Jīnlíng Qīngliáng yuàn Wényì chánshī yǔlù 金陵清涼院文益禪師語錄
Recorded Sayings of Chán Master Wényì of the Qīngliáng Cloister in Jīnlíng
recorded sayings of the Five-Dynasties master Fǎyǎn Wényì 法眼文益 (885–958), founder of the Fǎyǎnzōng 法眼宗 (the fifth and latest of the Five Houses of classical Chán); compiled (biānjí 編集) in the late Míng by 圓信 Yǔfēng Yuánxìn 語風圓信 of Jìngshān and 郭凝之 Guō Níngzhī as part of the Wǔjiā yǔlù 五家語錄 project
About the work
A one-juan late-Míng recension of the recorded sayings of Fǎyǎn Wényì, shì Dà Fǎyǎn chánshī 大法眼禪師 — the last of the five Chán house-founders to emerge chronologically. The Fǎyǎnzōng is doctrinally distinctive for its explicit integration of Huáyán 華嚴 lǐshì 理事 philosophy with Chán encounter-dialogue, and for Wényì’s signature teaching mode of turning the questioner’s own presupposition back on itself. Taishō T47 n1991. Not a commentary; commentedTextid omitted. Companion volumes in the Wǔjiā yǔlù set: KR6q0075 Wéishān, KR6q0076 Yǎngshān, KR6q0067 Dòngshān Liángjiè, KR6q0068 Cáoshān Běnjì.
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. Opening credit line identical in form to the parallel Wǔjiā yǔlù volumes: Jìngshān shāmén Yǔfēng Yuánxìn / Wúdì dìzhǔrén Guō Níngzhī biānjí 徑山沙門語風圓信 無地地主人郭凝之編集. No separate preface.
Abstract
The text opens with a condensed biographical preamble. Wényì was a native of Yúháng 餘杭 (modern Hángzhōu region in Zhèjiāng), lay surname Lǔ 魯. Tonsured at seven at the Xīndìng Zhìtōng yuàn 新定智通院 under 全偉 Quánwěi 全偉禪師 (DILA A010729; the DILA extensive note gives the name as Tóngwěi 同偉, a form perhaps for 仝偉; the yǔlù uses 全偉). Received full precepts at the Yuèzhōu Kāiyuán sì 越州開元寺; subsequently studied the Vinaya under the Vinaya master 希覺 Xījué at the Yùwáng sì 育王寺 of Míngzhōu 明州 ([Xījué’s master, Yùwáng, was active at the present Āyùwáng sì near Níngbō]). Xījué remarked of Wényì that “he is the Yóu-and-Xià of my gate” — ranking him with Zǐyóu and Zǐxià in the Confucian lineage — reflecting Wényì’s early doctrinal-literary sophistication. Wényì also pursued study of secular Confucian texts and wenyuan wényǎ literary culture during this period.
The transformative moment is the snowstorm-at-Dìzàng encounter. Travelling south with the companions 紹修 Shàoxiū and 法進 Fǎjìn after initial study under Chángqìng Huìléng 長慶稜 in Fúzhōu 福州 had failed to produce awakening, the three were halted at the Dìzàng yuàn 地藏院 by snow. The abbot Luóhàn Guìchēn 羅漢桂琛 (867–928, DILA A010683; also styled Dìzàng) asked Wényì “where are you going?” — Wényì said “wandering on foot”. Guìchēn: “what is wandering-on-foot?” — “I don’t know.” — “Bù zhī zuì qīnqiè 不知最親切” (“Not-knowing is the most intimate thing”). Later, discussing the Zhào lùn 肇論 passage tiāndì yǔ wǒ tóng gēn 天地與我同根 (“heaven and earth share one root with me”), Guìchēn pointed to a stone in the courtyard and asked whether it was “inside the mind or outside the mind”. Wényì answered “inside”. Guìchēn: “why would a traveller carry a stone on his head?” — and Wényì, unable to respond, dropped his travelling bundle and stayed at the Dìzàng yuàn for over a month presenting successive interpretations for Guìchēn’s rejection. The climactic phrase “Ruò lùn fófǎ, yíqiè xiànchéng 若論佛法。一切見成” (“As for the Buddhadharma — everything is present and accomplished”) produced Wényì’s full awakening. He was thus the dharma-heir of Guìchēn, who was in turn the heir of Xuánshā Shībèi 玄沙師備 (heir of Xuěfēng Yìcún 雪峯義存); the Fǎyǎn lineage is accordingly Xuěfēng–Xuánshā–Dìzàng–Fǎyǎn.
Wényì subsequently held the abbacy at the Chóngshòu yuàn 崇壽院 in Línchuān 臨川 (Jiāngxī), invited by the state prefect, and then — more consequentially — was summoned to Jīnlíng 金陵 (Nánjīng) by the Southern Táng ruler 李璟 Lǐ Jǐng (r. 943–961), where he successively held three major Jīnlíng abbacies (Bàoēn sì 報恩寺, Qīngliáng yuàn 清涼院 most prominently), receiving the court-conferred title Jìnghuì chánshī 淨慧禪師 from Lǐ Jǐng. Died Zhōu Xiǎndé 5 (958) on the 17th of the seventh month, showing signs of illness; on the 5th of the intercalary seventh month he tonsured himself, bathed, instructed his disciples, sat in jiāfū and passed away. Aged 74; sēnglà 54. Lay honours from the Duke 李建勳 Lǐ Jiànxūn onward wore mourning; the body was transported to Dānyáng qǐtǎ 丹陽起塔 in Jiāngníng xiàn 江寧縣. Posthumous title DàFǎyǎn chánshī 大法眼禪師; stupa Wúxiàng 無相. Later, on the Southern Táng ruler 李煜 Lǐ Yù’s establishment of the Bàocí yuàn 報慈院, Wényì’s disciple Xuánjué Yándǎo chánshī 玄覺言導師 opened dharma there, and Wényì was posthumously re-styled Dàzhìzàng dàdǎoshī 大智藏大導師 (DILA also registers this as 大智藏 / 南山大智藏).
The post-biographical bulk of the yǔlù is the standard Chán shàngtáng / dialogue material, densely studded with commentator-lines from later masters — Xuědòu Chóngxiǎn 雪竇顯, Fǎyǎn 法眼 (self-), Yúnjū 雲居, Cáoshān 曹山, Mǎzǔ 馬祖, etc. — tagging individual precedents. The signature Fǎyǎn turning phrase “wàn xiàng zhī zhōng dú lù shēn 萬象之中獨露身 — ’ in the midst of all appearances, the body alone stands revealed’” — which Wényì inherited from his early Chángqìng teacher and used to produce Zǐfāng’s 子方 awakening on the opening day of the Línchuān abbacy — is the text’s organising phrase, returning as the climactic item in the celebrated Zǐ Zhāo shǒuzuò 子昭首座 confrontation where Wényì finally faces down his former Chángqìng study-companion who had come to rebuke him for succeeding Guìchēn rather than Chángqìng.
Dating: following the Wǔjiā yǔlù bracket, notBefore 1630, notAfter 1650. Dynasty 明 per catalog meta. Wényì’s material is of course of the 950s; the received recension is the Míng one.
Translations and research
- Welter, Albert. 2006. Monks, Rulers, and Literati: The Political Ascendancy of Chan Buddhism. Oxford. Extended chapter on Wényì and the Southern Táng court-patronage of Fǎyǎnzōng.
- Welter, Albert. 2011. Yongming Yanshou’s Conception of Chan in the Zongjing lu: A Special Transmission Within the Scriptures. Oxford. Background on the Fǎyǎn lineage through Yǒngmíng Yánshòu (904–976), Wényì’s grand-student.
- Jia, Jinhua. 2006. The Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism. SUNY.
- Foulk, T. Griffith. 1999. “Sung Controversies Concerning the ‘Separate Transmission’ of Ch’an.” In Buddhism in the Sung, ed. Peter N. Gregory & Daniel A. Getz Jr., 220–294. Hawai’i. Situates the Fǎyǎn lineage’s doctrinal arguments in the later-Sòng inheritance.
- 柳田聖山 1971. 《法眼文益の問題》, Hanazono University papers.
Other points of interest
Wényì’s surviving doctrinal-polemical work Zōngmén shíguī lùn 宗門十規論 (“Ten Regulations for the School”) is a separate text from this yǔlù and is not contained in the present volume; it is the earliest surviving example of intra-Chán school-critique literature and registers Wényì’s diagnosis of the ten principal errors afflicting Chán practice in his own period.
The Fǎyǎn lineage produced within two generations the polymath Yǒngmíng Yánshòu 永明延壽 (904–976) — the compiler of the Zōngjìng lù 宗鏡錄 (100 juan, KR6q0092) — whose synthesising doctrinal style is the signature Fǎyǎn-school legacy, displacing the houses emphasis on dialogue-narrative. The Fǎyǎn school thereafter gradually merged into the broader doctrinal mainstream, ceasing to function as a distinct lineage by the late Sòng. The Wéiyǎng, Fǎyǎn, and Yúnmén houses were accordingly all effectively absorbed into the Línjì and Cáodòng lineages by the time of the SòngYuán transition; only Línjì and Cáodòng survived into the Yuán in institutional form.