Dōng yuán yǔ lù 東園語錄
Recorded Sayings from the Eastern Garden
planchette-revealed yǔlù of 呂洞賓, delivered to a circle of named lay disciples (Chén Zǐqīng 陳子淸, Guō Zǐmíng 郭子銘, Táozǐ 陶子, Ráozǐ 饒子澤 and others) at the Dōng yuán 東園 (“Eastern Garden”) planchette altar — a private literati Daoist garden north of Jiāng yuán (Jiāngxī or Sìchuān, ambiguous from the context)
A five-juàn collection of Lǚzǔ planchette-sermons recorded over an extended ministration at the Dōng yuán altar — a formally self-conscious yǔlù in the SòngYuán Quánzhēn tradition, with Lǚzǔ as speaker and named lay disciples as auditors. The sermons run through inner-alchemical theory and ethical reflection in the conversational register characteristic of yǔlù.
Prefaces
Preface (Lǚzǔ). “North of the source of the Jiāng there is a Belvedere; at the eastern side of the Belvedere, originally vacant ground. Master Chén Zǐqīng and Master Guō Zǐmíng raised some many-bays of buildings, with chambers and pavilions for ample-lounging; Master Táo also planted in the wall-shadowed empty space cypress-and-cedar-and-camphor and other trees, and obtained the soil’s suitableness, lush-and-bursting-and-flourishing. Master Ráo Zé further bought various flowers and planted them within; piling stones into a hill, hollowing earth into a pond — enough for lingering. As to the encircling of the distant mountains and the morning-tide-wise flow of the near waters — these one may scan in pictures, no need to elaborate. — I have repeatedly come here, with the various masters set the brush-and-ink connection, saving from defects and patching, leading toward the supreme Way; further with the thought of teaching-the-people and awakening-the-world, my will-and-vow has often descended in words to admonish-and-warn. The various masters recorded and stored them in a leather-trunk, and earnestly asked me to revise them — title: Dōng yuán yǔ lù, to commemorate the thousand-year good-meeting. Later wanderers in the Eastern Garden — pray attend three times to this writing.”
Abstract
A planchette-derived yǔlù compendium of the Lǚzǔ cult, identified by location with the Dōng yuán altar at Jiāng yuán (Jiāngxī or Sìchuān). Composition c. 1700–1750. The text is a useful witness to the social geography of the mid-Qīng planchette tradition: a literati garden hosting a sustained planchette session over years, with the resulting sermons collected into a yǔlù and printed for wider use.
The garden’s named participants — Chén Zǐqīng, Guō Zǐmíng, Táozǐ, Ráo Zé — are otherwise unidentified; they fit the social profile of mid-Qīng provincial literati amateur Daoists.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.