Huángbò Duànjì chánshī Wǎnlíng lù 黃檗斷際禪師宛陵錄
The Wǎnlíng Record of Chán Master Duànjì of Huángbò
“Wǎnlíng Record” of Huángbò Xīyùn 黃檗希運 (d. 850), the shì Duànjì 斷際 — the companion compilation to KR6q0087 Chuánxīn fǎyào, gathering dialogues and discourses from the Dàzhōng 2 (848) teaching period at the Kāiyuán sì 開元寺 in Xuānzhōu 宣州 / Wǎnlíng 宛陵, where 裴休 Péi Xiū 裴休 (791–864) was serving as liánfǎng provincial commissioner; consolidated by Péi in Dàzhōng 11 (857), with later accretions
About the work
A one-juan Q-and-A record of Xīyùn’s teaching during his 848 residence at Péi Xiū’s invitation at the Xuānzhōu Kāiyuán sì, named after Wǎnlíng 宛陵 — the local place-name for Xuānzhōu. Taishō T48 n2012B, paired with KR6q0087 T48 n2012A as the two canonical Huángbò primary sources. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted.
The Wǎnlíng lù opens directly, without preface, on Péi Xiū’s own question “Shān zhōng sìwǔbǎi rén, jǐ rén dé héshàng fǎ?” (“Among the four or five hundred in your assembly, how many have received the Master’s dharma?“) — Xīyùn’s reply: “Those who attain it are beyond counting. Why? The Way is realised in the mind, not in words; words are merely the means of instructing children.” This opening Qǐngwén 請問 dialogue-format structure runs consistently through the text, with Péi consistently framed as the senior interlocutor.
Doctrinally the Wǎnlíng lù overlaps substantially with the Chuánxīn fǎyào, centering on the yī xīn 一心 doctrine, the identification of fó 佛 with ordinary mind, and the rejection of xiūzhèng 修證 cultivation-verification — but the dialogic format gives a more direct, less rhetorically-polished impression of Xīyùn’s teaching style. Several signature formulations belong particularly to this volume: jí xīn shì fó, wú xīn shì dào 即心是佛，無心是道 (“this very mind is Buddha; no-mind is the Way”), xiū yǐ xué wén zì 休以學文字 (“leave off studying the written word”), and the direct identification of jiàowài bié chuán 教外別傳 (“separate transmission outside the teachings”).
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. Unlike KR6q0087 Chuánxīn fǎyào, the Wǎnlíng lù carries no editorial preface of its own — it is presented as editorially continuous with the Chuánxīn fǎyào under Péi Xiū’s 857 cover-preface, and should be read as the second part of the single Péi Xiū Huángbò compilation. Some Sòng recensions transmit the two texts as shàng juǎn / xià juǎn of a single work under the combined title Huángbò shān Duànjì chánshī yǔlù 黃檗山斷際禪師語錄.
The closing section of the received Wǎnlíng lù (folios T48.387a–b of the Taishō edition) contains material that is clearly editorially later than Péi’s 857 compilation: a vigorous exhortation to serious kànhuà 看話 practice on the Zhàozhōu 趙州 wú 無 case — “sēng wèn Zhàozhōu, gǒuzǐ huán yǒu fóxìng yě wú? Zhōu yún wú 僧問趙州，狗子還有佛性也無？州云無” followed by explicit instructions to watch the wú keyword “day and night, in action and in rest” — together with the closing gatha chénláo huí tuō shì fēicháng 塵勞迴脫事非常 which is typical Northern-Sòng kànhuà teaching. This late stratum post-dates Péi Xiū’s own compilation by at least two centuries: 從諗 Zhàozhōu Cōngshěn (778–897) was a younger contemporary of Xīyùn’s, and the use of his “wú” case as a Chán keyword dates from 宗杲 Dàhuì Zōnggǎo’s (1089–1163) kànhuà chán program of the twelfth century. These closing passages are accordingly a later editorial interpolation, probably a Sòng-era preacher’s jiémò 結末 addition appended to the received text.
Abstract
The text’s compositional origin is the Dàzhōng 2 (848) period of Péi Xiū’s second liánfǎng posting to Xuānzhōu, during which Péi invited Xīyùn from Huángbò shān to the Kāiyuán sì and studied with him daily — “dàn xī shòu fǎ 旦夕受法”, per Péi’s own preface. Péi took notes during and after the teaching sessions and subsequently consolidated them, together with the earlier Zhōnglíng session material (preserved as KR6q0087), in his 857 preface to the combined work. The two texts circulate together in the Chinese tradition through the Sòng and Yuán; their Japanese-Kamakura reception is similarly paired (the Denshin hōyō 傳心法要 and Enryōroku 宛陵錄 are routinely taught together in Rinzai curriculum).
Dating bracket: notBefore 848 (the recording of Péi’s second teaching-session), notAfter 1100 (the latest plausible date for the Zhàozhōu-wú / kànhuà interpolation at the text’s closing, which cannot pre-date the twelfth-century institutional establishment of that practice but may represent a late-eleventh-century precursor). The dominant compositional stratum is 848–857 — the body of the text proper is firmly PéiXiūHuángbò material. The catalog’s 唐 dynasty tag reflects the dominant material; the interpolated closing is Sòng.
Translations and research
- John Blofeld. 1958. The Zen Teaching of Huang Po on the Transmission of Mind. Grove Press. The classic English translation, pairing the Chuánxīn fǎyào with the Wǎnlíng lù.
- Iriya Yoshitaka 入矢義高. 1969. Denshin hōyō, Enryōroku 傳心法要 宛陵錄 (Zen no goroku series vol. 8). Chikuma Shobō. The standard critical edition and Japanese annotated translation.
- Poceski, Mario. 2007. Ordinary Mind as the Way. Oxford.
- Jia, Jinhua. 2006. The Hongzhou School of Chan Buddhism. SUNY.
- Welter, Albert. 2008. The Linji Lu and the Creation of Chan Orthodoxy. Oxford.
- 柳田聖山. 1985. 《禪の語錄》 8.
Other points of interest
The Wǎnlíng lù’s closing kànhuà interpolation is a valuable editorial-archaeological specimen: a Sòng-period (or very late-Táng) scribe appended an extended Zhàozhōu-wú teaching to Péi Xiū’s ninth-century Huángbò recording, treating the received text as if it were itself a kànhuà pedagogical manual. The interpolation’s anachronism is not disguised — it explicitly cites the “Zhàozhōu gǒuzǐ” case by name — but its presence in the Taishō text without editorial warning demonstrates the organic layering that characterises most pre-Sòng Chán transmission.
The pairing KR6q0087 + KR6q0088 — two primary Huángbò texts under a single compiler’s editorial hand — is rarer in the Chán canon than the more common master-disciple single-compiler pairings. Together with Péi Xiū’s prefaces to Zōngmì’s works, these texts constitute the single most substantial surviving primary corpus documenting lay-Chinese-elite engagement with mid-ninth-century Chán.