"That's Not Zen" as Willful Projection

"Even the school of Chan, known in Japanese as Zen, which claimed to be founded on an unbroken transmission from Sakyamuni Through Twenty-eight indian disciples to the first Chinese disciple in the late fith century, was far less exclusive than its rhetoric seems to allow. Claims about transmission, the naming of founders, and the identification of crucial figures in the dharma of Chan history were always executed retroactively. The Tradition, which claimed its own content to be a non-content, was not so much handed down from past to present as it was imagined in the present, a willful projection into the future, against the reality of a heterogeneous past." -

• Stephen Teiser, “The Spirits of Chinese Religion,” in Donald Lopez, ed., Religions of China in Practice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996):pg.20.

It also goes on to say that Chan didn't really get named a school until the 13th or 14th century. That's 800 to 900 years AFTER Bodhidharma. Further, the sectarian stuff we see on this sub really developed in Japan.

I'm studying this with Lisa Grumbach, who is a Stanford grad who's adviser is Bielefeldt. She teaches at my graduate school.

Carry on with the insanity.

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Submitted February 12, 2019 at 09:28PM by Gocloudrunwater http://bit.ly/2tlErPI