人天眼目 6.135

6.135

In the past, Chan Master Huiyan Zhao of Mount Yue compiled the cardinal principles of the Five Houses during the Chunxi era of the Song, naming it the Rentian yanmu, and circulated it in the monastic groves. Having been copied by hand for a long time, it inevitably suffered from clerical errors. The manuscript copies were also quite different, with this and that version each having gains and losses. In leisure days, I compared the agreements and differences, correcting the erroneous, supplementing the missing, and deleting the spurious, yet still worried it was not perfect. Furthermore, in its original arrangement, the Five Houses also lost the succession of lineage transmission. Now it has been revised: first Linji and Guiyang are listed, as these two lineages both emerged under Nanyue and Mazu; next Caodong, Yunmen, and Fayan are listed, as these three lineages all emerged from Qingyuan and Shitou. Furthermore, in recent generations someone, falsely using the name of Qiu Xuansu, forged the stele inscription of Chan Master Daowu of Tianwang Monastery west of the city of Jiangling, recording that Tianwang succeeded Mazu and transmitted to Longtan, Deshan, and Xuefeng, thereby shifting the two lineages of Yunmen and Fayan under Mazu—which is utterly laughable. According to the new and old gazetteers of Jingzhou, there was no Tianwang Monastery west of the city. The encounters and verbal expressions of Tianwang fabricated in that forged stele are entirely the historical facts of Chan Master Tanzhao of Baima Monastery west of the city. These historical facts of Tanzhao are detailed in the old gazetteer of Jingzhou and the Jingde chuandeng lu, and can be verified. Moreover, that Tianhuang succeeded Shitou and transmitted to Longtan is recorded in full in the Chuandeng [lu], the Gaoseng zhuan, the Deshan stele, and the recorded sayings of the various masters under Yunmen and Fayan, as well as several dozen places in the verses on the essential guidelines of the Five Houses of previous generations, bright as the sun and stars. This can dispel the doubts of the world and future generations, and can prove the errors of earlier and later compilations. Now the Daming Hermitage of Fuzhou in Ji'an Route has carved the printing blocks to share with students of Chan. May those who read this collection overturn the public notices, cut through entangling vines, and clearly open their mouths without relying on the tongue! Should it not be so, the sword has long since gone.