Wang Xuanlan王玄览

Style & Daoist names

Wang Hui, Hongyuan Xiansheng (Master of Vast Origin)

Period

Tang

Dates

626 — 697

School

Chongxuan (Twofold Mystery) School

Role

Daoist ScholarsThinker of the Chongxuan (Twofold Mystery) School

Birthplace

Mianzhu, Guanghan (present-day Mianzhu, Sichuan)

Life

Wang Xuanlan, original name Hui, style name Xuanlan, was a Tang-dynasty Daoist priest of Mianzhu, an important thinker of Chongxuan learning. He entered the Daoist order at the age of forty-seven and resided at Zhizhen Temple in Yizhou, where he exchanged views with the Chan master Shenhui and the monk Sengjing, among others. He died in the second year of the Wansui Tongtian era of Empress Wu Zetian's Zhou dynasty (697) at the age of seventy-two. His disciple Wang Taixiao compiled his sayings into the two-scroll Record of the Mysterious Pearl, which is included in the Daoist Canon. The Record of the Mysterious Pearl takes as its central themes the relations between the “Dao” and “things,” and between “mind” and “object,” discussing the constancy and impermanence of the substance of the Dao, Sitting in Oblivion, the nature of the mind, and truth and falsehood, while also drawing on Buddhist Consciousness-Only and Madhyamaka thought. It proposes such theses as “the Dao lies between object and cognition” and “all sentient beings possess Dao-nature,” and is an important document in the transition of Tang Daoist theories of mind and nature from Chongxuan learning toward the internal-alchemical study of nature and life.

Contributions & Influence

• His Record of the Mysterious Pearl is a representative work of Tang Daoist theory of mind and nature
• Advanced the development of Chongxuan learning toward theories of Dao-nature and mind-nature

Works

• Record of the Mysterious Pearl (compiled by his disciple Wang Taixiao)
• Zhenren Pusa Guanmen (Contemplation Gate of the Perfected and Bodhisattvas, lost)
• Hunchen Aozang Tu (Chart of the Hidden Treasury of Primordial Formation, lost)