Lèngyán jīng jíjié 楞嚴經擊節
Striking the Beat on the Śūraṃgamasūtra by 大韶 (撰)
About the work
A short single-fascicle (1卷) Chán-flavored topical commentary on the Śūraṃgamasūtra (KR6j0118) by Qiānsōng Dàsháo 千松大韶 大韶 of the Qiānsōng Chányuàn 千松禪院 on Biànshān 弁山 in Húzhōu 湖州 (modern northern Zhèjiāng). The title Jíjié 擊節 (“striking the beat”, a musical metaphor for marking the principal points of a recital) signals a selective, highlight-focused reading rather than a full lemma-by-lemma commentary. Preserved as X14 no. 292 in the Xùzàngjīng.
Prefaces
The author’s self-preface (Lèngyán jīng jíjié zìxù 楞嚴經擊節自序) opens in Dàsháo’s characteristic Chán-rhetorical mode: “Shìjiā lǎozǐ (Old-man Śākya), bōnòng chúnshé (turning-and-tossing his lips and tongue), forty-nine years, transversal speaking, vertical speaking, manifest speaking, secret speaking, hundred-fold tricks — all are the lasso-trap by which to play with people. Thousand kinds of pincer-hammers — none other than the household-style for forging steel-and-iron. Causing people to be jammed-stuck within the chest, vomiting and not finishing — all becoming medicine-and-disease. If one is of the upper-faculty sharp-wisdom, one must split open the lasso-trap, beat-and-break the doubt-mass, from one’s own chest let it pour-forth one-by-one, abandoning the old and opening the new, beginning of itself as cover-of-heaven cover-of-earth. Generally in viewing the [Buddha’s] teaching, one must achieve real-genuine gōngfū arrived-at-home — and only-then has real-genuine reception-and-use. Cān (investigation) must be real cān; wù (awakening) must be real wù. The zōngshèng (lineage-vehicle) and the teaching-words must obtain the Tathāgata’s true purport. Do not adhere to the text, meet [only] the meaning; do not follow words, give-rise to interpretations. Directly penetrate the quánzhǐ (instruction-pointer) purport, contractually meet the original mind. The wisdom-of-no-master arrives-before; the tiānzhēn (heavenly-truth) Way is not obscured.” (釋迦老子。播弄唇舌。四十九年。橫說竪說。顯說密說。百般伎倆。皆是弄人的圈套。千樣鉗鎚。無非鍊鋼鐵的家風。令人塞在胸中。嘔吐不了。皆成藥病。若是上根利智。必須裂開圈套。撲破疑團。從自巳胸襟。一一流出。棄其舊而開其新。始自蓋天蓋地。大凡看教。須得真實工夫到家。自有真實受用。參須實參。悟須實悟。宗乘教語。必得如來真旨。莫執文會義。隨語生解。直透詮旨。契會本心。無師之智現前。天真之道不昧).
Abstract
The Jíjié is a short, sharp Chán-style intervention in the late-Wànlì Lèngyán commentarial conversation, oriented to mind-cultivation rather than philological-doctrinal exegesis. Dàsháo, who was an active Chán teacher in the Húzhōu Chán-circle (the network connected to Mìyún Yuánwù 密雲圓悟 and the Tiāntóng Línjì revival), offers a reading of the Lèngyán that treats it as a Dharma-seal for direct mind-pointing rather than as a doctrinal text — in keeping with his broader exegetical corpus (the Qiānsōng bǐjì 千松筆記 KR6q0173 and the Jīngāng jīng zhèngyǎn 金剛經正眼 X25n0477).
The dating bracket is set to 1573 – 1620, the late Wànlì era to which Dàsháo’s productive teaching career belongs. His own lifedates are unrecorded.
Translations and research
- Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China (Oxford UP, 2008) — discusses the late-Wànlì Chán milieu in which Dàsháo’s project belongs.
- No complete Western-language translation of the Jíjié located.