Chánzōng jué yí jí 禪宗決疑集
Collection Resolving Doubts on the Chán School
“Collection Resolving Doubts on the Chán School” — Yuán-dynasty autobiographical-pastoral Chán manual by Duànyún Zhìchè 斷雲智徹 (b. 1310), self-styled XīShǔ yě nà 西蜀野衲 (“Wild-Robed Monk of Western Shǔ”); an unusually personal Chán-practice record tracing the author’s own late ordination, the assignment of the Wàn fǎ guī yī, yī guī hé chù 萬法歸一，一歸何處 keyword (the famous Zhàozhōu-descended “ten-thousand dharmas return to one, where does the one return?” huàtóu) by his teacher Yúnfēng 雲峯, and the resulting three-year intensive solitary-retreat practice at the Hétángān 何堂庵 in Kuífǔ 蘷府
About the work
A single-juan Chán-practice manual framed as a series of topical mén 門 (“gates”) — Yuán zhàn liú qīng mén 源湛流清門, Lí chén jīngjìn mén 離塵精進門, etc. — interleaving Zhìchè’s personal narrative of his Chán training with general doctrinal exposition. Taishō T48 n2021. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted.
The text is unusual for the genre in its strong first-person autobiographical cast: Zhìchè narrates his late ordination at 31 (Gēngchén = 1340), his earlier lay precept-reception at 26 (Yuántǒng yǐhài = 1335), his initial teacher 雲峯 Yúnfēng who assigned him the Wàn fǎ guī yī, yī guī hé chù keyword, his three-year retreat with the dharma-brother Guāng 光兄 at the Hétángān 何堂庵 in Kuífǔ 蘷府 (present-day Fèngjié 奉節 in Sìchuān), and the stages of his Chán awakening through the huàtóu practice. This autobiographical disclosure — including explicit self-vows like the three-year no-lying-down, no-chair, no-visits-to-patrons commitment — is among the most detailed surviving personal accounts of Yuán-era kànhuà 看話 Chán training.
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. No editorial preface; the text opens directly on the first mén with Zhìchè’s characteristic self-presentation: “Yuán fū fǎ bù gū qǐ, yǒu zì láiyóu 原夫法不孤起，有自來由 (“As for dharma, it does not arise alone — it has an origin and cause”). Desiring to exhaust the various doubts, I must open the subtle confusions. My past conduct I here set out today; learners and hearers will find it accessible and easy. I was late in leaving home; my aspiration for the Way was firm, heedless of danger, with single-minded direct orientation. Even when I encountered demons or distress, this thought did not waver; even when I encountered humiliation or honour, my single heart did not change. So I am called a Dānbǎnhàn 擔板漢 [‘Board-Carrier’], a stubborn ‘Iron-Hearted Man.‘” The text’s signature style — plain-prose autobiographical narrative interspersed with doctrinal self-reflection — begins immediately.
Abstract
Zhìchè (DILA A001288) was born in Zhìdà 3 (1310); native of Western Shǔ 西蜀 (Sìchuān). His own text gives the autobiographical framework that is the principal source for his life: he received lay precepts at 26 in Yuántǒng yǐhài (1335); took formal monastic ordination in Gēngchén (1340) 12.8 ; entered the ménxià of Yúnfēng as his teacher; was assigned the Wàn fǎ guī yī, yī guī hé chù keyword for huàtóu practice; retired with his dharma-brother Guāng to the Hétángān 何堂庵 in Kuífǔ for a three-year intensive retreat with explicit vows of non-rest (no sleeping horizontally, no sitting on stools, etc.). The compositional work presumably dates from after this retreat, i.e., from the 1340s to 1350s. Death year is not recorded in DILA.
The text’s style positions it as kànhuà Chán manual in the direct Dàhuì Zōnggǎo → Línjì-lineage tradition, but with unusual autobiographical concreteness about what kànhuà practice involves experientially. The extended description of the jìng niàn xiāng jì 淨念相繼 (“pure thoughts in continuous succession”) state attained at the climax of the three-year retreat — the state in which the practitioner “does not know he has a body walking on the ground … does not know the cold and warmth of the world, the flexing and unflexing [of posture] … only follows this doubt [yí] and walks on trust in the steps” — is an unusually vivid account of a Chán contemplative attainment.
Dating bracket: notBefore 1340 (formal ordination, beginning of Zhìchè’s monastic career), notAfter 1370 (working range; Yuán-dynasty texts rarely survive composition beyond the YuánMíng transition of 1368). Dynasty 元 per catalog meta.
Translations and research
- No full English translation located.
- 鈴木哲雄 Suzuki Tetsuo 1990. 《宋元代の禅僧の伝記》. Chapter-length treatment of Zhìchè.
- 椎名宏雄 1993. 《宋元版禅籍の研究》. Daitō Shuppansha. Textual-critical treatment of the Yuán Chán corpus including Zhìchè.
- Mohr, Michel. 2014. “Beyond Awareness: Tōrei Enji’s Understanding of Realization in the Treatise on the Inexhaustible Lamp of Zen.” In Heine & Wright (eds.), Zen and Material Culture. Discusses later Edo-period reception of autobiographical Chán texts like this.
Other points of interest
The autobiographical cast of the Chánzōng jué yí jí is a significant generic innovation in Chinese Chán literature. Pre-Yuán Chán practice-manuals (Chinul’s Xiū xīn jué KR6q0097, Dàhuì’s letters, Yánshòu’s Wéi xīn jué KR6q0094, etc.) present their doctrinal content abstractly or in Q-and-A format without sustained first-person narrative. Zhìchè’s deliberate foregrounding of his own practice-biography as the interpretive frame for his doctrinal exposition prefigures the later Japanese Zen autobiographical-practice manual (notably Hakuin’s Itsumadegusa 一隙草 and Yasenkanna 夜船閑話 of the mid-18th century), and is an early Chinese antecedent of what becomes a distinct generic line in East Asian Zen literature.
The Wàn fǎ guī yī, yī guī hé chù 萬法歸一，一歸何處 huàtóu Zhìchè worked on is among the most widely-used Chán keywords in the late-imperial and early-modern Chinese tradition — originally from a Zhàozhōu exchange but reaching full canonical status as a kànhuà topic in the Dàhuì and post-Dàhuì Línjì tradition. Zhìchè’s autobiographical account of its sustained use is one of the richest primary sources for the Yuán-period practice of the keyword.