Chan Before Chan: Meditation, Repentance, and Visionary Experience in Chinese Buddhism (Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism, 39)

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.

What is Buddhist meditation? What is going on-and what should begoing on-behind the closed or lowered eyelids of the Buddha orBuddhist adept seated in meditation? And in what ways and to whatends have the answers to these questions mattered for Buddhiststhemselves? Focusing on early medieval China, this book takes upthese questions through a cultural history of the earliesttraditions of Buddhist meditation (chan), before the rise of theChan (Zen) School in the eighth century. In sharp contrast to whatwould become typical in the later Chan School, early ChineseBuddhists approached the ancient Buddhist practice of meditationprimarily as a way of gaining access to a world of enigmatic butpotentially meaningful visionary experiences. In Chan Before Chan,Eric Greene brings this approach to meditation to life with a focuson how medieval Chinese Buddhists interpreted their own and others'visionary experiences and the nature of the authority they ascribedto them. Drawing from hagiography, ritual manuals, materialculture, and the many hitherto rarely studied meditation manualstranslated from Indic sources into Chinese or composed in China inthe 400s, Greene argues that during this era meditation and themastery of meditation came for the first time to occupy a realplace in the Chinese Buddhist social world. Heirs to widertraditions that had been shared across India and Central Asia,early medieval Chinese Buddhists conceived of "chan" as somethingthat would produce a special state of visionary sensitivity. Theconcrete visionary experiences that resulted from meditation wereunderstood as things that could then be interpreted, by a qualifiedmaster, as indicative of the mediator's purity or impurity.Buddhist meditation, though an elite discipline that only a smallnumber of Chinese Buddhists themselves undertook, was thus inpractice and in theory constitutively integrated into the culticworlds of divination and "repentance" (chanhui) that were soimportant within the medieval Chinese religious world as awhole.

"Chan Before Chan is a cultural history of the earliest traditions of Buddhist meditation (chan) in China during the era before the rise of the "Chan School" (better known as "Zen") of the eighth-century and beyond, with a particular focus on the semiotics of meditative and especially visionary experience. Drawing from hagiography, ritual manuals, material culture, and above all the many (but rarely studied by modern scholars) Chinese Buddhist meditation manuals translated from Indic sources into Chinese or composed in China during the 400s, it argues that during this era meditation and the mastery of meditation came for the first time to occupy a real place within the Chinese Buddhist social world. Heirs to wider traditions that during this ere were shared across of the Indian and Central Asian Buddhist worlds, 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 being things that could then be interpreted, by a qualified master, as indicative of the meditator's purity or impurity. Buddhist meditation, though an elite practice, was in this way in practice and in theory constitutively integrated into the cultic worlds of divination and "repentance" (chanhui) that were so important within medieval Chinese Buddhism as a whole"-- Provided by publisher Offers a cultural history of the earliest traditions of Buddhist meditation (chan), before the rise of the Chan (Zen) School in the eighth century. Eric Greene focuses on how medieval Chinese Buddhists interpreted their own and others' visionary experiences and the nature of the authority they ascribed to them.