Kim Ho-shang - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Musang, Wu-hsiang, Master Kim, Kim Ho-shang, Chin ho shang, 金和尚 (684-762) was a Korean Ch'an master whose teachings were amongst the first streams of Ch'an Buddhist transmitted to Tibet.

Solonin (2005: unpaginated) links Tangut, Helanshan and Bao-tang Wu-zhu:

The origins of the Tangut Chan can be also traced deeper, than it was previously believed: information on Bao-tang Wu-zhu （保唐无住720～794） travels in North-Western China from the Notes on Transmitting the Dharma Treasure through Generations implies that at the period of 760's some sort of Buddhism was spread in the region of Helanshan, where the Tangut were already residing.　Concerning the late 8th century Helanshan Buddhism, little can be said: the doctrines of the lu （律） school and the teaching of Sichuan Chan of Rev. Kim （金和尚） seem to be known there.

Yün-Hua Jan (1986: pp.27-28) states:

Although Shen-hui has advanced the concept of no-thought in his teachings, the concept only remains as one of the principal doctrines. There are still a number of other ideas that are equally important in his thought. It was in the two schools of Ch'an Buddhism, developed in Shu state (presently Ssuchwan) that have given further attention to the concept. In fact these two schools made no-thought as the exclusive doctrine of their teachings. The one who initiated the development was Wu-hsiang (684-762), originally a native of the Silla kingdom in the Korean peninsula and more well-known in China as Monk Kim.

Buswell (2005: p.191) states:

Such contacts between Chinese and Korean Buddhism are especially pronounced in the case of the Ch'an or Sŏn tradition of Sinitic Buddhism. Two of the earliest schools of Ch'an in China were the Ching-chung and Pao-t'ang, both centered in what was then the wild frontier of Szechwan in the southwest. Both factions claimed as their patriarch a Ch'an master of Korean heritage named Musang (Ch. Wu-hsiang; 684-762), who is better known to the tradition as Reverend Kim (Kim hwasang), using his native Korean surname. Musang reduced all of Ch’an teachings to the three phrases of “not remembering,” which he equated with morality, “not thinking,” with samādhi, and “not forgetting,” with wisdom. Even after his demise, Musang’s teachings continued to be closely studied by such influential scholiasts in the Ch’an tradition as Tsung-mi (780-841).

Transmission of Ch'an to the Nyingmapa

Chinese Ch'an Buddhism was introduced to the Nyingmapa in three principal streams: the teachings of Master Kim, Kim Ho-shang, (Chin ho shang) 金和尚 transmitted by Sang Shi in c750 CE; the lineage of Master Wu Chu, 無住 of the Pao T'ang School was transmitted within Tibet by Ye shes dbang po; and the teaching from Mo Ho Yen, 和尚摩訶衍 (Tibetan: Hwa shang Mahayana) that were a synthesis of the Northern School of Ch'an and the Pao T'ang School.

Tibetan King Khri srong lde btsan
Trisong Detsen
Trisong Detsän or Trisong Detsen ཁྲི་སྲོང་ལྡེ་བཙན , was the son of Me Agtsom and one of the emperors of Tibet and ruled...

(742–797) invited the Ch’an master Mo-ho-yen (whose name consists of the same Chinese characters used to transliterate “Mahayana

Mahayana

Mahāyāna is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice...

”) to transmit the Dharma

Dharma

Dharma means Law or Natural Law and is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion. In the context of Hinduism, it refers to one's personal obligations, calling and duties, and a Hindu's dharma is affected by the person's age, caste, class, occupation, and gender...

at Samye

Samye

The Samye Monastery or Samye Gompa is the first Buddhist monastery built in Tibet, was most probably first constructed between 775 and 779 CE under the patronage of King Trisong Detsen of Tibet who sought to revitalize Buddhism, which had declined since its introduction by King Songtsen Gampo in...

Monastery. Mo-ho-yen had been disseminating Dharma in the Tun-huang locale, but lost an important philosophical debate on the nature of emptiness from the Indian master Kamalashila, and the king declared Kamalashila's philosophy should form the basis for Tibetan Buddhism.

Ray (2005) holds that the first documented dissemination of Ch'an to Tibet, chronicled in what has become known as the Statements of the Sba Family, occurred in c761CE when Trisong Detsen sent a party to the I-chou region to receive teachings of Reverend Kim (Chin ho-shang), a Korean Ch'an master, whom they encountered in Szechwan. The party received teachings and three Chinese texts from Reverend Kim. Reverend Kim died soon after.

Transmission of Ch'an to the Nyingmapa

Further reading