Wànshàn tóngguī jí 萬善同歸集
Collection of the Common Return of the Myriad Goods
“Collection of the Myriad Good-Practices Converging on a Single Return” — the three-juan programmatic statement by Yǒngmíng Yánshòu 永明延壽 (904–975) of the position that all Buddhist practices (Chán meditation, Pure Land invocation, doctrinal study, Vinaya observance, charity, ritual, etc.) converge on a single realisation; the shorter and more directly-pastoral companion to Yánshòu’s encyclopedic Zōngjìng lù (KR6q0092)
About the work
A three-juan doctrinal-pastoral treatise in question-and-answer format, articulating Yánshòu’s position that the myriad good practices (wàn shàn 萬善) all “return together” (tóngguī 同歸) to the single realisation of Buddha-nature. Taishō T48 n2017. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted. The text is the single clearest compact statement of the chánjìng shuāngxiū 禪淨雙修 (“dual cultivation of Chán and Pure Land”) position that Yánshòu advanced and which subsequently became normative Chinese Buddhist practice from the Sòng onward.
Structurally, the work takes the form of extended Q-and-A — 114 questions according to the standard count — with Yánshòu systematically responding to doctrinal objections from hypothetical pure-practice advocates (who would privilege Chán alone, or Pure Land alone, or scholastic doctrine alone). Each answer is extensively supported by scriptural citation, and the text’s cumulative argument is that any sincere practice — within a minimally-correct doctrinal frame — contributes to eventual liberation.
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. The received text carries a Northern-Sòng preface by 沈振 Shěn Zhèn (Cháofèngláng shǒu Sīnóng shàoqīng zhìshì, Qīngchē dūwèi, Chángxīngxiàn Kāiguónán, shíyì sānbǎi hù, cìfēi yúdài), positioning the text as response to the excessive single-practice factionalism of Sòng-period Buddhism:
“The expanse of the four seas is filled only by the gathering of rivers; the exalted height of the ten bhūmi [bodhisattva-stages] is reached only by the accumulation of good. The unfathomably-deep is in the accumulation of storage over time; the unknowably-sagely is in the accumulation of cultivation across effort. … One cannot grasp emptiness and leave existence; one cannot abandon the actual and follow the non-existent … Whether propagating the subtlety of doctrinal teaching, the standard of fólǒng 佛隴, or the depth of Chán reasoning, the pure fragrance of Cáoxī — or performing Vinaya observance, reverent prostration, circumambulation of the pure room, recitation of the revered Name, mental visualisation of the Pure Land, offering-services, giving-alms — if the practices are balanced, the benefit is also excellent.”
Shěn Zhèn’s preface situates the text as remedy for the single-practice factionalism: it “gathers the many returns into one” and demonstrates that “the pure and the deep, the Chán and the Pure Land, the doctrinal and the practical, all return together.”
Abstract
Composed during Yánshòu’s abbacy at the Yǒngmíng sì 永明寺 in Hángzhōu 杭州 (961–975), the Wànshàn tóngguī jí articulates Yánshòu’s signature doctrinal position in a form accessible to monastic and lay readers — more so than the encyclopedic and citation-dense Zōngjìng lù. The text’s doctrinal signature moves include:
- The rejection of “pure Chán” polemical exclusivism: Yánshòu argues directly against monks who claim that the Chán dùnwù 頓悟 (“sudden awakening”) position negates the need for doctrinal study, ritual observance, or ethical cultivation. Such “pure Chán” positions are characterised as misreadings: awakening does not dispense with subsequent cultivation.
- The affirmation of Pure Land invocation (niànfó 念佛) as doctrinally equivalent to Chán kànxīn 看心 (“watching the mind”): both are legitimate paths, and practitioners may combine them without incoherence.
- The systematic extension of this integrative principle to the full range of Buddhist practice-modes: Vinaya observance, sūtra-recitation, image-veneration, charity (dāna), the bodhisattva-vow, ritual prostration.
A closing passage of juan 3 (readable in the tail of the Taishō text) gives Yánshòu’s sharpest polemic against a contemporary position: the antinomian “one-Chán” teachers who claim that “*drinking wine and eating meat do not obstruct bodhi; stealing and fornication do not hinder prajñā” — positions that were circulating in late-ninth and tenth-century Chán polemic against over-monasticised practice. Yánshòu responds with fierce orthodoxy: “if you do not abandon yín 婬 (sexual misconduct), you sever the root of all purity; if you do not abandon wine, you sever the root of all wisdom; if you do not abandon theft, you sever the root of all blessing; if you do not abandon eating of flesh, you sever the root of all compassion.” The passage is among the earliest surviving clear intra-Chán repudiations of antinomian-lìng 利根 rhetoric.
Dating bracket: notBefore 960 (beginning of Yánshòu’s Yǒngmíng abbacy), notAfter 975 (Yánshòu’s death). Compositional completion is probably in the late 960s / early 970s, after the bulk of the Zōngjìng lù had been assembled. The catalog’s 宋 dynasty tag reflects the received-text status; Wúyuè-kingdom composition predates the Sòng annexation of 978.
Translations and research
- Albert Welter. 1993. The Meaning of Myriad Good Deeds: A Study of Yung-ming Yen-shou and the Wan-shan t’ung-kuei chi. Peter Lang. The standard English monograph; includes substantial translated excerpts.
- Welter, Albert. 2011. Yongming Yanshou’s Conception of Chan. Oxford.
- 冉雲華. 1999. 《永明延壽》. Dōngdà túshū. Chapter-length treatment of the Wànshàn tóngguī jí.
- Chappell, David W. 1986. “From Dispute to Dual Cultivation: Pure Land Responses to Ch’an Critics.” In Traditions of Meditation in Chinese Buddhism, ed. P. N. Gregory, 163–197. Hawai’i. Discusses the intellectual context of Yánshòu’s integrative work.
- 孔維勤 1983. 《永明延壽宗教論》. Tóngxìn chūbǎnshè.
- Getz, Daniel. 1999. “T’ien-t’ai Pure Land Societies and the Creation of the Pure Land Patriarchate.” In Buddhism in the Sung, ed. P. N. Gregory & D. A. Getz Jr., 477–523. Hawai’i. Background on the later Pure Land-patriarch retrospection that installed Yánshòu in the Pure Land lineage.
Other points of interest
The Wànshàn tóngguī jí is the principal primary source for the chánjìng shuāngxiū 禪淨雙修 position that becomes normative Chinese Buddhist practice from the Sòng onward. The four-line Sì liào jiǎn 四料揀 gāthā attributed to Yánshòu — the characterisation of the four possible orientations toward Chán and Pure Land — is transmitted in the Lónghú Zōngjìng 龍湖宗鏡 tradition and in 道原 Dàoyuán’s Jǐngdé chuándēng lù, and has been read for the past millennium as Yánshòu’s signature teaching; it is not explicitly preserved in the Wànshàn tóngguī jí itself but is widely understood as a précis of its argument.
The work is the earliest major surviving Chinese Buddhist text explicitly attacking the antinomian strand of Chán (the “meat-and-wine Chán” polemic against which the closing juan-3 passage directs itself). Such antinomian positions, which had flourished in the factionalised Chán of the late Táng and early Five Dynasties, are here for the first time identified and publicly repudiated from within the tradition’s own authoritative voice — establishing the orthodox-Chán pastoral position that Sòng Chán subsequently maintained.