Jīngāngdǐng zōng pútíxīn lùn kǒujué 金剛頂宗菩提心論口決
Oral Determinations on the Vajraśekhara-school Treatise on the Generation of the Awakening-Mind by 榮西 (Róngxī / Eisai, 記)
About the work
A one-fascicle oral-transmission record (kǒujué 口決) on KR6o0070 Jīngāngdǐng yújiā zhōng fā pútíxīn lùn (T32n1665), the Bodhicitta-utpāda Treatise attributed to Nāgārjuna 龍猛 in 不空 (Bùkōng / Amoghavajra)‘s Tang translation, recorded by 榮西 (Myōan Eisai, 1141–1215) during his Tendai-Esoteric (Taimitsu 台密) period before his definitive turn to Línjì-Zen 臨濟 transmission. Preserved in Taishō vol. 70 (no. 2293). The Japanese title is Kongōchōshū bodaishin-ron kuketsu.
Prefaces
The work opens with a notable confessional preface lamenting the spiritual decline of the age, characteristic of late-Heian Esoteric writing:
濁世澆末法凡心探佛智。特哀陵遲欲訪三國
觀夫三昧耶薩埵重禁。犯之墮斷頭之罪。陀羅尼覺王密語。行之越妄執之山。於是末葉受虛多犯制。愚矇不信少修行。或不諮本法於師。妄行軌則損悉地。或不請口決於師範偸學宗部侵大道矣。
“In a turbid age, in the mappō of the dregs, the ordinary mind probes the Buddha-wisdom. Particularly grieving over the decline, I wish to investigate the Three Lands (i.e., India, China, Japan). Contemplating: the heavy prohibitions of the Samaya-Sattva — to violate them is to fall under the offence of ‘decapitation’; the secret words of the dhāraṇī-Awakened Kings — to practise them is to cross the mountain of false attachment. In these latter days, recipients are vain, frequently violating the rules; the foolish and ignorant do not believe and rarely practise. Some do not inquire of the root-Dharma from a master, but wildly practise the rituals and damage the siddhi; some do not request kuketsu (oral transmission) from a master, but secretly study the school’s branches and trespass on the Great Path.” The signature reads “榮西記” (“recorded by Eisai”).
The opening then turns to the Bodaishin-ron itself: “菩提心論者龍猛大阿闍梨耶…” — “The Bodaishin-ron is composed by the great ācārya Nāgārjuna…”
Abstract
The Kǒujué is the principal documentary witness to Eisai’s pre-Sōng Tendai-Esoteric (Taimitsu) formation. Before his definitive turn to Línjì Zen — accomplished only after his second China trip of 1187 — Eisai was a leading Hieizan Esoteric scholar and founder of the Yōjōryū 葉上流 Taimitsu sub-lineage. The Kǒujué documents his teaching of the Bodaishin-ron during this period.
The work is structurally and rhetorically distinct from the Shingon commentaries of Saisen KR6o0073 and Kakuban KR6o0072: Eisai’s kǒujué format records the oral teaching of a Tendai-Esoteric master to his disciples, with the master’s authority asserted by his strict insistence on the necessity of formal initiation (the samaya-warning of the preface) rather than by his exhaustive engagement with the prior commentarial tradition. The Bodaishin-ron’s doctrines are presented as a path-instruction for the practitioner rather than as a scholastic problem.
Composition window: most plausibly Eisai’s first (1168) or pre-second China trip period — c. 1170–1187 — when he was active as a Hieizan Taimitsu teacher. A second possibility is between his return from Sòng in 1191 and his definitive turn to Rinzai Zen with the foundation of Kennin-ji in 1202; but the kemmitsu-orthodoxy of the Kǒujué points to the earlier period.
Translations and research
- Dumoulin, Heinrich. Zen Buddhism: A History, vol. 2: Japan. Bloomington: World Wisdom, 2005. — Treats Eisai’s Tendai-Esoteric background.
- Mizukami Bunji 水上文義. Taimitsu shisō no kenkyū 台密思想の研究. Tokyo: Sankibō, 2007.
- Bielefeldt, Carl. Dōgen’s Manuals of Zen Meditation. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. — Contains contextual material on the late-Heian Tendai-Esoteric milieu from which Eisai and Dōgen both emerged.
Other points of interest
The Kǒujué is one of the few surviving works documenting Eisai’s pre-Zen Esoteric scholarship in detail. The standard scholarly biography of Eisai (e.g., Furuta Shōkin’s Eisai) reconstructs his Tendai period largely through this work and a small handful of related texts. The Kǒujué’s strict samaya-discipline and mappō-eschatology document the doctrinal stance from which Eisai’s eventual turn to Línjì-Zen unfolded.
Links
- CBETA
- DILA Person Authority (Eisai): A001624
- Wikipedia (Eisai)