三宜盂禪師語錄

Sānyí Yú chánshī yǔlù 三宜盂禪師語錄

Recorded Sayings of Chán Master Sān-yí Yú by 明盂 (說), 淨範 (等編)

About the work

Eleven-juan yǔlù of Sānyí Míngyú 明盂 三宜明盂 (1599–1665), also called Yúān 愚菴 (“Foolishness-Hermitage”, a self-deprecating hào adopted in retirement at West Lake). Fǎhuì 法諱 Míngyú 明盂, zì Sānyí 三宜, late-life hào 愚/愚菴. Lay surname Dīng 丁 of Qiántáng 錢唐 (Hang-zhōu), ancestrally from Sìmíng 四明 (Níngbō). The second Cáodòng 曹洞 master in the J26/J27 Jiāxīng Canon cluster (following KR6q0410 Ruìbái Míngxuě), and the direct dharma-heir of Zhànrán Yuánchéng 湛然圓澄 (1561–1626), making Míngyú the dharma-brother of Míngxuě — both are 32nd-generation Cáodòng masters in the Dòngshān Liángjiè → Cízhōu Fāngniàn → Huànxiū Chángrùn → Zhànrán sub-line. Compiled (biān 編) by his head dharma-heir Jìngfàn 淨範 淨範 at Yúnmén Xiǎnshèngsì 雲門顯聖寺, with collation-editing (jiàodìng 較訂) by Qí Jìngchāo 祁淨超 of Shānyīn 山陰 (a fǔfǎ 付法 heir from the same 淨-generation). The text carries a front-preface (dated 戊子 林鍾 = 1648 lunar 6th month) by the tóngcān (fellow-practitioner) Guǎngrùn Dàomǐn 廣潤道忞 — identified here with Mùchén Dàomǐn 木陳道忞 (1596–1674) at an unusual pre-imperial-audience phase using the biéhào Guǎngrùn, since the same Dàomǐn authored the closing tǎmíng as “敕賜太白山天童弘法禪寺弘覺禪師道忞” after his 1659 imperial audience. Printed as Jiāxīng Canon J27 B189 — the opening volume of J27 after Ruìbái Míngxuě’s J26 B188. Non-commentary; commentedTextid omitted.

Abstract

Author. Míngyú was born in Qiántáng (Hang-zhōu) in 萬曆 27 己亥 (= 1599), the fifth-generation descendant of a Sìmíng (Níngbō) family that had relocated to Hang-zhōu (“běn Sìmíng wàngzú wǔshìzǔ qiān Háng wèi Wǔlín rén 本四明望族五世祖遷杭為武林人”). Lay surname Dīng 丁. Born devout (“yòu wén fànbài zé xīn yuè; shuì zhōng qǐzuò niànfó; guò gōngfǔ yí wèi sìyǔ yì húguì zuòlǐ 幼聞梵唄則心悅 … 睡中起坐念佛 … 過公府疑為寺宇亦胡跪作禮”). Age 14 (1612): took the five lay-precepts from Yúnqī Zhūhóng 雲棲袾宏 (1535–1615) at Yúnqīsì 雲棲寺 during a Zhōngyuán 中元 ritual. Age 16 (1614): first realization on reading the yǔlù of Zhēnjìng Kèwén 真淨克文 (1025–1102), with a spontaneous verse “hóngrì dāngkōng, táitóu biàn jiàn … 紅日當空抬頭便見”. Age 20 (1618): formally became tóngxíng 童行 at Zhēnjìsì 真寂寺 under Zhēnjì Wén dàshī 真寂聞大師. Age 23 (1621): full monastic ordination. Consulted Hànshān Déqīng 憨山德清 (1546–1623), Xuějiào Yuánxìn 雪嶠圓信 (1571–1647), and Nánmíng 南明, all of whom praised him. Age ~24–25 (c. 1622–23): went to Yúnmén Xiǎnshèngsì 雲門顯聖寺 and met Zhànrán Yuánchéng — whom he had briefly encountered before tonsure during Zhàn-ran’s earlier provincial tour. Sealed on the “fàngxià zhù 放下著” exchange at the Yúnmén hall (“yīxī ràoFó jīngxíng, àn chù xiāngzhuō, huòrú yúnpī yuèxiàn 一夕遶佛經行暗觸香桌豁如雲披月現”); completed sealing with the huáizhōu niú / shù dǎo téng kū 懷州牛 / 樹倒藤枯 verse-exchange and the gǒu-zi wú Fóxìng 狗子無佛性 sòng 頌. Age 25 (1623): received Cáodòng transmission from Zhàn-ran; left immediately to travel.

Middle years (1624–1644). Extensive pilgrimage through Wú (Jiāngsū) and Chǔ (Húběi / Húnán). Visited Wúniàn Shēnyǒu 無念深有 (1544–1627) at Huángbò / Huángmá 黃蘗/黃麻 — the occasion of the apparent shared practice-period with Guǎngrùn Dàomǐn that the 1648 preface remembers. Settled in Yān 燕 (Běijīng region) for five years (“jū Yān fán wǔ nián 居燕凡五年”); self-designated Báigǔ dàorén 白骨道人 (“White-Skeleton Taoist”) during a multi-year febrile illness, around which a “white-skeleton assembly” (Báigǔ huì 白骨會) of lay-followers formed. Returned south on the death of Zhàn-ran (premonition poem “cí shuāngfèng quē, mài xiù wǔlíng qiū 辭雙鳳闕麥秀五陵秋” — “taking leave of the phoenix-towers [Běijīng]; wheat-tassels of the Five-Mausoleums autumn” — Dàomǐn’s tǎmíng reads this as a premonition of the 甲申 Míng collapse of 1644). Retreated at Yǔxī Shèxīnān 語溪攝心菴 for bìguān 閉關.

Abbacies. Per the Dàomǐn tǎmíng and the catalog mùcì: (1) Lóngménlǐng 龍門嶺 — brief first abbacy under the petition of Gě tàicháng Qǐzhān 葛太常屺瞻 (a Shànxiàn / Shàoxīng lay-patron); left after one year. (2) Huàlùshān 化鹿山 / Huàshān 化山 — retreat seat in Shàoxīng under the Qí-family (祁) patronage (Jìchāo Qí Zhòngzǐ 季超祁仲子), with ox-herding as spiritual discipline. (3) Yuèzhōu Yúnmén Xiǎnshèng Chánsì 越州雲門顯聖禪寺 — his principal abbacy, assumed on the vacancy created by the death of his dharma-brother Mìfú 密澓 some time in 1644–1645. Five-year first tenure at Xiǎnshèng; withdrew in 丙戌 1646 autumn on account of monastic disputes (“yīn sēng fàn zhèng, zhǐ zhī bù kě, nǎi zhuài zhàng rù Huàshān bùfù chū 因僧犯諍止之不可乃拽杖入化山不復出”), retreated again to Huàshān for three years. (4) Re-installed at Xiǎnshèng after three years (c. 1649), on a stipulated guāqī 瓜期 three-year term; handed the seat to his dharma-nephew Cényǐn 岑嶾 on completion (c. 1652). (5) Sūzhōu GǔZhūmíngsì 姑蘇古朱明寺 (juan 3 of the yǔlù). (6) Xiùzhōu Fànshòusì 秀州梵受寺 in Jiāxīng. (7) Yuèzhōu Shǔfù 越州蜀阜. Plus invitations-and-visits at Mítuósì 彌陀, Yìngzōnghuì 應宗會, Fúzhēnsì 福臻, Tiānhuásì 天華, Fórìsì 佛日, Zhēnjìsì 真寂 (his own home-seat), giving jiǎng 講 lectures on Huáyán, Fǎhuā, Léngyán, Léngjiā, Jīngāng, Yuánjué, Fànwǎng, and Wéishí — an unusually wide jiǎng 講 range for a Chán master, and a datum for Míngyú’s dual commitment to Chán and Huá-yán-Yogācāra-Pure-Land scriptural study. Retired to his own-built Xīhú Yúān 西湖愚菴 by West Lake (originally built to attend to his widowed mother, whose companionship formed the domestic frame of his late years). Mother died when Míngyú was 63 (= 1661); Míngyú then “bù xùntú bù fùqǐng bìmén liǎnjī 不訓徒不赴請閉門歛跡” — neither taught disciples nor accepted invitations, lived in reclusion. Died Kāngxī 4.10.11 (= 17 November 1665) aged 67 suì / 46 sēnglà. Last words to disciples: “kàn lǎosēng dēngchǎng yī xiào 看老僧登場一笑” — “watch the old monk enter the hall and laugh.” Buried at Xiǎnshèng on the initiative of the head heir Jìngfàn 淨範, zǐquán 紫全-buried with his zhǔchí status recognized.

Compositional history. Extensive but fragmentary. The yǔlù was not formally cut during Míngyú’s lifetime — the 1648 Dàomǐn preface notes that Míngyú “bùxǔ liúchuán yī zì 不許流傳一字” (would not permit a single character to circulate), and that the preface-writer himself only came across a manuscript copy “yú guò Hǒushān shǐ dé dú yú Ní Jìngqí jiā 余過吼山始得讀於尼淨琦家” — at the home of the nun Jìngqí at Hǒushān. Dàomǐn then personally undertook the initial cutting (“yīn chí rù Tiāntāi wèi zhī cānxiáng xiàodìng, fù juān zī shòu zǐ, gōng zhū tónghǎo 因持入天台為之參詳校訂復捐貲壽梓公諸同好”) — financing the Stage-1 cutting at Tiāntāi himself. The 1648 戊子 林鍾 (lunar 6th month) Dàomǐn preface dates this initial cutting. The later post-1665 tǎmíng added to j.11 — also by Dàomǐn, now signing “敕賜太白山天童弘法禪寺弘覺禪師道忞” from his Tiāntóngsì 天童弘法禪寺 seat (Mùchén held Tiāntóng 1664–69) — comes from a Stage-2 re-integrated cutting incorporating the post-mortem biographical material requested by disciples Fàn 範, Wéizé 為則, and Tǐngliángtíng 挺俍亭 (“shī mò zhī míng nián dìzǐ Fàn wèizé Tǐngliángtíng gè yǐ shī zhuàng yè míng 師沒之明年弟子範為則挺俍亭各以師狀謁銘”). The final cutting is therefore c. 1666–67. notBefore = 1644 (first Xiǎnshèng shàngtáng); notAfter = 1667 conservatively.

Contents by juan. (j.1–2) Yúnmén Xiǎnshèngsì yǔlù — the central abbatial corpus, two juan; (j.3) Gūsū GǔZhūmíngsì yǔlù — one juan; (j.4) xiǎocān + wǎncān; (j.5) pǔshuō 普說; (j.6) pǔshuō + wèndá jīyuán 問答機緣; (j.7) niāngǔ 拈古; (j.8) sònggǔ 頌古; (j.9) Fózǔ lìzhuàn xiàngzàn 佛祖歷傳像贊 (eulogies on portraits through the Buddha-and-patriarch succession); (j.10) Fózǔ xiàngzàn continued + zìzàn 自贊 (self-portrait-eulogies); (j.11) fóshì 佛事 + tǎmíng (fù) 塔銘 (附) — the Dàomǐn post-1665 tǎmíng.

Tiyao

Not applicable — this is a Jiā-xīng-canon imprint (J27 B189), not a WYG text. The 1648 Dàomǐn front-preface and the post-1665 Dàomǐn tǎmíng at j.11 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). Míng-yú appears in the Cáo-dòng Zhàn-ran-line roster (index) alongside his dharma-brother Ruì-bái Míng-xuě KR6q0410. The Xiǎn-shèng succession dispute of 1644–46 (noted by Jiang in connection with Mì-fú’s abbacy and the general disruption at the Míng-Qīng transition) provides context for Míng-yú’s first abbacy.
• Zhāng Shèng-yán 釋聖嚴, 《明末佛教研究》 (Taipei: Dōng-chū, 1992; repr. 2009). Ch. 3 and 5 on the Wàn-lì-era Cáo-dòng revival and the Zhàn-ran → Míng-yú / Míng-xuě parallel lines. The standard Chinese-language reconstruction.
• Hsuan-Li Wang (Ph.D. diss. Columbia 2014), on the parallel Gǔ-shān Chán sub-branches. Míng-yú’s Huá-yán–Chán lecture-ministry at multiple Jiā-xīng, Sū-zhōu, and Hang-zhōu temples in the 1650s is part of the broader mid-century lecture-Chán (jiǎng-chán 講禪) revival.
• Liào Zhào-hēng 廖肇亨, 《忠義菩提》 (2013). The Qí-family (祁) Shào-xīng lay-patronage network in which Míng-yú was embedded — particularly Qí Biāo-jiā 祁彪佳 (1602–1645, the famous Shào-xīng yí-mín suicide) and his sons including Jì-chāo 季超 (who housed Míng-yú at Huà-lù-shān and commissioned the dharma-heir Qí Jìng-chāo 祁淨超 as collation-editor of the present yǔlù).
• Mù-chén Dào-mǐn studies: Chén Yuǎn 陳垣, 《清初僧諍記》 (1962, repr. 2008), for Dào-mǐn’s imperial-audience context and Shùn-zhì-era patronage. Dào-mǐn’s personal role as (a) initial preface-writer and financier of the yǔlù in 1648 and (b) post-mortem tǎ-míng author is a significant cross-lineage datum.
• No Western-language translation.

Other points of interest

• The “unpublished during lifetime” pattern. The 1648 Dàomǐn preface records that Míngyú strictly refused to allow circulation of his recorded sayings during his lifetime (“bùxǔ liúchuán yī zì 不許流傳一字”) — making this the third J26–J27 yǔlù (after KR6q0403 Fèiyǐn and KR6q0405 Shíqí) to explicitly document a master’s pre-death yǔlù-suppression. In Míngyú’s case, the decisive event that enabled cutting was the discovery by Dàomǐn of a manuscript copy at the home of the nun Jìngqí 淨琦 at Hǒushān 吼山 — i.e., in a domestic-female-religious setting rather than a full monastic institution. Dàomǐn personally took the manuscript to Tiāntāi for collation and financed the initial 1648 cutting (“fù juān zī shòu zǐ gōng zhū tónghǎo 復捐貲壽梓公諸同好”). This is a rare datum for cross-lineage editorial patronage: a Línjì master (Dàomǐn) cutting a Cáodòng master’s (Míngyú’s) yǔlù at his own expense, an ecumenical gesture that matches Dàomǐn’s later role in writing Línyě Tōngqí’s tǎmíng (KR6q0408) and his own reputation for bridging lineage-lines.
• The 廣潤道忞 signature and the Guǎngrùn puzzle. The 1648 front-preface signature “tóngcān dì Guǎngrùn Dàomǐn 同參弟廣潤道忞” is puzzling because (a) it uses an otherwise-unattested hào Guǎngrùn 廣潤 for Dàomǐn and (b) it asserts tóngcān 同參 status with Míngyú through the Huángbò (Wúniàn Shēnyǒu) shared-training of the early 1620s. Míngyú’s visit to Wúniàn at Huángmá c. 1624 is documented in the Dàomǐn tǎmíng; a parallel Dàomǐn Huángbò visit in the same period is plausible though not independently documented. The identification with Mùchén Dàomǐn is essentially confirmed by the shared authorship of the post-1665 tǎmíng (signed with Dàomǐn’s full imperial-title stack) — both pieces share the same distinctive prose register and the same personal-memoir voice. The Guǎngrùn hào is therefore a pre-imperial-audience (pre-1659) self-identification Dàomǐn used at some point; it should be added to the standard list of Dàomǐn’s alternate names.
• Lay-precepts from Yúnqī Zhūhóng c. 1612. Míngyú took the five lay-precepts from Yúnqī Zhūhóng at age 14 during a Zhōngyuán ritual in 1612 — placing him in the Yúnqī ordination-line. Together with Fúshí Tōngxián (full precepts from Yúnqī c. 1613–14, per KR6q0407) and Ruìbái Míngxuě (full precepts from Yúnqī c. 1610, per KR6q0410), Míngyú is the third major Chán master of the J26–J27 cluster whose formation passed through Yúnqī. The shared Yúnqī ordination-formation is a cross-lineage anchor for the subsequent Jiāngnán Chán revival across both Línjì (Fúshí) and Cáodòng (Ruìbái, Míngyú) branches.
• Qí-family (祁) Shàoxīng lay-patronage network. Míngyú’s retreat seat at Huàlùshān 化鹿山 was provided by Jìchāo Qí Zhòngzǐ 季超祁仲子, and the yǔlù’s collation-editor Qí Jìngchāo 祁淨超 of Shānyīn is also a member of the Qí family — almost certainly a dharma-son of Míngyú (in the Cáodòng 淨-generation) who retained his Qí surname. The Qí family — of which Qí Biāojiā 祁彪佳 (1602–1645) was the most famous member (a high Chóngzhēn official who committed suicide at the Míng collapse, becoming a canonical yímín martyr) — was one of the most deeply Chán-engaged literary families of mid-seventeenth-century Shàoxīng, and the present yǔlù’s close Qí-family involvement is a textual datum for this family’s Cáodòng (not Línjì) sectarian alignment.
• The Huáyán / Fǎhuā lecture-Chán dimension. Unlike most of the J26 / J27 Línjì yǔlù, Míngyú’s biographical record explicitly documents a decades-long scriptural-lecture (jiǎng 講) ministry — on Huáyán, Fǎhuā, Léngyán, Léngjiā, Jīngāng, Yuánjué, Fànwǎng, and Wéishí. This is a revival of the late-Táng / Sòng “jiǎngchán 講禪” dual-training tradition, and places Míngyú doctrinally closer to Hànshān Déqīng (also a jiǎngchán figure, whom Míngyú had met in his 20s) than to the pure-Chán zhǐtí 直提 tradition of Mìyún-line Línjì. The present yǔlù preserves only the Chán-sermon component of this ministry; for the jiǎng lectures, the Jiāxīng Canon preserves Míngyú’s Fǎhuājīng pǔménpǐn jì 法華經普門品記 (J39 or nearby — to verify).

Links

• CBETA
• Cáodòng dharma-brother: 明雪 入就明雪 — KR6q0410 《入就瑞白禪師語錄》.
• Tǎmíng and 1648 preface author: Mùchén Dàomǐn (Línjì, cross-lineage patron); see also Dàomǐn’s tǎmíng for Línyě Tōngqí at KR6q0408.
• Qí-family collation-editor: 祁淨超 (to be created if not yet present) 祁淨超 of Shānyīn.
• Principal dharma-heir and main compiler: 淨範 淨範.