Chan Rituals of the Abbots' Ascending the Dharma Hall to Preach
Chan Rituals of the Abbots' Ascending the Dharma Hall to Preach
Chapter 2 describes a ritual tradition that clearly goes back to the beginnings of Zen. These ritual occasions, sometimes daily and at other times less frequent, brought the entire assembly of monks together in a formal ceremony in which the abbot of the monastery would present a sermon on Zen doctrine or practice. Although these were the occasions most often valorized as expressions of the Zen master's spontaneity, in fact these sermons follow highly stylized and scripted patterns of Zen thought. Only certain doctrines and formats of delivery were appropriate for these sermons, and even the greatest of the early Zen masters rarely diverged from the “pre‐existing templates” that were bequeathed to them by their predecessors. Although the talks would sometimes involve transgressions or critiques of the ritual order, in fact they validated and maintained that order by carefully setting their remarks within the all‐encompassing sphere of Zen ritual.
Keywords: early Zen, Zen spontaneity, Zen rigidity, Zen masters, sermons
Oxford Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
