Chan Master Empty Cloud
Buddhistdoor International Eric Johns 2015-03-06
Master Empty Cloud, or Xu Yun (虚雲), was born in Fujian Province in
southern China during the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), on 26 August
1840. This was the time of the first Opium War, when Hong Kong was
ceded to the British Government. His father was from the privileged
Xiao (蕭) family, who
were descendants of the Buddhist emperor Wu of Liang (r. 502–49).
The Master was born in his caul, or skin bag (amniotic sac), and
while the next day a barefoot doctor came and cut him out, his
mother died as a result of the birth. Xu Yun received a Daoist
education but had a strong urge to follow Buddhism, and so at the
age of 17 ran away from home to become a monk. He was soon caught,
however, and taken home, where his family forced him to remain. He
was also obliged to marry two teenage girls in order to continue
the family line. The Master had a platonic relationship with the
girls, and taught them the Buddha-Dharma. They were later ordained
as nuns, along with his stepmother, who had raised him.
Unhappy with this secular life, when he was 19 Xu
Yun ran away again and soon became a novice monk at Bubbling Spring
Chan Monastery (湧泉禅寺)
on Drum Mountain (鼓山)
in Fujian. The next year he was fully ordained, and was given the
Dharma names De Qing (德清; Virtuous Clarity), Gu Yan (古巖; Ancient Rock), and Yan Che
(演徹;
Develop Thoroughly). Afterwards, he lived and
practiced alone in a cave near the monastery, hiding out as he did
not want his father’s scouts to find him again. When his father
died three years later he returned to the monastery, where he lived
for the next three years. Feeling that monastery life was not
helping his practice to develop, however, he left to wander around
freely and openly, living a hippy-style life as a poetry-writing,
enlightened young sage, eating wild herbs and drinking spring
water. Then, one day, he came across a Buddhist teacher in a
thatched temple on Tiantai Mountain. This is where he first learned
about Chan meditation, and his spiritual practice quickly and
significantly improved.
When he had been a monk for more than 20 years,
Master Empty Cloud decided to go on a “three steps, one bow” style
of pilgrimage, partly to repay the debt to his parents. He started
off from the island Putuo Shan near the city of Ningbo and went all
the way to the mountain Wutai Shan, near the city of Datong in
northern China. Reciting the name of the bodhisattva Manjushri with
each prostration as he went, it took him three long years. After
that, he walked across China and into Tibet, where he wept at the
sight of monks eating meat. He then went on pilgrimage to India and
Burma, before returning to China in 1890.
In 1895, aged 56, Xu Yun attended a 12-week
meditation retreat at High Heaven Monastery (高旻寺) near Yangzhou on the Yangzi River.
One evening during the eighth week, a tea server missed the teacup
the Master was holding out and spilled hot tea on his hand. He
dropped the cup, and as it broke, the sound caused him to have a
deep spiritual experience, or awakening, after which he wrote an
“enlightenment poem”:
Cup smashed on the ground,
Sound splinters resplendent,
Space also smashed,
Crazy mind suddenly stopped.
(Empty Cloud)
In 1900, following the Boxer Uprising, the Master
fled Beijing with the imperial family, some of whom he had
previously met in the monasteries where he had taught. Along the
way, they witnessed the dire poverty and food shortages that were
affecting the country, and soon after reaching Reclining Dragon
Monastery (卧龍寺) in
Xi’an, he assisted in Buddhist ceremonies to pray for snow and rain
to end the terrible drought and famine. Feeling that there was too
much activity at the monastery, however, he left one night in
secret and climbed the nearby Zhongnan Mountains, which are
inhabited by both Daoist and Buddhist hermits to this day. High up
in the clouds he found a secluded spot, where he built a hut from
stone and thatch and called it the “Lion Hut.” There he grew
potatoes, chanted the Diamond Sutra, and meditated. It was
at that time that he changed his name to Empty Cloud so that nobody
would know he was there. He did not want to be disturbed by people
coming to see him.
One day, a couple of years later, while still in the
mountain hermitage, he put some potatoes on to boil and sat down in
meditation to wait for them to cook. When some other hermits who
lived nearby came to wish him a Happy New Year and to find out why
they had not seen him around, they saw tiger’s paw prints in the
snow outside his hut. Finding him deeply absorbed in meditation,
they roused him. “The potatoes should be cooked by now, so please
eat,” he offered, unaware that any significant length of time had
passed. In fact he had been sitting there in deep samadhi for ten
days, and the potatoes were covered with over an inch of mold! The
hermits laughed, and then melted some ice to cook some more. A lot
of people came to see Xu Yun after that, so one night he took off
and left again, with just a few provisions slung on his
back.
In 1906, Xu Yun returned to Beijing, where the
Guangxu emperor (r. 1871–1908) issued a decree instructing that he
was to be overall abbot of the monasteries on Chicken Foot Mountain
(雞足山) in Yunnan
Province, in China’s southwest. He was given the title “Grand
Master Buddha’s Compassion and Vast Dharma,” (佛悲洪法大师) and also a copy of the entire
Buddhist canon and a purple kashaya (robe), together with
a sedan chair. He thus returned to Chicken Foot Mountain, which he
had visited on his return from India, at which time he had vowed to
re-establish Buddhism there. He soon began to raise funds in
neighboring countries to restore the monasteries on the mountain to
their former glory and to build a hall to house the canon. This
included going to Thailand, where, at one point, he sat in samadhi
for over a week, when no one dared to disturb him. Partly because
of this, the king became his personal student.
The Master was later invited back to Drum Mountain
in Fujian Province, where he had been ordained, and in 1930
officiated as abbot there. While there he restored Bubbling Spring
Chan Monastery. In 1934, he moved to the large monastery of the
Sixth Chan Patriarch in Guangdong Province, known as Southern
Flower Monastery (南花寺),
and restored that one as well, and completely rebuilt the nearby
Cloud Gate Chan Monastery (雲門禅寺). The money came in part from Hong
Kong, which he visited a couple of times specifically in order to
raise funds. However, in the spring of 1951, when Xu Yun was around
112, thugs looking for gold and money attacked Cloud Gate
monastery, breaking the Master’s nose and ribs and torturing and
beating him almost to death. When the government in Beijing found
out, they sent officials to the monastery to investigate. There,
they found the Master and around 100 monks held in captivity. It
was at this time that the Master began dictating his life story—he
had been so close to death that the monks had asked him to tell it,
fearing that it would be lost forever.
In 1952, Master Xu Yun went to Beijing to help found
the Buddhist Association of China, which was set up by various
Buddhist groups to try and protect Buddhism under the communist
regime. He later undertook the rebuilding of True Suchness Chan
Monastery (真如禅寺), near
the city of Nanchang in Jiangxi Province, which had been destroyed
during the Japanese occupation. This was the last Buddhist
monastery built before the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). Money
poured in from Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Canada, and it was
therefore completed very quickly.
When he died one chilly October night in 1959, alone
on his simple plank bed, the Master had been alive for 119 years
and a monk for roughly 100. His last home was a converted thatched
adobe cowshed that he liked. Xu Yun was the Dharma heir to all five
Chan schools in China. During his life, he led many Chan meditation
retreats at which people experienced awakening; he taught Pure Land
Buddhism and lectured on the sutras; and he restored six great Chan
monasteries and many smaller temples. He injected new life into the
Chan school, which had been in real danger of being lost in China.
His example inspired the present generation of Chinese Buddhists,
who came to know him through his direct students. Some of them
taught Chan internationally, as was his wish, and some remained in
China throughout the Cultural Revolution.
Master Empty Cloud’s legacy lives on today. There
are now shrines with statues of him across China as well as regular
Chan retreats in his style held in large Chan training monasteries.
Last year saw an exhibition of photos in Shanghai attended by his
personal attendant, Master Shao Yun. There have been TV
documentaries about him, and recently, a film was made of his
entire life story. For full details of these, visit
Empty
Cloud.