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Tasan Chŏng Yagyong (1762–1836) is one of the most creative
thinkers Korea has ever produced, one of the country’s first
Christians, and a leading scholar in Confucian philosophy. Born in
a staunchly Neo-Confucian society, in his early twenties he
encountered writings by Catholic missionaries in China and was
fascinated. However, when he later learned that the Catholic Church
condemned the Confucian practice of placing a spirit tablet on a
family altar to honor past generations, he left the small Catholic
community he had helped found and ostensibly returned to the
Neo-Confucian fold. Nevertheless, the Christian ideas he studied in
his youth influenced his thinking for the rest of his life,
stimulating him to look at Neo-Confucianism with a critical eye and
suggest new solutions to problems Confucian scholars had been
addressing for centuries. A Korean Confucian’s Advice on How to
Be Moral is an annotated translation of Tasan’s commentaries on
the Confucian classic Zhongyong (usually translated as The Doctrine
of the Mean) in which he applies both Confucianism and Christianity
to the question of how to best develop a moral character. Written
as a dialogue with King Chŏngjo, (r. 1776–1800) these texts
reveal how Tasan interpreted his Confucian tradition, particularly
its understanding of how human beings could cultivate morality,
while the king’s questions illustrate the mainstream
Neo-Confucianism Tasan was reacting against. Tasan challenged the
non-theistic standard, insisting that living a moral life is not
easy and that we need to be motivated to exert the effort necessary
to overcome our selfish tendencies. He had abandoned his faith by
the time he wrote these commentaries but, influenced by Catholic
works and determined to find a more effective way to live a moral
life than non-theistic Neo-Confucianism provided, Tasan constructed
a Confucian philosophy of moral improvement centered on belief in
God. This translation, helpfully annotated for context and
analysis, is an exploration of early Korean engagement with the
West and a powerful guide to all those interested in Confucianism,
Christianity, and morality.
One of the most important and celebrated works of premodern Korean
prose fiction, Kumo sinhwa (New Tales of the Golden Turtle) is a
collection of five tales of the strange artfully written in
literary Chinese by Kim Sisup (1435-1493). Kim was a major
intellectual and poet of the early Choson dynasty (1392-1897), and
this book is widely recognized as marking the beginning of
classical fiction in Korea.The present volume features an extensive
study of Kim and the Kumo sinhwa, followed by a copiously
annotated, complete English translation of the tales from the
oldest extant edition. The translation captures the vivaciousness
of the original, while the annotations reveal the work's
complexity, unraveling the deep and diverse intertextual
connections between the Kumo sinhwa and preceding works of Chinese
and Korean literature and philosophy. The Kumo sinhwa can thus be
read and appreciated as a hybrid work that is both distinctly
Korean and Sino-centric East Asian. A translator's introduction
discusses this hybridity in detail, as well as the unusual life and
tumultuous times of Kim Sisup; the Kumo sinhwa's creation and its
translation and transformation in early modern Japan and
twentieth-century (especially North) Korea and beyond; and its
characteristics as a work of dissent. Tales of the Strange by a
Korean Confucian Monk will be welcomed by Korean and East Asian
studies scholars and students, yet the body of the work-stories of
strange affairs, fantastic realms, seductive ghosts, and majestic
but eerie beings from the netherworld-will be enjoyed by academics
and non-specialist readers alike.
Huineng (638–713), author and hero of the Platform Sutra, is
often credited with founding the Southern school of Chan Buddhism
and its radical doctrine of "sudden enlightenment." However,
manuscripts discovered at Dunhuang at the beginning of the
twentieth century reveal that the real architect of the Southern
school was Huineng’s student Shenhui (684–758). An ardent
evangelist for his master’s teaching and a sharp critic of rival
meditation teachers of his day, Shenhui was responsible for
Huineng’s recognition as the "sixth patriarch," for the promotion
and eventual triumph of the sudden teaching, and for a somewhat
combative style of Chan discourse that came to be known as
"encounter dialogue." Shenhui’s historical importance in the rise
and success of Chan is beyond dispute, yet until now there has been
no complete translation of his corpus into English. This volume
brings together John McRae’s lifetime of work on the Shenhui
corpus, including extensively annotated translations of all five of
Shenhui’s texts discovered at Dunhuang as well as McRae’s
seminal studies of Shenhui’s life, teachings, and legacy.
McRae’s research explores the degree to which the received view
of the Northern school teachings is a fiction created by Shenhui to
score rhetorical points and that Northern and Southern teachings
may have been closer to one another than the canonical narrative
depicts. McRae explains Shenhui’s critical role in shaping what
would later emerge as "classical Chan," while remaining skeptical
about the glowing image of Shenhui as an effective mentor and
inspired revolutionary. This posthumously published book is the
fulfillment of McRae’s wish to make Shenhui’s surviving
writings accessible through carefully annotated English
translations, allowing readers to form their own opinions.
KĹŤshiki (Buddhist ceremonials) belong to a shared ritual
repertoire of Japanese Buddhism that began with Tendai Pure Land
belief in the late tenth century and spread to all Buddhist
schools, including SĹŤtĹŤ Zen in the thirteenth century. In Memory,
Music, Manuscripts, Michaela Mross elegantly combines the study of
premodern manuscripts and woodblock prints with ethnographic
fieldwork to illuminate the historical development of the highly
musical kĹŤshiki rituals performed by SĹŤtĹŤ Zen clerics. She
demonstrates how ritual change is often shaped by factors outside
the ritual context per se—by, for example, institutional
interests, evolving biographic images of eminent monks, or changes
in the cultural memory of a particular lineage. Her close study of
the fascinating world of kĹŤshiki in SĹŤtĹŤ Zen sheds light on
Buddhism as a lived religion and the interplay of ritual, doctrine,
literature, collective memory, material culture, and music. Mross
highlights in particular the sonic dimension in rituals. Scholars
of Buddhist and ritual studies have largely overlooked the
soundscapes of rituals despite the importance of music for many
ritual specialists and the close connection between the acquisition
of ritual expertise and learning to vocalize sacred texts or play
musical instruments. Indeed, SĹŤtĹŤ clerics strive to perfect their
vocal skills and view kĹŤshiki and the singing of liturgical texts
as vital Zen practices and an expression of buddhahood—similar to
seated meditation. Innovative and groundbreaking, Memory, Music,
Manuscripts is the first in-depth study of kĹŤshiki in Zen Buddhism
and the first monograph in English on this influential liturgical
genre. A companion website featuring video recordings of selected
kĹŤshiki performances is available.
The life and work of Kim Iryŏp (1896–1971) bear witness to
Korea’s encounter with modernity. A prolific writer, Iryŏp
reflected on identity and existential loneliness in her poems,
short stories, and autobiographical essays. As a pioneering
feminist intellectual, she dedicated herself to gender issues and
understanding the changing role of women in Korean society. As an
influential Buddhist nun, she examined religious teachings and
strove to interpret modern human existence through a religious
world view. Originally published in Korea when IryĹŹp was in her
sixties, Reflections of a Zen Buddhist Nun (ĹŽnĹ sudoin Ĺi
hoesang) makes available for the first time in English a rich,
intimate, and unfailingly candid source of material with which to
understand modern Korea, Korean women, and Korean Buddhism.
Throughout her writing, IryĹŹp poses such questions as: How does
one come to terms with one’s identity? What is the meaning of
revolt and what are its limitations? How do we understand the
different dimensions of love in the context of Buddhist teachings?
What is Buddhist awakening? How do we attain it? How do we
understand God and the relationship between good and evil? What is
the meaning of religious practice in our time? We see through her
thought and life experiences the co-existence of seemingly
conflicting ideas and ideals—Christianity and Buddhism, sexual
liberalism and religious celibacy, among others. In Reflections of
a Zen Buddhist Nun, IryĹŹp challenges readers with her creative
interpretations of Buddhist doctrine and her reflections on the
meaning of Buddhist practice. In the process she offers insight
into a time when the ideas and contributions of women to
twentieth-century Korean society and intellectual life were just
beginning to emerge from the shadows, where they had been obscured
in the name of modernization and nation-building.
Ritualized Writing takes readers into the fascinating world of
Japanese Buddhist manuscript cultures. Using archival sources that
have received scant attention in English, primarily documents from
an eighth-century Japanese scriptorium and colophons from sutra
manuscripts, Bryan D. Lowe uncovers the ways in which the
transcription of Buddhist scripture was a highly ritualized
endeavor. He takes a ground-level approach by emphasizing the
activities and beliefs of a wide range of individuals, including
scribes, provincial patrons, and royals, to reassess the meaning of
scripture and reevaluate scholarly narratives of Japanese Buddhist
history. Copying scripture is a central Buddhist practice and one
that thrived in East Asia. Despite this, there are no other books
dedicated to the topic. This work demonstrates that patrons and
scribes treated sutras differently from other modes of writing.
Scribes purified their bodies prior to transcription. Patrons held
dedicatory ceremonies on days of abstinence, when prayers were
pronounced and sutras were recited. Transcribing sutras helped
scribes and patrons alike realize this- and other-worldly ambitions
and cultivate themselves in accord with Buddhist norms. Sutra
copying thus functioned as a form of ritualized writing, a
strategic practice that set apart scripture as uniquely efficacious
and venerable. Lowe employs this notion of ritualized writing to
challenge historical narratives about ancient Japan (late seventh
through early ninth centuries), a period when sutra copying
flourished. He contends that Buddhist practice fulfilled a variety
of social, political, and spiritual roles beyond ideological
justification. Moreover, he demonstrates the inadequacy of
state-folk dichotomies for understanding the social groups,
institutions, and individual beliefs and practices of ancient
Japanese Buddhism, highlighting instead common organizations across
social class and using models that reveal shared concerns among
believers from diverse social backgrounds. Ritualized Writing makes
broader contributions to the study of ritual and scripture by
introducing the notion of scriptural cultures, an analytic tool
that denotes a series of dynamic relationships and practices
involving texts that have been strategically set apart or
ritualized. Scripture, Lowe concludes, is at once a category
created by humans and a body of texts that transforms individuals
and social organizations who come into contact with it.
The Master from Mountains and Fields is a fully annotated
translation of the prose texts from the “collected works” of
Sŏ Kyŏngdŏk (1489–1546), an influential Confucian scholar from
the early ChosĹŹn period (1392-1910). A native of Songdo (also
known as KaesĹŹng) in present-day North Korea, SĹŹ has loomed large
in the Korean cultural imagination and appeared as an exceptional
sage and popular hero in numerous tales, dramas, and films, yet his
writings are little known outside the academic milieu. Also called
Master Hwadam, SĹŹ embodied an archetype of the secluded scholar
who remains hidden in “mountains and forests” to devote himself
to his studies. Held in esteem in both South and North Korea today
(a notable exception in contemporary studies on ChosĹŹn
Neo-Confucianism), SĹŹ and his ideas about Vital Energy influenced
the great Korean Neo-Confucian debates of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries surrounding the psychophysiological origins
of morality as well as various non-orthodox intellectual trends in
the late ChosĹŹn. His thought is fundamentally rooted in the
cosmology based on the exegesis of the Book of Changes and follows
the teachings of various early Chinese Neo-Confucian thinkers; it
presents a vivid example of the eclectic nature of ideas and
intellectual trends coexisting within what is generically called
Neo-Confucianism out of convenience. This volume presents the first
English translation of all prose writings attributed to SĹŹ and
most of the peritexts from his posthumously published collection
Hwadam chip. It reflects the importance of literary compilations
(munjip) in the intellectual history of ChosĹŹn and the complex
process of the making of Confucian masters in Korea. Sŏ’s prose
works are concise and diverse and offer a glimpse at an author who
thwarts stereotyping; an introduction and annotations provide
further context. The lengthy endnotes that accompany each text make
this a useful handbook for anybody interested in ChosĹŹn Korea and
Confucianism, from students in East Asian and Korean studies to
specialists in literary Chinese (hanmun) or East Asian intellectual
history.
Modern Japanese Buddhist monks of all denominations differ from
those in other Asian countries because they frequently marry, drink
alcohol, and eat meat. This has caused Buddhist scholars and
practitioners generally to assume that early Japanese monastics had
little interest in precepts and ordinations. Some medieval Japanese
exegetes, however, were obsessively concerned with these topics as
they strove to understand what it meant to be a Buddhist. This
landmark collection of essays by Paul Groner, one of the leading
authorities on Tendai Buddhism, examines the medieval Tendai
School, which dominated Japanese Buddhism at that time, to uncover
the differences in understanding and interpreting monastic precepts
and ordinations. Rather than provide an unbroken narrative
account—made virtually impossible due to the number of undated
apocryphal texts and those lost in the numerous fires and warfare
that beset Tendai temples as well as the difficulties of tracing
how texts were used—Groner employs a multifaceted approach,
focusing on individual monks, texts, ceremonies, exegetical
problems, and institutional issues. Early chapters look at a major
source of Tendai precepts, the apocryphal Brahma’s Net Sutra; the
Tendai scholar Annen’s (b. 841) interpretations of the universal
bodhisattva precept ordination and the historical background of his
commentary on the subject; Tendai perfect-sudden precepts and the
Vinaya; and the role of confession in the bodhisattva ordination.
Groner goes on to discuss the Lotus Sutra, another key text for
Tendai precepts, and the monk Kōen (1262–1317) and his role in
developing the consecrated ordination, which is still performed
today. Later essays introduce Jitsudō Ninkū’s (1307–1388)
system of training by doctrinal debate and his commentary on
ordinations; doctrinal discussions of killing; and Tendai
discussions among several lineages on whether the precepts can be
lost or violated. Many of the issues discussed in the
volume—particularly how to distinguish various types of Buddhist
practitioners and how to conduct ordinations—continue to
preoccupy Tendai monks centuries later. The book concludes with an
examination of the effects of early Tendai precepts on modern
practice.
Modern Japanese Buddhist monks of all denominations differ from
those in other Asian countries because they frequently marry, drink
alcohol, and eat meat. This has caused Buddhist scholars and
practitioners generally to assume that early Japanese monastics had
little interest in precepts and ordinations. Some medieval Japanese
exegetes, however, were obsessively concerned with these topics as
they strove to understand what it meant to be a Buddhist. This
landmark collection of essays by Paul Groner, one of the leading
authorities on Tendai Buddhism, examines the medieval Tendai
School, which dominated Japanese Buddhism at that time, to uncover
the differences in understanding and interpreting monastic precepts
and ordinations. Rather than provide an unbroken narrative
account-made virtually impossible due to the number of undated
apocryphal texts and those lost in the numerous fires and warfare
that beset Tendai temples as well as the difficulties of tracing
how texts were used-Groner employs a multifaceted approach,
focusing on individual monks, texts, ceremonies, exegetical
problems, and institutional issues. Early chapters look at a major
source of Tendai precepts, the apocryphal Brahma's Net Sutra; the
Tendai scholar Annen's (b. 841) interpretations of the universal
bodhisattva precept ordination and the historical background of his
commentary on the subject; Tendai perfect-sudden precepts and the
Vinaya; and the role of confession in the bodhisattva ordination.
Groner goes on to discuss the Lotus Sutra, another key text for
Tendai precepts, and the monk Koen (1262-1317) and his role in
developing the consecrated ordination, which is still performed
today. Later essays introduce Jitsudo Ninku's (1307-1388) system of
training by doctrinal debate and his commentary on ordinations;
doctrinal discussions of killing; and Tendai discussions among
several lineages on whether the precepts can be lost or violated.
Many of the issues discussed in the volume-particularly how to
distinguish various types of Buddhist practitioners and how to
conduct ordinations-continue to preoccupy Tendai monks centuries
later. The book concludes with an examination of the effects of
early Tendai precepts on modern practice.
Chinese Buddhist monks of the Song dynasty (960-1279) called the
irresistible urge to compose poetry "the poetry demon." In this
ambitious study, Jason Protass seeks to bridge the fields of
Buddhist studies and Chinese literature to examine the place of
poetry in the lives of Song monks. Although much has been written
about verses in the gong'an (Jpn. koan) tradition, very little is
known about the large corpora-roughly 30,000 extant poems-composed
by these monastics. Protass addresses the oversight by using
strategies associated with religious studies, literary studies, and
sociology. He weaves together poetry with a wide range of monastic
sources and in doing so argues against positing a "literary Chan"
movement that wrote poetry as a path to awakening; he instead
presents an understanding of monks' poetry grounded in the Song
discourse of monks themselves. The work begins by examining how
monks fashioned new genres, created their own books, and fueled a
monastic audience for monks' poetry. It traces the evolution of
gatha from hymns found in Buddhist scripture to an independent
genre for poems associated with Chan masters as living buddhas.
While Song monastic culture produced a prodigious amount of verse,
at the same time it promoted prohibitions against monks'
participation in poetry as a worldly or Confucian art: This
constructive tension was an animating force. The Poetry Demon
highlights this and other intersections of Buddhist doctrine with
literary sociality and charts productive pathways through numerous
materials, including collections of Chan "recorded sayings,"
monastic rulebooks, "eminent monk" and "flame record"
hagiographies, manuscripts of poetry, Buddhist encyclopedia,
primers, and sutra commentary. Two chapter-length case studies
illustrate how Song monks participated in two of the most prominent
and conservative modes of poetry of the time, those of parting and
mourning. Protass reveals how monks used Chan humor with reference
to emptiness to transform acts of separation into Buddhist
teachings. In another chapter, monks in mourning expressed their
grief and dharma through poetry. The Poetry Demon impressively
uncovers new and creative ways to study Chinese Buddhist monks'
poetry while contributing to the broader study of Chinese religion
and literature.
Record of the Seasonal Customs of Korea (Tongguk sesigi) is one of
the most important primary sources for anyone interested in
traditional Korean cultural and social practices. The manuscript
was completed in 1849 by Toae Hong Sok-mo, a wealthy poet and
scholar from an influential family. Toae, with his keen interest in
the habits and customs of both courtiers and commoners, compiled in
almanac form (he divided his book into chronological sections by
lunar and intercalary months) a comprehensive record of seasonal
palace events, rituals, entertainment, and food and drink consumed
on high days and holidays, as well as information on farm work and
traditions. Nineteenth-century Korean intellectuals possessed a
deep understanding of Chinese history and culture together with a
growing awareness of the distinctiveness of Korea's past and
traditions. Toae's work reflects this in the many comparisons he
makes between the habits and customs of the two countries, quoting
literary and philosophical sources to note similarities and
contrasts. Knowledge of the seasonal traditions he describes was
largely forgotten over the generations as Korea rapidly modernized,
but in recent years much effort has been made to recover this
wisdom: Tongguk sesigi is now widely read and referenced as a
popular source for details on traditional food, customs, and
entertainment. While an ever-increasing number of books introducing
Korean culture written by non-Koreans or Koreans researching their
roots is now available, Record of the Seasonal Customs of Korea
contains information "from the source" that also reveals the
mindset and penchants of a premodern Korean intellectual. Readers
will thus be confronted with many concepts, names, and ideas not
readily understandable so extensive notes are provided in this
translation. Those studying other Asian cultures with some Chinese
influence will also find valuable insights here for cross-cultural
comparison and research.
Koshiki (Buddhist ceremonials) belong to a shared ritual repertoire
of Japanese Buddhism that began with Tendai Pure Land belief in the
late tenth century and spread to all Buddhist schools, including
Soto Zen in the thirteenth century. In Memory, Music, Manuscripts,
Michaela Mross elegantly combines the study of premodern
manuscripts and woodblock prints with ethnographic fieldwork to
illuminate the historical development of the highly musical koshiki
rituals performed by Soto Zen clerics. She demonstrates how ritual
change is often shaped by factors outside the ritual context per
se--by, for example, institutional interests, evolving biographic
images of eminent monks, or changes in the cultural memory of a
particular lineage. Her close study of the fascinating world of
koshiki in Soto Zen sheds light on Buddhism as a lived religion and
the interplay of ritual, doctrine, literature, collective memory,
material culture, and music. Mross highlights in particular the
importance of the sonic dimension in rituals. Scholars of Buddhist
and ritual studies have largely overlooked the soundscapes of
rituals despite the importance of music for many ritual specialists
and the close connection between the acquisition of ritual
expertise and learning to vocalize sacred texts or play musical
instruments. Indeed, Soto clerics strive to perfect their vocal
skills and view koshiki and the singing of liturgical texts as
vital Zen practices and an expression of buddhahood--similar to
seated meditation. Innovative and groundbreaking, Memory, Music,
Manuscripts is the first in-depth study of koshiki in Zen Buddhism
and the first monograph in English on this influential liturgical
genre. A companion website featuring video recordings of selected
koshiki performances is available at
https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/dq109wp7548.
This volume makes available in English the seminal treatises in
Korea's greatest interreligious debate of the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. On Mind, Material Force, and Principle and An
Array of Critiques of Buddhism by Confucian statesman Chong Tojon
(1342-1398) and Exposition of Orthodoxy by Son monk Kihwa
(1376-1433) are presented here with extensive annotation. A
substantial introduction provides a summary and analysis of the
philosophical positions of both Neo-Confucianism and Buddhism as
well as a germane history of the interactions between these two
traditions in East Asia, offering insight into religious tensions
that persist to this day. Translator A. Charles Muller shows how,
from the time Confucianism and Buddhism met in China, these thought
systems existed, along with Daoism, in a competing relationship
that featured significant mutual influence. A confrontative
situation eventually developed in China, wherein Confucian leaders
began to criticize Buddhism. During the late-Koryo and early-Choson
periods in Korea, the Neo-Confucian polemic became the driving
force in the movement to oust Buddhism from its position as Korea's
state religion. In his essays, Chong drew together the gamut of
arguments that had been made against Buddhism throughout its long
history in Korea. Kihwa's essay met Neo-Confucian contentions with
an articulate Buddhist response. Thus, in a rare moment in the
history of religions, a true philosophical debate ensued. This
debate was made possible based upon the two religions' shared
philosophical paradigm: essence-function (ch'e-yong). This
traditional East Asian way of interpreting society, events,
phenomena, human beings, and the world understands all things to
have both essence and function, two contrasting yet wholly
contiguous and mutually containing components. All three East Asian
traditions took this as their underlying philosophical paradigm,
and it is through this paradigm that they evaluated and criticized
each other's doctrines and practices. Specialists in philosophy,
religion, and Korean studies will appreciate Muller's exploration
of this pivotal moment in Korean intellectual history. Because it
includes a broad overview of the interactive history of East Asian
religions, this book can also serve as a general introduction to
East Asian philosophical thought.
This volume is a fully annotated translation of an early
nineteenth-century encyclopedia, the Kyuhap ch'ongso (The
Encyclopedia of Daily Life). Written by Lady Yi (1759-1824) as a
household management aid for her daughters and daughters-in-law,
the work is a treasure trove of information on how women of higher
status in the late Choson (1392-1910) ran their households and
conducted their daily lives. The encyclopedia opens with lengthy
sections on making beverages and brewing a wide array of liquors
(as well as remedies for the overconsumption of alcohol) and
contains dozens of recipes for dishes ranging from numerous types
of kimch'i to confections and rice cakes. The second part of the
translation concerns prenatal care, childbirth, childrearing, and
first aid for a large number of afflictions and medical conditions.
An extensive introduction will help readers understand the times in
which Lady Yi wrote her encyclopedia and the influences that
fostered her love of scholarship. The work demonstrates the full
sweep of her authority in the domestic sphere and the many aspects
of day-to-day life that women needed to prepare for and manage. Her
mastery of East Asian cosmology comes across clearly in her use of
this knowledge to account for the workings of the world, the
processes required to take care of one's body, and interactions
between humans and the natural world. The Encyclopedia of Daily
Life will be an important reference for those studying medicine,
botany, and the preparation of foodstuffs in premodern East Asian
societies. It will also be a valuable linguistic reference to the
Korean language during the late Choson.
What is Buddhist meditation? What is going on-and what should be
going on-behind the closed or lowered eyelids of the Buddha or
Buddhist adept seated in meditation? And in what ways and to what
ends have the answers to these questions mattered for Buddhists
themselves? Focusing on early medieval China, this book takes up
these questions through a cultural history of the earliest
traditions of Buddhist meditation (chan), before the rise of the
Chan (Zen) School in the eighth century. In sharp contrast to what
would become typical in the later Chan School, early Chinese
Buddhists approached the ancient Buddhist practice of meditation
primarily as a way of gaining access to a world of enigmatic but
potentially meaningful visionary experiences. In Chan Before Chan,
Eric Greene brings this approach to meditation to life with a focus
on how medieval Chinese Buddhists interpreted their own and others'
visionary experiences and the nature of the authority they ascribed
to them. Drawing from hagiography, ritual manuals, material
culture, and the many hitherto rarely studied meditation manuals
translated from Indic sources into Chinese or composed in China in
the 400s, Greene argues that during this era meditation and the
mastery of meditation came for the first time to occupy a real
place in the Chinese Buddhist social world. Heirs to wider
traditions that had been shared across India and Central Asia,
early medieval Chinese Buddhists conceived of "chan" as something
that would produce a special state of visionary sensitivity. The
concrete visionary experiences that resulted from meditation were
understood as things that could then be interpreted, by a qualified
master, as indicative of the mediator's purity or impurity.
Buddhist meditation, though an elite discipline that only a small
number of Chinese Buddhists themselves undertook, was thus in
practice and in theory constitutively integrated into the cultic
worlds of divination and "repentance" (chanhui) that were so
important within the medieval Chinese religious world as a whole.
In the early 400s, numerous Indian and Central Asian Buddhist
"meditation masters" (chanshi) traveled to China, where they
established the first enduring traditions of Buddhist meditation
practice in East Asia. The forms of contemplative practice that
these missionaries brought with them, and which their Chinese
students further developed, remained for several centuries the
basic understanding of "meditation" (chan) in China. Although
modern scholars and readers have long been familiar with the
approaches to meditation of the Chan (Zen) School that later became
so popular throughout East Asia, these earlier and in some ways
more pervasive forms of practice have long been overlooked or
ignored. This volume presents a comprehensive study of the content
and historical formation, as well as complete English translations,
of two of the most influential manuals in which these approaches to
Buddhist meditation are discussed: the Scripture on the Secret
Essential Methods of Chan (Chan Essentials) and the Secret Methods
for Curing Chan Sickness (Methods for Curing). Translated here into
English for the first time, these documents reveal a distinctly
visionary form of Buddhist meditation whose goal is the acquisition
of concrete, symbolic visions attesting to the practitioner's
purity and progress toward liberation. Both texts are "apocryphal"
scriptures: Taking the form of Indian Buddhist sutras translated
into Chinese, they were in fact new compositions, written or at
least assembled in China in the first half of the fifth century.
Though written in China, their historical significance extends
beyond the East Asian context as they are among the earliest
written sources anywhere to record certain kinds of information
about Buddhist meditation that hitherto had been the preserve of
oral tradition and personal initiation. To this extent they indeed
divulge, as their titles claim, the "secrets" of Buddhist
meditation. Through them, we witness a culture of Buddhist
meditation that has remained largely unknown but which for many
centuries was widely shared across North India, Central Asia, and
China.
What is Buddhist meditation? What is going on - and what should be
going on - behind the closed or lowered eyelids of the Buddha or
Buddhist adept seated in meditation? And in what ways and to what
ends have the answers to these questions mattered for Buddhists
themselves? Focusing on early medieval China, this book takes up
these questions through a cultural history of the earliest
traditions of Buddhist meditation (chan), before the rise of the
Chan (Zen) School in the eighth century. In sharp contrast to what
would become typical in the later Chan School, early Chinese
Buddhists approached the ancient Buddhist practice of meditation
primarily as a way of gaining access to a world of enigmatic but
potentially meaningful visionary experiences. In Chan before Chan,
Eric Greene brings this approach to meditation to life with a focus
on how medieval Chinese Buddhists interpreted their own and others'
visionary experiences and the nature of the authority they ascribed
to them. Drawing from hagiography, ritual manuals, material
culture, and the many hitherto rarely studied meditation manuals
translated from Indic sources into Chinese or composed in China in
the 400s, Greene argues that during this era meditation and the
mastery of meditation came for the first time to occupy a real
place in the Chinese Buddhist social world. Heirs to wider
traditions that had been shared across India and Central Asia,
early medieval Chinese Buddhists conceived of "chan" as something
that would produce a special state of visionary sensitivity. The
concrete visionary experiences that resulted from meditation were
understood as things that could then be interpreted, by a qualified
master, as indicative of the mediator's purity or impurity.
Buddhist meditation, though an elite discipline that only a small
number of Chinese Buddhists themselves undertook, was thus in
practice and in theory constitutively integrated into the cultic
worlds of divination and "repentance" (chanhui) that were so
important within the medieval Chinese religious world as a whole.
In the early 400s, numerous Indian and Central Asian Buddhist
"meditation masters" (chanshi) traveled to China, where they
established the first enduring traditions of Buddhist meditation
practice in East Asia. The forms of contemplative practice that
these missionaries brought with them, and which their Chinese
students further developed, remained for several centuries the
basic understanding of "meditation" (chan) in China. Although
modern scholars and readers have long been familiar with the
approaches to meditation of the Chan (Zen) School that later became
so popular throughout East Asia, these earlier and in some ways
more pervasive forms of practice have long been overlooked or
ignored. This volume presents a comprehensive study of the content
and historical formation, as well as complete English translations,
of two of the most influential manuals in which these approaches to
Buddhist meditation are discussed: the Scripture on the Secret
Essential Methods of Chan (Chan Essentials) and the Secret Methods
for Curing Chan Sickness (Methods for Curing). Translated here into
English for the first time, these documents reveal a distinctly
visionary form of Buddhist meditation whose goal is the acquisition
of concrete, symbolic visions attesting to the practitioner's
purity and progress toward liberation. Both texts are "apocryphal"
scriptures: Taking the form of Indian Buddhist sutras translated
into Chinese, they were in fact new compositions, written or at
least assembled in China in the first half of the fifth century.
Though written in China, their historical significance extends
beyond the East Asian context as they are among the earliest
written sources anywhere to record certain kinds of information
about Buddhist meditation that hitherto had been the preserve of
oral tradition and personal initiation. To this extent they indeed
divulge, as their titles claim, the "secrets" of Buddhist
meditation. Through them, we witness a culture of Buddhist
meditation that has remained largely unknown but which for many
centuries was widely shared across North India, Central Asia, and
China.
Wonhyo (617-686) is the dominant figure in the history of Korean
Buddhism and one of the most influential thinkers in the Korean
philosophical tradition. Koreans know Wonhyo in his various roles
as Buddhist mystic, miracle worker, social iconoclast, religious
proselytist, and cultural hero. Above all else, Wonhyo was an
innovative thinker and prolific writer, whose works cover the gamut
of Indian and Sinitic Buddhist materials: Some one hundred
treatises and commentaries are attributed to him, twenty-three of
which are extant today. Wonhyo's importance is not limited to the
peninsula, however. His writings were widely read in China and
Japan, and his influence on the overall development of East Asian
Mahayana thought is significant, particularly in relation to the
Huayan, Chan, and Pure Land schools. In Cultivating Original
Enlightenment, the first volume in The International Association of
Wonhyo Studies' Collected Works of Wonhyo series, Robert E. Buswell
Jr. translates Wonhyo's longest and culminating work, the
Exposition of the Vajrasamadhi-Sutra (Kumgang Sammaegyong Non).
Wonhyo here brings to bear all the tools acquired throughout a
lifetime of scholarship and meditation to the explication of a
scripture that has a startling connection to the Korean Buddhist
tradition. In his treatise, Wonhyo examines the crucial question of
how enlightenment can be turned from a tantalizing prospect into a
palpable reality that manifests itself in all activities.
Introduction by Robert E. Buswell Jr.
Two years after Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations was published in
1776, Pak Chega's (1750-1805) Discourse on Northern Learning
appeared on the opposite corner of the globe. Both books presented
notions of wealth and the economy for critical review: the former
caused a stir across Europe, the latter influenced only a modest
group of Choson (1392-1897) Korea scholars and other intellectuals.
Nevertheless, the ideas of both thinkers closely reflected the
spirit of their times and helped define certain schools of
thought-in the case of Pak, Northern Learning (Pukhak), which
disparaged the Choson Neo-Confucian state ideology as inert and
ineffective. Years of humiliation and resentment against the
conquering Manchus blinded many Korean elites to the scientific and
technological advances made in Qing China (1644-1911). They
despised its rulers as barbarians and begrudged Qing China's status
as their suzerain state. But Pak saw Korea's northern neighbor as a
model of economic and social reform. He and like-minded
progressives discussed and corroborated views about the superiority
of China's civilization. After traveling to Beijing in 1776, Pak
wrote Discourse on Northern Learning, in which he favorably
introduced many aspects of China's economy and culture. By
comparison, he argued, Korea's economy was depressed, the result of
inadequate government policies and the selfishness of a privileged
upper class. He called for drastic reforms in agriculture and
industry and for opening the country to international trade. In a
series of short essays, Pak gives us rare insights into life on the
ground in late eighteenth-century Korea, and in the many details he
supplies on Chinese farming, trade, and other commercial
activities, his work provides a window onto everyday life in Qing
China. Students and specialists of Korean history, particularly
social reform movements, and Choson-Qing relations will welcome
this new translation.
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