Jìngtǔ shēng wúshēng lùn 淨土生無生論
Treatise on Birth-as-Non-Birth in the Pure Land by 傳燈 (Yōuxī Chuándēng, 撰)
About the work
A short single-juǎn doctrinal treatise — the foundational late-Míng Tiāntái-Pure Land treatise — composed by 傳燈 Yōuxī Chuándēng 幽溪傳燈 (1554–1628) at Gāo-míng-sì 高明寺 on Mount Tiāntái 天台山, the institutional seat of the Tiāntái patriarchate that Chuándēng revived in the late sixteenth century. The work systematically translates the central Tiāntái doctrinal schema — the inseparability of birth and non-birth (shēng jí wú-shēng 生即無生) — into Pure Land devotional terms, demonstrating that rebirth in Sukhāvatī is doctrinally identical to the realization of non-birth taught in the Mahāyāna prajñāpāramitā tradition.
Abstract
Chuándēng frames the central paradox of Pure Land devotion: the canonical sūtras teach rebirth (shēng 生) into Amitābha’s Pure Land, while the prajñāpāramitā literature teaches non-birth (wú-shēng 無生 / anutpāda) — the realization that no dharma is ultimately produced or destroyed. Chán-side critics had long argued that these two doctrines are in tension, and that Pure Land devotion is therefore a doctrinally inferior practice that must be transcended. Chuándēng’s response — drawing on the Tiāntái doctrine of the three contemplations (kōng-jiǎ-zhōng 空假中) and the one mind containing three thousand (yī niàn sān qiān 一念三千) — is that birth and non-birth are non-dual: rebirth in the Pure Land is not in tension with non-birth but is its concrete realization in the jiǎ 假 (provisional / phenomenal) and zhōng 中 (mean) registers, while remaining identical to non-birth in the kōng 空 (empty) register.
The treatise is structured as ten doctrinal theses, each followed by extensive proof-texts and analysis. The argument proceeds: (1) the Pure Land of zhēnrú 真如 (Suchness) is one with the Pure Land of provisional manifestation; (2) the mind that contemplates is one with the Pure Land that is contemplated; (3) the one mind contains the four lands (sìtǔ); (4) the moment of niànfó is the moment of yī niàn sān qiān; and so on. The result is a fully integrated Tiāntái-Pure Land doctrinal system in which Pure Land devotion is shown to be coextensive with the highest Mahāyāna meditative achievement.
The treatise is the principal late-imperial monument of Tiāntái Pure Land scholasticism and was widely commented upon: see KR6p0070 正寂 Zhèngjì’s Zhù 註, KR6p0071 受教 Shòujiào’s Qīnwén jì 親聞記, KR6p0088 達默 Dámò’s Huìjí 會集, and KR6p0087 實賢 Shíxián’s Zhù. Chuándēng’s principal disciple 智旭 Ǒuyì Zhìxù (1599–1655) — one of the Four Great Monks of the Late Míng — extended the analysis in his own Pure Land writings.
The Taishō text (T47N1975) is the standard recension. No preface fixes the composition date precisely; the bracket adopted (1610–1620) covers Chuándēng’s mature period at Gāomíngsì, after his establishment there in Wànlì 15 (1587) and before his death in Chóngzhēn 1 (1628).
Translations and research
- Yü, Chün-fang. The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981 — frames Chuándēng in the late-Míng Buddhist revival.
- Shengyan 聖嚴 (Sheng Yen). Míng-mò Zhōngguó Fójiào zhī yán-jiū 明末中國佛教之研究. Taipei: Dōng-chū chū-bǎn-shè, 1987 (Chinese trans. of his Tokyo doctoral dissertation, 1975) — chapters on Chuándēng and the late-Míng Tiāntái revival.
- Andō Toshio 安藤俊雄. Tendai shisō shi 天台思想史. Kyoto: Hōzōkan — for the underlying Tiāntái doctrine.
- Itō Yuijō 伊藤唯眞. Jōdokyō no kenkyū 淨土教の研究. Kyoto: Hōzōkan, 1994 — Pure Land doctrinal context.
Other points of interest
The Shēng wúshēng lùn spawned a substantial commentarial tradition that runs through the entire late-Míng and Qīng — three of the Pure Land texts in this very catalog division (KR6p0070, KR6p0071, KR6p0087, KR6p0088) are direct commentaries on Chuándēng’s Lùn, an unusually high concentration of commentarial activity for a single one-juǎn treatise.