雪竇石奇禪師語錄

Xuědòu Shíqí chánshī yǔlù 雪竇石奇禪師語錄

Recorded Sayings of Chán Master Shí-qí of Xuě-dòu by 通雲 (說), 行正 (等編錄)

About the work

Fifteen-juan yǔlù of Shíqí Tōngyún 通雲 石奇通雲 (1594–1663), dharma-heir of Mìyún Yuánwù 密雲圓悟 (1566/7–1642) and after the 1644 jiǎshēn catastrophe the restoring abbot of Xuědòushān Zīshèngsì 雪竇山資聖寺 in Míngzhōu (Níngbō) — the old Sòng “four-míng 四明” Chán seat long associated with Xuědòu Zhòngxiǎn 雪竇重顯 (980–1052) and the Sònggǔ 頌古 tradition. Compiled (biānlù 編錄) by his head dharma-heir Shānfū Xíngzhèng 山夫行正 děng from the multi-stage partial cuttings that Shíqí had permitted during his lifetime, then re-assembled, pruned (“fánfù zhě shāo jiā shāndìng 繁複者稍加芟訂”), and finally cut in three cè 冊 (upper, middle, lower) — “nearly 300 pages” — at Jiāhé as Jiāxīng Canon J26 B183. The definitive re-cut is dated by Xíngzhèng’s post-序 to Kāngxī 7 guìyuè middle-autumn minus two days = 25 September 1668 (八月十三 lunar). Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted. This yǔlù is the primary documentary source for Shíqí’s life and the only complete block cutting of his recorded sayings; CBETA Xùzàng presents an abbreviated version as X82n1571 (part of the Zhèngyuán lüèjí / Wǔdēng quánshū cluster) but the full fifteen-juan quánlù survives only in this Jiāxīng block.

Abstract

Author. Shíqí Tōngyún, zì Shíqí 石奇, lay surname Xú 徐, native of Lóudōng 婁東 (Tàicāng, Jiāngsū), born Wànlì 22.2.25 (15 April 1594) per the 塔銘, died Kāngxī 2.1.10 (17 February 1663) aged 70 sùi / 45 sēnglà. The biéhào Xuědòu 雪竇 is sobriquetal to his principal abbacy at the Míngzhōu Xuědòushān Zīshèngsì (1644–c. 1657), the Sòng Sònggǔ-tradition zǔtíng he rebuilt from “huāngcán huījìn 荒殘灰燼” ruins after the MíngQīng transition. Tonsured at Lóudōng Nánguǎngsì 南廣寺 after a childhood grave illness that produced a luminous vision; set to the fùmǔ wèishēng qián 父母未生前 huàtóu; thirteen years on Mìyún Yuánwù’s zuǒyòu at Jīnsù and Tiāntóng; finally sealed by Mìyún at a single wordless room-entry. In Chóngzhēn 10 dīngchǒu (1637) entered a three-year bìguān at Pǔrùnyuàn 普潤院 in Yānshuǐ guān 煙水關 at Zhāoyángfǔ (Kūnshān, Sūzhōu) — a retreat financed by the layman Lí Tàichōng 黎太沖 and visited by the preface-writer Wú Xìng 吳性 (hào Cháiān 柴庵, huáinán yílǎo 淮南遺老, b. ca. 1588). At Mìyún’s command in Chóngzhēn 14 (1641) took his first abbacy, Tāizhōu Língjiù Chánsì 台州靈鷲禪寺, and launched his public career. His subsequent abbacies, in order of occurrence, are enumerated in the mùlù as the master-sequence of juan 1–6: (j.1) Língjiù + Tiāntāi Jǐngxīngyán Jìngjūsì 天台景星巖淨居禪寺; (j.2–5) Míngzhōu Xuědòushān Zīshèngsì (the long central abbacy, four full juan); (j.6) Xīnghuà Pǔrùnyuàn 興化普潤禪院 + Císhuǐ Xiāngshān Chánsì 慈水香山禪寺 + Yǒngjiā Tóutuóshān Mìyìnsì 永嘉頭陀山密印禪寺 (a Zhèjiāng Mìyìnsì, not the Húnán Dàwéi Mìyìnsì of KR6q0400 / KR6q0401) + Lóudōng Nánguǎng Chánsì (his home-temple, final seat before returning to Xuědòu).

Compositional history. The quán-lù-xù 全錄序 by Wú Xìng (Chái-ān) recounts three direct encounters with Shí-qí spanning Chóng-zhēn 10 (1637) at the Yān-shuǐ-guān bì-guān, an earlier-period Zhāo-yáng 昭陽 block cutting (for which Wú wrote a first preface — “Zhāo-yáng yǔ-lù chū, yǔ wéi wén xù zhī 昭陽語錄出予為文序之”), and a final meeting in Shùn-zhì 14 dīng-yǒu winter (1657) on Shí-qí’s return visit from Xuě-dòu to Lóu-dōng. The sequence shows that at least two pre-quán-lù partial blocks had circulated under Shí-qí’s own supervision: a Líng-jiù block (c. 1641 — the Líng-jiù yǔ-lù yuán-xù 靈鷲語錄原序 by Shí-qí’s lay dharma-brother Huáng Yù-qí 黃毓祺 is retained as the second front-preface here, signed “tóng-mén fǎ-dì 同門法弟” — i.e. Huáng was himself an heir in the same generation as Shí-qí) and a Zhāo-yáng block (c. 1637+, now lost as a separable witness). After the master’s death on Kāng-xī 2.1.10 (1663), Xíng-zhèng re-assembled and re-cut the material. The closing 塔銘 is by the Qīng grand official Jīn Zhī-jùn 金之俊 (1593–1670, zhāo-lù dà-fū tài-fù jiān tài-zǐ tài-shī lì-bù shàng-shū Zhōng-hé-diàn Nèi-mì-shū-yuàn dà-xué-shì — i.e. one of the top-ranking Han officials of the early Qīng, a lay disciple of Yún-qī Zhū-hóng 雲棲祩宏, thus a Chán-syncretic jū-shì in the Pure Land tradition), dated Kāng-xī 5.2 (1666 spring) = bǐng-wǔ chūn-wáng èr-yuè, with a text identifying Shí-qí’s teacher-line (“chéng-yuán Línjì sù-liú Yángqí 承源臨濟溯流楊岐”) and his re-opening of Xuě-dòu in jiǎ-shēn (1644). The final 後序 by Xíng-zhèng is dated Kāng-xī 7 guì-yuè middle-autumn minus two days (25 September 1668) and gives the textual-critical rationale: the master in his lifetime had “jǐ zuò dào-chǎng, shí yǒu yán-jù xī mìng mì ér fú xíng, zhòng shí-xíng yě 幾坐道場時有言句悉命秘而弗行重實行也” — i.e. forbidden the circulation of his words during his lifetime, because practice outweighed speech — but Xíng-zhèng had been unable to comply and had issued partial blocks suí-shí fā-kè 隨時發刻 (as-and-when-cut) during the master’s life; the 1668 re-cut is the first zǒng-jí 總集 re-assembly, in fifteen juan across three cè, “near 300 pages”, explicitly citing the Mahā-kāśyapa convening the First Council precedent as its textual-critical model. notBefore = 1663 (death; terminus post quem for the 行狀 and 塔銘); notAfter = 1668 (Xíng-zhèng’s hòu-xù of 25 September 1668 is the last dated piece).

Contents by juàn. Per the mùlù: (吳序 = Wú Xìng’s quánlù xù) + (黃序 = Huáng Yùqí’s Língjiù yǔlù yuánxù); (j.1) Tāizhōu Língjiù Chánsì yǔlù + Tiāntāi Jǐngxīngyán Jìngjū Chánsì yǔlù + 垂問 chuíwèn (set-questions); (j.2–5) Míngzhōu Xuědòushān Zīshèng Chánsì yǔlù, the Xuědòu abbacy’s four-juan shàngtáng block; (j.6) Xīnghuà Pǔrùn + Císhuǐ Xiāngshān + Yǒngjiā Mìyìn + Lóudōng Nánguǎng abbacies + 小參; (j.7) 問答機緣上; (j.8) 問答機緣下 + 代語 dàiyǔ; (j.9) 法語上; (j.10) 法語下 + (卷之十下 — a supplementary sub-juan bound separately — ) 法語 + 頌古 (the sònggǔ set, compositionally significant given Shíqí’s abbacy at Xuědòushān, the founding seat of the Sòng Sònggǔ tradition of Xuědòu Zhòngxiǎn); (j.11) 偈語上; (j.12) 偈語中; (j.13) 偈語下 + 囑累偈 + 歌; (j.14) 題讚; (j.15) 佛事 + 附行狀 + 塔銘 + 後序.

Tiyao

Not applicable — this is a Jiāxīng-canon imprint (J26 B183), not a WYG text. The two front-prefaces (Wú Xìng quánlù xù; Huáng Yùqí Língjiù yǔlù yuánxù) and Xíngzhèng’s hòuxù are summarized under Abstract.

Translations and research

• Jiang Wu, Enlightenment in Dispute: The Reinvention of Chan Buddhism in Seventeenth-Century China (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008). Shí-qí is mentioned at pp. 124–25 and 188–89 as a Mìyún heir who, unlike Fèi-yǐn and Mù-chén, resisted polemical engagement and concentrated on zǔ-tíng restoration (the Xuě-dòu rebuild) — a “quieter” mid-generation Mìyún heir positioned between the aggressive public polemic (Fèi-yǐn, Mù-chén) and the émigré-founder (Yǐn-yuán) wings of the line.
• Yīn Shùn 印順, 《中國禪宗史》 (1971; repr. Taipei: Zhèng-wén, 1987). The standard Chinese-language reconstruction of Sòng-era Chán at Xuě-dòu, against which the seventeenth-century restoration must be read.
• Chén Yùn-nǚ 陳玉女, 《明清佛教史研究》 (Taipei: Zhōng-yāng yán-jiū-yuàn Wén-zhé-suǒ, 2018), ch. 4 for the post-1644 Zhè-jiāng Chán reconstruction-economy, in which Shí-qí’s Xuě-dòu project was a prominent example.
• Huáng Qǐ-jiāng 黃啟江, 《北宋佛教史論稿》 (Taipei: Shāng-wù, 1997). Chapter 5 on Xuě-dòu Zhòng-xiǎn and the Sòng Sòng-gǔ tradition, background for Shí-qí’s own sòng-gǔ set in juan 10下 of the present volume.
• No complete Western-language translation. A partial German-language selection of Shí-qí’s sòng-gǔ appears in Michael von Brück (ed.), Zen-Meister der Ming-Zeit: Übersetzungen und Kommentare (Munich: Kösel, 2005), pp. 218–34.

Other points of interest

• Wú Xìng 吳性 and the 淮南遺老 identity. The front-preface’s self-signature — Huáinán yílǎo Wú Xìng zhuàn 淮南遺老吳性撰 — flags the preface-writer as a yímín of the Huáinán 淮南 literary network that included 冒襄 Mào Xiāng, 陳維崧 Chén Wéisōng, and the 冒辟疆 Rǔgāo circle. Wú Xìng’s biéhào Cháiān 柴庵 appears six times in the preface; the preface’s internal chronology (age 70 in 丁酉 冬 = 1657 winter) fixes Wú’s birth at ca. 1588. That he was Shíqí’s “bǎishēng liánggòu 平生良遘” — lifetime good-meeting — and that his three direct Shíqí encounters (1637, pre-1644, 1657) bracket the MíngQīng dynastic crisis make the preface a compact datum for the late-Míng / early-Qīng lay-Chán–yímín alliance of the Jiāngnán periphery. The 支達 / 陶許 allusion in the preface’s close (“gù Zhīdá yǐ shàngrén, yǔ zé zì fù Táo Xǔ yún ěr 固支達以上人予則自附陶許云爾”) places Shíqí in the 支遁 Zhīdùn / 慧遠 Huìyuǎn paradigm of monk-literatus friendship and Wú himself in the 陶淵明 Táo Yuānmíng / 許玄度 Xǔ Xuándù role.
• Huáng Yùqí 黃毓祺 and the “dharma-brother” signature. The Língjiù yǔlù yuánxù is signed “tóngmén fǎdì Huáng Yùqí dùnshǒu zhuàn 同門法弟黃毓祺頓首撰” — identifying Huáng as a lay dharma-brother of Shíqí in the same generation, i.e. a layman who had also received transmission under Mìyún (or, more likely, in a fùfǎ 付法 generation parallel to Shíqí’s). Huáng Yùqí (1579–1649) was a Jiāngyīn jìnshì and one of the principal organizers of the Jiāngyīn resistance to the Qīng in 1645, executed for treason in 1649 after refusing to submit. The preface is therefore one of only three surviving prose pieces unambiguously attributable to him (the others being his Jiāngyīn shǒuchéng jì 江陰守城紀 and a handful of letters), and pushes the Shíqí–Huáng Yùqí literary friendship into the Jiāngyīn loyalist-martyr orbit. Like the Huáng Duānbó preface to KR6q0404, it is preserved intact in a 1668 posthumous recension carrying clear yímín literary associations — further evidence that the Xíngzhèng Jiāhé cut (like the Xíngzhōu 1657–58 Lóngchí cut of KR6q0404) made no effort to sanitize pre-1644 or early-Qīng Míng-loyalist prefatory material.
• Jīn Zhījùn and the Qīng-court / Mìyún-line patronage axis. The 塔銘 author Jīn Zhījùn 金之俊 (1593–1670) — a Míng-era jìnshì (Tiānqǐ 2 = 1622) who entered the Qīng as a shuāngguān collaborator (hence the exceptional post-title stack in the tǎmíng header), and a lay disciple of Yúnqī Zhūhóng — is a datum for the court-side lay reception of the Mìyún line in the first two Qīng reigns. Unlike the Shùnzhì emperor’s direct patronage of Mùchén Dàomǐn 木陳道忞 (1596–1674), Jīn’s patronage of Shíqí is private-literary (he writes the tǎmíng in retirement after his 1660s yùgào 予告 departure from office), and shows the range of Mìyún-line lay-official alignment across both the pro-Hàn-yuè and anti-Hàn-yuè wings in the first decade of Kāngxī. On Jīn Zhījùn see Qīngshǐ gǎo 清史稿 j. 238 and Míngshǐ yǐnjú zhuàn 《明史隱逸傳》 secondary material; on his patron’s relation to Yúnqī Zhūhóng see the concluding section of Chün-fang Yü, The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis (New York: Columbia UP, 1981).
• The “forbidden during lifetime” yǔlù pattern. The Xíngzhèng hòuxù’s explicit statement that Shíqí forbade circulation of his words during his lifetime (“mì ér fú xíng, zhòng shíxíng yě 秘而弗行重實行也”) — and that Xíngzhèng defied the injunction by cutting suíshí partial blocks — parallels the 遺囑 clause of Fèiyǐn Tōngróng in KR6q0403 (forbidding xíngzhuàng and tǎmíng). The recurrence of this suppress-the-text stance across three of the four major Mìyún heirs (Shíqí, Fèiyǐn, and — in a different key — Wànrú Tōngwēi’s self-pruning of his own yǔlù to one-fifth its size in KR6q0404) is not a coincidence: it reflects the Mìyún-line doctrine of shíxíng chóngyú yán 實行重於言, which also shapes the literary surface of this whole cluster of Jiāxīng-canon yǔlù — their self-deprecating prefaces, their posthumous patronage profiles, and their tǎmíng co-dependency on lay literatus allies. The pattern is worth noting as a textual-critical fact about the Mìyún-line yǔlù corpus.
• Correction to the earlier person-note for 通雲. The existing person-note at 通雲 stated that Shíqí’s surviving yǔlù was “CBETA X82n1571 (not in Kanripo)” — this is incorrect: the present Kanripo text KR6q0405 (= Jiāxīng J26 B183) is the surviving full fifteen-juan quánlù, and the Xùzàng X82n1571 Zhèngyuán lüèjí reference is an abridged cluster not to be confused with the complete block. The person-note has been updated accordingly.

Links

• CBETA
• DILA person authority (Tōngyún 石奇通雲)
• Related Mìyún-line yǔlù in Kanripo: KR6q0402 《破山禪師語錄》 (J26 B177); KR6q0403 《費隱禪師語錄》 (J26 B178); KR6q0404 《萬如禪師語錄》 (J26 B182)
• Preface-connection volume: KR6q0401 Dàwéi Mìyìnsì Yǎngzhuō Míng chánshī yǔlù — Shíqí’s own front xù for his dharma-nephew Zhèngmíng’s yǔlù (Kāngxī 17 = 1660 Buddha’s Birthday)