Bǎowáng sānmèi niànfó zhízhǐ 寶王三昧念佛直指
Direct Pointing to niàn-fó as the King-of-Jewels Samādhi by 妙叶 (Sìmíng Jìzhào Miàoxié, 集)
About the work
A two-juǎn doctrinal-meditative handbook composed in the early Míng by the Tiāntái-affiliated Pure Land monk 妙叶 Miàoxié (also written 妙葉, dharma-name Jìzhào 寂照) of Sìmíng 四明 (modern Níngbō). The author’s self-preface is dated 洪武 22 (1389), fixing the work in the early Hóngwǔ reign. Twenty-two thematic chapters, organised around the application of the Bǎowáng sānmèi 寶王三昧 (“King-of-Jewels samādhi”) meditative tradition to niànfó practice.
Abstract
The Bǎowáng sānmèi of the title is a Tiāntái meditative category (drawn ultimately from the Niànfó sānmèi bǎowáng lùn 念佛三昧寶王論 KR6p0035 of the Táng author Fēixí 飛錫): a comprehensive samādhi in which all forms of meditation — zhǐ 止 (calming) and guān 觀 (contemplation), xìng 性 (nature) and xiàng 相 (mark), shì 事 (event) and lǐ 理 (principle) — are integrated through the recollection of the Buddha. Miàoxié’s contribution is to present niànfó as itself the bǎowáng sānmèi, the comprehensive meditative practice that subsumes all other forms of Buddhist cultivation.
The twenty-two chapters cover doctrinal foundations (the canonical Pure Land sūtras; the four lands doctrine; the three contemplations applied to niànfó; the analysis of xīn 心 / mind in Pure Land practice), polemical defence (against Chán objections; against the partisans of wéixīn jìngtǔ 唯心淨土 who would dissolve external Pure Land practice; against those who would treat niànfó as a merely beginner’s expedient), and practical instruction (daily yíguǐ 儀軌; the regimen of the niànfó retreat; the deathbed practice of zhìniàn 至念).
The work’s intellectual orientation is firmly within the Tiāntái Pure Land tradition descending through 知禮 Sìmíng Zhīlǐ (960–1028) and the Sìmíng line — Miàoxié locates himself self-consciously in this lineage — but the ambition of the Zhízhǐ is broader: to present a synthetic Pure Land doctrinal program suitable for a unified late-Yuán / early-Míng Buddhist establishment. It became one of the standard Tiāntái-Pure Land doctrinal handbooks of the later Míng and is regularly cited in the Pure Land literature of the period, including 袾宏 Yúnqī Zhūhóng’s Ēmítuó jīng shūchāo KR6p0028 and the Jìngtǔ shíyào KR6p0067 anthology of 成時 Chéngshí.
The Taishō text (T47N1974) is collated against the Korean canon, an original (原), and the Jiāxīng 嘉興 canon variant.
Translations and research
- Ogasawara Senshū 小笠原宣秀. Chūgoku jōdokyō no kenkyū 中國淨土教の研究. Kyoto: Heirakuji, 1951 — discusses Miàoxié in the context of early-Míng Tiāntái Pure Land doctrine.
- Mochizuki Shinkō 望月信亨. Chūgoku jōdo kyōrishi 中國淨土教理史. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1942/1964 — for the development of the bǎo-wáng sān-mèi concept.
- Yü, Chün-fang. The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981 — touches on Miàoxié in connection with Yúnqī Zhūhóng’s later synthesis.