Xuǎnzé mìyào jué 選擇密要決
Secret Essentials Decisions on the Senchaku [shū] by 證空 Shōkū (記)
About the work
A five-fascicle Seizan-line commentary on Hōnen’s Senchaku hongan nenbutsu shū KR6t0314, composed by 證空 Shōkū (1177–1247), the founder of the Seizan branch (西山派) of Jōdoshū. The text is the doctrinal counterpart on the Seizan side of 良忠 Ryōchū’s Senchaku denkō ketsugi-shō KR6t0316 on the Chinzei side — the two major branches’ principal Senchakushū commentaries. The colophon-style signature lists Shōkū as “沙門證空記” of Sai-no-yama Yoshimine-dera 西山善峯寺 — his Sai-no-yama temple west of Kyoto, the institutional centre of the Seizan school.
Abstract
The opening passage establishes the work’s distinctive Seizan reading: the title Senchaku hongan nenbutsu shū is parsed as containing three doctrinal themes (三題目): (i) senchaku hongan nenbutsu shū itself names raigō 來迎 (the welcoming-descent of Amitābha); (ii) Namu Amida Butsu names nenbutsu (the calling-of-the-name); (iii) the Wǎngshēng zhī yè nèinfó wéi xiān line (“rebirth-action: nenbutsu comes first”) names the jōzen sanzen (disciplined-good and dispersed-good) practitioner-faculties. This three-way reading is foundational to Shōkū’s doctrinal scheme, in which the senchaku of Hōnen is read as constituting a unitary act involving three coordinated moments: Buddha’s vow-driven raigō, the practitioner’s nenbutsu, and the kihō ichinyo (機法一如 — practitioner-and-dharma identical) doctrine that connects them.
The text’s title — mitsuyō (密要 — “secret essentials”) — is significant: Shōkū regarded his reading of the Senchakushū as an oral-transmission (口傳 kuden) doctrine, not a written scholastic position; the body of the text repeatedly emphasises that the Senchakushū “is a book to be seen by oral-transmission; one who reads it blindly [without oral transmission] …” (此集以口傳可見之書也。暗見之者 …). The Mitsuyō-ketsu is in this respect a kuden-roku — a record of the oral transmission — and not a free-standing scholastic exposition. This kuden-orientation distinguished the Seizan tradition from the more openly scholastic Chinzei.
The doctrinal substance of the commentary — across the five fascicles — codifies the principal Seizan positions: the kihō ichinyo doctrine; the hakushi selection 廢捨 (rejection of all practices other than nenbutsu); the anjin / kigyō (settled-mind / arising-practice) distinction; and the Seizan-line interpretation of the three minds (三心) of the Guānjīng as constituting a single unified faith-mind (一心) rather than three distinct mental factors. These positions distinguished the Seizan reading from the moderate Chinzei (which admitted assisting practices) and from the radical Kōsai-ichinen-gi (which dispensed with practice entirely after a single moment of ichinen faith).
Date. No internal date. Shōkū’s commentarial period post-dates Hōnen’s death (1212) and falls in his Sai-no-yama abbacy, c. 1212–1247.
Significance. The Mitsuyō-ketsu is the foundational doctrinal text of the Seizan branch, which by the late thirteenth century had four sub-lines (the Sanjō-ke 三條家 of Shōkū’s direct successor Shōō 證入; the Saga-ke 嵯峨家; the Senjō-ji 禪林寺 sub-line of 淨音 Jōon and 向阿 Kōa Shōken at Eikan-dō; and the Fukakusa-ke 深草家 of Ryūkū 立空) and was one of the two principal Pure-Land schools of medieval Kyoto, alongside the Chinzei-line.
Translations and research
No complete Western-language translation has been located. The text is treated in: Mark L. Blum, The Origins and Development of Pure Land Buddhism (Oxford UP, 2002), pp. 110–130 (Shōkū and the Seizan branch); Itō Yuishin 伊藤唯眞, Jōdo-shū no seiritsu to tenkai (Yoshikawa Kōbunkan, 1981); Fujimoto Kiyohiko 藤本淨彦, Seizan jōdokyō no kenkyū 西山浄土教の研究 (Hōzōkan, 1988); critical texts in Seizan zensho 西山全書 (1928–35) and Jōdo-shū zensho 浄土宗全書 vols. 8–9.
Links
- CBETA online
- Parent text: KR6t0314 (Hōnen, Senchakushū)
- Chinzei-line counterpart: KR6t0316 (Ryōchū, Senchaku denkō ketsugi-shō)
- Other Seizan-line works of Shōkū: KR6t0327–KR6t0332