Guān yīn dà shì lián chuán jīng 觀音大士蓮船經
The Bodhisattva of Sound-Perception’s Lotus-Boat Scripture
planchette-attributed to Guān-yīn dà shì (Avalokiteśvara — here speaking from a Daoist register); transmitted in the 增刻道藏輯要 (the supplemented DZJY)
A nine-chapter Qīng planchette scripture in which the canonical Buddhist Mahā-bodhisattva Guānyīn delivers a programmatic Daoist nèidān manual under the figure of “the lotus’s emptiness-and-purity, fit to mirror the heart’s empty-and-numinous; the ferry-boat’s crossing-over, fit to symbolise the Way’s saving the world.” The scripture is structured in three triples of three chapters, corresponding to (i) qióng lǐ — jìn xìng — zhì mìng 窮理盡性至命 (Sòng-school xìngmìng triad), (ii) pēng liàn — chōu tiān — huǒ hòu 烹煉抽添火候 (inner-alchemical phasing), and (iii) the Daoist huándān / jīndān / dǐnglú sequence. Notable for the deliberate pairing of Buddhist speaker and Daoist doctrine.
Prefaces
Preface (Guān yīn dà shì). “The remoteness of past and present is one Way and that is all; the breadth of all-under-Heaven is one Way and that is all — even the holy spirits’ shouldering of the cosmos, the heart-region whither spirits and Buddhas converge in principle, all this is one Way and that is all. But the cultivators of the Way each separate gates and households, slandering one another — why? Because the root-source is unclear, they recognise no suǒyǐrán… The world wants for true transmission, so by what shall men comprehend? Principle has no settling-place, so by what is the Way clear?… With my true breath eternally fixed and not a single thought remaining, I take the not-being of the True No to round-and-fold the being-everywhere of the One Principle’s penetration, responding to events as they require, and so guiding men into the Way. Thus I transmit a wondrous scripture and bring out its subtlety. The first I title Lián (Lotus), for the lotus’s body’s emptiness-and-purity may illumine the heart’s emptiness-and-numinosity; the next I title Chuán (Boat), for the boat’s ferrying men may symbolise the Way’s saving the world. Jīng (Scripture) is cháng (constant); with the cháng Way of Lotus-and-Boat I lift the determined out of their drowning. Such is the doctrine and that is all… Three classes (上中下) are arrayed flat, each a jíyì (climax-of-attainment) work; nine sections (九章) are divided in front-middle-back, each carrying a deep-and-original meaning. They speak of qióng lǐ, of jìn xìng, of zhì mìng — that is the three-step suǒyǐrán. They speak of pēngliàn, of chōutiān, of huǒhòu — that is the layer-and-rank of nine waiting-points. As to dàyào, it is truly the spiritual-pill of bone-changing; as to dǐnglú, it is truly the real boundary of accomplishing the Way. The chapter on the jīndān is what is called the un-transmitted secret of past and present — speaking the unspeakable — the no-birth-no-death threshold, the un-melting-un-extinguishing wonder; its Way is none other than the One No (一無 only)…”
Abstract
A late-Qīng planchette scripture preserved in the supplemented DZJY (增刻) — i.e., not in Jiǎng Yǔpǔ’s original 1809 jí yào but added in Hé Lóngxiāng’s 1906 expansion. The text is a programmatic Buddhist-Daoist syncretist nèidān manual issued under the seal of Guānyīn dà shì, characteristic of the late-Qīng Lóngmén planchette tradition. The doctrinal content — qiónglǐ / jìnxìng / zhìmìng read alchemically — is conventionally Quánzhēn / Lóngmén inner-alchemy.
The dating bracket records Qīng provenance generally; the text’s first appearance is in the DZJY supplement (post-1809), but it could have circulated earlier in manuscript.
Translations and research
- For the broader Qīng Buddhist-Daoist syncretist nèi-dān literature: Esposito, Facets of Qing Daoism (2014); Goossaert, The Taoists of Peking (Harvard 2007).
- No substantial secondary literature located specifically.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5i0025
- Speaker: 觀音 (託名).