners was still very prominent after the Tang Dynasty. Yuan Ji (1021-1103), a Zen master of the Northern Song Dynasty, "carried the jungle and did not know the cold or heat. He reclaimed the wasteland for fertile farmland and cultivated pine and fir trees for beautiful stems. It was not easy to hold the post for ten years." When Ji Jiantang lived in Raozhi Guanshan, "Seventeen Years of fire and slashing are hard work. "Wu Ming Hui Jing (1548-1618), a Zen master, cultivated and dug the land for more than forty years. During the Ming Dynasty, the Zen master Wu Yi Yuan Lai (1575-1630) carried firewood, water, and cultivated soil for "thirty or twenty years." The premise and result of "the number of monks in famous mountains in the world" is "the number of monks in famous mountains in the world", or "the number of monks in famous mountains in the world". In the Song Dynasty, Zhan'an, the heir of Zen Master Xuedou, once built a temple on Xianju Fangyan. Pan Lei of the Qing Dynasty said in his "Travel to the Immortal Jushan Mountains" that "the top of the mountain is as wide as Taijun City. There are fields for farming. There is a pond that never dries up, so you can escape from the world."
The Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties to the Song Dynasty were the glorious periods of Zen Buddhism, with five schools and seven sects (namely Weiyang, Linji, and Caodong). The five sects, Yunmen, Fayan, and the Huanglong sect and Yangqi sect, which are separated from the Linji sect, are collectively known as each other. According to the statistics of Master Yinshun, among the 22 famous disciples of Huineng, except for Yi Xuan of Linji Sect, who was active in the north, the others were all in the south.
They are mainly distributed in Jingchu, Huxiang, Wuyue and Fujian and Guangdong areas. During the Five Dynasties, King Qian Liu of Wuyue (reigned 907-932) converted to Zen and converted the Jiangnan Buddhist temple into a Zen temple. As a result, the Zen temples in Jiangdong flourished. In addition, the frequent occurrence of "Gelü as Zen" during the Song Dynasty also made various temples, including Lv Temple, become Zen temples, and the land of Wuyue gradually became the center of Zen. Correspondingly, the development of Zen economy slowly concentrated from Jingchu and Huxiang areas to Wuyue and Susong areas. Especially in southern China and Jiangzuo, due to the late development, there are a lot of wastelands, which were developed through the establishment and development of Zen temples. After the middle of the ninth century, the economy of the Zen forests in the south of the Yangtze River, which was mainly based on agriculture, developed rapidly, and Zen farms grew rapidly. Some of the Zen monasteries with famous Zen masters stationed in Xi'an had astonishing scales of land and agricultural production, and a management method similar to that of secular landlord manors emerged. . For example, in the late Tang Dynasty, Yicun (822-908) was in Xuefengzhuang in Fuzhou, Zhifu was in Ehuzhuang in Xinzhou, Daoying (835-902) was in Maizhuang in Hongzhou, etc. Jingzhou Yuquan Temple was renamed Jingde Zen Temple in the late Tianxi period of the Northern Song Dynasty (1017-1021). Its scale covers an area of ??five miles from left to right and ten miles from front to back. During the Southern Song Dynasty, the Shousheng Zen Temple in Hangzhou, which had the appearance of a royal temple, had 4,500 acres of mountains and fields. Obviously, the Zen economy is the main component of the "monastery economy" in this stage.
Although the Song Dynasty prohibited temples and temples from buying and selling land, the Zen temple jungle was still generously rewarded by the court.
The Yuan Dynasty emphasized Lamaism, but the prosperous life of Zen monks can still be seen from the agricultural prosperity and economic prosperity of the Zen forest. Linji Zong Huaixin (1280-1357) of the Yuan Dynasty claimed: "I became a monk at the age of nine, and now I am over sixty. As for Xiaoyao Guangsha, I walk in the beautiful shade, my body is peaceful and soft, and I live in leisure. The stars are not yet ten years old. The exquisite delicacies of profit have been prepared, and the treasures of the three virtues in the Japanese prescription are not known. I don’t know the disadvantages of farming, and I don’t know the hard work of cooking... For about fifty years, I spent more than 300 yuan on food and drinks. It's huge; the clothes and medicines in the cold and summer months cost more than 200,000 yuan. It has a high gate, a blue and red couplets, a pavilion with servants and a bed, and the cost is endless. "< /p>
However, as for the economic development of the Zen forest and how he lived a prosperous life because he "didn't know how to farm or cook", he only understood it as the merits of the Buddha: "A six-foot-long body, a hundred years of Who is responsible for this? It’s my teacher’s wish.” They didn’t see that it was precisely because of the development of agriculture, let alone the increasing economic exploitation that existed within the Zen forest.
It is precisely because of the development of Zen agriculture and the expansion of temples in the Song and Yuan Dynasties that Zen agriculture developed from a small-scale labor form to large-scale agricultural production. As a reflection and requirement of reality, the "Zenyuan Qinggui" integrated at this time has dedicated personnel to strictly organize and manage the fields, fruits and vegetables, tenant labor, money and rice rent, etc.: there is a "Garden Owner" ("Garden Head") ") is responsible for planting vegetables and timely irrigation; there is a "villager owner" ("deacon of the lower house") who is responsible for inspecting the field boundaries and repairing the farm buildings, supervising the agricultural work and comforting the village tenants; there is a "year-old" responsible for slope farming and rent collection , and is also responsible for the management of resident bamboo and wood; there is a "Zhishan" in charge of the field industry, so that the boundaries are clear to avoid disputes. For this reason, many temples have erected "resident field monuments"; there is a "Xunshan" responsible for bamboo, wood, tea and bamboo shoots. There is a "supervisor" who is responsible for the income, rent and interest of money, grain and glutinous rice; there is a "treasury" manager, who presides over the release of lists and prohibitions, promotes farming, and supervises the growth of bamboo shoots in Zhuzhuang Piyan or mountain forests. It can also be seen from this that there were a large number of tenants in Zenlin agriculture at this time, so dedicated people and institutions were needed to manage the incoming and outgoing rents.
The eminent Buddhist monks of the Ming Dynasty advocated the unification of the three religions (Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism) and the integration of various sects (Zen, Jing, Jiao, and Jie). However, in fact, the Pure Land Sect was more popular. Although Zen had already Tired, but its agricultural economy remains considerable. This can be seen from the annual income of the two major Zen temples, Linggu Temple and Kaijie Temple in Nanjing in the late Ming Dynasty. Combining spiritual practice with agricultural labor, "ploughing the fields silently and hoeing the kudzu vines" and "farming in mud and water for a year" not only strengthens the mind, but also embodies the cultural tradition of farming and reading in the Zen forest.
As early as the time of Dao Xin and Hong Ren, Zen disciples not only achieved self-sufficiency through labor, but also regarded transporting water and firewood as nothing more than Buddhist activities. In some Zen lantern records, phrases such as "Looking at the fields and going to the hall" or "The teacher and the monks watched the rice times one day" are often seen.
Agricultural production and Zen groves play an important role in the hearts of Zen masters. Therefore, some Zen masters said, "The masses are dedicated to cultivating fields for permanent residence, and the mountain monks are dedicated to preaching Zen to the masses." There is also the kind of "four or five" income from hearing and knowledge. One hundred stones of wheat, two or three thousand stones of rice" and the Zen master was extremely happy. After farming, some Zen masters also wrote poems and essays to express their feelings of Zen while farming, having enough food and clothing, and enjoying themselves:
When I was tired of digging in the ground and fell asleep, I used my hoe as a pillow to beat the coral... She cultivates the land for leisure and recreation, and has no mind and body of Buddhism. She harvests the radishes and steams them thoroughly. When dried, they are softer and more fragrant than Huangjing.
On the contrary, the elders severely reprimanded the temple master who was not familiar with farming, such as:
The ancestor asked the Buddha: "Is Shuzhou familiar?" He replied: " "It's ripe." The ancestor asked, "Is it ripe?" Zu Zhengse said sternly: "You are the master of a temple, and you have to pay close attention to every detail. You still don't know how your permanent residence depends on everyone. ... Don't you think that the permanent residence is as heavy as a mountain?
Zen practitioners do not just use labor as a means of making a living, but also as a way of practice that directly points to the true heart. In essence, they understand practice from labor and use practice to promote labor.
Classics such as "Zutang Ji", "Jingde Chuanden Lu" and "Wudeng Huiyuan" not only describe the hardship, simplicity and happiness of Zen practitioners' pastoral life, but also record the wonderful Zen practitioners' discussions about Zen and mysteries, showing their understanding of reality. The true meaning of meditation realized through labor. For example, a famous verse by Budai monk in the Tang Dynasty: "Planting green rice seedlings in the fields with your hands, lowering your head and seeing the sky in the water. Only when the mind is pure can the Tao be achieved. To retreat is to move forward."
It is precisely because of Zen masters and disciples. Combining meditation with labor, there are also "public cases" or "huatou" related to labor such as "picking tea in Weishan" and "price of rice in Luling" among Zen sects.
In Zen sects Among them, there are many small-scale temples, and their agricultural production is actually individual production. Zen monks live a life of "slashing and burning, living in a rock-bound house, and sleeping on a bed in peace". What they are satisfied with is "sparing springs and reclaiming wasteland to make fields for self-sufficiency," and "cultivating half an acre of land in spring and harvesting a load of millet in autumn." Of course, in the event of a disaster, their lives may be worse than those of individual farmers. For simplicity and poverty, even its agricultural economy will go bankrupt. As the following poem says:
Last year there was a great disaster in Hebo. The fields were covered with green rice fields like a sea, and the locusts continued to rise up and cover the sky, plundering the ground and damaging the seedlings for thousands of miles. ...Moreover, the spring snow is as big as a fist, and the falling rain for half a month refuses to stop. ... Tan Na (i.e. the benefactor) has no one to lean on. Although the iron plate is hung in front of the old hall, the alms bowl is empty and the white water is boiled. The monks are scattered and have no place to rest. Due to the low level of productivity, Zen agriculture is still essentially a small-scale peasant economy and a simple natural economy. Except for the purchase of basic production tools, there are no hands or commodity production. Therefore, the Zen forest economy has little dependence on society. Due to the relative decentralization of jungle agriculture, agricultural production in each Zen forest is isolated, the production system is therefore closed, and the scale of production is relatively small. However, under the guarantee of a set of effective systems and traditions, the primitive communist distribution method is still basically implemented in the jungle.
Different from the famous monasteries in the Heluo area and the East and West Beijings in the Tang Dynasty, although large Zen temple estates also had tenants or hired workers, due to the influence of their practice methods, most of the Zen temples and jungles were far away from cities and centers, and few End the world's strife. Despite the Anshi Rebellion, the "Legal Troubles" of Tang Wuzong and Northern Zhou Shizong, and the Northern Song Dynasty Huizong and Ming Shizong's advocating Taoism and suppressing Buddhism, the Zen forest and Zen forest economy have not suffered a devastating blow because they are not completely dependent on political power and secular landlordism. It exists with the support of the manor economy. Zen practitioners laid their economic foundation for more than a thousand years by attaching equal importance to agriculture and Zen based on Zen forest agriculture.