“What is the Buddha?”: Authority, Encounter Dialogue, and Ritual Efficacy in the Song-dynasty Chan Tradition
Song-dynasty Chan discourse records represent Chan masters as “living buddhas.” But how did this idea attain efficacy in dialogue with an audience during the routine ritual of “ascending the hall”?
Kevin Buckelew is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia University, where he is writing a dissertation on Chinese Chan Buddhism in the Song dynasty. For 2016-17 he is a visiting researcher at the Institute of History and Philology at Academia Sinica.
