Extra Salt

Fair warning, this episode is a deep dive. The question seems simple. "Who was Sengcan, the Third Chinese Zen Master?" Unfortunately, there's no easy answer to this question. We'll be looking at many primary sources and the work of Jinhua Chen in our inquiry into the attributed author of the celebrated Xinxinming, or Faith in the Heart-Mind. SOURCES: Chen, Fact and Fiction: Creation of the Third Chan Patriarch and His Legends; McRae, Northern School; Cleary, Transmission of Light; Ray Huang, Britannica & Ancient History Encyclopedia for the history bits

From the mysterious death of Bodhidharma to the renewed anti-Buddhist persecutions - we discuss the earliest form of Zen that had to weather these troubled times. Proto-Zen, aka Huike's school. Sources: Reps and Senzaki's Mumonkan, McRae, Northern School; Britannica, terebess (https://terebess.hu/zen/huike.html), Two Entries, Four Practices Treatise and appended letters as translated by McRae, Jinhua Chen (Creation of the Third Chan Patriarch), Wonderwheel's blog (http://wonderwheels.blogspot.com/2017/04/one-vehicle-zen.html), Cleary's Transmission of Light, and special thanks to grass_skirt for translation help

"Two Entries and Four Practices" The legendary Bodhidharma's only surviving teaching, as recorded by Tanlin, who learned from Huike, who learned from Zen Master Dharma himself. In the following episodes we'll be discussing Bodhidharma and Huike's school in-depth, and this text will factor heavily into the discussion. Here is the whole thing, as translated by John McRae. Included at the end are two letters which were appended and circulated with the text, the first of which is anonymous, the second of which is by Layman Hsiang (I incorrectly say it is also anonymous in the episode). After this follows Huike's letter replying to Layman Hsiang.

42.... the answer to life, the universe & everything. We discussed the Sutra of Forty-Two Sections in the first episode of Extra Salt, as an influential text for early Chinese Buddhists in the first centuries AD. Today I'm reading the translation of this sutra by John Blofeld.

China is divided between North and South, Gunabhadra arrives, the first anti-Buddhist persecution occurs, Bodhidharma arrives and tells it like it is. Towards the end of the episode, we'll look at the three earliest sources of Bodhidharma's life, then briefly consider the stories that followed centuries later. Art from the period covered in the past two episodes: http://etc.ancient.eu/interviews/artistic-creativity-in-six-dynasties-china/ supplemental materials: https://imgur.com/gallery/RlNe75i SOURCES: Wendi Adamek, Early Chan... J. C. Cleary, Zen Dawn... Sima Guan... Wing T'sit Chan, Red Pine's Lankavatara Sutra, Jinhua Chen, Sengcan... John McRae, The Northern School... Thomas Cleary's translation of The Blue Cliff Record, John McRae, Seeing Through Zen