Zhixu

Zhixu on the DRL

Classical Chinese Authors

English Phonetics	Ouyi Zhixu
Chinese Script	蕅益智旭
Japanese Transliteration	Gōyaku/Gūyaku Chigyoku
Korean Transliteration	Uik Chiuk

Dates

Birth:	1599
Death:	1655

Tibetan calendar dates

Dates of birth

Day
Month
Gender
Element
Animal
Rab Jyung

Dates of passing

Day
Month
Gender
Element
Animal
Rab Jyung

About

Other Biographical info:

Links

Wiki Pages

• Zhixu on the DRL
• Zhixu on the LIB
• Zhixu on the BNW

Buddha Nature Project

Person description or short bio

Ouyi Zhixu. (J. Gōyaku/Gūyaku Chigyoku; K. Uik Chiuk 蕅益智旭) (1599–1655). One of the four eminent monks (si da gaoseng) of the late-Ming dynasty, along with Yunqi Zhuhong (1535-1615), Hanshan Deqing (1546–1623), and Daguan Zhenke (1543–1604); renowned for his mastery of a wide swath of Confucian and Buddhist teachings, particularly those associated with the Tiantai, pure land, and Chan traditions. In his youth, he studied Confucianism and despised Buddhism, even writing anti-Buddhist tracts. He had a change of heart at the age of seventeen, after reading some of Zhuhong's writings, and burned his previous screeds. According to his autobiography, Zhixu had his first "great awakening" at the age of nineteen while reading the line in the Lunyu ("Confucian Analects") that "the whole world will submit to benevolence" if one restrains oneself and returns to ritual. After his father's death that same year, he fully committed himself to Buddhism, reading sūtras and performing recollection of the Buddha's name (nianfo) until he finally was ordained under the guidance of Xueling (d.u.), a disciple of Hanshan Deqing, at the age of twenty-four. At that time, he began to read extensively in Yogācāra materials and had another great awakening through Chan meditation, in which he experienced body, mind, and the outer world suddenly disappearing. He next turned his attention to the bodhisattva precepts and the study of vinaya. Following his mother's death when he was twenty-seven, Zhixu rededicated himself to Chan meditation, but after a serious illness he turned to pure land teachings. In his early thirties, he devoted himself to the study of Tiantai materials, through which he attempted to integrate his previous research in Buddhism and began to write commentaries and treaties on Buddhist scriptures and on such Confucian classics as the Zhouyi ("Book of Changes"). In the late-sixteenth Century, Jesuit missionaries such as Michele Ruggieri (1543–1607) and Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) had reintroduced Christianity to China and sought "to complement Confucianism and to replace Buddhism." This emerging religious challenge led Zhixu to publish his Bixie ji ("Collected Essays Refuting Heterodoxy") as a critique of the teachings of Christianity, raising specifically the issue of theodicy (i.e., why a benevolent and omnipotent god would allow evil to appear in the world); Zhixu advocates instead that good and evil come from human beings and are developed and overcome respectively through personal cultivation. After another illness at the age of fifty-six, his later years were focused mostly on pure land teachings and practice. In distinction to Japanese pure land teachers, such as Hōnen (1133–1212) and Shinran (1173–1262), who emphasized exclusively Amitābha's "other-power" (C. tali; J. tariki), Zhixu, like most other Chinese pure land teachers, advocated the symbiosis between the other-power of Amitābha and the "self-power" (C. jiri; J. jiriki) of the practitioner. This perspective is evident in his equal emphasis on the three trainings in meditation (Chan), doctrine (jiao), and precepts (lü) (cf. Triśikṣā ). Ouyi's oeuvre numbers some sixty-two works in 230 rolls, including treatises and commentaries on works ranging from Tiantai, to Chan, to Yogācāra, to pure land. His pure land writings have been especially influential, and his Amituojing yaojie ("Essential Explanations" on the Amitābhasūtra) and Jingtu shiyao ("Ten Essentials on the Pure Land") are regarded as integral to the modern Chinese Pure Land tradition. (Source: "Ouyi Zhixu." In The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, 604–5. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)

Expand to see this person's philosophical positions on Buddha-nature.

Is Buddha-nature considered definitive or provisional?
Position:
Notes:
All beings have Buddha-nature
Position:
If "Qualified", explain:
Notes:
Which Wheel Turning
Position:
Notes:
Yogācāra vs Madhyamaka
Position:
Notes:
Zhentong vs Rangtong
Position:
Notes:
Promotes how many vehicles?
Position:
Notes:
Analytic vs Meditative Tradition
Position:
Notes:
What is Buddha-nature?
Position:
Notes:
Svātantrika (རང་རྒྱུད་) vs Prāsaṅgika (ཐལ་འགྱུར་པ་)
Position:
Notes:
Causal nature of the vajrapāda
Position:

Full Name

Chih-hsu Ou-i = Ouyi Zhixu (1599-1655)

Writings

The complete works of Ouyi Zhixu online: http://www.baus-ebs.org/sutra/fan-read/010/index.htm Template:Footer

The disciples of the Buddha who aspire to attain individual liberation or nirvāṇa. The final goal of the Hearers is to become an arhat, a state in which one has totally eliminated the inner problems of attachment, hatred and ignorance, the main causes for rebirth in this cycle of existence. There are four stages of a śrāvaka path including eight phases.

Along with Madhyamaka, it was one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu around the fourth century CE, many of its central tenets have roots in the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra and the so-called third turning of the dharma wheel (see tridharmacakrapravartana).

Vinaya refers to the corpus of Buddhist teachings on moral discipline and precepts and is one of the three canonical sets of teachings alongside Sūtra and Abhidharma. It also refers to the monastic tradition which has been passed down since the Buddha's time until our time.

Refers to something that is taught for a specific reason, rather than because it is entirely true.

Along with Yogācāra, it is one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Nāgārjuna around the second century CE, it is rooted in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, though its initial exposition was presented in Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

The state of being devoid of that which is wholly different rather than being void of its own nature. The term is generally used to refer to the ultimate, or buddha-nature, being empty of other phenomena such as adventitious defiling emotions but not empty of its true nature.

The state of being empty of self, which references the lack of inherent existence in relative phenomena.

Tsen Khawoche's "meditative tradition" of exegesis of the Uttaratantra; it is one of two major Tibetan traditions of exegesis, both stemming from students of Sajjana.