Yúnmén Kuāngzhēn chánshī guǎnglù 雲門匡真禪師廣錄
Extensive Records of Chán Master Kuāngzhēn of Yúnmén
recorded sayings, dialogue-precedents, and biographical material of the late-Táng / Five-Dynasties master Yúnmén Wényǎn 雲門文偃 (864–949), founder of the Yúnmén 雲門 house of Chán; compiled (jí 集) by his disciple 守堅 Shǒujiān (Míngshí dàshī 明識大師, cìzǐ 賜紫), with the biographical xínglù 行錄 supplied by the Jíxiándiàn 集賢殿 official 雷岳 Léi Yuè in 949 and the appended Sòng Yúnmén sān jù yǔ 頌雲門三句語 by Yúnmén’s disciple 緣密 Yuánmì (Déshān Yuánmíng dàshī 德山圓明大師); collated and newly printed by 蘇澥 Sū Xiè in 1076
About the work
The standard three-juan guǎnglù 廣錄 for Yúnmén Wényǎn, founder of the Yúnménzōng 雲門宗, one of the Five Houses of Chán. Taishō T47 n1988. The work is a composite of five originally-independent materials assembled into three juan: the duìjī 對機 320 items (juan 1), chuídài 垂代 290 items (juan 2), kānbiàn 勘辨 165 items and the xínglù 行錄 plus qǐng shū 請疏 (juan 3), closed by Yuánmì’s Sòng Yúnmén sān jù yǔ (verse-commentary on Yúnmén’s “three phrases”). This is a primary source for Chán dialogic exegesis in the last century before Sòng editorial standardisation; the kānbiàn juan in particular is a precursor to the later gōng’àn 公案 collections. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted.
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. In place of a tíyào the work carries a Sū Xiè 蘇澥 preface dated Xīníng 9 bǐngchén (熙寧丙辰) = 1076, 3.25. Sū Xiè (1039–1094), at the time quán fāqiǎn liǎngZhè zhuǎnyùn fùshǐ 權發遣兩浙轉運副使, sets out the work’s editorial history:
“Of the lamps of the patriarchs over these several hundred years, those whose teaching has flourished throughout the realm are but a handful. Master Yúnmén stands at the very head of them — his grip and his release, his unfolding and his rolling up, his shifts and his transformations: opening the rivers and seas so that fish and dragons have room to swim; holding fast to heaven and earth so that ghosts and spirits have no road to flee … The texts transmitted in the world — the Duìjī shì lù 對機室錄, the Chuídài 垂代, the Kānbiàn 勘辨, the Xínglù 行錄 — through long years have acquired errors; I have now collated them and corrected them and had them newly cut on blocks, that they may be permanently transmitted. To set out lineages and divide schools would be to go along with the very error, error compounding error; to rank merits and record virtues would already be to bury the previous worthies; to sketch forms and raise models would be just enough to paste the eyes of later students shut. If above your brow there is an eye, where will you go to meet Yúnmén?”
The title-page credit immediately after the preface reads ménrén Míngshí dàshī cìzǐ Shǒujiān jí 門人明識大師賜紫守堅集 (“compiled by the disciple, the Great Master of Clear Discernment, purple-robed, Shǒujiān”). Each of the three juan carries the same credit.
Abstract
The text has three compositional layers. (1) The primary compilation — duìjī 320, chuídài 290, kānbiàn 165 — was assembled by Yúnmén’s direct disciple 守堅 Shǒujiān at some point in the generation after Yúnmén’s 949 death. DILA A000360 gives 守堅 as Northern Sòng (北宋) and attributes both the Guǎnglù (T47 n1988) and the shorter Yúnmén Kuāngzhēn chánshī yǔlù (JB138) to him. (2) The Yúnmén shān Guāngtài chányuàn Kuāngzhēn dàshī xínglù 雲門山光泰禪院匡真大師行錄 in juan 3 is signed by Léi Yuè 雷岳 of the Southern Hàn Jíxiándiàn 集賢殿, dated Qiánhé 7 jǐyǒu (乾和七年己酉) mid-summer, 25th day = 949, within three months of Yúnmén’s death on Qiánhé 7.4.10 (949 May 10). Léi’s xínglù preserves the earliest external biography of Yúnmén, including the awakening precedent under Mùzhōu Dàozōng 睦州道蹤 (“Qín shí luò lì zuān 秦時𨍏轢鑽”), transmission to Xuěfēng Yìcún 雪峯義存, inheritance of the Língshù 靈樹 abbacy from 知聖 Zhīshèng chánshī 知聖禪師 under the dramatic secret-letter episode in which Zhīshèng summoned Yúnmén three days before his own death and left a sealed note for the Emperor (Southern Hàn) naming Yúnmén his successor, the foundation of the Guāngtài chányuàn 光泰禪院 on Yúnmén shān, and the posthumous title Dà cíyún Kuāngzhēn Hóngmíng chánshī 大慈雲匡真弘明禪師 conferred seventeen years after Yúnmén’s death upon the recovery of his incorrupt body at the 965/966 tomb-opening initiated by 李托 Lǐ Tuō. The xínglù is followed by the original qǐng shū 請疏 (request-edict) of 何希範 Hé Xīfàn, prefect of Sháozhōu, inviting Yúnmén to take the Língshù abbacy. (3) A short supplementary appendix at the end of juan 3, Sòng Yúnmén sān jù yǔ (bìng yú sòng bā shǒu) 頌雲門三句語（并餘頌八首）, is by Déshān Yuánmíng dàshī Yuánmì 德山圓明大師緣密 (DILA A009492), one of Yúnmén’s eighty-eight recorded dharma-heirs; Yuánmì later held the Déshān 德山 abbacy. This short appendix is a verse reformulation of Yúnmén’s celebrated “three-phrase” formula (hángài qiánkūn 函蓋乾坤 / jié duàn zhòng liú 截斷眾流 / suí bō zhú làng 隨波逐浪), which subsequently became the doctrinal signature of the Yúnmén house.
The received text is Sū Xiè’s 1076 kānzhèng 刊正 (“collated correction”) printing, which he describes as a single xīn lòubǎn 新鏤板 incorporating multiple prior circulating versions whose xínglù in particular had become corrupt. No pre-1076 edition survives, and the textual tradition that survives from the Xuěfēng–Yúnmén milieu has come down almost entirely through this Sū Xiè recension.
Dating bracket: notBefore 949 (Léi Yuè’s xínglù, our earliest dated component); notAfter 1076 (Sū Xiè’s published recension, which stabilises the three-juan form as received). The bulk of Shǒujiān’s primary compilation should be dated to the late tenth or early eleventh century on the basis of his “Northern Sòng” DILA classification and his intermediate position between Yúnmén and Sū Xiè.
Translations and research
- Urs App. 1994. Master Yunmen: From the Record of the Chan Master “Gate of the Clouds”. Kodansha International / Wisdom. The standard partial English translation, with extensive scholarly apparatus on Yúnmén’s teaching, the sān jù formula, and the textual history of the Guǎnglù.
- Urs App. 1989. “Ch’an/Zen’s Greatest Encyclopaedist Mujaku Dōchū 無著道忠 (1653–1744).” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 3: 155–187. Discusses Mujaku’s Japanese annotated edition.
- Urs App. 1989 (diss.). Facets of the Life and Teaching of Chan Master Yunmen Wenyan (864–949). Temple University.
- 若新雄純 (ed.). 1978. 《雲門匡真禪師廣錄》. 東京：春秋社 (annotated Japanese reading edition).
- Welter, Albert. 2006. Monks, Rulers, and Literati: The Political Ascendancy of Chan Buddhism. Oxford. Chapter on the Southern Hàn court / Yúnmén relationship, drawing on Léi Yuè’s xínglù.
- Welter, Albert. 2008. The Linji Lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy. Oxford. Extended comparative discussion of the yǔlù genre in the Yúnmén and Línjì traditions.
- Poceski, Mario. 2015. “The Records of Mazu and the Making of Classical Chan Literature.” The Journal of Chinese Religions 43.2: 234–259. Methodological frame for reading Five-Dynasties yǔlù like the Yúnmén guǎnglù.
- Ishii Shūdō 石井修道 1987. Sōdai zenshūshi no kenkyū 宋代禪宗史の研究. Daitō shuppansha. Detailed treatment of the Shǒujiān / Sū Xiè editorial layering.
Other points of interest
Yúnmén’s sān jù yǔ 三句語 (hángài qiánkūn 函蓋乾坤 — “lid-and-box covering heaven and earth”; jié duàn zhòng liú 截斷眾流 — “cutting off the myriad streams”; suí bō zhú làng 隨波逐浪 — “following the wave, chasing the breaker”) — preserved here in Yuánmì’s verse appendix — became the paradigmatic three-fold schematic of late-classical Chán pedagogy and is the direct model for the Línjì-side sì liào jiǎn 四料揀 and sì bīn zhǔ 四賓主 formulas as canonised in the later Rénjiān lù editorial projects.
The Léi Yuè xínglù’s account of Yúnmén’s posthumous title and the seventeen-years-later incorrupt-body discovery at the tomb-opening — in which a dream-summons carried to the Southern Hàn xiùhuá gōngshǐ tèjìn Lǐ Tuō 李托 prompts an imperial order to open the tomb, and Yúnmén’s body is reported as intact with hair and moustache still growing — is among the earliest Chinese Chán hagiographic uses of the incorrupt-body topos, a genre-defining feature for the later recorded sayings of Huìnéng, Wúxiàng, and others.