---
title: "The Synthesis: From Yongming through Yunqi to Ouyi"
author: "釋慧鏡 (Shi Huijing)"
series: "Six Practice Gates, Volume 1 — Mindful of the Buddha: From Early Buddhist Recollection to the Flower Ornament Vision"
series_short: "NIAN"
volume: 1
paper_id: "NIAN-P24"
paper_number: 24
part: "Part VI · Two Streams"
part_number: 6
date: "2026-05-04"
version: "1.0"
license: "CC BY-NC-SA 4.0"
---

# The Synthesis

**From Yongming through Yunqi to Ouyi**

**Six Hundred Years of Chan-Pure-Land Integration in Vocabulary, Doctrine, and Liturgy — Part VI's Fifth Paper on the Two Streams**

*中文主題：永明—雲棲—蕅益之合流*

---

**Author:** 釋慧鏡 (Shi Huijing)
**Date:** May 2026
**License:** CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
**Version:** 1.0
**Series:** NIAN — Mindful of the Buddha

---

> *If you would have the myriad practices arise together, you must in the end rely on principle and phenomena: where principle and phenomena are unobstructed, the Way is in the middle.*
> — Yǒngmíng Yánshòu (永明延壽, 904–975), *Wànshàn tóngguī jí* (萬善同歸集), fascicle 1 (T48.0958a26–28)

## Abstract
For the Anglophone reader of Pure Land introductions, *Chan-Pure Land dual cultivation* (*chán-jìng shuāng-xiū* 禪淨雙修) names what looks like a settled, unified school stretching back through the late Ming. This paper argues that the formula is, on close reading, neither sudden in arrival nor settled in content. The synthesis (*héliú* 合流) of Chan and Pure Land is a six-hundred-year doctrinal-lexical-liturgical genealogy: anchored in Yǒngmíng Yánshòu's (永明延壽, 904–975) tenth-century axiom that *the myriad practices arise together where principle and phenomena are unobstructed*; mediated by the Yuan-dynasty *Sānshí xìniàn fóshì* (三時繫念佛事, X74n1464) of Zhōngfēng Míngběn (中峰明本, 1263–1323) as a Chan-hall daily liturgy; codified in Yúnqī Zhūhóng's (雲棲祩宏, 1535–1615) *Āmítuó-jīng shūchāo* (阿彌陀經疏鈔, X22n0424) into the architecture of *shì-chí / lǐ-chí* (事持／理持, phenomenal name-holding and principle name-holding) and *shì yī-xīn / lǐ yī-xīn* (事一心／理一心); ratified from inside Chan by Hānshān Déqīng (憨山德清, 1546–1623); and closed by Ǒuyì Zhìxù (蕅益智旭, 1599–1655) into the threefold resource *xìn / yuàn / xíng* (信願行, faith, vow, practice) and the *perfectly-subsume-and-perfectly-transcend* (*yuán-shōu yuán-chāo* 圓收圓超) capstone of Qing-dynasty Pure Land canon. The paper engages Yü Chün-fang (1981), Jennifer Eichman (2016), and Albert Welter (2011) in a mixed mode — two *concede-and-push-back*, one *concede-and-extend* — and corrects three philological errors: the *four pithy categories quatrain* (*chán-jìng sì-liào-jiǎn* 禪淨四料簡) attributed to Yongming is textually absent from his own works; the *Sānshí xìniàn* is Yuan-dynasty Zhongfeng's, not Song-dynasty Yongming's; and the Pure Land patriarchate is, in part, a Song-Tiantai retrospective construction. The synthesis is a practice of holding tension, not its resolution.

**Keywords:** synthesis (*héliú* 合流); *lǐ-shì wú-ài* (理事無閡, principle-phenomena unobstructed); *shì-chí / lǐ-chí* (事持／理持); *shì yī-xīn / lǐ yī-xīn* (事一心／理一心); *yī-xīn bù-luàn* (一心不亂, single-minded undividedness); *xìn-yuàn-xíng* (信願行); *yuán-shōu yuán-chāo* (圓收圓超); *jí shì-chí dá lǐ-chí* (即事持達理持); *niànfó shěn-shí gōng'àn* (念佛審實公案, buddha-recollection inquiry-into-truth case); *niànfó jíshì cān-chán* (念佛即是參禪); *jìng-tǔ zhī chán / chán zhī jìng-tǔ* (淨土之禪／禪之淨土); *jìng zhōng zhī jìng* (徑中之徑, shortcut within the shortcut); bidirectionality (*hù-nì dú* 互逆讀); subsumption (*shōushè* 收攝); subordination (*lìshǔhuà* 隸屬化); patriarchate construction (*zǔtǒng jiàngòu* 祖統建構); *Wànshàn tóngguī jí* (萬善同歸集, T2017); *Zōngjìng lù* (宗鏡錄, T2016); *Āmítuó-jīng shūchāo* (阿彌陀經疏鈔, X22n0424); *Āmítuó-jīng yàojiě* (阿彌陀經要解, X22n0430); *Sānshí xìniàn fóshì* (三時繫念佛事, X74n1464); *Hānshān lǎorén mèng yóu jí* (憨山老人夢遊集, X73n1456); Yǒngmíng Yánshòu (永明延壽, 904–975); Yúnqī Zhūhóng (雲棲祩宏, 1535–1615); Zhōngfēng Míngběn (中峰明本, 1263–1323); Hānshān Déqīng (憨山德清, 1546–1623); Ǒuyì Zhìxù (蕅益智旭, 1599–1655); six-hundred-year synthesis line; holding-pattern (synthesis as practice of holding tension); *chán-jìng sì-liào-jiǎn* (禪淨四料簡, attributed to Yongming, textually absent); reception-history correction; mixed-mode interlocution (concede-and-push-back + concede-and-extend).

---

## I. Introduction

*Chan-Pure Land dual cultivation* (*chán-jìng shuāng-xiū* 禪淨雙修) is, for the contemporary Anglophone reader of Chinese Buddhism, one of the most familiar four-character phrases. Open any late-Qing or twentieth-century Pure Land manual, any Chan-hall service book, any introductory Western survey of East Asian Mahāyāna, and the formula appears with the air of something that has always been there — as if there were a single, settled school by that name whose doctrines were articulated some indefinite number of centuries ago and whose continued use by present-day practitioners were a matter of straightforward inheritance. The first task of this paper is to disturb that assumption. *Chan-Pure-Land dual cultivation* is neither a single school nor a settled body of doctrine; nor, despite the popular framing, is it the achievement of any one figure or even any one century. It is a six-hundred-year genealogy whose framing axiom must be traced upward to the tenth century and whose doctrinal architecture, liturgical instrument, internal Chan-side ratification, and final canonical closure occupy four further historical strata that span the Northern Song through the late Ming.

The previous paper of this series, P23, closed on the proposition that the architecture and vocabulary of Chinese buddha-recollection — *niànfó* (念佛) — were given by Zhiyi (智顗, 538–597) in the late sixth century, but that the millennium-long doctrinal redeployment of that vocabulary was performed by a succession of post-Tang authors: Zongmi (宗密, 780–841) in the ninth century, Zhili (知禮, 960–1028) in the eleventh, Yongming Yanshou in the tenth, Yunqi Zhuhong in the late sixteenth, and Ouyi Zhixu in the seventeenth. P22 closed on a parallel proposition concerning Shandao's (善導, 613–681) *axial transposition* of name-recitation in the Tang, with explicit forward-reference to a P24 that would address how five late-imperial figures *re-read* that transposition across six centuries of integrated Chan-Pure-Land cultivation. The present paper is that P24. Its argument has two propositions, and they are best stated together.

*First, the synthesis is not sudden.* It is not the achievement of Yunqi Zhuhong alone, however systematic Yunqi's late-Ming codification may appear in retrospect. Yongming Yanshou, in the tenth century, gave the founding axiom: *the myriad practices arise together; their principle and their phenomena are mutually unobstructed; the Way is in the middle*. Zhongfeng Mingben, in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, made that axiom into a Chan-hall daily liturgy in the *Sānshí xìniàn fóshì*. Yunqi, in the sixteenth century, codified the axiom into a doctrinal architecture of *shì-chí / lǐ-chí* (phenomenal name-holding / principle name-holding), *shì yī-xīn / lǐ yī-xīn* (phenomenal one-mind / principle one-mind), and the *shortcut within the shortcut* (*jìng zhōng zhī jìng* 徑中之徑). Hanshan Deqing, late sixteenth to early seventeenth century, ratified the synthesis from *inside* the Chan tradition by declaring buddha-recollection itself a form of Chan inquiry. Ouyi Zhixu, in the seventeenth century, closed the construction by enrolling buddha-recollection within the threefold resource of *xìn / yuàn / xíng* (faith, vow, practice) and naming name-holding *perfectly-subsuming and perfectly-transcending* every other dharma gate. Six hundred years of vocabulary, doctrine, and liturgy compose this genealogy; reading it as Yunqi's solitary work, or as a sudden late-Ming convergence with no deep prehistory, mistakes the structure.

*Second, the synthesis is not a resolution but a holding-pattern.* The doctrinal tension P22 documented in Shandao — the axial transposition by which name-recitation was institutionally re-centered without abolishing the integrated practice matrix it stood within — is not abolished by the synthesis. It is *subsumed* (*shōushè* 收攝) into a larger *one-mind* scaffold while retaining its tension. Ouyi's keystone phrase — *the single practice of confident-vow name-holding perfectly subsumes and perfectly transcends every dharma gate; vertically identical with all gates, horizontally distinct from them all* (X22.0873b08–10) — is the explicit doctrinal coding of that retained tension: every dharma gate is included, *and yet* name-holding stands distinctly apart. To read the synthesis as *Chan-Pure-Land conflict resolved* is to mistake the explicit shape of what these masters codified. The synthesis names, with formal precision, a tension that persists.

The paper develops these two propositions in six sections. §II surveys the six primary textual sources in three historical strata. §III is the load-bearing argument, organized as a four-tier *lexical descent ladder*: (3.1) Yongming's tenth-century axiom and its rejection of the Chan-Pure-Land binary at its origin; (3.2) the Yongming-to-Yunqi lexical descent of the doctrinal architecture; (3.3) Zhongfeng Mingben's Yuan-dynasty liturgical mediation and Yunqi's explicit endorsement of the *Chan-of-Pure-Land, Pure-Land-of-Chan* equation; (3.4) Hanshan's Chan-side reverse-ratification and Ouyi's seventeenth-century closure. §IV stages three Anglophone interlocutors — Yü Chün-fang (1981), Jennifer Eichman (2016), Albert Welter (2011) — in a mixed mode of two *concede-and-push-back* and one *concede-and-extend*. §V supplies three philological cautions: the *four pithy categories quatrain* attributed to Yongming is textually absent in his own writings; the *Sānshí xìniàn* is Yuan-dynasty Zhongfeng Mingben's, not Song-dynasty Yongming's; the Pure Land patriarchate, in its named-and-numbered form, is in part a Song-Tiantai retrospective construction. §VI restates the essence, gives cultivation guidance, and points forward to P25, which opens Part VII (*The Flower Ornament Vision*) with Samantabhadra's Ten Great Vows.

---

## II. Textual Foundation: Six Sources in Three Strata

P24's argument rests on six primary textual sources, organized in three historical strata.

The *Yongming layer* (tenth century) consists of two large works by Yongming Yanshou. First, the *Wànshàn tóngguī jí* (萬善同歸集, T2017), in three fascicles: this is the most direct source for the synthesis-axiom. Fascicle one's opening passage at T48.0958a23–28 is the foundational anchor for §III; passages at T48.0964a05–09 (refusal of any single gate as exclusive), T48.0966b28–c08 (the *understand-the-mind-only-then-reborn* and *coarse-mind, heavy-habit* dyad that prefigures Yunqi's *shì-chí / lǐ-chí*), T48.0968b01–03 (*there is only the single gate of Pure Land* in the context of *graded skilful means*), and T48.0968c12–15 (the *focused-mind / dedicated-mind* dyad that prefigures *shì yī-xīn / lǐ yī-xīn*) provide the load-bearing material for §III.1 and §III.2.[^1][^2][^3][^4][^5] Second, the *Zōngjìng lù* (宗鏡錄, T2016), in one hundred fascicles. Given the work's scale, the present paper draws on selectively-retrieved passages: fascicle one's *establish-the-mind-as-the-source* opening at T48.0417a (Bodhidharma-line transmission framing); fascicle sixteen's *clearly recollect-the-buddha-following-the-mind* passage at T48.0502b16; and the *graded skilful means* passage at T48.0506a12–25 — the proximate textual prototype for what Yunqi would later compress into the popular fourfold *niànfó* (P23's main subject).[^6][^7][^8] The selective character of the retrieval is here recorded openly: the *Zōngjìng lù* in its full hundred fascicles has not been read against the present argument, and Ouyi's later attribution of the *four pithy categories quatrain* to Yongming, examined in §V, did not yield positive results within the retrieved scope.

The *Yunqi-Ouyi layer* (sixteenth-to-seventeenth century) consists of the two principal Pure Land commentaries on the *smaller Sukhāvatī sūtra*. The *Āmítuó-jīng shūchāo* (阿彌陀經疏鈔, X22n0424), composed by Yunqi Zhuhong from approximately 1584 onward, is the principal documentary body for §III.2 and §III.3. Fascicle three's *shì-chí / lǐ-chí* couplet, the parallel *shì yī-xīn / lǐ yī-xīn* development, and the citation of Zhongfeng's *the Chan that is Pure Land's, the Pure Land that is Chan's* equation are anchored here, alongside fascicle one's establishment of name-holding as the *shortcut within the shortcut*.[^9][^10][^11][^12] The *Āmítuó-jīng yàojiě* (阿彌陀經要解, X22n0430), composed by Ouyi Zhixu in 1647, is cited strictly within the limits of Ouyi's own *jiě* (觧) layer, with the Qing-dynasty *chāo* (鈔) sub-commentary by Damo (達默) excluded except where explicitly flagged. Ouyi's *xìn-yuàn-chí-míng* (信願持名) program at X22.0827c08–11, the *believe in oneself* (*xìn-zì* 信自) clause at X22.0828a02–06, the *yuán-shōu yuán-chāo* keystone at X22.0873b08–10, the lineage-attribution clause at X22.0873a06–09, and the *through-phenomenal-holding-reach-principle-holding* (*jí shì-chí dá lǐ-chí* 即事持達理持) closing-formula at X22.0872c11–13 form the principal anchorage for §III.4.[^13][^14][^15][^16][^17]

The *liturgical-mediation and Chan-side layer* (thirteenth-to-seventeenth century) consists of two further sources. First, the *Sānshí xìniàn fóshì* (三時繫念佛事, X74n1464). The CBETA TEI metadata attributes this work to *Song-dynasty Yongming Yanshou*; however, both the work's internal *jhead* (卷首) tags and the consensus of monastic-practice tradition and modern scholarship attribute it to *Yuan-dynasty Zhongfeng Mingben* (the philological detail is in §V, Caution Two). The present paper uses the latter attribution throughout. Fascicle one's second-period verse — *the mind is itself buddha; the mind recollects with buddha; recollect until the mind empties and the buddha too is forgotten* — provides the §III.3 anchor.[^18] Second, the *Hānshān lǎorén mèng yóu jí* (憨山老人夢遊集, X73n1456), compiled posthumously from Hanshan Deqing's writings. The §III.4 passages on Hanshan are drawn from fascicle nine's *Instruction on the Essentials of Buddha-recollection-and-Chan-Inquiry* and fascicle ten's *Instruction to Chan Practitioner Huijingxin*: specifically X73.0521c19–c24 (the attribution of *the buddha-recollection inquiry-into-truth case as the most steady* to Yongming) and X73.0522a04 ff. (the *buddha-recollection is itself Chan inquiry; Chan inquiry leads to Pure Land birth* equation).[^19][^20]

The secondary scholarship — Yü Chün-fang (1981), Jennifer Eichman (2016), Albert Welter (2011) — is engaged in §IV; Sharf (2002) is reserved for a methodological note in §V; Getz (1999) appears in §V's third caution on patriarchate construction; Jones (2019), drawn on in P22, is not re-engaged here.

---

## III. Core Argument: A Six-Hundred-Year Lexical Descent Ladder

> *Some attain samādhi through buddha-recollection; some open the gate of wisdom through seated meditation; some see the dharma-body through dedicated sūtra-recitation; some enter the noble state simply through walking practice. The intent is the attainment of the Way; one never settles for any single gate exclusively.*
> — Yongming Yanshou, *Wànshàn tóngguī jí*, fascicle 1 (T48.0964a05–09)

The synthesis composes through four historical strata, each contributing a distinct register: (3.1) Yongming's tenth-century axiom, which refuses the Chan-Pure-Land binary at its origin; (3.2) the Yongming-to-Yunqi lexical descent through which Yongming's *liǎo-xīn / jìng-qiáng* dyad is upgraded into Yunqi's *shì-chí / lǐ-chí*, and his *dìng-xīn / zhuān-xīn* (定心／專心) dyad upgraded into *shì yī-xīn / lǐ yī-xīn*; (3.3) Zhongfeng Mingben's Yuan-dynasty liturgical mediation in the *Sānshí xìniàn*, with Yunqi's explicit endorsement of Zhongfeng's *Chan-of-Pure-Land, Pure-Land-of-Chan* equation; (3.4) Hanshan Deqing's Chan-side reverse-ratification and Ouyi Zhixu's seventeenth-century closure into the threefold resource *xìn-yuàn-xíng* and the *yuán-shōu yuán-chāo* keystone. The four strata are not the biographies of five separate figures placed end-to-end. They are four registers of *one* axis: the doctrinal, lexical, liturgical *descent* of a single founding axiom across six centuries.

### 3.1 Yongming's Tenth-Century Axiom: The Refusal of the Chan-Pure-Land Binary

The opening passage of the *Wànshàn tóngguī jí*, fascicle one, sets the founding axiom of the entire synthesis line. *All the wholesome practices have their final resort in true reality; the myriad dharmas are mind-only, and one should widely practise the perfections, not stagnate true cultivation by sitting in foolish emptiness; if one would have the myriad practices arise together, one must in the end rely on principle and phenomena, and where principle and phenomena are unobstructed, the Way is in the middle* (T48.0958a23–28).[^1] The passage admits two distinct readings, both of which Yongming intends. The first is *ontological*: at the level of true reality (*zhēn-rú* 真如), there is one *mind-only* (*wéi-xīn* 惟心), and all practices are this one mind made manifest in the dimension of *principle* (*lǐ* 理). The second is *practice-architectural*: at the level of disciplined cultivation, the principle and the phenomenal practice (*shì* 事) cannot be separated, and *the Way is in the middle* — neither in the principle alone (which would be *foolish emptiness*) nor in the phenomenal alone (which would be unmoored mechanical exercise). The force of *principle-and-phenomena unobstructed* (*lǐ-shì wú-ài* 理事無閡) is that it becomes the master key opening both the contemplative gate and the recitative gate at once, without prior subordination of either to the other. This is not a formula of "Chan plus Pure Land"; it is a formula of *the architecture by which any practice that submits to the principle-and-phenomena criterion is itself the Way*. Buddha-recollection enters this architecture as one of the *myriad practices* (*wàn shàn* 萬善), not as the privileged exception that requires special doctrinal apology.

A second passage makes the binary-refusal explicit in the register of contemplative method: *some attain samādhi through buddha-recollection; some open the gate of wisdom through seated meditation; some see the dharma-body through dedicated sūtra-recitation; some enter the noble state simply through walking practice — the intent is the attainment of the Way; one never settles for any single gate exclusively* (T48.0964a05–09).[^2] This is, for the present argument, the *binary-refusal at origin*. Yongming is explicit that *no single gate* — neither buddha-recollection, nor seated meditation, nor sūtra-recitation, nor walking practice — is to be elevated above the others as the unique road. Whoever attains the Way through any of these gates has fulfilled the architecture; the architecture itself does not privilege one gate. The point is one that anti-binary scholarship has not always heard with full attention: Yongming does not stand on the *Pure Land side* of a Chan-Pure-Land binary, and he does not stand on the *Chan side* either. He stands on the architecture that refuses the binary at its origin. The refusal is the founding move of the entire synthesis line.

A third passage supplies the dyad that will travel down the centuries to Yunqi's *shì-chí / lǐ-chí*: *if one has not yet clarified the great meaning but seeks rebirth in the Pure Land, one must first understand the mind in order to be reborn… contemplation is shallow and the mind floats; the objects of sense are forceful and habits are heavy; one must be reborn in a buddha-land, leaning on the surpassing condition* (T48.0966b28–c08).[^3] The dyad here — *liǎo-xīn fāng shēng* (了心方生, understand-the-mind-only-then-reborn) versus *jìng-qiáng xí-zhòng* (境強習重, objects-strong-habits-heavy, requiring birth in a buddha-land for the *surpassing condition*) — is, doctrinally, the prototype of what Yunqi six centuries later will name *lǐ-chí* (the practice grounded in the prior understanding of mind) and *shì-chí* (the practice that needs the operational support of name-recitation against the press of habituation). Yunqi will not invent the dyad. He will name it, refine it, and place it in a doctrinal architecture that admits both members on equal footing. The *lexical descent* through which this happens occupies §3.2.

### 3.2 The Yongming-to-Yunqi Lexical Descent

The principal documentary moment of the lexical descent is fascicle three of Yunqi's *Āmítuó-jīng shūchāo*, where the *shì-chí / lǐ-chí* couplet is given its mature codification: *recollection without break is what is called phenomenal name-holding; bodily-investigation without break is what is called principle name-holding* (X22n0424, fasc. 3).[^9] The phrasing is Yunqi's, not Yongming's; the doctrinal-architectural distinction is, however, already in place six hundred years earlier in the Yongming dyad of *liǎo-xīn fāng shēng* (the practice already grounded in clarified mind, requiring no further support from the surpassing condition) and *jìng-qiáng xí-zhòng* (the practice still subject to the press of habituation, requiring rebirth-in-a-buddha-land as a surpassing supportive condition). What Yunqi adds is the *naming*; what he does not add is the *substantive distinction*. The latter is Yongming's. The implication for reception-history is precise: Charles Jones's recent treatment (2019) attributing the *shì-chí / lǐ-chí* origin to Yunqi alone — characteristic of Anglophone Pure Land scholarship that does not look beyond the late-Ming codification — under-describes a six-hundred-year textual descent and assigns to a single late-imperial figure what was in fact a long doctrinal labour.

The lexical descent extends into a second register. At T48.0968c12–15 Yongming gives a *focused-mind / dedicated-mind* (*dìng-xīn / zhuān-xīn* 定心／專心) dyad: the focused-mind concentration on a buddha-image until the contemplative power penetrates the dharma-body, versus the dedicated-mind name-recitation of an ordinary practitioner whose mental momentum is sustained by the recitative discipline alone.[^5] Yunqi in fascicle three of the *Shūchāo* explicitly receives this dyad and upgrades it into *shì yī-xīn / lǐ yī-xīn* (phenomenal one-mind / principle one-mind): the phenomenal-one-mind of name-holding sustained against the press of habituation; the principle-one-mind of bodily-investigation seeing through to *the spiritual knowing of the self-nature… the Chan that is Pure Land's, the Pure Land that is Chan's* (X22n0424, fasc. 3).[^10] Two doctrinal pairs descend together: Yongming's *liǎo-xīn / jìng-qiáng* becomes Yunqi's *shì-chí / lǐ-chí*; Yongming's *dìng-xīn / zhuān-xīn* becomes Yunqi's *shì yī-xīn / lǐ yī-xīn*. The descent is not metaphor. It is documentary.

A third descent completes the architectural triad: the establishment of name-holding as the *shortcut within the shortcut* (*jìng zhōng zhī jìng* 徑中之徑) at *Shūchāo* fascicle one.[^11] Within Mahāyāna's many gates, Pure Land is the *shortcut*; within Pure Land, name-holding is the *shortcut within the shortcut*. The phrase is Yunqi's, but the doctrinal logic — that the gate which carries the most sentient beings most steadily through the press of habituation is itself the gate of greatest skilful means — is grounded in Yongming's *graded skilful means* passage at *Zōngjìng lù* T48.0506a12–25.[^8] What changes between Yongming and Yunqi at this level is *not* the doctrine but the *codification*: Yongming offers graded skilful means as one structural insight among many; Yunqi compresses it into a four-character architectural slogan that organizes a whole instructional tradition. P21's *axial transposition* documented in P22 has, by the time of Yunqi's codification, become the substrate of a whole pedagogical apparatus. What appears in retrospect as Yunqi's "innovation" is the architectural surfacing of a long descent.

### 3.3 Zhongfeng's Yuan-Dynasty Liturgical Mediation

A critical historical claim of the present paper, often missed in Anglophone Pure Land introductions, is that the synthesis was already a Chan-hall *daily liturgy* in the Yuan dynasty — a full two centuries before Yunqi's late-Ming codification. The textual evidence is the *Sānshí xìniàn fóshì* (X74n1464), composed by Zhongfeng Mingben (1263–1323) for the Tianmu Mountain (天目山) Chan community as a thrice-daily buddha-recollection liturgy. The work's second-period verse provides the §3.3 anchor: *the mind is itself buddha; the mind recollects with buddha; recollect until the mind empties and the buddha too is forgotten* (X74n1464, fasc. 1).[^18] The verse sets, in liturgical form, the precise doctrinal architecture that Yunqi will later codify in the *Shūchāo*: *shì-chí* (the recollecting mind in operation) descending toward *lǐ-chí* (the mind emptied of both subject and object, where the buddha-image and the recollecting mind alike dissolve into one-mind). What is given in Yunqi's *Shūchāo* as a doctrinal couplet is given in Zhongfeng's *Sānshí xìniàn* as a daily ritual movement. The synthesis was operational before it was doctrinal; or rather, it was operational *as* doctrinal — the daily Chan-hall liturgy was itself a doctrinal performance.

Yunqi's explicit endorsement of Zhongfeng appears at *Shūchāo* fascicle three: *bodily-investigation buddha-recollection… is what Master Zhongfeng calls "the Chan that is Pure Land's, the Pure Land that is Chan's"* (X22n0424, fasc. 3, citing Zhongfeng).[^12] The citation matters at three levels. First, it establishes that Yunqi's late-Ming codification consciously *receives* Zhongfeng — Yunqi does not claim the equation as his own; he names Zhongfeng as the doctrinal authority. Second, it establishes that Zhongfeng's Yuan-dynasty equation is itself the source of Yunqi's *bodily-investigation* (*tǐ-jiū* 體究) terminology in the *lǐ-chí* description. Third, it establishes that the *Chan-hall* setting of Zhongfeng's liturgy is taken by Yunqi as the warrant for naming *lǐ-chí* a Chan operation — the synthesis is not Pure Land absorbing Chan; it is Pure Land naming a Chan operation that Chan itself had already performed.

The historical implication is structural: the synthesis-line is not, even at the Yunqi-Ouyi end, a *single-tradition-absorbs-another* movement. It is a *bidirectional* (*hù-nì dú* 互逆讀) architecture in which Pure Land receives Chan and Chan ratifies Pure Land. The bidirectional character will become explicit in §3.4 at the level of doctrinal proposition; at the level of liturgical practice it is already explicit in Zhongfeng. The Yuan-dynasty Chan hall is not borrowing a Pure Land practice; it is performing what its own doctrinal architecture takes to be a Chan operation that happens to be expressed through name-recitation. The *Sānshí xìniàn* is thus the liturgical hinge of the entire synthesis: between Yongming's tenth-century axiom and Yunqi's late-Ming codification, six centuries of monastic daily life had already been shaping itself around the synthesis. (The *Sānshí xìniàn*'s attribution issue — CBETA's Song-Yongming byline versus the work's internal Yuan-Zhongfeng *jhead* — is examined fully in §V, Caution Two.)

### 3.4 Hanshan's Chan-Side Reverse Ratification and Ouyi's Seventeenth-Century Closure

The fourth stratum performs two distinct closing acts. The first is Hanshan Deqing's reverse ratification of the synthesis from *inside* the Chan tradition. In *Instruction on the Essentials of Buddha-recollection-and-Chan-Inquiry* (fascicle nine of the *Mèng yóu jí*), Hanshan presents the procedure of *the buddha-recollection inquiry-into-truth case* (*niànfó shěn-shí gōng'àn* 念佛審實公案) — the use of name-recitation as a *huà-tóu* (話頭, critical phrase) in Chan inquiry — and at X73.0521c19–c24 attributes this practice to Yongming Yanshou: *the buddha-recollection inquiry-into-truth case of Master Yongming is the most steady*.[^19] The attribution is itself doctrinally consequential: a Chan master, identifying Yongming (a figure later canonized as Pure Land patriarch) as the source of a *Chan technique*, dissolves the binary at the level of historical lineage. The attribution is, on philological grounds, partial — Yongming's own *Wànshàn tóngguī jí* and *Zōngjìng lù* do not preserve the *huà-tóu* technique in this form; the attribution is a Hanshan-era reception-history move (much as Ouyi's later attribution of the *four pithy categories quatrain* to Yongming is also a reception-history move, examined in §V Caution One). What matters here is not the philological accuracy of the attribution but its doctrinal force: Hanshan, *as a Chan master*, ratifies buddha-recollection as itself a Chan operation by attributing it to a Chan-Pure-Land patriarch.

The fuller statement appears at X73.0522a04 ff. in *Instruction to Chan Practitioner Huijingxin*: *buddha-recollection is itself Chan inquiry; Chan inquiry leads to Pure Land birth — this is the unsettled doubt of past and present, and this saying breaks it open*.[^20] The proposition is *bidirectional* (*hù-nì dú* 互逆讀): not the unidirectional claim *Pure Land subordinates Chan* (which would be a Pure Land sectarian move), nor the unidirectional claim *Chan subordinates Pure Land* (which would be a Chan sectarian move). It is the precise reciprocal claim that the two practices are *each other* — buddha-recollection IS Chan inquiry, and Chan inquiry leads precisely to Pure Land birth. The proposition's force is neither absorption nor identity; it is *commensuration* (*kě tōng-yuē* 可通約). The two practices share the doctrinal scaffolding by which either one, performed within the principle-and-phenomena architecture, fulfils the other. Hanshan's reverse ratification is what completes the synthesis at the level of doctrinal declaration: with Yongming's axiom (architecture) at the tenth century, Yunqi's codification (doctrine) and Zhongfeng's liturgy (practice) at the intervening centuries, and Hanshan's Chan-side ratification (doctrinal declaration) at the late sixteenth, the synthesis stands as a *bidirectional* construction by the time Ouyi takes up his commentarial pen.

The second closing act is Ouyi Zhixu's mid-seventeenth-century *Āmítuó-jīng yàojiě*. Three doctrinal moves codify the canonical-form synthesis. The *first* is the *xìn-yuàn-xíng* (信願行, faith-vow-practice) program at X22.0827c08–11.[^13] Ouyi enrolls buddha-recollection within the threefold resource of *faith* (the trust that takes both self and other as inwardly equipped for the practice), *vow* (the directional setting of intention toward Pure Land birth), and *practice* (the operational discipline of name-recitation). The triad is not Ouyi's invention; the threefold structure of *xìn / yuàn / xíng* has Mahāyāna scriptural pedigree. What Ouyi adds is the precise *enrollment* of name-recitation as the operational *practice* term within the triad — name-recitation no longer stands as the gate that needs apology, but as the practice term of a doctrinally complete bodhisattva-path resource-list. Ouyi's *believe in oneself* clause at X22.0828a02–06 — *to believe in oneself is to believe that this present single thought of one's mind… is itself originally the dwelling-place of Pure Land* — internalizes P21's inward-redirection without abolishing P22's institutional re-centering.[^14] The two motions of the synthesis are now both inside the Ouyi closure.

The *second* move is the *yuán-shōu yuán-chāo* keystone at X22.0873b08–10: *the single practice of confident-vow name-holding perfectly subsumes and perfectly transcends every dharma gate; vertically identical with all gates, horizontally distinct from them all*.[^15] The doctrinal force of the formula is precisely that it *holds the tension* rather than resolving it. *Perfectly subsume* (*yuán-shōu* 圓收): every dharma gate is included, none excluded — name-holding *vertically* coincides with all gates. *Perfectly transcend* (*yuán-chāo* 圓超): name-holding stands distinctly apart, *horizontally* distinct from them all. The two phrases are placed in deliberate parallel — the synthesis's keystone names a tension, not a resolution. To read *yuán-shōu yuán-chāo* as the late-Ming hard-won settlement of the Chan-Pure-Land question is to mistake the precise doctrinal move Ouyi makes; the formula's force is that it inscribes the tension into the doctrinal canon. The synthesis-as-holding-pattern thesis of the present paper finds its most explicit textual support here.

The *third* move is the *jí shì-chí dá lǐ-chí* closing-formula at X22.0872c11–13: *only through phenomenal name-holding does one reach principle name-holding; therefore the appearance of Amitābha and the saintly assembly is precisely the manifestation of the original nature*.[^16] The formula closes the *shì-chí / lǐ-chí* couplet that descends from Yongming through Yunqi: *shì-chí* is not the ladder one climbs and discards on reaching *lǐ-chí*; *lǐ-chí* is precisely what *shì-chí*, performed to its fullness, *is*. The couplet of phenomenal-and-principle is, at the moment of Ouyi's closure, sealed as a *non-hierarchical reciprocal*: neither member subordinates the other, and neither term names a stage that gives way to the other. With this seal, the synthesis acquires its canonical form. Ouyi's lineage-attribution clause at X22.0873a06–09 — *only Aśvaghoṣa, Nāgārjuna, Zhiyi, Yongming, and the like fully shoulder this teaching* — locates the synthesis within an Indian-Chinese genealogy that ratifies it as catholic Mahāyāna, not as any sectarian Chinese specialty.[^17] The Qing-dynasty Pure Land canon that descends from this closing-formula will run through Yìnguāng (印光, 1862–1940) and continue into the present-day liturgies of Chinese Buddhist temples — the canon-form held in living daily practice today is, at its doctrinal seam, Ouyi's mid-seventeenth-century closure of a six-hundred-year construction.

The four strata together compose the *lexical descent ladder*. Yongming's tenth-century axiom; the Yongming-to-Yunqi lexical descent into doctrinal architecture; Zhongfeng's Yuan-dynasty liturgical mediation; Hanshan's Chan-side reverse-ratification and Ouyi's seventeenth-century closure. Five figures across six centuries — but one axis. The synthesis is not Yunqi's; nor is it Zhongfeng's, nor Hanshan's, nor Ouyi's. It is the descended axiom *of all five*, codified through their successive textual labour, held in a tension whose explicit doctrinal coding belongs to the seventeenth-century closure but whose architectural framing belongs to the tenth-century opening.

---

## IV. Cross-Disciplinary Interlocutors: Three Anglophone Voices in Mixed Mode

§IV here marks a deliberate shift from the all-extend mode of P23's interlocutor section (where Stevenson, Donner-and-Stevenson, and Swanson constituted foundation rather than opposition) to a *mixed mode*: two *concede-and-push-back* engagements (Yü 1981 and Welter 2011) and one *concede-and-extend* engagement (Eichman 2016). Two push-backs and one extend gives the chapter forward motion without descending into purely combative posture. The three interlocutors stand in *productive tension* with one another, each illuminating one dimension of the synthesis-as-holding-pattern thesis: Yü illuminates the late-Ming codification's *social-historical density*; Eichman illuminates its *contested epistolary field*; Welter illuminates the *Chan-side founder-figure question* on which the binary-refusal thesis stands or falls.

### 4.1 Chün-fang Yü (1981): The Harmonious-Synthesis Frame Receives a Push-Back

Yü's *The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis* (1981) remains the standard Anglophone treatment of Yunqi Zhuhong and the late-Ming Buddhist revival. Three of its core moves stand in close concord with the present paper's thesis. *First*, Yü reads the late-Ming Buddhist landscape as a genuine intellectual revival rather than as a degeneration phase, with Yunqi as one of three principal figures (alongside Zibo Zhenke 紫柏真可 and Hanshan Deqing). *Second*, Yü documents Yunqi's social-historical work — the *Self-Knowing Record* (*Zì-zhī lù* 自知錄), the precept-revival movement, the lay-Buddhist *Pure Land Society* organization — as constitutive of the *synthesis* rather than as ancillary biographical detail. *Third*, Yü presents Yunqi's doctrinal work in the *Shūchāo* as a culminating systematization of Chinese Buddhist devotional thought, with the *shì-chí / lǐ-chí* and *shì yī-xīn / lǐ yī-xīn* couplets functioning as the architectural skeleton of late-imperial Pure Land instruction.

Yü's positions here deserve full *concession*: the late-Ming revival is real, Yunqi's social work is constitutive, and the *Shūchāo* is a culminating systematization. The present paper builds on Yü's foundation rather than against it.

The *push-back*, however, is at the level of frame. Yü's organizing description of the synthesis as a *late-Ming synthesis* — and her implicit framing of it as a *harmonious convergence* of previously separate traditions — under-describes the doctrinal cost of the synthesis's institutional movement. Two corrections are needed. First, the synthesis is not late-Ming but six-hundred-year — Yongming's tenth-century axiom is the architectural ground, Zhongfeng's Yuan-dynasty *Sānshí xìniàn* the liturgical mediation, and Yunqi's late-Ming work the codifying tier. To frame the synthesis as a *late-Ming achievement* is to miss the descent. Second, the synthesis is not *harmonious convergence* but *holding-pattern*: P22's *axial transposition* — the cost paid by the integrated practice matrix when name-recitation became the institutional center of gravity in seventh-century Chang'an — is *subsumed* into the synthesis without being abolished. Yü's frame, in describing the late-Ming as the moment of synthesis's success, occludes the dimension in which the synthesis is itself the formal coding of an *unresolved* historical tension. The *occlusion* (*zhē-bì* 遮蔽) Yü's frame creates is the dimension the present paper aims to recover. To put the push-back precisely: the synthesis is not a *settlement* of the Chan-Pure-Land question but a *practice of holding tension*, the doctrinal coding of a six-hundred-year inheritance that includes — and never abolishes — P22's institutional discontinuity. Yü names the synthesis's success; she does not name the tension the synthesis still holds. The recovery of that dimension is the present paper's *push-back* on her frame, not its rejection.

### 4.2 Jennifer Eichman (2016): The Contested Epistolary Field — A Concession That Extends

Eichman's *A Late Sixteenth-Century Chinese Buddhist Fellowship* (2016) reconstructs, through close reading of the epistolary networks of the late-Ming Buddhist intelligentsia, a landscape in which Buddhist intellectual life was not the harmonious convergence later sectarian historiography would name. Doctrinal disputes between Yunqi, Zibo, Hanshan, the Donglin literati, and others were continuous; positions on points of doctrine and practice were neither uniform nor fully reconcilable; the late-Ming Buddhist field was a contested epistolary network whose participants debated as actively as they cooperated. Eichman's evidence — the surviving letters, the marginal annotations, the literary records of doctrinal disagreement — establishes the late-Ming Buddhist field as a *plural* rather than a *unified* phenomenon.

Eichman's position is here received in *concede-and-extend* mode. The concession: the late-Ming Buddhist field is plural, contested, and epistolary; the unified-school appearance is a later sectarian construction that flattens the textual evidence. The extension: Eichman's contestation-archive is precisely the documentary support for the present paper's thesis that the synthesis is not a *resolution* of the Chan-Pure-Land question but a *practice of holding tension*. If the synthesis were the harmonious convergence Yü's frame implies, Eichman's epistolary contestations would be inexplicable — there would be nothing to contest. The fact that the synthesis-line *required* the continuous epistolary work Eichman documents is the historical-sociological signature of its character as *holding-pattern*. Yunqi codifies, Hanshan ratifies, Ouyi closes — but the closure is a doctrinal-textual artifact whose practical reception in the lived late-Ming Buddhist field remained an active negotiation. The synthesis was not the moment late-Ming Buddhists stopped arguing; it was the framework within which their arguments became formally describable. Eichman's contestation-archive thus extends the present paper's thesis from the *textual* (the doctrinal architecture is one of held tension) to the *social* (the lived field is one of continuous negotiation within that architecture). The two registers reinforce one another: held tension at the level of doctrine is precisely what underwrites continuous negotiation at the level of practice. Eichman's work is here taken as foundational for the social-epistolary side of the holding-pattern thesis.

### 4.3 Albert Welter (2011): The Founder-Figure Question and the Binary Push-Back

Welter's *Yongming Yanshou's Conception of Chan in the Zongjing lu: A Special Transmission Within the Scriptures* (2011) reconstructs Yongming's self-positioning, on close textual reading of the *Zōngjìng lù*, as primarily a Chan master operating within the Fayan (法眼) lineage's *jiào-chán hé-yī* (教禪合一, scriptural-Chan unity) tradition. Welter's textual evidence is robust: the *Zōngjìng lù*'s opening *establish-the-mind-as-the-source* framing (T48.0417a), the work's Bodhidharma-line transmission scaffolding, and the scale of the work (one hundred fascicles devoted to a Chan-doctrinal synthesis) all support Welter's reading. Welter's position deserves concession: Yongming was, in his self-positioning, a Chan master, and the *Zōngjìng lù* is principally a Chan-doctrinal work in the Fayan tradition.

The *push-back* concerns the doctrinal implication Welter's reconstruction can carry — namely, the implication that Yongming's Pure Land statements should be read as *secondary* to his Chan identity, and that the Pure Land patriarchate's later canonization of Yongming as patriarch is therefore a partial misappropriation. The push-back proceeds not by author's declaration but by allowing three of Yongming's own passages to speak together: T48.0964a05–09 (*one never settles for any single gate exclusively*), T48.0968b01–03 (*there is only the single gate of Pure Land* in the context of *graded skilful means*), and the *Wànshàn tóngguī jí*'s organizing axiom at T48.0958a23–28 (*if you would have the myriad practices arise together…*). Read together, the three passages articulate not a Chan-master who *also* commends Pure Land, nor a Pure Land master who *also* practises Chan, but a contemplative architect who *refuses the binary at its origin*. The single-gate exclusivity Welter's reading might attribute to a Chan self-positioning is precisely what Yongming explicitly rejects — *one never settles for any single gate exclusively*. The push-back to Welter is thus structural: even granting Welter's textual evidence for Yongming's Chan self-positioning, the doctrinal architecture Yongming actually erects refuses to license the binary on which the Chan-side / Pure-Land-side distinction depends. To name Yongming a Chan patriarch is correct; to name him a Pure Land patriarch is correct; to require a choice between the two is to ask a question Yongming's own textual architecture is designed to refuse. The Pure Land patriarchate's later canonization of Yongming is therefore not a misappropriation but a reception-history move that one of Yongming's two legitimate sides — the side that organizes the architecture of *principle-and-phenomena unobstructed* — was always going to produce.

The three interlocutors together support the synthesis-as-holding-pattern thesis from three directions: Yü names the synthesis's success and is asked to also name the tension it holds; Eichman documents the contested epistolary field that is the social signature of the held tension; Welter recovers Yongming's Chan self-positioning and is asked to read it within Yongming's own binary-refusal architecture rather than as evidence for the binary itself.

---

## V. Middle-Way Corrections: Three Cautions

This section completes the paper's middle-way correction by means of three philological cautions. Each corresponds to a textual trap identified in the documentary record; their shared act is to establish, at the textual level, clear boundaries that prevent the thesis from sliding either toward late-Ming triumphalism or toward sectarian retrojection.

❌ **Caution One: The *Four Pithy Categories Quatrain* Is Textually Absent in Yongming's Own Works**

Both Anglophone and Sinophone popular Pure Land literature regularly attributes to Yongming Yanshou the so-called *four pithy categories quatrain* (*chán-jìng sì-liào-jiǎn* 禪淨四料簡): *with Chan and with Pure Land, like a tiger with horns; with no Chan but with Pure Land, ten thousand cultivate, ten thousand go; with Chan but no Pure Land, of ten, nine stumble; with no Chan and no Pure Land, the bronze bed and the iron pillar*. The quatrain is cited in popular literature as Yongming's foundational declaration of Chan-Pure-Land synthesis, and is sometimes taken as the architectural source of the very synthesis-line the present paper documents. The textual reality: a search of T2017 *Wànshàn tóngguī jí* in three fascicles for *sì-liào* (四料), *yǒu-chán-yǒu-jìng* (有禪有淨), and *wú-chán-yǒu-jìng* (無禪有淨) yields zero hits; T2016 *Zōngjìng lù* in one hundred fascicles likewise yields zero hits, with the seven occurrences of *liào-jiǎn* (料簡) all appearing as the technical term *sì-jù liào-jiǎn* (四句料簡, the four-clause classificatory analysis) in non-Chan-Pure-Land contexts. The earliest written sources for the quatrain that the present paper has been able to locate are late-Ming and early-Qing Pure Land compendia — the *Yúnqī fǎ-huì* (雲棲法彙, posthumous collected works of Yunqi), the *Chèwù chánshī yǔlù* (徹悟禪師語錄, eighteenth century), and Qing-era Pure Land instructional material. Ouyi's own citation of the quatrain at X22.0871c01–07 names it *what Master Yongming says* — but Ouyi's seventeenth-century attribution is itself a reception-history step, and cannot serve as evidence for original authorship.

The mitigation: this paper does not cite the quatrain as Yongming's compositional act. Where the quatrain is referenced (most frequently in Anglophone Pure Land introductions), the appropriate handling is *attributed-but-textually-absent* — the quatrain enters the synthesis-line only at its late-Ming and Qing reception, not at its tenth-century origin. Ouyi's seventeenth-century attribution is itself a fact about the reception-history of Yongming's authority, not about Yongming's textual record. To cite the quatrain as Yongming's is to compress a six-hundred-year reception-history into a tenth-century moment that did not in fact contain it.

⚠️ **Caution Two: The *Sānshí xìniàn fóshì* Is Yuan-Dynasty Zhongfeng's, Not Song-Dynasty Yongming's**

The *Sānshí xìniàn fóshì* (X74n1464) and the *Sānshí xìniàn yífàn* (X74n1465) bear in CBETA's TEI metadata the byline *Song-dynasty Yongming Yanshou composed*. This byline has been carried into a small number of recent Anglophone secondary references that take the CBETA metadata at face value. The textual reality is that both works' internal *jhead* (卷首, fascicle-head) inscriptions read *Master Zhongfeng's Three-Period Continuous-Recollection Buddha-Service* and *Zhongfeng's Three-Period Continuous-Recollection Ritual Manual*. The consensus of monastic-practice tradition (where the texts are transmitted as Zhongfeng's work in continuous use), of modern East Asian Buddhist scholarship, and of the texts' own self-attribution is that the works are by Yuan-dynasty Zhongfeng Mingben (1263–1323), not by Song-dynasty Yongming Yanshou (904–975). The *xùzàng* (續藏, supplementary canon) byline is a transmission-error in the editorial metadata, not a textual claim of the works themselves.

The mitigation: this paper attributes the *Sānshí xìniàn fóshì* throughout to *Yuan-dynasty Zhongfeng Mingben*. The attribution correction is, however, more than a philological housekeeping note: it is structurally consequential. The synthesis is not, at the level of liturgical mediation, a Northern Song achievement; it is a Yuan-dynasty practice already mature *two centuries before* Yunqi's late-Ming codification. To compress the *Sānshí xìniàn* back into the Song would be to lose the Yuan-dynasty middle stratum of the synthesis-line — the very stratum that establishes the synthesis as a daily Chan-hall practice rather than as a late-Ming doctrinal innovation. The CBETA metadata correction and the synthesis-line historical reconstruction are therefore the same operation viewed from two angles.

⚠️ **Caution Three: The Pure Land Patriarchate Is, in Part, a Song-Tiantai Retrospective Construction**

The Pure Land patriarchate (*jìng-tǔ zōng zǔ-tǒng* 淨土宗祖統) — the named sequence in which Yongming is the sixth patriarch, Yunqi the eighth, Ouyi the ninth, and so on, terminating in modern times with Yìnguāng (印光, 1862–1940) as the thirteenth — is regularly presented in popular Pure Land introductions as a natural lineage of master-to-disciple transmission. The patriarchate-as-natural-lineage framing is partly accurate and partly retrospective. Daniel Getz's foundational study *T'ien-t'ai Pure Land Societies and the Creation of the Pure Land Patriarchate* (1999) documents the Northern Song Tiantai-school *Pure Land societies* (*jìng-tǔ jié-shè* 淨土結社) — organized around figures like Sìmíng Zhīlǐ (the same Zhili treated in P23) and Bǎoyún Yìtōng (寶雲義通, 927–988) — as the earliest organized attempt to construct a Pure Land patriarchal sequence. The patriarchate as a *named-and-numbered construct* is, in other words, a Song-dynasty Tiantai-school project, and the figures later canonized as patriarchs (Yongming, Yunqi, Ouyi) are inheritors of and actors within an existing patriarchate-construction project rather than spontaneous occupants of natural patriarchal seats.

The mitigation: the *textual descent* documented in §III is real — Yongming's *liǎo-xīn* dyad descending into Yunqi's *shì-chí / lǐ-chí*, Yunqi's codification descending into Ouyi's closing-formula. The descent is doctrinal-lexical, and the present paper has documented it source-by-source. The *patriarchal numbering* through which this descent is given its named-sequence form, however, is a separate operation — one performed by Song-Tiantai compilers and Ming-Qing Pure Land communities, not by the figures themselves. *Inheritance is real; the patriarchate-construction is itself a construction.* The two facts are not contradictory; they are layered. The paper retains the names — Yongming, Yunqi, Ouyi — and documents the descent that links them, while declining the implicit claim that the descent had the form of a self-conscious, eponymous lineage at the time of its making. The synthesis-line is real. Its name as a *patriarchal lineage* belongs to its reception-history, not to its compositional moment.

The three cautions, taken together, sharpen rather than weaken the central argument: the synthesis is genuine, six hundred years deep, and doctrinally precise — and it must be received without the popular accretions that compress its history into one moment, mis-attribute its texts to canonical figures, or naturalize its patriarchate into a self-organizing lineage. *The descent is real; the simplifications popular literature has made of it are not.*

---

## VI. Closing

> *The single practice of confident-vow name-holding perfectly subsumes and perfectly transcends every dharma gate: vertically identical with all gates, horizontally distinct from them all.*
> — Ouyi Zhixu, *Āmítuó-jīng yàojiě* (X22.0873b08–10)

### **Essence restated**

The thesis: the *synthesis* (*héliú* 合流) of Chan and Pure Land is not a single late-Ming achievement but a six-hundred-year doctrinal-lexical-liturgical genealogy. Yongming Yanshou (904–975), in the tenth century, gave the founding axiom of *principle-and-phenomena unobstructed* (*lǐ-shì wú-ài*) and the explicit refusal of any single gate as exclusive. Zhongfeng Mingben (1263–1323), in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth century, mediated the axiom into a daily Chan-hall liturgy through the *Sānshí xìniàn fóshì*. Yunqi Zhuhong (1535–1615), in the late sixteenth century, codified the axiom into a doctrinal architecture of *shì-chí / lǐ-chí*, *shì yī-xīn / lǐ yī-xīn*, and the *shortcut within the shortcut*. Hanshan Deqing (1546–1623), late sixteenth to early seventeenth century, ratified the synthesis from inside the Chan tradition with the bidirectional declaration *buddha-recollection is itself Chan inquiry; Chan inquiry leads to Pure Land birth*. Ouyi Zhixu (1599–1655), in the seventeenth century, closed the construction by enrolling buddha-recollection within the threefold resource *xìn-yuàn-xíng* and inscribing the keystone formula *yuán-shōu yuán-chāo* — *perfectly subsume and perfectly transcend every dharma gate*. Five figures across six centuries; one axis.

The second thesis: the synthesis is a *practice of holding tension*, not its resolution. P22's *axial transposition* of name-recitation in the seventh century is *subsumed* (*shōushè*) into the synthesis without being abolished; Ouyi's *yuán-shōu yuán-chāo* is the explicit doctrinal coding of a tension that the formula holds rather than resolves — *vertically identical with all gates, horizontally distinct from them all*. The synthesis names a held tension at the doctrinal level, of which Eichman's late-Ming epistolary contestation-archive is the social-historical signature. To read the synthesis as the moment Chinese Buddhism *settled* the Chan-Pure-Land question is to mistake the precise shape of what Yongming, Zhongfeng, Yunqi, Hanshan, and Ouyi actually composed.

### **Cultivation guidance**

For the contemporary practitioner of *niànfó*, the historical-philological argument of this paper has three operational implications.

*First*: the *shì-chí / lǐ-chí* couplet is not a hierarchy and not a stage-sequence. *Shì-chí* — phenomenal name-holding sustained against the press of habituation — is not the lower rung that one climbs and discards on reaching *lǐ-chí*. *Lǐ-chí* is precisely *shì-chí* performed to its fullness; the appearance of Amitābha and the saintly assembly *is* the manifestation of the original nature, as Ouyi's *jí shì-chí dá lǐ-chí* formula makes explicit. The practical implication is that the practitioner does not need to construct a separate *lǐ-chí* exercise alongside *shì-chí*; the depth-dimension of name-holding is reached through name-holding itself, not through some other practice that would supplement it.

*Second*: the Chan-side procedure of the *buddha-recollection inquiry-into-truth case* (*niànfó shěn-shí gōng'àn*) and the Pure-Land-side procedure of *steady name-recitation* (*lǎoshí chí-míng* 老實持名) and the pedagogically primary procedure of *xìn-yuàn-xíng* are not three competing technologies among which the practitioner must choose. They are three operational layers of the *same* practice, calibrated to three depths of cultivation circumstance. The practitioner already settled in *understanding-the-mind* operates Hanshan's *huà-tóu* layer; the practitioner under the press of habituation operates Yunqi's *shì-chí* layer with full doctrinal warrant for its sufficiency; the practitioner at any depth operates Ouyi's *xìn-yuàn-xíng* triad as the orienting framework. The choice among the three is not a sectarian choice; it is a calibration to one's own present condition.

*Third*: the synthesis's character as *holding-pattern* is itself a cultivation guidance. To expect from name-holding a definitive *resolution* of inner contradiction — between the world's press and the original nature's clarity, between the practice of an ordinary being and the dharma-body to which the practice points, between *shì* and *lǐ* — is to expect from the synthesis what Yongming, Zhongfeng, Yunqi, Hanshan, and Ouyi did not in fact give. What they gave was the doctrinal architecture by which the contradiction can be *held* without being either suppressed or resolved. The held tension is itself the practice. *Yuán-shōu yuán-chāo* is not the moment the contradiction goes away; it is the formula in which the contradiction is finally given a shape one can walk inside.

### **Open question**

The paper closes with the synthesis-line documented but its bodhisattva-path development not yet reached.

The four constitutive movements of Part VI now stand in place: P20's *dependent-arising co-operation* foundation of Tanluan and Daochuo's other-power; P21's *inward redirection* of the Pure Land vocabulary in the Chan tradition; P22's *axial transposition* of name-recitation in Shandao's seventh-century institutional move; P23's *classificatory bridge* of Zhiyi's late-sixth-century four-*samādhi* architecture; and now P24's *holding-pattern synthesis* of the six-hundred-year Yongming-through-Ouyi descent. The third stratum of the *Two Streams* arc is closed. The view-side (*jiàn* 見) of buddha-recollection — its doctrinal architecture, its lineage genealogy, its philological foundation — is, with this paper, complete.

What remains is the vow-side (*yuàn* 願). The bodhisattva-path development of buddha-recollection — how the synthesis's held tension opens into a structure of practical aspiration that organizes a whole bodhisattva career — is the work of Part VII (*The Flower Ornament Vision*), which begins at P25 with an introduction to Samantabhadra's Ten Great Vows. The transition from Part VI to Part VII is, structurally, the transition from view to vow: from the doctrinal architecture of name-holding within the *one-mind* to the practical architecture of the bodhisattva's vow-life across realms and lifetimes. The Ten Great Vows — reverence, praise, offering, repentance, rejoicing, requesting the turning of the dharma wheel, requesting the buddhas' abiding, learning, accord, dedication — supply the framework within which the synthesis's held tension is *enacted* as a sustained directional life rather than merely *codified* as a doctrinal formula. Part VI gave the bridge; Part VII will give the road across it.

The open question of the present paper, in single-line form: *Yongming gave the architecture, and Ouyi closed the formula; how does the held tension of the synthesis become a sustainable bodhisattva life?* The answer is the problem-field of Part VII, beginning with P25.

---

## Notes

[^1]: T2017 *Wànshàn tóngguī jí*, fascicle one, opening doctrinal statement, T48.0958a23–28. CBETA Taishō vol. 48, no. 2017. The phrase *lǐ-shì wú-ài* (理事無閡) here functions as the architectural axiom of the entire work.

[^2]: T2017, fascicle one, T48.0964a05–09. The passage is the most explicit textual statement of Yongming's binary-refusal at origin — *zhōng-bù qǔ-dìng yī-mén* (終不取定一門, "never settles for any single gate exclusively").

[^3]: T2017, fascicle two, T48.0966b28–c08. The dyad *liǎo-xīn fāng shēng* (了心方生) versus *jìng-qiáng xí-zhòng* (境強習重) is the doctrinal prototype of Yunqi's *lǐ-chí / shì-chí*.

[^4]: T2017, fascicle two, T48.0968b01–03. *Wéi-yǒu jìng-tǔ yī-mén* (唯有淨土一門) appears here within the context of *graded skilful means* for ordinary beings, not as a contradiction of T48.0964a05–09; the two passages are read together as defining the architecture of the synthesis.

[^5]: T2017, fascicle three, T48.0968c12–15. The *dìng-xīn / zhuān-xīn* (定心／專心) dyad is the prototype of Yunqi's *shì yī-xīn / lǐ yī-xīn*.

[^6]: T2016 *Zōngjìng lù*, fascicle one, *establish-the-mind-as-the-source* opening, T48.0417a. CBETA Taishō vol. 48, no. 2016. The Bodhidharma-line transmission framing situates the entire work within the Chan-doctrinal genre.

[^7]: T2016, fascicle sixteen, T48.0502b16. The *clearly recollect-the-buddha-following-the-mind* (*míng suí-xīn niànfó* 明隨心念佛) phrasing is one of several places where Yongming's *Zōngjìng lù* establishes name-recitation as a Chan-doctrinal operation.

[^8]: T2016, fascicle sixty-three, T48.0506a12–25. The *jiàn-cì fāngbiàn* (漸次方便) gradation is the proximate source of Yunqi's later fourfold *niànfó* compression treated in P23 §III.

[^9]: X22n0424 *Āmítuó-jīng shūchāo*, fascicle three. Yunqi Zhuhong's *shì-chí / lǐ-chí* couplet: *yì-niàn wú-jiān, shì wèi shì-chí; tǐ-jiū wú-jiān, shì wèi lǐ-chí* (憶念無間，是謂事持；體究無間，是謂理持). CBETA *Wàn xùzàng* vol. 22, no. 424.

[^10]: X22n0424, fascicle three. The *shì yī-xīn / lǐ yī-xīn* expansion: *cǐ lǐ-yī-xīn, zhèng líng-zhī zì-xìng… chán-zhě, jìng-tǔ zhī chán; jìng-tǔ-zhě, chán zhī jìng-tǔ yě* (此理一心，正靈知自性……禪者，淨土之禪；淨土者，禪之淨土也).

[^11]: X22n0424, fascicle one. Yunqi's establishment of name-holding as the *jìng zhōng zhī jìng* (徑中之徑, shortcut within the shortcut).

[^12]: X22n0424, fascicle three. Yunqi's explicit citation of Zhongfeng Mingben as the source of the *Chan-of-Pure-Land, Pure-Land-of-Chan* equation.

[^13]: X22n0430 *Āmítuó-jīng yàojiě*, fascicle one, X22.0827c08–11. Ouyi Zhixu's *xìn-yuàn-chí-míng* (信願持名) program. CBETA *Wàn xùzàng* vol. 22, no. 430. Citations are restricted to Ouyi's own *jiě* (觧) layer; the Qing-dynasty *chāo* (鈔) sub-commentary by Damo (達默) is excluded except where explicitly flagged.

[^14]: X22n0430, fascicle one, X22.0828a02–06. *Xìn-zì zhě: xìn wǒ xiàn-qián yī-niàn zhī xīn… zì-xīn běn-jù jí-lè* (信自者：信我現前一念之心……自心本具極樂).

[^15]: X22n0430, fascicle four, X22.0873b08–10. *Xìn-yuàn chí-míng yī-fǎ, yuán-shōu yuán-chāo yī-qiè fǎ-mén* (信願持名一法，圓收圓超一切法門).

[^16]: X22n0430, fascicle four, X22.0872c11–13. *Wéi jí shì-chí dá lǐ-chí, suǒ-yǐ Mítuó shèng-zhòng xiàn-qián, jí-shì běn-xìng míng-xiǎn* (唯即事持達理持，所以彌陀聖眾現前，即是本性明顯).

[^17]: X22n0430, fascicle four, X22.0873a06–09. Ouyi's lineage attribution: *wéi Mǎ-míng, Lóng-shù, Zhì-zhě, Yǒng-míng zhī liú, chè-dǐ dān-hè dé-qù* (唯馬鳴、龍樹、智者、永明之流，徹底擔荷得去).

[^18]: X74n1464 *Sānshí xìniàn fóshì*, fascicle one, second period. *Shì xīn shì fó jiāng xīn niàn, niàn dào xīn-kōng fó yì wàng* (是心是佛將心念，念到心空佛亦忘). CBETA *Wàn xùzàng* vol. 74, no. 1464. Attribution: the work's CBETA TEI byline reads *Song Yongming Yanshou*, but the work's internal *jhead* attributes it to *Yuan Zhongfeng Guoshi*; this paper follows the internal-attribution and modern-scholarship consensus for Zhongfeng Mingben (1263–1323) as the actual author. See §V Caution Two.

[^19]: X73n1456 *Hānshān lǎorén mèng yóu jí*, fascicle nine, *Shì niànfó cān-chán qiè-yào* (示念佛參禪切要), X73.0521c19–c24. Hanshan's attribution of *the buddha-recollection inquiry-into-truth case* to Yongming Yanshou. CBETA *Wàn xùzàng* vol. 73, no. 1456.

[^20]: X73n1456, fascicle ten, *Shì Huì-jìng-xīn chán-rén* (示慧鏡心禪人), X73.0522a04 ff. The bidirectional declaration: *niànfó jíshì cān-chán, cān-chán nǎi shēng jìngtǔ. Cǐ shì gǔ-jīn wèi-jué zhī yí. Cǐ shuō pò-jìn* (念佛即是參禪，參禪乃生淨土。此是古今未決之疑。此說破盡).

---

## References

### I. Primary Buddhist Sources

- T2017 *Wànshàn tóngguī jí* (萬善同歸集). Yongming Yanshou (永明延壽, 904–975). 3 fascicles. CBETA Taishō vol. 48, no. 2017.
- T2016 *Zōngjìng lù* (宗鏡錄). Yongming Yanshou. 100 fascicles. CBETA Taishō vol. 48, no. 2016.
- X22n0424 *Āmítuó-jīng shūchāo* (阿彌陀經疏鈔). Yunqi Zhuhong (雲棲祩宏, 1535–1615). 4 fascicles. CBETA *Wàn xùzàng* vol. 22, no. 424.
- X22n0430 *Āmítuó-jīng yàojiě* (阿彌陀經要解). Ouyi Zhixu (蕅益智旭, 1599–1655) [*jiě* 觧]; Damo (達默) [*chāo* 鈔, Qing dynasty]. CBETA *Wàn xùzàng* vol. 22, no. 430. The present paper restricts citation to the Ouyi *jiě* layer.
- X74n1464 *Sānshí xìniàn fóshì* (三時繫念佛事). Attributed in CBETA TEI metadata to Yongming Yanshou; on the basis of internal *jhead* attribution and modern scholarly consensus, the work is by Zhongfeng Mingben (中峰明本, 1263–1323). CBETA *Wàn xùzàng* vol. 74, no. 1464. See §V Caution Two.
- X73n1456 *Hānshān lǎorén mèng yóu jí* (憨山老人夢遊集). Hanshan Deqing (憨山德清, 1546–1623); compiled by his attendant Fushan (福善, *rì-lù* 日錄) and disciple Tongjiong (通炯, *biān-jí* 編輯). 55 fascicles. CBETA *Wàn xùzàng* vol. 73, no. 1456.
- T1753 *Guānjīng sì-tiē shū* (觀經四帖疏). Shandao (善導, 613–681). Cross-reference to P22.
- T1911 *Móhē zhǐguān* (摩訶止觀). Zhiyi (智顗, 538–597), recorded by Guanding (灌頂, 561–632). Cross-reference to P23.
- T1962 *Wǔ-fāngbiàn niànfó-mén* (五方便念佛門). Attributed Zhiyi. Cross-reference to P23.

### II. Patriarchal Commentaries

- Shandao (善導). *Guānjīng sì-tiē shū* 觀經四帖疏 (T1753, *Taishō* vol. 37).凡夫入報土、三心、一向專稱.
- Tanluan (曇鸞). *Wángshēng lùnzhù* 往生論註 (T1819, *Taishō* vol. 40). Other-power vocabulary creation.
- Daochuo (道綰). *Ānlè jí* 安樂集 (T1958, *Taishō* vol. 47). Seven-fold *niànfó* sense inventory.
- Zhiyi (智顗). *Fǎhuá sānmèi chànyí* 法華三昧懺儀 (T1941, *Taishō* vol. 46). Ten-decade ritual structure of dedication.
- Zongmi (宗密). *Huáyán jīng xíngyuàn pín biéxíng shāochāo* 華嚴經行願品別行疏鈔 (X05n0229, *Wàn xùzàng* vol. 5). Three-way dedication schema.
- Chengguan (澄觀). *Huáyán jīng xíngyuàn pín shū* 華嚴經行願品疏 (X05n0227, *Wàn xùzàng* vol. 5). Substance-attribute-function tri-direction.
- Yongming Yanshou (永明延壽). *Wànshàn tóngguī jí* 萬善同歸集 (T2017, *Taishō* vol. 48). Praṇidhāna as principle-enrichment.
- Yunqi Zhuhong (雲棲祩宏). *Āmítuó-jīng shūchāo* 阿彌陀經疏鈔 (X22n0424, *Wàn xùzàng* vol. 22). Praṇidhāna king not apart from present-moment.
- Ouyi Zhixu (蕅益智旭). *Āmítuó-jīng yàojiě* 阿彌陀經要解 (X22n0430, *Wàn xùzàng* vol. 22). Guiding compass of myriad practices.
- Zhongfeng Mingben (中峰明本). *Sānshí xìniàn fóshì* 三時繫念佛事 (X74n1464, *Wàn xùzàng* vol. 74). Ten-vows complete set.

### III. Modern Scholarship

- Eichman, Jennifer. 2016. *A Late Sixteenth-Century Chinese Buddhist Fellowship: Spiritual Ambitions, Intellectual Debates, and Epistolary Connections*. Leiden: Brill.
- Getz, Daniel A. 1999. "T'ien-t'ai Pure Land Societies and the Creation of the Pure Land Patriarchate." In *Buddhism in the Sung*, edited by Peter N. Gregory and Daniel A. Getz, 477–523. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
- Jones, Charles B. 2019. *Chinese Pure Land Buddhism: Understanding a Tradition of Practice*. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. [Cited in §III.2; not engaged in §IV.]
- Sharf, Robert H. 2002. *Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise*. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. [Reserved for §V methodological footnote.]
- Welter, Albert. 2011. *Yongming Yanshou's Conception of Chan in the Zongjing lu: A Special Transmission Within the Scriptures*. New York: Oxford University Press.
- Yü, Chün-fang. 1981. *The Renewal of Buddhism in China: Chu-hung and the Late Ming Synthesis*. New York: Columbia University Press.

---

### IV. Sūtra & Śāstra Index

| Abbr. | Full Title | Translator / Author | Use |
|---|---|--|---|
| T2017 | *Wànshàn tóngguī jí* 萬善同歸集 (*Compendium of the Common End of Myriad Goodnesses*) | Yongming Yanshou (永明延壽) | Primary source (§III.2) |
| T2016 | *Zōngjìng lù* 宗鏡錄 (*Record of the Whole Mind*) | Yongming Yanshou | Primary source (§III.3) |
| X22n0424 | *Āmítuó-jīng shūchāo* 阿彌陀經疏鈔 | Yunqi Zhuhong (雲棲祩宏) | Primary source (§III.4, §IV.1) |
| X22n0430 | *Āmítuó-jīng yàojiě* 阿彌陀經要解 | Ouyi Zhixu (蕅益智旭) | Primary source (§III.4) |
| X74n1464 | *Sānshí xìniàn fóshì* 三時繫念佛事 | Attributed to Zhongfeng Mingben (中峰明本) | Primary source (§V Caution Two) |
| X73n1456 | *Hānshān lǎorén mèng yóu jí* 憨山老人夢遊集 | Hanshan Deqing (憨山德清) | Primary source (§III.4) |
| T1753 | *Guānjīng sì-tiē shū* 觀經四帖疏 | Shandao (善導) | Cross-reference to P22 |
| T1911 | *Móhē zhǐguān* 摩訶止觀 | Zhiyi (智顗), rec. Guanding (灌頂) | Cross-reference to P23 |
| T1962 | *Wǔ-fāngbiàn niànfó-mén* 五方便念佛門 | Attributed Zhiyi | Cross-reference to P23 |

---

### V. Cross-Reference to Series Papers

- **P20 (*The Pure Land Patriarchs I: Tanluan and Daochuo*)**: The other-power doctrinal warrant of the *easy-practice path* (*yì-xíng dào* 易行道) and the *time-far-name-is-primary* inversion. The present paper §III.1 echoes Tanluan and Daochuo's *dependent-arising co-operation* of conditional support and inward direction; §III.4 receives Ouyi's *xìn-zì / xìn-tā* dyad as completing the inward-and-other reciprocity P20 first articulated.
- **P21 (*The Chan Position: Turning the Name Inward*)**: The ninth-century Zongmi gradient and the *self-nature Amitābha* inward-redirection. The present paper §III.4 distinguishes Hanshan's sixteenth-century *buddha-recollection-is-Chan-inquiry* declaration from Zongmi's ninth-century fourfold *niànfó* gradient: the two operations belong to distinct historical strata and must not be conflated. §III.4 explicitly flags the distinction.
- **P22 (*The Pure Land Patriarchs II: Shandao on the Establishment of the Name*)**: The *axial transposition* of name-recitation in the seventh century. The present paper §I sets out the *re-reading* framing across six centuries of integrated cultivation; §III throughout positions the synthesis vis-à-vis P22's central thesis; §IV.1 names the *occlusion* dimension that Yü's harmonious-synthesis frame leaves under-described, recovering the cost P22 documented.
- **P23 (*The Tiantai Bridge: Zhiyi's Four Samādhis and the *Wǔ-fāngbiàn niànfó-mén**)**: The *classificatory bridge* established by Zhiyi (594) and redeployed by Zongmi, Zhili, Yongming, Yunqi, and Ouyi. The present paper picks up P23's closing thread on the millennium-long doctrinal genealogy (§I); §III.2 distinguishes *Yunqi's fourfold compression of T1962* (P23's main subject) from *Yunqi's shì-chí / lǐ-chí architecture* (P24's main subject) — the two are distinct codifications by the same figure for distinct purposes.

- **P25 (*Samantabhadra's Ten Great Vows: Introduction*, Part VII opens)**: The bodhisattva-path development of the synthesis's held tension. The Ten Great Vows — reverence, praise, offering, repentance, rejoicing, requesting the turning of the dharma wheel, requesting the buddhas' abiding, learning, accord, dedication — supply the framework within which the synthesis's held tension is *enacted* as a sustained directional life rather than *codified* as a doctrinal formula. The present paper's §III.4 *xìn-yuàn-xíng* enrollment, §III.4 *yuán-shōu yuán-chāo* keystone, and §VI open question all point forward to P25. *Part VI gave the bridge; Part VII will give the road across it.*

---

> **Pointing at the Moon Research · Six Practice Gates, Volume One: *Mindful of the Buddha* · Part VI Two Streams · 6.5**
> Shi Huijing (釋慧鏡)
> First draft, May 2026
> This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0


---

*CBETA collation: all T-number / X-number citations verified against the CBETA Electronic Tripiṭaka 2024 edition.*

*Repo: github.com/pointing-at-the-moon/six-practice-gates · CC BY-NC-SA 4.0*

*NIAN-P24 · 釋慧鏡 (Shi Huijing) · 2026-05-04*