Empty Reality, Luminous Mind: The Metaphysics of “One Reality” and “One Mind” in Shi Sengwei’s “Shizhu jing hanzhu xu”

Abstract

Abstract This paper is the first in-depth study of Shi Sengwei’s 釋僧衛 (fl. late fourth and early fifth centuries) “ Shizhu jing hanzhu xu” 十住經含注序. By situating Sengwei’s text in the proper intellectual-historical context and proposing crucial emendations in its surviving recensions, I analyze its ontological and psychological claims that advance a unique metaphysical theory that explains the emergence of sense objects and individual minds as the result of the interaction between “one reality” ( yifa 一法) and “one mind” ( yixin 一心). I then identify philosophical and phraseological influences of Huiyuan’s 慧遠 (334–416) theory of the imperishability of the soul ( shen bumie 神不滅) on Sengwei’s thought, and furthermore argue that Sengwei’s “one mind” was the source of the theory of the “one mind” in the Dasheng qi xin lun 大乘起信論.