Shí liù pǐn jīng 十六品經
Sixteen-Section Scripture
planchette-revealed scripture in the cult of 呂洞賓 (Lǚ Dòng-bīn / 帝君); preface attributed to 文殊師利法王子 (Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva of wisdom — speaking from the planchette pantheon); title-poem by 柳守元 (Liǔ Shǒu-yuán)
A 16-section Qīng planchette scripture in the Lǚzǔ cult, edited by Liǔ Shǒuyuán (cf. 柳守元) within the same early-eighteenth-century DZJY-source milieu as KR5i0005, KR5i0027 etc. The 16-section structure represents dà dān yī jīn 大丹一斤 (“one pound of the Great Elixir” — the symbolic completion-weight in inner-alchemical reckoning).
Prefaces
Preface (Mañjuśrī). “Mañjuśrī Dharma-King-Son says: the human heart and the Way-heart are originally one vehicle — there is no above or below. From the human heart up, the heart enlightens itself from delusion; downward, the heart relies on it for verification-and-penetration: this is what is called the treasure-scripture. Only my Way-Patriarch, broadly delivering all souls, awakening the world by his vow’s depth, accepts the imperial decree of proclamation; the wondrous meaning is here presented, broadly preached for those of conditioned-merit; before-and-behind, ancient-and-modern, preaching the dharma according to place, manifesting the body according to condition; for very long, completing this Sixteen-Section Scripture — gathering it on the occasion of the conditions and saying it. There is now this gathering — there comes that, and they meet — comings-and-goings tangle…”
Title-poem (Liǔ Shǒuyuán). “I have followed and attended the Lǚzǔ for thousand-and-hundred years, seeing the dharma and hearing the dharma; I deeply know our Imperial Lord’s universal-deliverance compassion-heart is endless, fathomless, incalculable, boundless. — This Sixteen-Section Scripture is the heart-transmission of the heavenly immortals and the heart-lamp of awakening the world. — The Imperial Lord’s scriptures are many; whatever utterance he gives is jīng (scripture), nothing not a wondrous canon. Why specifically the Sixteen-Section? — Because times are different, places are different, men are different; preaching the dharma according to need, every act is a one-occasion skilful means — not necessarily, as with this scripture, directly displaying the jīndān secret-wonder — meeting after long time, only then assembled-into-a-volume. The dharma-treasure of the Mu-ní (Śākyamuni Buddha) — every word a strange brilliance — is truly not what the human-realm finds easy to behold. In past years in the south, it was also separately engraved and circulated, but not collected as the whole — and one could not match its purport, with not a few omissions and errors. — Disciple of the gate Huìjué assembled the whole, taking the meaning of one pound of the great elixir, truly consonant with the merciful mind of preaching; now together with fellow-disciples Dàgù, Zhìqiū, Dàqì, dharma-heir Ēnhóng et al., we have re-edited the whole book; with this scripture as the head of Zōng zhèng, I have been commissioned to oversee, and respectfully record its origin-and-end as above. As to this scripture’s wonderful meaning, even using the great-sea as ink and Sumeru as brush, exhausting kalpas of praise will not fully give it. — Therefore I dare not append further words. May only readers of all-the-world’s later ages each press it onto their hearts, and broaden it abroad. — Hóngjiào dìzǐ Liǔ Shǒuyuán xūnmù tí cí.”
Abstract
A Lǚ-zǔ-cult planchette compendium in 16 sections, edited by Liǔ Shǒuyuán (cf. 柳守元) and forming the head-text of the Zōng zhèng (= Xuán zōng zhèng zhǐ; cf. KR5i0027) collection. The text is co-edited by Liǔ’s fellow-disciples 惠覺, 大固, 志秋, 大器 and 恩洪; the editorial pluri-collaboration is characteristic of the Liǔ Shǒuyuán Lóngmén planchette circle. Composition c. 1700–1750.
The Mañjuśrī-preface frame is one of the more striking explicit Buddhist-Daoist cross-overs in DZJY — a Buddhist Mahā-bodhisattva delivering the preface to a Lǚ-zǔ Daoist scripture — yet by this period such cross-pantheon planchette frames are conventional.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5i0044
- Editor: 柳守元; preface: 文殊 (託名).