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MIMESIS INTERNATIONAL ASIAN PHILOSOPHICAL TEXTS n. 1 Book series edited by Roman Pașca (Kyoto University, Japan) and Takeshi Morisato (Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium) Editorial Board M IM ES IS Raquel Bouso (University of Pompeu Fabra, Spain), Margret Chu (The Royal Commonwealth Society in Hong Kong, Hong Kong), Maitreyee Datta (Jadavpur University, India), Yasuo Deguchi (Kyoto University, Japan), Jonardon Ganeri (New York University, USA), Marcello Ghilardi (University of Padova, Italy), Leigh Jenco (London School of Economics and Political Science), Kevin Lam (Dokkyo University, Japan), Ethan Mills (University of Tennessee Chattanooga, USA), Eric Nelson (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong), Kenn Nakata-Steffensen (University College Dublin, Ireland), Jin Y. Park (American University, USA), Jana Rošker (University in Ljubljana, Slovenia), Shalini Sinha (University of Reading, UK), Andrew Whitehead (Kennesaw State University, USA; KU Leuven, Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium) IS ES IM M IS ASIAN PHILOSOPHICAL TEXTS Exploring the Hidden Sources M IM ES Edited by Takeshi Morisato and Roman Pașca MIMESIS INTERNATIONAL IS ES IM M © 2020 – MiMesis international – Milan www.mimesisinternational.com e-mail: info@mimesisinternational.com Isbn: 9788869772245 Book series: Asian Philosophical Texts, n. 1 © MIM Edizioni Srl P.I. C.F. 02419370305 CONTENTS introduction Takeshi Morisato and Roman Pașca IS ESSAYS xx xx PhilosoPhy for children: Globalization and the translation of a neo-confucian text Margaret Chu xx IM ES “White horse is not [a] horse”: hoW the translation creates the Paradox Yijing Zhang M the holisM of Guanxue in the sonG dynasty Na Song xx concerninG aesthetic attitudes: Kant and confucius on eMulation and evaluation Cody Staton xx contradiction and recursion in buddhist PhilosoPhy: froM Catuṣkoṭi to kōan Adrian Kreutz xx classical indian dialectics: refutinG the reality of teMPoral PassaGe in MūlaMadhyaMakakārikā and khandanakhandakhādya Maitreyee Datta xx TRANSLATIONS “ESOTERIC TRADITION OF VENERABLE MASTER BUDDHA OF WESTERN PEACE” by đức Phật thầy tây An đoàn minh huyên 德佛柴西安段明暄 translated by Thích Quảng Huyền 釋廣玄 IS “Looking for one’S SeLf in the oPPoSite Sex,” by kurAtA hyAkuzō 倉田百三 translated by Richard Stone M IM notes on contributors ES “requestinG the Guidance of Professor nishida” by tanabe hajiMe 田辺元 translated by Richard Stone with Takeshi Morisato xx xx xx xx Quảng huyền (corneLL univerSity) ESOTERIC TRADITION OF VENERABLE MASTER BUDDHA OF WESTERN PEACE A Shallowed World M IM ES IS Hổ Cứ Islet no longer exists. There, towards the right bank of the Tiền River, the northern branch of the Mekong River in southern Vietnam, was the location where Master Buddha said he “stepped over” (1)1 to deliver his Esoteric Tradition in circa 1842. But Hổ Cứ Islet has since eroded away into the Mekong. The nearby islet where the teacher’s home village of Tòng Sơn lay has also been largely lost to the river.2 According to local legends, a geomancer was instrumental in this transformation. On behalf of villagers on the left bank of the Tiền River, he captured a gander and his mate. At night, in the cover of darkness, the geomancer tethered the female goose to a pole on the Tiền River’s left bank. He then rowed to the other side of the river and, after attaching talismans to the gander, released the bird to seek out his mate. For three consecutive nights the geomancer plied his trade so that the gander bearing his talismans would spirit away the geomantic properties of the Hổ Cứ–Tòng Sơn islets to the left riverbank. Sure enough, come the dry season, the islets near the right bank had been devastated 1 2 Parenthetical numbers indicate corresponding line numbers in the translation and transliteration. See translation note below. Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An (Tòng Sơn: Ban Quản tự Tòng Sơn cổ tự, Ban Chẩn tế Giáo hội Phật giáo Hòa Hảo, 1973, 1990), 15–16. The former Hổ Cứ Islet was commemorated by renaming a riverside downstream on the left bank of the Tiền River the Hổ Cứ Area (miệt Hổ Cứ), which is in Cao Lãnh District’s Mỹ Xương Hamlet in Đồng Tháp Province. 184 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS by the river’s corrosion, and its rich alluvial soils emerged as islets towards the left bank that nearby villages eagerly claimed.3 It is amidst such an unsettled riverscape that Đoàn Minh Huyên’s (段明暄, 1807–1856) Esoteric Tradition must be understood. Huyên, who is known to the Vietnamese and his followers as Phật Thầy or “Master Buddha,” lived in a fluid, changeable, and uncertain “water frontier” along the Tiền and Bassac Rivers, the northern and southern distributaries of the Mekong River in southern Vietnam.4 To people of the delta like Huyên, the world seemed to be coming apart before their eyes. Observing scenes such as the seemingly imminent erasure of his native Hổ Cứ–Tòng Sơn islets, Huyên spoke in Esoteric Tradition of a world “teetering on the vast sea, falling away on the banks of a pond” (46) as “mountains split and land crumbles, drifting into the offing” (12). Đoàn Minh Huyên associated the transforming landscape of the delta and its attendant calamities with Buddhist prophecies about the fading dharma, the Buddhist teachings. In Huyên’s waterborne vision, the tide of dharma was receding, leaving in its wake a “shallowed world” (cạn đời). But eventually the tides would shift, for Buddhist lore also spoke of Maitreya Buddha (Phật Di Lặc), who would descend from the Tuṣita strata of the heavens to inaugurate a new dharma dispensation. According to several sūtra dedicated to this prophecy, Maitreya would achieve enlightenment beneath a “dragon flower tree,” and so his coming congregation was known as hội Long Hoa or Dragon Flower Assembly.5 This congregation would consist of those who had culled “karma of goodness” (thiện duyên, 善 緣). In prophecies endemic to the Mekong Delta, the gathering of Maitreya’s congregation would be foretold by the appearance 3 4 5 Ibid., 17–18. Li Tana, “The Water Frontier: An Introduction,” in Water Frontier: Commerce and the Chinese in the Lower Mekong Region, 1750–1880, ed. Nola Cooke and Li Tana (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004), 1–17. Sūtra Spoken by Buddha about Maitreya’s Descent to Be Born and Achieve Buddhahood 佛說彌勒下生成佛經 (T.454.14.424b23–26). C.f., 大乘本 生心地觀經 (T.159.3.306a5–7), 彌勒來時經 (T.457.14.434c16–19), and Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Venerable Master Buddha of Western Peace 185 M IM ES IS of highly advanced dharma practitioners, so-called bodhisattva, such as like the Jade Buddha (Ngọc Phật, 玉佛), who would task themselves with finding those with “karma of goodness” and sequestering them from the dangers and evils of an imploding world.6 Đoàn Minh Huyên dedicated his life to this mission. But rescuing the good was a precarious affair before what Huyên described as “reeling sights” (45) of “scenes of natural disaster” (36). People’s native landscape—indeed, the entire perceived world—was turning against itself. Not only did the land and waters seem bent on annihilation, but as the geomancer in the legend about the erosion of Huyên’s native land suggests, spiritual leaders, religious clergy, thaumaturges, and all sorts of adepts with extraordinary abilities participated in internecine struggle, thereby interweaving their practices into the earth’s self-destruction. Even ghosts and spirits appeared set on total ruination. A look at a vernacular Vietnamese apocryphal sūtra about the Dragon Flower prophecy offers insight into Đoàn Minh Huyên’s dystopian vision. The extant text, a xylographic reprint from 1944, reveals not only how the vision that Huyên helped spread continued to impact later generations during the Second World War, but it also intimates how believers in the prophecy may have beheld the nuclear tragedies that would soon ensue in the Pacific and the decades-long mutilation of the earth by war machines and defoliants in Vietnam as well as how such believers may envision future disasters associated with dramatic environmental and climatic transformations7: 6 7 三彌勒經疏 (T.1774.38.316a17–18). The dragon flower tree is said to be 40–50 li tall (roughly 15km high). For comparison with the Pāli tradition, in which Mettayya (Maitreya) inaugurates his dharma dispensation at “a blossoming nāga (dragon) grove,” see Upatissa, The Stream of Deathless Nectar: The Short Recension of the Amatarasadhārā of the Elder Upatissa: A Commentary on the Chronicle of the Future Buddha Metteyya, with a Historical Introduction, translated by Daniel M. Stuart (Bangkok, Thailand: Fragile Palm Leaves Foundation, 2017), 213. Di Lặc chơn kinh diễn am 彌勒真經演音 (Vernacular Exposition of the True Sūtra about Maitreya), xylographic text, Hanoi, National Library of Vietnam, accession no. R.1800. With eerie semblance to the Dragon Flower prophecy, recent studies of rising tidal waters in the Mekong Delta project that virtually all of the Vietnamese 186 Asian Philosophical Texts You will see species of numinous ghosts and monsters, who occupy large and small shrines and temples, obstruct the wind and rain, causing calamities of great drought that ruin rice crops and inflict pain and suffering on ten-thousands of people. Moreover, species of demons and monsters beneath the water like dragons, snakes, turtles, otters, whales, water serpents, frogs, crabs, eels, and fish along with oyster, eel fry, clam, snail, mussel, and arca demons will constantly transform their powers to draw in the water to make great rain clouds and flood rains that will cause the rivers and streams to inundate with flood water, destroying dykes and flooding rice crops and fruits of the earth.8 IM ES IS What message did Đoàn Minh Huyên derive from this imagining of the world’s transformation? Huyên’s teachings about the prophecy reveal a conceptual double movement at once outward and inward. Towards the former, the centrifugal thrust of Huyên’s teachings called for people with “karma of goodness” to abscond to the remote periphery. He exhorted his followers to “towards the west, trek straight out in search” (50). There, in the Seven Mountains of the frontier west, an unsettled no-man’s-land between the Khmer and Vietnamese polities, Huyên sought to cloister his followers from nature’s precipitous destruction and weather her storms of restitution.9 Đoàn Minh Huyên described the travails of this journey: Heaven renders a hundred beings to waste, Such that ferrying across is arduous with unspeakable toil. M south will be submerged at high tide by 2050. S.A. Kulp and B.H. Strauss, “New Elevation Data Triple Estimates of Global Vulnerability to Sea-level Rise and Coastal Flooding,” Nature Communications 10, no. 4844 (2019); Dennis Lu and Christopher Flavelle, “Rising Seas Will Erase More Cities by 2050, New Research Shows” New York Times, October 29, 2019, https://www. nytimes.com/interactive/2019/10/29/climate/coastal-cities-underwater.html. Di Lặc chơn kinh diễn am, 40a–b. For a synopsis of the sūtra, which bears the alternative titles Di Lặc độ thế chơn kinh, Kinh Đức Phật Di Lặc xuống đời, and Kinh quý trọng của Đức Di Lặc, see Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983), 31; “Perfect World and Perfect Time: Maitreya in Vietnam,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, ed. Alan Sponberg and Helen Hardacre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 164–6. For the locations and identities of the Seven Mountains, see Recluse (Trần Văn Nhựt) and Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Thất Sơn mầu nhiệm (s.l.: NXB Từ Tâm, 1955, 1972), 15–21. 8 9 Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 187 Mountaintops float on water, and earth builds up, Dragons lurk at the bottom of the sea as rivers constantly catch the dew. (69–70) At the same time, Huyên saw the physical trek to the Seven Mountains as a spiritual flight: IS As this moment comes, divine dragons descend; We are as if on a little boat buffeted by the wind on the rivers and lakes. “Amitābha,” with the six words “Nam Mô,” One transmigrates to be born in the Pure Land, coming and going at ease. Once you escape the sea of suffering, you cross over, To take shelter from the cycle of mundane dust and avoid the realm of life and death. (93–95) M IM ES In the hearts of many from the delta, the Seven Mountains conjured the horizons of the imagination; for teachers like Huyên, they posed “the ultimate environment for self-cultivation.”10 The very earth of the Seven Mountains like the adepts who alighted there were potent with numen. The geomancy of the Seven Mountains was primed for the Dragon Flower Assembly. Whereas thượng ngươn or “Fountainhead” (literally “Upper Spring”) of Śākyamuni Buddha’s dispensation began in the heights of the Himalayas11 at the Mekong River’s source, hạ ngươn or “Receding Spring” (lit. “Lower Spring”) at the time of the dharma’s fading would transpire in the Mekong Delta, where the river’s waters, its geomantic energies, and the potency of dharma vanished as they flowed out towards the offing.12 10 11 12 Đỗ Thiện, Vietnamese Supernaturalism: Views from the Southern Region (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), 177–178. That Śākyamuni has been associated with the Himalayan Mountains in Vietnamese Buddhist imagination since at least the seventeenth century is evidenced by devotional statues from that time that depict Buddha in the Himalayas. Nguyễn Bá Thanh Long, Cổ Vật Hải Phòng (Hải Phòng: Hội cổ vật Hải Phòng, 2009), 109. Recluse (Trần Văn Nhựt) and Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Thất Sơn mầu nhiệm, 43– 49. For analysis of the temporality of the Upper, Intermediate, and Lower Springs, see Vương Kim (Phạm Bá Cẩm), Đời hạ ngươn (Sài Gòn: NXB Long Hoa, 1960), 11–56; c.f., Jan Nattier, Once upon a Future Time: Studies 188 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS At the same time, the salvific journey that Đoàn Minh Huyên envisioned during the “Receding Spring” was directed inward. In contrast to apocalyptic visions of an astrological, celestial, nuclear, or extraterrestrial nature, the exigencies of the Dragon Flower prophecy were not initiated from without but rather accelerated from within.13 The inward movement of the Dragon Flower prophecy, in which delta inhabitants’ native landscape turned on itself, implied introspection and thus drew beholders’ vision toward their interior karmic landscapes. Huyên led his followers to see in their inner moral configuration the mirror image of the land’s physical chaos and, conversely, in the deterioration of the land, their own moral degeneration. Because people’s inner and outer worlds were intrinsically intertwined, Huyên saw in his world’s devolution the concomitant retribution of human misdeeds.14 But Đoàn Minh Huyên’s message ultimately inspired hope. By the same karmic logic of the world’s decline, moral reparation could restore. Alluding to the depletion of the dharma that paralleled the Mekong River’s descent from its Himalayan wellspring to the delta during the “Receding Spring,” Huyên taught, “Today’s world has already shallowed, to open, transform, and establish the Fountainhead era” (62). Huyên believed that if people with “karma of goodness” would tu (修)—a term that applies both to moral cultivation and material reconstruction— then the world would be restored to peace. Thus, even amidst the misery of traversing through the “Receding Spring,” Huyên inspired hope, “Amidst calamity, with luck a fish from a spring may come across a lotus lake” (42). Therefore, imbedded in the inward and outward journey inherent in Đoàn Minh Huyên’s teaching about the Dragon 13 14 in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline (Berkeley, CA: Asian Humanities Press, 1991), 27–64. For scriptural sources, variations, and comparison of Buddhist apocalypses, see Jan Nattier, Once upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline, 119–32. Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, “Perfect World and Perfect Time: Maitreya in Vietnam,” in Maitreya, the Future Buddha, ed. Alan Sponberg and Helen Hardacre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 164. Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 189 Flower prophecy was a promise. Just as Śākyamuni’s story over incalculable lifetimes is also our story,15 Maitreya’s anticipated achievement of Buddhahood beneath the dragon flower tree would be the collective fruit of individuals’ participation in cultivation as well as the realization of salvation for ourselves and our world. Master Buddha ES IS Sitting ruefully, I recall the teacher’s words; In the year of the Earthen Cock, east and west were in throngs. As an epidemic seized thousands upon thousands, All beneath the skies panicked, villages frightened out of their wits. The skies halted the waters suddenly; Teacher, seeing this, was moved and resolved to deliver us to peace. To rescue the hundred clans who faced calamity, At that time, teacher descended to Tòng Sơn village... 16 M IM Thus begins a vernacular hagiography of Master Buddha of unknown authorship(s). This opening passage offers us a moment to consider the challenges of narrating the teacher’s life story. The narrator begins by speaking in plaintive nostalgic verse. He summons Master Buddha by memory, and so his telling of the teacher’s story is an act of recollection. However, as the storyteller progresses, he draws our remembrance of Master Buddha to the present by exhorting us to uphold his teachings. The narrator reiterates the former master’s teachings for immediate practice. Then, by avowing the veracity of Master Buddha’s message 15 16 John S. Strong, “A Family Quest: The Buddha, Yaśodhara, and Rāhula in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya,” in Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions of South and Southeast Asia, ed. Juliane Schober (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997), 113–28; The Buddha: A Short Biography (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2001), 14; Jonathan S. Walters, “Story, Stūpa, and Empire: Construction of the Buddha Biography in Early Post-Aśokan India,” in Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions of South and Southeast Asia, ed. Juliane Schober (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997), 160–92. “Giảng xưa về Phật Thầy,” in Vương Kim (Phạm Bá Cẩm) and Đào Hưng, Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, second edition (Sài Gòn: NXB Long Hoa, 1954), 158. 190 Asian Philosophical Texts The likening of the body of Buddhist teachings (V. pháp thân 法身, S. dharmakāya) to the pervasive rhythms of a sonic dharma calls to mind the “three bodies” (V. tam thân, S. trikāya) theory of Mantrayāna (Esoteric Incantation) Buddhism. Ibid., 166. Today, a village by the name of Tòng Sơn is located in Mỹ An Hưng Hamlet, Lấp Vò Discrict, Đồng Tháp Province, Vietnam. Tòng Sơn Pagoda and other structures commemorative of Đoàn Minh Huyên are found there. 「四面波濤, 望之如水上浮萍,日閃江豚,風翻水鶴」。Trịnh Hoài Đức 鄭懷德 (1765–1825), Gia Định thành thông chí 嘉定城通志 (c.1820), Sinographic text in Gia Định thành thống chí, ed. Đào Duy Anh, trans. Đỗ Mộng Khương and Nguyễn Ngọc Tỉnh (Tp. Hồ Chí Minh: NXB Giáo dục, 1999), 75b/162. The river dolphin was probably a species of finless porpoise. Đại Nam nhất thống chí, another contemporary gazetteer, likened the islet to a raft drifting in the river. Quốc sử quán triều Nguyễn, Đại Nam nhất thống chí, ed. Đào Duy Anh, trans. Phạm Trọng Điềm (Viện Sử học, NXB Thuận Hóa–Huế, 2006), vol. 5, 214. M 17 IM ES IS about the world’s immanent restitution beneath the dragon flower tree, the narrator speaks to the future. Thus, the temporality of “Master Buddha,” reverberated through past, present, and future and redounded cyclically. As the storyteller concludes, “Master Buddha” and his embodiment in memory, teachings, practice, and, perhaps, unknowable mystery17 echoes throughout “affairs of the world like rhythms of a wooden fish.”18 Therefore, “Master Buddha” is at once an individual, a body of teachings, and a figure of worship. We must remain mindful of this in the discussion to follow. In 1807, the historical Đoàn Minh Huyên was born in Tòng Sơn Village on an eponymous islet near the right bank of the Tiền River.19 A contemporary gazetteer described his native islet, “All four sides are lapped by undulating waves. Gazing upon it [from a distance], the islet seems like drifting duckweed. The sunlight shimmers on river dolphins, and the wind stirs the water’s cranes.”20 Huyên became accustomed to the unmoored life of his riverine homeland early in his youth. Stories that mention Huyên’s childhood tell us that once his father died, he and his mother coursed the rivers and canals by boat, selling betel and areca. The extent of their travels is unknown, but Huyên’s 18 19 20 Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 191 21 Vương Kim (Phạm Bá Cẩm) and Đào Hưng, Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, second edition (Sài Gòn: NXB Long Hoa, 1954), 16–17. His travels at this time are said to have included Mõ Cày, Bến Tre, Cần Chông, Sốc Trăng, Bạc Liêu, Cà Mau, Rạch Giá, and the Seven Mountains. Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 30. Swimming through the delta’s waterways was quite hazardous considering the crocodiles, snakes, and pirates who populated them. Nevertheless, accounts from twentieth century memoirs reveal that some did succeed in coursing the waters by clinging to bamboo. Nguyễn Văn Quảng and Marjorie Pivar, Fourth Uncle in the Mountain: A Memoir of a Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004), 43–46. These are my provisional translation for khí công (breath work), khinh công (swift traveling), võ (martial yoga), phù thủy/thuốc nước (healing), phong thủy (geomancy), bùa (talismans), tiên tri (prognostication), điễn (thunderbolt-cultivation, vajra), and tàng hình (vanishing). Some of these practices are described in Thích Quảng Huyền, Dharma Mountain Buddhism and Martial Yoga, temple publication (Frederick, MD: Chùa Xá Lợi, 2007). Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 4, 11. Nguyễn Văn Quảng and Marjorie Pivar, Fourth Uncle in the Mountain: A Memoir of a Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam. M 22 IM ES IS mother was buried along the Cái Tàu Thương waterway about three kilometers by boat from Tòng Sơn.21 When Đoàn Minh Huyên’s mother died is unclear, but after her passing, Huyên continued to wander. According to oral tradition, he drifted throughout the waterways of the Mekong Delta, clinging to just a culm of bamboo.22 By his thirties, Huyên seems to have mastered an array of cultivation arts, including embodied practices such as breath work, swift traveling, and martial yoga as well as uncanny abilities in healing, geomancy, talismans, presaging, thunderbolt-cultivation, and vanishing.23 He also achieved fluency in Sinographic writing and Buddhist sūtra literature.24 Huyên never attributed his training to any particular lineage(s) or teacher(s). However, present day accounts of adepts’ training the sundry assortment of skills and practices associated with a spiritual teacher like Huyên suggest that he studied sporadically with multiple masters of various affiliations (and lack thereof) during the course of this travels.25 By 1842, Đoàn Minh Huyên felt compelled to preach. Internal clues in Esoteric Tradition reveal that Huyên alighted at Hổ Cứ Islet that year, warning of the calamities soon to befall a 23 24 25 192 Asian Philosophical Texts Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace, 1. In Esoteric Tradition, Đoàn Minh Huyên begins with the words “upon [the year] Nhâm.” Nhâm (壬), one of the ten heavenly stems of the 60-year calendrical cycle, most likely referred to the year 1842. A decade earlier in 1832 seems too early, and by a decade later in 1852, Đoàn Minh Huyên was restricted to the Seven Mountains area well-west of Hổ Cứ. References to the zodiac in Esoteric Tradition also point to the year 1842 as the beginning of a chain of events (39). Moreover, oral tradition tells us that, after leaving Tòng Sơn in 1849, Huyên was averse to returning to his native islets. Even though he is said to have visited his cloister in Kiến Thạnh–Xẻo Môn for three months, he appears never to have ventured further east and largely remained in the Seven Mountains area after 1850. The monk was known in Vietnamese as Sãi Kế and Lâm Sâm. Ho-Tai HueTam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 7. Gò Công (“Peacock Hill”), which was formerly its own province, is now part of Tiền Giang Province. Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 30. M 26 IM ES IS “shallowed world.”26 The previous year, a Khmer monk had led his followers to arms, disrupting life throughout the delta from the coastal east to the Seven Mountains.27 Amidst such chaos, Huyên alluded to the Vietnamese zodiac to project the miseries to come during the three years to follow (1843–1845) and implore the delta’s people to seek shelter in the mountains of the west, “The cat’s cry resounds! The cat’s cry resounds! Scaring snake and dragon to flee into the mountains and hide” (39). He appears to have drifted up and down the Mekong River spreading his message, and, by 1844, he preached another esoteric litany at Gò Công in the eastern delta.28 During these years early in his career, few seem to have heeded Đoàn Minh Huyên’s exhortations. In the Esoteric Tradition, he lamented, “Pity the world of dust! —I keep teaching, but none listen” (26). Still, moved by the precipitating sufferings that he perceived, he felt compelled to speak out, “Seeing this, I feel sorry for myself. To speak of it is terrible, but to stay silent only compounds my sadness” (103). Huyên’s activities for the next four years after Gò Công are unknown, but by 1849, he felt consigned to return to his home village on Tòng Sơn Islet, where he lived in relative obscurity behind the village đình or community hall. He drew notice only for his habit of speaking in undiscernible (esoteric?) whispers, trancelike comportment, 27 28 Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 193 M IM ES IS and burning foliage for a lantern at night, which caused some alarm as a fire hazard.29 However, Huyên would soon garner attention. The episode through which Huyên began to be taken seriously not only reveals the circumstances of his emergence as a religious leader, but it also reveals early indications of his inward-directed reflection on people’s sufferings—that they were the baleful fruits of human waywardness. Later in 1849, the “year of the Earthen Cock” mentioned in the above poem about recollecting Master Buddha, a cholera epidemic broke out in the delta, which, due to the creation of new, more urban settlements in the frontier waterscape as well as its frequent movement of peoples and products, was prone to such outbreaks.30 In response, Đoàn Minh Huyên’s villagers devised to perform a ritual that would “cast off the wind” (tống gió), since they believed that pestilence was caused by external demonic winds. Huyên, whom none of the villagers recognized as a village native and instead regarded as an eccentric vagabond, stood up to object, saying “If you yourself dislike the wind, then to whom will you send it off?”31 With these words, Huyên entreated his fellow villagers to look within to see the roots of the terrible disease in their own karmic demerits rather than treat the epidemic as a bane that had befallen them from outside. Moreover, Huyên implored, passing the baleful winds off to others would only compound their misdeeds and, ultimately, their suffering. Nevertheless, the village elders would not be swayed, and they banished the vagabond. As he departed, Huyên 29 30 31 Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 31. From the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries, typhoons, trade, state rice transportation, migration, pilgrimage, mining, prostitution, war, and piracy contributed to the outbreak and spread of disease. Li Tana, “Epidemics in Late Pre-modern Vietnam and Their Links with Her Neighbours,” conference paper presented at Imperial China and Its Southern Neighbours, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 28–29 June, 2012. Nguyễn Long Thành Nam, Phật giáo Hòa Hảo trong dòng lịch sử dân tộc (Sante Fe Springs, CA: Tập san Đuốc Từ Bi, 1991), 112; Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 32. 194 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS revealed himself to his surviving kin, who had not recognized him before.32 Huyên would never return. Thereupon, Đoàn Minh Huyên again clutched his bamboo culm and swam along the Cái Tàu Thượng waterway around to Xẻo Môn Canal.33 As he coursed the waterways, he encountered numerous “ghost rafts” from all the villages that performed “casting off the wind” sacrifices. The scene of drifting rafts, coffins, and corpses as well as the ghostly moans of afflicted people and cries of startled animals must have felt exceedingly eerie.34 To Huyên, it must have seemed like he presaged seven years earlier, “The scene is severe! The scene is severe…! I now watch as suddenly in the world, endless ghosts lead themselves along—who could shelter us? Here in the morning, lost by night in a life of hardships, like a flash of lightning whose brilliance cannot endure” (37, 52–53). Huyên stayed for a time at Trà Bư Village, where he unveiled his uncanny healing powers. Although he made no such claims, rumors spread that he was a living Buddha.35 Eventually, as his reputation grew, he traveled up Xẻo Môn Canal to where it met Tiền River. There, at the waterways’ intersection at Kiến Thạnh, Huyên treated the sick, who came by boat in throngs.36 At this river crossway, Huyên’s followers would establish their first cloister.37 Within a year, the commotion that accompanied Đoàn Minh Huyên’s healing activities (and the resulting overburdened 32 33 34 35 36 37 Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 32. Vương Kim (Phạm Bá Cẩm) and Đào Hưng, Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 17. Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 34. Nguyễn Long Thành Nam, Phật giáo Hòa Hảo trong dòng lịch sử dân tộc, 112; Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 42. By contrast, in Hòa Hảo hagiography, Master Buddha, called “Venerable Buddha,” is the first in a series of Buddha incarnations leading up to Huỳnh Phú Sổ or “Venerable Teacher.” Trà Bư is now in Hội An Hamlet, and Kiến Thạnh (Long Kiến) is in Long Giang Hamlet; both are part of Chợ Mới District, An Giang Province. Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 34–36. After Đoàn Minh Huyên’s death, the cloister was named “Old Pagoda of Western Peace” to distinguish it from Western Peace Pagoda at Sam Mountain. It was originally the makeshift hermitage of a certain Adept (Đạo) Kiến. Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 195 38 Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 11. Ostensibly, Đoàn Minh Huyên thus became a “disciple” of the temple’s abbot, Nguyễn Nhứt Thừa. Nguyễn Long Thành Nam, Phật giáo Hòa Hảo trong dòng lịch sử dân tộc, 115. In its Buddhist context, Tây An (西安) or “Western Peace” is an abbreviation of Tây Phương An Lạc Tịnh Thổ (西方安樂淨土) or “Western Blissful Pure Land” of Amitābha Buddha. An lạc (安樂) was one of the Sinographic translations of sukha or “bliss” in Sukhāvatī, the Sanskrit name of Amitābha’s Pure Land. Quốc sử quán triều Nguyễn, Đại Nam nhất thống chí, vol. 5, 226. Although employed (and often conscripted) by the Vietnamese Nguyễn state, these settlers included peoples of Chinese, Khmer, Cham, and Malay ethnicities in addition to Vietnamese. Vũ Đức Liêm, “Rama III, Minh Mạng and Power Paradigm in Early Nineteenth Century Mekong Valley,” Rian Thai : International Journal of Thai Studies 5 (2012) 308–309; ________, “Vietnam at the Khmer Frontier: Boundary Politics, 1802–1847,” Cross-Currents: East Asian History and Culture Review 5, no. 2 (2016): 550; Nicolas Weber, “Securing and Developing the Southwestern Region: The Role of the Cham and Malay Colonies in Vietnam (18th–19th Centuries),” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 54, no. 5 (2011): 739–772. Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 12. M 39 IM ES IS waterways) drew the attention of Nguyễn Dynasty authorities as well. A provincial governor, who suspected the teacher’s intentions, detained him in 1850. After determining the selfavowed layman was an essentially harmless, albeit eccentric “monk,” the governor sent Huyên to be formerly ordained in the Lâm Tế Buddhist order at Western Peace Pagoda (Chùa Tây An).38 Aside from evoking the blissful western realm of Amitābha Buddha,39 The name of the temple, “Western Peace” (Tây An, 西安), conveyed settlers’ recent pacification of a multiethnic frontier as the pagoda, which was built just three years earlier in 1847, lay at the foot of Sam Mountain in the Seven Mountains region at the western fringe of Vietnamese dynastic authority.40 Once relocated in the loosely controlled periphery, Đoàn Minh Huyên was left relatively free to heal, teach, and even leave the pagoda as he wished.41 In keeping with the faintest echoes of dharma that Huyên believed the “shallowed world” could still recall of Buddhism’s receding teachings, Huyên taught a minimalist practice, the so-called Intangible Way or đạo vô vi (道無為). He instructed his followers to perform observances before a blank red cloth (trần điều) in lieu of votive images and 40 41 196 Asian Philosophical Texts M 43 The flags or banners were called thẻ năm ông. The creation of mandala with five Buddhas for each direction (cardinal directions and center) suggests Tantric Vajrayāna influence, but the color scheme shows that they were influenced by Sinographic convention (and, perhaps, “Daoism”) as well. Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 37; Nguyễn Long Thành Nam, Phật giáo Hòa Hảo trong dòng lịch sử dân tộc, 112–113; Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 49; Vương Kim (Phạm Bá Cẩm) and Đào Hưng, Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 23. Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 24; Vương Kim (Phạm Bá Cẩm) and Đào Hưng, Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 19. Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 79. Ibid., 43–46; Recluse (Trần Văn Nhựt) and Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Thất Sơn mầu nhiệm, 113–164. Although much is said of Master Buddha’s twelve disciples in oral literature and Hòa Hảo hagiography, there is no uniform list of their identities. Nguyễn Long Thành Nam suggests: Trần Văn Thành (d. 1873), “Monk Bùi” (d. 1907), Bùi Văn Tây (1802–1890), Nguyễn Văn Xuyến (1834–1914), Đặng Văn Ngoạn (1820–1890), Phạm Thái Chung (d. 1877), “Adept (Đạo) Lãnh” (?–1856?), Trần Văn Nhu (1847–1914), Nguyễn Văn Thới (1866–1927), “Adept (Đạo) Sang,” “Adept (Đạo) Thạch,” and “Adept (Đạo) Lãnh of Gò Sát.” Nguyễn Long Thành Nam, Phật giáo Hòa Hảo trong dòng lịch sử dân tộc, 123–124. That some of these adepts postdate Master Buddha shows that “disciple” (đệ tử) in the hagiographies was used quite IM 42 ES IS make offerings of water, incense, and flowers. To demarcate votive spaces, he practiced geomancy by merely having his followers plant five solid-colored tantric flags for the Buddhas of the five directions.42 His healing art, too, was remarkably simple. He prescribed talismanic rainwater—sometimes mixed with the ash of paper or cloth prayers— and moral rectification.43 Finally, for the transmission of the dharma, he vernacularized his teachings into sấm or orally transmitted esoteric verses, thus doing away with physical sūtra.44 Within a year, the “layman of Western Peace” as Đoàn Minh Huyên referred to himself,45 had conveyed his message to numerous followers, twelve of whom he seems to have chosen to establish “fields” (trại ruộng) as religious farming communities. These lay and clerical adepts, who called themselves “people of the way” (đạo), set up agrarian camps throughout the delta. Most reclaimed land in the frontier jungles of the Seven Mountains area, but others spread as far east as Biên Hòa and west as the lands of present-day Cambodia.46 Since Đoàn Minh Huyên’s practices were so artless and bare, 44 45 46 Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 197 M IM ES IS and his prophetic message was so diffuse, the array of “fields” that sprouted up throughout the delta was fragmentary and decentralized.47 In addition, the challenges of communication and travel in the delta isolated the “fields,” which were already by conception meant to be cloistered from the outside world. Hence, adepts’ ideas and teachings varied greatly from place to place. In fact, most adepts met Huyên only briefly and received little training from him. For the most part, they just adopted his prophetic message and, perhaps, took refuge in him as a “living Buddha.” Meanwhile, others could associate themselves with Huyên simply to yoke his charisma and perceived powers. Therefore, Đoàn Minh Huyên’s contribution to the movement(s) that he set in motion was to inspire religiously inclined adepts at a moment of crisis, particularly the cholera epidemic, rather than to train or indoctrinate them. Indeed, there was nothing new about Huyên’s teachings. He did not so much invent, explain, or systematize the Dragon Flower prophecy as much as he gave it voice through the magic of his uncanny personality and spiritual prowess. As a result, each cloister that extended from his influence tended to reinvent Master Buddha’s message with divergent thoughts and practices. Initially, Đoàn Minh Huyên’s message was peaceful, evasive, and inclusive, attracting a wide range of delta peoples, including Vietnamese, Khmer, Chinese, and, perhaps, even Cham and Malays. However, after the French seized control of the delta from 1859 to 1867, some of Master Buddha’s “disciples” turned towards militancy and ethnic tribalism. For example, Trần Văn Thành (?–1873) claimed to succeed Master Buddha by producing a seal that was used to print talismans bearing the Sinographs “Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương” (寶山奇香).48 These talismans were probably borrowed from secret societies’ initiation rituals and 47 48 loosely to connect an otherwise fragmentary and decentralized layout of “fields.” Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 18, 33. Several esoteric litanies are dedicated to elevating Trần Văn Thành as Đoàn Minh Huyên’s successor. Nguyễn Hữu Hiệp, Nhứt sư nhứt đệ tử (Hà Nội: NXB Văn hóa Dân tọc, 2010), 191–210. 198 Asian Philosophical Texts M 50 On the links between the Sinographs “Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương” and the secret societies, see Đỗ Thiện, Vietnamese Supernaturalism: Views from the Southern Region, 196. For ideological similarities with the secret societies, see Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 31–33. It is clear from the Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương poem that Đoàn Minh Huyên was not its author. The poem speaks of the rebirth of Emperor Minh Mạng (1791– 1841), the military leadership of (a reincarnated?) Trạng Trình (Nguyễn Binh Khiêm 1491–1586), and the restoration of “Việt Nam.” However, Huyên died in 1856, before the French seized control of the delta. The cabalistic poem is described in Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Nhận thức Phật giáo Hòa Hảo (Hà Nội, NXB Tôn Giáo, 1968, 2017), 15–16. Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 15. Phật Trùm (?–1875) or “Chief Buddha,” whose real name is unknown, hailed from Bokor (Tà Lơn) Mountain in modern Cambodia. He was known during his lifetime as Candle Adept (Đạo Đèn), because his thaumaturgical practices involved candles. He was later arrested and exiled by the French. Recluse (Trần Văn Nhựt) and Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Thất Sơn mầu nhiệm, 89–95. “Patriarch Master” or bổn sư 本師 is a title of Śākyamuni Buddha and implies that Ngô Lợi was Maitreya, the initiator of a new dharma dispensation. He is said to have achieved enlightenment in 1870. The son of a carpenter, Ngô Lợi’s ethnic origins are uncertain. However, his prolific writing in literary Sinitic suggests that he may have been Hoa or at least drew a congregation of Hoa followers. Đinh Văn Hạnh, Đạo Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa của người Việt Nam bộ, 1867–1975 (Tp. Hồ Chí Minh: NXB Trẻ, 1999), 58–68; Trần Văn Quế, IM 49 ES IS facilitated the organization of Thành’s anti-colonial forces until his death in 1873.49 Because of Thành’s activities, the French associated the phrase “Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương” and its eponymous anti-colonial poem with Master Buddha, thereby providing the nomenclature by which Huyên’s “sect” is known today.50 While some adepts adopted Đoàn Minh Huyên’s prophetic message in opposition to colonial power, their movements remained ethnically inclusive and diverse throughout the nineteenth century. For example, Trần Văn Thành studied embodied talismanic techniques (V. bùa gông) from the Khmer, enlisted them in his army, and made a Khmer his highestranking subordinate.51 Later on, another Khmer known as “Chief Buddha,” after apparently reviving from death, was said to become a living Buddha akin to Master Buddha.52 Aside from these Khmer adepts, Ngô Lợi (1831–1890), who also gained notoriety as an anti-colonial “living Buddha” with the title “Patriarch Master,” was probably ethnically Hoa (“Chinese”).53 51 52 53 Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 199 M IM ES IS Although evidence about the degree to which Cham and Malays may have participated in such movements is scarce, cultural borrowings of Islamic forms of practice by traditions associated with Master Buddha suggest that Cham and Malays interacted with these traditions significantly, perhaps even as participants.54 However, early in the twentieth century, some adepts who associated themselves with Master Buddha’s teachings began to assume more nationalistic attitudes. In circa 1901–1902, a transvestite monk-nun and self-described madman/madwoman, who boated along the Vĩnh Tế Canal between Cambodia and southern Vietnam, linked the grievances that anticipate the Dragon Flower Assembly with the deposition of Emperor Hàm Nghi (r. 1884–1885) and the conversion of delta peoples to the ways of the “heretical west” (tà tây).55 Although he/she advocated absconding to the Seven Mountains like Đoàn Minh Huyên and never turned to violence, his/her rhetoric wed the Dragon Flower prophecy to the degraded Vietnamese monarchy and framed the destruction of the Buddhist religion as an affront by outside invaders. In other words, his/her exhortations could be skewed to rationalize a “just war” that would rescue Buddhism and the Vietnamese state from annihilation. Indeed, in 1913, a youth, who claimed to be a descendent of Emperor Hàm Nghi and a living Buddha, was caught in Saigon, the capital of French Cochinchina, plotting an attack armed with bombs and “Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương” amulets after having trained in the Seven Mountains.56 Another adept who took after the mad monk-nun was Venerable Huỳnh Phú Sổ (1919–1947?), founder of the profoundly consequential Sect of Hòa Hảo Village.57 Ven. Huỳnh’s major 54 55 56 57 Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa (Sài Gòn: Tủ sách sưu khảo sử liệu Phật giáo Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương, 1971), 15–18. These cultural forms include worship spaces constructed like minarets, Hòa Hảo “reading and lecture halls” (tòa đọc giảng), and votive vermillion cloth (trần điều). Đỗ Thiện, Vietnamese Supernaturalism: Views from the Southern Region, 196. Sư vãi bán khoai, Sấm giảng người đời (Sài Gòn: Sen Vàng, 1949), 6, 36, 70. Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 69–70. Ibid., 119. 200 Asian Philosophical Texts 58 For the role of Zen traditions in Imperial Japan see Brian (Daizen) A. Victoria, Zen at War (New York: Weatherhill, 1997). Đức Huỳnh giáo chủ (Huỳnh Phú Sổ), Sấm giảng thi văn toàn bộ (S.l.: Giáo hội Phật giáo Hòa Hảo, Ban Phổ thông giáo lý trung ương, 1966), 61, 99. The idea that the Six Patriarch Huineng was “Vietnamese” is a fringe theory based on the amorphous meaning of the Sinograph 粵, which can have widely divergent meanings depending on temporal and spatial context. See Thích Mãn Giác, Was Hui-Neng Vietnamese? (Los Angeles: CA: Vietnamese Buddhist Temple, L.A., 1990). For the meanings of “Viet” (粵/越) through history see Erica Brindley, Ancient China and the Yue: Perceptions and Identities on the Southern Frontier, c. 400 BCE–50 CE (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2015). Although Ven. Huỳnh Phú Sổ accepted Japanese entreaties, he was not necessarily pro-Japanese. He was primarily concerned with his sect’s role in fostering a budding sense of anti-colonial nationalism. In fact, from early on he prophesized Japan’s ultimate defeat. Francis R. Hill, “Millenarian Machines in South Vietnam,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, 13, no. 3 (July 1971), 336. Jessica M. Chapman, Cauldron of Resistance: Ngo Dinh Diem, the United States, and 1950s Southern Vietnam (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013), M 59 IM ES IS philosophical contribution to the body of thought that accrued around remembrances of Master Buddha and his teachings was to render the endemic tradition more cosmopolitan and conversant with intellectual circles, mainstream Buddhism, and secular politics. Moreover, in stark contrast to Đoàn Minh Huyên, he countenanced violence and wove a doctrine of social activism into the prophetic teachings of his predecessors. Most striking was Ven. Huỳnh’s reinterpretation of the teachings associated with Master Buddha and the Dragon Flower prophecy to ally with Imperial Japan’s wartime ideology of “Zen at War.”58 Namely, Ven. Huỳnh incorporated the Sixth Patriarch of the Meditation (Zen) Sect into his esoteric litanies, thereby highlighting the purportedly peasant and “Viet” origins of the Six Patriarch while situating his sect within the sphere of an internationalized Zen tradition.59 Under Japanese aegis in the 1940s,60 Huỳnh’s (and especially his epigones’) sectarian teachings not only became consonant with Zen’s fascist iterations, they also found tangible expression as his sect developed its own militias, which, even after the Japanese surrender, retained their arms for the next decade.61 Moreover, the epigones of Ven. Huỳnh 60 61 Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 201 IM ES IS crafted hagiographies of former adepts and “living Buddhas” that promoted distinctly “Vietnamese” nationalistic sentiments. 62 But Đoàn Minh Huyên did not live to see any of this, as he passed away nearly a century before. According to a stele at his burial site, he died at noon on September 10, 1856.63 In keeping with his “Intangible Way,” before his death he forbade his followers to form a burial mound for his remains, although they did demarcate the place of his inhumation by erecting a low wall around it.64 Because Western Peace Pagoda was the place where he was formally ordained, lived the later part of his life, and entrusted his remains, Huyên thereafter became known as the “Master Buddha of Western Peace,” a name that both reflected the impact of his life for peoples at the Vietnamese frontier and evoked his bearing as a living Buddha akin to Amitābha, the Buddha in the west. Today, well over a million people in Vietnam and around the world follow Buddhist teachings that they trace back to Master Buddha. Many of them affiliate themselves with the large sects that enjoy official sanction under Vietnam’s communist regime, namely Hòa Hảo, Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa, and Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương, while many M 13–39; Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 124–136, 165. 62 Aside from legends about numerous anti-colonial freedom fighters, perhaps the most striking example of Hòa Hảo hagiographies’ nationalistic character is the claim that Phật Trùm, the Khmer “Chief Buddha,” essentially became Vietnamese after his resurrection and enlightenment. See Recluse (Trần Văn Nhựt) and Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Thất Sơn mầu nhiệm, 89. 63 That is, in the language of the stele, the ngọ hour on the 12th day of the 8th month of the Fire-Dragon (Bính Thìn) year. 64 Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 85–86. 65 According to Vietnam’s 2019 census, followers of Hòa Hảo account for about one percent of Vietnam's population or 96,200,000 people. The numbers of people who identify with Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa (Four Debts of Gratitude, Filial Piety, and Righteousness) and Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương (Marvelous Incense on the Mountain of the Jewels) were not revealed by the census, but they appear to be less than those for Hòa Hảo. General Statistics Office of Vietnam, Tổng điều tra dân số 01/04/2019, online document, http://tongdieutradanso.vn/ket-qua-tong-dieutra-dan-so-va-nha-o-thoi-diem-0-gio-ngay-01-thang-4-nam-2019.html. The official religions Tịnh Độ Cư Sỹ (Pure Land Laypeople), Phật Đường Nam Tông Minh Sư Đạo (Way of the Southern Sect's Enlightened Masters of the Buddha Hall ), and Hiếu Nghĩa Tà Lơn (Bokor Mt. Filial Piety and Righteousness) may arguably 202 Asian Philosophical Texts others participate in unregistered smaller lineages that also claim descent from Master Buddha. Overwhelmingly, these adepts’ practices agree with Huyên’s peaceful message, cultivating goodness according to the “Intangible Way” as the shallowed dharma fades into the offing of time.66 A Teaching ES IS Đoàn Minh Huyên did not discuss his teachings discursively or embellish them with commentary, but rather dissipated them in “shallowed” form. The dharma sediment that filtered through Huyên’s decanting hermeneutic were ill-defined, provisional, and fluid.67 Nevertheless, some characteristics of Huyên’s teachings can be described. Three of these that found expression in lived practice are presented below: The Intangible Way, Four Debts of Gratitude, and Recollection of Buddha. The Intangible Way—Đạo Vô Vi (道無為) M IM Đoàn Minh Huyên expounded the Dragon Flower prophecy as the overarching conceptual canopy that sheltered a wide spectrum of divergent self-cultivation practices as well as their attendant this-worldly and supernatural abilities, thus accommodating an amorphous body of teachings that could follow along the fluid 66 67 be counted among sects associated with Master Buddha’s teachings, but I exclude them since these connections are rather tenuous and, moreover, the sects themselves do not attribute their origins to Master Buddha. Phạm Bích Hợp performed sociological surveys in 2007 that demonstrated ongoing belief in Master Buddha’s core tenets like the Dragon Flower prophecy, aniconic worship, lay-orientation, and philanthropy well into the twenty-first century. Phạm Bích Hợp, Người Nam bộ và tôn giáo bản địa (Hanoi: NXB Tôn giáo, 2007), 315–361. By contrast, Ngô Lợi (a.k.a. Đức Bổn Sử or “Venerable Patriarch Master”) composed an astonishing twenty-four “sūtra” (kinh) in literary Sinitic that arranged the Dragon Flower prophecy and various aspects of Buddhist, Daoist, and Tantric thought into an elaborate synthesis. His epigones rendered many of these “sūtra” into vernacular forms. Đinh Văn Hạnh, Đạo Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa của người Việt Nam bộ, 1867–1975, 78–85. Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 203 M IM ES IS ethnic, geographic, and religious contours of the delta. But his was no doctrine of synthesis or hybridity, for the substance of Huyên’s conceptual canopy was too diaphanous and airy. By embracing the prophecy, Huyên articulated a rarefication of dharma so extreme as to be virtually indistinct. During dharma’s twilight, all that remained of Buddhism, Huyên taught, was đạo vô vi—the Intangible Way. In this sense, Đoàn Minh Huyên’s teachings agreed with preexisting, widely held Buddhist eschatological thought. According to sūtra and Buddhist tradition about dharma’s cyclical degeneration and renewal, a Buddha’s dispensation declines over three conceptual periods—true dharma, semblance dharma, and ending dharma—after which the next Buddha achieves enlightenment and begins a new dispensation.68 As time passes and successive generations become further removed from the Buddha, dharma fades until it ultimately vanishes. Humankind’s memory is tenuous, and, eventually, come the time of the “ending dharma” (V. mạt pháp, 末法), even the name of “Buddha” is forgotten. At that time, whatever specious recollection of Buddha, his teachings, and his body of devotees still lingers is obscure and confused. Concomitantly, distinctions between Buddha and demon, piety and sacrilege, enlightenment and insanity, devotee and heretic all disappear. The world spins vertiginously, drifting unmoored. This, Huyên described, saying, “Revolutions of time spin the mundane world of dust… Turning people, turning things, turning years, turning days…” (11, 161). Thus, in the twilight of Buddha’s enlightenment, a confused world turns with uncertain trajectory through a transformation that denies absolutes, intractably unknowable and without bearing. Đoàn Minh Huyên’s articulation of the decline of dharma was precedented in Vietnamese Buddhism in 1740 with a ceremony performed before a “Dragon Flower platform” erected at Huế by Thích Liễu Quán (1667–1742), whom a eulogy inscribed 68 Jan Nattier, Once upon a Future Time: Studies in a Buddhist Prophecy of Decline, 90–118. 204 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS six years after his death described as “a precious rarity” during the “dharma’s withering.”69 However, whereas Liễu Quán’s ceremony was intended to revive Buddhism in Vietnam by bestowing Buddhist precepts, which were grafted to Vietnam from the Chinese north, en masse, Huyên’s evocation of the Dragon Flower prophecy dissolved them. Since Huyên believed that only the faintest echo remained of authentic dharma and its precepts, he was incredulous of their genuine forms. For him, the notion of “true” precepts was an intangible memory. Although Huyên acknowledged that following precepts was desirable, he felt that their practice was too tenuous to credit or prescribe. Therefore, he deemed himself a layman and taught his followers lay-oriented Buddhist devotion, as Huyên conveyed, “My lot is that of a devout layman, a teacher who teaches people to do good and cultivate” (96). Moreover, Huyên was too suspicious of expressing genuine dharma even to consider himself “Buddhist.” Instead, he and his followers called their teachings “the good way” (đạo lành) and referred to themselves simply as “people of the Way” (người đạo), a name that has sometimes led to their mischaracterization as Daoist.70 In his adaptation of Buddhist practices to lay contexts, Đoàn Minh Huyên bore similarities with members of Chinese lay Buddhist associations.71 At the same time, he reflected parallel developments among some Buddhist traditions elsewhere in mainland Southeast Asia. For instance, Huyên’s telling of the Dragon Flower prophecy was probably colored by its Khmer 69 70 71 The 1748 stele said of Thích Liễu Quán, “Today, with our generation’s teachings and withered dharma, none are able to perform the great task [of expounding authentic dharma], so [to have had] a monk like Liễu Quán is truly a precious rarity” (當今之世教衰法末能為大事者故有如了觀和尚者 實希矣). Trần Trung Hậu and Thích Hải Ấn, Chư tôn Thiền Đức Cư sĩ hữu công Phật Giáo Thuận Hóa (TpHCM: NXB Tổng Hợp TP. HCM, 2011), vol. 1, 121. E.g., Đỗ Thiện’s fifth chapter “Daoists from the Mountain” in his otherwise excellent Vietnamese Supernaturalism: Views from the Southern Region, 165–206. Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 31–32. Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 205 M IM ES IS iterations.72 In addition, Huyên’s self-characterization as a lay devotee resembles the appearance of Burmese thaumaturges and Thai spirit-mediums, whose affiliation with Buddhism is ambiguous, but appeared especially at times when dharma was thought to be in decline.73 As a lived tradition, Đoàn Minh Huyên’s Intangible Way found expression through aniconic devotional practice. Since he believed that genuine forms of worship could no longer be determined, he taught his followers to do without traditional Buddhist paraphernalia, images and spaces—an aniconism that may have been inspired by Islamic practices associated with Cham and Malay communities.74 Instead of worship at a temple with monks before an alter populated with votive statues and images, Huyên and his followers moved devotional practice into ordinary spaces, including the home. For observances, they simply offered water and incense before a vermillion cloth. Another way Đoàn Minh Huyên practiced the Intangible Way was by vernacularizing Buddhist teachings. Although Huyên did support sutra recitation (142), he felt that the traditional Sinographic sutra, too, were suspect. Therefore, following the course of the dharma’s receding, Huyên translated his teachings into intangible oracular forms, effectively erasing the last “dregs of dharma” found in material texts. In addition, Huyên gave the symbolic transmission of his teachings new vernacular meaning by recreating the already immaterial bestowal of the “mind-seal” (tâm ấn, 心印) from teacher to disciple into the “bowels of the sect” (lòng phái), which consisted of cabalistic prayers intended 72 73 74 Đỗ Thiện, Vietnamese Supernaturalism: Views from the Southern Region, 191; Philip Taylor, The Khmer Lands of Vietnam: Environment, Cosmology, and Sovereignty (Singapore: NUS Press and NIAS Press, Asian Studies Association of Australia, 2014), 1, 27–30. Pattana Kitiarsa, Mediums, Monks, and Amulets: Thai Popular Buddhism Today (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2012), 16–18; Thomas Nathan Patton, The Buddha’s Wizards: Magic, Protection, and Healing in Burmese Buddhism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), 12–37. Đỗ Thiện, Vietnamese Supernaturalism: Views from the Southern Region, 196. 206 Asian Philosophical Texts IS to inscribe not just the mind of devotees, but also their physical, geomantic, and spirit-filled landscape.75 Finally, Đoàn Minh Huyên embodied the Intangible Way through eccentricity. Because of the intractable indeterminacy of true dharma, for Huyên the line between saintliness and insanity blurred. Instead of claiming authenticity as a teacher, Huyên embraced a maddening deferral of meaning that denied ultimate truth. His comportment was thus that of unmoored craziness “mobile, fluid, resilient—like reflections and shadows off the river waves.”76 Therefore, in defiance of traditional expectations, Huyên and several of his followers took to wandering, life at the margins, extreme frugality, and unconventional behavior. Four Debts of Gratitude—Tứ Ân (四恩) M IM ES Although Đoàn Minh Huyên purportedly demonstrated his familiarity with sūtra literature to his detractors, he appears to have culled his teachings without recourse to material texts.77 Indeed, the only source he referenced in Esoteric Tradition is an unidentified “good woman” (15). His ideas’ indebtedness to scriptural study may be unclear, but aspects of his teaching certainly have canonical precedents. Specifically, concepts from the Sūtra on the Contemplation of the Abode of Innate HeartMind, namely the Four Debts of Gratitude (V. tứ ân, 四恩) and Four Wisdoms (V. tứ trí, 四智), appear in Huyên’s Esoteric Tradition.78 Whereas the Four Contemplations presumably applied to meditation practice (182), the Four Debts of Gratitude spoke to moral cultivation (88). In lived practice, the former emerged as the guiding tenets of Huyên’s moral philosophy.79 75 76 77 78 79 Ibid., 197. Ibid., 204. Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 11, 23; Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 49. Sūtra on the Contemplation of the Abode of Innate Heart-Mind (V. Bổn sanh tâm địa quán kinh, 本生心地觀經) was purportedly translated into Sinographs in eight fascicles in Tang China in 740. (T.159.3.291–331). Much of the emphasis placed on the Four Debts of Gratitude in practice today among traditions that ramified from Đoàn Minh Huyên’s teachings Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 207 IM ES IS They were debts of gratitude to (1) father and mother, (2) the lands and waters, (3) Threefold Jewels, and (4) humankind.80 Đoàn Minh Huyên’s Intangible Way prescribed an elemental life at the remote periphery, the starkness of which one of his disciples described as “treading here and there in grass sandals beneath the vast skies, donning tattered lotus robes amidst extensive mountains and rivers.”81 Despite Huyên’s minimalist way of life, once agrarian communities began to form around his teachings, he needed to provide them unifying guidance. He accomplished this with the Four Debts of Gratitude. Aside from identifying the family as the core social unit in the “fields,” the first debt of gratitude to one’s father and mother (ơn cha mẹ) addressed the question of continuity through the dispersion of Đoàn Minh Huyên’s teachings without the benefit of institutional structures. Specifically, it established lineage as a model of transmission by making a child’s filial duty to his parents the foremost moral imperative. This inviolable childparent bond and concomitant sense of ancestry mirrored the teacher-disciple lineages that ramified from Master Buddha. Meanwhile, the second debt to the lands and waters (ơn đất nước) spoke to elemental life in the Seven Mountains. In the frontier, Huyên’s followers took to transforming the sacred wilds, and so they beheld their natural surroundings and nature M probably owes itself to Ngô Lợi’s (a.k.a. Patriarch Buddha) systemization of teachings under the umbrella of the Dragon Flower prophecy according to the formula “study Buddha and cultivate humaneness” (học Phật tu nhân, 學 佛修仁), which has generally been interpreted as a synthesis of Buddhist and Confucian moral principles. See Đinh Văn Hạnh, Đạo Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa của người Việt Nam bộ, 1867–1975, 85–98. This discussion of the Four Debts of Gratitude is indebted to Đinh Văn Hạnh, Đạo Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa của người Việt Nam bộ, 1867–1975, 85–89; Đỗ Thiện, Vietnamese Supernaturalism: Views from the Southern Region, 193–195; Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 25; Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Nhận thức Phật giáo Hòa Hảo, 96–102; Recluse (Trần Văn Nhựt) and Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Thất Sơn mầu nhiệm 77–82; Trần Văn Quế, Tứ Ân Hiếu Nghĩa, 31–33; Vương Kim (Phạm Bá Cẩm), Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương (Sài Gòn: BXB Long Hoa, 1966), 127–131; Vương Kim (Phạm Bá Cẩm) and Đào Hưng, Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 83–92. Giày cỏ đến lui trời đất rộng; áo sen xài xạc núi sông dài. Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 45. 80 81 208 Asian Philosophical Texts IM ES IS spirits with awe. Even today, some traditions in the Seven Mountains continue to venerate their natural landscape and its spirits by depicting nature images on the trần đièu, the votive vermillion cloth. Embodied practices, too, reflected belief in the spirits of the land.82 Thus, gratitude towards the lands and waters intimately bonded Huyên’s followers with the liminal frontier at the “horizons of imagination.”83 At the same time, indebtedness to the lands and waters implied gratitude to their dynastic as well as agrarian custodians.84 Indeed, in Esoteric Tradition, Đoàn Minh Huyên mentions trustworthiness between subject and ruler (68, 75, 90). Generations later, some of Huyên’s epigones took the second debt of gratitude to patriotic extremes, sometimes prefixed with modern neologisms like “fatherland.” However, Huyên and most of his followers adopted an attitude of avoidance by cloistering in peripheral spaces rather than take political action.85 Huyên was uninterested in statecraft; instead, he conveyed the eschatology of kingship. Like everything else about his teachings, Huyên understood the royal undertones of his teachings according to the Intangible Way. Specifically, during the dharma’s receding, the symbiotic relationship between (often kingly) lay patrons and Buddhist monastics that marked so much of Buddhist history dissolved, effectively collapsing secular and religious spheres.86 Hence, in place of a dynastic emperor, in Esoteric Tradition, Jason Hoai Tran, “Thần quyền: An Introduction to Spirit Forms of Thất Sơn Vietnamese Martial Arts,” Journal of Asian Martial Arts 13, no. 2 (2004): 70–71. “Horizons of imagination” is my adaptation of Đỗ Thiện’s “imagined horizon” in Vietnamese Supernaturalism: Views from the Southern Region, 177–178. Ibid., 189–206. Ibid., 189. This collapsing of the ultimate secular and religious authorities through the Maitreya prophecy has a long history in Vietnamese Buddhism that can be traced at least to the fourteenth century, when stories were recorded about the Buddhist thaumaturge Từ Đạo Hạnh’s (徐道行, 1072–1116) reincarnations as a Vietnamese king on earth and then as the bodhisattva who will become Maitreya in the Tuṣita Heaven. Nguyễn Tự Cường, Zen in Medieval Vietnam: A Study and Translation of the Thiền Uyển Tập Anh (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997), 180–181. M 82 83 84 85 86 Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 209 M IM ES IS Huyên’s ruler is the so-called Lord of Enlightenment; that is Maitreya Buddha (200).87 As Đoàn Minh Huyên’s presentation of the debt of gratitude to the lands and waters suggests, more than anything else Huyên’s Four Debts of Gratitude carried soteriological meaning. This is even more evident in the last two debts of gratitude to the Threefold Jewels and humanity. With the former, Huyên beckoned his followers to take refuge in “Buddhism” as embodied in the threefold bodies of the religion: Buddha (V. Phật, 佛), his teachings (V. pháp, 佛; S. dharma), and their human vessels (V. tang, 僧; S. saṅgha). Nevertheless, his were attenuated Threefold Jewels, since, as discussed above, each was radically “shallowed” following the Intangible Way. As for the last debt of gratitude to humanity, Đoàn Minh Huyên taught universal compassion and altruism to his followers. Practicing these virtues entailed morality, reparation of character, and renunciation of wickedness, a message that likely resonated with Huyên’s followers, many of whom were marginalize peoples, including criminals, vagabonds, outcasts, and defrocked monks.88 Taken as a whole, perhaps the most important aspect of Đoàn Minh Huyên’s Four Debts of Gratitude was the idea of recollection and return imbedded in the language of indebtedness. Gratitude exists only as a product from a previous time, and so Huyên’s emphasis on gratitude beckoned his followers to return to the past. This soteriological journey of return through memory constituted the essence of Huyên’s teachings, to which we now turn. 87 88 Ho-Tai Hue-Tam, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam, 29. Some later traditions seem to have associated the “Lord of Enlightenment” with a reincarnation of Emperor Minh Mạng (1791–1841). See note on the Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương poem above. Ibid., 6–7, 23. That the intimate relationship between errant and fringe persons and religious specialists associated with Đoàn Minh Huyên’s teachings perpetuated up through the twentieth is evidenced by contemporary anecdotal accounts. E.g., see the individual referred to as “Tiger” in Nguyễn Văn Quảng and Marjorie Pivar, Fourth Uncle in the Mountain: A Memoir of a Barefoot Doctor in Vietnam, 100–106, 309–313. 210 Asian Philosophical Texts Recollection of Buddha—Niệm Phật (念佛) Sunlit is the scene, shadowy the homeland; Shouldering blessings, one returns to the sights of old. Possessing the karmic affinity, spirits and saints escort you, Because of your good recollection morning and night, time after time. (196–197) M IM ES IS With these words in Esoteric Tradition, Đoàn Minh Huyên spoke of what must be considered the foremost practice of his teachings, niệm Phật or “Recollection of Buddha.” Huyên felt that the potency of this practice was such that “with one utterance of correct recollection one is at peace” (8). Here, Huyên referred to the six-syllable incantation Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật (“refuge in Amitabha Buddha”) associated with Pure Land Buddhism. At the same time, as the above quotation reveals, for Huyên “correct recollection” entailed a visionary journey. Thus, in Huyên’s teachings, niệm Phật was as much about meditation and visualization as it was about vocal recitation of the mantra. The movement of Đoàn Minh Huyên’s visionary journey coursed through time and space. By recalling Buddha through recitation, practitioners summoned Buddha to the present. Simultaneously, by conjuring a memory they themselves journeyed back to the “fountainhead” of Buddhist time, Buddha’s original disposition of pristine dharma likened in the excerpt above as the “homeland” among “sights of old.” In this language of return through recollection, Huyên’s teachings resemble those that have been practiced among Buddhists elsewhere in Southeast Asia to this day.89 At the same time, Đoàn Minh Huyên’s visionary transformation through recollection evoked Māhayāna teachings about the relativity and non-duality of Amitābha’s Pure Land “beyond-overthere” and Śākyamuni’s seemingly defiled world in the here-andnow that are found in scriptures like the lay-oriented Sūtra Spoken 89 Julia Cassaniti, Remembering the Present: Mindfulness in Buddhist Asia (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2018), 27–28, 32–33. Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 211 M IM ES IS by Vimalakīrti.90 Huyên alluded to these teachings to add spatial depth to the temporal language of recollection. For instance, he said, “’Amitābha,’ with the six words ‘Nam Mô,’ one transmigrates to be born in the Pure Land, coming and going at ease. Once you escape the sea of suffering, you cross over to take shelter from the cycle of mundane dust…” (94). Here, Huyên cast the Pure Land “over there” beyond the ordinary world. However, as we saw in the quote above, his journey beyond circled back to the familiar. Hence, the visionary path through cultivation led back to a “Pure Land” inherent in the immediate world of the present. In essence, Đoàn Minh Huyên’s pilgrimage through the delta waterscape and across the Bassac River, known to his devotees as “Jeweled River” (Bảo Giang), to the mountainous western periphery paralleled the bodhisattva’s ferrying of sentient beings to the western Pure Land on the “other shore.”91 This journey through memory returned his followers to a pristine past, back to Buddha, while, simultaneously, his cultivation of niệm Phật recalled Buddha to the present, thereby conjuring a Pure Land in the here-and-now of the Seven Mountains. Ultimately, Huyên’s flight to a remote past was a transformation of the local present. Through recollection of Buddha, he and his followers transformed the world, cycling around to a renewed Fountainhead of dharma at Maitreya’s Dragon Flower Assembly. To understand the transformative power of Đoàn Minh Huyên’s niệm Phật practice, it is helpful to see it through the imagery of pilgrimage. Even today, when one careens about remote Buddhist landscapes in Vietnam, from an unseen distance, one senses the whiff of incense emanating from sparse hermitages and the faint murmurs of chanting bonzes (even if, nowadays, often replicated by the constant drum of audio systems). These synesthetic sensations 90 91 Duy Ma Cát sở thuyết kinh 維摩詰所說經 (S. Vimalakīrti nirdeśa sūtra), T.475.14.538c9–12. This journey across the “Jeweled River” to the Seven Mountains was expressed in a prophecy attributed to the sixteenth-century prognosticator Trạng Trình (Nguyễn Bỉnh Khiêm 1491–1586): Bảo giang thiên tử xuất, thiên hạ kiến thái bình 寶江天子出,天下見太平 (“At Jeweled River, the son of heaven will appear, and all under heaven will see absolute peace”). 212 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS texture the pilgrim’s visionary trek through a transformative space. Meanwhile, the pilgrim’s inner meditations resonate with the votive manifestations about them. The sacred landscape transforms the pilgrim, but, at the same time, it is the pilgrim’s obeisance through journeying that engenders the scene’s magic. Similarly, Đoàn Minh Huyên sought to transform the frontier landscape through piety. Day after day, he and his followers made votive offerings of water and incense during matutinal and crepuscular observances in “recollection of Buddha.” They cleared the land and inscribed it with talismans bearing the incantation Bửu Sơn Kỳ Hương—“marvelous incense pervades these jeweled mountains”—the same mantra with which they inscribed themselves with “the bowels of the sect” (lòng phái). Their inward and outward journeying was to take them back and beyond to a pristine “fountainhead” era that they summoned to the local present by virtue of their cultivation. Their chanting, incense, talismans, and visionary meditation permeated the land, inscribing it with prayers that recalled Buddha and transformed the world. Huyên articulated his ideas of journeying, return, and transformation in language reflective of his waterscape. For example, he used visionary imagery of ferrying through floods and storms that spoke to tangible exigences in the delta.92 Through changing, fluid riverine places like his native islet, Huyên saw himself as a helmsman who would ferry his followers on their spiritual quest to the Seven Mountains (27, 29). Besides imagery, by vernacularizing his message, Huyên made use of peculiarities in the Mekong Delta dialect(s) of Vietnamese to convey the visionary journeying of niệm Phật cultivation. For instance, since the Vietnamese word thiền (禪), meaning “meditation,” can be pronounced thuyền like the word for “boat” (船) in the delta, Huyên was able to juxtapose boating and meditation to set cultivation practices in motion.93 Thus, Huyên cast meditation as a journey with language like “At the Ship’s Gate (at 92 93 Đỗ Thiện, Vietnamese Supernaturalism: Views from the Southern Region, 192. Thiền (禪) also refers to the Meditation Sect, a major Buddhist tradition in Vietnam that is related by lineage to Chinese Chán, Japanese Zen, and Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 213 IS the gate of meditation), inspired, I concentrate on Amitābha in my bowels, relying on the Boat of Prajñā for peace (relying on prajñā meditation for peace)” (2–3) and “Whose boat (meditation) runs to Peach River? On the boat of Old Prajñā (through meditation of old Prajñā), Buddha enters to ferry the people” (47). Similarly, Đoàn Minh Huyên took advantage of the multivalence of the word trở 爼 to creative effect in his vernacularized teachings. In Vietnamese trở can mean “turn,” “return,” “shift,” and “transform.” Thus, in Esoteric Tradition, Huyên utilized a concatenation of trở over several enjambed lines to convey his multifaceted message about reorientation, return, and transformation discussed above: IM ES Turning (returning to/transforming) people, turning things, turning years, turning days, Turning food and turning dress immediately, Turning husbands, turning wives, turning lords and kings, Turning hills, turning mountains, turning gardens, Turning buffalos, turning fields, turning roads that come and go, Turning time, turning seasons, and then, Turning trees, turning fruits, turning flowers’ timing, Turning intimates, turning friends and confidantes… (161–165) A Translation M Scholars of Sino-Vietnamese have sometimes described translation as shining a lamp or lighting a candle, an imperfect act that surrenders obscurities to darkness because of interpretive chooses made during translation.94 But I am fond of shadow. Like Jun’ichirō Tanizaki (1886–1965), I find that it is the “magic of shadows” that engender mystery.95 This is especially true for 94 95 Korean Sŏn. In 1850 at Sam Mountain, Đoàn Minh Huyên was nominally ordained as a 38th generation bonze of the Lâm Tế (臨濟) lineage. E.g., Claudine Ang, Poetic Transformations: Eighteenth-Century Cultural Projects on the Mekong Plains (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, Harvard University Press, 2019), xii. Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, trans. Thomas J. Harper and Edward G. Seidensticker (Stony Creek, CT: Leete’s Island Books, 1977), 20. 214 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS prophetic writers like Đoàn Minh Huyên, for whom “language, as an outdated convention, must be exploded by silence to communicate the idea of renewal” and so “necessarily cryptic.”96 Therefore, in this translation, I have made no effort to cast light through murk and instead let mystery dwell in the intractable dimness of language. Where obscurity dwelled in Huyên’s prolific use of non sequitur, aposiopesis, rambling enjambement, and lexical arcana, I veered towards literal word-by-word translation and retained word order with the hope of rendering in translation the distressed, disquieted, and disorienting sensations I encountered when reading the original. As for my commentarial thoughts about the text, I have banished them to the umbrage below the footer. After all, perhaps, Huyên liked shadow, too. At least, from what I can glean of him, he hoped that his words would lead us to an umbral place (196). Aside from Đoàn Minh Huyên’s mystical language, the difficulty of the script used in the text no doubt contributed to my confusion. Esoteric Tradition is written in chữ nôm or demotic Vietnamese Sinographs, the writing system that was used to represent Vietnamese vernaculars before they were gradually supplanted in the nineteenth century by quốc ngữ, the Vietnamese Latin-based alphabet that is used today. Whereas quốc ngữ was based on northern dialects of Vietnamese, the choice of phonetic components used in the text’s chữ nôm reflect pronunciations of Vietnamese southern dialects. For example, speakers of southern Vietnamese dialects often conflate ending consonants, and so, in Esoteric Tradition, the word for “let be,” which in conventional quốc ngữ is written“mặc,” is rendered mặt (𩈘). Similarly, the now standard sang (“go over”) is san (訕), màng (“hope to”) is màn (槾), and bang (realm) is ban (般). Initial consonants also reflect southern dialects such as the rendering of the northern “v” in vật vờ (“reeling”) to the southern y-sounding “d” of dật dờ (逸𣉹). To appreciate Huyên’s use of southern Vietnamese in Esoteric Tradition, I have consistently used non-standard quốc 96 Đỗ Thiện, Vietnamese Supernaturalism: Views from the Southern Region, 191. Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 215 ES IS ngữ to approximate southern Vietnamese pronunciation (e.g., nhân ➝ nhơn, bảo ➝ bửu, tính ➝ tánh, hoàn ➝ hườn, etc.) and, where such distortions might be unintelligible to a reader of standard Vietnamese, I indicated conventional spellings parenthetically [mặt(c), màn(g), etc.]. Another feature of Esoteric Tradition that is difficult to render in translation is the poetry of Đoàn Minh Huyên’s verse. Huyên’s Esoteric Tradition consists of 201 lines of 6-8 verse, in which each of the 201 lines have an “upper” six-word segment followed by a “lower” eight-word segment. Although the extant text (see below) was written as a continuous string of Sinographs, traditionally, the first segments of each line would be written at the top of a page, while the second segments would be written at the bottom, creating a visual effect with all six-word segments at the upper portion of the page and the eight-word segments at the lower portion. In 6-8 verse, the sixth word of both segments rhymes with level (bằng, 平) tones, while the final level-toned word of the lower segment determines the rhyme of the next line. This arrangement can be visually represented as follows: IM ☐☐☐☐☐W,☐☐☐☐□W☐X。 ☐☐☐☐☐X,☐☐☐☐☐X☐Y。 ☐☐☐☐□Y,☐☐☐☐☐Y☐Z。 M Thus, 6-8 verse allows for a continuous series of indeterminant lines linked by the final rhyme of one line with that of the sixth words of the segments in the following line. This rhyming structure facilitates memorization and oral transmission of the poem, often in fragments, as was probably the case with Esoteric Tradition. To help bring out the lyrical form of Huyên’s writing and for ease of reference, in my translation and transliteration, each 6-8 line is numbered from 1 to 201. This English translation and Vietnamese transliteration are based on a handwritten copy of Esoteric Tradition that was commissioned in 1973 by Nguyễn Văn Hầu (1922-1995), to whom this study is immensely indebted. Hầu, a cultural historian of the Mekong Delta and himself a follower of the Hòa Hảo tradition, 216 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS was presented an earlier 1909 copy of the text in 1973 during the course of his research. Upon further inquiry, Hầu learned from villagers of Tòng Sơn, Đoàn Minh Huyên’s birthplace, that, when expelled from the village in 1849, Huyên left the text of Esoteric Tradition behind the community house, where he had been staying. After Huyên traveled to Trà Bư, his relatives tracked him there and beseeched him to return home. Huyên denied their wishes, but he did tell them about the text that he left at Tòng Sơn. Indeed, when his relatives got back to Tòng Sơn, they found Esoteric Tradition, which they circulated among the villagers both orally and by copying by hand. When not in use for study or reproduction, the original was placed on a votive altar in the village.97 Sixty years later, a copy of Esoteric Tradition was made by a certain “Disciple Trương.” This would become the only surviving version of Đoàn Minh Huyên’s text. Due to the vicissitudes of twentieth century Vietnam, in the decades that followed, Đoàn Minh Huyên’s text was thought to be lost. Eventually, in 1963, Tòng Sơn Village authorities rediscovered Disciple Trương’s 1909 handwritten copy, which they entrusted to Nguyễn Văn Hầu in 1973. In that year, Hầu published his study and Vietnamese transliteration (phiên âm) of Esoteric Tradition. He intended to append a photocopy of the 1909 text to his study, but since its layout and condition were unsuitable for publication, he enlisted a scribe named Thái Văn Ý to recopy the text. In Hầu’s testimony, Ý faithfully reproduced the text “as is” regardless of omissions, edits, additions, redundancies, and errors.98 Ý’s handwritten copy appended to Hầu’s 1973 study is the version of the text used for this translation. Since the text is untitled, I have adopted Hầu’s name for it, Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace (Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An). Although the villagers of Tòng Sơn found it meaningful to convey Esoteric Tradition’s origin as a single text handwritten by Đoàn Minh Huyên, the vagaries of its lost-again-foundagain transmission through manuscript copying, fragmented 97 98 Nguyễn Văn Hầu, Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An, 55. Ibid., 56–61, 91. Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 217 M IM ES IS oral recitation, and moot memorization should pique suspicion of its authenticity. Indeed, the appearance partway through the text of “sitting ruefully” (80), which was a stock phrase for beginning such prophecies, suggests interpolation in a layered text. Furthermore, in his study of about a dozen Sino-Vietnamese texts attributed to Huyên or his immediate followers, Hầu determined that at least half were apocryphal, while several others remained questionable.99 Nevertheless, after studying the language and content of Esoteric Tradition, Hầu concluded that, if not brushed by Huyên himself, then it probably was by one of his contemporary ghostwriters.100 Here, I have followed Nguyễn Văn Hầu’s assessment.101 However, lingering doubts about Esoteric Tradition’s authenticity lead us to one final consideration, genre. Esoteric Tradition is regarded as sấm (讖) or esoteric “weft” texts beyond kinh (經), conventional “warp” texts or “classics.” Since at least the tenth century in Vietnam, Buddhists circulated sấm through texts, inscriptions, and oral songs. In the nineteenth century, the replication (transmission) of sấm, especially vernacular sấm, through manuscript and oracular culture was an intensely creative process across a wide swathe of participants. The transmission of sấm over time, therefore, was a collective process that accrued changing sentiments among people who found meaning in them. Esoteric Tradition, then, even if apocryphal in part or in entirety, still conveys the prayers, sentiments, hopes, and fears of Mekong Delta inhabitants for whom Master Buddha’s message resonated. Just as Śākyamuni Buddha’s journey through countless past lives to Buddhahood suggests our own path to enlightenment, so too is Maitreya’s story our own. In this sense, the Dragon Flower prophecy and the words of Master Buddha continue to perpetuate through generations “like the rhythms of a wooden fish.” 99 Ibid., 19–26, 50–52. 100 Ibid., 27. 101 I am, however, more skeptical of the other two chữ nôm texts that Nguyễn Văn Hầu deemed authentic, Giác mê (Awakening from Delusion) and Thập thủ liên hườn thi (Ten Continuously Linking Poems). IS ES IM M ESOTERIC TRADITION OF VENERABLE MASTER BUDDHA OF WESTERN PEACE1 IS On the twenty-seventh day of the intercalary second month in the year Kỷ Dậu,2 disciple Trương assisted in writing down a one fascicle litany.3 4 5 6 7 IM 2 3 The original text, which was composed by Đoàn Minh Huyên 段明暄 (1807– 1856) in circa 1842, is untitled. April 17, 1909. The original text is untitled. Disciple Trương referred to it only as nhất quyển doãn 一卷尹. The last Sinograph doãn appears nonsensical. Here, I follow Nguyễn Văn Hầu’s (1973) transcription giảng, which means “lecture” or “litany.” Assuming that “Nhâm” refers to the “earthly branch” (can) of a given year, then most likely the year in question is Nhâm Dần or 1842, since Ven. Đoàn Minh Huyên was confined to Tây An Pagoda by 1851 before the next “Nhâm” year (1852). If so, then the text suggests that Master Buddha returned to or at least traveled through his native region, perhaps many times, several years before he revealed himself to his native villagers and family in 1849. Hổ Cứ is now Mỹ Xương Village in Cao Lãnh District of Đồng Tháp Province. Hổ Cứ was a rival village across the Mekong River from Ven. Đoàn Minh Huyên’s native village of Tòng Sơn, which is now Mỹ An Hưng Village in Lấp Vò District of Đồng Tháp Province. The words bước sang, “peregrinate across to” or “come over to” in the couplet may suggest that Master Buddha crossed over to the left bank of the Mekong River to Hổ Cứ from his native village during the early autumn of 1842. The month of the boar is the tenth lunar month, approximately September. Phật Thích Ca or “Śākyamuni Buddha” is the patriarch Buddha (bổn sư) of our present dispensation of the Dharma. Đạo 道, which means “way,” is often used to describe various religious and philosophical traditions. M 1 ES 1 Upon Nhâm,4 across to Hổ Cứ5 I peregrinate; In the month of the boar,6 I teach enlightenment to seek the way out. 2 Miraculous—I delight in the Đạo of Śākyamuni;7 220 Asian Philosophical Texts At the Ship’s Gate,8 inspired, I concentrate on Amitābha9 in my bowels.10 3 Relying on the Boat of Prajñā11 for peace, Entering the mountains of Five Entanglements,12 I faithfully and sincerely cultivate with reverence. 4 Filial piety and trustworthiness, completely upholding these words, At the transcendents’ shore and the cranes’ spring,13 I hold a hook and wait.14 The words thuỳen môn, here translated “Ship’s Gate,” also means “Gate of Meditation.” Since a Vietnamese word for “boat” 船 and transliteration of the Sanskrit dhyāna 禪 (meditation) are both pronounced thuyền in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta dialect, the Sinographs 禪門 simultaneously convey two meanings central to the Master Buddha’s teachings, the vivid imagery and metaphor of ferrying through a water-bound world and the teachings of the Dhyāna (Meditation) Sect of Buddhism. Phật Di Đà or Amitābha is a coterminous Buddha presiding over a Buddha Field to the west of Śākyamuni’s. Amitābha’s Buddha Field is also known as Tịnh thổ (S. Sukhāvatī) or “Pure Land.” In Vietnamese, bowels (V. lòng) are the site of visceral emotions, deep feelings, and penetrating cognition. Prajñā (V. bát nhã) is wisdom abiding in emptiness (V. không, S. śūnyatā); it is one of the six pāramitā (V. lục độ) or Buddhist ideals to be perfected on the path to cross over to liberation from suffering. As with “Ship’s Gate” above (note 6), “relying on the Boat of Prajñā” also means “relying on the wisdom (prajñā) from meditation (dhyāna).” Ngũ uẩn or Five Entanglements (S. pañca-skandha) are constituents of the illusion of self: form (V. sắc, S. rūpa), sensation (thụ, vedanā), perception (tưởng, saṃjñā), impulse (hành, saṃskāra), and consciousness (thức, vijñāna). The Sanskrit version of the term seems to have meant something like aggregate heap or pile, but the Sinographic term used here, uẩn 蘊 implies something closer to intertwined bramble-wood or hempen knots. The image is that of a heterogenous knot of prickly twigs or bristly threads. Transcendents or tiên 仙 are beings (usually former humans) who have achieved extreme longevity and attendant supramundane powers through various cultivation practices. Transcendents were thought to manifest as cranes as reflected in the depiction of transcendents’ mystical transition from mortal life to immortality as “feathered transformation” (V. vũ hóa, 羽化) or sprouting wings to fly off as a white crane. Transcendents were sometimes thought to live on the periphery of the mundane world, as seems to be the case in these lines. They were also believed to inhabit heaven. In fact, elsewhere in the litany, transcendents seem to be conflated with the sūtra literature’s deva, the heavenly beings of Buddhist cosmology. This couplet puns on the word câu, which, in the upper line, means “words,” while in the lower line means “hook” or “fishing hook.” 10 11 M 12 IM 9 ES IS 8 13 14 Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 221 M IM ES IS 5 I espy the masses’ boat drifting in abandon, On the waves of the open sea, teetering on the rivers of delusion! 6 Take heed whoever conducts themselves gracelessly, Unconcerned about water and fire and thorns all around. 7 Because of themselves, everyone readily sees everyone,15 Let themselves fall and bury themselves. 8 Transcendent Buddhas are utterly manifest and numinous; With one utterance of correct recollection one is at peace.16 9 Each and every one of us is amidst heaven; Humaneness and compassion must be upheld without deceitful speech. 10 Change in the world is sudden; The good endure, while the wicked perish, ordained by Heaven’s Court. 11 Revolutions of time spin the mundane world of dust; Failing to understand, one conspires deeply towards others.17 12 Degenerate, one misses one’s place with the heavenly Buddhas, As mountains split and land crumbles, drifting into the offing. 13 One must act as if heading out this very day; Young and old, please remember to uphold this with vigilance. 14 Years are like lightning, months like a shuttle; 15 16 17 Nguyễn Văn Hầu renders this line “Bởi mình ai dễ mặc ai,” which means “For their own sake, everyone readily neglects everyone (else).” Here chánh niệm 正念 (S. samyak-smṛti) refers to niệm Phật, the practice of focused recollection and constant mindfulness of Buddha(s), usually Amitābha Buddha. In practice, chánh niệm is usually accompanied by recitation of the Buddha’s name, in Vietnamese “Nam Mô A Di Đà Phật.” Master Buddha’s use of chánh niệm suggests that he interpreted chánh niệm, the seventh practice of the Eightfold Path, as the recitation and mindfulness of Amitābha Buddha. The phrase “conspire deeply towards others” may allude to the aphorism mưu thâm họa diệc thâm 謀深禍亦深or “when one conspires deeply, the calamity is also profound.” 222 18 19 20 21 18 Luân hồi 輪迴 (S. saṃsāra) or “cycles of karma” refers to cycles of suffering through karmic accretion that is associated with ongoing reincarnation. In these lines the Sinograph vân (雲), literally “cloud,” is translated as a variant for the homophonous vân 云, which indicates the beginning of a statement or quote. In Vietnamese, xa gần, translated “near and far” and “distant and close” can be understood both spatially and temporally. Đạo means “way” or “path” (see note above). Here, the depleted Đạo means that the time of Śākyamuni’s dispensation is running out. Master Buddha’s use of a qualifying word for animated objects, con (lit. child), in con tạo or “forces of creation” may suggest the personification of the Daoist inspired concept of tạo hóa (造化), which is usually understood as an impersonal force of creation and transformation akin to today’s expression “laws of nature.” However, it should be noted that in relatively rare cases con can also be applied to inanimate objects like knives (con dao) and spinningtops (con quay). There is an extraneous Sinograph in this line of the original text that does not agree with six-eight verse: “Đời bạo ngược ít người hiếu trung.” Here, I am following Nguyễn Văn Hầu by deleting the word người, which does not significantly affect the meaning of the line. M 19 IS 17 ES 16 Rotations of time spin the world—cycles of karma are no game!18 A good woman has transmitted these words: First, “the skyward path, the workings of heaven are vast.” Second, “the saints are responsive and bright;” Third, “the court draws together wavering families.”19 Gazing towards the distance somehow seems close;20 Near and far winds whisk dust clean away. Black-haired children and hoary-headed men, People of the sunlit world, heed! —how can you not see our age? The Đạo is depleted! The Đạo is depleted!21 Ancient places and old scenes will found an age of reparation. Ruefully folding my arms, ruefully folding my arms, I see the forces of creation uncanny in their deft construction.22 In an age violent and cruel, few are filial and faithful;23 IM 15 Asian Philosophical Texts 20 21 22 23 Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 25 26 27 28 29 30 M 31 IS 24 ES 23 Mouths are calculating, and bowels indulge in deep scheming. The good encounter goodness, but become wicked in the end; Compounding karmic retribution amongst themselves, who will rescue them? Forthrightly consider, straightforwardly take heed, A path leads to heaven—seek the way to go. Why listen to speech of right and wrong? Blame corporeal eyes that fail to see. Open your eyes widely; Waters stir and waves ripple thunderously by the ears. How woeful, heed! How woeful, heed! Pity the world of dust! —I keep teaching, but none listen. As rising waters close in, and a gale moves the raft, Hold the tiller and single-pointedly follow along. The journey is precarious, the sights hazardous; Alone it is all but impossible to punt and row through. Why do you not examine what comes before and after? If you disdain the helmsman, then who will help take you along? People of our age are like a midday market, Scattering and meeting, meeting and scattering so many times. Crying unwanted cries and laughing unwitting laughter, Feelings dissipate, oh dearests! —as our age dries up, what will be left? Plaintive tears, plaintive tears, Shall we pity those who harbor compassion in their bowels?24 IM 22 223 32 24 Here, Master Buddha like many Vietnamese Buddhists articulates Buddhist compassion in the canonical Buddhist idiom (từ bi, 慈悲), understood as a combination of kindness (V. từ 慈, S. maitrī) and pity (V. bi 悲, S. karuṇā), through the vernacular thương, which can simultaneously convey meanings of love and pity as well as hurtfulness, injury, and pain. Hence, Master Buddha voiced his understanding of compassion as that born from resonating with others’ suffering as well as the universal suffering that is the inexorable condition of life. In this sense, Master Buddha’s vernacularized understanding 224 Asian Philosophical Texts IM ES IS 33 Filter pure water! Filter pure water! What is there to fear from the dissolution of ants and bees? 34 Restrain your mouth, and swallow your words; Let be the affairs of the world and whomever scoffs. 35 Wholeheartedly pray with the words “Như Lai;”25 Brushing off the words “reputation” and “profit,” letting be whomever vies to contest their skills.26 36 Scenes of natural calamities, places of natural disasters! With utmost effort forge iron to whet into a needle. 37 The scene is very severe! The scene is very severe! In the making of ten thousand autumns, how hard is it to find? 38 Withered with gloom, withered with gloom, This muddled era churns in an age of dreams. 39 The cat’s cry resounds! The cat’s cry resounds!27 Scaring snake and dragon to flee into the mountains and hide.28 40 Flags fluttering, drums rolling, People rise as others fall towards two disparate paths.29 M of compassion comes close to what Nāgārjuna is attributed with identifying as sinh duyên từ bi (生緣慈悲), “kindness and pity of the karmic threads of life” or just “compassion for living creatures” without denying the more refined compassion of Arhats and Buddhas marked by insight into reality through selflessness and nondiscrimination. See Nāgārjuna’s (perhaps apocryphal) commentary on the “three compassions” or tam bi (三悲) in the Treatise on Traversing Beyond with Great Wisdom (V. Đại trí độ luận, 大智 度論; S. Mahāprajñāpāramitā-śāstra), T.n1509.v25.p350b25–26. Như Lai 如來 (S. tathāgata), “thus-come-one” or “as-is” is an epithet for Buddha(s). By speaking of “the words” như lai, Master Buddha may have been instructing his auditors to contemplate the literal meaning of the term as existential “thusness.” In spoken vernacular, tài can mean both wealth and talent. The Sinograph in the text is 才 (talents, skills). By alluding to the Vietnamese zodiac, the cat’s cry suggests the year Quý Mão (1843), one year after Master Buddha delivered this litany in the year of the tiger, Nhâm Dần (1842). The snake and dragon allude to the years Giáp Thìn (1844) and Ất Tỵ (1845). That is rising towards higher rebirth (such as towards heaven) and falling towards lower rebirth (such as towards the hells). 25 26 27 28 29 Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 225 30 Thương, here translated “pity,” also means compassion, love, and hurt. See note above. There is a superfluous Sinograph in this line: gắng công thường lục tự nam mô. Here, thường (constantly) is omitted from translation. The “six words nam mô” refer to recollection of Buddha through mindful recitation (see note above). Long Hoa or Dragon Flower refers to the Dragon Flower Assembly (hội Long Hoa) where the future Buddha would establish a new dispensation of Dharma, rescue the suffering, and punish the wicked. Cờ (flag) might alternatively refer to chess with possible translations like “the world is as if besieged in chess” or “the world is as if checked in chess.” In contrast to the earlier use of con tạo for the forces of creation, here, máy tạo suggest a more impersonal mechanism of creation. The words sông Đào (滝陶), here translated “Peach River,” can also mean “Đào’s river,” since the words đào is both a surname and a word for “peach.” As such, sông Đào may allude to Tao Qian’s 陶潛 (Đào Tiềm, 372?–427) Record of Peach Blossom Spring (桃花源記). The story narrates the journey of a fisherman who followed a secluded river to a hidden world of transcendents descended from men of a former era. If so, then “Peach River” evoked a transcendents’ paradise. M 31 IM ES IS 41 Bowels writhing in pain, bowels writhing in pain! Transcendent Buddhas pity30 them with a stomach withering from sorrow. 42 Exert yourself with the six words nam mô;31 Amidst calamity, with luck a fish from a spring may come across a lotus lake. 43 Heavenly Buddhas, bowels rent with pity, Teach among the good to take refuge in the Dragon Flower.32 44 Wind stirs the tips of fluttering grasses, You shall see that the world is like a flag33 under siege. 45 Reeling sights! Reeling sights! Branches fall away toward a different age, transforming the world. 46 Looking into the workings of creation—it’s over;34 Teetering on the vast sea, falling away on the banks of a pond. 47 Whose boat runs to Peach River?35 32 33 34 35 226 51 52 53 36 Here, the personification of Buddhist wisdom, “Old Prajñā,” is used as an epithet for Buddha. As noted above, “boat” (V. thuyền) can pun to mean “meditation” (V. thiền, S. dhyāna), while prajñā can be understood as the wisdom derived from meditation, namely that on impermanence and emptiness (S. śūnyatā). Ngạ quỷ or “hungry ghosts” (S. preta) describe creatures born into one of the six paths of transmigration, where these unlucky beings suffer perpetual hunger, surviving like maggots on unsavory sustenance (excrement, rot, etc.). In Vietnam, they are often conflated with cô hồn or “forlorn ghosts,” who lack descendants to provide for them with offerings. The west is the direction where Amitābha’s Buddha Field is thought to exist. M 37 IS 50 ES 49 On the boat of Old Prajñā, Buddha enters to ferry the people.36 Exhorting people to cast away mundane dust, He will lead them away from delusion’s mooring, people heed! The likes of beasts and hungry ghosts,37 Are hopelessly lost, exiled to desolate plights. Towards the west,38 trek straight out in search, For ten thousand eras seek recourse in precious pearls— what is lacking?39 With sincerity I teach thoroughly, Oh, young and old! Why do you not take care? I now watch as suddenly in the world, Endless ghosts lead themselves along—who could shelter us?40 Here in the morning, lost by night in a life of hardships, Like a flash of lightning whose brilliance cannot endure.41 IM 48 Asian Philosophical Texts 38 39 40 41 Seeking recourse in “precious pearls” refers to seeking refuge in the “Three Jewels” of Buddhism: Buddha, Dharma, and Saṃgha. If, instead of bênh, the Sinograph 兵is read binh with the meaning “army” as did Nguyễn Văn Hầu, then the line means, “Endless ghosts lead an army of sorrow—how can we be alright?” In that case, the text’s Sinographs for “army of sorrow” (埃兵) is a variation of 哀兵. It should be noted that bênh and binh are not clearly distinguished in spoken southern Vietnamese. Likening the breadth of human life to a momentary thunderbolt is a common image for impermanence in canonical Buddhist literature such as the Diamond Sūtra (V. Kim cương bát nhã ba la mật kinh, 金剛般若波羅蜜經; S. Vajracchedikā prajñāpāramitā sūtra, T.235.08.752b28–29). In addition, in Vietnam, the image of lightning calls to mind a well-known gāthā poem by Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 227 IM ES IS 54 Spanning through the watches of the night, spanning through the watches of the night, Sighing and sighing, I worry for our generation, 55 As I mull over a world depleted; Suffering increases, adding to suffering in an age of affliction. 56 There! There! Ghosts and demons strike up chaos; Snakes afflict, and tigers bite at this thorny moment. 57 Some are besieged by bandits; Others starve, their lives now without peace. 58 Struggling through many upheavals, I am afraid that the state of the world is like a boat running away into the offing. 59 I am out of words! I am out of words! Admonishing and teaching people with the karmic affinity for goodness.42 60 In my bowels, I reprove their abundant unscrupulousness; The sick and afflicted pray for relief in vain. 61 Perverted to deviant treachery, They destroy the monkhood, break observances, and scheme to harm people in their bowels. 62 Today’s world has already shallowed, To open, transform, and establish the Fountainhead era.43 M an eleventh-century monk named Vạn Hạnh, who began his poem, “Life is like a flash of lightning, coming into existence only to return to nothingness” (my translation). See Thiền uyển tập anh (禪苑集英), xylographic text in Nguyễn Tự Cường, Zen in Medieval Vietnam (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997), 53b, Nguyễn Tự Cường’s translation on page 176. Thiện duyên can be translated as both “karmic affinity for goodness” and “good karma,” because of the cyclical nature of karmic causality. Those who meet a good teacher had the good karma for such a lucky encounter and, having learned goodness from the teacher, cull through meritorious deeds the karmic seeds that mature later when they meet another good teacher in a future lifetime. C.f., this excerpt from Ven. Huỳnh Phú Sở’s teachings, “With good karma you clearly get this Madman/ just owing to a bit of good karma from a former life” (Duyên lành rõ được Khùng Điên/ chẳng qua kiếp trước thiện duyên hữu phần). Thượng ngươn (上元), here translated Fountainhead, literally means something like “first prime” or “first of the first.” For instance, in the Sinitic lunisolar calendar, the first full moon of the first month is called thượng 42 43 228 Asian Philosophical Texts IS 63 The wheel of heaven and earth revolves in cycles;44 At this juncture, you will see fire burn ashen eyebrows. 64 Few show that they are able to fathom, As if holding a cup in the hand that sadly slips and shatters. 65 The old master’s words of instruction said it all; Eating people, will people feast until nothing is left? 66 Grievances pile up with retribution, Greedy for wealth, they accumulate recklessly without reflecting on themselves,45 67 Causing father and child to fight one another. M IM ES ngươn, which is the Lantern Festival. In Sinitic numerology, astrology, and calendrical studies, ngươn 元 is understood as a unit of cyclical time generally calculated from smaller cycles like epoch (hội), revolution (vận), generation (thế), and solar year (tuế). Depending on the school of calculation, one ngươn cycle could consist of several thousand to over one-hundred thousand years. In Master Buddha’s teachings, this numerological sense of cyclical time is conflated with Buddhist cyclical time in which one dispensation of the Dharma is divided into three eras from the moment a Buddha “turns the wheel of Dharma” with his first teaching until, eventually over many generations, his teachings are corrupted, forgotten, and lost. Thereafter, a new Buddha would appear to initiate a new dispensation. These three periods of dispensation are “True Dharma” (chơn pháp), “Semblance Dharma” (giả pháp), and Later Dharma (mạt pháp). Master Buddha articulated this canonical Buddhist periodization of cyclical time through the imagery of the watery landscape of his Mekong Delta homeland. Since, in Vietnamese, the word ngươn (cyclic era) is pronounced the same as a Sinitic word for “spring” or “fountain” (源), Master Buddha imagined through pun and metaphor a Buddhist cosmology in which the “Upper Spring” or “Fountainhead Era” originated in the Himalayas with the teachings of Śākyamuni, descended downstream along the Mekong River, and concluded at the “Lower Spring” or “Receding Spring in Vietnam. Thus, Master Buddha saw Vietnam, specifically the Seven Mountains, as a site of shallowed waterscapes that mirrored the moral depravity and degeneration of Buddhism that he believed he had experienced. As such, it would also be the place of a new dispensation in a renewed era. In Buddhism, turning of the wheel (of Dharma) is a canonical image for the dispensation of Buddhist teachings. Here, tích đại (積大) is translated according to the vernacular so that đại means “recklessly” in “accumulate recklessly.” Alternatively, Master Buddha may have had in mind tứ đại 四大 (S. mahābhūta) or “four elements,” which, in Buddhist sūtra literature, refers to four elements (earth, fire, water, and wind) that aggregate to constitute physical existence. 44 45 Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 71 72 73 74 M 75 IS 70 ES 69 If the father is not good and filially pious, then how could the child be good? Loyalty to the ruler and the relationship between father and child come first, But betraying one’s ruler and killing one’s father, in what book’s passage is that found? Heaven renders a hundred beings to waste, Such that ferrying across is arduous with unspeakable toil. Mountaintops float on water, and earth builds up,46 Dragons lurk at the bottom of the sea as rivers constantly catch the dew.47 When of marvelous incense we partake, Longevity shall increase ten thousand years, and its fragrance shall linger enduringly.48 To live this life is insufferable, oh! Hundreds of thousands of miseries relentlessly pile up upon you. Wealth will be no more! Poverty will be no more! Lives will be lost as possessions dissipate, everyone just the same; Causing wives to kill husbands, And children to harm their mothers for lack of love. When the common spirit among siblings split, IM 68 46 47 48 229 The Sinographs for phù thủy (浮水) mean “afloat on water” or “drift on water.” However, if they are taken for their pronunciation only, then they suggest geomancers’ practice of manipulating the landscape by tapping “dragon veins” (V. long mạch龍脈) in the ground, building mounds, and planting talismanic flags in the earth, all of which were commonplace during Master Buddha’s lifetime. Lurking dragons implies geomantic dragon veins and dragon spirits, who were associated with rain and water. In this line, Master Buddha relates the prophecy of the Seven Mountains or the “marvelous incense throughout the jeweled mountains” (V. bửu sơn kỳ hương, 寶山奇香). According to the prophecy, in the Seven Mountains, specifically Forbidden Mountain (núi Cấm) a future Buddha would inaugurate a new dispensation as the landscape (and waterscape) physically transformed into a land of bejeweled mountains redolent with incense. 230 79 80 49 50 “Receding Spring” or “Lower Spring” (hạ ngươn) is the dystopian end time of Śākyamuni’s dispensation of Dharma. Master Buddha likened dharma’s fading to a receding tide or river. See note on “Upper Spring” (thượng ngươn) above. The “Three Eras” or “Three Springs” (tam ngươn) refer to the reoccurring periodization of a Buddha’s dispensation into “true,” “semblance,” and “later” Dharma. See note above. The image of mulberry fields turning into the sea and back again is a classical metaphor for epoch change. This allusion originated in the biography of Wang Yuan (王遠) in chapter seven of the Biographies of Divine Transcendents ( 神仙傳). In it, the transcendent Wang Yuan holds a feast in the human world and summons his subordinate Lady Ma (麻姑), whom he had not seen for five hundred years, to join him. After a short trip to Penglai, the mythical land of transcendents, Lady Ma appears before Wang Yuan and says, “Since I have waited upon you, [I] have seen the Eastern Sea three times become mulberry fields. Coming to Penglai, the water was shallower than in the past. When [I] came upon it, it was just about halfway [up]. How it shall once again revert back to land!” (my translation). For the full episode, see Robert Ford Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth: Ge Hong’s Traditions of Divine Transcendents” (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), 259-264. Master Buddha may have been referring to one of many methods of calculating auspicious and inauspicious times with the hands such as running the fingers over prayer beads or the giấp độn finger-counting technique. The textual origin of the Sinographic phrase “humans and beasts are alike” ( 人物與同) is obscure. M 51 IS 78 ES 77 And ruler and subjects betray one another, then is the Receding Spring.49 Transforming the waters of the sea, shattering mountains, Dispelling the realm of ghost and demons, righteousness and humaneness will inaugurate an era. The Three Eras have already come around to be restored.50 Mulberry fields turn to blue seas, falling apart to spin in transformation.51 Tracing my fingers again and again, I calculate with my hands the nights and days;52 People of today seem to see that now is the time, and yet they do not. It is written, “humans and beasts are alike;”53 Yet whereas beasts know their nature, humans fail to show emotion. Sitting ruefully, I sigh and reprove alone, IM 76 Asian Philosophical Texts 52 53 Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 84 85 86 Here, Master Buddha takes advantage of the dual meaning of thuyền, which can mean both boat and meditation with the effect of juxtaposing the quest to ferry the world’s creatures to salvation with Śākyamuni Buddha’s way of meditation. See note above, too. Amitābha is the Buddha of the Pure Land in the west (see above). Quan Âm (S. Avalokiteśvara) is an advanced bodhisattva (S. mahābodhisattva) associated with Amitābha’s Buddha field. In Vietnam, the bodhisattva is imagined variously as a masculine yogin with one-thousand hand-eyes as well as various female emanations. Đoài 兌is one of the eight trigrams, ☱. It is associated with the west, and, in literature, “mountains of Đoài” usually evokes sunset, since the sun sets in the west. Hence, “mountains of Đoài” (non Đoài), can be interpreted as the western mountains, where the Seven Mountains are located in the west of Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, and evokes the literary allusion to “sunset mountains.” The bodhi tree or “tree of enlightenment” was a bo tree, under which Śākyamuni realized Buddhahood. M 54 IS 83 ES 82 Pitying that things of the world will suddenly be extinguished. People compete amongst themselves haughtily with spirits and flesh, Cursing their own fathers and mothers everywhere upriver and downriver. Transformation through rebirth, I see it all, A child who does not repent, at the end of life, will become a deviant ghost. Marvelous is the way of Śākyamuni’s boat!54 Quan Âm rescues from suffering, while Amitābha ferries away the living.55 In the Đoài mountains56 uphold trustworthiness and sincerity in your belly, I, as teacher, will provide study for laymen who have yet to comprehend. Brothers and sisters, whoever shall heed, Follow me and study the path—you must perk your ears and listen. Buddha passed on how to plant the bodhi tree;57 Uphold the words “illumined truthfulness,” never dishonest. IM 81 55 56 57 231 232 Asian Philosophical Texts 59 M 60 Nguyễn Văn Hầu amended the word vào, here translated as “enter,” to thoát, meaning “escape,” because he thought that from context, one should want to escape rather than enter the mundane world of suffering (Sahā realm). However, if Master Buddha was speaking from the perspective of a bodhisattva, who plunges into realms of suffering of their own volition to rescue others, then the line need not be corrected. In Buddhism, the Sahā realm is the mundane “dusty” world marked by suffering. “Skill-in-means” (V. phương tiện, S. upāya) is the Mahāyāna use of provisional, expedient means to lead creatures along the Buddhist path according to their relative conditions and inclinations. See, for instance, the second chapter of the Lotus Sūtra (T.262.9.5b24). “Devotional charity” (V. bố thí, 布施; S. dāna) is one the pāramitā, or qualities to master on the path towards Buddhahood. In Buddhist sūtra literature, the expression “river’s sands” usually alludes to the innumerable sands of the Ganges River. Nowhere in his litany did Master Buddha explicitly delineate what he meant by “four debts of gratitude.” However, the context of the lines about this expression in the text seems to agree with tradition, according to which they are debts of gratitude to parents (cha mẹ), the land and waters (đất nước), Three Jewels of Buddhism (tam bảo: Buddha, Dharma, and Saṃgha), and humanity (nhân loại). This teaching about the “four debts of gratitude” has as its antecedent the Great Vehicle Sūtra of Contemplation on the Mind’s Ground of Original Life 大乘本生心觀經 (T.159.3.297a12–13). The “task afterwards” refers to posthumous rites associated with ancestor veneration, for which Master Buddha proscribed daily morning observance. IM 58 ES IS 87 Wanting to enter58 the Sahā realm,59 Through skill in means60 and devotional charity,61 store up fortune like the river’s sands.62 88 Respect heaven. Respect earth and divine luminaries, At the ancestors’ gate, venerate their shrines and fully uphold the Four Debts of Gratitude.63 89 We owe life to our parents, to whom we are foremost filial; For the task afterwards, earnestly act with propriety at dawn.64 90 Upholding loyalty to the ruler in the bowels without error, Polish the word “fidelity” displayed like vermillion on stone. 91 One who cultivates must teach one’s children and grandchildren, So that Đạo will be passed on and inherited, and the gates of Buddha will long endure. 61 62 63 64 Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 233 M IM ES IS 92 Śākyamuni, the thus-come ancestral Buddha, For six years suffered austerities regardless of travails.65 93 As this moment comes, divine dragons descend; We are as if on a little boat buffeted by the wind on the rivers and lakes.66 94 Amitābha, with the six words “Nam Mô,”67 One transmigrates to be born in the Pure Land,68 coming and going at ease. 95 Once you escape the sea of suffering, you cross over, To take shelter from the cycle of mundane dust and avoid the realm of life and death. 96 My lot is that of a devout layman, A teacher who teaches the people to do good and cultivate. 97 The Receding Spring in the world approaches, Awaken your heart, realize it for yourself earnestly and quickly. 98 It is not difficult to abide in cultivation; The words “devotional charity” should come first. 99 As benevolent spirits record on both sides,69 Increase goodness and decrease evil—because of wickedness come these transmitted words. 100 In ancient times, Buddha taught but was not believed, People listened and abandoned him, saying that they were wise. 101 Greedy for wealth and cultivating a web of material things, In order to nourish their flesh, they did not heed a word. 102 Killing and injuring the living in disport, 65 66 67 68 69 Śākyamuni is said to have practiced severe asceticism and austerities for six years before achieving enlightenment. Dragons are spirits related to bodies of water and rain-making. See notes on recollecting the Buddha and Amitābha above. The Pure Land is the realm of Amitābha. See note above. Thiện thần 善神 or “benevolent spirits” are described in Buddhist literature like the Consecration Sūtra 灌頂經 as protective deities (V. hộ pháp 護法, S. dharmapāla, T.1331.21.497a21). Here, Master Buddha clearly has in mind the Vietnamese iteration of two such deities, Ông Thiện (Mr. Good) and Ông Ác (Mr. Evil), who are also called Khuyến Thiện (Encourage Good) and Trừng Ác (Punish Evil). These two spirits are said to record each individual’s karmic merits and demerits accrued throughout life. 234 106 107 108 109 110 M 111 IS 105 ES 104 Deceitful husbands and prurient wives were rich in shameful speech. Seeing this, I feel sorry for myself; To speak of it is terrible, but to stay silent only compounds my sadness. Flying high and running far cannot escape, Being caught in the net and left exposed so pitifully. Who knows that transcendent Buddhas will convene, To save the living and ferry the dead everywhere in the realm of dust, To teach and encourage the masses of the dusty world’s numerous regions, To uphold the words “forbearance and goodness” in bowels set on cultivation? Abandon words and do not contend; Bodhi70—one seed of a sincere heart can go beyond. At the serene supreme assembly of the Dragon Flower,71 Come that time, whether morning or night, evil and good will eventually be known. My lot is that of a layman who dares to expound, The precepts, ceremonies, and disciplines that I demonstrate and explain. At the Prime Fountainhead, Ven. Śākyamuni Buddha, Descended to be born in the world at the time of the Dragon Flower Assembly. Whence people with lives spanning a hundred years return,72 IM 103 Asian Philosophical Texts 70 71 72 Bodhi means enlightenment or awakening in Buddhism. The Dragon Flower Assembly is the convocation of a Buddha inaugurating a new dispensation of Dharma. The Dragon Flower Assembly was often conveyed with millenarian undertones. Belief in the imminence of this event was not unique to the Seven Mountains but was endemic throughout the Mekong Delta regions of Vietnam, and it is also a prominent feature, for instance, of Cao Đài theology. In Vietnamese, “to return” is a euphemism for death that is used in expressions like “return to heaven” (quy thiên, về trời) and “return to the immortals and serve Buddha” (quy tiên chầu Phật). In Vietnam, one hundred years was considered human’s natural life span. Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 115 116 117 118 119 M 120 IS 114 ES 113 Their hundred years of longevity decrease, falling to depart in youth: Reduced all the way to thirty, People three thước73 tall live a life of starvation. With many periods of calamity and torment, To now be thus reduced is indeed without error. People two thước tall do not last long; Disease and sickness incessantly bring hardship. Reduced in age, just stepping over to ten. People one thước tall meet calamity—people, heed! Truly, great changes are transpiring in the mundane world; Ten-thousand men and women trek right into the mountains. What the books still record is not empty; A girl with a husband, in five months, forms a pair. At the end of summer, customs are strained; At dawn and dusk, with the kingdom in chaos, people do not seem human. Unjust punishment and imprisonment are everywhere; But right before the eyes a place awaits. With death one returns through the six paths74 and four births;75 On the path of transcendents76 and way of humans, fortunately one is at peace, IM 112 73 74 75 76 235 The former thước was approximately half a meter, although Master Buddha’s usage appears chiefly rhetorical as opposed to descriptive. The “six paths” are six “walks of life” through which living beings transmigrate from one life to the next. They are the paths of the hell-born, hungry ghosts (V. ngạ quỷ, 餓鬼; S. preta), animals, asura (V. tu la, 修羅), humans, and deities. The “four births” are four means of transfer from one path of transmigration to the next. They are (re)birth through eggs, the womb, moisture (i.e., creatures perceived to come into existence without eggs or womb like worms, etc.), and (immaculate) transformation (deities, asura, preta, hell-born). From the explanatory passage that follows this line, it appears that Master Buddha associated the “path of transcendents” (V. tiên đạo, 仙道) with the “path of deities” (V. thiên đạo, 天道). 236 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS 121 While the likes of asura77 and preta,78 Animals and the hell-born suffer many calamities and hardships. 122 The four births are delineated clearly: Eggs, fetus, moisture, and transformation are the realms of Saṃsāra. 123 Uphold fasting and the precept against killing79—people, heed! Above is the Pure Land, the place that awaits. 124 As a human, you can understand kindness; So with transmigration through life so tremendous, save all species of beings. 125 The saints and spirits are illumined, right, and good! But as for wickedly killing all creatures first and foremost, 126 The things living creatures do are full of upheavals, For they kill and harm the living without regard for heaven and earth. 127 Shiftily they indulge in killing for sport, Only to later return to hell, where their misdeeds are punished without mercy. 128 Murderousness, debauchery, vicious sins, Spiteful words, and treacherous speech—heaven will work to compound their punishment. 129 Brazen with duplicitous tongues and wicked mouths, Although people do not see it, people’s sins are numerous. 130 Ever so greedy and devious, Hell awaits the time they cycle through Saṃsāra. 131 Unfilial, they go against their fathers’ and mothers’ words, 77 78 79 Asura are spirits distinct from heavenly deities and inclined towards violence (whether good or bad). Preta are “hungry ghosts.” See note above. The precept against killing is one of five precepts for a Buddhist layman like Master Buddha was in ca.1842 (monastics typically observed at least ten). Trì trai (持齋) or “fasting” was generally used in the vinaya (monastic disciplines) to refer to monastics’ abstinence from food after noontime. However, Master Buddha associated the term with the precept of killing, suggesting that he meant vegetarianism. Indeed, the vernacular reading of the Sinograph for trai (齋) is chay, which means vegetarianism. Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 135 136 137 M 138 IS 134 ES 133 Though their birth father and caring mother are sites of deep gratitude. Only when shadow officers80 come for them do they finally realize, That punishment will be administered so that their lot will be that of wailing day and night.81 Clearly irreverent towards the Three Jewels, They disparage the Buddha Dharma in many places across a great expanse. As a human, be awakened and clear yourself; The transcendent Buddhas cherish you, and heaven’s court has compassion, too. Cultivate your heart, cultivate your nature, keep it up constantly; Cultivate through sūtra teachings transmitted from Buddha’s hall, Cultivate your nature, cultivate pleasant conduct, Cultivate the six words of Amitābha—do not remiss. Cultivate the two aspects of filial piety and righteousness; Cultivate the relations, cultivate the disciplines, and strive for fortitude of filial piety and loyalty; Cultivate benevolence, cultivate virtue kept within your bowels; Cultivate a body of polished jade, and you will be sullied with mud—do not bear it; Cultivate merit by restoring shrine mounds;82 IM 132 139 80 81 82 237 Âm quan (陰官) or “shadow officers” are beings who administer justice and punishment in the hells. The original text has the two Sinographs分據 (phận cứ), here translated “[their] lot will be.” Nguyễn Văn Hầu interpreted the second character as an error for xử 䖏 (處), thus yielding phân xử (分處), which means “judge” or “arbitrate.” A miễu in the Mekong Delta region is a small shrine dedicated to local spirits. They are usually built on quiet mounds, foothills, and embankments. Votive mounds were created as sites of worship ceremonies. Nguyễn Văn Hầu interpreted the Sinographs (廟𡊨), here transliterated miễu đàn and translated “shrine mounds” as a variant of miếu đường (廟堂), which can be pronounced miếu đàng or miếu đàn for some Vietnamese speakers in the Mekong Delta. Miếu đường, as Hầu explained, refers to the ancestral temple of the royal 238 143 144 145 146 147 M 148 IS 142 ES 141 Cultivate wealth for devotional charity, but without devious practices; Cultivate prayer for saintly longevity and heavenly spring, For people’s health and creature’s care, for escape from grievance, hunger, and cold; Cultivate prayer for the ten thousand seas and thousand mountains, For the pristine rivers to flourish and the myriad islets83 to be at absolute peace. Dawn and dusk prostrate to Buddha and recite sūtra; Supplicate the Master to become virtuous and reborn on the marvelous path.84 Fish that swim deep in a river cannot be seen; Hawks in the vast, expansive sky fly stratospherically. Enlightened, one enjoys the celestial peach; The deluded, hell—whence shall one be reborn? One’s hands bind oneself tight; Seeing this with one’s own eyes, one holds one’s silence, mute. One bustles upon hearing about sin and fortune; When in pain one thinks of Buddha, but once it’s gone then no more. Find words of empathy and move your lips; But not of praise and scorn, say “enough!” without designs. Cases of errancy will be clearly stated, IM 140 Asian Philosophical Texts 83 84 family. That seems unlikely, since, in 1842, the Nguyễn Dynasty’s ancestral temple, called Temple of Generations of Ancestors (Thế Tổ Miếu, 世祖廟), was located in Huế far removed from Master Buddha’s homeland and known travels. Nguyễn Văn Hầu treated the Sinographs 萬般 as a variant for the phonetically similar 萬邦 (vạn bang), which means “ten thousand states.” However, considering these lines’ succession of geographic terms (seas, mountains, rivers), the Sinograph 般 is here read bơn, meaning an islet on a river. Here, prostrating before the Buddha/Master with the resolve to become virtuous and reborn (in the Pure Land) reflects the practice of phát nguyện 發 願 (S. praṇidhāna) or “profession of the vow” to assume the bodhisattva’s path towards the enlightenment of a Buddha and rebirth in Amitābha’s Pure Land. See Amitābha Sūtra Spoken by Buddha 佛説阿彌陀經 (T. 366.12.347b7). Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 152 153 154 155 156 M 157 IS 151 ES 150 So that, in Yama’s court, such sins’ retribution through Saṃsāra will be hard to fathom. What the sūtra say and Buddhas teach are parched of words; The enlightened see this, but the deluded do not. Some places are joyful, others miserable and compounded by sorrow; The mired and the pure, two paths—with which way will you be concerned? With the right karma you enjoy high authority. Without it you encounter an impoverished later life. Gilded words inscribed for a thousand neighbors, Do not dither—people, heed! The rivers and mountains already flooded,85 How could you not see that you have rashly lost your chance for Dharma? Muddled through many drifting currents, Your spirits take to flight, fluttering like reeling threads. Darting past like an arrow, To a different homeland, a different place, a region apart from beast and fowl. Day and night obscured in darkness, Only once your ethereal spirits scatter, and your corporeal ones are lost does the cycle of Saṃsāra transpire.86 Inaugurating the turning and founding of an era, With different kinds of beasts, different humans, and new people. IM 149 239 85 86 Nguyễn Văn Hầu thought that the Sinograph for lụt (𣹕), meaning “flooded,” was an error for cạn (𣴓), meaning “dried up” or “parched.” Hầu’s reading thus agreed with language elsewhere in the litany such as “parched of words,” “age dries up,” etc. Here, the Sinograph is translated “flooded” in consideration of the imagery of nỗi dật dờ, which means “drifting currents.” Here, Master Buddha conveys the belief that humans possess an aggregate “soul” composed of ethereal and corporeal spirits known as hồn and vía, respectively. After death, the ethereal spirits ascend towards the heavens, while the corporeal spirits descend to stay on earth, often remaining with the corpse. Humans are thought to have three ethereal spirits, but while men have seven corporeal spirits, women possess nine. 240 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS 158 People, Buddhas, saints, transcendents, and spirits shall endure; What ghost or sprite could disrupt the world of dust? 159 Embracing the world like a gourd, The heavenly Buddhas will settle absolute peace everywhere. 160 Now as you meet a Buddha who will descend to the living, The hundred clans are advised to do good and cultivate themselves. 161 I see the affairs of the world drawing near: Turning people, turning things, turning years, turning days, 162 Turning food and turning dress immediately, Turning husbands, turning wives, turning lords and kings, 163 Turning hills, turning mountains, turning gardens, Turning buffalos, turning fields, turning roads that come and go, 164 Turning time, turning seasons, and then, Turning trees, turning fruits, turning flowers’ timing, 165 Turning intimates, turning friends and confidantes, With speech and voice different from the past; 166 Turning bowels intent on slippery speech, Turning sickness, turning disease—how could the medicines of old treat them? 167 In the world at present, ghosts and demons run amok; Dharma spirits and talismans—can they save us? 168 As a human, do not rely on your ability; What you see in the morning, by evening where is it to be found? 169 For a time, you breathe in and out, But once your breath ceases, how can you fathom the scope of where you will end up? 170 One does not know how it was before birth; With death one returns to the shadow realm, and the spirit enters the gates of hell. 171 Three times a day the aggrieved spirit is beaten, Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 175 176 177 178 M 179 IS 174 ES 173 Such profound, cruel grievance—who do you suppose would come to the rescue? It is right before your eyes! Why are you ignorantly unconcerned? When the river has no bridge, whose ferry will you call upon to carry you? Left parched passed noon, How could it do to go on toiling to dig a well? When still of unmatched vitality, Why not cultivate and practice, for once old, what will you know? When born in the past, one’s nature was originally good; As one matures and accumulates wickedness, one frets that one has harmed oneself. By nature, at birth, humans possess a spiritual quality; It is because of oneself that one is deluded by dust and confusion—who else is there to blame? That sins amass in a jumble is not in error; I beseech you to repent and whet your spiritual nature, So as to restrain yourself; With wife bound and children tethered, teetering adrift you shall not fall. Sahā is an idyllic realm,87 IM 172 87 241 Here, Master Buddha evokes the relativity of purity and defilement found in a number of prajñāpāramitā sūtra, which teach that the messy mundane world is essentially pure and, therefore, through personal cultivation and reparation, one’s mundane existence can become the site of perfect enlightenment to pure Buddhahood. For example, in a passage in chapter one of Sūtra Spoken by Vimalakīrti (V. Duy Ma Cát sở thuyết kinh, 維摩詰所說經; S. Vimalakīrti nirdeśa sūtra), Vimalakītri, an advanced bodhisattva posing as a sick laymen, explains to Śāriputra, Śākyamuni’s muddled student who suspects that his teacher’s enlightenment is imperfect, because the world he inhabits is full of misery: “Could it be that because the sun and moon are impure, the blind cannot see them..? …All living creatures sin, so they cannot see that Thus Come’s (Śākyamuni’s) Buddha realm is marvelous and pure. That is not the fault of Thus Come. Śāriputra, it is not that this land of ours is impure. You just cannot see.” (T.475.14.538c09–12). 242 183 184 185 186 187 Here, mahā, a Sanskrit term meaning “great”, is transliterated in Vietnamese as ma ha. The Lady Buddha (V. Phật bà) is Quan Âm (S. Avalokiteśvara) in her female manifestation. Here, Master Buddha appears to allude to her depiction wearing white robes and holding a vase of dulcet nectar that soothes living creatures’ suffering. The image of slanted sunlight implies that the day is nearing its end; in other words, time is almost up. It is unclear what Master Buddha meant by “four wisdoms,” since the term has different meanings across many canonical texts and traditions, and nowhere in the litany did he explicate. He may have had in mind the four kinds of cognition theorized by Yogācāra masters that like the “four debts of gratitude” are found in the Great Vehicle Sūtra of Contemplation on the Mind’s Ground of Original Life. They are the mind’s cognition of rounded reflection, equanimity, marvelous observation, and actualization. (T.159.3.298c10–25). Incense and water are the votive staples of Master Buddha’s spartan tradition. M 88 IS 182 ES 181 If you delight in seeking prajñā as you approach the open mahā88 sea. If hungry, then find recourse in Śākyamuni’s field; If thirsty, then rely on the Lady Buddha’s water for nourishment.89 The teacher’s words, in times past, explicated; Take refuge in the words “tranquility” to trace the way through the clouds. Sunlight is falling aslant through the trees,90 Polish the words “four wisdoms”91 and resolve to always study prudently. Cultivation does not distinguish rich and poor; Dawn and dusk, observe the incense censer and bowl of water.92 With empathy, heaven and the Buddhas will see; Why desire for quantity? One should not crave like a pig. Two spirits hold the registers on both sides, Recording sins and fortune to submit on humans’ behalves. With jade right at home, why not polish it? What dust is there to speak of?—smile and pass it on. Without seeing ahead, without looking back, IM 180 Asian Philosophical Texts 89 90 91 92 Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 191 192 193 194 195 M 196 IS 190 ES 189 People today seem as if dreaming—how could their vision be steady? A phoenix mirror illuminates above and below; A ruddy horse takes off, galloping up and down both ways. Flashing by like a flitter of moonlight, Sometimes full, sometimes crescent, it ever so brightens and fades. Flowers fall—in just a moment, spring passes; If you do not cultivate in youth, then once old what will you know? With loose words, speaking irreverently, What do you know of rules and ritual? Birth in this life is so miserable, That spiraling downward, in what lifetime can you live again? I advise you to reform your evils and do good; Devotedly cultivate the Three Jewels and study for penetrating clarity. The snake that is able to cultivate can become a dragon; As a human, why not look within yourself, Such that your body suffers adrift, With calamity here and disasters there, transforming to be reborn in every way? Sunlit is the scene, shadowy the homeland; Shouldering blessings, one returns to the sights of old.93 Possessing the karmic affinity, spirits and saints escort you, Because of your good recollection morning and night, time after time.94 IM 188 243 197 93 94 The world of living is described as the “sunlight word,” while the realm of the dead is depicted as the “shadow realm.” Here, Master Buddha returns to the idea that the transition at death is to return. Here, the Sinograph trưa 𣆐, which normally means “noontime,” may be a mistake for the graphicly similar đêm 𣈘, which means “night.” In any case, the expression sớm trưa means “morning and night” rather than “morning and noontime,” since the former is the phrase’s meaning in classical usage as in the folk-expression, ớ người dãi gió dầm mưa/ màn trời chiếu đất sớm trưa nhọc nhằn (“Oh, you!—exposed to the wind and seeped in rain/ with 244 Asian Philosophical Texts IS 198 My words spoken short and long have dried up,95 Prostrate to Teacher,96 go back and return to your original home. 199 Mouth chanting the recollection of Amitābha, Hands tracing the prayer beads, I keep vigil over my bowels.97 200 Reverently make offerings to the Lord of Enlightenment98 for prosperity, For people’s health and creatures’ care, for a heavenly spring of absolute peace, 201 For kind fathers and pious children, for loyalty and fidelity, For pristine rivers and pacific seas, for peace and stability inside and out. M IM ES Handwritten by Thái Văn Ý, who served as scribe, on the twentyfifth day of the eighth month in mid-autumn of the year Quý Sửu.99 95 96 97 98 99 sky for your mosquito net and the earth as your mat, you are weary morning and night.”). This interpretation “morning and night” agrees with Master Buddha’s instructions elsewhere in the litany for morning and evening recollection practice (i.e., recitation and mindfulness of Buddha. See note on chánh niệm above). Here, Master Buddha is referring to the 6–8 verse in which he composed Esoteric Tradition. Here, Master Buddha’s use of thầy or “Teacher” probably referred to Buddha as an epithet rather than himself as a first-person pronoun. Here, Master Buddha describes the practice of “recollecting Buddha” (niệm Phật) by focusing the mind and reciting the name of Amitābha with a beaded rosary. “Lord of Enlightenment” was an epithet for the imminent Buddha (Maitreya). September 21, 1973. SẤM TRUYỀN ĐỨC PHẬT THẦY TÂY AN Tuế thứ Kỷ Dậu niên, nhuận nhị ngoạt nhị thập thất nhựt, Trò1 Trương trợ bút, nhứt quyển giảng. [1a] 2 Nhiệm mầu vui đạo Thích Ca, 3 Nương thuyền bát nhã cho yên, 4 Hiếu trung trọn giữ một câu, 5 Liếc xem thuyền bá bơ vơ, 6 Bớ ai ăn ở vụng về, 7 Bởi mình ai dễ thấy4 ai, 8 Phật tiên chí hiển chí linh, 9 Ai ai cũng ở trong trời, IM M 10 Biến dời cuộc thế thình lình, 11 Vần xoay5 thế giái phàm trần, 1 2 3 4 5 ngoạt trư2 giáo giác kiếm đường chạy ra. Thuyền môn hứng chí Di Đà lòng chuyên. vào non ngũ uẩn tín thành sùng tu. bãi tiên suối hạc cầm câu đợi chờ. sóng khơi biển thẳm3 dật dờ sông mê! không lo nước lửa nhiều bề chông gai. để cho sa sẩy mình chôn lấy mình. một câu chánh niệm thời mình thảnh thơi. nhơn từ phải giữ đừng lời trớ trinh. thiện tồn ác thất thiên đình số phân. sự mình không biết mưu [1b]thâm ở người. IS Thừa Nhâm hổ cứ bước sang, ES 1 Nguyễn Văn Hầu: Đỗ. This and further comparisons of my rendition with Nguyễn Văn Hầu’s transliteration come from Hầu’s Sấm truyền Đức Phật Thầy Tây An (Tòng Sơn: Ban Quản tự Tòng Sơn cổ tự, Ban Chẩn tế Giáo hội Phật giáo Hòa Hảo, 1973). Hầu: tháng heo Hầu: thầm Hầu: mặc Hầu: xây. 246 Asian Philosophical Texts 13 Phải làm như bổn nhựt trình, 14 Niên như điễn ngoạt như thoi, 15 Có người thiện nữ truyền lời, 16 Nhị Vân thánh ứng quang minh, 17 Ngó xa xem cũng thấy gần, 18 Hắc đầu tử bạch đầu ông, 19 Đạo vơi vơi đạo vơi vơi, 20 Buồn khoanh tay buồn khoanh tay, 21 Đời bạo ngược ít7 hiếu trung, ES 22 Thiện phùng thiện ác đáo đầu, non băng đất lở giữa vời linh đinh. trẻ già xin nhớ giữ gìn mà coi. vần xoay6 thế giái luân hồi chẳng chơi! Nhứt Vân thiên lộ máy trời thinh thinh. Tam Vân triều hội gia đình phâ vân. xa gần gió tạc(t) bụi trần sạch không. bớ người dương thế sao không coi đời? đàng xưa cảnh cũ lập đời sửa xây. thấy trong con tạo khéo xây lạ lùng. miệng thời toan tín(h) lòng dùng mưu sâu. oan oan tương báo ai hầu8 cứu cho? thiên đàng hữu lộ phải dò nẻo đi. trách con mắc(t) [2a]thịt vậy thì chẳng coi. nước xao sóng dợn ầm ầm bên tai. cám thương trần thế dạy hoài không nghe. giữ cầm lèo lái một bề thuận theo. một mình khó nỗi chống chèo đặng đâu! khinh khi chú lái ai hầu rước đưa? tan rồi lại hiệp hiệp tan mấy hồi. tình tan(g) hỡi bậu cạn đời còn chi. thương chăng thương kẻ từ bi giữ lòng. sợ chi lũ kiến chòm ong chơi bời. mặt(c) tình thế sự chê cười mặt(c) ai. phủi câu danh lợi mặt(c) ai tranh tài. chí công luyện sắt giồi mài nên kim. IS 12 Hư nên nhỡ phận Phật trời, 23 Thẳng mà tín(h) thẳng mà lo, 24 Nghe chi những tiếng thị phi, IM 25 Mở hai con mắc(t) thồi lồi, 26 Cực bớ ai cực bớ ai, 27 Nước gần lớn gió đưa bè, 28 Dặm cheo leo cảnh cheo leo, M 29 Làm sao chẳng xét trước sau? 30 Người đời như buổi chợ trưa, 31 Khóc lỡ khóc cười lỡ cười, 32 Lệ lâm li lụy lâm li, 33 Lọc nước trong lọc nước trong, 34 Ăn nhịn miệng nói nhịn lời, 35 Dốc cầu đặng chữ Như Lai, 36 Cảnh thiên thai chốn thiên thai, 6 Hầu: xây. 7 This segment has an extra Sinograph: đời bạo ngược ít người hiếu trung. 8 Hầu: hầy Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 38 Buồn dàu dàu buồn dàu dàu, 39 Mèo kêu vang mèo kêu vang, 40 Ngọn cờ phất trống thùng tan, 41 Quặn ruột đau quặn ruột đau, 42 Gắng công lục tự nam mô,10 43 Phật trời lòng lại xót xa, 44 Gió đưa ngọn cỏ phất phơ, 45 Cảnh đã xoay cảnh đã xoay,11 46 Xem trong máy tạo hết rồi, 47 Thuyền ai chạy tới sông Đào? ES 48 Khuyên người sớm xả bụi trần, muôn thu xây dựng9 khó tìm đặng đâu. hỗn ngươn xoay lại [2b]đời nay mơ màn(g). rắn rồng sợ chạy vào ngàn ẩn thân. kẻ lên người xuống hai đàng khác nhau. Phật tiên thương chúng dạ sầu héo khô. vạ may cá suối gặp hồ liên hoa. giáo trong thiện chúng Long Hoa mà nhờ. sẽ coi cuộc thế như cờ bị vây. nhành rơi12 đời khác đổi thay cuộc đời. ngửa nghiêng biển thẳm rã rời bờ ao! thuyền ông Bát nhã Phật vào độ dân. dắt cho khỏi chốn mê tân bớ người. màng chi những chốn lạc loài đọa thân. hưởng nhờ muôn thuở bửu châu thiếu gì? bớ người lớn nhỏ sao không giữ gìn? vô thường quỷ dẫn ai bênh13 đặng nào. ví14 như trời chớp sáng nào đặng lâu. thở than than thở lo âu cho đời. khổ tăng gia khổ trong đời gian nan. xà thương hổ giảo đa đoan hội nầy. phần thời đói khát thân rày chẳng yên. IS 37 Cảnh rất nghiêm cảnh rất nghiêm, 49 Súc sanh ngạ quỷ là loài, 50 Tây phương thẳng bước chơn lần, IM 51 Tín thành truyền dạy vân vi, 52 Nay xem cảnh thế thình lình, 53 Sớm còn tối [3a]mất lao đao, M 54 Dặm canh thâu dặm canh thâu, 55 Nghĩ trong cuộc thế vơi vơi, 56 Kìa kìa quỷ mị khởi loàn, 57 Phần thời giặc giã phủ vây, 9 10 11 12 13 14 247 Here, I take 朶 as a variant of 孕. This segment has en extra Sinograph: gắng công thường lục tự Nam mô. Hầu: cảnh đã xây. Hầu: nhành lai. Hầu: binh. Hầu: tỷ. 248 Asian Philosophical Texts 59 Đã hết lời đã hết lời! 60 Trách lòng nhiều sự chẳng kiêng, 61 Biến sanh những sự tà gian, 62 Thế nay cạn sự đã rồi! 63 Chuyển luân thiên địa tuần hườn, mày. 64 Ít ai tỏ biết đặng hay, 65 Thầy xưa lời dặn hẳn hòi, 66 Oan oan tương báo chập chồng, 67 Khiến xui phụ tử tương tranh, 69 Trời xui trăm vật trăm hao, [3b] 70 Ngọn phù thủy cuộc đất xây, IM 71 Bao giờ hưởng thọ kỳ hương, 72 Sanh thân này khổ bớ ai 73 Phú hết phú bần hết bần, M 74 Khiến xui vợ lại giết chồng, 75 Anh em đồng khí tương ly, 76 Đổi dời hải thủy băng sơn, 77 Tam ngươn quy dựng18 lại rồi, 78 Lần lần tay tính tối ngày, 15 16 17 18 ví như cầm chén rủi tay bẻ rồi! thực nhơn nhơn thực đến hồi chẳng không. tham tài tích đại mình không xét mình. cha không lành thảo con lành đặng đâu? phản quân sát phụ hãy15 câu sách nào? để cho đò khó16 xiết bao nhọc nhằn. rồng nằm đáy biển sông hằng hứng sương. tuế tăng vạn tuế lưu17 phương lâu dài. trăm ngàn việc khổ chất hoài vô thân. than vong tài tán quan dân cũng đồng. con mà hại mẹ tình không yêu vì. quân thần phản nghịch thế thì hạ ngươn. tiêu đường quỷ mị nghĩa nhơn lập đời. tang điền thương hải rã rời đổi xoay. người nay như thể thấy rày lại không. ES 68 Trung quân phụ tử làm đầu, sợ trong thế sự như thuyền chạy khơi. khuyên răn dạy biểu cho người thiện duyên. ốm đau cầu giảm an thuyên chẳng màn(g). hủy tăng phá giới lòng toan hại người. mở mang dời đổi lập đời thượng ngươn. hội này thấy lửa tàm lam cháy IS 58 Lăng xăng nhiều cuộc đảo điên, Hầu: hỡi. Hầu: đồ khổ. Here, I take晋 as a variant of 留. Like above, I take朶 as a variant of 孕. Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 80 Ngồi buồn than trách một mình, 81 Đua nhau rượu thịt nghinh ngang, 82 Biến sanh thấy sự hẳn hòi, 83 Nhiệm mầu thuyền đạo Thích Ca, 84 Non đoài giữ dạ tín thành, 85 Anh em ai có phục tòng, 86 Phật truyền trồng thọ bồ đề, 87 Muốn cho vào20 chốn ta bà, ES 88 Kính trời kính đất thần minh, 89 Sanh tại tiên hiếu song thân, vật còn biết tánh người không tỏ tình. thương trong thế sự thình lình tiêu tan. chửi cha mắng mẹ nhiều đàng ngược xuôi. tử nhi vô hối hết đời tà ma. Quan Âm cứu khổ Di Đà [4a]độ19 sanh. thầy cho cư sĩ học hành chưa thông. theo tôi học đạo phải dùng tai nghe. giữ câu minh chánh chớ hề sai ngoa. phương tiện bố thí hà sa phước dành.21 tông môn phụng tự giữ toàn Tứ ân. việc22 hậu vi nghĩa ân cần sớm mai. giồi câu tiết chánh tỏ bày bia son. đạo truyền kế đạo Phật môn lâu dài. lục niên tân khổ chẳng nài nhọc công. ví23 như thuyền nhỏ bị phong IS 79 Chữ rằng nhơn vật dữ đồng, 249 90 Trung quân lòng giữ chẳng sai, 91 Mình tu phải dạy cháu con, 92 Thích Ca Phật tổ Như Lai, M IM 93 Đến nay về hạ thần long, giang hồ. 94 Di Đà lục tự Nam mô,vãng sanh Tịnh thổ24 ra vô thanh nhàn. 95 Thoát nơi khổ hải mới san(g), lánh vòng trần tục khỏi đàng tử sanh. 96 Phận tôi cư sĩ tín thành, thầy truyền dạy chúng làm lành tu thân. 97 Hạ ngươn cuộc thế cũng gần, tỉnh tâm tự giác ân cần cho mau. 98 Chuyện25 tu chẳng khó ở đâu, lấy câu bố thí làm đầu rất nên. 99 Thiện thần [4b]biên chép đôi bên, thiện tăng ác giảm hư nên lời truyền. 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 I take 土 as a variant of 渡. Nguyễn Văn Hầu amended vào in this segment to thoát. Hầu: gìn. Hầu: một. Hầu: tỉ. Hầu: độ. The Sinographic text has a tone indicator to distinguish this Sinograph’s reading as chuyện from truyện and truyền. 250 Asian Philosophical Texts 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 M 117 ES 102 IM 101 kẻ nghe người bỏ nói mình khôn ngoan. Tham tài dưỡng vật đa đoan, để nuôi thân thịt không toan nghe lời. Sát sanh hại vật ăn chơi, gian phu dâm phụ nhiều lời trớ trinh. Thấy rồi mình lại tủi mình, nói ra thời tệ làm thinh thêm sầu. Cao bay xa chạy khỏi đâu, mắt(c) trong lưới nhặt dãi dầu khá thương. Phật tiên tương hội ai tường, cứu sanh độ tử mọi26 đàng trần gian. Giáo khuyên trần chúng nhiều phang, giữ câu nhẫn thiện lòng toan tu hành. Chừa27 lời đừng có đua tranh, bồ đề một hột tâm thành đặng siêu. Long Hoa thắng hội tiêu diêu, dữ lành đến đó mai chiều sẽ hay. Phận mình cư sĩ dám bày, luật nghi phép tắc diễn bày tỏ ra. Nhứt ngươn đức Phật Thích Ca, giáng sanh cõi thế Long Hoa hội kỳ. Người sanh bá tuế sở quy, bá niên giảm thọ hạ dời28 thiếu thời. Giảm chí tam thập đến nơi, người cao ba thước là đời cơ nguy. Tai ương khổ não nhiều kỳ, giảm chí vậy thời nay thiệt chẳng sai. Người cao hai thước chẳng dài, ôn hoàng tật [5a]bịnh liên lai khốn nàn. Giảm chí thập tuế bước san(g), người cao một thước tai nàn bớ dân. Thiệt là đại biến phàm trần, vạn nhơn nam nữ thẳng lần sơn trung. Sách còn ghi nói chẳng không, con gái có chồng ngũ ngoạt thành song. Mạt hạ phong tục long đong, thần hôn quốc loạn người không y người. Oan hình lao ngục khắp nơi, nhãn tiền tựu thị là nơi để dành. Thác về lục đạo tứ sanh, tiên đạo nhơn đạo phước mình thảnh thơi. Tu la ngạ quỷ là loài, súc sanh địa ngục nhiều tai khốn nàn. Tứ sanh phân nói rõ ràng, noãn thai thấp hóa là phang luân hồi. IS 100 Thuở xưa Phật dạy chẳng tin, 118 119 120 121 122 26 27 28 Hầu: mỗi. Hầu: chử. Hầu: di. Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 124 Làm người cho biết hiền lành, 125 Thánh thần minh chánh thiện tai, 126 Chúng sanh nhiều việc đảo điên, 127 Đổi thừa sát hại ăn chơi, 128 Sát hại tà dâm tội hung, 129 Lưỡng thiệt ác khẩu trớ trinh, 130 Tham lam gian giảo vậy vay, 131 Bất hiếu phụ mẫu nghịch [5b]lời, 132 Âm quan về đến mới hay, 133 Bất kính Tam Bửu rõ ràng, ES 134 Làm người tự giác tự minh, cảnh trên Tịnh thổ29 là nơi để dành. vãng sanh vi đại cứu chư các loài. ác sát mỗi vật đầu bài vi tiên. sát sanh hại mạng không kiêng đất trời. sau về địa ngục tội hành không dung. vọng ngôn trá ngữ thiên công gia hình. người tuy chẳng thấy tội mình nhiều thay. ngục hình dành để đợi khi luân hồi. cha sanh mẹ dưỡng là nơi ơn dày. hành hình phận cứ30 đêm ngày khóc than. khinh khi Phật pháp nhiều đàng thinh thinh. Phật tiên mến tưởng thiên đình cũng thương. tu trong kinh giáo Phật đường truyền ra. tu câu lục tự Di Đà đừng quên. tu cang tu kỷ gắng bền hiếu trung. tu trau vóc ngọc lấm bùn đừng mang. tu tài bố thí việc gian thì đừng. dân khương vật phụ khỏi oan cơ hàn. hà thanh hưng vượng vạn bơn33 thái bình. lạy thầy đức hóa tái sanh đạo mầu. IS 123 Trì trai giái sát bớ người, 251 135 Tu tâm tu tánh giữ thường, IM 136 Tu tánh tu hạnh nết na, 137 Tu hành hiếu nghĩa đôi bên, 138 Tu nhơn tu đức để lòng, 139 Tu công bồi đắp miễu đàn,31 140 Tu cầu thánh thọ thiên xuân, M 141 Tu cầu vạn hải thiên san,32 142 Thìn hôn vái34 Phật đọc kinh, 29 30 31 32 33 34 Hầu: độ. The original text has the two Sinographs分據 (phận cứ). Nguyễn Văn Hầu interpreted the second character as an error for xử 䖏 (處), thus yielding phân xử 分處, which means “judge” or “arbitrate.” Hầu: miếu đàng (miếu đường). Here the word sơn is pronounced askew (đọc chệch) with literary license as san to preserve the rhyme. Hầu: bang. Hầu: lạy. 252 Asian Philosophical Texts 144 Giác thời đặng hưởng thiên đào, 145 Tay mình lại chặt lấy mình, 146 Tai nghe tội phước lăng xăng, 147 Kiếm lời dễ cảm khua môi, 148 Dị đoan án nói37 rõ ràng, 149 Kinh rằng Phật dạy cạn lời, Chốn vui chốn khổ thêm sầu, Hữu duyên đặng hưởng quyền cao, Lời vàng tạc để thiên lân, Nước non nay đã lụt39 rồi, Mê man nhiều nỗi dật dờ, ES 150 151 152 153 154 mênh35 mông trời rộng chim hâu36 bay cao. mê thời địa ngục ngày nào đặng sanh? mắt thời thấy đó làm thinh không rằng. đau thời tưởng Phật hết rằng thời thôi. khen chê phải [6a]chẳng nói thôi chi màn(g). Diêm đình tội để khó toan luân hồi. giác38 thời đặng thấy mê thời thấy đâu. đục trong hai ngả toan âu nẻo nào? vô duyên lại gặp thân sau cơ bần. có đâu trễ nải quá chừng dân ôi. nào hay vội lỡ một hồi pháp cơ. hồn bay phưởng phất như tơ lộn cuồn. khác quê khác xứ khác nơi40 thú cầm. hồn sa phách lạc mới nên luân hồi. khác loài thú vật khác người tân dân. yêu ma nào có loạn trần đặng đâu. Phật trời phân định đâu đâu thái bình. khá khuyên bá tánh làm lành tu thân. trở người trở vật trở năm trở ngày. trở chồng trở vợ trở vì quân vương. trở trâu trở ruộng trở đường [6b]vào ra. trở cây trở trái bông hoa trở kỳ. lời ăn tiếng nói vậy thời khác xưa. trở căn trở bịnh thuốc xưa trị nào. IS 143 Sông sâu cá lội thấy đâu, 155 Thoát qua như ngọn tên bay, 156 Đêm ngày mù mịt tối tăm, 157 Mở mang xoay lại lập đời, IM 158 Còn người Phật thánh tiên thần, 159 Tóm thâu thế giái một bầu, 160 Nay đã gặp Phật giáng sanh, M 161 Sự đời xem thấy cũng gần, 162 Trở ăn trở mặc bằng nay, 163 Trở non trở núi trở vườn, 164 Trở thời trở tiết những là, 165 Trở bậu trở bạn cố tri, 166 Trở lòng ăn nói đẩy đưa, 35 36 37 38 39 40 Hầu: minh. Hầu: hầu. Hầu: nội. There is a redundant Sinograph here for giác覺. Hầu: cạn. Hầu: nay. Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 168 169 170 171 Làm người chớ cậy tài năng, Có khi hơi thở ra vô, Sanh tiền mình chẳng biết sao, Nhứt nhựt tam đả oan hồn, 172 Nhãn tiền sao chẳng biết lo, 173 Để cho khát nước quá trưa, 174 175 176 177 Thuở còn trai tráng dường bao, Xưa sanh tánh thiện làm đầu, Thiên sanh nhơn hữu tánh linh, Tội làm một mẻ41 chẳng sai, 178 Để cho mình buộc lấy mình, ES 179 Ta bà là chốn thảnh thơi, 180 [7a]Đói thời nhờ ruộng Thích Ca, pháp linh phù thủy cứu nào đặng chăng? mai thời thấy đó tối rằng thấy đâu? đứt hơi nào biết quy mô chốn nào? tử về âm cảnh hồn vào ngục môn. oan thâm nghiệt trọng ai hiềm cứu cho? sông không cầu bắc mướn đò ai đưa? ra công đào giếng cù cưa đặng nào? sao không tu tập già nào biết đâu? lớn khôn tích ác mình âu hại mình. mê trần mê lẫn tại mình trách ai. xin người tự hối giồi mài tánh linh. thê thằng tử phược linh đinh không rời. vui cầu bát nhã gần vời ma ha. khát thời nhờ nước Phật bà dưỡng thân. nương câu thanh tịnh dõi lần đường mây. giồi câu tứ trí tánh hằng học khôn. vùa hương bát nước mai chiều giữ coi. màng chi nhiều ít heo đòi không nên. chép ghi tội phước tâu lên cho người. sá chi phấn thổ vui cười tay trao. người nay như mộng thấy đâu cho bền? ngựa hồng cất chạy xuống lên hai đường. khi tròn khi khuyết nở tàn dường bao. trẻ không tu tập thời già biết chi? IS 167 Đời nay ma quỷ loạn vào, 181 Lời thầy xưa có tỏ42 phân, IM 182 Mặt trời chênh43 xế bóng cây, 183 Tu hành chi luận giàu nghèo, 184 Hữu tình trời Phật xét soi, 185 Lưỡng thần cầm sổ đôi bên, M 186 Ngọc nhà44 sao chẳng trau giồi, 187 Chẳng coi trước chẳng nhắm sau, 188 Gương loan sáng tỏ dưới trên, 189 Phất qua như bóng nguyệt quang, 190 Hoa rụng45 hồi lại xuân qua, 41 42 43 44 45 Hầu: tôi làm một mảy. Hầu: cạn. Hầu: chinh. Hầu: lành. Hầu: đong. 253 254 Asian Philosophical Texts 192 Sanh thân này khổ biết sao, 193 Khá khuyên cải dữ làm lành, 194 Rắn còn tu đặng đặng thành rồng, 195 Để cho thân chịu linh đinh, 196 Dương là cảnh âm là quê, 197 Hữu duyên thần thánh tiếp đưa, 198 Vắn dài lời nói cạn rồi, 199 Lầm rầm miệng niệm Di Đà, 200 Kính dưng minh chúa hưng long, ES 201 Phù từ tử hiếu trung trinh, biết đâu phép tắc lễ nghi chuyện nào? để cho sa sẩy kiếp nào đặng sanh? sùng tu Tam Bửu học hành cho thông. làm người sao chẳng xét trong thân mình? tai kia họa [7b]nọ biến sanh mọi bề. phước mình gánh vác đặng về cảnh xưa. vì mình thiện niệm sớm trưa lần hồi. lạy thầy trở lại phản hồi bổn gia. tay lần chuỗi hột lòng ta giữ lòng. dân khương vật phụ thiên xuân thái bình. hà thanh hải yên an ninh trong ngoài. IS 191 Buông lời nói chẳng kính vì, M IM Tuế thứ Quý Sửu niên bát nguyệt nhị thập ngũ nhật Trọng Thu Thái Văn Ý phụng tả thủ bút M IM ES IS Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace [1a] 255 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS 256 [1b] M IM ES IS Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace [2a] 257 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS 258 [2b] M IM ES IS Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace [3a] 259 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS 260 [3b] M IM ES IS Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace [4a] 261 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS 262 [4b] M IM ES IS Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace [5a] 263 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS 264 [5b] M IM ES IS Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace [6a] 265 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS 266 [6b M IM ES IS Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace [7a] 267 Asian Philosophical Texts M IM ES IS 268 [7b] Q. Huyền - Esoteric Tradition of Master Buddha of Western Peace 269 References M IM ES IS Ang, Claudine. 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