Tōnghuàn Líng Chánshī mànlù 通幻靈禪師漫録
Casual Records of the Penetrating-Phantom Spiritual Zen Master by 寂靈 Tsūgen Jakurei (語), 月坡道印 Geppa Dōin (編)
About the work
A two-fascicle Recorded Sayings collection (here titled manroku 漫録 — casual records — rather than the usual yulu) of 寂靈 Tsūgen Jakurei (1322–1391), one of the Five Disciples (峨山五哲 Gasan no goteki) of 峨山 Gasan Jōseki and the founder of the dominant Tsūgen-ha 通幻派 sub-lineage of Sōji-ji 總持寺. Edited by Geppa Dōin 月坡道印 with his preface dated Enpō 3 / 1675-07 (延寶三年歳序乙卯中夏望前三日 = 1675-07-12 NS) “written at the Daiyō-kaku of Mount Kōryū-zan”.
Abstract
Geppa’s preface is an unusually candid account of the editorial recovery:
“The great-function direct-cuts, with humans untangles the glue, removes the binding. The great-machine round-responding, teaching things gain-awakening abundant-realisation. This must be one possessing such great vision-and-knowledge to be qualified to serve as a model for the human-and-divine. Our Eihei-no-Gen [Dōgen], casually saw the Master [Rújing] at Tàibái — at that very moment recognised eye-cross nose-straight. He then empty-hand returned-home. From that point on, the Cao-water reverse-flowed eastward; the Chan-river greatly arose into waves and ripples — to the present, flowing-flowing, overflowing the seas and beyond. From this, those who ventured-out to Jiang-hu, the patched-monks following the wind to spread sail — coming forth and back, often saving the multitude and crossing the troops; among them are designated boat-raft masters — perhaps several dozen households now. … Reverend Tsūgen Reizenji is one of the outstanding ones. He held high the Sōji-ji wordless seal [總持無文印], commanding the four assemblies; directly hurtled the Five-Ranks Wonder-Mystery Barrier, greatly stirring the Eikō unbreaking-night lamp, illuminating-and-shattering the myriad species, all entering one segment of the radiance-treasury. He may indeed be called brilliant-antiquity reaching-the-present, capable of capping-heaven, capping-earth.”
The recovery story:
“The disciple Fusai [普濟善救, see KR6t0300] saved the continuing flame and straightaway casually-recorded his words, requiring that one lamp be divided into hundreds of thousands of lamps, the lamps end-not-end. … I lamented: latecomers vainly pocketed [the records] in bags. Gradually three hundred years have passed; they fell into the old-paper heap, the great-half covered the soy-sauce-jar. In kōjyū (1670, year of my arrival), I took office at Kōryū in Kaga — daily leading the disciples in quietness-essential. While dwelling in usual stillness, like a withered-stump. By chance, a guest passed by Unryū; I accompanied him to visit the elder. In casual conversation, the elder showed me a half-rotted-by-rain old-fascicle, saying: ‘This is the Tsugen Reizenji yulu — only it is not so much cock-bird-make-horse [a textual corruption joke]; the chapter-and-line are half-rotted by rain. Please, brother, are you willing to correct it?’ I read it. — Untongued mystic-talk; unintended wonderful purport; give-and-take freely; vertical-and-horizontal unimpeded. Just like the gourd on water — push it and it turns. Not direct-cut function feet, complete circle-responsive machine, full — how could it have such a composition!”
Geppa then collated the half-rotted manuscript (“the fishermen-and-woodcutters’ rotten parts that rotted, the proper parts proper, getting actually one-tenth of one-thousand”) and put it to the printers. The dating bracket therefore runs from Tsūgen’s death (1391) through to Geppa’s editio princeps (1675).
The two fascicles cover Tsugen’s principal Sōji-ji-line abbacies — the opening sermon at 諸嶽山總持禪寺 (Sōji-ji at Mount Shogaku-zan in Noto) and at his other foundations — together with fa-yǔ, nenkō, jisàn, and jìsòng. The work is one of the principal fourth-generation Sōji-ji-line yulu in the Taishō and is the foundational record of the Tsūgen-ha sub-lineage.
Translations and research
No book-length English translation located. For Tsugen and the Tsūgen-ha sub-line, see William Bodiford, Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan (Univ. of Hawai’i Press, 1993), chs. 5–7; Imaeda Aishin 今枝愛真, Chūsei zenshū-shi no kenkyū 中世禅宗史の研究 (Tōkyō daigaku shuppankai, 1970).
Other points of interest
The text’s manroku (casual-record) title is itself notable: most Sōtō yulu are titled yǔlù (語録), and the deliberate choice of the more humble manroku — jottings — by the disciple-editor KR6t0300 Fusai 普濟 reflects a Sōji-ji-line ethos of doctrinal modesty that distinguishes it from the more institutional yulu of the Eihei-ji line. The half-rotted manuscript history is also striking: this is one of the rare Taishō texts whose preface explicitly admits to the editorial recovery from a half-decayed manuscript.
Links
- CBETA online
- Related: KR6t0299 (Jippō Ryōshū’s yulu, recovered by Geppa Dōin in the same campaign); KR6t0300 (Fusai Zenkyū, Tsūgen’s heir and editor)