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This is the third book from Albert Welter in recent years, each revolving around issues concerning the formation of mature Chan ... (Jpn.: Zen) in Five-dynasties ... and early-Song ... China (tenth to twelfth centuries). In Yongming Yanshou's Conception of Chan in the Zongjing Lu, Welter turns to the Chan persona of Yongming Yanshou ...æ~... (904-976). Yanshou was a highly prominent Buddhist master in the prosperous Wuyue å³... kingdom (907-978), and is recognized as a third-generation descendant in the Fayan ... Chan lineage. Nevertheless, Yanshou occupies a somewhat odd position in the Chan school: universally recognized as a major thinker and prolific writer and yet in many quarters not fully accepted as a true Chan master.
Welter has previously written a book about Yanshou and his Wanshan tonggui ji è¬...åOE... ("Treatise on the Common End of Myriad Good Deeds"), which was focused on an analysis of Yanshou's Pure Land thought. 1 Here Welter concludes that Yanshou in the Wanshan tonggui ji was not primarily concerned with a synthesis between Pure Land and Chan but rather wanted to promote a non-sectarian, inclusive approach to Buddhism. It was only later that Yanshou was appropriated as a Pure Land Patriarch. But because of this label and because of his emphasis on the importance of scripture Yanshou came to be viewed with suspicion (especially in Japanese Zen), a suspicion that has been carried on into modern scholarship.
In Yongming Yanshou's Conception of Chan, Albert Welter focuses on Yanshou's magnum opus, the hundred-fascicle Zongjing lu ...é¡... (the "Records of the Source-Mirror"). Welter wants to make us aware of the importance of the Zongjing lu and of Yanshou's Chan thought in general, both of which, he points out, scholars have largely overlooked or failed to take seriously. Welter's book very successfully shows how a study of Yanshou's understanding of Chan can tell us much about the formation of Chan ideology in the tenth century and demonstrates how the Zongjing lu, with its many quotes from Chan masters, indeed ought to be a major source for our understanding of pre-Song Chan history. Welter is quick to point out that his book is only a beginning in the process of better understanding Yanshou...