Huyền Quang
Huyền Quang
1254 – 1334
Huyền Quang (玄光, 1254–1334) was the third and last patriarch of the medieval Trúc Lâm school[1]. A precocious scholar who placed first in the imperial examinations in 1272, he served the Trần court for two decades before being ordained in middle age and entering the dharma circle around Trần Nhân Tông and Pháp Loa[1]. After Pháp Loa's death he assumed the patriarchate at age seventy-seven and spent the final four years of his life at Côn Sơn, where his poetry — among the earliest surviving lyric corpus in Vietnamese Buddhist letters — gives the most personal voice to the school's contemplative ideal. With his death the Trúc Lâm patriarchate passed into a long quiescence from which it would be revived only in the twentieth century[2].
Names
Teachers and lineage of Huyền Quang
Teacher / root master:
Teachings
- verseThe Autumn Pond
Autumn water so clear the bottom shows; a white bird lands and does not know its own reflection. The monk on the bank does not move — both bird and water forget they are being seen. When thought does not stir the surface, heaven and earth appear as they are. This is the meditation the patriarchs could not describe: the pond, the bird, and the monk — just as they are.
King Trần Minh Tông, wishing to know whether Huyền Quang's meditative realization was genuine, arranged for a beautiful court woman to approach the master late at night and attempt to disturb his equanimity. She came, sang, and offered wine. Huyền Quang sat unmoved and composed a verse: 'The lotus grows from the muddy pond yet no mud clings to the flower. The monk dwells among the ten thousand affairs yet no affair enters the mind.' When the king received the verse and the report that the master had neither risen nor spoken beyond the verse, he came himself to prostrate before Huyền Quang and said: 'Forgive my test. I understand now that the third patriarch of Trúc Lâm is genuine.' Huyền Quang said: 'Every moment is a test, Your Majesty. I am grateful for yours — it gave me a verse.'
Other masters in Trúc Lâm
Master Record Sources
- biographyCuong Tu Nguyen — medieval Vietnamese Buddhism scholarship
- datesLê Mạnh Thát — Vietnamese Buddhist history publications