Tiānmù Míngběn chánshī zálù 天目明本禪師雜錄
Three-juan miscellany of the teachings of Zhōngfēng Míngběn 明本 中峰明本 (Jǐngdìng 4.1.10 / 8 January 1263 – Zhìzhì 3.8.14 / 14 September 1323), Yángqí-branch Línjì master, dharma-heir of 原妙 Gāofēng Yuánmiào (1238–1296), and the authoritative Línjì teacher of the late Yuán. Honorific titles Pǔyìng guóshī 普應國師, Fócí Yuánzhào Guǎnghuì chánshī 佛慈圓照廣慧禪師 (“Buddha-Mercy Perfect-Reflection Vast-Wisdom”), Zhìjué chánshī 智覺禪師, and the popular epithet Jiāngnán gǔfó 江南古佛 (“Ancient Buddha of Jiāngnán”); self-styled Huànzhù dàorén 幻住道人 (“Illusion-Dwelling Daoist”). Xuzangjing X70 n1402. The running banner reads Tiānmù Zhōngfēng guǎnghuì chánshī yǔ 天目中峯廣慧禪師語, indicating that this zálù (“miscellaneous record”) is a parallel compilation to the larger Tiānmù Zhōngfēng héshàng guǎnglù 天目中峰和尚廣錄 (30 juan, in the Yuán-era Pǔníngzàng); the zálù preserves material not otherwise in the guǎnglù, principally shìtú 示徒 (lectures-to-disciples), fǎyǔ to individual monks, and miscellaneous occasional prose.
Abstract
The opening shìtú of juan 1 — the Sìyì sìnán 四易四難 (“Four Easies and Four Difficulties”) attributed to Fóyìn Liǎoyuán 佛印了元 but invoked by Míngběn as a teaching-frame — sets the tone of the collection: directness about the apparent facility of the Chán position (“that your own self is Buddha; you need not seek a master”) paired with the reality of the difficulty of sustained practice (of faith, of concentration, of awakening, of continued cultivation). The shìtú and fǎyǔ in the three juan are addressed variously to laymen, nuns, officials, and Japanese disciples — Míngběn was the principal master receiving the wave of Japanese Zen students that crossed in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, with disciples including Kosen Ingen 古先印元 (Fóchéng Shèngyè 佛乘勝業) and others whose lineages populated the Gozan system.
Míngběn is the crucial Yuán-dynasty figure in the fusion of kànhuà Chán with Pure Land devotion that characterises late-Línjì: his best-known doctrinal position holds that the two paths are ultimately convergent (a position later adopted by Zhūhóng and Yínyuán). His Huànzhù ān qīngguī 幻住庵清規 (hermitage-rule for the Huànzhùān) is a key document in the hermitage-Chán tradition and appears in the guǎnglù. He refused every imperial monastery appointment and wandered between several self-established Huànzhù 幻住 hermitages (on Tiānmùshān, at Pīngjiāng Shīzǐlín 師子林 — the latter famous as a surviving Míng / Qīng garden — and elsewhere); emperor Yīngzōng summoned him to court but he declined; after his death the Yuán court conferred the posthumous titles listed above.
Translations and research
Míng-běn is one of the most-studied Yuán masters in modern scholarship. Principal English-language treatments: Natasha Heller, Illusory Abiding: The Cultural Construction of the Chan Monk Zhongfeng Mingben (Harvard East Asian Monographs, 2014) — the standard Western monograph. His Sān-shí shí zhù 三十時頌 and selected fǎ-yǔ are translated in D.T. Suzuki’s early essays and in Charles Luk’s Ch’an and Zen Teaching. Japanese scholarship on Míng-běn’s correspondence with Gozan monks is extensive (Tamamura Takeji).