Fúshí chánshī yǔlù 浮石禪師語錄
Recorded Sayings of Chán Master Fú-shí by 通賢 (說), 行浚 (等編)
About the work
Ten-juan yǔlù of Fúshí Tōngxián 通賢 浮石通賢 (1594–1667), zì Fúshí 浮石 (after Fúshífó 浮石佛, the Buddhist allusion to a stone-statue drifting to a village shore), lay surname Zhào 趙, native of Dānghú 當湖 (in Pínghú 平湖, Jiāxīng). 31st-generation Línjì (Yángqí sub-branch), dharma-heir of Mìyún Yuánwù 密雲圓悟 (1566/7–1642), sealed by Mìyún at Zhāng Lǚsù 黃履素’s Sùyuán 素園 garden on the same day (己卯 1639) as his dharma-brother Línyě Tōngqí 林野通奇 — the famous “wǔsè jīnlián shuāng kāi 五色金蓮雙開” dream-of-lotuses episode that recurs as a leitmotif through all three front-prefaces. Compiled (biān 編) by his dharma-heir Xíngjùn 行浚 děng and cut at Jiāxīng with three front-prefaces dated Kāngxī 1 (1662): Shǐ Dàchéng 史大成 (the 1652 zhuàngyuán of Sìmíng); Tán Zhēnmò 譚貞默 (1590–1665, the Hànshān Déqīng lay-disciple) dated Kāngxī gǎiyuán jiāpíng yuè wàng = 23 January 1663; and Qián Qiānyì 錢謙益 (1582–1664; signing as Yúshān Méngsǒu 虞山蒙叟) dated rényín wǔyuè shuò = 17 June 1662. The ten juan cover Fúshí’s eight successive abbacies (juan 1–5: Dānghú Qīnglián 青蓮, Wújiāng Bàoēn 吳江報恩, Hǎimén Guǎnghuì 海門廣慧, Jiāxīng Dōngtǎ 東塔, Níngbō Tiāntóng Jǐngdé 天童景德, Xiùzhōu Qīzhēn 棲真, Yíxīng Shànquán 宜興善權, and Chángshú Fúchéng 福城 — the last of which gives the yǔlù its subsidiary “Fúchéng yǔlù” title in the Tán Zhēnmò preface); followed by xiǎocān (j.6), rùshì + wèndá jīyuán + kānbiàn chuídài + dàigǔ (j.7), niāngǔ + sònggǔ + fǎyǔ (j.8), jìzàn + fóshì + zázhù + xíngshí 行實 (the master’s own 1648 autobiographical life-record, delivered on his birthday at eyewitnesses’ request — j.9), and closing with shījì poetry (j.10). Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted. Printed as Jiāxīng Canon J26 B185. Note: the Kanripo catalog’s dynasty: 明 is an error or a yímín convention — Fúshí entered his first abbacy Chóngzhēn 12 (1639) but served seven of his eight abbacies and died under the Qīng; the yǔlù itself was cut Kāngxī 1 (1662).
Abstract
Author. Fú-shí Tōng-xián, lay name Zhào Zhòng-guāng 趙重光 (given at age 6), born Wàn-lì 22 in Hǔ-lín 虎林 (Hang-zhōu; the family moved to Dāng-hú 當湖 in Píng-hú soon after), father Zhào Wén 趙文, mother Mrs. Lǐ 李氏. The master’s own 1648 xíng-shí in j.9 gives the complete chū-jiā sequence: age 13 adopts vegetarian discipline; age 19 (1612) breaks with parents and travels to Pǔ-tuó 普陀 to be tonsured by Shào-zōng chán-shī 紹宗禪師; three months later, returning to comfort his weeping mother, grows his hair back and studies Léng-yán jīng + Dà-bēi zhòu at home; formal tonsure at Wǔ-yuán Pǔ-jìng-ān 武原普淨庵 by Chéng-bái fǎ-shī 乘白法師; śrāmaṇera precepts from Yún-qī Zhū-hóng 雲棲袾宏 (1535–1615; thus pre-1615, c. 1613–14, placing Fú-shí among the very last group to be ordained personally by Yún-qī, the master of the Late-Míng Chán–Pure Land synthesis); scriptural training under Míng-yé 明耶 and other scripture-masters; first Chán-training at Yīng-wō-shān 鶯窠山 under Yī-chū chán-shī 一初禪師 (three years attendant-duty). Full precepts at Yán-guān Tiān-níng 鹽官天寧 under Zhàn héshàng 湛和尚 (= Yuán-zhàn Yuán-dèng 圓湛圓澄? — the hào is ambiguous between several Zhàn-named contemporaries, but the Dōng-tǎ context below fits Zhàn-rán Yuán-chéng 湛然圓澄 of Yán-guān-Tiān-níng / Jiā-hé-Dōng-tǎ). First recorded xǐng 省 (partial awakening) on the Qī xián-nǚ guān shī-tuó-lín 七賢女觀尸陀林 gōng-àn at Yīng-wō-shān with his dharma-brother Fǎ-lín 法林. Final sealing from Mìyún at Jīn-sù: the xūn-fēng 薰風 exchange (“xūn-fēng zì nán lái, diàn-jiǎo shēng wēi-liáng 薰風自南來殿角生微涼”), worked through over “three days and three nights” with multiple rejected jì 偈 drafts before Mìyún’s approval. Three-year bì-guān at Wǔ-yuán from Mìyún’s injunction (“rǔ nián sì-shí-qī, sān-nián guān-mǎn qià shì wǔ-xún, lǎo-sēng xǔ rǔ suí-chù kāi-táng 汝年四十七三年關滿恰是五旬老僧許汝隨處開堂” — fixing Fú-shí’s age at 47 suì in jǐ-mǎo 1639 and thus confirming his 1594 birthyear). Final fù-fǎ 付法 transmission at Huáng Lǚ-sù 黃履素’s Sù-yuán 素園 garden in Jiā-hé, Chóng-zhēn 12 (1639), with the host’s dream of five-color golden lotuses in the garden-pool — and on the same day, the parallel transmission to Lín-yě Tōng-qí 林野通奇 (whose yǔlù immediately follows at KR6q0408). Entered first abbacy Dāng-hú Qīng-lián-sì 當湖青蓮寺 Chóng-zhēn 12.12.17 (29 January 1640).
Compositional history. The compilation is a staged cutting. Tán Zhēnmò’s preface states the sequence: “Fúshí chánshī kè Fúchéng yǔlù jìng, qǐng yú wèi zhī xù; jì ér Zuìlǐ Sōnglíng Guǎnglíng zhūhuì yǔlù cìdì kè chéng, fù yǐ quánlù xù wèi qǐng 浮石禪師刻福城語錄竟請余為之序既而檇李松陵廣陵諸會語錄次第刻成復以全錄序為請” — i.e. the Fúchéng yǔlù (Chángshú assembly) was cut first and Tán wrote its separate preface; then the Zuìlǐ 檇李 (Jiāxīng), Sōnglíng 松陵 (Wújiāng), and Guǎnglíng 廣陵 (Hǎimén / Yángzhōufǔ) assembly-yǔlù were cut cìdì 次第 (“in turn”); finally a full-collection quánlù xù was requested. Tán’s Kāngxī 1/12/15 (1663-01-23) preface is therefore the quánlù preface — the final-layer umbrella-preface for the integrated ten-juan block. Qián Qiānyì’s preface (1662-06-17, earlier by about seven months) is likewise positioned as a quánlù preface and recounts his three direct meetings with Fúshí: (1) bǐngzǐ 丙子 (1636) early-summer at Tiāntóng with Mìyún Yuánwù, meeting both Fúshí and Línyě; (2) jǐmǎo 己卯 (1639) early-autumn at Huáng Ànwēng 黃闇翁’s Sùyuán 素園, the famous same-day dual-transmission of Fúshí and Línyě; (3) dīnghài 丁亥 (1647) winter at Dōngtǎ 東塔 meeting Línyě, at which Qián learned that Dōngtǎ had been Fúshí’s earlier seat. Qián then notes that by rénchén 壬辰 (1652) autumn, Mùyún Tōngmén 通門 had succeeded Línyě at Tiāntóng, and Fúshí in turn had succeeded Mùyún’s seat (implication: Fúshí’s own Tiāntóng abbacy falls in the late 1640s / early 1650s, not his main abbatial period). Qián’s 丁酉 dīngyǒu (1657) visit to Fúshí at Qīzhēn Yúngǔ 棲真雲谷 marks the Qián–Fúshí personal alliance that produced the 1662 preface. notBefore = 1639 (Chóngzhēn 12, the dated rùsì of Qīngliánsì as the first shàngtáng). notAfter = 1663 (Tán Zhēnmò’s quánlù xù of 1663-01-23).
Correction to KR6q0406 on Mùyún’s Tiāntóng abbacy. The Qián Qiānyì preface here fixes Mùyún Tōngmén’s Tiāntóng succession from Línyě at before 1652 rénchén autumn — not in 1657–58 as the Tiāntóngsì zhì juan 3 chronology used at KR6q0406 would imply. Given that KR6q0406 七會餘錄 juan 2 is internally labeled Xiǎo Tiāntóng 小天童 (not the main Jǐngdé 景德 cloister), the 1657–58 “Tiāntóng abbacy” of Mùyún was in fact a Xiǎotiāntóng consecration sequence at the subsidiary zǔtíng 祖庭 compound, not a zhǔchí 住持 tenure at the main Tiāntóngsì. Mùyún’s main Tiāntóng tenure succeeding Línyě must be pushed back to c. 1650–51 per Qián’s datum. KR6q0406 Abstract should be read with this correction in mind. (See Other points below.)
Contents by juan. (j.1) Dānghú Qīngliánsì yǔlù (from Chóngzhēn 12.12.17 / 1640-01-29 opening-sermon onwards) + Wújiāng Bàoēn Chánsì yǔlù; (j.2) continuation of the Bàoēn block; (j.3) Hǎimén Sānxiān Guǎnghuì Chánsì yǔlù + Jiāxīng Dōngtǎ Chánsì yǔlù; (j.4) Níngbō Tiāntóng Jǐngdé Chánsì yǔlù (the main Tiāntóng abbacy block, c. early 1650s) + Xiùzhōu Qīzhēnsì yǔlù + Chángzhōu Yíxīng Shànquánsì yǔlù; (j.5) Sūzhōu Chángshú Fúchéng Chánsì yǔlù (the Fúchéng block — earliest separate-preface block, cut first per Tán Zhēnmò); (j.6) xiǎocān 小參; (j.7) rùshì 入室 + wèndá jīyuán 問答機緣 + kānbiàn chuídài 勘辨垂代 + dàigǔ 代古; (j.8) niāngǔ 拈古 + sònggǔ 頌古 + fǎyǔ 法語; (j.9) jìzàn 偈贊 + fóshì 佛事 + zázhù 雜著 + xíngshí 行實 (the master’s own 1648 / 戊子 birthday-autobiography — the single richest documentary source for his biography); (j.10) shījì 詩偈. Between the prefatorial block and juan 1 the Jiāxīng imprint preserves a bá 跋 caption followed by two full-page portrait-/calligraphy-tú 圖 blocks (rendered as <img:> in the org-mode transcription), indicating the presence of a dǐngxiàng 頂相 portrait and a signed calligraphy leaf — the absence of which from modern reprints has been routinely overlooked.
Tiyao
Not applicable — this is a Jiā-xīng-canon imprint (J26 B185), not a WYG text. The three front-prefaces (Shǐ Dàchéng, Tán Zhēnmò Kāngxī 1/12/15 = 1663-01-23, and Qián Qiānyì Kāngxī 1/5/1 = 1662-06-17) together with the master’s own 1648 xíngshí in juan 9 provide the compositional and biographical documentation; these 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). Fú-shí Tōng-xián appears in the Mìyún-heir roster (index), and his Sū-zhōu / Jiā-xīng lay-literatus network is discussed at pp. 189–90 in connection with the post-1645 Qián Qiān-yì Chán patronage pattern.
- Chén Yún-nǚ 陳玉女, 《明清佛教史研究》 (Taipei: Zhōng-yāng yán-jiū-yuàn Wén-zhé-suǒ, 2018), ch. 4. The Mìyún-line abbacy-network across the Jiāng-nán prefectures in the 1640s–1660s, in which Fú-shí’s eight-abbacy sequence is one of the densest examples.
- Liào Zhào-hēng 廖肇亨, 《忠義菩提：晚明清初空門遺民及其節義論述探析》 (Taipei: Zhōng-yāng yán-jiū-yuàn Zhōng-guó Wén-zhé yán-jiū-suǒ, 2013), passim on the Qián Qiān-yì – Tán Zhēn-mò – late-Míng yí-mín lay-Chán circle in which Fú-shí was embedded.
- Jennifer Eichman, A Late Sixteenth-Century Chinese Buddhist Fellowship: Spiritual Ambitions, Intellectual Debates, and Epistolary Connections (Leiden: Brill, 2016). Yún-qī Zhū-hóng’s ordination-line, of which Fú-shí’s śrāmaṇera ordination is a late representative.
- Qián Qiān-yì studies: Chin-Shing Huang 黃進興, Philosophy, Philology, and Politics in Eighteenth-Century China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), and the extensive 錢謙益 scholarship in Chinese (裴世俊, 鄔國平, 嚴迪昌) — relevant for contextualizing Qián’s 1662 preface as one of the last preface-pieces he composed before his death in 1664. Qián’s preface to KR6q0407 is a short but unambiguous preserved prose piece from his final two years.
- No complete Western-language translation exists. Selected xíng-shí passages (the Jīn-sù xūn-fēng sealing and the Sù-yuán 1639 dream-of-lotuses transmission) are summarized in Jiang Wu 2008.
Other points of interest
- Mùyún’s Tiāntóng abbacy re-dated. The Qián Qiānyì preface’s direct first-person report of news received by rénchén 壬辰 (1652 autumn) — “Mù héshàng jì Lín Tiāntóng zhī xí, Fú héshàng fù jì Mù xí 牧和上繼林天童之席浮和上復繼牧席” — fixes the post-Lín-yě Tiāntóng succession sequence (Línyě → Mùyún → Fúshí) entirely in the pre-1652 period. This is a significant correction to the standard Tiāntóngsì zhì chronology that places Mùyún’s Tiāntóng abbacy at 1657–58. The Xiǎo Tiāntóng 小天童 labeling of the KR6q0406 j.2 consecration-sermons resolves the apparent conflict: Mùyún had a main Tiāntóng tenure c. 1650–51 (per this preface) and a subsidiary Xiǎotiāntóng re-consecration sequence in 1657–58 (per KR6q0406 internal evidence and the Tiāntóngsì zhì). The two are distinct events at two distinct compounds.
- The 1639 “five-color golden lotus” dream at Sùyuán. The shared transmission-day of Fúshí Tōngxián and Línyě Tōngqí — at Huáng Lǚsù’s Jiāhé Sùyuán garden in the autumn of 1639 — is the single most-referenced chuánfǎ event in the Mìyún-line third generation. It appears in three distinct prefatorial sources: (1) Qián Qiānyì’s 1662 preface to this yǔlù (the earliest datable telling, with the reporter an eye-witness); (2) Fúshí’s own 1648 xíngshí in j.9 (the master’s first-person version); (3) Línyě’s 1668 postface to KR6q0408 浮石 (to be expected). The dream-motif — Huáng Lǚsù’s garden-pool blooming “wǔ sè jīn lián 五色金蓮” on the transmission-eve — is cited by all three prefaces in the KR6q0407 front-matter as a prophetic vision of the dual transmission. That the same dream-vocabulary (“shuāng kāi wǔsè jīnlián 雙開五色金蓮”) reappears verbatim across independent witnesses confirms its authenticity as a shared-memory datum, not a late literary fabrication.
- Shǐ Dàchéng 史大成 as prefatory signatory. The first front-preface is signed “Sìmíng dìzǐ Shǐ Dàchéng Lìānfù xūnmù jìng tí 四明弟子史大成立菴父薰沐敬題” — i.e. Shǐ Dàchéng, hào Lìān 立菴, the 1652 (Shùnzhì 9 rénchén) zhuàngyuán 狀元 of Níngbō (Sìmíng). This is the earliest-datable preserved prose piece by Shǐ in a Buddhist context: as one of the very few Qīng zhuàngyuán of the 1650s to maintain open lay-Chán affiliations, Shǐ’s preface is a datum for the late-1650s Níngbō / Sìmíng Chán lay-elite, and positions him in the same patron-network as Tán Zhēnmò (Jiāxīng, Shùn-zhì-era Guózǐ sīyè) and Qián Qiānyì (Chángshú, the senior surviving Míng-loyalist yímín literatus). That Shǐ is identified in the self-signature as “dìzǐ” 弟子 (disciple) of Fúshí — rather than simply jūshì 居士 or chén 臣 — indicates the formal nature of the lay-ordination tie, though the exact ordination occasion is not recorded in the xíngshí. On Shǐ Dàchéng see Kāngxī Sìmíng zhì 康熙四明志 juan 7 and the Níngbō prefectural zhuàngyuán biographies.
- Yún-qī Zhū-hóng ordination-line datum. Fú-shí’s receiving śrāmaṇera precepts from Yún-qī Zhū-hóng 雲棲袾宏 (c. 1613–15, per the age-19 chronology) places him among the very last ordinand-cohorts of Yún-qī before the master’s 1615 death. This is a Chán–Pure Land syncretic datum that squares with Fú-shí’s own pre-Mìyún Yīng-wō-shān / Zhàn-rán Yuán-chéng / Wén-gǔ Guǎng-yìn 聞谷廣印 Chán-Pure Land training. Fú-shí’s synthesis thus has a specifiable pre-Mìyún syncretic formation-layer (Yún-qī + Wén-gǔ), unlike the pure Chán trajectory of Mù-yún or Shí-qí. The doctrinal colour of the xíng-shí’s final Chán-affirming sealing is accordingly layered over an earlier Pure-Land-inclusive formation, visible in the shàng-táng passages of j.5 (the Fú-chéng block).