Zongmi

Guifeng Zongmi (宗密 圭峰)
Date of birth:	780
Place of birth:	Hsi-ch’ung County, Szechwan
Date of death:	841
Place of death:	Chang-an
School:	Heze (WG: Ho-tse) school, Southern Chan
Lineage:	Sui-chou Tao-yuan via Huineng
Order:	Chan (Zen)
Titles/Honors:	Samādi-Prajnā Chan Master
Quote:	Sudden enlightenment followed by gradual cultivation.

Guifeng Zongmi (圭峰 宗密) (Wade-Giles: Kuei-feng Tsung-mi; Japanese: Keihō Shūmitsu) (780–841) was a Tang dynasty Buddhist scholar-monk, installed as fifth patriarch of the Huayan (Chinese: 華嚴; pinyin: Huáyán; Japanese: Kegon; Sanskrit: Avatamsaka) school as well as a patriarch of the Heze (WG: Ho-tse) lineage of Southern Chan.

Zongmi was deeply affected by both Chan and Huayan. He wrote a number of works on the contemporary situation of Buddhism in Tang China, including critical analyses of Chan and Huayan, as well as numerous scriptural exegeses.

Zongmi was deeply interested in both the practical and doctrinal aspects of Buddhism. He was especially concerned about harmonizing the views of those that tended toward exclusivity in either direction. He provided doctrinal classifications of the Buddhist teachings, accounting for the apparent disparities in the Buddhist doctrines by categorizing them according to their specific aims.

Zongmi was born in 780 into the powerful and influential He family 何家 in Xichong county 西充縣 of present-day central Sichuan. In his early years, he studied the Confucian classics, hoping to for a career in the provincial government. When he was seventeen or eighteen, Zongmi lost his father and took up Buddhist studies. In an 811 letter to Chengguan, he wrote that for three years he

[G]ave up eating meat, examined [Buddhist] scriptures and treatises, became familiar with the virtues of meditation and sought out the acquaintance of noted monks.

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