Dushun

Dushun (Chinese: 杜順; pinyin: Dùshùn; Wade–Giles: Tu-shun) (557–640) was the First Patriarch of the Huayan School of Chinese Buddhism, which has the Indian Avatamsaka Sutra as its central scripture.

Biography

Dushun was born in present-day Shaanxi province. He ordained at the age of seventeen and became a student of a monk named Weichen, from whom he learned meditation at Yinsheng temple. Dushun later retired to Zhixiang temple, a monastery in the Zhongnan mountains in the south of Shaanxi. There, Dushun began an in-depth study of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. The second patriarch, Zhiyan (602-668 CE), studied under Dushun at Zhixiang temple and became recognized as his formal successor.¹

Dushun was also a devotee of Amitabha and Manjusri, and promoted their worship among the laity.¹

Works

Around fourteen works have been ascribed to Dushun throughout history; however, only two works can be definitively attributed to him. The first is The Ten Mysterious Gates of the Unitary Vehicle of the Huayan (zh: Huayan yisheng shixuan men). This text was composed by Zhiyan (602-668 CE), the second patriarch, but is supposedly a record of the oral teachings of Dushun.¹

The second is Discernments of the Dharmadhātu of the Huayan (zh: Huayan fajie guanmen), which does not survive as a stand-alone text but can be found in its entirety in several later commentaries.¹ This text has been translated by Thomas Cleary embedded with the commentary by Chengguan in his