Yongming Yanshou's Conception of Chan in the Zongjing lu A Special Transmission Within the Scriptures

by Welter, Albert

• ISBN13: 9780199760312
• ISBN10: 0199760314
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-05-11
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Yongming Yanshou ranks among the great thinkers of the Chinese and East Asian Buddhist traditions, one whose legacy has endured for more than a thousand years. Albert Welter offers new insight into the significance of Yanshou and his major work, theZongjing lu,by showing their critical role in the contested Buddhist and intellectual territories of the Five Dynasties and early Song dynasty China. Welter gives a comprehensive study of Yanshou's life, showing how Yanshou's Buddhist identity has been and continues to be disputed. He also provides an in-depth examination of theZongjing lu,connecting it to Chan debates ongoing at the time of its writing. This analysis includes a discussion of the seminal meaning of the term zong as the implicit truth of Chan and Buddhist teaching, and a defining notion of Chan identity. Particularly significant is an analysis of the long underappreciated significance of the Chan fragments in theZongjing lu,which constitute some of the earliest information about the teachings of Chan's early masters. In light of Yanshou's advocacy of a morally based Chan Buddhist practice, Welter also challenges the way Buddhism, particularly Chan, has frequently been criticized in Neo-Confucianism as amoral and unprincipled.Yongming Yanshou's Conception of Chan in the Zongjing luconcludes with an annotated translation of fascicle one of theZongjing lu,the first translation of the work into a Western language.

Author Biography

Albert Welter is Professor of Religion & Culture and Coordinator of the program in East Asian Languages & cultures at the University of Winnipeg, specializing in the history of Buddhism, especially Chan, during the Five Dynasties and early Song Dynasty periods in China (roughly 900 to 1126).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Coming to Terms with Yongming Yanshou: The Significance of Yanshou and the Zongjing Lu (Records of the Source-Mirror)	p. 3
Yongming Yanshou and the Complexities of Chan Identity	p. 11
Revealing the Implicit Truth: Yongming Yanshou's Notion of Zong in the Zongjing Lu	p. 45
Establishing the Chan Zong Yanshou's Notion of Chan in the Zongjing Lu	p. 69
Yanshou and Chan Lineages: An Overview of Chan Sources and Chan Patriarchs in the Zongjing Lu	p. 97
The Teachings of the Patriarchs: A Study of Chan Lineage Fragments in the Zongjing Lu	p. 137
The Buddhist School of Principle and the Early Song Intellectual Terrain	p. 203
Translation of the Zongjing Lu, Fascicle I	p. 223
Abbreviations	p. 277
Notes	p. 279
Bibliography	p. 339
Index	p. 365
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