The Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Fenyang Wude E-Book

Randolph S. Whitfield

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 308

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

The eminent Song Dynasty Chan Master Fenyang Shanzhao (947-1024 CE) had the distinction of an entry in the canonical Jingde Chuandeng Lu, (Records of the Transmission of the Lamp) whilst still alive. Here the master’s sayings, encounters with monks and poetry speak extensively for themselves, as recorded by his Dharma-heir, Shishuang Chuyuan (986-1039 CE). Contained in these first two of three fascicles are some of the earliest gong’an (koans) from the Chan School, as well as the first mention of the famous Five Ranks teachings from the Caodong lineage. the recorded sayings of chan master fenyang lion of the west river Vol: 1 translated by randolph s. whitfield Randolph S. Whitfield studied Classical Guitar and Piano at Trinity College of Music, London and Chinese Language and Literature at Leiden University. He lives in Holland with his wife Mariana.

Leseprobe

In Gratitudeto Morinaga Sōkō Roshi盛永宗興 1925–1995

The Hokun Trust is pleased to support the first complete translation of The Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Fenyang Wude by Randolph S. Whitfield The work has long occupied an eminent place in the annals of the Chan / Zen School. It is hoped this record will appeal to students of Buddhism and to a wider public interested in spiritual transformation.

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Fascicle One

Reprint of an Annotation to the Recorded Sayings of Venerable Fenyang by Abbot Qingmao (1310 CE)

Dehai records the opening of the new training period, November 11th, 1311

Longshan Bestows a Respectful Epigraph

Foreword to the Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Fenyang Wude by Yang Yi

The

Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Fenyang Wude

,Compiled by Ciming, Great master Chuyuan of Mount Shishuang Encounter Dialogues and Talks

Fascicle Two

Cases 1–98 with verses by Fenyang Shanzhao

Collected Paeans (

都頌

)

One Hundred Cases, numbered – Appended with Answers (

詰問

一

百則逐一代之于後

)

Tributes to the Dao

頌曰

– Cases I – CII with Responses (

目之為代別

) (in Roman numerals)

Abbreviations

Index

Preface

Although The Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Fenyang Wude is not a long text, it seemed best to publish this first complete translation in two parts. The work is in three fascicles: encounter dialogues and talks in the first, some 300 commentaries on old cases in the second, and the third fascicle, which will be issued as a separate volume, contains the poetry of master Fenyang.

It is curious that this work, in view of its high reputation amongst early Song dynasty Chan texts and its obvious value related to the history and development of the gong’an genre, has never been translated into any modern language. Granted, Fenyang can seem quite impenetrable at times, even for a Chan master. And it is not as if the ever popular gong’an (kôan) or the poetry contains ‘doctrinal quandaries’ because such quandaries do not exist in Chan (there is no jurisprudence in Chan / Zen). Even less does Fenyang teach student monks how to think and act in accordance with Chan ideals because such ideals do also not exist. The difficulty is that the key thrust of the master’s pointers seems to centre upon the exact opposite, namely, the attempt to free students from obtuse concepts; to open them up to a more neutral, unprejudiced approach to life’s open-ended possibilities, through a practice based on actual experience rather than on the concocted labyrinthine concepts emanating from literati mentalities. In this regard what Ibn Khaldun said of the Sufis might apply equally to the Channists: ‘Whatever supernatural knowledge or activity is achieved by the Sufis is accidental, and was not originally intended. …Many (Sufis) shun (supernatural perception) when it accidentally happens to them, and pay no attention to it.’1 In other words, through their devotion Sufis’ intention is to come near to the master, or whatever name different traditions may give to it.2

Zen 1950’s style, characterised as a ‘sudden enlightenment’, a ‘mystical vision’, attained ‘miraculously’, a ‘divine revelation’, all conceived as end-states, or, on the other hand, as nothing but a calm contemplative state of mind cultivated through a critical self-understanding – is happily a thing of the past. We need only go to the Mediterranean cultures of the late medieval / early renaissance period to get some idea of how things stood with our own Jewish, Islamic and Christian spiritual traditions, to feel ourselves on some kind of familiar ground with far-eastern Chan / Zen Buddhism. What is remarkable perhaps in the Chan / Zen tradition is that the laity was never and never has been burdened with repressive religious laws or rituals. There is an absence of jurisprudence, of the imposition of debilitating models of performance based on the legal difference between venial sin and mortal sin (peccatum veniale and peccatum mortale) ever present in the West.3 Fortitude in Chan comes not from external decrees but ideally from the cultivation of inherent impulses of restraint. The paradox is that this kind of restraint leads to freedom.

1 Ibn Khaldun, The Muqaddimah, An Introduction to History. trans. Franz Rosenthal. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul / Bollingen Foundation, 1958. Vol. 1, p. 222.

2 ‘Ils tâchent, en général, d’éviter ces (marques de la faveur divine) et ils en détournent leur attention ; car ils recherchent Dieu pour lui-même, et sans aucun autre motif.’ Ibn Khaldun, Muqaddimah, traduits en Français et commentés par William Mac Guckin, Baron DE SLANE, membre de l’Institut, 1863. vol. 1, pp. 251-2.

3 Barring of course the five heinous deeds / crimes wuni zui五逆罪, Pāli, pañcānantarya, which deliver immediate retribution to the offender. The five are patricide, matricide, killing an arhat, injuring a Buddha, creating schism in the Sagha. But in this case there is no ‘judgement’ from without or from ‘above’; actions automatically engender their consequences, but the results are not ‘forever’.

Acknowledgements

With Gratitude

To Ven. Myokyo-ni of London.

To the Hokun Trust and Ven. Myokun

To Dr. Michelle Bromley

To Mariana

Introduction

During the Song dynasty (Northern Song, capital Kaifeng, 960-1127 CE and Southern Song, capital Hangzhou, 1127–1279 CE) Buddhism was to become thoroughly integrated into the Confucian-Daoist culture. The court engaged their literary elite, civil servants, in inaugurating a new era of textual religion in the service of the state. The textual emphasis was underpinned by the confluence of two events – a new dynasty keen to promote a cultural integration between Confucianism, Daoism and Buddhism as a counterbalance to the ever prevailing need for military vigilance at its northern and north-western borders and, the development of new printing techniques as a facilitator of mass communication, comparable in importance to the development of Gutenberg’s printing press in Europe some four hundred years later.

The Chan school of Buddhism too benefited from this new textual orientation by being given a more definite literary expression, making it more accessible, if not less understandable, to a wider audience. The groundbreaking entrance into the Buddhist canon of the first coherent Chan lineage text in 1011 CE, the Jingde Chuandeng Lu (Records of the Transmission of the Lamp, hereafter CDL, first presented at court in 1004 CE)4 rendered a Chan-without-words into a Chan with not a few words. The enigmatic expressions and often beautiful poetry that emerged in this innovative work became the very embodiment of Chan in China, Korea and Japan for the following thousand years, creating a unique poetic, religious and cultural pan-Asian amalgam, emerging from the midst of a Chinese religious landscape.5

The process of the integration of ancient Chinese poetic practices with literary Chan – the encounter dialogues and poems – was prefigured in the early years of the Northern Song dynasty by the present work, appearing in the same year as the CDL lineage text, 1004 CE, with a preface by the same scholar-official Yang Yi. Master Fenyang of The Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Fenyang Wude (hereafter FWYL)6 had the distinction of an entry in the CDL as a still living master in 1011 CE when the CDL was entered into the Chinese Buddhist canon. The two works, CDL and FWYL, are in fact closely related.7 Shishuang Chuyuan (986-1039 CE), Fenyang’s heir and editor of the FWYL, composes a short preface in the first fascicle of the work to Fenyang’s verses in praise of the CDL that clearly link the two works. Fenyang must have had access to the CDL then, even before its official entry into the Buddhist canon, judging also by his comments on Cases c.1–95 below, many of which have parallel passages in the CDL (recorded in footnotes). And in Cases c. I-XXX we are taken through the whole history of Chan, from its Indian background to the earliest transmission in China, again, following, it would seem, the new redaction of the CDL by Yang Yi.

The literary Chan that emerges in FWYL and recorded by his Dharma-heir Shishuang Chuyuan, embraces references to Buddhist scriptures, quotations from ancient worthies, official history, obscure classical and Confucian-Daoist allusions with much original poetry in different forms. All this underpinned by lively dialogues employed in the service of the one Chan theme running through them, the perennial way of re-linking to one’s inherent ‘Buddha-nature’ through practice and realisation. The ideographic function of the Chinese language as a vehicle for expressing Chan insights is stretched to new linguistic limits by master Fenyang, with Chinese history as the backdrop.

Mundane analysis of such a work as the present one is a veritable minefield for textual scholars. If the literary dialogue is one measure of the rich possibilities for conceptualizing different worlds in different words, in this case the specifically conceived early Song dynasty literary Chan world of the not-yet-awakened over against the realm of awakening, then in this and future Chan ‘encounter dialogue’ texts, for which the FWYL and the CDL are the models, there are a great many dialogues embracing many world views that do not admit of a facile categorisation. Inconsistencies, embellishments, a disjunctive narrative, constant repetition, dislocation, fragmentation and recombination – the bane of textual scholars – preclude a simplistic understanding but are the life-blood of such encounter dialogue texts.

We also have the opposite of dialogue in the FWYL, highly stylised poetry ever canonised in Chinese culture as refined literature. One of the key figures in bringing this richly varied Chan discourse to its first polished literary expression is master Fenyang Shanzhao himself, the fifth generation master from Linji Yixuan († 866 CE), retrospective founder of the Linji school of Chan, a ‘school’ that lent itself to the process of becoming the new Song state orthodoxy. Being a distinguished Dharma-heir of Shoushan Shengnian (932–993 CE), considered one of the renovators of the Linji school in the Song, Fenyang had many influential disciples amongst the Chan community and government literati.

Albert Welter:

‘Shengnian’s students built on the prestige thus far achieved and succeeded in establishing Linji Chan as the new orthodoxy. Their success was predicated on support from the secular establishment. Fenyang Shanzhao had unparalleled access to the Song elite. He achieved fame for his teaching at the Taizi (Imperial Prince) Cloister in the Dazhong (Great Center) Monastery in Fenzhou (Shanxi), a monastery named for a reign era title of emperor Zhenzong (r. 998–1022). The Taizi Cloister itself was named in honour of the future emperor Renzong (r. 1023–1063). In effect, Shanzhao imparted an imperially sanctioned teaching from the seat of a similarly sponsored institution. […] This is the first instance of the publication of a contemporary master’s yulu in the Song. It established a precedent for the flood of independent yulu texts that followed. […] During Shanzhao’s life, he was honoured with a purple robe. After death, he was granted the posthumous title Wude Chanshi (Chan Master Beyond Virtue).’8

It is clear that Fenyang attached great importance to poetry as a part of his teaching, especially in his interpretation of old precedent cases, the gong’an (Japanese kôan). In the first gong’an collection of the Song dynasty that forms the middle fascicle of the FWYL (the second fascicle in the present translation), the master makes poetic comments on the teaching, also reviving Linji’s teaching of the Three Mysteries and the Three Essentials:

In the CDL it is recorded,

‘Chan master Shanzhao of Fen province (Shanxi, Fenyang) ascended the podium and addressed the assembly, saying, ‘Every phrase should contain the Three Mysterious Gates. Each mysterious gate should contain the Three Essentials. There is illumination and there is functioning. Either there is illumination first and then functioning or there is first functioning and then illumination; or there is illumination and functioning at the same time, or illumination and functioning at different times. When there is illumination first and then functioning, it still needs to be worked out together with you. If there is functioning first and then illumination you must also be a person who is beginning to attain. If there is both illumination and functioning at the same time, what do you do to offset them? Again, if illumination and functioning do not happen at the same time, what do you do to stabilise things?’9

Furthermore, Fenyang’s Record includes the first detailed treatment of the famous Five Ranks teaching of Dongshan Liangjie (807–869 CE), by which the master paid great store all his life. After Fenyang Shanzhao had lost both his mother and his father at the age of fourteen, he left the home life to have his head shaved. Later he received the full precepts of a Buddhist monk and undertook a pilgrimage, wandering in all directions, seeking to take part in Chan communities. He travelled everywhere, all in all visiting seventy-one Chan masters, every one of whom had different aspects of the Dharma to transmit. Of all the streams of Chan in those times the master had a particular leaning towards the Caodong School’s Five Ranks teachings and its blend of relative and absolute. Shimen Huiche (CDL 23.791) was a third generation Caodong master from Qianzhou (Hubei) and a Dharma-heir of Shimen Xian (CDL 20.559). In the course of his pilgrimage Fenyang had come to Shimen monastery in Hubei to enquire from Huiche of the details of the Five Ranks system. Fenyang presented Huiche with a gatha of understanding and having seen it, Huiche pronounced it good.10 Later Fenyang added, ‘The Five Ranks is the crowning elucidation, the Three Mysteries a direct pointing embracing all the elements in the Dharma-realm.’

However, the young Shanzhao did not become a Dharma-heir of the Caodong School but returned to Shoushan in Ruzhou (Henan) to take part in the community of Shengnian, fourth generation Dharma-heir of the Linji School. Fenyang Shanzhao then became the fifth in line to carry the Linji Chan Dharma forward. He settled further north in Fenzhou, Shanxi, occupying the Taizi monastery for nearly thirty years. There was a stone lion at the gate of the monastery and the Fen River (West River) runs north-south through this core area of ancient China, no doubt helping to account for the master’s sobriquet. He groomed more than a dozen talented disciples there who propagated the teachings until they spread throughout the empire.

* * *

Those who awaken to themselves return to themselves, says master Fenyang, and, in the realm of the ten thousand things, it is seen that not a single thing is – echoing the famous saying of the Sixth Patriarch of Chan, Hui Neng. Is it bitter to come to wuwei, birth and death cut off, to inherit the insight into the Buddha-nature? Certainly it is necessary to repay the boon of having received a human birth by penetrating the emptiness of all dharmas, instead of running about everywhere chasing shadows. To ignore the wisdom of one’s own mystery, carried about so lightly, so uncomprehendingly, is surely a life of deception. Since there is no rest in this life, it comes down to a decision to desist from sowing vain and empty beliefs in the heart, from burdening the heart and the practice with unworthy interpretations. Uncovering the mystery of one’s own heart is the difficulty, to hear the true Dharma is also difficult, so seize the banner and strike quickly!

Having broken through, a remote, vast expanse opens up in which it is seen that the Buddha-dharma is everywhere and in all things. The ones who find themselves in the walled city of awakening accept reality as it is and accord with the situation of formlessness, a complete return to the realm of reality. Diligent progress on the path is the task, for when there is accord with the innate endowment there are no shadows. The original heart is not burdened with a human face: living beings are immeasurable.

Traces of obvious neglect are to be seen in profiting self, but the function leading to a future flourishing of sagehood is cultivated through reverence, reverence also to the generations of patriarchs and teachers who bring spiritual prosperity to nurture the heart. Buddha is the lamp, good faith the means to approach the depths. The pre-eminent question then inevitably turns to the means of diffusing and proclaiming this way, so profoundly unfathomable.

Now although there seem to be two zones – an inside and an outside, the awakened and the not-yet-awakened, host and guest, the inside and outside actually form one complete maala. The dialogues in the present work show clearly who is ‘in’ and who is ‘out’. Still, in order to find something it is necessary to lose it first. To be out of the zone, a stranger in a strange land, is seeming exile whilst the realm inside the zone seems unfamiliar (from the outside). Exile is uncomfortable. Are we not both in the zone and outside of the zone? The heart, which is the name for the neutral centre in Buddhism, cannot be out of the zone, whilst our ordinary everyday self often feels alienated. We are complete and incomplete at the same time. The self-illuminating innate wisdom of the heart zone poses deep puzzles to the everyday self outside, despite an unalienable connection between the two, since neutral heart logic is of a more complex, different kind than we can ever unravel from without.

The maala’s complexity then consists of the seeming division between ‘host’ and ‘guest’ – between the innate Buddha wisdom of the heart, with its many millions of years of genetically inherited experience of life and death, over against the recently emerged spotlight awareness of ‘consciousness’, the experience and knowledge of separation, the guest. These two, expressed in the ancient yin / yang signs, are not apart but function as complementary opposites. The consciousness of separation arose from the state of non-separation, which is presumably why separation still carries distant poignant memories of its original home and feels the perennial pull to return. The source, the origin, non-separation itself, must also have a restless impulse to separate a part of itself, to see itself; it seeks exile in order to come home again, loaded with the experience of separation plus the Way of return. The long journey towards an ever fresh integration, both historically as a species and individually from moment to moment, life to life, is therefore never without consequences – and never ending. Both parts carry an original impulse to become something else. Return cannot regress but goes forward.

It has been fashionable to aver that the Buddhist path is without a goal, without the wish to achieve anything, ‘being no one going nowhere’ – from another point of view this is quite contrary, not only to the mighty flood tide of human history, only just begun, but also to an individual’s urge to reconnect with an unknowable source, which itself has its own evolutionary trajectory. Nothing is static in any realm of any reality. To be once more, with a deeper awareness, returned to a wholly new source, not back to the kindergarten we left behind, is the life-blood of being alive. The extraordinary thing is that the new return is very ordinary and very non-ordinary – there is no yin without yang, no yang without yin. We cross the division many times, with a greater or lesser intensity, every day. An unexpected smile, a kind word, a beautiful day, young animals at play, seeing the garden coming up in the spring – and a thousand other things – immediately transport us into the luminous centre of world-being, the total here and now of which we are a small part. We realise then, even if only subliminally, how hugely mysterious and wonderful life is, the deeper we penetrate into this realm, our original home.

Within the ambience of the newly returned realm, where host and guest are reconciled, Master Fenyang resorts to poetry in transmitting a large, sometimes oceanic feeling, especially when it comes to the appreciation of nature, of mother earth, the great nurturer through whom the chance is bestowed to come to a wholly natural reconciliation. Being alive is not only a question of becoming no one going nowhere then, but necessarily involves the task of taking up the challenge of cultivating human possibilities latent in just being alive. Fenyang encourages us to get to know for ourselves, how to render this life precious, but without the use of too much calculation. When spiritual penetration is underway, the snows melt and the clouds disperse, the fog swirls away and the sun comes out in full presence. This new-old realm is not a world beyond, but the ever abiding one complete maala, a clear radiance detached from dust.

The Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Fenyang Wude

Fascicle One

Reprint of an annotation to the Recorded Sayings of Venerable Fenyang

[594b05] Ven. Fengxue once said to Shoushan,11 ‘Unfortunately, Linji’s Dao will collapse after me. Look at this crowd. Although the clever ones are many, those who can see into the [Buddha] nature are few. Although having waited long for a successor, still I am afraid that the cherished desire for this process cannot be abandoned.’

Fengxue held the patriarchal seal in high regard, directed towards the thousand sages. Those who fall down on the first move might as well take the precipitous high mountain, but how does Shoushan’s talk lead to an understanding of the meaning? To understand the source beyond the formal, accept reality directly just as it is. Without paying attention to hair-splitting, Fengxue raised the subject of the World-Honoured One regarding the great assembly with eyes like blue lotuses. Shoushan’s great function was really sharp; he came forward, shook the sleeves of his robe and left. This is like the depths of the abyss, the loftiness of mountain peaks. That which was raised was more than high, that which harmonised with it even loftier.

Chan master Fenyang was from Shouhshan’s stable, a lion of the West River at play;12 bursting out of his den, sporting talons and teeth,

He gives voice to a mighty roar

Demons all withdraw their traces

Buddhist monks ask about the Dharma

The prompt manner of its propagation

Break jade open, strike metal

Go beyond sound and sight

The six men of great capacity

Are all established in the [vinaya] rules13

Ancient radiance soaring high today

Is the appearance of the monasteries

The family Dharma comes

Having the eye and the true voice

It is that which cannot be transmitted

Although already propagated in days of old, the harvest was lost a long time ago. The son of Mount Tiantai was clever, the head monk had marvellous functioning, but the long-standing agreement of eminent masters and their intimate inheritance was forlorn in the long dark night of the patriarchal room. The non-arousing of the spiritual tenor is truly pitiful. Hold fast to the pearl of the black dragon, aim for the clear green ocean. Hold on to wisdom, chop off desires, cut down the forest of perversities, raise subscriptions to re-issue [this record] in order to impart benefit to future students. I commend this aspiration and therefore send out this preface in the hope that the information will be joyfully acted upon, so that all come into possession of the radiance emanating from the patriarchs, who are all of the Dao.

[594b22] Time: The Zhida reign period, third year (1310 CE), harvest-spring, [in the kingdom of] Wu, written by abbot Qingmao, abbot of the Kaiyuan Monastery.

[594b23] One flower, one petal, the mysterious significance of directly pointing to the one transmission; transmitted from Linji, it came into the hands of Fenyang, like grasping a big one foot mirror containing the myriad forms all gathered together. Measured inside or measured outside, what was seen into was the vastness of the empty void. The height of the cloudy heavens, the brightness of sun and moon; feathers and mustard seeds pile up and suddenly the very small becomes the very large. Raging thunder cleaves the majestic splendour and Mojie, the great sea monster, swallows the generative energy of the four great elements into the waters of the great ocean. At the gate the master bites off all the karmic roots of monks. The ten knowledges14 are directly blocked, severing the lips and larynx of all monks – this is just like accepting non-existence as existence. Wandering at ease in the samādhi of play, irrelevant issues do not descend into flowery words; the combat of question and answer is already emerging in the phrases, but if it is not direct it falls to children and grandchildren. So aim at the high seat of transmission, strike forwards with clear speech, and cornered, the potential and great function transcend the grains of sand of the Ganges River, the good work of the senior monk of wood and stone. How could this be in vain?

[594c05] In the reign period Dazhi [of the Yuan dynasty], in the forty-eighth year of the sexagenarian cycle, after the braziers had been lit on the first day of the tenth moon (November 11th, 1311 CE), the abbot reverently endorsed the monks, as respectfully recorded by Dehai.15

[594c08] The rays of the barbarian’s staff (Bodhidharma) are the Dharma coming to Fenyang. The six men become great vessels, beseeching [the master] to expound [the Dharma], which extends to the West River, its talons gouging out and casting light on ancient and modern well-worn ways. The morality of Heaven is without dregs, the Heart-mirror without marks. Complete like a bright pearl, swift as a diamond sword, one chop renders all chopped off; one cut and all is cut off. Ascending, there is no grasping at branches, descending, personality is cut off. A luminous manifestation forever in front of the eyes, the wall stands ten thousand fathoms high.

Head monk Mushi has revised the order and prepared the engraving for the printing [of this Record]; May it win a wide circulation, cure the many doubts of violent sons and aid them to arrive at a youthful awakening.

[594c14] Longshan Arises and Bestows a Respectful Epigraph

[594c15] If it were said that Fenyang truly had this recorded then the whole of the Linji School would have been swept off the earth and come to its end. If it is said that Fenyang really did not have this recorded, then the whole of the Linji School would have been swept off the earth and come to its end. So what is going on? To enter the gate of Fenyang, to see Fenyang personally, directly under the feet, going is also arriving at the great.

Spring of the forty-eighth year of the sexagenarian cycle, Tiantai monk Zicong raised money for reprinting; to a distant descendant from Central India he burns incense and recollects.

[594c21] Fenyang is the wise elder; rejecting the inner gate of the women’s quarters he crosses over to the northern path, exerting himself to return with a scowl. Surprise [ …hiatus] unexcelled, as the lion of the West River he bequeaths his remarks, which circulate through the world. Those who see are not merely as if gathered in hiding. Hitting the target, it certainly kills, the old plank ground to cessation, the world all the more fortunate for stopping the poison. Head monk Shimu Cong republishes and revises it, for this suffering grows and spreads. Regretfully, today’s and former generations had not known its secrets which extended to the middling and from the middling to those who must die – how many men? Residing in Hecheng Bexue (Jiaxing, Jiangnan) Monk Ruzhi respectfully composed this.

[595a07] Foreword to the Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Fenyang Wude, composed by Yang Yi, Grand Master of Imperial Entertainments with Silver Seal and Blue Ribbon, Acting Director of the Palace Library, Supervisor-Administrator of Ruzhou and the Military Prefecture, concurrently in charge of supervising Agricultural Commissioner, specifically of Dikes, Embankments, Bridges and Roads, Commissioner for Agricultural Development, Senior Pillar of the State, of the Prefecture of Nanyang, Dynasty-founding Marquis, Landgrant Noble of one thousand seven hundred households.16

[595a14] In former days the white elephant descended into birth in order to teach the expedient and the real. Blinking at the sight of the blue-green lotus, the purport was revealed to the master’s successors. His descendant returned west with one sandal, having dispensed one flower in the east. The family lineage continues, gradually opening out to an extensive awakening. Thus, the root capacity of individuals being different, the salient points are brought up repeatedly since the inheritors of Shaolin divide into the shallow and the profound, of skin or marrow, whilst the disciples of Daji (Mazu) show the level of determination. Even stirred up in one shout, it is no different from the refined cream cheese of the Buddha-nature made from curd. This being so, these three vehicles are lined up, promoting the difference between the goat, deer and the great bull, hastening towards Gaya, the walled city of awakening; firm, being slow or fast, if it is not the wisdom eye then what could seize the radiant clarity?

Fenzhou, Dazhong Temple

[595a14] Buddhist monk Shanzhao, abbot of the Chan monastery of the Crown Prince of Dazhong Temple in Fenzhou (Shanxi, Fenyang) hailed originally from Taiyuan (Shanxi). Solitary, chaste and detached from vulgarity, he went to purify himself by receiving the full precepts, thus with bamboo staff he went, intent on taking to the pilgrimage circuit, lodging briefly in various places, following up opportunities to inquire and open up. He partook of the learning of seventy-one teachers and finally received the seal of transmission at the Temple of the South in Fenzhou from [Shoushan] Shengnian. Consequently Nian’s bloodline came from Fengxue [Yan]Zhao, Zhao inherited from the incumbent Nanyuan [Hui]Yong, Yong inherited from Xinghua [Cun]Jiang, Jiang was the heir of Linji [Yi]Xuan, Xuan was the heir of Huangbo [Xi]Yun, Yun was the heir of Baizhang [Huai]Hai, Hai came from Mazu, Zu from Nanyue [Huai]Rang, Rang was Caoxi’s legitimate offspring and from Caoxi it came to the master, eleven generations in all. Since the master thrusts the point in your direction, proclaiming the light from Magadha, the inner luminosity of the pearl in the robe and the voice of the ocean tide are still hidden, a thicket of words in Hubei and Hunan. Rely on the shade of the forest to return with longing [to the] renown which is heard everywhere. The governor of Changsha (Hunan), Maozong, afforded the master the choice of four great monasteries to reside in. Turning to north to Xiang Mian River,17 the master stayed at White Horse Mountain.18 The local magistrate, Liu Gong Chan19 talks of going to pay a courtesy call and requests of the master an extended stay in the Buddhist hermitage. In all there were eight requests, none of them assented to.

In the fourth year of the reign period Chunhua (993 CE) there were in excess of a thousand monks and laymen in the west river area who single-heartedly wrote a letter [addressed to Shanzhao] and dispatched Qicong to White Horse Mountain with it to [invite the master to come to Fenyang in Shanxi]. He came, was welcomed by the prefectural governor, and there he stayed. Gathering in his robe, he ascended the high seat, wielding the rhinoceros handle [fly-whisk] as the expression of emptiness. Vaisali’s pure reputation for sitting quietly was not far from [his] empty room [like] Huiyuan on Mount Lu never going beyond Tiger Creek when seeing off visitors.20 A pure assembly, together in common. The sound of the Dharma’s overpowering quake and the strength of the master’s vow is fierce, clarifying with broad erudition, roaming all around the lakes and mountain ranges, investigating the fish traps and rabbit snares. Make every effort to everywhere participate in good fortune, together with the many [erudites] who are happy. As for Jiangxi, it is the heart of the teaching, which returns to no-thing. Shitou was in complete command of the phrases and expressed them directly as the lion’s roar. Nanquan unrolled his mat and thereby came to initiating the excellent potential. Zhaozhou would let go or hold on and had ultimately broken and subdued aberrant views. Dongshan set up the Five Ranks, which clearly shows them returning into each other. Yangshan’s insight was full of power, relaxed and playful without obstructions. Xuefeng’s eyes were reflectors, mother hen pecking in, chick breaking out at the same time. Yunmen’s words raise and beckon, the medicinal pill that is bitter in the mouth.21 All arrive at the essential, all are raised to the guiding principle, even as the great function manifests clearly. Fine dust cannot establish a hold and all dharmas have been eliminated, the four propositions transcended. Did Huangbo not have a quick functioning, Linji’s mysterious transmission of the Three Mysteries and the Three Essentials is the mastery of that which has been bestowed, two hosts, two guests. What is the difference with total blindness? It is for the sake of the true road, directly propagating the great vehicle [of the Mahayana]. That which the master testifies to exceeds the conventional measure, there is no equal to the wisdom of the Buddhas. Why misappropriate Chan meditation? You must scoop out the heart fully for a long time, sensing the disease, yet there is no pain. Worldly affairs are sullied. The protector of Chubei22 reverently takes on the appointment of officials and the master dispatches pure companions far away.23

Cutting inch by inch the final report in person, it is called the Broad Record of the Inner [teachings] Collection,24 setting down the master’s words and sentences. Since taking part in its publication and composition, Ruhai’s25 questions and answers keep company with the assembly of the master’s Dharma, in association moreover, with this school of Chan, coming like a distant wind from a thousand li away. Suddenly conferring a book of one roll, the Dharma flourishes and the wisdom is deep. Then, superior men fly to [obtain] the bestowal, truly diligent and obedient to the high seat’s admonitions. Expressing the aspirations of the sons of the state, there is the desire to perpetuate the aims of the southern school of Chan. In pursuance of engraving an edition and suddenly being asked to compose a prologue, there was support from good friends. The thick coverings of neglect and sufferings, the feelings of vexation harboured in the breast by this elucidation were fortunately soon released, due to dipping brush into ink. In supplying the request, this is what it adds up to.

The Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Fenyang Wude, Compiled by the disciple Ciming, Great master Chuyuan of Mount Shishuang.

Fascicle One

[595b27] The master [Fenyang] begins by ascending the hall, reading out a commentary and then pauses.

The monastery controller sounds the wooden hammer and declares, ‘You dragon elephants gathered at this Dharma assembly, attend now to the first principle!’

Master Fenyang begins, ‘Since there are commentaries on this business, explanations are dispensed with.’

The controller sounds the wooden hammer, [and declares],

‘It has already become subtle and mysterious.

Although officially not even a needle is allowed

Secretly a horse and cart can pass through

Therefore the matter is explained clearly

The venerable worthy’s elevated speech and illustrious missives manifest and are extolled everywhere. All under heaven, monks and laypeople, all find their way to this Dharma assembly. Where else would it be possible to treat with mountain monks in raising and contesting this matter? It is exactly like digging a hole in the flat earth – all the city’s donors, with the monastery controller at their head, are gathered here, but what is there to be said here?’

The master said, ‘There are many, all socialising with each other yet different; who does not possess the innate capacities? If the signs have yet to be fully understood or if there are doubts, please ask.’

Question: ‘At the great assembly on Vulture Peak only Kāśyapa could receive the message. Today at this assembly, who will be able to hear this message?’

The master replied, ‘It is not only a question of mounting the jewelled seat; how could the power of the six teachers of other ways manifest?’

Question: ‘Whose family song does the master sing of, which lineage has he inherited?’

‘It is not from incalculably long aeons but comes straight from the ancient emperor,’ replied the master.

‘What are the expectations then for the surroundings and city?’

‘The ranges of the Five Sacred Mountains’ peaks are handsome and in bloom, the Four Seas all return to the morning light,’ answered the master.

Question: ‘The lion’s roar in front of the hall with nothing further to do – what is the business in the empty palace of the ruler?’

‘The various storeys of the stone pagoda are the universe; the golden bell swings back and forth, quickening men and gods,’ said the master.

‘Is it not for this that the venerable sir is here?’

‘Men and gods are confused about what to do; it is necessary to see directly, clearly,’ answered the master.

Question: ‘What is the source of the great Dao?’

‘Dig down into the earth in search of heaven.’

‘What is the meaning of this?’

‘Do not try to work out what the profound depths are,’ said the master.