Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn lùnyì 百法明門論論義
Doctrinal Exposition of the Hundred-Dharmas Treatise by 德清 (Hānshān Déqīng, 述)
About the work
A single-fascicle Yogācāra commentary by 德清 Hānshān Déqīng (1546–1623) on Vasubandhu’s KR6n0096 Dàshèng bǎifǎ míngmén lùn 大乘百法明門論 (T31n1614, in 玄奘’s translation). One of Hānshān’s central late-Míng Yogācāra works and one of the earliest sustained re-engagements with the Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn in the late-Míng Cí’ēn revival. Preserved in the Manji Xuzangjing 卍續藏 at X48n0802.
Prefaces
The work opens with a programmatic prologue in Hānshān’s own voice (signed “明憨山沙門 德清 述”) laying out the same ecumenical xìngxiàng programme as his KR6n0102 Xìngxiàng tōngshuō: the entire Buddhist canon teaches only that “the three realms are mind-only and the myriad dharmas are consciousness-only” (sānjiè wéixīn, wànfǎ wéishì 三界唯心，萬法唯識); after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa, expositors split the doctrine into a xìngzōng 性宗 (Nature-school, founded on wéixīn) and a xiàngzōng 相宗 (Characteristics-school, founded on wéishì) which became mutually antagonistic. Aśvaghoṣa’s Qǐxìn lùn 起信論 is then invoked as the canonical reconciliation: the One Mind (yī xīn 一心) divides into the zhēnrúmén 真如門 (Suchness Gate) showing the unbenighted essence and the shēngmièmén 生滅門 (Production-and-Cessation Gate) showing the defiled / pure phenomenal play; all sage-vs-ordinary distinctions belong to the latter, so the entirety of the Cí’ēn wéishí analysis is to be read as a fine-grained articulation of the shēngmièmén. The Bodhidharma Chán transmission then “directly points at the One Mind” without going through the shēngmiè analytic, but for those who do go through it, the Yogācāra “ten suchnesses” (shízhǒng zhēnrú 十種真如) are precisely the suchness that arises in correlation with the production-and-cessation gate. The point of the commentary is therefore to bring the Yogācāra hundred-dharma analysis back to the One Mind as its destination — preventing both the Chán practitioner from dispensing-without-diagnosis and the Cí’ēn scholar from “playing word-games on names and characteristics” without grasping the soteriological intent.
Abstract
Within the late-Míng Yogācāra revival the Lùnyì is one of the principal “Chán reading” of the Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn — that is, a commentary that deliberately treats the Yogācāra catalog of dharmas not as a doctrinal end in itself but as an expository instrument for opening up the yīxīn doctrine of the Qǐxìn lùn. This positions Hānshān’s reading squarely against the more strictly Cí’ēn-philological commentaries of his contemporary 明昱 (e.g. KR6n0105) and student 廣益 (KR6n0104), and it is the platform from which his own disciple 智旭 (1599–1655) developed the further integrative reading of KR6n0106 Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn zhíjiě 百法明門論直解.
The dating window adopted (1597–1623) brackets Hānshān’s productive late period after his exile to Léizhōu through to his death; the work belongs to the same Wàn-lì-era project of re-establishing Yogācāra study that produced the Xìngxiàng tōngshuō preface and the Bā shí guījǔ tōngshuō (KR6n0135).
Translations and research
- Sung-peng Hsu, A Buddhist Leader in Ming China: The Life and Thought of Han-shan Te-ch’ing. Pennsylvania State University Press, 1979.
- Shèng-yán 聖嚴, Míng-mò Fó-jiào yán-jiū 明末佛教研究. Taipei: Dōngchū, 1987, esp. pp. 192–223 on the late-Míng Yogācāra commentaries.
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠, Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū 中国唯識思想史研究. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.