Dàshèng zhǐguān fǎmén 大乘止觀法門
Mahāyāna Cessation-and-Contemplation Dharma-Gates by 慧思 (Huìsī / Nányuè Huìsī, 說)
About the work
A four-juan Chén-period Mahāyāna meditation treatise by Huìsī 慧思 (515–577), the second Tiāntái patriarch. The work is the most ambitious of Huìsī’s surviving meditation-doctrinal productions and is the principal documentary source for the pre-Tiāntái-mature Sinitic Mahāyāna meditative tradition.
Prefaces
The text opens with the Nányuè Dàshèng zhǐguān xù 南嶽大乘止觀序, signed LiǎngZhèlù quànnóngshǐ jiān tídiǎn xíngyù gōngshì cháofèng dàfū xíng shàngshū dùzhī yuánwàiláng hùjūn jièzǐ Zhū Dí zhuàn 兩浙路勸農使兼提點刑獄公事朝奉大夫行尚書度支員外郎護軍借紫朱頔撰 (“composed by 朱頔 Zhū Dí, LiǎngZhè Region Agricultural-Promotion Commissioner, Concurrent Inspector-of-Judicial-Affairs”…). The preface is a Northern-Sòng official’s encomium of Huìsī’s work, demonstrating the text’s continued institutional standing in the Sòng official-Buddhist establishment.
Abstract
The Dà-shèng zhǐ-guān fǎ-mén is one of the most thoroughly studied Mahāyāna meditation treatises in modern Buddhist scholarship and is of substantial historiographical importance for the reconstruction of the pre-Zhìyǐ Sinitic Buddhist meditative tradition. The work articulates Huì-sī’s distinctive synthesis of prajñāpāramitā and Tathāgatagarbha doctrines into a unified meditation-doctrinal framework that anticipates and grounds Zhìyǐ’s subsequent mature Tiāntái synthesis.
There has been substantial modern scholarly debate over the work’s authenticity: some scholars have argued that the work may be a later (post-Huì-sī) Tiāntái-school production attributed pseudepigraphically to Huìsī, while others defend the traditional Huìsī attribution. The textual evidence is contested, but the work’s institutional standing as Huìsī’s principal meditation manual is securely established in the canonical apparatus.
Translations and research
- Magnin, Paul. La vie et l’œuvre de Huisi (515–577). Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1979.
- Stevenson, Daniel B., and Kanno Hiroshi. The Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra’s Course of Ease and Bliss. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2006.
- Sekiguchi Shindai 関口真大. Tendai shōshikan no kenkyū. Tokyo: Sankibō Busshorin, 1954.
- Andō Toshio 安藤俊雄. Tendaigaku — kompon shisō to sono tenkai. Kyoto: Heirakuji Shoten, 1968.
- Hirai Shun’ei 平井俊榮. Hokke gisho no kenkyū 法華義疏の研究 (or related publications addressing the authenticity question).
Other points of interest
The authenticity dispute around the Dàshèng zhǐguān fǎmén is one of the more significant textual-philological problems in modern Tiāntái studies. Whatever the resolution of the question, the work’s institutional standing as the foundational pre-Zhìyǐ Mahāyāna meditation manual ensures its continued importance for the modern reconstruction of the early Tiāntái meditative-doctrinal synthesis.
Links
- CBETA online text T1924
- DDB entry
- Kanseki DB
- Dazangthings date evidence (570) — Takakusu Junjirō and Watanabe Kaigyoku, eds. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經. Tokyo, 1924–1932; CBReader v 5.0, 2014.