Wúmíng Huìxìng chánshī yǔlù 無明慧性禪師語錄
Sayings-Record of Chán Master Wúmíng Huìxìng — a one-juan Southern-Sòng yǔlù of Wúmíng Huìxìng 慧性 無明慧性 (1162 – Jiāxī 1.7.20 / 19 August 1237), Yángqí-branch Línjì master, senior dharma-heir of 崇岳 Sōngyuán Chóngyuè (1132–1202). Compiled by seven attendant-disciples: 妙儼 Miàoyǎn, 圓澄 Yuánchéng, 妙全 Miàoquán, 道隆 Dàolóng, 圓照 Yuánzhào, 法洪 Fǎhóng, and 唯道 Wéidào.
About the work
One-juan yǔlù in Xuzangjing X70 n1378, opening with a preface by the Cháng-zhōu 長洲 layman Yī-qí (一齋) Yán Rǔ-xūn 顏汝勳 dated the 上巳 festival of Chúnyòu 3 guǐ-mǎo (1243). The body of the yǔlù follows the pattern standard for the 松源派 Sōngyuán line: records from each of Huìxìng’s seven successive abbacies — Zīfú 資福 and Zhìdù 智度 in Qízhōu 蘄州, Guīzōng-Néngrén 歸宗能仁 / Kāixiān-Huázàng 開先華藏 / Qīxián-Bǎojué 棲賢寶覺 on Mt Lú 廬山 in Nánkāng jūn 南康軍, and Yángshān Zūnxiàng 陽山尊相 / Shuāngtǎ Shòu-níng-Wànsuì 雙塔壽寧萬歲 in Píngjiāng fǔ 平江府 — followed by sòng-gǔ 頌古, fǎyǔ 法語, zhēn-zàn 真讚, a farewell verse (yí-jì 遺偈), and Yán Rǔ-xūn’s tǎ-míng 塔銘. Two short postfaces close the volume: one by Jìng-shān Wújùn Shīfàn 徑山無準師範 (1178–1249), the other — the 後序 proper — by Jìng-cí Běi-jiàn chánshī 淨慈北磵禪師 (Jū-jiǎn 居簡, 1164–1246). The text was collated at Tàibái-míng-shān 太白名山 by the bhikṣu Tiāo-chōng 迢冲 in Chúnyòu 1 xīn-chǒu (1241), so the compilation is probably best placed c. 1240–1243.
Abstract
The main biographical source for Huìxìng is the pagoda inscription at the end of the juan, composed by the Wēnzhōu zhǔbù 主簿 Yán Rǔxūn (titled Dígōngláng 迪功郎, with Fāng Wànlǐ 方萬里 of Xìnzhōu supplying the seal-script é 篆額). According to it, Huìxìng (hào Wúmíng 無明, surname Lǐ 李) was a native of Bāqú 巴渠 in Dázhōu 達州 (modern Sìchuān). He took the tonsure in Chúnxī 15 wùshēn (1188) and set out south, first presenting himself to Fózhào Déguāng 佛照德光 (1121–1203) at Jìngshān, from whom he “obtained the substance” (dé qí tǐ 得其體). He then crossed over to Sōngyuán Chóngyuè and “obtained the usage” (dé qí yòng 得其用) as Sōngyuán’s attendant at Língyǐn, receiving dharma-transmission there. The preface to the opening juan notes that the first incense-stick of Huìxìng’s abbacy inauguration at Zīfú was burned for Sōngyuán as his “former abbot of Línyìnsì 靈隱 and master in the dharma-milk”; by the inscription’s reckoning he is the ninth-generation descendant of Yángqí Fānghuì 楊岐方會. After Zīfú he was two years at Zhìdù, then moved successively through the three great Lúshān monasteries (Guīzōng, Kāixiān, Qīxián), was invited by the layman Púān 撲庵居士 to open the abbacy at Yángshān Zūnxiàng in Gūsū 姑蘇, and ended at Shuāngtǎ ShòuníngWànsuì. The inscription records a characteristic cluster of shìzhòng 示眾 phrases inherited from the 松源派 — kāikǒu bù zài shétou shàng 開口不在舌頭上 (“when you open your mouth, it is not on the tongue”), dàlìlìang rén 大力量人… — that Huìxìng continued to deploy in his interviews. He died after a slight illness, leaving written letters and a farewell verse, seated in meditation; his relics (shèlì 舍利) are said to have coalesced “in strings of pearls on his snow-white bones.” His principal dharma-heir, per the DILA authority, is Lánxī Dàolóng 蘭溪道隆 (1213–1278), the founder of the Kenchōji 建長寺 line in Japan — the link through which the 松源 → 無明 current descends into the Kamakura Rinzai tradition alongside the main Xūtáng Zhìyú → Nānpo Jōmyō branch.
The 無準師範 and 北磵居簡 postfaces are short approbations by the two senior Chán masters of the generation; Běijiàn’s opens with an extended lament (quoting Yuánwù Kèqín’s “words like dry firewood, words that exhaust [Chén] Zūnsù”) about the decline of Chán preaching in the recent four or five decades, and holds out Huìxìng’s yǔlù as an exception. Internal collation note: the yǔlù as printed gives 嘉熈改元 (= Jiāxī 1 / 1237) for the date of death, which agrees with Huìxìng’s age 七十六 (71 Western / 76 shì); the DILA authority (A013801) gives 1162–1237, followed here.
Translations and research
No complete English translation of the yǔlù located. The 松源 → 無明 → 蘭溪道隆 line is treated in Heinrich Dumoulin, Zen Buddhism: A History vol. 2, and in Kenji Matsuo’s studies of early Kamakura Zen; Huìxìng himself has not been the subject of a dedicated Western-language study.