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.