Lǜzōng xíngshì mùxīn chāo 律宗行事目心鈔
Heart-of-the-Eye Notes on the Vinaya School’s Procedures by 忍仙 (撰)
About the work
A three-fascicle practical handbook of monastic operational procedures (xíng-shì 行事) compiled by Ninsen 忍仙, a śramaṇa working within the Kamakura-period Vinaya revival movement. The work answers concrete kalpa-vidhi (procedural) questions — how to handle proxy-consent (yù) when an ill monk cannot attend a saṃgha-act, how to establish monastic boundaries (jié-jiè 結界), how to conduct the bi-monthly uposatha (bù-sà 布薩) and the rains-end pravāraṇā (zì-zì 自恣). The work is a Japanese counterpart to Dàoxuān’s Sì-fēn lǜ shān-fán bǔ-què xíng-shì chāo — the underlying Chinese model — and represents 21 years of the author’s accumulated case-notes from his teaching practice.
Abstract
Authorship and date are explicit in the colophon, dated Karyaku 3, wù-chén year, 3rd month, middle ten-day period = April 1328 CE: “the Śākya śramaṇa Ninsen respectfully records.” The colophon further reports the 21-year span of the work’s composition: “From the early autumn of Enkyō 1 [= 1308 CE] to the early spring of Karyaku 3 [= 1328 CE], a span of twenty-one years, in order to settle disputed actions during the practice of monastic life, I gradually compiled the essential passages of the various Vinayas. To preserve the strict pronouncements of my preceptor, I have continuously transcribed the standing-orders of the courtyard-instruction (庭訓之行事). Errors of explanation are doubtless many; I look forward to outside review with anxious hope. May the lamp of the Dharma long endure to illumine the deluded paths of the nine heavens; may the fragrance of the precepts spread far to witness to the awakened fruit of the three Buddhas.” A note appended at the very end (“一校了觀亮” — “one collation completed by Kanryō”) records the first proofreader.
The work’s structure is catechetic-procedural: each section is a numbered list of practical questions, each followed by Ninsen’s resolution drawing on the Sì-fēn-lǜ 四分律 and Dàoxuān’s exegetical tradition. The 與欲事 (proxy-consent) section contains some 11 question-and-answer items, dealing with edge cases: may an impure bhikṣu who has committed a precept-offence transmit a proxy? Does the consent lapse if the recipient leaves the seat? When does “倒出失欲” (consent-lapse-by-falling-out) take effect — before or after the karman reaches four members? The 結界事 (boundary section) deals with the geographical practicalities of monastic boundary-formation: how should the outline-formula be chanted when there are walls or small fences; for a mountain temple without women-residents, may an aranya-sīmā be established; for a wilderness uposatha with five or six monks for a temporary period, what is the procedure. The 布薩自恣 (uposatha-and-pravāraṇā) section addresses real-time crises: how to abbreviate the Prātimokṣa recitation when a sudden danger forces dispersal; what to do when an unaware monk is discovered in the middle of the rite; how to handle the “梵網” Brahmajāla-version of the uposatha used in the bodhisattva-precept tradition.
The work documents the highly developed canonical-vinaya practice of late-Kamakura Vinaya temples, and the questions it addresses (especially the Brahmajāla-uposatha integrated with the Sìfēnlǜ operational framework) reflect the Kamakura tōngshòu / biéshòu synthesis pioneered by Kakujō (覺盛) and Eison (叡尊). Ninsen’s affiliation is not stated in the colophon, but the doctrinal content places him within the Saidai-ji or Tōshōdai-ji lineage.
Translations and research
- No complete Western-language translation located.
- Daniel Stevenson and Hiroshi Kanno, The Meaning of the Lotus Sūtra’s Course of Ease and Bliss (Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, 2006), for the Sì-fēn-lǜ background in the Japanese tradition.
- Tanaka Hisao 田中久夫, Eison Ninshō 叡尊・忍性 (Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1983), for the Saidai-ji school context.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the few extant Japanese-composed Vinaya operational manuals that integrates the Brahmajāla-precept tradition into the Sì-fēn-lǜ framework. The 21-year composition history documented in the colophon is unusual in the canonical Vinaya literature and points to a careful case-by-case accretion based on actual saṃgha practice.