Blue Cliff Record
Yuanwu Keqin belonged to the Linji school. He was the teacher of Dahui Zonggao, who introduced the Hua Tou practice.
Starting from the year 1112 on, Yuan-wu started to lecture on the Pai-tse sung-ku ("One Hundred Old Cases and Verses "), compiled by Xuedou Zhongxian (Wade-Giles: Hsueh-tou Chung-hsien; Japanese: Setcho Juken) (980–1052). These lectures resulted in the Pi-yen lu, the "Blue Cliff Record".
The Blue Cliff Record gives clear instructions about the correct approach to Ch'an kung-an. Yuan-wu went as far as to annotate the poems line by line, to make clear the correct reading of Hsueh-tou's appended verses, which are complex, because of the rich use of symbolism, and the allusions to Chinese secular literature and to Ch'an history.
According to the Chán-tradition, the Blue Cliff Record gained such a popularity, that Dahui Zonggao burned all the copies he could lay hands on, and the wooden printing blocks.
Read more about this topic: Yuanwu Keqin
Famous quotes containing the words blue, cliff and/or record:
“The blue and the gray. Let us march together beneath the star- spangled banner.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)
“It looked as if
The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,
The cliff in being backed by continent;
It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“No record ... can ... name the women of talent who were so submerged by child- bearing and its duties, and by “general housework,” that they had to leave their poems and stories all unwritten.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)