Wèilín chánshī yúnshān fǎhuì lù 為霖禪師雲山法會錄
Single-juan lay-discussion record (fǎhuì lù 法會錄) of Wèilín Dàopèi 道霈 為霖道霈 (1615–1702), recording his dharma exchanges with lay disciples on zhāirì 齋日 (lay abstinence days) during his residency at Báiyúnshān 白雲山 — the retreat-mountain to which he went after his initial Gǔshān abbacy and where he gathered a distinct lay circle. Xuzangjing X72 no. 1441. Recorded (lù 錄) by three lay disciples (yōupósāi 優婆塞): 謝大材 Xiè Dàcái, 潘道靖 Pān Dàojìng, and 黃大廣 Huáng Dàguǎng.
Abstract
The opening preface — untitled and unsigned in the preserved text — opens with a striking reference to Huìyuǎn 慧遠 and the Báiliánshè 白蓮社 of Eastern Jìn: “Eastern-Jìn Yuǎngōng 遠公 with the recluses Liú Yímín 劉遺民, Léi Cìzōng 雷次宗, Zōng Bǐng 宗炳, and the other xián 賢, formed a society at Dōnglín 東林, expounding the Way on every sixth-day abstinence-period, mutually searching and questioning, probing Buddhist principle as provision for [rebirth in] the Pure Land.” Dàopèi’s Báiyún gatherings are explicitly framed as a modern counterpart — an early-Qīng revival of lay-monastic collaborative inquiry.
The body of the text records Dàopèi’s expositions to the lay circle, proceeding through Huáyán / Fǎhuá / Yuánjué doctrinal framings of the Buddha’s pedagogy. A principal closing exchange is Dàopèi’s Dá Tányuán dàshī shū 答檀園大師書 (“Reply to Great-Master Tányuán”) — an extended letter-exchange in which Dàopèi articulates his strict transmission-principle: “Bóshān lǎorén 元來 was not failing to seek successors; he simply had none to select from in his day. Therefore he preferred to sever the [heir]-line and preserve the Dào itself, leaving it for later. He once told Lay-Disciple Jíshēng 集生 余大成 that ‘the great matter of the lineage lies in mutual accord of marrow, not in gatekeeper-level succession; if one truly finds the right person, then the knowing of sight and of hearing, before and after, are one and the same, and seeming severance is not severance; if one fails to find the right person, then milk mixed with water has too thin a flavour, and wū 烏 rewritten three times becomes mǎ 馬 — what is preserved is no longer what it was. So my intention is rather to miss finding an heir than to transmit to an unworthy vessel: if one cannot find the right person, then though the heir-line is severed, the Dào remains straight and the great dharma is not injured; but to transmit to an unworthy vessel is, though the heir-line continues, to injure the old lineage itself.‘” Dàopèi continues: “For more than ten years I have been seeking one or half a person with a truly true heart, and have been unable to find. How could I possibly go with the current tide and make the Buddha-patriarch’s wisdom-life into a piece of mundane circulating chatter?” This passage — datable by internal reference to Dàopèi’s later years — is one of the clearest statements in MíngQīng Cáodòng literature of the strict-transmission ethic inherited from 元來 and 元賢.
Date bracket: Dàopèi’s Báiyún years fall in the Kāngxī 14–34 window (c. 1675–1695), during his interval between Gǔshān residencies; internal references to “more than ten years” of ministerial refusal suggest a recording-period late in that interval.
Translations and research
Treated as part of the extended Dào-pèi corpus (with KR6q0367, KR6q0368, KR6q0369, KR6q0370, and forthcoming KR6q0372, KR6q0373 etc.) in Jiang Wu’s Enlightenment in Dispute and related 17th-century Cáo-dòng scholarship. The letter to “Tán-yuán dà-shī” — a late-Míng / early-Qīng Chán-historiographical document of considerable interest — has been cited in the secondary literature on the Shòu-chāng line’s strict-transmission principle.
Other points of interest
The Cloud-Mountain Dharma-Assembly Record is notable for being organised around lay rather than monastic interlocutors, with the three lay recorders named individually on the byline. The Huìyuǎn / Báiliánshè framing is unusual in a Chán yǔlù-adjacent text, reflecting Dàopèi’s broad Shòu-chāng-line commitment to the Chán / Pure-Land synthesis already visible in his Huáyánjīng shūlùn zuǎnyào project.