Five Ranks of Lord and Vassal (Wǔwèi Jūnchén)

Text

Dongshan's dialectical schema of the relationship between the absolute (zhèng, "upright") and the relative (piān, "inclined"). The five positions — relative within the absolute, absolute within the relative, coming from the absolute, going within both, arriving in both — became the doctrinal backbone of Caodong/Sōtō and a major kōan-curriculum object in later Rinzai training.

Original Tang text; widely re-translated

license: fair_use

Original language

Attribution

• Attributed To
  Dongshan Liangjie

Lineage: Qingyuan line

By Dongshan Liangjie

• Truth Outside Yourselfproverb
• Verses of the Five Ranksverse
• Five Ranks: The Verses of the Upright and the Inclinedverse
• Dongshan Crosses the Streamdialogue
• The Seamless Monumentdialogue

From Five Ranks

• Verses of the Five Ranks
• Five Ranks: The Verses of the Upright and the Inclined
• Host Within Host
• Five Ranks of Lord and Vassal

Sources

• contentZen Buddhism: A History, Volume 1 — India and China

  Heinrich Dumoulin (trans. James W. Heisig & Paul Knitter)

  Volume 1, chapter on Dongshan Liangjie

  Dongshan Liangjie's five ranks of lord and vassal articulate the interplay of absolute and relative and form the doctrinal core of the Caodong school.