Zhēnxiē Qīngliǎo chánshī yǔlù 真歇清了禪師語錄
Two-juan Southern-Sòng Cáodòng 曹洞 yǔlù of Zhēnxiē Qīngliǎo 清了 真歇清了 (hào Zhēnxiē 真歇, also 寂菴 Jìān; posthumous title Wùkōng chánshī 悟空禪師; 1088 – 17 November 1151), dharma-heir of 子淳 Dānxiá Zǐchún (1066–1119) and thus — alongside his dharma-brother Hóngzhì Zhèngjué 宏智正覺 (1091–1157) — the twin apex of Southern-Sòng Cáodòng and a principal voice in the Cáodòng response to Dàhuì Zōnggǎo 大慧宗杲’s kànhuà 看話 polemic. Xuzangjing X71 no. 1426. The collection is more commonly known in Sòng and later sources under its alternate title Jiéwài lù 劫外錄 (“Record Beyond the Aeons”). Compiled by Qīngliǎo’s attendants 德初 Déchū and 義初 Yìchū (the latter also a named dharma-heir, DILA A001465).
Abstract
The collection is framed by a Southern-Sòng preface by Wú Mǐn 吳敏 (Zhōngqiáo jūshì 中橋居士, the Song dynasty official known for his stand at the Jìngkāng catastrophe), dated the 1st of the 1st month of Shàoxīng 28 (1 February 1158) — seven years after Qīngliǎo’s death — which places his career in a characteristic Cáodòng frame: “Fúróng’s grandson, Dānxiá’s son, who obtained the dharma on Bōyúfēng 鉢盂峯 by having nothing to obtain, and preached the dharma at Yīwěi 一葦 [Chánglú 長蘆] by having nothing to preach.” Wú Mǐn claims a thousand-seven-hundred-monk seat at Chánglú and — in a striking phrase — “the sound of wooden cockerels crowing at frost, stone tigers roaring at clouds.”
The collection has an exceptionally complex transmission history. Both juan were already organised around Qīngliǎo’s teaching in his own lifetime; juan 2, structured as niāngǔ 拈古 with a closing bá by Yìyuǎn 義遠, is the part that most directly engages the Dàhuì polemic, contesting in particular Dàhuì’s dōngshān 東山 critique of “jìān mòzhào 寂菴默照.” (The closing anonymous colophon to the niāngǔ says baldly: “In the Shàoxīng era, when the Miàoxǐ 妙喜 [= Dàhuì] lineage was denouncing Mòzhào Jìān 默照寂菴, this [work] may be called ‘entering the hall and seizing the spear, taking the lance and striking the shield,’” 入其室操其戈取其矛擊其盾.)
The Xuzangjing text is a late-Edo Japanese re-cut. The opening preface Jiàozhèng chóngkè Jiéwài lù yǐn 較正重刻劫外錄引 is by Hō-men-zan Kantō 方面山盥董, Japanese Sōtō monk and self-identified 33rd-generation descendant (yuǎnsūn 遠孫) of Qīngliǎo; the text is dated the 5th of the 1st month of Meiwa Dīnghài 丁亥 (3 February 1767), written at the Kinryūken 金龍軒 of Suiryū-san Zuiryūzan 瑞龍山 in east Kyōto. Hō-men-zan complains that the previous Japanese Kan-ei 寬永-era printing had been riddled with errors and missing a preface to the tǎmíng, and records that while residing at Hi-no-hi Konchū-in 惠日艮嶽院 in the autumn of 1766 he found an old manuscript in a pile of worm-eaten books and corrected the text against it. He also notes with regret that the tǎmíng references “two collections” of Qīngliǎo’s language (yǔlù liǎngjí xíng yú shì 語錄兩集行於世) — implying the existence of a lost guǎnglù 廣錄 comparable to Hóngzhì’s — which he was unable to recover and has replaced, in part, with scattered fragments (“a piece of jade from Kūnshān that cannot be discarded”).
Qīngliǎo was a native of Zuǒmián Ānchāng 左綿安昌 (Jiànzhōu), lay surname Yōng 雍; ordained at eleven under Qīngjùn 清俊 of Shèngguǒsì 聖果寺; took the precepts at eighteen after a shìjīng 試經 on the Lotus; studied Buddhist scholasticism at Chéngdū Dàcísì 大慈寺. Exited Shǔ to Biànhàn 沔漢 and was sent by Zǔzhào 祖照 禪師 (at Chánglú) to Dānxiáshān; attained awakening under Zǐchún when Zǐchún asked him “What is the self before the empty kalpa?” 如何是空劫以前自己 and struck him once as he tried to answer. Installed at Chánglú 長蘆 in the autumn of Xuānhé 4 (1122) on the recommendation of the jīngzhì 經制 official Chén Gōngzhāng 陳公璋; at the end of the Jìngkāng era travelled to the Sìmíng coast and established himself at Bǔtuó Luòjiā 補陀洛迦山, then at Táizhōu Tiānfēng 天封; then Fújiàn Xuěfēng 雪峰; then (from early Shàoxīng) at Āyùwáng 育王 (as 14th abbot), then Wēnzhōu Lóngxiáng 龍翔, then Jìngshān 徑山. In Shàoxīng 21 (1151) the imperial court commanded the founding of Chóngxiān Xiǎnxiào chányuàn 崇先顯孝禪院 for the Cíníng Tàihòu 慈寧太后 (the mother of Emperor Gāozōng) and summoned Qīngliǎo as its inaugural abbot, where he died four months after installation, on the 1st of the 10th month (17 November 1151), shìshòu 64, sēnglà 45. Named dharma-heirs (eleven): Huìwù 慧悟, Xìngyù 興譽, 義初 Yìchū, Zōngjué 宗玨, Fǎtōng 法通, and others.
Date bracket: first abbacy at Chánglú in 1122 through the Wú Mǐn preface of 1158 (the Meiwa re-cut of 1767 is outside the recensional window of the Sòng text).
Translations and research
No book-length Western-language study of the yǔlù or the Jié-wài lù located; partial coverage in Morten Schlütter, How Zen Became Zen (2008) and in studies of the Dà-huì / mò-zhào polemic. Biographical apparatus: the tǎ-míng preserved in juan 1, titled Chóng-xiān Zhēn-xiē Liǎo chánshī tǎ-míng 崇先真歇了禪師塔銘; Jiā-tài pǔ-dēng-lù juan 9 (X79); Bǔ-xù gāo-sēng zhuàn (X77). Qīng-liǎo’s independent Pure-Land text Niàn-fó jìng-tǔ lún 念佛淨土論 (X61 n1178) is a standard witness for the Cáo-dòng contribution to the Chán / Pure-Land synthesis.
Other points of interest
Qīngliǎo is, together with Hóngzhì, the principal Cáodòng target of Dàhuì Zōnggǎo’s polemic against “mòzhào xiéchán 默照邪禪” (“silent-illumination heresy-Chán”); the Jiéwài lù’s niāngǔ section preserves Qīngliǎo’s own counter-polemic, which — in combination with Hóngzhì’s Mòzhào míng 默照銘 and Hóngzhì’s and Qīngliǎo’s mutual bǐmù 筆目 — is a foundational Cáodòng doctrinal document for the “silent-illumination” tradition that eventually becomes one of the chief rubrics of Japanese Sōtō shikantaza 只管打坐 practice.