In later Chinese Buddhism, one text above all others has been extolled for the profundity of its ideas, the beauty of its language, and its insight into the practice of meditation—this is the scripture popularly known as the Lengyan jing or Śūraṃgama sūtra. Because of conflicting evidence regarding its provenance, and because the text seems to owe so much to other sources, modern scholars have concluded that Lengyan jing is an apocryphal sūtra fabricated in China at the beginning of the eighth century. But perhaps this perspective on the Lengyan jing has impeded our understanding of its most important features?

In this lecture, Professor Benn shall introduce and discuss the content and structure of the scripture and consider it as a Mahāyāna canon in miniature—a complete work that contains discrete elements of scripture, dharma analysis, and vinaya and provides a new and detailed map of Mahāyāna ontology and soteriology.

About the presenter

James A Benn received his PhD from UCLA in 2001 and is Professor of Buddhism and East Asian Religions at McMaster University. He studies Buddhism and Daoism in medieval China. To date, he has focused on three major areas of research: bodily practice in Chinese Religions; the ways in which people create and transmit new religious practices and doctrines; and the religious dimensions of commodity culture. He has published on self-immolation, spontaneous human combustion, Buddhist apocryphal scriptures, and tea and alcohol in medieval China in journals such as History of Religions, T’oung Pao, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies and Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies. He is the author of Burning for the Buddha: Self-immolation in Chinese Buddhism (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2007) and Tea in China: A Religious and Cultural History (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2015). He is currently working on a translation and study of the Śūramgama sutra.

For more information, contact:
Dr Chiew-Hui Ho
Phone: +61 (02) 9351 3083
chiewhui.ho@sydney.edu.au

1 April, 2023  
​
9:30 - 11:00 am PT - Webinar
11:00 - 11:30 am PT - First Saturday PDX Tea House
​An Online Presentation
​Registration Required


Women in the History of Tea in China

If we could travel back in time, we might be rather surprised at what we were offered as “a good bowl of tea.” The process of making tea in China first evolved from simmering fresh leaves in water, as seems to have been done in earliest times, to simmering processed tea leaves in cake or loose form (roughly Han dynasty through Tang times). During the Tang dynasty (618-907 CE), dried tea leaves pressed into moulds to form cakes were roasted and ground before being simmered in water, sometimes along with other ingredients such as citrus peel and ginger. The result would be a milky looking liquid with a foamy head that was highly prized by connoisseurs. In Song dynasty (960-1279 CE) times, cake tea was ground to a fine powder to which a thin stream of very hot boiled water was added and the mixture then whisked to a froth. It is only from the fourteenth century (Ming dynasty) onwards that loose tea was steeped in very hot water in a way that is familiar to us today. These are just methods of making tea as a recreational beverage—it was used medicinally in soups and congee as well. A bowl of tea, then, was by no means a stable thing. It looked, smelled, and tasted quite different depending on when and where it was made.

In this talk with First Saturday PDX, Dr Benn will explore what we can know about different methods of making tea in premodern China. We’ll look at famous works of tea literature, read some poems, and look at both rare and everyday examples of teaware.

James Benn: Meditation in the Apocryphal Śūraṃgama sutra

Date: 

Monday, March 1, 2021, 2:00pm to 3:30pm

In the later Chinese Buddhist tradition one text above all others has been extolled for the profundity of its ideas, the beauty of its language, and its insight into the practice of meditation—this is the scripture popularly known as the Lengyan jing or Śūraṃgama sutra (Scripture of the Heroic March). In this talk, I will look at the Śūraṃgama sutra’s general prescriptions for meditation. I will indicate some specific examples of methods of mental cultivation described by the scripture and taken up by later Buddhist practitioners. Finally, I will talk about how the scripture elucidates in detail some of the potential dangers of meditation for the practitioner.

James A. Benn (PhD UCLA 2001) is Professor of Buddhism and East Asian Religions at McMaster University and Director of the McMaster University Centre for Buddhist Studies. He studies Buddhism and Daoism in medieval China. He has published on self-immolation, spontaneous human combustion, Buddhist apocryphal scriptures, and tea and alcohol in medieval China. He is currently working on a translation and study of the Śūramgama sutra, a Chinese Buddhist apocryphon.

Signup here.

See also: 2020-2021 Lecture Series