Zōngbǎo Dàodú chánshī yǔlù 宗寶道獨禪師語錄
Six-juan Cáodòng 曹洞 yǔlù of Zōngbǎo Dàodú 道獨 宗寶道獨 (zì Zōngbǎo 宗寶; 別號 Kōngyǐn 空隱; 1600 – 16 August 1661, shìshòu 62, xià 33), dharma-heir of 元來 Wúyì Yuánlái (1576–1630) in the Shòuchāng 壽昌 Cáodòng revival — the principal Guǎngdōng figure of the line. Xuzangjing X72 no. 1443. Re-edited (chóngbiān 重編) by his fǎsūn 法孫 今釋 Jīnshì (1614/5–1680), a dharma-grandson of Dàodú through 圅昰 Tiānrán Hánshì — today better known as the Ming-loyalist-official-turned-monk Dànguī Jīnshì 澹歸今釋 (lay name Jīn Bǎo 金堡).
Abstract
The opening preface is by Dàodú’s principal dharma-heir 圅昰 Tiānrán Hánshì 天然圅昰, describing himself as having received six or seven years of the master’s direct training and affirming that Dàodú’s teaching rises to the level of the Táng masters Bǎizhàng Huáihǎi and Huángbò Xīyùn (“古之百丈黃檗足以當之”). Hánshì’s preface is one of the frank late-Shòu-chāng statements of the line’s internal self-appraisal — he names Dàodú’s circle of disciples as “guīqí jùnwěi 瑰琦俊偉” (splendid and heroic figures), while self-deprecatingly placing himself (“Shì [me]”) as the least gifted. The second prefatorial piece is a self-preface by Dàodú himself outlining the zhízhǐ 直指 (direct-pointing) pedagogy of the Chán school.
Dàodú was a native of Nánhǎi 南海 (Guǎngzhōu), lay surname Lù 陸. Per his tǎmíng in juan 6: at fourteen he left his mother and entered a temple, practising jìngdìng 靜定 under a tree; on a day when “his breast suddenly split as though by a bamboo,” he burst out into a spontaneous jì 偈 that startled his elders. At sixteen he tonsured himself, setting up a thatched hermitage at Lóngshān 龍山 where he practised alone for more than ten years. At twenty-nine, after his mother’s death, he went with his younger brother Língmì 靈泌 to Bóshān to meet Yuánlái, who renamed him and conferred the full precepts; Dàodú stayed nine months and departed. He held a shut-retreat at Jīnlún 金輪, then moved to Huángyán 黃巖, and during the 1640s–1650s was requested by Guǎngdōng officials to take successive abbacies: at Luófú 羅浮, which he used as the Guǎngdōng branch-gate of the Bóshān dharma-line; at Jīnlún Hǎizhuàng 海幢; at Léifēng 雷峰; at Yǒngníng 永寧. Fújiàn contacts subsequently brought him to Yànhú 雁湖 and Xīchán Chángqìngsì 西禪長慶寺 — the seat that gives him his most common style Chángqìng Zōngbǎo Dú. He died seated at Chángqìng on the 22nd of the 7th month of Shùnzhì 18 (16 August 1661).
Principal dharma-heirs: 圅昰 Tiānrán Hánshì 天然圅昰 (1608–1685), who became the principal carrier of the line in Guǎngdōng; Zǔxīn Hánkě 祖心圅可 (1612–1660). Dàodú’s Guǎngdōng line — through Tiānrán and his own dharma-heirs Jīnshì / Dànguī (the present editor) and others — became one of the most politically-engaged Buddhist networks of the MíngQīng transition, absorbing a substantial number of Ming-loyalist literati into its monastic ranks.
Date bracket: c. 1630 (Dàodú’s departure from Bóshān, after which his teaching career developed) through the compilation of the guǎnglù by Jīnshì, completed before Jīnshì’s own death in 1680.
Translations and research
Dào-dú is a central figure in studies of the Ming-loyalist Buddhist resistance in Guǎng-dōng: see Lynn Struve, The Southern Ming, 1644–1662 (Yale, 1984); Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute (OUP, 2008); and the substantial recent Chinese-language scholarship on Jīn-shì / Dàn-guī and the Tiān-rán Hán-shì circle. The line’s political history — the absorption of numerous yí-mín 遺民 Ming loyalists into monastic orders in the Guǎng-dōng coastal region — is particularly well-documented for this lineage.