Yakusan Igen

Biography

Yakusan Igen (Yaoshan Weiyan) was born in 745 into a scholarly family in Jiangxi County (Jiangxi Province, China), during the Tang dynasty. He entered the religious life at the age of seventeen under the master Baso Dōitsu (Mazu Daoyi), a major figure of the Hongzhou school, with whom he stayed for nearly twenty years.

After Mazu's death in 788, Yakusan went to Sekitō Kisen (Shitou Xiqian) at Mount Nanyue, in Hunan. According to traditional sources, it was from Sekitō that he received the transmission of the seal of the *dharma*, although the question of his principal master is debated among historians. Yakusan's epitaph, written by Tang Shen in 834 — only seven years after his death — mentions that he stayed with Mazu for nearly twenty years, while acknowledging Sekitō as his master.

Yakusan then settled on Mount Yakusan (藥山, "Medicine Mountain"), in present-day Hunan, where he attracted a large number of disciples and taught until his death in 828. He is considered the founder of the monastery that would bear his name, and one of the most influential masters of Chan during the Tang golden age.

His epitaph summarizes his teaching in these terms: "The numinous mind is pure in itself, but it is obscured by phenomenal appearances. If you can set aside all phenomena, there will no longer be any dual things."

The Teaching of "Non-Thinking" (Hishiryō)

Yakusan remains famous throughout Zen for his teaching on meditation, transmitted through an exchange that has become canonical. This dialogue is extensively quoted by Dōgen in the Shōbōgenzō, the Fukan Zazengi, and the Eihei Kōroku:

This dialogue, of vertiginous simplicity, is for Dōgen the most perfect expression of the nature of zazen. Hishiryō is neither ordinary thinking (shiryō), nor the absence of thinking (fushiryō), but a third way: the state of consciousness beyond the duality of thinking/not-thinking — the pure, objectless presence of awakening in action.

In another famous exchange with Sekitō Kisen:

This exchange illustrates the practice of shikantaza even before the term was formulated: a sitting without goal, without acquisition, without effort — the very activity of the Buddha.

Yakusan and His Disciples

Yakusan had two major heirs: Ungan Donjō (Yunyan Tansheng) and Dōgo Enchi (Daowu Yuanzhi). These two monks, who studied together under Yakusan, are inseparable in the annals of Chan: many *kōans* feature them in dialogue with each other. Ungan would become the master of Tōzan Ryōkai (Dongshan Liangjie), the founder of the Caodong school.

The following dialogue between Yakusan and Ungan is recorded in the Jingde Chuandeng Lu:

This enigmatic answer illustrates Yakusan's style: the teaching of the *dharma* is not abstract knowledge, but a free and spontaneous play of the awakened mind.

Legacy and Posterity

Yakusan occupies a pivotal place in the history of Zen. Through his disciple Ungan, and then Tōzan Ryōkai, he is a direct link in the chain leading to the founding of the Sōtō school in Japan. His teaching of hishiryō is one of the deepest sources of Dōgen's thought, who cites him as an authority on the nature of zazen.

In Keizan Jōkin's Denkōroku, Yakusan is the 37th patriarch, between Sekitō Kisen (36th) and Ungan Donjō (38th). He is also mentioned in many *kōans* of the Hekiganroku (Blue Cliff Record) and the Shōbōgenzō.

His influence is also measured by the posterity of his place of teaching: Mount Yakusan became a major center of Chan, and its very name — "Medicine Mountain" — evokes the curative function of the *dharma*, a remedy for the sufferings of conditioned existence.

Sources

• Jia Jinhua, The Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism in Eighth- Through Tenth-Century China, SUNY Press, 2007 — pp. 28–32
• Andy Ferguson, Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings, Wisdom Publications, 2011 — pp. 134–140
• Keizan Jōkin, Denkōroku — Case 37 (Yakusan)
• Dōgen, Shōbōgenzō — numerous chapters citing Yakusan's hishiryō
• Jingde Chuandeng Lu (景德傳燈錄) — Taishō Tripiṭaka T2076
• Wikipedia — Yaoshan Weiyan