Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn zhíjiě 百法明門論直解
Direct Explanation of the Hundred-Dharmas Treatise by 智旭 (Ǒuyì Zhìxù, 解)
About the work
A single-fascicle late-Míng commentary on Vasubandhu’s KR6n0096 Dàshèng bǎifǎ míngmén lùn 大乘百法明門論 by 智旭 Ǒuyì Zhìxù (1599–1655), one of the Wǎn-Míng sì dà gāosēng 晚明四大高僧 (“Four Great Late-Míng Masters”). Preserved in the Manji Xuzangjing 卍續藏 at X48n0805. Part of Zhìxù’s larger doctrinal-integration project that also includes the Zhōu yì Chán jiě 周易禪解 (a Chán reading of the Yìjīng) and the Wéishí xīn yào 唯識心要 (a Tiāntái-Yogācāra synthesis).
Prefaces
The text opens directly with the authorship line — “Tiānqīn púsà 天親菩薩 造 / Sānzàng fǎshī Xuánzàng 三藏法師玄奘 譯 / Ǒuyì shāmén 蕅益沙門 Zhìxù 解” — and then enters straight into the zhíjiě (direct explanation) without a separate preface. The opening commentary is doctrinally programmatic: the title Bǎifǎ míngmén is glossed by contrast with the Hīnayāna seventy-five-dharma scheme — the seventy-five Sarvāstivāda dharmas establish only the no-self of the pudgala but still posit “real dharmas outside the mind” (xīnwài shífǎ 心外實法), whereas the Mahāyāna hundred-dharma scheme establishes that all of these dharmas “do not exist apart from consciousness” (bùlí shì 不離識), so that one penetrates the èr kōng 二空 (twofold emptiness — of self and of dharmas) through any one of them, and each is therefore a “gate to the Mahāyāna realisation” (dàshèng zhènglǐ zhī mén 大乘證理之門).
Abstract
The Zhíjiě is the standard late-Míng integrative reading of the Bǎifǎ míngmén lùn — concise, doctrinally compact, and consistently tied back to the èr kōng (twofold emptiness) framework. It complements the parallel didactic Yogācāra commentaries Zhìxù produced on the standard Cí’ēn introductory texts: KR6n0115 Guānsuǒyuányuán lùn zhíjiě 觀所緣緣論直解, KR6n0117 Guānsuǒyuányuán lùn shì zhíjiě 觀所緣緣論釋直解, KR6n0137 Bā shí guījǔ zhíjiě 八識規矩直解, and KR6n0145 Xiàngzōng bā yào zhíjiě 相宗八要直解. Together these form a compact “zhíjiě” set covering the core late-Míng Yogācāra curriculum.
Where Míngyù’s KR6n0105 Zhuìyán presents itself as a sub-commentary nested inside Kuījī, and Hānshān’s KR6n0103 Lùnyì re-reads the text in xìngxiàng tōngshuō terms, Zhìxù’s Zhíjiě is a Tiāntái-flavoured direct exposition: the bǎifǎ are read as a heuristic ladder for penetrating the twofold emptiness, with the ultimate target being the integrative Tiāntái-Yogācāra reading developed in Zhìxù’s larger wéishí corpus. Dating window 1630–1655 brackets Zhìxù’s productive decades after his major doctrinal turn around 1631.
Translations and research
- Shèng-yán 聖嚴, Míng-mò Fó-jiào yán-jiū 明末佛教研究 (1975, repr. Taipei: Dōngchū, 1987), with extensive treatment of Zhìxù’s Yogācāra works.
- Beverley Foulks McGuire, Living Karma: The Religious Practices of Ouyi Zhixu (1599–1655). Columbia University Press, 2014.
- Yoshimura Makoto 吉村誠, Chūgoku Yuishiki shisōshi kenkyū 中国唯識思想史研究. Tokyo: Daizō shuppan, 2013.