poconstitutes a new dispensation requiring an easier
and more universal religious practice.
See also:Dharma and Dharmas
Bibliography
Chappell, David W. “Early Forebodings of the Death of Bud-
dhism.” Numen27 (1980): 122–153.
Durt, Hubert. Problems of Chronology and Eschatology: Four Lec-
tures on the Essay on Buddhism by Tominaga Nakamoto
(1715–1746).Kyoto: Scuola di Studi sull’Asia Orientale,
1994.
Hubbard, Jamie. Absolute Delusion, Perfect Buddhahood: The
Rise and Fall of a Chinese Heresy.Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press, 2001.
Nattier, Jan. Once upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist
Prophecy of Decline.Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press,
1991.
Stone, Jacqueline I. “Seeking Enlightenment in the Last Age:
MappoThought in Kamakura Buddhism.” Eastern Buddhist
18, no. 1 (1985): 28–56 and 18, no. 2 (1985): 35–64.
JANNATTIERDEQING
Hanshan Deqing, or Deqing Chengyin (1546–1623), is
one of the so-called Four Eminent Monks of the Ming
Dynasty, whose prolific works influenced and reflected
the syncretistic trends of his days in Chinese Bud-
dhism. Of patriarchal stature later in both the Chan
and PURELAND SCHOOLS, he advocated the combined
practice of “recitation of the Buddha’s name” and the
“investigation of the critical phrase” (kan huatou) for
the greater part of his missionary career. Later in his
life, he grew singularly devout to Pure Land, notice-
ably after he founded the Fayun Chan Monastery in
1617 with the intent of re-creating the paradigmatic
Pure Land community of the first patriarch HUIYUAN
(334–416).
Deqing’s extensive learning in Confucianism and
Daoism made him a vocal and celebrated figure among
literati and officials. Though the imperial favor long
granted to him was interrupted when he was (possibly
falsely) charged with illicitly establishing monasteries,
and as a result was removed from the government-
appointed abbotship of the Haiyin Monastery in 1596,
his monastic status was returned to him by 1615, earn-
ing him a heightened reputation. During exile, he was
invited to serve as abbot at the fabled Caoxi site of the
Sixth Patriarch of the Chan school, HUINENG, where
he revitalized many of its purportedly “original” insti-
tutional traditions.
Deqing was well known in both his lectures and
written works for his simultaneously harmonizing and
polemical treatment of the Three Religions (Bud-
dhism, Confucianism, and Daoism). His syncretistic
agenda extended to the doctrinal reconciliation of
most of the viable Buddhist schools of his days. An an-
thology of his works was compiled under the title Han-
shan dashi mengyou ji(Complete Works of the Great
Master Hanshan [Written] while Roaming in a Dream).See also:Chan School; Confucianism and Buddhism;
Daoism and Buddhism; Syncretic Sects: Three Teach-
ingsBibliography
Hsu, Sung-peng. A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and
Thought of Han-shan Te-ch’ing.University Park: Pennsylva-
nia State University Press, 1979.
Wu, Pei-yi. “Spiritual Autobiography of Te-ch’ing.” In The Un-
folding of Neo-Confucianism,ed. William de Bary and the
Conference on Seventeenth-Century Chinese Thought. New
York and London: Columbia University Press, 1975.WILLIAMCHUDESIREIn contemporary Western discourse, the complex and
culture-bound term desireis sometimes used as an ap-
proximate equivalent for Buddhist concepts that de-
note different aspects of appetition, in preference to
older, and more common, renderings of Asian con-
cepts such as the passions, lust, sensual pleasure, and
craving. Terms in the latter family of words have been
preferred perhaps because of their association with
Western notions of asceticism and abstinence.
In religious traditions with ascetic leanings the dis-
appointments of love are seen as signs that attachment
is inherently painful. But even the trite aphorism that
“love always brings pain” may be seen as only a vague
reference to the set of complex problems one faces
when considering the psychological and philosophical
relationship between satisfaction and dissatisfaction,
longing and disappointment, attachment and love
soured or lost.DESIRE