Chèwù chánshī yǔlù 徹悟禪師語錄
Recorded Sayings of Chán Master Chè-wù by 了亮 (et al., 等集)
About the work
A two-juǎn yǔlù 語錄 (“recorded-sayings”) collection of the late-Qīng Pure Land patriarch Chèwù Jìxǐng 徹悟際醒 (1741–1810) — conventionally enumerated as the Twelfth Patriarch (shí’èrzǔ 十二祖) of the orthodox Chinese Pure Land lineage. Compiled by his disciple 了亮 together with Sōngquán 松泉 and other dharma-heirs from manuscript drafts and oral teachings preserved during Chèwù’s tenure at Guǎngtōngsì 廣通寺, Juéshēngsì 覺生寺, and Zīfúsì 資福寺 in the Beijing region. The collection is the principal documentary record of Chèwù’s mature integrative Chán-Pure Land teaching and is the chief textual basis for his enduring stature in the late-imperial jìngtǔ tradition.
Abstract
The text opens with three prefaces: a 序 by the lay disciple Chéng-ān 誠安, Chè-wù’s own 自序 dated Jiā-qìng gēng-wǔ 嘉慶庚午 (1810), and a Niàn-fó qié-tuó xù 念佛伽陀序 by the disciple Xīn-yǔ 心雨 dated Jiā-qìng bǐng-chén 嘉慶丙辰 (1796). The body is divided across two juǎn: the upper juǎn contains shì-zhòng 示眾 (instructions to the assembly) and pǔ-shuō 普說 (public sermons); the lower juǎn gathers zá-zhù 雜著 (miscellaneous treatises) including the Bō-rě jìng-tǔ liǎng-mén dà-yì 般若淨土兩門大義 (Cardinal Meaning of the Twin Gates of Prajñā and Pure Land), the Xī-yǒu jiě 西有解 (Exegesis on the Western Existence), short essays on the Huá-yán 華嚴, Léng-yán 楞嚴, and Jīn-gāng 金剛 sūtras, and the niàn-fó qié-tuó 念佛伽陀 — a series of doctrinal gāthās of one hundred verses each, intended for chanted instructional use.
In his autobiographical 自序 Chèwù records that he became abbot of Guǎngtōngsì 廣通寺 in Qiánlóng guǐsì 乾隆癸巳 (1773), led Chán practice there for fifteen years, then in dīngmǎo (= Qiánlóng dīngwèi 1787, the zìxù gives 丁卯 — 1747 by sexagenary count, evidently meaning Qiánlóng dīngwèi 1787 in his life chronology) turned definitively from cānchán to niànfó practice on account of physical illness and reflection on the precedent of Mǎmíng 馬鳴, Lóngshù 龍樹, Zhìzhě 智者, 延壽 Yánshòu, 楚石 Chǔshí, and 袾宏 Liánchí Zhūhóng. He destroyed his earlier Chán manuscripts; some of the yǔlù materials gathered here were rescued by disciples from the burning. The text thus self-consciously documents Chèwù’s transition from a Chán teacher of the Línjì 臨濟 tradition to the integrative Chán-Pure Land jiàozhǔ 教主 of the early-nineteenth-century Beijing region. The work was first published in the Jiāqìng 嘉慶 era at the urging of the lay disciple Lǐ Féngchūn 李逢春 and is preserved in the Xùzàngjīng 卍續藏 as X1182.
The dating bracket adopted (1796–1820) covers from the earliest preface (1796) through the standard Jiā-qìng-era printings of the yǔlù.
Translations and research
- Jones, Charles B. Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2019 — extensive treatment of Chè-wù’s place in the late-Qīng Pure Land synthesis.
- Sharf, Robert H. “On Pure Land Buddhism and Ch’an / Pure Land Syncretism in Medieval China.” T’oung Pao 88 (2002): 282–331.
- Yü, Chün-fang. The Renewal of Buddhism in China. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981.
Other points of interest
Chèwù is the immediate doctrinal forerunner of the great Republican-era Pure Land master Yìnguāng 印光 (1861–1940), and the Yǔlù — together with the Niànfó qiétuó — has remained continuously in print and use within Chinese Pure Land circles from its Jiā-qìng-era publication through the Republican period to the present day.