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東林語録

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Text ID
KR6t0304
Date
1697–1698
Dynasty
日本

Dōnglín yǔlù 東林語録

Recorded Sayings of [Yōhō] Tōrin[-ji] by 道白 Manzan Dōhaku (語), 湛堂 Tandō (編)

About the work

A four-fascicle (two upper, two lower) Recorded Sayings collection of 道白 Manzan Dōhaku (1636–1715), Edo-period Sōtō-Zen master and the most consequential figure of the late-17th-century Sōtō fukko reform. The full title is Manzan Zenji jū Tōrin-ji yǔlù 卍山禪師住東林寺語録. Edited by his dharma-heir-disciple Tandō 湛堂 with his preface dated Genroku 11 / 11 (歳次戊寅元祿十一年仲冬日 = 1698-12 NS) “written in incense-burning prostration at Hakata Tōrin-ji in Chikuzen province”.

Abstract

The work records Manzan’s late-life abbacy at Yōhō Tōrin-ji 鷹峯東林寺 in north Kyoto, which he entered on Genroku 10 / 8 / 26 (元祿十年龍飛丁丑八月二十六日 = 1697-10-12 NS) — the jōdō opening: “This morning at the abbatial cell, I sat-and-slept facing the wall. At this time my fellow-trainee Reverend Mukami [the wood-table man], seeing me as if soundly asleep, asked the Tortoise-Hair Attendant: ‘Yesterday on entering the gate I looked up and saw the gakku tablet, written Zuihō-zan. Yet the temple is…”

Tandō’s preface is extraordinarily candid about Manzan’s personal style:

“The earth-trigram on top, the mountain-trigram below — there is a mountain in the earth which cannot be transcended. — That is the Modesty hexagram’s image. Now, dwelling in modesty and not displaying, mastering oneself and not bending — among the ancients, [it] is rare; among the present, almost nonexistent. The present-resident-hermit at Yōhō, our Manzan old-Reverend, is exactly this person. He stores the Kunlun’s height-and-breadth within the inner-yellow of his mind-ground; he dares not display the dangerous-machine. On the contrary, as if afraid that someone would transcend [him]. — At first he was at Tōbu [Edo] receiving education from the master at Kaizō and at Shūfuku; then he resided at Mount Ōjibō. … Then he abbatially served at Daijō-ji in Kaga, Kōzen-ji in Settsu, Zenjō-ji in Yamashiro, and Tōrin-ji [now]. Four assemblies of recorded sayings — who knows how many tens-of-thousands of words. … Of late, several times those around him have requested him to put it to the printer. He shakes his head and does not consent. Some have indirectly hinted: ‘There is beautiful jade here. Should one wait for the merchant to sell it? Why hide it in the case and treasure-store it, not allowing others to seek-out and circulate it?’ He responds: ‘Alas, errr! As for that beautiful jade, waiting for the merchant to sell — there has never been anything wrong with it. But to discuss my portion, amber in the centre and jade on the surface — it should be entrusted to the water and the fire. To compare it with the doings of the ancient sages — would that be permissible? Sir, do not speak again. Do not let me suffer the rebuke of “tax-on-foolishness-talisman”.’ His modesty-yielding is like this. Therefore those who would speak cannot force him until now. The Reverend is now old, although weary of the staff and whisk, in autumn of last year, urged by request from monastic and lay, he came to take residence at this Tōrin. One winter of anchored-residence, he raised up the lineage-essence and exposed the heart’s voice.”

The four-fascicle table of contents:

  • Upper fasc.: shōsan 小參, cha-wa 茶話 (tea-talks), fushaku 普説, fa-yǔ 法語, xiǎo butsuji 小佛事, jì 記.
  • Lower fasc.: zàn 賛 (encomia), míng 銘 (inscriptions), zázhū 雜著 (miscellaneous), xùbá 序跋 (prefaces and afterwords), wén 文 (essays), jìsòng 偈頌. Plus appendices: a Sai-yū sō 西遊草 (“Western-Tour Grass”) record of his Kyushu tours and a Tō-ki sō 東歸草 (“Eastern-Return Grass”) record of his Edo trips.

The dating bracket is narrow: composition during Manzan’s late-1697 entry into Tōrin-ji through his return-east in late 1698.

The work is the principal Manzan-school Sōtō yulu in the Taishō and is foundational for understanding the late-17th-century menju (face-to-face transmission) reform. Manzan’s jōdō sermons here include several explicit doctrinal statements on the necessity of menju-sōho (face-to-face succession) that became the institutional charter of the Manzan reform after the Genroku 6 / 1693 shogunal edict.

Translations and research

No book-length English translation located. For Manzan’s fukko programme and the menju reform, see William Bodiford, Sōtō Zen in Medieval Japan (Univ. of Hawai’i Press, 1993), final chapter; Hiraishi Naoaki 平石直昭, Manzan Dōhaku no shisō 卍山道白の思想 (Hōzōkan, 2002); Tsuji Zennosuke 辻善之助, Nihon bukkyō-shi 日本仏教史 vol. 9 (Iwanami, 1955).

Other points of interest

The four-fascicle structure is an unusually full late-Edo Sōtō yulu, and the inclusion of two appendix-sō (Sai-yū and Tō-ki travel-records) makes it also a partial travel-account of Manzan’s late-1690s journeys, including his preaching campaign in Kyushu and his political-theological negotiations with the Bakufu in Edo. The work is therefore a principal source not only for Manzan’s doctrine but also for the institutional history of the Genroku-era Sōtō reform.

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