Huángbò shān Duànjì chánshī chuánxīn fǎyào 黃檗山斷際禪師傳心法要
Essentials of the Transmission of the Mind by Chán Master Duànjì of Huángbò Mountain
“Essentials of the Transmission of the Mind” recorded by the Táng statesman 裴休 Péi Xiū 裴休 (791–864) from his conversations with the Hóngzhōu-school Chán master Huángbò Xīyùn 黃檗希運 (d. 850), shì Duànjì chánshī 斷際禪師, the teacher of 義玄 Línjì Yìxuán; compiled in the ninth lunar month of Dàzhōng 11 (November 857)
About the work
A one-juan prose record of the teaching of Huángbò Xīyùn as reconstructed by his lay disciple Péi Xiū. Taishō T48 n2012A, paired with T48 n2012B Wǎnlíng lù 宛陵錄 (KR6q0088) as the two canonical Huángbò primary sources. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted. The text is among the earliest surviving records in Chinese Chán of a specific master’s teaching as recorded by a specific attentive lay disciple, and is a structural precursor of the mature Sòng-dynasty yǔlù 語錄 genre.
Doctrinally the Chuánxīn fǎyào is the single most important primary source for Hóngzhōu-school Chán in the generation between 道一 Mǎzǔ Dàoyī (709–788) and Línjì Yìxuán (d. 867). Huángbò’s core teachings — yī xīn 一心 (“one mind”), the identity of fó 佛 and zhòngshēng 眾生, the rejection of xiūzhèng 修證 (cultivation-and-verification) as obscuring rather than producing awakening, the characterisation of the mind as běn lái zìzú 本來自足 (originally self-sufficient), and the explicit claim that cǐ xīn jí shì fó 此心即是佛 (“this mind is simply the Buddha”) — provide the immediate doctrinal background against which Línjì formulates his own, more polemically-direct, yǔlù.
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. Péi Xiū’s own compositional preface, dated Táng Dàzhōng 11.11.8 (唐大中十一年十一月初八日 = 30 November 857), introduces the text:
“There is a great Chán master, whose dharma-name is Xīyùn, residing at the Jiùfēng 鷲峯 below Huángbò shān in Gāo’ān xiàn 高安縣 of Hóngzhōu 洪州. He is the direct descendant of the Sixth Patriarch of Cáoxī and the dharma-nephew of Xītáng 西堂 and Bǎizhàng 百丈. He alone carries the seal of the topmost vehicle that abandons the written word — transmitting one mind and no other teaching. The mind-substance is also empty, and the ten-thousand occasions all still. As if the great sun rising into the empty sky, its radiant light purified of the finest dust, those who verify it know no new-or-old, no shallow-or-deep. Those who speak of it do not establish meaning-interpretations, do not establish sect-masters, do not open windows and doors — immediately it is simply this. Any stirring of thought is already off. Afterwards one becomes the original Buddha. Accordingly his words are concise, his principle is direct, his Way is steep, his practice is solitary. Students from every direction gaze at the mountain and hasten there, see his appearance and awaken. Those gathered comprise regularly over a thousand.”
Péi Xiū proceeds to name the two periods of his own study under Xīyùn: Huìchāng 2 (842) at Zhōnglíng 鍾陵 while Péi was on liánfǎng duty in Jiāngxī, where he received Xīyùn at the Lóngxīng sì 龍興寺 and studied with him “morning and evening”; and Dàzhōng 2 (848) at Wǎnlíng 宛陵 (the subject of the paired KR6q0088), where Péi was now liánfǎng in Xuānzhōu 宣州 and hosted Xīyùn at the Kāiyuán sì 開元寺 for a second period of instruction. Péi writes: “I withdrew and recorded — of what I received, I captured perhaps one or two parts in ten. I carried them as xīn yìn 心印 (seals of the mind) and did not dare bring them out. Now, fearing the entry-into-the-divine refined essence may not reach the future, I bring them out and entrust them to my disciple, the monk Dàzhōu 大舟 法建 Fǎjiàn, to return to the old mountain of the Guǎngtáng sì 廣唐寺 and ask the elder monks and the dharma-assembly how what he heard there formerly compares to what I record.”
Abstract
Péi Xiū 裴休 (791–864), zì 公美 Gōngměi, hào Hédōng dàshì 河東大士, shì Shēngpíng xiàngguó 昇平相國, was one of the great Táng statesman-Buddhists, Chief Councillor (zǎixiàng 宰相) under Xuānzōng 宣宗. Native of Jǐyuán 濟源 (Hénán); jìnshì in the Chángqìng 長慶 period (821–824); served as jiānchá yùshǐ 監察御史, bīngbù shìláng 兵部侍郎, and in succession as jiédù shǐ 節度使 of Zhāoyì 昭義, Hédōng 河東, Fèngxiáng 鳳翔, and Jīngnán 荊南. Took refuge in the Chán tradition; lay practitioner who refused wine and meat as householder; composed numerous Buddhist writings. His primary dharma-masters were Huángbò Xīyùn and the Huáyán-school 宗密 Guīfēng Zōngmì (780–841), and Péi preserved primary-source materials for both: the present Chuánxīn fǎyào / Wǎnlíng lù pair for Xīyùn, and his prefaces to Zōngmì’s Yuánjuè jīng commentary and Chányuán zhūquánjí for Zōngmì. DILA A003624, CBDB 31999.
Dates discrepancy: DILA A003624 gives 797–870 based on the Fózǔ lìdài tōngzǎi (T49 n2036) “Xiántōng 11 zǎixiàng Péi Xiū hōng … hōng nián qīshí yǒu sì” (died Xiántōng 11 = 870 at age 74). CBDB 31999 gives 791–864, following the Xīn Tángshū / Jiù Tángshū Tang-history tradition. The CBDB dating is the more externally-verified figure and is followed here; the Buddhist-chronicle 870 death-date is a late corruption.
Huángbò Xīyùn 黃檗希運 (d. 850, birth year unrecorded) was a native of Mǐnxiàn 閩縣 (Fújiàn). Dharma-heir of 懷海 Bǎizhàng Huáihǎi (720–814); grand-disciple of Mǎzǔ Dàoyī; in turn the teacher of Línjì Yìxuán. Held the abbacy of the Huángbò shān 黃檗山 at Gāo’ān in Hóngzhōu. Known by the paradoxical epithet Duànjì 斷際 (“Severing-the-Limit”) granted as his shì 諡. His Yī xīn 一心 teaching is the doctrinal bridge between Mǎzǔ’s Hóngzhōu-school formulations and Línjì’s own wúwèi zhēnrén 無位真人 (“true person of no rank”) idiom.
Dating bracket: notBefore 857 (Péi’s preface), notAfter 857 (same). Péi’s underlying records of the two teaching periods (842–843 and 848–849) are the earlier compositional layer; the received text is Péi’s consolidated 857 redaction. Tight bracket.
Translations and research
- John Blofeld. 1958. The Zen Teaching of Huang Po on the Transmission of Mind. Grove Press. The classic and still-most-read English translation, pairing the Chuánxīn fǎyào with the Wǎnlíng lù.
- 入矢義高 Iriya Yoshitaka. 1969. Denshin hōyō, Enryōroku 傳心法要 宛陵錄 (Zen no goroku series vol. 8). Chikuma Shobō. The standard critical edition with Japanese annotated translation.
- Jia, Jinhua. 2006. The Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism. SUNY. Places the Chuánxīn fǎyào in the Hóngzhōu doctrinal tradition.
- Poceski, Mario. 2007. Ordinary Mind as the Way: The Hongzhou School and the Growth of Chan Buddhism. Oxford. Extensive treatment of Xīyùn.
- Welter, Albert. 2008. The Linji Lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy. Oxford. Uses the Huángbò yǔlù pair as the principal background against which the Línjì recorded sayings must be read.
- 柳田聖山. 1985. 《禪の語錄》 8 《傳心法要・宛陵錄》. Chikuma Shobō. Alongside Iriya’s edition.
Other points of interest
The pairing KR6q0087 + KR6q0088 functions as the two principal witnesses to Huángbò teaching, analogous to the pairing KR6q0071 + KR6q0072 for Tiāntóng Rújìng’s yǔlù + xù yǔlù. The compositional situation is however different: both Huángbò texts are by the same compiler (Péi Xiū) from his two distinct teaching-sessions under Xīyùn; whereas the Rújìng texts have distinct Chinese-side and Japanese-side editorial histories.
The text’s status as a lay-compiled record is significant for the genre-history of Chán literature: Péi Xiū as zǎixiàng and major Táng statesman had access to a standard of literary composition unavailable to most monastic editors, and the Chuánxīn fǎyào’s prose register — polished classical Chinese with an elegant preface — sets the template for subsequent Sòng lay-compiled yǔlù material. The later Péi-Xiū-compiled Zōngmì Chányuán zhūquánjí dūxù 禪源諸詮集都序 applies the same recording-discipline to the doctrinal-Huáyán side of Péi’s Chán study.