聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

坐禪三昧經

3 min read

Text ID
KR6i0251
Date
402–407
Dynasty
姚秦

Zuòchán sānmèi jīng 坐禪三昧經

Sūtra on the Samādhi of Sitting Meditation translated by 鳩摩羅什 (Jiūmóluóshí / Kumārajīva, 譯)

About the work

The Zuòchán sānmèi jīng (T614, also styled 坐禪三昧法門經) is a two-fascicle compendium of dhyāna practice in Indic and Chinese tradition, translated at Cháng’ān by 鳩摩羅什 (344–413) shortly after his arrival from Liángzhōu. It became, alongside the [[KR6i0250|Chánmìyào fǎ jīng]] (T613) and the [[KR6i0255|Dámóduōluó chán jīng]] (T618), one of the foundational meditation texts of pre-Tiantai Chinese Buddhism. Its alternate title 菩薩禪法經 reflects its deliberate combination of Sarvāstivāda yoga with bodhisattva-path material aimed at Chinese monastic practitioners.

Structural Division

The Taisho text is internally divided into five “remedy gates” (法門) addressing the cardinal afflictions:

  1. 治貪欲法門 (Zhì tānyù fǎmén) — Method for the cure of greed
  2. 治瞋恚法門 (Zhì chēnhuì fǎmén) — Method for the cure of hatred
  3. 治愚癡法門 (Zhì yúchī fǎmén) — Method for the cure of delusion
  4. 治思覺法門 (Zhì sījué fǎmén) — Method for the cure of discursive thought
  5. 治等分法門 (Zhì děngfēn fǎmén) — Method for the cure of equal portions [of the afflictions]

Abstract

The Zuòchán sānmèi jīng is a composite text. 僧叡 Sēngruì, in his preface preserved in the [[KR6s0084|Chū sānzàng jì jí]] 出三藏記集 (T2145, juan 9), reports that Kumārajīva drew on the yoga writings of several Sarvāstivāda masters — Vasumitra 婆須蜜, Saṅgharakṣa 僧伽羅叉, Upagupta 優波崛, Saṅghasena 僧伽斯那, Aśvaghoṣa 馬鳴 — and supplemented them with bodhisattva-path materials. The translation was carried out at Cháng’ān between Hóngshǐ 弘始 4 (402) and 9 (407), shortly after Kumārajīva’s arrival; the date bracket follows the consensus of Demiéville (1954) and Yamabe (1999). Together with the [[KR6i0250|Chánmìyào]], [[KR6i0252|Púsà hē sèyù fǎ jīng]], [[KR6i0253|Chánfǎ yàojiě]], and [[KR6i0254|Sīwéi lüèyào fǎ]], it forms the meditation manual corpus produced by Kumārajīva’s Cháng’ān bureau.

The text is closely related to T618 (the Dámóduōluó chán jīng of Buddhabhadra), which preserves a parallel but distinct Sarvāstivāda meditation tradition.

Translations and research

  • Demiéville, Paul. “La Yogācārabhūmi de Saṅgharakṣa.” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 44/2 (1954): 339–436. — establishes the relation between T606, T614, T618.
  • Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. The Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi of the Visualization of the Buddha. PhD dissertation, Yale University, 1999.
  • Greene, Eric M. Chan Before Chan: Meditation, Repentance, and Visionary Experience in Chinese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2021.
  • Yamabe, Nobuyoshi and Sueki Fumihiko (trans.). The Sutra on the Concentration of Sitting Meditation (in The Sutra on the Concentration of Sitting Meditation, the Sutra on the Samādhi of Direct Encounter with the Buddhas of the Present, the Sutra on the Concentration That Encompasses All Meritorious Qualities). BDK English Tripiṭaka, 2009.

Graph View

Backlinks