「頓」中開出次第化漸修—聖嚴法師禪法的特色與現代意義=Methodical and Gradual Path Stemmed from “Sudden Teaching”— Significance and Application of Master Sheng-Yen’s Teaching of Meditation in the Modern Age
From the practical and training perspective, Master Sheng-Yen’s teaching of meditation is characterized by methodical and gradual approaches and thus reforms the stereotypical identification of “sudden approach” in Chan tradition. However, his fundamental meditation theory is actually stemmed from the “sudden teaching” of Chan School, i.e. the teaching of “emptiness’’. By situating Master Sheng-Yen’s teaching of meditation within the practical context on the path to enlightenment and taking a hermeneutical shift from philological to “systematical”, historical and objective interpretations, this research argues that although Master Sheng-Yen’s gradual training style is methodologically distinct form the “direct” and “sudden” Chan tradition, its essence is the very concept of “emptiness’’ in Zu-Shi Chan(祖師禪). Based on the concept of “emptiness” and “the dependent origination”, the diverse application of “sudden”, “direct”, “gradual” and “stepwise” approaches in his teaching is practically for purpose of guiding different students; it is neither a “method-free” “sudden” approach, nor a rigid “following-through” of a gradual step-by-step instruction. Therefore, Master Sheng-Yen’s teaching of meditation signifies a modern outlook in its application, in which the emptiness-based pluralism and non-essentialism valued by modernity is realized. Indeed, the Buddhist teaching of “no-attachment” and “liberating-insight” instructs us to respect all diverse values in religion, culture and politics. In addition, as a remedy to Postmodernism which is in struggle of endless deconstruction and re-deconstruction, Master Sheng -Yen’s threefold layout for meditation of “upholding, letting-go and re-upholding”(「提起、放下、再提起」), practically provides us a way, after deconstruction, to a reconstructive methodology, and thus avoid the pitfall of ever-deconstruction of “postmodernism”.
