林野奇禪師語錄

Línyě Qí chánshī yǔlù 林野奇禪師語錄

Recorded Sayings of Chán Master Lín-yě Qí by 通奇 (說), 行謐 (等編)

About the work

Eight-juan yǔlù of Línyě Tōngqí 通奇 林野通奇 (1595–1652), zì Línyě 林野 (“Forest-Wild”), lay surname Cài 蔡, native of Sìchuān Chóngqìngfǔ Hézhōu 四川重慶府合州 (modern Héchuān 合川 district, Chóngqìng) — one of the few prominent Mìyún-line third-generation masters to come from Shǔ 蜀 (Sìchuān), a regional datum exploited by Mùchén Dàomǐn 木陳道忞 (1596–1674) throughout the tǎmíng 塔銘’s geographic opening (the Lǐ Bái / Báidìchéng allusion and the “Shǔ dì shānchuān xiǎnzǔ 蜀地山川險阻” passage). 31st-generation Línjì (Yángqí sub-branch), dharma-heir of Mìyún Yuánwù 密雲圓悟 (1566/7–1642); sealed on the same day (jǐmǎo qiū jiǔyuè 己卯秋九月 = autumn 1639) as his dharma-brother Fúshí Tōngxián 通賢 (1594–1667, author of KR6q0407) at Huáng Lǚsù 黃履素’s Sùyuán 素園 garden in Jiāhé — the famous “five-color-golden-lotus” / “twin-cinnamon-tree” dual-transmission event. Compiled by his dharma-heir Èryǐn Xíngmì 行謐 二隱行謐 (hào Lóngyuān 龍淵) at Huátíng Chuánzǐ Fǎrěnsì 華亭船子法忍寺 (Sōngjiāngfǔ) and cut with a postface dated Shùnzhì 15 / 1658. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted. Printed as Jiāxīng Canon J26 B186. Note: the Kanripo catalog’s dynasty: 明 is a yímín convention — the master served his first abbacy Chóngzhēn 16 (1643) under the Míng but died under the Qīng in 1652 with the cutting completed under the Qīng in 1658.

Abstract

Author. Línyě Tōngqí, born Wànlì 23.12.26 (early 1596 Western) in Hézhōu 合州 to father Cài 蔡 and mother Yúshì 余氏. Became a tóngxíng 童行 at age 10 under his paternal uncle Dàorán 道然 at Jīnzhōngsì 金鐘寺; formally tonsured at 17. At 19 (1614) left Sichuan and traveled south fourteen years among the jiǎngsì 講肆 (scripture-lecture halls), attaining the offer of a lecture-seat (dàzuò 大座) which he declined. Dīngmǎo 丁卯 (1627) settled at Dānghú Décáng 當湖德藏 (Pínghú, Jiāxīng) for three-year bìguān 閉關; while there, fell ill and read Mìyún’s yǔlù, catching fire on the yīniàn wèishēng qián 一念未生前 gōngàn. Gēngwǔ 庚午 (1630) spring, on Mìyún’s passage through Dānghú, sent a question-envoy to him; Mìyún replied only “jiào tā guānzhōng mò wàngxiǎng 教他關中莫妄想” (tell him, inside the retreat-cell, do not fantasize). One day while walking the inner-retreat walkway, slipped and fell from an upper floor, recovering consciousness with the verse “yīniàn wèishēng qián, liùhù jué xiāoxī … 一念未生前六戶絕消息…” — broke his retreat and traveled to Gūsū Qīngliángān 姑蘇清涼菴 to meet Mìyún, receiving the first face-to-face interview. Xīnwèi 辛未 (1631) spring followed Mìyún to Yùwángsì 育王寺, then returned to Jīnsù 金粟. Served Mìyún for ten years as close attendant (侍), wéinà 維那 (disciplinarian), and xītáng 西堂 (hall-elder); known in the community as “Lín Gǔfó” 林古佛 (“Old-Buddha Lín”). Yǐhài 乙亥 (1635/36) winter declined the yuánzuò 元座 (head-seat) position on health grounds (“zhè-ge bùshì guǎn sānjūn 這個不是管三軍”). Final transmission at Huáng Lǚsù 黃履素 (hào Ànzhāi guānchá 闇齋觀察)‘s Jiāhé Sùyuán garden on the same day as Fúshí Tōngxián, jǐmǎo autumn 1639, with Mrs. Huáng’s dream of “tíng qián dānguì èr zhū cāntiān shèng kāi 庭前丹桂二株參天盛開” — “two cinnamon trees in the courtyard blooming to the sky” — as the prefiguring omen (distinct from but parallel to the “wǔsè jīnlián shuāng kāi 五色金蓮雙開” dream reported in KR6q0407’s prefaces; see Other points). Gēngchén 庚辰 (1640) 6th month retired to Yúháng Guǎnghuàsì 餘杭廣化寺.

Abbacies (the “five great seats” 五會大道場 of the Cáo Xūn preface). (1) Tāizhōu Tiāntāishān Tōngxuán Chánsì 台州天台山通玄禪寺 — first abbacy, Chóngzhēn 16 癸未 4.4 (= 22 May 1643), taking the seat in succession to Mìyún Yuánwù who had died there the previous year (rénwǔ qiū 壬午秋 1642 autumn). Five-year tenure, through the MíngQīng transition, 1643–1647. (2) Jiāxīng Dōngtǎsì 嘉興東塔寺 — dīnghài 丁亥 (1647) winter, on the petition of Huáng Ànzhāi guānchá, Gāo Shuǐbù Zēngchéng, and Wāng jìnshì (= Wāng Tǐng 汪挺 of the third preface), together with the vacancy caused by Fúshí Tōngxián’s Dōngtǎ withdrawal. (3) Xiùzhōu Qīzhēnsì 秀州棲真寺 — wùzǐ 戊子 (1648) spring, petitioned by Qián Qiānyì 錢謙益 (Sāiān 塞菴). (4) Húzhōu Dùshēng Chányuàn 湖州度生禪院 — jǐchǒu 己丑 (1649) winter, primarily for a precept-ceremony. (5) Míngzhōu Tiāntóng Jǐngdé Chánsì 明州天童景德禪寺 — enter the temple gēngyín 庚寅 (1650) 5.3, succeeding the vacancy that had opened with Fúshí’s departure. Died at Tiāntóng rénchén 壬辰 3.29 (6 May 1652) aged 58 suì / 41 sēnglà per the tǎmíng.

Compositional history. The yǔlù has a two-layer cutting history. A first partial block was cut by the dharma-heir Fógǔ Wén 佛古聞 at Tōngxuán during Línyě’s lifetime, evidenced by the Shùnzhì wùzǐ spring (1648) prefaces of Cáo Xūn 曹勳 (lǐbù yòushìláng 禮部右侍郎, and Línyě’s tóngnián 同年 classmate-affine via Zhōu Jūnmó 周君謨) and Wāng Tǐng 汪挺 (Shuāngxī 雙谿, Jiāhé jìnshì). Tán Zhēnmò 譚貞默’s later quánlù preface criticizes this early cutting as “biāncì wèi jìn zhuāngyán 編次未盡莊嚴” — editorially not yet fully in order. The second, integrated block — the present J26 B186 — was re-assembled by the head dharma-heir Èryǐn Xíngmì 二隱行謐 at Huátíng Chuánzǐ Fǎrěnsì and cut with three front-prefaces (Cáo Xūn 1648 early-spring, Tán Zhēnmò Shùnzhì 15 wùxū 戊戌 Buddha-birthday = 10 May 1658, Wāng Tǐng Shùnzhì 5 wùzǐ 戊子 mid-spring = 1648 lunar 2nd month) and Xíngmì’s own closing hòubá 後跋 dated Shùnzhì 15 wùxū Fóhuānrì 順治戊戌佛歡日 (1658 lunar 7.15, Ullambana day, = 13 August 1658). The hòubá states that Xíngmì edited the records from all five abbacies’ scribes into eight juan totaling “over 50,000 characters.” The incorporated xíngzhuàng 行狀 is by Cáo Xūn (the same 1648-preface-writer giving his full title-stack), the tǎmíng 塔銘 is by Mùchén Dàomǐn 木陳道忞 (1596–1674) in his pre-imperial-audience phase, writing from the Wúxīng Dàochǎngshān Wànshòusì 吳興道場山萬壽禪寺 abbot’s seat. notBefore = 1643 (癸未, the dated opening sermon at Tōngxuán); notAfter = 1658 (戊戌, Xíngmì’s hòubá).

Contents by juan. (j.1) 序(三道) — the three front-prefaces (Cáo Xūn 1648-spring, Tán Zhēnmò 1658-Buddha-birthday, Wāng Tǐng 1648-mid-spring); and 上堂 Tōngxuán block; (j.2–j.4) 上堂 continued, covering the Tōngxuán → Dōngtǎ → Qīzhēn → Dùshēng → Tiāntóng abbacy sequence; (j.5) 示眾 + 開示 + 小參 + 晚參 + 法語 + 普說 + 警策 + 誡勉; (j.6) 拈頌 + 行實 + 書問; (j.7) 勘辨 + 應機 + 機緣 + 答問; (j.8) 詩偈 + 像贊 + 佛事 + 附行狀 + 塔銘 + 跋.

Tiyao

Not applicable — this is a Jiā-xīng-canon imprint (J26 B186), not a WYG text. The three front-prefaces, the Cáo Xūn xíngzhuàng, the Dàomǐn tǎmíng, and Xíngmì’s hòubá — all preserved in the Jiāxīng block — provide the compositional and biographical documentation 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). Lín-yě appears at pp. 58, 102, 126, 213–15 in connection with the Tōng-xuán-Tiān-tái succession from Mìyún and the post-1642 Tiān-tóng transition-period. Jiang’s ch. 6 (“Factionalism Reconsidered: The Mìyún–Hàn-yuè Dispute”) treats Lín-yě as a Mìyún-line moderate who — like Fú-shí Tōng-xián and unlike Fèi-yǐn Tōng-róng — avoided direct engagement in the 1630s-50s polemical wars.
• Jiang Wu, Leaving for the Rising Sun: Chinese Zen Master Yinyuan and the Authenticity Crisis in Early Modern East Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). Lín-yě’s Sichuan-origin and non-coastal literary reception are contextualized in ch. 2.
• 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 Tōng-xuán → Tiān-tóng abbacy-network in the Míng-Qīng transition. Lín-yě is a principal case-study.
• Cáo Gāng-huá 曹剛華, 《明代佛教方志研究》 (Beijing: Rén-mín Chū-bǎn-shè, 2011). For the Tiān-tóng-sì zhì redaction history and Lín-yě’s 1650–52 Tiān-tóng tenure.
• Zhāng Shèng-yán 張聖嚴 (Master Sheng Yen), 《明末佛教研究》 (Taipei: Dōng-chū, 1992; reprint 2009). Still the authoritative Chinese-language survey of the late-Míng Chán revival in which Lín-yě is situated.
• No complete Western-language translation of the yǔlù. Selected fō-shì 佛事 and niān-sòng 拈頌 passages appear in excerpts across the Jiang Wu monographs.

Other points of interest

• Two different dream-omens for the same 1639 transmission. The 1639 Sùyuán dual-transmission of Fúshí Tōngxián and Línyě Tōngqí is reported with two distinct prefiguring dreams by independent witnesses: in KR6q0407’s front-prefaces (Qián Qiānyì, Tán Zhēnmò, the master’s own 1648 xíngshí) Huáng Lǚsù’s garden-pool blooms “shuāng kāi wǔsè jīnlián 雙開五色金蓮” (a pair of five-color golden lotuses); in the present KR6q0408 xíngzhuàng by Cáo Xūn, Mrs. Huáng (黃夫人) dreams of “tíng qián dānguì èr zhū cāntiān shèng kāi 庭前丹桂二株參天盛開” (two cinnamon trees in the courtyard blooming to the sky). The two dreams are not in conflict — they are complementary male-and-female-witnesses of the same eve, and probably a joint-household dream set (one member of the household dreams lotus, another dreams cinnamon). The doubled-dream structure also amplifies the “shuāng fù 雙付” (double-transmission) motif at the heart of the 1639 Sùyuán event, the single most-referenced chuánfǎ day in the Mìyún-line third generation.
• Non-sectarian at Tiāntóng — “bù fēn DòngJǐ 不分洞濟” The Tán Zhēnmò preface and Cáo Xūn’s xíngzhuàng both single out as Línyě’s most distinctive contribution his Tiāntóng (1650–52) policy of “at the East-Valley ancestor-halls not distinguishing Línjì from Cáodòng, seeing all of them renewed” (“shī yú Dōnggǔ zhū yǐngtáng bùfēn DòngJǐ, xī jiàn dǐngxīn zhī jì 師於東谷諸影堂不分臨濟洞濟悉見鼎新之績”). This ecumenical ancestor-hall restoration reverses the sectarian purifications of Fèiyǐn Tōngróng’s Tiāntóng phase and prefigures the later Qīng-imperial-era Chán ecumenism; it is a doctrinal datum that fits Línyě’s Sichuan-origin outsider perspective on the coastal Línjì-vs-Cáo-dòng polemics. On this policy see Jiang Wu 2008, pp. 213–15.
• Mùchén Dàomǐn’s tǎmíng and the pre-imperial-audience dating. The tǎmíng signature “Wúxīng Dàochǎngshān Wànshòu Chánsì zhùchí bǐqiū Dàomǐn zhuànwén 吳興道場山萬壽禪寺住持比丘道忞撰文” fixes Mùchén at the Wúxīng (Húzhōu) abbot’s seat, i.e. before his 1659 summons to the Shùnzhì court — where he would become the most imperially-patronized of all seventeenth-century Chán masters. The Línyě tǎmíng is therefore Mùchén’s work from his pre-imperial phase, one of the few substantial prose pieces datable to his Wànshòusì tenure (likely 1652–58). That Mùchén writes in the first-person plural as tóngmén 同門 (dharma-brother under Mìyún) and admits to his own literary inadequacy (“yú kuì bù wén 予媿不文”) is a distinctively informal register, unlike his post-1659 court-patronized productions.
• Sichuan Chán datum. The tǎmíng’s opening genealogy of Sichuan Chán masters (“Dōngshān Yǎn, Zhāojué Qín, Wòlóng Xiān, Jìngshān Fàn, Hǎizhōu Cí 東山演 / 昭覺勤 / 臥龍先 / 徑山範 / 海舟慈”, i.e. Wǔzǔ Fǎyǎn, Yuánwù Kèqín, Wòlóng Xiānfěng, Jìngshān Fànzhàng, Hǎizhōu Pǔcí) places Línyě as the sixth Sichuan-born patriarch in the post-Mǎzǔ Línjì line. This is a Sichuan-pride catalog, and the tǎmíng’s extended Lǐ Bái allusions (山從人面起 / 朝辭白帝) emphasize Sichuan’s topographic rigor as a producer of Chán character (“wéi shānjùn shuǐtuān, gù qí rén lèi xìng gāng ér guǒjué 惟山峻水湍故其人類性剛而果決”). The rhetorical positioning is deliberate: Mùchén, himself a Yuè 粵 (Guǎngdōng) native, acknowledges that Sichuan is an equally privileged Chán-producing region, and by implication that the Mìyún-line’s geographic reach extends from the coastal prefectures of Jiāngnán inland to Shǔ.
• Fǎrěnsì 法忍寺 and the Chuánzǐ Déchéng 船子德誠 allusion. Xíngmì’s compilation-site at Huátíng Chuánzǐ Fǎrěnsì 華亭船子法忍寺 is the site of the stone-stele of the Táng Chán master Chuánzǐ Déchéng 船子德誠 (“Boatman Déchéng”), and Cáo Xūn’s first preface explicitly activates this allusion (“chuánzǐ héshàng cóng Xīchuān lái, biǎnzhōu wǎnglái sānmǎo, qí yǔ Jiāshān yīduàn yīnyuán, yīhé zhíjié liǎodàng 船子和尚從西川來扁舟往來三泖其與夾山一段因緣一何直截了當” — “the Boatman came from Xīchuān [= Sichuan], his skiff going back and forth across the Three-Mǎo lakes; his gōngàn with Jiāshān was so direct and decisive”). The Boatman is Sichuan-born like Línyě. The allusion thus doubly binds the master to the compilation-site: Sichuan → Huátíng, Boatman → Línyě, both crossing from Sichuan to Jiāngnán to transform the tradition. This literary-topographic symmetry is a carefully-staged textual-critical device, and Xíngmì’s choice of compilation-site is itself part of the yǔlù’s doctrinal-argumentative fabric.
• Mrs. Huáng’s two sons’ exam-dream ambiguity. Cáo Xūn’s xíngzhuàng states that in the 1639 spring (half a year before the autumn transmission), Mrs. Huáng dreamed of two blooming cinnamon-trees (dānguì 丹桂) in the courtyard; her two sons were then sitting for the autumn qiūwéi 秋闈 examinations, and she and the family initially interpreted the dream as an exam-success omen. Only later did they realize that the dream had been prefiguring the dual-transmission at Sùyuán. This is a textbook yímín zhuǎnzhé 轉折 motif — a vision initially interpreted through secular literati categories (examination success), then re-interpreted through Chán-transmission categories, capturing the late-Míng lay-elite’s ambivalent position between the examination-system and Buddhist institutional affiliation. Whether Mrs. Huáng’s two sons in fact passed in 1639 is not recorded.

Links

• CBETA
• Related Mìyún-line yǔlù in Kanripo: KR6q0402 《破山禪師語錄》; KR6q0403 《費隱禪師語錄》; KR6q0404 《萬如禪師語錄》; KR6q0405 《雪竇石奇禪師語錄》; KR6q0406 《牧雲和尚七會餘錄》; KR6q0407 《浮石禪師語錄》 (the paired-transmission partner of 1639 Sùyuán); KR6q0414 《隱元禪師語錄》.
• Mìyún Yuánwù: 圓悟.
• 錢謙益 (preface-petitioner for Línyě’s Qīzhēn abbacy 1648): 錢謙益.