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思惟略要法

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Text ID
KR6i0254
Date
401–413
Dynasty
姚秦

Sīwéi lüèyào fǎ 思惟略要法

Brief Essentials of the Method of Contemplation translated by 鳩摩羅什 (Jiūmóluóshí / Kumārajīva, 譯)

About the work

The Sīwéi lüèyào fǎ (T617, one fascicle, also styled 思惟要略法經; provisional Sanskrit reconstruction Yogācārabhūmi) is a short meditation manual ascribed to 鳩摩羅什. It is one of the four meditation works produced by Kumārajīva’s bureau (alongside T613, T614, T616) and complements the longer Chánfǎ yàojiě by giving a compact tour through the principal kasiṇa and dhyāna topics, the aśubha, the four immeasurables, and Buddha-visualization (buddhānusmṛti). It is one of the earliest Chinese sources for the buddhānusmṛti as a meditative-visualization practice that became central to East Asian Pure Land and Tiantai traditions.

Structural Division

T617 is divided into ten short methodical chapters:

  1. 四無量觀法 (Sì wúliàng guān fǎ) — Method of contemplating the four immeasurables
  2. 不淨觀法 (Bùjìng guān fǎ) — Method of the impurity-contemplation
  3. 白骨觀法 (Báigǔ guān fǎ) — Method of the bone-contemplation
  4. 觀佛三昧法 (Guānfó sānmèi fǎ) — Method of the buddha-visualization samādhi
  5. 生身觀法 (Shēngshēn guān fǎ) — Method of contemplating the [Buddha’s] physical body
  6. 法身觀法 (Fǎshēn guān fǎ) — Method of contemplating the dharma-body
  7. 十方諸佛觀法 (Shífāng zhūfó guān fǎ) — Method of contemplating the buddhas of the ten directions
  8. 觀無量壽佛法 (Guān Wúliángshòufó fǎ) — Method of contemplating the Buddha Amitāyus
  9. 諸法實相觀法 (Zhūfǎ shíxiàng guān fǎ) — Method of contemplating the true marks of all dharmas
  10. 法華三昧觀法 (Fǎhuá sānmèi guān fǎ) — Method of the Lotus samādhi contemplation

Abstract

The text is unanimously ascribed in the Sino-Buddhist catalogs ([[KR6r0011|Lìdài sānbǎo jì]] 6, [[KR6s0093|Kāiyuán]] 4) to Kumārajīva, with no preface preserved. Date bracket follows the Cháng’ān period (401–413). The presence of the Amitāyus chapter and the Lotus samādhi chapter has long been considered evidence that the text is at least in part the product of redaction in Kumārajīva’s circle, drawing on Mahāyāna bhakti and visualization material that was foreign to the older Sarvāstivāda yoga; Yamabe (1999) has argued that these chapters are integral to a conscious project to bridge the early kasiṇa/aśubha tradition with Mahāyāna buddhānusmṛti. The 觀無量壽佛法 chapter is among the earliest Chinese sources for the visualization of Amitāyus and an important antecedent of the later Pure Land [[KR6f0071|Guān Wúliángshòu jīng]] (T365).

Translations and research

  • Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. The Sūtra on the Ocean-Like Samādhi of the Visualization of the Buddha. PhD dissertation, Yale University, 1999.
  • Sueki, Fumihiko. Bukkyō no shisō studies (various).
  • Greene, Eric M. Chan Before Chan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2021.

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