Pǔzhào Guóshī fǎyǔ 普照國師法語
Dharma-Talks of the Universal-Illumination National Master by 隆琦 Yǐnyuán Lóngqí (Ingen Ryūki) (語), 性杲 Tokuō Shōkō (編)
About the work
A two-fascicle Dharma-Talks collection (fa-yǔ 法語) of 隆琦 Yǐnyuán Lóngqí (Ingen Ryūki, 1592–1673), companion to KR6t0311 Pǔzhào Guóshī yǔlù. While the yulu preserves Ingen’s formal jōdō sermons, the fa-yǔ preserves his personal instructional addresses to senior disciples and lay-followers. Edited by his disciple Tokuō Shōkō 性杲.
Abstract
The text consists of about 60–80 individual fa-yǔ — typically 200–500 characters each — addressed to specific named recipients. Each is headed 示 [Name] [Office], e.g. 示木菴首座 (Shown to the Mokuan Senior — i.e. 性瑫 Mokuan Shōtō, Ingen’s principal heir).
The opening 示木菴首座 (Shown to Mokuan as Senior) is a paradigmatic fa-yǔ:
“The dry-spicy patched-monk transcends-and-emerges from the dust-trouble’s outside. Cuts off the root-source of birth-and-death. Ordinarily solitary distant-distant lofty high-high, circle-flat-flat alive-alive. Heaven-and-people peeking — without gate. Demons and heretics — how could they approach? Ordinary come, sage come — all become one body. Worthy come, foolish come — roll-and-form one ball. Then taking up the killing-life sword, deliberation does not come, cut to a hundred pieces. Toss the chestnut-burr, swallow-and-spit do not come down, add another awl. — Daring guarantee that evil knowledge and evil awareness will standing-place dissolve and disappear. Naturally penetrating crown-penetrating bottom — the kindness is great, hard to repay. — Try to look! The proper transmission of Línjì in a single school — roar-roar fierce-fierce, one howl sends a hundred beasts’ souls flying. Only the gold-fur kind-grass (= the lion-cub of the Línjì family) can return-and-throw, thereby raising the restoration-of-the-Way, forever-forever-without-end.”
Ingen continues: “Mokuan Tao-kō [瑫公] has kindly served me for years. Already at Mànpú (Wànfú) Hall, equally divided the half-seat. Later he opened-the-Dharma at Shōzan-an 象山. Now he comes seeking a dharma-talk to verify [his progress]. — Briefly, I write the outline-and-summary and give it to him. — As for the capturing the tigers and tying down the wild dragons — these depend on the direct-machine hand-eye of killing-and-life provisional-and-permanent. The Reverend [Mokuan] is naturally able to do this — how would I say learning to nurse a child after one is married? — That is the entrustment.”
Other principal recipients of fa-yǔ in the collection include:
- 示虚白西堂 Shown to Kobaku Senior West-hall — discussing the speeds of post-awakening practice (“Going swiftly arrives swiftly; going slowly arrives slowly; not going does not arrive”).
- 示即非首座 Shown to Sokuhi Senior (Sokuhi Nyoichi 即非如一, Ingen’s other major Chinese-Japanese heir) — on the special difficulty of post-awakening retaining-the-Way.
- 示慧林西堂 Shown to Erin Senior West-hall — on the eye not yet round-and-bright reflecting things, unable to escape micro-flaw blemishing.
- And many more, comprising a near-complete prosopography of Ingen’s senior Sino-Japanese Ōbaku circle.
The dating bracket: composition during Ingen’s Japanese ministry (1654–1673). The Taishō recension is the Edo-period printing.
The text is one of the principal sources for reconstructing the early Ōbaku monastic community as a teaching network — the fa-yǔ form preserves the personal teaching-encounters that the formal jōdō sermons of KR6t0311 do not. The work is studied by scholars of Sino-Japanese Buddhist transmission as the principal source for the personal pedagogy of the Ōbaku transition.
Translations and research
For Ingen and the Ōbaku school, see Helen J. Baroni, Ōbaku Zen: The Emergence of the Third Sect of Zen in Tokugawa Japan (Univ. of Hawai’i Press, 2000), and Jiang Wu, Leaving for the Rising Sun: Chinese Zen Master Yinyuan and the Authenticity Crisis in Early Modern East Asia (Oxford UP, 2015). Selected fa-yǔ in translation in Baroni 2000.
Other points of interest
The fa-yǔ to Sokuhi Nyoichi 即非如一 (1616–1671), Ingen’s second principal heir, is one of the principal source-witnesses for the Sokuhi sub-line of Japanese Ōbaku — the alternative sub-lineage (alongside Mokuan’s) through which Ōbaku transmitted into the early Edo period. The personal-pedagogy idiom of the fa-yǔ — straightforward, instructional, non-rhetorical — distinguishes Ingen’s actual teaching practice from the more formal-elaborate idiom of his jōdō sermons.
Links
- CBETA online
- Related: KR6t0311 (Ingen’s yǔlù); KR6t0313 (Ingen’s Ōbaku shingi)