Preface to the 1975 Edition

Preface to the 1975 Edition Furuta Kazuhiro 古田和弘 The Linji lu (J. Rinzai roku) consists of the recorded sayings of Linji Yixuan (d. 866), the founder of the Linji school of Chan (Zen) Bud- dhism, which emerged toward the end of the Tang dynasty (618–907). Linji’s lifetime coincided with the declining years of the mighty Tang empire, when Chinese society was in a state of great turmoil. Buddhism, initially transmitted to China in the fi rst century, gradually became more Sinified from the fourth century on. During the sixth and seventh centuries—the Sui (581–618) and early Tang dynasties—a systematic organization of the Buddhist teaching took place, reaching a peak in the philo- sophical structures of the Tiantai, Sanlun, Huayan, Faxiang, and Jingtu (Pure Land) schools. Linji shook himself free from the standardized views of humanity and religion prevalent in the historical period he lived in, and proclaimed a new Buddhism based on the personal experience of reality in a free and open mode of life. His voice carries to us across the centuries in the pages of the Linji lu. Traditionally, Chan traces its origins in China back to Bodhidharma, the First Patriarch, who is said to have arrived there in the sixth century. Chan came to maturity at the time of Huineng (638–713), the Sixth Patri- arch. Huineng’s dharma was inherited by Linji aft er passing through four generations of illustrious Chan masters: Nanyue Huairang (677–744), Mazu Daoyi (709–788), Baizhang Huaihai (720–814), and Huangbo Xiyun (d. ca. 850). Th e Linji lu, then, can perhaps be regarded as providing a true index of this tradition of Chan at the end of the Tang dynasty. Although Chan later branched out into the “Five Houses and Seven Schools,” by the Northern Song dynasty (960–1127) the school established by Linji’s descendents had assumed preeminence as the central line. Nothing is known of the fi rst edition of the Linji lu. Th e earliest extant text is a reprint edition for which the woodblocks were cut in 1120, with a preface written by the Song court offi cial Ma Fang. Th is became the stan- dard version used in Linji Chan down through the years. Th e Linji school’s traditional way of reading the Linji lu is also said to have evolved during the Northern Song period. As a product of the Chan world as it existed in the ix x | preface to the 1975 edition Song dynasty, the reading refl ects, of course, the concerns and interests of that age. Th is reading was transmitted to Japan, where it was passed down from generation to generation in the training halls of Rinzai monasteries. Until the present day the way Japanese priests have interpreted the Linji lu has followed largely along the general lines set in the Song dynasty. Th e present English translation has its beginnings in the desire of the late Ruth Fuller Sasaki to fulfi ll the dying wish of her husband Sōkei-an (Sasaki Shigetsu Roshi; 1882–1945). In all, the actual work went on for close to thirty years, only to be discontinued, just short of fi nal completion, by Ruth’s sudden death in 1967. Sōkei-an, the dharma heir of Shaku Sōkatsu Roshi (1870–1954), went to America at his teacher’s suggestion for the purpose of making available to American students the traditional teaching of Japanese Rinzai Zen. In 1930 he founded in New York the First Zen Institute of America. Th ere, while directing his students in their Zen practice, he gave talks on the Linji lu, which led him to attempt an English translation of the work. Mrs. Sasaki began her Rinzai Zen studies in Japan in 1932, and continued them under Sōkei-an in New York from 1938 until his death in 1945. Th ey were married during the Second World War, when Sōkei-an was in the midst of a serious illness. In 1949, in keeping with her husband’s deathbed wish, Mrs. Sasaki went to Japan to resume her Zen study under the elder dharma brother of Sōkei-an, Gotō Zuigan Roshi, Chief Abbot of Daitoku-ji. She also set about preparing the manuscripts of Sōkei-an’s translation for publication. In the meantime, she received permission from Daitoku-ji to restore as a resi- dence the subtemple Ryōsen-an, where she established a branch of the First Zen Institute of America to provide training facilities in Japan for foreign students. Ryōsen-an had formerly been the head of an important branch in the Daitoku-ji temple system; Sōkei-an had belonged to that line of Daitoku- ji priests. Coming to believe that the satisfactory translation of Chan texts into English could be achieved only with the participation of scholars trained in the colloquial Chinese language of the Tang and Song dynasties—the language of most Chan texts—Mrs. Sasaki asked Prof. Iriya Yoshitaka, a member of the Institute for Humanistic Studies of Kyoto University and a specialist in the Chinese colloquial language, to help her examine Sōkei-an’s manuscript translation of the Linji lu. Prof. Kanaseki Hisao of Dōshisha University participated in the work as well. When Iriya pointed out a num- ber of questionable points in the traditional reading of the text, Mrs. Sasaki decided to attempt a new and scholarly accurate translation directly from the original. A small group of Japanese and American scholars was organized to work preface to the 1975 edition | xi on the project. In addition to Prof. Iriya, the group included Prof. Yanagida Seizan, a specialist in Chan history at Hanazono College; Dr. Burton Watson of Columbia University; and Dr. Philip Yampolsky, also of Columbia Uni- versity. By 1960 this team had completed research on the text of the Linji lu, an initial English translation, and the draft versions for approximately fi ve hundred notes and a lengthy bibliography. Another four years, until 1964, were required to fi nish a second version of the text and notes. Members of the staff during this part of the work were Mrs. Sasaki, Profs. Iriya, Kanaseki, and Yanagida, and Furuta Kazuhiro of Ōtani University. Th e same people completed a third version in 1966; in 1967 a fourth version, complete up to the end of the “Discourses” section, was fi nished. With the work at that point, in the summer of 1967 Mrs. Sasaki traveled to Europe to make arrangements for printing the translation, and to the United States to discuss its publication with an American publishing house. At that time the plan was to publish three separate volumes, the fi rst to include an introduction, the Chinese text of the Linji lu, and the English translation; the second to contain approximately six hundred pages of notes; and the third to include a bibliography, appendices, and an index. Upon Mrs. Sasaki’s return to Japan the entire staff hastened to fi nish the remaining portions of the fourth, or semifi nal, draft . Th at work was brought to an abrupt and unfortu- nate halt by Mrs. Sasaki’s sudden death on 24 October 1967. During the fifteen years of their collaboration, Mrs. Sasaki and the research staff produced three publications: Th e Development of Chinese Zen (1953), in collaboration with Heinrich Dumoulin, S.J.; Th e Zen Koan (1965), together with Miura Isshū Roshi; and Zen Dust (1966). With her untimely death, the daily activities of the Kyoto branch of the First Zen Institute and the plans for publishing Th e Record of Linji had to be suspended. It was decided by the remaining members of the Ryōsen-an staff to at least complete the unfi nished part of the fourth draft so that a full semifi nal version could be made. Th ey enlisted for this work the aid of Gary Snyder, American poet and former member of the Institute. In the spring of 1968 the semifi nal version was fi nally fi nished, with the help of a generous grant from the American Council of Learned Societies, arranged through the offi ces of Prof. William T. de Bary and Dr. Philip Yampolsky of Columbia Uni versity. In the summer of 1968, still without any defi nite plans for publication, Prof. Iriya, joined by Mr. Dana R. Fraser (a Zen student at Shōkoku-ji and former member of the Institute), and myself commenced work on the fi ft h and fi nal version. From the enormous amount of note material that had been assembled, new notes were compiled that would provide the minimal information necessary for the general reader. A wealth of information of great value to specialists and scholars, which in the original plans was to have been xii | preface to the 1975 edition included in the second volume, had to be eliminated. It is still preserved in thick notebooks in the Ryōsen-an library. In 1969 the text and notes were fi nished. At the request of Prof. Yanagida, the Institute for Zen Studies at Hanazono College kindly off ered to publish it, with arrangements made under the direction of the Institute’s Prof. Kimura Jōyū. As it now stands, this edition represents a compromise version of the work originally planned by Mrs. Sasaki and so diligently worked upon by her, Prof. Iriya, and the other members of the staff . Yet in the sense that all their years of work can be said to have reached a culmination in the translation itself, the publication at this time of Th e Recorded Sayings of Linji may be regarded as a satisfactory denouement aft er all.

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