Shíwū Qīnggǒng chánshī yǔlù 石屋清洪禪師語錄
Two-juan Yuán-dynasty yǔlù of Shíwū Qīnggǒng 清珙 石屋清珙 (1272 – Zhìzhèng 12.7.21 / late summer 1352, shì 81, là 54), Yángqí-branch Línjì master, dharma-heir of Jíān Zōngxìn 及菴宗信 (of the Dàochǎng / Dàochǎngxìn line); posthumously styled Fócí Huìzhào chánshī 佛慈慧照禪師. Xuzangjing X70 n1399. (Catalog typographical slip: the Kanripo catalog title reads 清洪 [hóng 水+共] where the standard form per DILA and most sources — as well as the preface’s own title-line “Fúyuán Shíwū Gǒng chánshī yǔlù” — gives 清珙 [gǒng 玉+共]. The variant 清洪 is attested in some traditional bibliographies. Here the catalog form is preserved in the frontmatter with the conventional reading given in prose.) Compiled by his dharma-heir 至柔 Zhìróu děngbiān (Jiāxīngzàng recension). Preface by an unnamed Yuán literatus; the xíngzhuàng appended to juan 2 is the main biographical source.
Abstract
Per DILA and the xíngzhuàng: Qīnggǒng (surname Wēn 溫) was a native of Chángshú 常熟 in Sūzhōu (Jiāngsū). Tonsured at twenty under Yǒngwéi 永惟 of Xīngjiào Chóngfúsì; fully ordained three years later. First studied with Gāofēng Yuánmiào 高峰原妙 at Tiānmùshān for three years; was sent by him (with the famous pun on his “blind-donkey” self-deprecation) to Jíān Zōngxìn at Xīfēng in Wēnzhōu, who confirmed his awakening. Thereafter he climbed Xiáwùshān 霞霧山 and built a thatched hut named Tiānhú 天湖 where he cultivated alone — cutting his own firewood, composing the spare nature-poetry for which he is famous in later Korean and Japanese reception. In Yuántǒng xīnwèi (1331), invited to found the Fúyuán chánshā 福源禪剎 at Dānghú in Jiāhé (Jiāxīng) as second-generation abbot. Seven years later he retired back to Tiānhú. During the Zhìzhèng era he declined imperial summons; the emperor sent jīnlán robes and the empress scarlet cloth. He died at Zhìzhèng 12 rénchén autumn 7.21 (1352), aged 81, là 54. His Korean dharma-heir Táigǔ Bou 太古普愚 — who famously received a “gold-scaled fish on a straight hook” verse of transmission — returned to Koryŏ to found the Taego-jong 太古宗, which remains one of the two principal Korean Sŏn lineages into the modern period; King Kongmin of Koryŏ venerated Qīnggǒng as National Preceptor and collected his relics for a Korean reliquary.
The yǔlù (also circulating under the Jiāxīngzàng designation Shíwū chánshī yǔlù) preserves shàngtáng 上堂 and shìzhòng 示眾 materials from the Fúyuán abbacy, plus the celebrated shānjū shī 山居詩 sequence in the manner of Hánshān 寒山 that anchors his later literary fame.
Translations and research
Substantial secondary literature in Korean (dozens of studies on Taego Bou and his master Qīng-gǒng) and in Japanese (Shiwu included in Gozan bungaku studies). In English, selections of the shān-jū shī have been translated by Red Pine (Bill Porter), The Zen Works of Stonehouse: Poems and Talks of a 14th-Century Chinese Hermit (San Francisco: Mercury House, 1999; second edition Copper Canyon, 2009) — the standard English-language treatment.