A Record of Strange Events: Supranormal Occurrences in Modern Chinese Buddhist Autobiography

BUDDHIST STUDIES FORUM

SPEAKER: Benjamin Brose, University of Michigan

A world in which spirits stand guard, animals gravitate toward sages, and the Earth itself expresses its opinion is par for the course in both Indic and Chinese texts. It is the backdrop of the earliest biographies of the Buddha—a mahāpuruṣa, or “superman”—and countless later accounts of eminent Buddhist monks and Daoist adepts in China. In the modern era, with the rise of secular discourses, the ubiquity of autobiographical writing, and the prominence of scientific inquiry and empiricism, we might anticipate that such otherworldly accounts would become less common or be reinterpreted. But this is not the case. This talk focuses on the autobiographical writings of the eminent twentieth-century Chan master Laiguo Miaoshu (1881–1953), who, in addition to his voluminous teachings on meditation and monastic life, left a robust record of his encounters with the spirit world.

About the Speaker

I work on the history of religion in China, with a particular focus on Buddhism. I have written about and remain interested in the histories, doctrines, and practices of Chan, transregional Buddhist exchange, the confluence of narrative and ritual, relics, pilgrimage and eremeticism, hagiography and autobiography, popular religion, the transmission of Buddhism to the United States, and the modern history of Buddhism in China. Some of this work is available on my website and my Academia page.

My current research is focused on the cultural history of Chinese Buddhism from the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth century.

Co-sponsored by the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies.