Dahui Zonggao (大慧宗杲) is famous as the Chan master who established “Kanhua-Chan (看話禅)”. Dahui explains the structure of Kanhua-Chan by using the concepts of “shijue (始覚)” and “benjue (本覚)”, that appear in the Dacheng qixin lun (大乗起信論). However Dahui quoted these terms not from the Dacheng qixin lun, but from another text, the Qingjinghaiyan jing (清浄海眼経) written by Zhang Shangying (張商英).
First, we verify from the descriptions of the Shoulenyanjing zhizhangjie (楞厳経指掌解) and the Shoulenyanjing gelun (楞厳経合論) that the Suramgama-samadhi-nirdesa (楞厳経) is rewritten by Zhang Shangying as the Qingjinghaiyan jing. Next, we examine Dahui's intention to quote the words shijue (始覚) and benjue (本覚) from the Qingjinghaiyan Jing.
It was only a part of the beginning of Suramgama-samadhi-nirdesa that Dahui quoted from the Qingjinghaiyan Jing. This part, that is rushi wo wen, yishi fo zai (如是我聞, 一時仏在), is a sentence commom to every sutra, verifying that what follows is the true word of the Buddha. This was the main reason why Dahui quoted it.
The real intention of Buddha for Dahui was that one must experience and master Awakening by himself. Then, Dahui strongly criticized the method of Mozhao Chan (黙照禅), which claims that we obtain original Buddhahood as it is. That was also the reason why Dahui put emphasis on Kanhua-Chan.
