{"title":"When Zen Becomes Philosophy: The Case of Dōgen’s Uji","authors":"R. Steineck","doi":"10.1163/25897179-12340018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25897179-12340018","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Dōgen is among the few authors from historic Japan who have received substantial attention in modern philosophical discourse. His thought on time figures prominently in this regard. Association between Uji 有時, the title of his short instruction on the subject, and Heidegger’s Being and Time has facilitated this integration into modern philosophical discourse. It is customary in this discourse to treat Dōgen’s writings as philosophical texts. Against this tendency, I apply the concept of ‘frames of equivalence’ from translation studies and demonstrate how the philosophical mode of reading leads to substantial shifts in all three dimensions of the semiotic process. In the pragmatic dimension, the religious impetus of Dōgen’s texts is toned down to an appeal in favor of certain epistemological and ontological commitments. In the syntactic dimension, the formal organization of his texts is ignored, obfuscating the overall structure and intent of his argument. Given the context-dependency of meaning, this leads to significant shifts in the semantic dimension as well. I argue that paying attention to frames of equivalence in reading Dōgen serves to identify creative investments and inadvertent projections. This prepares the ground for historically more accurate interpretations and prevents the misappropriation of ‘enlightened’ authority for philosophical hypothesizing.","PeriodicalId":272024,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chan Buddhism","volume":"33 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139009933","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Zen of Mahāvairocana, Or: Does Bodhidharma’s Nose Preach the Dharma?","authors":"S. Licha","doi":"10.1163/25897179-12340017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25897179-12340017","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper addresses the relationship between Zen and tantric or esoteric Buddhism in premodern Japan from the point of view of the Buddhas and Buddha bodies considered to be preaching these two traditions. After surveying theories on the dharmakāya teaching already present in Chinese Buddhism, it considers the development of this doctrinal notion in the Japanese tantric traditions. The paper demonstrates that this tantric discourse on the Buddha as preacher provided thinkers such as Enni 圓爾 (1202–1280) and Chikotsu Daie 癡兀大慧 (1229–1312) with a framework to integrate Zen into a tantric world. Eventually, and under the influence of embryological motifs circulating widely in medieval Buddhism, Zen practitioners came to establish their own theories on the human as Buddha body. The paper concludes that medieval Zen and medieval tantric Buddhism should be considered sister movements.","PeriodicalId":272024,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chan Buddhism","volume":"2 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139009172","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tantra Ducks and Zen Bunnies","authors":"S. Licha","doi":"10.1163/25897179-12340016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25897179-12340016","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This paper reconsiders the relationship between esoteric or tantric Buddhism and Zen in premodern Japan. Taking the teachings of Enni 圓爾 (1202–1280) and early modern Sōtō lore as its examples, as well as an adapted version of Wittgenstein’s concept of “seeing-as” as its methodological guideline, the paper argues that the categories of “esoteric Buddhism” and “Zen” themselves should be treated as discursively constructed. From this point of view, the scholarly desideratum is to undertake the genealogical elucidation of the process of their construction. The paper concludes that “esoteric Zen” should be considered a family of strategic, discursive practices predicated on acts of “seeing-as” and their subsequent sedimentation through repetition.","PeriodicalId":272024,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chan Buddhism","volume":"99 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138984842","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How Zen became Chan: Pre-modern and Modern Representations of a Transnational East Asian Buddhist Tradition","authors":"Albert Welter","doi":"10.1163/25897179-12340020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25897179-12340020","url":null,"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.","PeriodicalId":272024,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chan Buddhism","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139249345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Date of the Stein Manuscript of the Platform Sūtra","authors":"I. Galambos","doi":"10.1163/25897179-12340013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25897179-12340013","url":null,"abstract":"As some of the earliest extant examples of Chan writings survived in the Dunhuang library cave, they have been studied extensively in modern scholarship as witnesses of texts that were to leave a lasting impact throughout East Asia. This paper uses a codicological perspective to re-examine the so-called Stein manuscript of the Platform Sūtra kept at the British Library. This is one of the key sources for the study of early Chan, primarily because it contains what is often claimed to the be the earliest copy of the Platform Sūtra. The paper’s aim is to demonstrate that the manuscript, in its physical reality, can tell us additional information beyond what has already been learned from the text in it. This entails a shift from a focus on the transmission of the text to its use in a concrete setting. On the one hand, the ‘material’ approach can offer insights into the identity and background of the persons and communities involved in copying and using such texts, and on the other, it can help to reassess the accepted dating of the manuscript. Among the key pieces of information not considered before is an ownership note written on the spine of the manuscript, pointing to a connection with educational setting.","PeriodicalId":272024,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chan Buddhism","volume":"215 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139249331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Chan Texts in Practice","authors":"Sam van Schaik","doi":"10.1163/25897179-12340019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25897179-12340019","url":null,"abstract":"Research into early Chan has relied heavily on the manuscripts found in Cave 17 in Dunhuang, which generally date from before the eleventh century. However this research has often abstracted texts from their context as part of the varied and multilingual collection that was found in the cave. Furthermore, the date, form and original use of the manuscripts containing early Chan texts is often forgotten in the discussion. This brief paper looks at early Chan practice from a historical and local perspective, that is, as a kind of social history. Taking one text, The Record of the Masters and Students of the Lanka (Lengqie shizi ji 楞伽師資記) I discuss some of the meditation practices that it contains and compare these to manuscripts from the Dunhuang collection that fall outside the usual concept of ‘Chan Buddhism’. I conclude that first, early Chan texts should be understood as existing in specific social and ritual settings, such as group initiation rituals, educational settings with teachers and students, or indeed solitary meditation. Second, in the social setting that produced the Dunhuang manuscript cache, distinctions between what we tend to think of as ‘Chan meditation’ and other forms of meditation from tantric or pure land contexts, meant little in practice.","PeriodicalId":272024,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chan Buddhism","volume":"188 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139249943","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Zen Chanting and Jazz at a Public Arts Festival","authors":"M. Mross","doi":"10.1163/25897179-12340009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25897179-12340009","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000This article explores ritual change and innovation based on my participation as a saxophone player in two rituals featuring traditional Buddhist chant and jazz, which were performed at the Sōtō Zen temple Tōkōji in Ōmiya (Saitama prefecture) during the Yume Arts Festival. In designing these ceremonies, the monks selected elements from traditional rituals and put them together in new ways, while adding new entertaining elements, such as jazz and yōkai. I suggest that the modularity of rituals made it possible to easily create new ceremonies and perform them without extensive rehearsals. Moreover, I show that the monks aimed to offer an entertaining performance in order to reach out to the local community. This article further illuminates that Sōtō Zen has a rich sonic dimension, which our crossover ceremonies showcased.","PeriodicalId":272024,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chan Buddhism","volume":"71 4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128010462","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Laitan: The Making of a Chan Cave Temple Site in Sichuan","authors":"A. Howard","doi":"10.1163/25897179-12340011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25897179-12340011","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Laitan 淶灘 is a monumental site in Sichuan, built during the Song Dynasty (960–1279), located approximately 69 km northwest of present day Chongqing. It is the only site in China whose sculpture derives from a comprehensive records of Chan developments. A crowded gathering of famous Chan prelates and anonymous personages of all sizes animate the cave’s walls; they were inspired both by the early Chan phase in Sichuan and the subsequent Song outside Sichuan.","PeriodicalId":272024,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chan Buddhism","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122154374","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Pei Xiu (791–864) and Lay Buddhism in Tang Chan","authors":"Jiang Wu","doi":"10.1163/25897179-12340010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25897179-12340010","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000Pei Xiu 裴休 (791–864) was a literati follower of Buddhist teachers, among whom the two most eminent were Zongmi 宗密 (780–841) and Huangbo Xiyun 黃檗希運 (?–850). These two teachers had notably different spiritual orientations: one was the synthesizer of Chan and Huayan teachings, the other a member of the more radical Hongzhou 洪州 school. Rather than passively patronizing Buddhist teachers, Pei Xiu served as an active agent of his own religiosity and influenced Buddhist communities broadly. Through examining Pei Xiu’s Quanfa putixin wen 勸發菩提心文 [Essay Exhorting the Generation of Bodhicitta], Chuanxin fayao 傳心法要 [Essentials of The Transmission of Mind], which he prefaced and edited, and his various prefaces and epitaphs written for Zongmi and other monks, this study scrutinizes the transformation of early Chinese Chan communities before they were reimagined as ‘mature’ and ‘classical’ in later times.","PeriodicalId":272024,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chan Buddhism","volume":"130 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134557600","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Tangut Text of Suiyuan ji and the History of Chan Buddhism in Xixia","authors":"K. Solonin, Zhang Yongfu","doi":"10.1163/25897179-12340012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/25897179-12340012","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000The paper discusses some problems pertaining to the spread of Sinitic Buddhism, especially of the Huayan Chan tradition in Xixia. These include issues of the transmission of the teaching as well as codicological and conceptual problems of the dissemination of the publications of Huayan Chan texts in Xixia. The paper presents evidence that the Chan Buddhist content available to the Tanguts was not limited to Huayan Chan, but included some knowledge of the Song-period Chan Buddhism. The paper introduces the previously unknown Tangut composition Suiyuan ji and discusses its structure as well as aspects of its contents.","PeriodicalId":272024,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Chan Buddhism","volume":"62 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"132929535","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}