Míngjué chánshī yǔlù 明覺禪師語錄
Recorded Sayings of Chán Master Míngjué
recorded sayings, verse, and biographical materials of the Northern Sòng Yúnmén-school master Xuědòu Chóngxiǎn 雪竇重顯 (980–1052), shì 諡 Míngjué chánshī 明覺禪師, the author of the Sòng gǔ bǎi zé 頌古百則 that later formed the kernel of the Bìyán lù 碧巖錄 (KR6q0078); principally compiled (biān 編) by his disciple the cānxué xiǎoshī 參學小師 惟蓋竺 Wéigàizhú, with separate editorial layers by the disciples 圓應 Yuányīng (preface 1030) and 文政 Wénzhèng (preface 1032), closed by the Jíxiándiàn Shǐguǎn jiǎntǎo 呂夏卿 Lǚ Xiàqīng’s tǎmíng 塔銘 biography dated 1065
About the work
The standard six-juan yǔlù 語錄 for Xuědòu Chóngxiǎn, the leading Northern-Sòng Yúnmén-school master and the single most influential Chán verse-author of the eleventh century. Taishō T47 n1996. The work is an aggregation of materials originally circulating as seven distinct jí 集, per Lǚ Xiàqīng’s tǎmíng: Dòngtíng yǔlù 洞庭語錄 (sermons from the Sūzhōu Dòngtíng Cuìfēng 洞庭翠峯 abbacy), Xuědòu kāitáng lù 雪竇開堂錄 (Hall-opening discourses at Xuědòu Zīshèng sì), Pùquán jí 瀑泉集 (“Cataract Spring Collection” — encounter-dialogues), Zǔyīng jí 祖英集 (“Patriarchal Hero Collection” — verse and occasional writings, two juan), Sòng gǔ jí 頌古集 (the hundred verse-commentaries on precedent cases, here distributed across the juan-1–3 niāngǔ 拈古 material), Niāngǔ jí 拈古集, and Xuědòu hòulù 雪竇後錄. The received six-juan arrangement distributes these into: juan 1 (Dòngtíng + Xuědòu abbacies + niāngǔ); juan 2 (continuation + hòulù); juan 3 (more niāngǔ); juan 4 (Pùquán jí); juan 5–6 (Zǔyīng jí + biographical stele). Not a commentary; commentedTextid omitted.
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. The work carries three intra-textual editorial prefaces and one biographical stele in place of a tíyào.
Juan 4’s Pùquán jí preface (Tiānshèng 8 = 1030, 8.15) is signed by the cānxué xiǎoshī Yuányīng 圓應 and records Chóngxiǎn’s early editorial resistance: “the Master has abundant responsive dialogue-sayings from his two abbacies … this record however presents his chuídài zìdá 垂帶自答 [belt-draping self-responses], his comments on ancient and present precedents, his morning-and-evening instructions — around one-hundred-and-fifty items … the present volume I would call the Pùquán jí, its sense being ‘a cascading waterfall inexhaustible’ “. The Zǔyīng jí prefaces to juan 5 and 6 (Tiānshèng 10 = 1032 first month) are by the disciple Wénzhèng 文政 and are more elaborate: “the Master’s form and speech are something other than spring-white snow or deep-blue sky and clear wind; like the great jade that stays unworked for the sake of its Heaven-given genuineness, the most-accomplished utterance is plain of literary form and relies on the truth of its logic. Since his arrival at the Cuìfēng and Xuědòu abbacies, the Master has treated the utterances of the previous worthies, whose senses run deep and secret — by verse-commentary; and has composed stirred and occasional, dispatched and presented pieces — by occasion. I have collected these in a pouch, and one day assembled the whole to some two-hundred-and-twenty pieces, and drew it out for the Master. The Master said, ‘I composed these as moved — why preserve them in a single book? It is not permitted to transmit them.’ But we insisted that these were a thousand-year-fragrance of the patriarchs’ hall, not to be discarded lightly. Observing our sincerity he finally conceded against his will. Wénzhèng, fortunate to have attended his seat, dares thus to set forth this preface in order to record the year.” Both prefaces are hence from Chóngxiǎn’s lifetime, not posthumous — a point of textual-historical interest distinguishing this yǔlù from most of the Sòng gǔ 語錄 corpus.
The main compiler is the disciple 惟蓋竺 Wéigàizhú, who signs each of juan 1, 2, and 3 as cānxué xiǎoshī Wéigàizhú biān 參學小師惟蓋竺編. DILA A001075 registers 惟蓋 / 惟蓋竺 as Sòng, known only from this text.
Abstract
The subject, Xuědòu Chóngxiǎn 雪竇重顯, zì 字 Yǐnzhī 隱之, shì 諡 Míngjué 明覺, was born on Tàipíngxīngguó 5.4.8 (29 May 980) in Suìzhōu 遂州 (Sìchuān), lay surname Lǐ 李. He took the tonsure under 仁詵 Rénshēn at the Yìzhōu Pǔ’ān yuàn 益州普安院 after completing mourning for his parents; later travelled north and received dharma-transmission from Zhìmén Guāngzuò 智門光祚 (DILA A015592) in Suízhōu 隨州 — hence the late-text designation Yúnménzōng tenth generation (大鑑下第十世). He held two principal abbacies: first the Cuìfēng chánsì 翠峯禪寺 on Dòngtíng in Wú 吳 (Sūzhōu), then from around Tiānshèng 1 (1023) the Zīshèng sì 資聖寺 on Xuědòu shān in Míngzhōu 明州 — a monastery that had been Yǒngmíng Zhìjué’s 永明智覺 (Yànshòu 延壽) own earlier seat — where he held the abbacy for thirty-one years until his death on Huángyòu 4.6.10 (14 July 1052), aged 73, sēnglà 僧臘 fifty. The posthumous title “Míngjué chánshī” was granted at the request of the Chief Councillor 賈昌齡 Jiǎ Chānglíng (shìzhōng) and communicated to the court by the Dàwèi Lǐ 李侯.
The yǔlù compilation is marked by compositional heterogeneity: juan 4’s Pùquán jí was assembled by Yuányīng and prefaced in 1030 with Chóngxiǎn’s own objections to the project registered in the preface; juan 5–6’s Zǔyīng jí was assembled by Wénzhèng and prefaced in 1032 under similar conditions; juan 1–3’s more miscellaneous sermon-and-precedent material was assembled by Wéigàizhú, apparently after Chóngxiǎn’s death; and the whole closes with the tomb-inscription biography Míngzhōu Xuědòushān Zīshèng sì dìliù zǔ Míngjué dàshī tǎmíng 明州雪竇山資聖寺第六祖明覺大師塔銘 by the shǐguǎn jiǎntǎo cìfēi yúdài Lǚ Xiàqīng 呂夏卿 (1015–1070, Jìnshì 1042; Xīn Tángshū 新唐書 co-compiler) dated Zhìpíng 2 yǐsì 治平二年乙巳歲 (1065).2.5. Lǚ’s stele preserves the canonical list of Chóngxiǎn’s “seven collections” — Dòngtíng yǔlù, Xuědòu kāitáng lù, Pùquán jí, Zǔyīng jí, Sòng gǔ jí, Niāngǔ jí, Xuědòu hòulù — and is the primary biographical source for all later lineage compilations.
Dating bracket: notBefore 1030 (the Pùquán jí editorial preface, the earliest dated stratum of the received text); notAfter 1065 (the Lǚ Xiàqīng stele, the latest and capstone layer). The dominant editorial work on juan 1–3 by Wéigàizhú falls somewhere in the 1052–1065 window.
Translations and research
- Thomas Cleary and J. C. Cleary. 1977. The Blue Cliff Record. Shambhala. Translation of the Bìyán lù 碧巖錄 — the twelfth-century Yuánwù Kèqín commentary built on Chóngxiǎn’s Sòng gǔ bǎi zé, the Ur-text for which is the Sònggǔ stratum embedded in this yǔlù.
- Katsuki Sekida. 1977. Two Zen Classics: The Gateless Gate and the Blue Cliff Records. Weatherhill. Alternate partial rendering.
- Welter, Albert. 2008. The Linji Lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy. Oxford. Places the Chóngxiǎn yǔlù in the mid-eleventh-century yǔlù genre.
- 椎名宏雄 1983. 〈《雪竇後錄》考〉, 《宗学研究》 25: 173–178. Textual-history study of the Hòulù stratum.
- 石井修道 1987. 《宋代禪宗史の研究》. Daitō Shuppansha. Extensive treatment of Chóngxiǎn and the eleventh-century Yúnmén-school editorial projects.
- 張美蘭 2003. 《五燈會元語言研究》, 南京: 社会科学文献出版社 (linguistic study drawing on the yǔlù materials).
- Schlütter, Morten. 2008. How Zen Became Zen. Hawai’i. Background on the Yúnmén-school editorial ascendancy in the 11th century.
- Heine, Steven. 2016. Chan Rhetoric of Uncertainty in the Blue Cliff Record: Sharpening a Sword at the Dragon Gate. Oxford. Close reading of the Sòng gǔ bǎi zé layer.
Other points of interest
Chóngxiǎn’s Sòng gǔ bǎi zé 頌古百則, preserved in the niāngǔ sections of juan 1 and 3, became the verse-precedent set on which Yuánwù Kèqín 圜悟克勤 (1063–1135) wrote his chàng 唱 commentary at Jiashan Bìyán 夾山碧巖 in 1111–1118; the Bìyán lù 碧巖錄 (KR6q0078) as subsequently edited is the canonical gōng’àn 公案 collection of Línjì-side Chán. The parallel Yúnmén-side / Cáodòng-side product is the Cóngróng lù 從容錄 (KR6q0079), also based on a one-hundred-precedent verse-set — that of Hóngzhì Zhèngjué — commented on by Wànsōng Xíngxiù. The present yǔlù is thus the Ur-source for one of the two canonical Sòng gǔ bǎi zé sets of classical Chán.
The preservation of Yuányīng’s and Wénzhèng’s editorial prefaces within Chóngxiǎn’s lifetime — complete with Chóngxiǎn’s own recorded resistance to having his verse anthologised — is unusual in the yǔlù genre and provides exceptional insight into how the editorial-authorial negotiation between Chán master and attendant-disciples played out in practice in the 1030s.