Dear list members,
The 2019 Master Sheng Yen Lecture in Chinese Buddhism will be given
by Robert Sharf (University of California, Berkeley) on Monday 25
March, 6:00-7:30pm at New Law School Lecture Theatre (LT024), New Law
Annexe F10A, University of Sydney. The lecture is presented by the
University of Sydney School of Languages and Cultures. For more
information, please visit this webpage.
We hope you can attend.
Kind regards,
AABS Executive
Making Sense of Chan Cases 禪公案
(Zen kōan)
Some scholars have argued that certain Indian Buddhist philosophers,
notably those associated with Madhyamaka, allowed for the possibility of
paradox or “true contradictions.” Other scholars insist that the supposed
paradoxes that show up in Madhyamaka and Prajñāpāramitā works can be
parameterized through the application of the doctrine of two truths,
which defuses the apparent contradictions. But what if the two truths are
themselves paradoxical? In that case the doctrine of two truths could not
be used to tame other paradoxes.
In this talk, Professor Sharf will argue that medieval Chinese Buddhist
exegetes recognised, endorsed, and elaborated on paradoxes implicit or
explicit in Mahāyāna thought. Chan cases (gong’an, kōan) probe the nature and
import of these paradoxes with philosophical rigor and subtlety. Hence
rather than viewing Chan cases as literary ephemera, or as anti-philosophy,
or as incoherent mystical utterances, he will argue that they are
philosophically cogent treatments of issues at the very heart of Mahāyāna
thought.
Robert Sharf is D. H. Chen
Distinguished Professor of Buddhist Studies in the Department of East
Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Berkeley,
as well as Chair of Berkeley’s Center for Buddhist Studies. He works
primarily on medieval Chinese Buddhism (especially Chan), but has also
published in the areas of Japanese Buddhism, Buddhist art and
archaeology, Buddhist modernism, Buddhist philosophy, and methodological
issues in the study of religion. He is author of Coming to Terms with Chinese
Buddhism: A Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise (2002),
and co-editor (with his wife Elizabeth) of Living Images: Japanese Buddhist Icons in Context
(2001).
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Gold leaf covered schist reliquary in
the form of a stupa. Kusana period, North Western India. National
Museum, Karachi, Pakistan. Copyright: Huntington, John C. and Susan L.Huntington Archive
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