Dúān dúyǔ 獨菴獨語
Solitary-Hermit’s Solitary Speech by 玄光 Dokuan Genkō (撰)
About the work
A single-fascicle doctrinal-critical treatise by 玄光 Dokuan Genkō (1630–1698), Edo-period Sōtō-Zen master and one of the most idiosyncratic Edo Buddhist authors. The self-preface is dated Tenna 3 / 6 / 15 (天和癸亥六月十五日 = 1683-08-07 NS), composed at his hermitage. The Taishō recension carries two prefaces: the self-preface by Dokuan, and a long Chinese-language preface by Dàopèi 道霈 (1615–1702), the great Caodong-school Chinese monk of Gushan-Yongquan-si 鼓山涌泉寺 in Fuzhou — to whom Dokuan’s manuscript was conveyed by trade-ship.
Abstract
Dokuan’s self-preface exposes the work’s deliberate marginality:
“I, untalented and besides much-ill and uno-out-of-touch (迂闊). For this reason, guarding my portion, I have always lived in solitary hermitage in wide-fields and back-valleys; eating coarse-and-sweet idly, closing the door and beating-sleep. At times there have been words in the mind. Words [imply] no person. To contain and not spit-out — I cannot bear it. Playfully I write them, accumulating days into a fascicle. And these words are all uno-out-of-touch speech. Therefore I name it Solitary-Hermit’s Solitary Speech. Alas — supposing I were in the midst of the assembly-grove and the wide assembly, this speech today could not be spoken to others — how should I dare seek the recognition of the present-world’s worthy-and-bright? Country-and-soil are inexhaustible, persons-and-things are inexhaustible. How should I know whether after a hundred years, beyond ten-thousand miles, there will not be one untalented like me, uno-out-of-touch like me, who on a single look will yiou-er (smile-something) without breaking face? Solitary speech indeed!”
The Chinese preface by Dàopèi of Gushan, taken from his contact with Dokuan’s manuscript via trade-ship to Fujian, is one of the most extraordinary cross-cultural Buddhist documents of the late seventeenth century:
“The Way of Shaolin [Chan] — six-times-transmitted to Caoxi — two branches and five sub-schools, dragons-and-elephants outstanding. Those who entered its hall — each one valued the above-the-self in their own efforts; how would they borrow other dharmas? Therefore the lineage-style of one age was at its peak. From the late Sòng onward, the Way and the time gradually decline; the dharma and the machine (capacities) gradually descend. Only on relying on one or two previous virtuous ones who do not begrudge bitter-mouth, supporting decay, rescuing the worn-out — some pick up the marrow of the sūtras and treatises, some hold up the deep-source of the patriarch-lineage, some indicate the cracks and pick the flaws causing them to know to repent and awaken, some according-to-the-illness apply the medicine, painfully laying down the needle and the awl. They hope to open the obscure-barrier with the wisdom-key, to turn the wild-wave at the already-fallen point. Like the Linjian-lu of the Sweet-Dew-Extinguisher [甘露滅, Hui-hong 慧洪 of Linjian-lu fame]; like the Zōngmén wǔkù of Da-hui Zonggao; on to Mid-Phoenix’s Tōngo seiwa (the East-and-West Talk), the Yúnqī’s Zhúchuāng suíbǐ (Bamboo-Window Random-Brush), and the Gushan’s [鼓山, Yongjue Yuanxian’s] Mèngyán (Sleep-Talk) — all are because-of-compassion grass-falling speech. … It happens that the Japanese Reverend Genkō, who is the Shintō [Cáodòng] true descendant, has sent me his composition Solitary-Hermit’s Solitary Speech by trade-ship to me. Opening the volume and reading it back-and-forth four times, I see his lineage-eye is round-and-bright; his teaching-sea is deep-and-broad. His perception is correct, his discussion is firm, his integrity is strict, his vision is great, his mind is the mind of the ancient virtuous, his aspiration is also the aspiration of the ancient virtuous. … Saying says: ‘When propriety is lost, seek for it among the Four Barbarians.’ Today the lineage-school of Zhīnà (China) is swept from the ground. Unexpectedly, in the Sun-country I see it in the Reverend Genkō. — How is this not a great fortune for the dharma-gate?”
The text proper — Dokuan’s Dokugo — is a critical examination of contemporary Sōtō and Rinzai monastic decline, with substantive doctrinal sections on:
- The relation between zazen and kenshō.
- The criticism of false transmission-claims (an early articulation of what would become the Manzan menju reform).
- The relation between Cāodong-school Five Ranks and Línjì-school kōan-curriculum.
- Critique of monastic luxury and the contemporary monks’ preoccupation with food, clothing, and tea-ceremony rather than zazen.
- An extended meditation on the title-image of “solitary hermitage, solitary speech” as a model for the single-pearl of Buddhist practice in a corrupt age.
The dating bracket is narrow: 1683 (composition).
Translations and research
The text has been the subject of important modern Japanese-Buddhist scholarship: Komazawa Daigaku Sōtō-shū kenkyūjo (ed.), Dokuan Genkō kenkyū 獨菴玄光研究 (Sōtō-shū kenkyūjo, 1985); Hiraishi Naoaki 平石直昭, Edo Sōtō-shū kaikaku-shi no kenkyū 江戸曹洞宗改革史の研究 (Hōzōkan, 1993). For the Sino-Japanese connection through Dào-pèi’s preface, see Lin Guanchao 林觀潮, Riben rojiao goguo zhi kao 日本ロー教鼓山之考 (in Mizu-ki 1998), discussing the Fuzhou-Gushan / Japanese-Sōtō exchanges of the 1680s.
Other points of interest
The Dàopèi preface is one of the most striking examples of late-Ming → early-Qing Chinese Caodong-school recognition of Japanese Sōtō-Zen as the legitimate heir to the Chinese Caodong tradition. Dàopèi’s casting of Dokuan as the figure in whom Chinese Caodong’s swept-from-the-ground tradition has been preserved in the Sun-country is a remarkable inversion of the usual centre-periphery narrative; together with the Sino-Japanese trade-ship circulation of Dokuan’s manuscript, the document attests to the transnational circulation of late-Ming/early-Qing Chinese Buddhism despite the Bakufu’s nominal closed-country (sakoku) policy.
Links
- CBETA online
- Wikipedia (ja): 獨菴玄光 https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/獨菴玄光