Ēmítuó jīng yǐjué 阿彌陀經已決
Already-Resolved [Doubts] on the Smaller Amitābha-sūtra by 大慧 (Běichán Liàngxū Dàhuì, 釋)
About the work
A late-Míng one-juǎn commentary on the Smaller Amitābhasūtra by the Sūzhōu Línjì-school monk 大慧 Liàngxū Dàhuì 量虛大慧 of Běichánsì 北禪寺 (also called Jìngtǔ yǐjué 淨土已訣). The genre title yǐjué 已決 (“already resolved”) indicates the late-Míng polemical context: Dàhuì frames the work as definitively resolving the doctrinal questions about Pure Land devotion that had dominated the post-Zhūhóng generation. The author’s preface signals strong Chán-school allegiances: he identifies as a disciple of Sānfēng 三峰 (Hànyuè Fǎzàng 漢月法藏, 1573–1635, founder of the controversial Sānfēng faction of the late-Wàn-lì Línjì revival), and writes in the yǔlù 語錄 mode familiar from Chán literature.
Abstract
The Yǐjué is a late-Míng Chán/Pure Land synthetic work characteristic of the Sānfēng circle’s distinctive position. The author’s preface frames the central doctrinal claim with a meteorological analogy: just as moonlight is properly reflected in still rather than in agitated water, the Pure Land is properly perceived in a settled rather than a deluded mind — the doctrine of wěixīn jìngtǔ 唯心淨土 (“Pure Land of mind-only”), which Dàhuì reads through the Chán doctrine of jiànxìng 見性. The Pure Land is at once the actualised cognitive form of one’s own mind (Chán reading) and a manifest realm onto which the practitioner is reborn (Pure Land reading); the apparent paradox dissolves once one recognises that the latter is the natural unfolding of the former. The doctrine is consistent with 袾宏 Yúnqī Zhūhóng’s synthetic Pure Land position from the Shūchāo KR6p0019 but is grounded more thoroughly in Chán contemplative method.
The dating bracket adopted (c. 1635–1644) reflects the preface’s reference to Sānfēng as 先師 (“former / late teacher”), placing the Yǐjué after Hànyuè Fǎzàng’s death in 1635, and the late-Míng terminus before the dynastic transition.
Translations and research
- Yu Chün-fang. The Renewal of Buddhism in China. Columbia UP, 1981 — for the late-Míng synthesis context.
- Wú Jiāng 吳疆 (Jiang Wu). Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China. Oxford UP, 2008 — for the Sānfēng circle and its doctrinal commitments.