A Research On The Buddhist Monk Muyun Tongmen

Muyun Tongmen was one of the twelve disciples of Miyun Yuanwu,who was a distinguished monk in the late Ming dynasty.Thus,Tongmen was the 31th generation of the Linji School.Muyun Tongmen,as a Chan monk in the late Ming and early Qing dynasty,had forty-eight followers in his life.Besides,he had plenty of works compared to other Chan monks in the same times.His works included twenty volumes of Muyun Monk Dialogues,six volumes of Muyun Monk Qihui Dialogues,fourteen volumes of Muyun Monk Lanzhai Bieji,six volumes of Muyun Monk Lanzhai Houji,fourteen volumes of Muyun Monk Sixi Book,and so on.The thesis is a case research on Zen master Muyun Tongmen who lived in the late Ming and early Qing dynasty.And it is aimed to investigate the life,thought and influence of this Zen master.The paper is divided into five chapters:The first chapter:Introduction.It examines the reason of this research and the method to process the research.Also,it inspects the literature of Tongmen.The second Chapter:The Background,Life and Followers of Muyun Tongmen.This chapter begins with the investigation of the cultural contents in late Ming and early Qing dynasty,which witnesses Tongmen’s thought.After that,the chapter argues Tongmen’s major life events following a timeline.Finally,this chapter digs into the forty-eight followers of Muyun Tongmen.The third Chapter:The Thought ofM uyun Tongmen.This chapter firstly enumerates the works of Muyun Tongmen,which lay the foundation of Tongmen’s thought.And then the chapter demonstrates Tongmen’s thought from three aspects.They are the study of mind,the study of Zen meditation,and the poems reflecting Zen meditation.Furthermore,there are several points under each aspect.The fourth Chapter:The Influence of Muyun Tongmen.This chapter is analyzed from two perspectives.They are the wide spread of Tongmen’s teaching the Zen’s meditation,and the comments from two famous authors in the same times of Tongmen.The last part is the ending conclusion,which makes a brief summary of the thesis and makes some prospects of the future research.In all,I hope that I can collect all the resources of Muyun Tongmen and make foll use of them,in order to show his life,his personality,his works and especially his thoughts.Meanwhile,about the twenty volumes of Muyun Monk Dialogues,although it has been recorded in the Jia Xing Zang in the version of The Ethnic Publishing House in 2008,it was missing in the version of Taiwan Xin wenfeng Publishing House in 1987.What’s more,six volumes of Muyun Monk Lanzhai Houji and fourteen volumes of Muyun Monk Sixi Book hasn’t even been recorded in the Tripitaka.There are just unique copies in the National Library of China.In consequence,by collecting and investigating the resources of Muyun Tongmen,I hope that academic community can focus and research more on the invaluable resources in the Ming and Qing dynasties.