Lèngyán jīng héchè 楞嚴經合轍
Joint-Track Commentary on the Śūraṃgamasūtra by 通潤 (述)
About the work
A ten-fascicle (10卷) paired-track (héchè 合轍, “joining the wheel-tracks”) commentary on the Śūraṃgamasūtra (KR6j0118), as transmitted in conjunction with a parallel commentary on the Laṅkāvatārasūtra (T16 no. 670 / no. 671 / no. 672), by Yīyǔ Tōngrùn 一雨通潤 通潤 (1565 – 1624) of Dòngtíng Xīshān 洞庭西山 (Lake Tài, in the Sūzhōu region) — self-style Èrlèng zhǔrén 二楞主人 (“Master of the Two-Lèng [-sūtras]”), so named precisely from his combined Lèngqié + Lèngyán exegetical project. Preserved as X14 no. 289 in the Xùzàngjīng.
Prefaces
The work opens with the Lèngqié Lèngyán héchè xiǎoyǐn 楞伽楞嚴合轍小引 (“Brief introduction to the joint-track of the Laṅkāvatāra and Śūraṃgama”): “Those who discuss the xìngzōng 性宗 (‘nature school’) often fall into the lǐ 理 (principle) category-circle of classes; those who discuss the xiàngzōng 相宗 (‘characteristics school’) often fall into the shì 事 (phenomenal) category-circle of classes. They do not know that xiàng is just xìng; outside xìng there is no xiàng. As waves are just water; outside water there are no waves. Zhēnkōng miàoyǒu 真空妙有 (true-empty marvelous-being), lǐshì wú-ài 理事無礙 (principle-and-phenomenon unimpeded) — this is the bù-èr fǎmén 不二法門 (non-dual dharma-gate). The Laṅkāvatāra has those who treat it under the heading of xiàngzōng; yet Bodhidharma came west holding it as the transmission of the buddha-mind-seal — generally because the three realms are mind-only, the myriad dharmas are consciousness-only, and one need only understand that the storehouse-consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna) is the Tathāgatagarbha. Then one knows that what self-mind manifests as false phenomena are originally without self-nature, originally without birth — and one immediately attains the realm of self-awakened holy wisdom. This is the direct-pointing one-mind, not falling into stages, the great-vehicle’s sudden-teaching. As for the Śūraṃgama: it is the secret-cause attainment-of-meaning of the Tathāgata. Truly it can comprehensively encompass the various sūtras; what it points to as the six faculties and six sense-fields …” (夫談性宗者多落理圈繢談相宗者多落事圈繢不知相即是性性外無相如波即是水水外無波真空妙有理事無礙此不二法門也楞伽有以相宗目之者而達摩西來持此為傳佛心印葢以三界唯心萬法唯識但能了識藏即如來藏則知自心所現虗妄之相本無自性本自無生即得自覺聖智境界此直指一心不落階級為大乘頓教也若夫楞嚴為如來密因修證了義真可以總攝諸經其所指六根六塵 …).
Abstract
The Héchè programme is the most ambitious single late-Míng project to integrate the Laṅkāvatāra and Śūraṃgama into a unified Mahāyāna doctrinal-meditative reading, building on the conviction that the two sūtras’ apparent doctrinal divide (xiàngzōng / xìngzōng, Yogācāra / Tathāgatagarbha) is a surface phenomenon dissolved by recognizing the ālaya-vijñāna = Tathāgatagarbha identification. Tōngrùn’s distinctive doctrinal contribution is to read the Lèngyánjīng’s rúláizàng doctrine as the explicit Tathāgatagarbha articulation of what the Laṅkāvatāra teaches in its Yogācāra-coded terminology — and conversely, to read the Laṅkāvatāra’s ālaya doctrine as the Yogācāra-coded foundation of what the Lèngyán teaches in its Tathāgatagarbha-coded terminology.
The work occupies a distinctive position in the late-Wànlì commentarial network: it is the only major Wànlì-era Lèngyán commentary that explicitly programmatically engages with the Yogācāra revival of 袾宏’s and 智旭’s circles, while remaining structurally a Lèngyán commentary in the late-Wànlì reform tradition.
The dating bracket is set to 1600 – 1624, the productive period of Tōngrùn’s mature exegetical career on Mt. Dòngtíngshān ending at his death in late 1624.
Translations and research
- Florin Deleanu, The Chapter on the Mundane Path (Laukikamārga) in the Śrāvakabhūmi: A Trilingual Edition (Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2006) — for the Laṅkāvatāra’s Yogācāra context.
- Daniel Lusthaus, Buddhist Phenomenology: A Philosophical Investigation of Yogācāra Buddhism and the Ch’eng Wei-shih Lun (Routledge, 2002) — for the doctrinal background of late-Míng Yogācāra-revival commentary.
- No complete Western-language translation of the Héchè located.