Terebess
Asia Online (TAO)
Index
Home
The Record of Linji
臨濟錄
Translation
and commentary by
Ruth Fuller Sasaki
Edited
by
Thomas Yūhō Kirchner
University
of Hawaii Press
Honolulu
Foreword
Yamada Mumon 山田無文
Indian
Buddhism is distinctly contemplative, quietistic, and inclined to speculative
thought. By contrast, Chinese Buddhism is practical and down-to-earth, active,
and in a sense transcendental at the same time. This difference reflects, I
believe, the national characters of the two peoples. Zen, the name given to the
Buddhism the first Zen patriarch Bodhidharma brought with him to China when he
came from India, proved well suited to the Chinese mentality, and achieved a
remarkable growth and development in its new environment. An Indian would
no doubt find incredible the Chinese Zen master Baizhang’s famous saying,
“A day of no work is a day of no eating.”（一日不作，一日不食）
The
lines, “One flower opens five petals, the fruit naturally ripen,”（一花開五葉，結果自然成） traditionally attributed to
Bodhidharma, are said to foretell the branching off of the five Zen schools
that later appeared in China. These schools—the Yunmen, Guiyang, Linji,
Fayan, and Caodong—derive their names from their founders, and their
overall complexions also are traceable to the respective personalities of those
men. Zen attaches the highest importance to each person’s particular
individuality, even as it concerns itself with that person’s universality. The
Linji or Rinzai school of Zen begins in the figure of the Tang priest Linji Yixuan (J.
Rinzai Gigen). The Linji lu, in Japanese the Rinzai roku, is the record of
his words and deeds.
Rinzai
Zen is distinguished from the other Zen schools by its brusque and somewhat martial
disposition. Its central concern is “the person who is master in all
places,” whose effortless activity is a giving and taking away, creating
and annihilating absolutely
at will, with the
“sword that kills, and the sword that gives life.” This is one
reason the school has been given the label “Shōgun Zen,” and
no doubt also accounts for the great success it enjoyed in the past among the
samurai classes of Japan.
Nishida
Kitarō, the greatest Japanese philosopher of modern times and lifelong
friend of the late Suzuki Daisetz, held the Linji lu in special regard. He
once wrote, “If there should come a time when books were to disappear
from the earth, or I was banished to some bookless land, it would be enough for
me if I had only Shinran’s Tannishō （親鸞之嘆異鈔）
and the Linji
lu.”
I
believe that Zen, particularly Rinzai Zen, has a significant role in the
present world. Modern people are adrift amid the great confusion and
uncertainty of contemporary life. The Linji lu can give us a
foundation on which to construct a new and powerful view of human existence.
It
thus gives me great joy to know that with the appearance of this first English
translation of the Linji lu, this Zen classic will be available
more than ever before to readers throughout the world.
Kyoto, Institute for
Zen Studies
Editor’s
note: Yamada Mumon’s
Foreword and Furuta Kazuhiro’s Preface have been reprinted in close to
their original form, but with some sections retranslated and with the Chinese names
changed from Wade-Giles to Pinyin.
Preface to the 1975 Edition
Furuta Kazuhiro 古田和弘
The
Linji lu (J. Rinzai roku) consists of the recorded sayings of Linji Yixuan (d.
866), the founder of the Linji school of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, which emerged
toward the end of the Tang dynasty (618–907). Linji’s lifetime
coincided with the declining years of the mighty Tang empire, when Chinese
society was in a state of great turmoil.
Buddhism,
initially transmitted to China in the first century, gradually became more
Sinified from the fourth century on. During the sixth and seventh centuries—the
Sui (581–618) and early Tang dynasties—a systematic organization of
the Buddhist teaching took place, reaching a peak in the philosophical
structures of the Tiantai, Sanlun, Huayan, Faxiang, and Jingtu (Pure Land) schools.
Linji
shook himself free from the standardized views of humanity and religion
prevalent in the historical period he lived in, and proclaimed a new Buddhism
based on the personal experience of reality in a free and open mode of life.
His voice carries to us across the centuries in the pages of the Linji lu.
Traditionally,
Chan traces its origins in China back to Bodhidharma, the First Patriarch, who
is said to have arrived there in the sixth century. Chan came to maturity at
the time of Huineng (638–713), the Sixth Patriarch. Huineng’s
dharma was inherited by Linji after passing through four generations of
illustrious Chan masters: Nanyue Huairang (677–744), Mazu Daoyi (709–788),
Baizhang Huaihai (720–814), and Huangbo Xiyun (d. ca. 850). The Linji lu,
then, can perhaps be regarded as providing a true index of this tradition of
Chan at the end of the Tang dynasty. Although Chan later branched out into the “Five
Houses and Seven Schools,” by the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127)
the school established by Linji’s descendents had assumed preeminence as
the central line.
Nothing
is known of the first edition of the Linji lu. The earliest extant text is a
reprint edition for which the woodblocks were cut in 1120, with a preface
written by the Song court official Ma Fang. This became the standard version
used in Linji Chan down through the years. The Linji school’s traditional
way of reading the Linji lu is also said to have evolved during the Northern
Song period. As a product of the Chan world as it existed in the Song dynasty,
the reading reflects, of course, the concerns and interests of that age. This
reading was transmitted to Japan, where it was passed down from generation to
generation in the training halls of Rinzai monasteries. Until the present day the
way Japanese priests have interpreted the Linji lu has followed largely along
the general lines set in the Song dynasty.
The
present English translation has its beginnings in the desire of the late Ruth
Fuller Sasaki to fulfill the dying wish of her husband Sōkei-an (Sasaki
Shigetsu Roshi; 1882–1945). In all, the actual work went on for close to
thirty years, only to be discontinued, just short of final completion, by Ruth’s
sudden death in 1967.
Sōkei-an,
the dharma heir of Shaku Sōkatsu Roshi (1870–1954), went to America
at his teacher’s suggestion for the purpose of making available to
American students the traditional teaching of Japanese Rinzai Zen. In 1930 he
founded in New York the First Zen Institute of America. There, while directing
his students in their Zen practice, he gave talks on the Linji lu, which led
him to attempt an English translation of the work.
Mrs.
Sasaki began her Rinzai Zen studies in Japan in 1932, and continued them under
Sōkei-an in New York from 1938 until his death in 1945. They were married
during the Second World War, when Sōkei-an was in the midst of a serious
illness. In
Coming
to believe that the satisfactory translation of Chan texts into English could
be achieved only with the participation of scholars trained in the colloquial
Chinese language of the Tang and Song dynasties—the language of most Chan
texts—Mrs. Sasaki asked Prof. Iriya Yoshitaka, a member of the Institute
for Humanistic Studies of Kyoto University and a specialist in the Chinese
colloquial language, to help her examine Sōkei-an’s manuscript
translation of the Linji lu. Prof. Kanaseki Hisao of Dōshisha University
participated in the work as well. When Iriya pointed out a number of
questionable points in the traditional reading of the text, Mrs. Sasaki decided
to attempt a new and scholarly accurate translation directly from the original.
A
small group of Japanese and American scholars was organized to work on the
project. In addition to Prof. Iriya, the group included Prof. Yanagida Seizan,
a specialist in Chan history at Hanazono College; Dr. Burton Watson of Columbia
University; and Dr. Philip Yampolsky, also of Columbia University. By 1960 this
team had completed research on the text of the Linji lu, an initial English
translation, and the draft versions for approximately five hundred notes and a
lengthy bibliography. Another four years, until 1964, were required to finish a
second version of the text and notes. Members of the staff during this part of
the work were Mrs. Sasaki, Profs. Iriya, Kanaseki, and Yanagida, and Furuta
Kazuhiro of Ōtani University.
The
same people completed a third version in 1966; in
During
the fifteen years of their collaboration, Mrs. Sasaki and the research staff
produced three publications: The Development of Chinese Zen (1953), in
collaboration with heinrich Dumoulin, S.J.; The Zen Koan (1965), together with
Miura Isshū Roshi; and Zen Dust (1966). With her untimely death, the daily
activities of the Kyoto branch of the First Zen Institute and the plans for publishing
The Record of Linji had to be suspended.
It
was decided by the remaining members of the Ryōsen-an staff to at least
complete the unfinished part of the fourth draft so that a full semifinal
version could be made. They enlisted for this work the aid of Gary Snyder,
American poet and former member of the Institute. In the spring of 1968 the
semifinal version was finally finished, with the help of a generous grant from
the American Council of Learned Societies, arranged through the offices of
Prof. William T. de Bary and Dr. Philip Yampolsky of Columbia University.
In
the summer of 1968, still without any definite plans for publication, Prof.
Iriya, joined by Mr. Dana R. Fraser (a Zen student at Shōkoku-ji and
former member of the Institute), and myself commenced work on the fifth and
final version. From the enormous amount of note material that had been
assembled, new notes were compiled that would provide the minimal information
necessary for the general reader. A wealth of information of great value to
specialists and scholars, which in the original plans was to have been included
in the second volume, had to be eliminated. It is still preserved in thick
notebooks in the Ryōsen-an library.
In
1969 the text and notes were finished. At the request of Prof. Yanagida, the
Institute for Zen Studies at Hanazono College kindly offered to publish it,
with arrangements made under the direction of the Institute’s Prof.
Kimura Jōyū.
As
it now stands, this edition represents a compromise version of the work originally
planned by Mrs. Sasaki and so diligently worked upon by her, Prof. Iriya, and
the other members of the staff. Yet in the sense that all their years of work
can be said to have reached a culmination in the translation itself, the
publication at this time of The Recorded Sayings of Linji may be regarded as a
satisfactory denouement after all. It was a similar feeling that led to the
decision to publish The
Recorded Sayings of Layman P’ang, another translation that was left unfinished
at her passing.
The
Chinese text used for the translation is given at the end of the volume. It was
established by collating the edition in the Taishō shinshū daizōkyō, vol.
47, with
the variant readings noted in that edition and also with the text in the Xu
guzunsu yuyao (Zoku kosonshuku goyō). For the reader’s convenience
the Chinese text that follows the notes has been paragraphed at appropriate
intervals and numbered, with corresponding numbers appearing in the text of the
English translation. The Song-dynasty preface by Ma Fang, which is usually
found at the head of the Linji lu, has been moved to the end. The original
plans called for a detailed introduction, but it was never actually written. A
preparatory essay by Yanagida dealing mainly with the historical aspects of
Linji and the Linji lu was prepared and translated at Mrs. Sasaki’s
request. It was published in
Editor’s Prologue
Ruth
Fuller Sasaki’s translation of the Linji lu was one of the first Zen
texts I encountered after starting Zen practice in Japan in the early 1970s.
Even prior to the publication of the Institute for Zen Studies’ 1975
edition (see Furuta Kazuhiro’s Preface), typescripts of the translation,
minus the notes, had found their way to Western Zen students attending retreats
at Ryūtaku-ji 龍澤寺, a Rinzai Zen monastery south of
Mount Fuji that was at the time a popular place of practice with foreigners. It
was there, at the November 1970 retreat (the first Zen retreat I ever attended),
that I was given a well-used sheaf of bound, double-spaced typewritten pages to
read in lieu of listening to the daily Zen teishō (lecture) in Japanese. This initial encounter,
I must confess, was not particularly auspicious. We Westerner participants,
clutching our Record of Linji manuscripts, made our way up a long flight of
wooden stairs to a cold tatami room, where we attempted to find reasonably
comfortable sitting positions as we contemplated the text’s puzzling
pronouncements. For some reason the following passage remained ingrained in my
mind:
When
Linji was planting pine trees, Huangbo asked, “What’s the good of
planting so many trees in the deep mountains?” “First, I want to
make a natural setting for the main gate. Second, I want to make a landmark for
later generations,” said Linji, thumping the ground with his mattock
three times. “Be that as it may, you have already tasted thirty blows of
my stick,” replied Huangbo. Again Linji thumped the ground with his
mattock three times and breathed out a great breath. “Under you my line
will flourish throughout the world,” said Huangbo.(師栽松次、黃檗問、深山裏栽許多作什麼。師云、一與山門作境致、二與後人作標榜。道了、將钁頭打地三下。黃檗云、雖然如是、子已喫吾三十棒了也。師又以钁頭打地三下、作嘘嘘聲。黃檗云、吾宗到汝、大興於世。)
This
famous passage, so inspiring to generations of Zen monks, left me utterly
mystified. Together with the late autumn cold, the excruciating leg pain, the
lack of sleep, and all the other discomforts of the retreat, it made me wonder
just what exactly I was doing in this far distant land practicing a strange,
incomprehensible foreign religion.
As
it was, I remained intrigued enough by Zen to remain in Japan, making my way
seven months later to Shōfuku-ji 祥福寺, a monastery in
the city of Kobe, where I spent three years as a lay monk under Yamada Mumon 山
田無文 (1900–1988). Mumon Roshi saw Shōfuku-ji as
a place of Zen training not only for ordained Zen monks but also for laypeople,
and consequently xiv | editor's prologue opened the doors of the meditation
hall to ordinary Japanese and Westerners who were interested in experiencing
the full monastic life. Mumon Roshi also served as president of both Hanazono
University and the Institute for Zen Studies in Kyoto, and it was with his
support that the plan to publish an abbreviated version of Ruth’s
manuscript finally got under way, resulting in the 1975 edition.
It
was also around this time, in 1973, that I first met Matsunami Taiun 松濤泰雲,
the Zen monk who was later to become priest of Ryōsen-an 龍泉 庵,
the Daitoku-ji subtemple restored by Ruth Sasaki. At the time he was a monk at
the monastery Bairin-ji 梅林寺 on the southern island of Kyūshū.
Our paths crossed again five years later when I was a guest monk at his home
temple, Kōtoku-ji 廣德寺 in Tokyo. When Rev. Matsunami
was installed as priest of Ryōsen-an in 1985, I was living at Hōshun-in
芳春院, the Daitoku-ji subtemple just north of Ryōsen-an.
The
Ryōsen-an that he entered was pretty much as it had been at the time of
Ruth’s death eighteen years earlier. The kitchen was still outfitted with
her 1950s-vintage American refrigerator and gas stove, and the library still
housed her excellent book collection, complete until 1967, the year of her
death. The thick black looseleaf notebooks containing the laboriously compiled
material for The Record of Linji lay, untouched and dusty, on the shelves of
the temple storehouse. Feeling that republication of the Record (this time in
an edition containing her note material) would make the most suitable memorial
for Ruth, Rev. Matsunami considered ways of seeing the project through to
completion. In 1998, when I assumed my present position as an associate
researcher at the International Research Institute for Zen Buddhism (iriz) at
Hanazono University, he approached Dr. Urs App (former iriz Assistant Director)
and Dr. Michel Mohr (former Staff Research Fellow) about the possibility of my
completing Ruth’s work as an Institute project. The idea was submitted to
Prof. Nishimura Eshin and Prof. Okimoto Katsumi, the former directors of the
iriz, who approved the proposal. Following this, Dr. James Heisig and Dr. Paul
Swanson of the Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture agreed to handle the
final editing of the manuscript as part of the Nanzan Library of Asian Religion
and Culture, for publication by the University of Hawaii Press.
The
present volume therefore represents the culmination of decades of work
involving a large number of individuals, from Ruth’s husband Sōkei-an
in the 1930s and 1940s, to Ruth and the research staff at the First Zen
Institute at Ryōsen-an in the 1950s and 1960s, to the people who produced
the 1975 edition, and finally to all those who have participated in the
publication of this Nanzan Library edition. In many respects, though, the
central figure was, and remains, Ruth Fuller Sasaki, the remarkable woman whose
energy, vision, and force of personality have inspired the project throughout.
Although considerations of space do not permit a lengthy account of her life
here, any proper introduction of her Linji lu translation requires, at the very
least, a summary of her life and work.1
Ruth
was born in Chicago on 31 October 1892, to Clara Elizabethand George E. Fuller,
a wealthy couple of Canadian background. She had a brother named David, three
years her junior. Ruth attended private high school in Chicago, and while still
a student traveled in Europe. Following graduation she returned to Europe to
study music (particularly piano) and receive private instruction in French and
German. Her educational opportunities appear not to have been solely the result
of her privileged family circumstances— already in high school Ruth, who
served as president of the Theta Society and editor of the yearbook, showed
exceptional intelligence, energy, and leadership.
These
were qualities that served Ruth well following her marriage in 1917, at the age
of twenty-four, to the wealthy attorney Edward Warren Everett (1872–1940),
a senior partner in one of Chicago’s major law fi rms. Edward and Ruthand
their daughter Eleanor, born in 1918, became a prominent presence in the
Chicago social scene, oft en mentioned in the society columns of the Chicago
newspapers. Ruthwas fully up to the demands of her position as mistress of the
house. Her capabilities were eloquently described by Mary Farkas (1911–1992),
a friend and colleague of Ruth at the First Zen Institute of America. Farkas
noted that, although Ruth would sometimes refer to herself as an ordinary
American woman and housewife, this
by
no means described her skill in the feminine arts nor indicated the scale of
her abilities as a hostess. As the wife of a prominent Chicago attorney she had
had a great deal of experience at entertaining. There was no dish she wouldn’t
try to make, no problem of gardening, decorating, or construction she wouldn’t
undertake to solve. Servants in her employ left trained professionals. I asked
her one time how she had learned to do all the things she did so well. Her blue
eyes blazed. “When I was a young woman I would watch how others did
things. I assumed if they could do them I must be able to.” Cooking,
gardening, driving, typewriting, book designing, cataloguing, written Chinese
and Japanese, all were achieved by diligent application. Her early education
had included extensive travel abroad and study of various languages, but in a
sense she was a self-made rather than the spoiled society woman the popular
press tends to make of her. Her unflagging industry and perseverance dismayed
as well as impressed those of lesser energy. (Farkas 1967)
Despite
her social status (or perhaps in part because of it), Ruth’s concerns at
this time started to move beyond literature, music, and the skills required of
a well-to-do housewife. She reports that she became “conscious of another
hunger than that for food, and of another thirst than that which water can
quench. There comes a great yearning to understand the ‘why’ of
existence and a longing to find one’s own place in and relationship to
the great Universe” (Farkas 1967). In a “Personal History and
Academic Background,” prepared by Ruthann 1958, she reported that already
in 1917 she had become interested in Theravada Buddhism and started to practice
meditation. In 1923 and 1924 Ruthand Eleanor, both of whom had developed some
medical problems, stayed at a resort in Nyack, New York, run by an exponent of
yoga and Eastern religion named Pierre A. Bernard (1875–1955), also known
in the popular press as “Oom the Omnipotent.” It may have been
there that she first started to practice yoga; in any event her drive to excel
apparently expressed itself in this area too, since Alan Watts (the well-known
Buddhist writer and scholar, who married Ruth’s daughter Eleanor in 1938)
later described her as “a graciously handsome woman who could go through
the most astonishing hatha-yoga contortions I have ever seen, although Virginia
Denison of Los Angeles comes a close second” (Watts 1972, p. 146). Ruth’s
interest in Eastern religions led her in 1927 to begin a two-year study of
Pali, Sanskrit, Buddhism, and Indian philosophy at the University of Chicago.
She may have attended as an unofficial student, since Farkas mentions “a
year of Sanskrit at Chicago University plus two years of private instruction
and some self-taught Pali” (Farkas 1967).
Ruth’s
studies of Theravada Buddhism did not bring her what she was seeking, and she
eventually became interested in Zen Buddhism. She described her contacts with
the respective Buddhist traditions and her encounter with Zen as follows:
When
I came to read the life and teachings of Gotama Buddha for the first time I
found a satisfactory answer to my own questionings. When Gotama was asked about
the future life, he answered to this effect, that when men had learned all
there was to know about this life, then only might they begin to learn about the
future life. His teaching, he said, had to do only with unhappiness (that is,
the misery and sorrow of this everyday life), the cause of unhappiness, the way
that unhappiness might be got rid of, and the path which led to the getting rid
of unhappiness in this life. He himself had tested out the pat hand found it
successful. His teaching was the technique of walking in that path. But each
man would himself have to tread the pat hand only as he found the results
successful was he to accept the teaching as true. Each man was to work out his
own salvation. Salvation, Nirvana, Satori, this was an affair not of the future
but was to be obtained here and now, today, in the midst of this everyday life.
Deeper
study of Hinayana Buddhism and of various forms of the Mahayana at first
brought me great disappointment. They had all grown far away from and had
forgotten what seemed to me to be the essential teaching of Buddhism. It was
not until I came to the study of Zen that I found that simple and eloquent
truth again re-established. (Quoted in Farkas 1967)
Ruth’s
first actual contact with Zen was in 1930, when she and her husband traveled to
China and Japan. On their return voyage, after their ship docked in Kobe, Ruth
traveled to the nearby city of Kyoto and there met the Zen scholar D. T. Suzuki
and his wife, Beatrice Lane Suzuki, through the introduction of a friend, Dr.
William M. McGovern. Their meeting went well, marking the beginning of a
cooperative relationship that was to last, with some ups and downs, until
Suzuki’s death in 1966.2 At this initial meeting they had
dinner at the Miyako Hotel, a first-class Western hotel where Ruth was often to
stay during subsequent sojourns in Kyoto. Several days later they visited the
monastery Enpuku-ji 圓福寺, in the town of Yawata just south
of Kyoto, where Kōzuki Tesshū 神月徹宗 Roshi
(1879–1937) had established facilities for Westerners interested in Zen
practice. Suzuki’s unpublished diaries mention a number of meetings with
Ruth over the course of the next decade, both in Japan and the United States
(in one intriguing entry dated 19 June 1936, made during a visit to Chicago,
Suzuki writes, “Talk on Zen with Mrs. Everett under the apple tree”).
Ruth also helped proofread some of Suzuki’s work, particularly his Essays
in Zen Buddhism, Third Series (1934).
Suzuki’s
help was instrumental when, in March 1932, Ruth returned to Japan with the
intention of practicing Zen at a formal training monastery. Suzuki met her at
the port of Yokohama and accompanied her to Kyoto, where he tried first to
arrange a stay at Daitoku-ji 大徳寺 monastery. When the
authorities there proved unwilling to accept her, Suzuki turned to Nanzen-ji 南禅寺
monastery, then under the guidance of Kōno Mukai 河 野霧海
(1864–1935). Kōno Mukai, usually referred to by his teaching name,
Nanshinken 南針軒, was more open to the idea of having a
foreign seeker train at his temple. On 1 April 1932 Ruth began her practice
there, staying at a rented house nearby during the evenings and spending her
days doing zazen at Nanshinken’s private temple, Senko-an 僊壺庵.
After a month
she was allowed to sit in the zendō (meditation hall) with the monks. Ruth
continued her practice at Nanzen-ji until the end of the June sesshin
(week-long meditation retreat) and returned to the United States in the late
summer.
In
1933 Ruth met the Zen master who was to become her main teacher during the late
1930s and early 1940s. In April, on the recommendation of Dwight Goddard (best
known as the author of A Buddhist Bible), Ruth visited Sasaki Shigetsu 佐々木指月
(1882–1945) in New York, where he was teaching Zen to a small group of
students. She and Sasaki (more commonly known by his teaching name, Sōkei-an
曹谿庵) continued to meet occasionally when Ruthwas in New
York or Sōkei-an was in Chicago, though their formal master-disciple
relationship had not yet begun. Ruth returned to Japan in the autumn of 1933
for ten months of further training under Nanshinken, and received from him the
Buddhist name Kūge 空花 (kū 空means both“sky”
and “śūnyatā”; ge 花 means “flower”).
Ruth’s
husband Edward had been in declining health for some time. Although well enough
to accompany Ruthand D. T. Suzuki to China in 1934, by 1935 he had to retire
from his Chicago law firm, and in 1938 he entered a sanatorium in Hartford,
Connecticut, for treatment of mental illness. Ruth, too, left Chicago at this
time and moved to New York, a few hours by train from Hartford. Edward died in
January 1940, aged sixty-seven years.
Ruth’s
move to New York allowed her finally to begin serious Zen study under Sōkei-an.
At that time Sōkei-an had been living in the United States for about
thirty years. Born in 1882, he had learned the craft of woodcarving in his
youth and later entered the Imperial Academy of Arts, where he studied
sculpture. While at the academy he also became interested in Zen and joined the
lay Zen group under Shaku Sōkatsu 釋宗活 (1869–1954),
in the lineage of Shaku Sōen 釋宗演 (1859–1919).3
Sōkei-an married Tome, one of Sōkatsu’s students, and joined Sōkatsu
when the latter left for the United States in 1906 intending to establish a Zen
farm near San Francisco. Although the venture proved unsuccessful and Sōkatsu
returned to Japan in 1910, Sōkei-an stayed on in America with Sōkatsu’s
blessings. He moved the family to Seattle, supporting them with woodcarving and
other activities. When Tome returned to Japan in 1913 with their children, Sōkei-an
again chose to remain. He moved east and took up residence in New York. Twice,
from 1919 to 1921 and again from 1926 to 1928, he returned to Japan for further
study under Sōkatsu, and at the end of his second stay received inka
(dharma transmission) and permission to teach. Back in New York, he rented a
two-room apartment and began to offer Zen instruction to the group of students
that gradually formed around him. In June 1938 Ruth began sitting with this
group, then known as the Buddhist Society of America. In a ceremony on 10
December she became a full member and was given the name Eryū 慧龍
(Wise Dragon).
Sōkei-an’s
approach to teaching was in many ways very traditional, centering around koan
practice and formal teishō,
although he did not demand that students adopt the cross-legged sitting
position (a practice
that Ruth later made efforts
to implement). He gave teishō (lecture) twice a week, preceded by sanzen
(individual meditation guidance) and a short chanting service. One of the
principal texts on which he lectured was the Linji lu, for which he prepared
his own English translations—translations that, in effect, formed the
first draft of the present work.
Ruth,
with her energy, leadership skills, and financial resources, soon became a
central figure in the Society. Within several years she was its vice president and the
editor of its newsletter, Cat’s Yawn, and was planning to provide
the organization with a larger headquarters. This she did by purchasing and
renovating a brownstone at 124 East 65thStreet, to which the Society relocated
in December 1941, just prior to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the
United States’ subsequent entry into WW II. As a result of the war Sōkei-an
was interned, first at Ellis Island and then at Fort Meade, Maryland. Although
his students helped secure his release in August 1943, by then his health had
considerably weakened. Soon after leaving the internment camp he suffered a
coronary thrombosis, necessitating a long period of convalescence. One bright
spot was that following his release the name of the Buddhist Society of America
was changed to the First Zen Institute of America, in accordance with Sōkei-an’s
long-standing wish.
In
spite of his weak health, around this time he and Ruth decided to marry.
Several explanations for the union have been offered, including a desire on the
part of Sōkei-an to leave his family name to Ruth so that she could more
effectively carry on his work after his death. It is unlikely, in any case,
that the two would have considered marriage unless there had been some genuine
affection between them, and that, according to Alan Watts, was certainly the
case: “[Sōkei-an] and Ruth had just fallen in love, and we were the
fascinated witnesses of their mutually fructifying relationship—she
drawing out his bottomless knowledge of Buddhism; and he breaking down her
rigidities with ribald tales that made her blush and giggle” (1972, p.
145). At the time Sōkei-an was still married to his estranged wife Tome,
so there were legal issues to consider. The couple went to Arkansas, where Sōkei-an
obtained a divorce and, on 10 June 1944, married Ruth in a civil ceremony.
Sōkei-an’s
health problems continued, ultimately leading to his death on 17 May 1945, less
than a year after his marriage to Ruth. Ruth remained in New York for several
years, continuing the Institute’s activities and seeking ways to find a
new Zen master. The main person to whom she turned for help was Gotō
Zuigan 後藤瑞巖 (1879–1965), chief abbot of
Daitoku-ji and Sōkeian’s dharma brother under Shaku Sōkatsu.
When repeated appeals failed to bring about any concrete results, Ruth decided
to go to Japan herself to present the Institute’s case.
She
arrived in Kyoto in November 1949, and soon met with Zuigan Roshi. While
proceeding with her search for a new Institute master, Ruth began sanzen and
translation work with Zuigan Roshi and within a short time sought his help in
finding a more permanent place to live in the vicinity of the monastery. Zuigan
Roshi’s successor, Oda Sessō 小田雪窓 (1901–1966),
offered her a house on the Daitoku-ji grounds that had been the residence of a
former master, Den’enshitsu (an interesting development, as Den’enshitsu
had been abbot of Daitoku-ji when Ruthwas denied permission to practice there
in 1932). This house was located on the site of the defunct but once important
subtemple Ryōsen-an, which had served as the headquarters of one of
Daitoku-ji’s four sub lineages—the sublineage to which Sōkei-an,
unknown to him, had been affiliated. This house, soon renamed Ryōsen-an in
honor of the former temple, was to serve as the headquarters of Ruth’s
activities in Japan until her death nearly two decades later in 1967.
Ruth
moved into her new quarters in August 1950, and within a year had embarked on
the building program that, over the years, was to give Ryōsen-an its
present complement of buildings and restore it as a fully operating temple. In
1951, to remedy the shortage of storage space, Ruth built a two-story
storehouse in the Japanese style with thick, fireproof plaster walls. In 1956
she financed construction of a library and adjoining study room, the latter a
well-designed, comfortable Japanese structure with white plaster walls, exposed
wooden beams, a small Western-style fireplace, and a hardwood-floored area with
space for five or six desks. Facing the fireplace was a large, well-stuffed
couch. The following year she built a meditation hall, designed along
traditional monastic lines but smaller in scale, and with the same
architectural warmth as the study room.
During
these years of building Ruth maintained her usual full schedule of activities:
writing articles, assisting Western Zen students, and working on a growing number
of translation projects. Periodically she returned to America to help manage
the First Zen Institute, where she still kept an apartment. The gate of Ryōsen-an
was always open to visitors, and Ruth made efforts to cultivate a wide circle
of friends and colleagues. A number of these acquaintances were later to assist
her in her work. One of the first of her Japanese assistants, whom she met soon
after her arrival in Kyoto, was Kanaseki Hisao 金関寿夫
(1918–1996), a professor of English literature at Dōshisha University.
By 1954 she was working with Iriya Yoshitaka 入矢義 高
(1910–1998), a specialist in Chinese at Kyoto University, on the
translation of the Pang jushi yulu 龐居士語錄
(Record of Layman Pang) and other texts. When, with the completion of the
library in 1956, Ruth decided to establish a Ryōsen-an branch of the First
Zen Institute of America, she had already formed connections with many of the
young scholars—Philip Yampolsky (1920–1996), Yanagida Seizan 柳田聖山
(1922–2006), Burton Watson, and Gary Snyder—who were to form the
core of the Institute’s research staff .
Ruth’s
successful efforts to reestablish Ryōsen-an as a temple and organize it as
a center for spreading Zen to the West were recognized in 1958 when Daitoku-ji
formally ordained her as a priest; Ruth became the first Westerner ever to
receive this honor. She was given the name Jōkei 紹谿 by the
Daitoku-ji officials and appointed the first jūshoku (abbess) of the newly
restored Ryōsen-an.
From
the very beginning, one of the Ryōsen-an research staff’s principal
tasks was to continue work on Sōkei-an’s Linji lu translation. Owing
to its connections with Sōkei-an, this translation was a project close to
Ruth’s heart and the one that she hoped to complete first. Progress
proved to be slow, however. Ruthwas convinced that the Institute’s work
had to meet the highest academic standards if the Buddhist teachings were to
receive the respect they deserved, and consequently her approach to scholarship
was meticulous and time-consuming. It was decided that much of Sōkei-an’s
original work could not be used, as many problems with the traditional Zen
readings were pointed out by the scholars of Chinese on the staff. This
necessitated a reexamination of the entire work, which was carried out in
meetings where the nuances of every word and phrase were discussed and possible
translations considered. Detailed notes were prepared on the content and
grammar of the original text, and work was also started on a lengthy
descriptive bibliography of all the classical Buddhist texts directly and
indirectly related to the Linji lu. In the meantime other projects, like Zen
Dust, came up that were valuable in themselves but that diverted the staff’s
energies for years.
The
situation was further complicated by personal tensions that arose between
Ruthand the staff . Ruthwas by all accounts a formidable personality, competent
in her work, accustomed to running things, and never lacking in
self-confidence. These qualities were important in helping her accomplish all
that she did, but they were oft en the cause of friction between her and her
associates. Such frictions emerged within a few short years of the Institute’s
establishment. At the beginning of 1960 Walter Nowick, a Zen student who had
assisted Ruth as vice-president of the Institute, submitted a formal
resignation. Also in 1960 her teacher, Zuigan Roshi, cut her off as a sanzen
student because, he explained to senior members of the Institute, she had
insisted on purchasing Zuiken, a Daitoku-ji property located adjacent to the Daitoku-ji
monastery, to use as a dormitory for foreign students—a project he had
specifically requested her to stop.
At
the Institute itself dissatisfactions were growing over Ruth’s approach
and the slow pace of progress—Yampolsky commented that “little of
substance was being accomplished; the atmosphere was becoming oppressive”
(Halper 1991, p. 68). Things came to a head in July 1961, when Ruth, suspecting
that Yampolsky was intending to publish the Institute’s Linji lu work as
his own, confronted him in front of the staff. Though her suspicions were shown
to be without foundation, they led to Yampolsky’s dismissal; Burton
Watson and Gary Snyder resigned in protest. Ruthwas left to work on her
publication projects with the help of only her Japanese associates. The
remaining staff carried on bravely, but progress was further slowed.
Ruth
eventually mended fences with Zuigan Roshi, and Gary Snyder returned to the
staff after several years. In 1963 Leon Hurvitz started to help with research
on The Record of Linji. Ruth, then in her seventies, hoped to focus more
completely on her translation work, reducing her involvement with the
increasing number of foreign students drawn to Japan by the international
interest in Zen. Ruth had long had plans to publish English versions of other
important Zen works, including the Wumenguan (J. Mumonkan) and the Platform
Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, but for the time being limited her efforts to the
Institute’s ongoing projects. Zen Dust was published in 1966, and
sections of the Linji lu translation approached final draft form. Work on the
Pang jushi yulu continued.
Virtually
all of this activity ceased with Ruth’s death from a heart attack on 24
October 1967. Ruth had hoped to arrange things so that the Institute could continue
its activities after she was gone, but at the time of her sudden death no
preparations had been made. As described in Furuta Kazuhiro’s Preface,
several members of the staff continued work on the unfinished manuscripts,
resulting in the publication of The Recorded Sayings of Layman P’ang by
Weatherhill in 1971 and The
Record of Lin-chi by the Institute for Zen Studies in 1975.
Although
Ruth’s death in 1967 put an end to the Record of Linji project on the
large scale that she had envisioned, the labor she and her team of scholars had
invested was far from lost. As mentioned above, their full translation, along
with an abridged version of the notes, became available with the 1975 Institute
for Zen Studies edition. Furthermore, the late Yanagida Seizan and Iriya
Yoshitaka—Ruth’s two chief Japanese collaborators on the project—
published much of the original research they had done (together with the
results of further study and reflection) in their detailed Japanese-language
monographs on the Linji lu (Yanagida 1977 and Iriya 1989).
Nevertheless,
as someone who found the detailed notes in Zen Dust to be one of that work’s
most valuable assets, I could not help feeling a sense of disappointment when I
read the 1975 edition and came across Furuta Kazuhiro’s words in the
preface that “a wealth of information of great value to specialists and
scholars, which in the original plans was to have been included in the second
volume, had to be eliminated. It is still preserved in thick notebooks in the
Ryōsen-an library” (p. xiii, above). It was thus with great
anticipation that in early 1999 I took up the present project and started
editing the very notebooks that Furuta had mentioned.
These
notebooks contained, in addition to the manuscript for the Linji lu
translation, Dr. Yanagida’s lengthy Historical Introduction outlining
Chinese Chan history, providing biographical information on Linji, and
explaining the development of the “recorded sayings” (yulu 語録)
literature; hundreds of notes at various stages of completion; and rough-draft
entries for the planned descriptive bibliography of Chinese and Japanese Zen
texts.
Of
these, the portion needing the least work was, of course, the translation,
since this portion had been put into final form for the 1975 edition by the
remaining members of Ruth’s team, and given a final revision for style by
Dana Fraser. The only further changes that I thought were justified were some
further stylistic polishings and the correction of several errors of
interpretation that had been brought to light by Dr. Yanagida and Dr. Iriya in
their subsequent research on the Linji lu. Alterations that affect the meaning
are identified and explained in the present edition in “Editor’s
Notes” added to Ruth’s original annotation.
The
material in the Historical Introduction and Text and Note sections reflects the
state of Buddhist scholarship as it was in the 1950s and 1960s, and is thus
dated in many ways. At the time, the general supposition among scholars was
still that the Chan classics more or less adhered to the actual words of the
masters they were attributed to. However, subsequent textual research has
revealed that the actual situation was considerably more subtle and complex. In
the years (and occasionally the centuries) that separated the lives of the
masters from the compilation of the records that were issued in their names,
the texts oft en underwent a significant process of change. This is not to
assert that the resulting works are no longer genuine reflections of the
original teachings and spirit of the masters, but simply to recognize that Chan
texts, like religious texts everywhere, evolved in response to the historical
and doctrinal development of the Chan lineages themselves. This is particularly
true of the case of the Linji lu, the representative text of the lineage that
came to dominate Chinese Buddhism.
Dr.
Yanagida nevertheless advised against revising the content of the Historical
Introduction and Text and Note sections for this new edition, feeling that the
original manuscript possessed its own unique historical value as a work of the
times, and that as a presentation of materials and views that are still very
much accepted in the Zen tradition today it would be of continuing use to those
practicing Zen meditation. This point of view was supported by the iriz and
Nanzan Institute. In any event, much of the manuscript would not have required
updating anyway, based as it is on translated passages from primary sources
(oft en the first translations of the respective passages into English). Such
material is as relevant now as it was then, and it was Ruth’s emphasis on
this type of textual scholarship that makes her earlier book, Zen Dust, so
eagerly sought by scholars even today.
For
the most part, whatever stylistic alterations I made were related only to
matters of format and academic convention, and were made as much as possible in
accordance with what I believe would have been Ruth’s preferences had she
been alive today to oversee the final revisions. For example, Ruthwas deeply
concerned with adherence to current scholarly protocol, and would almost
certainly have chosen nowadays to romanize Chinese terminology using the Pinyin
system, rather than the Wade-Giles system that she used at the time. I have
thus changed all readings of Chinese words to this system.
Certain
alterations in usage and convention were made in the hope that they would
render the work a bit more congenial to the modern reader. In particular, there
has been since Ruth’s time a major change in the use of gender-specific
terminology. As was standard practice at the time, Ruthroutinely used “he”
as a general-use pronoun, and “man” as a neutral term meaning “person.”
Such usages can grate on the ear nowadays, and I have therefore tried to make
the language as gender-neutral as possible (usually the result is stylistically
preferable as well). Also in the last few decades there has been a tendency
away from the capitalization of many religious terms, such as “buddha”
(when used as a general term for “awakened one,” and not as the
honorific name of the historical buddha, Śākyamuni). I have thus
opted to use the lowercase for many words that were generally capitalized at
the time Ruthwas compiling the present volume.
In
the case of certain other academic conventions, however, I have followed Ruth’s
preferences as indicated in Zen Dust. Ruthalways provided glosses for foreign
titles, for example, and repeated dates and other identifying information for
figures who appeared only infrequently in the notes. She was also careful that
Sanskrit and Japanese terms had the proper diacritical marks; the only such
words that I have left without diacritics are those that have long since passed
into common usage, such as “sutra,” “koan,” “Mahayana,”
“roshi,” and “nirvana”. I have followed the convention
used by certain scholars of not italicizing Sanskrit terminology.
Dr.
Yanagida’s Historical Introduction was in relatively finished form. Much
of the editing work had already been done by Dr. Burton Watson in the course of
translating the original Japanese text, and the biographical section on Linji
had been further revised and polished for publication in the Eastern Buddhist
(Yanagida 1972). Since the material in the essay was pretty much limited to
strictly historical factors, it was suggested that this section be supplemented
with an English translation of the long interpretive introduction to Dr.
Yanagida’s own Japanese Rinzairoku. This, however, seemed inadvisable for
several reasons. First was the simple matter of space—the present work is
long enough as it is, and hardly needs another lengthy section. Second,
interesting though Dr. Yanagida’s analysis is, it is only one of many
possible interpretations. Given that Ruthintended The Record of Linji primarily
as an authoritative translation of the Linji lu rather than as a work of
exegesis, I thought it best to present just Dr. Yanagida’s historical
material along with the translation and notes, and let the reader arrive at his
or her own conclusions as to what Linji meant. This, I imagine, would have been
more in line with what Linji himself might have wanted.
The
Notes section was more of a challenge than I had expected. The information
itself was detailed and valuable, of course, particularly for its abundance of
material from primary sources (Ruth’s approach, stressed in a comment she
typed at the bottom of one of the pages, was to clarify the meaning of the
Linji lu principally by contextualizing it in the broader Buddhist literature).
However, the notes themselves remained in quite unfinished form. The individual
entries had been prepared by the team in stages, with Dr. Yanagida composing
the original versions of notes pertaining to history and doctrine, and Dr.
Iriya handling those relating to grammar. These draft s were then given to Dr.
Yampolsky, while he was still part of the staff, for revisions and suggestions.
The material was later examined by Ruth for further suggestions and revisions,
and for eventual recomposition into her clear, grammatically precise style. As
it was, most of the more than five hundred notes existed in two or three
versions, carefully dated and typed out on different colors of paper, with many
additions, deletions, and rewordings as the versions progressed. The margins
oft en contained corrections and queries written out in Ruth’s precise
longhand script. In some cases (fortunately quite rare) the notes were simply
first draft s, written in Dr. Yanagida’s and Dr. Iriya’s impressively
good English, but obviously not yet examined or edited by Ruth. In a number of
other cases (also fortunately rare) there were nothing more than entry
headings; here I attempted to piece together something from reference works and
the later books of Dr. Yanagida and Dr. Iriya.
Generally
speaking, what Ruthintended to include in the final note entries was fairly
clear, although in a number of cases some editorial judgment on my part was
required. Taking my cue from the information-packed notes in Zen Dust, I tried
to err on the side of excess, including as much as possible of the material
that Ruthand her team had assembled— even, in some cases, material that
Ruth had apparently slated for exclusion, but which I regarded as particularly
interesting. The notes were anything if not detailed—from all appearances
Ruth designed her annotation so that the reader would never have to consult any
outside reference material. The example that particularly struck me when I
started work on the manuscript was the note on the term “mountain monk”
山僧—the item receives a mere fourteen words in the 1975 The
Record of Lin-chi, while in the original manuscript the explanation went on for
several typewritten pages. Dr. Yanagida recalled that it was an entry that he
had particularly enjoyed working on.
A
separate notebook, compiled by Dr. Iriya, was devoted to grammatical issues; at
one point a special section on grammar seems to have been planned, but the idea
was apparently abandoned as it was not mentioned by Furuta in his description
of Ruth’s final design for publication (see page xi, above). Dr. Iriya
himself expressed reservations about use of this grammatical material when
consulted in 1998, having in the intervening years changed his thinking on a
number of points. Dr. Iriya had a certain iconoclastic side that occasionally
led him to be a bit hasty in criticizing traditional readings — a number
of traditional interpretations that were scathingly critiqued in his 1960s-era
grammatical notes for Ruth had been quietly rehabilitated by the time he
published his own Rinzai roku in 1989. This openness to reassessment testifies,
of course, to his scholarly integrity. Dr. Iriya’s work on Tang
colloquial language remains his legacy, providing new insights into the Linji
lu that have influenced subsequent interpretations of the text.
As
it was, Ruth had apparently decided to forgo many of the less important
grammatical comments, and to incorporate significant entries within the main
body of the notes. That is where they were in the version of the manuscript
that came into my hands, and this is the approach that I have followed.
One
part of Ruth’s original design that I was eager to preserve was her plan
to have all notes on the same page as the related text. Among the materials at
Ryōsen-an was a short mockup section of the book that Ruth had made, in
which the translation occupied a portion of the left -hand page, with the
remainder of the page plus the facing right-hand page being devoted to notes.
Given the amount of annotation (certain sections of the translation have at
least one note for nearly every sentence) this was probably the only workable
approach, as endnotes would have required incessant flipping back and forth by
the reader. A perfect match of text and annotation was in the end not possible,
but I attempted at least to spare the reader the effort of turning more than a
page or two.
Adjusting
the layout to Ruth’s design was a complex process, particularly since the
amount of note material declined greatly toward the conclusion of the
translation, by which time most of the terms and concepts had already been
dealt with. The Preface by Ma Fang, placed at the end of the text in accordance
with Ruth’s design, required no annotation at all. I was unable to find
any explanation among Ruth’s materials for her decision to move Ma Fang’s
Preface from its traditional location. I can only assume that she had good
reason for doing so and I therefore decided to respect her wishes.
Several
other features of Ruth’s original plans for The Record of Linji proved to
be impractical. One that Ruth herself appears to have abandoned (or at least
failed to reach a final decision on) was for a romanized Japanese text for the
original Linji lu. This was intended to help Westerners who wished to study
Linji lu koans under Japanese Zen masters. The difficulty was that the original
Chinese can be rendered into Japanese in various different ways depending on
how one understands the text—Chinese is a remarkably flexible language,
with the same word potentially serving several different grammatical functions.
As a result the same scholar or Zen master will oft en offer several possible
readings for the same line; there is no single “correct” Japanese
reading for the Linji lu, and Ruth seems to have decided in the end that
disciples of Japanese masters are best off learning their teacher’s
preferred readings directly from the teacher.
Another
of Ruth’s planned sections that had to be modified for the present
edition was the comprehensive descriptive bibliography of Chinese and Japanese
Zen texts. Even the existing first-draft manuscript, if completed in the way
that Ruth envisioned, would have been of nearly book length, with much material
only distantly related to the Linji lu. Such a text might make a useful
reference work in itself, but as a bibliography for a Linji lu translation it
seemed disproportionately large. In the end I included in the present edition’s
descriptive bibliography basic information on all of the texts mentioned in the
book, incorporating a significant amount of the material that Ruth had
assembled as well as information from standard reference works, both published
and digital. Among the materials that were especially helpful were the Oxford
Dictionary of Buddhism, by Damien Keown; The Soka Gakkai Dictionary of Buddhism, by
the English Buddhist Dictionary Committee of Soka Gakkai; the Sōgō
Bukkyō daijiten 総合佛教大辞典,
by Yokochō Enichi 横超慧日 et al.; the
Daizōkyō zenkaisetsu daijiten 大蔵経全解説大事
典, by Kamata Shigeo 鎌田茂雄 et al.; the Bussho
kaisetsu daijiten 佛書解説 大辭典, by
Ono Genmyō 小野玄妙 et al.; the Digital Dictionary
of Buddhism, maintained by Charles Muller; and the WWW Database of Chinese
Buddhist Texts, maintained by Christian Wittern.
A
table giving the Wade-Giles and Japanese readings of all Pinyin Chinese names
appearing in the present volume is appended to the Bibliography. In addition,
the Japanese readings for the names of several Chinese masters who are known
primarily for their work in Japan or their connection with Japanese Zen monks
have been provided in the text where appropriate.
The
Nanzan editorial staff added marginal numbers in the Translation to indicate
the pages of the corresponding passages in the Commentary. Thus readers who
wish to read the translation straight in the Translation section can quickly
locate the relevant comments for items or passages on which they would like
more information.
All
in all, Ruth’s original plans for the present book seem symptomatic of
the perfectionism that was one of her greatest strengths as a scholar and yet
at the same time one of the reasons why The Record of Linji and many of her
other projects remained unfinished even after years of work. However, it is
also this perfectionism that we have to thank for the wealth of information in
the work that she did complete, like Zen Dust, and for the valuable material
that now appears in The Record of Linji. Even in unfinished form, the notes and
other sections were fascinating to edit. The enthusiasm of Ruthand her staff
for the work, and their commitment to solid scholarship, were evident on every
page. The information offered—historical facts, traditional biographical
sketches, translated passages from the Buddhist literature—adds much to
the body of material presently available on Chinese Chan, and is certain to
contribute greatly to the experience of reading the Linji lu.
Preparation
of The Record of Linji involved for Ruthand her staff a long process of
painstaking research, but nevertheless much remained to be done at the time of
her death. In the course of my editorial work I attempted to check information
that seemed incomplete or otherwise questionable, but, given my lack of full
academic training in the field of Buddhist studies, I am certain that errors
remain. I accept full responsibility for these, of course, and would greatly
appreciate any corrections that readers can provide, in the event that this
book is fortunate enough to see a second edition.
The
process of publication always involves many individuals, but this is especially
true in the case of The Record of Linji, a project that continued over several
decades. The central figures in this project were, of course, Sōkei-an and
Ruth Sasaki, without whose vision and dedication the original work never would
have gotten under way. Of nearly equal importance were the researchers on Ruth’s
staff at Ryōsen-an: Kanaseki Hisao, Iriya Yoshitaka, Yanagida Seizan,
Philip Yampolsky, Burton Watson, Gary Snyder, Dana Fraser, and others. Thanks
to the thoroughness of their work, my own job was largely limited to purely
editorial tasks.
The
notebooks containing the results of these individuals’ efforts would
still be gathering dust on the shelves of the Ryōsen-an storehouse had it
not been for the desire of Matsunami Taiun, abbot of Ryōsen-an, to produce
a complete, fully annotated edition of The Record of Linji as a memorial to
Ruth. Rev. Matsunami was thus in many ways responsible for initiating the
present edition, and has been a constant source of support throughout the
editorial process.
Production
of the present volume was facilitated in many ways by the Institute for Zen
Studies’ 1975 The Record of Lin-chi, which provided in convenient form
the final translation produced by the First Zen Institute staff and a complete
Chinese text of the Linji lu. Permission to use the material in the 1975
edition was generously granted by Rev. Toga Masataka, administrative director
of the Institute for Zen Studies, who also made available the steady support of
the Institute staff.
The
recommendations of Dr. Urs App and Dr. Michel Mohr, both formerly of the iriz,
were instrumental in helping obtain permission to work on this edition of The
Record of Linji as an iriz project. Dr. Mohr also did a valuable assessment of
the original manuscript when publication was being considered by the University
of Hawaii Press. I would also like to thank Prof. Nishimura Eshin and Prof.
Okimoto Katsumi, the iriz’s directors, for their willingness to let me
take on this very time-consuming task.
I
also owe a debt of gratitude to Dr. Victor Sogen Hori of McGill University and
Dr. John McRae of the University of Tokyo, who carefully read through my first
revision of the manuscript. They caught many errors that had crept in during
the editing and retyping process, and offered valuable advice that helped bring
the entire manuscript into line with present academic conventions.
Much
of the actual work on the manuscript, particularly at the final stages, was
possible only with the help of Dr. James Heisig and Dr. Paul Swanson of the
Nanzan Institute for Religion and Culture at Nanzan University in Nagoya. Their
advice concerning content, format, and layout significantly shaped the way this
volume was edited and designed, and their uncanny ability to solve any computer
problem saved me immense amounts of time. They also handled all communications
with the publisher, the University of Hawaii Press.
I
would also like to thank Edmund Skrzypczak, former copy editor at the Nanzan Institute
for Religion and Culture, who went through the manuscript when it was nearing
completion and discovered numerous errors and inconsistencies of the type that
only an experienced copy editor can spot.
Isabel
Stirling, Associate University Librarian at the University of California at
Berkeley, generously shared the manuscript for her recent book Zen Pioneer: The
Life and Work of Ruth Fuller Sasaki, making it immeasurably easier for me to
write my biographical sketch of Ruth for the Editor’s Prologue to the
present volume.
Wayne
Yokoyama of the Eastern Buddhist was of steady help throughout the years with
his investigative and editing skills, checking facts, tracking down obscure
references, and unearthing all types of valuable information.
Finally,
I would like to thank Prof. Yoshizawa Katsuhiro and the staff at the iriz at
Hanazono University for the help and advice they provided, and for their
patience and generosity in allowing me to devote most of my time at the
Institute during the past several years to The Record of Linji project. Without
this support the results of Ruth’s long years of labor still would not
have seen the light of day.
1.
Ruth’s story is fully deserving of book-length treatment, and fortunately
a monograph on her life is now available. Zen Pioneer: The Life and Works of
Ruth Fuller Sasaki, by Isabel Stirling, presents Ruth’s biography and
reprints of three of her lengthy essays on Zen and Zen practice—essays as
valuable now as they were in the mid-twentieth century. Much of the material in
the following biographical sketch is based on Stirling’s book.
2.
Apparently Beatrice did not always share the friendship; in one unpublished
letter to Suzuki she expressed annoyance with Ruth’s “conquering
heroine” attitude.
3.
Shaku Sōen Roshi was the master of Engaku-ji 圓覺寺 in
the city of Kamakura, on the coast south of Tokyo. He became the first Japanese
Zen master to visit the United States when he attended the World Parliament of
Religions in Chicago in 1893.
BG Baizhang guanglu 百丈廣錄
(Extensive record of Baizhang)
BL Biyan lu 碧巖錄
(The blue cliff record)
BZ Baolin zhuan 寶林傳
(Biographies of the Precious Forest Temple) (801)
CF Chuanxin fayao 傳心法要
(Essentials on the transmission of mind-dharma)
(857)
CS Chanlin sengbao
zhuan 禪林僧寶傳 (Biographies of monks of the
Chan
school) (1331)
CZ Chuanfa zhenzong
ji 傳法正宗記 (Record of the transmission of the
dharma in the
true school) (1064)
DB Dunhuang bianwen
ji 敦煌變文集 (A collection of popularizations
from Dunhuang)
DL Dazhidu lun 大智度論
(Treatise on the great perfection of wisdom)
DQ Dasheng qixin lun 大乘起信論
(Treatise on the awakening of faith in Mahayana)
GY Guzunsu yulu 古尊宿語錄
(Recorded sayings of the ancient worthies) (1267)
GZ Gaoseng zhuan 高僧傳
(Biographies of eminent monks) (519)
JC Jingde chuandeng
lu 景德傳燈錄 (Jingde-era Record of the
transmission of the
lamp) (1011)
LL Linji lu 臨濟錄
(Record of Linji)
QT Quantangwen 全唐文
(Complete prose literature of the Tang)
RY Rentian yanmu 人天眼目
(The eye of humans and gods) (1188)
SG Song gaoseng zhuan
宋高僧傳 (Song-dynasty Biographies of eminent monks)
(988)
SY Sijia yulu 四家語錄
(Recorded sayings of the four houses) (1607)
T Taishō
shinshū daizōkyō 大正新修大藏經
(Taishō-era revised Buddhist canon)
TG Tiansheng
guangdeng lu 天聖廣燈錄 (Tiansheng-era Extensive
record of the transmission)
(1148)
WG Wumen guan 無門關
(The gateless barrier) (1229)
WH Wudeng huiyuan 五燈會元
(Compendium of the five lamps) (1253)
WL Wanling lu 宛陵錄
(The Wanling record)
xxxii | abbreviations
WZ Wujia zhengzong
zan 五家正宗贊 (In praise of the five houses of
the true
school)
X Xuzangjing 續藏經
(Taiwan edition of the Japanese canonical collection Zoku
zōkyō)
XG Xu gaoseng zhuan 續高僧傳
(Supplementary Biographies of eminent monks)
(645 and 667)
YK Yunmen Kuangzhen
chanshi guanglu 雲門匡真禪師廣錄
(Extensive record of
Chan Master Yunmen
Kuangzhen)
ZD Zen Dust
ZH Zongmen liandeng
huiyao 宗門聯燈會要 (Essential materials
from the Chan
school’s
successive lamp records) (1183)
ZJ Zutang ji 祖堂集
(Annals of the ancestral hall) (952)
ZL Zongjing lu 宗鏡錄
(Records of the source-mirror) (961)
ZY Zhengfayan zang 正法眼藏
(Treasury of the true dharma eye)
Historical Introduction to The Record of Linji
Yanagida Seizan 柳田聖山
Editor’s note: As noted in the
Editor’s Prologue, this Introduction was written by Prof. Yanagida for
the original 1975 edition of The Record of Linji. Although the scholarship is
thus considerably dated, Yanagida decided to leave it unrevised for the present
edition, as an indication of the state of Zen scholarship at that time, and for
its value in understanding historical views that still prevail in traditional
Zen Buddhism. Much of Yanagida’s original note material, which had to be
abridged for the Eastern Buddhist article (Yanagida 1972), is included in the
present Introduction, with some additions and alterations by the editor. For
recent scholarly studies on the background and development of the Linji lu and
other Zen literature, see, for example, Yanagida 1967, 1977; Yampolsky 1967;
Iriya 1989; McRae 1986, 2003; Wright 2000; and Welter 2008.
The
Linji lu (Record of Linji), a compilation of the recorded sermons, statements,
and actions of the Tang-dynasty Chan priest Linji Yixuan (d. 866),1 forms the
central text of the Linji school of Chan. This school rose to prominence within
a century of Linji’s death, owing not only to the stature of Linji
himself but also to the contributions of the master’s many eminent
successors. In the ensuing centuries the school’s increasing importance
throughout East Asia brought a widespread acclaim to the Linji lu, by then
accepted as an authoritative statement of the Linji school’s basic spirit
and as one of the most important early records of Chan thought. Scholars have
always regarded the Linji lu not only as an essential source for the Linji
school but also as a vital document in the history of both Buddhist doctrine
and East Asian thought in general. Few works in the Buddhist canon match it in
simplicity, directness, and force of expression, and few retain such immediate appeal
for the reader of today. Before proceeding to a discussion of the text itself,
let us briefly describe the historical circumstances that helped produce this
work, and examine what is known of the life of the man whose teachings it
embodies.
Buddhism
first entered China toward the end of the first century bce, from the south by
sea and from the west by the overland trade routes of Central Asia, but it was
not until the latter part of the Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 ce) that
this religion began to take root in a land whose climate, customs, and ways of
thought differed so markedly from those of its native India. Over the early
centuries of the first millennium Buddhism became increasingly influential in
the Middle Kingdom, and itself underwent profound changes in both form and
content.2 Religions develop in the context of a certain culture, and thus
inevitably encounter difficulties when introduced to new lands. Buddhism,
however, has shown itself throughout history to be remarkably adaptable in the
face of such difficulties, and from the beginning its missionaries have not
hesitated to adopt expedient ways of meeting them. During its early years in
China, Buddhism remained a largely alien cult, confined to the communities of
foreigners settled on Chinese soil. Indian and Central Asian monks, who
generally traveled to China in the company of merchants, established temples in
the scattered towns and cities along the trade routes, oft en with the
merchants’ assistance. These temples not only functioned as centers of
religious activity, but, fortified as they were against the attacks prevalent
in those turbulent times, also served as inns, warehouses, and financial
centers. In the ensuing centuries, through the gradual expansion of their
commercial activities and the acquisition of large holdings of land, the
Buddhist monasteries became important forces in the Chinese economy. The
decline of the Han dynasty and, with it, the final dissolution of the political
and social structure of the empire gave rise to frequent shift s in power,
particularly during the troubled years of the Three Kingdoms (221–265)
and Six Dynasties (265–580). These shift s, however, offered the Buddhist
missionaries from India and Central Asia greater opportunities to serve in
advisory capacities to the new regimes that rose to power, and thus to
disseminate in China both the doctrines of Buddhism and the hitherto
little-known culture, art, and secular knowledge of their homelands. Needless
to say, the China into which this new religion was being introduced already
possessed a long and highly developed cultural tradition of its own. This
native tradition immediately began to act upon and mold the foreign religion,
at the same time that it drew inspiration from the new elements of philosophy,
ritual, and iconography that were being introduced from the Buddhist side. As a
result the Chinese fi ne arts, particularly sculpture, were infused with a new
spirit and vigor, a development that in time inspired the superb Buddhist images
seen in the caves of Datong 大同 and Longmen 龍 門 in
northern China. Literature, too, felt the influence of Buddhism as the
foreign-born missionaries and their Chinese assistants produced a growing body
of skillfully translated, and retranslated, sutras and śāstras,
augmented by original works of exegesis by native Buddhist scholars. The
resulting corpus of Chinese Buddhist writings, which eventually came to form
the Chinese Tripiṭaka,3 gave the
religion an authoritative collection of sacred texts equal to that of the
native Confucian tradition, with its Five Classics and their extensive
commentaries. The large-scale literary and ritual activities of Chinese
Buddhism, plus the rigors of China’s northerly climate, required the
monks to adopt a more sedentary way of life than had been the case in India.
Mendicancy and many of the austerities that had characterized the Buddhist
lifestyle in its native land were thus curtailed or modified. Residing in
temples that were virtually government offices and receiving the patronage of
the rulers, nobility, and wealthy merchants, the Buddhist clergy came in many
ways to resemble a branch of the bureaucracy.4 There were, of course, monks who
strongly opposed this tendency and continued to observe the traditional vinaya,
but they were in the minority. Most of the clergy seemed content to ally
themselves with the system of state-sponsored Buddhism devoted, at least in
part, to the service of the government. Supported by the governing and
mercantile classes and infused with fresh intellectual vigor from the Chinese
literati (many of whom were fascinated with the philosophy of this new
religion), the various schools of Buddhism achieved dazzling heights in
metaphysics and the arts—and material prosperity to match—during
the years of the Six Dynasties (220–589), the Sui 隋 (581–618),
and the first century and a half of the Tang (618–907). The foundations
of this cultural and material prosperity were weak, however, since they rested
not upon any kind of genuine popular understanding and support but upon the
political and economic power of the rulers. Therefore, when in 755 the military
adventurer An Lushan 安祿山 (d. 757) rebelled against the
authority of the Tang court and plunged the empire into confusion, many of what
had been until that time the most flourishing of the Chinese Buddhist
traditions—the Tiantai 天台, Lu 律, Faxiang 法相,
Huayan 華嚴, and Zhenyan 眞言schools—entered a
period of steady decline. Centered as they were in the two Tang capitals of
Chang’an 長安 and Luoyang 洛陽, they inevitably
shared the same fate as the ruling classes that had supported them. The clergy
of these schools either struggled to continue their activities on a
much-reduced scale in the cities and provinces, or, as with the Tiantai school,
withdrew to the mountain retreats associated with their founders. However, the
same circumstances that so weakened the capital-centered, state-supported sects
worked to the advantage of what was at the time a lesser, newer tradition, the
school known as Chan 禪. Chan, which had arisen during the sixth and
seventh centuries through the activities of Indian dhyāna (meditation)
masters and their Chinese disciples, was most active in the southern and other
outlying regions of the Chinese empire. Distancing itself from the aristocratic
and scholastic tendencies of the older, established sects, the Chan tradition
proclaimed itself based on “the transmission of mind by mind,” with“no
dependence upon words and letters.”
Accounts
of the life of Linji Yixuan are found in many of the standard Chan biographical
collections, such as the Zutang ji 祖堂集 (Annals of the
ancestral hall), Jingde chuandeng lu 景德傳燈錄
(Jingde-era Record of the transmission of the lamp), Song gaoseng zhuan 宋高僧傳
(Song-dynasty Biographies of eminent monks), Tiansheng guangdeng lu 天聖廣燈錄
(Tiansheng-era Extensive record of the transmission), Chuanfa zhenzong ji 傳法正宗記
(Record of the transmission of the dharma in the true school)), and the Wudeng
huiyuan 五燈 會元 (Compendium of the five lamps).
However, with the possible exception of the account in the Song gaoseng zhuan—which,
although biographical in nature, is disappointingly terse—all of these
are less concerned with the facts of Linji’s life than with his sermons
and mondōs, anecdotes associated with him, the lineage of the Linji
school, and the transmission of its teachings and practices. Actually the only
date appearing in any of the biographies is that of Linji’s death, and
there is some disagreement on this point, as we shall later see. If we
construct a chronology of the master’s life it must be a tentative one
only, based for the most part upon traditional material rather than upon facts
that can be substantiated with historical accuracy. Aside from the various biographical
collections, the principal source for the life of Linji is the Linji lu itself,
of which the third and last section, the “Xing lu” 行錄
(“The Record of Pilgrimages”), concludes with a brief summary of
the master’s life. The fact that in the Guzunsu yulu 古尊宿語錄
(Recorded sayings of the ancient worthies) the same summary is preceded by the
title Linji Huizhao Chanshi taji 臨濟慧照禪師塔記,
“Memorial Tower Inscription of Linji Huizhao Chanshi” (x 68, no.
1315, 35a), has led to the traditional assumption that it was taken from an
actual inscription prepared by Linji’s disciples for his memorial tower.
However, the summary—hereafter referred to as the Memorial Inscription—varies
in a number of ways from other accounts of the master’s life. It is
therefore questionable that the Memorial Inscription as we have it today was
actually composed by Linji’s immediate disciples, and it would seem well
not to place too much confidence in statements found there that are not
verified elsewhere.8 A more reliable and certainly older source for Linji’s
biography is to be found in the reminiscences of earlier days that the master
occasionally permitted himself during sermons and talks delivered in the latter
part of his life and recorded in the Linji lu. These, together with the biographical
account contained in the Zutang ji, the earliest account devoted to him, would
seem to constitute the most trustworthy materials for reconstructing the story
of his life. All the sources agree that Linji’s family name was Xing 邢,
although they do not mention his personal name. The accounts also say that he
was a native of Nanhua 南華 in Cao 曹 Prefecture (or of
Caonan 曹南, as the Zutang ji puts it, combining the two names).
This region, corresponding to modern Yanzhou 兖州 in Shandong
Province, was situated just south of the Yellow River. In Linji’s time it
was part of the Henandao 河南道, “South of the River
March.” No exact date for Linji’s birth is known, but from other
facts we can surmise that it took place during the Yuanhe 元和 era
(806–820) of the Tang, probably as early as 810, and certainly not later
than 815. The biographies provide us with no information about Linji’s
earliest years. The Memorial Inscription, using the stereotyped phraseology
characteristic of this style of writing, states only, “As a child he was
exceptionally brilliant, and when he became older he was known for his filial
piety.” The Chuandeng lu, in the same fashion, says merely, “In his
childhood he had the desire to leave the dusts of the world.” Nor do we
know at what age or under what circumstances Linji became a monk, for the
Memorial Inscription immediately continues, “After shaving his head and
receiving the full precepts, he frequented the lecture halls; he mastered the
vinaya and made a thorough study of the sutras and śāstras.” We
may assume, however, that Linji entered the religious life at about twenty, the
usual age at that time, and that for perhaps five or six years thereafter he
studied the standard Buddhist texts and doctrines. In sermon 18 Linji states, “I
started out devoting myself to the vinaya and also delved into the sutras and śāstras”—a
passage with which the author of the Memorial Inscription obviously was
familiar. How thoroughly grounded Linji was in this teaching is clear from the
fact that in his sermons he frequently quotes various Buddhist texts.
Furthermore, his teachings show the influence of works of the Huayan 華嚴
(Avatasaka) and Weishi 唯識 (“Consciousness-only”; Yogācāra)
schools. In fact, from the Zutang ji account of his life, it would seem that he
may have regarded himself as something of an expert on the doctrines of the
latter school, since we are told that, on his first visit to the Chan monk
Dayu,9 “when night came he sat before Dayu talking about the Yuqie lun 瑜伽論
(Treatise on the stages of Yogācāra practice), speaking of Weishi
thought, and raising difficult questions” (zj 19). However, in sermon 18,
Linji, after mentioning his early study of the scriptures, goes on to say, “But
later, when I realized that they were only remedies to help the world and
displays of opinion, I threw them all away, and, searching for the Way, I
practiced meditation.” The Memorial Inscription, paraphrasing the master’s
words, says of this momentous decision, “Suddenly [one day] he said with
a sigh, ‘These are prescriptions for helping the world, not the principle
of the transmission outside the scriptures.’ Then he changed his robe and
traveled on a pilgrimage.” Such a sudden and dramatic shift in interest
from the texts and doctrines of earlier Buddhism to the newer teachings of Chan
seems to have characterized the careers of many who later became famous Chan
masters. Thus we have similar accounts telling how the young Deshan Xuanjian,10
when his interest turned to Chan, burned his collection of commentaries on the
Jingang jing 金剛經 (Diamond Sutra), and how Xiangyan
Zhixian,11 in a similar gesture, threw away the huge mass of exegetical
material on the sutras that he had painstakingly gathered together. Leaving his
birthplace in the district of Henan and traveling southward, Linji eventually
came to Jiangnan 江南, the region “South of the Yangzi”
where the Chan master Huangbo Xiyun12 was already attracting students from all
over the empire. If we follow our tentative chronology, the meeting of master
and disciple must have occurred between 836 and 841, when Linji was perhaps in
his twenty-sixth year. Xiyun was then living at Da’an si, a temple in the
capital of Hongzhou, where he had taken up his residence about 833. It was only
in 842 that Xiyun met the eminent official and ardent lay Buddhist Pei Xiu,13
then the newly appointed governor of Zhongling (present Jiangxi Province). A
year or two later Pei, now Xiyun’s devoted disciple, had installed the
master in the temple that he had constructed for him on Mount Huangbo. From
this mountain derived the name by which Xiyun was thereafter generally known
and by which we shall from now on refer to him. For the first few years after
he had joined Huangbo’s assembly, Linji seems to have attracted little
attention. During this time, therefore, we may imagine him devoting himself
diligently and wholeheartedly to meditation and other such activities as were
participated in by the students surrounding Huangbo. This period of
preparation, which “The Record of Pilgrimages” in the Linji lu
specifically states to have lasted three years, was brought to a close by Linji’s
great enlightenment. The account of this event as given in “The Record of
Pilgrimages” is repeated in most of the biographies of Linji contained in
other works. Only the Zutang ji, of which we shall speak in a moment, offers a
different version. According to “The Record of Pilgrimages,” at the
suggestion of the head monk14 of Huangbo’s temple, Linji three times
questioned Huangbo on the cardinal meaning of the buddhadharma and three times
was struck by him. Apologizing for his inability to grasp the meaning of the
master’s blows, Linji prepared to leave the temple. The master then urged
him to visit a monk named Dayu who, he said, would explain everything to him.
Accordingly Linji went to see Dayu, and, after an exchange of a few words,
attained enlightenment. Returning to Huangbo, he recounted what had taken
place. In a spirited encounter with the master, Linji slapped Huangbo’s
face. “You lunatic, coming back here and pulling the tiger’s
whiskers!” cried the master. To which Linji responded with a roaring
shout, which from that time on was associated with his name and style of Chan.
After this he resumed his place in Huangbo’s assembly. In the Zutang ji
version Linji went to visit Dayu, who lived in a hermitage not far away, after
hearing Huangbo mention that he and Dayu had been fellow disciples under Mazu
Daoyi.15 On his first meeting with Dayu, Linji attempted to impress the old
monk by discoursing all night on various Buddhist scriptures and doctrines. At
dawn Dayu, who had listened in silence throughout the night, berated the young
monk and pushed him out the door. When Linji returned and reported to Huangbo
on his visit, he was reprimanded for not having made better use of the
opportunity. He then set off to visit Dayu again. Again he was scolded and
driven out of the door, but this time he returned to Huangbo convinced that he
had achieved understanding. When some ten days later he went once more to see
Dayu, he anticipated the old monk’s efforts to drive him away by knocking
him down and beating him. Thereupon Dayu acknowledged Linji as his disciple.
Which of these versions is nearer the truth is, of course, impossible to
determine at this date. The master himself in his later years, in the sermon
already quoted above, recalled his period of study under Huangbo as follows:
Still later I met a great teacher. Then, indeed, my dharma-eye became clear and
for the first time I was able to understand all the old teachers of the world
and to tell the true from the false. It is not that I understood from the
moment I was born of my mother, but that, after exhaustive investigation and
grinding practice, in one instant I knew for myself. And in another sermon he
says: Twenty years ago, when I was with my late master Huangbo, three times I
asked him specifically about the cardinal meaning of the buddhadharma, and
three times he favored me with blows from his stick. But it was as though he
were patting me with a branch of moonwort. Several anecdotes relating to Linji’s
life in Huangbo’s community after his enlightenment are related in the
succeeding portions of “The Record of Pilgrimages,” and two appear
in the section preceding it, entitled “Critical Examinations.”
These anecdotes suggest that for some years after his enlightenment Linji
pursued his practice continuously under Huangbo. However, the Zutang ji
account, which we cannot discount, tells us that after this event Linji served
Dayu until the old monk’s death ten years later. The probability is that
during the ten years following his enlightenment Linji journeyed back and forth
between Huangbo’s temple and Dayu’s hermitage, with occasional
trips—at Huangbo’s request, as suggested by the anecdotes above—to
see Deshan Xuanjian in Langzhou and Guishan Lingyou16 in Tanzhou, and to visit
the monastery on Mount Jing in Hangzhou.17 Since it was during this period that
Emperor Wuzong’s great suppression of Buddhism occurred, it would be
natural to suppose that Linji was affected. No account of his life, however,
mentions the proscription or suggests any influence upon his activities. In
view of the statements in the Zutang ji, we may, perhaps, surmise that, during
the worst of the persecution at least, Linji was staying in the mountain hut of
his mentor, Dayu, undisturbed by the events taking place in the outside world.
The first part of “The Record of Pilgrimages” indicates that after
Dayu’s death Linji stayed for a time with Huangbo’s community at
Mount Huangbo, where Huangbo had returned when the proscription was lift ed. In
perhaps 849 or 850 Linji left and set out on a pilgrimage. Ten or twelve years
had passed since his enlightenment, and he was now a mature man of forty. The
leave-taking between master and disciple is described in some detail in both
the “The Record of Pilgrimages” section of the Linji lu and the
Chuandeng lu biography. Two men, now of equal attainment, stand face to face.
The older, mellowed with years, receives the blow given by the younger with a
laugh in which pride and regard undoubtedly mingle. He offers his disciple
mementos received from his own teacher Baizhang, material signs of the
transmission of the dharma; the disciple, in the full flush of his powers and
confident that one who has become the living dharma has no need of such things,
orders them burned. “Take them along anyway,” urges the old master,
“in the future you’ll cut off the tongue of every man in the world.”
The Zutang ji and the Song gaoseng zhuan tell us nothing regarding Linji’s
subsequent pilgrimage.18 In the Chuandeng lu, however, his departure from
Huangbo is immediately followed by the story of his visit to Bodhidharma’s
memorial tower in Henan; “The Record of Pilgrimages” also records
this and other incidents obviously related to the journey. This long
pilgrimage, which Linji must have made on foot, was for him a period of testing
his own understanding against that of other masters. The anecdotes make very
clear that he reached the north certain that few men, if any, could match him,
and that none could surpass him. Linji’s pilgrimage came to an end,
perhaps a year later, with his arrival in Zhenzhou,19 in the Hebei area. There,
according to the Memorial Inscription, he became the master of a small temple
that stood near the southeast corner of the walls of the city of Zhenzhou, the
capital of Zhenzhou. Because of its location on the banks of the Hutuo 滹沱
River, the temple was called the Linji yuan 臨濟院, or “Temple
Overlooking the Ford.” The statements in the Chuandeng lu and the Song
gaoseng zhuan, though more brief, are virtually the same, but both introduce
one interesting fact not found in the Memorial Inscription, namely that it was
at the invitation of a “man of Zhao” 趙人 that Linji
settled in Zhenzhou. Who this “man of Zhao” actually was we do not
know. During the Warring States period (403–221 bce) Zhao 趙 was
the name of the entire area of which the prefectures of Zhaozhou and Zhenzhou
were later a part. In view of the tendency in China to continue using old names
for places to which succeeding dynasties had given new designations, it is
possible that “Zhao” may here have been used in its ancient
meaning, and thus might refer to the Zhenzhou of Linji’s time. If we
accept this possibility, the “man of Zhao” must have been a
contemporary of Linji living in the Zhenzhou district. Furthermore, whoever he
was, he must have been a person of eminence, since it is unlikely that anyone
but an important official would have issued such an invitation. Although the “man
of Zhao” is not again referred to in the two above-mentioned biographies,
or anywhere else, the first sermon in the Linji lu opens with the words, “The
Prefectural Governor, Councilor Wang [Fuzhu Wang Changshi 府主王常侍],20
along with the other officials, requested the master to take the high seat and
address them.” The second sermon, too, was given at the request of this
same official, and there is a friendly conversation between him and the master
recorded in the “Critical Examinations” section. Is it possible
that the “man of Zhao” and the governor of the prefecture, Wang,
were one and the same person? Let us see what is known of the Wang family of
Zhen. As discussed above, from middle Tang times the region of which Zhenzhou
was part had constituted a virtually independent political unit. All actual
power was in the hands of the Wang family, who, as with all regional
commissioners in that area, wielded it much as they pleased in defiance of the
orders of the central government.21 In 834 Wang Tingcou 王庭湊
(d. 834), then regional commissioner of Chengde Prefecture, within whose
jurisdiction Zhenzhou was included, was succeeded in his post by his son Wang
Yuankui 王元逵 (d. 855). Wang Yuankui is said to have “reformed
the ways of his father and carried out his duties to the central court with the
greatest propriety” (Zizhi tongjian 資治通鑑
245). Because of his respectful attitude, Wang was rewarded by Emperor Wenzong 文宗
(r. 826–840) with the gift in marriage of an imperial princess, Shoran 壽安
(Jiu Tang shu 舊唐書 408). No doubt the emperor hoped in this
way to regain a measure of control over the independent-minded Wang family. The
eldest son of this union, Wang Shaoding 王紹鼎 (d. 857),
succeeded his father as regional commissioner in 855, only to die two years
later. Shaoding was succeeded by his youngest brother, Wang Shaoyi 王紹懿,
who served as regional commissioner until his death in 866, the probable year
of Linji’s death. On the basis of these dates it is possible, of course,
for Linji’s patron to have been either Wang Yuankui or one of the two
sons who succeeded him. But since only the life of the youngest son, Wang
Shaoyi, spanned the length of Linji’s stay in Zhenzhou, and since the
statements in the text mentioning Wang Changshi all clearly refer to the same
person, it seems reasonable to suppose that it was Wang Shaoyi who was the
patron and friend of Linji, and who may even have been the “man of Zhao”
who originally invited him to take up residence at the temple Linji yuan.22 But
whoever he might have been, Councilor Wang was obviously of great assistance to
Linji in his efforts to propagate the doctrines of Chan in Zhenzhou. Another
person of apparent importance to Linji was the monk Puhua,23 one of Chan’s
fascinating eccentrics. The eighth anecdote in “The Record of Pilgrimages”
mentions a prophecy made to Linji by Yangshan Huiji24 on the occasion of Linji’s
taking a letter from Huangbo to Yangshan’s teacher Guishan: “Later
on you’ll go to the north and there’ll…be a man to help you.”
Whether this story has any basis in fact, the man referred to has traditionally
been regarded as Puhua. The Memorial Inscription states only that Puhua was
already in Zhenzhou when Linji reached there, that he was of help to the
master, and that he disappeared after the latter’s teaching began to
flourish. However, the several anecdotes centering on Puhua in the “Critical
Examinations” section support the statements in the Memorial Inscription,
and these statements are further substantiated by the accounts, meager though
they are, under Puhua’s name in other biographical collections. Though
the dates and, indeed, even the historicity of a figure as shadowy as Puhua
remain a matter of doubt, the anecdotes connected with him nevertheless sum up
some of the important characteristics of the Hebei style of Chan, and he is
therefore an important figure in the history of the Linji school. After
mentioning Puhua’s assistance to Linji, the Memorial Inscription
continues: It happened that local fighting broke out, and Linji abandoned the
temple. The Grand Marshal, Mo Junhe, donated his house inside the town walls
and made it into a temple. Hanging up a plaque there, inscribed with the old
name “Linji,” he had the master make it his residence. Tradition
has accepted this statement unconditionally, even though the facts recounted in
it are not corroborated by any of the other sources for Linji’s life.
Recent scholarship, however, has rediscovered what seems already to have been
recognized in Song times, namely that the “Grand Marshal, Mo Junhe”
of the Memorial Inscription was undoubtedly the man known to history as Mo
Junhe, a butcher who, according to the Jiu Wudai shi, saved the life of Wang
Rong, the young regional commissioner of Zhenzhou. Further research has
established that Mo was about twenty-six when the rescue occurred in 893. Thus Mo
Junhe was born about the year that Linji died, making any connection between
the two men impossible.25 Mo Junhe’s daring exploit and subsequent rise
to fame and riches made him a popular, even fabulous, hero in the region, his
renown augmented by his connection with Wang Rong, oft en called Zhao Wang, the
“King of Zhao.”26 Although there are several possible reasons for
including this statement in the Memorial Inscription, no tangible evidence
exists to substantiate them. The simplest explanation, and perhaps the most
likely, is that the writers of the Inscription, disregarding historical fact,
inserted the statement into their summary of the founder’s life with the
deliberate intention of enhancing the prestige of the Linji school in Hebei
through linking the master’s name with that of a popular local hero, and
thus, by implication, with that of Mo’s powerful patron, the King of
Zhao. Therefore, unless other concrete evidence appears, we must content
ourselves with the probability that it was at the little temple on the river
bank that the master spent the years of his sojourn in Zhenzhou, and that there
he “carried on his work of conversion in Hebei” (zj 19). Linji
Yixuan’s career as a teacher was relatively short, probably not more than
ten or eleven years at the most. Twenty-two sermons attributed to this period
form the body of the Linji lu. Though they must represent but a small portion
of those the master actually gave during these years, and though they have
certainly been subjected to the hands of more than one note taking disciple and
compiler, yet they provide us with an account of the man and his teaching
unparalleled in Chan literature for its vividness and force. These sermons were
delivered during the middle years of the master’s life, while he was at
the height of his powers. The touch of arrogance evident in his leave-taking of
Huangbo and still apparent in his exchanges during his pilgrimage had now been
replaced by an unshakable self-confidence based upon complete faith in the
truth and profundity of his personal religious experience. But beneath his
outspoken, abrasive, and, at times, even crude manner of expression may be
sensed a compassionate urgency to convince his listeners of the necessity of
their finding within themselves the “true man of no rank.” Linji’s
familiarity with the essentials of Mahayana and Chan is apparent on every page
of the Linji lu, but his free and creative mind constantly illumines them with
insights and invents new, if enigmatic, formulas for conveying their inner
meaning. The Zutang ji says of him, “His demonstration of the main
principle was swift , his presentation of the teaching profound; as for the
innermost meaning of these, it is inexpressible and ineffable” (zj 19).
But before whom were these sermons delivered? We have seen that on at least two
occasions the governor of the prefecture and officials of his staff were
present; perhaps some of the townspeople also came to listen. From time to time
a traveling Chan monk, a lecture master of another school, or a pilgrim on his
or her way to Mount Wutai to worship Bodhisattva Manjuśrī27 seems to
have visited Linji’s insignificant temple. And Puhua was there, during
the early years at least. But for the most part the audience must have been
made up of the assembly of monks who had come to study under the master. That
this group was never very large is clear from the fact that nowhere do we read,
as in the case of many other famous Chan masters, of “clouds of students”
or of an assembly “numbering never less than several hundreds of
disciples.” Among the most prominent monks to call upon Linji was
Zhaozhou Congshen,28 who is mentioned briefly in an anecdote in the Critical
Examinations section of the Linji lu.29 Also mentioned are visits from Mayu,30
Longya Judun,31 Dajue,32 and Xingshan Jianhong.33 Another episode in this
section speaks of the elders Heyang 河陽 and Muta 木塔;
since there is no mention whatsoever of them elsewhere, we can only surmise
that they were two old monks from the neighborhood with whom the master was on
familiar terms. As to whether Linji continued to have any relations with other
Chan masters of his time, masters whom he had met while under Huangbo or later,
the Linji lu is silent, except in the case of Deshan Xuanjian. Linji himself
had once visited Deshan, probably on Huangbo’s orders, and in the later
years of his stay in Zhen he sent his own young attendant Lepu Yuan’an34
to Hunan to observe and question Deshan. Still, the fact that from early times
the names of the two masters were oft en linked deserves particular notice.
They belonged to two different streams of teaching, Deshan being in the fifth
generation of the Qingyuan 淸原 line and Linji in the fifth
generation of the Nanyue 南嶽 line; one lived south of the Yangzi
and the other on the northern borders of the empire. Yet the Song gaoseng
zhuan, speaking of Linji, could still say, “In showing the essentials of
mind, his methods were much like those of Deshan” (t 50: 779b).
Furthermore, the Zhengfayan zang and the Zongmen liandeng huiyao bothrecord a
sermon by Deshan that is strikingly similar to the sermons of Linji.35 Indeed,
so close are the sermons of the two men in thought and wording that it would
almost seem that one was influenced by the other. However that may be, it was
certainly recognized from early times that their teachings and training methods
were very much alike, and it became customary to refer to “the stick of
Deshan and the shout of Linji.” As for the master’s disciples, the
Linji lu mentions only a few. There is Sansheng Huiran,36 to whom the master is
recorded as addressing his final words. The name Baoshou Yanzhao appears at the
end of the text (that is, of the Memorial Inscription with which it concludes)
as the “humble heir” who inscribed it.37 Baoshou’s name is
followed—in most editions after an end title— by that of Xinghua
Cunjiang,38 who signs himself as the collator of the text. A young disciple
named Lepu is identified as Linji’s attendant; later this monk went to
the south and became an heir of Jiashan Shanhui.39 Dajue, who is merely a
visitor in the Critical Examinations anecdote mentioned above and, in the
earlier biographical works, is regarded as an heir of Huangbo, in later works
is listed as one of Linji’s heirs.40 The only other name to appear in the
text is that of Elder Ding (Ding Shangzuo 定上座, lit., “Ding
of the Upper Seat”); who this man was we do not know, but the episode
concerning him in Critical Examinations 18 is repeated in several other
texts,41 and in at least one instance Ding is recorded as having taken part
with others in a discussion on Linji’s “true man of no rank.”42
Among the disciples of Linji, the most important have always been regarded as
Sansheng, Xinghua, and Dajue. The Zutang ji discusses only three of Linji’s
heirs: Baoshou, Xinghua, and a certain Guanxi Zhixian.43 The Chuandeng lu, on
the other hand, gives the names of twenty-two heirs (t 51: 289b), including all
the disciples mentioned in the Linji lu and the Zutang ji except Lepu and Ding;
for sixteen of these
monks the accounts are less biographies than records of mondōs with which their names
are associated. The Tiansheng guangdeng lu (x 78, no. 1553, 421a) and the
Chuanfa zhenzong ji (t 51: 754a) mention all those in the Chuandeng lu account,
but bring the number of heirs up to twenty-four by adding Elder Ding and an
unknown person by the name of Elder Huo 奯 上座. These longer
lists seem somewhat contrived, and their existence can undoubtedly be
attributed to the desire of later adherents of the Linji school to lend the
founder as much prestige as possible. Also, with few exceptions, these men, if
they did not come from the Hebei area originally, later settled in temples
there. So, regardless of whether or not they were long subjected to the master’s
severe discipline, at least by propagating his teachings in the region north of
the Yellow River they helped lay the foundations of his school of Chan. It is
unknown what brought Linji’s period of teaching in Zhenzhou to a close.
The biographies tell us nothing; in fact they do not even mention that he ever
left Linji yuan. The Memorial Inscription says merely: Later the master tucked
up his robes and went south to the prefecture of He. The governor of the
prefecture, the Councilor Wang, extended to him the honors due a master. After
staying for a short while, the master went to Xinghua temple in Daming
Prefecture, where he lived in the Eastern Hall. Again the facts recorded here
present several difficulties. Before trying to resolve them, however, let us
turn to the stele inscription written for Linji’s heir Xinghua Cunjiang
by the official Gongcheng Yi,44 a source that appears to be of reasonable
historical accuracy. According to this inscription, Cunjiang, after finishing
his study under Linji, set forth(probably in late 862 or early 863) on a
pilgrimage to the south. After recounting several incidents of this pilgrimage,
the inscription goes on to say that, while Cunjiang was visiting Yangshan Huiji
in Zhongling, of a sudden he heard that Great Master Linji had accepted an
invitation from Prime Minister Lord Jiang of Pu.45 He immediately determined to
attend [his former teacher] himself, and hastened to take up his staff . He
overtook [Linji] at Zhongtiao, and from then on could accompany him…. As
they were about to cross [the ford] at Baima they were met on the road by a
special messenger sent to welcome Great Master Linji by Late Grand Marshal and
President of the Grand Imperial Secretariat, Lord He.46 With[Cunjiang] acting
as reverent attendant, they pressed forward without stopping until they arrived
at [Wei]fu. There they took up their residence in the temple Jiangxi chanyuan 江西禪院,
of Guanyin si 觀音寺. Returning to the difficulties presented
by the Memorial Inscription, the first is the identity of “the prefecture
of He” 河府. Since Linji is described as having gone south,
commentators in the past—none of whom seems to have taken Cunjiang’s
stele inscription into consideration—believed that the prefecture
referred to was Henan 河南, the region south of the Yellow River
where Linji was born. However, Wang Changshi, who according to the Memorial
Inscription received Linji with honor, was, as explained above, the regional
commissioner of Chengde Prefecture, the area that included Zhenzhou, where
Linji had up to this time been residing. To be received by this dignitary the
master had no need to go south to another prefecture. Nor is the situation
remedied by assuming that “the prefecture of He” refers to Hebei 河北,
where Linji, living in Zhenzhou, had been all the time. Moreover, the order of
the narrative here implies that Linji met Wang Changshi only after he had been
preaching in Zhenzhou for ten years or more. But from the fact that the Linji
lu opens with Wang Changshi and his staff requesting the master to address
them, it is clear that the compilers of this text believed that the master’s
meeting with that official had taken place soon after his arrival in Zhenzhou.
The statements in the Memorial Inscription become more acceptable, however, if
read in conjunction with those of Cunjiang’s stele inscription. If by “the
prefecture of He” we understand the prefecture of Hezhong 河中,
and if we regard as untenable the Memorial Inscription’s statement that
Linji was received by Wang Changshi, the problems can be resolved. On the basis
of the stele inscription, and on the supposition that Prime Minister Lord Jiang
of Pu represents the official Jiang Shen,47 what took place between the time
the master left Zhenzhou and the time he arrived in the city of Weifu 魏府
may be reconstructed without stretching things too far. We know from the stele
inscription that Cunjiang did not come to study with Linji until sometime in
861. It seems more than likely that he stayed with the master for a year or
more before leaving on his pilgrimage, since the relation between him and Linji
was apparently an intimate one. After Cunjiang’s departure Linji received
an invitation from Lord Jiang, that is, Jiang Shen, who in 861 had been
appointed regional commissioner of Hezhong, with his seat in Puzhou 蒲州.
Thus in order to accept this invitation Linji had, of course, to journey to
Puzhou, a district in the great bend of the Yellow River in what is today the
southwest corner of Shansi, a considerable distance to the southwest of
Zhenzhou. We do not know when Linji set out on this journey, but we may surmise
that it was sometime in 863 or 864—the spring of 864 seems likely—and
journeyed south, meeting Cunjiang on the road before reaching the city of Pu
itself. Whether Lord Jiang was in Pu and personally received the master, or
whether he had already moved to his next assignment in Kaifeng Prefecture 開封府,
Henan, is not known. It seems probable that they did not meet, for, although
the master must have spent a year or more in the Pu area, there is no
indication that he met Lord Jiang or settled down anywhere for any length of
time. And, of course, if Lord Jiang had already gone on to another post, Linji
no longer had an important official in Pu to serve as patron and protector.
This may have been the reason that he, together with Cunjiang and a party,
started eastward, probably in the spring or early summer of 865. Whether their
goal was the city of Weifu we do not know. But that they were not far from
there when the messenger from Lord He of Wei met them at what seems to have
been the river crossing of Baima 白馬 is clear from the fact that a
day’s forced journey brought them to the city and the temple where the
master was to spend his last days. The discrepancy between the Memorial
Inscription and the stele inscription regarding the location of Linji’s
final residence offers no difficulty. The Memorial Inscription’s “Damingfu”
大名府 and the stele inscription’s “Weifu”
refer to the same place—Damingfu was the official designation for Weifu
after the Tang dynasty, and was apparently in unofficial use from much earlier.
The difference in the temple names—Xinghua si 興化寺
(Memorial Inscription) and Jiangxi chanyuan 江西禪院
(stele inscription)—is harder to account for, but may well have resulted
from a simple error. The stele inscription mentions that in 875, some years
after Linji’s death, a splendid temple was erected for Cunjiang in Wei
under the patronage of an uncle of Lord Han;48 although the name of this temple
is nowhere stated, it is usually assumed to have been Xinghua si, since in
later years Cunjiang was called Xinghua Cunjiang. It seems reasonable to
suppose, therefore, that, since Linji spent his final days with Cunjiang, the
name of the temple so closely associated with this disciple was confused by the
writers of the Memorial Inscription with that of the temple at which the master
actually stayed. Nor need the mention of the “Eastern Hall” detain
us—this was the title customarily given to the building that served as
the residence of the former head of a temple after his retirement. Neither the
Memorial Inscription nor the biographies tell us of the events of the last
period of Linji’s life. The stele inscription for Cunjiang, however, says
that after the master had settled himself in Wei a continuous stream of
officials, monks, and laymen came to call upon him. But this was not for long—before
a year had passed the master’s life came to an end. Ma Fang,49 describing
this last period of Linji’s life in his preface to the Linji lu, writes, “[The
master] had not long sat facing the wall when the secret transmission neared
its end.” Speaking of Linji’s death, the Memorial Inscription says:
Suddenly one day the master, although not ill, adjusted his robes, sat erect,
and when his exchange with Sansheng was finished, quietly passed away. It was
on the tenth day of the first month in the eighth year of Xiantong [18 February
867] of the Tang dynasty. The “exchange with Sansheng” (Sansheng
Huiran), which in later times was regarded as important evidence for
establishing the filiation of the Linji school, is recorded at the end of the “Record
of Pilgrimages,” and again in the Record of Pilgrimages
DEVELOPMENT OF THE
RECORDED SAYINGS(yulu)
The
Linji lu is a representative example of the “recorded sayings” 語錄
(C. yulu, J. goroku) genre of Chinese Buddhist literature. The “recorded
sayings” genre originated within the Chan tradition, and for long was
peculiar to this school. As discussed earlier, Chan stressed its own doctrine
of “a separate transmission outside the scriptures” and “the
transmission of mind by mind” over the elaborate exegetical works of the
older schools of Buddhism. In place of stressing the scholastic study of sutras
and commentaries, the earliest masters of Chan taught the integration of dhyāna
and prajnā with manual work and the other activities of daily life.
Teaching oft en took place in the context of this lifestyle, with masters using
the ordinary events of everyday life as occasions to bring their students to
awakening. It would be quite natural for a student to later note down the
teacher’s comments, the ensuing exchanges of question-and-answer, and the
occasional impromptu sermon, and to circulate such informal records among the
other students. It is possible that such accounts existed even for the first
Chan patriarch, Bodhidharma.57 In time it became customary for Chan masters to
hold lectures referred to as “ascending the high seat” 升座
or “going up to the dharma hall” 上堂, during which the
master would sit on a wide, high chair in the temple building known as the
dharma hall 法堂 and speak in direct, everyday language on the main
principle of Chan to the assembled monks, nuns, and laypeople. It seems likely
that this custom began around the time of the fourth Chan patriarch, Daoxin,58
and the fifth Chan patriarch, Hongren.59 Prior to the time of these two
figures, the monks of the Chan school—if, indeed, Chan possessed enough
individuality or organization at that early date to merit use of the word “school”—appear
to have followed more or less itinerant lifestyles. From the early years of the
seventh century, however, these wandering monks began to gather together into
organized religious communities, though, needless to say, the practices of
mendicancy and pilgrimage continued to be considered essential religious
practices and were never entirely dispensed with. Under Daoxin and Hongren the
size of these communities increased greatly, and were obliged, in order to function
successfully, to apportion tasks and lay down rules for the agricultural and
other types of work. It seems reasonable to suppose, therefore, that certain
times were set aside during which the master would conduct lectures for the
benefit of the assembly as a whole. As noted above, on such occasions the
master not only would exchange questions and answers with individual members of
the community, as had been done on a more casual basis in the past, but would
also deliver fairly long sermons of a more formal nature. These sermons were
oft en recorded, compiled, and preserved by the masters’ disciples. This
appears to have been the case even with early texts like the Lengqie shizi ji
(see note 57), attributed to Daoxin and Hongren and including numerous excerpts
from sermons, and the Dasheng wusheng fangbian men 大乘無生方便門
(Expedient means for attaining birthlessness in the Mahayana), recording the
teachings of the Northern-school master Shenxiu60 or his disciples. The latter
text depicts the master striking a wooden block in order to make a point as he
expounds in a direct, straightforward way on the basic meaning of the
scriptures. Sections of the Lengqie shizi ji and all of the Dasheng wusheng
fangbian men are rather heterogeneous and fragmentary in their contents, and
cannot be called yulu in the true sense of the word since they are not
primarily records of sermons (although they do contain quotations from
sermons). The earliest extant works to possibly merit the label yulu are the
Liuzu tanjing 六 祖壇經 (well known in English
as The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch), recording the sermons of the
Sixth Patriarch, Huineng;61 and the Nanyang heshang dunjiao jietuo chanmen
zhiliaoxing tanyu 南陽和上頓教解脱禪門直
了性壇語 (The priest of Nanyang’s platform sermon
on direct realization of innate nature according to the Chan doctrine of
emancipation through the teaching of sudden awakening), recording those of the
Sixth Patriarch’s student and advocate of the Southern school of Chan,
Heze Shenhui.62 The earliest manuscript of the Liuzu tanjing, that recovered
from Dunhuang, bears a similarly long title: “Southern school sudden
[enlightenment] doctrine, Supreme Mahayana Great Perfection of Wisdom Sutra:
The Platform Sutra preached by the Sixth Patriarch, Huineng, at Dafan si in Shaozhou;
one fascicle; compiled by the disciple Fahai, who received both the commandment
of formlessness and [permission] to spread the dharma.”63 This text
contains not only the sermons preached by the Sixth Patriarch at Dafan si but
also much additional material on Huineng’s life and teaching. The title
suggests the circumstances under which the sermons were preached and recorded,
and its use of the designation “sutra,” unique in Zen literature,
provides an indication of the extreme reverence in which Huineng must have been
held. The word in effect elevates the Sixth Patriarch to a level equal to that
of Śākyamuni Buddha and invests his words with an authority to match.
It is interesting to note that the opening lines of the text state that the
Sixth Patriarch was requested to preach by a group of over ten thousand monks,
nuns, and lay believers, as well as by Wei Ju64 (the prefect of Shaozhou), his
subordinate officials, and a number of Confucian scholars, and that Wei ordered
a disciple named Fahai65 to compile a record of the sermons. This is obviously
in conscious imitation of the introductions to the sermons of the Buddha as
recorded in the sutras, which were said to have been delivered in Rājagha
and other cities at the request of the rulers and the four orders of believers
(monks, nuns, male believers, and female believers). The same form is followed
by Huangbo’s Chuanxin fayao and the Linji lu. It may seem odd that Chan
monks—who tended to be less associated with civil authorities than were
the representatives of the older Buddhist schools—would ally themselves
in this way with government figures. It is important to note, however, that the
officials who patronized masters like Huineng, Huangbo, and Linji were in all
cases not the highest ministers of the central court, but lower-echelon
officials in provincial administrations. It is uncertain exactly what is meant
by the term “platform” 壇 in the titles Liuzu tanjing and
Shenhui tanyu, but the most likely explanation is that it refers to the raised
platform-like seat or stand from which the master would deliver his sermons. In
the Lidai fabao ji we find the statement, “The monk Shenhui of Heze si in
the Eastern capital [Luoyang] would each month construct a platform 壇場
on which to deliver sermons to the people” (t 51: 185b). Although, as we
have seen, the recording and collecting of the sermons of the Chan masters had
its inception during the Tang, it was not until later that these compilations
came to be generally known as “recorded sayings” 語 錄.
Prior to this the most common name for them was “books of sayings” 語
本.66 The Zutang ji mentions other designations for works of this type,
such as “true records”實錄, “separate records”
別錄, “accounts of actions” 行狀, and “records
of pilgrimage” 行錄. Similar terms are “record of words
and actions” 言行錄 and “abbreviated biography”
略傳. In the Zongjing lu 宗鏡錄 (Records of the
source-mirror) there is a reference to a work called the Baizhang guanglu 百丈廣錄
(Extensive record of Baizhang; t 48: 494c).67 The word 語錄 came
into general use as a designation for collections of sermons and records only
during the early years of the Song, the first known occurrence of the word
being in the title of the biography of Zhaozhou Congshen given in the Song
gaoseng zhuan (t 50: 775c). From that time on the records of the sermons of its
masters, now generally titled “recorded sayings,” became
increasingly popular as the Chan school flourished. The old Tang texts that had
not borne this designation— including, of course, the Linji lu—were
gradually recompiled and given new titles that included the term. At the same
time there was an extensive compilation of recorded sayings for Song-dynasty
masters, far surpassing any similar literary activity in other Buddhist
traditions of the time. The compilation of these records increased still
further during the Yuan 元 (1280–1368), Ming 明 (1368–1644),
and Qing 淸 (1644–1912) dynasties. Similarly, following the
transmission to Japan of the Chinese “recorded sayings” literature
during the Kamakura era (1185–1333), there began the compilation of the
records of the Japanese Zen masters, a custom that is still followed in Japan
today. It should also be mentioned that during the Song dynasty the use of “recorded
sayings” was not limited to the Chan tradition but was employed also by
Confucians and Taoists to refer to the collected records of teacher-student
dialogues and lectures delivered in colloquial language.68
The
compiler of the Linji lu is traditionally assumed to be Linji’s disciple
Sansheng Huiran, since the extant texts of the Linji lu all contain, after the
title, the notation “Compiled by his humble heir Huiran of Sansheng.”
Whether Huiran himself actually recorded the sermons that make up the body of
the text is impossible to say. The long history of the tradition that he is
connected with the work suggests, though, that he was in some way part of the
process of compiling them and putting them into something like their present
form. We have no way of determining exactly what the earliest version of the
Linji lu was like or when it was compiled. The earliest extant passages from
Linji’s sermons are found in the Zutang ji, the Zongjing lu, and the
Chuandeng lu, all of which were compiled before the eleventh century. A
comparison of these passages with the parallel passages in the later Tiansheng
guangdeng lu version of the Linji lu reveals minor differences in the wording
and the ordering of ideas, indicating that the Linji lu sermons have at various
times undergone some editing and polishing. Given that the texts of the sermons
were handed down from one generation of disciples to another, it is reasonable
to assume that the wording was gradually smoothed, the progression of ideas put
into better order, and slight changes and additions made from time to time,
until the text arrived at the form in which we have it today. The section on
Linji in the Zutang ji is followed by the statement, “Other teaching
devices and answers to questions by the master are recorded in much greater
depth and detail in other records.” The Linji sermon in the section of
the Chuandeng lu entitled “Zhufang guangyu” 諸方廣語
(t 51: 446c–447a), while differing slightly from the parallel passage in
the Linji lu as we presently have it, is nearly identical to a passage from a
sermon of Linji contained in the earlier Zongjing lu (t 48: 943c). This
suggests that at the time of the compilation of the Zutang ji in 952 down
through that of the Chuandeng lu in 1004 there was already a version, or
versions, of the Linji lu circulating among members of the Chan school. The
final revision of the Linji lu into its presently existing form appears to have
occurred sometime between the time of the Chuandeng lu’s compilation in
1004 and that of the Tiansheng guangdeng lu in 1036, as the latter work
contains a text of the Linji lu differing somewhat from the earlier versions
but identical to the work as we presently have it. The compiler, the lay
believer Li Zunxu,69 was a student of Guyin Yuncong,70 a master in the sixth
generation from Linji. Li’s purpose in compiling this thirty-fascicle
work, complete with a preface by Emperor Renzong 仁宗 (r. 1022–1063),
seems to have been to promote the lineage of Mazu, Baizhang, Huangbo, and Linji
by recording the sermons, statements, and teaching devices of these masters in
as much detail as possible. Hence the inclusion of the entire Linji lu. We can
only guess what text or texts Li used as the basis for his lengthy treatment of
Linji. There existed at that time a work known as the Sijia yulu 四家語錄
(Recorded sayings of the four houses), which was probably a collection of the
records of Mazu, Baizhang, Huangbo, and Linji.71 That it contains the work of
Huangbo, at least, is known by the fact that the Yuan edition of the Chuandeng
lu includes part of the Chuanxin fayao, with the comment that it was added by a
certain Nanzong Tianzhen 南宗天眞 in 1048 (t 51: 273a)
and a note, probably appended by Tianzhen himself, that the Chuanxin fayao
passage was copied from “the Sijia yulu and other records.”
Although we have no idea when or by whom the Sijia yulu was compiled, and
little knowledge of its contents, there does seem to have been at this time a
demand for works providing more information on the lineage of Mazu, and it
seems probable that both the Sijia yulu and the Tiansheng guangdeng lu were
issued in answer to this need. Judging by the rapidity with which works were
published at this time, we may guess that a printed edition of the Sijia yulu
appeared shortly after its compilation. The present texts of the Linji lu are
based on an edition printed in 1120 by the monk Yuanjue Zongyan72 at Mount Gu 鼓
in Fuzhou 福州 (present-day Fujian 福建). This edition
is clearly stated to have been a reprint, so we know that there must have been
at least one earlier edition of the work. Whether the earlier text was part of
the Sijia yulu or whether it was an independent version of the Linji lu, we do
not know. This edition, like all later ones, appends the Memorial Inscription.
As mentioned above, the Memorial Inscription constitutes an important source
for the life of Linji, but is at the same time problematic as its statements
are so oft en at variance with those in earlier sources. A comparison of the
Inscription with earlier texts such as the Zutang ji, Chuandeng lu, and
Tiansheng guangdeng lu suggests, as has been stated above, that the Inscription
was either compiled some time after those works—that is, after 1036—or
was put together by people of a different area or teaching lineage than those
who compiled the earlier works, and thus was unknown to the latter. Otherwise
it is difficult to imagine why they would ignore so many of the facts included
in the Memorial Inscription, especially the date of the master’s death,
and instead recorded information that is quite different. The supposition that
the Memorial Inscription was either not in existence or not widely known prior
to the time of the 1120 reprint of the Linji lu is further supported by the
fact that the Zuting shiyuan 祖庭事苑, a collection of
notes on Chan terms and proper names published by Muan Shanqing73 in 1108,
records under the entry for Linji (writing his name with the characters 林際)
a short biography that is based entirely upon information found in the earlier
sources, but that makes no mention of the data recorded in the Memorial
Inscription. We may thus surmise that the Inscription was first appended to the
Linji lu at the time of the 1120 reprint, as it is quite possible that Zongyan,
the editor, knew of the Inscription while earlier editors had not. Zongyan was
a native of Hebei who only later went south to Fuzhou; the Memorial Inscription
may well have existed from earlier times in the Linji school in Hebei, but not
yet reached the more southerly regions where the earlier sources were compiled.
In that case it seems reasonable to assume that Zongyan would have brought it
with him when he traveled to Fuzhou, and there appended it to his reprint of
the Linji lu as an additional source of information on Linji. It would also
appear that the notation at the beginning of the Linji lu, “Compiled by
his humble heir Huiran of Sansheng,” as well as the one at the text’s
end, “Respectfully inscribed by the humble heir Yanzhao of Baoshou in
Zhenzhou,” were both added to the text at the time of the 1120 reprint.
Although earlier works mention Huiran and a certain “Baoshou Zhao”
as disciples of Linji, none of them makes any mention of them as compilers or
inscribers of the Linji lu. Like the data recorded in the Memorial Inscription,
therefore, the tradition that the Linji lu was compiled by Huiran and inscribed
by Yanzhao could well have been part of the lore handed down in the Linji
school in Hebei. Since we have no evidence to support or refute this tradition,
our acceptance of it should be tempered by the understanding that it is unconfirmed
by earlier sources and could be of somewhat later origin.Such Hebei traditions
may have taken shape under Linji’s fourth, fi ft h, and sixth successors:
Fengxue Yanzhao, Shoushan Shengnian, and Fenyang Shanzhao. Fenyang Shanzhao’s
successor, Shishuang Chuyuan, worked to spread the Linji teachings in southern
China, and it is therefore not surprising that from his time onward these
teachings came to be known there. Under Shishuang the Linji school achieved a
position of widespread eminence and prosperity, and this in turn no doubt
created an increased interest in the origin and history of the school, and,
consequently, a stronger demand for information about its founder and a
definitive edition of the record of his teachings. The 1120 reprint of the Linji
lu would have answered these demands, and Zongyan’s edition did, indeed,
become the definitive edition of the work. Seven years after its publication,
the Song court, threatened from the north by the invasion of the Khitan armies,
abandoned its capital at Kaifeng 開封 and transferred the seat of
government to Hangzhou 杭州 in the south. From that time on, during
the period known as the Southern Song, the center of Chinese culture shifted
from the north to the region around the new capital. The Linji school, under
the leadership of figures such as Yuanwu Keqin74 and his best-known and perhaps
most influential disciple Dahui Zonggao,75 entered upon its period of greatest
prosperity, centering about the so-called Five Mountains and Ten Temples of
Hangzhou. The 1120 reprint of the Linji lu served as the bible of its teaching.
In addition to the Memorial Inscription, Zongyan’s redaction of the Linji
lu also contained the preface by Ma Fang.76 This preface, written in elegant
four-character phrases and summarizing the principal anecdotes and doctrines of
the text, has been highly esteemed in China and Japan, and has been included in
nearly all later editions of the Linji lu. In the title to the preface Ma Fang
is described as: Scholar of the Yankang Hall; Gentleman of the Gold and Purple
Rank in attendance at Imperial Banquets; Emissary in Charge of Keeping Order in
Zhen - ding Circuit; concurrently Chief Commandant of Cavalry and Infantry
Forces; concurrently Administrator of Chengde Military Prefecture. Given the
imposing nature of his title, it is unfortunate that we know nothing whatsoever
of his life. His preface is dated the fifteenth day of the eighth monthof the
second year of the Xuanhe 宣和 era, that is, 9 September 1120,
which is, in fact, what leads us to assume that this reprint of the Linji lu
dates from that year. The present texts of the Linji lu are divided into three
parts. The first part is known as “Discourses” (lit., “Taking
the high seat in the hall” 上堂), and consists mainly of
sermons and addresses; the second part is entitled “Critical Examinations”
勘辨; and the third is called “Record of Pilgrimages” 行
錄. It is known that Zongyan also collated and prepared for publication
an edition of the Yunmen guanglu, which, like the Linji lu reprint of 1120, was
published at Mount Gu in Fuzhou. Present texts of the Yunmen guanglu are
divided into sections similar to those of the Linji lu, including collected
sermons and sections entitled “Critical Examinations” and “Record
of Pilgrimages.” It is quite possible, therefore, that Zongyan was
responsible for this type of arrangement, and that the present three-part
division of the Linji lu dates from the time of his redaction. Fuzhou was the
center of considerable literary activity during this period. In addition to the
above-mentioned printings of the Linji lu and Yunmen guanglu, two private
editions of the Tripiṭaka were printed, as
well as such specifically Chan works as the Liuzu tanjing, Chanyuan zhuquanji
duxu 禪源諸詮集都序 (Preface to the
Anthology of essential writings on the origins of Chan), Xuefeng Yicun Chanshi
yulu 雪峰義存禪師語錄 (Recorded
sayings of Chan Master Xuefeng Yicun), Xuansha Zongyi Dashi guanglu 玄沙宗一大
師廣錄 (Extensive record of Great Teacher Xuansha Zongyi),
and others. In the early years of the Zhaoxing 紹興 era (1131–1162),
some ten or twenty years after the Linji lu reprint, the first large anthology
of Chan works was printed at Mount Gu. This work, the Guzunsu yuyao 古尊宿語要
(Essential sayings of the ancient worthies) compiled by Sengting Shouze,77 is
no longer extant, though its contents have probably been copied into and thus
preserved in various other later works. It appears to have contained the
recorded sayings of twenty (or, according to some accounts, twenty-two) Chan
masters. The Linji lu and Yunmen guanglu were not included in this compilation,
a fact that suggests copies of these works were so readily available at the
time that it was not considered necessary to reproduce them. About a century
later, in 1238, another monk of Mount Gu, Huishi Shiming,78 compiled a second
anthology containing eighty-one Chan works that had not been included in the
earlier compilation. This anthology, the Xukai guzunsu yuyao 續開古尊宿語要
(Further essential sayings of the ancient worthies), includes the complete text
of the Zongyan edition of the Linji lu. This was the first time that the Linji
lu was included in one of the guzunsu anthologies. A copy of this work is
preserved in the Dai Tōkyū Kinen Bunko 大東急記念文庫
in Tokyo, and the Linji lu found therein represents the oldest text of that
work known to be in existence today. In
No
one knows exactly when the Linji lu was first brought to Japan. The earliest
text mentioned in the literature is that referred to in the biography of Gidō
Shūshin,84 composed in diary form by his disciples. The entry in question
is dated Genkō 元弘 2 (1332), when Gidō was eight years
old: One day the master [Gidō] found a copy of the Linji lu in one volume
among the books in his house and read it with great pleasure. It was just as
though he had studied it in the past, and his parents were amazed and
considered that he had a heaven-given talent…. The master’s
grandfather had studied Confucianism and Buddhism, concentrating particularly
on Zen. Once he visited National Teacher Yura, had sanzen, and inquired about
the Way, saying, “I would like to obtain a copy of the Linji lu….”
National Teacher Yura accordingly gave him a copy, and this is the book that
the master found. The “National Teacher Yura” referred to here is
Shinchi Kakushin,85 a Japanese monk who journeyed to China in the
mid-thirteenth century to practice Zen, and who resided at the temple Kōkoku-ji
in Yura, present Wakayama Prefecture, after returning to Japan. According to the
Enmyō
kokushi
gyōjitsu nenpu 圓明國師行實年譜
(Chronology of the life of National Teacher Enmyō), when Kakushin returned
to Japan in 1254 he brought with him the copy of the Linji lu mentioned above.
Since 1254 was sixteen years after the publication of Huishi’s Xukai
guzunsu yuyao and about half a century before the appearance of the next
edition of the Linji lu, the Linji Huizhao Xuan Gong Dashi yulu of Xuetang Puren,
we may assume that what came into Kakushin’s hands was the Linji lu text
contained in the Xukai guzunsu yuyao or some earlier text. However, it is quite
possible that copies of the work had already reached Japan before the time of
Shinchi Kakushin’s return. Dōgen Kigen86 quotes a passage of the Linji
lu in his Tenzō kyōkun 典座敎訓 (1237)
(Instructions to the cook), and there is a tradition that the Chinese monk
Lanxi Daolong87 lectured on the text after his arrival in 1253 at Kenchō-ji
in Kamakura. No definite evidence exists, however, for the presence in Japan of
any text of the Linji lu prior to the time of the one mentioned in the
biography of Gidō Shūshin. The first Japanese edition of the Linji lu
was published in 1320 by a priest named Myōshū,88 who stored the
printing blocks at Shōun-an 祥雲庵, a subtemple of
Kennin-ji. Myōshū’s edition, a copy of which is preserved in
the Seikadō 靜嘉堂 Library in Tokyo, contains the
preface by Ma Fang, the body of the text, and a note by Myōshū giving
the date of printing. Shōun-an was founded by Mujaku Ryōen,89 a
disciple of Yishan Yining,90 and thus it is possible that Myōshū was
a student of one of these two monks. This period was one of great activity in
the publication of Zen works. Not only were shorter works published, such as
the Chuanxin fayao (J. Denshin hōyō), 1283; Rentian yanmu (J. Ninden ganmoku) 人天眼目
(The eye of humans and gods), 1303; Chanyuan zhuquanji duxu, 1305; and Wumen
guan (J. Mumonkan), 1291, but also longer texts like the Biyan lu (J. Hekigan
roku), 1335;
Jingde chuandeng lu (J. Keitoku dentō roku), 1348; and Zongjing lu (J. Sugyō roku), 1371. The
Linji lu was also reprinted several times during this period, among the
best-known editions being those of 1329, 1384, 1437, and 1501. All of these
editions contained only the Ma Fang preface except for that of 1437, which was
a copy of the Yuan-dynasty version of Xuetang Puren, with the three prefaces of
Linquan Conglun, Guo Tianxi, and Wufeng Puxiu. In the Tokugawa period a great
many new editions of the Linji lu appeared, owing to a resurgence in Japanese
interest in the text following the arrival in the early seventeenth century of
the Chinese master Yinyuan Longqi91 and other monks of the tradition that came
to be known in Japan as the Ōbaku 黃檗 school, but which the
Chinese monks themselves regarded as the “true lineage of Linji” 臨濟正宗.
New editions were issued not only by Rinzai-school monks, but also by those of
the Sōtō and Ōbaku traditions. Among the new editions the most
noteworthy was that printed in 1727 with the five-fascicle commentary Rinzai
Eshō zenji
goroku soyaku (see note 25), by the eminent Rinzai scholar-priest Mujaku Dōchū.92
This edition corrected a number of mistakes present in the earlier editions,
supplied Japanese reading marks to the text, and became the standard edition
during the remainder of the Tokugawa period. The work demonstrates a truly
impressive level of scholarship, limited only by the restricted understanding of
Tang-dynasty colloquial Chinese at the time of Mujaku.
1.
Linji Yixuan 臨濟義玄 is the full name of the master
with whom the Linji lu 臨濟錄 (ll) is concerned. Yixuan 義玄
is his religious name, which he either received from his teacher or took for
himself when he became a monk. Linji 臨濟 derives from Linji yuan 臨濟院,
the name of the temple where the master resided and taught during the years of
his maturity. Thus, accurately rendered, the name would be “Yixuan of
Linji [yuan].” In the text of the ll Linji Yixuan is invariably referred
to as simply “master” 師.
2.
For further information on this period in Chinese Buddhist history, see, for
example, Eberhard 1956 (110–176), Zurcher 1959, Wright 1959, and Chen
1964, 1973.
3.
The Chusanzang jiji 出三藏記集 (Collection of
records concerning the Tripiṭaka; t 55: 1–114), the oldest extant catalogue of
Chinese Tripiṭaka texts, was based
on an even earlier list, the Zongli zhongjing mulu 綜理衆經目錄
(Comprehensive catalogue of sutras), published in 374.
4.
The character 寺, used in the Han dynasty to mean “government
office,” seems to have been adopted as the designation for a Buddhist
monastery or temple at the beginning of the third century ce or earlier. See
Zurcher 1959, 38–39.
5.
Although the attribution of these phrases to Bodhidharma is erroneous, there is
no question that they express the fundamental standpoint of Chan from the
earliest times of the school’s existence. These phrases or similar ones
are found in several early Chan texts, the earliest apparently being the Xuemai
lun 血脈論 (Treatise on the transmission), attributed to
Bodhidharma but dating probably from the mid-Tang. The opening line of this
text reads, “The three realms arise out of the One Mind. Former buddhas
and latter buddhas transmitted mind by mind; [they] did not depend upon written
words” (t 48: 373b).
6.
Baizhang Huaihai 百丈懷海 (720–814) was a native
of what is now Fujian 福建, with the family name Wang 王.
After being ordained at the age of twenty he studied the Tripiaka, then went to
study under the Chan master Mazu Daoyi (see note 15). After succeeding to Mazu’s
dharma he established a monastery on Baizhang 百丈 peak of Mount
Daxiong 大雄, in Hongzhou 洪州. Huaihai did much to
regulate the daily life of the Chan monastery, being the first person to create
a formal rule for monastic life; though the original text of this rule has been
lost, its influence still lives in subsequent Zen monasticism. Manual labor was
a central element of the monastic life for Huaihai, as expressed in his famous
dictum, “A day of no working—a day of no eating” (see comment
on page 320, below). When Huaihai grew old, his monks, fearing that the master
was no longer strong enough to work, hid his garden tools. Huaihai thereupon
went to his quarters and refused to eat until the tools were returned.
Following his death the master was awarded the honorary names Dazhi Juezheng 大智覺證,
and, in the Yuan dynasty, Hongzong Miaoxing 弘宗妙行.
7.
Ennin 圓仁 (794–864), third patriarch of the Japanese Tendai 天台
school, was born in a humble family in present Tochigi Prefecture 栃木県.
At fifteen he went to Mount Hiei 比叡, the Tendai headquarters
northeast of Kyoto, where he became a favored disciple of Saichō 最澄
(767–822), the founder of the Japanese Tendai school. Ennin took monk’s
vows at twenty-one, and at twenty-three received full ordination at Tōdai-ji
東 大寺 in Nara. In accordance with his teacher’s dying
wish Ennin worked to establish a Tendai ordination platform on Mount Hiei,
finally succeeding despite opposition from the monks of Nara, where previously
all Japanese monks had been ordained. Somewhat later, during a period of poor
health, Ennin built a hermitage with his own hands in a remote ravine on Mount
Hiei, and retired there for ten years to devote himself to Tendai meditation
practices.
In
835 the Japanese court sent an embassy to China, which Ennin was ordered to
accompany in the capacity of scholar-monk. After two unsuccessful attempts to
get under way, the embassy set sail in 838 and reached Yangzhou 揚州
late in the summer. While the other members of the embassy proceeded to the
capital, Ennin and two disciples remained in Yangzhou studying Sanskrit and
esoteric Buddhism as they awaited permission to travel to Mount Tiantai 天台,
where they intended to make further studies in the doctrines of their own
school.
The
permission never arrived, so the following year Ennin set sail for Japan with
the returning embassy. Unfavorable winds drove the ships back to China,
however, and when the fleet finally departed again Ennin and his disciples
managed to get left behind. Making their way to the southeastern tip of the
Shandong 山東 Peninsula, they took refuge in Fahua yuan 法華院,
a Korean temple at Mount Chi 赤. With the help of a local official they
succeeded in procuring a travel permit for the capital, Chang’an, by way
of Mount Wutai 五臺, the center of popular worship of the
bodhisattva Manjuśrī. When they reached the capital on 19 September
840 they were ordered by the government to reside at the temple Zisheng si 資聖寺.
Ennin remained for five years, continuing his studies of Sanskrit and esoteric
Buddhism. In June 845, as a result of the persecution of Buddhism by Emperor
Wuzong 武宗 (814–846), Ennin was ordered laicized and
deported. In the face of many hardships, he and his party made their way to the
coast and finally to the same Korean temple on Mount Chi where they had stayed
at the beginning of their journey. It was a year and a half more before they
were able to board a Korean ship for Japan, which they reached on 28 October
847, bringing with them many books, mandalas, and ritual implements. The Nittō
guhō junrei kōki, the journal that Ennin kept of his stay in
China, ranks with the great travel books of all time.
In
Japan, Ennin devoted himself to spreading the Tendai esoteric teachings, known
as Taimitsu 台密 (in contrast to Tōmitsu 東密, the
Shingon esoteric teachings). He was given the court title of Great Dharma
Master Dentō 傳燈大法師 and appointed Tendai
Zasu 天台座主, chief abbot of the Tendai school. He
gave the bodhisattva precepts to the emperors Montoku 文德 (827–858)
and Seiwa 淸和 (850–880), the empresses Junna 淳和
and Gojō 五條, and members of their courts. To his many
disciples he taught the rites, ceremonies, and doctrines he had studied in
China, devoting himself particularly to the Godaizan Nenbutsu 五臺山念佛,
a practice he had learned at Mount Wutai and that gave rise in later times to
the Pure Land teachings of Mount Hiei. Ennin died on 13 February
Ennin’s
writings totaled 154 volumes. The 584 Buddhist works he brought back from
China, among them many
Chan texts, are listed in the Jikaku daishi shōrai mokuroku 慈 覺大師將來目錄 (Catalogue of
materials brought by Jikaku Daishi); the Nihonkoku jōwa gonen nittō
guhō mokuroku 日本國承和五年入唐求法目錄
(Catalogue of a pilgrimage to Tang in search of the dharma in year 5 of the
Japanese Jōwa
era); and the Nittō shingu shōgyō
mokuroku 入唐新求聖敎目錄
(Catalogue of sacred teachings newly sought in the Tang). Ennin’s diary
has been translated into English (Reischauer 1955).
8.
On the authorship and authenticity of the Memorial Inscription, see Yanagida
1958 and 1961.
9.
Dayu 大愚 (n.d.) is listed in the jc (t 51: 273c) as a disciple of
Zhichang 智常 (n.d.) of the temple Guizong 歸宗 on
Mount Lu 廬, Zhichang himself being an heir of Mazu Daoyi. In Linji’s
biography in zj 19, Huangbo is quoted as saying that Dayu was a fellow student
under Mazu. These references, plus the statements about him in the “Record
of Pilgrimages,” constitute all of our information on Dayu. In the ll,
Huangbo refers to Dayu as Gao’an Tantou Dayu 高安灘頭大愚,
“Dayu who lives by the river in Gao’an.” Gao’an was in
the area of Ruizhoufu 瑞州府 of Hongzhou 洪州, in
the southwestern part of present-day Nanchangxian 南昌縣,
Jiangxi Province. “Tantou” 灘頭 at this time meant
simply “rapids,” although by the early Ming it was used as the name
of a district in this area. Since Huangbo was then living at the temple Da’an
si 大安寺 in Hongzhou, Dayu’s hermitage was not far
away.
Although
Huangbo’s statement in the zj that Dayu was a fellow student under Mazu
is open to question, we cannot definitely reject it since the dates of both men
are uncertain. The zj also states that after his enlightenment Linji served
Dayu until the latter’s death, a period of about ten years. Since Huangbo
was still living at the time, we may assume that Dayu died between 845 and 850.
10.
Deshan Xuanjian 德山宣鑑 (780/82–865) was a
native of Jiannan 劍南 in modern Sichuan; his family name was Zhou 周.
He entered temple life as a child, and as a young monk became deeply learned in
doctrine, particularly that of the Diamond Sutra, expounding on it so oft en
that he became known as “Diamond Sutra Zhou.” When he heard of the
Southern school teaching that buddhahood can be attained by seeing into one’s
own nature, he headed south with his commentaries to refute the “southern
devils.” When he stopped at a teahouse for refreshment (Chin. 點心,
“to refresh the mind”), the woman attendant saw his Diamond Sutra
commentaries and asked, “The sutra says, ‘Past mind cannot be
obtained, present mind cannot be obtained, and future mind cannot be obtained.’
What mind does the learned monk wish to refresh?” Xuanjian was unable to
answer. Hearing from the woman the name of Longtan Chongxin 龍潭崇信
(n.d.) in Lizhou 澧州, he journeyed there to study.
One
evening Xuanjian was with Longtan. “It is late,” the master said. “Why
don’t you retire?” Xuanjian went outside, but, noticing how dark it
was, turned back and told Longtan that he could not see. Longtan lit a paper
torch and held it out to Xuanjian, but as Xuanjian reached for it the master
blew it out. At that moment Xuanjian was deeply enlightened. He bowed to
Longtan. The master asked, “What did you understand?” Xuanjian
replied, “From now on I will never doubt the words of Chan masters
anywhere.” Afterwards Xuanjian burned his commentaries in front of the
Dharma Hall, saying, “Though one masters the deepest doctrines, it is
like throwing a hair into the great void. Though one succeeds in the greatest
of worldly tasks, it is like flicking a drop of water into a chasm.” He
then bowed to Longtan and left . He lived in solitude for thirty years in a
cave in Mount Dufu 獨浮, Hunan, until the governor called him to
lead the monastery Gude chanyuan 古德禪院 on Mount De 德
in Langzhou 朗州. He was known for his use of the stick, and is
recorded to have said, “If you can speak, thirty blows! If you can’t
speak, thirty blows!” Xuanjian’s posthumous title was Chan Master
Jianxing 見性禪師. Many of his teachings are nearly identical
to those of his contemporary Linji; several examples are mentioned in the text
notes.
11.
Xiangyan Zhixian 香嚴智閑 (9thcent.) is said to have
been born in Qingzhou 淸 州 in modern Shandong 山東
Province; nothing is known of his early life, but he is said to have been
unusually intelligent and well-read. He studied under Guishan Lingyou (see note
16), who said to him one day, “I do not ask about your knowledge of the
scriptures and other sacred writings. I ask that you speak a word about the
time while you were still in your mother’s womb and before you could
distinguish east from west.” Zhixian had no reply. After searching to no
avail through the mass of sutras and commentaries he had collected, he said to
himself, “A painting of food does not allay hunger,” threw away all
his books, and retired to the abandoned hermitage of Nanyang Huizhong 南陽慧忠
(d. 775) on Mount Baiyai 白崖 in Henan 河南. One day,
while clearing weeds, he happened to toss a piece of broken tile against the
stem of a bamboo. At the sound of the tile striking the tree Zhixian suddenly
attained enlightenment. He returned to Guishan and eventually became one of
that master’s heirs. He later opened a teaching hall at the temple
Xiangyan si 香嚴寺 in modern Henan, where he was active in
spreading the Chan teachings. His posthumous title was Great Teacher Xideng 襲燈大師.
Xiangyan
Zhixian was known for his religious verse. Examples are found in several
Dunhuang manuscripts, one of which, S.5558 in the British Museum, contains
thirty three verses bearing his signature. His verses are also interspersed in
his biography in zj 9. The jc contains his biography (t 51: 283c–284c)
and a selection of his verses (t 51: 452a–c).
12.
Huangbo Xiyun 黃檗希運 (d. ca. 850) was the heir of
Baizhang Huaihai. Born in Fuzhou 福州, present Fujian, he became a
monk at the temple Jianfu si 建福寺 on Mount Huangbo 黃檗
while still a youth. He later made a pilgrimage to Mount Tiantai 天台,
and eventually arrived in the capital, Chang’an 長安.
According to the Huangbo Xiyun Chanshi yulu 黃檗希運禪師語錄
(Recorded sayings of Chan Master Huangbo Xiyun), one day while Huangbo was
begging in the capital he met a woman who advised him to go to the famous
master Mazu Daoyi in Jiangxi 江西 (see note 15). Upon reaching
there he found that Mazu had already died, so he went to Mazu’s heir
Baizhang and eventually succeeded to that master’s dharma. The zj’s
statements on this point are contradictory, as in its biography of Linji it
quotes Huangbo as stating that he and Dayu had been fellow students under Mazu,
implying that he had actually studied under that master. On the other hand, the
zj’s biography of Huangbo has the woman in Chang’an advising him to
go directly to Baizhang. In any event the matter is not of great importance, as
all accounts agree that Huangbo did study under Baizhang and become his dharma
successor. It seems probable that, after leaving Baizhang, Huangbo spent time
with two other heirs of Mazu: Nanquan Puyuan 南泉普願
(748–835) in Chizhou 池州 and Yanguan Qi’an 鹽官齊安
(d. 842) in Hangzhou 杭州. About 833 he seems to have taken up
residence at the temple Da’an si 大安寺 in the city of
Hongzhou 洪州. In Hongzhou he met the eminent official and Buddhist
devotee Pei Xiu (see note 13), who in 842 had been appointed governor of
Zhongling 鍾陵, in present Jiangxi. Pei became Xiyun’s
disciple, and a year or two later built a temple for him in the mountains of
Gao’anxian 高安縣, in western Hongzhou. Because of
Huangbo’s affection for the place where, as a young man, he had become a
monk, this temple was named Hongzhou Huangboshan 洪州黃檗山;
unfortunately, its exact location is no longer known. There Huangbo instructed
many disciples, among them Linji. During Emperor Wuzong’s proscription of
Buddhism he hid in the mountains, returning to Mount Huangbo after the
persecution ended. It was there that he died sometime during the Dazhong 大中
era (847–859). His posthumous title was Chan Master Duanji 斷際禪師,
and his teachings are contained in the Huangbo Duanji Chanshi chuanxin fayao 黃蘗斷際禪師傳心法要
(usually abbreviated to Chuanxin fayao 傳心法要
[Essentials of the transmission of mind-dharma]), compiled by Pei Xiu, and the
Wanling lu 宛陵錄, by an anonymous disciple. An English
translation of Huangbo’s teaching is found in Blofeld 1959a.
13.
Pei Xiu 裴休 (797–870), style Gongmei 公美, was
an official and a famous lay Buddhist. He was born in Mengzhou 孟州
in Henan (other accounts say Hedong 河東, in present Shanxi). He is
said to have taken his civil service degree in 823, and thereafter to have held
a succession of government positions. Pei first studied Buddhism under Guifeng
Zongmi 圭峰宗密 (780–841), fi ft h patriarch of
the Heze 荷澤 school of Chan and the fifth and last patriarch of
the Huayan 華嚴 school. He wrote prefaces to several of Zongmi’s
works, and the latter reciprocated by writing one for Pei Xiu’s Quanfa putixin
wen 勸發菩提心文 (On giving rise to
bodhicitta). On Zongmi’s death, Pei composed the memorial inscription for
the master. In 842 Pei was appointed governor of Zhongling 鍾 陵,
and in 848 acceded to the same office in the district of Wanling 宛陵,
both in present Jiangxi. It was during his tenure in the former office that he
met Huangbo Xiyun, became his devoted disciple, and built for him a temple at
Mount Huangbo 黃檗. Compilation of the Chuanxin fayao is
traditionally attributed to him.
As
might be expected, Pei was active on behalf of his Buddhist friends during the
persecution under Emperor Wuzong. The jc biography of Huangbo’s disciple
Qian’qing Chu’nan 千頃楚南 (813–888)
states, “When Buddhism was proscribed by Emperor Wuzong of the Tang, Chu’nan
went into hiding deep in the forest. At the beginning of the Dazhong era, when
the Chief Councilor Pei Xiu came to take charge of the region of Wanling, he
invited Huangbo to come out of hiding in the hills, and Chu’nan followed
the master” (t 51: 292b). Guishan Lingyou also received Pei’s
assistance. Though the official was never Guishan’s disciple, they were
close “dharma friends.” The memorial inscription for Guishan,
written by the eminent official Zheng Yu 鄭愚 (n.d.), says,
When
Emperor Wuzong demolished the temples and drove out the monks, the master
(Guishan), wrapped his head with cloth and became one of the common people. His
only fear was that he would stand out among the ignorant and humble men with
whom he associated, and those who knew his identity admired him all the more
for this. Later, when Emperor Xuanzong lifted the ban on Buddhism, the regional
supervisor of Hunan, the late Chief Councilor Pei Xiu, who was an ardent
follower of Buddhism, entreated the master to come out of hiding. He placed the
master in his own carriage and followed in attendance on him. (qt, 820)
In
850 Pei Xiu rebuilt the memorial tower and the former temple of the Chan master
Mazu, arranging for the presentation to the temple of an imperial tablet (t 51:
246c). Two years later he was appointed chief councilor to Emperor Xuanzong 宣宗
(r. 847–859), and served Emperor Yizong 懿宗 (r. 859–873)
in the same capacity until his death in 870.
His
Buddhist fervor seems to have bordered on the eccentric. He never took meat or
wine; in place of official dress he wore a priest’s robe, but made of
silk, and with bowl in hand he went begging to the houses of the singing girls.
He was, nevertheless, a writer of considerable distinction. In addition to his
Buddhist works he composed a number of memorial inscriptions for eminent
priests, not all of them of the Chan school, and these, together with his other
writings, are collected in qt 743. His biography is found in the Jiu Tang shu 舊唐書
(Older chronicles of the Tang) 177; the Xin Tang shu 新唐書
(Newer chronicles of the Tang) 182; the jc (t 51: 293a–c); and the Jushi
zhuan 居士傳 (Biographies of lay practicers) (x 88: 208b–210c).
14.
Neither the ll nor the older biographical collections name the head monk who
urged Linji to question Huangbo. He is first identified as Chen Zunsu 陳尊宿
(also known as Muzhou Daozong 睦州道蹤 or Daoming 道明,
whose family name was Chen) in the Shimen wenzi chan 石門文字禪
(Stone Gate literary Chan), by the important Chan scholar-monk Juefan Huihong 覺範慧洪
(1071–1128; “Stone Gate” was an appellation of Huihong).
Although so late an identification must be held suspect, later compilations
like the bl (case 11; t 48: 151c), the cs (x 79, no. 1560, 535c), and the wz (x
78, no. 1554, 581c), undoubtedly following Huihong, also refer to him thus.
Muzhou studied the vinaya as a youth, then became the disciple, and eventually
the heir, of Huangbo. Afterwards he lived at the temple Guanyin yuan 觀音院
in Muzhou 睦州, in present Zhejiang, then at Longxing si 龍興寺,
a temple that later texts call Kaiyuan si 開元寺. There
people called him Chen Puxie 陳蒲鞋 (Rush-sandal Chen) from
the rush sandals he plaited and hung under the eaves of the temple to give or
sell to passersby. His methods of handling such students as came to him are
described as eccentric, even violent, but he appears to have been much
respected among his contemporaries. The Muzhou yulu 睦州語錄
(Recorded sayings of Muzhou) states that he was ninety-eight years old when he
died, but does not give the date of his death. According to the Yuan-dynasty
work Shishi qigu lue 釋氏稽古 略 (An outline of
research on the lineage of Śākya) (t 49: 843a.), Muzhou died during
the Qianfu 乾符 era (874–879), and this dating is generally
accepted.
15.
Mazu Daoyi 馬祖道一 (709–788), one of the great
figures of early Chan, was a native of Hanzhou 漢州, in modern
Sichuan; his surname was Ma 馬. At an early age he entered the temple
Dechun si 德純寺, also in Sichuan, where he studied under
Chuji 處寂 (665–732), a third-generation descendant of the
Fifth Patriarch, Hongren 弘忍 (601–674). Later he went to Chuanfa
yuan 傳法院 on Mount Heng 衡 in Hunan, where he met
Nanyue Huairang 南嶽懷讓 (677–744) and became his
student and later his sole heir. Thereafter he spent a considerable time
wandering and staying at various temples. During the Dali 大曆 era
(766–779) he went to live, on imperial order, at Kaiyuan si 開元
寺, a temple in Hongzhou 洪州, in present-day Jiangxi. There
his fame as a teacher spread widely.
The
story of Mazu’s enlightenment is one of the best known in Chan. Mazu was
living in a hermitage practicing meditation throughout the day. Nanyue asked
him why he was sitting in meditation. When Mazu replied, “To become a
buddha,” Nanyue picked up a tile and started polishing it on a stone.
When Mazu asked him what he was doing, he replied that he was making it into a
mirror. “How can you make a mirror by polishing a tile?” asked
Mazu. “How can you become a buddha by sitting in meditation?”
responded Nanyue. He further explained, “Are you practicing to be a
sitting buddha? …. Meditation is not limited to sitting…. the
buddha is not limited to any fixed form.”
Mazu
was a man of imposing appearance, said to have had a stride like a bull’s,
a gaze like a tiger’s, a tongue that could cover his nose, and two
wheel-shaped marks on the soles of his feet. One of the greatest teachers of
early Chan, he was the first to employ many of the methods that later became
central to Chan training, such as use of the shout, the stick, and wordless
gestures. He is said to have had 139 dharma heirs; of these, the most important
for later Zen history were Baizhang, the founder of the Chan monastic system;
Nanquan Puyuan; and Damei Fachang 大梅法常 (752–839).
Mazu
died in 788 on the anniversary of Śākyamuni’s Nirvana. At his
own request he was buried on Mount Shimen 石門, not far from his
own temple, and a tomb was erected for him there. His funeral matched in
magnificence those of the great clerics in the capital in early days, and many
eminent men wrote inscriptions in his honor. Mazu’s posthumous title was
Chan Master Daji 大寂禪師.
16.
Guishan Lingyou 潙山靈祐 (771–853) was born in
Changxi 長溪 in Fuzhou, and his surname was Zhao 趙. He
became a monk at the age of fifteen, and thereafter studied the vinaya and
Hinayana doctrines under the precept master Fachang 法常 (n.d.) at
Longxing si 龍興寺 in Hangzhou 杭州. At
twenty-three he made a pilgrimage to Mount Baizhang 百丈 in Jiangxi
and there joined the assembly under Baizhang Huaihai, where Huangbo Xiyun was
then a member. Lingyou served as the head cook for many years and later became
Baizhang’s dharma heir. Later, at the beginning of the Yuanhe 元和
era (806–820), Baizhang had to choose a suitable leader for a new
monastery to be established on Mount Gui 潙 in Tanzhou 潭州.
Putting a jug on the floor, he asked, “If you can’t call this a
jug, then what do you call it?” The head monk answered, “It can’t
be called a wooden sandal.” Lingyou’s response was to kick over the
jug and walk away; it was he who was named head of the new monastery.
When
Lingyou arrived at Mount Gui he built a hut and continued his practice; after seven
or eight years students started gathering around him and eventually numbered
about 1,500. Lingyou produced forty-one dharma heirs, including Yangshan Huiji 仰
山慧寂 (807–883), the cofounder with Lingyou of the
Guiyang 潙仰 lineage of Chan Buddhism, known for its use of the
so-called circle-figures 圓相. Soon after Lingyou’s death he
was given the posthumous title Chan Master Dayuan 大圓禪師
by Emperor Xuanzong.
Guishan
was known for his mild and kindly nature. His relation with his heir Yangshan,
resembling that of father and son, is famous in Chan and formed the basis for
the characteristic style of the Guiyang school. A number of conversations
between master and disciple are recorded in the “Record of Pilgrimages”
section of the ll.
17.
Mount Jing 徑 is located in Zhejiang and forms the northeastern peak of
Mount Tianmu 天目. A temple was first built there by Daoqin 道欽
(715–793) of the Niutou (Oxhead) 牛頭 school. After the
establishment of the Southern Song capital at Lin’an 臨 安
(modern Hangzhou) in 1127, this temple, Nengren xingsheng wanshou chansi 能仁興
聖萬壽禪寺, became very famous, numbering among
its eminent abbots Dahui Zonggao (see note 75, below), Xutang Zhiyu 虛堂智愚
(1185–1269), and Wuzhun Shifan 無凖師範 (1177–1249).
It is not clear who the master of Mount Jing was at the time of Linji’s
visit to the temple. See pages 40–41, above, and page 310, below.
18.
The “Zhending shifang Linji Huizhao Xuangong dazongshi daoxing beiming”
眞 定十方臨濟慧照玄公大宗師道行碑銘,
a memorial inscription carved on a stele erected during the Yuan dynasty, gives
the date of Linji’s journey to the north as Dazhong 大 中 8
(854). The inscription is given in full in the Shaku Sōen 釋宗演
reprint edition of the
Kōtei Rinzai roku 校訂臨濟錄
(Revised edition of the Record of Linji), edited by the scholar-monk Mujaku Dōchū
無著道忠, appendix 2, 1–4. The Qing-dynasty work
Zongtong biannian 宗統編年 states that Linji reached
Zhenzhou in Dazhong 3 (849) (x 86, no. 1600, 168b). Given the late origin of
these works, it is likely that such dates are simply conjecture.
19.
The Zhenzhou 鎮州 of Linji’s time was northeast of the city
of Shijiazhuang 石家 莊 in central Hebei 河北. In
the Warring States era (403–221 bce) this district was part of a region
called Zhao 趙; during the Han dynasty (206 bce–25 ce) it was
renamed Zhending 眞定, and after that was variously referred to as
Changshan 常山, Hengshan 恒山, or Hengzhou 恒州.
The name was officially designated as Zhenzhou in 820. It was one of the four
prefectures 州 of which Chengdefu 成德府, also known as
Hebei, was composed (the others were Zhao 趙, Ji 冀, and Shen 深).
In the Later Tang 後唐 (923–934) of the Five Dynasties
period, the region was designated as the Beidu 北都 (Northern
Capital) and called Zhendingfu 眞定府, the name used from the
Song dynasty on. During the middle and later years of the Tang, as the control
of the central court over the regional governments became increasingly tenuous,
the local administrator of Chengdefu, known as the regional commissioner 節度使,
came to have almost complete control over the area (see also note 21).
20.
“Fuzhu” 府主, here translated as “governor”
(Hucker 1985 has “commandery governor” [2047]–Ed. ), was a
title for the chief administrator of a superior prefecture 府, in this
case Chengdefu 成德府. The title, an informal rather than
official one, was used by the subordinates of such an administrator to refer to
their officer-in-chief (see Morohashi 4, no. 9283. 45). The title “changshi”
常侍 may be translated as “councilor” (Hucker 1985 has “attendant-in-ordinary”
[262]–Ed. ), and is an abbreviation of the longer title 散騎常侍,
an honorary title conferring rank but exacting no specific duties. Several
members of the Wang family were recipients of this title.
21.
The Wang 王 family had held the office of military commissioner 節度使
of Chengdefu for several generations. Their power was consolidated by the
rebellion of Wang Chengzong 王承宗 (d. 820) against the
throne in
22.
From Song times on, Linji’s patron Wang has been mistakenly identified
with a certain Wang Jingchu 王敬初 (n. d.). This error
appears to have its origins in the zh, compiled in 1183. Part of zh 8 is
devoted to a lay disciple of Guishan Lingyou referred to as Xiangzhou Changshi
Wang Gongjing[chu] 襄州常侍王公敬[初]
(x 79, no. 1557, 78b–c). One of the three episodes in this section is
identical with episode
23.
Zhenzhou Puhua 鎮州普化 (d. 860), was a disciple of
Panshan Baoji 盤山寶積 (n. d.) of Youzhou 幽州;
Baoji, in turn, was an heir of Mazu. Very little is known of his life. The
biographical accounts found in zj 17, the jc (t 51: 280b–c), and the sg
(t 50: 837b) consist of little more than the anecdotes featuring Puhua in the
Critical Examinations section of the ll. In Japan, Puhua (Jap. Fuke) is honored
as the patriarch of the Fuke school 普化宗, a subordinate and
now defunct order of the Zen school. Its adherents (known as komusō
虛無僧)
led itinerant lives and played bamboo flutes called shakuhachi 尺八,
the music of which was considered an aid to enlightenment. Japanese tradition
holds that the school was founded after Puhua’s death by his lay disciple
Zhang Bay 張伯 (nod.) of Henan. The Fuke school was introduced to
Japan by the Japanese Zen monk Shin chi Kapustin (see note 85) on his return from
China in 1254.
24.
Yangshan Huiji 仰山慧寂 (807–883) was a direct
heir of Guishan Lingyou and the cofounder with him of the Guiyang school of
Chan. He was raised in Huaihai 懷化 in Shaozhou 韶州,
in present Guangdong 廣東; his family name was She 葉. He
became a monk at the age of seventeen after demonstrating his determination to
his parents by cutting off two of his fingers. He studied the vinaya at Nanhua
si 南華寺, then set out on a pilgrimage that took him to
several of the greatest masters of his time. Under Danyuan Yingzhen 耽源應眞
(n.d.), who lived in Jizhou 吉州 in modern Jiangxi, he had his
first awakening. Danyuan is said to have transmitted to Huiji the teachings
regarding the use of ninety-six (or -seven) circle-figures 圓相,
which he himself had received from his teacher Nanyang Huizhong, an heir of the
Sixth Patriarch. Later, Huiji wandered for a time, then came to Guishan
Lingyou, who was living in Tanzhou, Hunan. He remained with Guishan for fifteen
years and eventually succeeded to his dharma. Subsequently he lived at Yangshan
in Yuanzhou 袁州 in Jiangxi, where he instructed many disciples in
Guishan’s style of Chan and in Danyuan’s circle teachings, thus
laying the foundations for the Guiyang school. His posthumous title was Great
Teacher Zhitong 智通大師.
The
record of Yangshan’s teachings is included in the Wujia yulu 五家語錄
(Recorded sayings of the five houses), under the title Yangshan Huiji Chanshi
yulu 仰山慧寂禪師語 錄
(Recorded sayings of Chan Master Yangshan Huiji; t 47: 582a–588a). The
principal source for his biography is the stele inscription for Yangshan
composed by Lu Xisheng 陸希聲 (n.d.) in qt 813.
25.
The identity of Mo Junhe 默(墨)君和 is discussed by
Mujaku Dōchū in his Rinzai Eshō zenji goroku soyaku 臨濟慧照禪師語錄疏瀹
(Commentary on the Record of Zen master Rinzai Eshō), an unpublished
manuscript dated 1726. Dōchū
quotes the section of the Jiu Wudai shi 舊五代史 (Older
chronicles of the Five Dynasties) that deals with the rescue of Wang Rong 王鎔
(874–921) by Mo (see below), including the commentary and a quotation
from the Taiping guangji 太平廣記 (Extensive record of
the Taiping era) 192, which, in turn, quotes from the Liushi ermu ji 劉氏耳目記
(Record of things seen and heard by Mr. Liu), a no-longer extant popular
historical text. Dōchū, however, did not compare Linji’s dates
with those for Wang Rong and, by intimation, for Mo Junhe, but, after proving
the historicity of Mo, was content to accept the Memorial Inscription at face
value. In 1953 Yanagida Seizan, while examining Dōchū’s
commentary, cross-checked with the Jiu Wudai shi and the Zizhi tongjian 資治通鑑
(Comprehensive mirror to aid government), a reliable Song historical work, and
established Mo’s age as twenty-six or -seven when the 893 rescue took
place.
The
story of Wang Rong and Mo Junhe, while unrelated to Linji, is sufficiently
interesting as background material on the period to warrant retelling here.
Wang Rong was the grandson of Wang Shaoyi, who, as noted above, was regional
commissioner of Zhenzhou in Linji’s day. Wang Rong was only ten years old
when, upon the death of his father, he succeeded to the latter’s
position. Shortly thereafter he chanced to see a youth whose skin was black as
iron and whose eyes and eyebrows slanted sharply upward. On inquiry he found
the youth’s name to be Mo 墨 (“Ink-stick”) and his occupation
that of a butcher. “How do I happen to have such a black Indian in my
country!” he exclaimed. He dubbed the youth Mo Kunlun 墨崑崙,
“Ink-stick Black-man,” and bestowed a black robe upon him.
In
892 Zhenzhou was attacked by the forces of Bingzhou 幷州, its
neighbor to the west. With the help of Li Kuangwei 李匡威 (d.
893), regional commissioner of Youzhou 幽州, northeast of Zhenzhou,
Wang Rong’s troops were victorious the following year. In the meantime,
however, Li, having lost Youzhou to his younger brother while assisting Wang,
secretly plotted to kill the young sovereign and seize Zhenzhou for himself. In
893 Li used a ruse to induce Wang, then seventeen, to offer him the prefectures
of Zhen 鎮, Zhao 趙, Jin 晉, and Ji 冀. The two,
accompanied by Li’s soldiers, rode side by side into the inner city to
arrange for the transfer of powers, when suddenly a great storm broke. As they
entered the eastern gate of the prefectural headquarters, Li’s soldier
accomplices quickly shut it so as to cut off Wang’s escape. At that
moment the butcher Mo leapt through a breach in the wall, knocked down Li’s
soldiers, and lifted the young Wang onto his own horse. Then, with wang on his
back, he jumped onto the roof of the headquarters building. When the people of
Zhenzhou realized that their beloved young ruler was safe, they turned on Li
and killed him and his accomplices. Wang later rewarded Mo with a thousand
pieces of gold, a mansion in the city, a large farm estate, and immunity from
punishment for ten capital offenses. He also petitioned the throne to award Mo
the title of Guanglu Dafu 光祿大夫 (Gentleman of the
Banquet Hall). For forty years thereafter Mo enjoyed wealth and high position.
In the region of Zhenzhou, those who had dark skinned children considered
themselves fortunate, for they hoped their children would be like Mo Junhe.
26.
Wang Rong is not accorded the title Zhao Wang 趙王 in the Chinese
histories. The jc, however, lists among the disciples of Zhaozhou Congshen 趙州從諗
(778–897) the names Zhenzhou Zhaowang 鎮州趙王
and Youzhou Yanwang 幽州燕王 (t 51: 281c. 27). The
former name refers to Wang Rong, the latter, in all probability, to Li
Kuangwei, the ruler of Youzhou who later attempted to assassinate the young
Wang Rong, though we have no firm proof of this. Both men, under these titles,
are mentioned several times, separately and together, as the “two kings”
in the Zhaozhou Zhenji Chanshi yulu 趙州眞際禪師語録
(Recorded sayings of Chan Master Zhaozhou Zhenji) (e.g., x 68, no. 1315, 76b).
27.
The city of Zhenzhou 鎮州 lay on the main road to Mount Wutai 五臺,
in northern Shanxi, where the Bodhisattva Manjuśrī was believed to
reside. From early times this has been a famous place of pilgrimage. In the
spring of 849 the Japanese Tendai monk Ennin (see note 7) passed through Zhen
on his way to Mount Wutai, reaching the mountain just a week later (Reischauer
1955a, 214–266). For a description of Mount Wutai in modern times, see
Blofeld 1959b, 85–103.
28.
Zhaozhou Congshen 趙州從諗 (778–897) was an heir
of Nanquan Puyuan. He is thought to have been a native of Hexiang 赫鄕
in Caozhou 曹州, Shandong Province, with the family name He 郝.
He entered a temple near his home as a young boy, and at eighteen visited
Nanquan, who was living in Chizhou 池州 in Anhui 安徽
Province. There Congshen remained for forty years, until Nanquan’s death
in 835. Now in his late fifties, Congshen set out on a long pilgrimage, during
the course of which he visited most of the important Chan masters of the time;
he vowed, it is said that “I will ask even a child of seven to teach me
if his understanding is greater than mine, and I will teach even a man of one
hundred if my understanding is greater than his.” He is said to have been
in his eighties when he was invited to live at Guanyin yuan 觀音院,
a temple situated to the east of the prefectural capital of Zhaozhou. There the
master instructed numerous disciples in his characteristic style of Chan,
stressing penetrating statements rather than use of the shout or the stick—Zhaozhou’s
lips, it was said, sparkled light. Many of his words and actions later became
the basis of famous koans. Zhaozhou died at the advanced age of one hundred and
twenty, leaving a number of eminent heirs. His posthumous title, Chan Master
Zhenji 眞際禪師, was bestowed upon him by imperial
decree.
29.
It is interesting to note that this same anecdote is found in the Zhaozhou lu,
with the rather important difference that the roles of the two men are
reversed.
30.
Little is known of Mayu 麻谷, who lived at Mount Mayu in Puzhou 浦州
in the southern part of modern Shanxi. He is identified by certain old
commentators as Baoche 寶徹 (n.d.), the first abbot of the
monastery at Mount Mayu and one of Mazu Daoyi’s heirs. However, Baoche
was considerably older than Linji, so other commentators suggest that the Mayu
mentioned in the ll is Baoche’s disciple, who was presumably the second
abbot of Mayu. In the ll Mayu appears twice, but it is clear that these are
merely two accounts of the same incident.
31.
Longya Judun 龍牙居遁 (835–923) was in the sixth
generation of the Qingyuan 淸 原 line and a direct heir of Dongshan
Liangjie 洞山良价 (807–869), one of the founders
of the Caodong 曹洞 (Jap. Sōtō) school. Judun was from
Nancheng 南城 in Fuzhou 撫 州 in present-day Jiangxi.
After having his head shaved at the age of fourteen he visited many teachers.
Finally he came to Dongshan and remained with him for eight years. One day he
asked the master, “What is the meaning of the Patriarch’s coming
from the West?” Liangjie answered, “I will tell you when the Dong
River runs uphill.” At these words Judun was enlightened. He departed
again on pilgrimage; among the masters he met were Linji and Cuiwei Wuxue 翠微無學
(n.d.), with whom he had the exchanges recorded in Critical Examinations 22 of
the ll. These exchanges appear also in case 20 of the bl, where the roles of Linji
and Cuiwei are reversed. (For Cuiwei, see page 309, below.)
At
the invitation of Ma 馬, the ruler of Hunan, Judun eventually settled at
the temple Miaoji chanyuan 妙濟禪院 on Mount Longya 龍牙
in Hunan. There he spent the remainder of his long life teaching; the assembly
under him, it was said, never numbered less than 500. His posthumous title was
Chan Master Zhengkong 證空禪師. Longya was noted for
his religious poetry, and a collection of ninety-five poems entitled Tanzhou
Longyashan Dun Chanshi song 潭州龍牙山遁禪師頌
(Poems of Chan Master Longya Judun), with a preface by Nanyue Qiji 南嶽齊己
(861–933?), is preserved in the Chanmen zhuzushi jiesong 禪門諸祖師偈頌
(Poems of the Chan patriarchs) (x 66, no. 1298, 726c–729a). Eighteen
poems from this collection appear in the jc (t 51: 452c–453b). The
Dunhuang manuscript Stein 2165 also contains some of this master’s
verses, indicating that they circulated widely during Tang times.
32.
Dajue 大覺 (n.d.) is known only by this name, which derives from
the fact he is recorded to have lived at the temple Dajue si 大覺寺
in the province of Wei 魏, in southeastern Hebei. He is regarded as an
heir of Linji by the tg and by editions of the jc dating from the Yuan, whereas
the Song edition of the jc, and works depending on it, list him as an heir of
Huangbo.
33.
Xingshan Jianhong 杏山鑑[鑒]洪 (n.d.) of the
Qingyuan line was a direct disciple of Yunyan Tansheng 雲巖曇晟
(782–841?) and thus a fellow student of Dongshan Liangjie 洞山良价
(807–869). Nothing is known of Jianhong beyond the fact that he lived on
Mount Xing 杏 in Zhuozhou 涿州, in the northern part of
Hebei. The section devoted to him in the jc (t 51: 323b), records only the
anecdote given in Critical Examinations 13. However, since, in the section on
Linji in the jc, where this anecdote is also recounted, Linji’s companion
is identified as Ven. Mukou 木口和尙, it seems probable
that Mukou and Xingshan are the same person. This would seem to be true also
for the Ven. Mukou mentioned in the section on Shishi Shandao 石室善道
in zj 5.
34.
Lepu 樂普 is the common designation for Yuan’an 元安
(834–898). A native of Linyou 麟遊, his family name was Dan 淡.
He became a monk at the age of twenty and studied under Cuiwei Wuxue and Linji,
serving as the latter’s attendant. Later he went to Jiashan Shanhui (see
note 39) and eventually became his dharma successor. Upon leaving Jiashan he
first dwelt at Mount Lepu 樂普 (also written 洛浦 and 落浦)
in Lizhou 澧州, then at Suxi 蘇谿 in Langzhou 朗州.
Renowned as a teacher, Lepu is said to have attracted students from everywhere
in China.
35.
The Zhengfayan zang 正法眼藏 (Treasury of the true
dharma eye) is a collection of koans and dialogues compiled between 1147 and
1150 by Dahui Zonggao 大慧宗杲 (1089–1163); the
sermon referred to is in fascicle 2 (x 67, no. 1309, 574b–c). The Zongmen
liandeng huiyao 宗門聯燈會要 was compiled
in 1183 by Huiweng Wuming 晦翁悟明 (n.d.), three
generations after Dahui in the same line; the sermon is found in zh 20 (x 79:
173a).
36.
Little is known of Sansheng Huiran 三聖慧然 (n.d.)
other than that he was a disciple of Linji and later lived at Sansheng yuan 三聖院
in Zhenzhou. The jc (t 51: 294c–295a) devotes a section to him consisting
only of anecdotes and dialogues. These indicate that after Linji’s death
Sansheng went south, where he had interviews with Deshan Xuanjian, Xiangyan
Zhixian, and Yangshan Huiji, and others. Several interviews between Sansheng
and Ven. Cen 岑和尙 (n.d.), a disciple of Nanquan Puyuan, are
recorded in the section on Cen in zj 17, and one between Sansheng and Xuefeng
Yicun 雪峰義存 (822–908), a disciple of Deshan,
is the subject of bl case 49 (t 48: 184c).
37.
The identity of Baoshou Yanzhao 保壽延沼 (n.d.), the “humble
heir Yanzhao of Baoshou in Zhenzhou” 住鎮州保壽嗣法小師延沼,
is uncertain. Though from the wording he would seem to be a direct disciple of
Linji, nowhere in any of the lists of Linji’s heirs is there mention of
this name. However, zj 20 and the jc (t 51: 294c) have short sections comprised
of anecdotes on a Baoshou Zhao 寶壽沼 (n.d.) of Zhenzhou,
whom they regard as one of Linji’s heirs. Bothrecord a conversation
between Baoshou Zhao and Zhaozhou Congshen, and the zj records one between him
and Linji’s disciple Sansheng. The fact that both this figure and the
author of the Memorial Inscription have surnames pronounced “Bao”
(though the characters are different) has from olden times led them to be
considered as the same person.
38.
Xinghua Cunjiang 興化存奬 (830–888) was the
second patriarch of the Linji school. According to the stele inscription
written for him by Gongcheng Yi 公乘億 (see note 44),
Cunjiang was a native of Youzhou 幽州 in Hebei with the surname
Kong 孔. He is believed to have descended from Confucius, as his
ancestors originally lived in Lu 魯, the birthplace of Confucius.
Cunjiang entered temple life at seven, and, at twenty-one, was among the first
group of monks to take the precepts on the ordination platform built by Zhang
Yunshen 張允伸 in the city of Youzhou. When Zhang constructed
another platform at the temple Yunju si 雲居寺 (Shijing si 石經寺)
in Zhuozhou in 855, Cunjiang was invited to become the precept master 律師.
In 861 Cunjiang visited Linji in Zhenzhou and remained with the master for
probably a year or more. He then left on an extended pilgrimage to the south,
visiting, perhaps at Linji’s suggestion, Yangshan Huiji. Hearing that
Linji was leaving Zhenshou, Cunjiang returned to the north, joined Linji and
accompanied him to Guanyin si in the city of Wei. He remained until the master’s
death. Following this, Cunjiang refused requests from friends to return to
Yunju si, remaining instead in Wei, where the governor, Han Gong 韓公,
held him in high esteem and built a splendid temple for him. There Cunjiang
remained until his death in 888. Cunjiang is regarded in Chan tradition as the
editor of the ll, and perhaps also the compiler of the “Xing lu” 行錄
(Record of Pilgrimages) section of the work.
39.
Jiashan Shanhui 夾山善會 (805–881) was born in
Xianting 峴亭 in Guangzhou 廣 州; his surname was Liao 廖.
While still a child he became a monk on Mount Longya 龍牙, in
modern Hunan. Later he went to Jiangling 江陵 in modern Hubei, took
the precepts, and became a lecture master 座主. One night when
Shanhui was lecturing in Jingkou 京 口, where he had subsequently
gone to live, a monk asked, “What is the dharmakāya?” Shanhui
answered, “The dharmakāya is without form.” “What is the
dharma eye?” the monk then asked. Shanhui said, “The dharma eye is
flawless. Before the eyes there are no dharmas. Though the meaning exists
before the eyes, it cannot be reached by the eyes or ears.” At this point
the visiting monk laughed. When Shanhui asked why he had laughed, the monk,
Daowu Yuanzhi 道吾圓智 (769–835), suggested that
he go to Huating 華亭 to see Chuanzi Decheng 船子德誠
(n.d.), a monk who was at that time working as a ferryman. Decheng, Daowu said,
“hasn’t a tile to cover his head above, nor a gimlet point of earth
to stand on below.” Shanhui went straightaway to Huating and found
Decheng in his boat on the river. In the subsequent encounter Shanhui
thoroughly penetrated Decheng’s dharma. Decheng told him to avoid crowded
cities, live in the mountains, and concentrate on finding a successor to keep
the dharma alive. He then tipped over his boat and was never seen again.
Shanhui lived in seclusion for over thirty years. In 870 he and the assembly
that had gathered around him built a monastery, Lingquan yuan 靈泉 院,
on Mount Jia 夾山.
40.
Song editions of the jc and dependent works like the Chuandeng yuying ji 傳燈
玉英集 (Precious flowers of the lamp transmission) and Da
guangming zang 大光明藏 (Treasury of great light) list
Dajue as a fellow disciple with Linji under Huangbo Xiyun. He is identified as
a disciple of Linji in tg
41.
E.g., tg 13 (x 78, no. 1553, 483a); and zh 10 (x 79, no. 1557, 97a). The tg, on
the evidence of Critical Examinations 18, regards Elder Ding 定上座
as a disciple of Linji, a view repeated in the zh and the wh. The word 上座
(“elder”; Skr., “thera” or “sthavira”),
which originally designated the leader of a group of monks, came to be used, as
here, simply as a title of respect between one monk and another. As a koan,
this incident appears as case 32 of the bl.
42.
See bl 32 (t 48: 171b–c).
43.
Guanxi Zhixian 灌溪志閑 (d. 895) was a disciple of
Linji during the master’s later years.
44.
Gongcheng Yi 公乘億 (n.d.) received his government service
degree in 871, and later served on the staff of Le Yanzhen 樂彦禎
(d. 888), the regional commissioner of Weibo 魏博 (Weizhou 魏州).
His style was Shoushan 壽山. He is noted for his literary works—his
poetry is found in qt 22 and his prose in qt 813. For his stele inscription,
the Weizhou gu chan dade Jiang gong tabei 魏州故禪大德奬公塔碑
(Memorial inscription for the monk [Xinghua Cun]jiang of Weizhou), see qt 813.
45.
Puxiang Jiang Gong 蒲相蔣公. Though the stele
inscription for Xinghua Cunjiang provides no further information on this
person, it is possible that he was Jiang Shen 蔣伸 (d. ca. 867), a
high official, scholar, and member of the Hanlin Academy. Jiang Shen was the
second son of Jiang Yi 蔣乂 (747–821), a distinguished
minister during the reigns of the emperors Dezong 德宗 (779–805)
and Xianzong 憲宗 (806–820). After passing the civil service
examination, Jiang Shen was rapidly promoted to successively more important
offices. He was appointed to the Hanlin Academy in 855 and became Vice-Minister
of the Army 兵部侍郞 the following year. He also served
as President of the Ministry of Justice 刑部尙書 and
National Historian 國史. In 861, without relinquishing his posts in
the central government, he assumed the position of regional commissioner of
Hezhong 河中, with his seat of government at Puzhou 蒲州.
After that he moved to Xuanbu 宣部 in Kaifengfu 開封府,
Henan. In 866 he was appointed Grand Tutor to the Heir Apparent 太子太博.
46.
“Lord He” refers to Xian Taiwei Zhong[shu]ling He Gong 先太尉中[書]令何公
(d. 866), idem He Hongjing 何弘敬, whose real name was
Chongshun 重順. His family originated in Lingzhou 靈州,
Shanxi 陝西, but his grandfather moved to Weizhou, where he and his
son became powerful military officers. Chongshun himself became regional
commissioner of Weizhou in 840, and in 843 received the name of Hongjing 弘敬
from Emperor Wuzong. Later he refused to obey the orders of the court and,
backed by his own army, assumed independent control of his area. Emperor
Xuanzong took a temporizing attitude toward him, however, honoring him with
several official titles, including that of President of the Imperial Grand
Secretariat 兼中書令. His son succeeded him, but was
killed in 870. Thus over a period of forty years three generations of the
family controlled Weizhou.
47.
See note 45.
48.
Han Yunzhong 韓允忠 (814–874) was born in Weizhou; his
original name was Junxiong 君雄. He achieved military distinction
under He Hongjing, the regional commissioner of Weizhou, to whom he is said to
have been related, and, on the death of He’s son in 870, was chosen
deputy regional commissioner of that prefecture. Emperor Yizong bestowed the
name Yunzhong upon him; the succeeding emperor, Xizong 僖宗 (862–888),
honored him with a number of titles. His son Jian 簡 (d. 881) succeeded
him.
49.
Ma Fang 馬防 was a Song-dynasty imperial court official about whom
nothing is known. His preface to the ll, dated 9 September 1120, is written in
elegant four character phrases summarizing the principal anecdotes and
doctrines of the text. It is highly esteemed in China and Japan and has been
included in almost every edition of the work.
50.
Fengxue Yanzhao 風穴延沼 (896–973) was a native
of Zhejiang 浙江 Province; his family name was Liu 劉. After
failing to pass the civil examinations he became a monk, studying the Lotus
Sutra and Tiantai meditation before practicing Chan under Xuefeng Yicun,
Jingqing Daofu 鏡淸道怤 (868–937), and others
before joining the assembly under Nanyuan Huiyong. The biographies describe
Fengxue as proud of his understanding, and in need of Nanyuan’s strict
training to realize the limitations of his earlier awakenings. Nanyuan’s
sole dharma successor, Fengxue, subsequently settled in Ruzhou 汝 州,
where he practiced alone for ten years at the abandoned temple Fengxue si 風穴寺,
from which he derived his name. Eventually students gathered under him, and in
951 he relocated to Guanghui si 廣慧寺, a temple built for
him by the local prefect. One day, at the age of seventy-eight, Fengxue
addressed the following verse to the assembly before passing away seated in the
full lotus posture:
Truth,
availing itself of the flow of time / Must of necessity save all beings.
Remote
from it though they who long for it may be / Step by step they will approach
it.
In
years to come, should there be an old man / Whose feelings resemble mine,
Day
after day the incense smoke will rise / Night after night the lighted lamp will
burn. (zd, 271; x 68, no. 1315, 45a)
51.
Shoushan Shengnian 首山省念 (926–995) was a
native of Laizhou 萊州 in present Shandong; his family name was Di 狄.
He trained under Fengxue Yanzhao. It is recorded that Fengxue once lamented to
Shengnian that Linji’s dharma would end with him (Fengxue). When
Shengnian inquired whether there were none among his students who were worthy,
Fengxue replied that, although many were intelligent, none had realized
self-nature. Shengnian urged him to inquire further. When Fengxue next
addressed the monks in the hall, he stated, “The World-Honored One looked
upon the assembly with his lotus-blue eyes. At just that moment, what was he
preaching? If you say he was preaching through non preaching, you bury the
World-Honored One. So tell me, what was he preaching?” Shengnian shook
his sleeves and walked out. Fengxue put down his staff and returned to his
quarters. When his attendant later asked, “Why didn’t Shengnian
answer you?” he responded, “Because he understood.” Shengnian
succeeded to Fengxue’s dharma and later lived quietly on Mount Shou 首
in Ruzhou, maintaining Linji’s dharma during the turbulent period at the
end of the Tang dynasty. Subsequently he served as abbot of the temples
Guangjiao chanyuan 廣敎禪院 and Baoying chanyuan 寶應禪院.
52.
Fenyang Shanzhao 汾陽善昭 (947–1024) was a native
of Taiyuan 太原, in present Shanxi 山西; his family
name was Yu 兪. Shanzhao is said to have visited seventy-one teachers
(many of them of the Caodong school) before coming to Shoushan Shengnian, whose
successor he became. He later resided at the temple Taizi yuan 太子院
on Mount Fenyang 汾陽. The Xu chuandeng lu 續傳燈錄
(Further transmission of the lamp) reports that near the end of his life he was
visited three times by a messenger from the governor with an invitation to
become abbot of an important temple. Each time the master refused. On his
fourth visit the messenger reported that he had been severely punished because
of the master’s refusals on the three previous occasions, and that
another refusal would result in his death. Fenyang said, “Old age and
sickness have prevented my leaving the mountain, but if I do go I would like to
choose the time. We needn’t go together.” “If only you
accept, you may go whenever you wish,” replied the messenger. The master
ordered a farewell meal and put on his traveling clothes. “I’m
going ahead,” he said to his monks. “Who can come with me?” A
monk came forward and said, “I can.” “How far can you walk in
a day?” the master asked. “Fifty li,” replied the monk. “You
can’t come with me,” said Shanzhao. Another monk came forward,
saying he could walk seventy li in a day. “You can’t come with me
either,” said the master. Finally the master’s attendant came
forward and said, “I’ll accompany you wherever you go.” “You
can come with me,” said Shanzhao. Then, turning to the messenger and
saying, “I’m going ahead,” he put down his chopsticks and
died.
Fenyang’s
wide-ranging studies during his time as a training monk were put to use in his
teaching methods. He was, for example, the first Linji master to use the Five
Ranks 五位 system of the Caodong school. He was also instrumental
in introducing the koan as a method of instruction in Chan, combining old
stories from the sutras, Chan masters, and other sources with verse
commentaries 頌. This method eventually led to the writing of such great
koan collections as the bl and the wg.
53.
Shishuang Chuyuan 石霜楚圓 (986–1039) was a
native of Quanzhou 全州, in present Guangxi 廣西, with
the family name Li 李. He commonly appears in koans under the name of
Ciming 慈明. He became a monk at age twenty-two and joined the
assembly under Fenyang Shanzhao. Fenyang treated him with great severity, not
allowing Chuyuan into his room for instruction and showering him with abuse
whenever they met. After two years of such treatment Chuyuan complained to the
master, but Fenyang glared at him and retorted, “Idiot! Do you take me
for a peddler?” and started to drive him away with a stick. When Chuyuan
again tried to speak the master covered his mouth, at which Chuyuan attained a
deep understanding. Chuyuan remained with Fenyang for another seven years and
succeeded to his dharma. Later he served as abbot of several temples in the
south, spreading Linji’s teachings in that area. One of these temples was
Shishuang si 石霜寺 in Tanzhou 潭州, from which
he derived his name. Chuyuan died at the age of fifty-three, but despite the
comparative brevity of his life he was of great importance for the Linji
lineage, leaving over fifty dharma heirs, the most important historically being
Yangqi Fanghui and Huanglong Huinan (see following notes).
54.
Yangqi Fanghui 楊岐方會 (992–1049) was a native
of Yichunxian 宜春縣 in Yuanzhou 袁州; his family
name was Leng 冷. After becoming a monk he traveled widely in search of a
teacher, finally remaining under Shishuang Chuyuan and succeeding to his
dharma. He later taught at the temple Putong chanyuan 普通禪院
on Mount Yangqi 楊岐 in Yuanzhou, then moved to Haihui si 海會寺
on Mount Yungai 雲蓋 in Tanzhou 潭州. His vigorous
style of teaching is preserved in the lineage named after him, which continues
till this day and to which all present-day Japanese Rinzai masters belong.
55.
Huanglong Huinan 黃龍慧南 (1002–1069) was a
native of Xinzhou 信州; his family name was Zhang 章. He
received dharma transmission from a Yunmen master named Huaicheng 懷澄
(n.d.), but resumed training at another monastery upon hearing criticism of
Huaicheng’s understanding; when the master died and Shishuang Chuyuan
became the new abbot, Huinan studied under him and attained enlightenment at
the age of thirty five. After succeeding to Shishuang’s dharma he left on
an extended pilgrimage, residing at many temples and even undergoing
imprisonment for a time because of a fire at the temple Guizong si 歸宗寺.
He eventually settled on Mount Huanglong 黃龍 and there taught the
distinctive style of koan-centered Chan that became known as the Huanglong
line. Although this lineage lasted only about 150 years, it was historically
significant as the first of the Chan lineages to be transmitted to Japan, by
the Japanese Tendai priest Myōan Yōsai (Eisai) 明庵榮西
(1141–1215).
56.
Fayan Wenyi 法眼文益 (885–958) was a native of
Zhejiang 浙江; his family name was Lu 魯. He was ordained at
the age of seven and excelled in the Confucian classics and Buddhist sutras,
particularly the Avataṃsaka Sutra. His first
Chan master was Changqing Huileng 長慶慧稜 (854–932),
a disciple of Xuefeng Yicun 雪峯義存 (822–908).
Later, while taking shelter at the monastery of Luohan Guichen 羅漢桂琛
(869–928), he was asked by the master where he was going. “I’m
on pilgrimage,” replied Fayan. “What’s the use of pilgrimage?”
Luohan asked. “I don’t know,” answered Fayan. “Not
knowing is closest!” responded Luohan. Fayan stayed with Luohan and
eventually succeeded to his dharma. After a period of wandering, he was invited
to live at the temple Changzhou yuan 崇壽院; later, under the
patronage of Li Jing 李璟 (916–961), the self-styled “Lord
of Jiangnan” 江南國主, he resided first at Bao’en
chanyuan 報恩禪院 and then at Qing Liang yuan 淸涼院
in Jinling 金 陵, where, as a popular teacher in the lineage of
Deshan Xuanjian, he never had less than a thousand students. He is recognized
as the founder of the Fayan 法眼 school of Chan.
57.
The xg, in its section on Bodhidharma, after quoting the complete text of the
Erru sixing lun 二入四行論 (Discourse on the two
entrances and the four practices), states, “By this teaching Bodhidharma
converted the land of Wei. Those who understood the truth followed it and
attained awakening. His words and instructions were recorded and the rolls
spread abroad in the world” (t 50: 551c). One of the earliest extant
works on Chan history, the Lengqie shizi ji 楞伽師資記
(Record of the masters and disciples of the Laṅka school), compiled in 720–730
by Jingjue 淨覺 (683–760?) and found at Dunhuang, reports in
its section on Bodhidharma:
These
four practices were explained by Bodhidharma personally. As for other matters,
the disciple Tanlin 曇林 recorded the master’s words and
sermons. These were collected in one volume, entitled Damo lun 達磨論
(Discourses of Bodhidharma). For the sake of those who practiced meditation,
Master Bodhidharma also explained the cardinal meaning of the Laṅkāvatāra
Sutra. This
one roll contained twelve or thirteen sheets and was also called Damo lun.
These two works were completely harmonious in style and principle. They
circulated freely in the world. (t 85: 1285b)
The
above two works indicate that some kind of collection of Bodhidharma’s
words did exist at an early time. However, the fact that such works as the Erru
sixing lun, attributed, correctly or incorrectly, to Bodhidharma, are all
written in the literary style rather than the spoken language means that they
cannot correctly be classified as “recorded sayings.” On the other
hand, the text of the collection of questions and answers appended to the
Dunhuang Erru sixing lun contain many passages in the spoken language of the
time, and may therefore be regarded as a very early example of “recorded
sayings.” Whether or not it is composed of Bodhidharma’s actual
words is, of course, another matter.
58.
Daoxin 道信 (580–651) is said to have been a native of Henei 河內
in Henan with the surname Sima 司馬, to have left home at the age
of seven, and, at fourteen, to have become a disciple of the Third Patriarch,
Sengcan 僧粲 (d. 606?), from whom he received transmission after
nine years. He later lived in Jizhou 吉州, where he is said to have
saved the city during a rebel seige by telling the populace to recite the
Perfection of Wisdom Sutra. In 624, after a period of wandering (some records
have him studying at Dalin si 大林寺 on Mount Lu 廬),
Daoxin went to Huangmeixian 黃梅縣 in Qizhou 蘄州,
Hubei, and there resided on Mount Potou 破頭. He attracted numerous
followers, over five hundred according to some of the biographies, the first
time in China that such a large group had assembled for the purpose of Chan
study under a single teacher. It is said that he never left the mountain for
the remaining thirty years of his life. Emperor Taizong 太宗 (r.
627–649) summoned Daoxin to the capital several times, but he refused to
leave his mountain retreat though threatened with death for his disobedience.
Later Emperor Daizong 代宗 (r. 763–779) bestowed upon him the
posthumous title of Chan Master Dayi 大醫禪師.
59.
Hongren 弘忍 (601–674) was born in Huangmei 黃梅
in Qizhou 蘄州, Hubei; his surname was Zhou 周. It is said
that the Fourth Patriarch, Daoxin, was once traveling through the Zhou family’s
neighborhood and noticed Hongren, then a boy of six or seven, and, recognizing
the child’s unusual nature, requested his parents to allow him to become
a monk. Said to have been quiet and unusually diligent in both work and
meditation, Hongren studied under Daoxin and eventually succeeded to his
dharma. He spent the rest of his life on Mount Huangmei 黃梅, where
Daoxin had lived before him, and, it is said, had over seven hundred monks
studying under him at the temple Dongshan si 東山寺. Among
the most famous were Shenxiu and Huineng (see notes 60 and 61, below). Emperor
Daizong bestowed upon him the posthumous title of Chan Master Daman 大滿禪師.
60.
Shenxiu 神秀 (606?–706), also called Daoxiu 道秀,
was a native of Weishixian 尉 氏縣 in present Henan, with the
family name Li 李. At the age of twenty he received the precepts at the
temple Tiangong si 天宮寺 in Luoyang. He appears to have been
scholarly by nature—even while making a deep study of the Tripiṭaka, he continued the
study of Confucianism and Taoism begun in his youth. He was nearly fifty when
he first visited Hongren, with whom he remained for six years. Even after
departing from Mount Huangmei following the completion of his practice under
Hongren, he subjected himself to rigorous self-discipline for another fifteen
or sixteen years.
In
the Yifeng 儀鳳 era (676–678) Shenxiu registered as a member
of the community at the Tiantai temple Yuquan si 玉泉寺 on
Mount Dangyang 當陽 in Jingzhou 荊州. To the east of
the temple he built himself a hermitage and there continued his ascetic
practices. He appears to have been a gifted teacher; gradually students sought
him out, and in 700, at the age of ninety-four, he was summoned to the capital
by Empress Wu 武后 (625–705) and asked to preach before the
court. He spent the remaining six years of his life in Luoyang. Soon after his
death at the age of 101 he received the posthumous title Chan Master Datong 大通禪師.
This was the first time that the title 禪師 (Chan master,
meditation master), had ever been conferred. Shenxiu left a number of
distinguished disciples, who promulgated the teachings of their master in and
around the two capitals of Luoyang and Chang’an, at first with great
success. Later, however, their lineage—known as the Northern school—came
under attack by Heze Shenhui 荷澤神會 (see note 62,
below), principally because of its doctrine of “gradual enlightenment”
漸悟, which Shenhui contrasted to the “sudden enlightenment”
頓悟 advocated by the Southern school of the Sixth Patriarch
Huineng. Shenxiu was the author of the Da Huayan jing shu 大華嚴
經疏 (Commentary on the Avataṃsaka Sutra) and the Miaoli yuancheng
guan 妙理圓成 觀 (Contemplation of the mysterious
principle and the perfectly accomplished), both of which are no longer extant.
The Guanxin lun 觀心論 (Treatise on contemplating mind) is
attributed to him, as are parts of the Dasheng wusheng fangbian men, which
gives expression to the philosophical views of the Northern school.
61.
Huineng 慧能 (638–713) is considered the predecessor of the
so-called “Patriarch Chan” 祖師禪 that developed
during the Tang dynasty. The information on Huineng contained in the
traditional Chan biographies is oft en contradictory, and much of it appears to
have no historical foundation. The sketch of his life that follows is based
upon as reliable information as is available, along with the best known of the
legendary material.
Huineng’s
family name was Lu 盧; his forebears were native to Fanyang 范陽
in modern Hebei. After his father, a minor official, was banished to the south,
the family lived in Xinzhou 新州 in present Guangdong. His father
died while Huineng was only three, leaving the boy under the care of his
mother; as he grew older he sold firewood to help support her. One day as he
entered the city with his firewood he heard someone reciting a sutra and was
deeply struck by the line, “Give rise to the mind that does not abide in
anything.” Hearing that the text was the Diamond Sutra, and that the
reciter had received it from the Chan master Hongren, Huineng headed north to
Hongren’s monastery on Mount Huangmei. Upon meeting him, Hongren
commented, “A barbarian from the south can never become a buddha.”
Huineng responded, “There is no north and south in buddha-nature.”
Hongren, sensing his ability, directed him to start work as a lay laborer 行者
threshing rice for the monastery.
One
day Hongren asked the monks to write verses expressing their understanding so
that he might choose a worthy successor. Shenxiu, the head monk, posted his
verse at midnight on a wall: “The body is the Bodhi tree / The mind is
like a clear mirror’s stand / At all times strive to polish it / And let
no dust collect.” Huineng heard another monk reciting Shenxiu’s
verses and, recognizing their inadequacy, had someone post the following verse:
“Originally there is no tree of enlightenment / Nor is there a stand with
a clear mirror / From the beginning not a single thing exists / Where is there
for dust to collect?” Hongren, seeing the profound insight of these
verses but fearful that Huineng might be hurt by jealous supporters of Shenxiu,
with held his praise. At midnight, however, he summoned the layman, handed him
the robe and bowl symbolizing transmission of the patriarchate, and ordered him
to flee south. There for some sixteen years Huineng led a secluded life in the
mountains. In 676 Huineng went to the temple Faxing si 法性寺
in Guangzhou 廣州, where he met Dharma Master Yinzong 印宗法師
(627–713), who shaved Huineng’s head and gave him the full
precepts. The following year he went to stay at Baolin si 寶林寺,
a temple in the mountains at Caoxi 曹溪. Soon after this the local
prefect, Wei Ju (see note 64), invited Huineng to preach at the temple Dafan si
大 梵寺 in the city of Shaozhou 韶州, modern
Canton. In time the master’s fame spread to the imperial court, and in
705 he was summoned to Luoyang by Emperor Zhongzong 中 宗 (656–710).
The master refused on the plea of ill health, and spent the rest of his life at
Baolin si and Dafan si. The posthumous title Chan Master Dajian (Great Mirror) 大鑑禪
師 was conferred upon him by Emperor Xianzong 憲宗 (r. 805–820).
The lists of the master’s ten great heirs given in the early editions of
the Platform Sutra, curiously enough, do not mention Nanyue Huairang and
Qingyuan Xingsi, the disciples who gave rise to the later Five Houses of Chan.
62.
Heze Shenhui 荷澤神會 (684–758) was born in
Xiangyang 襄陽, in present Hubei; his surname was Gao 高, or,
according to some texts, Wan 萬. He studied Confucianism and Taoism as a
youthbut decided to become a monk after reading about Buddhism in the Hou Han
shu 後漢書 (Chronicles of the Later Han). He first studied
for three years under Shenxiu in Jingzhou; after Shenxiu’s departure for
the capital in 701, he went south to Caoxi and trained under Huineng for the
remainder of the latter’s life. In 720 Shenhui moved, on imperial order,
to the temple Longxing si 龍興寺 in Nanyang, in modern Henan,
where he had close contacts with several distinguished scholar-officials, among
them the great poet Wang Wei 王維 (699–759). From 730 Shenhui
engaged in public debates over the course of several years with chongyuan 崇遠
(n.d.), a monk of the Northern school, at the temple Dayun si 大雲寺
in Huatai 滑臺, present Hebei. Shenhui criticized the “gradual”
teachings of the Northern school and vigorously upheld the Southern school’s
“sudden” teachings.
In
745, having been invited by Song Ding 宋鼎 (n.d.), the
vice-minister of the army, to take up residence at the temple Heze si 荷澤寺
in Luoyang, Shenhui was afforded the opportunity of spreading his views in the
capital. Shortly after this, however, on the basis of false evidence, he was
removed from his position by the censor Lu Yi 廬奕 (n.d.), an
ardent adherent of the Northern school, and sent to Yiyang 弋陽 in
Raozhou 饒州, in present Jiangxi. Later, during the An Lushan
rebellion in 755, the central government found itself in serious financial
straits. Shenhui, who at that time was residing at Kaiyuan si 開元寺
in Jingzhou, advised the government to establish ordination platforms and sell
ordination certificates. This method of fundraising was so successful that, in
appreciation, the government called Shenhui back to his former temple Heze si
in Luoyang, from where he was summoned to the court by Emperor Suzong 肅宗
(r. 756–762). Under imperial patronage Shenhui spent the rest of his life
championing the cause of the Southern school. By imperial order his tomb was
constructed at Longmen 龍門, and the temple Baoying si 寶應寺
was established there in his honor. In 770 Emperor Daizong conferred upon him
the title of Great Teacher Bore (Prajnā) 般若大師,
and presented to his tomb a plaque bearing the inscription 眞宗般若傳法之堂,
“Hall of the prajnā dharma transmission of the true school.”
In 796 Emperor Dezong 德宗 (r. 779–805) granted Shenhui the
posthumous title of Seventh Patriarch.
Shenhui
had many disciples, both lay and ordained. His school of Chan, which even in
his time appears to have been known as the Southern school, was first called
the Heze 荷澤 school by Guifeng Zongmi, the fifth and last
patriarch of the school. In the past the only known work by Shenhui was the
Xianzong ji (Dunwu wusheng bore song) 顯 宗記(頓悟無生般若頌)
(Verses on sudden awakening to the wisdom of no-birth), but several additional
records were discovered among the Dunhuang manuscripts, including the Nanyang
heshang wenda zazheng yi 南陽和尙問答雜徵義
(The priest of Nanyang’s question-and-answer examination of various
points of doctrine); the Nanyang heshang dunjiao jietuo chanmen zhiliaoxing
tanyu, mentioned in the text above; and the Putidamo nanzong ding shifei lun 菩提達磨南宗定是非論
(Treatise establishing the true and false according to the Southern school of
Bodhidharma), recording the debates with chongyuan at Dayun si, and edited by
Shenhui’s lay disciple Dugu Pei 獨孤沛.
63.
南宗頓敎最上大乘摩訶般若波羅蜜經六祖慧能大師於韶州大梵寺施法壇經兼受無相戒弘
法弟子法界集記.
64.
Wei Ju 韋璩 (also 葦據 or 韋據; n.d.). The
Lidai fabao ji 歷代法寶記 (Chronicles of the
dharma treasure), in stating that Wei Ju wrote a memorial inscription for
Huineng, gives his title as “Assistant in the Bureau of Imperial
Sacrifices” 大常寺丞 (t 51: 182c). The Heze
Shenhui Chanshi yulu 荷澤神會禪師語錄
(Recorded sayings of Chan Master Heze Shenhui), while agreeing that Wei wrote
the Memorial Inscription, gives him the title “Assistant in the Imperial
Household Service Department” 殿中丞 (Suzuki and Kda 1934, 63).
However, the Guangdong tongzhi 廣東通誌 (Comprehensive
gazetteer of Guangdong) states that Wei Ju became prefect of Shaozhou 韶州
in 713, the year of Huineng’s death. This suggests that at the time Wei
invited Huineng to speak at Dafan si he was a minor official, but that when the
Platform Sutra was actually compiled—that is, sometime after the master’s
death in 713—he had been elevated to the post of prefect, and hence was
given this title throughout the text.
65.
Nothing is known of Fahai 法海 (n.d.) other than what is contained
in the concluding section of the Dunhuang text of the Platform Sutra of the
Sixth Patriarch, where it is written, “This Platform Sutra was compiled
by the head monk Fahai, who, on his death, entrusted it to his fellow student
Daocan 道璨…. This priest was originally a native of
Qujiangxian 曲江縣 in Shaozhou.” (t 48: 345b).
Presumably the “priest” referred to here is Fahai; at least the
writer of Fahai’s biography in the jc seems to have thought so. Other
biographical information on Fahai, such as that in the qt 915 or the Yuan edition
of the Platform Sutra, is of no value as history, although a preface by Fahai
is appended to the latter (t 48: 362b). Fahai may have been the monk Zhihai 智海
(n.d.), a disciple of the Sixth Patriarch (t 51: 182c).
66.
For example, zj
67.
This work is probably identical with the Baizhangshan heshang yaojue 百丈山和
尙要訣 (Essential secrets of the priest of Mount Baizhang),
one of the works on the lists of books reported to have been brought back to
Japan from Tang China by the Japanese monks Ennin and Enchin 圓珍
(814–891). Another work on these lists is the Nanyang Zhong heshang
yanjiao 南陽忠和尙言敎 (Oral
teachings of Ven. Nanyang Zhong). None of the books on the lists, however,
contained the term yulu in their title.
68.
Among such works may be mentioned the Yichuan xiansheng yu 伊川先生語
(Sayings of Master Yichuan), about Cheng Yi 程頤 (1033–1107);
the Shangcai yulu 上蔡語 錄 (Recorded sayings of
Shangcai), about Xie Liangzuo 謝良佐 (1050–1103); and
the Zhu Zi yulu 朱子語錄 (Recorded sayings of Zhu Zi),
about Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130–1200).
69.
Li Zunxu 李遵勗 (d. 1038) was originally named Li Xu 李勗,
but upon receiving an imperial princess for his wife he was given by Emperor
Zhenzong 眞宗 (r. 997–1022) the epithet “Zun” 遵,
meaning “obedient,” to be added to his personal name. He held a
series of posts in the provincial administration and was an enthusiastic
supporter of Linji Chan, being a disciple of Guyin Yuncong (see following note)
and a friend of Shishuang Chuyuan (see note 53).
70.
Guyin Yuncong 谷隱蘊聰 (965–1032) was a dharma
heir of Shoushan Shengnian (see note 51, above). After a period of travel,
Guyin took up residence at the temple Taipingxingguo chanyuan 太平興國禪院
at Mount Guyin 谷隱 in present Hubei. His disciples included a
number of prominent officials, among them Li Zunxu, who composed a memorial
inscription for Guyin, found in tg 17.
71.
The existing Sijia yulu records the sayings of Mazu, Baizhang, Huangbo, and
Linji, but was compiled in the late Ming and may have no connection with the
earlier work of the same name.
72.
Yuanjue Zongyan 圓覺宗演 (n.d.) was a native of Enzhou 恩州
in Hebei; his lay name was Cui 崔. After becoming a monk he studied Chan
under Yuanfeng Qingman 元豐淸滿. He resided at Mount
Xuefeng 雪峰 in Fuzhou, but also lectured at the court. He received
the title Chan Master Yuanjue 圓覺禪師 from Emperor
Huizong 徽宗 (r. 1100–1125).
73.
Little is known of Muan Shanqing 睦庵善卿. The Zuting
shiyuan was completed in 1108.
74.
Yuanwu Keqin 圜悟克勤 (1063–1135) was born in
Pengzhou 彭州 in present Sichuan; his family name was Luo 駱.
It is said that as a child he could memorize a thousand-character passage in a
single day. He became a monk in his early teens after reading Buddhist texts at
a temple and feeling a sudden affinity with the teachings. After studying the
precepts and scriptures he suffered a grave illness, thus realizing the
futility of attempting to resolve samsara through words. He visited several
masters and was praised everywhere as a great vessel of the dharma. He finally
came to Wuzu Fayan 五祖 法演 (1024?–1104) of the
Yangqi line of Linji Chan. When Fayan refused to sanction his understanding
Yuanwu left in anger, upon which Fayan called after him, “Remember me
when you are ill with fever!” Soon afterwards, at the monastery on Mount
Jin 金, he did, in fact, become gravely ill, and, upon recovery, returned
to study under Fayan. After years of training he became Fayan’s heir. In
1102, owing to the illness of his mother, he returned to Sichuan. There he
assumed the abbacy of the temple Zhaojue si 昭覺寺 at the
invitation of the prefect of Chengdu 成都. After eight years he was
asked to become priest of Lingquan yuan 靈泉院 on Mount Jia 夾,
and it was there that he gave his famous lectures on the Xuedou baize songgu 雪竇百則頌古,
a collection of verse commentaries on koans by Xuedou Chongxian 雪竇重顯
(980–1052) of the Yunmen school. Yuanwu’s lectures were later
published as the Biyan lu 碧巖錄 (Blue cliff record), which
became one of the most important texts for Linji school koan study.
Yuanwu
was very successful as a teacher, numbering among his students not only monks
but also lay practicers, some of them high government officials. He was granted
the title Chan Master Foguo 佛果禪師 by Emperor Huizong
徽宗 (r. 1100–1125), and by imperial command resided at
several temples in the north and (following relocation of the capital to the
city of Hangzhou in 1127) in the south. The title Chan Master Yuanwu 圜悟禪師,
by which he has been generally known ever since, was conferred upon him by
Emperor Gaozong 高宗 (r. 1127–1162). In 1130 Yuanwu returned
to the temple Zhaojue si, and there, in 1135, died in the sitting posture after
writing his farewell poem. The two most important of his sixteen dharma heirs
were Dahui Zonggao (see following note) and Huqiu Shaolong 虎丘紹隆
(1077–1136), whose line includes all Japanese Rinzai Zen masters.
75.
Dahui Zonggao 大慧宗杲 (1089–1163) was born in
Xuancheng 宣城 in present-day Anwei; his family name was Xi 奚.
He left home at the age of sixteen and entered Huiyun si 慧雲寺,
a temple on Mount Dong 東, where he was ordained the following year. From
early on, after reading the Yunmen guanglu 雲門廣錄
(Extensive record of Yunmen), he felt a special sense of relationship with
Yunmen Wenyan 雲門文偃 (864–949). During an
extensive pilgrimage Dahui studied under some of the important Caodong masters
of his time, and, later, under Zhantang Wenzhun 湛堂文準
(1061–1115) of the Huanglong line of Linji Chan. Following Wenzhun’s
death, Dahui, on Wenzhun’s deathbed advice, joined the assembly under
Yuanwu Keqin at the temple Tianning Wanshou si 天寧萬壽寺
in the capital, Bianliang 汴梁, in modern Kaifeng. One day during a
lecture Yuanwu said, “A monk asked Yunmen, ‘What is the place from
which all Buddhas come?’ Yunmen replied, ‘East Mountain walks on
the water.’ But if I were asked the same question I would simply say, ‘A
fragrant breeze comes from the south, and in the palace a refreshing coolness
stirs.” At these words Dahui was greatly enlightened. Dahui eventually
became Yuanwu’s dharma-heir and succeeded him as master of the monastery.
His renown soon spread as far as the capital; in 1126 he was given a purple
robe and an honorary name, Fori 佛日, by Lu Shun 呂舜
(n.d.), Minister of the Right.
When
the Northern Song dynasty fell to the invading Jurchens in 1127, Dahui fled
south and lived for a time with his teacher Yuanwu, then residing at the temple
Zhenru yuan 眞如院 on Mount Yunju 雲居. Following
Yuanwu’s return to Sichuan in 1130, Dahui built a hermitage on the
mountain where a Yunmen temple had formerly stood, and soon attracted a large
following. He later moved to Yunmen an 雲門庵 in modern
Fujian. In 1137, at the invitation of the prime minister, Zhang Jun 張浚
(a former student of Yuanwu), he went to Mount Jing 徑 near the city of
Hangzhou 杭州. The assembly under him there is said to have
numbered over two thousand. In 1141 Dahui was laicized for advocating armed
resistance against the Jurchen invaders of the Northern Song. He retired to
Hengyang 衡陽 in modern Hunan and there wrote his Zhengfayan zang 正法
眼藏 (Treasury of the true dharma eye). In 1150 he moved to Meiyang
梅陽 in modern Guangdong, then in the midst of a plague that
eventually took the lives of half of his students. He devoted himself to
helping the populace, remaining even after he was officially pardoned in 1155,
until in 1158 he returned to Mount Jing on imperial command. There he soon
attracted an assembly of about 1,700 students and received the patronage of
Emperor Xiaozong 孝宗 (r. 1162–1189). He died in 1163,
leaving ninety-four Dharma heirs. He was granted the posthumous title Chan
Master Pujue 普覺禪師.
Two
of the best-known aspects of Dahui’s teaching are his opposition to what
he called the “silent-illumination false Chan” 默照邪禪
of the Caodong school, and his promotion of “koan-introspecting Chan”
看話禪, which from his time on came to characterize the
practice of the Linji school. His ongoing debate with the eminent Caodong
master Hongzhi Zhengjue 宏智正覺 (1091–1157) on
the subject of silent illumination versus koan work is famous in Zen circles.
76.
See note 49, above.
77.
Of Sengting Shouze 僧挺守賾 nothing is known.
78.
Of Huishi Shiming 晦室師明 nothing is known.
79.
Haiyun Yinjian 海雲印簡 (1202–1257) was a native
of Ningyuan 寧遠 in present Shanxi; his family name was Song 宋.
He was ordained under Zhongguan Zhao 中觀沼 and received the
full precepts at the age of eleven. Yinjian was still thirteen when Chinggis
Khan’s armies conquered large parts of northern China. At the age of
eighteen Yinjian accompanied Zhongguan north with the Mongol army. After
Zhongguan’s death the following year Yinjian set off for Yanjing 燕京
(present-day Beijing). He is said to have attained enlightenment on the way
when he took refuge from a rainstorm under a cliff and saw a fl ash of
lightning. Upon arriving in Yanjing, Yinjian went to the temple Daqing si 大慶寺
to meet Zhonghe Zhang 中和璋, a sixteenth-generation heir of
Linji. Zhonghe accepted him as a student and in time designated him a dharma
successor. Later, under the patronage of the Yuan court, Yinjian was appointed
priest to a number of temples, including Zhonghe’s temple Daqing si.
80.
Xuetang Puren 雪堂普仁 was a thirteenth-generation heir
of Fenyang Shanzhao (see note 52).
81.
Linquan Conglun 林泉從倫 (n.d.) was a dharma heir of
Wansong Xingxiu 萬松 行秀 (1166–1246), the master
at the temple Bao’en si 寶恩寺 in Yanjing 燕京
(present-day Beijing), and served as Wansong’s successor at Bao’en
si upon the latter’s death. In 1268 he was invited to the court to
lecture on Buddhism. A famous leader of the Caodong school, Linquan was the
compiler of the koan commentaries Konggu ji 空谷集 (Empty
valley anthology) and Xutang ji 虛堂集 (Empty hall
anthology).
82.
Guo Tianxi 郭天錫 was a well-known writer and painter of the
period who, at least at the time he wrote his preface, held a government post.
The information in his preface indicates that he lived from 1286 to 1341,
though there is reason to doubt these dates.
83.
Of Wufeng Puxiu 五峯普秀 nothing is known.
84.
Gidō Shūshin 義堂周信 (1325–1388), also
known as Kūge Dōjin 空華道人, was a native of
Nagaoka 長岡 in Tosa 土佐, present-day Kōchi
Prefecture 高知県. A member of the Taira 平 family, he
was ordained at fourteen, receiving the precepts on Mount Hiei 比叡
near present-day Kyoto. At seventeen he entered the temple Rinsen-ji 臨川寺
in the western outskirts of the city to study under the Zen master Musō
Soseki 夢窓疎 石 (1275–1351). After completing
his training he attempted to visit China, but was prevented from going by
illness. Following further training under Ryūzan Tokken 龍山德
見 (1284–1358) of Kennin-ji 建仁寺, he resided
for over twenty years at Enpuku-ji 圓福寺, Zenpuku-ji 禪福寺,
and Hōon-ji 報恩寺, all temples in Kamakura 鎌倉,
which had been the capital of the shogunate during the Kamakura period (1185–1333).
He was invited by the shogun, Ashikaga Yoshimitsu 足利義滿
(1358–1408), to return to Kyoto, where he served as the chief abbot of
such important temples as Kennin-ji and Nanzen-ji 南禪寺. Shūshin
collected and classified several thousand poems by Song- and Yuan-dynasty Chan monks, which he
compiled in a ten-fascicle work called the Jōwa ruishu soon renpōshū 貞和類聚祖苑聯芳集
(Jōwa-era collection of verse from the ancestral garden). He also wrote
much poetry of his own, and is one of the most famous figures of the Five
Mountains 五山 literary movement. His biography, the Kūge
nichiyō kufū ryakushū 空華 日用工夫略集
(Short collection of Kūge’s daily thoughts), was compiled by Gidō’s
successors on the basis of the diaries that the master kept throughout his
life.
85.
Shinchi Kakushin 心地覺心 (1207–1298) was a
native of Shinshū 信州 (present Nagano Prefecture); his family
name was Tsunezumi 常澄. He entered the temple at eighteen, and at
twenty-nine received the full precepts at Tōdai-ji 東大寺
in the ancient capital of Nara. He then studied esoteric Buddhism on Mount Kōya
高野, headquarters of the Japanese Shingon 眞言 school,
where he also met the Rinzai Zen master Taikō Gyōyū 退耕行勇
(1163–1241). He practiced Zen under Gyōyū from 1239 to 1241 at
Kongōzanmai- in 金剛三昧院 on Mount Kōya
and Jufuku-ji 壽福寺 in Kamakura. He took the bodhisattva
precepts under Dōgen Kigen 道元希玄 (see note 86)
at Gokuraku-ji 極樂寺 in Fukakusa 深草, then
studied under several other Zen masters before embarking for China in 1249.
After finding that Wuzhun Shifan 無準師範 (1177–1249),
the master he had hoped to study under, was no longer alive, Kakushin set out
on a pilgrimage, visiting various important Buddhist centers until a fellow
Japanese monk named Genshin 源 信 directed him to Wumen Huikai 無門慧開
(J., Mumon Ekai; 1183–1260), master of the temple Huguo Renwang si 護國仁王寺,
near the city of Hangzhou 杭州 in present-day Zhejiang. In a
well-known story, Kakushin, when asked by Wumen, “My place has no gate;
how did you get in?” answered, “I entered from no-gate (wumen).”
After a mere six months Kakushin received dharma transmission from Wumen, along
with the gift s of a robe, a portrait of Wumen, and the Wumen guan 無門關
(Jap., Mumonkan), a collection of koans compiled by Wumen that has remained a
central text in Japanese Rinzai koan study.
Following
his return to Japan in 1254 Kakushin first resided on Mount Kōya, then
became abbot of the temple Saihō-ji 西方寺 (later called
Kōkoku-ji 興國寺) in Yura 由良, in the
province of Kii 紀伊, present Wakayama Prefecture 和歌山県.
There he remained until his death in 1298, interrupted only by short intervals
to serve, by imperial invitation, as the abbot of the Zen temples Zenrin-ji 禪林寺
and Myōkō-ji 妙光寺 in Kyoto. He oft en lectured
before the emperors Kameyama 龜山 (r. 1259–1274) and Go-Uda 後宇多
(r. 1274–1287). During his lifetime Kakushin received from Kameyama the
honorary title Zen Master Hattō 法燈禪師, and
following his deathhe was designated National Teacher Hottō Enmyō 法燈圓明國師
by Emperor Go-Daigo 後醍醐 (r. 1319–1339). Kakushin’s
lineage, the Hottō 法燈 (or Hattō) line of Rinzai Zen,
continued for a number of generations and included the important Japanese
master Bassui Tokushō 拔隊得勝 (1327–1387).
Kakushin is also regarded as the founder of the Japanese Fuke school 普化宗,
a tradition of largely lay practicers who wandered about the country playing
the shakuhachi 尺八, a bamboo flute whose music was regarded as an
aid to enlightenment.
86.
Dōgen Kigen 道元希玄 (1200–1253) was born in
Kyoto to an aristocratic family. Both of his parents having died when he was
still a child, Dōgen left home at the age of twelve and became a monk on
Mount Hiei the following year. Later he turned his attention to the Zen school,
and became a disciple of the Rinzai master Myōzen 明全 (1184–1225),
the successor of Myōan Yōsai (Eisai) 明菴榮西
(1141–1215) at Kennin-ji in Kyoto. In 1223 Dōgen, together with Myōzen,
traveled to China. After some wanderings Dōgen became a student under the
Caodong master Changweng Rujing 長翁如淨 (J., Chōō
Nyojō; 1163–1228) on Mount Tiantong 天童 in present-day
Zhejiang. After receiving dharma transmission from Rujing he returned to Japan
in 1227 and resided for a time at Kennin-ji. In 1229 he moved to the temple An’yō-in
安養院 in Fukakusa 深草, south of Kyoto, and in
1233 to Kannondōri-in Kōshō-ji 觀音導利院興聖寺
in Yamashiro 山城. In 1243, after ten years at Kōshō-ji,
Dōgen moved north to the province of Echizen 越前, present
Fukui Prefecture 福井県, where he built the great temple
Eihei-ji 永平寺. There he worked to spread the teachings of
Zen and to train students according to his understanding of what he had learned
under his teacher in China. He was a prolific writer; among his most important works
are the Shōbōgenzō 正法眼藏
(Treasury of the true dharma
eye), Eihei kōroku 永平廣錄
(Comprehensive records of Eihei), and Eihei shingi 永平淸規
(Monastic regulations of Eihei). He is honored as the founder of the Japanese Sōtō
school, and was posthumously granted the titles National Teacher Busshō
Dentō 佛 性傳東國師 and Great Teacher
Shōyō 承陽大師.
87.
Lanxi Daolong 蘭溪道隆 (J., Rankei Dōryū;
1213–1278), a native of the Sichuan region of China, entered temple life
at the age of thirteen. He studied under the masters Wuzhun Shifan 無準師範
(1177–1249), Chijue Daochong 痴絶道冲 (1169–1250),
and others, and succeeded to the dharma of Wuming Huixing 無明慧性
(1162–1237). In 1246 he and several of his disciples came to Japan, first
to the southern island of Kyūshū and later, at the invitation of the
regent Hōjō Tokiyori 北條時賴 (1227–1263),
to the city of Kamakura, the capital of the shogunate. There in 1253 he was
named founding priest of Kenchō-ji 建長寺, Japan’s
first true Rinzai Zen monastery. Later Lanxi moved to Kyoto and was appointed
abbot of Kennin-ji 建仁寺, Yōsai’s part-Zen,
part-Tendai temple that Lanxi succeeded in turning into a center of pure Zen
training. He subsequently returned to Kamakura and served again as the abbot of
Kenchō-ji and other temples. Following his death he was granted the
posthumous title Zen Master Daikaku 大覺禪師, the first
time anyone in Japan had received the “meditation master” (zenji 禪師)
title.
88.
Myōshū 妙秀 (n.d.). Almost nothing is known of this
figure.
89.
Mujaku Ryōen 無著良緣 (n.d.) practiced Zen under
Yishan Yining 一山一寧 (see following note) at the
temple Nanzen-ji 南禪寺 in Kyoto. After receiving dharma
transmission from Yishan he traveled to China and there remained for twenty
years studying under Gulin Qingmao 古林淸茂 (1262–1329),
Yishan Liaowan 一山了萬 (d. 1312), and Qingzhuo
Zhengcheng 淸拙正澄 (1274–1339). When Zhengcheng
went to Japan and was named abbot of the temple Kenchō-ji, Mujaku entered
Kenchō-ji and was appointed head monk. Subsequently he was called to Kyoto
and appointed abbot of Saizen-ji 西禪 寺. It is not known at
what period of his life he established Shōun-an at Kennin-ji.
90.
Yishan Yining 一山一寧 (J., Issan Ichinei; 1247–1317)
was a native of Taizhou 臺州 in present-day Zhejiang, with the
family name Hu 胡. Yining entered the temple Hongfu si 鴻福寺
while still a child and, following full ordination at Puguang si 普光寺,
studied the teachings of the Vinaya and Tiantai schools. Turning to Chan, he
trained under a number of masters and became the dharma heir of Wanji Xingmi 頑極行彌.
After serving as abbot at several temples in China he was given the honorary
title of Great Teacher Miaoci Hongji 妙慈弘濟大師
by the Yuan emperor Chengzong 成宗 (r. 1294–1307). In 1299,
at the order of the Yuan court, he came to Japan as part of a delegation to
discuss peace negotiations between China and Japan. Although the delegation was
at first detained by the Kamakura regent Hōjō Sadatoki 北條貞時
(1271–1311) on suspicion of spying, Yining was ultimately shown great
favor by Sadatoki, who allowed him to reside at the Kamakura Zen temples Kenchō-ji
建長寺, Engaku-ji 圓覺寺, and Jōchi-ji
淨 智寺. In 1313 he was invited by Emperor Go-Uda 後宇多
(r. 1274–1287) to become abbot of Nanzen-ji 南禪寺 in
Kyoto, where he served as a popular teacher of students bothlay and ordained
until his death in 1317.
91.
Yinyuan Longqi 隱元隆琦 (J., Ingen Ryūki; 1592–1673)
was a native of Fuqing 福淸 in present-day Fujian; his family name
was Lin 林. In his early life he was a farmer, but began spiritual
training at age twenty-three following a religious experience one night while
sitting under a tree. At twenty-nine he became a monk at the temple Huangbo
Wanfu si 黃檗萬福寺, then studied under a number
of masters before receiving the “mind-seal” 心印 from
Miyun Yuanwu 密雲圓悟 (1566–1642). When Miyun’s
student Feiyin Tongrong 費隱通容 (1593–1661)
assumed the abbacy of Huangbo Wanfu si, Yinyuan became head monk under him and
later was named Feiyin’s dharma successor. Yinyuan subsequently served as
abbot of several temples, including Wanfu si, where he oversaw the final stages
of restoration. In 1654 he departed for Japan, landing in Nagasaki 長崎
on the island of Kyūshū. There he became abbot of Kōfuku-ji 興福寺,
and the following year of nearby Sōfuku-ji 崇福寺 as
well, serving both positions simultaneously. Later the same year he was named
abbot of Fumon-ji 普門寺 in present-day Osaka. In 1661, with
the support of the shogunate, construction began on a temple in Uji 宇治,
just south of Kyoto, to serve as a base for Yinyuan’s efforts to spread
the teachings of Ming-dynasty Chan. Yinyuan gave to the new institution the
temple-name Manpuku-ji 萬福寺 and the mountain-name Ōbaku-san
黃檗山, in honor of the community he had left behind in
China. Manpuku-ji was designed according to contemporary Chinese temple
architecture, and its rule followed the monastic code of its namesake in China.
In 1664 Yinyuan, already advanced in age, retired in favor of his disciple Muan
Xingtao 木菴性瑫 (J., Mokuan Shōtō; 1611–1684),
but continued to actively participate in temple affairs from his hermitage, Shōin-dō
松隱堂, on the grounds of Manpuku-ji.
92.
Mujaku Dōchū 無著道忠 (1653–1744) was a
native of the Tanba 但馬 area, in present-day Hyōgo Prefecture
兵庫県. Placed in a local temple at the age of seven, at age
nine he was taken to Kyoto to live at Ryūge-in 龍華院, a
subtemple of Myōshin-ji 妙 心寺, where he was raised by
the priest Jikuin Somon 竺印祖門. From the age of
seventeen he embarked on an extended pilgrimage during which he studied under
various masters. Upon Jikuin’s death in 1678, Mujaku, then twenty-five,
assumed the priesthood of Ryūge-in. In 1707, after further Zen studies, he
became the thirty-fourth abbot of Myōshin-ji at the age of fifty-five.
Mujaku spent much of his time lecturing on Buddhist texts and did a vast amount
of critical scholarly work, leaving at his death a body of writings said to
number 661 volumes (kan 卷). His commentaries on the ll, the bl, and
other major Zen works are regarded as his most important contributions, along
with two
dictionaries of Zen technical terms, the Zenrin shōkisen 禪林象器箋
(Notes on Zen implements)
and the Kattō gosen 葛藤語箋
(Notes on Zen terminology).
延康殿學士金紫光祿大夫眞定府路安撫使兼馬歩軍都總管兼知成德軍府事馬防撰。黃檗山頭、曾遭痛棒。大愚肋下、方解築拳。饒舌老婆、尿床鬼子。這風顛漢、再捋虎鬚。巖谷栽松、後人標榜。钁頭斸地、幾被活埋。肯箇後生、驀口自摑。辭焚机案、坐斷舌頭。不是河南、便歸河北。院臨古渡、運濟往來。把定要津、壁立萬仭。奪人奪境、陶鑄仙陀。三要三玄、鈐鎚衲子。常在家舍、不離途中。無位眞人、面門出入。兩堂齊喝、賓主歷然。照用同時、本無前後。菱花對像、虛谷傳聲。妙應無方、不留朕跡。拂衣南邁、戾止大名。興化師承、東堂迎侍。銅瓶鐵鉢、掩室杜詞。松老雲閑、曠然自適。面壁未幾、密付將終。正法誰傳、瞎驢邊滅。圓覺老演、今爲流通。點撿將來、故無差舛。唯餘一喝、尚要商量。具眼禪流、冀無賺擧。宣和庚子中秋日謹序。
Preface to the Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Linji Huizhao
of Zhenzhou
Compiled
by Ma Fang, Scholar of the Yankang Hall; Gentleman of the Gold and Purple Rank in
attendance at Imperial Banquets; Emissary in Charge of Keeping Order in
Zhending Circuit; concurrently Chief Commandant of Cavalry and Infantry Forces;
concurrently Administrator of Chengde Military Prefecture.
On
top of Mount Huangbo he met the painful stick.
On
Dayu’s ribs he could use his fist.
“Garrulous
grandmother!” “Bed-wetting little devil!”
“This
lunatic, twice pulling the tiger’s whiskers!”
In
a rocky gorge he planted pines, a landmark for later generations.
He
dug the ground with his mattock; the others were nearly buried alive.
Having
approved the youngster, Huangbo slapped himself right on the mouth.
On
leaving, Linji wanted to burn the armrest; he’ll cut off the tongues [of
everyone].
If
he didn’t go to Henan, he’d return to Hebei.
His
temple overlooked the old ferry landing—he carried travelers across the
stream.
He
guarded the vital ford like an escarpment ten thousand spans high.
Snatching
away the man or the surroundings, he shaped and fashioned superlative students.
With
his Three States and Three Fundamentals, he forged and tempered black-robed
monks.
He’s
always at home, yet forever on the way.
The
true man without rank went in and out the face.
The
monks of the two halls gave equal shouts, but guest and host were obvious.
Illumination
and action are simultaneous, fundamentally without front or back.
A
mirror confronting a form, an empty valley echoing a sound.
Marvelously
responding in any direction, he left not a trace behind.
Tucking
up his robe, he journeyed southward, then went to stay in Daming.
Xinghua
took him as his teacher and attended him in the Eastern Hall.
Still
using the copper pitcher and iron bowl, he closed his room and stopped his
words.
As
the pines grew old and the clouds idled, he found boundless contentment within
himself.
He
had not long sat facing the wall when the secret transmission neared its end.
To
whom was the true dharma transmitted? It was extinguished upon reaching the
blind ass!
Old
Yan of Yuanjue has now undertaken to circulate this text.
It
has been examined and corrected, therefore it contains no error or confusion.
There
is still one more shout coming; it needs further consideration:
Chan
students who have the eye [to see], I entreat you not to exploit this text.
Preface
respectfully composed on the day of the mid-autumn festival, the year Gengzi of
the Xuanhe era [1120].
The Recorded Sayings
of Chan Master Linji Huizhao of Zhenzhou
住三聖嗣法小師慧然集
Compiled by his
humble heir Huiran of Sansheng
上堂Discourses
01府主王常侍、與諸官請師升座。師上堂云、山僧今日事不獲已、曲順人情、方登此座。若約祖宗門下、稱揚大事、直是開口不得、無爾措足處。山僧此日以常侍堅請、那隱綱宗。還有作家戰將、直下展陣開旗麼。對眾證據看。僧問、如何是佛法大意。師便喝。僧禮拜。師云、這箇師僧、卻堪持論。問、師唱誰家曲、宗風嗣阿誰。師云、我在黃檗處、三度發問、三度被打。僧擬議。師便喝、隨後打云、不可向虛空裏釘橛去也。有座主問、三乘十二分教、豈不是明佛性。師云、荒草不曾鋤。主云、佛豈賺人也。師云、佛在什麼處。主無語。師云、對常侍前、擬瞞老僧。速退速退。妨他別人請問。復云、此日法筵、爲一大事故。更有問話者麼。速致問來。爾纔開口、早勿交涉也。何以如此。不見釋尊云、法離文字、不屬因不在緣故。爲爾信不及、所以今日葛藤。恐滯常侍與諸官員、昧他佛性。不如且退。喝一喝云、少信根人、終無了日。久立珍重。
The Prefectural Governor, Councilor Wang,
along with the other officials, requested the master to address them. The master took the high seat in the Dharma
Hall and said:
“Today,
I, this mountain monk, having no choice in the matter, have perforce yielded to
customary etiquette and taken this seat. If I were to demonstrate the Great
Matter in strict keeping with the teaching of the ancestral school, I simply
couldn’t open my mouth and there wouldn’t be any place for you to find footing.
But since I’ve been so earnestly entreated today by the councilor, why
should I conceal the essential doctrine of our school? Now, is there any adept
warrior who forthwith can array his battle line and unfurl his banners here before
me? Let him try proving himself before the assembly!”
A
monk asked, “What about the cardinal principle of the
buddhadharma?”
The master gave a shout. The monk bowed low.
“As an opponent in
argument this young reverend is rather good,” said the master.
A
monk asked, “Master, of what house is the tune you sing? To whose style of Chan do you
succeed?”
The master said, “When I was staying
with Huangbo I questioned him three
times and was hit three times.”
The monk hesitated. The master gave a shout and then struck him,
saying, “You
can’t drive a stake into the empty sky.”
A
lecture master asked, “The Three
Vehicles’ twelve divisions of teachings make the buddha-nature quite clear, do they
not?”
“This weed patch has
never been spaded,” said Linji. “Surely the Buddha would not have
deceived people!” said the lecture master.
“Where is the
Buddha?” asked Linji.
the lecture master had no reply. “You thought
you’d make a fool of me in front of the councilor,” said the master. “Get
out, get out! You’re keeping the others from asking questions.”
the master continued, “Today’s
dharma assembly is concerned with the Great Matter. Does anyone else have a
question? If so, let him ask now! But the instant you open your mouth
you’re already way off . Why is this? Don’t you know that
Venerable Śākyamuni said, ‘Dharma is separate from words, because it is neither
subject to causation nor dependent upon conditions’? Your faith is insufficient,
therefore we have bandied words today. I fear I am obstructing the councilor
and his staff , thereby obscuring the Buddha nature. I had better
withdraw.”
the master shouted and then said,
“For those whose root of faith is weak the final day will never come. You
have been standing a long time. Take care of yourselves.”
02師、因一日到河府。府主王常侍、請師升座。時麻谷出問、大悲千手眼、那箇是正眼。師云、大悲千手眼、那箇是正眼、速道速道。麻谷拽師下座、麻谷卻坐。師近前云、不審。麻谷擬議。師亦拽麻谷下座、師卻坐。麻谷便出去。師便下座。
One
day Linji went to He Prefecture. The governor, Councilor Wang,requested the
master to take the high seat.
At
that time Mayu came forward and asked, “The Great Compassionate One has a
thousand hands and a thousand eyes. Which is the true eye?”
The
master said, “The Great Compassionate One has a thousand hands and a
thousand eyes. Which is the true eye? Speak, speak!”
Mayu
pulled the master down off the high seat and sat on it himself. Coming up to
him, the master said, “How do you do?” Mayu hesitated. The master,
in his turn, pulled Mayu down off the high seat and sat upon it himself.Mayu
went out. The master stepped down.
03上堂。云、赤肉團上有一無位眞人、常從汝等諸人面門出入。未證據者看看。時有僧出問、如何是無位眞人。師下禪床、把住云、道道。其僧擬議。師托開云、無位眞人是什麼乾屎橛。便歸方丈。
The
master, taking the high seat in the hall, said, “On your lump of red flesh
is a true man without rank who is always going in and out of the face of every
one of you. Those who have not yet confirmed this, look, look!”
Then
a monk came forward and asked, “What about the true man without rank?”
The master got down from his seat, seized the monk, and cried, “Speak,
speak!”
The
monk faltered.
Shoving
him away, the master said, “The true man without rank—what kind of
dried piece of shit is he!” Then he returned to his quarters.
04上堂。有僧出禮拜。師便喝。僧云、老和尚莫探頭好。師云、爾道落在什麼處。僧便喝。又有僧問、如何是佛法大意。師便喝。僧禮拜。師云、爾道好喝也無。僧云、草賊大敗。師云、過在什麼處。僧云、再犯不容。師便喝。是日兩堂首座相見、同時下喝。僧問師、還有賓主也無。師云、賓主歷然。師云、大衆、要會臨濟賓主句、問取堂中二首座。便下座。
The
master took the high seat in the hall. A monk came forward and bowed. The
master gave a shout.
“Venerable
priest,” said the monk, “you’d better not try to spy on me.”
“Tell
me what you’ve arrived upon,” the master said.
The
monk shouted.
Another
monk asked, “What about the cardinal principle of the buddhadharma?”
The
master shouted. The monk bowed.
“Do
you say that was a good shout?” asked the master.
“The
bandit in the grass has met complete defeat,” returned the monk.
“What’s my
offense?”
asked the master.
“It
won’t be pardoned a second time,” replied the monk. The master gave
a shout.
That
same day the head monks of the two halls had met and simultaneously given
shouts.
A
monk asked the master, “Was there a guest and a host?”
“Guest
and host were obvious,” replied the master. He continued, “If you
of the assembly want to understand the ‘guest and host’ that I
speak of, ask the two head monks of the halls.”
Then
the master stepped down.
05上堂。僧問、如何是佛法大意。師豎起拂子。僧便喝。師便打。又僧問、如何是佛法大意。師亦豎起拂子。僧便喝。師亦喝。僧擬議。師便打。師乃云、大衆、夫爲法者、不避喪身失命。我二十年、在黃檗先師處、三度問佛法的的大意、三度蒙他賜杖。如蒿枝拂著相似。如今更思得一頓棒喫。誰人爲我行得。時有僧出衆云、某甲行得。師拈棒與他。其僧擬接。師便打。
The
master took the high seat in the hall. A monk asked, “What about the
cardinal principle of the buddhadharma?”
The
master raised his whisk. The monk shouted. The master struck him.
Another
monk asked, “What about the cardinal principle of the buddhadharma?”
Again
the master raised his whisk. The monk shouted. The master also shouted. The
monk faltered; the master struck him.
Then
the master said, “You of the assembly, those who live for dharma do not
shrink from losing their bodies or sacrificing their very lives. Twenty years
ago, when I was with my late master Huangbo, three times I asked him
specifically about the cardinal meaning of the buddhadharma, and three times he
favored me with blows from his stick. But it was as if he were patting me with
a branch of mugwort. How I would like now to taste another dose of the stick!
Who can give it to me?”
A
monk stepped forward and said, “I can.”
The
master held out his stick to him. The monk tried to take it; the master struck
him.
06上堂。僧問、如何是劍刄上事。師云、禍事、禍事。僧擬議。師便打。問、祇如石室行者、踏碓忘卻移腳、向什麼處去。師云、沒溺深泉。師乃云、但有來者、不虧欠伊。總識伊來處。若與麼來、恰似失卻。不與麼來、無繩自縛。一切時中、莫亂斟酌。會與不會、都來是錯。分明與麼道。一任天下人貶剝。久立珍重。
The
master took the high seat in the hall. A monk asked, “What about the
matter of the sword blade?”
“Heavens,
heavens!” cried the master.
The
monk hesitated; the master struck him.
Someone
asked, “The lay worker Shishi in treading the pestle shaft of the rice
mortar would forget he was moving his feet; where did he go?”
“Drowned
in a deep spring!” the master replied.
Then
he continued, “Whoever comes to me, I do not fail him; I know exactly
where he comes from. Should he come in a particular way, it’s just as if
he’d lost [himself]. Should he not come in a particular way, he’d
have bound himself without a rope. Never ever engage in random speculation—whether
you understand or don’t understand, either way you’re mistaken. I
say this straight out. Anyone in the world is free to denounce me as he will.
You
have been standing a long time. Take care of yourselves.”
07上堂。云、一人在孤峯頂上、無出身之路。一人在十字街頭、亦無向背。那箇在前、那箇在後。不作維摩詰、不作傅大士。珍重。
The
master took the high seat in the hall and said, “One person is on top of
a solitary peak and has no path by which to leave. One person is at the busy
crossroads and has neither front nor back. Which is ahead, which is behind? Don’t
make the one out to be Vimalakīrti and the other to be Fu Dashi. Take care
of yourselves.”
08上堂。云、有一人、論劫在途中、不離家舍。有一人、離家舍、不在途中。那箇合受人天供養。便下座。
The
master took the high seat in the hall and said, “One man is endlessly on
the way, yet has never left home. Another has left home, yet is not on the way.
Which one deserves the offerings of humans and gods?” Then he stepped
down.
09上堂。僧問、如何是第一句。師云、三要印開朱點側、未容擬議主賓分。問、如何是第二句。師云、妙解豈容無著問、漚和爭負截流機。問、如何是第三句。師云、看取棚頭弄傀儡、抽牽都來裏有人。師又云、一句語須具三玄門、一玄門須具三要、有權有用。汝等諸人、作麼生會。下座。
The
master took the high seat in the hall.
A
monk asked, “What about the First Statement?”
The
master said:
The
Seal of the Three Essentials being lifted, the vermilion impression is sharp;
With
no room for speculation, host and guest are clear and distinct.
“What
about the Second Statement?”
The
master said:
How
could Miaojie permit Wuzhuo’s questioning?
How
could expedient means go against the activity that cuts through the stream?
“What
about the Third Statement?”
The
master said:
Look
at the wooden puppets performing on the stage!
Their
jumps and jerks all depend upon the person behind.”
The
master further said, “Each Statement must comprise the Gates of the Three
Mysteries, and the gate of each mystery must comprise the Three Essentials.
There are expedients and there is functioning. How do all of you understand
this?” The master then stepped down.
10師晩參示衆云、有時奪人不奪境、有時奪境不奪人、有時人境倶奪、有時人境倶不奪。時有僧問、如何是奪人不奪境。師云、煦日發生鋪地錦、瓔孩垂髮白如絲。僧云、如何是奪境不奪人。師云、王令已行天下遍、將軍塞外絶烟塵。僧云、如何是人境兩倶奪。師云、并汾絶信、獨處一方。僧云、如何是人境倶不奪。師云、王登寶殿、野老謳歌。師乃云、今時學佛法者、且要求眞正見解。若得眞正見解、生死不染、去住自由。不要求殊勝、殊勝自至。道流、祇如自古先德、皆有出人底路。如山僧指示人處、祇要爾不受人惑。要用便用、更莫遲疑。如今學者不得、病在甚處。病在不自信處。爾若自信不及、即便忙忙地徇一切境轉、被他萬境回換、不得自由。爾若能歇得念念馳求心、便與祖佛不別。爾欲得識祖佛麼。祇爾面前聽法底是。學人信不及、便向外馳求。設求得者、皆是文字勝相、終不得他活祖意。莫錯、諸禪德。此時不遇、萬劫千生、輪回三界、徇好境掇去、驢牛肚裏生。道流、約山僧見處、與釋迦不別。今日多般用處、欠少什麼。六道神光、未曾間歇。若能如是見得、祇是一生無事人。大德、三界無安、猶如火宅。此不是爾久停住處。無常殺鬼、一刹那間、不揀貴賤老少。爾要與祖佛不別、但莫外求。爾一念心上淸淨光、是爾屋裏法身佛。爾一念心上無分別光、是爾屋裏報身佛。爾一念心上無差別光、是爾屋裏化身佛。此三種身、是爾即今目前聽法底人。祇爲不向外馳求、有此功用。據經論家、取三種身爲極則。約山僧見處、不然。此三種身是名言、亦是三種依。古人云、身依義立、土據體論。法性身、法性土、明知是光影。大德、爾且識取弄光影底人、是諸佛之本源、一切處是道流歸舍處。是爾四大色身、不解說法聽法。脾胃肝膽、不解說法聽法。虛空不解說法聽法。是什麼解說法聽法。是爾目前歷歷底、勿一箇形段孤明、是這箇解說法聽法。若如是見得、便與祖佛不別。但一切時中、更莫間斷、觸目皆是。祇爲情生智隔、想變體殊、所以輪回三界、受種種苦。若約山僧見處、無不甚深、無不解脫。道流、心法無形、通貫十方。在眼曰見、在耳曰聞、在鼻嗅香、在口談論、在手執捉、在足運奔。本是一精明、分爲六和合。一心既無、隨處解脫。山僧與麼說、意在什麼處。祇爲道流一切馳求心不能歇、上他古人閑機境。道流、取山僧見處、坐斷報化佛頭、十地滿心、猶如客作兒、等妙二覺、擔枷鎖漢、羅漢辟支、猶如厠穢、菩提涅槃、如繋驢橛。何以如此、祇爲道流不達三祇劫空、所以有此障礙。若是眞正道人、終不如是。但能隨緣消舊業、任運著衣裳、要行即行、要坐即坐、無一念心希求佛果。緣何如此。古人云、若欲作業求佛、佛是生死大兆。大德、時光可惜。祇擬傍家波波地、學禪學道、認名認句、求佛求祖、求善知識意度。莫錯、道流。爾祇有一箇父母、更求何物。爾自返照看。古人云、演若達多失卻頭、求心歇處即無事。大德、且要平常、莫作模樣。有一般不識好惡禿奴、便即見神見鬼、指東劃西、好晴好雨。如是之流、盡須抵債、向閻老前、吞熱鐵丸有日。好人家男女、被這一般野狐精魅所著、便即捏怪。瞎屡生、索飯錢有日在。
At
the evening gathering the master addressed the assembly, saying:
“Sometimes
I take away the person but do not take away the surroundings; sometimes I take
away the surroundings but do not take away the person; sometimes I take away
both person and surroundings; sometimes I take away neither person nor
surroundings.”
Then
a monk asked, “What about ‘to take away the person and not take
away the surroundings’?”
The
master said:
The
spring sun comes forth, covering the earth with brocade;
A
child’s hair hangs down, white as silken strands.
The
monk asked, “What about ‘to take away the surroundings and not take
away the person’?”
The
master said:
The
rule of the sovereign prevails throughout the land;
The
general has laid to rest the dusts of battle beyond the frontiers.
Again
the monk asked, “What about ‘to take away both person and
surroundings’?”
The
master said:
No
news from Bing and Fen,
Isolated
and away from everywhere.
The
monk asked, “What about ‘to take away neither person nor the
surroundings’?”
The
master said:
The
sovereign ascends into the jeweled palace;
Aged
rustics sing songs.
Then
the master said, “Nowadays, he who studies buddhadharma must seek true
insight. Gaining true insight, he is not affected by birth-and-death, but
freely goes or stays. He needn’t seek the excellent—that which is
excellent will come of itself.
“Followers
of the Way, our eminent predecessors from of old have all had their ways of
saving people. As for me, what I want to make clear to you is that you must not
accept the deluded views of others. If you want to act, then act. Don’t
hesitate.
“Students
today can’t get anywhere. What ails you? Lack of faith in yourself is
what ails you. If you lack faith in yourself, you’ll keep on tumbling
along, following in bewilderment after all kinds of circumstances and being
taken by them through transformation after transformation without ever
attaining freedom.
“Bring
to rest the thoughts of the ceaselessly seeking mind, and you will not differ
from the patriarch-buddha. Do you want to know the patriarch Buddha?
He
is none other than you who stand before me listening to my discourse. But
because you students lack faith in yourselves, you run around seeking something
outside. Even if, through your seeking, you did find something, that something
would be nothing more than fancy descriptions in written words; never would you
gain the mind of the living patriarch.
Make
no mistake, worthy Chan men! If you don’t find it here and now, you’ll
go on transmigrating through the three realms for myriads of kalpas and
thousands of lives, and, held in the clutch of captivating circumstances, be
born in the wombs of asses or cows.
“Followers
of the Way, as I see it we are no different from Śākya. What do we
lack for our manifold activities today? The six-rayed divine light never ceases
to shine. See it this way, and you’ll be a man who has nothing to do his
whole life long. Virtuous monks,
The
three realms lack tranquility
Just
like a burning house.
This
is not a place we remain for long. The death-dealing demon of impermanence
comes in an instant, without discriminating between noble and base, old and
young.
“If
you wish to differ in no way from the patriarch-buddha, just don’t seek
outside. The pure light in a single thought of yours—this is the dharmakāya
buddha within your own house. The nondiscriminating light in a single thought
of yours—this is the saṃbhogakāya buddha within your own house. The
nondifferentiating light in a single thought of yours—this is
the
nirmāṇakāya buddha
within your own house. This threefold body is you, listening to my discourse
right now before my very eyes. It is precisely because you don’t run
around seeking outside that you have such meritorious activities.
“According
to the masters of the sutras and śāstras, the threefold body is
regarded as the ultimate norm. But in my view this is not so. The threefold
body is merely a name; moreover, it is a threefold dependency. A man of old
said, ‘The [buddha-]bodies are posited depending upon manifested meaning;
the [buddha] lands are postulated in keeping with essential substance.’
Therefore
we clearly know that ‘dharma-natured bodies’ and ‘dharmanatured
lands’ are no more than shimmering reflections.
“Virtuous
monks, you must recognize the one who manipulates these reflections. ‘He
is the primal source of all the buddhas,’ and the place to which every
follower of the Way returns.
“This
physical body of yours, composed of the four great elements, can neither
expound the dharma nor listen to it; your spleen and stomach, liver and
gallbladder can neither expound the dharma nor listen to it; the empty sky can
neither expound the dharma nor listen to it. Then what can expound the dharma
and listen to it? This very you standing distinctly before me without any form,
shining alone—just this can expound the dharma and listen to it!
Understand it this way, and you are not different from the patriarch-buddha.
Just never ever allow interruptions, and all that meets your eyes will be
right. But, because ‘when feeling arises,
wisdom
is barred, and when thinking changes, the substance varies,’ people
transmigrate through the three realms and undergo all kinds of suffering.
As
I see it, there are none who are not of the utmost profundity, none who aren’t
emancipated.
“Followers
of the Way, mind is without form and pervades the ten directions.
In
the eye it is called seeing, in the ear it is called hearing.
In
the nose it smells odors, in the mouth it holds converse.
In
the hands it grasps and seizes, in the feet it runs and carries.
Fundamentally
it is one pure radiance; divided it becomes the six harmoniously united spheres
of sense. If the mind is void, wherever you are, you are emancipated.
“What
is my purpose in speaking this way? I do so only because you followers of the
Way cannot stop your mind from running around everywhere seeking, because you
go clambering after the worthless contrivances of the men of old.
“Followers
of the Way, if you take my viewpoint you’ll cut off the heads of the saṃbhogakāya and
nirmāṇakāya buddhas; a
bodhisattva who has attained the completed mind of the tenth stage will be like
a mere hireling; a bodhisattva of equivalent enlightenment or a bodhisattva of
marvelous enlightenment will be like pilloried prisoners; an arhat and a
pratyekabuddha
will
be like privy filth; bodhi and nirvana will be like hitching posts for asses.
Why is this so? Followers of the Way, it is only because you haven’t yet
realized the emptiness of the three asamkhyeya kalpas that you have such
obstacles.
“A
true follower of the Way is never like this; conforming with circumstances as
they are he exhausts his past karma; accepting things as they are he puts on
his clothes; when he wants to walk he walks, when he wants to sit he sits; he
never has a single thought of seeking buddhahood. Why is this so?
A
man of old said:
If
you seek buddha through karma-creating activities,
Buddha
becomes the great portent of birth-and-death.
“Virtuous
monks, time is precious. And yet, hurrying hither and thither, you try to learn
meditation, to study the Way, to accept names, to accept phrases, to seek
buddha, to seek a patriarch, to seek a good teacher, to think and speculate.
“Make
no mistake, followers of the Way! After all, you have a father and a mother—what
more do you seek? Turn your own light inward upon yourselves!
A
man of old said:
Yajnadatta
[thought he had] lost his head,
But
when his seeking mind came to rest, he was at ease.
“Virtuous
monks, just be ordinary. Don’t put on airs. There’re a bunch of
shavepates who can’t tell good from bad; they see spirits, they see
demons; they point to the east, they point to the west; they like fair weather,
they like rain. The day will come when such men as these, every one of them, will
have to repay their debts in front of Old Yama by swallowing red-hot iron
balls.
“[You]
sons and daughters of good families, bewitched by this pack of wild foxes, lose
your senses. Blind idiots! Someday you’ll be made to pay up for the
vittles you’ve eaten!”
11師示衆云、道流、切要求取眞正見解、向天下橫行、免被這一般精魅惑亂。無事是貴人。但莫造作、祇是平常。爾擬向外傍家求過、覓腳手。錯了也。祇擬求佛、佛是名句。爾還識馳求底麼。三世十方佛祖出來、也祇爲求法。如今參學道流、也祇爲求法。得法始了。未得、依前輪回五道。云何是法。法者是心法。心法無形、通貫十方、目前現用。人信不及、便乃認名認句、向文字中、求意度佛法。天地懸殊。道流、山僧說法、說什麼法。說心地法。便能入凡入聖、入淨入穢、入眞入俗。要且不是爾眞俗凡聖、能與一切眞俗凡聖、安著名字。眞俗凡聖、與此人安著名字不得。道流、把得便用、更不著名字、號之爲玄旨。山僧說法、與天下人別。祇如有箇文殊普賢、出來目前、各現一身問法、纔道咨和尚、我早辨了也。老僧穩坐、更有道流、來相見時、我盡辨了也。何以如此。祇爲我見處別、外不取凡聖、內不住根本、見徹更不疑謬。
The
master addressed the assembly, saying, “Followers of the Way, it is
urgently necessary that you endeavor to acquire true insight and stride boldly
[here] under the heavens, not losing your senses owing to that bunch of
spirits. [He who has] nothing to do is the noble one. Simply don’t strive—just
be ordinary. Yet you look outside, searching side paths and seeking help. You’re
all wrong!
“You
keep trying to find buddha, but buddha is merely a name. Don’t you know
what it is that you are running around seeking? The buddhas and the patriarchs
of the three periods and the ten directions appear only in order to seek the
dharma. You followers of the Way who are studying today—you, too, have
only to seek the dharma. Attain dharma and you’re all done. Until then,
you’ll go on transmigrating through the five paths of existence just as
you have been.
“What
is dharma? ‘Dharma’ is the dharma of mind. Mind is without form; it
pervades the ten directions and is manifesting its activity right before your
very eyes. But because people lack sufficient faith [in this] they turn to
names and phrases, attempting to grasp the buddhadharma through written words.
They’re as far away as heaven from earth!
“Followers
of the Way, when I, this mountain monk, expound the dharma, what dharma do I
expound? I expound the dharma of mind-ground, which enters the secular and the
sacred, the pure and the defiled, the real and the temporal. But your ‘real
and temporal,’ your ‘secular and sacred,’ cannot attach
labels to all that is real and temporal, secular and sacred. The real and the
temporal, the secular and the sacred, cannot attach a name to this person.
Followers
of the Way, grasp and use, but never name—this is called the‘mysterious
principle’.
“My
discourse on dharma is different from that of every other man on earth.
Supposing Manjuśrī and Samantabhadra were to appear before me,
manifesting their respective bodily forms for the purpose of questioning me
about dharma. The moment they said, ‘Venerable Priest, what...,’ I
would have discerned them through and through. And if a follower of the Way
comes for an interview as I sit quietly here, I discern him through and
through. Why is this so? Just because my way of viewing things is different;
outside, I make no distinction between the secular and the sacred; inside, I do
not dwell in the absolute; I see right through, and am free from all doubt.”
12師示衆云、道流、佛法無用功處、祇是平常無事。屙屎送尿、著衣喫飯、困來即臥。愚人笑我、智乃知焉。古人云、向外作工夫、總是癡頑漢。爾且隨處作主、立處皆眞。境來囘換不得。縱有從來習氣、五無間業、自爲解脫大海。今時學者、總不識法、猶如觸鼻羊、逢著物安在口裏。奴郎不辨、賓主不分。如是之流、邪心入道、鬧處即入。不得名爲眞出家人、正是眞俗家人。夫出家者、須辨得平常眞正見解、辨佛辨魔、辨眞辨僞、辨凡辨聖。若如是辨得、名眞出家。若魔佛不辨、正是出一家入一家。喚作造業衆生、未得名爲眞出家。祇如今有一箇佛魔、同體不分、如水乳合、鵝王喫乳。如明眼道流、魔佛倶打。爾若愛聖憎凡、生死海裏浮沈。
The
master addressed the assembly, saying, “Followers of the Way, as to
buddhadharma, no effort is necessary. You have only to be ordinary, with
nothing to do—defecating, urinating, wearing clothes, eating food, and
lying down when tired.
Fools
laugh at me,
But
the wise understand.
A
man of old said,
Those
who make work for themselves outside
Are
just a bunch of blockheads.
“Just
make yourself master of every situation, and wherever you stand is the true
[place]. No matter what circumstances come they cannot dislodge you [from
there]. Though you bear the influence of past delusions or the karma of [having
committed] the five heinous crimes, these of themselves become the ocean of
emancipation.
“Students
nowadays know nothing of dharma. They’re just like sheep that take into
their mouths whatever their noses happen to hit against. They neither
discriminate between master and slave, nor distinguish host from guest. Such as
these, coming to the Way with crooked motives, readily enter bustling places.
They cannot be called true renouncers of home. True householders are what they
are.
“Renouncers
of home must possess true insight at all times, distinguishing between the
Buddha and Māra, between true and false, between secular and sacred. If
they can do this, they may be called true renouncers of home.But those who
cannot distinguish Māra from Buddha have only left one house to enter
another. They may be described as karma-creating beings, but they cannot be
called true renouncers of home.
“Now
suppose there were Buddha-Māra, inseparably united in one body like a
mixture of water and milk. The King of Geese would drink only the milk, but an
open-eyed follower of the Way would handle Māra and Buddha equally.
If
you love the sacred and hate the secular,
You’ll
float and sink in the sea of birth-and-death.”
13問、如何是佛魔。師云、爾一念心疑處是魔。爾若達得萬法無生、心如幻化、更無一塵一法、處處淸淨是佛。然佛與魔、是染淨二境。約山僧見處、無佛無衆生、無古無今、得者便得、不歷時節。無修無證、無得無失。一切時中、更無別法。設有一法過此者、我說如夢如化。山僧所說皆是。道流、即今目前孤明歷歷地聽者、此人處處不滯、通貫十方、三界自在。入一切境差別、不能回換。一刹那間、透入法界、逢佛說佛、逢祖說祖、逢羅漢說羅漢、逢餓鬼說餓鬼。向一切處、游履國土、敎化衆生、未曾離一念。隨處淸淨、光透十方、萬法一如。道流、大丈夫兒、今日方知本來無事。祇爲爾信不及、念念馳求、捨頭覓頭、自不能歇。如圓頓菩薩、入法界現身、向淨土中、厭凡忻聖。如此之流、取捨未忘、染淨心在。如禪宗見解、又且不然。直是現今、更無時節。山僧說處、皆是一期藥病相治、總無實法。若如是見得、是眞出家、日消萬兩黃金。道流、莫取次被諸方老師印破面門、道我解禪解道。辯似懸河、皆是造地獄業。若是眞正學道人、不求世間過、切急要求眞正見解。若達眞正見解圓明、方始了畢。
Someone
asked, “What is Buddha-Māra?”
The
master said, “One thought of doubt in your mind is Māra. But if you
realize that the ten thousand dharmas never come into being, that mind is like
a phantom, that not a speck of dust nor a single thing exists, that there is no
place that is not clean and pure—this is Buddha. Thus Buddha and Māra
are simply two states, one pure, the other impure.
“In
my view there is no Buddha, no sentient beings, no past, no present. Anything
attained was already attained—no time is needed. There is nothing to
practice, nothing to realize, nothing to gain, nothing to lose. Throughout all
time there is no other dharma than this. ‘If one claims there’s a
dharma surpassing this, I say that it’s like a dream, like a phantasm.’
This is all I have to teach.
“Followers
of the Way, the one who at this very moment shines alone before my eyes and is
clearly listening to my discourse—this man tarries nowhere; he traverses
the ten directions and is freely himself in all three realms. Though he enters
all types of situations with their various differentiations, none can confuse
him. In an instant of time he penetrates the dharma realms, on meeting a buddha
he teaches the buddha, on meeting a patriarch he teaches the patriarch, on
meeting an arhat he teaches the arhat, on meeting a hungry ghost he teaches the
hungry ghost. He travels throughout all lands bringing enlightenment to
sentient beings, yet is never separate from his present mind. Everywhere is
pure, light illumines the ten directions, and‘all dharmas are a single
suchness.’
“Followers
of the Way, right now the resolute man knows full well that from the beginning
there is nothing to do. Only because your faith is insufficient do you
ceaselessly chase about; having thrown away your head you go on and on looking
for it, unable to stop yourself. You’re like the bodhisattva of complete
and immediate [enlightenment], who manifests his body in any dharma realm but
within the Pure Land detests the secular and aspires for the sacred. Such ones
have not yet left off accepting and rejecting; ideas of purity and defilement
still remain.
“For
the Chan school, understanding is not thus—it is instantaneous, now, not
a matter of time! All that I teach is just provisional medicine, treatment for
a disease. In fact, no real dharma exists. Those who understand this are true
renouncers of home, and may spend a million gold coins a day.
“Followers
of the Way, don’t have your face stamped with the seal of sanction by any
old master anywhere, then go around saying, ‘I understand Chan,I
understand the Way.’ Though your eloquence is like a rushing torrent, it
is nothing but hell-creating karma.
“The
true student of the Way does not search out the faults of the world, but
eagerly seeks true insight. If you can attain true insight, clear and complete,
then, indeed, that is all.”
14問、如何是眞正見解。師云、爾但一切入凡入聖、入染入淨、入諸佛國土、入彌勒樓閣、入毘盧遮那法界、處處皆現國土、成住壞空。佛出于世、轉大法輪、卻入涅槃、不見有去來相貌。求其生死、了不可得。便入無生法界、處處游履國土、入華藏世界、盡見諸法空相、皆無實法。唯有聽法無依道人、是諸佛之母。所以佛從無依生。若悟無依、佛亦無得。若如是見得者、是眞正見解。學人不了、爲執名句、被他凡聖名礙、所以障其道眼、不得分明。祇如十二分敎、皆是表顯之說。學者不會、便向表顯名句上生解。皆是依倚、落在因果、未免三界生死。爾若欲得生死去住、脫著自由、即今識取聽法底人。無形無相、無根無本、無住處、活撥撥地。應是萬種施設、用處祇是無處。所以覓著轉遠、求之轉乖。號之爲祕密。道流、爾莫認著箇夢幻伴子。遲晩中間、便歸無常。爾向此世界中、覓箇什麼物作解脫。覓取一口飯喫、補毳過時、且要訪尋知識。莫因循逐樂。光陰可惜、念念無常。麁則被地水火風、細則被生住異滅四相所逼。道流、今時且要識取四種無相境、免被境擺撲。
Someone
asked, “What is ‘true insight’?”
The
master said, “You have only to enter the secular, enter the sacred, enter
the defiled, enter the pure, enter the lands of all the buddhas, enter the
Tower of Maitreya, enter the dharma realm of Vairocana and all of the lands
everywhere that manifest and come into being, exist, decay, and disappear.
“The
Buddha appeared in the world, turned the Wheel of the Great Dharma, then
entered nirvana, yet no trace of his coming and going can be seen. Though you
seek his birth and death, you will never find it.
“Then,
having entered the dharma realm of no-birth and traveled throughout every
country, you enter the realm of the lotus-womb, and there see through and
through that all dharmas are characterized by emptiness and that there are no
real dharmas whatsoever.
“There
is only the man of the Way who depends upon nothing, here listening to my
discourse—it is he who is the mother of all buddhas. Therefore buddhas
are born from nondependence. Awaken to nondependence, then there is no buddha
to be obtained. Insight such as this is true insight.
“Students
do not understand this, and, because they adhere to names and phrases and are
obstructed by such terms as ‘secular’ and ‘sacred’,
becloud their Dharma Eye and cannot obtain clarity of vision. Take, for
instance, the twelve divisions of the teachings—all are nothing but
surface explanations. Not understanding this, students form views based on
these superficial words and phrases. All such students are dependent and thus
fall into causation; they haven’t escaped birth-and-death in the three
realms.
“If
you want to be free to live or to die, to go or to stay as you would put on or
take off clothes, then right now recognize the one listening to my discourse,
the one who has no form, no characteristics, no root, no source, no dwelling
place, and yet is bright and vigorous. Of all his various responsive
activities, none leaves any traces. Thus the more you chase him the farther
away he goes, and the more you seek him the more he turns away; this is called
the ‘Mystery’.
“Followers
of the Way, don’t acknowledge this illusory companion, your body—sooner
or later it will return to impermanence. What is it you seek in this world that
you think will bring you emancipation? You hunt about for a mouthful to eat and
while away time patching your robe. You should be searching for a good teacher!
Don’t just drift along pursuing comfort. Value every second. Each
successive thought-moment passes quickly away. The grosser part of you is at
the mercy of [the four elements:] earth, water, fire, and wind; the subtler
part of you is at the mercy of the four phases: birth, being, decay, and death.
Followers of the Way, you must right now apprehend the state in which the four elements
[and four phases] are formless, so that you may avoid being buffeted about by
circumstances.”
15問、如何是四種無相境。師云、爾一念心疑、被地來礙。爾一念心愛、被水來溺。爾一念心嗔、被火來燒。爾一念心喜、被風來飄。若能如是辨得、不被境轉、處處用境。東涌西沒、南涌北沒、中涌邊沒、邊涌中沒、履水如地、履地如水。緣何如此。爲達四大如夢如幻故。道流、爾祇今聽法者、不是爾四大、能用爾四大。若能如是見得、便乃去住自由。約山僧見處、勿嫌底法。爾若愛聖、聖者聖之名。有一般學人、向五臺山裏求文殊。早錯了也。五臺山無文殊。爾欲識文殊麼。祇爾目前用處、始終不異、處處不疑、此箇是活文殊。爾一念心無差別光、處處總是眞普賢。爾一念心自能解縛、隨處解脫、此是觀音三昧法。互爲主伴、出則一時出。一即三、三即一。如是解得、始好看敎。
Someone
asked, “What is the state in which the four elements [and four phases]
are formless?”
The
master said, “An instant of doubt in your mind and you’re
obstructed by earth; an instant of lust in your mind and you’re drowned
by water; an instant of anger in your mind and you’re scorched by fire;
an instant of joy in your mind and you’re blown about by wind. Gain such
discernment as this, and you’re not turned this way and that by
circumstances; making use of circumstances everywhere—you spring up in
the east and disappear in the west, spring up in the south and disappear in the
north, spring up in the center and disappear at the border, spring up at the
border and disappear in the center, walk on the water as on land, and walk on
the land as on water.
“How
is this possible? Because you have realized that the four elements are like
dreams, like illusions. Followers of the Way, the you who right now is
listening to my discourse is not the four elements; this you makes use of the
four elements. If you can fully understand this, you are free to go or to stay
[as you please].
“From
my point of view, there is not a thing to be disliked. If you love the‘sacred’,
what is sacred is no more than the name ‘sacred’.
“There’s
a bunch of students who seek Manjuśrī on Mount Wutai. Wrong from the
start! There’s no Manjuśrī on Wutai. Do you want to know Manjuśrī?
Your activity right now, never changing, nowhere faltering—this is the
living Manjuśrī. Your single thought’s nondifferentiating light—this
indeed is the true Samantabhadra. Your single thought that frees itself from
bondage and brings emancipation everywhere—this is the Avalokiteśvara
samādhi. Since these [three] alternately take the position of master and
attendants, when they appear they appear at one and the same time, one in
three, three in one. Gain understanding such as this, and then you can read the
sutras.”
16師示衆云、如今學道人、且要自信。莫向外覓。總上他閑塵境、都不辨邪正。祇如有祖有佛、皆是敎迹中事。有人拈起一句子語、或隱顯中出、便即疑生、照天照地、傍家尋問、也大忙然。大丈夫兒、莫祇麼論主論賊、論是論非、論色論財、論說閑話過日。山僧此間、不論僧俗、但有來者、盡識得伊。任伊向甚處出來、但有聲名文句、皆是夢幻。卻見乘境底人、是諸佛之玄旨。佛境不能自稱我是佛境。還是這箇無依道人、乘境出來。若有人出來、問我求佛、我即應淸淨境出。有人問我菩薩、我即應慈悲境出。有人問我菩提、我即應淨妙境出。有人問我涅槃、我即應寂靜境出。境即萬般差別、人即不別。所以應物現形、如水中月。道流、爾若欲得如法、直須是大丈夫兒始得。若萎萎隨隨地、則不得也。夫如㽄嗄[上音西下所嫁切]之器、不堪貯醍醐。如大器者、直要不受人惑。隨處作主、立處皆眞。但有來者、皆不得受。爾一念疑、即魔入心。如菩薩疑時、生死魔得便。但能息念、更莫外求。物來則照。爾但信現今用底、一箇事也無。爾一念心生三界、隨緣被境、分爲六塵。爾如今應用處、欠少什麼。一刹那間、便入淨入穢、入彌勒樓閣、入三眼國土、處處遊履、唯見空名。
The
master addressed the assembly, saying, “You who today study the Way must
have faith in yourselves. Don’t seek outside or you’ll just go on
clambering after the realm of worthless dusts, never distinguishing true from
false. [Notions] like ‘There are buddhas, there are patriarchs’ are
no more than matters in the teachings. When someone brings forward a phrase or
comes forth from the hidden and the revealed, you are at once beset by doubt.
You appeal to heaven, appeal to earth, run to question your neighbors, and are
utterly perplexed. Resolute men, don’t pass your days in idle chatter
this way, talking of rulers and talking of outlaws, discussing right and
discussing wrong, speaking of women and speaking of money.
“As
for me, whoever comes here, whether monk or layman, I discern him through and
through. Regardless of where he comes from, his words and phrases are all just
dreams and illusions. On the other hand, it’s obvious that one in control
of every circumstance [embodies] the mysterious principle of all the buddhas.
The state of buddhahood does not of itself proclaim, ‘I am the state of
buddhahood!’ Rather, this very man of the Way, dependent upon nothing,
comes forth in control of every circumstance.
“If
someone comes and asks about seeking buddha, I immediately appear in conformity
with the state of purity; if someone asks about bodhisattvahood, I immediately
appear in conformity with the state of compassion; if someone asks me about
bodhi, I immediately appear in conformity with the state of pure mystery; if
someone asks me about nirvana, I immediately appear in conformity with the
state of serene stillness. Though there be ten thousand different states, the
person does not differ. Therefore,
According
with things he manifests a form,
Like
the moon [reflecting] on the water.
“Followers
of the Way, if you want to accord with dharma, just be men of great resolve. If
you just shilly-shally spinelessly along, you’re good for nothing.Just as
a cracked jug is unfit to hold ghee, so he who would be a great vessel must not
be taken in by the deluded views of others. Make yourself master everywhere,
and wherever you stand is the true [place].
“Whatever
comes along, don’t accept it. One thought of doubt, and instantly the
demon [māra] enters your mind. Even a bodhisattva, when in doubt, is taken
advantage of by the demon of birth-and-death. Just desist from thinking, and
never seek outside. If something should come, illumine it. Have faith in your
activity revealed now—there isn’t a thing to do.
“One
thought of your mind produces the three realms and, in accordance with causal
conditions and influenced by circumstances, the division into the six dusts
takes place. What is lacking in your present responsive activity! In an instant
you enter the pure, enter the dirty, enter the Tower of Maitreya, enter the
Land of the Three Eyes, and everywhere you travel all you see are empty names.”
17問、如何是三眼國土。師云、我共爾入淨妙國土中、著淸淨衣、說法身佛。又入無差別國土中、著無差別衣、說報身佛。又入解脫國土中、著光明衣、說化身佛。此三眼國土、皆是依變。約經論家、取法身爲根本、報化二身爲用。山僧見處、法身即不解說法。所以古人云、身依義立、土據體論。法性身、法性土、明知是建立之法、依通國土。空拳黃葉、用誑小兒。蒺藜菱刺、枯骨上覓什麼汁。心外無法、內亦不可得、求什麼物。爾諸方言道、有修有證。莫錯。設有修得者、皆是生死業。爾言六度萬行齊修。我見皆是造業。求佛求法、即是造地獄業。求菩薩、亦是造業。看經看敎、亦是造業。佛與祖師、是無事人。所以有漏有爲、無漏無爲、爲淸淨業。有一般瞎禿子、飽喫飯了、便坐禪觀行、把捉念漏、不令放起、厭喧求靜、是外道法。祖師云、爾若住心看靜、擧心外照、攝心內澄、凝心入定、如是之流、皆是造作。是爾如今與麼聽法底人、作麼生擬修他證他莊嚴他。渠且不是修底物、不是莊嚴得底物。若敎他莊嚴、一切物即莊嚴得。爾且莫錯。道流、爾取這一般老師口裏語、爲是眞道、是善知識不思議、我是凡夫心、不敢測度他老宿。瞎屡生、爾一生祇作這箇見解、辜負這一雙眼。冷噤噤地、如凍凌上驢駒相似。我不敢毀善知識、怕生口業。道流、夫大善知識、始敢毀佛毀祖、是非天下、排斥三藏敎、罵辱諸小兒、向逆順中覓人。所以我於十二年中、求一箇業性、知芥子許不可得。若似新婦子禪師、便即怕趁出院、不與飯喫、不安不樂。自古先輩、到處人不信、被遞出、始知是貴。若到處人盡肯、堪作什麼。所以師子一吼、野干腦裂。道流、諸方說、有道可修、有法可證。爾說證何法、修何道。爾今用處、欠少什麼物、修補何處。後生小阿師不會、便即信這般野狐精魅、許他說事、繋縛人、言道理行相應、護惜三業、始得成佛。如此說者、如春細雨。古人云、路逢達道人、第一莫向道。所以言、若人修道道不行、萬般邪境競頭生。智劍出來無一物、明頭未顯暗頭明。所以古人云、平常心是道。大德、覓什麼物。現今目前聽法無依道人、歷歷地分明、未曾欠少。爾若欲得與祖佛不別、但如是見、不用疑誤。爾心心不異、名之活祖。心若有異、則性相別。心不異故、即性相不別。
Someone
asked, “What about the ‘Land of the Three Eyes’?”
The
master said, “When you and I together enter the Land of Pure Mystery we
put on the robe of purity and preach as the dharmakāya buddha; when we
enter the Land of Nondifferentiation we put on the robe of nondifferentiation
and preach as the saṃbhogakāya
buddha; when we enter the Land of Emancipation we put on the robe of brightness
and preach as the nirmāṇakāya buddha. These Lands of the Three Eyes are all
dependent transformations.
“According
to the masters of the sutras and śāstras, the dharmakāya is
regarded as basic substance and the saṃbhogakāya and nirmāṇakāya as
function. From my point of view the dharmakāya cannot expound the dharma.
Therefore a man of old said, ‘The [buddha-]bodies are posited depending
upon meaning; the [buddha-]lands are postulated in keeping with substance.’
So we clearly know that the dharma-nature body and dharma-nature land are
fabricated things, based on dependent understanding. Empty fists and yellow
leaves used to fool a child! Spiked gorse seeds! Horned water chestnuts! What
kind of juice are you looking for in such dried-up bones!
“Outside
mind there’s no dharma, nor is there anything to be gained within it.
What are you seeking? Everywhere you say, ‘There’s something to
practice, something to obtain.’ Make no mistake! Even if there were
something to be gained by practice, it would be nothing but birth-and-death
karma. You say, ‘The six pāramitās and the ten thousand
[virtuous] actions are all to be practiced.’ As I see it, all this is
just making karma. Seeking buddha and seeking dharma are only making
hell-karma. Seeking bodhisattvahood is also making karma; reading the sutras
and studying the teachings are also making karma. Buddhas and patriarchs are
people with nothing to do.Therefore, [for them] activity and the defiling
passions and also nonactivity and passionlessness are ‘pure’ karma.
“There
are a bunch of blind shavepates who, having stuffed themselves with food, sit
down to meditate and practice contemplation. Arresting the flow of thought they
don’t let it rise; they hate noise and seek stillness. This is the method
of the heretics. A patriarch said, ‘If you stop the mind to look at
stillness, arouse the mind to illumine outside, control the mind to clarify
inside, concentrate the mind to enter samādhi—all such [practices]
as these are artificial striving.’
“This
very you, the man who right now is thus listening to my discourse, how is he to
be cultivated, to be enlightened, to be adorned? He is not one to be
cultivated, he is not one to be adorned. But if you let him do the adorning,
then everything would be adorned. Don’t be mistaken!
“Followers
of the Way, you seize upon words from the mouths of those old masters and take
them to be the true Way. You think, ‘These good teachers are wonderful,
and I, simple-minded fellow that I am, don’t dare measure such old
worthies.’ Blind idiots! You go through your entire life holding such
views, betraying your own two eyes. Trembling with fright, like donkeys on an
icy path, [you say to yourselves,] ‘I don’t dare disparage these
good teachers for fear of making karma with my mouth!’
“Followers
of the Way, it is only a great teacher who dares to disparage the buddhas,
dares to disparage the patriarchs, to determine the right and the wrong of the
world, to reject the teachings of the Tripiṭaka, to revile all infantile fellows,
and to look for a Person amidst fortunate and unfortunate circumstances.“Therefore,
when I look back over the past twelve years for a single thing having the nature
of karma, I can’t find anything even the size of a mustard seed. The Chan
master who is like a new bride will fear lest he be thrown out of his temple,
be given no food to eat, and have no contentment and ease. From olden days our
predecessors never had people anywhere who believed in them. Only after they
had been driven out was their worth recognized. If they had been fully accepted
by people everywhere, what would they have been good for? Therefore it is said,
‘The lion’s single roar splits the jackals’ skulls.’
“Followers
of the Way, people everywhere say that there is a Way to be practiced, a dharma
to be confirmed. Tell me, what dharma will you confirm, what Way will you
practice? What is lacking in your present activity? What still needs to be patched
up?
“The
immature young monk, not understanding this, believes in these fox-spirits and
lets them speak the kind of nonsense that binds other people, nonsense such as,
‘Only by harmonizing the principle and practice and by guarding [against]
the three karmas can buddhahood be attained.’ People who talk like this
are as common as spring showers.
“A
man of old said:
If
on the road you meet a man who has mastered the Way,
Above
all do not speak of the Way.
Therefore
it is said:
When
a man tries to practice the Way, the Way does not function,
And
ten thousand evil circumstances vie in raising their heads.
But
when the sword of wisdom fl ashes forth, nothing remains;
Before
brightness is manifest, darkness is bright.
For
that reason a man of old said, ‘Ordinary mind is the Way.’
“Virtuous
monks, what are you looking for? [You] nondependent people of the Way who
listen to my discourse right now before my eyes, [you are] bright and clear and
have never lacked anything. If you want to be no different from the patriarch-buddha,
just see things this way. There’s no need to waver.
“Your
minds and Mind do not differ—this is called [your] living patriarch. If
mind differs, its essence will differ from its manifestations. Since mind does
not differ, its essence and its manifestations do not differ.”
18問、如何是心心不異處。師云、爾擬問、早異了也、性相各分。道流、莫錯。世出世諸法、皆無自性、亦無生性。但有空名、名字亦空。爾祇麼認他閑名爲實。大錯了也。設有、皆是依變之境。有箇菩提依、涅槃依、解脫依、三身依、境智依、菩薩依、佛依。爾向依變國土中、覓什麼物。乃至三乘十二分敎、皆是拭不淨故紙。佛是幻化身、祖是老比丘。爾還是娘生已否。爾若求佛、即被佛魔攝。爾若求祖、即被祖魔縛。爾若有求皆苦。不如無事。有一般禿比丘、向學人道、佛是究竟、於三大阿僧祇劫、修行果滿、方始成道。道流、爾若道佛是究竟、緣什麼八十年後、向拘尸羅城、雙林樹間、側臥而死去。佛今何在。明知與我生死不別。爾言、三十二相八十種好是佛。轉輪聖王應是如來。明知是幻化。古人云、如來擧身相、爲順世間情。恐人生斷見、權且立虛名。假言三十二、八十也空聲。有身非覺體、無相乃眞形。爾道、佛有六通、是不可思議。一切諸天、神仙、阿修羅、大力鬼、亦有神通。應是佛否。道流、莫錯。祇如阿修羅、與天帝釋戰、戰敗領八萬四千眷屬、入藕絲孔中藏。莫是聖否。如山僧所擧、皆是業通依通。夫如佛六通者、不然。入色界不被色惑、入聲界不被聲惑、入香界不被香惑、入味界不被味惑、入觸界不被觸惑、入法界不被法惑。所以達六種色聲香味觸法皆是空相、不能繋縛此無依道人。雖是五蘊漏質、便是地行神通。道流、眞佛無形、眞法無相。爾祇麼幻化上頭、作模作樣。設求得者、皆是野狐精魅、並不是眞佛、是外道見解。夫如眞學道人、並不取佛、不取菩薩羅漢、不取三界殊勝。迥無獨脫、不與物拘。乾坤倒覆、我更不疑。十方諸佛現前、爲一念心喜、三塗地獄頓現、無一念心怖。緣何如此。我見諸法空相、變即有、不變即無。三界唯心、萬法唯識。所以夢幻空花、何勞把捉。唯有道流、目前現今聽法底人、入火不燒、入水不溺、入三塗地獄、如遊園觀、入餓鬼畜生、而不受報。緣何如此。無嫌底法。爾若愛聖憎凡、生死海裏沈浮。煩惱由心故有、無心煩惱何拘。不勞分別取相、自然得道須臾。爾擬傍家波波地學得、於三祇劫中、終歸生死。不如無事、向叢林中、床角頭交腳坐。道流、如諸方有學人來、主客相見了、便有一句子語、辨前頭善知識。被學人拈出箇機權語路、向善知識口角頭攛過、看爾識不識。爾若識得是境、把得便抛向坑子裏。學人便即尋常、然後便索善知識語。依前奪之。學人云、上智哉、是大善知識。即云、爾大不識好惡。如善知識、把出箇境塊子、向學人面前弄。前人辨得、下下作主、不受境惑。善知識便即現半身、學人便喝。善知識又入一切差別語路中擺撲。學人云、不識好惡老禿奴。善知識歎曰、眞正道流。如諸方善知識、不辨邪正。學人來問、菩提涅槃、三身境智、瞎老師便與他解說。被他學人罵著、便把棒打他、言無禮度。自是爾善知識無眼、不得嗔他。有一般不識好惡禿奴、即指東劃西、好晴好雨、好燈籠露柱。爾看、眉毛有幾莖。這箇具機緣。學人不會、便即心狂。如是之流、總是野狐精魅魍魎。被他好學人嗌嗌微笑、言瞎老禿奴惑亂他天下人。道流、出家兒且要學道。祇如山僧、往日曾向毘尼中留心、亦曾於經論尋討。後方知是濟世藥、表顯之說、遂乃一時抛卻、即訪道參禪。後遇大善知識、方乃道眼分明、始識得天下老和尚、知其邪正。不是娘生下便會、還是體究練磨、一朝自省。道流、爾欲得如法見解、但莫受人惑。向裏向外、逢著便殺。逢佛殺佛、逢祖殺祖、逢羅漢殺羅漢、逢父母殺父母、逢親眷殺親眷、始得解脫、不與物拘、透脫自在。如諸方學道流、未有不依物出來底。山僧向此間、從頭打。手上出來手上打。口裏出來口裏打。眼裏出來眼裏打。未有一箇獨脫出來底。皆是上他古人閑機境。山僧無一法與人、祇是治病解縛。爾諸方道流、試不依物出來、我要共爾商量。十年五歳、並無一人。皆是依草附葉、竹木精靈、野狐精魅、向一切糞塊上亂咬。瞎漢、枉消他十方信施、道我是出家兒、作如是見解。向爾道、無佛無法、無修無證。祇與麼傍家擬求什麼物。瞎漢、頭上安頭。是爾欠少什麼。道流、是爾目前用底、與祖佛不別。祇麼不信、便向外求。莫錯。向外無法、內亦不可得。爾取山僧口裏語、不如休歇無事去。已起者莫續、未起者不要放起、便勝爾十年行腳。約山僧見處、無如許多般、祇是平常。著衣喫飯、無事過時。爾諸方來者、皆是有心求佛求法、求解脫、求出離三界。癡人、爾要出三界、什麼處去。佛祖是賞繋底名句。爾欲識三界麼。不離爾今聽法底心地。爾一念心貪是欲界。爾一念心瞋是色界。爾一念心癡是無色界、是爾屋裏家具子。三界不自道、我是三界。還是道流、目前靈靈地照燭萬般、酌度世界底人、與三界安名。大德、四大色身是無常。乃至脾胃肝膽、髪毛爪齒、唯見諸法空相。爾一念心歇得處、喚作菩提樹。爾一念心不能歇得處、喚作無明樹。無明無住處、無明無始終。爾若念念心歇不得、便上他無明樹、便入六道四生、披毛戴角。爾若歇得、便是淸淨身界。爾一念不生、便是上菩提樹、三界神通變化、意生化身、法喜禪悅、身光自照。思衣羅綺千重、思食百味具足、更無橫病。菩提無住處、是故無得者。道流、大丈夫漢、更疑箇什麼。目前用處、更是阿誰。把得便用、莫著名字、號爲玄旨。與麼見得、勿嫌底法。古人云、心隨萬境轉、轉處實能幽。隨流認得性、無喜亦無憂。道流、如禪宗見解、死活循然。參學之人、大須子細。如主客相見、便有言論往來。或應物現形、或全體作用、或把機權喜怒、或現半身、或乘師子、或乘象王。如有眞正學人、便喝先拈出一箇膠盆子。善知識不辨是境、便上他境上、作模作樣。學人便喝。前人不肯放。此是膏肓之病、不堪醫。喚作客看主。或是善知識不拈出物、隨學人問處即奪。學人被奪、抵死不放。此是主看客。或有學人、應一箇淸淨境、出善知識前。善知識辨得是境、把得抛向坑裏。學人言、大好善知識。即云、咄哉、不識好惡。學人便禮拜。此喚作主看主。或有學人、披枷帶鎖、出善知識前。善知識更與安一重枷鎖。學人歡喜、彼此不辨。呼爲客看客。大德、山僧如是所擧、皆是辨魔揀異、知其邪正。道流、寔情大難、佛法幽玄、解得可可地。山僧竟日與他說破、學者總不在意。千遍萬遍、腳底踏過、黑沒焌地、無一箇形段、歷歷孤明。學人信不及、便向名句上生解。年登半百、祇管傍家負死屍行、檐卻檐子天下走。索草鞋錢有日在。大德、山僧說向外無法、學人不會、便即向裏作解、便即倚壁坐、舌拄上齶、湛然不動、取此爲是祖門佛法也。大錯。是爾若取不動淸淨境爲是、爾即認他無明爲郎主。古人云、湛湛黑暗深坑、寔可怖畏。此之是也。爾若認他動者是、一切草木皆解動、應可是道也。所以動者是風大、不動者是地大。動與不動、倶無自性。爾若向動處捉他、他向不動處立。爾若向不動處捉他、他向動處立。譬如潜泉魚、鼓波而自躍。大德、動與不動、是二種境。還是無依道人、用動用不動。如諸方學人來、山僧此間、作三種根器斷。如中下根器來、我便奪其境、而不除其法。或中上根器來、我便境法倶奪。如上上根器來、我便境法人倶不奪。如有出格見解人來、山僧此間、便全體作用、不歷根器。大德、到這裏、學人著力處不通風、石火電光即過了也。學人若眼定動、即沒交涉。擬心即差、動念即乖。有人解者、不離目前。大德、爾檐鉢嚢屎檐子、傍家走求佛求法。即今與麼馳求底、爾還識渠麼。活撥撥地、祇是勿根株。擁不聚、撥不散。求著即轉遠、不求還在目前、靈音屬耳。若人不信、徒勞百年。道流、一刹那間、便入華藏世界、入毘盧遮那國土、入解脫國土、入神通國土、入淸淨國土、入法界、入穢入淨、入凡入聖、入餓鬼畜生、處處討覓尋、皆不見有生有死、唯有空名。幻化空花、不勞把捉、得失是非、一時放卻。道流、山僧佛法、的的相承、從麻谷和尚、丹霞和尚、道一和尚、盧山拽石頭和尚、一路行遍天下。無人信得、盡皆起謗。如道一和尚用處、純一無雜、學人三百五百、盡皆不見他意。如盧山和尚、自在眞正、順逆用處、學人不測涯際、悉皆忙然。如丹霞和尚、翫珠隱顯、學人來者、皆悉被罵。如麻谷用處、苦如黃檗、近皆不得。如石鞏用處、向箭頭上覓人、來者皆懼。如山僧今日用處、眞正成壞、翫弄神變、入一切境、隨處無事、境不能換。但有來求者、我即便出看渠。渠不識我、我便著數般衣、學人生解、一向入我言句。苦哉、瞎禿子無眼人、把我著底衣、認青黃赤白。我脫卻入淸淨境中、學人一見、便生忻欲。我又脫卻、學人失心、忙然狂走、言我無衣。我即向渠道、爾識我著衣底人否。忽爾回頭、認我了也。大德、爾莫認衣。衣不能動、人能著衣。有箇淸淨衣、有箇無生衣、菩提衣、涅槃衣、有祖衣、有佛衣。大德、但有聲名文句、皆悉是衣變。從臍輪氣海中鼓激、牙齒敲磕、成其句義。明知是幻化。大德、外發聲語業、內表心所法。以思有念、皆悉是衣。爾祇麼認他著底衣爲寔解。縱經塵劫、祇是衣通。三界循還、輪回生死。不如無事。相逢不相識、共語不知名。今時學人不得、蓋爲認名字爲解。大策子上、抄死老漢語、三重五重複子裹、不敎人見、道是玄旨、以爲保重。大錯。瞎屡生、爾向枯骨上、覓什麼汁。有一般不識好惡、向敎中取意度商量、成於句義。如把屎塊子、向口裏含了、吐過與別人。猶如俗人打傳口令相似、一生虛過。也道我出家、被他問著佛法、便即杜口無詞、眼似漆突、口如楄檐。如此之類、逢彌勒出世、移置他方世界、寄地獄受苦。大德、爾波波地往諸方、覓什麼物、踏爾腳板闊。無佛可求、無道可成、無法可得。外求有相佛、與汝不相似。欲識汝本心、非合亦非離。道流、眞佛無形、眞道無體、眞法無相。三法混融、和合一處。辨既不得、喚作忙忙業識衆生。
Someone
asked, “What about the state where ‘mind and Mind do not differ’?”
The
master said, “The instant you ask the question they are already separate,
and essense differs from its manifestations.
“Followers
of the Way, make no mistake! All the dharmas of this world and of the worlds
beyond are without self-nature. Also, they are without produced nature. They
are just empty names, and these names are also empty. All you are doing is
taking these worthless names to be real. That’s all wrong! Even if they
do exist, they are nothing but states of dependent transformation, such as the
dependent transformations of bodhi, nirvana, emancipation, the threefold body,
the [objective] surroundings and the [subjective] mind, bodhisattvahood, and
buddhahood. What are you looking for in these lands of dependent
transformations! All of these, up to and including the Three Vehicles’
twelve divisions of teachings, are just so much waste paper to wipe off privy
filth. The Buddha is just a phantom body, the patriarchs just old monks.
“But
you, weren’t you born of a mother? If you seek the Buddha, you’ll
be held in the grip of Buddha-Māra. If you seek the patriarchs, you’ll
be bound by the ropes of Patriarch-Māra. If you engage in any seeking, it
will all be pain. Much better to do nothing.
“There
are a bunch of shavepate monks who say to students, ‘The Buddha is the
Ultimate; he attained buddhahood only after he came to the fruition of
practices carried on through three great asaṃkhyeya kalpas.’ Followers of the
Way, if you say that the Buddha is the ultimate, how is it that after eighty
years of life the Buddha lay down on his side between the twin śāla
trees at Kuśinagara and died? Where is the Buddha now? We clearly know
that his birth and death were not different from ours.
“You
say, ‘The thirty-two [primary] features and the eighty [secondary]
features indicate a buddha.’ Then must a cakravartin also be considered a
tathāgata? We clearly know that these features are illusory
transformations. A man of old said:
The
Tathāgata’s various bodily features
Were
assumed to conform with worldly sensibilities.
Lest
men conceive annihilist views,
He
provisionally provided unreal names.
Temporarily
we speak of the ‘thirty-two,’
The
‘eighty,’ also, are but empty sounds.
The
mortal body is not the awakened body,
Featurelessness
is the true figure.
“You
say, ‘A buddha has six supernatural powers. This is miraculous!’All
the gods, immortals, asuras, and mighty pretas also have supernatural powers—must
they be considered buddhas? Followers of the Way, make no mistake! For
instance, when Asura fought against Indra and was routed in battle he led his
entire throng, to the number of eighty-four thousand, into the tube in a fiber
of a lotus root to hide. Wasn’t he then a sage? Such supernatural powers
as these I have just mentioned are all reward powers or dependent powers.
“Those
are not the six supernatural powers of a buddha, which are entering the world
of color yet not being deluded by color; entering the world of sound yet not being
deluded by sound; entering the world of odor yet not being deluded by odor;
entering the world of taste yet not being deluded by taste; entering the world
of touch yet not being deluded by touch; entering the world of dharmas yet not
being deluded by dharmas. Therefore, when it is realized that these six—color,
sound, odor, taste, touch, and dharmas—are all empty forms, they cannot
bind the man of the Way, dependent upon nothing. Constituted though he is of
the seepage of the five skandhas, he has the supernatural power of walking upon
the earth.
“Followers
of the Way, true buddha has no figure, true dharma has no form. All you’re
doing is devising models and patterns out of phantoms. Anything you may find
through seeking will be nothing more than a wild fox-spirit; it certainly won’t
be the true buddha. It will be the understanding of a heretic.
“The
true student of the Way has nothing to do with buddhas and nothing to do with
bodhisattvas or arhats. Nor has he anything to do with the good things of the triple
world. Having transcended these, solitary and free, he is not bound by things.
Heaven and earth could turn upside down and he wouldn’t have a doubt; the
buddhas of the ten directions could appear before him and he wouldn’t
feel an instant of joy; the three hells could suddenly yawn at his feet and he
wouldn’t feel an instant of fear. Why is this so? Because, as I see it,
all dharmas are empty forms—when transformation takes place they are
existent, when transformation does not take place they are nonexistent. The
three realms are mind-only, the ten thousand dharmas are consciousness-only.
Hence,
Illusory
dreams, flowers in the sky,
Why
trouble to grasp at them!
“Only
you, the follower of the Way right now before my eyes listening to my
discourse, [only you] enter fire and are not burned, enter water and are not
drowned, enter the three hells as though strolling in a pleasure garden, enter
the realms of the hungry ghosts and the beasts without suffering their fate.
How can this be? There are no dharmas to be disliked.
If
you love the sacred and hate the secular
You’ll
fl oat and sink in the birth-and-death sea.
The
passions exist dependent on mind;
Have
no-mind, and how can they bind you?
Without
troubling to discriminate or cling to forms
You’ll
attain the Way naturally in a moment of time.
“But if you try to get understanding by
hurrying down this byway and that, you’ll still be in the round of
samsara after three asakhyeya kalpas. Better take your ease sitting
cross-legged on a meditation platform in the monastery.
“Followers
of the Way, students come from every quarter, and after host and guest have met
the student will test the teacher with a phrase. Some tricky words are chosen
by the student and flung at the corner of the teacher’s mouth. ‘Let’s
see if you can understand this!’ he says. If you teachers recognize it as
a device, you seize it and throw it into a pit. Whereupon the student quiets
down and asks the teacher to say something. As before, the teacher robs him of
his attitude. The student says, ‘What superlative wisdom! A great
teacher, indeed!’ To which you teachers instantly retort, ‘You can’t
even tell good from bad.’
“Or
a teacher may take out a bunch of stuff and play with it in front of a student.
The latter, seeing through this, makes himself master in every case and doesn’t
fall for the humbug. Now the teacher reveals half of his body, whereupon the
student gives a shout. Again the teacher tries to rattle the student by using
all sorts of expressions having to do with differentiation. ‘You can’t
tell good from bad, you old shavepate!’ exclaims the student. And the
teacher, with a sigh of admiration, says, ‘Ah, a true follower of the
Way!’
“There
are teachers all around who can’t distinguish the false from the true.
When students come asking about bodhi, nirvana, the trikāya, or the
[objective] surroundings and the [subjective] mind, the blind old teachers
immediately start explaining to them. When they’re railed at by the
students they grab their sticks and hit them, [shouting,] ‘What insolent
talk!’ Obviously you teachers yourselves are without an eye so you’ve
no right to get angry with them.
“And
then there’re a bunch of shavepates who, not knowing good from bad, point
to the east and point to the west, delight in fair weather, delight in rain,
and delight in lanterns and pillars. Look at them! How many hairs are left in
their eyebrows! There is a good reason for this [loss of eyebrows]. Lacking
understanding, students become infatuated with them. Such [shavepates] as these
are all wild fox-spirits and nature-goblins. Good students snicker and say, ‘Blind
old shavepates, deluding and bewitching everyone under heaven!’
“Followers
of the Way, he who is a renouncer of home must needs study the Way. Take me,
for example—I started out devoting myself to the vinaya and also delved
into the sutras and śāstras. Later, when I realized that they were
only remedies to help the world and displays of opinion, I threw them all away,
and, searching for the Way, I practiced meditation. Still later I met a great
teacher. Then, indeed, my dharma-eye became clear and for the first time I was
able to understand all the old teachers of the world and to tell the true from
the false. It is not that I understood from the moment I was born of my mother,
but that, after exhaustive investigation and grinding practice, in one instant
I knew for myself.
“Followers
of the Way, if you want insight into dharma as it is, just don’t be taken
in by the deluded views of others. Whatever you encounter, either within or
without, slay it at once. On meeting a buddha slay the buddha, on meeting a
patriarch slay the patriarch, on meeting an arhat slay the arhat, on meeting
your parents slay your parents, on meeting your kinsman slay your kinsman, and
you attain emancipation. By not cleaving to things, you freely pass through.
“Among
all the students from every quarter who are followers of the Way, none has yet
come before me without being dependent on something. Here I hit them right from
the start. If they come forth using their hands, I hit them on the hands; if
they come forth using their mouths, I hit them on the mouth; if they come forth
using their eyes, I hit them on the eyes. Not one has yet come before me in
solitary freedom. All are clambering after the worthless contrivances of the
men of old. As for myself, I haven’t a single dharma to give to people.
All I can do is to cure illnesses and untie bonds. You followers of the Way
from every quarter, try coming before me without being dependent upon things. I
would confer with you.
“Five
years, nay ten years, have passed, but as yet not one person [has appeared].
All have been [ghosts] dependent upon grasses or attached to leaves, souls of
bamboos and trees, wild fox-spirits. They recklessly gnaw on all kinds of dung
clods. Blind fools! Wastefully squandering the alms given them by believers
everywhere and saying,‘I am a renouncer of home,’ all the while
holding such views as these!
“I
say to you there is no buddha, no dharma, nothing to practice, nothing to
enlighten to. Just what are you seeking in the highways and byways? Blind men!
You’re putting a head on top of the one you already have. What do you
yourselves lack? Followers of the Way, your own present activities do not
differ from those of the patriarch-buddhas. You just don’t believe this
and keep on seeking outside. Make no mistake! Outside there is no dharma;
inside, there is nothing to be obtained. Better than grasp at the words from my
mouth, take it easy and do nothing. Don’t continue [thoughts] that have
already arisen and don’t let those that haven’t yet arisen be
aroused. Just this will be worth far more to you than a ten years’
pilgrimage.
“As
I see it, there isn’t so much to do. Just be ordinary—put on your
clothes, eat your food, and pass the time doing nothing. You who come here from
here and there all have a mind to seek buddha, to seek dharma, to seek
emancipation, to seek escape from the three realms. Foolish fellows! When you’ve
left the three realms where would you go?
“‘Buddha’
and ‘patriarch’ are only names of praise-bondage. Do you want to
know the three realms? They are not separate from the mind-ground of you who
right now are listening to my discourse. Your single covetous thought is the
realm of desire; your single angry thought is the realm of form; your single
delusive thought is the realm of formlessness. These are the furnishings within
your own house. The three realms do not of themselves proclaim, ‘We are
the three realms!’ But you, followers of the Way, right now vividly
illumining all things and taking the measure of the world, you give the names
to the three realms.
“Virtuous
monks, the physical body [composed] of the four great elements is impermanent;
[every part of it,] including the spleen, stomach, liver, and gallbladder, the
hair, nails, and teeth as well, only proves that all dharmas are empty
appearances. The place where your one thought comes to rest is called the bodhi
tree; the place where your one thought cannot come to rest is called the avidyā
tree. Avidyā has no dwelling place; avidyā has no beginning
and
no end. If your successive thoughts cannot come to rest, you go up the avidyā
tree; you enter the six paths of existence and the four modes of birth, wear
fur on your body and horns on your head. If your successive thoughts can come
to rest, then this [very body] is the pure body.
“When
not a single thought arises in your mind, then you go up the Bodhi tree: you
supernaturally transform yourself in the three realms and change your bodily
form at will. You rejoice in the dharma and delight in samādhi, and the
radiance of your body shines forth of itself. At the thought of garments a
thousand lengths of brocade are at hand; at the thought of food a hundred
delicacies are before you; furthermore, you never suffer unusual illness. ‘Bodhi
has no dwelling place, therefore it is not attainable.’
“Followers
of the Way, what more is there for the resolute fellow to doubt? The activity
going on right now—whose is it? Grasp and use, but never name—this
is called the ‘mysterious principle.’ Come to such understanding as
this, and there is nothing to be disliked. A man of old said:
[My]
mind turns in accordance with the myriad circumstances,
And
this turning, in truth, is most mysterious.
Recognizing
[my] nature while according with the flow,
[I]
have no more joy nor any sorrow.
“Followers
of the Way, the view of the Chan school is that the sequence of death and life
is orderly. The student of Chan must examine [this] most carefully.
“When
host and guest meet they vie with each other in discussion. At times, in
response to something, they may manifest a form; at times they may act with
their whole body; or they may use tricks or devices to appear joyful or angry;
or they may reveal half of the body; or again they may ride upon a lion or mount
a lordly elephant.
“A
true student gives a shout, and to start with holds out a sticky lacquer tray.
The teacher, not discerning that this is an objective circumstance, goes after
it and performs a lot of antics with it. The student again shouts but still the
teacher is unwilling to let go. This is a disease of the vitals that no
doctoring can cure; it is called ‘the guest examines the host.’
“Sometimes
a teacher will offer nothing, but, the moment a student asks a question, grabs
it away. The student, his question having been taken from him, resists to the
death and will not let go. This is called ‘the host examines the guest.’
“Sometimes
a student comes forth before a teacher in conformity with a state of purity.
The teacher, discerning that this is an objective circumstance, seizes it and
flings it into a pit. ‘What an excellent teacher!’ exclaims the
student, and the teacher replies, ‘Bah! You can’t tell good from
bad!’ Thereupon the student makes a deep bow: this is called ‘the
host examines the host.’
“Or
again, a student will appear before a teacher wearing a cangue and bound with
chains. The teacher fastens on still more chains and cangues for him. The
student is so delighted that he can’t tell what is what; this is called‘the
guest examines the guest.’
“Virtuous
monks, all the examples I have brought before you serve to distinguish demons
and point out heretics, thus making it possible for you to know what is
erroneous and what is correct.
“Followers
of the Way, true sincerity is extremely difficult to attain, and the
buddhadharma is deep and mysterious, yet a goodly measure of understanding can
be acquired. I explain it exhaustively all day long, but you students give not
the slightest heed. Though a thousand times, nay ten thousand times, you tread it
underfoot, you are still in utter darkness. It is without a vestige of form,
yet is clear in its solitary shining.
“Because
your faith [in yourselves] is insufficient, you students turn to words and
phrases and base your understanding upon them. Until you’ve reached the
half-century mark you continue dragging [your] dead bodies up blind alleys and
running about the world bearing your heavy load. The day will come when you’ll
have to pay up for the straw sandals you’ve worn out.
“Virtuous
monks, when I state that there are no dharmas outside, the student does not
comprehend and immediately tries to find understanding within. He sits down
cross-legged with his back against a wall, his tongue glued to the roof of his
mouth, completely still and motionless. This he takes to be the buddhadharma of
the patriarchal school. That’s all wrong.
“If
you take the state of motionlessness and purity to be correct, then you are
recognizing the darkness [of avidyā] as master. This is what a man of old
meant when he said, ‘Fearful indeed is the bottomless black pit!’
If on the other hand you recognize motion to be correct, since all plants and
trees can move, must they then be the Way?
“Thus
‘motion is the wind element; motionlessness is the earth element.’Motion
and motionlessness both are without self-nature. If you try to seize it within
motion, it takes a position within motionlessness. If you try to seize it
within motionlessness, it takes a position within motion.
Like
a fish hidden in a pool,
Smacking
the waves as it leaps [from the water].
Virtuous
monks, motion and motionlessness are merely two kinds of states; it is the
nondependent Man of the Way who utilizes motion and utilizes motionlessness.
“As
for the students who come from every quarter, I myself divide them into three
categories according to their inherent capacities. If one of less than average
capacity comes, I snatch away his state but do not take away his dharma. If one
of better than average capacity comes, I snatch away both his state and dharma.
If one of superior capacity comes, I snatch away neither his state, his dharma,
nor himself.But should a man of extraordinary understanding come, I would act
with my whole body and not place him in any category. Virtuous monks, when a
student has reached this point, his manifest power is impenetrable to any wind
and swifter than a spark from flint or a fl ash of lightning.
“The
moment a student blinks his eyes he’s already way off . The moment he
applies his mind, he’s already differed. The moment he arouses a thought,
he’s already deviated. But for the man who understands, it’s always
right here before his eyes.
“Virtuous
monks, you carry your bowl-bag and lug your dung-sack, rushing up blind alleys
in search of buddha and in search of dharma. Do you know who it is who right
now is running around searching this way? He is brisk and lively, with no roots
at all. Though you [try to] embrace him, you cannot gather him in; though you
[try to] drive him away, you cannot shake
him
off . If you seek him he retreats farther and farther away; if you don’t
seek him, then he’s right there before your eyes, his wondrous voice
resounding in your ears. If you have no faith [in this], you’ll waste
your entire life.
“Followers
of the Way, in an instant you enter the Lotus World, the Land of Vairocana, the
Land of Emancipation, the Land of Supernatural Powers, the Land of Purity, and
the dharma realm; you enter the dirty and the pure, the secular and the sacred,
the realm of hungry ghosts and the realm of beasts. Yet however far and wide
you may search, nowhere will you see any birth or death; there will only be
empty names.
Illusory
transformations, flowers in the sky—
Don’t
trouble to grasp at them.
Gain
and loss, right and wrong—
Away
with them once and for all!
“Followers
of the Way, my buddhadharma is that of the correct transmission, a transmission
that has continued in a single line through the masters Mayu, Danxia, Daoyi,
Lushan, and Shigong, and has spread abroad over all the world. Yet no one has
faith in it and everyone heaps slander on it.
“Venerable
Daoyi’s activity was pure and simple; not one of his three to five
hundred students could discern what he meant. Venerable Lushan was free and
true; whether conforming or opposing, his actions were unfathomable to his
students—they were all dumbfounded. Venerable Danxia played with the
pearl, concealing and revealing it; every single student who camewas reviled by
him. As for Venerable Mayu, his activity was as bitter as the huangbo tree; no
one could approach him. Venerable Shigong’s activity was to search for a
man with the point of his arrow; all who came before him were struck with fear.
“With
respect to my own activity today—true creation and destruction—I
play with miraculous transformations, enter into all kinds of circumstances,
yet nowhere have I anything to do. Circumstances cannot change me.
“Whenever
someone comes here seeking I immediately go out and look at him. He doesn’t
recognize me. Thereupon I don various kinds of robes. The student, assigning
some meaning to this, straightway falls into words and phrases. What a pity
that the blind shavepate, a man without the eye [to see], grasps at the robe I’m
wearing and declares it to be blue or yellow, red or white! When I remove the robe
and enter the state of purity, the student takes one look and is immediately
filled with delight and longing. Then, when I cast off everything, the student
is stunned and, running about in wild confusion,cries, ‘You have no robe!’
If I say, ‘Do you know me, the man who wears these robes?’ he’ll
abruptly turn his head around and recognize me through and through.
“Virtuous
monks, don’t acknowledge robes. Robes cannot move of themselves, but
people can put them on. There is the robe of purity, the robe of birthlessness,
the robe of bodhi, the robe of nirvana, the patriarch-robe, and the
buddha-robe. Virtuous monks, these spoken words and written phrases are all
nothing but changes of robes.
“Churning
up the sea of breath in your belly and clacking your teeth together, you devise
wordy interpretations. So it’s clear that these are only illusory
transformations. Virtuous monks:
Acts
of speech are displayed without,
Mental
activities are manifested within.
Because
of mental activities thoughts arise, but these are all just robes.
“If
all you do is acknowledge as real the robes that are merely put on, even after
the passage of kalpas numerous as dust you’ll still have nothing but an
understanding of robes, and will continue going round and round in the three
realms, transmigrating through birth-and-death. Much better do nothing.
I
meet [him] yet do not recognize [him],
I
speak with [him] yet do not know his name.
“Students
of today get nowhere because they base their understanding upon the
acknowledgment of names. They inscribe the words of some dead old guy in a
great big notebook, wrap it up in four or five squares of cloth, and won’t
let anyone look at it. ‘This is the Mysterious Principle,’ they
aver, and safeguard it with care. That’s all wrong. Blind idiots! What
kind of juice are you looking for in such dried-up bones!
“Then
there’re a bunch of guys who, not knowing good from bad, guess around and
speculate about the scriptures and make wordy interpretations of them. They’re
like men who, having held dung clods in their mouths, spit them out for the
other people. They’re like peasants engaged in playing a passing-the-word
game. They spend their entire lifetime in vain, yet declare ‘We are
renouncers of home!’ Questioned about buddhadharma, they just shut their
mouths, bereft of words. Their eyes are as vacant as black chimney holes and
their mouths sag like [loaded] carrying-poles. Such men as these, even though
they were to be present when Maitreya appears in this world, would be banished
to another region and there, lodged in hell, suffer its torments.
“Virtuous
monks, what are you seeking as you go around hither and yon, walking until the
soles of your feet are fl at? There is no buddha to seek, no Way to complete,
no dharma to attain.
If
you seek outside for a buddha having form,
You
won’t find him to resemble you;
If
you know your own original mind,
It’s
neither united with nor apart from [him].
“Followers
of the Way, true buddha has no shape, true Way has no substance, true dharma
has no form; these three are fused together harmoniously united into one. Just
because you can’t understand this, you’re called‘sentient
beings with unlimited karmic consciousness’.”
19問、如何是眞佛眞法眞道、乞垂開示。師云、佛者心淸淨是。法者心光明是。道者處處無礙淨光是。三即一、皆是空名、而無寔有。如眞正學道人、念念心不間斷。自達磨大師從西土來、祇是覓箇不受人惑底人。後遇二祖、一言便了、始知從前虛用功夫。山僧今日見處、與祖佛不別。若第一句中得、與祖佛爲師。若第二句中得、與人天爲師。若第三句中得、自救不了。
Someone
asked, “What about the true buddha, the true dharma, and the true Way? We
beg of you to disclose this for us.”
The
master said, “Buddha is the mind’s purity; dharma is the mind’s
radiance; the Way is the pure light pervading everywhere without hindrance.
The
three are one, yet all are empty names and have no real existence. With the
true man of the Way, from moment to moment mind is not interrupted.
“From
the time the great teacher Bodhidharma came from the Western Land, he just
sought a man who would not accept the deluded views of others. Later, he met
the Second Patriarch, who, having understood at [Bodhidharma’s] one word,
for the first time realized that hitherto he had been futilely engaged in
striving.
“As
for my understanding today, it’s no different from that of the
patriarchbuddhas.
He
who attains at the First Statement becomes the teacher of patriarch-buddhas; he
who attains at the Second Statement becomes the teacher of men and gods; he who
attains at the Third Statement cannot save even himself.”
20問、如何是西來意。師云、若有意、自救不了。云、既無意、云何二祖得法。師云、得者是不得。云、既若不得、云何是不得底意。師云、爲爾向一切處馳求心不能歇。所以祖師言、咄哉丈夫、將頭覓頭。爾言下便自回光返照、更不別求、知身心與祖佛不別、當下無事、方名得法。大德、山僧今時、事不獲已、話度說出許多不才淨。爾且莫錯。據我見處、寔無許多般道理。要用便用、不用便休。祇如諸方說六度萬行、以爲佛法、我道、是莊嚴門佛事門、非是佛法。乃至持齋持戒、擎油不澗、道眼不明、盡須抵債、索飯錢有日在。何故如此。入道不通理、復身還信施。長者八十一、其樹不生耳。乃至孤峯獨宿、一食卯齋、長坐不臥、六時行道、皆是造業底人。乃至頭目髓腦、國城妻子、象馬七珍、盡皆捨施、如是等見、皆是苦身心故、還招苦果。不如無事、純一無雜。乃至十地滿心菩薩、皆求此道流蹤跡、了不可得。所以諸天歡喜、地神捧足、十方諸佛、無不稱歎。緣何如此。爲今聽法道人、用處無蹤跡。
Someone
asked, “What was the purpose of the [Patriarch’s] coming from the
West?”
The
master said, “If he had had a purpose he couldn’t have saved even
himself.”
Someone
asked, “Since he had no purpose, how did the Second Patriarch obtain the
dharma?”
The
master said, “‘To obtain’ is to not obtain.”
Someone
asked, “If it is ‘to not obtain,’ what is the meaning of ‘to
not obtain’?”
The
master said, “It is because you cannot stop your mind which runs on
seeking everywhere that a patriarch said, ‘Bah, superior men! Searching for your heads
with your heads!’ When at these words you turn your own light in upon
yourselves and never seek elsewhere, then you’ll know that your body and mind
are not different from those of the patriarch-buddhas and on the
instant
have nothing to do—this is called ‘obtaining the dharma.’
“Virtuous
monks, at present I’ve no other choice than to speak so much trash and
rubbish. Don’t be mistaken. As I see it there really aren’t so many
problems. If you want to act, act; if you don’t, don’t.
“There
are people in every quarter who assert that the ten thousand practices and the
six pāramitās constitute the buddhadharma. But I say to you that they
are merely means of adornment, expedients for carrying out the buddha’s
work; they are not buddhadharma [itself]. Even those who keep the rules
regarding food and conduct with the care of a man carrying a bowl of oil so as
not to spill a drop, if their dharma-eye is not clear they’ll have to pay
their debts, and the day will come when the cost of their food will be exacted
from them. Why is this so?
Since
he entered the Way but didn’t penetrate the Principle,
He
returned in the flesh to repay the alms he’d received.
When
the rich man reaches four score and one,
The
tree will no longer produce the fungus.
“Even
those who live alone on a solitary peak, or who eat their single meal at dawn,
sit for long periods of time without lying down, and worship buddha at the six
appointed hours of the day—all such persons are simply creating karma.
There are others who give away everything as alms—their heads and eyes,
marrow and brains, states and cities, wives and children, elephants, horses,
and the seven precious things—but all such acts only cause suffering of
body and mind and end up inviting future sorrow. It is better to have nothing
to do, better to be plain and simple.
“Even
if bodhisattvas having the completed mind of the tenth stage were to search for
traces of this follower of the Way, they could never find them. Therefore [it
is said]: ‘All the gods rejoice, the gods of earth clasp his feet in
adoration, and of all the buddhas of the ten directions, there are none who do
not praise him.’ Why is this so? Because the person of the Way who is now
listening to my discourse leaves no trace of his activity.”
21問、大通智勝佛、十劫坐道場、佛法不現前、不得成佛道。未審此意如何。乞師指示。師云、大通者、是自己於處處、達其萬法無性無相、名爲大通。智勝者、於一切處不疑、不得一法、名爲智勝。佛者心淸淨、光明透徹法界、得名爲佛。十劫坐道場者、十波羅蜜是。佛法不現前者、佛本不生、法本不滅、云何更有現前。不得成佛道者、佛不應更作佛。古人云、佛常在世間、而不染世間法。道流、爾欲得作佛、莫隨萬物。心生種種法生、心滅種種法滅。一心不生、萬法無咎。世與出世、無佛無法、亦不現前、亦不曾失。設有者、皆是名言章句、接引小兒、施設藥病、表顯名句。且名句不自名句、還是爾目前昭昭靈靈、鑒覺聞知照燭底、安一切名句。大德、造五無間業、方得解脫。
Someone
asked, “[The sutra says:]
The
Buddha of Supreme Penetration and Surpassing Wisdom
Sat
for ten kalpas in a place of practice,
But
the buddhadharma did not manifest [itself to him],
And
he did not attain the buddha-way.
I
don’t understand the meaning of this. Would the master kindly explain?”
The
master said, “‘Supreme Penetration’ means that one personally
penetrates everywhere into the naturelessness and formlessness of the ten
thousand dharmas. ‘Surpassing Wisdom’ means to have no doubts
anywhere and to not obtain a single dharma. ‘Buddha’ means pureness
of the mind whose radiance pervades the entire dharma realm. ‘Sat for ten
kalpas in a place of practice’ refers to [the practice of] the ten pāramitās.
‘The buddhadharma did not manifest’ means that buddha is in essence
birthless and dharma (dharmas) in essence unextinguished. Why should it
manifest itself! ‘He did not attain the buddha-way’: a buddha can’t
become a buddha again.
“A
man of old said, ‘Buddha is always present in the world, but is not
stained by worldly dharmas.’ Followers of the Way, if you want to become
a buddha, don’t go along with the ten thousand things.
When
mind arises, all kinds of dharmas arise;
When
mind is extinguished, all kinds of dharmas are extinguished.
When
mind does not arise,
The
ten thousand dharmas have no fault.
Neither
in this world nor beyond this world is there any buddha or dharma; they neither
reveal themselves nor are they ever lost. Even if such things existed, they
would only be words and writings for placating little children, expedient
remedies for illnesses, displays of names and phrases. Moreover, names and
phrases are not of themselves names and phrases; it is you, who right now
radiantly and vividly perceive, know, and clearly illumine [everything]—you
it is who affix all names and phrases.
“Virtuous
monks, by creating the karma of the five heinous crimes, you attain
emancipation.”
22問、如何是五無間業。師云、殺父害母、出佛身血、破和合僧、焚燒經像等、此是五無間業。云、如何是父。師云、無明是父。爾一念心、求起滅處不得、如響應空、隨處無事、名爲殺父。云、如何是母。師云、貪愛爲母。爾一念心、入欲界中、求其貪愛、唯見諸法空相、處處無著、名爲害母。云、如何是出佛身血。師云、爾向淸淨法界中、無一念心生解、便處處黑暗、是出佛身血。云、如何是破和合僧。師云、爾一念心、正達煩惱結使、如空無所依、是破和合僧。云、如何是焚燒經像。師云、見因緣空、心空、法空、一念決定斷、迥然無事、便是焚燒經像。大德、若如是達得、免被他凡聖名礙。爾一念心、祇向空拳指上生寔解、根境法中虛捏怪。自輕而退屈言、我是凡夫、他是聖人。禿屡生、有甚死急、披他師子皮、卻作野干鳴。大丈夫漢、不作丈夫氣息、自家屋裏物不肯信、祇麼向外覓、上他古人閑名句、倚陰博陽、不能特達。逢境便緣、逢塵便執、觸處惑起、自無准定。道流、莫取山僧說處。何故。說無憑據、一期間圖畫虛空、如彩畫像等喩。道流、莫將佛爲究竟。我見猶如厠孔、菩薩羅漢、盡是枷鎖、縛人底物。所以文殊仗劍、殺於瞿曇、鴦掘持刀、害於釋氏。道流、無佛可得。乃至三乘五性、圓頓敎迹、皆是一期藥病相治、並無實法。設有、皆是相似、表顯路布、文字差排、且如是說。道流、有一般禿子、便向裏許著功、擬求出世之法。錯了也。若人求佛、是人失佛。若人求道、是人失道。若人求祖、是人失祖。大德、莫錯。我且不取爾解經論、我亦不取爾國王大臣、我亦不取爾辯似懸河、我亦不取爾聰明智慧、唯要爾眞正見解。道流、設解得百本經論、不如一箇無事底阿師。爾解得、即輕蔑他人。勝負修羅、人我無明、長地獄業。如善星比丘、解十二分敎、生身陷地獄、大地不容。不如無事休歇去。飢來喫飯、睡來合眼。愚人笑我、智乃知焉。道流、莫向文字中求。心動疲勞、吸冷氣無益。不如一念緣起無生、超出三乘權學菩薩。大德、莫因循過日。山僧往日、未有見處時、黑漫漫地。光陰不可空過、腹熱心忙、奔波訪道。後還得力、始到今日、共道流如是話度。勸諸道流、莫爲衣食。看世界易過、善知識難遇。如優曇花時一現耳。爾諸方聞道有箇臨濟老漢、出來便擬問難、敎語不得。被山僧全體作用、學人空開得眼、口總動不得。懵然不知以何答我。我向伊道、龍象蹴踏、非驢所堪。爾諸處祇指胸點肋、道我解禪解道、三箇兩箇、到這裏不奈何。咄哉、爾將這箇身心、到處簸兩片皮、誑謼閭閻。喫鐵棒有日在。非出家兒、盡向阿修羅界攝。夫如至理之道、非諍論而求激揚、鏗鏘以摧外道。至於佛祖相承、更無別意。設有言敎、落在化儀三乘五性、人天因果。如圓頓之敎、又且不然。童子善財、皆不求過。大德、莫錯用心。如大海不停死屍。祇麼擔卻、擬天下走。自起見障、以礙於心。日上無雲、麗天普照。眼中無翳、空裏無花。道流、爾欲得如法、但莫生疑。展則彌綸法界、收則絲髮不立。歷歷孤明、未曾欠少。眼不見、耳不聞、喚作什麼物。古人云、說似一物則不中。爾但自家看。更有什麼。說亦無盡、各自著力。珍重。
Someone
asked, “What is the karma of the five heinous crimes?”
The
master said, “Killing the father, slaying the mother, shedding the blood
of a buddha, destroying the harmony of the sangha, and burning the scriptures
and images—this is the karma of the five heinous crimes.”
“What
is meant by ‘father’?”
The
master said, “Avidyā is the father. When the place of arising or
extinguishing of a single thought in your mind is not to be found, as with a
sound reverberating throughout space, and there is nothing anywhere for you to
do—this is called ‘killing the father’.”
“What
is meant by ‘mother’?”
The
master said, “Covetousness is the mother. When a single thought in your
mind enters the world of desire and seeks covetousness, but sees that all
dharmas are only empty forms, and [thus] has no attachment anywhere—this
is called ‘slaying the mother’.”
“What
is meant by ‘shedding the blood of a buddha’?”
The
master said, “When in the midst of the pure dharma realm you haven’t
in your mind a single reasoning thought, and [thus] pitch blackness pervades
everywhere—this is called ‘shedding the blood of a buddha’.”
“What
is meant by ‘destroying the harmony of the sangha’?”
The
master said, “When a single thought in your mind truly realizes that the
bonds and enticements of the passions are like space with nothing upon which to
depend—this is called ‘destroying the harmony of the sangha’.”
“What
is meant by ‘burning the scriptures and images’?”
The
master said, “When you see that causal relations are empty, that mind is
empty, and that dharmas are empty, and [thus] your single thought is decisively
cut off and, transcendent, you’ve nothing to do—this is called ‘burning
the scriptures and images.’
“Virtuous
monks, reach such understanding as this, and you’ll be free from the
hindrances of names [like] ‘secular’ and ‘sacred’.
“Yet
a single thought in your mind is doing nothing but Conceiving an empty fist or
a [pointing] finger to be real; Senselessly conjuring up apparitions from among
the dharmas of the sense-fields.
You
belittle yourselves and modestly withdraw, saying, ‘We are but commoners;
he is a sage.’ Bald idiots! What’s the frantic hurry to wrap
yourselves in lions’ skins while you’re yapping like jackals!
“Resolute
fellows [though you are], you do not draw the breath of the resolute. Unwilling
to believe in what you have in your own house, you do nothing but seek outside,
go clambering after the worthless sayings of the men of old, rely upon yin and
depend upon yang and are unable to achieve [by yourselves]. On meeting [outer]
circumstances, you establish relationship with them; on meeting [sense-]dusts
you cling to them; wherever you are doubts arise, and you yourselves have no
standard of judgment.
“Followers
of the Way, don’t accept what I state. Why? Statements have no proof.
They are pictures temporarily drawn in the empty sky, as in the metaphor of the
painted figures.
“Followers
of the Way, don’t take the Buddha to be the ultimate. As I see it, he is
just like a privy hole. Both bodhisattvahood and arhatship are cangues and
chains that bind one. This is why Manjuśrī tried to kill Gautama with
his sword, and why Aṅgulimāla
attempted to slay Śākyamuni with his dagger.
“Followers
of the Way, there is no buddha to be obtained. Even the doctrines [including
those] of the Three Vehicles, the five natures, and complete and immediate
enlightenment—all these are but provisional medicines for the treatment
of symptoms. In no sense do any real dharmas exist. Even if they were to exist,
they would all be nothing but imitations, publicly displayed proclamations,
arrangements of letters stated that way just for the time being.
“Followers
of the Way, there’re a bunch of shavepates who try to seek a
transcendental dharma by directing their efforts inward. A great mistake! If
you seek buddha you lose buddha, if you seek the Way you lose the Way, if you
seek the patriarchs you lose the patriarchs.
“Virtuous
monks, make no mistake. I don’t care whether you understand the sutras
and śāstras, whether you’re a king or a high minister, whether
you’re as eloquent as a rushing torrent, or whether you’re clever
or wise. I only want you to have true insight.
“Followers
of the Way, even if you should master a hundred sutras and śāstras,
you’re not as good as a teacher with nothing to do. If you do master
them, you’ll regard others with contempt. Asura-like conflict and
egotistical ignorance increase the karma that leads to hell. Such was the case
of Sunakṣātra bhikku—though
he understood the twelve divisions of the teachings, he fell alive into hell.
The great earth had no place for him. It’s better to do nothing and take
it easy.
When
hunger comes I eat my rice;
When
sleep comes I close my eyes.
Fools
laugh at me, but
The
wise man understands.
“Followers
of the Way, don’t seek within words, for when the mind is stirred you
become wearied, and there’s no benefit in gulping icy air. It’s
better, by the single thought that causal relations are [fundamentally]
birthless, to surpass the bodhisattvas who depend upon the provisional teaching
of the Three Vehicles.
“Virtuous
monks, don’t spend your days drifting along. In the past when I had as
yet no understanding, all about me was utter darkness. But I wasn’t one
to waste time, so with a burning belly and a turbulent mind, I ran around
inquiring about the Way. Later, however, I got some help and finally today I
can talk to you like this. I advise all you followers of the Way not to live
for food and clothes. Look! The world passes swiftly away, and meeting a good
teacher is as rare as the flowering of the udumbara tree.
“Hearing
everywhere of old man Linji, you come here intending to bait me with difficult
questions and make it impossible for me to answer. Faced with a demonstration
of the activity of my whole body, you students just stare blankly and can’t
move your mouths at all; you’re at such a loss you don’t know how
to answer. I tell you, ‘Asses can’t bear being trampled by a
dragon-elephant.’
“You
go around everywhere thumping your chests and whacking your ribs, saying, ‘I
understand Chan! I understand the Way!’ But let two or three of you come
here and you can’t do a thing. Bah! Carrying that body and mind of yours,
you go around everywhere flapping your lips like winnowing fans and deceiving
villagers. The day will come when you’ll be flogged with iron rods. You’re
not [true] renouncers of home. You’ll all be herded together in the realm
of the asuras.
“As
for the Way of ultimate truth, it is not something that seeks to arouse
enthusiasm through arguments and disputes, nor that uses resounding oratory to
refute heretics. As for the transmission of the buddhas and the patriarchs, it
has no special purpose. Even though there are verbal teachings, they all fall
into [the category of] such formulas for salvation as the Three Vehicles, the
five natures, and the cause-and-effect that leads to [rebirth as]men or gods.
But in the case of the teaching of the complete and immediate enlightenment
this isn’t so; Sudhana did not go around seeking any of these.
“Virtuous
monks, don’t use your minds mistakenly. The great sea does not detain
dead bodies, but all you do is rush about the world carrying them on your
shoulders. You yourselves raise the obstructions that impede your minds. When
the sun above has no clouds, the bright heavens shine everywhere. When there is
no cataract on the eye, there are no [imaginary] flowers in the sky.
“Followers
of the Way, if you wish to be dharma as is, just have no doubts.‘Spread
out, it fills the entire dharma realm; gathered in, the smallest hair cannot
stand upon it.’ Distinctly and radiantly shining alone, it has never
lacked anything. No eye can see it, no ear can hear it—then by what name
can it be called? A man of old said, ‘To speak about a thing is to miss
the mark.’
“Just
see for yourselves—what is there? I can keep on talking forever. Each one
of you must strive individually. Take care of yourselves.”
01黃檗、因入厨次、問飯頭、作什麼。飯頭云、揀衆僧米。黃檗云、一日喫多少。飯頭云、二石五。黃檗云、莫太多麼。飯頭云、猶恐少在。黃檗便打。飯頭卻擧似師。師云、我爲汝勘這老漢。纔到侍立次、黃檗擧前話。師云、飯頭不會、請和尚代一轉語。師便問、莫太多麼。黃檗云、何不道、來日更喫一頓。師云、說什麼來日、即今便喫。道了便掌。黃檗云、這風顛漢、又來這裏捋虎鬚。師便喝出去。後潙山問仰山、此二尊宿、意作麼生。仰山云、和尚作麼生。潙山云、養子方知父慈。仰山云、不然。潙山云、子又作麼生。仰山云、大似勾賊破家。
One
day when Huangbo entered the kitchen he asked the head rice-cook,“What
are you doing?”
The cook said, “I’m
picking over the rice for the monks.”
“How much do
they eat in a day?” asked Huangbo.
“Two and a half
shi,” said the cook.
“Isn’t
that too much?” asked Huangbo.
“I’m
afraid it isn’t enough,” replied the cook.
Huangbo struck him.
Later the cook mentioned this to Linji. Linji said,“I’ll test the
old fellow for you.” As soon as Linji came to attend Huangbo, Huangbo
told him the story.
“The cook didn’t
understand—Venerable Priest, kindly give a turningword in place of the
cook,” said Linji, who then asked, “Isn’t that too much?”
Huangbo said, “Well,
why not say, ‘We’ll
eat a meal again tomorrow!’”
“Why talk about
tomorrow—eat it right now!” said Linji, slapping Huangbo in the
face.
“This lunatic
has come here again to pull the tiger’s whiskers,” said Huangbo.
Linji shouted and went out.
Later, Guishan asked
Yangshan, “What did these two worthies have in mind?”
“What do you
think, Venerable Priest?” asked Yangshan.
“Only when you
have a child do you understand fatherly love,” Guishan answered.
“Not at all!”
said Yangshan.
“Then what do
you think?” asked Guishan.
“It’s
more like, ‘To bring in a thief and ruin the house’,” replied
Yangshan.
02師問僧、什麼處來。僧便喝。師便揖坐。僧擬議。師便打。師見僧來、便豎起拂子。僧禮拜。師便打。又見僧來、亦豎起拂子。僧不顧。師亦打。
The
master asked a monk, “Where do you come from?” The monk shouted.
The master saluted him and motioned him to sit down. The monk hesitated. The
master hit him. Seeing another monk coming, the master raised his whisk. The monk
bowed low. The master hit him. Seeing still another monk coming, the master
again raised his whisk. The monk paid no attention. The master hit him, too.
03師、一日同普化、赴施主家齋次、師問、毛吞巨海、芥納須彌。爲是神通妙用、本體如然。普化踏倒飯床。師云、太麁生。普化云、這裏是什麼所在、說麁說細。師來日、又同普化赴齋。問、今日供養、何似昨日。普化依前踏倒飯床。師云、得即得、太麁生。普化云、瞎漢、佛法說什麼麁細。師乃吐舌。
One
day when the master and Puhua were attending a dinner at a patron’s
house, the master asked, “‘A hair swallows up the great sea and a
mustard seed contains Mount Sumeru.’ Is this the marvelous activity of
supernatural power or is it original substance as it is?” Puhua kicked
over the dinner table.“How coarse!” exclaimed the master.
“What
place do you think this is—talking about coarse and fine!” said
Puhua.
The
next day the master and Puhua again attended a dinner. The master asked, “How
does today’s feast compare with yesterday’s?” Puhua kicked
over the dinner table as before. “Good enough,” said the master, “but
how coarse!”
“Blind
man!” said Puhua. “What’s buddhadharma got to do with coarse
and fine?”
The
master stuck out his tongue.
04師一日、與河陽木塔長老、同在僧堂地爐內坐。因說、普化每日在街市、掣風掣顛。知他是凡是聖。言猶未了、普化入來。師便問、汝是凡是聖。普化云、汝且道、我是凡是聖。師便喝。普化以手指云、河陽新婦子、木塔老婆禪。臨濟小厮兒、卻具一隻眼。師云、這賊。普化云賊賊、便出去。
One
day when the master and the venerable old priests Heyang and Muta were sitting
together around the fire-pit in the Monks’ Hall, the master said, “Every
day Puhua goes through the streets acting like a lunatic. Who knows whether he’s
an ordinary person or a sage?” Before he had finished speaking Puhua came
in. “Are you a commoner or a sage?” the master asked.
“Now,
you tell me whether I’m a commoner or a sage,” answered Puhua. The
master shouted. Pointing his finger at them, Puhua said, “Heyang is a new
bride, Muta is a Chan granny, and Linji is a young menial, but he has the eye.”
“You
thief!”cried the master.
“Thief,
thief!”cried Puhua, and went out.
05一日、普化在僧堂前、喫生菜。師見云、大似一頭驢。普化便作驢鳴。師云、這賊。普化云賊賊、便出去。
One
day Puhua was eating raw vegetables in front of the Monks’ Hall. The
master saw him and said, “Just like an ass!”
“Heehaw,
heehaw!” brayed Puhua.
“You
thief!” said the master.
“Thief,
thief!” cried Puhua, and went off .
06因普化、常於街市搖鈴云、明頭來、明頭打、暗頭來、暗頭打、四方八面來、旋風打、虛空來、連架打。師令侍者去、纔見如是道、便把住云、總不與麼來時如何。普化托開云、來日大悲院裏有齋。侍者回、擧似師。師云、我從來疑著這漢。
Puhua
was always going around the streets ringing a little bell and calling out:
Coming
as brightness, I hit the brightness;
Coming
as darkness, I hit the darkness;
Coming
from the four quarters and eight directions, I hit like a whirlwind;
Coming
from empty sky, I lash like a fl ail.
The
master told his attendant to go and, the moment he heard Puhua say these words,
to grab him and ask, “If coming is not at all thus, what then?”
[The
attendant went and did so.]
Puhua
pushed him away, saying, “There’ll be a feast tomorrow at Dabei
yuan.”
The
attendant returned and told this to the master. The master said, “I’ve
always held wonder for that fellow.”
07有一老宿參師、未曾人事、便問、禮拜即是、不禮拜即是。師便喝。老宿便禮拜。師云、好箇草賊。老宿云賊賊、便出去。師云、莫道無事好。首座侍立次、師云、還有過也無。首座云、有。師云、賓家有過、主家有過。首座云、二倶有過。師云、過在什麼處。首座便出去。師云、莫道無事好。後有僧擧似南泉。南泉云、官馬相踏。
An
old worthy came to see the master. Before presenting the customary gift , he
asked, “Is it proper to bow, or is it proper not to bow?”
The
master shouted. The old worthy bowed low. “A fine thief in the grass you
are!” said the master.
“Thief,
thief!” cried the old worthy and started to go out.
The
master said, “Better not think you can get away with that.” [Later]
when the head monk was attending the master, the master asked, “Was there
any fault?”
The
head monk said, “There was.”
“Whose
fault was it, the guest’s or the host’s?” asked the master.
“Both
were at fault,” answered the head monk.
“Where
was the fault?” asked the master. The head monk started to go out. The
master said,“Better not think you can get away with that.”
Later
a monk told the story to Nanquan. Nanquan said, “Fine horses trampling
one another.”
08師因入軍營赴齋、門首見員僚。師指露柱問、是凡是聖。員僚無語。師打露柱云、直饒道得、也祇是箇木橛。便入去。
One
day the master entered an army camp to attend a feast. At the gate he saw a
staff officer. Pointing to a pillar, he asked, “Is this secular or
sacred?” The officer had no reply. Striking the pillar, the master said, “Even
if you could speak, this is still only a wooden post.” Then he went in.
09師問院主、什麼處來。主云、州中糶黃米去來。師云、糶得盡麼。主云、糶得盡。師以杖面前畫一畫云、還糶得這箇麼。主便喝。師便打。典座至。師擧前語。典座云、院主不會和尚意。師云、爾作麼生。典座便禮拜。師亦打。
The
master said to the steward of the temple, “Where have you come from?”
“I’ve
been to the provincial capital to sell the millet,” answered the steward.
“Did
you sell all of it?” asked the master.
“Yes,
I sold all of it,” replied the steward.
The
master drew a line in front of him with his staff and said, “But can you
sell this?” The steward gave a shout. The master hit him. The chief cook
came in. The master told him about the previous conversation.
The
chief cook said, “The steward didn’t understand you.”
“How
about you?” asked the master. The chief cook bowed low. The master hit
him, too.
10有座主來相看次、師問、座主講何經說。主云、某甲荒虛、粗習百法論。師云、有一人、於三乘十二分敎明得。有一人、於三乘十二分敎明不得。是同是別。主云、明得即同、明不得即別。樂普爲侍者、在師後立云、座主、這裏是什麼所在、說同說別。師回首問侍者、汝又作麼生。侍者便喝。師送座主回來、遂問侍者、適來是汝喝老僧。侍者云、是。師便打。
When
a certain lecture master came to have an interview with Linji, the master said
to him, “What sutras and śāstras do you expound?”
“Insofar
as my miserable abilities allow, I have made a cursory study of the Baifa lun,”
replied the lecture master.
The
master said, “Suppose there was a man who had attained comprehension of
the Three Vehicles’ twelve divisions of the teachings, and there was
another man who had not comprehended it, would there be any difference or not?”
“For
the one who had attained comprehension, it would be the same; for the one who
had not attained comprehension, it would be different,” replied the
lecture master.
Lepu,
who was standing behind the master attending him, said, “Lecture master,
where do you think you are, talking about ‘same’ and ‘different’!”
Turning
his head, the master asked Lepu, “Well, how about you?”
The
attendant gave a shout. When the master returned from seeing the lecture master
off, he said to the attendant, “Was it to me that you shouted just now?”
“Yes,”
said the attendant.
The
master hit him.
11師聞第二代德山垂示云、道得也三十棒、道不得也三十棒、師令樂普去問、道得爲什麼也三十棒、待伊打汝、接住棒送一送、看他作麼生。普到彼、如敎而問。德山便打。普接住送一送。德山便歸方丈。普回擧似師。師云、我從來疑著這漢。雖然如是、汝還見德山麼。普擬議。師便打。
The
master heard that Deshan of the second generation said, “Thirty blows if
you can speak; thirty blows if you can’t.” The master told Lepu to
go and ask Deshan, “‘Why thirty blows to one who can speak?’
Wait until he hits at you, then grab his stick and give him a jab. See what he
does then.”
When
Lepu reached Deshan’s place he questioned him as instructed. Deshan hit
at him. Lepu seized the stick and gave Deshan a jab with it.Deshan went back to
his quarters.
Lepu
returned and told Linji what had taken place. “I’ve always held
wonder for that fellow,” the master said. “Be that as it may, did
you understand Deshan?” Lepu hesitated. The master hit him.
12王常侍、一日訪師。同師於僧堂前看、乃問、這一堂僧、還看經麼。師云、不看經。侍云、還學禪麼。師云、不學禪。侍云、經又不看、禪又不學、畢竟作箇什麼。師云、總敎伊成佛作祖去。侍云、金屑雖貴、落眼成翳。又作麼生。師云、將爲爾是箇俗漢。
One
day the Councilor Wang visited the master. When he met the master in front of
the Monks’ Hall, he asked, “Do the monks of this monastery read the
sutras?”
“No,
they don’t read sutras,” said the master.
“Then
do they learn meditation?” asked the councilor.
“No,
they don’t learn meditation,” answered the master.
“If
they neither read sutras nor learn meditation, what in the world are they
doing?” asked the councilor.
“All
I do is make them become buddhas and patriarchs,” said the master.
The
councilor said, “‘Though gold dust is valuable, in the eyes it
causes cataracts.’”
“I
always used to think you were just a common fellow,” said the master.
13師問杏山、如何是露地白牛。山云、吽吽。師云、唖那。山云、長老作麼生。師云、這畜生。
The
master asked Xingshan, “What is the white ox on the bare ground?”
“Moo,
moo!” said Xingshan.
“A
mute, eh?” said the master.
“Venerable
sir, how about you?” said Xingshan.
“You
beast!” said the master.
14師問樂普云、從上來、一人行棒、一人行喝。阿那箇親。普云、總不親。師云、親處作麼生。普便喝。師乃打。
The
master asked Lepu, “Up to now it has been the custom for some people to
use the stick and others to give a shout. Which comes closer?”
“Neither,”
replied Lepu.
“What
does come close?” asked the master.
Lepu
shouted. The master hit him.
15師見僧來、展開兩手。僧無語。師云、會麼。云、不會。師云、渾崙擘不開、與爾兩文錢。
The
master, seeing a monk coming, spread his arms out wide. The monk said nothing. “Do
you understand?” the master asked.
“No,
I don’t,” replied the monk.
“It’s
impossible to break open Hunlun,” said the master. “I’ll give
you a
couple
of coins.”
16大覺到參。師擧起拂子。大覺敷坐具。師擲下拂子。大覺收坐具、入僧堂。衆僧云、這僧莫是和尚親故、不禮拜、又不喫棒。師聞、令喚覺。覺出。師云、大衆道、汝未參長老。覺云不審、便自歸衆。
Dajue
came to see Linji. The master raised his whisk. Dajue spread his sitting cloth.
The master threw down the whisk. Dajue folded up the cloth and went into the
Monks’ Hall.
“That
monk must be related to the Venerable Priest. He didn’t bow and didn’t
get hit,” said the monks.
Hearing
of this, the master sent for Dajue. When Dajue came out, the master said, “The
monks are saying that you haven’t yet paid your respects to the master.”
“How
are you?” said Dajue and rejoined the monks.
Zhaozhou
while on a pilgrimage came to see Linji. The master happened to be washing his
feet when they met.
Zhaozhou
asked, “What is the purpose of the Patriarch’s coming from the
West?”
“I
just happen to be washing my feet,” replied the master.
Zhaozhou
came closer and, cocking his ear, gave the appearance of listening.
The
master said, “I’m going to pour out a second dipper of dirty water.”
Zhaozhou
departed.
18有定上座、到參問、如何是佛法大意。師下繩床、擒住與一掌、便托開。定佇立。傍僧云、定上座、何不禮拜。定方禮拜、忽然大悟。
When
Elder Ding came to see Linji he asked, “What is the cardinal principle of
the buddhadharma?”
The
master got down from his rope-bottomed chair. Seizing Ding, he gave him a slap
and pushed him away. Ding stood still.
A
monk standing by said, “Elder Ding, why don’t you bow?” Just
as he bowed, Ding attained great enlightenment.
19麻谷到參。敷坐具問、十二面觀音、阿那面正。師下繩床、一手收坐具、一手搊麻谷云、十二面觀音、向什麼處去也。麻谷轉身、擬坐繩床。師拈拄杖打。麻谷接卻、相捉入方丈。
Mayu
came to see Linji. Spreading his mat, he asked, “Which is the true face
of the Twelve-faced Guanyin?”
Getting
down from the rope-bottomed chair, the master seized the mat with one hand and
with the other grabbed hold of Mayu. “Where has theTwelve-faced Guanyin
gone?” he asked.
Mayu
jerked himself free and tried to sit on the chair. The master picked up his
stick and hit at him. Mayu grabbed the stick; holding it between them, they
entered the master’s quarters.
20師問僧、有時一喝、如金剛王寶劍。有時一喝、如踞地金毛師子。有時一喝、如探竿影草。有時一喝、不作一喝用。汝作麼生會。僧擬議。師便喝。
The
master asked a monk, “Sometimes a shout is like the Diamond Sword of the
Vajra King; sometimes a shout is like the golden-haired lion crouching on the
ground; sometimes a shout is like a weed-tipped fishing pole; sometimes a shout
doesn’t function as a shout. How do you understand this?”
The
monk hesitated. The master gave a shout.
21師問一尼、善來惡來。尼便喝。師拈棒云、更道更道。尼又喝。師便打。
The
master asked a nun, “Well-come or ill-come?” The nun shouted.
“Go
on, go on, speak!” cried the master, taking up his stick.
Again
the nun shouted. The master hit her.
22龍牙問、如何是祖師西來意。師云、與我過禪板來。牙便過禪板與師。師接得便打。牙云、打即任打、要且無祖師意。牙後到翠微問、如何是祖師西來意。微云、與我過蒲團來。牙便過蒲團與翠微。翠微接得便打。牙云、打即任打、要且無祖師意。牙住院後、有僧入室請益云、和尚行腳時、參二尊宿因緣、還肯他也無。牙云、肯即深肯、要且無祖師意。
Longya
asked Linji, “What is the purpose of the Patriarch’s coming from
the West?”
Linji
said, “Hand me the backrest.” Longya handed the backrest to the
master. The master took it and hit him with it.
Longya
said, “It’s all right that you hit me, but there still isn’t
any purpose in the Patriarch’s coming from the West.”
Later
Longya went to see Cuiwei and asked him, “What is the purpose of the
Patriarch’s coming from the West?”
Cuiwei
said, “Hand me the rush mat.” Longya handed the mat to Cuiwei.
Cuiwei
took it and hit him with it.
Longya
said, “It’s all right that you hit me, but there still isn’t
any purpose in the Patriarch’s coming from the West.”
After
Longya had become the master of a temple, a monk entered his room to receive
instruction. “I have heard,” the monk said, “that when you
were on pilgrimage, Venerable Priest, you had the opportunity to interview two
eminent elders. Did you acknowledge them?”
“I
acknowledged them profoundly all right, but there still isn’t any purpose
in the Patriarch’s coming from the West.”
23徑山有五百衆、少人參請。黃檗令師到徑山。乃謂師曰、汝到彼作麼生。師云、某甲到彼、自有方便。師到徑山、裝腰上法堂、見徑山。徑山方擧頭、師便喝。徑山擬開口、師拂袖便行。尋有僧問徑山、這僧適來有什麼言句、便喝和尚。徑山云、這僧從黃檗會裏來。爾要知麼、且問取他。徑山五百衆、太半分散。
Five
hundred monks were assembled at the monastery at Mount Jing, but few asked the
master for instruction. Huangbo ordered Linji to go to Mount Jing, then asked, “What
will you do when you get there?”
“When
I get there I’ll know what to do,” said Linji. Upon arriving at
Mount Jing he went to the Dharma Hall, still in his traveling clothes, to see
the master. As the master raised his head, Linji shouted, and when the master
started to open his mouth, Linji swung his sleeves [as he turned] and left.
Shortly
afterwards a monk asked the master, “What did you say just now that made
that monk shout at you, Venerable Priest?”
The
master replied, “That monk came from Huangbo’s assembly. If you
want to know, go ask him.”
Of
the five hundred monks at Mount Jing, the greater part drifted away.
24普化一日、於街市中、就人乞直裰。人皆與之。普化倶不要。師令院主買棺一具。普化歸來。師云、我與汝做得箇直裰了也。普化便自擔去、繞街市叫云、臨濟與我做直裰了也。我往東門遷化去。市人競隨看之。普化云、我今日未、來日往南門遷化去。如是三日、人皆不信。至第四日、無人隨看。獨出城外、自入棺內、倩路行人釘之。即時傳布。市人競往開棺、乃見全身脫去。祇聞空中鈴響、隱隱而去。
One
day Puhua went about the streets asking people he met for a onepiece gown. They
all offered him one, but Puhua declined them all.
Linji
had the steward of the temple buy a coffin, and when Puhua came back the master
said, “I’ve fixed up a one-piece gown for you.”
Puhua
put the coffin on his shoulders and went around the streets calling out, “Linji
fixed me up a one-piece gown. I’m going to the East Gate to depart this
life.” All the townspeople scrambled after him to watch.
“No,
not today,” said Puhua, “but tomorrow I’ll go to the South
Gate to depart this life.”
After
he had done the same thing for three days no one believed him anymore.
On
the fourth day not a single person followed him to watch. He went outside the
town walls all by himself, got into the coffin, and asked a passerby to nail it
up. The news immediately got about. The townspeople all came scrambling; upon
opening the coffin, they saw he had vanished, body and all.
Only
the sound of his bell could be heard in the sky, receding away:
tinkle...tinkle... tinkle....
01師初在黃檗會下、行業純一。首座乃歎曰、雖是後生、與衆有異。遂問、上座在此、多少時。師云、三年。首座云、曾參問也無。師云、不曾參問。不知問箇什麼。首座云、汝何不去問堂頭和尚、如何是佛法的的大意。師便去問。聲未絶、黃檗便打。師下來。首座云、問話作麼生。師云、某甲問聲未絶、和尚便打。某甲不會。首座云、但更去問。師又去問。黃檗又打。如是三度發問、三度被打。師來白首座云、幸蒙慈悲、令某甲問訊和尚。三度發問、三度被打。自恨障緣不領深旨。今且辭去。首座云、汝若去時、須辭和尚去。師禮拜退。首座先到和尚處云、問話底後生、甚是如法。若來辭時、方便接他。向後穿鑿成一株大樹、與天下人作陰涼去在。師去辭黃檗。檗云、不得往別處去。汝向高安灘頭大愚處去、必爲汝說。師到大愚。大愚問、什麼處來。師云、黃檗處來。大愚云、黃檗有何言句。師云、某甲三度問佛法的的大意、三度被打。不知某甲有過無過。大愚云、黃檗與麼老婆、爲汝得徹困。更來這裏、問有過無過。師於言下大悟云、元來黃檗佛法無多子。大愚搊住云、這尿床鬼子、適來道有過無過、如今卻道、黃檗佛法無多子。爾見箇什麼道理、速道速道。師於大愚脅下、築三拳。大愚托開云、汝師黃檗、非于我事。師辭大愚、卻回黃檗。黃檗見來便問、這漢來來去去、有什麼了期。師云、祇爲老婆心切。便人事了侍立。黃檗問、什麼處去來。師云、昨奉慈旨、令參大愚去來。黃檗云、大愚有何言句。師遂擧前話。黃檗云、作麼生得這漢來、待痛與一頓。師云、說什麼待來、即今便喫。隨後便掌。黃檗云、這風顛漢、卻來這裏捋虎鬚。師便喝。黃檗云、侍者、引這風顛漢、參堂去。後、潙山擧此話、問仰山、臨濟當時、得大愚力、得黃檗力。仰山云、非但騎虎頭、亦解把虎尾。
When
Linji was one of the assembly of monks under Huangbo, he was plain and direct
in his behavior. The head monk praised him saying, “Though he’s a
youngster, he’s different from the other monks.” So he asked, “Honorable
monk, how long have you been here?”
“Three
years,” replied Linji.
“Have
you ever asked for instruction?”
“No,
I’ve never asked for instruction. I don’t know what to ask,”
replied
Linji.
“Why
don’t you go ask the head priest of this temple just what the cardinal
principle
of the buddhadharma is,” said the head monk.
Linji
went and asked. Before he had finished speaking Huangbo hit him.
Linji
came back. “How did your question go?” asked the head monk.
“Before
I had finished speaking the master hit me. I don’t understand,”said
Linji.
“Then
go and ask him again,” said the head monk.
So
Linji went back and asked, and again Huangbo hit him. Thus Linji asked the same
question three times and was hit three times.
Linji
came back and said to the head monk, “It was so kind of you to send me to
question the master. Three times I asked him and three times I was hit by him.
I regret that some obstruction caused by my own past karma prevents me from
grasping his profound meaning. I’m going away for awhile.”
The
head monk said, “If you are going away, you should go take your leave of
the master.” Linji bowed low and withdrew.
The
head monk went to the master’s quarters before Linji and said, “The
young man who has been questioning you is a man of dharma. If he comes to take
his leave, please handle him expediently. In the future, with training, he is
sure to become a great tree which will provide cool shade for the people of the
world.”
Linji
came to take his leave. Huangbo said, “You mustn’t go anywhere else
but to Dayu’s place by the river in Gao’an. He’s sure to
explain things for you.”
Linji
arrived at Dayu’s temple. Dayu said, “Where have you come from?”
“I
have come from Huangbo’s place,” replied Linji.
“What
did Huangbo have to say?” asked Dayu.
“Three
times I asked him just what the cardinal principle of the bud-dhadharma is and
three times he hit me. I don’t know whether I was at fault or not.”
“Huangbo
is such a grandmother that he utterly exhausted himself with your troubles!”
said Dayu. “And now you come here asking whether you were at fault or
not!”
At
these words Linji attained great enlightenment. “Ah, there isn’t so
much to Huangbo’s buddhadharma!” he cried.
Dayu
grabbed hold of Linji and said, “You bed-wetting little devil! You just
asked whether you were at fault or not, and now you say, ‘There isn’t
so much to Huangbo’s buddhadharma.’ What did you just see? Speak,
speak!”
Linji
jabbed Dayu in the side three times. Shoving him away, Dayu said, “You
have Huangbo for a teacher. It’s not my business.”
Linji
left Dayu and returned to Huangbo. Huangbo saw him coming and said, “What
a fellow! Coming and going, coming and going—when will it end?”
“It’s
all due to your grandmotherly kindness,” Linji said, and then presented
the customary gift and stood waiting.
“Where
have you been?” asked Huangbo.
“Recently
you deigned to favor me by sending me to see Dayu,” said Linji.
“What
did Dayu have to say?” asked Huangbo. Linji then related what had
happened. Huangbo said, “How I’d like to catch that fellow and give
him a good dose of the stick!”
“Why
say you’d ‘like to’? Take it right now!” said Linji and
immediately gave Huangbo a slap.
“You
lunatic!” cried Huangbo. “Coming back here and pulling the tiger’s
whiskers.” Linji gave a shout. “Attendant, get this lunatic out of
here and take him to the Monks’ Hall,” said Huangbo.
Later
Guishan, telling the story to Yangshan, asked,“On that occasion did Linji
get help from Dayu, or Huangbo?”
“He
not only rode on the tiger’s head but also seized its tail,”
replied Yangshan.
02師栽松次、黃檗問、深山裏栽許多作什麼。師云、一與山門作境致、二與後人作標榜。道了、將钁頭打地三下。黃檗云、雖然如是、子已喫吾三十棒了也。師又以钁頭打地三下、作嘘嘘聲。黃檗云、吾宗到汝、大興於世。後潙山擧此語、問仰山、黃檗當時、祇囑臨濟一人、更有人在。仰山云、有。祇是年代深遠、不欲擧似和尚。潙山云、雖然如是、吾亦要知。汝但擧看。仰山云、一人指南、呉越令行、遇大風即止。讖風穴和尚也。
When
Linji was planting pine trees, Huangbo asked, “What’s the good of
planting so many trees in the deep mountains?”
“First,
I want to make a natural setting for the main gate. Second, I want to make a
landmark for later generations,” said Linji, thumping the ground with his
mattock three times.
“Be
that as it may, you’ve already tasted thirty blows of my stick,”
replied Huangbo.
Again
Linji thumped the ground with his mattock three times and breathed out a great
breath.
“Under
you my line will flourish throughout the world,” said Huangbo.
Later
Guishan related these words to Yangshan. “On that occasion did Huangbo
put his trust only in Linji, or will there also be someone else?” he
asked.
“There
will be,” replied Yangshan. “But he’ll come so far in the
future that I don’t want to tell you about him, Venerable Priest.”
“Be
that as it may, I’d like to know. Come on, try and tell me,” said
Guishan.
Yangshan
said, “One man heading south: Wu and Yue well-governed.
When
one meets the Great Wind he stops.” (Prophesying Venerable Fengxue)
03師侍立德山次、山云、今日困。師云、這老漢寐語作什麼。山便打。師掀倒繩床。山便休。
When
Linji was attending Deshan, Deshan said, “I’m tired today.”
“Old
man,” said Linji, “what’s the good of talking in your sleep?”
Deshan
hit him. Linji overturned the rope-bottomed chair. Deshan desisted.
04師普請鋤地次、見黃檗來、拄钁而立。黃檗云、這漢困那。師云、钁也未擧、困箇什麼。黃檗便打。師接住棒、一送送倒。黃檗喚維那、維那扶起我。維那近前扶云、和尚爭容得這風顛漢無禮。黃檗纔起、便打維那。師钁地云、諸方火葬、我這裏一時活埋。後潙山問仰山、黃檗打維那、意作麼生。仰山云、正賊走卻、邏蹤人喫棒。
Once,
during group work, Linji was hoeing the ground. Seeing Huangbo coming, he
stopped and stood leaning on his mattock.
“Is
this guy tired already?” said Huangbo.
“I
haven’t even lifted my mattock yet. How could I be tired?” answered
Linji.
Huangbo
hit at him. Linji seized Huangbo’s stick, jabbed him with it, and knocked
him down.
Huangbo
called to the duty-monk, “Duty-monk! Help me up!”
The
duty-monk came running and helped him up. “Venerable Priest, how can you
let this lunatic get away with such rudeness?” he said.
Huangbo
no sooner got to his feet than he hit the duty-monk.
Hoeing
the ground, Linji said, “Everywhere else the dead are cremated, but here
I immediately bury them alive.”
Later
Guishan asked Yangshan, “What did Huangbo have in mind when he hit the
duty-monk?”
“The
real thief escapes, and his pursuer gets the stick,” answered Yangshan.
05師一日、在僧堂前坐。見黃檗來、便閉卻目。黃檗乃作怖勢、便歸方丈。師隨至方丈禮謝。首座在黃檗處侍立。黃檗云、此僧雖是後生、卻知有此事。首座云、老和尚腳跟不點地、卻證據箇後生。黃檗自於口上打一摑。首座云、知即得。
One
day Linji was sitting in front of the Monks’ Hall. Seeing Huangbo coming,
he closed his eyes. Giving the appearance of being frightened, Huangbo returned
to his quarters. Linji followed him there and bowed low.
The
head monk was attending Huangbo. Huangbo said to him, “Though he’s
a youngster, he knows about this matter.”
“Venerable
Priest, your own feet aren’t on solid ground, yet you give recognition to
this youngster,” said the head monk.
Huangbo
gave himself a slap on the mouth.
“It’s
all right as long as you know it,” said the head monk.
06師在堂中睡。黃檗下來見、以拄杖打板頭一下。師擧頭、見是黃檗、卻睡。黃檗又打板頭一下、卻往上間、見首座坐禪、乃云、下間後生卻坐禪、汝這裏妄想作什麼。首座云、這老漢作什麼。黃檗打板頭一下、便出去。後、潙山問仰山、黃檗入僧堂、意作麼生。仰山云、兩彩一賽。
Linji
was sleeping in the [Monks’] Hall. Huangbo came in, and, seeing him,
struck the front plank [of the sitting platform] once with his staff. Linji
lifted his head, and seeing it was Huangbo, went back to sleep.
Huangbo
again struck the front plank, and went to the upper part of the hall. Seeing
the head monk sitting in meditation, he said, “That youngster down in the
lower part of the hall is sitting in meditation; what’re you doing here,
cooking up wild fancies?”
“What’s
this old man up to?” said the head monk.
Huangbo
struck the front plank once more and left.
Later
Guishan asked Yangshan, “What do you make of Huangbo in the Monks’
Hall?”
“Two
wins, one match,” replied Yangshan.
07一日普請次、師在後行。黃檗回頭、見師空手、乃問、钁頭在什麼處。師云、有一人將去了也。黃檗云、近前來、共汝商量箇事。師便近前。黃檗豎起钁頭云、祇這箇、天下人拈掇不起。師就手掣得、豎起云、爲什麼卻在某甲手裏。黃檗云、今日大有人普請。便歸院。後潙山問仰山、钁頭在黃檗手裏、爲什麼卻被臨濟奪卻。仰山云、賊是小人、智過君子。
One
day during the group work, Linji was going along behind the others.
Huangbo
looked around, and, seeing that Linji was empty-handed, asked,“Where is
your mattock?”
“Somebody
took it away from me,” said Linji.
“Come
here,” said Huangbo. “I want to talk the matter over with you.”
Linji
stepped forward. Huangbo lifted up his mattock and said, “Just this
people on the earth cannot hold up.”
Linji
snatched the mattock from Huangbo’s grasp and held it high. “Then
why is this in my hand now?” he asked.
“Today
there’s a man who really is working,” said Huangbo, and returned to
the temple.
Sometime
later Guishan asked Yangshan, “The mattock was in Huangbo’s hand.
How could it have been taken away by Linji?”
“The
thief is an inferior fellow, but in cleverness he surpasses his superiors,”answered
Yangshan.
08師爲黃檗馳書去潙山。時仰山作知客。接得書、便問、這箇是黃檗底、那箇是專使底。師便掌。仰山約住云、老兄知是般事、便休。同去見潙山。潙山便問、黃檗師兄多少衆。師云、七百衆。潙山云、什麼人爲導首。師云、適來已達書了也。師卻問潙山、和尚此間多少衆。潙山云、一千五百衆。師云、太多生。潙山云、黃檗師兄亦不少。師辭潙山。仰山送出云、汝向後北去、有箇住處。師云、豈有與麼事。仰山云、但去、已後有一人佐輔老兄在。此人祇是有頭無尾、有始無終。師後到鎮州、普化已在彼中。師出世、普化佐賛於師。師住未久、普化全身脫去。
Linji
went to Guishan bearing a letter from Huangbo. Yangshan, who at that time was
in charge of receiving guests, took the letter and said, “This is Huangbo’s;
where’s the messenger’s?”
Linji
slapped at him.
Yangshan
seized Linji and said, “Brother, since you know this much, that’s
enough.” Then they went together to see Guishan.
Guishan
asked, “How many students has my brother Huangbo?”
“Seven
hundred,” answered Linji.
“Who
is their leader?”asked Guishan.
“He
has just delivered a letter to you,” replied Linji. Then Linji, in his
turn, asked Guishan, “Venerable Priest, how many students do you have
here?”
“Fifteen
hundred,” answered Guishan.
“That’s
a lot!”said Linji.
“My
brother Huangbo also has no small number,” said Guishan.
Linji
took his leave of Guishan. As Yangshan was seeing him off, he said “Later
on you’ll go to the north and there’ll be a place for you to stay.”
“How
can that be?” said Linji.
“Just
go,” replied Yangshan. “Afterwards there’ll be a man to help
you, my venerable brother. He’ll have a head but no tail, a beginning but
no end.”
Later
Linji arrived in Zhenzhou; Puhua was already there. When Linji became head of a
temple, Puhua was of help to him. But the master had not been there very long
when Puhua just vanished, body and all.
09師因半夏上黃檗、見和尚看經。師云、我將謂是箇人、元來是揞黑豆老和尚。住數日、乃辭去。黃檗云、汝破夏來、不終夏去。師云、某甲暫來禮拜和尚。黃檗遂打、趁令去。師行數里、疑此事、卻回終夏。師一日、辭黃檗。檗問、什麼處去。師云、不是河南、便歸河北。黃檗便打。師約住與一掌。黃檗大笑、乃喚侍者、將百丈先師禪板机案來。師云、侍者、將火來。黃檗云、雖然如是、汝但將去。已後坐卻天下人舌頭去在。後潙山問仰山、臨濟莫辜負他黃檗也無。仰山云、不然。潙山云、子又作麼生。仰山云、知恩方解報恩。潙山云、從上古人、還有相似底也無。仰山云、有。祇是年代深遠、不欲擧似和尚。潙山云、雖然如是、吾亦要知。子但擧看。仰山云、祇如楞嚴會上、阿難讃佛云、將此深心奉塵刹、是則名爲報佛恩。豈不是報恩之事。潙山云、如是如是。見與師齊、減師半德。見過於師、方堪傳授。
Linji
came up to Mount Huangbo in the middle of the summer session.
Seeing
Huangbo reading a sutra, he said, “I always used to think you were a man.
Now I see you’re just a black-bean-eating old priest!”
Linji
stayed a few days and then tried to take his leave. Huangbo said, “You
came in violation of the rules of the summer session, and now you’re
leaving before it’s over.”
“I
came for a little while to pay my respects to you, Venerable Priest,”
said Linji.
Huangbo
hit him and chased him out. After he had gone a few li, Linji, thinking the
matter over, returned to the temple and finished the summer session.
One
day he took his leave of Huangbo. Huangbo asked, “Where are you going?”
“If
I don’t go to Henan, I’ll return to Hebei,” replied Linji.
Huangbo
hit at him. Linji seized Huangbo and gave him a slap. Laughing heartily,
Huangbo called to his attendant, “Bring me the backrest and armrest that
belonged to my late teacher Baizhang.”
“Attendant,
bring me some fire!”cried Linji.
“Be
that as it may, just take them with you. In the future you’ll cut off the
tongues of every man on earth,” said Huangbo.
Later,
Guishan asked Yangshan, “Didn’t Linji abuse Huangbo’s trust?”
“Not
at all!”said Yangshan.
“Well
then, what do you think?”
“Only
one who recognizes beneficence can requite it,” said Yangshan.
“From
ancient times to the present, has there been anyone like him?”asked
Guishan.
“Yes
there has, but he lived so long ago I don’t want to tell you about him,
Venerable Priest,” replied Yangshan.
“Be
that as it may, I’d like to know. Come on, try and tell me,” said
Guishan.
Yangshan
said, “At the Śūraṅgama assembly, Ānanda, in praising
the Buddha, said, ‘With my whole heart I shall serve all beings
throughout the myriad worlds. This is called “requiting the Buddha’s
beneficence”.’ Isn’t this [also] an example of requiting
beneficence?”
“Just
so, just so!” replied Guishan. “One whose insight is the same as
his teacher’s lacks half of his teacher’s power. Only one whose
insight surpasses his teacher’s is worthy to be his heir.”
10師到達磨塔頭。塔主云、長老、先禮佛、先禮祖。師云、佛祖倶不禮。塔主云、佛祖與長老是什麼寃家。師便拂袖而出。
Linji
arrived at Bodhidharma’s memorial tower. The master of the tower said to
him, “Venerable sir, will you pay homage first to the Buddha or to
Bodhidharma?”
“I
don’t pay homage to either the Buddha or to Bodhidharma,”
saidLinji.
“Venerable
sir, why are the Buddha and Bodhidharma your enemies?” asked the master
of the tower.
Linji
swung his sleeves and left.
11師行腳時、到龍光。光上堂。師出問云、不展鋒鋩、如何得勝。光據坐。師云、大善知識、豈無方便。光瞪目云、嗄。師以手指云、這老漢、今日敗闕也。
Linji,
while on a pilgrimage, arrived at the place of Longguang. Longguang had already
ascended the high seat [to give a discourse] when Linji advanced and asked, “Without
unsheathing the point of a weapon, how can one win a battle?”
Longguang
straightened up in his seat.
“Has
the venerable teacher no expedient [means]?” asked Linji.
Staring
fixedly at Linji, Longguang exhaled loudly.
Linji
pointed his finger at Longguang and said, “Today you lose, old man.”
12到三峯。平和尚問曰、什麼處來。師云、黃檗來。平云、黃檗有何言句。師云、金牛昨夜遭塗炭、直至如今不見蹤。平云、金風吹玉管、那箇是知音。師云、直透萬重關、不住淸霄內。平云、子這一問太高生。師云、龍生金鳳子、衝破碧琉璃。平云、且坐喫茶。又問、近離甚處。師云、龍光。平云、龍光近日如何。師便出去。
Linji
arrived at Sanfeng. Venerable Ping asked him, “Where did you come from?”
“I
came from Huangbo,” replied Linji.
“What
does Huangbo have to say?” asked Ping.
Linji
said:
The
golden ox met with disaster last night,
And
no one has seen a trace of it since.
Ping
said:
The
autumn wind blows a flute of jade;
Who
is he who knows the tune?
Linji
said:
He
goes right through the manifold barrier,
And
stays not even within the clear sky.
“Your
question is much too lofty,” said Ping.
Linji
said:
The
dragon’s given birth to a golden phoenix
Who
breaks through the azure dome of heaven.
“Do
sit down and have some tea,” said Ping. Then he asked, “Where have
you been recently?”
“At
Longguang,” said Linji.
“How
is Longguang these days?” asked Ping.
At
that Linji went off.
13到大慈。慈在方丈內坐。師問、端居丈室時如何。慈云、寒松一色千年別、野老拈花萬國春。師云、今古永超圓智體、三山鎖斷萬重關。慈便喝。師亦喝。慈云、作麼。師拂袖便出。
Linji
arrived at the place of Daci. Daci was sitting in his quarters. Linji asked, “How
is it with you when you’re sitting erect in your quarters?” Daci
replied:
The
green of the winter pines endures a thousand years.
An
aged rustic picks a flower and in myriad lands it’s spring.
Linji
answered:
Forever
transcending past and present is the body of perfect wisdom.
Blocking
the way to the Three Mountains there is a manifold barrier.
Daci
gave a shout. Linji also shouted.
“Well?”said
Daci. Linji swung his sleeves and left.
14到襄州華嚴。嚴倚拄杖、作睡勢。師云、老和尚瞌睡作麼。嚴云、作家禪客、宛爾不同。師云、侍者、點茶來、與和尚喫。嚴乃喚維那、第三位安排這上座。
Linji
arrived at the temple of Huayan in Xiangzhou. Huayan was leaning on his staff,
giving the appearance of being asleep. Linji said, “Venerable Priest,
what’s the good of dozing?”
“A
true Chan adept is clearly different!”said Huayan.
“Attendant,
make some tea and serve it to the Venerable Priest to drink,”said Linji.
Huayan called the duty-monk and said, “Place this honorable monk in the
third seat.”
15到翠峯。峯問、甚處來。師云、黃檗來。峯云、黃檗有何言句、指示於人。師云、黃檗無言句。峯云、爲什麼無。師云、設有、亦無擧處。峯云、但擧看。師云、一箭過西天。
When
Linji reached Cuifeng’s place, Cuifeng asked, “Where did you come
from?”
“I
came from Huangbo,” said Linji.
“What
words does Huangbo use to instruct people?”asked Cuifeng.
“Huangbo
has no words,” said Linji.
“Why
not?” asked Cuifeng.
“Even
if he had any, I wouldn’t know how to state them,” answered Linji.
“Come
on, try and tell me,” said Cuifeng.
“The
arrow has fl own off to the Western Heaven,” said Linji.
16到象田。師問、不凡不聖、請師速道。田云、老僧祇與麼。師便喝云、許多禿子、在這裏覓什麼椀。
Linji
visited Xiangtian and said to him, “[It’s] neither secular nor
sacred—please, master, speak!”
“I’m
just this way,” Xiangtian replied.
Linji
shouted and said, “What kind of vittles are all these baldpates looking
for here!”
17到明化。化問、來來去去作什麼。師云、祇徒踏破草鞋。化云、畢竟作麼生。師云、老漢話頭也不識。
Linji
arrived at Minghua’s place. Minghua asked, “What’s the good
of all this coming and going!”
“I’m
just trying to wear out my straw sandals,” said Linji.
“What for, then?” asked Minghua.
“Old
man, you don’t even know the subject of the conversation!” replied
Linji.
18往鳳林。路逢一婆。婆問、甚處去。師云、鳳林去。婆云、恰値鳳林不在。師云、甚處去。婆便行。師乃喚婆。婆回頭。師便打。
When
Linji was going to Fenglin’s place, he met an old woman on the road. “Where
are you going?” she asked.
“I’m
going to Fenglin’s place,” replied Linji.
“Fenglin
happens to be away just now,” said the old woman.
“Where
did he go?”asked Linji.
At
that the old woman walked away. Linji called to her. The old woman turned her
head. Linji hit her.
19到鳳林。林問、有事相借問、得麼。師云、何得剜肉作瘡。林云、海月澄無影、遊魚獨自迷。師云、海月既無影、遊魚何得迷。鳳林云、觀風知浪起、翫水野帆飄。師云、孤輪獨照江山靜、自笑一聲天地驚。林云、任將三寸輝天地、一句臨機試道看。師云、路逢劍客須呈劍、不是詩人莫獻詩。鳳林便休。師乃有頌、大道絶同、任向西東、石火莫及、電光罔通。潙山問仰山、石火莫及、電光罔通。從上諸聖、將什麼爲人。仰山云、和尚意作麼生。潙山云、但有言說、都無寔義。仰山云、不然。潙山云、子又作麼生。仰山云、官不容針、私通車馬。
Linji
arrived at Fenglin’s place. Fenglin said, “There is something I
wish to ask you. May I?”
“Why
gouge out [good] flesh and make a wound?” replied Linji. Fenglin said:
The
moon shines on the sea, there are no shadows;
Yet
the gamboling fish get lost.
Linji
replied:
Since
shadowless is the moon over the sea,
How
can the gamboling fish get lost?
Fenglin
said:
Watching
the wind I know the arising of waves;
[And
see boats] as port on the water with fluttering sails.
Linji
replied:
The
solitary moon alone does shine—rivers and mountains are still;
One
laugh from me startles both heaven and earth.
Fenglin
said:
Your
tongue may illumine heaven and earth, but
Try
speaking a word apropos of the moment.
Linji
replied:
If
on the road you meet a swordsman, offer him your sword;
To
a man who’s not a poet, don’t present a poem.
Fenglin
desisted. Linji then recited this verse:
The
Great Way defies comparison—one goes east or west at will.
No
spark from flint can go so fast, nor lightning flash pass by.
Guishan
asked Yangshan, “If no spark from flint can go so fast, nor lightning
flash pass by, how did the old-time sages save men?”
“What
do you think, Venerable Priest?” asked Yangshan.
Guishan
said, “No words have actual significance.”
“Not
so,” disagreed Yangshan.
“Then
what do you think?” asked Guishan.
“Officially,
a needle is not permitted to enter; privately, carriages can get through.”
20到金牛。牛見師來、橫按拄杖、當門踞坐。師以手敲拄杖三下、卻歸堂中第一位坐。牛下來見、乃問、夫賓主相見、各具威儀。上座從何而來、太無禮生。師云、老和尚道什麼。牛擬開口。師便打。牛作倒勢。師又打。牛云、今日不著便。潙山問仰山、此二尊宿、還有勝負也無。仰山云、勝即總勝、負即總負。
Linji
arrived at Jinniu’s place. Jinniu saw him coming and, holding a stick
crosswise, sat down at the gate. Linji struck the stick three times with his
hand, then entered the [Monks’] Hall and seated himself in the first
seat.
Jinniu
came in, saw him, and said, “In an interview between host and guest, each
should conform to the prescribed formalities. Where do you come from, Elder
Monk, that you are so rude?”
“What
are you talking about, Old Priest?” replied Linji.
Jinniu
started to open his mouth, and Linji hit him. Jinniu gave the appearance of
falling down. Linji hit him again. Jinniu said, “I’m not doing so well
today.”
Guishan
asked Yangshan, “In the case of these two venerable ones, was there a
winner or a loser?”
“Call
it a victory, then both won; call it a loss, then both lost,” replied
Yangshan.
21師臨遷化時、據坐云、吾滅後、不得滅卻吾正法眼藏。三聖出云、爭敢滅卻和尚正法眼藏。師云、已後有人問爾、向他道什麼。三聖便喝。師云、誰知吾正法眼藏、向這瞎驢邊滅卻。言訖、端然示寂。
When
the master was about to pass away, he seated himself and said, “After I
am extinguished, do not let my True Dharma Eye be extinguished.”
Sansheng
came forward and said, “How could I let your True Dharma Eye be extinguished!”
“Later
on, when somebody asks you about it, what will you say to him?” asked the
master.
Sansheng
gave a shout.
“Who
would have thought that my True Dharma Eye would be extinguished upon reaching
this blind ass!” said the master. Having spoken these words, sitting
erect, the master revealed his nirvana.
22師諱義玄、曹州南華人也。俗姓邢氏。幼而頴異、長以孝聞。及落髮受具、居於講肆、精究毘尼、博賾經論。俄而歎曰、此濟世之醫方也、非敎外別傳之旨。即更衣游方、首參黃檗、次謁大愚。其機緣語句、載于行錄。既受黃檗印可、尋抵河北。鎮州城東南隅、臨滹沱河側、小院住持。其臨濟因地得名。時普化先在彼、佯狂混衆、聖凡莫測。師至即佐之。師正旺化、普化全身脫去。乃符仰山小釋迦之懸記也。適丁兵革、師即棄去。太尉默君和、於城中捨宅爲寺、亦以臨濟爲額、迎師居焉。後拂衣南邁、至河府。府主王常侍、延以師禮。住未幾、即來大名府興化寺、居于東堂。師無疾、忽一日攝衣據坐、與三聖問答畢、寂然而逝。時唐咸通八年丁亥、孟陬月十日也。門人以師全身、建塔于大名府西北隅。勅謚慧照禪師、塔號澄靈。合掌稽首、記師大略。
The
master’s name as a monk was Yixuan. He was a native of the prefecture of
Nanhua in the province of Cao. His family name was Xing. As a child he was
exceptionally brilliant, and when he became older he was known for his filial
piety. After shaving his head and receiving the full precepts, he frequented
lecture halls; he mastered the vinaya and made a thorough study of the sutras
and śāstras.
Suddenly
[one day] he said with a sigh, “These are prescriptions for helping the
world, not the principle of the transmission outside the scriptures.”
Then
he changed his robe and traveled on a pilgrimage. First he studied under Huangbo.
Then he visited Dayu. What was said on those occasions has been set down in the
“Record of Pilgrimages.”
After
receiving the seal of dharma from Huangbo, the master went to Hebei and became priest
of a small temple on the banks of the Hutuo River, outside the southeast corner
of the capital of Zhenzhou. Because of its location the temple was called “Linji”
(“Overlooking the Ford”). By that time Puhua was already there.
Pretending to be crazy, Puhua mixed with the people and no one could tell
whether he was a sage or a commoner. When the master arrived there Puhua was of
help to him. When the master’s teaching began to flourish, Puhua
vanished, body and all. This agreed with the prediction made by Yangshan, the “Little
Śākya.”
It
happened that local fighting broke out, and Linji abandoned the temple.The
Grand Marshal, Mo Junhe, donated his house inside the town walls and made it
into a temple. Hanging up a plaque there, inscribed with the old name “Linji,”
he had the master make it his residence.
Later
the master tucked up his robes and went south to the prefecture of He. The
governor of the prefecture, Councilor Wang, extended to him the honors due a
master. After staying for a short while, the master went to Xinghua temple in
Daming Prefecture, where he lived in the Eastern Hall.
Suddenly
one day the master, although not ill, adjusted his robes, sat erect, and when
his exchange with Sansheng was finished, quietly passed away. It was on the
tenth day of the first month in the eighth year of Xiantong of the Tang
dynasty. His disciples built a memorial tower for the master’s body in
the northwest corner of the capital of Daming Prefecture. The emperor decreed
that the master be given the posthumous title Meditation Master Huizhao [“Illuminating
Wisdom”] and his stupa be called Chengling [“Translucent Spirit”].
Joining my hands with palms together and bowing low my head, I have recorded in
summary the life of the master.
住鎮州保壽嗣法小師延沼謹書。鎮州臨濟慧照禪師語錄終。
住大名府興化嗣法小師存獎校勘。永享九年八月十五日板在法性寺東經所。
Respectfully
inscribed by the humble heir Yanzhao of Baoshou in Zhenzhou.
Here ends the
Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Linji Huizhao of Zhenzhou.
Collated by the
humble heir Cunjiang of Xinghua in Daming Prefecture.
Text in full:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/53147551/Ruth-Fuller-Sasaki-tr-The-Record-of-Linji