Jamie Hubbard

The San-chieh (Three Levels) was a popular and influential Chinese Buddhist movement during the Sui and T'ang periods, counting powerful statesmen, imperial princes, and even an empress, Empress Wu, among its patrons. In spite, or perhaps because, of its proximity to power, the San-chieh movement ran afoul of the authorities, and its teaching and texts were officially proscribed numerous times over a several-hundred-year history. This study of the San-chieh movement uses manuscripts discovered at Tun-huang to examine the doctrine and institutional practices of this movement in the larger context of Mahayana doctrine and practice.

The Rise and Fall of a Chinese Heresy

Absolute Delusion, Perfect Buddhahood

Paul L. Swanson

What is Buddhism? According to Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shiro, the answer lies in neither Châan nor Zen; in neither the Kyoto school of philosophy nor the non-duality taught in the Vimalakirti Sutra. Hakamaya contends that âcriticism alone is Buddhism.â This volume introduces and analyzes the ideas of âcritical Buddhismâ in relation to the targets of its critique and situates those ideas in the context of current discussions of postmodern academic scholarship, the separation of the disinterested scholar and committed religious practitioner, and the place of social activism within the academy. Essays critical of the received traditions of Buddhist thoughtâmany never before translatedâare presented and then countered by the work of respected scholars, both Japanese and Western, who take contrary positions.

Jamie Hubbard

Books

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