3. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, First Series, p. 214.
4. Two books that give something of the intellectual atmosphere of T'ang China are biographies of its two leading poets: Arthur Waley, The Poetry and Career of Li Po (London: George Allen & Unwin, Ltd., 1950); and A. R. Davis, Tu Fu (New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1971).
5. For a detailed biography of Shen-hui, see Yampolsky, Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch.
6. The scholar who brought the significance of Shen-hui to the attention of the world was Hu Shih, whose landmark English-language papers on Zen are "Ch'an (Zen) Buddhism in China: Its History and Method" and "The Development of Zen Buddhism in China." These works draw upon the manuscripts discovered this century in the Tun-huang caves in the mountains of far northwest China. These manuscripts clarified many of the mysteries surrounding the early history of Ch'an, enabling scholars for the first time to distinguish between real and manufactured history—since some of the works were written before Ch'an historians began to embroider upon the known facts. A brief but useful account of the finding of these caves and the subsequent removal of many of the manuscripts to the British Museum in London and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris may be found in Cat's Yawn. The best discussion of the significance of these finds and of Hu Shih's lifelong interpretive work is provided by Yampolsky, Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch.
Regarding the circumstances of this sermon, Walter Liebenthal ("The Sermon of Shen-hui," Asia Major, N.S. 3, 2 [1952], p. 134) says, "There are only two opportunities to deliver addresses in the ritual of Buddhist monasteries, one during the uposatha ceremony held monthly when the pratimoksa rules are read to the members of the community and they are admonished to confess their sins, one during the initiation ceremony held once or twice a year. For the purpose of initiation special platforms are raised, one for monks and one for nuns, inside the compounds of some especially selected monasteries."
7. Quoted in Hilda Hookham, A Short History of China (New York: St. Martin's Press, Inc., 1972; paperback edition, New York: New American Library, 1972), p. 175.
8. Discussions of the adventures of An Lu-shan may be found in most general surveys of Chinese history, including Hookham, Short History of China, Wolfram Eberhard, A History of China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960); Kenneth Scott Latourette, The Chinese: Their History and Culture (New York: Macmillan, 1962); John A. Harrison, The Chinese Empire (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1972); and Rene Grousset, The Rise and Splendour of the Chinese Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962).
9. This is the interpretation of Hu Shih. For translations of the major works of Shen-hui, see Walter Liebenthal, "The Sermon of Shen-hui," pp. 132-55; and Wm. Theodore de Bary, ed., Sources of Chinese Tradition, Vol. 1., pp. 356-60. Also see Edward Conze, ed., Buddhist Texts Through the Ages (Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, 1954), excerpted in Wade Baskin, ed., Classics in Chinese Philosophy (Totowa, N. J.: Littlefield, Adams, 1974). A short translation is also provided in Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, Third Series, pp. 37 ff. The fullest translation of the works of Shen-hui found in the Tun-huang caves is in Jacques Gernet, Entret/ens du Maitre de Dhyana Chen-houei du Ho-tso (Hanoi: Publications de l'ecole frangaise d'Extreme-Orient, Vol. 31, 1949). An English translation of a portion of this text may be found in Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963).
10. Liebenthal, "Sermon of Shen-hui," pp. 136 ff.
11. Ibid., p. 144.