How Zen became Chan: Pre-modern and Modern Representations of a Transnational East Asian Buddhist Tradition

Abstract

This paper looks at the vexed relationship of doctrine, or teaching (C. jiao/K. kyo/J. kyō 教) in the three kindred traditions subsumed under the rubric of the Sino-East Asian graph 禪, known through their distinctive pronunciations in modern languages as Chan, Sŏn, and Zen. While the stipulation of these traditions as ‘a special/separate transmission outside the teachings’; (jiaowai biechuan 教外別傳) presumes independence from Mahayana doctrinal teachings, the reality, as we know, was much more complicated. In this paper, I use Yongming Yanshou 永明延壽 (904–975/6), one of the most prominent Chan figures to promote doctrinal engagement, as a barometer to look at how doctrinal engagements and disengagements are regarded throughout each tradition. Perspectives on Yanshou, a figure at once revered and marginalized, unlock key features of each of these three interconnected traditions, what they share and how they disagree. Fundamentally, perspectives on doctrinal engagements and disengagements are rooted in seminal Chan disputes over the nature and value of Buddhist teaching, and Yanshou is a conduit for these disputes. Given the theme of the conference, ‘How Zen Became Chan’; I also look at the discrepancies these disputes reveal between modern Rinzai Zen orthodoxy’s defining of Zen in the modern world and the practice of Chan in China and Sŏn in Korea. The options that these discrepancies reveal are indicative of the relevance of doctrinal entanglements and disentanglements to the contemporary Chan, Sŏn, and Zen worlds.