Abstract SSLiu 1101 The Myth of Mind Transmission As a Question for the Formulation of Early Chan Buddhism

"Regardless of the appearance or non-appearance of the Tathgata (`kyamuni Buddha) in this world, the Dharma is always present". In Buddhism, as well expound in this paper, the Dharma is beyond everyone and everything. Mind transmission is one of the unique ways Chan worked on the relationship between Dharma and Buddha: Trace back the dharma to the original validity and authority (no judgments or classification of teachings, or any sectarian antagonism). From this point of view, Chan developed a system directly for the path to become a Buddha or attain the Buddhahood is through Mind Transmission or Mind to Mind Transmission. (). Initially the mind transmission is supposed to be read into the Chan tradition, in this way, were indebted to the study of the historical understanding, especially for the growth and development of later Chan and Zen in the East Asia Buddhism. However, as a student of Chan Buddhism, we learned that fundamental to Chinese Chan historical awareness are collective genealogical identity with the alleged "separate transmission outside the scriptures" () for the privilege of supreme orthodoxy to expels out the other Chinese Buddhism. In this regards, the mind transmission is more or less on the evolved ideology and/or orthodox claim in Chan/Zen tradition, yet it cannot be ignored as it did interplay an important role when Chan is formulated especially in the early Chan Buddhism. Its striking though that, comparably, the study of mind transmission is very limited and the methodological approach is not widely adopted. This paper examine and argue what is best seen as interpretive variation in scriptural understanding rather than as embodying notional change in its face valuea change from Indian to China of transmission and domestication, especially in the reference of the terms involved. In this way, well be looking into the contested features of Chan tradition in historical understanding in one side, and also the scriptural study of sui generis terms for Chan in the other side. Chan mind transmission in some way has not been revealed its myth under the Chan tradition from its early scripture study. Several points of controversy about mind transmission are reviewed and discussed and mind transmission of Chan Buddhism especial the attitudes toward scripture, that is, the Sutra transmission from India to China are compared with those in Buddhism.