Portable Instruction: Zhuhong’s Guidance on Reading the Tradition

Dr Jennifer Eichman

Abstract

The monk Lianchi Zhuhong 蓮池袾宏 (1535-1615) has been characterized foremost as a Pure Land monk, though in recent scholarship his Chan teachings have begun to receive greater attention. Yet few scholars have noticed that Zhuhong was a leading monk-educator of the late sixteenth century, having published and distributed a far greater number of small portable texts than his monastic peers. These handy, plainly bound volumes comprised of short essays on a variety of Buddhist topics were published to improve an elite readership’s general knowledge on an array of Buddhist topics. This talk focuses on one such group of portable texts published in three volumes under the title, Jottings by a Bamboo Window (Zhuchuang suibi竹窗隨筆). Varying slightly in length each of the 427 essays in this series offers a carefully crafted reflection on some aspect of the tradition. This talk will concentrate on those essays that assist with reading competence, particularly directives on what genres to read, and how to read them to highlight the significant differences between the reading methods Zhuhong advocated for the mastery of Pure Land scripture, commentarial readings, and the reading of Chan scripture and discourse records.

Bio

Jennifer Eichman (Ph.D., Princeton) is a Research Associate with the Centre of Buddhist Studies, SOAS. Her recent book, A Late Sixteenth-Century Chinese Buddhist Fellowship: Spiritual Ambitions, Intellectual Debates, and Epistolary Connections reconstructs a network of elite male lay Buddhists to reveal how they shaped Buddhist culture in the late sixteenth century. Her current research interests encompass the following four areas of inquiry: Religious Literacy; Female Buddhist Practice; Elite Conceptions of the Three Teachings; and Yangming Confucian Discourse.