Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — Third Collection, Part 13
Continuing the Third Collection (三筆). Zhuhong compares two competing textual traditions of the Sutra of Forty-Two Sections, tells a personal family story about a fickle monk's stone inscription and his own brother's changing fortunes, argues for practical adaptation over rigid literalism in monastic dress, and debunks a spurious "secret oral transmission" text while offering his own genuine candidates for what a scripture's true essential formula looks like.
56. 四十二章經一 — The Sutra of Forty-Two Sections, First Note
A close comparison of two competing textual traditions of a foundational sutra, arguing that a non-canonical commentary edition actually reads more logically consistent than the version preserved in the official canon.
《四十二章經》譯於騰蘭二師，更無再譯。今世傳二本，大同而小異。餘不必論，但其較量設供優劣，藏本則始於凡夫，而終於化其二親；守遂師解本，則始於惡人，而終於無修無證者。考其文義，藏本頗為未安，遂本文義俱暢。藏本又云飯辟支佛，不如化其二親，何又言飯善人功德最大？既功德為最，何又云飯善人不如飯一持五戒者？前後文義自相矛盾。又曰事天地鬼神，不如孝其二親。夫辟支佛尚不及二親，又何況天地鬼神也？而遂師必無自撰佛經之理，其本必有所自，故知流通藏外者未必無善本，而不必全執藏本以為折衷也。予著《梵網發隱》，亦得一本於古寺中，與天台疏文符契，於藏本反有參差處，《發隱》凡例中已申明之，今更為專憑藏本者告云。
The Sutra of Forty-Two Sections was translated by Masters Kāśyapa Mātaṅga and Dharmaratna, and has never been retranslated since. Two versions circulate in the world today, broadly similar with only minor differences. Setting the rest aside, let me compare just the chapter comparing the relative merit of different offerings: the canonical version begins with feeding an ordinary person and ends with converting one's own two parents; but the commentary by Master Shousui of the Song dynasty begins instead with feeding an evil person and ends with one who has neither practice nor attainment left to speak of. Examining the internal logic of each, the canonical version actually seems somewhat less sound, while Shousui's version reads more smoothly throughout. The canonical version says "feeding a pratyekabuddha does not compare to converting one's own two parents" — but then also says "feeding a good person brings the very greatest merit"? If that merit is truly the greatest, why does it then say "feeding a good person does not compare to feeding a single person who keeps the five precepts"? The passages contradict each other from one place to the next. The canonical version further says "serving heaven, earth, and the spirits does not compare to being filial to one's own two parents" — and yet, since it has already said that feeding a hundred million pratyekabuddhas does not compare to converting one's own parents through the teaching of the Three Jewels, then if even a pratyekabuddha falls short of one's own parents, how much more so heaven, earth, and the spirits? And besides, Master Shousui would surely never have simply invented a Buddhist sutra out of nothing — his own version must have had some genuine textual basis. From this we know that texts circulating outside the canon are not necessarily inferior editions, and one need not rely exclusively on the canonical version as the final word.
In my own Hidden Meanings of the Commentary on the Brahma Net Precepts, I likewise obtained a version from an old temple that matches Master Zhiyi's own Tiantai commentary, while differing at points from the canonical version — I already explained this in that work's own prefatory notes, and I set it down here again for the benefit of those who rely exclusively on the canonical text.
The Sutra of Forty-Two Sections is traditionally regarded as the very first Buddhist scripture translated into Chinese, and genuinely does survive in several distinct editions with real textual variation — Master Shousui's own Song-dynasty recension became the standard text used in the later "Three Sutras of the Buddhas and Patriarchs" collection alongside the Sutra of the Buddha's Final Teaching already discussed in this collection's entry 55 above; Zhuhong's willingness to prefer a non-canonical edition on purely internal logical grounds is a striking instance of textual criticism overriding institutional authority.
57. 四十二章經二 — Second Note
A personal family anecdote: a monk's stone-inscription project saw Zhuhong's own brother's name swapped out for a more prestigious official's, only to be restored once his brother himself rose to high office — and Zhuhong's own gentle correction of his brother's resulting bitterness.
昔有南都僧某者，以《四十二章經》來武林。按古例，乞諸士夫各書一條勒石。予兄時以養親居家，書付之。踰年，有販其本至杭者，則別易一顯宦名矣。又數年，吾兄忽有南通政之命，於書肆得前本，則復易兄名矣。因感歎其事，為詩梓之集中，有「紗籠事非謬」之句。予為兄言：「僧則誠鄙矣陋矣，獨不聞翟公榜門杜客語乎？客固不足言，而公亦失厚道矣！」兄謂予：「子之言是也。」遂鏟去。噫！僧何苦不汲汲辦己躬下事，奔走貴人之門，作閒家具，貽笑於時人也。嗟夫！
Long ago, a certain monk from the Southern Capital brought a copy of the Sutra of Forty-Two Sections to Wulin. Following ancient custom, he asked various local scholars each to inscribe one passage for carving into stone. My own elder brother, then living at home caring for our parents rather than holding office, wrote out a passage and gave it to him. A year later, someone selling copies of this text arrived in Hangzhou, and I found that my brother's own inscription had already been replaced with the name of some other, more distinguished official.
Several years after that, my brother was suddenly appointed to the post of Vice Commissioner of the Southern Bureau of Transmission, and, happening upon the same text in a bookshop, found that his own name had been restored to the inscription once again. Moved by this turn of events, he composed a poem about it for his own collected works, including the line: "The matter of the gauze curtain was no mistake after all." I said to my brother: "That monk's conduct was indeed shallow and crude — but have you never heard the story of Lord Zhai's own gate-posted words dismissing fair-weather guests? Those fickle guests are hardly worth mentioning, but Lord Zhai's own words at the gate likewise fell short of true generosity!" My brother said: "What you say is right," and struck the lines from his own collection.
Ah! Why should a monk fail to devote himself urgently to his own fundamental task, instead running about at the gates of the powerful, producing idle trifles that only invite the ridicule of his own contemporaries? How truly regrettable!
This is one of the very few entries anywhere in the three collections that mentions a specific living family member — Zhuhong's own brother, whose rise to the genuine Ming office of Vice Commissioner of the Southern Bureau of Transmission is treated here as simple biographical fact; the two allusions Zhuhong uses to make his point — the "gauze curtain" story of a poem once mocked and later reverently covered once its author became eminent, and Lord Zhai's own bitter gate-inscription about fair-weather friends from the Records of the Grand Historian — are both genuine classical references, deployed to gently correct his brother's own residual resentment rather than to simply validate it.
58. 五條衣 — The Five-Strip Robe
A practical argument, grounded in Confucius's own preference for a more convenient ceremonial cap, against monks who insist on strict literal reconstruction of ancient monastic dress even when it defeats the garment's original purpose.
予初出家時，見五條衣，皆另作簡便小巧者，略按五條大意而已。蓋此原名作務衣也，今悉照七條、二十五條之式，雖不失方袍古制，而大有不便。搭此衣止可坐禪、諷經、禮佛，何堪執作運勞，則五條衣成七條用矣。夫子曰：「麻冕，禮也，今也純，儉，吾從眾。」必執反古以為高，則書契既立之後，而復為結繩；桌椅既具之後，而復為席地，曰：「吾復古也」，可乎？今世有碗箸矣，而食必用缽；又匙不便，更參之以箸，尤為可笑。夫缽存之，不忘佛制可也，而不必泥之為日用也。
When I first left the household life, I saw that the five-strip robe was always made simply and conveniently, following only the general form of the five strips. This robe was originally called the "work robe" — and yet today it is made entirely according to the pattern of the seven-strip or twenty-five-strip robe, and though this does not depart from the ancient square-cut form, it is genuinely impractical. A robe cut this way is fit only for sitting meditation, chanting sutras, or paying homage to the Buddha — how could it possibly be worn while performing physical labor? This has turned the five-strip robe into a mere imitation of the seven-strip robe.
Confucius said: "The hemp ceremonial cap was proper according to ritual; today people use silk instead, which is more frugal — I will follow the majority." If one insists that only a strict return to ancient practice counts as noble, then once writing had already been invented, should people have gone back to tying knots in rope instead? Once tables and chairs had already come into use, should people have gone back to sitting on the bare ground, saying, "I am simply restoring the ancient way"? Would that make any sense at all? Today, bowls and chopsticks are in common use everywhere, and yet monks insist on eating only from an alms bowl; and since a spoon proves inconvenient, they further supplement it with chopsticks besides — this is especially absurd. It is fine to keep the alms bowl as a symbol, so as not to forget the Buddha's own original institution — but there is no need to insist rigidly that it serve as one's actual daily tableware.
The Confucius citation is a genuine, well-known line from the Analects, where he explicitly chooses the more practical, common custom over strict ritual precedent — Zhuhong's application of this same principle to monastic robes and eating implements is characteristic of his broader distinction, developed throughout this collection, between preserving a practice's genuine underlying purpose and merely reconstructing its outward historical form for its own sake (compare his treatment of "reckless citation" of Chan gōng'àn in entries 20–21 above, where outward imitation without inner substance is likewise the real target).
59. 禪門口訣一 — Chan School "Oral Secrets," First Note
A debunking of a spurious text falsely attributed to the Tiantai founder Zhiyi, arguing its lack of proper attribution and its confusion of a minor health technique with genuine doctrine has misled both Daoist practitioners and unsuspecting Buddhist students.
大藏有《禪門口訣》一書，中所言類多數息法門，而兼之以「下視臍輪」等語，外籤標「智者大師」，而經文下既非大師，又非灌頂章安、荊溪等諸賢所記，不可信也。且大師自有大小止觀正文，末後略舉治病一門，與此相似，蓋防身之小法，非學佛之大道也。乃高題口訣，而借重大師，黃冠道流遂據此以印證己法，乃曰：「此大師親口密傳之秘訣也。」而淺識者，便謂佛法盡在乎是，則其害大矣！豈知禪門亦原無口訣之說乎？不得不辯。
The Buddhist canon contains a work called Oral Secrets of the Chan School, whose content mostly concerns the breath-counting method, along with instructions such as "lower the gaze to the navel wheel"; its cover attributes it to Master Zhiyi, and yet the text itself carries no signature from the Master, nor is it recorded as having been transmitted by any of his recognized disciples such as Guanding or Jingxi — it cannot be trusted as genuine. And besides, the Master's own authentic writings already include the Greater and Lesser Cessation and Contemplation, whose final sections briefly touch on curing illness in ways similar to this text — but that is only a minor, protective technique for the body, not the great Way of studying Buddhism at all. And yet this work grandly titles itself "oral secrets," borrowing the Master's own reputation, and Daoist practitioners have since cited it to validate their own methods, even claiming: "This is a secret teaching personally and privately transmitted by the Master himself." Those of shallow understanding then conclude that the whole of the Buddha-dharma is contained within it — and the harm this causes is severe indeed! Do they not realize that the Chan school, in fact, never had any doctrine of "oral secrets" to begin with? This cannot go unaddressed.
The Oral Secrets of the Chan School genuinely did circulate under Zhiyi's own name within the historical Buddhist canon, only to be removed entirely from the later Qing-dynasty Dragon Canon compilation — a documented editorial correction that vindicated Zhuhong's own skepticism about the text's authenticity; his argument here directly parallels his own methodology in entry 56 above, weighing a text's internal consistency and proper transmission record against its mere claimed attribution.
60. 禪門口訣二 — Chan School "Oral Secrets," Second Note
Having denied the existence of any genuine secret oral transmission, Zhuhong offers his own candidates for what a scripture's true, distilled essential formula actually looks like — one line each from five major Mahāyāna sutras.
或問禪門信無口訣乎？曰：佛法正大光明，一人演之，而百千萬億人天之所共聞也，何口訣之有？無已，則有一焉。夫一言二言，言簡而義精者，斯之謂訣；連篇累牘，牽枝而引蔓者，非訣也。是故，「應無所住，而生其心」者，《金剛經》之口訣也。「惟一乘法，無二無三」者，《法華經》之口訣也。「成就慧身，不繇他悟」者，《華嚴經》之口訣也。「執持名號，一心不亂」者，《彌陀經》之口訣也。「是心作佛，是心是佛」者，《十六觀經》之口訣也。不此訣之信，而信他訣者，舍璠璵而執碔砆者也。
Someone asked whether the Chan school genuinely has no oral secrets at all. I answered: the Buddha-dharma is upright and radiantly clear — when one person expounds it, hundreds of millions of gods and humans alike hear it together — what need, then, could there possibly be for secret oral transmission? If pressed for an answer regardless, I would say there is one thing that could be called this: a phrase of one or two words, simple in language yet essential in meaning — this alone deserves the name of a genuine "secret formula"; page after page of sprawling, branching, meandering text is no secret formula at all.
This is why "give rise to a mind that dwells nowhere at all" is the Diamond Sutra's own secret formula. "Only the single vehicle exists — neither two nor three" is the Lotus Sutra's own secret formula. "Accomplishing the wisdom-body, awakened through no other" is the Flower Ornament Sutra's own secret formula. "Hold fast to the name, with a single, undivided mind" is the Amitābha Sutra's own secret formula. "This very mind creates the Buddha; this very mind is itself the Buddha" is the Sixteen Contemplations Sutra's own secret formula.
Whoever refuses to trust these genuine formulas, and instead places his trust in some other counterfeit secret, is exactly like discarding a genuine gem in favor of a mere imitation stone.
The line from the Diamond Sutra is traditionally credited as the very phrase that triggered the Sixth Patriarch Huineng's own initial awakening, overheard as a woodcutter before he ever formally studied Buddhism; Zhuhong's choice to close his rejection of a spurious "secret transmission" text with five genuine, scripturally verifiable formulas — one drawn from each of the major traditions already discussed at length elsewhere across all three collections — turns the entry's debunking into a constructive counter-offering rather than mere criticism.