聖嚴法師的觀音感應書寫與觀音法門教學 ── 由「神異巧遇」至「空性相應慈悲 利他願行」之書寫義涵轉化=Master Sheng-yen’s Accounts of Guanyin Bodhisattva’s Responses and Teachings of Guanyin Bodhisattva Dharma Gates: A Discourse that Turns “Mysterious Encounters” into Vows of Compassion Resonating with Śūnyatā
作者單位：中華佛學研究所副研究員/新加坡漢傳佛學院副教授兼學術副校長 Associate Research Fellow, The Chung-Hwa Institute of Buddhist Studies/Associate Professor & Provost. Institute of Chinese Buddhism. (Singapore)
The various dharma gates of mindfulness of Guanyin Bodhisattvais one major set of practice method in Master Sheng-yen’s system of meditation. The significance of Guanyin Dharma Gates is as significant as Master Sheng-yen’s other major chan methods such as silent illumination 默照 and huatou 話頭 . In Master Sheng- yen’s teaching of Guanyin Bodhisattva Dharma Gates, he listed seven different methods related to Guanyin. In this book and Master Sheng-yen’s many other books, Master Sheng-yen’s accounts of Guanyin’s responses to his practices were recorded. In this paper, I will try to answer two questions: how did Master Sheng-yen’s responsive experiences serve as the foundation of his systematic Guanyin Bodhisattva Dharma Gates? Secondly, how did Master Sheng-yen apply these dharma gates to his daily lives? Another purpose of this paper is to determine the significance of Master Sheng-yen’s Guanyin Dharma Gates and Guanyin response narration in the textual context of traditional Guanyin responsive stories. In fact, this paper will discuss if Buddhist responsive narrations really fit into the genre described as zhiguai, “strange writing” or “accounts of anomalies” in traditional Chinese literature. Accounts of Guanyin responsive stories are traditionally categorized as a type of “accounts of anomalies” because it was thought of as strange happenings beyond ordinary people’s regular experiences. However, when we take into consideration of the purpose of Master Sheng-yen’s Guanyin Dharma Gates, Master Sheng-yen’s actually aims for the strengthening or reoccurrence of Guanyin Bodhisattva response experiences. This underlying purpose is the total opposite of those of the zhiguai accounts which intended to stress “anomalies.” The purpose of Guanyin Dharma Gate is exactly to turn an unfamiliar religious experience into familiar experience that the practitioners hope to repeat and operate at every moment. Master Sheng-yen’s Guanyin responsive accounts has several unique features such as responses cover experiences happening throughout his entire religious career, he recorded communal response experiences as well as his individual responsive experiences. Furthermore, Master Sheng-yen’s accounts of Guanyin responses stress not only Guanyin’s saving power but also his spiritual path of learning from the compassion and altruism of Guanyin Bodhisattva. Master Sheng-yen’s Guanyin response discourses, as well as his systematic Guanyin Dharma Gates, will not only redefine the nature of Guanyin responsive accounts, but also will provide a glimpse of the spiritual depth of the traditional Guanyin response accounts that appeared in Chinese literary landscape since the Northern and Southern Dynasties.
