Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • Chapter 9 - Searching for Chan Buddhism after Mao

  • John D. Barbour, St Olaf College, Minnesota
  • Book:
    Journeys of Transformation
    Published online:
    12 March 2022
    Print publication:
    31 March 2022, pp 243-269

  • Summary

    In the aftermath of China’s traumatic Cultural Revolution, Western travelers have searched for the remnants of Chan (Zen) Buddhism. Gretel Ehrlich’s Questions of Heaven documents her unhappy tour of sacred mountains and other religious sites and practices in Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces and her search for traditional arts and music. George Crane’s Bones of the Master depicts a pilgrimage with an exiled Chan monk to find the bones of his spiritual mentor and build a stupa to honor him. Bill Porter’s Road to Heaven recounts his search for Chinese hermits who seem to have abandoned every attachment to a social self. Porter’s Zen Baggage documents a pilgrimage to sites connected to the first six patriarchs of Chan Buddhism and his attempts to discard “baggage,” that is, attachments. Because of Chan’s suspicion of talk about oneself and because these authors focus more on documenting conditions in China than on self-disclosure, they are guarded or discreet about how their journeys affected them. Yet each shows how a Chinese journey initiated a transformed sense of self.