Shífēng Chánshī yǔlù 實峰禪師語録
Recorded Sayings of the True-Peak Zen Master by 良秀 Jippō Ryōshū (語), 月坡道印 Geppa Dōin (編)
About the work
A single-fascicle Recorded Sayings collection of 良秀 Jippō Ryōshū (1318–1405), one of the Five Disciples (峨山五哲) of 峨山 Gasan Jōseki and founder of the Jippō-ha 實峰派 sub-lineage of Sōji-ji 總持寺 line. Edited by Geppa Dōin 月坡道印 with his preface dated Enpō 3 / 1675-08 (延寶三年歳序乙卯中秋望前一日 = 1675-09-12 NS) “written at the Daiyō-kaku of Mount Kōryū-zan”. A companion edition to KR6t0298, compiled in the same year by the same editor as part of his Sōji-ji-line fukko recovery campaign.
Abstract
Geppa’s preface (one of two — the second by an unidentified preface-writer giving a longer historical arc) frames Jippō’s place in the Sōji-ji line:
“The Way-flavour gentle-and-pale: it does not enter into spice-and-sour. The Zen-talk vast-and-empty: it does not fall onto the court-music gong-and-shang (= flowery decoration). A flavour that does not enter into spice-and-sour — its flavour is wonderful in the extreme. A talk that does not fall onto the gong-and-shang — its talk is utterly mysterious. Who knows what person stands cut-off-and-out at this border? Our Eihei old-Buddha [Dōgen], from cutting the sea-seal mind at the venerable Tàibái’s [Rújìng’s], from the Western-coming patriarchal-Way singly transmitted to the East — from then on, the Sangha-grove rites-and-music for the first time covered the realm. Reverend Jippō Hide-Lord is a sixth-generation grandson-in-dharma of the old-Buddha and the heir of Gasan Solid-Lord [峨山碩公之嗣]. He turned-upside-down the Sōji-ji No-Character Seal, with form like an iron-ox machine in full play. Freely played the Shintō Bukkyōyōken Stringless Lute (新豐沒絃琴), with the song teaching wood-people to sing-and-dance. The remaining notes are in the ear, yiao-yiao and unbroken, going on to now three hundred years. He may indeed be called roots solid and leaves luxuriant.”
The recovery story (in much-the-same idiom as the Tsugen recovery in KR6t0298):
“It happens that a guest came carrying his master’s yulu, saying to me: ‘This volume has been cherished within the kasaya-bag for a long time. Although the writing has rules, it is somewhat not without the cock-bird-becoming-horse affliction. Please, master, would you be willing to correct it?’ I joyously tried it. … I therefore decided to collate it. After three rewritings the book was complete. I then engaged the printers and circulated it, to bequeath to the late-students. May our Tōjō true wind, with the world-distance and the human-far-old, connect rings and continue without start-or-end.”
The text contains Jippō’s jōdō sermons, fa-yǔ, jisàn, jìsòng, and a closing gyōroku (行録) biographical fragment. The dating bracket runs from Jippō’s death (1405) through to the editio princeps (1675).
The work is one of the principal fourth-generation Sōji-ji-line yulu in the Taishō, alongside KR6t0298 (Tsūgen Jakurei, the senior of Gasan’s goteki). Together they document the foundational period of the Sōji-ji branch’s expansion through the Five-Disciples’ sub-lineages.
Translations and research
No book-length English translation located. For the Sōji-ji goteki (Five Disciples) and the Jippō-ha sub-line, see William Bodiford, Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan (Univ. of Hawai’i Press, 1993), chs. 5–7.
Other points of interest
Both KR6t0298 and this text were recovered, collated, and printed by Geppa Dōin 月坡道印 in the same year (Enpō 3 / 1675), at the same monastery (Kōryū-zan Daiyō-kaku in Kaga), as a coordinated two-text Sōji-ji-line fukko publication. This is one of the most consequential single moments in the late-17th-century Sōtō recovery campaign — the fukko moment that runs from Geppa Dōin (1675) through Manzan Dōhaku (1680, KR6t0292) to Menzan Zuihō (1710, KR6t0296) and culminates in Gentō Sokuchū (1794, KR6t0290).
Links
- CBETA online
- Related: KR6t0298 (Tsūgen Jakurei’s yulu, recovered in the same campaign); KR6t0300 (Fusai Zenkyū, the next-generation Sōji-ji line)