The Anxin 安心 Thought of the Fourth Master, Daoxin 道信, and the First Master of the Niutou 牛頭 Sect, Farong 法融: From Contemplation on the Mind and Observation on One Object to Beyond Contemplation and Observation

The fourth master Daoxin 四祖道信 (580–651), who led the Dongshan famen 東山法門, instructed many monks in the various methods of contemplation, according to their different levels. And his contemporary Niutou Farong 牛頭法融 (594–657) sang the praises of his anxin 安心 state.The essence of the teaching of Daoxin, the Fayao 法要, is portrayed rather differently in the Rudao anxin yaofangbian famen 入道安心要方便法門 and in the biography of Niutou Farong in the Jingde zhuan denglu 景徳伝灯録. The former teaches gradual enlightenment 漸修, the latter sudden enlightenment 頓悟, which sees one’s true mind as Buddha clearly and moves the mind freely through various scenes in daily life.With a focus on this problem of anxin thought, this paper examines how these two figures thought about anxin, what the natures of their oppositely oriented philosophies were, and what philosophical changes of early Chinese Buddhism can be detected as the tradition moved from the era of contemplation to the era of Chan.