Wúshān Jìngduān chánshī yǔlù 吳山淨端禪師語錄
Two-juan late-Northern-Sòng / Southern-Sòng yǔlù of Wúshān Jìngduān 淨端 吳山淨端 (zì Míngbiǎo 明表; self-style Ānxián héshàng 安閑和尚; best known as Duān shī-zi 端師子 “Lion-Duān”; 1031 – 11 January 1104, shìshòu 74, sēnglà 49), Northern-Sòng Yúnménzōng 雲門宗 master with Tiāntái scholastic training. Xuzangjing X73 no. 1449. Re-edited (chóngbiān 重編) by his fǎsūn 法孫 師皎 Shījiǎo, a century later.
Abstract
The text carries three prefaces: (1) by Liú Yí 劉誼, zuǒ cháofèngdàfū bīngbù shìláng of the late Northern Sòng, written at the time of the first recension during Jìngduān’s lifetime; (2) an anonymous Southern-Sòng preface by a former abbot of Dàochǎngshān (qián zhùchí Dàochǎngshān sìzǔ bǐqiū Dìnglóng 定隆), dated the qiūhòu wǔ rì of Jiādìng Jǐsì 己巳 (1209), recording the chóngbiān commission and supplying narrative framing for Jìngduān’s life; (3) a third preface (unsigned opening) framing Jìngduān as a lion-wielding Chán performer.
Jìng-duān was a native of Guī-ān 歸安 (Wú-xīng), lay surname Qiū 丘. At six entered religion at Wú-shān Jiě-kōng-yuàn 吳山解空院 under Bǎo-xiān 寶暹; took the precepts only at twenty-six. Trained in Tiāntái doctrine (the Śūraṃgama 楞嚴 tradition) under Jìng-jué Rén-yuè 淨覺仁岳 (992–1064); later went to Bǎo-jué Qí-yuè 寶覺齊岳 (Yún-mén-zōng) at Cuì-fēng-sì, where — on observing the nòng shī-zi 弄獅子 lion-dance at a street festival — he experienced a sudden contraction-and-leap and “spontaneously turned and transformed himself into a lion’s crouching-posture” 奮迅翻身作狻猊狀; Qí-yuè confirmed his attainment, and the cóng-lín 叢林 thereafter styled him Duān shī-zi 端獅子 (“Lion-Duān”). The chancellor Zhāng-gōng 章公 (probably Zhāng Dūn 章惇, 1035–1105) invited him to open teaching at Wú-shān; he later moved to Hú-zhōu Xī-yú-sì 湖州西余寺.
His eccentric lay-engaged Chán teaching — “performing Buddhism with coloured silks imitating a lion-skin, living four-time in ‘small jiū’ gatherings where the poverty was such that normal people could not endure it but the master alone was at peace” — generated a substantial body of jìsòng 偈頌 that circulated orally for “over a hundred years” after his death before Shījiǎo’s collating-and-printing. His verse, likened by the prefaces to Hánshān 寒山 and Shídé 拾得, merges Chán doctrinal point and street-comic performance.
Date bracket: Jìngduān’s active teaching begins c. 1080 (after the chancellor’s invitation) through his death in 1104 for content; the chóngbiān is finalised in 1209.
Translations and research
Jìng-duān is treated in studies of Sòng-era “mad” Chán and Chán / Tiāntái crossover, and in the Hán-shān-tradition literary studies. Primary biographical source: the Duān chánshī xíng-yè jì 端禪師行業記 in juan 2 of the present yǔlù; further in Luó-hú yě-lù 羅湖野錄 juan 1 (X83 n1577) and Fó-zǔ gāng-mù 佛祖綱目 juan 36.