Xīn yuèlún mìshì 心月輪祕釋
Secret Exegesis of the Mind-Moon-Wheel by 覺鑁 (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle meditation-doctrinal treatise by 覺鑁 Kakuban (1095–1144) on the mind-moon-wheel contemplation (心月輪觀 shin-gachirin-kan) — one of the fundamental Shingon visualisation-meditations in which the practitioner visualises a pure full-moon disc as the substance of his own bodhicitta. The work is presented in highly ornamented parallel prose.
Abstract
Opening doctrinal-rhapsodic statement: “This contemplation is the noble lord of myriad practices, the king-emperor of all virtues; the proper gate by which the ordinary-being exits, the direct path by which one enters the Buddha-condition. As for the preacher: it is the Wisdom-Buddha-Principle-Body, the universally-illuminating one. As for the dharma vehicled in speech: it is the secret-treasury supernatural-vehicle jewel-carriage. Therefore, vertically transcending the seven schools and uniquely walking atop the One-Vehicle; horizontally pervading the six great-elements and universally penetrating the ten residence-minds (十住心). For this reason the secret heart-treasury of the past-present-future Buddhas, the topknot-pearl of the ten-direction Tathāgata Honored-Ones…”
Soteriological claim: doubt-and-slander incurred from contact with this teaching still surpasses the merit of the provisional-teaching precept-cultivation; faith-and-acceptance — how could the exoteric wisdom-contemplation be its equal? Three poisons and ten evils transform into maṇḍala-merit; the four-and-five gravest sins return to yoga-practice; one-hundred-sixty deluded attachments dissolve unaided; eighty-four thousand evil afflictions vanish without requiring counter-acting medicines. The three-asaṃkhyeya long kalpas are compressed into half a moment; the six-pāramitā vast practices are gathered into a single contemplation.
Structure: three exegetical gates (略有三門):
- Heart (心) — the secret-adornment jewel-treasury; the yoga wheel-and-circle vajra…
- Moon (月) — analysis of the full-moon-disc visualisation as image and symbol.
- Heart-and-Moon combined (合論) — the doctrinal union.
Significance: a foundational doctrinal text of the Shingon moon-disc visualisation (shin-gachirin-kan); the work expresses Kakuban’s radical-suddenness soteriology — that a single shallow contemplation in this very life climbs to the first bhūmi, while a profound deeper cultivation realises the ultimate position in this very body.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western-language translation located.
- For the gachirin-kan meditation in English see Yamasaki, Taikō, Shingon: Japanese Esoteric Buddhism (1988); Yoritomi Motohiro 賴富本宏 and Yamasaki Taikō, Mikkyō no shūhō 密教の修法 (1988).
Links
- CBETA: T79n2520