Zōngmén xuán jiàn tú 宗門玄鑑圖
Diagrams of the School’s Dark-Mirror
A late-Ming short-treatise-with-diagrams on the doctrinal formulas of the Five Houses of Chán, by the Cáodòng monk Fāngjué Xūyī 方覺虛一; preface dated Wànlì 35 (1607) mid-winter
About the work
A one-juan short diagrammatic treatise on the Five Houses’ doctrinal-symbolic apparatus, X63 n1256. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted.
The text’s tú 圖 (diagrammatic) format presents the characteristic symbolic-diagrammatic apparatus of each of the Five Houses — Cáodòng’s wǔ wèi 五位 five-positions diagrams, Línjì’s sì liào jiǎn 四料揀 four-discriminating-selections schemas, sān xuán jiǔ dài 三玄九帶, shí zhì tóng zhēn 十智同真, and the various formulaic apparatus of the Wéiyǎng, Yúnmén, and Fǎyǎn schools. The diagrams are accompanied by short prose explanations.
Tiyao
Not a WYG text; no 四庫 tíyào exists. Xūyī’s own preface Xuán jiàn wǔ zōng yǐn 玄鑑五宗引 dated Wànlì dīngwèi zhòngdōng 萬曆丁未仲冬 (1607 mid-winter) criticises the proliferation of Chán formulaic apparatus: “The direct-pointing single-transmission initially had no detours. The subtle [teaching] of the Five Houses which should not be transmitted — who dares proclaim it? Later the dharma long persisted and corruption arose; heterodoxy came out. So the Five Houses gate-facing-door advocates set up the wǔ wèi jūnchén [five positions of ruler-and-minister], the four kinds of discrimination, the three gates and nine bands, the ten-wisdoms-same-as-truth. Each gate-and-courtyard independently asserts itself, mutually raising-and-proclaiming. Though they were set up for a single era, they did not know that later descendants, generation by generation, would fall into the piercing-sky thorn-thickets. I, a mountain rustic, regret I cannot silence them in a single thunder for the Buddha-patriarchs’ loyal subjects, to burn all their cul-de-sacs. Now, on the contrary, I have once again anthologised the seven-hundred-year stale doctrinal-tangles, painting snakes with added feet — I cannot avoid being seen in broad daylight by the clear-eyed as making ghosts.” The self-deprecating preface acknowledges the paradox of producing yet another formulaic-apparatus anthology while critiquing the genre.
Abstract
Fāngjué Xūyī 方覺虛一 (lifedates unrecorded; active early 17th century; DILA A001362), hào Xūyī 虛一 (“Empty-Unity”). Late-Ming Cáodòng 曹洞宗 monk. Only the Zōngmén xuán jiàn tú survives as his authorial contribution. No independent biographical material beyond his own preface-signature and the DILA entry.
Dating bracket: notBefore 1607, notAfter 1607 (tight bracket from the dated preface). Catalog dynasty 明.
Translations and research
- No full English translation.
- Jiang Wu. 2008. Enlightenment in Dispute. Oxford. Background on late-Ming Chán scholastic activity.
- 椎名宏雄 1993. 《宋元版禅籍の研究》. Daitō Shuppansha.
Other points of interest
The diagrammatic-schematic genre of which Xūyī’s text is a late specimen reflects a continuous Chinese Chán scholastic-pedagogical tradition running from the Rén tiān yǎnmù KR6q0081 of Zhìzhāo (1188) onward: systematic presentation of the Five Houses’ doctrinal apparatus for pedagogical reference. Xūyī’s own self-critique — that multiplying such texts mistakes the formulaic apparatus for the Chán teaching it was meant to point toward — acknowledges the scholastic-ironic paradox these texts embody.