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Seeing through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism
The tradition of Chan Buddhism―more popularly known as Zen―has been romanticized throughout its history. In this book, John R. McRae shows how modern critical techniques, supported by recent manuscript discoveries, make possible a more skeptical, accurate, and―ultimately―productive assessment of Chan lineages, teaching, fundraising practices, and social organization. Synthesizing twenty years of scholarship, Seeing through Zen offers new, accessible analytic models for the interpretation of Chan spiritual practices and religious history.
Writing in a lucid and engaging style, McRae traces the emergence of this Chinese spiritual tradition and its early figureheads, Bodhidharma and the "sixth patriarch" Huineng, through the development of Zen dialogue and koans. In addition to constructing a central narrative for the doctrinal and social evolution of the school, Seeing through Zen examines the religious dynamics behind Chan’s use of iconoclastic stories and myths of patriarchal succession. McRae argues that Chinese Chan is fundamentally genealogical, both in its self-understanding as a school of Buddhism and in the very design of its practices of spiritual cultivation. Furthermore, by forgoing the standard idealization of Zen spontaneity, we can gain new insight into the religious vitality of the school as it came to dominate the Chinese religious scene, providing a model for all of East Asia―and the modern world. Ultimately, this book aims to change how we think about Chinese Chan by providing new ways of looking at the tradition.
Writing in a lucid and engaging style, McRae traces the emergence of this Chinese spiritual tradition and its early figureheads, Bodhidharma and the "sixth patriarch" Huineng, through the development of Zen dialogue and koans. In addition to constructing a central narrative for the doctrinal and social evolution of the school, Seeing through Zen examines the religious dynamics behind Chan’s use of iconoclastic stories and myths of patriarchal succession. McRae argues that Chinese Chan is fundamentally genealogical, both in its self-understanding as a school of Buddhism and in the very design of its practices of spiritual cultivation. Furthermore, by forgoing the standard idealization of Zen spontaneity, we can gain new insight into the religious vitality of the school as it came to dominate the Chinese religious scene, providing a model for all of East Asia―and the modern world. Ultimately, this book aims to change how we think about Chinese Chan by providing new ways of looking at the tradition.
232 pages, Paperback
First published December 20, 2003
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 16, 2021
Absolutely loved this book. McRae does a fantastic job illuminating (pun intended) how the historical Chan record is developed. Not a book many faithful Zen followers might like, but the goal of the study is to understand how "tradition", especially in early Chan, develops. He makes an interesting analysis of different well-known Chan texts (i.e. Platform Sutra) and connects the evolution of their ideas through the centuries.
If anything, the final part when he develops some hypothesis around the jump of Chan from the Tang era into the Song, feels weaker compared to the rest of the book. In all honesty, McRae himself acknowledges the same at the end of the book and calling for more research around that period.
All in all, a very nerdy book, but if you're into Zen and how its history, fiction, transmission, and legends got forged, this might be an interesting book to read.
If anything, the final part when he develops some hypothesis around the jump of Chan from the Tang era into the Song, feels weaker compared to the rest of the book. In all honesty, McRae himself acknowledges the same at the end of the book and calling for more research around that period.
All in all, a very nerdy book, but if you're into Zen and how its history, fiction, transmission, and legends got forged, this might be an interesting book to read.
March 14, 2007
Seeing Through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism. By McRae, John Robert. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2003. Pp xx + 204. $19.95.
The title of John McRae’s Seeing Through Zen works on at least two levels. The title explains that the book will allow the reader to see through the eyes of historical people in the Chan (Japanese: Zen) Buddhist tradition in order to understand better their texts, communities, and practices. Simultaneously, the book also encourages the reader to see through the rhetoric of the Chan tradition’s romanticized self-understanding toward constructing a more accurate history of Chinese Chan Buddhism. McRae engages Chan from its earliest appearance supposedly slightly before the Tang Dynasty (581-906) to its heyday in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). He argues that modern historians and practitioners of Chan have merely replicated the history that the Chan Buddhist community created for itself in the Song Dynasty. McRae’s understands this history as largely imagined, proposing a more “journalistically accurate” history for Chan as well as piecing together how such a history came to be imagined in the Song in the first place. Instead of portraying Chan as a ‘teaching’ passed on by individual patriarchs, McRae understands Chan practices, rhetoric, social institutions, and charismatic individuals as occupying and evolving within historical “phases.” With McRae’s corrective, the Song is seen no longer as Chan’s period of stagnation or decline but as one of great vitality wherein Chan communities invented the narrative of its rise and flourishing and supposed present collapse. As a result, McRae can discuss the intricacies of doctrinal and ritual formations, the emergence of “dueling” (14) factions that define themselves through constructions of Others, the layers of myth stacked upon one another regarding the seminal “heroes” of the tradition, and Chan Buddhism’s place(s) in the nexus of Chinese societies and economies.
As a post-modern corrective to overly simplified presentations of the history of Chinese Buddhism, Seeing Through Zen argues against the historian’s tendency to consider histories as either entirely true or fallacious to varying degrees: McRae’s “first” rule that “It’s not true, and therefore it’s more important” (xix) indicates that while the fictions and inaccuracies collected in Song histories of the Tang certainly misrepresent Chan in the Tang, they certainly represent a self-understanding of Chan in the Song. In proper historical context, the story of the second Chinese Chan patriarch Huike (ca. 485 to ca. 555) cutting off his arm to get the attention of the first Chinese (and traditionally the twenty-eighth Indian) Chan Patriarch Bodhidharma (d. ca. 530) is rendered a useful hagiographical fiction – the story is told by Song Dynasty monks to raise funds, impress would-be converts, and inspire novices to try harder. This seems a “middle way” reading of the material which appropriately does not relegate this ‘event’ either to the realm of the scientifically implausible or that of the wholly miraculous.
While I’ve suggested some “crossover audiences” which could gain from reading this book, the most obvious would be scholars in Buddhist Studies and in East Asian Religions. Chapters of the book could also stand alone as appropriate readings for survey courses at the graduate or undergraduate level. At the very least, McRae’s argument should remind every kind of historian to keep herself open to the possibilities and necessity of “seeing through” historical religious traditions to get a better idea of what she is looking at.
The title of John McRae’s Seeing Through Zen works on at least two levels. The title explains that the book will allow the reader to see through the eyes of historical people in the Chan (Japanese: Zen) Buddhist tradition in order to understand better their texts, communities, and practices. Simultaneously, the book also encourages the reader to see through the rhetoric of the Chan tradition’s romanticized self-understanding toward constructing a more accurate history of Chinese Chan Buddhism. McRae engages Chan from its earliest appearance supposedly slightly before the Tang Dynasty (581-906) to its heyday in the Song Dynasty (960-1279). He argues that modern historians and practitioners of Chan have merely replicated the history that the Chan Buddhist community created for itself in the Song Dynasty. McRae’s understands this history as largely imagined, proposing a more “journalistically accurate” history for Chan as well as piecing together how such a history came to be imagined in the Song in the first place. Instead of portraying Chan as a ‘teaching’ passed on by individual patriarchs, McRae understands Chan practices, rhetoric, social institutions, and charismatic individuals as occupying and evolving within historical “phases.” With McRae’s corrective, the Song is seen no longer as Chan’s period of stagnation or decline but as one of great vitality wherein Chan communities invented the narrative of its rise and flourishing and supposed present collapse. As a result, McRae can discuss the intricacies of doctrinal and ritual formations, the emergence of “dueling” (14) factions that define themselves through constructions of Others, the layers of myth stacked upon one another regarding the seminal “heroes” of the tradition, and Chan Buddhism’s place(s) in the nexus of Chinese societies and economies.
As a post-modern corrective to overly simplified presentations of the history of Chinese Buddhism, Seeing Through Zen argues against the historian’s tendency to consider histories as either entirely true or fallacious to varying degrees: McRae’s “first” rule that “It’s not true, and therefore it’s more important” (xix) indicates that while the fictions and inaccuracies collected in Song histories of the Tang certainly misrepresent Chan in the Tang, they certainly represent a self-understanding of Chan in the Song. In proper historical context, the story of the second Chinese Chan patriarch Huike (ca. 485 to ca. 555) cutting off his arm to get the attention of the first Chinese (and traditionally the twenty-eighth Indian) Chan Patriarch Bodhidharma (d. ca. 530) is rendered a useful hagiographical fiction – the story is told by Song Dynasty monks to raise funds, impress would-be converts, and inspire novices to try harder. This seems a “middle way” reading of the material which appropriately does not relegate this ‘event’ either to the realm of the scientifically implausible or that of the wholly miraculous.
While I’ve suggested some “crossover audiences” which could gain from reading this book, the most obvious would be scholars in Buddhist Studies and in East Asian Religions. Chapters of the book could also stand alone as appropriate readings for survey courses at the graduate or undergraduate level. At the very least, McRae’s argument should remind every kind of historian to keep herself open to the possibilities and necessity of “seeing through” historical religious traditions to get a better idea of what she is looking at.
August 4, 2011
I just started reading this book and I am already very impressed by the scholarly critical thinking behind every word of it. It's a must read for all Chan practioners as well as all Chinese Buddhists. Cool realism is the key to constructive understanding of all things. It is funny to notice that how those Chan masters on the one hand preaching about "seeing things as they really are", then on the other hand romantize their own tradition.
Just finished reading it today. Very impressed. Especially about his suggestion on whether and how Chan is used to keep women and other Buddhism practitioners out of the power system of Chan and of Chinese society. In some sense, it explains where my resentment toward Chan comes from:)
Just finished reading it today. Very impressed. Especially about his suggestion on whether and how Chan is used to keep women and other Buddhism practitioners out of the power system of Chan and of Chinese society. In some sense, it explains where my resentment toward Chan comes from:)
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July 14, 2022Engaging and informative, offering an intriguing perspective on the development of Zen Buddhism; more specifically, McRae offers a close reading of texts and materials from medieval China examining how Chinese Chan of the Tang Dynasty, the "Golden Age" of the Six Chinese Ancestors and encounter dialogue as a whole, was largely created and popularized by Chan practitioners of the Song Dynasty.
tl/dr; don't believe every koan you read 🤔🙃😉
tl/dr; don't believe every koan you read 🤔🙃😉
November 8, 2022
John McRae pulls no punches in this critical analysis and historical survey of Chan. Applying an objective eye to the existing (both old and newly discovered) literature, Seeing Through Zen attempts to present an actual/likely history of the origins of Chan literature and practice. While some might consider such an approach combative or destructive (goodbye sacred cows), in reality, this analysis provides a fresh vigor and energy to the tradition while revealing new perspectives. A recommended, if dry, read for Chan/Zen practitioners and fans of religious history.
August 6, 2009
Finished this up while catching some zzz before my flight back to the states. It's taken me awhile, but I found this book easily readable. As an amateur, I can't speak for the scholarship, but I got the feeling that there was room for a lot more depth...?
Anyway, I always looked forward to picking up this book, finding Prof. McRae's writing style very engaging and easy to understand. I'll definitely read it again.
Anyway, I always looked forward to picking up this book, finding Prof. McRae's writing style very engaging and easy to understand. I'll definitely read it again.
March 31, 2013
Interesting, but thin, and with an unwholesome glaze of quasi-deconstructionist obfuscation. the author should just tell a straight story and explain himself plainly.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews