楞伽阿跋多羅寶經 卷首 · 宋人序

This is a preface composed by Song-dynasty literati for the Laṅkāvatāra (written by Jiang Zhiqi, in the calligraphy of Su Shi, in the eighth year of the Yuanfeng era, 1085) — not the scripture's own teaching. The original preface tells how the four-scroll Laṅkāvatāra came to circulate in the world, and records how Bodhidharma sealed the mind with the four-scroll Laṅkā. Personal names, book titles, and allusions are kept as they stand.

Preface by Jiang Zhiqi

I (Zhiqi) have long suffered that the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra is both hard to read and hard to obtain in a good edition. It happened that the Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent, the retired Lord Zhang of the Southern Capital (Zhang Andao), had this scripture cut for printing, and that Su Zizhan (Su Shi) of Meishan wrote it out and had the printing-blocks carved, to be housed at Jinshan Monastery as its permanent possession. The elder of Jinshan, the great master Foyin, Liaoyuan, took this carved edition and sent it to me. And so I speak of it thus: the scriptures the Buddha taught number, in all, twelve divisions, running to as many as five thousand scrolls. In the age when the True Dharma flourished, those who heard half a verse or caught a single line and thereupon entered awakening were beyond counting. But after the ages of the Semblance and the Final Dharma, far removed from the sages, people began to drown in the written word and to fall into the plight of "counting the sands of the sea," while toward that substance of "the One Real" they grew blank and unable to understand. Then the Patriarchs appeared in the world, pointing directly at the human mind — see your nature and become a Buddha — as a separate transmission outside the teaching; and within a single gesture, a single word, those of the sharpest, highest capacity had already grasped it on the spot. This is why Yunmen went so far as to revile the Buddha, and Yaoshan so far as to warn people not to read the scriptures — both had just this intent. From this, departing from the Buddha, one came to call it "Chan"; departing from the doctrine, one came to call it "the Mysterious." And so the student of the Buddha is sure to disparage Chan, while the one who is shy of doctrine is sure to exalt the Mysterious — the followers of the two houses reproach each other, not knowing that the two were from the first mutually of use. Besides, Chan is itself one of the six perfections — how could it be anything different from the Buddha?

I hold that Chan issues from the Buddha, and the Mysterious issues from doctrine; not to discard Chan out of esteem for the Buddha, and not to discard doctrine out of esteem for the Mysterious — this comes near the mark. Ran Qiu asked Confucius, "On hearing a thing, should one do it?" Confucius said, "On hearing it, do it." Zilu asked, "On hearing a thing, should one do it?" But Confucius said, "While one's father and elder brothers are alive, how can one, on one's own judgment, simply go and do it?" One and the same line, "on hearing it, do it" — Ran Qiu's temper was to shrink back, and so Confucius urged him forward; Zilu's courage outran others, and so Confucius made him yield. Where is teaching ever fixed? It is only a matter of remedying each one's particular excess. When the malady of the student of the Buddha reaches drowning in the scriptural text and being confounded by the sense of the phrases so that a person does not realize the Mysterious purport, then one uses Chan to remedy it; when the malady of the student of Chan reaches empty talk of the Mysterious and toying with clever debate so that a person does not penetrate the doctrine's meaning, then one uses the Buddha to remedy it. The two remedying each other, the Buddha-dharma is made complete.

Long ago Bodhidharma came from the West, and having transmitted the mind-seal to the Second Patriarch (Huike), he further said: "I have the four scrolls of the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra, and these too I entrust to you. This is the essential gate to the Tathāgata's mind-ground, able to make all sentient beings reveal, awaken to, and enter it." This is precisely the Buddha and Chan transmitted together, the Mysterious and doctrine entrusted as one. It was only at the Fifth Patriarch that the transmission was changed to the Diamond Sūtra, which is why the Sixth Patriarch, hearing a traveler recite the Diamond Sūtra, asked him where he had come from. The traveler said: "I come from Mount of the Fifth Patriarch, east of Huangmei county in Qizhou. The great master, the Fifth Patriarch, constantly exhorts monks and laity that if they will but hold and recite the Diamond Sūtra, they can see their own nature and become Buddhas." One sees that the holding of the Diamond Sūtra began with the Fifth Patriarch. From this the Diamond Sūtra thereupon flourished in the world, while the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra gradually lost its transmission.

That the Laṅkāvatāra now circulates anew is truly owing to Lord Zhang's championing of it. Passing through the Southern Capital, I paid my respects to Lord Zhang and heard from his own lips the circumstances of the Laṅkāvatāra. Long ago, when Lord Zhang went out from Commissioner of the Three Finance Offices and Hanlin Academician to be Prefect of Chuzhou, he walked one day into the monks' quarters at Langya Monastery, saw a scripture-case, opened it and looked — and it was precisely the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra. He was struck with the sudden sense that this was what he himself had written out in a former life, the very strokes of the brush plainly as of old — this was surely because his spirit-consciousness had received and held it in a former life, clear beyond doubt. I have heard: when Yang Shuzi (Yang Hu) was five years old, he told his wet-nurse to fetch the gold ring he used to play with. The nurse said, "You never had any such thing." Yang Hu then went himself to the mulberry tree by the east wall of the neighboring Li family, reached into it and drew it out. The master of the house said in astonishment, "This is what my dead son lost — how has it come into your hands?" The nurse told the whole story, and only then was it known that Yang Hu's former body had been the Li family's son. When Bai Letian (Bai Juyi) was born, barely seven months old, his nurse pointed out the two graphs 之 and 無 and taught him, and though tried a hundred times he would not mistake them; at nine he had mastered the rules of prosody. The historians held that his devotion to letters was an inborn endowment; yet Letian himself always held it to be the causal perfuming of former lives.

It is precisely because a person has this nature of "the One Real that does not perish" that, between heaven and earth, there is for him being-born and dying, coming and going. The number of world-ages passed through in the meantime could not be counted out though one used up all the grasses and trees of the world for counting-rods. It is only because, sunk in birth-and-death, the spirit-consciousness is worn out and exhausted, that one can no longer remember; only one who is perfectly clear and unclouded can know it. As for Lord Zhang, who twice passed the special examination with grand compositions and rose to the ranks of the attendant officials, who held the reins of government and came and went at court for more than forty years, whose achievements and stern brilliance are handed down by ear and eye — that his former body was a great and good spiritual guide is therefore not to be doubted. That he can remember the affairs of a former life — does this not precisely show that it is real? And so, on the occasion of reading the newly-carved scripture of the Laṅkāvatāra, I have set down these circumstances at the head of the scroll.

Preface by Su Shi

The Laṅkāvatāra-ratna-sūtra is the subtle, foremost, real, and definitive-meaning dharma taught by the former Buddha, and so it is called "the Chapter on the Heart of All Buddha-Word." The Patriarch Bodhidharma entrusted it to the Second Patriarch, saying: "I have looked over all the scriptures and teachings in Cīnasthāna, and only the four scrolls of the Laṅkāvatāra can seal the mind." Patriarch handed it to Patriarch, taking it as the mind-dharma. It is like the physicians' Classic of Difficulties: every line is a principle, every word a rule. Later masters who penetrated it grew wondrously clear in it, like a pearl running on a plate and the plate running under the pearl — nowhere not free and unobstructed. But to put forth new notions of one's own and cast aside the old learning as useless — that is, if not benighted ignorance, then reckless arrogance. In recent years, students each revere their own master and seek only ease; having got a single line or verse, they take themselves to have awakened and realized, to the point of making women and children clap their hands and laugh and vie in chattering of the joys of Chan. The higher sort do it for fame, the lower for gain; the dregs of the current run to every excess, and the Buddha-dharma has grown weak. It is like the vulgar physician of the villages who, without relying on the medical classics, hands people a prescription directly to treat illness: he may not fail to hit the mark now and then; but let him meet a grave illness, and at every turn he recklessly pronounces on a person's living or dying — then he cannot be spoken of in the same breath as one who has mastered the medical canon and studied the ancient methods. People, seeing only that he has a chance success for a moment, or is quicker than the ancients, say that the Classic of Difficulties need not be learned — is this not a great error!

The doctrine of the Laṅkāvatāra is deep and hidden, its wording spare and archaic. Those who read it cannot always even break the phrasing — how much less put aside the words to grasp the doctrine, or forget the doctrine to awaken to the original mind? This is precisely why it has been so forlorn and neglected in the world, all but abolished and barely surviving. The Grand Guardian of the Heir Apparent, Mr. Lequan, Lord Zhang Andao, with a vast mind, attained the pure awakening. In the Qingli years he had been Prefect of Chuzhou; coming to a monks' quarters, he chanced upon this scripture, and the moment it was in his hand he was struck as though recovering some old possession. Before the scroll was even read through, the karmic hindrances of many lives melted away like ice; and looking closely at the brush-strokes, they were his own hand, plainly as could be. In a mingling of grief and joy he sighed on and on, and from this entered awakening, ever using the four verses at the head of the scripture to make clear the heart's essence. I (Su Shi) have been in company at Lord Zhang's gate now for thirty years; this year, in the second month, passing through the Southern Capital, I saw him at his private residence. Lord Zhang was then seventy-nine; the floating illusions all but extinguished, the light of his wisdom whole and complete; while I too was growing old amid troubles, a hundred thoughts gone cold as ashes. Lord Zhang held that I could still be taught, and so he handed this scripture to me, and moreover produced three hundred thousand cash for me to have it printed and given freely throughout the Jiang-Huai region. The elder of Jinshan, the great master Foyin, Liaoyuan, said: "A printed edition will always have a time when the printing is used up; but if it is written out and carved into blocks, it will be transmitted without end." So I wrote it out, and Liaoyuan further sent his attendant Xiaoji hurrying to Qiantang to seek out a fine carver and have the blocks cut, whereupon it was housed at Jinshan Monastery as its permanent possession.

The ninth day of the ninth month, the eighth year of the Yuanfeng era.