This paper takes a narrative approach, looking at Chan master Shengyan’s (1931-2009) autobiographies, and historicizing his response to life and the circumstances of Chinese Chan Buddhism in the zeitgeist of the twentieth century. The time-honored Chan Buddhist tradition, in the tumultuous sociopolitical transition, shengyan’s own narration of his life, forming his personal and religious identities. My basic argument is that his Chan teachings were contingent on bottruggled for a space in the age of reason and rationality; this perceived struggle on the larger religious and sociological scale was encapsulated in Sh his personal crisis and his perceived global crisis of a war-torn China. Against the backdrop of his individual struggles, the sociopolitical transformations of twentieth century China, the internal crisis of orthodoxy, and the external threat of non-Chinese forms of Buddhism in Taiwan, Shengyan envisioned Chan Buddhism as the doctrinal culmination and experiential fulfillment of the whole of Buddhism, manifested through creating the Dharma Drum Lineage.
This paper takes a narrative approach, looking at Chan master Shengyan’s (1931-2009) autobiographies, and historicizing his response to life and the circumstances of Chinese Chan Buddhism in the zeitgeist of the twentieth century. The time-honored Chan Buddhist tradition, in the tumultuous sociopolitical transition, struggled for a space in the age of reason and rationality; this perceived struggle on the larger religious and sociological scale was encapsulated in Shengyan’s own narration of his life, forming his personal and religious identities. My basic argument is that his Chan teachings were contingent on both his personal crisis and his perceived global crisis of a war-torn China. Against the backdrop of his individual struggles, the sociopolitical transformations of twentieth century China, the internal crisis of orthodoxy, and the external threat of non-Chinese forms of Buddhism in Taiwan, Shengyan envisioned Chan Buddhism as the doctrinal culmination and experiential fulfillment of the whole of Buddhism, manifested through creating the Dharma Drum Lineage.
目次
A Life Forged through Crises 101 Yearning for Education and Monkhood 104 Clash of Ritualism with Modernist Views 106 Joining the Army and the Flight to Taiwan 107 A Chinese Buddhism in Crisis 112 Conclusion 116
