We are pleased to announce the release of the fourteenth volume in the series published by Brill: Inner Worlds: Individuals and Interiority in Chinese Religious Life. The book is edited by Benjamin Brose and James A. Benn. For more information or to order, please visit https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/71944.
How do the inner convictions of individuals clash and sometimes cohere with the ideologies of their times? This volume investigates the interior lives of Chinese religious practitioners from the tenth century to the present to explore their dreams, visions, and personal struggles.
The reader will encounter an eminent Buddhist master’s Confucian dreams, a Qing court lama’s visions of China, and a modern Chan master’s memories of his own awakening. The contributors draw on a vast array of sources—poetry, dream records, confessions, instructional talks, and previously unpublished archival documents—to offer a new perspective on the interplay between personal belief and political ideology, between the otherworldly and the mundane.
Contributors are: James A. Benn, Ester Bianchi, Raoul Birnbaum, Benjamin Brose, Daniela Campo, Wen-shing Chou, Vincent Goossaert, Ji Zhe, Paul R. Katz, Beverley McGuire, Gray Tuttle, and Wang Jia.
Table of Content:
Introduction
Pages: 1–12
Part 1 Exploring the Inner Life: Dreams, Visions, and Signs
Chapter 1 Master Ouyi’s Filial Fears
Author: Beverley McGuire
Pages: 15–31
Chapter 2 Master Hongyi’s Confucian Dreams
Author: Raoul Birnbaum
Pages: 32–97
Chapter 3 A Qing Court Lama Dreaming His Place in the World
Author: Gray Tuttle
Pages: 98–118
Chapter 4 Ven. Miaojing 玅境 and the Recasting of Early Buddhist Meditation in the Modern Sinosphere: Doctrinal Concerns and Personal Motivations
Author: Ester Bianchi
Pages: 119–147
Part 2 Constructing Identity: Karma, Hagiography, and Autobiography
Chapter 5 The Inner World of a Self-Immolator?
Author: James A. Benn
Pages: 151–173
Chapter 6 Individuals and Cross-Generational Bonds in Eighteenth-Century Gelukpa Buddhism
Author: Wen-shing Chou
Pages: 174–192
Chapter 7 Laiguo Miaoshu: the Making of a Modern Chan Master
Author: Benjamin Brose
Pages: 193–219
Chapter 8 Disclosing the Self: Buddhist Instructions (kaishi 開示) and Religious Autobiography in Twentieth-Century China
Author: Daniela Campo
Pages: 220–251
Part 3 Refining the Individual: How to Die and How to Live
Chapter 9 Good Death, Suicide, and Divinization among Nineteenth-Century Chinese Scholars
Author: Vincent Goossaert
Pages: 255–275
Chapter 10 “Opening the Heart to the Party”: Zhibei during the Socialist Education Movement (1962–1965)
Authors: Ji Zhe and Wang Jia
Pages: 276–313
Chapter 11 Imperfect Unions? Buddhicized Weddings in Modern Chinese Religious Life
Author: Paul R. Katz
Pages: 314–358Bibliography
Index
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