Ru-Yi Meditation Center
Master Baojing · 1899–1940 · 10 chapters · Complete

Learning to Sit With Master Baojing.

In the autumn of 1934, lay disciples at Shanghai's Xianghai Lotus Society asked Master Baojing (寶靜法師) — Tiantai's forty-fourth patriarch, and dharma-heir to the great reviver Dixian — to lecture on Zhiyi's short beginner's manual for sitting meditation. Two of his students took the lectures down; this page is the entrance for reading that commentary, the Xiūxí Zhǐguān Zuòchán Fǎyào Jiǎngshù (修習止觀坐禪法要講述), in English for what appears to be the first time — chapter by chapter, alongside Ru-Yi's translation of Zhiyi's own longer treatise on dhyāna. This translation is now complete across all ten chapters.

Browse all 10 chapters → Translation notes →

Why this commentary

Zhiyi's Tóngméng Zhǐguān (童蒙止觀, "Calming and Insight for Beginners," also called the Xiǎo Zhǐguān or "Lesser Calming and Insight") is, by Zhiyi's own account, the plainest and most condensed of his four accounts of meditation practice — written for his own elder half-brother, a soldier with no time for the vast Mahā Zhǐguān. Baojing's commentary takes this already-simple manual and unpacks it further still, for a room of lay Buddhists in 1930s Shanghai, weaving in his own lifelong emphasis on Pure Land recitation of the Buddha's name alongside Tiantai's calming and insight.

As far as we know, this is the first complete English translation of Baojing's commentary. Zhiyi's own root text already exists in a fine published English translation by Bhikshu Dharmamitra — but that edition does not include a word of Baojing's own commentary, which is this project's whole subject. This translation is now complete across all ten chapters.

What each chapter page includes

  • Zhiyi's own root-text passages, marked Root Text:, followed by Baojing's clause-by-clause explanation, marked Commentary: — the same convention used for the Léngyán Jīng Jiǎngyì on this site.
  • Chinese source alongside the English throughout, so a reader can study the meaning against the original wording.
  • A running glossary of Baojing's recurring terms, shared across all ten chapters.
10 chapters in Baojing's commentary
10 chapters complete — translation finished

Read by Chapter

Zhiyi's own ten-topic outline is short enough that each chapter fits comfortably on one page, even at Baojing's fuller commentary length — unlike the multi-fascicle Léngyán Jīng Jiǎngyì, there is no need to split any single chapter across several pages.

Chapter 1 · Complete Being Provided with the Conditions 具緣第一 The five prerequisites for practice: pure precept-observance, sufficient clothing and food, a quiet dwelling, setting worldly affairs aside, and staying close to good spiritual friends. Chapter 2 · Complete Rebuking the Five Desires 訶欲第二 Form, sound, smell, taste, and touch, each rebuked with its own cautionary story, and the parable of the turtle and the jackal. Chapter 3 · Complete Discarding the Hindrances 棄蓋第三 Covetous desire, anger, drowsiness, restlessness and regret, and doubt — each covering the mind the way smoke or cloud can cover the sun. Chapter 4 · Complete Regulation 調和第四 Food, sleep, body, breath, and mind, with a full step-by-step method for entering, dwelling in, and leaving a single sitting. Chapter 5 · Complete Skillful Means 方便行第五 Aspiration, diligence, mindfulness, discerning wisdom, and singleness of mind — closing the preparatory first half of the text. Chapter 6 · Complete Actual Practice 正修行第六 The longest chapter: five approaches for practice while seated, then six activities and six sense-faculties for carrying it into daily life. Chapter 7 · Complete The Arising of Wholesome Roots 善根發第七 Five kinds of genuine progress, and how to tell each one apart from its demonic imitation — including the story of the golden-maned lion. Chapter 8 · Complete Awareness of Demonic Affairs 覺知魔事第八 Nature-spirits, the harassing spirit, and Māra's own disturbance — and the Buddha's own encounter with Māra disguised as a cart-driver. Chapter 9 · Complete Curing Illness 治病第九 Diagnosing illness by its source, and a wide survey of remedies through calming and insight, closing with ten supporting habits. Chapter 10 · Complete — Final Chapter The Fruit of Realization 證果第十 The three contemplations traced through to what is actually realized, closing the entire commentary in full.

Translation Notes

Recurring terms kept consistent across all ten chapters. See also this site's note on translation method.

止觀 — calming and insightśamatha-vipaśyanā, the treatise's central pair of practices, kept in plain English rather than transliterated throughout.
具緣 — the five conditionsChapter 1's own five prerequisites for beginning practice at all.
善知識 — a good spiritual friendkalyāṇamitra; Baojing distinguishes a protecting friend, a fellow-practitioner, and a teaching friend.
三品持戒 — the three grades of precept-observanceUpper, middle, and lower grade, by how completely the precepts have been kept and, if broken, repented.
事懺 / 理懺 — repentance through ritual form / repentance through principleActual ritual observance, and directly contemplating that the offense has no fixed, findable nature — Baojing treats the two as inseparable.
〖文〗/ 〖講〗 — Root Text: / Commentary:Our inline markers distinguishing quoted passages of Zhiyi's root text from Baojing's own explanation.