[Read an excerpt from Buddhist Masters of Modern China: The Lives and Legacies of Eight Eminent Teachers, edited by Benjamin Brose, courtesy of its publisher, Shambhala Publications, here.]
Buddhism’s formal introduction to the United States occurred during the World’s Parliament of Religions in 1893. At this historic event, religious leaders from around the world gathered in Chicago to present their beliefs, practices, and worldviews to an international audience. Buddhism was represented by teachers from Japan, Sri Lanka, and other parts of Asia, but Chinese Buddhist delegates were conspicuously absent. The delegates who represented religion in China were Confucian officials and Christian missionaries, and they spoke disparagingly, if at all, about Buddhism. It is perhaps due to this exclusion from early public discourse that Chinese Buddhism never managed to take hold in the US in the same way as its counterparts from other parts of Asia.
Despite its relative obscurity in the United States, Chinese Buddhism in the early twentieth century was steadily growing. Buddhist communities were experiencing a quiet revival in China, even in the face of looming social, economic, and political challenges. Senior teachers helped to shape the growing revival of their traditions within their communities, and while they worked with a common purpose, their methods often varied. Some emphasized poetry, some stressed the importance of chanting, and others advocated for intensive meditative retreats. Some teachers argued that their way was the only true way to attain awakening, while others were more ecumenical in their approaches.
Buddhist Masters of Modern China highlights eight important teachers who lived in the first half of the twentieth century, between the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Each chapter is written by a different scholar of Chinese Buddhism and focuses on one master and their teachings. Chapters begin with a biography of the teacher, situating them within a broader historical and cultural context, and then they present selected translations representative of that master’s teachings. Together, the figures highlighted in this volume represent a small cross-section of the incredible diversity of Chinese Buddhist teachings and teachers during this time.
The contributors to this volume are academics, but they have written with a general audience in mind. Chinese characters and foreign words have largely been omitted, but each chapter is followed by a reading list for those who wish to dig deeper. The chapters are not arranged in any particular order, and the reader is encouraged to skip from one chapter to another throughout the book in order to discover different types of connections that link these different teachers and their approaches to one another.
