Fǎhuá jīng ānlèxíng yì 法華經安樂行義
The Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra’s Course of Ease and Bliss by 慧思 (Huìsī / Nányuè Huìsī, 說)
About the work
A single-juan foundational meditation-doctrinal treatise by Huìsī 慧思 (515–577) on the ānlèxíng 安樂行 (“course of ease and bliss”) — chapter 14 of Kumārajīva’s Lotus Sūtra (KR6d0001, T262), one of the principal practical-meditative chapters of the Lotus and the foundational doctrinal authority for Huìsī’s own Lotus Sūtra samādhi (法華三昧) practice.
Prefaces
The text in the Taishō recension carries no separate translator’s preface. The work opens with Huìsī’s foundational doctrinal claim: “The Lotus Sūtra is the Mahāyāna sudden-awakening, attaining-Buddha-Way without a teacher’s self-awakening, the rapid attainment of the Buddha Way. The dharma-gate that is hard to believe in all worlds. Whenever any new-studying bodhisattvas wish to seek the Mahāyāna, surpassing all bodhisattvas in the rapid attainment of the Buddha Way, they must uphold-the-precepts, [practice] forbearance and exertion, diligently cultivate meditation; concentrate the mind in diligent study of the Lotus Sūtra samādhi …“.
Abstract
The Ānlèxíng yì is one of the most important pre-Tiāntái-mature Sinitic Mahāyāna treatises and the foundational document of the East-Asian Lotus Sūtra meditative-confessional tradition. Huìsī’s articulation of the Lotus Sūtra samādhi practice and his exposition of the ānlèxíng chapter as the practical-meditative culmination of the Lotus Sūtra’s doctrine became foundational for Zhìyǐ’s subsequent mature Tiāntái synthesis — particularly the systematisation in the Móhē zhǐguān of the Lotus Sūtra samādhi as one of the sì zhǒng sānmèi 四種三昧 (four kinds of samādhi).
The work is consequently of substantial historiographical importance both as a witness to the pre-Zhìyǐ Sinitic Mahāyāna meditative tradition and as the principal doctrinal authority for the Lotus Sūtra samādhi practice that became central to subsequent East-Asian Tiāntái devotional culture.
The composition is bracketed within Huìsī’s productive period at Nányuè 南嶽 c. 560–577.
Translations and research
- Stevenson, Daniel B., and Kanno Hiroshi. The Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra’s Course of Ease and Bliss: An Annotated Translation and Study of Nanyue Huisi’s (515–577) Fahua jing anlexing yi. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2006. (The standard English translation and study of Huì-sī’s Ān-lè-xíng yì.)
- Magnin, Paul. La vie et l’œuvre de Huisi (515–577). Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1979.
- Stevenson, Daniel B. “The Tiāntái Four Forms of Samādhi and Late North–South Dynasties, Sui, and Early T’ang Buddhist Devotionalism.” PhD diss., Columbia University, 1987.
- Stevenson, Daniel B. “The Four Kinds of Samādhi in Early T’ien-t’ai Buddhism.” In Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, ed. Peter N. Gregory, 45–97. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1986.
- Hurvitz, Leon. Chih-i (538–597). Brussels, 1962.
- Andō Toshio 安藤俊雄. Tendaigaku — kompon shisō to sono tenkai. Kyoto: Heirakuji Shoten, 1968.
Other points of interest
The Ānlèxíng yì is one of the most thoroughly studied pre-Tiāntái-mature Sinitic Mahāyāna texts in modern Buddhist scholarship. Its doctrinal-meditative articulation of the Lotus Sūtra samādhi practice provided the foundation for both Zhìyǐ’s mature synthesis and for the broader East-Asian Lotus Sūtra devotional tradition. Stevenson and Kanno’s 2006 critical translation is the standard modern apparatus for engagement with the text.
Links
- CBETA online text T1926
- 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.