Wù bù qiān lùn biànjiě 物不遷論辯解
Disputational Exposition of “Things Do Not Shift” by 真界 (Zhēnjiè, 解)
About the work
A single-fascicle late-Ming exposition of Sēngzhào’s Wù bù qiān lùn 物不遷論 (the second treatise of the Zhàolùn, KR6m0038 T1858) by Zhēnjiè 真界 of Huànjūjiè 幻居界. X880 is the third of the three principal late-Ming texts of the “Wù bù qiān controversy” (cf. KR6m0047 X878 by 道衡 and KR6m0048 X879 by 鎮澄) and offers a mediating position that defends Sēngzhào against Zhènchéng’s critique while acknowledging the legitimate doctrinal concerns Zhènchéng raised.
Structural Division
CANWWW does not list this Xù zàngjīng witness; no structural-division block is given.
Abstract
X880 opens with a programmatic gnomic verse: “The ordinary person, in the not-shifting, sees flowing-and-moving; / the wise person, in the flowing-and-moving, sees the not-shifting. / Therefore it is said: ‘what others call moving — because past things do not reach the present; / what I call still — also because past things do not reach the present’. / But others rebut this, saying that Master Zhào established ‘past has it, present does not’ and so taught annihilation. / This is greatly mistaken. I have made for him a verse: / ‘past abides in the past — past does not come to the present; / present abides in the present — present does not return to the past; / present is neither return nor coming.’ / By this know that dharma-marks abide constantly. Some grasp the medicine and become ill — like the man who carved the boat to mark where his sword had fallen — sadly unwise indeed.” 常人即不遷見流動，智者即流動見不遷…
The verse is one of the more elegant late-Ming Mādhyamaka gāthā-expositions, and the body of the work develops its content into a sustained doctrinal-philosophical defense of the Wù bù qiān doctrine that mediates between the Sēngzhào (defended by 道衡) and the Zhènchéng positions. Zhēnjiè’s argument is that the bù qiān doctrine and the xìngkōng doctrine are not in conflict — both express the doctrine that “dharma-marks abide constantly” (法相常住), each from a different angle. Zhènchéng’s critique mistakes the medicine for the disease (zhí yào chéng bìng 執藥成病): in correcting one possible misreading of bù qiān as substantialism, Zhènchéng has overshot and committed himself to an opposite unsustainable position.
The work was printed and circulated as the irenic resolution of the late-Ming Wù bù qiān controversy and became one of the principal late-Ming Buddhist doctrinal-philosophical treatises.
Translations and research
- Hsu Sung-peng. A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and Thought of Han-Shan Te-Ch’ing. Penn State University Press, 1979.
- Tsukamoto Zenryū 塚本善隆, ed. Jōron kenkyū 肇論研究. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1955.
- Cheng, Hsueh-li. “The ‘Wu Pu Ch’ien Lun’ Controversy in Late Ming Buddhism.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 8 (1981): 451–478.
- Iwaki Hideo 岩城秀夫. “Bū fu sen ron ronsō no kenkyū” 物不遷論論爭の研究. Tōhō shūkyō, various years.
Other points of interest
The opening verse of X880 — “Past abides in past; past does not come to the present. / Present abides in the present; present does not return to the past. / Present is neither return nor coming. / By this know that dharma-marks abide constantly.” 昔自在昔。昔非來今。自在今。今不往昔。今非往亦非來。以是知法相常住. — is one of the most-quoted late-Ming Mādhyamaka gāthās and was incorporated into Tibet-bound late-Ming Buddhist anthologies as an example of mature Chinese Mādhyamaka exposition.