禪宗指掌

Chán zōng zhǐ zhǎng 禪宗指掌

A Palm-Pointing Guide to the Chán School

A brief one-juan mid-Qīng Chán catechism in eight numbered sections by the Chán monk Xínghǎi 行海 (dates unrecorded; self-styled hòu xué shāmén 後學沙門 “junior-disciple śramaṇa”). First printed on the full moon of the fourth month of Qiánlóng 52 = 1787/4/15 at the Tiānníng-sì chán-táng 天寧寺禪堂 in Chángzhōu-fǔ 常州府 (Jiāngsū). Reprinted on the eighth day of the fourth month (Buddha’s birthday) of Guāngxù 19 = 1893/5/23 at Tài-bái-fēng 太白峯 in Yín-xiàn 鄞縣 (near Níngbō), and subsequently held at the Bōrě-táng 般若堂 of Tiāntóng Hóngfǎ chán-sì 天童弘法禪寺.

About the work

A one-juan Chán catechetical text, X65 n1289. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted. The text consists of eight short sections (piān 篇), each treating a distinct Chán-doctrinal puzzle through a brief dialogical or expository exposition:

1. 第一篇 — exposition of the Middle Way (zhōng dào 中道) as the unity of shì 俗 (worldly cultivation via the Confucian Middle Way) and chén 塵 / chū chén 出塵 (transcendent cultivation via prajñā), with sustained quotation and discussion of Śūraṅgama Sūtra, Diamond Sūtra, and Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra passages on non-duality and non-attainment. Ends with the definition of the True Mind as non-empty-yet-non-obtainable.

2. 第二篇 — how the wondrous illumined true-mind can be known: through the analogy of the eye that cannot see itself (hence neither “empty” nor “full-of-sight”).

3. 第三篇 — meditation’s use of mind (yòng xīn 用心). Contrasts the false practices of attaching to “there-is” and “there-is-not” (the two classical extremes: taking the conscious mind as real self; or taking “no-thought” as real) with the correct shàn qiǎo 善巧 (“skilful-tactful”) practice of interrogating one’s own arising-thought: “who is it that raises this thought?”

4. 第四篇 — dialogue on whether the běn lái miàn mù 本來面目 (original face) is existent or non-existent; uses the reflexive-paradox argument (if the seen-of-seeing is the self, then there are two selves).

5. 第五篇 — further exploration of the same paradox: the original face is neither existent nor non-existent, per the eye-that-cannot-see-itself analogy.

6. 第六篇 — dialogue with a visiting layman “Wùkōng” 悟空 on how to know-emptiness without falling into the nihilistic extreme.

7. 第七篇 — on whether the original face can be seen: no, because the seer of the seer is already the self.

8. 第八篇 — on the correct meditative use of mind: neither attaching to the six dusts, six organs, nor six consciousnesses; using-mind in a “no-place” way.

Abstract

Xínghǎi 行海 (DILA A000413). Qīng-dynasty Chán monk; lifedates, native place, and monastic lineage all unrecorded. The DILA authority record attributes no other work to him. Identification as distinct from the earlier Míng-Qīng transitional monk 大方行海 Dàfāng Xínghǎi (DILA A012051, 1604–c.1680) is secure, given the 1787 first-printing date.

The text’s brief scale, eight-part pedagogical structure, and dialogical expository style suggest it was written as a practical introductory manual for novice practitioners — a role the Níngbō-Tiāntóng reprint-lineage, preserved at one of the most important Chán-teaching centres of early-Republican China, appears to confirm.

Dating: notBefore / notAfter both 1787 (Qiánlóng 52 / 4 / 15, the first-printing colophon-date at Chángzhōu Tiānníngsì; Qiánlóng wǔshí’èr nián sì yuè wàng rì xīn kān 乾隆五十二年四月望日新刊). The 1893 Níngbō reprint is a later re-issue. No earlier composition-date than the first printing is recorded; the catalog’s Qīng attribution is consistent.

Translations and research

Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome

• No substantial secondary literature located on the Chán zōng zhǐ zhǎng.
• The text’s place within late-Qīng Chán catechism-compendia (alongside KR6q0170 Zōng fàn and similar materials) makes it useful comparative reading for late-Qīng / Republican-era Chán pedagogical traditions.
• Welch, Holmes. 1968. The Buddhist Revival in China. Includes discussion of Tiāntóng Hóngfǎ-sì as a central Chán teaching-centre where this text was preserved.

Other points of interest

The Chán zōng zhǐ zhǎng’s characteristic argumentative strategy — the reflexive-paradox argument about the unfindable self (cf. the eye that cannot see itself, the finger that cannot point at itself) — is a classical Chán pedagogical device with roots in Indian Buddhist prasaṅga argumentation but developed in distinctive Chinese-Buddhist form. The text’s sustained use of this single argument across seven of its eight sections gives it a tight doctrinal focus uncommon in more discursive Chán compendia.

The printing-transmission history (Qiánlóng-era Chángzhōu → Guāngxù-era Níngbō → early-Republican Tiāntóng Bōrětáng) is itself of interest: it documents the eighteenth-to-twentieth-century Chán publishing-transmission network centred on the Jiāngnán and Zhèjiāng Chán monasteries, a network that preserved many late-imperial Chán pedagogical texts into the modern canonical recovery movement of the early twentieth century. The printed colophon’s explicit apology for transmissional errors — “this hand-copied text contains many errors; we reverently beg clear-eyed enlightened ones of great compassion to correct and amend it for circulation” — exemplifies the textual-critical self-consciousness of the Buddhist publishing tradition of the late Qīng and early Republic.

Links

• CBETA
• Chángzhōu Tiānníngsì 常州府天寧寺 (first-printing site): one of the major nineteenth-century Chán-teaching centres of the Jiāngsū region.
• Tiāntóng Hóngfǎsì 天童弘法禪寺 Bōrětáng 般若堂 (preservation site): the Mìyún Yuánwù foundation in Míngzhōu, preserving the text into the canonical-compilation era.
• 行海 DILA
• Kanseki DB